The Gallant (59 page)

She owed it to Michael to try, Lily told herself.

Even if she came to grief, at least she would have tried… .

“What you got in mind?” Nelly demanded suspiciously, irritated by her sudden silence.

“Ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ after “em, are you? ‘Cos you’d never catch ‘em, that’s for sure!”

“We’ll see about that,” Lily flung back at her defiantly and, leaving the old woman staring after her, tore out of the kitchen. In Tich’s bedroom, where his girl Meg was still asleep, she found breeches and a shirt and struggled into them as she gave the drowsy Meg a brief and bitter account of what she had learned from Nelly.

“Why, the filthy old bitch!” Meg exclaimed.

“And that Dingo-Gawd, wasn’t Billy right when he called the old swine that? Are you really goin” to go after them, Lily? You’ll never catch up with them-just get yourself arrested for no reason.8I .

“I’m going,” Lily retorted, fumbling with the buttons on the

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borrowed shirt. “I need boots, Meg-find some for me, will you? And a hat.”

Meg bestirred herself and, on Lily’s urging, came with her, still in her nightclothes, to the stables. Between them they saddled the big black stallion, thrust bit and bridle onto his struggling head, and Meg held him as Lily gingerly scrambled onto his back.

Dingo made his appearance then, with Nelly screaming furious abuse in his wake. He made a halfhearted attempt to stand in her way, but the stallion put his head down and, with the bit between his teeth and Lily clinging to the saddle, bolted forward, forcing the old man to jump aside to avoid being trampled. And then they were away, heading for the open country, the direction they took more the stallion’s choice than that of his rider.

By chance, it was the right one, to Lily’s fervent relief, for she could exert little control and, indeed, was finding it all she could do to keep her seat on his plunging back. Her mount, intoxicated by his newfound freedom, scarcely felt her light weight and, after a tentative effort to fling her off by bucking, contented himself with a presence that inconvenienced him not at all, as he settled down to a steady gallop. The country was rough, untamed bush, broken by hillocks and gullies, the gums growing thickly in places, sparsely in others, and, where the ground was flat, changing to mulga scrub and saltbush. The stallion picked his way without faltering, seldom slackening speed, a surefooted wild creature at home in the land where he had once roamed free and at will, with a mob of fillies and mares whose owner, a poor settler, had paid them scant regard.

Lily, when she had got her breath, settled down too. The sun, she knew, must be kept on her left hand; Billy had told her that.

“You’ll never get bushed if you let the sun guide you,” he had said and grinned as he said it. “Many’s the time I’ve lost the fellers who were chasing me, just by taking off into the bush and knowing, better than they did, where I was.”

She did not know where she was, Lily thought resignedly, but her mount quite evidently did, and she could only hope that if it became necessary to change direction in order to keep the sun to her left, the big stallion would respond to a tug on his rein.

She dared not part company with him in this desolate country, miles from the road-certainly not before the river came into sight and she was able to get her bearings. She ventured a pat on the horse’s sweat-streaked neck and let him have his head. The stallion galloped on, seemingly untiring, and Lily, almost for the first time since she had embarked on her despairing mission, began to hope that it might, against all the odds, succeed.

On the outskirts of Urquhart Falls,

Michael drew rein, and from the brow of the low hill on which he had halted he studied the huddle of houses, shops, and public buildings that constituted the town.

He had paid little attention to the town, as such, when he had worked on Martha Higgins’s smallholding, but now he subjected it to a prolonged and careful scrutiny, his earlier doubts still

unresolved.

In the pale, watery sunlight that had followed the rain, it looked a prosperous place; and it was growing, with business premises, stores, and shops spreading out from the main street, some still in the course of construction. The residential section extended along the riverbank, and below the falls from which the town took its name were a number of brick houses, each with a neatly fenced garden, which spoke of prosperity and increasing settlement.

Where before it had been a market town for the sheep and cattle breeders in the area, Urquhart Falls owed its present expansion to the diggers, on their north-bound pilgrimage to the new goldfields .

. . and, Michael reminded himself, to the products of their toil, flowing in the opposite direction.

A shrewd, farsighted man, Leonard Arthur Brownlow, he reflected cynically, to have foreseen the town’s potential and to have invested in it when land was comparatively cheap and the return virtually assured.

Even if the diggers moved on, as was their wont, the squatters remained; and Brownlow, according to Slugger McFee, had recently purchased a new

ferryboat, capable of carrying sheep and cattle, to serve those landowners whose properties lay on the far side of the river. And the whole town would profit from the added trade, particularly now, William Stuart Long

when the river was in flood tide and the crossings above and below the town were impassable for flocks and herds.

Indeed a farsighted man, Mr. Brownlow, with his new bank likely to prove the best investment of all.

“That’s Brownlow’s house,” Marty Low said, pointing. “Pretty plush place, wouldn’t you say?”

And it was, Michael saw, following the direction of Marty’s pointing finger. A two-story house, stone built, with an extensive garden and a unique view of the falls, which, augmented by the recent rains, hurtled down forty or fifty feet in a cascade of sparkling foam, to find level ground just above Brownlow’s immaculate lawn.

“Aye, he chose his site well,” Michael agreed. “He chose it uncommonly well!”

, McFee laughed. “Seeing he owns most of the land, Michael, he could pick an’ choose, couldn’t he? Lord, it will be a pleasure to relieve the swine of some of the profit he’s made! And there’ll be quite a few in the town who will not hold it against us if we do.”

Reminded of the reason for their presence here, Michael became brisk and businesslike.

“Right, boys,” he said. “We’ll split up here.

Slugger and Marty will go in first and we’ll follow, as soon as they give us the all clear. Tich will stay with the horses outside Martha Higgins’s place, across the street from the bank, and Chalky will hold the spare animals a hundred yards back down the street. I’ll go into the bank first, on my own, acting like a customer. When I signal from the door or fire a shot, the rest of you come in after me, with Ginger covering the street from the door.”

They all nodded, their faces grave. They had discussed their tactics a dozen times, and each of them, Michael was confident, knew what he had to do; but he added, with heavy emphasis, “No shooting, if it can be avoided-just a quiet, orderly holdup, with maybe a warning shot into the ceiling, to show we mean business. And if Mr. Brownlow chances to be in his bank, we take him as a hostage when we make a run for it. But we release him as soon as we’re safely away.”

Slugger grinned. “That’s the part I like best! I hope the bas

tard

is

in his bank. I’d enjoy getting my hands on him, by God I would.” He touched his horse with his heels. “Come on, Marty old son, let’s be on our way.”

The two trotted off and the rest dismounted, loosened their horses’ girths, and let the animals browse at the roadside. They had not pushed them on the way there, Michael thought, but even so, it had been a fair ride and it was essential that their mounts were rested, for their getaway might have to be a hurried one. Tich, without being asked, pulled up some handfuls of grass and started to rub his own horse down.

“I’ll tend to yours, Michael,” he offered.

“Don’t want to get yourself mussed up, if you’re to pass muster as a wealthy customer in the bank, do you?”

“No,” Michael said. But he was feeling tense and ill at ease, and taking advantage of Tich’s offer, he lit his pipe and went to sit down on the tree-shaded bank at the roadside, a few yards away. There were no houses in the immediate vicinity, and apart from a small flock of sheep being driven in the direction from which they had come, the road was deserted. He watched Tich water the horses sparingly from a small stream nearby, and then, his pipe finished, he lay back, resting his head on the trunk of a gnarled bluegum, willing himself to sleep.

But sleep would not come. Why, he wondered irritably, was he so worried about this raid? They had planned it meticulously, allowed for every possible complication or setback, and … devil take it, they had all agreed that they would call it off if Slugger and Marty came back to report adversely on the situation in the town! So what could go wrong?

It was a pity that he could not have a word with Martha Higgins before they committed themselves; but he had been reluctant to involve her, and Slugger, who had met and formed a high opinion of the hardworking widow, had been against that notion, too. Besides, Michael reflected wryly, he had ignored her warning to stay away from Urquhart Falls, and to have turned up unheralded in her restaurant would certainly have invited her ire.

The time passed slowly. The other men were dozing, seemingly without misgivings, and the horses were contentedly cropping grass under Tich’s sleepy supervision. Michael checked his

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Colt revolver-yet another legacy from Billy Lawless-and lit a second pipe, satisfied that the weapon was in perfect order. Only two cashiers and a roustabout, Slugger had said, constituted the bank staff. Pray God they were sensible men, who would put up no resistance. He did not want to have to use the Colt-even to fire shots in the air to intimidate them. And he certainly did not want any of his own men to be driven to use theirs, as they had when they had held up the gold shipment in Snake Gully. The escorting troopers had been armed, of course; and as Billy had said, when the police had opened fire, he had been left with no choice.

“They’re comin’ back, Michael.” Tich’s voice broke into Michael’s thoughts, and he jumped to his feet, his pulses racing.

“Quiet as a tomb,” Slugger announced, when he reined in and slid from his saddle. “Just the two pen-pushers an’ the boy in the bank, an’ it ain’t been busy.” He shifted the quid of

tobacco he had been chewing from one cheek to the other and spat expertly in the dust at his feet.

“What about Brownlow?” Michael asked.

“We seen him go into the bank about a half hour ago,” Marty supplied. “And he hadn’t come out when we left town. Before that, he was round at the back where the new buildings are, chucking his weight about with the fellers workin’ there. Three fellers an’ the foreman,” he added, replying to Michael’s unspoken question. “They’ll be knockin’ off soon-was He gestured skyward. “The sun’ll be down in a “arf hour.”

The others, swiftly roused from their earlier apathy, were on their feet, crowding round and eyeing him expectantly.

“What about it, Michael?” Boomer’s deep voice demanded. “Ain’t goin” to chicken out, are you, after we come all this way?”

“No, of course I’m not,” Michael retorted angrily. “Let’s get mounted.”

They obeyed him, murmuring excitedly among themselves, and for the first time since he had joined them, Michael was conscious of an odd, unwelcome feeling of isolation. It vanished as they rode into the town, each man taking the place allotted to him, without the need for words. And the town was quiet-quieter even than Slugger had claimed, the main street virtually

deserted. But there could be no going back now.

Michael dismounted, Tich took his horse, and he crossed the street to the door of the bank.

Lily reached Urquhart Falls as the sun was setting behind the distant hills, but, spent and saddlesore, she had no eyes for the charm of the little town or the magnificent scenery by which it was surrounded.

The stallion was even more exhausted than she. He had become docile and had permitted her to guide him for the last part of their nightmare journey, so that she was able to take the most direct route the wild, trackless country allowed, always keeping the sun on her left hand. And she had ridden her mount hard, exercising a tenacity she had never realized that she possessed. But keeping the big black animal to a canter-and at times, when she could induce him to quicken his pace, covering long stretches at a gallop-had taken the heart out of him. Now, bathed in sweat, he was lame in the right foreleg, and, his head down, his breathing labored, it was all she could do to kick him into a trot when they reached the town’s main street.

She saw Chalky White first, standing with the reins of three horses in his hand outside a draper’s shop and looking anxiously down the street; but it was not until she called his name that he turned, clearly puzzled and not immediately recognizing the small, boyish figure on the big stallion’s back.

Then, when she slithered stiffly and painfully to the ground, he realized who she was and said gruffly, “Gawd, Lily, what’re you doin’ here? This ain’t no place for you, not now it ain’t.”

There was no time to waste in explanations. Lily gasped out her warning of Dingo’s betrayal and saw Chalky’s leathery cheeks drain of color.

“You mean they’re expectin’ us? They know we’re aimin’ to hold up the bloody bank?”

“Yes, they know. Dingo’s claiming the reward for Michael. They’ll be waiting in the bank.

Chalky-was Lily clutched at his arm, her voice shrill with pent-up fear. “You’ve got to stop him!

Tell him not to go in!”

“It’s too bloody late to stop him,” Chalky grated. “And I

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ain’t riskin’ my neck tryin’-I’m gettin’

out.” His foot was already in the stirrup of one of the horses he had been holding, and he jerked his white head in the direction of one of the others. “Leave your horse an’ get up on that one, girl. You can come with me. No one’ll know who we are, an’ I’ll look after you. Come on, for Gawd’s sake-we’ll make for the ferry!”