The Gallant (60 page)

Lily ignored him. She left the horses, including her own-she was too exhausted and stiff to make the effort to mount-and as Chalky set off on the animal he had chosen, she started to stumble on foot toward the bank, pausing only to fling over her shoulder the single word, “Coward!”

But it was too late. She was still seventy yards from her objective when she recognized Michael’s tall, unmistakable figure crossing the road, and her strangled cry was muffled by the thudding of hooves, as the horses Chalky had abandoned tore after him.

Michael did not hear her, and she saw the door of the bank open and then swing shut behind him.

Martha Higgins had put the “closed” notice in the window of her restaurant as soon as she had realized the identity of the three who had come in, so unexpectedly, half an hour earlier. And Kitty had been frank, somewhat to Johnny’s dismay; she had taken an instant liking to the small, buxom woman in the spotless white apron, and even before the meal they had ordered had been served, she had asked about Michael, admitting without hesitation that he was her brother.

The admission had opened the floodgates. Martha was standing in the window, with young Tommy, gauche and awkward, at her side, and she had given free rein to her tongue, extolling Michael’s virtues, telling of his kindness to the boy, and insisting that the wanted circulars were the result of a grave error on the part of the police.

“Oh, I know he was on the run; I know he absconded from the Port Arthur prison-he told me as much,” she asserted. “But your brother ain’t no bushranger, ma’am-leastways not from choice he ain’t. He was here, at my farm, the day the gold shipment was held up over at Snake Gully.

He only left here that mornin’, an’ Snake Gully’s more’n two days’ journey from here. But the police are sayin’ he took part in it! Sayin’

he shot

an’ wounded one o’ the troopers. But when he left my place, he was goin’ to the new diggings at River Fork.”

“Did

he go there, Mrs. Higgins?” Johnny asked, interrupting her flow.

Martha Higgins sighed. “He meant to, but I ain’t sure if he got there,” she conceded. She lowered her voice. “There was a couple o’ diggers come in here a day or so back, an’ they was talkin’

about Michael and them wanted posters that Mr.

Brownlow’s put up all over town. I kept my ears pealed, an’ it sounded to me like they knew Michael an’ was expectin’ to see him fairly soon. They seemed decent enough fellers-one was a Scotchman, he said, though he didn’t talk like one.”

Kitty was unable to contain her excitement. “Mrs.

Higgins,” she exclaimed, “did you think they were working with my brother, with Michael? At the diggings, perhaps?”

“Not at River Fork,” Martha Higgins said, with conviction. “That’s too far away. But they told me for sure they’d be seem’ him, though they wouldn’t say when or where. But anyway, I gave “em a note for Michael, an” they promised they’d pass it on.”

“A note?” Kitty echoed. “Were you asking him to come back?”

“Oh,

no!”

The denial was vehement. “I was tryin’ to warn him to keep away from this town, on account o’ Mr.

Brownlow an’ those posters. With a big reward like that, some folk might be tempted. An’ Mr.

Brownlow’s added fifty pounds to it.”

“Why should Mr. Brownlow want him caught?”

Luke questioned.

Martha shrugged her plump shoulders. “No reason, “cept he uster be a police inspector at the Eureka. And for all they’re useful to him, he don’t like diggers, an” that’s a fact. He don’t like bushrangers neither. He-was A high-pitched cry from the street outside interrupted her, and as she turned to look out, the boy Tommy flung himself against the window. His face pressed against the steamy glass, he grabbed her arm.

“Look-look, Ma! It’s Michael! He just got off his horse. Him an’ those men, those diggers that was in here before!” He

William Stuart Long

was shrieking at the pitch of his lungs, “Ma, Michael’s goin’ into the bank! That’s where the troopers are!”

In his terror, his words were almost unintelligible, but Kitty caught the gist of them. She was on her feet in an instant, and before either Johnny or Luke could attempt to stop her she had opened the door of the restaurant and was running across the street, her hat flying off as she ran. Three men-the men who had been with Michael-were in the doorway of the bank, and there were guns in their hands, but Kitty paid them no heed, brushing by them as if she did not see them, and they stood back, taken by surprise, and let her go inside.

The interior of the bank was dimly lit, but she saw Michael at once. To her relieved gaze, he looked much as she remembered him-tall, imposing, and respectably dressed, so unlike the men with guns in the doorway that instinctively she decided that he could have no connection with them.

“Michael-Michael, it’s Kit! Oh,

Michael, we’ve found you at last!”

Michael halted, thunderstruck,

recognizing the voice, but for a moment unable to believe in Kitty’s presence there at such a time.

He took a step toward her, and then, without warning, another voice shouted, “It’s him-it’s Wexford!

Don’t let him get away!”

Two of the men who had been with Michael heard the shout and burst through the door as a pistol spoke, and then another; there was the reverberating crash of a rifle, echoing in the confined space, as men-uniformed troopers-rose from concealment behind the bank counter and from the half-built vault behind it, firing seemingly at random. A small figure in breeches and a man’s ill-fitting shirt, lingering uncertainly in the doorway, caught the first blast and collapsed without a sound, to lie there in a steadily spreading pool of blood. One of the men who had been outside had also fallen.

Kitty heard Michael cry out in agony, “Lily! Oh, God, it’s Lily!” and then rough hands seized her about the waist and she was being propelled toward the troopers. It was one of the men who had been in the doorway. He was strong, and he had a pistol in his hand, which was pressed against her head. She felt

the rapid beating of his heart and heard him shout defiantly, “Hold your fire! The lady gets it if you don’t!”

Abruptly the firing ceased. For Kitty the whole scene took on a nightmare quality; unable to believe that it was really happening, she did not attempt to struggle or to protest, but her frightened eyes sought Michael in mute appeal … and he, too, she saw, had a pistol in his hand.

Blood was dripping from his left arm.

“Let her go, McFee,” he ordered sternly.

“Do you hear me-let her go!” The pistol was leveled unwaveringly at her captor, Kitty saw, Michael’s finger on the trigger.

“I ain’t lettin’ her go,” the man who held her roared. “I’m gettin’ the hell out of here, and I’m taking her with me!”

“Then I’ll have to kill you,” Michael said.

For an interminable moment they faced each other, the man behind her breathing heavily. Kitty could feel his fear as if it were a living thing, holding him motionless and unsure of what he must do. Then he came to a decision and his arm tightened about her, and the pistol no longer pressed against her head but was turned on Michael as it spoke. She did not see whether the bullet had found its mark, but the next instant Michael was beside her, his big body somehow between her and her er/while captor, thrusting her to the floor and out of immediate danger. His pistol butt descended on her assailant’s head, and the man fell as if poleaxed, to lie quite still a yard or so from her, breathing stertorously and robbed of all menace.

“You’re safe, Kit.” It was Michael’s voice, his hand grasping hers to help her to her feet. “God knows what you’re doing here, but-was Johnny was there, and Kitty went into his arms, as Michael turned away.

He was standing motionless, looking about him, when the nightmare began again. The voice that had identified him as Wexford was raised in accusing fury.

“I tell you, that’s Wsxford-that’s the bloody absconded

Take him!

There’s two hundred quid on his head!”

Several of the troopers moved cautiously forward, their weapons at the ready. Michael ignored them.

He walked to the door, to stand for a moment looking down at the small figure in

William Stuart Long

shirt and breeches who had fallen when the first shots were fired. Then he turned back to face them.

“You’ve killed her,” he told them bitterly.

“The devil take you, you’ve killed her!”

No one answered him. Then, to Kitty’s stunned horror, one of the troopers, holding his pistol in both hands, stood framed in the doorway. He gave no warning but fired into Michael’s back at point-blank range, to send him crashing to the floor.

“I got the other two outside,” the trooper yelled. “But this was the one you was wantin’, wasn’t it, Mr. Brownlow?”

Pandemonium broke out. They clustered round Michael, and Kitty, sobbing, broke from Johnny’s embrace and went to kneel beside her brother, pillowing his head on her lap. He was alive but in hideous pain, and she called out despairingly for someone to summon a doctor.

Michael heard her voice and managed a smile.

“What are you doing here, Kit?” he asked faintly. He recognized Luke in the crowd that had gathered about him and gestured to him to come closer.

“Are you with Luke?”

“Yes,” Kitty confirmed, fighting for control. “And with Pat and-and my husband, John Broome. You were granted a royal pardon, Michael, and we-we were searching for you to tell you that you are free.”

Michael closed his eyes, seeming as if he had not heard her; but then, opening them again, he echoed bitterly, “Free? Dear God, I wish I’d known that! I … Pat-you said he came with you. Is he here?”

“He’s at Bundilly, Michael,” Luke put in. “He’s been ill, and-was

“Give him my best, will you? Say I’m sorry not to have seen him.”

“You will see him,” Kitty whispered. “We’ll take you back to Bundilly.”

“Bundilly? No. They wouldn’t let you take me, and anyway-was Michael spoke with an obvious effort, beads of perspiration breaking out on his brow.

“I fear I’m done for, Kit. Maybe it’s as well. The pardon would not be of any value now, in these-these circumstances, would it?”

The town’s doctor, a bespectacled,

gray-haired man,

appeared, and the crowd parted to let him through. His examination was brief, and as he rose from his knees he met Kitty’s beseeching gaze and regretfully shook his head.

“I’ll do what I can for him. It’s not much, I’m afraid. But I’ll try to make him more comfortable.”

Kitty yielded her place to him and, once again, found comfort in Johnny’s supporting arms. The crowd was growing, the bank filled to overflowing with alarmed townsfolk who had heard the shooting and had come to ascertain the cause of it. The voices carried; she heard one voice that was familiar and realized it was the same voice that had twice shouted out that Michael was the Wexford of the wanted posters.

“I’d swear it was him. Hell’s teeth, he was on Norfolk Island when I was an overseer there! And he was the scoundrel who attacked me at The Travellers’ Rest!”

“You must be wrong, Smith.” It was one of the bank’s cashiers. “That young lady’s his

sister,

and they reckon she’s come from Bundilly. Besides, I saw him come into the bank, and he was by himself. The bushrangers came in afterward and they were masked-he wasn’t. And he saved the young lady’s life. He can’t

be Wexford. What do you say, Mr.

Brownlow? That trooper shouldn’t have shot him.”

“The trooper acted precipitately,” another deeper, more authoritative voice replied. “But all the same, I fancy he’s Wexford.

Trooper Smith is positive he is. And the trooper who shot him cannot be blamed. He thought Wexford was trying to escape, and … he did deal with the two villains who were making their getaway. He winged one and shot the other. That’s good work by any standards.”

Sickened by the bank owner’s cynical assessment, Kitty buried her face in her hands, fighting a losing battle to ward off the scalding tears that threatened to overwhelm her. It was so cruel, so unjust that their long search should end like this, she thought miserably. If only they could have found Michael sooner, or if she had seen and recognized him before he had entered the bank, it might not have been too late. They could have spirited him away, as Johnny had tentatively planned. A Cobb’s coach across the border into New South Wales and then

William Stuart Long

a passage by ship, back to his beloved Ireland, in his own proud name, and he would have been free at last.

Johnny held her to him. “Bear up, Kit,” he urged her softly. “The doctor’s finished, and I think Michael will want you with him.”

“Yes, I …” Kitty’s teeth closed about her lower lip, and somehow she managed to regain her self-control. She saw that Martha Higgins was kneeling at Michael’s side now, a flask in her hand, which she was holding to his lips.

“The doc said it wouldn’t do him no hurt, ma’am,”

the woman whispered. “An’ it might ease his suffering.”

Evidently it had, for Michael’s voice was stronger when she slipped to her knees and he saw who she was. “Oh, Kit-dear, sweet little Kit!

I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. It would have been good if we could have met again anywhere but here.”

“Yes, yes it would. But we did not know where to look, Michael.”

“I ran too fast for you, eh?” he suggested, with a return to the jocular manner he had, in the past, so often used with her. “You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman, Kit … and now you’ve a husband, didn’t you say? The tall red-haired

fellow, is it? And he’s a Broome?”

“Yes,” Kitty said huskily. “John

Broome. He-he’s a nephew of Mr.

William Broome of Bundilly.”

“Then you’ve chosen well. Be happy, Kit.

I’m no loss, you know.”

“Oh, Michael …” Kitty could no longer hold back her tears. She turned her head away and saw that they had found a priest, an old man, like the doctor, in a faded cassock, with a grave, unsmiling face. He walked unsteadily through the crowd, leaning on Brownlow’s arm.