The Death of John Lacey, page 9
He walked over, crossing the river, getting wet through his boots, and stopped before the boy’s leash would allow him to reach. He threw over some of the dried meat he’d purchased and some apples and they landed softly near the boy. But he didn’t move to pick them up, ravenous though he must be.
Come on, mate, eat. You’re no use to me if you’re dead. He made motions with his hands and mouth as though he were eating. He took from his pack the remainder of the blanket and threw it over too. It flopped over the boy’s head and still he remained in his position, now a heaving lump. He looked like a child playing dress-up. Something John remembered attempting to play with his father. Walking from room to room like a ghost back in England making a moaning noise and bumping into furniture. He’d bumped into the vestibule upon which sat a vase and it had fallen onto the floor and smashed and he’d cried out. His father had soon been upon him and John had whimpered away because he’d known he should be beaten but instead his father had picked him up and carried him from the broken glass. He’d sat him down on a rug and lifted up each foot and brought the lantern nearer so he could better see if there was any glass embedded within John’s foot. The beating had only come once his father had been sure he was safe and the glass had been cleaned up.
He watched the breathing lump and wanted to let the kid go, but if he did the kid would tell his father what John had done and while he was sure he wouldn’t be charged or sent to prison for thieving a black necessarily, there’d still be trouble. And Gray would not approve. He knew then that he would have to kill the boy, when they’d mined far enough.
You’ll be right, mate, he said. Just be under that blanket in the night, hey? I know you lot sleep rough but it’s getting right cold. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll keep digging. And when I find enough gold to set me right for a bit I’ll let you go back to your dad.
The blanket seemed to turn aside. Maybe he had understood the word dad. Or maybe he was just uncomfortable. John walked back across the creek and followed his tied blanket strips by moonlight and made it back to their tent. He had to sit with his toes near the fire for a bit to warm them up from the cold before climbing back inside.
14
He woke to find his brother already gone. The sun had barely risen as he wandered from their tent. There were oats and water and sugar in the cookpot left to the side of the fire in the coals. Who knew what his brother was doing. He spooned some into a bowl and sat and watched the village of tents stir to life.
Soon his brother returned with the girl. They were walking side by side and his brother said something and the girl laughed. She had sunlight in her hair and there were marks on her dress where she’d been kneeling in mud. The clothes had been washed, of course, but she’d been so often kneeling the mud had left a permanent mark.
Gray looked up and saw his brother watching and then stopped walking. He turned to the woman and said something, and she looked up the incline at John, smiling. They came upon him spooning in another mouthful.
I’m Gabrielle, she said. She extended a hand.
John wiped his hand on his shirtfront and reached out and shook hers. Strange to shake a woman’s hand.
John.
Your brother said you might be grouchy.
John looked at his brother and Gray shrugged. Heard you come in late again last night. Wasn’t sure you’d even be up at all.
John smiled. It’s a pleasure meeting you.
She looked back down towards the tents. You boys have a nice view up here.
We’ve done alright, John said.
Well, she said. She looked from brother to brother and laughed. I’ll let you boys alone.
She turned and walked back down the hill and the brothers watched her as she navigated the tents and talked to people as she passed and lifted her dress near the muddier parts of the dirt walkways.
Nice girl, John said.
Gray sat down next to him. She is.
Bit rough.
I like her.
She doesn’t look like she’s worth much.
She’s good, though, Gray said. She knows how to laugh.
How’d you meet her?
Just the other day.
So not the one you’ve had your eye on?
Nah. This one’s better. He grinned, said, You were out so I went down to the hotel to check on that family we helped in the rain. She was one of them. Her mother and father just moved here, trying to strike it rich. Poor girl had to leave the rest of the family and all her friends to travel with her folks. Just turned nineteen. She’s been helping with the kids in the village, minding them to give the mothers a break.
Make a good mum herself then.
That’s my thinking.
Later that day, after they had made some ground in the building of their house, he said, I’m heading in to the storehouse.
Yeah?
Yeah.
What for?
Supplies. Few things for the home. See if I can find some mattresses. Bit tired of sleeping on those kangaroo furs.
You and me both.
He put the hammer down on the ground and washed his hands free of dirt in the bucket of water and wiped his hands on the front of his trousers. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and donned his hat, thick with the smell of sweat. He laboured down the hill and wandered through the camp. He passed Dell’s tent and passed the place where he had knifed the Aboriginal bloke but saw no sign of either. He even made a few hesitant steps towards the place to see if there was blood in the leaf litter at the foot of the trees but didn’t dare get close enough for fear somebody would know and that same somebody would see him.
He came to the GOLD HUNTER storehouse where he had purchased his supplies for prospecting. Since he had first visited, instead of operating from within his tent, the man had built a small building to house his wares. He entered and took his hat off and placed it on the counter and looked around the size of the room and knew his and Gray’s building was superior and larger. The man behind the counter stood up from behind and said, What can I do for you?
Was wanting to purchase a licence to prospect.
The old man looked him up and down. You prospecting?
He made no motion.
If you have been without a licence, they’ll ask you, is all, and you’ll be in trouble.
I have to have a licence.
If you want to have a legitimate claim on what you find, you do, yes. The police’ll be asking you ’bout your claim whenever they see you. And you come in here wanting to sell gold, or anywhere else, and they’ll find you to ask you where you got it.
So I need the licence?
You need the licence if you want to avoid trouble with the law, yes, the old man said. He had a smile in the corners of his eyes as he added, Of course, the police have been fewer in number than the new arrivals. They’ve been sending people from Melbourne but it still don’t cover it. So there’s some chance they’d never catch you. But do you really want that trouble?
He shook his head. No.
Cost is thirty shillings a month.
That’s more than I heard.
The old man chuckled. That’s the start of it. That’s the new way of doing things. Was worse before. Still, don’t know how they’ll go about hiring more people to police and enforce the law here if they don’t up the price soon.
That’s already bloody enough. John shook his head and said, Suppose there’s some argument to be made to working a claim out of eyeshot and waiting till you strike gold before buying a licence.
There’s some. But they’ll be on you, son. And you don’t want to get prosecuted.
No.
You don’t want to end up in Melbourne.
He didn’t speak for a moment and looked about and then said, No. I don’t.
He walked from the store. He looked at the greying clouds above and the way the eucalypts were struck with air and felt it cold in his forearms. He rolled his sleeves down, then made his way back to the camp.
15
The moon was up as he came upon the boy asleep on the blankets he’d provided. The canteen of water had returned and was rested against the same tree to which the boy was leashed. The kangaroo fur around him made him look like a sleeping animal. He noticed there the boy had further improved his shelter in the week they’d been digging. Above him, laid across tree branches, were several branches thatched thick with mud and leaves. Behind him and surrounding him the same, the one gap in his wall facing the stream. He’d fashioned for himself this home.
He let the child sleep as the dawn broke and the sun extended itself over the clouds. The cold night eased just a little but they were in the newly christened Victoria in the dead of winter and so that sun would not bring much relief against the breeze. The branches of the eucalypts bending with it, the smell of them making the air even cooler. The kid had it right to shield himself from the wind.
The sun had not been long up when the kid stirred. He was immediately aware and did not present with the same grogginess John knew in his brother. Instantly he was up and looking at John, and John struggled to read his expression. It wasn’t fear but it was something stern.
You ready then?
The boy made no response but scratched at his clothing. John wondered if he normally bathed. Knew he hadn’t for some time.
You try to run and I’ll have to kill you. You understand? Wouldn’t mean nothing to me at all. Don’t want you going telling folk about this place. Don’t want you blabbing to your old man. Who knows how much English he has now, eh? Your dad.
The word dad caught in the air and as John unleashed him from the tree the boy stared then with such ferocity there was no mistaking it. There was a violence in his eyes John had never before witnessed and he envied the boy his clarity. He did his best not to be cowed by it.
I have my knife and I know how to do things with it so you best not try it, my mate.
He unleashed the child from the tree, undoing the locks and pocketing the keys, and tied a rope around the boy’s waist and held the other end and then the two of them walked to the river and went upstream.
Soon they came to where John and the kid had started digging. They’d found a seam of quartz a few days prior and they’d dug it inland into a gully, following it, and had so far not struck the lob of which he dreamed. They’d come upon hard white piped clay in their digging, which was a decided barrier. It had been agony to shovel but they had broken through that to a thin layer of chocolate-coloured clay which was tough and soapy. He had put his fingers into its wetness and lifted it to the boy, who had not responded. He had heard of this blue clay and knew it was rich, and as they sifted it out they found many flecks of gold which he’d put in his jar carefully. Where they’d stopped in the blue clay the seam of quartz had travelled down and so John had it in his mind to trace it to wherever it led. The scent of gold in his nostrils, he knew it like he knew that knife. Like he knew the sun would rise the next day and like he knew he’d have to kill the kid.
They went down about two feet and the quartz kept travelling down. John hefted his pickaxe and swung it down and clunked into the clayed earth. He wrenched dirt free. The boy stood watching until John stopped and unslung the shovel from his back and handed it to the kid, who started to shovel dirt. Occasionally John would hit the quartz or just get a feeling and so he’d stop his progression and scoop the dirt into the pan he’d set beside them. He swirled the dirt around and sieved out the worst of it and swirled it again. Finding flecks and flecks but nothing massive. Hopeful finds.
He carved off a hunk of quartz, hoping for a rich reef. He stepped from the slop with the kid watching his movements. He placed the cream-coloured hunk on the dirt. He went to the boy’s camp with the boy still lashed to him and found his pack and the double-handed saw he’d brought with him a while back.
Help me with this, he said.
The boy seemed to understand. They went to a nearby tree and commenced to sawing and soon it was down and both of them were sweating. They sawed off two equal sections a foot in length. Then they rolled them down to where he’d been mining out the reef and he found the hunk he’d excavated earlier.
He put one of the stumps into the earth and slopped wet clay around it so that it stuck a little better. Then he put the quartz on the newly hewn top. He lifted the other stump with effort and brought it down and then pressed it in and felt the satisfying crunch of the quartz beneath.
He lifted the powder in his hands, allowing for the dry blow, but saw no gold reflections in the sun. He did this twice but saw nothing.
It looks rich. But it’s not.
He looked to the boy for a response but none came. He put the log next to the powder and then sifted what remained into his pan and swirled it around but there was only one fleck.
This thirst within him he knew he’d never quench. Not if he found a nugget the size of this boy’s head. What he wanted was to lord it over all the others. Dell and his wife with their destitute hopelessness. People born in poverty always fated to remain in poverty their whole lives and he would be one of the different ones if it killed him.
16
John was seated beside the fire thinking of his future. His brother was inside their new shelter fiddling with a small stone Gabrielle had gifted him. There were two beds in a separate room towards the back made of timber and on each frame were mattresses stuffed with wool they’d purchased from a man on the other side of town. Larger items like mattresses and woodworked furniture like chairs and tables were hard to come by in this new town. He and his brother had decided they’d steer clear of those items too until they’d settled into their storehouse and had operated it for at least one year at a profit. The roof of the thing made of patched-together quilt shook in the breeze and sounded like muted thunder in the night. They needed to finish the roof soon because if it rained again like it had those weeks ago all of their things would be drenched and they’d be back at the hotel again. Though John was sure his brother wouldn’t mind that so much if Gabrielle was beside him.
His brother walked from their doorway which was made of draped quilt also and it flapped behind him like a dress. He stepped off the stair and sat down beside his brother and ladled himself a large bowl of stew made of mutton, carrots, potatoes.
John said, as his brother leaned back after his first bite and regarded the stars, You look content.
I feel it.
You’re happier now the place is nearly finished.
Much happier, yes.
And you met Gabrielle.
John found his nugget in his pocket and withdrew it and held it close by the fire. He turned it so his brother would see its brilliance.
Gray said, You miss it, don’t you?
Miss what?
The hunt for it.
John shook his head. I don’t miss it. The bloody hard labour, the dirt, the living conditions.
I’ve not seen your eyes come alive the same way they did when you were hunting for seams. Building this place is liable to make us much more money than any claim we could muster near here, if there are any patches unclaimed at all.
There are patches.
Where? This place is turning to muck. Miners not walking five feet away from their tents before sinking shafts into the earth. It’s a wonder more people aren’t breaking their limbs.
John turned the nugget in his fingers before he put it back in his pocket.
You ever going to trade that for money?
John shook his head. That’s the first nugget we found.
I know it is.
Well you know the answer then.
The two sat eating. John knew he wanted to head back out to his claim later and knew too that he would need to wait for his brother to be asleep. He thought of his father for the first time in many weeks and thought of how he’d treated their mother and looked at his brother and saw their father’s face there. A hard line to his jaw.
He said, What are your intentions with Gabrielle?
I aim to marry her.
And what? You’ll live here with her?
Gray looked down. If that’s okay with you.
Not room enough for three people in here. Any tick of the clock and she’ll likely start churning out babies. Should’ve thought about it when we built it.
We’ll fit.
No. No. That’s alright. John stood and swished the rest of his stew out into the flames and sat back down and cuffed his brother on the shoulder. I’ll find something.
*
Later, Gray was asleep in his bed with John near him in his own. Gabrielle would have to get used to his brother’s snoring.
He rose from bed and dressed and put on his boots. He would have to be quick tonight because they were aiming to work on the building tomorrow and he would need to be in his best form. He put his boots on and opened the flap and found his pan and his pickaxe near their horses. He petted his own and realised he hadn’t ridden for days and that eventually he’d need to somehow find his way up to his claim with the horse. Knew too he wouldn’t be able to manage it without his brother’s eyes finding him.
As he started to make his way through the bushland he turned and saw in the distance the herd of Aboriginals wandering through the tent village. They were calling into the tents in their own language. Some people were lighting their lanterns and speaking to the group. He strained to find the old man he’d cut with the knife and from whom he had stolen the child but he couldn’t see him. He hurried on.
17
As he walked through the camp he saw a preacher who had in hand a Bible. It was leather-bound and huge but he was using it as a type of paddle. He waved it back and forth as though batting ghosts away from the camp. There was a group of people watching him. Nearby small children gathered and a family struggling to make its way through the red mud and maybe this preacher would better serve his God were he to stop swatting the book and start helping their feet out of the mud, help the woman with her things. The rest of the throng didn’t seem to notice the family either, enraptured with the preacher as they were. The preacher’s face covered in flies he kept swishing away with a free hand, the other hand dangling the Bible.
