Band of Gold (23 page)

‘I’ll pay him whatever he asks.’

What Warrun asked, when he turned up an hour later with three possums tied together and slung around his neck like a fur stole, was five pounds and Kitty’s panama hat. Kitty gave him the money immediately, but, in the interests of staving off sunstroke, promised him the hat at the end of the day.

She had to wait, doing her best to hide her impatience, while he ate a meal, then put a bridle on one of the two rather sinewy horses hobbled in the shade of a stand of eucalypts, but finally they were off and heading back into town.

Passing by Lilac Cottage they saddled up McCool, whom Kitty then led out to Malakoff’s Lead and the claim, on which the crew had now returned to work. Telling Warrun to wait out of sight, she rode along the lead until she came to the shaft, and Gideon and Mick who were sitting on the mullock heap surrounding it, apparently taking a break from shovelling washdirt. Daniel, thank God, was nowhere in sight.

Clearly surprised by her appearance, Mick skidded down the heap and took hold of Finn’s bridle. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No, everything’s fine, Mick. But I do need to see Tahi.’

‘He’s down the shaft.’ Mick squinted up at her. ‘You sure nothing’s wrong? You look…I dunno. Fidgety?’

Kitty thought, no, Mick, try reinvigorated. Resuscitated? Galvanised? Desperate with hope? She tried to compose her features. ‘No, it’s Amber. She’s upset and she’ll only talk to Tahi. You know what she can be like. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to borrow him for a little while.’ She winced inwardly at the lie, but there was no way around the subterfuge.

Mick signalled to Gideon, who halted the whip horse and shouted down the shaft for Tahi to come up to the surface. He slapped the horse on the rump, it set off again and a few minutes later Tahi appeared riding in a half-full bucket. His face and arms covered with grime, he climbed out looking mystified. His hair was tied back with a leather thong and he was shirtless.

‘Kitty wants to talk to you,’ Mick explained off-handedly, now that it was clear there was no real emergency.

Tahi dipped his cupped hands into a bucket of water and tipped some over his head, then scrubbed at his face, hands and arms.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Tahi,’ Kitty said, ‘but Amber is upset. She said she will only speak to you.’

Tahi tried valiantly not to look thrilled. He pulled his shirt on over his head, shoved the tails into his trousers, and took McCool’s reins from Kitty. ‘Is she at Lilac Cottage?’

‘Yes, she is.’ Kitty replied blandly.

As they mounted, Kitty said to Mick, ‘I’ll have him back as soon as possible.’

Mick shrugged, said, ‘Don’t worry if it’s too late. No point,’ then picked up his shovel and went back to filling the cart with washdirt.

‘Is Amber upset about her father, Auntie?’ Tahi asked as he and
Kitty trotted back along Malakoff’s Lead towards the Main Road.

Kitty felt an unpleasant pang of guilt at using him like this, but deliberately squashed it. ‘Actually, Tahi, I’m sorry, love, but I lied. Amber’s fine. She’s working in the shop. It’s you I need to talk to.’

At the word ‘lied’ his head whipped towards her, and Kitty glimpsed in his eyes a reflection of all the angry and frightened things Amber must have said to him about her mother. But there was something else in Tahi’s eyes, too. Guilt?

‘It’s all right, I haven’t lost my mind,’ Kitty assured him. ‘Hawk told me you and Daniel found Rian’s shirt. Is that right?’

Warily, Tahi concurred.

‘Do you think you could take me there? To where you found it?’

Smarting at not being able to ride to Amber’s rescue, Tahi became slightly sulky. ‘Probably. But why, Auntie?’

Kitty reined Finn to a halt, and McCool automatically followed suit. ‘I need this to be a secret between us, Tahi. I don’t want anyone else to know, not just yet. Can you do that?’

Tahi nodded, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again.

‘Good.’ Kitty raised her hand and waved at Warrun, waiting at the turn-off to the Malakoff Lead. He kicked his horse into a trot and approached, bouncing sloppily up and down like a sack of spuds.

‘Who’s that?’ Tahi asked suspiciously.

‘Warrun, Binda’s nephew or grandson, I’m not sure which. He’s going to track for us,’ Kitty replied.

She inspected Tahi’s face for signs of censure, or at the very least indications that he thought she had lost the balance of her mind, but to her surprise there were none. Instead he said, ‘You still believe he’s alive somewhere?’

‘I do, yes.’

Tahi simply nodded again, inclined his head in a gesture of greeting towards Warrun, then started off in a southerly direction.

They crossed the Yarrowee about a mile further downstream. Diggers still lined the banks with their cradles and long toms, but did not cluster there like flies as they did closer to the township to the north. The trio followed the river for two miles more as it turned slightly to the south-west, then, where a small tributary branched off and almost immediately disappeared into the ground, left its shallow gurgling and splashing behind and struck out west.

Finally, after they had ridden—according to Warrun—exactly one and a half miles directly into the sun, Tahi reined in and said, ‘I think this is it.’

There was nothing to see, so far as Kitty could tell. Low scrub, a few rocks, tinder-dry grass, dirt—nothing to suggest that a man’s life had ended here beneath a pack of scrapping dogs.

Warrun slid off his horse. ‘Whereabouts?’

Kitty looked questioningly at Tahi, who also dismounted and began to walk carefully about until he came to a bare patch of dirt. ‘It was here, I think.’

Warrun joined him, then hitched up his trousers and squatted, inspecting the ground as though reading a book. He rubbed his fingers in the soil and raised them to his nose. ‘Blood,’ he said, and stood up.

Kitty’s heart lurched.

Warrun closed his eyes and sniffed again, then prowled about, his bare feet making no sound at all as he stepped on grass and dried leaves and small branches. Eventually he declared, ‘Dingo shit, but old.’

Kitty found she was holding her breath, and made herself let it out lest she faint and fall off Finn. She removed her panama and fanned herself with it vigorously as sweat trickled down her face. There was no noise out here, save the buzz of flies and the odd bird call.

‘Tracks, Warrun, are there any tracks?’ she prompted.

‘Hold your horses, Missus,’ he replied tersely.

Tahi shot Kitty a look to see if she was going to object to the blackfellah’s rudeness.

But she didn’t. She would wait for him all afternoon and night if she had to.

There was no need, however, as he soon raised his hand and beckoned to her. She dismounted and walked across to him. Tahi followed.

‘See?’ Warrun said, pointing. ‘Feet marks.’

Kitty couldn’t see anything.

‘Ours?’ Tahi suggested. ‘When we were here the other day?’

‘How many days?’ Warrun demanded.

‘Four.’

‘Then not these ones. These older, eh?’

‘How many feet?’ Kitty asked.

‘Six,’ Warrun said after a moment. ‘No, eight.’

‘Eight people?’

‘Eight
feet
. Belong four people. Three good, one sick.’

Kitty started to feel sick herself, from excitement and from fear of what might have happened to Rian. ‘Can we follow them, the tracks?’ she asked, and was startled at the harsh, raw sound of her own voice.

Warrun didn’t reply, but returned to his horse, grazing unenthusiastically on parched grass, and jerked on its reins to make it follow him.

In single file they walked, leading their horses, in an easterly direction, and it became clear they were heading back towards the Yarrowee. They met the river about half a mile further downstream than where they had left it. They crossed, and Warrun picked up the trail on the other side until it turned into tracks left by the wheels of a cart.

The cart tracks were fairly obvious, but Kitty had been able to see nothing at all of the tracks made by foot.

Warrun vaulted onto his horse and announced, ‘That’s it. Give us me hat?’

‘What?’ Kitty was shocked. For some reason she had imagined that Warrun would lead her all the way to Rian. But of course he wouldn’t. He was a tracker, not a clairvoyant. In truth the tracks could belong to anyone and could have been made at any time since the rains had stopped. She felt her heart, and her hopes, plummet.

‘Follow this track long way ’til it join with the Melbourne Road. They gone to Melbourne, eh?’ Warrun said cheerily.

Kitty passed him her panama, and watched dispiritedly as he trotted off.

‘Auntie?’

Kitty hoisted herself into her hated saddle and hooked her knee around the pommel. ‘What is it, Tahi?’

‘Warrun just said they went to Melbourne.’

‘I know he did, Tahi, but he doesn’t know that, does he?’

Tahi was quiet for a moment. Then, ‘Those tracks we’ve been following, did you think they were Uncle Rian’s?’

‘I had hoped so, yes.’

‘And do you think someone found him after the flood and took him?’

‘I heard something recently to suggest that may have happened.’ Kitty frowned at him, trying to fathom what he was getting at. ‘Why?’

Tahi fidgeted in his saddle. He gathered up the reins, dropped them, then rubbed at a dirty mark on his trousers. He looked eight years old again. Then he said in a rush, ‘Because I saw what happened. And I might know where Uncle Rian is. I think Warrun was right.’

Kitty gaped at him. ‘You
saw
it!’

‘Not in real life,’ he said quickly. ‘I saw it in here.’ He tapped his
head. ‘When I was asleep. You know, like when you brought my mother home from Sydney.’

Swallowing, Kitty thought back to 1845, when they had returned Wai’s bones from her burial place in Sydney, and the beach at Paihia in the Bay of Islands had been crowded with Wai’s people because Tahi, not even five at the time, had dreamed she would be returning that day. ‘When? When did you see it?’

‘Two nights after the flood. But Koro told me years ago that whenever I have the visions I should keep them under my hat, so I do. But when you said that you thought that Uncle Rian might still be alive somewhere, I thought maybe I should tell you, but I wasn’t sure. And now Warrun said that about Melbourne.’

‘What about Melbourne, Tahi?’ Kitty urged Finn closer, her stirrup clinking against Tahi’s. ‘What about Melbourne?’

‘In my vision I saw that great building with the big arches and all the horses in it—’

‘Tattersall’s Horse Bazaar?’

‘I don’t know what it’s called.’

‘On Lonsdale Street?’

‘I don’t
know
, Auntie!’

Kitty realised she was frightening him. ‘I’m sorry, love, really. Just tell me what you saw.’

‘There were other buildings on the street with the horses, and I saw Uncle Rian in one of those. In a little room.’ He gave Kitty a wary look, as though he wasn’t sure how she was going to react. ‘I think he was sick. Or hurt.’

‘Which building was it, did you see?’ Kitty pressed eagerly.

Tahi saw how bright her eyes had become, and the excited anticipation on her face, and, desperately wanting to please her, said, ‘Beside the horse place, one of those.’ He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth, but already it was too late to take them back. He
had
seen Uncle Rian in a little room in one of those buildings,
but then, in the same vision, he had seen the room again, and it had been empty, and he didn’t know what that meant. He hardly
ever
knew what his visions meant, except for the one about his mother coming home.

‘Was he alone, Tahi?’

‘No, there was another man there.’ This, unfortunately, had been crystal-clear. He had been a very bad man: just the feel of him in the dream had given Tahi a horrible, creeping sense of dread.

‘What were they doing? Were they talking?’

‘They weren’t doing anything.’ Tahi struggled to put into words how he saw things in his visions. ‘They were just…there. And so was I, but I wasn’t.’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie, I just see things. I don’t often know what they mean.’

‘But how did he get there? How did he get to Melbourne?’

‘They took him, after he came out of the river. I saw them pick him up off the ground.’ And beat him until he bled.

‘Who picked him up? Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. Just some men.’

‘So it wasn’t dingos at all? Why didn’t you say something at the time, Tahi? Even if it was only to me?’

Tahi hung his head. ‘I was too scared. Koro said if I went around telling people about my visions, the missionaries at Paihia would think I was possessed by a demon and send me away. I didn’t want you to think I was possessed.’ He paused. ‘Or Amber.’

Ah, Kitty thought with dawning realisation. She reached out and touched his arm. ‘Well,
I
don’t think you’re possessed. I think you’ve just given me the best gift I’ve ever received. But we still have to keep it a secret for now, do you understand?’

And Tahi, desperate for Amber to remain ignorant of his unusual talent, nodded in vigorous agreement.

They rode back towards town and parted ways at the turn-off to the Malakoff Lead. By the time Kitty reached Red Hill, she had made up her mind. Tying Finn’s reins to the rail outside a draper’s, she went in and bought a hat to replace the one she had given Warrun. Next, she paid a visit to a gunsmith’s and brought extra ammunition for Rian’s pistols and shotgun. Lastly, she purchased a capacious set of saddlebags.

She did all this with a single purpose of mind, concentrating on the enormous and daunting task ahead of her and barely noticing those around her, which is why she walked straight into Lily Pearce as she was leaving the saddlery. The saddlebags were knocked out of her arms and fell to the ground. Kitty was on the verge of apologising when she realised whom she had banged into. Instead, she stood very still. Lily, overdressed as usual in an array of flashy finery and too much jewellery, found herself literally backed into a corner between a verandah post and a rain barrel. She glared venomously at Kitty.