Band of Gold (24 page)

‘You want to be careful who you bang into, Kitty Farrell,’ she snarled.

‘You want to be careful yourself,’ Kitty replied in an equally poisonous tone.

The saddler looked worriedly through the doorway; he had several expensive saddles on display on the verandah and had visions of them being scuffed and thrown in all directions should an altercation break out. He stepped outside, raised his hands in what he imagined to be a placatory manner and said, ‘Ladies, ladies, please, if we could all perhaps calm down?’

But both women ignored him, practically hissing and spitting at each other and putting him in mind of two tigresses he had once seen at the London Zoo.

Lily smiled nastily. ‘Or should I say
Widow
Farrell?’

Not taking her eyes off Lily’s, Kitty bent and retrieved the saddlebags, forcing every fibre of her being to refrain from swinging
them at Lily’s head. She stepped down off the verandah, slung the bags across the pommel of her saddle, mounted Finn and rode off.

It wasn’t until she reached Lilac Cottage that she realised she recognised the stone in the pendant Lily Pearce had been wearing around her neck.

It had been a milky, grey-blue star sapphire cabochon.

She was ready. She had dressed in her new hat and the trousers she wore on the
Katipo
, Rian’s shirt and jacket—still smelling comfortingly of him—and her boots, and had tied back her hair and tucked it under the hat. Her ‘lady’ clothes had been rolled and packed in the saddlebags, along with a little food, the pistols, money, a small lamp wrapped in a cloth, oil, matches and a few other necessities she thought she might need; and Rian’s shotgun was loaded and ready to go into the saddle holster. Finn, whom Kitty preferred over McCool, had been watered, rested and resaddled. Amber was spending the night with Will and Molly again, and all Kitty had to do was finish her letter to her, and leave it on the table where she would find it in the morning…

My dearest Amber
,

Your father, I believe, is alive, and by the time you read this letter
,
I will have left Ballarat to find him. I want to tell you not to worry about either of us—or at least try not to worry too much
.

I am so very sorry that you have been angry with me these past few weeks, and I know that it has been just as hard for you as it has been for me. I couldn’t bear to think that your father had left us forever, and I know you couldn’t either.

The crew will look after you. Talk to Haunui or Pierre, or to Leena if you need ‘women’s’ advice. They all love you almost as much as your father and I do.

She sat with the end of the pen in her mouth, knowing there was something else she wanted to say. Finally, she dipped the nib into the ink and added:

I will be back with you as soon as I can, whether your father is with me or not. Even if it turns out that we have lost him, you will always have me, Amber, and I will never, ever abandon you.

All my love always,

Ma

She reread what she had written, blew on the paper to dry the ink, and glanced around to see if she had forgotten anything.

Through the window she could see the shadows thrown on the inside of Leena and Ropata’s tent some distance away as Amber and the children moved around, preparing for sleep. Leena and the men themselves had all gone into town, leaving their tents in darkness. The moon was bright but occasionally obscured by scudding cloud.

Kitty closed the cottage door behind her and walked quickly across the grass to where she had tethered Finn, and shushed him as he welcomed her with a soft whicker. She slid Rian’s shotgun into the saddle holster, untied the reins and swung herself up, relishing at last the comfort and ease of being able to sit astride.

She patted Finn’s neck, leant forward in the stirrups, and whispered as near to his ear as she could reach, ‘Come on, Finn, let’s see if we can make it to Melbourne by sun-up, shall we?’

As she trotted off towards the track that would take her around and behind Red Hill and up onto the Melbourne Road, Hawk and Haunui emerged from their place of concealment in their darkened tent, and watched her until she disappeared into the shadows. All afternoon they had had a suspicion that Kitty was up to something.

His arms belligerently folded across his chest, Hawk scowled and grumbled, ‘I still do not think we should be permitting her to do it. Rian would not have allowed it.’

Haunui scratched his head. ‘Ae, but it is not a matter of permitting, is it? She just does things.’

Hawk grunted. ‘I thought she had begun to accept his passing.’

Haunui glanced at Hawk’s sharp profile. ‘Have
you?
’

A short pause. ‘No. Not in my heart.’

‘So why are you expecting Kitty to?’ Haunui asked.

‘But I am not riding off to Melbourne on a wild-goose chase,’ Hawk countered. ‘I suppose she is going to Melbourne?’

‘But is it a wild-goose chase?’

It was Hawk’s turn to shoot a look at Haunui. ‘I do not know. Is it?’

Haunui recalled Flora’s counsel. ‘I don’t know, either. But I do know we have to let her do it, whatever she’s up to. Ae, we could follow her and bring her back, and then what? Lock her in the cottage? For how long? Do you want to be the one to deliver her kai, eh?’

‘No, thank you,’ Hawk said quickly.

‘And do not forget, Kitty owns the claim now that Rian has gone. And all the equipment and the livestock. And the
Katipo
. She is my daughter in spirit, but now she is
your
boss for real. We can’t lock up your boss.’

Hawk was unusually silent, even for him. Perhaps, Haunui thought, this hadn’t occurred to him.

Finally, Hawk said, ‘No, but she still should not be venturing out alone.’

‘I don’t think she will be alone,’ Haunui replied, and pointed across the grass to where the bullocks and McCool were hobbled several hundred yards away.

As they watched, a figure crept stealthily from behind a canvas-and-iron hut, using the clouds crossing the moon as cover, and
cautiously approached McCool. An arm was extended, the horse took something, and while he ate the figure slipped a bridle over his head and laid a saddle across his back. The hobbles were removed and left on top of a tree stump, then the thief mounted McCool and trotted off into the night.

‘Hmmm,’ Hawk said.

‘Ae,’ Haunui agreed.

The thief was Daniel Royce.

But Kitty and Daniel weren’t the only travellers to ride out of Ballarat that night. A little over two hours later, Lily Pearce also left for Melbourne.

Melbourne, late February 1855

K
itty arrived in Melbourne just after dawn. Her eyes were gritty and sore, her backside was tender, and the skin on the inside of her legs raw from rubbing against the stirrup leathers. She was hungry and desperately needed a hot drink and a wash.

Fighting the urge to ride straight to Lonsdale Street and start knocking on doors around Tattersall’s Horse Bazaar, Kitty instead headed for Collins Street and the Criterion Hotel, where she knew she would find a comfortable room. Forgetting she was dressed in men’s attire, and grubby men’s attire at that, she received a startled and disapproving look from the publican’s wife as she arranged her accommodation.

Finally in her room, having been left to haul her saddlebags upstairs unaided, Kitty washed her face and hands in the bowl on the night stand and lay on the bed for a few minutes to rest her bleary eyes.

She woke four hours later, stiff and sore, to the realisation that the
sun was high in the sky and she had wasted almost half a day sleeping when she should have been looking for Rian.

Groaning and easing herself off the bed, she tugged the bell pull and, when the house girl arrived, ordered bread and cheese and a pot of tea. While she waited she peed in the chamber pot, then emptied her saddlebags onto the bed, changed into her dress, brushed her hair and put it up in a chignon. Her late breakfast arrived, and by the time she’d eaten it and had two cups of tea she felt a little more refreshed.

Downstairs, she asked that Finn be saddled and brought around from the hotel’s stables, but it wasn’t until he appeared that it suddenly occurred to her that she couldn’t ride him astride in long skirts.

‘Shite,’ she said under her breath, feeling suddenly deflated and more than a little overwhelmed by the task ahead of her.

The boy leading Finn, an undernourished ginger-haired lad of about eleven wearing a uniform clearly too big for him and notably baggy in the arse, glanced at her in momentary astonishment, then smirked.

‘I don’t know what you’re smiling at,’ Kitty snapped, ‘especially if you’re expecting a tip, which you certainly won’t be getting now. Take him back and unsaddle him, go on.’

But the boy turned out to be a lot more wily than Kitty had given him credit for. ‘Would ya be wantin’ a lady’s seat, then?’

‘Why? I suppose you happen to have one, do you?’ Kitty said, without much hope.

‘I might,’ the boy said, squinting up at her. ‘For the right price.’

Kitty rolled her eyes. ‘Go on, then—let’s see it.’

‘Hold this,’ the boy said, handing Finn’s reins to Kitty before scampering off on bare feet.

He was back less than five minutes later, almost staggering under the weight of a very fine side-saddle in cinnamon-coloured tooled leather with a suede seat and double pommels.

‘Have you just stolen that?’ Kitty asked reprovingly.

The boy’s freckled countenance took on an expression commensurate with Kitty having just accused him of murdering his entire family, including his grandmother. ‘I did not! I borrowed it.’

‘Borrowed. I see.’

‘Yeah, and ya can rent it if ya like.’

‘How much?’

The boy named an extortionate fee, which Kitty considered only because she might have days of riding around Melbourne ahead of her.

When the deal had been concluded and the saddles transferred, Kitty asked, ‘And with whom have I had the pleasure of entering into this transaction?’

The boy scratched a scabby shin and said, ‘Wot?’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Oh. Israel.’

‘Israel what?’

‘Israel ya-little-bastard,’ the boy said, making a joke of it, but Kitty could see the veiled sadness in his hazel eyes.

‘All right, Israel, when I’ve finished with this saddle I want mine back, and I don’t want to discover that it, too, has been “rented out”, do you understand?’

‘Aye aye, missus,’ Israel said, saluting smartly. ‘Ya don’t want a gig as well, do ya? Or a dogcart?’

Kitty pulled herself up onto Finn and gathered the reins. ‘Not just now, thank you.’

Israel waved cheerfully as she rode off, then his smiled faded as he noticed a dark-haired man standing in the shadows on the other side of the street, watching the lady as a circling hawk in the sky watches a rabbit on the ground.

Kitty rode straight to Lonsdale Street and began systematically knocking on doors to the buildings on either side of Tattersall’s Horse
Bazaar. Some were dwellings and some were business premises, but none was empty. A few curious owners and tenants allowed her inside to look about, but most would not, simply shutting the door in her face when she asked. But Kitty had a plan: the buildings were rambling but no taller than double-storeyed, and festooned with narrow drainpipes and very flimsy ladders to comply with at least the letter of the law regarding fire escapes. A small boy, say around eleven years old, would easily be able to scale them under the cover of darkness and peep through shutters and windows, especially if he had a pound coin nestling comfortably in his trouser pocket.

In her heart, though, she suspected that Rian wasn’t here, regardless of what Tahi had seen in his dream. She was sure that if he were this close to her she would know—she would
feel
it, somehow.

She went next door to the horse bazaar in case Tahi’s vision had somehow been geographically askew. In the summer heat the huge stone building reeked, despite the lofty arches designed to funnel breezes through the complex, and flies buzzed thickly around piles of horse shit in the stalls, and floated along channels of urine like tiny mariners bound for voyages across Melbourne’s open sewers. There were carriage stands, tack rooms and stables on the ground floor, and haylofts and granaries above, but no sign of Rian, and, apart from an offer to buy Finn, Kitty came away with as little as she’d taken in.

But she wasn’t unduly despondent: she believed Tahi—Rian must be in Melbourne somewhere.

She rode back along Lonsdale Street and turned into Elizabeth Street until she came to the offices of a printer, where she dismounted and went inside. Twenty minutes later she emerged, having ordered 150 posters asking for information leading to the whereabouts of Captain Rian Farrell, and including his description, where she could be contacted, and the fact that she was offering a sizeable reward for any genuine leads. The posters, she had been assured, would be ready by nine o’clock the next morning.

It was suppertime by the time she returned to the Criterion Hotel. Israel was sitting on the boardwalk a short distance from the front door, pretending he wasn’t looking out for her. As she approached, he leapt up and trotted over, taking Finn’s reins and grinning up at her.

‘How was the saddle, eh? Nice an’ comfy?’

‘Very, thank you, Israel. For a side-saddle.’ Kitty lifted her leg and slid to the ground. ‘Can you see to Finn, please?’

Israel nodded enthusiastically but didn’t move, obviously waiting for his tip.

Kitty didn’t move, either. ‘Israel, I would like you to do a job for me.’

Israel looked shifty. ‘There money in it?’

‘If you do it well.’

‘I will, I promise.’

Kitty looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You don’t even know what it is yet.’

Israel shrugged, clearly confident of being able to carry out any task asked of him.

‘Do you think you can climb up drainpipes and narrow, rickety ladders and possibly look through some windows?’ Kitty asked, trying not to roll her eyes.

‘If I pushed meself, I think I could, yeah.’

‘Well, that’s what I’d like you to do.’ And she told him exactly where and when, and what to look for.

‘Easy. How much?’ He didn’t even ask who the man Kitty was searching for might be.

‘A pound. I’ll have to trust you, though, Israel,’ Kitty said. ‘You could just go around the corner or sit in a pub for two hours then come back and tell me you’ve done it, and I wouldn’t know any different, would I?’ She waited, watching him until she knew he was paying her proper attention. ‘But this is my husband I’m looking for, the man who means more to me than anything else in the world. I thought I’d
lost him, but now I’ve been given a second chance, if only I can find him. Now, I’m too heavy to get up those pipes and what-have-you, so I have to rely on you. You can deceive me if you choose to, but I’ll know, Israel. I’ll know. So take your pound now, and if you do decide to cheat me, just don’t come back, all right?’ She handed him a gold coin. ‘Otherwise, my room is number twenty-two.’

And she turned and walked into the hotel, leaving him staring after her, the pound coin cool and heavy in his hand, and thinking that the dark-haired man called Mr Royce had been right—she
was
a very decent person, and not at
all
like other so-called ladies who promenaded around Melbourne thinking they were that much better than everyone else.

And now he had
two
pound coins in his pocket!

Israel had come back with a large scrape down his back from slipping off a drainpipe, and a bruise blooming on one scrawny buttock as a result of being caught peering into a window, but with no news of Rian. Kitty had been disappointed, but she had learnt long ago to trust her heart, and her heart had told her that Rian had not been in those specific buildings. She didn’t blame Tahi—no doubt even visions could be fallible when it came to details—but it did leave her in a quandary about where to start looking next. The posters, she hoped, would help.

She rose early, and as she opened the door to her room she almost fell over Israel, who sat up yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Astonished, she asked, ‘Have you been here all night?’

Israel nodded, farted gently, and scrubbed his hands through his untidy mop of hair.

‘Don’t you have anywhere else to sleep?’ Kitty said, concerned.

‘Yeah, hayloft.’ But Mr Royce didn’t pay me to sleep there, Israel thought, he paid me to keep an eye on you. But perhaps not this close
an eye, he reflected ruefully as he eased his tender buttock off the meanly carpeted floor, and scrambled to his feet. ‘We puttin’ up them posters this morning?’

‘Are you not supposed to be tending the hotel stables today?’

‘Day off.’

Kitty doubted that, but it wasn’t her affair. Israel followed her downstairs, then stood outside the dining-room window, gazing longingly in as Kitty ate her breakfast. Finally, she could stand it no longer. Going to the door, she beckoned him over.

‘Israel?’

He shuffled towards her, hands clasped in front of him, huge eyes blinking up. ‘Yes, missus?

‘Go and break that pound coin I gave you. You’re putting me off my food.’

Israel laughed and skipped off, knowing his bluff had been called.

By midday they had put up all the posters, mainly in store windows and public houses, and on fences and notice boards, and Kitty went back to the Criterion to await news.

By three o’clock in the afternoon she realised the folly of her plan. Sitting in her room, with nothing to do but let her mind run amok with terrible imaginings, was possibly the worst pastime she could have devised for herself. So she went downstairs, found Israel who had literally been dragged back to work by his boss, paid for his time for the rest of the afternoon, and made him sit on the sofa with her in the hotel lounge and talk.

Israel, it turned out, was not the orphan she had assumed—and he had certainly implied—he was. He was originally from Rotherhithe, London; his father had left for the Bendigo goldfields two years ago and had simply never returned, and the last time he had seen his mother she had been senseless from gin underneath some sailor behind a pub on Flinders Street. That had been about six months ago.

‘So where do you live?’ Kitty asked, disquieted, but not entirely
sure she believed him. She knew, though, that he was quite possibly telling the truth, or at least some version of it.

‘In the hotel stables. I get me meals there and all. It’s all right.’ He shrugged with the stoicism of someone much older.

‘And your name?’

Another twitch of the shoulders. ‘Me father read the Bible a lot.’ A pause. ‘Dunno what he reads now.’

Kitty found herself telling him about all the exotic places that she and Rian and the crew of the
Katipo
had been, how Amber had come to be part of the family, and the events that had led up to Rian’s disappearance. An hour later, she realised she had been talking about Rian almost constantly, and that Israel had sat through her monologue barely even fidgeting.

She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I miss him.’

But Israel wasn’t listening now, his attention snared by an approaching figure.

‘Mrs Farrell?’

Kitty turned; the man standing before her was vaguely familiar, but it took her several moments to retrieve his name.

‘It’s So-Yee, isn’t it?’ she said, rising and offering her hand.

The Chinese man stared at it for a moment, then shook it reluctantly. ‘Yes. Wong Kai has sent me. He wishes that I escort you to speak with him. On a matter he believes will be of great interest to you.’

Kitty’s heart quickened and the blood rushed from her head as she realised with dismay that for nearly two days she had been completely ignoring a prime source of information: if anyone knew about secrets in this town, it would be Wong Kai.

She snatched up her reticule. ‘Of course, yes. Thank you, So-Yee.’

She followed him outside to a waiting cab, but when Israel made to climb in after her, So-Yee leaned out and pushed him back onto the street.

‘Hey!’ Israel exclaimed indignantly, his hand on the cab door. ‘I’m her chaperone! I have to go everywhere with her.’

‘Could he not just—?’ Kitty began.

So-Yee gave a single, sharp shake of his head. ‘No. Only you.’ He slapped Israel’s hand away, shut the door, then rapped on the roof of the cab.

His mouth set in an angry line, Israel watched the cab lurch away up the street, then ran off to find Mr Royce.

‘And he didn’t say where they were going?’ Daniel asked, scowling and trying to ease the awful crick he had in his neck from the boarding-house cot he’d slept on the night before. Tonight he might try his luck in the stall he’d rented for McCool—it certainly couldn’t be any less comfortable.