Kal (10 page)

‘No, I'll not be taking on a partner,' Evan continued. ‘I've made up my mind and it's the Midas for me. Kate's been living my life for eighteen months now and it's no life for a woman.'

Maudie said nothing. She and her mother had lived the lives of miners' women for years. A humpy in Ballarat to start with, when Maudie was just a child. Then, in ‘88 when they'd come west to the Yilgarn goldfield, they'd lived in a bough lean-to in Southern Cross until the move to Coolgardie and the hessian hut. They hadn't even had the luxury of corrugated iron until her mother had insisted on setting up a shop.

‘Listen to your cough, Bill,' she'd said to her husband. ‘Your lungs aren't going to see out the day.' God, her mother had been tough. But so was Bill. ‘I'm no shopkeeper,' he'd insisted. ‘I work under the ground, woman. It's where I live and it's where I'll die.'

Eventually Iris had stopped nagging. ‘So give me some of the money you pour into the mine,' she'd said,
‘and I'll do it myself. One day you'll drop dead underground and who's going to look after Maudie and me then?'

It wasn't that her mother hadn't loved him. She'd loved him so much that when he'd died—underground as he'd said he would—she'd refused to take another man. And there had certainly been offers. Although she'd been well past her prime then, there were few women on the goldfields and Iris was a good cook and a hard worker. ‘We can do it on our own, Maudie,' she'd said. And they had, until she'd died, two years ago. How Maudie missed her mother.

Evan could sense Maudie's criticism. ‘I know, Maudie. I know you and Iris did it. But you two were a breed apart. It's not the life for Kate.'

Maudie couldn't help it. Fleetingly she thought, ‘If he'd married me he wouldn't be giving up the Clover; if he'd married me he wouldn't be selling his soul to the Midas.' Then she stopped herself. Stupid thoughts. Besides, she persuaded herself, Evan would probably have bored her. For all his faults, Harry always made her laugh.

‘I'm going to work my way up to shift boss within the year,' Evan continued. ‘And I'm going to rent a house near the mine. They're nice houses those, Kate'll like that.' He rose from the table. ‘I'll get you another beer.'

‘No,' she said as she stood. ‘No, thank you, it's payout time and I must get on with the wages.'

‘So do I wait and give Harry first option to make a bid then?' Evan asked.

‘Yes. He'll make a bid, and it'll be the right one. I can guarantee it.' It was a golden opportunity for Harry. And Maudie knew it. She also knew that Evan was making the offer not for Harry but for her. If Harry had a partner and funds to extend the Clover he could become a wealthy man and, as such, he would be an
infinitely better marriage prospect. ‘I can pay some of the price up front if you wish,' she said. ‘Cash.'

‘Not necessary.' He extended his hand. ‘Your word's enough.' She was a good inch taller than he was and her handshake was as strong as any man's. ‘Do you want to come out and have a look at the mine? You've your father's eye. You'll be able to tell she's a good buy.'

Maudie grinned. ‘Are you willing to risk it?' Most of the miners would not allow a woman underground—it was considered bad luck. As usual her grin was infectious. The stern face lit up and the slits of her eyes sparkled with mischief. Like everything about Maudie, her grin was impossible to ignore.

Evan laughed, a short bark. ‘Put on those trousers you used to wear down your dad's mine and nobody'll know the difference.'

‘I'll be there. Monday, noon? Mind if I bring Jack?'

‘Monday noon. Yes, of course, bring Jack.'

 

‘C
AN
I
DRIVE
, Maudie? Let me drive. Please.'

Maudie passed Jack the reins and, as he leaned forward in the sulky, she tucked one hand firmly into the back of the boy's trousers. ‘It's not a race, Jack. Let the Princess go at her own pace,' she said as he tried to urge the horse on, clicking his tongue and flicking the reins.

Jack did as he was told but every now and then, when Maudie was looking out over the short dense scrub and he thought she wouldn't notice, he gave a quick flick of the reins. He was incorrigible, thought Maudie. Just like his father. Incorrigible and wilful and downright irresistible. With his freckles and his unruly mop of curly hair flecked gold by the sun, he was a typical goldfields urchin, a ‘dappled' boy. He looked up, caught her eye and smiled his baby-toothed, gappy smile. She couldn't resist smiling back which only
encouraged him and he started clicking the horse on again. She took no notice.

They were just out of town, on the dusty track leading north, and the old white horse was trotting slowly and steadily, automatically avoiding the rubble and potholes. Maudie didn't worry about the Princess. The Princess barely needed a rein at all, she responded to Maudie's voice more than anything.

‘Good girl, Princess, good girl,' Maudie said. The old mare took no notice of the boy.

The Princess was over twenty now. She'd been an eight-year-old when Bill Gaskill had bought her in Albany, the first purchase the family had made after stepping off the steamship from Melbourne. Maudie could remember vividly the trek from Albany to Southern Cross. The Princess pulling the dray laden with provisions, Maudie and her mother and father walking along beside. Mile after mile, day after day, through the saltbush and the spinifex and the hot, red outback dust. It was impossible to escape the dust, Maudie remembered. She could still taste it. It got in your mouth and your eyes and your hair. The precious water in their tank was reserved for drinking only, so they would try to camp whenever possible near a waterhole or clay-pan in order to wash. But even then the water was muddy with dust.

‘Look, Maudie, a camel team!'

Jack was nudging her and pointing up ahead. ‘Give me the reins,' she said. ‘Walk on, Princess, walk on, girl.' She edged the sulky to the side of the track and eased the horse down to a walk. As the camel team approached, Maudie kept calming the mare. ‘Easy girl, walk on, easy.' Like most horses, the Princess did not like camels.

It was a small team. Twelve beasts harnessed in pairs hauled a massive, heavily-laden wood cart, urged
on by three turbaned Afghan cameleers walking alongside. They were taking firewood to The Golden Mile, just south of Kalgoorlie. Most of the big mines were centred around the aptly named Golden Mile, where the rich gold-bearing lodes ran deep beneath the earth's surface.

The camels curled their lips, gnashed their teeth and spat as they passed by. ‘Whoa, girl, easy girl, good girl.' Maudie eased the Princess to a standstill. The mare was snorting nervously.

Maudie pulled her travelling veil down over her face as the wood cart trundled by and the dust swirled up. She wondered how long it would be before the camel trains were a thing of the past. Soon all the big mines would be bringing in their wood supplies by locomotive-driven steam trains. And as for water—much of which was transported by camels—well, if the government scheme was to prove successful, water would be supplied by pipeline from Mundaring Weir near Perth. They said that the dam was nearly completed, that next year they would start laying the pipes. And they said that the water would reach the goldfields by 1903. But, like many, Maudie would believe it when she saw it.

As far as the Kalgoorlie pipeline was concerned, local opinion was divided. Some thought that O'Connor, the government's chief engineer and designer of the scheme, was a genius. Others thought he was a madman with delusions of grandeur and that the politicians were fools to listen to him. To Maudie, the thought of water being pumped through three hundred and fifty miles of pipeline simply seemed impossible.

‘Walk on, Princess.'

Maudie once more allowed young Jack to take over the reins and again she turned her attention to the surrounding countryside. She always loved getting out of
the township, away from the bustle of the people and the noise of industry.

All about her was the endless red desert of low spinifex scrub, saltbush and clumps of hardy Australian gum trees which somehow thrived under the seemingly impossible conditions.

Ahead of her lay a shimmering heat haze, through which the uninitiated would swear they could see a vast lake. Behind her, Kalgoorlie was an oasis in the midst of a treacherous landscape, a tribute to man's survival in an unforgiving land. Without shelter or water, a man would quickly perish at the mercy of the elements—many had, their bones bleached white by an unrelenting sun. How the Aboriginal tribes survived in such a wilderness was beyond the comprehension of the white man, but survive they did. In fact, the two local tribes, rarely seen en masse by the townspeople, thrived happily on a land that had yielded up to them its secrets over thousands of years.

Beyond the safety of Kal, the question was purely one of survival and, should a stranger arrive at one of the hardy outlying farms, never a query was made as to where he had come from or where he was going. Even his name was immaterial. The only query of any importance was, ‘Need water, mate?'

Maudie looked back at Kal where the clouds of smoke from the mills and the distant stamp of the grinders announced the industry of the Golden Mile. She thought of the ladies in their picture hats sipping tea at the Palace Hotel and the gentlemen parading the streets and tipping their hats at the passing gentry and she smiled. How unimportant it all was. The desert always got things in proportion, she thought as she watched a wedgetail eagle soar several hundred feet up in the sky.

It seemed strange that such a barren-looking place
as the Clover could have a name at all. Just the customary red outback earth with its scrub and eucalypts, its salmon and coral gums and mulga and gimlet trees.

Evan was waiting for them by one of the three windlasses. He'd been working since dawn. He walked over to the trap to help her but she'd already jumped to the ground before he got there so he lifted Jack down.

‘Welcome to the Clover,' he said. ‘You wore the trousers. Good.'

‘I'm certainly not climbing down mine shafts in my skirts,' Maudie answered as she took off her hat and detached her travelling veil. ‘I see you have three.' She gestured at the windlasses, the wooden pulley systems erected over each of the shafts.

‘Four. There's another over there behind the house.' He pointed to a clump of eucalyptus trees and Maudie noticed ‘the house' nestled amongst them. It wasn't a house at all—it was a humpy, a bush shelter made of timber and corrugated iron. Yes, Evan was quite right, she thought. It wasn't the place for a woman to nurse a small baby; he was quite right to sign up with the Midas. She was a little surprised that he hadn't built something more substantial for his wife, but then she remembered that, like her father, Evan lived beneath the earth and poured all of his money into his mine. And he'd been a loner so long he'd probably forgotten how uncomfortable living in a humpy could be.

‘When you've had a look at the mine, come up to the house and have a cup of tea with Kate. She rarely has female company.'

Maudie would rather have avoided the social visit, but she knew she couldn't. She'd met Kate only once, and then briefly, and she didn't feel they had much in common. Evan rarely brought his wife into town and when he did it was never to the pub. On the occasion
when they'd met in the street Maudie, normally comfortable with her size, had felt huge and raw-boned and somehow awkward beside Evan's beautiful young wife.

They fed the Princess condensed water which Evan kept in stock for his own two horses and Maudie instructed Jack to stay with the sulky.

‘I want to come down the mine,' he said.

‘Look after the Princess,' she ordered and turned her back before he could argue.

Evan climbed ahead of her down the makeshift ladder to the first level about ten feet below, then slithered on his rump along a rough slope to the next ladder which led to the bottom of the shaft. He thought briefly about helping Maudie, guiding her feet to the safety of each rung, but decided not to. Hell, Maudie was as capable as any man. It was difficult to think of her as anything other than a man at the best of times.

At the bottom of the shaft, twenty feet below the earth's surface, he handed her a ‘spider', a wire candle-holder which could be hung on the rough crevices of the rock face while a miner worked. He lit a candle for each of them and pointed to one of the two short tunnels leading off the main shaft.

‘This is the drive I'm working at the moment,' he said. ‘Quite a strong leader, take a look.'

The tunnel was supported by poles of gimlet gum. Maudie crawled several feet inside and held her candle close to the rock face. She remembered, briefly, the wave of panic which had engulfed her the first time she had ever been down a mine.

‘Claustrophobia, Maudie,' her father had explained to her. ‘Some people never get over it. And some people can't live without it,' Bill Gaskill had added with a grin. ‘It's the pulse of the land itself—you can feel it.' And he'd placed the palm of her hand on the rock face. ‘Feel
it, Maudie, feel its heart beat.' She'd never been frightened under ground again.

In the light of the candle, Maudie recognised the vein of quartz. She also recognised much of the surrounding rock as dolorite, a greenstone formation often containing gold. All the promising signs her father had taught her to recognise.

‘Yes, it looks good,' she said as she backed out of the tunnel into the main shaft. ‘Very good.'

Evan led the way back up the shaft and, as they walked to the house while Jack ran on ahead, he instructed her. ‘If Harry pegs out more ground, tell him not to extend west. Too close to saltbush country. Out of the greenstone belt.'

He pulled aside the hessian curtain which served as a front door and ushered Maudie and Jack in ahead of him. ‘Kate,' he called, ‘our visitor is here.'