This Golden Land (37 page)

H
OW DO YOU FEEL
, M
R
. O'B
RIEN
?"

     Jamie squinted up at Hannah as she sat silhouetted against the pale sun. They were riding in the back of the wagon, among the bags and barrels and crates of supplies, the wheels creaking in the late afternoon stillness. She had stayed by his side in the ten days since she had fixed his leg, from morning to night, watching him, caring for him. It was a nice feeling, Jamie thought. Unfortunately, she also would not let him step down from the wagon and help his mates search for opals, because that's why he had come out here. Jamie O'Brien was not a man to stay put. He was cursed with too much energy and the need for action. But Miss Conroy had not only elected to be his doctor, but his jailer as well.

     A pretty jailer though, he thought. Miss Conroy wore a gray gown with a matching gray bonnet, and her eyes were gray. Jamie had heard a word once, "nacreous," and he had never really understood it until now. It was a word invented just for Hannah Conroy, he decided, because she was not the gray of fog or colorlessness, but the gray of Irish mists and ancient castle
keeps. And that black, black hair that beckoned to a man,
Come and explore.

     "I feel great," he replied with a grin.

     "And how is your leg?"

     "Which one?" The grin grew cheeky.

     Hannah knew that his attitude was meant to deflect his fear. It had been four days since he had felt any pain, any sensation at all at the site of the wound. She studied Jamie O'Brien's face, shaded from the sun by the wide brim of his hat. He was not yet feverish, there was no excessive perspiration. But they both knew that the lack of pain was a serious sign. It meant that, beneath the bandage that had by now become grimy and covered in dust, gangrene was eating away at nerves and flesh, numbing the place where bone had broken through the skin. And gangrene was a certain death sentence from which not even amputation was a reprieve.

     The bandage was to come off this evening and Hannah, like the others in Jamie's group, was tense with worry.

     As the wagons creaked and groaned through the eerie afternoon stillness, with the only sound coming from the billy cans clanking on the pack horses, the sun slowly moved up the great china-blue sky, bleaching everything on the earth, taking away all the shade so that not even the occasional clumps of spinifex grass cast shadows. The terrain was other-worldly: a stony, treeless desert of salt pans and sandstone flats, with bizarre cliffs and rock formations in the distance. A wasteland where, Hannah knew, nothing beyond stunted scrub would ever grow.

     They had found little water, and even that had been salty. When they had climbed a steep rise in the terrain, from the summit they had seen a phenomenon that Edward Eyre had named Lake Torrens. But it only seemed to be water, as it was really a dry and glazed bed of where water had once lodged. To the north-east of Lake Torrens barren ranges continued tier after tier of rocky crags as far as the eye could reach.

     It was a silent group that made slow progress northward, men trudging alongside the wagons or riding horseback, their clothes ragged and dusty, muskets slung on their backs. They had entered unknown territory where no white man had set foot, and it made Hannah remember something Captain Llewellyn had said on the
Caprica
, about a theory that God had created
a second Garden of Eden somewhere in the world and that it might lie in the mysterious heart of Australia.

     But this group was not searching for Eden or rumored lost cities or fabled inland seas. They were going in search of opal, Hannah had finally learned, and they were following Jamie because he had promised them riches. Not that he had anything certain to go by other than a very dubious a map and his own adventurous spirit. One of the men, Stinky Sam, had told Hannah that when Jamie was playing a game of cards that lasted three days, on a station west of Sydney, the final pot had contained shillings, pound notes, a man's gold ring, a lady's pearl necklace, the deed to a cattle run and a map to an opal field.

     Jamie had lost the game but had purchased the map from the winner, who doubted its authenticity anyway ("How can a place be mapped when it's a place no man has ever gone into and come out alive?"), but Jamie had been taken with the yellowed parchment and inked lines and X's marked here and there. He had told his mates the Aboriginal story of the Rainbow Serpent, how its body sparkled with flames of color and glittered like gemstones, and that it had laid beautiful eggs of a translucent stone that shot back rainbows of color. The mythical eggs, it was said, could be found in the continent's interior, somewhere north of Adelaide. Jamie had put two and two together and decided to launch a hunting party.

     "The opals lay on the ground," Stinky Sam had told Hannah one evening over a dinner of potatoes, damper and roasted emu bagged by Bluey Brown and his musket. "Beautiful chunks of frozen fire as big as your fist. Just there for the picking. We're all going to be rich."

     Hannah had never seen an opal, although she had heard of them, the ones that came from Mexico and Europe. And as it was a rich, rare stone, she knew what drove these ragged men to follow Jamie O'Brien in blind faith—a group of mates drifting from one hope to another, picking up jobs here and there, drovers one season, shearers another, moving on when the mutual restlessness came over them, always believing Jamie that the end of the road lay just ahead.

     They went by the nicknames Australians were so fond of: Blackie White; Abe Brown (called Bluey for no known reason); Charlie Olde
called Chilly because his initials spelled C Olde; Banger, who loved sausages; Tabby, who liked to take cat naps; and Ralph Gilchrist whom they called Church because of the last syllable of his surname. There were also Roddy, Cyrus and Elmo, three brothers who looked so much alike Hannah could not tell them apart.

     They were men Jamie O'Brien had met over a pint and a game of two-up, in places with names like Geelong, Coonardoo and Streaky Bay. And when O'Brien had his treasure map and his plan to hunt for opals, he had gone around to Geelong, Coonardoo and Streaky Bay to gather up his band of adventurers, like Jesus calling his disciples, Hannah thought, each contributing what money he could for wagons, horses and supplies, on the promise that when the treasure was found, it would be divided equally. Brothers Roddy, Cyrus and Elmo were young bricklayers looking for excitement; Blackie White was a toothless blacksmith in his fifties; Banger had been a cook on a sheep station; Stinky Sam and Charlie Olde were stockmen on a cattle station where Jamie had worked one winter as a rouse about; Ralph Gilchrist was a bullocky who had spent the better part of his life driving the great ox-drawn drays about the bush, taking supplies to farflung sheep stations and carting back mountains of wool. Bluey Brown and Tabby were axemen whose motto was "If it grows, cut it down," and they figured that, between them, they'd cleared a million acres of timber in their lives.

     The only one not with them on this silent afternoon as the sun was turning to red-gold was Stinky Sam, who had gone off in search of opal, armed with a pick axe, a lantern and a canteen filled with whiskey. Stinky Sam got his nickname from working in a slaughterhouse outside of Hobart Town, where he had served time for pickpocketing back in Dublin.

     Hannah looked out at the bleak landscape and thought: the earth has gone flat, as it was in the days before Columbus. The horizon was impossibly far away, and the sky so vast that Hannah felt as if she were back on the
Caprica.
It was late May—winter was coming, but the days were warm so that Hannah could only imagine the furnace this desert must be in the summer. At night, however, the temperature plunged, making everyone shiver and keep close to the fire. But they had brought tents and Hannah had one entirely to herself so that she had privacy.

     As they made slow, steady progress each day, the men spread out in search of firewood and opals. It made Hannah think of Neal, and she wondered if this wilderness was similar to the land he was exploring

     As the wagon creaked along, Jamie said, "Did I ever tell you, Miss Conroy, about this bloke I once knew, name of Fry? I was up Gundagai way one summer and I happened upon old Sammy Fry strolling through the town, looking for all the world like a down and out beggar—no socks, his pants held up with rope, a hole in his hat. 'See here, Mr. Fry,' I say. 'Everyone knows you've struck it rich with sheep. You own your own station now, yet you still go about looking like a shearer. Why don't you dress like the successful man you are?' And old Fry replies, 'Why should I? Everyone hereabouts knows who I am.'

     "Well, wouldn't you know it, just a year later, I'm walking down one of the busiest streets in Sydney, and who should I run into but old Sammy Fry, dressed just as ragged as ever, but just as rich I had heard. 'See here, Mr. Fry,' I say again, 'you're in the big city now, you ought to dress better.' And old Sammy says, 'Why should I? Nobody hereabouts knows who I am.'"

     Hannah smiled. She had discovered that Jamie O'Brien had a gift for storytelling and was a font of anecdotes, tales, myths, stories, fables. The narratives rolled glibly off his tongue, and they were always entertaining.

     "Ever hear of a bloke named Queenie MacPhail, Miss Conroy?"

     "I don't believe I have, Mr. O'Brien."

     He grinned and said, "Would you like to hear how Queenie got his name? I was droving up along the Murrumbidgee River, far from where most folks live, and met a farmer named MacPhail, and his religious wife. They invited me in for a bite to eat and told me their complaint. There weren't many churches in that area and MacPhail's wife was beginning to worry about their son, who was nine years old and had yet to be baptized. Of course, that meant he also hadn't yet got a name, so they called him Boy. Mrs. MacPhail confessed to me that she was worried her boy might die and St. Peter wouldn't know who he was and wouldn't let him into Heaven. So I offered to ride about and fetch back a traveling preacher who could do the christening.

     "We didn't know it, but the boy was listening at the keyhole as the
MacPhails and I made arrangements with the preacher, and the boy got it into his head that christening must be like branding, because the preacher was talking of adding him to a flock. So the lad ran off, determined never to suffer a christening. We all ran after him, MacPhail, his wife, the preacher and me, and the boy led us a merry chase, all over the farm and right back to the house where he dodged in and out of rooms like a Tasmanian devil. By the time his father collared him and Mrs. MacPhail screamed 'Give my boy a name!' the preacher was so rattled he dropped his baptism water.

     "'Quick, woman!" shouted MacPhail, 'another bottle,' as he was about to lose hold of his son. She slapped the bottle into the preacher's hand and as the reverend splashed the liquid on young MacPhail's head, saying, 'I christen thee—' he saw the label on the bottle and shouted, 'Good Lord, it's Queen of the Highlands!' And to this day, Miss Conroy, old Queenie MacPhail boasts that he's the most baptized man on God's earth because it was done with good Scotch whiskey."

     Hannah smiled and leaned forward to shift the flour sack at Jamie's back, as he was looking uncomfortable.

     When Hannah had asked Jamie why he was going in search of opal, he had said, "I've never done it before. Life is short, Hannah. A man should taste everything he can." When she had asked, "What if you strike it rich? What will you do then?" He had quipped, "I never think that far ahead." In this way she had gotten to know more about the man in her care: Jamie O'Brien the carefree drifter who sometimes worked at honest labor, sometimes stole and cheated and lied, depending on his mood or the weather or the time of day. A man with a restless spirit and energy that couldn't be contained. Hannah had also discovered that Mr. O'Brien was a man used to ladies succumbing to his wit and his roguish charm.

     What Hannah did not know was how Mr. O'Brien had come to be like this. She had yet to hear about his background, or what it was that had put him on the path of a lifetime of adventure outside the law.

     Finally, up ahead, Maxberry raised his hand and the straggling party came to a weary halt. It was time to stop for the night and make camp.

     And remove Jamie's bandage.

     As usual, four men came to the back of the wagon to help O'Brien down
for the night, his splinted leg making it impossible for him to walk even with a crutch. Hannah climbed down first, bringing her blue carpetbag with her. Her heart rose to her throat. She was dreading what was to happen next.

     As Jamie hooked his arms around two sets of sturdy shoulders, he watched how dainty and ladylike Hannah went in search of some privacy, as if she were perusing flowers in a garden. His men went to great pains to see that she had all the privacy she needed. His men had also started combing their hair and watching their speech, and they made sure they didn't spit tobacco juice near her.

     As the men unhitched the wagons and unsaddled the horses, letting them loose to graze on saltbush, Tabby got started on a fire while others gathered fuel and pitched tents, and Nan went off with her digging stick to hunt for goannas and geckos, Hannah made sure Jamie was comfortably situated with his back to a boulder, a bottle of water in his hands.

     Then she retreated to the canvas tent that had been erected for her, and she sat cross-legged to stretch her aching back. She hurt all over. She was tired and hungry. More than anything, she craved a bath, but water was precious in this arid expanse and must be reserved for cooking and drinking. Jamie's men were foregoing baths and letting their beards grow. Even O'Brien himself, normally clean shaven, was sprouting a stubble-covered jaw.

     The sun slipped behind the horizon and the tent grew dark. Hannah lit her lantern and, as she did every night, brought out Neal's photograph. Smiling at the handsome face, she said, "I wonder if you have made any fabulous discoveries yet, if you have named mountains and rivers after yourself, if already your photographic plates carry fantastic sights never before seen by human eyes."