Wanted Dead (4 page)

Nestling against one of the boulders was the Lightning
Fork shanty, a thatch roof building made up of slabs of timber standing upright, presumably nailed, or fastened in some way to a frame; a frame that had been made without great care judging from the wavering nature of the walls.

Riley looked around for a ridge that might possibly contain a cave. The road he was on ran through a slight valley in the tablelands. To the east the scrub rose and fell in gentle undulations until it merged with the heat haze in the distance. But in the west there reared a mighty ridge, a razor back, reaching perhaps eight hundred feet above the road and ending abruptly in a jagged cliff that brought the sky-line almost down to road level again.

Such a ridge might well contain a cave, pondered Riley. In fact if it did it would almost certainly be there towards the cliff where the top of the ridge seemed to be nothing but bare rock. Just as well he wasn't particularly interested, he thought, as he tied his horse to the verandah rail of the shanty. It would have been quite an arduous business climbing up there and poking around.

He went into the shanty confident that he could pose as an innocent traveller. He had no illusions about the sort of feeling people he'd be likely to meet would have towards the police, and his sword and carbine were safely rolled away in his camping gear. He'd hidden his pistol holster as well and his pistol, together with the one he'd taken from the bushranger, was tucked into his belt under his coat. He'd taken out the caps because he'd been rather afraid the weapons might go off of their own accord.

An immense, shaggy old man was leaning on the slab of wood that passed for a bar. He said nothing
and made no movement when Riley walked in. The shanty was in deep gloom, or seemed so to Riley after the bright sunlight outside. Half a dozen barrels stood in one corner of the room with boxes near them, presumably to serve as tables and chairs. Another barrel stood on a bench beside the old man. It had a wet bag over it to cool the beer. Riley would have liked a glass of beer but he had already drunk the Colonial brew on the mistaken assumption that it would be much the same as the mildly stimulating drink he'd known at home, and he now knew better than to drink it on an empty stomach.

“Any chance of a bite to eat?” he said to the old man.

“Stew or cold mutton,” said the old man in a voice that seemed to have a very harsh passage on its way out. Riley thought he detected the remnants of an Irish accent, but he couldn't be sure. The old man still hadn't stirred and there had been no visible movement when he spoke in the mess of grey, stained hair that hung around his mouth.

“I'll have mutton then, thanks,” said Riley.

Staring straight ahead, out the door, the old man raised his voice.

“Dish o 'mutton,” he called, and this time Riley thought perhaps he had a German accent. He still could see no movement in the man's lips; but then he couldn't see his lips for hair.

He heard faint noises of assent from behind the hessian curtain dividing the bar from some room out the back, presumably the kitchen.

Riley stood uncertainly where he was in the middle of the room. The old man still stared out the door. What an extraordinarily big man he was, thought Riley.
His shoulders seemed to be about four feet across. His head was crowned by a great thatch of grey-white hair that spread, at a roughly even length, down his cheeks and under his chin. A huge gnarled nose rose magnificently from the growth on his upper lip and his large, wide-set, staring eyes were almost hidden by his eyebrows. He was not unlike an English sheep dog, thought Riley; but what a magnificent build. He must have been really impressive when he was young, say about a hundred years ago.

“Nice day,” said Riley, tentatively.

The old man said nothing.

Riley shrugged and walked across the room to the barrels and boxes. He selected the most stable looking of the boxes and sat down, quite slowly because he found the pistol barrels tended to dig uncomfortably into his lower abdomen if he moved suddenly.

He turned to the old man again.

“You wouldn't have any bird shot I could buy, would you?”

“Yairs,” came the voice from the beard.

Riley wondered whether the old man was a dummy kept there as a front by whoever worked in the kitchen and given semblance of life by the art of ventriloquism. Or perhaps he wasn't a dummy as such, perhaps he had died some time ago; he looked so dried out and leathery that he probably wouldn't even have needed to be stuffed.

“Could I have a couple of pounds?” Riley asked politely.

“Girl'll get it for you. Ask her,” said the voice from the beard.

There was no girl immediately in evidence, but Riley assumed she would eventually show up.

She appeared almost immediately from behind the hessian curtain bearing a tin plate of cold mutton and hot, boiled potatoes. Riley's first impression was that he'd met her before and he almost stood up to greet her. She was about eighteen, dressed in a skirt and high necked white blouse, quite a nice face with irregular features that all looked as though they might have been borrowed from different people. Riley guessed that the blood of several races ran through the girl's veins. But where had he seen her before? In fact he couldn't have. She must have simply borne some resemblance to someone he had known. He wondered whether she was the old man's daughter. She must have been born very late in his life if she were, but then he looked that sort of man.

She was studying him curiously as she laid down the plate and placed a knife and fork on either side.

“Did you want tea?” she asked and Riley recognised again the Australian accent, but it didn't sound so badly coming from her.

“Yes please,” said Riley. “And, ah, the gentleman said you could let me have a couple of pounds of birdshot.”

“All right,” said the girl.

But she showed no inclination to go and get the shot. She stood by Riley's barrel and watched as he cut up his mutton.

“Jimmy Grant, aren't you?”

“Yes,” said Riley, wishing she'd go away. Not that he was averse to attractive young women, but he didn't like being watched while he ate. It made him nervous.

“Been out long?”

“Six weeks.”

“Good journey out?”

“Horrible.”

“How long was the trip?”

“Five months.”

“Not bad,” said the girl: “It took you nine months to come out, didn't it Dad?”

“Yairs,” came the voice of the old man.

“I came in a steamer,” ventured Riley.

“I'd like to make a trip like that,” said the girl. “I was born out here you see,” she added unnecessarily.

Riley chewed away at his mutton.

“I'd better get your tea,” said the girl.

“Thank you,” said Riley, but she showed no immediate intention of moving.

A blow-fly made several determined efforts to land on Riley's plate. He waved it away irritably. The country seemed full of these noisome creatures, these and cicadas and kookaburras.

“What are you doing out here?” asked the girl with that direct frankness that Riley was finding as common in Australia as the blow-flies, cicadas and kookaburras.

“Looking for gold,” he said promptly.

“Yes,” said the girl, rather sadly Riley thought. “Everybody is.”

She went away then and brought him his tea and a couple of pounds of birdshot wrapped up in newspaper.

“Staying around here long?” she asked.

“Don't really know,” said Riley vaguely.

“There'll be a dance on here on Saturday night if you're still around this way.”

“Oh,” said Riley, interestedly he hoped. He didn't know whether he was receiving an invitation or just being given a piece of information. He finished his mutton and started on his potatoes, carefully cutting them into little squares.

“Going to settle down permanently out here?” she asked.

“No!” said Riley. “That is, I really don't know.”

“I don't blame you,” said the girl. “It's pretty dull.”

She waited while Riley finished his potatoes and drank his tea, then charged him three and sixpence for the meal and the birdshot.

“I might see you on Saturday then?” she said as Riley left.

“Er, yes, I daresay,” said Riley. The girl must see few strangers out here, he thought, in fact it would be a hell of a life for a young girl. She was rather nice too, with that long, black hair that a girl ought to have. But women were outside the scheme for the moment, he told himself as he mounted his horse and rode away from the shanty. Quite outside the scheme of things.

If he hadn't seen the path leading up to the ridge he would never have gone looking for the cave, Riley told himself irritably. But then if he hadn't been fool enough to go looking for the path he wouldn't have found that either. The trouble was that it had been obvious that if the bushrangers had a
plant
in a cave on the ridge there would be a path to it along which a horse could travel. No bushranger with any common sense at all would put himself in the position of ever having to leave his horse.

Then again it followed that if there were a path up to the ridge there must be another path down, because, again, no bushranger would have, as part of his escape route, a dead-end into the bush. At least it didn't seem likely.

The only point that was thoroughly difficult for Riley to understand was why he was now toiling up this
path, leading his horse because the wretched animal seemed near exhaustion after travelling up hill for half an hour, and with the packhorse trailing behind.

Of course there was no danger in it, he told himself. If the place happened to be infested with bushrangers it was unlikely that they'd do more than take his money and that was hardly worth worrying about.

Unless they searched his gear and found the carbine and cavalry sword. That might upset them.

Anyhow, what did it matter? The odds were that there wasn't a bushranger within ten miles of the place and finding the
plant
could prove useful. He could use its existence as proof that he'd actually been bushranger hunting when he reported back to Goulburn at the end of the month.

The path led right to the top of the ridge, then ran along it towards the cliff. Riley found that he could now see the Lightning Fork shanty quite clearly and deduced from that that he and his horses, outlined against the sky, could be seen from the shanty and the road.

He led his horses quickly over the top of the ridge and took them a hundred yards or so down the other side into the trees, tied them up and walked back to the ridge.

He walked along below the path over the almost bare rock which would have been difficult for a horse but was quite easy for a man. It was late in the afternoon now and the sun was within an hour or so of setting in the western sky.

Just before it reached the edge of the cliff the path turned off the top of the ridge and led downwards on the opposite side of the road.

The trees were very sparse for about half a mile
down the slope and Riley could see the whole of the path quite clearly. There was no sign of a cave.

Now that was an extraordinary thing, he thought. He could have sworn the youth he'd terrorised to the point of collapse that morning had been telling the truth. The existence of the shanty and the ridge and the very path itself had all tended to confirm it. But there was no cave.

Of course there was no reason why the path should actually run to the cave. If it came to that, in fact it would be remarkable if it did. But if it didn't, how was he supposed to find it?

He began walking back beside the path, still keeping below the top of the ridge to avoid being outlined against the sky.

A ledge of rock jutting out several feet beyond the natural fall of the slope caught his attention and he scrambled down and found the mouth of a cave hidden below it.

The entrance itself was mostly covered by bushes and was quite small anyway. A man would have to crawl in on his hands and knees.

Riley stood contemplating the entrance.

If it were a
plant
it was an excellent and obvious one. The bushrangers could see the road quite clearly from here and would have at least an hour's warning of any pursuit.

Moreover, anybody following them closely, but not actually in sight, would assume they'd continued along the path and would never find the cave unless they came specifically looking for it, as Riley had done. Although on second thoughts, what would a fleeing bushranger do with his horse if he were trying to hide
in this cave? He certainly couldn't get the horse in after him.

Then perhaps it wasn't a
plant
. Perhaps it was just a cave the youth had happened to know about and passed off to Riley as a
plant
.

That would have been a very reasonable thing to do, thought Riley, but then he wouldn't have thought the youth was in a very reasonable frame of mind when he was being questioned. And the whole thing hung together too well to have been concocted on the spur of the moment, under the peculiar circumstances prevailing. At least Riley would have thought so.

In any case the question of whether or not this cave was a bushranger's
plant
could be solved quite easily by going in and having a look.

Riley pursed his lips at the thought. Supposing there was a bushranger inside there now, armed, waiting and bloody-minded?

But there wasn't much point in reporting to the sub-inspector that he'd found a bushranger's
plant
and having a body of troopers sent out to find a cave that obviously had never been used by human beings. If it came to that there was no necessity to report anything to the sub-inspector anyway.

To hell with it, thought Riley. He might as well poke his head in and see what happened. At least his life as a special constable wasn't proving dull.

He thought about recapping his pistols, but decided that if there were somebody in the cave his greatest hope lay in trying to pass himself off as an innocent gold prospector looking for somewhere to camp the night.