Yesterday's Promise (10 page)

“I hope you're right…about not telling Peter. That trek north through savage country, wild animals, and horrid weather is going to be awful… Oh, I detest the very thought. Yet, I think you're right.” She looked at him again. “If you were with Peter helping him at the new colony, I would feel so much better about everything. Including Peter. He needs you, Rogan. So do I.”

She could see her words brought him concern, and she knew she was unfair in taking advantage of his brotherly loyalty, but what else could she do?

“Please, Rogan!”

“I'll consider,” he said flatly, “but I won't promise you, Arcilla.”

She was far from satisfied, yet knew she could go no further with him for the time being. Still, there had to be a way if she thought about it long enough.

“Enough of unpleasant things for now,” she said with forced cheer. “If you won't go see Julien now, and insist on going to Kimberly, then I'll bring you to the train depot. On the way you must tell me all the news. Tell me about Evy, Grimston Way, and what girl Charles is seeing now…”

Rogan had managed to deliver his baggage to the railway and purchase a ticket for a sleeping compartment. It was several hundred miles northeast to Kimberly. The train rattled over the track northward through a wide, flat plain dotted with thorn scrub and grasses. Rogan stood at the back of the train enjoying the wind, the fragrance of the open veld, and the expansive view. Before darkness fully settled, he saw some steenbok antelope and a pair of solitary gray duiker that were early morning and evening feeders. He watched the pair through his glass, noting the variable color from grizzled gray to a yellowish fawn, with a dark stripe down the nose. The male had long, slender upright horns. As the intruding train neared them, he watched their zigzag run and plunging leaps as they darted across the golden veld to take cover in thicker brush.

With the darkness came a stillness, except for the lonely rhythm of the train's engine passing through the wild, open land. He looked up at the dark, star-tossed sky until he found the constellation of the Southern Cross. An awesome longing came over him at the realization of the greatness of God, a longing he could not satisfy. He tried to think of what Evy might say if she were here now.

The first rosy glow of sunrise in the eastern sky tinted the distant, brooding hills to salmon, while a delicate mist garlanded the rocky crests. A short time later that morning, the train pulled into Kimberly's switching line yards where much activity was under way.

Rogan jumped down onto the platform as the locomotive slowed to a stop. Heaving his bag over his shoulder, he turned to the conductor.

“Where's a good room with a bath and something decent to eat?”

The man gestured his head up De Beers Road. “Blue Diamond.” He looked Rogan over. “Mighty expensive for a new digger, though. What's your name, young man?”

He refrained. He might learn more if he acted like a busted prospector newly arrived from England.

“Heard of Julien Bley?” He kept his voice casual.

Rogan saw the man's mouth tighten.

“That Sir Julien Bley's an important man in Kimberly. That, and the Chantrys, too. There's a Chantry who's come recently from England. Works over at the fancy De Beers building.” He nodded his gray head once again down the street. “Important people. Knee deep in diamond shares of De Beers Consolidated. Tati gold fields, too.”

Rogan nudged, for he could see something just below the surface that was goading the old man.

“What kind of a man is Julien Bley? A fair man, is he? I heard he's in thick with Rhodes.”

A look of anger flickered in the watery gray eyes as the conductor pushed his cap back and glanced down De Beers Road as if he could see the men in question. He turned and studied Rogan.

“It wouldn't be smart for me to say, now, would it, sir? They got enough power to run me out of Kimberly.”

“Why would they bother, rich and important diamond rands like that?”

The old man looked sheepish. “No reason.” But then he seemed to change his mind, and his cheeks became florid.

“Diamonds aren't enough for men like that. Too greedy wanting to own everything, they are. Not that Rhodes lives high, mind you. Dresses casual, no more style than I have. Doesn't spend lavishly on himself either. No, it's what the diamonds and gold and land can do that Mr. Rhodes wants. He wants an empire for England.”

Rogan was nettled. “If England doesn't step lively, Germany, France, or Portugal will colonize it. England's shown in the past that we bring civilization wherever we go.”

The man eyed him more cautiously, then Rogan smiled quickly. “Not that it matters to me. But you seem to dislike Rhodes.”

“Not Rhodes so much, but—”

Again, he looked at Rogan and seemed about to back off. Rogan offered him a cheroot, and the man bit off the end and bent to light it from Rogan's match. Rogan peered into his eyes. “You mean Sir Julien Bley, then?”

“If you wanna know, I hate him.”

Rogan dropped the match and stepped on it. “A real bloke, is he?”

“Neither diamonds nor gold is enough. He's got to have the coal, too. Though he didn't discover it. Him and those lawyers at De Beers—Wolf Pack, I heard some call 'em. Don't know how many there are, but maybe a dozen, maybe less. They form some sort of board that interprets the mining laws and such. There are those who say the laws all favor Rhodes's company. I wouldn't trust any o' them.”

Rogan felt his own jaw tensing. “How did you hear about the coal?”

The old man drew himself up. “Johnny discovered it, that's why. Johnny Sheehan, my nephew. They're stealing him blind. Julien Bley is taking it right out from under him. The Wolf Pack says he didn't abide by the mining laws, so he's lost his claim by a hair. Rubbish! They got some skinny crack in the law they can slither through and steal the coal claim, is all. Johnny's trying to fight them, but what can he do against such powerful men? But he'll try. He's meeting with them this afternoon at De Beers.”

Rogan studied the old, weathered man bent with age, and then he saw a young man coming toward them, walking with a limp.

“That's my nephew here now, Johnny Sheehan. Irish lad, he is, through and through. He's a fighter, that one. But sometimes fighting ends up getting you hurt. That's how he's got that bum leg. He came here when he was sixteen with a dream. Worked long days and nights in
the diamond mines. He got injured, and there weren't any doctors around in these here parts to patch him up, so the bone's still not set straight. Too late now. But he don't cry none about it.”

The young man walked up. He was tall and skinny with alert blue eyes and fair brown hair.

“Morning, Uncle. How was the run from the Cape?”

“Fine, fine, nice stop at Mafeking. Johnny, this is—” Suddenly the old train man looked at Rogan, realizing he didn't even know his name.

“Rogan,” he said simply.

“Johnny Sheehan, Ireland. England, are you? Aye, it tells.” He grinned. “Looking for work? You can always find it at the Big Hole.”

“Big Hole?”

“Sure, that's what everyone calls the diamond mine. It's as deep as a large crater now. Diamonds are coming out of there every day.”

“I was telling Mr. Rogan about your coal find,” the old man said, and Johnny's face went stolid.

“Let's not talk about that now, Uncle Gerald.”

“You keeping that meeting with those lawyers from De Beers?”

“You bet I am.” He pulled out a scrap of paper from his pocket and squinted at it. “Tomorrow at eleven in the morning.”

“You need them spectacles. You be careful, now, Johnny boy, when you're talking to them. You be dealing with spittin' cobras. A whole mess of 'em.”

The willowy Irishman waved off his uncle. “You know me. I'm always careful.”

He looked at Rogan, and friendliness returned to his face. “There's a good eatery not far from here. Kittleman's, it's called. Fair prices. They give you a good breakfast. No cheating on the eggs and mealies.”

Rogan had already learned that mealies were some sort of a grain cereal popular with the Boers.

“Thanks. I think I'll try it. You going that way?”

Johnny Sheehan looked at him a moment. “Don't mind if I do.” He turned to his uncle. “See you later.”

Kittleman's eatery was warm and clean with plain tables and dishes. It was owned and run by an Australian couple who had come to Kimberly in the 1880 gold rush on the Witwatersrand. They hadn't struck it rich, but they'd made enough to settle down and feed miners and prospectors instead of resorting to a pick and shovel.

Rogan ordered his breakfast of eggs, bacon, and coffee. He avoided the mealies, which reminded him of bland mush, a breakfast he had turned down when a boy at Rookswood. As he ate with John Sheehan, the Irishman loosened up, and the talk soon turned to the coal deposit he'd found farther north. It was just as the old train man Gerald had said. John had pegged a claim, and now the Rhodes's company was disputing it.

“It's Sir Julien Bley,” Johnny was saying over his bowl of mealies. “He wants that claim all for himself.”

Rogan felt empathy for the young Irishman as he thought of his own interests in the Zambezi and the clutching hands of his uncle.

“I'd better tell you who I am,” he said over his coffee. “My name is Rogan Chantry. Sir Julien is an uncle.”

Sheehan's face seemed to lose its blood. Rogan saw his fingers tighten on the spoon in his hand.

“So that's it. He's hired a spy. You're laying a trap with my own mouth.”

“No.” Rogan set his cup down. “I'm not working for my uncle. I'm here on my own. I'm headed north of the Limpopo on an expedition. I want no part of my uncle. I like my independence.”

The young man relaxed a little but looked wary now. Rogan didn't blame him.

“Maybe you can put a word in for me with Parnell Chantry over at the mining office of De Beers. I suppose you two are related?”

“My brother. I can't promise anything, but I'll talk to Parnell.” Rogan knew Parnell could do little on his own. He answered to the Company, to Julien in particular. Unless Julien agreed, Parnell wasn't likely to change matters.

“I don't want anything that isn't mine fair and square, Rogan Chantry. That entire claim I filed legally. And I intend to keep it.”

“Don't blame you. Fight for it if you will. I'll mention you to Parnell.”

“You're a fair man, Rogan. I believe you.”

They talked on for a while until Rogan finished his coffee, then he paid for the food and left Sheehan pondering over his coffee.

A short time later Rogan entered the room at the hotel, preoccupied and restless. He felt a strange kind of anger that didn't come often. Coal wasn't as glamorous as gold and diamonds, but it could be worth millions. The establishment of the Rhodes colony in the north and the growth of this entire area, including Kimberly, would depend on a constant supply of energy. Naturally, De Beers and Julien wanted that coal deposit that young John Sheehan had filed on.

Rogan was still frowning as he heard the Bantu workers stoking wood into the hotel boiler beneath his window, affording him all the steaming water he wanted for his bath. He shaved with a straight razor while serving boys unpacked his trunk and a valet made sure the trousers and shirt were neatly pressed, his boots polished to a shine.

A little while later, dressed smartly, his dark hair still damp and smelling of the hotel brilliantine, he left his room, the leather envelope containing the map worn safely in the leather strap beneath his shirt, and strode up De Beers Road.

At 10:15 he entered the De Beers Consolidated Mining Company to locate Parnell. He smiled to himself. His brother, two years his senior, would be taken aback to see him here now. Rogan wondered if Peter was here too. He might be down at the mine, or off somewhere on business.

The man who met him was dressed circumspectly in a uniform fit for Queen Victoria's private guard, white gloves and all. It was on Rogan's tongue to ask if Her Majesty was holding court today, but he held his flippancy and asked studiously, “I'd like to speak with Mr. Parnell L. Chantry. And if he's not in his office, then I'll speak with Mr. Peter J. Bartley.”

“Mr. Parnell L. Chantry is, indeed, in his office. May I tell him who is here to see him?”

Rogan could hardly keep from smiling as he said, “Mr. Rogan H. Chantry from Grimston Way, England, is here to call upon his brother.”

At once the dutiful man mellowed with a swift and flowing apology.

“We've never had the privilege of seeing you here before, Mr. Chantry, sir. I should have known, sir. You do look a bit like your brother.”

Rogan smiled at the man's words. Actually, Parnell and he looked less alike than most blood brothers, not that it mattered.