Wimmera Gold Page 5

  'Thank you, Mr Fanshawe.' Perry stowed the cash away in his wallet which he kept in an inside pocket of his long, full-skirted grey coat. 'Bloody weather, is it not?'

  Fanshawe sneezed. 'Good for the land. Bad for the poor devils who have to live on it. Shall we go? You can tie your horse to the back of the trap. Where are your bags?'

  Perry hoisted his saddlebags and pointed to a small valise and a long leather gun case. 'A man in my business travels light. I'll pay what I owe here and be with you directly.'

  A few minutes later the trap was bouncing along the road leading north from the town. The sky was brightening and the rain stopped before they had gone a mile. Fanshawe coughed and sneezed and drove badly. They stopped to shuck their weatherproofs and Perry offered to drive. Fanshawe accepted and leant back thankfully in the bench seat. The horse pulling the trap, an indifferently constructed grey, responded to Perry's surer hands and they moved off at a faster, steadier pace. The road was a poor track, rutted and puddled, but Perry read it well, guiding the horse to the firmer ground. The two men did not speak for the next hour, Fanshawe lost in some private musing, and Perry concentrating on his driving and inspecting the landscape.

  The country was flat to undulating with the only dominant features being the mountains to the south-east. These were dark under a sky that still threatened rain. In the immediate vicinity, however, the sun had broken through the fast-moving clouds and the wet earth and bush were steaming.

  'Fine country for these parts,' Perry observed. 'Quite like some of Arizona and California. Where does your land begin, Mr Fanshawe?'

  The squatter pointed ahead to where a line of trees defined a creek that appeared to describe a loop and run alongside the road. 'Up there. Damn near had to turn back just at the boundary. The creek was up over the road. Expect it'll have dropped back now.'

  The creek was still lapping at the edge of the road but Perry judged that, even if it had been higher, it would have been no danger to a good hand with a wheeled vehicle.

  'Fanlock,' Fanshawe grunted after they had rounded the bend. 'It should have been enough for any man. I've been such a fool.'

  Perry slowed the trap and pulled the horse to a gentle stop. 'If you are regretting our arrangement, Mr Fanshawe, it's not too late to cancel. We've signed nothing yet. I'll return your money and climb on my horse.'

  'No, no.' Fanshawe clutched at Perry's sleeve. 'I didn't mean that. I'm regretting that I didn't take the gold to the Commissioner and make a claim to it like an honest man. But I'll be damned if I'll be done down by a scoundrelly Yankee … begging your pardon, Mr Perry.'

  Perry clicked his tongue and the horse moved off. 'No need to apologise on that score to me. I'm a British subject, born in Barbados. I've spent some time in America and I suppose I've picked up some of the Yankee speech, but I was a good few years in England too.'

  'Really? I'm an Englishman myself. From Kent. D'you know it?'

  'Passed through the country many a time,' Perry said. 'Fine hops.'

  'Aye, that's so.' Fanshawe's voice took on a stronger Kentish burr. 'I'd like to show Margaret the old farm and have her meet some of the Fanshawes. Good people. The yeomen of England.'

  'My father's people hail from a good way further west,' Perry said, 'Bristol men. Of course, my mother's folks are what you might call southerners—from the Ivory Coast of Africa.'

  Fanshawe sneezed so loudly the horse broke stride. 'We are both a long way from home, Mr Perry. Let us make the best of it.'

  The yard behind the house was empty when the trap wheeled in. Fanshawe climbed down from the vehicle and watched while Perry unloaded his bags, untied his horse and led the two animals into the holding enclosure. Perry sensed the squatter's nervousness and attempted to soothe him by commenting favourably on the fittings, buildings and garden. 'Where were Lincoln's quarters?' he asked.

  Fanshawe pointed to a slab structure beyond the long, iron-roofed shearing shed. 'There, with Blake, the overseer, and two of the shepherds, Findlay and Billings. Blake has a separate room. I'm afraid the accommodation is rather rough.'

  Better so than in your constipated guest room, Perry thought. Not that there's any chance of that if I know my squatters and their good ladies. 'I'll install myself down there,' he said, 'and stroll around. Perhaps I can meet your lads later in the day?'

  Fanshawe nodded and stalked stiffly off to his house. Perry shouldered his bags and picked his way through the muddy yard towards the servants' slab hut. He unlatched the door and marched in to find a thin man, dressed only in woollen combinations, cooking damper at the fireplace. A billy was boiling on the fire. 'Holy mother of god,' the man said, 'has the day of retribution come at last?'

  Perry dropped his bags onto the nearest bunk. 'You'd be Findlay. I'm John Perry. Don't worry, I won't be here long. But I'd be glad of a chunk of the damper and a sup of tea. It's a fair old step from Wilding, and Mr Fanshawe wasn't sparkling good company.'

  'Never is, of late,' Findlay tossed a handful of tea into the billy, counted to five and removed it with a stick through the wire handle. He nudged at the dough in the glowing ashes, blew hard to raise the heat and then drew the scorched damper out with a long fork. 'Been forty years in this godforsaken country and I've yet to cook one of these bastards right. I've seen brainless eejits make them like tea-cakes.'

  Perry had taken a jar of honey and a knob of butter from his bags. Findlay produced two tin plates and two enamel mugs. Both men opened clasp knives and cut pieces of damper which they spread with butter. Perry watched his companion drip honey over his portion and then trickle a long thin strand into his mug of tea. 'Ye've got me pegged, Michael Findlay. I'll say my name to any man who can provide me with butter and honey. Seems to me I've heard the name John Perry. You wouldn't be in the pugilistic game, would you?'

  Perry blushed away ash, took a large bite of his damper and chewed appreciatively. 'Not any more, Mr Findlay. Not any more. I'm here to teach the younger Fanshawes a few things with horses and firearms. I understand there was an American a while back who did much the same thing?'

  Findlay hawked and spat into the fire. 'If it's Lincoln y'mean you'd do better not to associate y'self with him. The man was a liar and a cheat and much else besides.'

  Perry nodded, not wanting to press the point and arouse the shepherd's suspicion. They chewed on the hard, ill-baked damper and washed it down with the strong black tea. When Findlay packed a pipe Perry prepared himself to leave the hut. 'Mr Fanshawe has been a hard master of late?' he asked.

  'I'd not say hard,' Findlay said, popping a burning coal into his pipe with his naked fingers. 'But he's not the master of Fanlock he once was, not for some time.'

  'Why?'

  Findlay shrugged. 'It's not for an old lag like myself to say. I've survived in this devil land for these many years by keeping myself out of other men's troubles.'

  Perry winked. 'What about women's troubles, Michael?'

  Findlay stood and shook with anger. 'Keep a civil tongue in yer black head.'

  Perry laughed and left the hut. The sun was high and bright outside and Fanlock looked like the model of a prosperous Wimmera sheep run with a substantial, wide-verandahed house, strong fences and well-constructed shearing facilities. Perry knew that the colonial squatter lived by simple rules—clear the land, fence the paddocks, tend the stock, kill the predators and vermin, sell the produce. Fanshawe looked like a man who would obey these rules to the letter and had done so until recently. His discovery of the gold had distracted him and the station was already beginning to show signs of that distraction. What was an apparently able-bodied hand like Findlay doing skulking inside in broad daylight? Surely those sheepskins hanging on the fence should have been taken down before the rainstorm broke, and he thought he had detected an off-balance wheel on the trap. Certainly the harness had not been oiled recently.

  As he walked Perry saw further signs of deterioration—weeds growing through a bricked courtyard, a decided lean to one of the p
osts holding up the clothes line and evidence that whoever ran the kitchen had recently taken to dumping the slops and scraps closer to the house than an alert master or mistress would require. Fanlock lacked joy, was somehow cheerless, as if its present was troubled and its future uncertain.

  'Mr Perry!' Fanshawe was calling and waving to him from the steps at the back of the house. That building, Perry had noted with approval, was in the best tradition of colonial architecture, with its wide verandahs and close-growing shade trees. He signalled his acknowledgement of the call and began to walk towards the house, steeling himself, as always, for the trial of proving that he was a human being. Fanshawe came down the steps accompanied by two boys, one large and fair, the other smaller with dark hair falling across a thin face.

  'My sons, William and Samuel,' Fanshawe said. 'This is John Perry, boys. He's a very famous boxer and rider. He's going to give you some lessons.'

  The fair boy, William, looked alarmed at Perry's appearance but was too excited to hold back. 'Boxing lessons?' he gasped.

  'If you like,' Perry said. 'And if your father approves.'

  'Mother won't,' the other boy said. 'She wants Will to be a doctor and me to be a minister.'

  Fanshawe coughed. 'Ah, my wife is indisposed … '

  Perry ignored him and bent down closer to Samuel, who swept the hair back from his eyes. 'And what do you want, Master Fanshawe?'

  'I want to be a soldier and Will wants to be a farmer.'

  'Fine professions,' Perry said, straightening. 'And both requiring skill with guns and horses I should say. About fists, I'm not so sure.'

  William looked crestfallen and Perry touched his shoulder. 'On the other hand … Is your mother a great reader, by any chance?

  William nodded.

  'Poetry?'

  Samuel sighed. 'Yes, poetry. Dreadfully dull stuff about rivers and trees.'

  'Wordsworth, I shouldn't wonder,' Perry said. 'Tell her boxing is called the noble and manly art and Lord Byron was very keen on it.'

  William nodded solemnly. 'Lord Byron. Can you teach me the cross-buttock?'

  Perry shook his head. 'Going rapidly out of style.' His fist clenched and darted out to stop a fraction of an inch from the boy's chin. 'The straight left is all the go now.'

  Fanshawe sneezed and mopped at his streaming nose with a handkerchief. 'I've business to attend to. I'll leave the boys with you for an hour or so, Mr Perry. Oh, you won't have had any lunch.'

  'I had a bit with Findlay down in the quarters. It sufficed, but he's no cook.'

  Fanshawe scowled. 'He's not a great worker either. I'm afraid things around here are running down. I must start putting them to rights. An hour, boys, no more.'

  'How long does it take to learn a straight left, Mr Perry?' William asked.

  Before Perry could reply he felt Samuel's fingers touching his boot gun, the small, double-barrelled derringer. 'Nothing useful can be learned in an hour,' Perry said. 'But we sure can make a good start.'

  'You sound a bit like Wes,' Samuel Fanshawe said.

  6

  Fanshawe signed the paper on their agreement and over the next few days Perry won the confidence of the squatter's boys and the interest of their sister. He consolidated his acquaintance with Michael Findlay and had no trouble at Fanlock other than a brief confrontation with one of the shepherds, a man named Josh Billings. Unwisely, Billings had attempted to prise the lock on Perry's gun case and had received a thrashing, more frightening for its cold briskness than its severity. After that, Billings elected to sleep in the shearing shed and word passed around the other employees on the station to keep hands and eyes off Perry's belongings. The overseer, George Blake, did not appear in the hut and after two nights Perry inquired about him.

  'He's found himself a woman,' Findlay said.

  Perry raised an eyebrow. He was seated in front of the fire trying to get the dim lamplight to fall on the stirrup strap he was greasing. 'A woman? Around here?'

  Findlay waggled his dirty fingers. 'In a manner of speaking, you understand.'

  Perry squinted at his work. Findlay, slightly oiled by a few swigs of rum from a flask Perry had been judiciously sharing with him, was in a mood to talk. 'A grievous sin, to be sure. But perhaps better than taking to the animals themselves.'

  Perry nodded. 'Who?'

  'A lad on the next property to the north. To tell the truth, George is seldom here and the place is showing the signs.'

  'I've noticed,' Perry said.

  'Would there be another sup in the flask?'

  Perry handed the bottle across and watched Findlay drain it. 'Now that's my vice, I'm bound to admit. But doesn't the good book say take grog for your stomach's sake?'

  'Something to that effect,' Perry said. 'It's no concern of mine, I'm here for a week at the most and I've been paid in advance, but it's a pity to see such a fine property going into decline.'

  'Now that's the truth. And there's no reason for it at all. But Mr Fanshawe seems to have had his mind on other things ever since … '

  Perry put the strap aside. 'It's getting too dark to see what I'm doing. Get on with it, Michael. Ever since what?'

  'Since about when the American came and more so since he left. I'm not sayin' another word. Jesus, but the world is goin' strange. The overseer's away buggerin' and I'm here with a black heathen as talks like a gentleman. I'm thinkin' I've outlived me time.'

  Perry laughed. 'You've got your wits about you and you'll be all right. What would your ambition be?'

  'I'm not with you.'

  'What would you most like to happen to yourself from this day on?'

  'To get out of this cold hole and take myself north. I've got a bad chest and another winter here could finish me. Queensland'd be the place for me.'

  'And what would that cost?'

  Findlay spat into the flames. 'Ten pounds would do it. It might as well be a hundred. I'm on a few shillings a week here and lucky to get that. After a bit of baccy and a bit of a drink there's never a penny left over.'

  Perry opened his valise and took out another flask of rum. 'I was keeping this for a cold night in the bush, but we have some business to discuss.'

  Findlay licked his lips as he watched Perry unscrew the top of the flask. He passed his enamel mug over and nodded approvingly as he saw a good measure of the liquor flow in. Perry poured a small nip for himself, then he took a notecase from his pocket and removed two £5 notes which he smoothed on his knee. 'Yours, Michael,' he said, 'for information.'

  Findlay took a long drink and then shook with a deep, hacking cough. Perry noticed that he managed to hold his mug still while the spasms wracked him. 'About what?'

  'About Mr and Mrs Fanshawe and Wesley Lincoln and everything that's been going on at Fanlock these past few months.'

  'What are ye? Some kind of coppers' agent?'

  'Nothing like that. You'll have to keep it under your hat.'

  Findlay nodded, drank again, more judiciously, and relaxed as the rum slid down without causing him to cough. He sighed. 'The Findlays are famous for keeping their traps shut except when they're drinking.'

  'I'm acting for a London firm of investors who're looking to buy property in this colony. Some outright, some on a partnership basis. Now Fanlock is apparently a solid concern, but Mr Fanshawe needs money. He has two sons to educate, he wants to take a trip home and he's thinking of taking up more land. A partnership arrangement with my principals could be the answer to his problems, but there are some alarming reports about things going wrong here.'

  Findlay scratched his bristled chin. 'I don't owe Henry Fanshawe nothing, that's for certain. Fair enough man y'might say, but close-fisted. Still, I've no wish to do him either a good turn or a bad. But what's the odds, I'd be away to Queensland courtesy of your money and Mr Cobb's coach, wouldn't I?'

  Perry shrugged. 'This could be very much to his advantage, but my people will walk away if they think there's anything shaky about Mr Fanshawe—I mean in respect of his polit
ics say, or his farming practices.'

  'Politics, I wouldn't know about. A squatter is as a squatter does. And Fanlock was one of the best managed properties in this district, if not the best managed.'

  'Was?'

  That's it.'

  'What happened to change that state of affairs ?'

  'All I can tell you is gossip, nothing more.'

  Perry handed over one of the notes. 'Gossip is as much currency in the City of London as banknotes or coins. I want to hear what you have to say.'

  Findlay drank some more rum, folded the note small and put it carefully inside the sweatband of his hat. 'Some time back Mr Fanshawe came back from taking a ride to the north boundary. Billings saw him return. He reckoned he was dirty and excited and not himself at all. He said he'd been thrown by his horse, but there was no sign of any damage to the man. He began to behave strange after that.'

  'Your conclusion?'

  'Not mine, Josh Billings'. The only reason to ride out that way and come back excited was the women.'

  'What women?'

  'The darkies livin' up there with Reverend Stich. Beggin' your pardon. Australian natives, they are. Little more than savages, but handsome as I've heard tell. Mr Fanshawe has ridden in that direction more than once since.'

  Perry's disappointment must have shown on his face because Findlay eyed the second note pessimistically. He finished his rum and Perry topped him up automatically and took a drink himself. The quality of this information is very poor, he thought. If this is the best Findlay can do I'd be better to save my money.