There was nothing for it but to cook our own breakfast, and when we had finished it, we sat dozing in the cane chairs in the cool house. We were both of us very tired and I was dead asleep when the sound of a vehicle woke me. I expected it to be Ed Garrety. Instead, it was Westrop who came in through the beaded flyscreen from the patio. He stopped at the sight of me. I had got to my feet and for a moment we stood there facing each other, both of us too surprised to say anything.
‘What do you want?’ I asked him.
‘Garrety. Where is he — still down the mine?’
‘I’ve no idea. We’ve only just arrived.’
‘And the girl?’ He moved towards the passage.
‘There’s nobody here,’ I said.
He paused then, looking at me doubtfully. ‘Yuh sure?’ And when I didn’t say anything, he turned and went outside, and I heard him talking to somebody. He was back almost immediately, coming in with that old swaggering gait, and suddenly I knew what he reminded me of — the digger of Australian legend, the battle-scarred veteran of the wars they had fought across the world. It wasn’t only that he had a wide-brimmed hat on his head and his khaki longs tucked into high boots, it was the long hard face, the steady eyes creased by the sun. His appearance, his whole bearing reminded me of Anzac Day and those pictures of floods of khaki wading ashore at Suvla Bay from old coal-burning troopships. ‘Yuh could help me,’ he said, standing hesitant. ‘No hard feelings, eh?’ He smiled, the dour look gone and a flash of warmth.
‘No, of course not.’
He nodded. ‘Sit down then. I’d like to talk to yuh.’ He dropped into a chair, running his hand over the stubble of his pointed chin and staring at me as I resumed my seat. ‘You’re probably the only man, apart from Garrety, who’s been down Golden Soak in years. Did you get into all the levels?’
‘Who told you I’d been down there?’
‘Prophecy. Yuh didn’t expect her to keep it to herself, did yuh? Yuh were down there getting ore samples the night we dumped yuh on the Highway.’ That flicker of a smile again. ‘Something I didn’t expect. But you’ve been down there, that’s the point.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on the cane arms of his chair. ‘Did you see anything that struck you as unusual, anything odd?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Hell!’ he said. ‘Yuh must have seen something. Yuh were pretty shaken, Prophecy said — and yuh didn’t seem to want to talk about it.’
‘You’d be shaken if you’d been down there,’ I told him. ‘I was on my own and another cave-in could occur at any time.’ But I think he knew it wasn’t that, for he was staring at me very intently, waiting, and I was remembering the footprints, the strange atmosphere in that third level. ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked, suddenly certain he knew something I didn’t.
‘Garrety,’ he said. ‘I want to know what he’s up to down there.’
‘Didn’t Prophecy tell you?’
‘Oh, sure. He’s found the reef. There were a couple of prospectors and some truckers in the night Prophecy passed your quartz samples around the bar. By now just about everybody in WA must know he’s found the reef again. So what’s the point of him working down there on his own?’
‘You’d better ask him.’
‘I’m asking yuh. The samples yuh took came from a side gallery, Prophecy said. Beyond a rock fall, that right?’
I nodded, wondering what he was getting at, seeing the white of the quartz again, remembering the feeling of near panic that had come over me.
‘What caused the fall?’ And when I told him the rock was badly faulted, the fall was almost certainly the site of the 1939 cave-in, he said, ‘Look. We were down there last night and his Land-Rover was parked up the gully. When we reached the mine entrance we were faced with that Alsatian of his, barking its head off. Then he came out, all covered in dust and looking like a bloody Cyclops with his miner’s lamp blazing in the darkness. I didn’t see the gun at first, but I know the sound of a bolt slamming a round in the breech, too right I do. What’s he so scared about?’
‘Prospectors — people like you.’ But he shook his head and I sat there staring at him, a ghastly thought in my mind, for there was a curious tension in him, an undercurrent of excitement. ‘He owns the mine, so you can’t claim.’ Silence and the thought growing in my mind. ‘You’re Mcllroy’s nephew, aren’t you?’ He was suddenly very still, his mouth clamped shut. ‘And you’re from Sydney.’
‘Wot if I am!’ The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened, his voice hard and flat.
‘You must be all of forty and you’ve never been in the Pilbara in your life before, never shown the slightest interest in your uncle’s death. Why now?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘And you came here from Darwin, straight out of hospital. So it’s something you learnt in hospital — either there or in Vietnam.’ I was guessing and the expression in his eyes told me I was right. ‘What is it? What was it made you come down I
here and get a job as near to Jarra Jarra as you could?’
He got up then, coming towards me, and now the tension showed in his eyes. I didn’t move and he stood there, staring down at me. ‘S’pose McIlroy never went into the Gibson?’ he leaned down, his face close to mine. ‘S’pose he died right here?’
It was out now, the thought in my mind put into words, and Westrop staring at me, trembling slightly like a hound on the scent. ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You know where his truck was found. He died somewhere to the east of Lake Disappointment.’
He nodded. ‘That’s the story.’
‘You don’t believe it.’
‘No.’ He was still standing over me, but more relaxed as he said slowly, ‘Yuh see, when he left Nullagine, he didn’t go into the Gibson. He came here.’
‘How do you know?’
He hesitated. ‘Okay, I’ll tell yuh. It was a man called Gray. Tommy Gray. He was in the hospital bed next to me and all one night he was rambling on about his childhood here. His father was a doctor in this shire, so what he said was dinkum, and one of the things he was on about was Pat Mcllroy’s death.’
‘And McIlroy came here?’
‘That’s what Tommy said.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why, he just did, that’s all.’
‘Gray’s dead, is he?’
‘Yes. Died the following night, a long knife wound in the guts turned septic.’
‘In other words he was delirious.’
‘Of course he was delirious. Otherwise, he’d never have talked the way he did. Oh to hell with it!’ he added angrily. ‘Yuh wouldn’t understand. We didn’t have any of yuh Pommies in that war. Yuh don’t know what it was like, and if I told yuh he was screaming like an injured rabbit part of the time …’ He took a step towards me, leaning his face close again and gripping my arm. ‘Wot’s Garrety doing down that mine? Now come on, be fair. Either he’s mad, like his father, or he’s trying to cover something up. They never found Mcllroy’s body, did they?’
‘You don’t really care what happened to him.’ I said it harshly. It was the Monster, of course. It was Mcllroy’s Monster that had brought him here, the will o’ the wisp lure of a mountain of copper. It had to be. And Westrop looking at me with a little smile and saying, ‘No, I guess you’re right. I don’t give a damn. But that doesn’t mean …‘He was interrupted by the rattle of the beaded fly screen and he turned, his body blocking my view. ‘Did yuh find him?’ he asked. And another voice answered, ‘Sure I did. But getting it out of him wasn’t so easy. Like Wolli said, he’s a bit gone in the head.’
Westrop moved then and I saw it was Lennie, the wrinkled mummified face cracking in a grin as he looked across at me. ‘So you’re back eh? I told Phil you would be.’