“Yes,” said Morwenna. “I owe a lot to Ben. The way he rode through the night to Dr. Field. I should have lost my baby but for that.” Her eyes closed with horror at the thought. “But he went … that way … through the night … And then letting me stay here. When I try to thank him he won’t listen. He says it was nothing. Anyone would have done it. I wish I could repay him.”
“His repayment is to see you and the baby well and happy here.”
“I wish he could get that land he is trying to buy.”
“You mean Morley’s land?”
“Morley is obstinate. He’s afraid Ben would start mining there and he just wants it for cattle. Justin told me about it. Morley is a stubborn man.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I wonder if Ben will get it in the end.”
“Ben is determined and so is Morley. When you get two men like that you never know what will happen … except that it is Mr. Morley who owns the land, and if he won’t give it up then Ben can’t succeed in getting it. Mr. Morley thinks that everyone ought to go back to the towns and earn what he calls a decent living and stop scrabbling in the dust for what isn’t there.”
“But you see, once it was and some found it. Think of all those lovely houses in Melbourne.”
“Yes,” said Morwenna. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to go home?”
“Yes,” I said fervently, “it would.”
After leaving Morwenna in her comfortable surroundings, the shack seemed particularly uninviting. No matter how one tried it was impossible to keep the place clean. The dust blew in and covered everything.
I thought that the men at least had the excitement of hope with every shovelful that was brought up and washed in the stream because it might contain what they sought. That would keep them going. For the women there was nothing but the daily chores—the unpalatable food to prepare, the preservation of the precious water.
I said to myself: I will not endure this any longer. There were times when I felt like going to Ben and saying: You promised to take me away from this. Take me home and I will come with you.
No. That would make it seem like a bargain. But it was not only the prospect of going home; I wanted to be with Ben. I knew he had this ambition, this lust for gold which I deplored; and yet it made no difference to my feelings for him.
Then One-Eye and Cassidy came back to the township.
They rode in at midday; the men were all working on their patches; the women were in the shacks. There was a certain midday peace over the town.
And then they came. A shout went up. The men left their work; the women came out of the shacks. They crowded round to hear the news.
One-Eye and Cassidy were triumphant. They had found their gold. They had it with them. And they had found David Skelling, too. With him was his horse—a skeleton of a horse.
“He was lying out there where we found him,” said Cassidy. “Not more than fifty miles from here. His horse was still alive … wouldn’t leave him.”
One-Eye patted the animal. “We’ll feed him. We’ll put him to rights,” he said. “It was through him we found Skelling.”
Everyone was firing questions at them and they were only too ready to tell their story. But the horse had to be fed. One-Eye and Cassidy wanted him looked after before they would sit down. They owed their find to him and they were men who paid their debts. The horse was going to be given royal treatment. He was theirs from now on.
We crowded into the saloon. One-Eye and Cassidy sat down and ate meat pies and drank ale with relish.
And then they told their story.
They had gone off in search of Skelling. “Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Cassidy. “We was hopping mad, wasn’t we, One-Eye? There was one thing we had in mind … what we was going to do to that cheating little thief. There wasn’t nothing too bad for him. We was going to string him up. We was going to let him die by inches. All this time it took … and him not more than fifty miles away. He was always a fool, Skelling was. I don’t know where he was trying to make for … Walloo perhaps … and get on from there. He thought the first place we’d look was Melbourne. He was right there. We did. Made inquiries. No one had seen him. So we knew he hadn’t gone there to try to place the nuggets. So we came back. We’d almost given up hope, hadn’t we, One-Eye?”
One-Eye said they had.
“Then,” went on Cassidy, “when we was almost back and reckoned we’d have to start digging again, we saw the horse. There he was standing by the body of Skelling. Know what had happened? He was just starved to death. He’d tried eating grass. There was stains on his face. The buzzards would soon have made short work of him, I reckon … when they got wind of him. But there he was. Must have been dead a few days. So we didn’t get him alive.”
One-Eye nodded.
Arthur Bowles said: “And he’s still lying there?”
“Yes,” said One-Eye.
Cassidy added: “Seeing him like that … made us sort of glad that we wasn’t the ones to have to take revenge. We was glad it had been done for us. I don’t know … funny how you change. We found our gold on him … some on his belt … some in his pockets … We’ve found every single bit … haven’t we, One-Eye?”
“Yes,” affirmed One-Eye, “every single bit.”
“It makes you think,” went on Cassidy. “A man’s dead and gone for good, ain’t he? And once he’s gone you feel different about what you’re going to do. Me and One-Eye wants to get a coffin made for him and we’re going out to get him and bring him back. We’re going to give him a burial here … and then we’re going home. And we’re never going to let that gold leave our sight again, are we, One-Eye? Not till we get to Melbourne, get it weighed up and all that has to be done.”
There was little work done that day. Everyone was talking about the way they had found poor old Skelling who was now dead.
Poor old Skelling, they said. He had never had a chance. They sent him out for seven years when he was little more than a boy and he had lived hard ever since. He hadn’t even had that little bit of luck which had come to most people at some time. Poor old Skelling.
True to their word, One-Eye and Cassidy made their coffin. They took the buggy with them and went out and brought Skelling home.
The parson was summoned from Walloo and there was a burial service; and outside the town where a few graves already existed, old Skelling was laid to rest.
The entire incident made me feel more eager than ever to go home.
It was just after the funeral when Ben asked me to ride with him because he must talk to me.
We went out to that spot near the creek, and we tethered our horses and sat down.
He said: “How long are we going on like this?”
I replied: “I suppose something will happen. It usually does.”
“It won’t unless we make it. Listen to me, Angel. Are you going to spend your life in this place?”
“God forbid.”
“Do you think Gervaise is ever going to find gold? Enough to make him give up?”
“No … not really. I don’t think anyone will. I know somebody did and started all this. It was a pity. I wish the gold had stayed where it was and nobody knew about it.”
“You can’t go on living like this, Angel.”
“I have felt that.”
“Have you told Gervaise how you feel about it?”
I nodded.
“And he said, ‘We’ll strike gold soon and then we’ll go home,’ eh? Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“He won’t find it.”
“Why not? One-Eye and Cassidy did.”
“And suppose he did? What would he do? Go home? It would be gone in a few weeks. Then would you be persuaded to come out and start all over again?”