Authors: Traci Harding
‘You knew my father and my grandfather?’ Zoe was overwhelmed at the opportunity to have some questions answered.
‘Do you remember a guy named Timothy Burke?’ Kyle jumped in, also excited by this unforeseen source of information.
‘Why of course I do,’ Charlie stated. ‘He was the one James Nivok was trying to frame for the murder of Miss Nivok’s parents.’
Zoe gasped. ‘I was never told that murder was suspected. I was told my parents died in a car accident.’
‘
Trying
to frame, you say?’ Kyle queried. ‘You didn’t believe the charge against Burke then?’
Charlie thought back. ‘Tim was a really nice fellow. He was smart. He had a beautiful wife, a promising career and a kid on the way … now why would a man like that suddenly become a murderer?’ Charlie asked, and there was quiet for a moment while they pondered the answer.
‘We should talk en route,’ Charlie suggested. ‘If I’m not home by the time the missus gets back from bowls, I’ll be in strife.’
‘Now we’re in the woods,’ Tim told Matthew as he paid the cab driver.
Matt gazed at the parched fields, with forest and mountains beyond, raising both eyebrows to concede Tim was right. It had taken a bus, a couple of trains, another bus and a cab to finally get them here, so Matt was mighty pleased to be in the woods.
‘Are you sure you want to be left here?’ The cab driver thought he’d best warn them. ‘Most of this land is privately owned, but blackfellas still frequent the area, especially at night, so it pays to keep a gun handy.’
Matt couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, and Tim certainly didn’t take kindly to the implication.
‘Those blackfellas are my family,’ Tim crouched low to enlighten the driver inside the cab, ‘and it’s your kind I keep a gun for.’ Tim reached inside his bag, which compelled the cab driver to put his foot down and the car tore off up the road. ‘Some things never change.’ He turned to Matt. ‘I don’t really have a gun.’
‘I do,’ Matt grinned, patting his bag. ‘It’s Nivok’s.’
This boast amused Tim. ‘You and I really do have to have a long chat, Mr Ryan.’
To avoid being identified by association, Tim and Matt had travelled the same route, but had mostly kept their distance from each other. That way, if one of them was spotted, the other might still have a chance to avoid capture.
‘You have no idea how happy I —’ Matt was suddenly dragged off to the side of the road into some bushes. ‘What?’
Tim pointed to the four-wheel drive vehicle headed along the road towards them.
‘No one could possibly have followed our trail, Tim.’ Matt thought him paranoid. ‘
I
don’t even know where we were half the time!’
‘Sh,’ Tim requested. The vehicle pulled into the same rest area the cab had used to drop them off, and the driver’s door opened.
‘So that’s it. Mount Turrammelin.’ Zoe climbed out of the car to admire the mountain in the distance and stretch her legs.
‘Zoe!’ Matt stood and when Zoe turned around, he released a howl of laughter and triumph. ‘How the hell did you do that?’
‘Matt!’ She ran and pounced to hug him. ‘I was so worried!’ She laughed and cried at once. ‘My uncle has you up on kidnapping charges!’
‘So we discovered when I picked Tim up,’ Matt informed her, ‘but he got us away without even scratching your car. It’s in the shopping mall car park not far from the jail, if you’re looking for it.’
‘The police already found it,’ Zoe told him. ‘I heard on the radio.’ Zoe looked at Tim who, despite his rugged informal attire and his greying, shoulder length, straggly dark hair, seemed to be a rather distinguished and fit fellow. He had a handsome face, and a small beard and moustache which only added to his air of integrity. No matter how she tried, Zoe could not see this man as the murderer of her parents. ‘We sure had to go to a lot of trouble to finally meet.’ Zoe held her hand out to Tim.
‘That which is destined cannot be prevented by mortal man,’ he announced and shook her hand gladly.
‘Where’s our hero?’ Matt looked back to find Kyle had slid himself out of the car and was now leaning against it for support.
‘Champion!’ Kyle gave Matt the thumbs up for not getting caught, and although he was glad to see his friend he couldn’t take his eyes off Timothy Burke.
This is my father.
The words were resounding in his mind.
Will he know me? I think not.
‘Kyle, this is Tim,’ Matt introduced them, having noticed Kyle’s interest in their new companion.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Tim moved to shake Kyle’s hand. ‘Any enemy of Nivok’s is a friend of mine.’ But as Tim got closer his pace slowed; Kyle almost heard the penny as it dropped in the man’s mind.
‘How’s it going?’ He shook Tim’s hand, pretending not to notice the stunned look on his face.
Maybe he does know me?
The notion that his father might have been watching him from afar warmed him inside, for it was clear that something was going down in Tim’s mind. ‘We were hoping you might be able to tell us what Nivok has got planned for this land.’
‘I can,’ Tim seemed to snap out of his daze, ‘but the side of the road is not really the place.’
‘Is there a road that way?’ Zoe pointed to the mountain.
‘This is as close as it gets,’ Tim said. ‘We used to four-wheel drive it many years ago, but there are wire fences further afoot and the gates are kept locked these days — your uncle’s attempt to keep the locals from their sacred waterhole on the far side of the mountain.’
‘Not a problem. We’ll just go through the fences,’ Zoe shrugged, as she headed for the car. ‘After all, they are mine.’
‘Yeehah!’ Matt cheered her on, and proceeded to haul his gear over to the vehicle. ‘Break down the walls … I like the sound of that!’ Matt unpacked his camera and threw the rest of his belongings in the back. ‘That ought to be worth shooting.’
‘I’m beginning to suspect our girl is some sort of undercover superhero,’ Kyle advised his mate. ‘Zoe flew us most of the way up here. That’s how we got here so quick.’
Matt was a little amazed and then grinned. ‘Sounds like you had an infinitely better travel agent than we did.’
‘And an infinitely bigger budget,’ Tim added from the back seat. ‘Did you use cash to get here?’
‘Yep.’ Zoe planted herself in the driver’s seat.
‘And fake ID,’ Kyle added.
‘My, my, you are organised.’ Tim looked at Zoe, impressed. ‘Did you already suspect your uncle of foul play?’
‘Not until this week,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve just learnt to listen to my inner voice, which doesn’t seem to trust my uncle as much as the conscious me does. Better safe than sorry.’
Kyle, intrigued by her answer, had wandered around to the open passenger-side door. ‘Perhaps your parents are still watching out for you?’
‘No perhaps about it,’ Tim responded and Kyle felt that there was a subtle message in that statement for him too.
Zoe turned in her seat to view Tim. ‘You knew my parents well?’
‘Well enough to get them killed.’ Remorse was evident on his face as memories flooded his mind. ‘I was the unsuspecting cause of their death, but I was not their murderer.’
‘I didn’t think that you were.’ Zoe forced a smile as she put on her sunglasses to hide her tears. Once Matt was settled in the back, Kyle managed to drag his damaged body into the front passenger seat and Zoe started the engine. ‘Let’s explore!’ The car accelerated over an embankment and flew onto the flat land that led to Mount Turrammelin.
They managed to arrive at the sacred waterhole of Turrammelin mountain in one piece, surprisingly.
‘Wow!’ Zoe bounded out of the car. ‘That was so liberating.’ She was on a high after ramming her vehicle through the wire fence, and was jumping up and down in an attempt to expel some of the adrenaline rush.
‘For some, maybe.’ Kyle stumbled out of the car, nursing his wound.
‘Oh, you poor chook.’ Zoe galloped over to see if she could make him feel better, but Kyle held up a hand to defend himself.
‘I’ll be fine until you mellow,’ he reassured her. His eyes came to settle on her breasts. ‘Feel free to continue jumping about though.’
‘Yep, off you go,’ Matt encouraged, coming to stand beside Kyle with his camera rolling, at which point Zoe acted coy.
‘Dammit, can’t a girl have any fun without being perved at?’ As both lads shook their heads, Zoe rolled her eyes and strolled off to take in the scenery. ‘Typical.’
Tim followed her towards the waterhole. ‘You want to see why Nivok wants this place so badly?’ He glanced back to see Kyle and Matt both nod in the affirmative. ‘Then follow.’
‘He’s rather intense, isn’t he?’ Kyle whispered to Matt, interested to hear his impression of Tim.
‘A bit like someone else I know,’ commented Matt, as he obediently fell in behind his travelling companion.
Matt’s comparison was heartwarming to Kyle. He
was
like his father.
At the pool, Tim stripped to his trousers and dived straight in.
Zoe squealed as she was suddenly sprayed with cold water. Still, it brought cool relief from the humid heat of the day and she was tempted to dive in herself.
Kyle looked about at the trees … infinitely smaller and less abundant than what he recalled from seeing this same place on the mental realm of awareness.
I’m afraid the Nivoks destroyed much of this place a long time ago.
He could certainly now understand what his mother had meant by this, but the falls were awe-inspiring nonetheless. The otherworldly guardians of nature were much harder for Kyle to spot in the physical realm. Yet, when he concentrated hard enough, focusing on his third-eye area, the entities could be vaguely made out as a shadow on a branch, a movement of a rock, a dance of light on the water, or the soaring force behind a sudden burst of wind.
‘Do you think Tim meant we were to follow him in?’ Matt queried, filming the spot where Tim had submerged.
‘God, I hope not.’ Kyle sat himself down on a warm rock.
‘He’s certainly taking his time.’ Zoe was starting to worry. ‘Do you think there’re crocs in there?’ She took a step back from the edge.
Matt lowered his camera, starting to entertain the idea that he might have to dive in after Tim. ‘He couldn’t possibly have held his breath for this long.’
Kyle stood up. Surely creation was not so cruel as to take his father from him now. Were a few hours all they would have together?
‘Bubbles.’ Zoe pointed to the still water beyond the falls, where Tim finally surfaced and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
‘That must be some sort of record,’ Matt shouted out as Tim swam closer, clutching something in his fist.
‘Are there crocs in there?’ Zoe wanted to know.
‘Nope.’ Tim replied.
‘It’s freshwater. Are you sure?’
‘Very sure.’
‘How could you be sure?’
‘I’m not dead, am I?’ Tim climbed out of the water and planted a large rock in her hand.
It was pretty clear what the rock was composed of. ‘This is a solid gold nugget,’ Zoe decided as she tried to break off bits with her fingers, but the rock proved too tough.
‘This is literally a mountain of gold,’ Tim informed her. ‘The locals have always known this and your uncle strongly suspects that he’s on to a gold mine here.’
‘That would seem to explain the big fence to keep the locals out,’ Kyle supposed, ‘but I don’t understand why Nivok didn’t mine it sooner.’
‘Well, he couldn’t,’ Tim said. ‘When Zoe’s parents died they left all their worldly possessions to Zoe, along with this piece of land. The courts decreed that although James Nivok was Zoe’s trustee, he could not mine the land on her behalf — even though the government of Queensland had granted him a mineral development licence in the hope that a full scale mining lease would follow, along with much revenue. The judge decided that your uncle had the option to keep renewing his licence until such time as Zoe came into her inheritance and sold him the land, or gave him permission to proceed with his investigation.’
‘Permission which he requested a few days ago,’ Zoe summed up. ‘Did my parents know about this? I mean, how did my uncle manage to get a mineral development licence on a piece of land my parents inherited?’
‘From what I understand, after Halifax died and left that piece of land to your father, James tricked his brother into getting an exploration permit. When his plan was discovered, James lied to your father, saying he planned to surprise him if they had had any positive results from the survey. Your father did not take legal action against his brother, but he probably should have. I was the geologist who worked on that exploration survey and when I reported my findings, James and your father, David, had a distinct disagreement about what should happen next.’ Tim wrung out his trousers, as best he could with them still on his body. ‘You see, once your father learnt James was carrying out a mineral survey, your father hired a botanist to do an environmental impact study at the same time. She had actually been applying for permission to do an environmental report on the area for years, and David figured it was an apt time to give her the go-ahead.’
‘Wasn’t she the woman you eventually married?’ Matt asked Tim, having read something about that in Tim’s file.
Tim nodded. ‘The same month I met her.’ He forced a smile but said no more.
‘Do you mind me asking what her interest in this land was?’ Zoe requested cautiously.
‘Her interest was ancestral,’ Tim replied. ‘For her grandmother’s people, this mountain, and the waterhole, were sacred male ground and all the descendants of her family group are bound to protect and honour it.’
‘There’s no native title claim against this land, is there?’ Zoe wondered if this was something else her uncle had failed to tell her.
Tim shook his head. ‘Those rights were destroyed over a century ago, when this land was sold by the government to the Nivoks as a freehold estate. However, no mortal law can release the Indigenous people of this land from their obligation to the spirits of the Dreamtime, who created this earth for them.’