Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (16 page)

Meg had told her once that the pastor Luke Vinson did not pray, either. That surprised the daylights out of Samantha until Meg went on to say, “But he talks to God frequently and intimately.” Ridiculous. The good pastor was surely pulling the wool over his own eyes if he thought that. He was flummoxing himself just as Samantha had talked herself into believing that a pillow really does alleviate the discomfort of riding. If God existed at all, He was up there and we were all down here—hardly good positioning for intimate conversation.

Perhaps God did exist. Perhaps He did extend himself to the aid of His followers who were good and therefore deserving of His attention. That certainly wasn’t Samantha. Everyone called her good. Even Byron Vickers today had used the word in reference to her. But she wasn’t.

If she were truly good she would not be lost in the middle of nowhere—a very dangerous nowhere—on the brink of a sleepless, uncomfortable night. She would have handled the Amena/Vickers thing differently and much better. She would take a strong, moral stand instead of meekly trotting along behind Mr. Sloan, whatever he did. She would not berate Linnet so constantly, or find fault with Meg. She would not so eagerly back Mr. Sloan up as he trampled on human dignity and just plain did wrong.

No. In no way did she merit God’s approval or deserve His help, if indeed He offered help. In fact, if deserts were at issue here, she probably deserved exactly what she was getting. And she was cast on her own resources, which were nil—no God, no leprechauns, no hill palaces, certainly no bright lights or merriment in this dark and dripping gloom.

Treetops rustled high above her. Large somethings were crawling clumsily about in the upper branches of the tall trees. They were grotesque creatures that changed form as they moved, bobbing, from limb to limb. But banshees were merely a figment of the fertile Irish national imagination—weren’t they?

Someone coughed in the forest beyond. Coughed?! Four feet high, a small blue head moved by dots and dashes through the undergrowth just ahead. It paused. It stepped out from between dark green bushes. It was a bird, rather like an ostrich. A tall helmet sort of plate perched on its naked head. Dark hairy feathers covered its blob of a body. And those stout feet—it stopped to stare at Samantha. With surprising grace and silence for such a bulky bird, it slipped back into the forest.

Cassowary. That’s what it was—a bird she herself had once cooked. Tough. Tasteless. But the bird dropped summarily outside her kitchen door had no head or legs. So that was what the whole creature looked like!

Something fell from above and plopped at her feet. It was a prune pit of some sort, the fruit meat all eaten off it. Those amorphous somethings away up there were eating fruit and throwing the pits at her!

She must go on; she couldn’t spend the night here. She snatched up the bicycle, that infernal bicycle, and started forward. Would she never find a railroad grade? She doubted now she had ever really heard such a thing as a train whistle.

On sudden impulse she called out. The somethings in the treetops shuffled and flittered like giant bats. She cried out again, as loudly as she could muster. A pause … again.
How stupid! You’re taking leave of your senses, Sam lass. The first step on the short road to madness. Get hold of yourself!
She shouted “ouch!” involuntarily when a pedal came winging around and slammed into her leg. Just as she thought her situation could get no worse, it was rapidly deteriorating.

The bicycle stopped so abruptly it pulled her off balance. Now what? It was getting too dark to see well. Her skirt hem was caught in the bicycle somehow. She let the machine down and groped in the gloom. The chain that linked pedal to back wheel—it had just eaten her skirt. She tugged. Nothing. The chain would not give, her skirt would not tear, the bicycle would not move.

She sat in the wet slop in dire need of a good cry, but she was simply too tired to muster tears. She should curl up right here and try to get some sleep. Wait until morning and better light, then try to make the bicycle chain disgorge her skirt hem. Soft rustling on the trail ahead changed her mind instantly.

What was it this time? Another impossible-looking bird? More yard-wide amorphous somethings? Some eerie aboriginal myth-monster that really existed after all and absolutely adored devouring innocent maidens?

She shouted, “Go away! Shoo! Scat!”

The forest dripped silence.

She pulled her knees up and crossed her arms upon them to provide a prop for her weary head. She thought of what Amena had found, and what Meg was apparently finding, and how she herself was so totally, abysmally alone.

The rain had ended long ago, and the leaves were about done shedding water, but Samantha was as soaking wet as ever—rain and sweat both. She’d mildew before she got out of this horrid wilderness. She tugged again at her skirt hem. Stuck. And night was here. In moments she would no longer be able to see her white blouse, let alone her black skirt.

Frustrated beyond words, she screamed the sort of tantrum-level shriek she had not indulged in since childhood. She pounded with both fists on the stupid bicycle and bent another spoke.

“Can’t be all that bad, surely.”

Samantha screamed again, but this one was fear.

The voice surely belonged to the dark form on the trail ahead. Matching sound to sight, Samantha guessed it to be an older white man, bearded, somewhat stocky and paunchy, wearing a broad-brimmed hat of some sort. He hadn’t bathed for a while.

The form stepped up closer. “Heard your cooee and thought I’d come see who it was.”

“Heard me coo—what?”

“Cooee. Shout. Call.”

“Aye. Of course. Be there perchance a railroad grade near?”

“Very near. You ’spect to call in a train maybe?”

“’Twas hoping to dispel some of the many frightening wild things about.” She glanced upward, half expecting the huge amorphous somethings to start throwing fruit pits again, but leaves and darkness painted the overhead a uniform black. She would refrain from mentioning that this strange man was one of the frightening wild things she worried about.

A sulphur match flared as the fellow lighted a candle. He knelt close and held the candle near her. His bushy moustache reminded her a bit of Papa, and some of her fear faded. How ridiculous!
Fie, Sam! You cannot trust him. Can you not feel the menacing air about him, a strangeness?

“Never heard of such a thing. One of them bicycle doovers. Out here beyond Woop Woop.” The bushy head wagged. This man was just as hirsute as Byron Vickers, and yet he in no way gave her the impression of a bear. Perhaps it was the glistening gray in his sideburns and beard. “Stuck in it, eh?”

“Aye.” She scooted a bit to give him room.

He studied the chain and the cogged metal wheel, waving the candle slowly here and there. “Hold this here.” He thrust the candle into her hand.

She would have cautioned him that the bicycle was not hers and must not be further damaged, but it somehow didn’t seem to matter anymore.

He produced an absolutely giant knife with a blade the size of a butcher knife. He poked at the chain. “Closer with the light, eh?”

Obediently she twisted around to hold the candle low. It dripped wax on the cogged wheel. With the tip of his knife he popped some little thing. The chain fell apart and he lifted it away. She pulled her skirt hem free. At last. She climbed to her feet slowly, for she was very, very stiff.

He coiled the chain and stuffed it in a pocket. “Put it back on when you can see. Less you want to ride it some more.”

“Nae, I’ve ridden it quite enough for one day, thank ye.”

He retrieved his candle and blew it out. The dark seemed darker. He picked up the whole bicycle in one smooth handful and set it on its wheels. The man was amazingly strong for one so gray. “So you’re headed for the railroad. I’ll walk along with you awhile if you like. Had a partner once, out fossicking. Irishman, talked the same as yourself. Irish?”

“Aye, County Cork. Working for a plantation owner in Mossman.”

“Railroad’s not gonna take you to Mossman, missy.”

“‘Twill go to Cairns, will it not, or somewhere close?”

“That it will.” Despite the dark this fellow was able to walk comfortably along the muddy track. Ridiculously, the bicycle seemed to behave better for him. He gripped it in the middle of its handlebars and by sheer force of arm made it come along smartly. “Where in Mossman?”

“Sugarlea.”

The bushy face studied her in the gathering gloom. “Sloan.”

“Aye. Ye know him?”

“By name and odor. Never met him.”

Samantha could see nothing, but this man was moving along at a normal pace. He wasn’t bumping into anything, so he must be able to see something in the blackness. She ought to get a conversation going, or at least introduce herself. She dropped back a pace and reached out to put a hand on the bicycle seat. She felt much better touching something actual in this world of shifting shadows and palpable darkness. More flummoxing of the mind.

They slipped and slid along in silence, and he seemed not at all inclined to talk. Samantha finally began a conversation just to be polite. “Foss—ye were what, did ye say?”

“Fossicking. Seeking minerals. Digging.”

“Ah. Be nae such in Ireland. Nae even coal that anyone’s found.”

“Australia’s rich, lass, rich as can be. Gold and silver, and I’ll wager only the least of it’s been found so far. Tried some of the strikes myself, here and there. Fitzroy River was a little before my time, but Charter’s Towers. Croydon. Gympie down south by Brisbane. Woulda wandered over to Kalgoorlie when they struck there ten years back, but it’s too far. I’m an old man to be chasing dreams out beyond the black stump.”

The sky turned gray suddenly; they had emerged from the forest.

“Anywhere in particular along the railroad?”

“Nae. The grade be good enough.”

“Then here you are.” He let go the bicycle so abruptly that it nearly pulled Samantha over; she gripped the seat with both hands. He reached in his pocket. “And the chain and the clip what holds it. You’ll see easy enough how it goes on, come daylight.”

“Wait!” She let the bicycle fall and snatched at the darkness. She caught his sleeve. “Er, me name be Samantha Connolly, at your service, sir.” She extended her hand.

His huge warm paw wrapped around her hand, and she could feel the strength in it, even though he didn’t squeeze hard, as some do. “Abner Gardell. If you mention me to Sloan, tell him you were talking to McGonigan’s old partner.”

“I shall. Tell me: how’d ye happen so far out here, that ye could come to me aid?”

“Live out here.” His voice dropped to a rumble and she could not tell if he were explaining something very dear to his heart or feeding her a merry line. “Seeking the biggest gold strike in Australia’s history. This here’s the new Ballarat. It’s right here; I’m certain of it. Y’see, quite a few years back—near forty years—some miners found a reef in these hills …”

“A reef. A vein of gold.”

“A rich lode.” The gray head bobbed in the darkness. “And they marked the way to it with a boulder—a rock about this high. I find the boulder, I’ll find the lode. Keeps me healthy and honest, the search does.” He chuckled in the hot and humid darkness. “You’re a good woman, Samantha Connolly, to keep your courage up like this. G’night now, and God bless.”

“And yourself, sir. Thank ye so very much for—”

But he dissolved in the gloom, gone like the steam from a teakettle.

The wet steel rails glistened in the gray sky light; she could see them lose themselves in curves in both directions. She could hear a river, too, though she could not see it. It must wind its way through the trees alongside the tracks. She climbed the weedy bank and stepped with her battered bicycle onto the grade.

She settled onto the seat. The disconnected pedals didn’t operate the bicycle, but neither did they swat her in the ankles. Perhaps … Experimentally, she pushed with one foot, then the other. It bumped dreadfully on the ties until she got a little speed up and the ride smoothed out somewhat. Rough and choppy as it was, it was faster and easier than walking—especially walking while dragging the bicycle along. The front wheel made a rapid tictictictic sound—the broken spokes, no doubt.

She stopped suddenly. The bicycle bumpbumpbumped to a halt. A rock. A boulder this high. Sudden doubt engulfed her. When she sat down to rest there—when the amorphous somethings threw pits at her—what did she sit down on? It was moss covered. But she could not for the life of her remember whether it was an old rotting stump or—

—or a boulder this high.

Chapter Thirteen

Obsession

What a mess. What a royal mess!
For the hundredth time, Luke Vinson berated himself violently for his foolishness. He should have known why those energetic little boys were romping around so cautiously. Even if they didn’t, he should have known….

Hindsight. Would that his foresight were one tenth as good as his hindsight. Luke snickered. Were man’s foresight that good, the children of Israel wouldn’t have suffered all the problems that came of their departures from the straight and narrow. He certainly wasn’t alone in foolishness, when one views the cataclysms of history.

He studied himself in the mirror and tried to decide how to shave the blond stubble emerging from the coral cuts on his face. Prudently, he withdrew the razor. Hudson Taylor, Dwight L. Moody, Chinese Gordon—the giants of the faith—all sported beards. Actually, he wasn’t certain about Gordon, but the bushes on the other chins made up for any lack. The matter was decided. He would let comfort rule the day.

His left arm and shoulder still seeped. How long did Burriwi say it took to heal? Forever? And the little shark didn’t even taste all that good.

Someone knocked and he recognized the light touch. He really should cover up this mess before opening the door. If she saw his arm in this condition …

“One moment! I’m coming.” Cautiously, gingerly, he pulled on the baggiest shirt in his clothes press. It set fire to every square inch of torn hide that it touched. He buttoned his way across the parlor and stuffed in his shirttail just before he reached the latch. Satisfied in mind if not in body, he swung open the door.