Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (25 page)

Gantry was a strong man and wildly angry, but not nearly as enraged as Cole. Cole had that edge, that advantage. Suddenly he knew he was going to win. He didn’t guess; he knew it, and pressed the attack all the more furiously.

He must put Gantry away quickly, for Dakin was surely right behind him. Fat chance; he was getting as good as he gave, fists and knees both. For a big man, Gantry could duck and feint with the best of them.

Gantry knocked him reeling against the front wagon wheel so hard he didn’t feel the blow. Through the fog he saw Gantry’s hulk coming at him. Cole twisted aside just in time as a massive fist hit the brake bar
whank
! and Gantry roared.

It was all but over. Cole pressed forward swinging. He got a few back, but nothing really effectual. And now Gantry had both arms up, protecting his head, as he yelled something penitent. Mercy be hanged! Cole slammed a hard one into the man’s belly and put his knee solidly where it did the most damage. Then when the arms involuntarily relaxed he punched that filthy, presumptuous face until the drongo collapsed like wet rags in the dirt.

Cole wheeled. Dakin … ?

The burly mill hand lay face down in the dirt, his big cane knife still under his limp hand. Sam’s dainty foot darted forward and kicked the knife aside, beyond reach. Sam. Sam! Cole stared, incredulous. She was sucking in air in great choking sobs. Whether in fear or anger Cole couldn’t tell. Her bloody nose was making a mess of what was once a crisp white blouse … not a bit ladylike. But Cole would have been chopped like ripe cane had she remained a lady. She stood over the inert Dakin with her weapon, a singletree still gripped in her two hands.

The grip loosened a bit as her hands began to shake. She watched Dakin a moment longer, then let the singletree fall from her grip. She covered her face with both hands and began sobbing in earnest.

One of the mill hands stood over Gantry, wagging his head. “Done like a dinner. And lookit the brake bar—he bent it!” The man stepped back and shot Cole an admiring grin. “’Twas a moral certainty ye weren’t gonna come out on toppa this’n. What a ripper!”

Cole glared from face to face. “You people attending the theater or drawing pay? You”—he pointed at the mill hand—“hitch her horse back up.”

The man leaped to the task with an enthusiasm usually reserved for quitting time. He snatched up the singletree and called for help to get the horse back in position. The gallery of spectators disbanded itself by ones and twos and threes.

Cole crossed to Sam and hoped nobody noticed that he was a little wobbly and close to collapsing. Not knowing just what to do, he simply wrapped his arms around her. She melted against him.

Her lovely red-brown hair tickled his chin as she spoke. “I tried to un … to unhook … the singletree—even before he … he pulled out that knife. But … the horse kept … kept jerking it.” She swallowed a couple times and lifted her head. Those marvelous eyes …”You look terrible.”

“Same to you.” Was this the time? Yes. “Sam, I owe you an apology—for even thinking you might’ve invited Gantry. I’m sorry. Very sorry.” He let his arms turn her loose and regretted having to do it. “Let’s go home.”

She nodded numbly and started wiping off her face with her sleeve. It didn’t make much difference to the blouse anymore. She let him give her a hand into the box, and she scooted over to make room. She knew Gypsy would not only be back in her stall by now, but unsaddled. He pulled himself up by sheer force of will and settled in beside Sam. The mill hand gave him the lines and even sorted them for him.

All the way back to Sugarlea her warm body pressed against him, pressed harder each time the wagon jiggled. Sam. He thought a lot about Wiggins’ heady joy. He thought of his own unspeakable fury when Gantry dared try to possess what was his, bought and paid for. But was that all she was? A possession? A few months ago he would have said yes. Now, though …

What was it he told Wiggins? He hadn’t found a girl like Mum yet? Truth was, he wasn’t looking for a girl like Mum. Mum loved parties and teas and balls and riding in her finery behind a team of high-steppers around Mrs. Macquarie’s Point. Mum fainted dead away at the sight of blood. Mum would never in a million years find the presence of mind to unhook a singletree, let alone get into a fight with it.

No. This wasn’t Mum. This was better. Just maybe he had found the girl.

Chapter Twenty

Encounters With History

Samantha balanced her tray on one arm, rapped on Mr. Sloan’s office door and entered unbidden. “Tea and sandwiches, sir.”

“Bring an extra cup for yourself?”

“As ye mentioned, sir, and I thank ye.”

“Ever use one of those typewriters?”

“Me sisters have, Meg especially. She’s proficient at it—employed thus back home. Don’t know that meself would be coordinated enough.” Sam set out his plate of sandwiches, cup and napkin.

“Looks like I’m going to have to give in and go mechanical here in the office, too. Only businessman around, just about, who stills writes it out.”

“Secretaries cost quite a penny, aye?” She poured.

“Not if I use Meg.” He sniggered. “You know, if much more happens to your nose, you’re going to have to trade it for a new one.”

“Eh, the swelling’s gone down a bit.” Samantha settled in the wingback chair with her cup of tea. “Burriwi stopped by the kitchen asking for tucker. Said something strange about how whitefeller food makes him smell but he’d like some anyway. I gave him a joint of beef and those squash. Yerself voiced a certain resistance, ye’ll recall, at seeing so
much
squash at meals.”

“What’s he say?”

“He’s been up in the forest. Yer Mr. Gardell be there still and seems to be paying closer attention—looking nae so much for gold as at Sugarlea.” She cleared her throat. Then she went on. “Me curiosity be me worst vice. Who is he, Mr. Sloan?”

“I’ve never met him. Heard of him indirectly a couple times. He’s the son of my father’s former partner, Winston Gardell. Win, my own father Conal, and a Clancy McGonigan were together.”

“Wait …” Samantha frowned. “He called himself McGonigan’s partner. He’s old, but nae near old enough, for yer father’s surely of another generation.”

“Let’s see if I can keep the dates straight. They met in 1850 and went over to California together. America. Gold rush there. Earned barely enough to get a boat home again. Minute they got back they went to Ballarat, where the gold boom was just getting started. Win married but spent more time chasing gold than staying home. Abner was born a couple years later. His father died when he was just a toddler.”

“Winston, ye mean.”

He nodded. “Cave-in. Foully assisted, some say. McGonigan sort of took over responsibility for the mother and child—sent money, dropped by now and then. When Abner was twelve, McGonigan took him in as a full partner—over my father’s objections.”

“Surely he couldn’t be harboring hatred for that.”

Mr. Sloan shrugged. “You spend all those years scratching around in the bush, your mind does funny things. McGonigan died soon after, which took care of the partnership. My father brought his body out, but the boy disappeared. Not too long ago I heard someone mention the name, and I recognized it. So I knew he was alive, and apparently around Cairns. Then you ran into him.”

Samantha wagged her head. “So many who sought gold found death instead. Here. America. That affair in Ballarat. All over. In a way, Erin’s blessed that she has nae precious minerals.”

“Oh, Papa found his gold, all right. How do you think he financed Sugarlea? Built the plantation?”

Samantha laughed suddenly. “I cannae imagine that! In Erin the farms and the hamlets and cities have always been. Ireland be almost like God—nae beginning and nae end. I cannae conceive of starting a farm from naething; change a boundary, mayhap, or a dry stone fence, but nae a whole farm.”

“Cairns was built as a staging area for the gold boom inland—in sixty-seven, I think. Brand new town and looking down at the heels already.”

Samantha counted. “Thirty-eight years old. A whole city only ten years older’n meself! Ye have a history, Mr. Sloan, but ’tis such a short one. Me own native city? Why, Cork was old when the Vikings rowed ashore, and that was a thousand years ago. More.”

He poured himself a refill. “Cairns and Cork. Whether their history is marked in hours or millennia makes no difference. They’re both here now, and that’s all that matters. It’s the now I’m concerned with. History doesn’t affect me, and I’m not the least bit interested in it.”

“Eh, nae, sir. We be carried along on our history—’tis a part of us—we be enslaved to it and never once do we realize what it does to us, nor ever suspect we’re making more of it as we go along. Me brother Edan died months ago because Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth and James the First planted Protestants on the auld sod three centuries ago. Englishmen who never did belong there. And now Arthur Griffith and his
Sinn Fein
are making more history. And more trouble.”

“You see?” Mr. Sloan put down a sandwich to spread his hands wide. “You have Vikings and Henry the Eighth on your neck. I don’t. A couple of black savages chasing cassowaries and spearing fish, until my father’s generation arrived; that’s all.”

She drained her cup and stood up. “Aye. But ye’ve that, all right—yer father’s generation to contend with. ’Tis history, all the same, be it short or long. Me very point first made.”

His face washed dark like a tropical storm. What had she said? She no doubt would have found out, but Meg rapped earnestly at the door.

She burst in. “Mr. Butts here, sir.”

John Butts barged in right behind her. The storm in his face made Mr. Sloan’s scowl look like a picnic in the park.

Meg disappeared instantly.

“You foreclosed! You took my whole plantation! I trusted you, Sloan.”

“No need to stop doing that. Let me show you something.” Mr. Sloan nodded toward Samantha. “Another cup for Mr. Butts.”

Samantha darted to the kitchen at a dead run, snatched up the first cup that matched its saucer, and raced back. Mr. Butts had never frightened her before. He did now. He was normally such a mealy man, uncertain of himself it seemed. Today he boiled and roared like a runaway train.

She plunged into the office and set the cup hastily before him. He didn’t even see her.

Mr. Sloan thrust a paper in his hand. “That tea the typhoon rained on—I have it sold, John. It’s not a total loss. But I couldn’t have done it until it was mine, and I didn’t have time to work through you with all the releases and signatures and all that mess.” He smiled winningly. “You’re right I undercut you. But it was to our mutual financial advantage. An opportunity with a close deadline.”

Mr. Butts studied the paper, perplexed. “Durban. Wiggins told me he couldn’t find a market.”

“I put him onto some connections—friends of friends of my father’s. People my father knew back in his gold-digging days.”

So you’re not influenced by history
. Samantha caught her master’s eye, but she couldn’t tell if he understood her thought.

Did Mr. Butts sink into the wingback chair because he was feeling less tense or because his knees collapsed? He wagged his head. “I—I guess I didn’t realize when I signed that …” He shuddered. “It’s so hard seeing my land—
my
property—in someone else’s name. Under their control. Your control, that is. Harder than I thought. I admit you have a head for business. And heaven knows I don’t seem to. Still …” His voice trailed away.

“I can imagine how hard it would be for me, were it Sugarlea,” cooed Mr. Sloan.

“I built the place, Cole, from nothing. Less than nothing. The century was in double-aughts when I started, and I thought surely within five years … Well, it’s five years, and … and …” He looked near breaking down. “I almost think I’d rather have the place back and keep making mistakes, or whatever I was doing, than to see it … understand, not that I don’t think you, uh … you know …” He licked his lips.

Samantha’s heart wrenched. The man, so ominously wild moments before, seemed more like a disappointed child. Disappointment? Wrong word. Consternation was closer, a child denied the one single thing in the world precious to him. She proceeded to do the only thing she could do—she went back to the kitchen for more tea.

———

Here came the brash young preacher whom the spirits mocked. Burriwi smiled to himself and watched the man come riding into the settlement on Wiggins’ roan. The boy was ignorant about relationships and how to greet friends, relatives and strangers, but he did ride well. Burriwi must remember the preacher was from a wholly different world, and be tolerant of his lack of culture and politeness.

Women, children—Luke greeted them all by name, those names he knew, and dismounted by Burriwi. With a grin and a handshake he hunkered down beside him.

“My nephew said you came by.”

“Dibbie all caught up on the cassowary people?”

“Caught up. Learn about. Yeah. Now he knows the stories about his people in the time gone.”

“The Dreamtime, you call it, I believe.”

“Eh, that, too. But he has to know lots of other stories, too—lots of times—since the Dreamtime. His fathers dead and all the others.”

Luke smiled. “Oral history. I understand that people without a written history can literally recite their oral history word on word for days at a time. The historian, so to speak, tells it to the next-generation historian, and that person has it memorized.” Luke snapped his fingers. “But once they learn to read and write, they lose the ability to memorize large quantities of information exactly.”

Burriwi shrugged, grinning. “Now Dibbie knows his fathers.”

Luke studied him a long moment. “You don’t happen to know how many teeth you have, do you?”

The laughter exploded out of Burriwi. It was not the least bit polite to laugh so at what was clearly a sincere question, but its absurdity delighted him. Besides, this young man didn’t know politeness from a coral cod, and he didn’t seem bothered by Burriwi’s infraction in the least. “Sometime we count ’em mebbe.”