Wanted Dead (5 page)

That was the idea, he thought, taking comfort. He
could just wander into the cave, and if there was anybody there just wander out again, apologising.

Clearing his throat ostentatiously and shuffling his feet so as to give no impression of approaching by stealth, Riley went down on his hands and knees, pushed aside the bushes and went into the cave.

The cave widened abruptly inside and Riley was able to stand up in the gloom. It was dead quiet in there and Riley found himself holding his breath listening desperately in an attempt to hear the possible breathing of someone else someone else further back in the cave where the gloom became impenetrable.

But he could hear nothing and finally he let out his breath in a long deep sigh.

The cave had obviously been taken over for human use. Riley could see boxes against the wall and his feet crunched in the remains of a fire. It would be smokey in here with a fire, he thought vaguely. He looked more closely at the boxes and found many of them seemed to contain ammunition.

Riley struck a match and in the spluttering brief glare saw a few sacks half full and some more boxes further back in the cave. He walked a few steps deeper into the gloom which seemed to stretch a long way, but then his match went out and he made his way back to the pale glow of the entrance.

He didn't have enough matches to spend too many of them here and in any case he didn't want to stay inside the cave for long. It was reasonable to assume this was a bushranger
plant
, and so what?

Riley crawled out of the cave again and began to climb back up the slope towards the path. As he hauled himself onto the rock that jutted over the cave he found a large fissure running across the whole
width of the rock about four feet from the end. He traced it round to either side and found it ran right down to the base of the rock. He broke a thin branch from a tree and probed into the crack. It seemed to be very deep, and must surely run near to the roof of the cave underneath. It was as though the rock hanging over the cave had subsided and cracked of its own weight.

Thoughtfully Riley stood on the edge of the rock over the cave and jumped up and down. The rock moved slightly.

Now that would be a most amusing situation, he thought. And it could be done—it could be done. But not tonight. It was too dark and would take too long. Briskly he set out to walk back to his horses.

The cave faced due east, and was flooded with light by the dawn. Riley prodded around among the boxes and bags fascinated by the trouble the bushrangers had taken to cater for every contingency. Here was tea, sugar, flour, whisky, blankets, bandages, salves, tinned foods, and many boxes of ammunition. The ammunition was of the type that contained bullet, charge and firing cap all together. It must be for breech loading rifles, and revolving rifles and revolvers that could fire several shots without reloading, Riley thought. Pity the police couldn't have these as well as the bushrangers. At least it would make the battle moderately even.

He searched through the boxes thoroughly, disturbing them as little as possible, but couldn't find any weapons. Which was a pity. A revolver, or better still a revolving rifle, would have considerably increased his confidence in himself as a special constable.

He probed further into the cave, which seemed to stretch a long way back. But he didn't go more than a hundred feet down because he wanted to stay where he could hear anybody approaching outside.

Taking out his knife he began rapidly prising the bullets out of the cartridges and emptying the powder onto a saddle cloth he'd brought with him. As he emptied the powder he placed the bullets back in the empty cartridges and sealed the edges down as best he could. It was a long job, but he didn't think it likely he'd be disturbed at that hour of the day. Anybody making use of the cave would be most likely to come there at night.

Nevertheless he tired of the work after an hour, when he had a huge pile of gun powder on the saddle cloth, and devoted himself instead to arranging the emptied cartridges at the top of the ammunition boxes, after taking out the remaining live cartridges and filling up the space with sand from the cave floor.

Then he packed everything back as near as he could to the way he'd found it, and crawled out of the cave with his saddle cloth wrapped around a great bulge of gun powder and cartridges.

He studied the countryside intently, but there was no sign of life apart from a wisp of smoke from the shanty far below on the road. There was little chance that he'd be seen from there unless he silhouetted himself against the sky-line. Making a rough funnel of one corner of the saddle bag he poured the gun powder and bullets into the crack in the rock, spreading the mixture evenly along the whole length of the crack. He made sure there was plenty of powder, even a slight overflow out the side, at one end of the crack, just where the rock met the earth.

Riley contemplated his work for a moment, then went back into the cave and brought out a few empty sacks he'd seen there. It was unlikely that the bushrangers would notice their disappearance, or would place any particular interpretation on it if they did. These he rammed deep into the crack on top of the explosives. The next hour he spent scraping up earth some distance from the cave, packing it in a sack, carrying it back to the rock and pouring it down the crack. Every time he poured a load in he carefully tamped it down with a stick, packing it as tightly as he could. He would have liked some clay, but there was none available, except possibly at greater effort than he was prepared to put in.

He didn't bring the earth right to the edge of the crack, but left the level about six inches down, so that a casual glance would not show that the crack had been filled up. A few strips of bark protected the powder he'd left overflowing on one side, and provided it didn't rain too hard, should have ensured that it wouldn't get wet.

Satisfied at last, Riley did what he could to remove the obvious traces of his presence and then walked back to his own camp, some two miles away, just below the top of the ridge where he could overlook the road and the path leading past the cave.

It was only when he arrived at his camp that he realised that if anybody visited the cave at night he wouldn't see them.

He thought about that for a while, decided that there was no way of overcoming it without undue risk and discomfort to himself, and applied himself to fashioning some fuses from gunpowder and the newspaper his birdshot had been wrapped in.

“There's no point in trying to plan this sort of operation too far,” he told his pack-horse, “we'll just wait and see what happens.” He was already beginning to regret all his activity that morning. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but now it was difficult to see that it had any practical application. But still, he had to do something while he was out in the bush, and all this would look good on his report.

But as Riley's days passed in peace he began to like the situation. It was not unlike fishing in a pleasant place without the right sort of bait. There was little hope of a fish, but the rigged tackle gave a sense of purpose to being there. He found that the birdshot worked quite well in his carbine, although rather less well in his pistols, and he was almost independent of his tinned police rations.

It was hot in the sun, but Riley's camp was among ferns on the bank of a mountain stream and he lay down and dozed around mid-day when he tired of poking around in the bush.

Three or four times a day, always at dawn and at sunset, he studied the road and the path to the cave. Several times he saw horsemen and buggies travelling along the road. Some stopped at the shanty, but none ever came up the path. Once he saw a coach drawn by four horses and escorted by half a dozen troopers.

He wasn't sure whether he'd been camped four or five days when, a couple of hours after dark, feeling restless because he'd spent most of the day dozing, he decided to take a prowl round the bush before turning in.

The sky was brilliant with stars, but there was no moon and the bush was a massive surge of blackness
as it fell away below him. He could see a couple of yellow splashes far away which he knew to be Lightning Fork shanty. A little to the right he could see a flicker of yellow gold as though someone had lit a fire not far from the shanty.

The creatures of the bush were making noises all round him and in the branches of a tree above his head he could hear the harsh, asthmatic sound of a disturbed o'possum.

He glanced down the dark shadow of the ridge and felt an almost violent constriction in his chest because roughly where he supposed the cave to be was another flicker of yellow gold. Somebody was camped there.

“Well, now,” he said softly to himself, “well now! What do you know about that.”

He went back to his camp, loaded one of his pistols with birdshot and the other with ball, began to load the carbine with birdshot, but thought better of it, put it away and took out the cavalry sword.

After all, he thought, he'd only get one shot with the carbine which would probably miss anyway, and he could have as many whacks as he liked with the sword. Moreover, he'd developed a degree of affection for the sword after his encounter with the young bushranger.

He left the scabbard behind and carried the sword in his hand. The pistols he kept stuck in his belt, loaded except for the caps so that they couldn't go off. His newspaper and gunpowder fuses he carried in his ammunition belt with the remainder of his ammunition.

It took him half an hour to make his way through the scrub to the path, and then he cut back down on
the western side of the ridge so that he could work his way back to the path again roughly where he judged the cave to be. There was too much danger of running into a sentry by sticking close to the path.

It was fairly easy going at first, because he didn't think it necessary to be particularly quiet.

But coming up the ridge towards the path he realised for the first time how difficult it was to move through the bush quietly in the dark. Stones seemed to be continually breaking away under his feet. The scrub crackled and rustled alarmingly no matter how carefully he pushed it aside. He seemed to be forever scaring up animals which fled with grunts, or squeaks or a scamper of feet and rapid, urgent shaking of bushes.

Every now and then he stopped and listened, but he could hear nothing.

About fifty yards from the top of the ridge, which he could now see outlined against the stars, he paused to consider exactly what he intended to do. He hoped he was going to reach the crest of the ridge just above the cave, but there was nothing to guarantee that he would. He had to reach the crest before he could orientate himself by the light of the fire. It was borne on him that his supposition that the fire was related to the cave wasn't necessarily sound. It was impossible to establish points with any exactitude in the dark, and the fire he had seen could in fact have been anywhere within half a mile of the cave. It might simply be the camp of some wandering prospector, or even a special constable like himself.

The only thing to do was get on to the crest of the ridge and have another look.

He went down on his hands and knees and began
to crawl slowly upwards, but found the sword was too much in the way in that posture. In fact a cavalry sword was a damned awkward thing to carry in any posture. He pondered for a moment, then slid the sword down the back of his neck, under his shirt, wincing as the cold metal touched his skin. He eased the blade under his belt and pushed it down a little further. That was better. He could move on his hands and knees quite easily with the sword like that. Moreover he could pull it out again quickly if he wanted it in a hurry. Perhaps he should include a recommendation that swords should always be worn like that when he put in his monthly report.

Then he discovered that the hilt banged the back of his neck when he raised his head to see where he was going: but it was still better than carrying the thing in his hand.

He found he could move very quietly if he felt with his fingers first and then slowly took his weight on one hand. He then raised one knee and moved it forward, lowering it gently to the ground, allowing no weight to fall on it until he was sure no twig or stone was going to move beneath it. It was slow, but very quiet. How quiet was borne on Riley when some coarse-furred animal, like a small bear, blundered into his face and then plunged away down the slope, grunting.

God alone knew what that was, thought Riley, grateful it was reasonable to assume that there were no dangerous animals in the Australian bush; or none that anyone knew of.

Then he began to think of snakes. Riley loathed snakes. He'd seen a few around his camp and had rigorously blown them to bits with his bird-shot loaded
carbine. But now, here in the darkness, he might well place his bare hand, slowly and gently, fair on the coils of a black snake, or an adder, or a brown snake. Or one might strike him in the face as he painstakingly crawled towards the crest. That thought alone made him stand up abruptly, struggling to restrain himself from running up the slope to the clear rock crest.

Take it easy Dermot Riley, you're committed to this now. You're a fool to be here but you're here, so just take it quietly and go through with it.

He went down on his hands and knees again and slowly made his way towards the crest. Quite soon he reached bare rock and his progress became more rapid. Once he heard something slithering across the rock and he shuddered deeply, but the sound didn't come very near him.

He found he could move just as quietly standing upright on the rock, although occasionally his heels came down too heavily with an audible sound. He thought of taking his boots off, but the idea of stepping on a snake was too vivid in his mind and he decided against it. Besides, he didn't want to have to carry them. He left his sword down the back of his shirt; it was as convenient as anywhere.

He was very near the top of the ridge now so he took out his pistols, and, fumbling in the darkness, put the caps in. After that he carried them in his hands because he had no intention of shooting himself if humanly possible. Vaguely he worried because he couldn't remember which one was loaded with bird shot and which with ball.