The Silent Frontier (29 page)

Warily, Lachlan rose from behind the log. Turning to Sir Percival, he froze. The Englishman lay on his back. A small dark spot on his forehead marked where one of the shots from the departing volley had entered. Lachlan immediately dropped to his knees and stared at Sir Percival’s motionless body. The bullet had killed him instantly. Closing the dead man’s eyes gently, Lachlan shook his head. Walking towards Matthew, he could see his chest rise and fall. The big Maori was still alive.

Charles Lightfoot stood over the body of Nicholas Busby, the smoke curling as a wisp in the still air of the hallway. Blood was forming a pool around Nicholas’s head and soaking into the carpet.

Staring at the man he had just shot dead, Lightfoot felt very little. Busby had attempted to play him for a fool, but had at least admitted that his partner was indeed the brother of Lachlan MacDonald. When Lightfoot had produced the pistol, Nicholas had tried to reason with him – but to no avail. Although Lightfoot had promised him his life in return for the information that he required, he had still shot him at point blank range between the eyes, once he was satisfied that he had learned all Nicholas Busby could tell him.

Did they really expect him to do the right thing and shoot himself? Lightfoot smiled grimly, staring at the body at his feet. If so, they had also underestimated the former soldier. Well, there were others who would pay for treacherously leading him to financial ruin. It would not be hard to hunt down the MacDonald brothers before losing himself in the hordes drifting between the goldfields and Cooktown. He still had enough money to purchase a ticket north, and enough after that to flee to the Americas. But he would first exact his revenge.

It was time to tie up loose ends.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
here was nothing Lachlan could do for Matthew at the moment, except make him comfortable, so he turned his attention to Amanda. With his rifle and revolver, he ran back to Black Mountain.

‘Amanda!’ he shouted from the base of the hill, but received no response.

Lachlan clambered up the rocks until he reached the last place he had seen her. He called down into the wide crevice, but still no response. Cold fear gripped him. He must return to the camp to fetch a kerosene lantern, having no other choice than to go down into the heart of the hill itself.

Returning with the lantern, Lachlan lit the wick and, leaving his rifle on a rock, carefully lowered himself down into the crevice. He could feel earth beneath his feet when he slithered to the bottom and glanced around at the
shadows flickering on the smooth granite walls. There appeared to be a series of tunnels, varying in size.

It looked as if Amanda had been there. He cried out her name again but still did not get any response. Suddenly there was a whir of sound around him. Huge bats flitted past his head, disturbed by his presence. Lachlan ducked to allow them to pass.

Holding up the lantern, he could make out a steady decline in the slope that seemed to lead to a narrow set of tunnels. Lachlan bent down to see where Amanda’s tracks led.

As he carefully followed the trail ever deeper into the centre of the hill, he was forced at times to stoop to negotiate the passages, aware all the while that he must keep the lantern alight. Without its illumination he would surely be a dead man. Again and again Lachlan called out, but the only answers he received were the muffled echoes of his own voice.

An overpowering, musty stench was all around him. Lachlan guessed that it was the excretions of bats. In the distance he could hear the moaning growing louder. Every instinct warned him to leave the place. ‘God help me,’ he muttered in his fear, desperately wanting to find his way out. But leaving Amanda in the entrails of the hill was not an option he could take.

‘Lachlan.’

The cry was faint and he had to force himself to believe that he had heard it. ‘Amanda,’ he responded and heard Amanda call out to him again. When he lifted the lantern, there were four tunnels before him. Lachlan called out again. ‘Amanda, keep calling my name.’

She did so and Lachlan’s hopes were raised. Her cries became louder the further he went, until he entered a
relatively large cavern. Amanda was huddled on the floor, covered in dirt and bloody scratches. She blinked at the light and Lachlan went to her, taking her in his arms to hold her in a crushing hug. ‘Thank God,’ he almost sobbed in his relief. ‘I have found you.’

Amanda was so racked with sobbing she could not at first reply. Finally she regained her composure.

‘I fell down. I’ve been groping along the tunnel. I . . . ’ Amanda broke into another fit of sobbing. ‘I want to get out of here. Please, Lachlan, get me out of here.’

Lachlan helped Amanda to her feet and together they back-tracked along the trail of footprints Lachlan had left in the musty earth.

Eventually they could see the sun shining down through a narrow crack in the rock. With some difficulty they were able to climb up the crevice, at last bursting into the warm sunshine of the day.

They sat on the rocks, surveying the scrub around the base of the hill. Never before had it looked so good, thought Lachlan, reflecting on how close they had come to being trapped inside the hill. If nothing else, sharing the same tomb as Amanda would have meant they were joined in death. Banishing the macabre thought from his mind, Lachlan spoke forthrightly.

‘Your husband is dead,’ he said, gently placing his arm around Amanda’s shoulders. ‘He was shot and I am not sure if the bastards who killed him are gone. They may attempt to kill us in revenge for the death of one of their own. Matthew has been seriously wounded and I have to get him back to Cooktown as fast as possible.’

Amanda swung on him with tears in her eyes. ‘I must go to my husband’s body,’ she said.

‘I think that the best option is to return to Cooktown as
quickly as possible and inform the police of what has happened here,’ Lachlan said. ‘We don’t have much other choice. Hopefully, Matthew will survive until then.’

When they returned to the camp, Lachlan quickly buried the body of the silent young man who had come into their camp previously. Amanda went to her husband’s body alone. Lachlan watched as she knelt beside him. She seemed to be saying prayers over the body of the man she had married. Finally, he intruded on her privacy to heft Sir Percival’s body onto one of the pack-horses. He then was able to assist Matthew to mount a horse. On a second examination of the wound, Lachlan was pleased to see that the bullet had passed through the flesh, leaving a clean wound.

‘You will live,’ Lachlan muttered.

Matthew grinned weakly. ‘I had better,’ he said with some effort. ‘We have many places to explore together.’

On their return to Cooktown, Lachlan immediately sought out a doctor. He made a cursory examination of the wounded Maori before turning his attention to Lachlan.

‘Your big heathen friend will live,’ he said, ‘so long as he rests and the wound does not take on any infection.’ Lachlan thanked the doctor, bid his friend a farewell, then joined Amanda outside to ride to the police station with Sir Percival’s body.

After taking statements, the police promised to organise a party to go in search of the gang. Lachlan then led Amanda to a relatively clean and reputable hotel, where he secured her accommodation. He stood awkwardly in her room, his hat in his hands. ‘I wish it had been me and not your husband,’ Lachlan said. ‘From the little that I learned of Sir Percival on our expedition I got to like him.’

‘I know it is a cruel thing to say,’ Amanda said softly, ‘but if I had to choose between you and my husband, I would have chosen you to live. Oh, I was very fond of Percival,’ she said. ‘He was a good man. But I always knew that one day he would leave my life on account of his foolish searches. In that way, you and he have much in common. You are both restless men.’

‘What will you do now?’ Lachlan asked.

‘I must arrange to have my husband’s body shipped back to Scotland,’ Amanda said.’ I made him a promise that should he die on foreign soil his body would be buried on the family estate. I suppose I will accompany his body and take over the management of my husband’s properties.’

‘I guess that there is little else you can do,’ Lachlan said, standing by the door as Amanda sat in a chair with her hands in her lap. ‘If I can be of any help, you only have to ask,’ he added.

‘What will you do?’ Amanda asked quietly.

‘I have to return to Townsville as soon as my brother returns from the Palmer,’ Lachlan replied. ‘Maybe he has found our sister by now. If so, that shall bring some light to the darkness presently upon us.’

‘Will you return to your life of exploring?’ Amanda asked.

‘I think that I will, as soon as I get the chance to speak with my brother,’ Lachlan answered.

‘I always remember those beautiful letters you wrote to me in New Zealand, where you would pour out your dreams of becoming a famous explorer,’ Amanda said gently. ‘I wish you well. I will never forget you, Lachlan MacDonald. It seems so cruel that just when I had thought you were forever out of my life, fate should cast us together in this place. I will have to try and erase you from my heart one more time.’
Amanda turned away, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I think that I would like to be alone now,’ she whispered.

Was her grief just for her husband or was it for losing each other again? Only Amanda had that answer. For now, Lachlan would go to a hotel with the hope that alcohol would help assuage his own pain of lost love. How could God be so cruel as to allow him to once again meet with the only woman he had truly loved and snatch her away from his life again? But now he had become the betrayer. It was probably only a matter of time before Amanda would learn that he was implicated in destroying her brother. He could not find any reason why she would not hate him after that.

Lachlan sobered up two days later in the stables where he had organised the expedition for Sir Percival. He washed, shaved and found clean clothes, but when he checked at Amanda’s hotel he was told that she had been able to secure a berth on a ship going south.

‘She said if you came looking for her,’ the hotel owner said, ‘you were to have this.’

The man held out an envelope to Lachlan.

Lachlan took the envelope and opened it to find a letter inside. He walked out onto the verandah.

Lachlan read the letter only once. The pain was almost too much to bear. He carefully folded the letter and placed it in his shirt pocket over his heart.

Three days later, John returned to Cooktown. He looked leaner and harder than he had in many years, the arduous trek to the Palmer and back having eaten away the excesses of the soft city life. He was now sporting the beginnings of a thick, bushy beard, and his face and arms were tanned.

‘It is good to see you,’ Lachlan said to his brother when they met at the stables.

‘And you too,’ John replied, embracing his brother in a great bear hug.

‘Well?’ Lachlan asked.

‘I am afraid I was too late,’ John said, shaking his head sadly. ‘I was told by miners who knew our sister that she was indeed on the fields with her husband. But, alas, her husband died from a fever and she and our nephew and niece departed in the company of another miner by the name of Ken Hamilton. As far as I could ascertain, this Hamilton was providing an escort for Phoebe back to Cooktown, where she had told one of the miners she intended booking passage back to South Australia.’

‘How ironic,’ Lachlan snorted. ‘You travel all the way to the Palmer when she might well have been here all the time.’

‘You seem to be at odds with life,’ John frowned. ‘Am I perceptive in this matter?’

‘I guess you could say that while you were away things did not go well at this end. I lost Sir Percival.’ Lachlan went on to describe all that had occurred in the past few weeks: reaching Black Mountain, the clash with the bushrangers, the death of Sir Percival and the serious wounding of Matthew, who was even now still recovering. He did not mention Amanda’s name other than that she had been with her husband on the expedition. John was quick to pick up on this.

‘What has happened to Lady Amanda with the death of her husband?’ he asked.

‘She has packed up and taken passage back to Sydney to join her brother,’ Lachlan replied.

‘Was she not the woman you told me that you had once loved?’ John asked gently.

‘The same woman,’ Lachlan replied, glancing away to stare at the bright patch of light marking the stable entrance.

‘I’m sorry,’ John said, placing his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘I can see that her appearance once again in your life has caused some pain.’

Lachlan’s slight nod confirmed John’s suspicions about his melancholy. Not so much for his own failure to find Phoebe, but the loss of Amanda from his life once again. ‘C’mon, I have paid a fortune for you and I to stay in the town’s best accommodation until I take passage back to Sydney. Tonight, we will dine at French Charley’s and drink champagne. We will raise a toast to dear, departed friends and get rolling drunk. The treat is on me, little brother.’

Lachlan tried to smile. He loved this strange man who was his brother. It was a bond that could never be severed – even by death.

Even as the two brothers walked from the stables with their
swags over their shoulders, Charles Lightfoot stood in Charlotte Street. He had been able to secure passage on one of the quicker steamers going north. He would ask around about the MacDonald brothers and do all he could to find them. Then he would finish what he had started. No one made a fool of Major Charles Lightfoot and got away with it. He hefted his carpet bag and went in search of temporary lodgings. He did not intend to stay in this frontier town for very long.