Golden Soak

THREE

We began drilling at dawn on Wednesday, January 21, in the hollow on the north-eastward running spur of Mt Coondewanna. My choice of site had been limited by the terrain, the projected line of the reef cutting diagonally across the sloping shoulder of the mountain and the rig only able to operate on reasonably flat ground. Drilling on the back of the spur had one advantage. Here erosion had probably occurred in situ, so that there was every chance that the surface samples I had taken from the hollow were a true indication of the rock formation below. But it was all Archaean country of great antiquity and I had no means of knowing how Mt Coondewanna had been formed or what changes in its formation had occurred over the millennia. In the circumstances, the odds against a single drill hole proving successful were very long indeed.

I reckoned that if we did intersect the reef it would be at a depth of about 700 feet. Ed Garrety had found it at the Golden Soak third level, 300 feet below the surface, and where we were now was a good 400 feet above the mine entrance. When we started we were drilling into the weathered mantle, so that progress was rapid, a new 10-foot length of pipe being added almost every hour.

From that hollow we could just see the top of Coondewanna above an outcropping ridge of rock that gradually changed from the black of shadow to the red of full sunlight. It was hot, but there was a slight breeze and the flies were not too bad, particularly when Kennie got a fire going. By lunchtime we were already down over 60 feet and Duhumel and his second team runner, Josh Meyer, ate one at a time, the diesel thundering and the rods turning steadily as the drill ground its way down into the bowels of the earth.

Anybody who has ever watched a drilling operation will understand the fascination. But to see this single rig operating in the immense loneliness of the Pilbara, the twin mountains of Coondewanna and Padtherung blocking our view to the west, and all to the east the country stretching out into infinity, not a sign of life, a flat emptiness of antediluvian antiquity blistered with heat, arid as a desert — what hope had we, flying thus in the face of nature? But the drillers did not see it that way. To them it was just another job, accustomed as they were to the country, and the climate. Watching the drill go down foot by foot, I could barely face the huge steak Kennie grilled for me. At this rate we’d be down to 700 feet with the prospect of the dust sample piles showing the glitter of gold in quartz inside of three days, and if we did strike the reef, then I could get a good price out of Freeman or anybody else, or we could lease on a royalty basis that would give the Garretys a stake in the mine. I could even form a company, operate it myself.

Strange how you dream in the heat. Or was it nervous exhaustion? I had finished my steak. I had had two beers, but I didn’t feel sleepy. The tension in me was too great and at that moment I wasn’t thinking of anybody else, how they might react, or the pitfalls that lay ahead. Even Rosalind’s presence meant nothing to me any more. I had picked her up the day before on my way into Mt Newman to meet Duhamel, and having seen her on to the MMA plane to Perth, had wiped her right out of my mind. All I could think about now was the success of the operation, and I sat there, watching, my eyes on the drill.

Then Kennie’s voice: ‘Alec. Somebody coming.’ I turned to find him buttoning up his flies as he emerged from a patch of mallee. ‘Down in the gully. A ute by the look of it.’

It never occurred to me it would be anybody but Ed Garrety. He still hadn’t returned from Port Hedland when I had picked Rosalind up at Jarra Jarra and I had asked Janet to tell him what I was doing so that he could come up and see for himself as soon as he did get back. We watched as the ute appeared on the back of the spur, bumping its way slowly along the track we had cleared. It stopped on the rim of the hollow and Chris Culpin got out. His face was brick red in the sun, the same hat pushed back on his bullet head, his stomach bulging over the broad leather belt as he came towards us.

‘Thought I’d come and see how you were getting on.’ He was smiling.

‘Who told you where to come?’

‘Girl at the homestead. That’d be Garrety’s daughter, eh?’ His eyes shifted to the rig. ‘Looking for my son, see, so she told me where he was.’ He didn’t even glance at Kennie, his eyes all the time on the rig.

‘There’s nothing for you here,’ I said.

‘Not yet perhaps. You’re still drilling.’

‘Nothing at all,’ I repeated.

He was standing close to me now. ‘Have you told Ferdie what you’re up to?’

‘It’s nothing to do with him.’

‘Suits me. But it may not suit him.’ He leaned closer, the stubble on his chin dark against the sun-reddened skin. ‘An’ he’s got you, pal. Got you cold if ever they rumble the Blackridge deal.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You can think that out for yourself. Meantime, I’ll hang around for a bit, see how you’re making out. Mebbe collect a few samples for myself.’ And when I told him to get the hell out, he was on private property, he just laughed. ‘This isn’t the Old Country. This is Crown land and I got a prospector’s licence, see.’

‘Golden Soak belongs to Ed Garrety,’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ He nodded. ‘He owns the mine and all the flat land below it. But not up here. Not according to Smithie. This is leasehold, and leaseholders don’t own mineral rights. You got to claim.’ His small eyes narrowed. ‘You registered a claim? I don’t see no claim pegs.’ He stood there, staring at me, waiting for me to say something. ‘You ain’t even got a prospector’s licence.’

‘I don’t need one,’ I answered angrily. ‘Not here.’

‘We’ll see about that. I’ll be in Nullagine this evening and I’ll check just what Garrety does own. An’ if Smithie’s right, then I’ll go in to Marble Bar and have a look at the Mining Register. I don’t reckon Garrety’s put in a claim, ‘cause if he had he’d be required to spend money on development.’ And at that moment Duhamel appeared at my elbow.

‘We’re through the soft stuff. It’s hard rock now.’

I thought of Balavedra, all those weeks hoping against hope, the luck gone sour on me. And now here. Only a few minutes ago I had been dreaming of a strike in two days’ time. I watched Culpin go back to his ute. He drove it under the shade of a mulga and set about preparing his lunch. Nothing I could do about him. Nothing I could do about the hard rock country the drill had entered. And Rosalind in Perth, waiting. I went over to the Land-Rover, tugged the ring seal off another can of beer and stood there drinking it, watching the percussion drill, its progress imperceptible now, and Kennie clearing up on his own, white-faced and unhappy. His father hadn’t said a word to him, not a single word. He had behaved as though the boy didn’t exist.

I finished my beer, went over to the shelter we’d built with branches of gum brought up from the gully and lay down. Nothing to do now but wait — and hope. The noise of the drill was like the drone of a huge insect, a solid roaring hum in the heat, and I dozed off. When I woke Culpin had gone and Kennie was sitting beside me, smoking a cigarette.

‘Where’s your father?’ I asked.

He shrugged.

‘Gone to Nullagine, has he?’

‘He was down at the rig talking to Georges, then he loaded up and drove off. He didn’t tell me where he was going.’

And from Nullagine he’d go on to Marble Bar. I knew damn well Ed Garrety hadn’t pegged the area. I got to my feet, watching the drillers busy about the rig, sweating in the afternoon sun as they added another rod. ‘How far are they down?’

‘Seventy — seventy-five maybe.’

At that rate he had all the time in the world. ‘He’ll be back,’ I said.

‘Oh, sure. He’ll be back. Pa wouldn’t miss a chance like this.’ Kennie looked at me. ‘What are you going to do? You can’t stop him corning here, and if he thinks you’re on to something …‘He hesitated, and then, his voice barely audible: ‘You want to watch it, Alec. He’s a real bastard when he smells money, and he doesn’t give a damn about people. That’s the trouble with Australia — men like my father, and that man Kadek, they don’t care who they hurt, what they destroy, s’long as they get what they want. I tried to tell him — that night. But it’s like I was speaking a different language. It’s a free country, they say. Christ! I’d rather it was Communist.’

‘Then you’d have bureaucracy. And that’s just as soulless.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘Same as it’s always been,’ I said. ‘You fight. To survive in this world you’ve got to be a fighter.’

‘And you think I’m not? He was staring at me very directly.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No, but you implied it.’ His gaze wandered to Coondewanna, the escarpment of red rock like a battlement. ‘And you’re right. I’ve never stood up to him. Not really. I’m not a fighter. I’m a bit of a coward, I suppose.’ And he added, softly, ‘Mum, now — she’s a fighter. All her life she’s struggled to make a go of it. And the strange thing is she still loves him.’

I walked out into the sunshine then. The boy was very near to tears, ‘You stay and look after the drillers,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Jarra Jarra. If Ed Garrety’s back, I want a word with him.’ And I left him and went over to the Land-Rover. ‘Anything you want out of the back?’

‘No, I got it all here.’

I had to use my handkerchief to open the door, the metal of it was so hot, and inside it was like a furnace. I started up and drove along the spur and down into the shade of the gully, thinking of that boy … an only child, his problems similar to my own. Yet not entirely, for my father had been a very different man to Chris Culpin. Then I was thinking of Ed Garrety. He’d been an only child, too. But he had worshipped his father.

I was still thinking of Garrety when the sunlight hit me at the bottom of the gully, the mine buildings blazing red and a streamer of dust coming down the track from the outcrop. It was the station ute and coming fast, and when it was near, it slithered to a halt and Janet got out, coming towards me quickly in the heat. ‘It’s you, Alec. Thank God!’ She spoke in a rush, her face sweaty and covered in dust. ‘I was coming up to get you. Daddy’s back and I don’t know what to do. He’s got Tom loading the Land-Rover, petrol, water, a new set of tyres we’ve been hoarding, and he’s sitting there alone in his den going through his papers, writing letters. He won’t say what he’s up to, won’t tell me anything. All I know is that they’re going to start repairing their fence in a few weeks. They’ve given us to the end of February; any of our cattle left on the Watersnake after that they’ll regard as scrubbers. They’ll just add them to their own stock. They’re going to run a cattle station of their own to supply their township.’ She paused, breathless, her eyes wide, the whites brilliant in the hard light. ‘I’m scared,’ she breathed. ‘Scared of what he’ll do.’

‘When did he get back?’

”Bout three hours ago. And he’s driven non-stop from Port Hedland. He’s dead tired. But he won’t rest. He’s wound up so tight I don’t think he knows what he’s doing. And he looks bad. He’s told Tom to load the Land-Rover, food and water for a fortnight, and just about all the fuel we have in the pump.’

To get the stock back on to your own land?’

‘No. He knows they’d die. It’s something — something else. But he won’t say. He won’t tell me anything. He’s so dead tired I can’t get any sense out of him. And now he’s locked himself in. Please. You must come and talk to him.’

She was trembling, half out of her mind with worry. ‘If you can’t get him to tell you — ‘

‘He’ll talk to you,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sure he will. I’m just a girl. Oh God! If only Henry were alive. He says you remind him of Henry. Please, Alec. Come back and try. I’m sure he will. I’m sure he’ll talk to you.’ She was staring at me, her eyes pleading.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see him anyway.’

She clutched my arm. ‘Oh thank you. I knew I could rely on you.’ And she added. ‘If only I understood what was in his mind. When he drove in, I’ll never forget — he looked … he looked quite crazy, his eyes staring, and so white, so short of breath. It wasn’t just tiredness. It was something else. But I don’t know what. I just don’t know. He won’t tell me.’ Her grip on my arm was tight and there were tears in her eyes.

‘Okay, you lead the way.’ I said. ‘I’ll follow.’

She nodded slowly. Then she turned abruptly and ran back to the ute.

The sun was dropping behind the Windbreaks by the time we reached Jarra Jarra. No dogs and the Land-Rover standing under one of the poincianas, Tom squatting beside it, his wide-brimmed hat tipped over his broad nose, his back against the rear wheel. ‘Is he still there?’ Janet asked him.

‘Yes, Jan. Alia time in den.’

We went through into the cool house and along the dim passage. The door to the den as shut, and not a sound. ‘Daddy, are you there?’ There was no answer. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. ‘Alec’s here. He wants to see you.’

There was a moment’s silence, then his voice, hesitant and weary: ‘What about? What’s he want?’

Janet glanced at me, her eyes just visible in the dimness. ‘Can he come in?’

‘It’s about the land above the gully. I’ve got a drill up there ‘AH right, I suppose so.’ His voice sounded reluctant as though he were too tired to talk to anybody. A long silence, then the scrape of a chair, the sound of the key turning in the lock. ‘Come in, then.’

He was standing in the middle of the room staring at the desk, which was littered with papers. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said, ‘but it’s important.’ The Alsatian had her head lifted beside the desk, her ears pricked, her tail just moving.

He nodded absently. I don’t think anything to do with Golden Soak was important to him at that moment. His mind was on something else. But I wasn’t to know that. Not then. He turned, his eyes lack-lustre. ‘Hot,’ he said vaguely. ‘Very hot.’ And then he added as an afterthought, ‘Some tea?’

The tired blue eyes shifted to Janet as though seeing her for the first time. ‘Daughter, you get us some tea, eh? The big tin pot — full.’

She nodded, relieved. ‘Yes, of course.’

The door closed and we were alone. ‘Sit down.’ He waved me to a chair stacked with papers. ‘Push that lot on to the floor. Never realized there was so much. Should have dealt with it years ago.’ He sat down, with me facing him across the desk, and I was glad to see an empty plate there. At least he had had something to eat. ‘Jan told you, did she? About what was decided.’

‘The cattle, you mean?’

He nodded. ‘Can’t blame them. The lease is theirs now.’ He leaned back, his hand brushing across his eyes, smoothing the unruly bushiness of his eyebrows. ‘Glad you came. Something I wanted you to sign.’ He searched the litter on his desk and produced a foolscap sheet, handwritten. ‘Do you mind witnessing my signature on it?’

‘No, of course not.’

He signed his name and pushed it across to me. It was his will and I hesitated, looking across at him, seeing the lines of his face, the tiredness of his eyes. ‘Why now?’

He looked out of the window at the dying sun flaring the sky, the gums all gold. ‘Suddenly realized I hadn’t done anything about it since Henry’s death.’ His voice sounded vague. ‘Not that it’ll do Jan much good. They’ve given us till the end of February. But with no rain …’ The words trailed away, his tiredness engulfing them. ‘Still, if anything happened to me, then she’d get something out of selling Jarra Jarra.’ The words were muffled, almost a whisper.

‘I’ve got a drill operating up on Coondewanna.’

‘Yes, Jan told me.’

But when I asked him about the mineral rights, he shook his head. It was Crown land and he hadn’t registered a claim. ‘Nobody wants gold and the price of antimony won’t last.’ Prophetic words, but I was in no mood to listen to them. My own future was at stake. I witnessed his signature and pushed the paper back to him, telling him about Freeman, how if we struck the reef I could pull off a deal that would give Jarra Jarra a new lease of life. But he didn’t seem able to take it in. ‘You do what you like.’ He said it vaguely, his mind on something else. ‘I’m fifty-four and I had two years on the Burma railway. Seemed like a lifetime, and nothing to do but think about Jarra Jarra, remembering what it was like when I was a kid here. That was about all that kept me alive, the thought of coming back. And when I did. ‘ He was staring out of the window again, his eyes narrowed against the reddening blaze of the sunset. ‘Soft! I did but dream.’ He sighed, remembering the words and smiling sadly to himself. ‘Give me another horse! bind up my wounds. But there wasn’t another horse, only Jarra Jarra, jaded and sick, the land gone sour, a desert in the drought, and those damned sheep dying in hundreds. Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream. Two years I lived on that dream and when I did get back …’ The door opened and Janet came in with the tray of tea, a large tin pot and slabs of ginger cake. He nodded absently as she put it down, waiting for her to go.

She hesitated, her eyes switching from her father to me, and then she was gone and the door closed. ‘Milk?’ His hand shook slightly as he poured. There were just the two cups and he took up where he had left off — ‘That’s what Golden Soak did to this place. A war is always good for Australia. Wool for uniforms, y’see. The quality don’t matter then, provided it’s a northern war. The last good war we had was Korea. Vietnam …’ He shook his head, remembering his son’s untimely death. ‘When I got back in ‘45 Jarra Jarra was lousy with sheep and nothing left for them to feed on. AH I could do was watch them die, the old man half insane and the debts mounting.’ He stared at me, his blue eyes bluer than ever, staring at me very wide. ‘You do what you like. Get yourself a prospector’s licence, peg a claim, sell it if you can. That vein of glittering quartz has never brought anything but sorrow to my family.’ He gulped at his tea, his hand still trembling. ‘Sometimes I think it was cursed long ago, by the elders of the tribe my lather took it from. That soak was important to them, y’see. Not just the water that vanished into the bottom of the mine as they dug down for the gold; it was a ritual place. If you climb the sides of the gully you’ll find all manner of rock drawings — strange animals that represented their Dreamtime ancestors, concentric circles and other ritual patterns, and drawings of men and women — the men with enlarged genitals, the women with marks that represent menstruation. You look next time you’re there.’ He looked down at his empty cup. ‘Mapantjara — witches … adder’s fork, and blind worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing …’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Mebbe the luck will change for you. But for me — never.’ He leaned back, his eyes closed. The sunset glow was on his face, but the skin had an unhealthy pallor, his forehead damp with sweat.

‘You all right?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Tired, that’s all. Very tired. Think I’ll get some sleep.’ His eyes opened, staring at the cluttered desk. I’ll clear this up — tomorrow, before I leave. I didn’t realize there was so much.’

I asked him where he was going, but he didn’t seem to hear, his eyes closed again and his breathing quick and shallow. I called Janet then and she came immediately as though waiting upon my call. It was more than tiredness, and when we had got him to bed, she said, ‘I don’t know what to do. He’s exhausted. He can’t take any more. And these filthy, vicious rumours. Do you know what they’re saying? — that he deliberately killed those men, that he destroyed the mine to safeguard …’ She stopped then, staring at me, her large eyes wide. ‘How can people do that to a man when he’s down? How can they?’

‘I think you’d better get a doctor,’ I said.

But she shook her head. ‘I daren’t. He’d never forgive me, calling the Flying Doctor Service, the chance of others listening, tongues wagging. They’d say it was true, that he’d packed it in. No, I can’t, it’s no use. I know what the doctor would say — keep him in bed, sedatives, give him a chance to recover his energies. What else? He’s worn himself out — mentally as well as physically.’

She was right, of course. The cure was rest and peace of mind. I stayed the night and in the morning he was running a temperature. I saw him briefly and he told me once again that as far as Golden Soak was concerned I had a free hand to do what I thought best. And he thanked me, his face flushed and a dullness in his eyes as though he’d given up hope.

I left shortly afterwards. The Land-Rover, still fully loaded, had been parked in the big shed that served as a garage. Tom and the boys were mooching around, doing odd jobs without any sense of purpose, the two dogs wandering aimlessly in the heat. Even Janet seemed affected the same way. She came out to see me off, her face strained and her eyes reflecting the same hopelessness. She thanked me for coming, but she didn’t refer to what I was doing or wish me luck. She just stood there, brushing at the flies, her mind on her own problems. ‘Did he tell you why he had Tom load the Land-Rover?’ Her voice was barely audible above the sound of the engine.

‘No. He didn’t mention it and I didn’t ask him.’

She nodded, and I knew she was thinking what I was thinking — that it had been done without purpose, a form of escapism. The man was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

I backed and turned, thinking it over. Then I called to her. ‘I suggest you tell Tom to unload the Land-Rover and to come to you before carrying out any order given him by your father.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’ And she raised her hand, a tired gesture of farewell — or perhaps she was just brushing at the flies. I drove down the dusty track between the buildings, out into the sered brown of the paddock, thinking how forlorn she looked, standing there alone, the world she loved in ruins about her. By Christ! I thought, it was up to me now — that single drill hole just had to intersect the reef. Nothing else could save the place, or Ed Garrety from going the way his father had gone.

I drove hard, thinking of what I would find on the spur of Coondewanna, hoping to God we were through the hard rock now, drilling down to the point where the dust piles would show quartz, willing with a gambler’s concentration that we’d strike the reef and strike it rich.

It was almost eleven-thirty when I turned up into the gully, driving round the collapsed costeans, the dust of the cave-in lying in smooth long slopes descending to the black shadow of moisture, and above me great boulders and outcrops of rock. I was remembering the rock drawings he’d talked about, wondering whether it was true that the aborigines had put a curse on the mine. In the shadow there, with the smooth outlines of giant rock shapes hanging over me, anything seemed possible.

Then I was out in die sunshine again and the blinding heat of the mountain’s shoulder made nonsense of such superstitious fears. Ten minutes later I drove into camp and stopped on the edge of the hollow. Kennie coming towards me, moving slowly so that even before I saw his face I knew he had nothing good to report. The rig shimmered in the heat, the only sound in the hot oven of that hollow, and Kennie walking as though every step was an effort. ‘Well?’ I called as he came within earshot. ‘What’s the news?’

He didn’t answer, and when he reached me he simply climbed in and told me to drive on. ‘Something I got to show you,’ he said, and his sun-cracked lips were tight behind the beard. He directed me along the rim of the hollow to an area of wattle dominated by a skeletal mulga deformed by heat and wind. And then we got out and walked a few yards to where a brand new stake had been set upright in the ground. It was about 4 feet high, the wood of it gleaming brightly yellow in the sun, and from the base two trenches had been dug forming a right-angle.

‘What is it?’ I asked, bending to examine a piece of paper in a plastic envelope nailed to the post.

‘Pa must have come back and done it during the night. He’s pegged the usual rectangle — four corner posts covering three hundred acres. This one’s the datum post.’

So that was it, and he hadn’t heard a thing. ‘Couldn’t be expected to with the noise of the drill going all night.’ And he added. ‘I’d have gone after him, but you’d got the Landy — I’d no means of catching up with him.’

‘It wouldn’t have done any good,’ I said. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine for not realizing that this was Crown land and that Chris Culpin had come prepared to stake a claim. ‘What happens now?’

Kennie shrugged. ‘The usual routine. That’s a copy of his Form 22. He’ll take the original to the Mining Registrar at Marble Bar and he’ll make formal application for registration of the necessary fee and then advertise details of the claim in the local paper. After that it’s up to the Registrar. If you can show he’s jumped a claim then the case goes before a Warden’s Court, but when Christ only knows. Did Ed Garrety ever register a claim?’

‘No.’

‘And it’s Crown land.’

The paper nailed to the post gave his name, C. Culpin, and his address in Great Boulder, the hour he had marked off the land, 6 o ‘clock a.m., and the date, January 22, 1970. He described it as a Mineral claim for gold, antimony, silver, nickel, iron, lead, zinc, chromium and copper, and the dimensions of the ground as 60 chains x 50 chains. The boundaries of the claim were also given in chains from the datum peg, which was described as: 1.8 miles 28° North of Golden Soak Mine buildings. And right at the bottom of it he gave the number of his Miner’s right.

‘That’s his prospector’s licence, I suppose.’

Kennie nodded. ‘Pa’s been making claims now for more than six years, but none of them came to anything, only Blackridge.’ He took me round the other three posts so that I could see for myself that the claim covered the whole area of the hollow, and the only encouragement he could give me was that there was a backlog of thousands of claims. ‘But they’ll get around to it in time.’

I was blazing with anger then, the drill still in hardish rock, down only 170 feet, and now this. ‘Do they know your father’s pegged the area?’ I nodded towards the rig.

‘ ‘Fraid so. We bin using that patch of wattle as a latrine and it was Georges who found the datum peg. Just after breakfast.’

So we couldn’t uproot the pegs, and with Garrety ill there wasn’t a hope of registering a claim ahead of Culpin. I stood there, staring at the rig, the blazing heat oppressive now. That bloody drill burning up my hard-earned cash, and for what? I was drilling another man’s claim. A curse, Ed Garrety had said, and by God he was right. ‘Go down and tell Duhamel to pack it in.’ I saw the boy hesitate and I screamed at him, ‘Stop that bloody rig, I tell you.’