McCullock's Gold

  Chapter 13. Strong Opinions; and Not A Moment’s Thought

  Once at the Community Cadney thanked the Tarlton man for the ride and went straight to his father’s house. Twofoot had been wondering about the expedition’s failure to return, though with Cadney on board he’d not been overly concerned.

  After raiding the fridge for some bread and meat Cadney gave the old man a comprehensive run down on everything that had taken place.

  “…And so with luck the switch won’t be noticed and the samples will go off for assay,” he said in summing up. “Hopefully after that the mongrels won’t come back. But if the swap is discovered… Well, there’ll be no holding the pricks then. They’ll know why I did it and they’ll be out there again, all fired up and ready to wreck the place looking for the gold.

  “And how could you stop them? We couldn’t do it and neither could the Sites Authority or the Land Council, because there’s no way anyone can guard or protect the place. All we can do now is hope for the best. If it does work, though, then only Sayd and we two will be left in the know and that should be the end of it.”

  Until then Twofoot had been holding his tongue but his language now was unrepeatable. Cadney didn’t comment, knowing how totally dedicated his father was to the place – spiritually, emotionally, tribally and as a elderly Aboriginal individual.

  When the old man had finished Cadney made some remarks of his own, mostly about Tyler and Watts’ birthrights and his intention of following the pair to Alice Springs. They’d know he’d caught up with them, he said, if they were still there, because he’d even the score in a way they would never forget.

  Twofoot exploded. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” he shouted angrily. “Making payback will only draw attention to our Secret Business country and if that happens someone will find the gold again. Just leave it alone.”

  His anger was brief. “You don’t know what it’s like, son,” he explained. “‘Gold fever’ the old timers called it but it’s really just greed. It turns good whitefellas into thieves and would turn Appoota Mbulkara to rubble. That’s why I spent so much time there, fixing it all so it looks like nothing – you know, in case someone else stumbles on it. Being down in the sand country helps. So does the all the land around it with nothing worth digging.”

  Cadney didn’t argue. He knew the old man was right. As he got up to leave his father put a hand on his arm. “Promise me you won’t go after them,” Twofoot said. And Cadney gave his solemn word. Yet deep in a hidden corner of his mind, far below any level of conscious thought and awareness, a tiny circuit came into being suggesting that one day all this would be settled.

  At his back gate Cadney saw his laundry on the line, then in the house found Angelica had put the chairs on the table and washed the floors. Next he discovered a pot of his favourite kangaroo tail stew simmering on the stove. He went out the front to find her.

  Angelica was nowhere to be seen. She had been at the car, however. The tool boxes he always carried were now on the veranda, as were the spare tyres and spare parts cartons from the rear. She’d also thrown out his rock samples, shovelled out the accumulated wood-load residue, scraped and mopped out all the dried kangaroo blood in the rear and cleaned the interior generally.

  Cadney was quite chuffed. His wife was not speaking to him on account of recent arguments about the car and this boded well. “Bloody woman,” he muttered to himself, “I just get the stupid thing ballasted nicely and she throws out all the ballast.”

  The tools and tyres were given, of course, but the spare parts and rocks he would have to sneak back in again by ones and twos.