Chapter 3. Country Gardens; and The Story Of The Ironstone Gourd
Sayd played his role in their charade as well, though simply by returning to his duties. He cleaned up after meals, kept the place tidy, made sure there was plenty of cut wood, saw to the stove and the hot water drum fires and hand watered their little vegetable patch. This had escaped the flood only to suffer during their absence, though milder weather and a shower prior to their return had seen most of its plants scrape through.
Nearly all of the miners had a garden of some sort, their plots being the field’s main source of fresh produce. Some just had a pumpkin vine on which to toss their soapy water; others worked at more serious cultivation and sold or traded the excess.
All the operations at Jervois Range were partnership affairs or syndicates, with several involving as many as six men. No one worked by themselves; apart from practical reasons and safety it was simply too lonely.
McCullock and Johns had toiled together for years. They’d settled their differences long ago and as a rule tended to work harmoniously. Yet sometimes of a hot dry Sunday McCullock would get bored and – for want of something better to do – would start niggling and nagging at his partner in the hope of provoking a response. He’d criticise Johns’ cooking, poke fun at his habits and opinions or ridicule his political views, as the mood took him.
Wilbur Johns was unshakeable, however. He knew his partner well and soaked up the barbs and comments with barely a murmur – along with all their other day to day problems and setbacks and calamities. No fuss, no tantrums, no wanting to smash something or sort it out with fists. Setbacks and calamities got a philosophical shrug of the shoulders. Snide comments were simply ignored.
This tended to frustrate McCullock, and Johns often maintained a calm front just to get a reaction of his own. Neither played these games during working hours, however. Kicking a workmate’s waterbag around was strictly an after-hours activity.
Sundays at Jervois were rest days (or days at least when no mining took place), a custom upheld by almost everyone on the field. Mornings were generally set aside for domestic duties and afternoons for relaxation.
The same mostly applied at the Attutra. A low woodpile meant going to the gidgee flats straight after breakfast; on returning they’d unload the truck and have smoko. When finished, if the water needed replenishing, they’d head out with their empty drums.
This routine had recently been changed. Previously one had often stayed back to deal with the laundry; now, with gold in the equation, either McCullock or Johns would remain at the house.
The Jervois field’s water came from Bonya Bore or Unka Rockhole, the miners clattering along to one place or the other with their empty drums on various old trucks. Mostly they went to the bore. Unka was closer but a few stray cattle could ruin the water. Often it was dry for months at time.
Bonya was the opposite direction and twice as far, though going there had advantages. The big stock tank was mostly full, so the water could be siphoned rather than pumped. Better still, it meant water aplenty to bathe – under the overflow if the mill was turning and the breeze wasn’t too chilly. But someone had set up a hot water drum and plumbed it to a crudely enclosed shower down in the creek, so on cold days they’d use this, first filling the drum and lighting a fire beneath it, then filling their own drums while waiting for the water to warm.
―And ohhh… The luxury of unrestricted bathing.
Whenever a miner bagged a stray bullock an afternoon barbeque was the norm – mostly at the lucky miner’s dwelling. Failing this a get-together might be arranged somewhere. McCullock and Johns often joined these affairs but just as often stayed home.
Rum in their lockup gave the option of an afternoon’s yarning and dozing under the gum tree, though their “couple of rums” could sometimes turn into a session. These often ended in drunken comas, sometimes following a raging argument and some woefully bad singing, and sometimes with neither.
If the rum cupboard was dry it was either biscuits and bickering over pannikins of tea or off to the Sunday gathering.
Sayd mostly stayed around the house of a Sunday afternoon, making elaborate fencing wire and tobacco-tin trucks or lying on his bed reading Westerns. If allowed to go hunting he’d take some damper and a waterbag with him. Mostly he’d be home before dark, though a couple of times after stalking a roo for too long his return was completed by moonlight.
Any time he thought McCullock might get belligerent he’d head across the creek and climb Reward Hill. Later, all being quiet, he’d come back and prepare dinner, though sometimes he’d eat it alone.
Three of these stock-standard Sundays were to pass after returning from Marshall Bar with the gold, and the fourth seemed headed the same way – hot and dry, no prospect of rain and the usual expeditions to replenish their wood and water. Lunch was then taken, following which Sayd cleared the table and lay down to read. McCullock and Johns retired to the gum tree to discuss their futures and curse the weather over a rum or two.
And McCullock was expanding once more on his plan of buying a property in the Adelaide Hills and there living in luxury and leisure, when he suddenly realized: all was not right with Wilbur Johns. He was …
He was what, exactly? Stoically enduring a pain? Close to a mental crisis? Whatever the problem, he was keeping it well hidden. But how could there be a problem with their futures looking so rosy?
Just then Johns lurched to his feet and set off down the footpath to their bush toilet. A cloud of flies followed, desperate for his shirt-back’s sweaty moisture.
McCullock watched it darken as they settled. Yes, there’d definitely been a change; of late a couple rums had the fellow wanting to argue. It spared him the atrocious singing, but the angry demands for a portion of the gold and a trip to Alice Springs had him very much on the defensive.
What would happen then was obvious: soon Johns would be splashing money about like water, with a horde of new pub-mates helping him spend it. Word of his sudden wealth would spread and before long certain others would hear of it – not miners hopeful of pegging a claim but men brutal and ruthless.
They’d get the information they wanted by fair means or foul and have people on the road within hours. Staying at the dig would be dangerous; resisting could be fatal.
Yet his partner’s boozy impatience was of no real concern. That could be managed; it only needed a lid kept on it until the gold had been mined. Three week’s hard work should do it. A month at the most. They could then be on their way and gone for good.
McCullock smiled to himself. And what a commotion that would create, with all and sundry falling over themselves trying to find where they’d been and what they’d been onto, especially after him saying they were going droving.
No, his real concern was Johns’ inner turmoil and its causes. He should have noticed sooner, of course, but sober his partner was as steady as a rock. With a belly full of rum, though…
Well; who took notice of anything then? Yet thinking back the signs had been there for … What? Two or three weeks, at least. And what best to do? Trust had always been a given between them and he certainly still trusted the fellow.
When Johns returned McCullock steered the conversation back to the gold project. He enthused wholeheartedly about how much was waiting there to be won and told Johns again how rich they were going to be.
He then reminded his partner how essential it was they stay out bush and stick to the job, so that when they left Jervois for good they’d be taking it all with them. This was the only way to do it, he argued, after which they’d be wealthy enough to live life as they pleased. It would just take a little more time.
On the face of it Johns seemed in agreement, but McCullock couldn’t dispel the notion that his responses were just a bit too enthusiastic. So what might this “Johns Mark-Two” be thinking, he wondered, or planning perhaps? Hopefully the rum wouldn’t encourage him to do something stupid, like taking some of the gold and clearing out.
Doing so wouldn’t be difficult; it was in a steel trunk under his bed and they both had a key. Neither would it be theft; a couple of bags would comprise part of Johns’ share.
He couldn’t do a surprise runner with the lot, of course – gold being so heavy. Two or three bags would be manageable, however, and arguably within his rights.
So, nothing to it. Wait until someone was heading for Alice, pull a couple of bags from the trunk and, “See you later”. It would spell the end of their partnership but it would also leave the rest of the dig to him. There’d be little time to recover more gold, though, before the bad buggers arrived.
These new uncertainties had McCullock feeling ill at ease, and in his state of discomfort realised that something had to be done. He’d tell Johns of his decision, whatever it may be. Just the reasons, though. Not the details.
There’d be an argument of course but there were always arguments. His next job was to think up a plan.
The following Sunday, after breakfast, McCullock checked the wood and water reserves as per usual. Only the water needed replenishing so he arranged for Johns and Sayd to go.
As soon as they’d departed he slid the steel trunk from under his bed and took a large writing pad from his leather folder. Back at the table he made himself comfortable and set to work.
An hour later, after a couple of false starts, he sat up and looked over the results. The sketches were checked against his cross-referenced notes and some alterations made, then he checked it all again. Finally he sat back, content with the job.
His document was a sketch map of the Jervois copper field, its hills and creeks plus the various mines and tracks developed over the years. On the reverse were detailed diagrams of the richer sections, showing both older pits and current ones. Each of the latter had a few frank and seemingly eccentric observations about the workings and the miners operating them, though some of his comments seemed unrelated to anything.
Yet into these notes and remarks McCullock had woven clues, pointers to help unlock the map’s real meaning – which was how and where he would secure the gold. Only someone familiar with his self-taught writing plus his habits and family history would be able to do this, however. Anyone else seeing the document would think it just a poorly drawn, badly annotated sketch map – unless they were aware somehow of its real purpose, in which case some diligent brainwork might very well decipher it.
Also coded into the text was a remark as to the gold’s source. The mention was only brief, however, for he expected it to be soon mined out – weather permitting and all going to plan – so the information wasn’t considered greatly important.
McCullock was not certain of his motives for making the map, nor did he waste time examining those reasons too closely. He just regarded the document as insurance of sorts and felt better for having done it.
Back at his bed the map and writing pad went in the leather folder with his other papers. This was then returned to the trunk, which was locked and returned to its place.
Next he made a start on preparing lunch, all the while reviewing in his mind the means by which he would secure the gold. And by the time Johns and Sayd drove in with the water the plan was clear in his mind.
McCullock chuckled to himself as he went out to help with the unloading. His opening gambit would be the trickiest part. It meant being all warm and comradely during their Sunday afternoon drinks and forgoing his usual goal of getting a good argument started.
When the drums were down from the truck and standing upright lunch was taken, after which Sayd cleared the table and started the washing up. McCullock and Johns went to the cool safe for their rum bottles then retired to the chairs under the gum tree.
And there, with considerable effort and no little determination, Les McCullock for a time became an almost perfect example of good-hearted Aussie mateship.
He laughed and joked merrily and reminisced at length. He listened attentively to Johns’ little grievances and spoke appreciatively of Johns’ unflagging support. And whenever the level of rum in Johns’ pannikin came anywhere near empty he leant across to top it up.
Johns’ own rum supply was low, so he was more than happy to accept McCullock’s generosity – if that was what his uncharacteristically friendly or temporarily deranged partner wanted. Yet he didn’t accept these seemingly warm hearted gestures without wondering what might lie behind them.
The reason for this was their long standing and strictly adhered-to arrangement of each drinking from his own reserve. If one had completely run dry and supplies were due then sociable generosity was the order of the day, but if one demolished what remained of his consignment in a mindless bender then the other could justifiably refuse to share.
And later that night, with Sayd asleep and Johns unconscious and snoring, McCullock started on the next part of his plan.
His stretcher and steel trunk were standing on a square of old carpet. This extended out from his bunk one side, an arrangement providing him with a bedside mat on which to stand when dressing.
He eased out of bed, slid the trunk quietly from beneath it, unlocked the lid and lifted out the heavy little sacks of gold, all by feel in the room’s total darkness. The trunk was then locked again and pushed back into place, after which he went to the door and latched it open.
Back at the bed he picked up three of the sacks; outside under the dwelling’s western end lean-to he set them on the ground. He then returned for the remainder; and without boots on his feet the only noise made was the faint click of the latch as he closed the door.
Also beneath the lean-to were a number of oversized rock specimens. These were mostly brightly coloured copper minerals from the local mines, but there were others from other places as well. Among them was an iron laterite boulder, of everything there the least interesting by far.
Its only apparent attribute was its shape, for it possessed an unusual though slightly misshapen roundness. Its size was near that of a medicine ball and its surface was all rough and uneven. Alongside it were the gold-filled heavy-canvas bags.
Twofoot Jack had given McCullock the boulder a few years earlier, when he and Johns had called at their Unka Rockhole camp one day, on the way to fill their water drums...
Les McCullock turned the old army truck from the track and drove across to where Twofoot Jack was standing by his shelter. He and Johns were going to the rockhole for water but had called in to drop off some salt beef and flour for the people there.
On the ground near Twofoot’s iron and brush wurlie was a large dark brown rock of uncommon roundness. McCullock was intrigued by its shape and assumed it to be an errant lump of ironstone, though he couldn’t remember having seen it before. To the best of his knowledge it was the only boulder for kilometres – save the ones in the creek and those were not ironstone.
On subsequent visits he noticed the rock had sometimes been moved, often a considerable distance. This intrigued him. Why was it being shifted about? The movements seemed random. Pointless, too. Ironstone was heavy; shifting it would have been hard work.
One day he asked Twofoot what was going on.
Twofoot had laughed. Despite his going crook about it the kids sometimes amused themselves by rolling it around, he said – an answer McCullock found bewildering, given the boulder’s considerable mass. Then Twofoot asked McCullock would he like it.
This confused the miner even more. It was just a large round rock, yet this person – the sum of whose material possessions totalled less in number than his fingers – was offering him a gift. And what should he say? He certainly didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
Without waiting for an answer Twofoot strode over to where the boulder was lying. There, after working his hands underneath it, he wrestled the awkward shape waist high.
McCullock could see he was struggling to maintain a grip and rushed to help, but when he arrived there Twofoot suddenly thrust the rock onto him.
Quick reflexes braced him for its weight, but to hi
s great surprise – and a chorus of laughter and yackais from everyone present – he nearly went over backwards. The rock weighed just a fraction of that expected.
Twofoot took it from him, then carried it effortlessly across to the truck and put it on the tray. After finding the right spot he worked his fingernails into what appeared to be some cracks.
Suddenly a piece came away. It left an irregular hole big enough for a child’s hand to go through.
McCullock was amazed. The rock was completely hollow, like a large ironstone gourd. Twofoot turned the opening to the sunlight and invited him to look inside. Its outer surface didn’t warrant a second glance but the interior was something else entirely.
Like a void between bubbles of smelter slag it was, all smooth and glossy and utterly black. And, judging from the piece Twofoot had removed, its flint-hard shell would have averaged some three centimetres in thickness.
McCullock couldn’t believe it. He thanked Twofoot warmly, replaced the fragment and put the ironstone on the seat between himself and Wilbur Johns.
Back at the house it went under the lean-to with his other oversized specimens. There, amid all the colours and crystals, the ironstone gourd looked very much the poor cousin…
Now it had a destiny. It was the key to McCullock’s plan.