The Girl From Eureka Page 7

  ‘I should have known,’ he said, his voice full of quiet revulsion.

  Indy gathered herself. She refused to let him know she thought any more of him than she would a bug caught under her shoe. ‘This man is licensed,’ she said holding Sean’s arm. ‘You’ve no reason to arrest him.’

  ‘I saw him attacking one of my officers,’ Donnelly said, a sort of bored calm about him. ‘Licensed or not, he struck a law man.’

  ‘He was only defending himself.’

  Donnelly leaned down from his high position on his horse and grabbed her upper arm, squeezing hard. ‘I don’t give a damn. The sooner we rid this place of scum like you the better.’

  ‘If I’m scum, it’s the part of me I owe to you that will be the cause of it,’ she shot back in a low voice, before spitting in his face.

  He let go of her arm and she tried not to flinch when he raised his baton, but her eyes closed of their own accord. So she’d get that cracked skull after all.

  And then she heard another voice she recognised.

  ‘Strike that woman, sir, and I can guarantee you’ll regret it.’

  She opened her eyes and there was Lieutenant Marsh on his steed. His expression was serious, quietly dangerous even. His dark eyes appeared almost black, his mouth a thin, straight line. She’d only ever met him when he’d been in good spirits—teasing her usually. She’d never seen him as the threatening and commanding warrior. A little tremor of excitement ran down her spine and she shook it off. Since when did a dominant man turn her to water?

  Stupid girl, she reprimanded herself.

  But then his dark eyes flickered to hers momentarily and the tremor returned. She was unnerved by the conflicting emotions whirling through her.

  ‘Lieutenant, I’ve warned you about interfering in police business,’ Donnelly said, slowly wiping Indy’s spittle from his face with a handkerchief.

  ‘The beating of women is not police business. It’s no one’s business, and if you do not let her go this instant, there will be consequences.’ Will’s voice remained calm and measured but Indy could hear the underlying rage, could see it in the tightening of his jaw.

  ‘The boy is unlicensed and he and the woman struck one of my men.’

  ‘Who, no doubt, deserved it.’

  ‘And the boy is not unlicensed, you rum-soaked pig,’ Indy aimed furiously at Donnelly.

  ‘Miss Wallace, will you kindly keep a civil tongue in your head,’ Will warned, his eyes blazing down at her, before he turned his attention to Sean. ‘Are you licensed, boy?’

  ‘I just said—’ Indy interrupted, but was silenced by Will’s impatient scowl.

  ‘I have his licence here, sir!’ A flustered Annie ran towards them, waving the paper over her head and puffing frantically as she collapsed against Indy.

  Indy consoled Annie as Will took the parchment and read it. ‘It seems you are mistaken, Sergeant. This gentleman is licensed.’ He turned to the young constable. ‘Untie him.’

  ‘But, sir—’

  ‘I said,’ Will interrupted in a raised voice that made even Indy jump, before he calmly added, ‘untie him.’

  The constable turned back to take his direction from Sergeant Donnelly. After a moment’s hesitation, his nostrils flaring, Donnelly gave a sharp nod.

  Sean was released, but Indy couldn’t help but cast a worried glance at the diggers who were still tied to the constable’s saddle. She watched helplessly as Constable Stone mounted his horse and rode away with the men scurrying alongside.

  ‘This isn’t the end of it, Lieutenant,’ Donnelly said, turning his horse to go but not before giving Indy one last glare. ‘I should have had you drowned at birth when I had the chance.’

  Indy stuck her tongue out at Donnelly as he rode off, and when she turned back to the Lieutenant she saw the whisper of a smile on his lips before he collected himself.

  ‘Sean, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sean answered cautiously as he rubbed his rope-burned and bleeding wrists.

  ‘Carry your licence with you from now on and avoid an unnecessary beating.’ He handed the licence paper back to him.

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir.’ Sean nodded, putting the valuable document in his pocket.

  ‘See to his injuries.’ Will dismissed Annie and Sean, who collected the scattered wood and headed off down the road towards camp.

  Indy stayed where she was. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Miss Wallace, is there any possibility you can stay out of trouble for more than five minutes?’

  Indy’s lips twitched into a smile. ‘Doubtful, sir.’

  Eventually, he smiled too. ‘Are you injured?’ He seemed relaxed now that Donnelly had disappeared and she wished she knew how he was able to shift so quickly from anger to calm. Her mother would love someone to teach Indy that trick. Her foul temper was rarely tamed once it was let out.

  ‘Just a bit scratched up.’ She lifted her wide pants leg to her knee and saw the shallow, but bloody, scrapes left behind from her scuffle with the constable. When she glanced back up at the Lieutenant, his eyes were fixed on her bare leg. A strange warmth washed over her at the intensity of his gaze. She let the pant leg drop and his eyes came to hers again.

  He blinked and shifted awkwardly in his saddle. ‘See you get those cuts properly seen to. I hear infection is rife in the camps.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, shrugging it off.

  She turned and began to walk away. But after a few steps, she couldn’t help herself and looked back. He was staring after her, a strange expression on his face, and she felt that little spark of excitement run through her again. Smiling timidly, she turned away again, irritated with herself for being such a ninny around a man.

  ***

  Will had never known a woman to get herself into so many scrapes so often. It also mystified him how often he happened to be in the vicinity when she found herself in those scrapes.

  As she walked away from him, she turned her head, peering coyly back over her shoulder, and something deep in his belly twisted a little. The smile she gave him was unusually shy for Miss Indigo Wallace. She was normally so strong and in control. Pig-headed, was a word he’d use to describe her. This coyness was at odds with his original summation. He found he liked the subtle softening.

  A crowd had gathered to watch Will’s confrontation with Donnelly and something bothered him as he watched Indy walk away, back to her claim site.

  ‘You, sir,’ Will called to a man who had stood by so close throughout the altercation he was sure to have heard the whole conversation. ‘What was all that blathering about the Sergeant drowning Miss Wallace at birth?’

  ‘Well, he’s her father, ain’t he,’ the man answered matter-of-factly. ‘Not that he’ll admit that official like, but all and sundry knows.’

  Will’s head snapped back to Indy who had now reached her mine site once again. Sergeant Donnelly was her father? The man had treated her with so much detestation. He could scarcely believe it. ‘Does she know he’s her father?’

  ‘Well, if she didn’t, she do now,’ the man responded with a raspy chuckle, before moving back to his own mineshaft.

  Will’s head reeled with this revelation and he was lost in his own thoughts until suddenly George appeared beside him. Turning to his friend, he was baffled by the ear-to-ear grin George wore. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘I was passing, saw the fracas and was surprised to see my old friend dive into the fray. It seems Miss Indigo Wallace has a personal protector.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not my fault that she’s always getting herself into trouble and that somehow I am always there to witness it.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ George asked, a teasing glint in his eye. ‘Or fate?’

  ‘Fate?’ Will huffed. ‘If it’s so, then the fates are plotting against me.’

  ‘She’s a pretty girl, Will. And despite that ability to find trouble, and shrew’s temper, I’d say she’s a good match for
you.’

  ‘A good match? For me? Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘Come now, Will,’ George said with a laugh. ‘What will it take for a woman to steal away with your heart?’

  ‘A lot more than a pretty teenage girl with a foul temper, I can assure you.’

  George barked out a laugh. ‘If she’s a teen, I’m a geriatric.’

  Will gazed out across the goldfields again. Miss Wallace was back at work, despite the good roughing up the Sergeant—her father—had just given her. He frowned at the mess the troopers had left in their wake. What would have happened to her, had he not come along and intervened?

  ‘I think it’s time we spoke to the Commissioner about these licence hunts,’ Will said changing the subject.

  ‘Be careful, Will. You’ve never challenged authority before. Why now?’

  ‘Licensed or not, the police should not be permitted to hit women or boys. This isn’t a war zone, George,’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ George asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before turning his horse and riding off ahead of Will.

  ***

  Indy was careful not to get caught as she snuck a peek at the Lieutenant. He had that little furrow between his eyebrows that said he was unhappy about something. When he waved old Harold Smee over, she wondered what the drunkard was telling him. The Lieutenant’s head shot up, his dark eyes scanning across the fields and that furrow in his brow was now a deep trough of displeasure. What had that old bastard Smee said? Whatever it was the Lieutenant didn’t like what he’d heard one bit. She wondered if he had been astute enough to ascertain from that little exchange between her and the Sergeant that the man was indeed her father. It wasn’t the first time she’d had words with the man who’d apparently sired her, and she had no doubt it wouldn’t be the last. But she’d promised that she would do her best to stay away from the wretched man and wasn’t about to upset her mother by going back on her word.

  Indy turned away from the Lieutenant at Sean’s call from the bottom of their pit, determined to put both Sergeant Donnelly and the Lieutenant out of her mind, but for very different reasons. Having shored up the mine with the timber he’d collected, Sean sent up another bucketload of dirt and Indy got back to business. Upending the bucket into the sieve of the small mining cradle, she sorted the coarse stones from the soil. Once it had all been separated, she poured the water slowly across the dirt to wash it away, in the hope that some shiny little nuggets would get caught in the cleats. She looked into the bottom of the cradle where the water shimmied off, back into the creek. Nothing. Moving back to the pit she lowered the empty bucket, and dragged up the new one filled with dirt and rubble that Sean had scraped off the walls. It had been a long time since they had seen any good colour in the ground.

  Unable to stop herself, her gaze moved back across the fields. But this time her eyes didn’t find their mark. The Lieutenant had moved on. She gave up any pretence of working and leaned against the windlass. What was he playing at? The soldiers were as much the enemy as the traps, the Commissioner, and even Governor Hotham, depending on who you listened to. The Governor had made promises to the people when he’d visited with his wife in August. Promises he didn’t seem intent on keeping, now that he was back in the safety and luxury of Government House in Melbourne.

  Twice now the Lieutenant had intervened in a raid, telling the traps to go easy on the diggers. It baffled her. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly stopping the raids—they were the law after all—but he also seemed to abhor the violence with which they were carried out. A soldier who disliked violence? Who’d ever heard of such a thing?

  She thought back over her encounters thus far with the Lieutenant. He’d mostly ordered her around and man-handled her. Nothing to like about that, she scowled. But he had also gently teased her in his interactions, even when he was trying to save her from a bar brawl. Which, of course, she had not needed saving from. Today she had seen the first signs of the serious man behind the carefree façade. Strong and unwavering, he was not a man to be trifled with when he chose to speak out.

  She chuckled to herself. Even her darling daddy had backed off at the Lieutenant’s hard line. And wasn’t that a first! She’d kiss the Lieutenant’s feet for that alone. She frowned at the errant thought. Kissing the Lieutenant? When she’d thought him the enemy, he was just a soldier, another redcoat. Now that he had shown this other commanding, yet humanitarian, side to his character, he somehow seemed more attractive to her. His sideburns may have been a tad too long for her liking, but his face was quite pretty.

  She grunted at her wayward girlish thoughts, tossing away the little rocks she still held in her hand, and got back to work as Sean sent up another bucket. Lieutenant Will Marsh was not to be trusted. He was getting beneath her skin and the barriers she’d built up against such pretty men. He was confusing her and that had to stop. She determined to put him out of her mind and get on with the job at hand.

  As the end of the day drew near, Indy called Sean up out of the pit and the two of them secured their mine as best they could. Some miners had big, vicious dogs kept chained to their mines to ward off claim jumpers. Indy had seen those dogs turn on their masters more often than not and decided they’d take their chances with the claim jumpers. Big Lenny, the six-foot-five, dark-skinned American could see Indy’s mine from his tent, and she knew he kept watch over their claim when they weren’t around. She waved to him now as she passed by and he grinned and waved back, holding up the book he was reading for her to see.

  ‘Got it from the lending library.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me if it’s any good,’ she called back.

  Lenny had been her first ever student. Although, it hadn’t exactly been his choice. He’d paid her to go to the government camp to buy his licence for him. But when she’d returned with his licence in hand, she’d given him back his shillings and told him it was about time he learned to read and write for himself.

  ‘It’s either the school with all the kids, or me,’ she’d given him the ultimatum. ‘Take it or leave it, Lenny.’

  He took it. And two years later Lenny was a proud literate man, a voracious reader of novels, and Indy’s staunch ally.

  On arrival at their tent in the Irish camp, Annie launched even before Indy had a chance to sit down and remove her boots.

  ‘What a surprise that man was today,’ she gushed. ‘He’s not at all like the other soldiers, is he? The way he saved Sean and yourself from a beating. What a gentleman.’

  Indy unlaced her boots, and tipping them up, watched half the Ballarat goldfields pour out onto the ground. ‘Annie, you know nothing about him.’ Removing her woollen stockings, she wriggled her toes in relief as the fresh, cooling air hit them.

  ‘I know he saved your rock-hard head,’ Annie said, tapping Indy’s head for emphasis. ‘That Donnelly. He’s pure evil.’

  Indy just grunted. She was too tired to go down that particular mineshaft again.

  ‘He’s quite handsome, isn’t he,’ Annie said and Indy screwed her face up at her.

  ‘Donnelly?’

  ‘No! Of course not Donnelly,’ Annie scoffed. ‘The Lieutenant. And most imposing when he chooses to be.’

  ‘Do you want an introduction?’ Indy snapped. Her fatigue, and her own disconcerting thoughts about the Lieutenant, were making her irritable. ‘Perhaps you can go with him to the ball next week instead of Walter O’Shanahan.’

  ‘Mind your manners, Indigo Wallace. I’m just saying it’s nice to see a soldier who’s a true gentleman. He has an officer’s commission so he must come from money and breeding.’

  Indy moved to wash her hands and face in the basin of water Annie had already prepared for their return from the mine.

  ‘Do you see how all those other redcoats hang about in front of the saloons cavorting drunkenly with loose women?’

  ‘And how do you know he doesn’t?’ Indy wiped her hands roughly on her hips. ‘He’s a man, is he not? He no doubt has the same desires and dri
ves and lecherous thoughts as other men.’

  ‘My word, Indy, aren’t you harsh on the man who saved you from a head splitting.’

  ‘No. I’m just not about to pretend he’s some sort of hero. He’s a soldier. It’s us, and them, remember? And you’re the one who directed him to Miss Margaret’s house of ill-repute when you met him the first time.’

  ‘I’m humble enough to say when I am wrong,’ Annie said clasping her hands in front of her. ‘Perhaps you ought to be the same. Next time you see him you should thank him properly.’

  ‘Next time? There won’t be a next time.’

  ‘Don’t forget he stepped in when Sean would have been arrested. For that alone he’ll be in my good graces until he proves himself otherwise.’

  Indy didn’t wish to hear anymore. It’d been a hell of a day. Licence hunts, a near head bashing. It was hot, she was tired and the turn in her own thoughts and feelings about Lieutenant Marsh were nagging at her. She didn’t need Annie singing his praises as well.

  ***

  Sean and Indy were working on their mine the next day when Annie came rushing across from the campsite.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Annie said bursting with excitement as she reached them. A calico bag was slung over her arm and Sean went straight for it. Their lunch, Indy guessed.

  ‘They arrested Mr Bentley for the murder of James Scobie?’

  ‘The gossips predicted true then,’ Sean responded, already shoving food into his mouth.

  ‘It won’t hold,’ Indy said, putting down her little rock hammer and taking the sandwich Annie handed her. She took a bite. Corned beef again.

  ‘And what would you know about it, missy?’

  ‘Bentley plays cards with Police Magistrate D’Ewes.’ Indy gave a dismissive shrug. She took a long drink of lemonade and swallowed. ‘There is no way the magistrate will convict a prominent business owner over a drunken Scottish miner.’

  ‘But there’ll be a jury no doubt,’ Annie surmised. ‘Even here in the bush the law is upheld for murdering a man.’

  ‘From what I hear they only have the word of a child over Bentley and his co-conspirators,’ Sean added.