Prologue
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, 1858
“You stupid bastard!” George Fanti yelled at his older half-brother, David Higgins. “You shouldn’t have brought them here!” he said, pointing to a young aboriginal woman and her small child.
“Grace is carrying my child! I won’t leave her behind!”
“We don’t have time for this, David. It’s almost dawn, the stagecoach is going to be here any minute.”
David tried not to waver, his solid build attempting to stand strong. “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t do this. I won’t do this! I’m taking Grace and our daughter and we’re moving north.”
“North?” George asked. “Are you perhaps going to see your wife and introduce her and your daughter Lotte to your pregnant little black whore?”
“You bastard!” David swore as he took a swing at the thinner, slightly shorter figure of his brother. “I filed for divorce ages ago before I met Grace. I love her and I will marry her.”
“You can’t marry a native!” George yelled at him, his eyes growing nearly as black as his hair. “Had you not gotten her pregnant, she would have joined the pile of your other whores.”
“The child with her is my daughter too, George!” David exclaimed. “And I shan’t risk their lives, nor my own, all for your greed.”
Grabbing his brother by the shirt, George shoved David’s tall mass hard in the direction of the road. “You get your cowardly arse out there with Jack...now!”
“No!” David stood strong, pushing his brother back. “Jack and I agreed that you’ve gone too far this time. We won’t risk our lives for you. Not again. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
Pushing David to the dusty ground, George bent down to pick up his loaded rifle, aiming it at his brother threateningly. “Jack Munroy will do as I tell him, as he always has. As for you, dear brother, it’s your fault we’re all here in this godforsaken town! Because of you, we had to send our wives and children away up north, and still, we have no wealth to speak of.”
“I didn’t force you and Jack to follow me here to Victoria. Jack, tell him!” David yelled to the third man gathered with them.
“You promised us gold!” George roared at him. “But just like every other time, brother, you couldn’t produce what you promised. And again, it’s left up to me to make things right.”
“Make things right?” David shouted, scuttling to his feet. “There is nothing ‘right’ about robbing a stagecoach full of gold. You’ll get us all killed, you stupid bastard!”
George cocked his rifle. “I’ll kill you myself if you don’t get out there, David. You and your native.”
Walking out toward the road, David stopped a few steps away from the small, beaten, and bloodied frame of Jack Munroy.
“H-he threatened to kill my wife, David. He threatened to kill my son, Devon. You must understand—”
“I understand that you’re more afraid of my brother than even I am. And because of you both, we all will be lucky to ever see our children again.”
David walked away from Jack and took his position hiding behind the tall gum tree, signalling for his young aboriginal lover and their daughter to stay well hidden.
* * * *
Hearing the stagecoach drawing almost level with them, the three men rushed out onto the dirt road, each of their rifles raised.
“Stop the coach!” George roared.
The startled horses reared up, knocking the driver to the ground. He struggled for the gun in his belt but was knocked unconscious by the butt of Jack’s rifle.
“Get out here with your hands up!” George yelled, taking a strong stance beside Jack.
Slowly, the door of the stagecoach opened and a young, brown-haired man who looked to be no more than eighteen stepped out.
“P-Please...don’t s-shoot,” he stuttered, obviously frightened.
“He’s a child!” David exclaimed, his rifle lowering as he studied the short, thin boy standing before them.
George looked over his shoulder at his brother. “He’s the man who’s going to make us rich.”
“I’m not going to shoot a child!” David fought back.
George turned to face his brother, his rifle still raised. “You will do as I tell you. Now get your cowardly arse up here.”
Waiting until David took his spot beside him, George turned back to the young man. “We want your gold. Now be a good lad and move over there into the scrub and no one will get hurt.”
“Y-you bastards!” the young man cursed, slowly moving in the direction George had nudged his rifle. “My father will hear of this!”
“Your father?” David asked. “Who’s your father, boy?”
Stopping beside a huge melaleuca tree, the young man addressed his assailants. “I’m the youngest son of Henry Davern, and he will have your sorry arses hung for this!”
“Henry Davern is your father?” Jack asked. “The same Henry Davern who made his fortunes in New South Wales and now owns half of Victoria?”
“It doesn’t matter who his father is!” George yelled. “I want that gold, not his life story. Jack, you go tie him to that tree while we go check the coach.”
Nodding obediently as the other two men turned away and walked toward the coach, Jack handed them his rifle as they passed him and began approaching the young man.
“D-don’t come any further, you bastard, or I’ll shoot!”
George and David immediately turned, rifles aimed, to see the young man shakily aiming a handgun at Jack.
“You don’t want to do this,” David warned him.
The young man cocked the gun. Two rifles fired from behind Jack, and the young man fell to the ground before him. Screams from the young aboriginal woman and her daughter echoed around them.
Jack spun around, clearly shaking from his near-death experience. “You saved my life.”
George ran over to the coach, throwing his rifle inside. “We need to get out of here.”
David ran toward the young man now lying in the dirt, searching his green eyes for any sign of life. Almost immediately, he was joined by the aboriginal woman who began checking the boy’s wounds.
“The boy’s dying,” David said as he tried in vain to stop the bleeding. “Damn it! No one was supposed to get killed!”
“I can save him,” Grace said, reaching instantly into her bag of herbs.
David glanced over his shoulder at the other two men busily readying the stagecoach then back to his lover. “I need you to stay here, Grace. I need you to save this boy.”
She gripped at him desperately, her fingers lacing tightly in his hair, her gaze looking into his pleadingly. “But you said you would take me with you. I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you, David.”
He kissed her firmly. “I’m not deserting you, Grace, or our family. I will send for you once it’s safe. I promise. For now, I need you to do your magic and save this boy if you can.”
“But your brother—”
“I’ll tell him you were scared off by the gunshots. You go now and hide in the scrub, honey. Please do this for me.”
Grace nodded fearfully, and they both watched for the safest moment before she fled with their child and disappeared into the surrounding scrub.
“Where’s your little whore gone?” George suddenly yelled out.
“She ran off when the guns went off,” David replied. “She took my daughter with her.”
Seeming uninterested, George continued getting the horses ready to leave.
“That boy is dead, George. He has a bullet hole in his chest!” David went to the driver and quickly knelt to check if he showed any signs of life. He found nothing. “The driver is dead too,” David commented. “The rifle hit him directly across the temple. Jack must have cracked his skull.”
“For once, he did as I told him to,” George replied before finally turning to look at him. “If anyone finds us out here, we will join them in death if we don’t get out of here right now.”
* * * *
It was late afternoon when the three men stopped the coach to make camp that night.
“We need to keep moving,” George insisted.
David ignored him as he went about unharnessing the horses.
“Did you hear me?” George grabbed David’s shoulder, forcing his brother to look at him. “We might have ditched the old coach, but the police will still be out in full force looking for this gold and us. If they catch us, they’ll hang us.”
“You should have thought of that before you shot that boy back there!” David spat at him.
George let go of his brother. “We both fired our rifles. How can you be so sure it wasn’t your shot that killed him?”
“Because we both know I can barely see my hand in front of my face. I certainly can’t see a man well enough to shoot him dead with a single shot at that distance.”
George nodded, an evil smile filling his face. “Very true, brother, but Jack doesn’t know that. As far as he knows, you could have shot that man instead of me. That’s what I’ll tell him unless you do as you’re told and we keep moving.”
Staring at his brother, studying his black hair and black eyes, David’s disgust for this man grew. In all his thirty years, never had David met a man as cold-hearted as his brother. George was only twenty-seven years old, and already he had killed nearly as many men. Still, David wouldn’t cower before him.
“The horses need to be rested, George. They need food and water, and so do we.”
The two brothers stood, their eyes burning into each other, neither giving an inch.
“I have every mind to just take all of the gold and leave you two bastards out here to rot!” George spat at him. “That stagecoach was my idea. If it wasn’t for me, you and that sniffling bastard, Jack, would still be panning gold out in the fields and finding nothing.”
“We don’t owe you anything.” David sneered at his brother.
“I made you both rich men! You owe me everything!” George raised his voice.
“By shooting that boy, you’ve given us all a death sentence, you stupid bastard,” David reminded him.
George stared at his brother, his rifle aimed true. “If you don’t do as I say, and continue to do so, I will take your share of the gold and hand you over to the police for the murder of those two boys. You and your little aboriginal whore.”
David didn’t flinch. “If you take more than your third of that gold, I will tell the police the truth about who killed those men and all the others down in Victoria. Grace and her tribespeople will back me up too.”
George cocked his rifle. “Sooner or later, brother, you will prove to be too smart for your own good. I will have all of this gold, even if I have to wait a lifetime to get it.”
Still, David didn’t flinch.
Just then, Jack could be heard approaching through the scrub. “George, are you still out here?”
Lowering his rifle, George gripped it tight in his hand. Turning away from his brother and the approaching Jack, George walked into the scrub.
“Jack, take care of the coach. I’m going to go find us some food.”
“What was that about?” Jack asked.
David shook his head. “Nothing you need to be worried about, Jack.” He turned away from the other man.
“Wait, where are you going?”
David glanced back over his shoulder. “We need a fire ready to cook whatever my brother manages to shoot.”
* * * *
Sitting around the fire, the bones of several rabbits scattered on the ground, the three men settled in for the night.
“So what are you going to do with your share of the gold, George?” Jack asked.
George shrugged, glancing at the smaller man. “There’s enough there to buy a decent cattle station. Hell, there’s enough to buy several.”
The two men shared in their laughter.
“We need to get out of Victoria before we think of buying anything,” David interrupted.
“What?” George snapped back at him.
David threw the stick he’d been holding into the fire. “You said yourself that every police station will be on the lookout for that gold. As well as every bank and property seller in the whole state. You may have gotten your gold, brother, but unless we can figure out a way to get out of Victoria alive, you will never be able to flaunt it for anyone to see.”
“You stupid son of a bitch—”
“He’s right,” Jack spoke up.
“What did you say?” George turned to him, his voice harsh.
“D-David’s right. If we don’t get out of Victoria, we are as good as dead men. I’m only twenty-seven years old, I’m too young to die!”
George leaned back against the coach wheel. “Seems you two have figured this out already. So pray tell, where are we going?”
“Queensland,” David said.
“Are you mad?”
David shook his head. “I’ve never been more serious. We send word to our wives to tell them we struck it rich on the gold fields. Tell them we’ll be joining them and our children as soon as we can find transport there. No one’s going to look for Victorian gold in Queensland.”
* * * *
It took the three men several months to reach southern Queensland and their families, but finally, they made it, mostly unscathed and their gold still safely hidden away in the coach. The cousin, Walter Jeffers, who had been putting the three wives and children – Devon, Lotte and Elizabeth - up, offered the men the option to stay on longer if such was their wish.
“We really couldn’t impose any further on you,” David replied, holding his young daughter, Lotte, in his arms.
“It’s a large cattle station and we have plenty of room. Besides, it’ll give you men a taste of what’s ahead when you finally decide to spend your riches,” Walter insisted.
“Who said we were looking at buying cattle stations?” George asked, handing his young daughter, Elizabeth, back to his wife and issuing her back into the house.
Walter shrugged. “I just assumed, my boy, considering you are all nearing thirty years old. I mean isn’t it time to settle down and make a home for your families? And if you’re planning on settling this far north, there is little else for you to safely invest your money in other than cattle stations.”
Just then, Jack came running toward them. “We need to speak, George,” he blurted out in a desperate tone, coming to a stop near the men.
“My dear boy, what’s wrong?” Walter asked.
Jack struggled to appear calm. “It’s nothing you need to trouble yourself with, sir. Just a small technical issue that seems to have come up.”
Walter nodded, as in understanding. “I best leave you men to it then.”
Waiting until Walter and David’s wife had left to return to the house, George turned to Jack.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? We’re not supposed to be drawing any attention to ourselves and you’re running around—”
“He saw me,” Jack interrupted.
“Who saw you?” David asked, his words hesitant.
“The delivery boy from town. He saw me. He looked right at me!”
George was confused. “And?”
“And he was on the gold fields with us down in Victoria. He knows we’re here.”
“What harm can a single delivery boy be?” David asked.
“He can tell the authorities that we never found gold in Ballarat, yet we could somehow finance a trip to Queensland with enough gold to fill a stagecoach,” George explained. “He can draw attention to us. Attention we don’t need at the moment.”
“What are we going to do?” Jack asked, undeniably frightened. “I killed the driver of that coach, George. If the police find me, they’ll hang me for sure. I don’t want to die.”
* * * *
That evening, after they had eaten, David turned to Walter. “I’ve heard there are townships forming further north, sir. Townships shifting away from cattle and more toward agriculture.”
The older man nodded as he smoked his pipe. “There has been talk of a crop more suited to the damned heat up north. Sugar cane, I think they called it. Said to be plenty of money in it too. A chap I knew from back in England has been building mills for the stuff in a place called Mackay.”
“Would you know how to get to this town?” David asked.
George grabbed his brother’s arm hard, pulling him away to a secluded corner. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice quiet, yet threatening.
David pulled his arm free. “Getting us away from anyone who may remember us or our pasts.”
“I told you I’d take care of it,” George reminded him, grabbing his arm again, harder this time.
“By killing another man?” David spat at his brother, his voice also soft, yet equally as threatening. Pulling his arm free from his brother’s hold for the last time, David stood against his brother. “How do you expect Jack to survive down here, forever looking over his shoulder? Besides, how is a man as weak built as he expected to run a cattle station?”
“Jack will do as I tell him to!” George insisted.
“He might, dear brother, but I guarantee you I shall not.”
David turned his attention back to Walter then, stepping a short distance away from his brother and going to sit beside the older man.
“Do you know of a way to get to this town you called Mackay?”
George watched as Walter puffed on his pipe as if deep in thought. Stepping closer, he listened in as the older man spoke.
“There’s an aboriginal man who works for me that I call Peter who may be able to help you,” Walter said. “Reckon he has family up that way. As far as I know, you’d just follow the coastline, because there’s nowhere else to go in this godforsaken country.”
George hadn’t agreed to the trip at first, but after another person recognized the trio as ex-companions from the gold fields in Victoria, George admitted they had little choice but to try the trek northward.
So, leaving their wives and children again in the care of Walter Jeffers and his wife, the three men began their journey.
With the guidance of the aboriginal man, Peter, whom Walter had loaned to them, Jack, George, and David started their adventure along the coast of Queensland to find the new township they had heard talk of.
The long haul through the Queensland bushlands was hard, and the weather was cruel in its growing humidity. When they arrived in Mackay, all three men were astounded by the progression of this town.
“I think we’ve earned a drink, gentlemen,” George said, pointing at the tavern.
“I can’t go in there,” Peter remarked. “Black men aren’t welcomed in bars.”
“Then you can wait out here and watch the horses,” George told him as he dismounted from his horse.
Walking with David and Jack to the tavern, each man sat down and ordered a well-earned drink.
“You men just travelling through on your way to Pioneer?” the bartender asked them.
“Pioneer?” David asked.
The bartender poured their drinks. “Yes, sir. The chap who established the sugar mills around here is moving north through Inkerman and out to Pioneer and Brandon to build more of them. Said they’d be looking for workers and investors along the way.”
Nodding his thanks for both the drink and the information, David waited for the bartender to go back about his business before turning to his companions.
“I’m going further on, to this place they call Inkerman.”
“What?” George asked.
“You heard the bartender. They’re looking for investors up there for these sugar mills they’re building.”
“You can’t be serious!” George continued.
“I can build a good life for my family up there, an honest life.”
“Honest?” George laughed at his brother. “An honest life bought with stolen gold.”
“D-David’s right,” Jack finally spoke up.
“What did you say?” George turned to him.
Jack downed the last of his drink. “David’s right. We could all build ourselves an honest life further north where no one has even heard of Victoria. We can be whoever we want to be up there without living in fear that the noose will find us. Our wives will be respectable women, never needing to learn of the law-breaking bastards their husbands have become.”
George glared at both men, his annoyance with each of them obvious. “It seems you two have already decided our futures then.”
David shook his head. “I’ve decided my future, brother. I don’t need you following me. I’ll take my share of the gold and you needn’t hear from me ever again.”
“Have you forgotten your little native trollop back in Victoria, the one claiming to be carrying your child?” George reminded his brother. “What shall you tell your wife about her? How will you explain fathering other children to another woman?”
David emptied his glass of liquor before standing up from his seat. “I’m going north, I’ll send for my children once I’m settled. Patrick and Lotte can either travel with their mother or their governess.”
“You don’t expect your wife to join you?” Jack asked.
David shrugged. “I imagine she will want to stay in Brisbane and keep whoring herself to my brother there.”
Leaving the tavern, David went over to where Peter was standing in the shade of a gum tree with the horses.
“I need your help, Peter. I need you to send word to a young aboriginal woman back in Victoria. Her name is Grace, and her father was an elder of the tribe in Ballarat. Tell her I’ll wire her money to journey up this way and meet me in a township just north of here.”
Peter stalled, eying him suspiciously. “A girl from a southern tribe may not be welcomed this far north, sir. If you’re after a serving girl, there will be plenty where you’re headed.”
David shuffled his feet nervously. “She isn’t my servant. Grace is the mother of my children.”
“Your children?” Peter asked, his shock obvious.
David nodded. “I know. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but I love Grace and I won’t abandon her.”
