‘Only what he’s read.’ And she added, ‘D’you know how much it cost? — over eight hundred dollars. Enough to keep this place going for a couple of months the way we’re living at the moment. And it was only a passing craze,’ she added, the heat giving an edge to her voice. ‘He was down at the mine every day for almost a month, collecting samples, examining them; and then suddenly he abandoned the whole thing.’ She replaced the dome.
‘When was this?’ ‘
‘Oh, about a year ago. It was just after the iron ore company took over the Watersnake lease. They had to pay compensation, of course, and he saw an advertisement for this microscope in a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald somebody’d left at Andie’s place.’ She got out her handkerchief and touched her brow, mopping at the beads of perspiration. ‘He had this wild idea mat if he spent some of the Watersnake money prospecting around Golden Soak he’d make our fortune. For a time he was like a child with a new toy, full of excitement, staying up till all hours poring over the results. He went down into the mine, too, which scared me stiff — the entrance has been boarded up for years. He was quite convinced the Watersnake people would bring him luck.’ She looked at me, smiling a little sadly. ‘It’s sacred land, y’see — sacred to the Pukara, the Watersnake people. Grandfather was initiated into the tribe. There’s a lot about them in his Journal — their rites, their way of life, how they survived in near-desert country.’ She nodded to some paddles of dark brown wood hung on the wall above an old R/T set. ‘Those are from the Watersnake. They’re message sticks given him by the Pukara.’ There were more in a pile on one of the bookcases, all intricately patterned. She said they had been found in a cave in a little rock gorge below The Governor. Then she took me over to a large scale map stuck flat on the wall opposite the window, an aeronautical chart that covered most of the Pilbara. The boundaries of Jarra Jarra were inked in red. ‘Like a billy goat, isn’t it?’ She laughed and I saw that she was right. Jarra Jarra formed the body, stretching away to the east, and the head was represented by the Watersnake, the two leases connected by the narrow neck of the Robinson Gap. The goat image was completed by a beard, a vee of land extending in a south-easterly direction and embracing the peaks of Padtherung and Coondewanna. Near the tip of it was a small hieroglyphic of crossed pick and hammer and the name Golden Soak Mine printed against it.
The iron ore people needed the Watersnake for the new township they’re planning over towards Perry’s Camp. The first thing they did, of course, was to close the Gap, and about five weeks ago, when Daddy found a mob of cattle pressed up against their brand new fence, he had Tom cut the wire. That was when we started driving. She turned towards the door. ‘Well, it’s done now, all except the odd bunch. I just hope nobody finds out till we’ve had some rain.’
‘I’d like to have a look at your grandfather’s Journal some time,’ I said.
‘Of course.’
She was out in the passage now, the door held open for me, and I stood there, looking around at the clutter of things in that extraordinary den, the radio, the paddles of patterned wood, the rock samples — I was thinking of the long hours he must have spent here, worrying about the future. And that incongruous microscope, the sudden burst of enthusiasm. ‘What made him abandon Golden Soak as the solution to your difficulties?’
She shook her head, her eyes staring at me, luminous in the dimly lit passage. ‘I don’t know, I think he just came to the conclusion there wasn’t any point.’
‘Suddenly?’
‘Yes. Suddenly. You do, sometimes. You have a period of wild optimism, working like crazy, then, suddenly, you run out of steam. Haven’t you ever experienced that?
I nodded slowly, thinking of Balavadra. But then I’d only abandoned hope when things had got beyond my control, and I’d found a solution — of a sort. I followed her out of the room and she shut the door. ‘I’m going to have a rest now,’ she said. ‘I advise you to do the same.’
I spent the afternoon on the bed in my room, stripped to my underpants. It was stiflingly hot, but at least I could sweat in comfort, and I needed time to think to sort out my impressions and make up my mind what the hell I was going to do. There was nothing for me here and not much hope that Kadek would assist me financially if I did hitch a ride down to Kalgoorlie. I retrieved the letter from the pocket of my trousers and read it through again:
Dear Alec:
You missed me in Perth by two days. I got here Christmas Day. Hell of a place to spend Christmas, but I’m in on a mining deal near here at Ora Banda and my partner needed me on the spot. I got your letters and I’m sorry to hear you ran out of ore. I think I told you my philosophy — if you do strike lucky, let others in on the gravy before you’re scraping the bottom of the bowl. You should have floated your mine on the market while you were still into high grade ore.
I’ve nothing for you myself. I hire consultants when I need them. Few companies in Australia are big enough to employ experts on the staff, and those that are usually find them within the organization. I suggest you set yourself up as a mining consultant in Perth. There is still a shortage of qualified men out here, particularly those who can produce geological reports for the smaller companies that match the expectations of their shareholders. I can certainly introduce you to some useful people. I shall be here about a week, then back in Perth. Come and see me when you are next there. I have just started a mining newsletter and the services of a man of your qualifications and experience would give added weight to my recommendations. I am sure you realize how mutually profitable this could be.
I lay back, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about Kadek. I had no illusions about the sort of man he was. But though self-seeking, entirely egotistic, he had still made a deep impression on me. Partly it was his enormous vitality. But I think it was also because of his background. He was of middle European extraction, part Slav, with dark, rather saturnine features, black hair, cold, calculating eyes and a mouth like a steel trap. ‘Nobody but a fool works underground.’ There had been a suggestion of arrogance in his voice as he had said that. And then going on to tell me how his father had come out from Serbia between the wars and had ended up as a miner in Kalgoorlie, coughing his lungs out in a tin shack within sight of the Golden Mile. And Kadek had watched him die, with no sense of loss or sadness, no compunction even, only a feeling of contempt for the man who had given him life and then failed to provide him with an education to match his wits.
I picked up the letter again, relieved that he didn’t know my real circumstances….
Finally, you ask about the Golden Soak Mine. Work stopped there in 1937 and it was offered for sale. It was later withdrawn, no buyers. It’s gold, of course, and if it were uneconomic then, it would be doubly so now. Since you’re staying with the Garretys you’ll have discovered all this for yourself by the time you get my letter. But while you’re up there you might care to make enquiries about rumours of a copper deposit somewhere to the east of Lake Disappointment. Big Bill Garrety’s partner was a gambler named Pat McIlroy and when they came unstuck financially McIlroy took off into the interior and was never heard of again. How he knew, of the deposit and whether he ever found it I’ve no idea, but it’s still talked about as Mcllroy’s Monster and there’s an abo up at Nullagine claims his father was on the expedition. Chris Culpin, who is in on the Ora Banda deal with me, picked this up in the Palace bar here from a youngster who had just done a survey in the Nullagine area. The abo’s name is Wally and you’ll find him at the Conglomerate Hotel. It’s a rum story, and even rummer that it should crop up again after all these years. See what you can find out. If there is any truth in it, I can tell you this — right now it would be every bit as good as Lasseter’s Golden Reef. By which I mean it would fire the imagination of punters throughout Australia. Good luck to you!