‘Thank you, Tom. Is your mother at home?’
‘Who is it, Tom?’ his mother called from the kitchen.
‘It’s Father Courtney, Mom.’
Tom’s mother came hurrying into the front room, wiping flour from her hands as she untied her apron.
‘Oh Father, excuse the mess. Please, have a seat.’ Eleanor Schweiker hastily cleared her sewing from the old couch, somewhat dismayed that their priest should find her in anything but her one good dress that she kept for Sundays.
‘Not at all, Eleanor, not at all. I won’t stay long. I’m just doing my rounds, checking on my flock.’ Rory Courtney had an easy manner and Tom had begun to look forward to his visits. Father Courtney always managed to find time to throw a football around the back paddock with him. It went some way to easing the pain of missing his dad.
‘Would you like coffee, Father?’
‘Perhaps next time, Eleanor. I was wondering, if Tom is not doing anything next Sunday afternoon we could take a drive down to the river. I’ve found a great little place where we can pan for gold.’
‘I don’t know how to, Father,’ Tom said awkwardly.
‘Ah, but I do and I’ll teach you. Just bring your rubber boots and I’ll bring the rest of the things we’ll need.’
‘Oh, Father, that would be so kind,’ Eleanor Schweiker responded gratefully. Tom had lacked a father figure for too long. ‘I’ll pack you both a picnic lunch.’
‘Thank you, Eleanor. I’ll call by after Mass in the morning,’ he said, getting up to leave.
‘Bye, Father.’ Tom and his mother waved from the front porch. Father Courtney’s big old Buick left a trail of dust as he headed down the hill.
The winter sun had reached the zenith of a low arc above the thickly wooded mountains. The Buick rocked gently as Father Courtney drove across the clearing bringing the car to a halt near the bank of the swiftly flowing river. The cold clear mountain waters, swollen by the early rains, gurgled over the rocks.
‘Is there really gold in this river, Father?’ Tom asked excitedly, munching on a bread roll his mother had baked earlier that morning.
‘Bound to be.’
Tom helped Father Courtney unpack a shovel, a pick and two buckets to collect the gravel, a bright blue plastic dish fitted with a small screen and a strange ribbed oblong box about 5 feet long made out of lightweight aluminium.
‘What’s this, Father?’
‘A sluice. Give me a hand and we’ll set it up.’
Tom followed Father Courtney through the tumbling waters of the river to the opposite bank. This new priest, Tom thought, was really nice.
‘The gold is heavier than the gravel so it sinks to the bottom while the gravel runs over each of the riffles and back into the river.’ Father Courtney propped two large rocks on either side of the sluice to steady it, picked up the shovel and gave Tom the pick. Tom grinned and swung on the pick with gusto. They took it in turns to shovel and pick, and after ten minutes of hard digging both large buckets were full of gravel.
‘The most important thing is not to dump too much gravel into the top of the sieve, otherwise it will run out the other end taking the gold with it. You’ve always got to be able to see the tops of the riffles,’ Father Courtney explained, feeding the gravel slowly into the top end of the sluice. Tom watched as the gravel washed over the riffles, leaving the concentrate behind.
‘OK, Tom, now we get to see if we’re rich,’ Father Courtney said with a big smile, filling a pan with the black concentrate. Holding the pan just under the water, he shook it gently to get the lighter dirt to the surface and then swirled it over the lip. Suddenly a small flash of yellow appeared in the bottom of the pan.
‘Father! Look!’ Tom pointed. Father Courtney picked the small nugget out of the black sand. It was about the size of a pea, but as far as Tom was concerned it could have been the mother lode.
‘There you are, Tom. I told you we’d find gold here.’
It was the only ‘nugget’ of the day. After two more hours the pan yielded about half an ounce of gold flakes, which Father Courtney put into a small plastic cylinder. Tom couldn’t have been happier.
‘Can you drive, Tom?’ Father Courtney asked as he finished loading the car. Tom shook his head.
‘Well, get in this side and you can steer some of the way back.’ Father Courtney held the driver’s door open and Tom stepped onto the running board and slid under the white bakelite steering wheel with its shining chrome horn.
‘Nice car, Father.’
‘It is, isn’t it. Grab the wheel,’ he said, putting his arm around Tom. For about a mile they drove up from the riverbank, Tom grinning as he piloted the big car around the potholes and puddles.
‘If you like I’ll teach you to drive. I’m generally free after Mass on a Sunday.’
‘Thanks, Father. That would be terrific,’ Tom said, his eyes shining as Father Courtney took the wheel. His excitement turned to confusion when Father Courtney took one hand off the wheel and rubbed the inside of Tom’s thigh.
‘It’s a good thing to be close to your priest, Tom. God meant it to be this way.’
Father Courtney pulled Tom’s hand across and put it down the front of his trousers. It hadn’t occurred to Tom that Father Courtney might have loosened his black priest’s belt, or the fly on his black priestly trousers. Black. Priestly black. Sinister, evil black. Father Rory Courtney had planned the whole outing meticulously, right down to the loosening of his belt. A simple manoeuvre as Tom had turned his back and clambered excitedly into the car. Father Courtney’s timing was the result of years of practice. Each time there had been complaints and each time the Vatican had hushed them up and moved their priest to prey on another unsuspecting group of children. This was Father Courtney’s third parish in three years.
Tom tried to pull his hand away but Father Courtney held it on his erection. With an expert flick of the wheel he pulled the big car over onto the side track he had reconnoitred earlier in the week and they drove back towards the river. When the track finally petered out in thick brush he turned off the engine and with both hands free he started to fondle Tom. To Tom’s horror he found himself getting an erection as well.
‘There see. Isn’t that good?’ In one movement Father Courtney slipped his own trousers down, grabbed Tom’s hand again and masturbated with it until he came with a high-pitched cry.
Stunned, Tom sat pressed up against the passenger door, putting as much of the big bench seat as possible between himself and the priest.
‘It won’t do any good to tell your mother, Tom. She would never believe you, but we can still do the driving lessons, eh?’
‘No thanks,’ Tom said sullenly. Angry. Ashamed. Confused. Betrayed. A whole mix of emotions that even his weekly bath that night could never remove.
When Tom refused Father Courtney’s invitations to pan for more gold from the river, his mother had been puzzled.
‘It will do you good, Tom. Besides he’s our priest, you should be grateful he wants to spend time with you.’
‘No thanks.’
‘But why?’
Tom wouldn’t answer. His response had been to run upstairs, slam his bedroom door shut and refuse to come out for hours. His mother had become angry, very angry. For weeks there had been a cold distance between them. Then the rumours started. Big Mitch Coburn, a fourth-generation potato farmer and elder of the Church, his complexion more florid than usual, outlined the complaints to the little gathering in his front parlour. Eleanor Schweiker listened with a growing sense of horror as realisation dawned on her.
‘Bobby Shanahan, Hughie Taylor and little Jimmy Osborne. All of them. Not eatin’, wettin’ the bed, sullen, just not themselves. The first one to suspect anything was Grandma Taylor. She came to me and to my undyin’ shame… to my undyin’ shame I told her I would have none a’ that sorta talk in ma parish.’
Mitch Coburn was normally a big jovial gentle giant. Today he looked as if he’d been run over by a Massey-Harris tractor.