Return for the Gold Read online

  ‘I’ll come for the gold, and I’ll come for you, Mary, when you’re alone … all, all alone.’

  It was nine months since the two men had robbed our small beach settlement and taken all the gold we had mined over six months: gold and valuables that had never been traced.

  Seventeen-year-old Mary is feisty and quick tongued. She’s engaged to be married to Nik but is harried by a fearful nightmare.

  In her remote South Westland community, a handful of pioneering families share what they have. Here farms are carved from the bush and houses built from scratch. Cattle are herded, and gold is dredged from the beach. Storms and floods, gains and losses, are faced together.

  But a ruthless robber is biding his time: to return for the gold he’s hidden and — if he can find her alone — for Mary.

  Return for the Gold is a nugget plucked from our shared past, and polished bright.

  Especially for Elizabeth, and to Jean and Terry, Jan and Alison, Tilly, Molly, and John.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Maps

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Hall

  Copyright

  Preface

  Mary Kendrick kept a series of valuable diaries during the late 1880s and following years, recording in detail what it was like to live on a South Westland gold-bearing beach with the unusual name of Swag & Tucker.

  She portrayed vividly the sharing of hardships in a small community and, at times, the trauma of accidents and death in such isolation. The beaches were their highway — the nearest doctor over 100 miles north.

  Mary was the eldest girl in an Irish family of eight. Her 1887 diary states her age as fifteen and she admits to being a wild Irish lass with a temper to match her auburn hair. Swag & Tucker traces an eventful twelve months, climaxing in a disastrous robbery that cripples plans for a secure future for three families.

  When extracts from the 1887–1888 diary were published in Swag & Tucker, readers learnt that the stolen gold and valuables had not been recovered in spite of months of searching the area around the robbers’ last campsite after the two men were captured by the mounted police.

  Many people have asked if Mary continued her diaries and whether the gold was eventually found. Yes, she did, and Return for the Gold shows Mary’s constant fear that one day, one of the men may escape from Lyttelton Prison and return to claim it.

  In case you haven’t read Swag & Tucker, details of the robbery are as follows…

  The three boys and I had been picking blackberries up near the bush and they raced me down to the settlement which seemed deserted because all the men were working cattle on newly cleared land far up the valley. As I kicked off my boots by the steps I was suddenly aware of the unnaturally silent house. I put my pail down and stepped into a kitchen that crackled with tension.

  I moved forward slowly. Why were the boys so still? Why was Mrs O’Neill weeping into a handkerchief?

  ‘Mother?’ I met her frightened gaze.

  ‘Tis all right, Mary. No one’s hurt. It’s just … We have visitors, lass.’

  And then it was that I looked behind me. Two figures stood beside the doorway, and the light from the window glinted on the barrel of a rifle.

  ‘Come in, Mary Kendrick,’ came the soft voice that I remembered so well from the time that these men visited the inland camp when I was alone as cook.

  I stepped back and faced them: tall, brutal Red Lucas and dangerous John Southern.

  ‘Why are you here?’ My voice was almost a whisper. ‘Why the rifle?’

  ‘Just discussing a few things with your mother. Perhaps she’ll find answers now that you’ve arrived.’ Mother took a step forward and the rifle swiftly pointed in her direction.

  ‘Careful, Mistress Kendrick. Very careful.’

  ‘Mother, what does he want?’ I was too frightened to move towards her.

  ‘The gold,’ answered Southern, eyes like chips of flint. ‘Where does your pa keep the gold?’

  ‘In the bank,’ I lied, hoping that Mother had said the same, but my hands were shaking.

  ‘And that, Mary Kendrick, is a lie!’

  Brendan, my younger brother, forced a stiff smile. ‘It went north with Paddy and Spider yesterday.’

  ‘Ah. But it didn’t. Our little friend here told me.’ Little One clutched Mother’s skirts, and Brendan, seeing that Southern was distracted, made a plunge for the inner doorway. Red Lucas had our shotgun in his hands and he peppered the ceiling over Brendan’s head with lead shot. The explosion was deafening and those who didn’t scream were paralysed with shock.

  No one spoke while Lucas reloaded the gun and checked outside to see if anyone had heard the noise. But of course all the menfolk were inland for the muster.

  ‘Right, ladies,’ snapped Southern. ‘The gold — where is it? Either you tell us, Mistress Kendrick, or we’ll take young Mary with us. We need a pretty young maid to warm our beds at night, don’t we, Red?’ I saw the glint in Lucas’s eyes as Southern added, ‘Take the lass to the next cottage and we’ll see how long Mistress Kendrick can hold her tongue.’

  Lucas marched me outside in a painful grip. My mind seemed numbed as he whispered terrible things in my ear. We reached the gate before Southern stopped us, then called us back. Lucas swore at him and I shivered. Mother had agreed to cooperate.

  We young ones were standing motionless as Southern left with Mother and the elderly O’Neills and the Winchester ladies. Lucas thumbed the trigger of the shotgun, daring us to move.

  Things progressed swiftly after that. The old folk were locked in the Winchesters’ storeroom, but Mother returned, her hands shaking and her eyes blazing as Southern lowered a heavy canvas bag. Our gold — everybody’s gold — all the hard-earned profits of seven months. I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

  The nightmare continued. We Kendricks were marched across to our storeroom, too, but Brendan was taken as a hostage. We were warned that if anyone followed the men, he would be killed. If we were sensible, he’d be released when no longer needed.

  Somehow we survived the rest of that hot day and a seemingly endless night in the almost unventilated storeroom, until Brendan forced open the door just on daylight. The men had taken our packhorse plus stores, as well as several small valuables from the three homes.

  Brendan fetched the men from the valley, and a huge search was carried out south of our beach. We learnt that the men were already wanted for killing a miner in Ross and for crimes in other places, especially Christchurch City. Armed men now stayed close to guard the families but our nerves were on edge until two mounted policemen arrived and the search was renewed.

  Red Lucas was arrested near the Karangarua River, skinning a wild sheep for food, and oh, the relief, when Southern, disguised as a gentle botanist, was found on an island hidden by the dead trees in the flooded forest, frighteningly close to home.

  But of the gold and most of the valuables there was no trace and the men refused to talk, no matter what threats were made.

  Father, Brendan and I were called as witnesses when the trial
commenced in Christchurch — and the results of that long journey are continued in this sequel.

  Chapter

  – One –

  Even today, two years later, when my memory slides back to November 1888 and the coach journey from Christchurch to Hokitika, I feel a flicker of fear. With wild weather delaying us, rivers rising, slips of rocks and mud across the narrow road, I was in a state of constant tension. The bleak weather cast its greyness over those three days, as if colour was non-existent. And when the tension climaxed to terror at the Taipo River, it was to influence the next two years of my life.

  There were six of us inside the coach and a further eight outside on the roof benches. A vicar and his wife were seated beside me and an elderly lady mumbled inaudibly beside my father, Michael Kendrick. In the opposite corner sat a younger person, and my gaze was attracted to her whenever I thought her interest was held by the scenery. She might be nearing twenty-five, I estimated, and had an alert and level gaze. She was obviously in mourning, dressed completely in black, and I wondered whom she had lost … a husband perhaps?

  I leant back, closing my eyes to the ache of parting in Christchurch with my brother Brendan. He’d be far out at sea, on his way to the new St Patrick’s College in Wellington, and our family would be waiting until 1890 for his first holiday. Fourteen months! No one at Swag & Tucker Beach, except Mother, could replace the close companionship that I shared with my younger brother. If only he hadn’t won that scholarship … if only Nikolas lived closer. What frustration it was to be engaged to a man whom I saw only once a month, and then seldom alone.

  Nikolas Kozan, cattleman and five years my senior, was carving a rough farm from dense rainforest inland of our beach settlement in South Westland. He and his two brothers, Simon the shy man, and Andreas the laughing one, together with Mr Winchester and Father, ran cattle on land already burnt off. In two years’ time, when I would be eighteen, Nik and I were to marry and we’d live in those upper reaches of the Big Jack River.

  The team of five horses had slowed to a walk and, opening my eyes, I glanced at Father’s drawn features, wishing I could express my affection for him. He and Mother complemented each other — Father the decision-maker, stubborn at times, but a caring man. Mother was the implementer of the decisions and the keeper of peace in our large, unpredictable family. Father had been aged by the strain of the past nine months and as yet we had not discussed the outcome of the big trial that we had attended. Our gazes met and he gave me his slow smile.

  ‘Tired, lass?’

  ‘No … just remembering things.’

  He bent forward and patted my hand. ‘Try not to fret, my dear. We all have much to put behind us.’

  ‘If only they’d told us the hiding place,’ I sighed.

  ‘Aye. If only …’

  The jingle of harness and the grating of the wheels ceased and there came a shout from above us. ‘Any of you gen’lemen like to walk this stretch?’

  I caught Father’s arm as he struggled to open the door. ‘Can I come too? I’d far rather walk.’

  ‘Nay, lass. Too risky. The driver said at Springfield that he wants the ladies inside on the Passes.’

  My mouth opened but he had already jumped to the ground and shut the door. I made a face to myself, and the young lady in mourning smiled in sympathy. She showed a dimple in her cheek.

  ‘I’d prefer to walk, too,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t suppose we dare!’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said the vicar who was an elderly man and probably had no understanding of the modern woman.

  The driver peered in at us with a cheerful grin. ‘There’s rain on the way, ladies, so I’ll be tying down these window flaps. Don’t want you getting wet, do we?’ He gave me a wink and I felt laughter bubble inside me as the vicar clicked his tongue with disapproval.

  I looked across at the lady in black and found her dimple gone as she, too, met reproving glances.

  ‘Are you travelling all the way?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I go further on to Greymouth on another coach.’

  Outside, there was the hissing crack of a whip and a yell of, ‘Gee-up!’ that set the horses into their traces and the heavy coach into motion. I shrugged at my new friend as the scrape and grind of iron-shod wheels on the rough roadway prevented any further conversation.

  We started up the steep Pass — Porters, the highest in New Zealand — and slowly overtook the men who were walking. Even without them, the coach seemed overladen with people and baggage. The head wind did not help and those of us near the windows clung to hand-straps as the vehicle shuddered and rocked. It was proving a wild journey.

  My thoughts turned to the court case. It was nine months since the two men, John Southern and Red Lucas, had robbed our small beach settlement and taken all the gold we had mined over six months: gold and valuables that had never been traced. Before they reached our beach in South Westland, they had attacked an old miner at Ross, robbed him and left him with injuries that killed him a week later, so they were to be sentenced for manslaughter as well.

  Anxiously, we had watched our case develop, with Southern appearing as a confused and anxious man, and Red Lucas as the violent leader in the crimes. The prosecution lawyer tried to dismantle Southern’s guise of innocence, for we knew full-well that he was the leader. However, the jury was influenced by his skilful acting and it concerned me that he would probably receive the lesser sentence. It was as if he had spun a web in everyone’s mind. I longed to shout out that he was a dangerous man. Our evidence seemed so unimportant. All the wrong questions were asked.

  A further trial had followed ours, over a bank robbery that they had committed in Christchurch, but as this had no connection to our case, we were no longer needed as witnesses.

  We would have to wait for details of their sentences. How long would they be locked safely away? For now they were secure in Addington Gaol in Christchurch but I shivered as I remembered the way Red Lucas had shaken his manacled fists at us as he was led away, and I can still hear the obscenities he had yelled at his accomplice, John Southern.

  It was nigh on dark when we pulled up beside the lamplit windows of the Glacier Hotel at the Bealey River. There was a bustle of men and boys unloading baggage and mail bags, and unhitching horses as Father led me inside. The vicar asked him if the young lady in his charge could share a room with me, and I realized with a start that my new friend was not travelling alone.

  We exchanged smiles as we were shown to a room then hastily shed wet cloaks and boots, hanging the former on wall hooks to dry.

  ‘I doubt they’ll be much drier by morning,’ I said. ‘My name is Mary Kendrick, and yours …’

  ‘… is Elizabeth Tandale, known by friends as Bess,’ came the quick reply.

  I looked with concern at her armband. ‘I’m so sorry. Was it someone close?’

  ‘My parents.’ She bit her lip and busied herself with removing her bonnet.

  ‘Oh no! I shouldn’t have asked so tactlessly.’ My hasty Irish tongue often spoke before I had given thought to results.

  She turned quickly and rested a hand on my arm, managing a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t try to find words. It’s a month past now, and I’m slowly adjusting. My father was a doctor on Banks Peninsula and my mother had gone with him to visit a sick friend. On the way home there was thunder. The horse bolted down a steep cutting and the trap overturned. Mother was killed and Father died the next day at home. Come now, your father will be waiting. We’ll have a chance to talk later.’

  The meal was hot and filling: mutton, cabbage and potatoes with a treacle suet pudding to follow. The rain slashed at the windows and I sensed that all passengers were dreading the river crossing next morning, for the Waimakariri had a bad name.

  When we retired to bed Bess and I were too weary for much talking but I learnt that as she had no family now, she was taking up a post as governess in the home of a distant relative. I also learnt that she was but twenty-one years of age, jus
t four years older than I. She showed interest in my being the teacher of our small school at Swag & Tucker Beach, and that Brendan had earned a scholarship. We shared our opinions on teaching methods and several of hers would be of great help to me.

  We soon lapsed into silence and I longed to be home to see Mother’s calm features and to hear the young ones pounding along the back verandah to bed. But home was still nearly 200 miles away.

  We were roused an hour before dawn because the rain that had eased by bedtime was showing signs of return and the river would be rising. A breakfast of mutton chops gave me no joy, and I struggled into damp boots and cloak, tying my scarf over my new bonnet.

  ‘We may have a chance to talk over tea at Otira if your father permits,’ suggested Bess, as together we took our seats in the coach. The two elderly ladies looked pale and tired from yesterday’s travel, and today promised even worse jolting.

  One glance at the river in the grey dawn was enough to make me catch my breath. We were used to flooded rivers but none as wide as this. Braided brown torrents stretched far across the valley, interspersed with shingle banks. Lowering clouds curtained the mountains and only a misty line of forest showed across the valley in the direction we were going.

  The fordsman rode ahead of the coach, wearing a cork waistcoat which did nothing to ease my anxiety. ‘Mrs Mumble’, now seated beside me, clutched my arm and I tried to reassure her. This kept my own fears in check but I was grateful when Father announced, ‘There’s been no one lost on this river crossing in all the years that Cobb coaches have travelled the Passes.’

  I could hear shouts to the front of the coach, and sense the agitation of the horses as we lurched down to the ford. There was a scuffle of hooves on the stones, the crack of a whip, then the waters rose on either side of the vehicle. Water began to seep under the upstream door. The vicar’s wife gasped and I was hard put not to do the same. I caught a glimpse of the fordsman waving us on, with water up to the belly of his horse.