Berry hadn’t visited The Queen’s Arms in weeks but she felt like a local when she walked in and was greeted by name.
‘How’s the reno going, Berry?’ the owner asked. ‘House all sorted yet?’
She gave him a smile. ‘Yes, thanks. It’s all coming together nicely.’
‘That’s great. Now, what can I get you?’
‘Um, can I just have a lemon squash … oh, and a chicken parma?’
‘You got it,’ he said.
But before he could turn away Berry asked, ‘Is Young Ned here tonight?’
‘Sure—he’s sprawling on his favourite chair. If you want to talk, you probably should do it before he gets through that pint he’s cradling.’
‘Thanks,’ Berry said as she gave him the money. ‘I’ll just be over there.’
She walked over to the end of the bar and found Young Ned sitting on a stool with his back against the wall.
‘Hello, do you remember me? I’m Berry McCalister.’
Young Ned stared at her for a moment but then the recognition sparked in his eyes.
‘Of course I do, girly,’ he said as he pulled out the vacant bar stool with one hand. ‘Sit down. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Thanks, but I’ve already got one coming,’ she said as she sat down.
‘Good-oh. Now, what can I do for you?’ the old man asked.
‘Well, actually I was hoping you could tell me the story of your ancestor finding the gold,’ Berry said. ‘You’ve told me before but I’d like to hear it again if that’s okay?’
Young Ned grinned. ‘You got a case of gold fever, do you?’
Berry shook her head. ‘No, it’s not really that. I found a box of my father’s papers. A lot of it was to do with your story.’
He gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It was a bad business. I’m sorry that it happened to you. I have to say that your dad was one of the best people I knew. I reckon I could think on what happened for a hundred years and still not be able to work out why Jordy did what he did.’ Young Ned took a mouthful of his beer. ‘It was right out of character. The man would have done anything for your mum. Never seen a bloke so whipped before.’
Berry took a deep breath. This wasn’t what she wanted or needed to hear. Thankfully, the barman arrived with her lemon squash and that stole Young Ned’s attention for a second.
He wiggled his half-full glass in front of the barman. ‘Can I get another one of these?’
‘Only if you promise to eat something. You know what you get like if you drink and don’t eat.’
Young Ned gave the barman a scowl before he finally nodded in agreement. ‘Oh, all right, might as well if you’re going to harp on about it.’
‘Nah, I don’t harp—I’d just tell your dad next time I see him,’ the barman said as he gave Berry a wink.
Berry bit back a smile. The whole thing was ridiculous—the barman was threatening to dob a seventy-odd year old man in to his father.
Young Ned wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh, bloody hell—fine, give me a steak sandwich.’
‘A good choice,’ the barman said with a laugh as he walked away.
‘He’s always so pushy. I don’t know why I bother coming in here every night,’ Young Ned said. ‘So, you want to know about the gold, do ya?’
Berry smiled. ‘Yes, I do.’
Ned looked at her for a second. ‘Well, the first thing you’d better know is that most of the people who live here don’t believe in it. They think it’s just an old story made up by a little kid. Added to that, there’s been people snooping around for decades looking for the gold seam but no one has found it yet. And, lastly, you’re not the first one from your family to ask me about this stuff.’
Berry’s eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘Your father asked me a whole lot of questions all those years ago. In fact he’d pester me for any little detail that would help him build a better picture. I was never sure what he was doing but after a while I started to think that maybe he was on to something.’
‘On to something? You mean like he’d found a clue to where the gold was?’ Berry asked excitedly.
‘Well, I’m not saying that as a fact—it was just a feeling I got. You see, he already knew the legend, just wanted other details about the family. I told him everything I could, but you have to realise that the story was my great-grandad’s to tell, not mine.’
Berry took a sip of her lemon squash as she tried to process the information. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you’re not sure about what happened?’
Ned gave her a smile. ‘I know that Little Neddy found the gold, if that’s what you’re asking. But the story was handed down through the family. Some details were embellished, some were added, and sometimes things are forgotten altogether.’
‘Okay, so what makes you think the gold exists?’
Ned held up a finger. ‘One, it’s the family legend. We know for a fact that Little Ned went missing. It was documented in the local newspapers of the time.’
‘Okay, sure, that works,’ Berry said.
Ned held out two fingers. ‘Two, the family never wavered in their belief in his story. And three,’ he said as he held up a third finger, ‘there was proof.’
‘Proof? Really?’ Berry said.
‘I say it’s proof—others say that it was just a coincidence,’ Ned answered. ‘Not long after Little Neddy was found, the Doherty farm got a few upgrades.’
‘Such as?’ Berry asked with a frown.
‘Another couple of rooms were added to the house and a big verandah wrapped around the entire thing. My great-great-grandad stopped working as a carpenter and started building up the farm. All of a sudden they purchased another three acres and bought some sheep. But you have to understand just how poor they were before Neddy’s disappearance. So my question is, if he didn’t bring home some gold, where did the money come from?’
‘That’s intriguing. Have you looked into where else the money might have originated?’
‘I’ve tried but I couldn’t find anything. At first I thought that maybe my great-great-grandad had been working on a big project and got paid in a lump sum, but I haven’t found any evidence of that. He had a few jobs around the same time—he fixed a roof, built a new counter for the general store and a cupboard for a local woman—but not enough to buy the extra land,’ Ned explained.
‘So, you think Little Neddy found some gold and brought it back home with him?’ Berry asked.
‘Well, I don’t see how to explain it otherwise.’
Berry was silent for a moment. ‘I think my father might have come to that same conclusion.’
Berry went over and over what Young Ned had said as she drove back home. She didn’t want her imagination to run away with her, but the more she thought about it, the more she began to believe that her father had found a clue about the elusive gold.
It was a dark night with only a sliver of moon hanging in the sky and Berry tried to pay extra attention as she left the bitumen and turned down the dirt road that led home. She was always wary of the kangaroos. Sometimes she’d see them on the side of the road, hopping parallel to the car—the frightening thing was never knowing if they would change direction and jump in front of the car.
Berry slowed a little as she caught sight of a shadowy outline of a roo in the nearby paddock. She kept checking the road ahead and the paddock as she headed towards Stone Gully, when out of nowhere she was blinded by oncoming headlights on high beam. She flicked her own lights on and off high beam to tell the other driver to turn theirs down but they ignored her. She put her foot on the brake and used one hand to try to shield her eyes from the intense white light.
‘What the hell,’ she said. ‘Turn your damn high beam off!’
But the driver didn’t, instead they sped up and seemed to head straight for her. Berry tried to pull off the road but the car came at her and purposely swung into her vehicle, causing a sickening thud. Berry’s car was catapulted off the dirt road and into one of the metal fence posts of the bottom paddock. The impact made her slam her head against the wheel, and it hurt like hell as she tentatively reached up and saw that her fingers were covered in blood. Trying to focus, she looked out the window to see the other car tear off down the road, kicking up a cloud of dust as it went. She screwed her eyes shut for a moment in the hope that it would clear her vision; then, she unbuckled her seatbelt and slowly opened the door. Berry dragged in a couple of quick breaths and brought her eyes back into focus. She reached out a trembling hand to grab her phone.
Berry managed to climb out of the car. She was a little light-headed, but she steadied herself against the open car door and managed to scroll through her phone until she landed on Nate’s number. Three rings felt like an eternity.
‘Hey, what’s up?’
Perhaps it was the relief of hearing his voice, but a lump formed in Berry’s throat and she just couldn’t seem to get any words out.
‘Berry? Honey, is everything all right?’ Nate asked quickly.
‘I … I …’ Berry stammered.
‘Berry? What’s happened? You’re scaring me.’
‘I was run off the road. Can you come?’
‘I’m on my way. Where are you?’ Nate said. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay, just a bit shaken up. I’m somewhere near the bottom paddock.’
‘Okay, hold on—I’ll be there in a minute.’
Berry ended the call, stuffed the phone in her pocket and waited. She was sore and shaken but above all having a hard time stopping the tears from flowing. The night was cold, her breath palled in the still air. Maybe it was the shock of the accident but she couldn’t stop shivering.
When she saw Nate’s headlights in the distance just minutes later, she thought she’d managed to pull herself together, at least a little. He pulled up and clambered out. Before he said a word he took her in his arms and held her tight. It could have been the physical contact or the flash of worry in his eyes, but it was too much for Berry and as soon as she leaned against his chest she started to cry.
He was silent for a minute, just holding her tightly and letting her cry. Then slowly he started rubbing her back. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Did you skid on the soft edge of the road?’
Berry shook her head. ‘No, there was another car. It ran me off the road.’
He took her by the shoulders and gently eased her away from him, so he could look at her. ‘Geez, you’re bleeding—you should have said something,’ he said.
‘It’s okay. It hurts but I don’t think it’s very deep,’ Berry assured him as she looked him in the eye. ‘But there was another car, it had its lights on high beam and it ran me off the road.’
She hadn’t even finished her sentence before Nate took out his phone.
‘Who are you calling?’ Berry asked.
‘The police—you were run off the road and the other car didn’t stop.’
When the patrol car arrived twenty minutes later, Berry and Nate were leaning against his ute. Berry had stopped shivering thanks to Nate’s presence and the fact that she was wearing his jacket across her shoulders.
Senior Sergeant Rob Mendez walked towards them and raised his hand in greeting. ‘Hi Nate, Miss McCalister,’ he said.
‘Hey Rob,’ Nate replied.
‘So, are you guys alright? What happened?’
Berry took a breath and nodded. At this point all she wanted to do was go home, have a cup of tea and crawl into bed. ‘I was run off the road by another car. They had their headlights on full, they rammed into the side of my car and then took off.’
‘I see. And did you manage to recognise the car or anything about it?’
‘No, I was blinded by the lights. I flicked my lights on and off a couple of times just in case they had just forgotten to turn them down, but that did nothing.’
‘And you’d slowed down?’
‘Yes, and I started to pull over to the side of the road. I thought he was just being a jerk who wanted to drive down the middle of the road, but then he hit me and sent me into the fence,’ Berry said as she pointed in the general direction of the accident.
The policeman looked towards where Berry pointed and nodded. ‘And you’re sure that you can’t think of anything else about the car?’
Berry closed her eyes for a moment and frowned. Maybe there was something when she saw it drive away. ‘I can’t be sure but I think it was a dark colour and it wasn’t a ute. Sorry I can’t be of more help.’
‘That’s fine, you’ve had a shake-up. It’s always hard to remember details when things like this happen.’
‘Listen, Rob, do you mind if I take her home?’ Nate asked as he slung his arm around her shoulders. ‘I need to check out that cut on her forehead.’
‘Sure. Don’t worry about the car, I’ll get Kev from the garage to come and get it after we’ve finished collecting evidence. Take care, Miss McCalister and I’ll be in touch sometime tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Berry said with a smile as Nate opened the door of his ute.
Senior Sergeant Rob Mendez handed Nate a business card as Berry climbed in. ‘Just in case she remembers something else.’
‘Sure thing,’ Nate answered as he pocketed the card. ‘See ya later.’
Nate got into the ute and flashed a grin at Berry. ‘How does a cup of tea sound?’
‘Like heaven,’ Berry said.
‘Good, let’s go,’ he answered as he turned on the ignition and pulled out onto the dirt track.
They were only a couple of minutes from the house and Berry couldn’t wait to get home, but as Nate turned into the driveway she was hit with a sinking feeling. As the ute bumped up towards the house its headlights flickered over the front door.
‘What the hell!’ Nate cried as he looked at the house.
Berry reached over and grabbed his hand. ‘Oh, my God—is that blood?’ she whispered as her eyes fixed on the large red word scrawled across her newly painted front door.
The word was simple enough but it sent a chill through Berry.
LEAVE.