TWO
Two
The beauty of living so close to the shop was that it was a five-minute commute to work by foot. Days like this were the best—clear blue skies, not too hot and the hustle and bustle of the little town filling her with energy.
Located on the major highway connecting the coast to the west, and with its close proximity to two larger regional towns, Banalla was in a prime position to prosper. It was a thriving community full of art, culture, history and agriculture. An eclectic mix for a rural town, but it worked. The quaintness of its heritage buildings and the fact so much of its architectural structure had been preserved gave the little town a welcoming, homey feel. The rugged bushland setting, dotted with rocks and caves and endless plains of farming land, added a harshness to the beauty, like taking a step back in time to when this land bred a toughness in the people who lived here.
Lottie slowed her steps as she neared the large monument erected on the corner of the main street, taking in the detailed face of the man seated upon his rearing horse, surveying the town with a steely eye. Lottie always felt her breath catch and hold, as though at any moment the horse would drop back down and the rider would tip his hat and gallop off into the sunset. It was a romanticised notion that her saner self scoffed at. This was Gentleman Jack McNally, the infamous bushranger who held the record for the biggest stagecoach robbery in the country. As an amateur lover of history, she’d researched Jack intensively—she knew firsthand some of the more ungentlemanly aspects of the bushranger’s life—first and foremost, that he made his fortune by stealing, but also that he’d kidnapped a nineteen-year-old woman, taken her on the run, gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her and the child.
The last part wasn’t exactly common knowledge, but the hand-me-down story she’d been told through her family. That woman the bushranger had become infatuated with had been her five times removed great-grandmother, Emeline, and that connection was something her family had kept secret for a very long time.
Nowadays, it was less terribly scandalous than an interesting bit of family gossip, but up until only just before her mother’s era, it had apparently been a very embarrassing glitch in their family tree.
As a child, when she’d heard the story told to her by her grandmother, she’d listened with wide-eyed fascination, her imagination propelling her back into the 1800s, imagining a young woman going about her duties on her father’s farm and being swept up into the arms of a dashing bushranger. Of course, it hadn’t happened exactly like that, but that had been the version she’d always pictured. To this day, the matter of the kidnapping remained contentious. The original, and official, story leaned heavily towards the innocent, virginal daughter of a respectable church-going sheep grazier being forcefully dragged from her family by Jack, brutishly raped and then left pregnant after his final shootout with the police and subsequent death. This had been followed by a rushed wedding to a suitable man from a local wealthy family and a baby born shortly after.
Years later, upon further research, Lottie uncovered a previously thought lost police report from an eyewitness who’d alerted the police to the gang’s whereabouts before the shootout. He claimed he’d seen the woman being ‘on very friendly terms with the bushranger and who had seemed completely at ease in his presence’. It painted a very different picture from the one that had ended up in the official report.
Instead of the research clarifying the facts she already knew, Lottie had been left with more questions unanswered. So she had decided to write a book about the women in her family, including their connection to Jack McNally. It was something that she’d never have been able to do when her gran was alive—or any of the previous generations, for that matter. But it had all happened more than a century ago. Surely now it couldn’t hurt.
She sent the bronzed man one last look before leaving the past behind and returning to the day ahead.
7 April 1863
Jack felt the bay mare beneath him move slightly as she picked up on her rider’s tension. She gave a soft snort and he heard the creak of leather and the jingle of metal from the men around him, patiently waiting on their own mounts for his signal.
The groan of the lumbering stagecoach and the steady clip-clop of hooves along the well-travelled dirt track grew louder and more distinct. Everything depended on this heist. If his information was correct this could be the hold-up that set him and his men up for the rest of their lives.
Fourteen thousand pounds was said to be on board the coach heading from Sydney and, in a matter of moments, it would be in his hands. No more living hand-to-mouth for him and his men. They could set themselves up somewhere far away from these mountains and live the life of the gentry. And why the hell not? This was a new country, with opportunities for any man to make his fortune.
A memory of his parents flashed before his eyes—cold, old and hungry. Working themselves into early graves just to put food on the table for their nine children while the rich landowners grew fat on the back of their suffering. His fists clenched the reins tighter and his horse gave a small nicker and moved sideways again. It was time to take back from the rich and distribute the wealth more fairly—between him and his men.
‘Hold,’ he said quietly as the sound of gravel under wheels grew louder. ‘Hold,’ he repeated, a little louder this time, as horses and men began to stir and the air around them grew electric. ‘Now!’
His mount leaped from the dense bush beside the track as the coach came to a halt, its path blocked by the large gum tree the men had felled across the road only a few hours earlier.
Gunfire erupted. Jack ducked his head as a bullet whizzed past his ear and then he took careful aim and fired, dropping the armoured guard beside the stagecoach driver. He searched for his next target, a sense of calm descending upon him as it usually did once the fray began. It sometimes scared him, the level of detachment he could summon when the occasion called for it. He didn’t like violence as a rule, but it had been a formative part of his life and he knew that, more often than not, it was the only way to make people listen.
Once the shooting stopped, he dismounted and walked to the closed door of the coach. He opened it, blinking in surprise at the pair sitting there—a woman, back rigid, face pale and lips firmly pressed together, and a well-dressed man holding a gun.
‘Call your men off or I’ll shoot,’ the man said in a surprisingly deep tone that Jack hadn’t expected from the rather toffy way he was dressed.
‘You must be Compton,’ Jack said, narrowing his gaze slightly as he put two and two together.
‘I am. Now, call off your men.’
‘The man himself,’ Jack said, as he considered his next move.
‘Sir, I’ll kindly thank you to cease talking and call off your men this instant.’
‘It looks like we’re in a bit of a stand-off,’ Jack said casually before moving his weapon to aim at the woman. ‘But I’m willing to bet you won’t want any harm to come to your wife. I take it this is your wife?’
Jack saw Compton’s eyes widen. ‘What kind of fiend threatens a lady?’
‘Fiend? Well, now you’ve hurt my feelings. I’ll have you know, I’m quite the gentleman when it comes to the ladies. But if you don’t lower that weapon, I might just forget my gentlemanly tendencies.’
Slowly, the revolver lowered. Jack nodded for him to throw it to the floor, which Compton did.
‘My apologies for the unexpected stopover, madam,’ he said with a small smile. He hadn’t been expecting a woman to be on the coach. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, with creamy skin that had never seen a day’s work, and she held herself regally, as though she were on a Sunday ride through the park. Her frosty glare amused him. He had no time for the wealthy and little care for her discomfort, but he did enjoy women and he prided himself on being a gentleman—something he’d always reluctantly admired about the gentry he’d observed as a small boy back in Ireland. ‘If I may help you out of the coach, my men need to unload it of its burden. You stay there,’ he directed at Compton as the man started to get up.
The woman he assumed was Mrs Compton hesitated briefly before realising she had no real choice. She descended, refusing the hand he offered her gallantly.
Jack grinned at the woman’s bravado. He’d seen grown men curled up in balls, sobbing hysterical pleas to spare their lives and fortune, which always disgusted him. This woman had more courage in her little finger than most men had in their entire bodies. His gaze fell on her long, sleek hands and he noticed the brilliance of an enormous blue stone that contained flashes of iridescent green and bright crimson, flecked with turquoise blue, and that was set in an intricate band of gold. Never before had he seen something as magnificent as the opal that sparkled before him. The stone itself was massive, the largest he’d ever seen. The colours were almost mesmerising, seeming to swirl and change hue before his eyes.
‘This ring,’ Jack said abruptly, taking a firm grip of her hand, ignoring her attempts to tug it free. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘It’s of no worth, except sentimental value. Just a pretty bauble my husband found when he first came here. I have far more expensive diamonds,’ she said, lifting her other hand, but it was the opal that had entranced him.
‘Jack! We have the money,’ John called impatiently as he scanned the track behind the coach. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Keep your diamonds, my lady. I’m not a complete brute. However, I will relieve you of this pretty trinket. I find it quite stunning.’
‘No. You cannot,’ she snapped, reefing her hand from his grasp with surprising force.
‘Unhand my wife!’ Compton said, bursting from the coach, catching Jack, who was still preoccupied by the opal, off guard.
It happened so quickly.
The man had produced a knife from his boot and lunged with surprising agility. Jack instinctively fired his weapon, watching the shock that spread across the other man’s face, the blood seeping from his chest. Through the tunnel of silence that seemed to surround him, a woman screaming eventually penetrated the fog, snapping him into action.
He turned to the woman, noticing for the first time the swell of her belly, before seeing her anguished face crumpled with grief. There was no real regret for killing her husband, though he did feel sorry that she would now be left to raise her unborn child alone. But, unlike his own mother, left in the same situation when his father had died, the good lady would have a comfortable house and staff to ease the burden.
He took hold of her cold, limp hand, tugging the ring from her finger and slipping it into the breast pocket of his coat.
‘You are a monster,’ the woman said, lifting her gaze to his and holding it with an icy, almost hollow look.
‘I’m not an unreasonable man.’ Jack shrugged. ‘Your husband made his choice. You should have just let me have it.’
‘Well, you have it now. May it bring you and yours heartache and pain.’
Jack took a step back from the woman, whose crystal-clear eyes chilled him to the bone. A sudden unease washed over him, which he quickly quashed. ‘I’m sure the pain will be easier to bear now that I’m rich. Good day,’ he said, tipping his worn hat with his fingertips before swinging himself into his saddle and urging his horse forward. He resisted the urge to glance back over his shoulder, despite something determinedly trying to make him do so.
A few miles down the track, he was just starting to breathe easy when a volley of bullets whizzed overhead.
‘McNally! Give it up!’ came the shout from an unexpected second party of armed guards.
Jack’s horse reared as he swore loudly, shouting orders for a retreat, and then it was hell for leather through the rough terrain, taking all his concentration to keep his head on his shoulders.