AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MACK GLANCED BACK to make sure Bindi was right behind him. She glowered at him from beneath her hat, but didn’t say a word. They’d slowed down as they approached the first ruined building, keeping to the tree line and out of sight as much as they could. Bindi had hissed at him that she needed to lead, because she knew her way around the scattered buildings and pathways.
Begrudgingly, he acknowledged this was true. But he didn’t want Bindi out in front, because they could be heading straight into danger. He wanted her behind him, where he could safeguard her. Call him an old-fashioned, macho male, but where Bindi was concerned, his protective instincts had soared to twenty out of ten the moment that fire had started. Actually, if he were being truthful with himself, his level of concern had been that high since Mutt had tried to stab her.
The second Mack realized what the three sets of hoof prints meant, he’d been as agitated as a nest full of ants. It felt like his skin was crawling. He knew he had to tell Bindi about the phone call, he’d had no other choice. All the reasons he’d kept the truth about Clarissa from Bindi dissolved in a puff of self-recrimination.
Remorse wasn’t a strong enough word for what he was feeling right now. Gutless and dumb were two words he might use, but even they didn’t accurately describe what a thoughtless human being he was. The simple fact was that he’d kept the information from Bindi because he was mad at her. She’d rejected him, and it hurt like hell. He was being a sore loser. But he now understood by making that decision, he’d been gambling with her life.
He could use the excuse Nash and Dean had persuaded him to keep it under his hat, but something in his gut had told him they were wrong.
Why hadn’t he listened to his gut?
Mack reined Picasso to a halt beneath the wide, spreading limbs of an old gum tree and put his finger to his lips, taking in the lay of the land. Bindi had already given him a few hurried facts about the place.
The local Shire had set it up as a museum, to give tourists an insight into how things might’ve been back in the twenties and thirties when the mine was in its heyday. There were a few abandoned miner’s cottages scattered around the old township, but Bindi had indicated that they were unsafe to enter. The layout of the old township remained the same as when it’d been alive with people, with a wide, gravel road running down the middle, smaller pathways branching off toward ruined buildings. The old gold mine was situated at the base of a small escarpment, a blunt finger of rock, part of the larger range, of which Mount Mulligan escarpment was also a part. Red rock abounded here. Tufts of dried grass broke through the red gravel. It felt completely deserted, the only sounds that of the frenzied buzzing of the cicadas. It was more than a tad spooky. The temperature was becoming intense, a heat haze shimmering off the gravel on the main road. The humidity was debilitating, and he wiped ineffectively at the sweat on his brow. He glanced over his shoulder and gauged the size of the fire behind them. It was definitely growing in size, but thankfully not coming in their direction, the slight breeze blowing it backward, just as Bindi had predicted. But the wind could change at any second, then they might be in real trouble. Smoke filled the air behind them in an angry cloud, but here in the township, it was surprisingly clear.
One building, directly in front of them, had been restored. The manager’s cottage housed information about the gold mine. People were encouraged to enter, to read about the history. Mack studied the building, looking for any signs of…he wasn’t exactly sure what. Just in case someone was hiding, lying in wait for them.
“The rangers will have locked the manager’s cottage up at the end of the season,” Bindi whispered to his back. She must’ve noticed him staring at it. That didn’t mean some reprobate wouldn’t think twice about breaking into the building to use it as a lookout, so Mack kept gazing at the windows, watching for movement. “There’s an old elevator shaft off to our left, behind those trees.” She lifted a hand and pointed, and he turned to follow her finger, making out the top of a large, wooden structure. “The old mine shaft is boarded up, and you can’t go down it anymore, it’s too dangerous. There are also two or three inspection shafts toward the back of the township, but they’ve also been covered over up to make them safe.”
Mack nodded thoughtfully.
“My guess is that they’ve taken the horses to the other end of town. There’s a big, wooden building, like a barn, called the main battery, where they used to crush the quartz stone and process it to remove the gold. If a thief wanted to hide the horses, that building would be big enough. The parking lot is at the rear of the building, so that’s where they’d take them if they wanted to load them onto a trailer and get out of here,” she continued in a whisper.
He was glad of Bindi’s intimate knowledge of the place. It’d save them a lot of bumbling around. And time was of the essence, especially with a wildfire on their tails.
“Some horizontal mining tunnels run directly into the escapement farther along, but they’ve been shut off, as well. Too dangerous to go into, they might collapse.”
“Hmm.” Mack considered these options.
“I think we should head toward the old battery,” Bindi whispered impatiently, when Mack took too long to answer. “That’s the most likely place they’ll be.”
He agreed, but he was still loathe to move from their hiding spot. The place was too eerily quiet for his liking. Too still, like everything was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
With a huff of exasperation, Bindi pushed Sahara past him, heading to the left, toward where she’d pointed out the elevator shaft, staying off the track and weaving behind clumps of bushes and underneath low hanging tree branches. Mack hurried after her, clamping his lips together over the urge to shout at her. This wasn’t a game they were playing. But he followed in her wake, keeping his head tucked down by Picasso’s withers, and making sure they stayed camouflaged behind the trees as best he could.
They followed the gentle curve of rising ground, moving parallel to the escapement, which got lower as they progressed farther north. Nothing moved in the abandoned township—the bits he could make out through the brush, anyway. But the skin on the back of his neck crawled, and he wondered what they were going to find when they reached this wooden barn structure Bindi was talking about.
Finally, Bindi came to a halt behind a clump of acacia bushes, at the edge of a large, cleared section. A hundred meters away, an old building loomed close to the cliff-face.
“I think we should leave the horses here,” she said, hunkering low over the pommel and staring at the building. “We can sneak around the side of those boulders there.” She lifted her chin in the direction of a pile of large rocks jumbled around the edge of the clearing. Probably pushed there when the first miners had cleared the area.
Again, her idea made sense. If they rode the horses across the clearing, they’d make a large target and surely be spotted if anyone was watching for them. For a second, Mack felt foolish. Was all this cloak-and-dagger stuff really necessary? The idea that someone was lying in wait for them seemed fanciful and stupid.
Nevertheless, he dismounted and patted the piebald’s neck, while Bindi did the same.
There was a small sound. It made him lift his head and peer through the shrubbery. What was that? It was like the whoosh of air… Followed by a faint crackling noise, like…
“Fire,” Bindi said softly, her eyes fixed on the roof of the old building, Sahara’s reins forgotten in her hands. It was true, he could see a hint of smoke rising from the right-hand corner of the old battery. Even as he watched, the smoke became thicker over the top of the roofline and he could imagine flames devouring the aged wood like a hungry beast. Had someone set the structure on fire on purpose? This wasn’t good. It became crystal-clear to him in that instant that they needed to get out of there. Now.
“Bindi, let’s go,” he commanded, remounting in one swift movement.
She glanced up at him and then back at the half-ruined building.
“Bindi, we need to get out of here. Something isn’t right,” he said, raising his voice.
She tore her gaze away from the quickly growing cloud of smoke and even though she didn’t look convinced, she bunched Sahara’s reins on her neck, ready to mount.
