Christmas Day at the Sweet Angel Mine Read online



  CHRISTMAS DAY AT THE SWEET ANGEL MINE

  Copyright Lindsay Johannsen 2014

  Thank you.

  National Library Of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:

  Author: Johannsen, Lindsay Andrew

  Title: Christmas Day at the Sweet Angel Mine

  Cover art and design by the author.

  To order the McCullock’s Gold paperback version or contact the author please visit

  www.vividpublishing.com.au/lajohannsen

  CHRISTMAS DAY AT THE SWEET ANGEL MINE

  Tiny Watson stopped walking and looked up at the stars again. It was a hot night and both men were perspiring freely. “Bloody hell, it’s dark, Stan,” he said. “Are you sure you know where we are?”

  “Course I do,” Stan replied. “And I told you it’d be dark. Bring the hurricane lamp I says; the moon won’t rise until midnight. ‘She’ll be right,’ says you. ‘We’ll see by the stars’.”

  Tiny shifted the hessian bag he was carrying to his other hand and wiped his sweaty brow with a massive forearm. “I know, Stan, I know,” he admitted, “but I never expected it to be as dark as this. Let’s use the torch.”

  Stan was adamant. “Don’t even think about the torch, Tiny,” he replied sharply. You know them batteries are nearly buggered. We will be, too, if we can’t see nothin’ when we get there.”

  Around the mica-fields Stan was known as “Stan the Con”. One reason for this was his reputation. Another was his name: Stanislaw Theorastus Constantinides.

  Stan the Con, a little hatchet-faced black-haired weasel of a man.

  Tiny was almost his exact opposite: a big, bluff fellow, easy-going and easily led. Apart from sheer size, Tiny’s most notable feature was his hair. Golden-blonde it was, all dense and wavy with a soft silken sheen.

  Through his rough and tumble boyhood years it was a constant source of embarrassment to him, but to the maturing teenager and as a young man it proved an asset of considerable note. Little of it was evident just now, however, as Stan’s foray with the scissors a fortnight back had left Tiny’s noggin a tufted wasteland.

  In earlier lives Stan and Tiny had each been men with a trade but now the pair were mica miners. Their show was situated about three hundred kilometres north-east of Alice Springs on what was known as the Plenty River Mica Fields.

  Both enjoyed living in the bush, though some on the field believed expediency lay in their choosing this lonely and remote occupation. It didn’t matter; everyone there was accepted as he chose to present himself – until demonstrating otherwise, at least.

  Their little mining venture was on a low ridge, not far from the old track through to Queensland. “The Sweet Angel” it was called. In fact from their hilltop dwelling Stan and Tiny could see any traffic that happened to go past – not that there was a great deal in those dry shimmering days prior to Christmas 1950.

  Jack Matthews had come by in late November. He’d been to Alice Springs for fuel and to get some casing for his new bore (they’d heard later). The only other recent traveller had been their nearest neighbour, Kite MacClintoch.

  Kite’s “White Dragon” mica mine lay about four kilometres south of the Sweet Angel on the other side of a heavily timbered mulga flat, and was situated by a huge outcrop of white quartz. Kite was not a sociable sort of person, by any measure, though on this occasion, because of circumstance, he’d had to call in on Stan and Tiny to borrow some petrol and a spare tyre before setting off to Alice Springs.

  He’d not wanted to; it obliged him to bring out whatever they might need plus extra fuel to make up the borrowings. Worse if he had tyre trouble.

  Besides returning with the usual supplies, Kite this time had his two children with him. Heather and Jock were their names. They were boarders at the local Catholic Primary School, Heather being seven and a half years old and Jock six.

  He’d not had to concern himself with this while their mother was alive. Judy and the kids had lived in town while Kite had maintained his solitary existence on the mica-field – stewing in his own Scottish sourness, as Judy used to say.

  Now, when Christmas or school holidays came, he had to collect his children, or pay someone to look after them. And, in all things, having to pay money did not sit easy with the frugal Mr MacClintoch.

  This is not to suggest he’d have denied his wee bairns a Christmas tree and presents from Santa, yet the decorations were always meager and the gifts chosen with his usual parsimony.

  Stan and Tiny didn’t mind helping out, of course, but Kite’s gritty meanness really grated on Stan. Over time it started him thinking about the type of things that might grate on Kite’s flint-hearted disposition … and therein lay the reason behind their midnight foray, that dark Christmas Eve.

  “Gees, I dunno, Stan,” Tiny muttered as they pushed through the thick mulga scrub. “This seemed like a good idea at the time. But what if old Kite wakes up and pulls out the twelve-gauge. We ain’t gunna look too smart with our arses full of buckshot, are we, specially if we have to make a run for it with these old sacks wrapped around our boots.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Stan replied. “Kite won’t wake up. He’s just back from town, see, so he’ll have plenty of Scotch to help him sleep. And like I said before, we have to pad our boots or in the morning he’ll see our tracks. Not too hard to work out who they belong to with your size-thirteens. We’re just lucky the old bugger’s too mean to have a dog.”

  “Yeah, but he’s gunna work it out, isn’t he. I mean, who’s got the nearest show to the White Dragon? He’ll turn up in the morning to sort us out, that’s for sure.”

  “Course he will. —But why us? Plenty of mica miners around here don’t like him. Coulda been any one of ‘em.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

  “Course I’m right. —Hey! We could say it was Father Christmas.”

  “Hey, yeah! That’s who it was! Father Christmas! That’s a laugh.”

  The pair walked on in silence after that, stumbling and pressing through the lines of tight mulga scrub in the dark. Suddenly they came out onto clear ground, just as the moon began to rise, both of them suffering a myriad scratches and scrapes.

  Off to their right loomed the White Dragon quartz reef, all ghostly looking in the moonlight. MacClintoch’s hut stood nearby.

  Both men knew its general layout from earlier, more legitimate visits: a single kitchen-cum-living room with a lean-to roof at the front and an enclosed brush lean-to attached behind. The children slept in the brush lean-to; Kite swagged it on a stretcher at the rear of the house.

  Stan and Tiny made their approach from the front, alert for any movement or the light of a hurricane lamp. Everything seemed quiet. Nearer the house came the sound of Kite’s snoring, his breathing heavy and even. The pair listened a moment then padded quickly to the door.

  “Where do you think it’ll be?” whispered Tiny.

  “Probably in the corner by the kero fridge,” Stan whispered back. “Here, give us the bag and the torch.

  “Now listen. The door’s on a spring. When I go inside you hold it. And don’t let it slam!”

  “Righto, Stan. —Hey! What if Kite wakes up?”

  “It don’t matter now. It’ll only take a couple seconds to find it. I’ll be out of there again before he can move.”

  “Yeah,” said Tiny. “And back in the mulga before he can find his boots.”

  * * *

  Christmas Day at the Sweet Angel Mine dawned bright and clear. In the east a line of cirrus clouds heralded its coming with a powdery pink glow. As the sun came up to the horizon they slowly changed to gold.

  Stan t
he Con and Tiny Watson were not awake to witness this uplifting event, however. On returning home they’d boiled the billy and had a good laugh over their dark endeavours; daylight found them in their swags sleeping the sleep of the innocent. And Kite MacClintoch arrived at about ten thirty – as predicted but minus the children.

  Stan was under the lean-to of their elevated residence when he drove up, lounging back on their decrepit old sofa.

  “Merry Christmas, Kite,” he shouted cheerfully as the truck rolled to a stop. “Good to see you.” At the same moment Tiny appeared at the door of the hut, hat wedged firmly over the frizzy remnants of his hair. “Yeah, Kite,” he added. “Merry Christmas. But why didn’t you bring the kids?”

  Kite opened the door and stepped to the ground without answering, all stony face and bitter resolve.

  “Gees old mate,” Stan went on brightly, “You’d better come inside for some smoko. Tiny made a Christmas cake last night. You can be first to try it – if you’re bloody game enough, that is.”

  Kite stood by his truck, riven with conflict. He’d come over to confront the pair and tell them what he thought of their effrontery, but held back his accusation for want of proof. Nothing whatever pointed to their being the perpetrators, yet it had to have been them. Further restraining him was a natural predisposition against making a complete fool of himself.

  So Mister Kite MacClintoch kept his own counsel for the moment and went forth into the humble home of Stan the Con and Tiny Watson to have tea and a piece of their Christmas cake ... and all the while those devious gentlemen played the perfect innocents. They chattered on about the weather, about the price of mica and their last drunk-up in Alice Springs. They complained to Kite about the cost of fuel and tyres and the condition of the road, and had a good laugh over Rack Jackson’s wife Beth going back to his brother Billy again.

  They told Kite how Stumpy Williams had finally been caught stealing old Tyson’s cattle and how the mica stolen from the Ajax mine had later gone missing from the Harts Range copper’s lockup shed. In fact they prattled on about everything they could possibly think of … except for things about Christmas, or Christmas presents.

  Meanwhile, over at the White Dragon, Kite’s children played with the wonderful toys Santa had put under their Christmas tree. Jock made roads for the big red-painted metal tip-truck that Tiny had laboured over in detail, revisiting as he did the skills of his all-but-forgotten trade. And Heather brushed the fine golden hair of the elegant bride doll that Stan the Con had hand-carved from the soft grain-free wood of a fallen bean tree.

  And oh how painstakingly he’d assembled and painted and dressed the little mannequin, his one good out-on-the-town silk shirt being sacrificed for her gown and his fingers half raw from teaching himself to sew as he made test pieces from calico flour bags – before daring to cut the precious material.

  And later that night, as a storm rumbled away to itself in the distance and a gusty breeze rustled the leaves of the nearby trees, Stan the Con dreamt that an angel had appeared in the open door of their hut and was filling the room with a radiant light. And as he struggled up from the deep womb of his dream he thought he heard in the faint rushing of the wind a whispered thank you, like a mother’s soft lament – gone before he could grasp it.

  And Stan sat up … and was bathed in light from the rising midnight moon.