Flashback: tales from ages past

Australia: Fickle Lady Luck

"Duncan!" Thomas yelled. "I've reached quartz. Get down here!"

Duncan scrambled down the rickety ladder. He leaped down the last few feet into the hole, crouched, scooped up a handful of dirt. "You're right, partner, you're right!"

The two young men wielded pickax and shovel like convicts tunneling out of prison. Dirt and clods flew, and more glinting quartz came to light.

Thomas ran up the ladder, swung a beam with block and tackle over the sinking, and sent down the first of many buckets. By nightfall, the partners knew they'd made their fortunes. They whooped and danced around the sluice set in the stream near their dig. The quartz bed had yielded a hatful of gold dust and even a few nuggets.

"What ya think?" Thomas asked. "Set off for Bendigo in the morning?"

Duncan stroked his bushy blond beard. "Work another day first, for twice the takings?"

"If you want to feast off boiled rat again. Nothing else left but that spoiled potato."

"You're right. Off to the broker's tomorrow. The digging will go faster with full bellies."

Thomas raised his tin cup of stream water. "To Sporing Gully, the crown of all the Bendigo goldfield!"

Duncan clinked cups. "To Lady Luck, who finally struck!"

In the morning the two changed into their threadbare, going-to-town spare shirts. Thomas trimmed his raven-black hair and shaved, but Duncan waved aside the razor.

"Well, it's clear which of us the ladies will flock to." Thomas grinned, and hoisted his empty backpack.

"With coins in my pockets, the ladies'll think I'm handsome enough." Duncan's teeth flashed through his sandy beard as they set off on the twenty-mile trek to Bendigo.

They joked and jostled half the morning, as rowdy as if they'd just left a saloon. Their grins faded when they came face to face with a trio of armed men lurking in the shade of a eucalyptus grove.

"Only one reason," the leader said, "a couple of jackasses like you would troop so merrily off to Bendigo. Hand it all over."

Thomas' face turned whiter than a kangaroo's belly. "Fickle Lady Luck."

"Shoulda kept our mouths shut," Duncan muttered.

The bandits guffawed. "Still woulda seen the bounce in your step, boys. Now strip."

Thomas and Duncan shed their clothing. They grimaced through humiliating body searches. The robbers went through their belongings, feeling the hems of their canvas pants and even the toe-cavities of their boots. They found the hidden stash.

At last the thieves headed into the brush, taking the heavy little pokes of gold dust and nuggets. Thomas dressed, then picked up his pack. "Well, we still have our sinking at Sporing Gully," he said gloomily.

"Let's go on to Bendigo," Duncan said. "Get a room. Comb my beard carefully over a pan. They didn't get all the gold." He winked at his partner. "This morning I dusted half my poke into my crumb-catcher."

Thomas stared, noticing for the first time how sunlight glinted from his partner's bushy golden beard.