Ben could feel the eyes behind the windows: people were spying

on  him as he walked down the main street. Mangy, slothful dogs

  looked on him with suspicion, as did the few locals on the street.

A few indigenous inhabitants lingered under a large bottle tree;

others sauntered to their camps near the scrubland bordering the

town, lazily brushing the flies from features etched with a timeless

antiquity. Ben had never encountered a more passive,

dispossessed looking race in all his life. They appeared to have

emerged from another time, another dimension: an ancient race

caught up by a twentieth century civilization for which they lacked all

empathy. There was a Whippet buckboard parked in front of the two-

storey, timber Royal Hotel, verandahs on both levels facing the

street. An old Dodge truck and a car were parked further down. A few

horses were tied to hitching-rails outside various buildings, which

were indeed few.

He walked into the general store-cum-post office, to see if anyone

knew Jonathan Clarke and the whereabouts of Moorooba Downs.

Ben had never seen a store as various as this: a grocery store,

hardware, drapery and saddlery were all muddled together. All

manner of commodities were on display. Ben’s eyes swept over

bolts of material, bags of grain, saddles, camp ovens, even a child’s

bicycle in one corner.

‘G’day to you, sir. How can I help?’

Ben turned. A corpulent gentleman with a bushy moustache

wearing a calico apron had addressed him.

‘Hello, my name’s Benjamin Clarke. I was wondering if you might

tell me how I could reach a property called Moorooba Downs?’

The middle-aged shopkeeper scrutinised Ben gradually, thoroughly.

‘Thought you must be related to that pommy feller. So, you’re Jon

Clarke’s son, eh?’

‘Yes, that’s correct, Mr. . .’

‘Gillespie, Sam Gillespie.’

‘Yes, Mr. Gillespie, pleased to have made your acquaintance. I was

wondering how I might get out to the property. Would I be able to

hire someone to drive me out or perhaps rent a car?’

The rotund little man chuckled and rubbed his chin.

‘You’re a new chum orright,’ he laughed. 

He looked at Ben with dancing eyes. Is this ridicule? Ben wondered.

‘The road’s a bugger, Ben me boy. You’re in the Australian bush,

mate. No taxi service or car hires around these parts.’

He chuckled again with gusty humour.

‘Laugh if you must, sir, but I wasn’t enquiring after a taxi service. I

was seeking information concerning suitable transport whatever it

may be. There must be something available to hire or rent?’

‘’Fraid not, mate. There’s not a lot of availability available.’ He burst

into laughter again, ‘nor anything around here worth hiring or renting

or giving away for that matter.’

‘What about a donkey or a camel,’ Ben retorted sharply in shrill,

sarcastic tone, disgusted at the storekeeper’s attitude.

Ben meant to insult but this only amused Mr. Gillespie all the more.

Chuckles rumbling from deep in his chest suffused his face with a

deep pink.

‘I can just see you on a camel or a donkey with your bowler hat and

umbrella,’ he stated, the rolls of laughter peeling out of the barrel

chest like the score from a pianola.

Ben whacked his umbrella angrily on the counter top, which wound

the rotund little man down to an odd combination of suppressed

laughter and chuckles.

‘I was having a little joke, Mr. Gillespie!’

‘Sure,’ he chuckled, ‘a joke.’ He made a determined effort to put on

a straight expression when he saw the anger in Ben’s eyes. ‘Sorry,

mate, it’s the English accent: it breaks me up every time.’

‘Well,’ Ben fumed. ‘Is there any way at all I can get out to Moorooba

Downs without having to walk the confounded thirty miles in

temperatures suitable only to the indigenous creatures of this

godforsaken country?’

‘Hold it, mate, no need to do your block, now. There’s the mail truck.

Old Bill will give you a lift and you’re in luck. Tomorrow is mail day.

Be here around eight in the morning. He should be loaded up by

then.

‘Excellent. Thank you!’ Ben uttered, tight-lipped. ‘That is all the

information I was seeking.’

He felt like strangling the vulgar little man, instead he raised his

bowler hat at the storekeeper and left, knowing he would probably

meet with similar uncouth behaviour when he booked into the hotel

for the night.

Extract from the second novel of the Coloured Sands Trilogy:

'Valley of the Eagle'.