Free Shadow of the Osprey by Peter Watt

was told that Peter and Gordon were both almost twelve, Timothy ten and Sarah eight. It was obvious that the Duffy children and the James boy were as close as blood could be. Particularly Gordon and Peter.
    Peter had the dark skin of his mother’s people but the big build of his Irish father. His eyes were grey and he was a handsome lad. Timothy was fairer and very reserved. He did not seem to be as close as the others, Luke observed, and was less open in his way. But it was little Sarah who made the biggest impression on the American. Her skin had an almost golden sheen and she had the promise of growing into a beautiful young woman. But more than that, her nature was gentle and intelligent. She took an immediate liking to Luke.
    Emma put the children in the care of a housekeeper who came in to assist at dinner times. The housekeeper, a good Christian woman who had lost her husband on the goldfields when a powder blast went wrong, had been hired by Kate to help Emma while she was away on the track. She was a big buxom middle-aged woman with grey hair and a no-nonsense approach to life and she quickly bustled the children off to bed.
    Over a leg of roast mutton and vegetables Luke unfolded his plans to set out for the Palmer fields as soon as he had purchased sufficient supplies and had saved enough money to purchase a horse and new saddle.
    Henry raised his eyebrows at the American’s eagerness to get started but Emma smiled to herself. She had noticed with a woman’s perceptiveness the change that came over the American every time Kate’s name came up in conversation. It was no wonder he was eager to head out from Cooktown. He was a man desperately in love with the beautiful Irishwoman. But she frowned when she remembered the visit she had received two days earlier, a visit she knew would cause her friend a terrible pain in unleashing memories better forgotten.
    Henry had been fencing a paddock for the bullocks at the back of Cooktown and she had been alone in the store. A big, handsome man had walked in and announced that he was Kevin O’Keefe, Kate’s husband, and that he was looking for his wife. Shocked, Emma stated that Kate was somewhere on the track between Cooktown and the Palmer. He had stood for a moment appraising the store and left without any other conversation.
    Reeling from the meeting Emma debated whether to tell her husband of the sudden reappearance of the man who had deserted Kate over a decade earlier. She was fully aware of the circumstances of the desertion as Judith Cohen had recounted the story to her when they lived in Rockhampton.
    It was a pitiful story of a young and pregnant seventeen-year-old girl left alone at nights while her worthless husband went in search of good times at the local hotels and grog shanties. Judith and her husband Solomon had nursed Kate through a terrible fever at Luke Tracy’s request. Finally Kevin O’Keefe ran off with the wife of a local publican, leaving his very ill wife to give premature birth to their child. The tiny baby lived only a few hours and was buried in a lonely grave outside Rockhampton. It had been the quiet strength of Luke and the loving care of the Cohens that had kept Kate going through the critical weeks following this tragic loss.
    Emma had finally decided that she should not tell Henry of the meeting. Such was her husband’s loyalty to their employer, she was just a little frightened that her big burly husband might become angry and seek out O’Keefe for a thrashing for all the grief he had visited upon Kate. And she sensed O’Keefe was a man capable of great violence. Her real fear was for Henry’s safety should such a confrontation occur.
    But now she had reason to feel an even greater disquiet. She remembered a story of a confrontation between Luke Tracy and O’Keefe. Years earlier a traveller to Rockhampton had told her of the incident. In some grog shanty outside of Brisbane Luke had pulled his gun on O’Keefe and threatened to