The Prospector of Granite Creek - part 3

Wally, for all his burrow-based arrogance, was not immune to temptation. His treasure chamber, already rich with purloined nuggets, felt somehow incomplete. The missing piece, he decided, was not a nugget, but a coin—a perfect, historical gold sovereign that he had seen glinting through the dusty window of the Boomerang General Store. It was secured in a display case of local relics, placed right next to a moth-eaten photograph of the original gold rush days. Wally viewed it as an insult: true High Country gold deserved a better guardian than dusty glass.

The decision to travel was fraught with risk. The journey down Granite Creek was long, requiring him to cross open sheep paddocks and patches of unforgiving, exposed asphalt—terrain utterly hostile to a creature built for defence in tight, rocky tunnels. Wally waited until the moon was just a sliver of white and the air was chilled with the night’s first frost. He marched, low and fast, his heart a nervous drum against his thick ribs, his senses overwhelmed by the smells of diesel and old timber.

He arrived in Boomerang shortly before midnight. The town was silent save for the rhythmic rattling of the wind against the corrugated iron roofs. Wally skirted the back of Silas’s cottage, pausing to listen to the slow, deep snoring within, before leveraging his massive shoulders under the low, rotting floorboards of the General Store porch. He pushed upward, creating a slight, grating scrape that sounded like thunder to his ears.

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He spotted the display case easily. It was tucked against the wall beneath the old post office window, bathed in the pale, eerie glow of a distant streetlamp. The coin was beautiful, stamped with the head of an ancient, human monarch and radiating an unnatural, polished shine—far superior to the rough surface of his own monster nugget.

Wally extended a muddy paw, calculating the leverage needed to topple the heavy wooden display stand. He began to grunt, pushing with the full might of his subterranean strength. The display creaked, the glass vibrating ominously. Success was inches away when the massive, rusty clock tower of the abandoned bank in the town centre suddenly began to stir.

The first chime of midnight was a deafening, metallic gong that echoed through the empty street, freezing Wally in place. Before the sound could fully die away, the noise was answered by a truly horrible, familiar sound: Kevin, the kookaburra. Kevin, who had been sleeping in the old gum tree by the Hotel, was startled by the clock and, spotting Wally silhouetted perfectly against the faint lamplight, let loose the most tremendous, mocking, screeching laugh of his life.

The sound shattered Wally’s nerves. He abandoned the coin, the display case, and all pretence of stealth. Forgetting the path he had come, he simply turned and bolted, scrambling over the asphalt road and into the nearest, darkest scrub. He did not stop until he was deep beneath his own patch of snow gum, safe, panting, and empty-pawed. He had learned a hard, cold lesson: the treasures of the High Country were best acquired beneath the ground, where the darkness was a comfortable blanket and the only judge was the patient earth, not a cackling bird with a cruel sense of timing.

Part 3 of the story is linked

An ABC Radio interview with Silas is linked

The book dust cover is linked

Reviews are linked.

Shalom,

Ozhamada