Indonesian Gold. Kerry B Collison

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СКАЧАТЬ in gratitude as her oldest child looked on, in bewildered grief – the boy’s chest filling with pride when Baird explained that his father had died courageously, whilst attempting to save his drowning companion from the mighty Mahakam’s currents, when a overhanging branch had knocked the man into the river.

      Baird never revealed the true events to anyone; not even to Mardidi. Upon his return to Jakarta the following week, he submitted a copy of his report to the Indonesian Mines Department with recommendations that the area further east might be deserving of further exploration activity. Baird had no wish to ever return to the scene of his wild encounter, deciding then, that in the event Alexander Kremenchug was successful in putting a deal together with the Canadians, he would find a reason not to return to this site. Baird had copied an earlier report from his files; the data compiled some years before during a survey of terrain, relatively similar to the target area. He understood that Kremenchug needed a positive result from this initial survey, and he was only too happy to provide one. Baird collected twenty-five thousand dollars for his efforts and an undertaking from Kremenchug that he would be included in any vendor’s share issues, once an investor had acquired the property.

      By an accident of bureaucratic blunder and Baird’s misleading submission to the Mines Department, Jonathan Dau’s spiritual grounds remained untouched for another two years, when a group of Samarinda businessmen discovered that the stretch of river land had not been assigned to any of the mining companies. Nine months after these local entrepreneurs acquired the exploration rights, they, too, abandoned the prospect, when a number of calamitous survey expeditions earned the area a fierce reputation, and was then considered taboo.

      And along the Upper Mahakam reaches identified as Longdamai, this isolated pocket of land became known as Longdamai Sial – a place cursed, even in tranquility.

      ****

      Chapter Two

      November 1989

       Jakarta

      The instant the traffic slowed to a grinding halt, deformed children, the maimed and crippled, lepers and blind beggars all appeared as if by command. Many were guided, pushed or dragged between rows of stagnated vehicles by their helpers, most seemingly oblivious to the choking exhaust fumes that consistently blanketed the capital’s congested arterial roads. Street urchins swarmed through the grid locked traffic, skirting amidst the carcinogenic-pumping machines, hands outstretched to the privileged within their chauffeured, air-conditioned cocoons.

      Screaming horns added to the cacophonous moment as a child knocked hopefully against a Mercedes window offering an assortment of cigarettes, chewing gum, and Chiclets, intimidated in no way by the driver’s obvious anger as he waved her away with clenched fist. She raised her eyebrows, mockingly, as if surprised or even afraid, then tapped with greater determination as the foggy image behind the heavily tinted glass moved. The ragged child tossed a glance further down through the midday traffic and observed that there was movement ahead. Recognizing the intermittent brake-light flashes as the traffic commenced to flow, she knew she would have to be swift.

      ‘Tuan!’ the child called with muffled voice. Billowing, ugly black clouds of fumes spilling from an adjacent bus’ broken exhaust caused her to cough, and she tapped impatiently on the passenger door window with even more vigor, painfully conscious of the motorbikes that maneuvered their way between these near-stagnated rows of city traffic. Injury went with the territory; her scarred limbs carrying fresh scabs over old wounds, evidence of frequent encounters. A Suzuki squeezed past, the motorbike’s burning exhaust within touch of her legs, extended rear-vision mirrors grazing her skinny shoulders scoring the flesh painfully and she wheeled, her eyes filled with venom as she spat, hitting the unsuspecting rider square on the back. Then she turned her attention to the car’s obviously wealthy occupant.

      ****

      Amused, Stewart Campbell observed the child’s antics with ambivalence, tempted to lower the window and drop a hundred Rupiah into her tiny hands. The driver, sensing the Tuan’s mood, eased the Mercedes forward to discourage the girl but, ignoring the danger, she remained clinging to the door handle, undeterred. Swayed by her persistence, Campbell activated the electric windows creating an opening through which he held a crisp, newly printed one thousand Rupiah note, the money snatched from his well-manicured fingers as several discolored packets of gum appeared in an outstretched hand.

      ‘Terima kasih,’ he heard the scrawny peddler thank him as the window closed, the expatriate simply nodding as the sedan moved forward, his thoughts returning to the day ahead. Campbell glanced at his white gold, Patek Philippe watch and exhaled heavily, in obvious annoyance with the traffic congestion. He leaned back against the leather-upholstered seats and, with closed eyes, gently rubbed his temples. An earlier headache, legacy from the previous evening’s overindulgences, threatened to revisit and he recalled the Saint Andrew’s black-tie ball, thankful now he had resisted following the diehards to the Chieftain’s home, for the traditional follow-on breakfast.

      Campbell ’s mind roamed, occasionally glancing at familiar landmarks as the Mercedes crawled towards the congested, outer roundabout. The driver jockeyed for position amongst the other vehicles, skillfully avoiding a converted, smog-belching private minibus that had cut dangerously across their path, near spilling its load of standing passengers whilst they clung precariously to the overcrowded Toyota’s rusty frame.

      As the city’s skyline became more visible through the smog, the impressive number of construction cranes evidencing Indonesia’s apparent never-ending growth momentarily distracted Campbell, and he recalled how significantly the capital had mushroomed since his arrival, ten years before. A tight smile creased his face as he was also reminded of how little he had known, back then, about this sprawling, Moslem-dominated, fractious archipelago of two hundred million, and how much more there was to learn.

      Although his professional background had given him some prior knowledge with respect to the republic’s vast mineral, oil and gas wealth, Campbell quickly learned that the nation’s real wealth lay in its diversity, and the depth of culture so apparent within the republic’s multi-faceted society.

      During his first years in-country, he had been contracted by Baron Mining, a North-American-based mining conglomerate, to conduct onsite geological field surveys throughout the republic. Campbell had trudged across areas in Indonesia never before visited by Europeans, slept amongst isolated villagers of West Papua and squatted around evening fires in Borneo’s cloud-cloaked, highland communities – often listening to elders boast of not-so-distant times, when they were still feared for their headhunting, or cannibalistic practices.

      Stewart Campbell’s love affair with the island nation and its people had not been immediate – his initial reaction, when witness to the poverty-stricken peoples of the more neglected provinces in Eastern Indonesia, had cast its own, negative spell. Before completing his first year in-country, he had already decided not to extend his time in Indonesia. The corruption and tyranny of the Suharto regime, the debasement of many of the minority groups within the Republic, and the incredible environmental impact the former general’s vested interest groups had throughout the islands convinced the American geologist that Indonesia could not survive under such corrupt and immoral practices. As the time for his departure approached, Campbell’s position had mellowed, his attitude with respect to the ‘Indonesian Way’ tempered by exposure and opportunity. Before he realized how it happened, Stewart Campbell had become inextricably enmeshed in the gold and diamond potential of Kalimantan, as Indonesia’s territories in southern Borneo were known.

      In 1982, and in response to President Suharto’s directive to accelerate the transmigration process that annually deposited tens of thousands of Javanese and Madurese families in outlying and difficult-to-control provinces, the Indonesian Department СКАЧАТЬ