The red sand began to lift the further west she drove, the wind blurring the dunes so that the earth’s surface appeared as low, rolling waves. The track cut north-west and Stella kept to the narrow trail until a smudge of brown began to grow on the horizon; a bulky accumulation of dirt swirling towards her. Stella stopped the truck near a scatter of trees and, using them as a windbreak, pulled the flipper windows closed. The storm hit side-on, buffeting the vehicle with wind and dust. She held tight to the steering wheel as sweat traced her spine and the country grew dark and blurred. The smell of dirt, solid and musty, filled the cabin. It was as if the earth were sweeping clean its surface, ridding itself of the old and the decaying. She shuddered at the force of the place she now called home.
When the worst of the storm had moved eastwards, Stella wound down the window, grateful to escape the airless compartment, and studied the map annotated with her own landmarks. Joe had finally given her a basic tour of the property a few weeks after their arrival last year, and had presented the chart with a flourish, as if it were a priceless diagram that might well lead to treasure.
Stella could now drive safely about a small portion of their land by following four defined tracks marked out in compass directions. The partial roadmap of their territory resembled a Latin cross. The homestead was located where the long and short beams intersected, with the vertical length pointing north-west to the salt pans across the border. Each length of road had been calculated by Joe. The three shorter arms measured a distance of fifteen miles, the longest over thirty. The roads converged into tracks that eventually merged into the hoof prints of sheep at the very ends. These were Stella’s predetermined limits, and she was quite happy with this arrangement. She knew roughly where the main bores were. How long it took to get from the front paddock to the middle one. The number of gates along each route and the importance of carrying water should she become stranded. Not that she ventured from the homestead too often.
After Joe’s initial delay in coming home during the first week of their arrival on the station, which he jokingly referred to in military terms as going AWOL – absent from where one should be but without intent to desert – an agreement was reached: Joe was to always inform her to which part of their holding he was headed. A week ago he’d unfolded the map and placed a greasy thumb on a paddock that bordered South Australia, the boundary of which formed part of the dingo fence. That’s where he was going. And that’s where he would return from in time for her birthday. He’d promised with a kiss.
His pledge had brought her out to the end of the known roads and now she sat in the truck at a point where the track narrowed to nothingness, sweeping the countryside for any sign of her husband. Stella wasn’t sure how many miles it was to the border, but by aligning a finger along the length of the road on the map, she guessed the distance to be reasonably far. Joe’s description of the area ahead was one of linear dunes that swept east–west, intersected by hard channels, which was why the motorbike had become his favoured mode of transport. She suspected that the two-wheeler had broken down or run out of petrol. It had been prone to blockages in the fuel line and although Joe maintained the engine meticulously, assuring her that there were no mechanical issues, twice before she’d found her husband pushing the broken-down bike, the dog padding faithfully along at his side.
Stella drove through lightly timbered areas of rosewood and headed in the direction of a bore that was marked on the map as being located near the corner of the paddock. The road soon became non-existent and she slowed, steering around dead timber and angled tree stumps. Sheep grazed among tufts of grass, running off as she approached. She caught sight of Joe’s bike track, which was only just visible in the soil and, with a sigh of relief, followed the tyre impressions for a half mile until the trough came into view.
Not far from the watering spot, sheep camped out in the open. Stella expected the normally quick-to-startle animals to run off, however on approach they remained motionless. She stopped the vehicle alongside one of the sheep. It lay on its side with its throat torn out. Another had been attacked in the flanks. Blood had pooled on the ground, pitted by plundering black flies. She covered her mouth, fearing that her dry retching might produce something fruitful. Once recovered, she continued driving past other animals, all dead from horrific wounds. These were Joe’s prized young ewes. Four hundred of them had been carefully selected and then joined with rams purchased at an exorbitant cost. And that money was now bleeding into the soil. It was a disaster. No wonder Joe hadn’t come home.
Dingoes. Stella had read about them in more detail once she’d discovered that Kirooma bordered the dingo fence. They were lean, leggy dogs, with a wide jaw, pricked ears and a bushy tail. The animal was a cousin of the wolf, the coyote and the jackal. A killer. A beast more suited to fairytales and horror stories than roaming their land. Stella accelerated, and the truck edged along a slight ridge. Some distance away, sheep huddled beneath trees. The motorbike was parked nearby. Joe’s dog next to it. She shook her head impatiently and then something made her look towards the trough. A water leak had turned the area into a small lake with the trough at its centre. It sat like a canoe on an inland sea, awaiting an oarsman to dip his paddle and bring the small vessel to safety.
Her first thought was for the loss of water and then she noticed Joe. He was waist high in the muddy red spillage. Stella beeped the horn and waved. There was no response from him. She cupped her hands and called out to him, her attention briefly diverted by the screech of a white cockatoo sitting in a cage near the motorbike. She frowned at this and then got out of the car and walked down the ridge towards the pooling water.
The dread hit her suddenly.
Joe wasn’t standing, he was sitting. Slumped over. Naked.
Stella screamed.
Chapter 20
‘What’s all the racket about?’ yelled Joe.
He stood up, a spanner in one hand, his sodden shirt in another. He wrung the material out in the trough, threw it over a shoulder and began to stride through the soupy bog towards her. He was ungainly in his movements, like a sheep dragging its body in full fleece through the water.
Stella fell backwards onto the soft earth, her tears of concern becoming ones of relief as she laughed at her stupidity. ‘I thought—’
‘What?’ said Joe, when he reached the bank. ‘Hell’s bells, woman, I thought something was seriously wrong. Or that you had news for me.’ A hopeful expression shone through the rivulets of red water trickling down his face.
Stella got to her feet. She knew very well that he wanted to be told there was a child on the way. But how could she tell him that she’d lost the desire to become pregnant, at least until he reverted to the man that she’d married? A man she once believed would come home to her every night. So she’d been asking any hovering small souls to stay away from her belly until a better time. Knowing it was a sin to even think in such a manner, she prayed nightly for forgiveness, however she placated herself with a strengthening argument. Wasn’t her husband committing a sin by abandoning her? And what of this place they’d come to? What if there was no God or Virgin out here? What if this land proved unproductive? Then none of it mattered. None of it at all.
‘I had to fix that leak, and I was smothered in dirt after the storm. I couldn’t see a thing,’ said Joe.
She noticed his boots and rifle lying on the ground close by. ‘I thought something had happened.’
‘It has.’ He thumbed in the direction of the carcasses. ‘The dingoes killed fourteen of them. I’ve shot one dog, but with this amount of damage I’d say there’s at least two of them.’ He removed his hat and wiped at the perspiration on his brow, then replaced it. Sweat had made the grey felt a dark brown where the hatband should have been. He sat on the ground and tugged on his shoes and socks. ‘I had to put a few ewes out of their misery. That’s what I hate about wild dogs. The damage they do. They only ever want the kidneys. You can bet they came through the dog fence in South Aust
ralia. Not through our portion – along the state border. Davis reckons he’s seen the dingoes trying to get back through our boundary to the other side.’
‘And who’s Davis?’ asked Stella.
‘He maintains the fence. Works for the Wild Dog Destruction Board,’ said Joe, as if the mention of another person on their isolated property wasn’t surprising. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here? Is there a problem?’ Standing, he brushed his palms on his wet trousers.
‘No. Well, yes. You’re two days late, I was worried,’ she told him.
He gave a wry smile. ‘This is what, the third or the fourth time you’ve come out in search of me? Give it a rest, Stella. If something happens, the dog will eventually make his way home. I don’t want you driving out alone. What if you get a flat tyre or become bogged in the sand and then try to walk back and get lost? It doesn’t sit easily with me. Especially now we have a wild dog problem.’
She swallowed the words in her throat and instead said, ‘When did you discover the problem with the dingoes?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘I see.’ So Joe had spent her birthday out in the scrub before the dingoes had even been discovered. He had forgotten her again. Her eyes filled with tears, but it was her body that wept. She concentrated on the wasted pool of water, and envisioned herself wading out into its muddy depths and sinking beneath the silty surface.
‘Are you going to bring this Davis to the house? I’d like to meet him too,’ she said.
‘He won’t come to the homestead, love. There’s no need.’
‘Maybe I’d like to talk to him as well.’
‘About what?’
‘Anything and everything. I spend some long days by myself,’ said Stella.
‘He’s not one for four walls and a ceiling. He reckons he only heads back to his own place to make sure nothing’s been stolen and to fill up his tucker bag,’ Joe explained.
‘Do you see him often?’
‘Every month or so. We often drop our swags near the same spot. He’s been out here for years, and the stories he tells. Men going mad, women poisoning their husbands with arsenic. There’s even a fence inspector up around Cooper’s Corner that rides a horse without his pants on. Can you believe that?’
‘No,’ she answered blandly. ‘You’ve spent a lot of time with him then.’
‘A fair bit, yes. I nearly forgot. I trapped myself a cockatoo. Thought we’d take him home. Keep him as a pet. You can teach him to talk. He’ll be a bit of a playmate for you. What do you think, eh? I named him Watson.’
He smiled, shaking out the shirt draped over his shoulder. He put it on, paying no attention to matching buttons with holes. ‘And I found this.’ He dug in his trouser pocket, then displayed a dark rock in his palm. ‘It’s an axe-head. See that sharp edge?’ He ran a finger along it. ‘Not from here, I don’t reckon. They would have bent wood around it to make a handle and then probably tied it together with twine.’
Stella felt the last fragments of her patience beginning to disintegrate. Yesterday she’d dreamt of lying next to Joe in bed, of feeling the solid security of his body, then her concern began to mount with his continuing absence. Her distress had manifested into action.
‘I’ve been worried sick, and you’ve been snaring parrots and fossicking for bits of stone.’
Joe’s face deflated like a balloon. ‘This is important. A museum would be interested in this. And it’s not the only piece I’ve found.’
Stella pictured him on his hands and knees, digging in the dirt for relics while she battled to keep the vegetable plot alive, fought to stop the sand from entering the homestead and spent her evenings alone in the library, hoping there was enough fuel to keep the generator running so there was no need for her to go outside, alone, at night. ‘You’re a sheep farmer not an archaeologist.’
‘That doesn’t mean I can’t be interested. This is an extraordinary place. There’s so much history here. To think, another people roamed this land before us,’ said Joe.
‘To think,’ repeated Stella. The Indigenous Australians never had to adapt. They were here first. ‘So you won’t be home for a few days?’ she said, trying to keep the anger from her voice.
Joe spat on the stone and rubbed the surface before holding it up to the light. ‘What? No, not for a few days.’ He kissed her distractedly on the cheek. ‘Can you take Watson back with you? Set him up somewhere cool with water?’
‘Watson,’ she repeated, but Joe wasn’t listening. He’d already left to fetch the cage, a contraption he’d furnished out of branches and twine. His walk was almost a jog, as if he was keen for her to be gone.
Joe slid the cockatoo along the truck’s bench seat, as the bird screeched and flapped. ‘Be good now,’ he said to the bird.
Stella looked at the pure white plumage and haughty sulphur crest on the top of the bird’s head. She felt as if Joe’s feathered friend had already evaluated her ability to care for him and was distinctly unimpressed.
‘I’m not happy about this either,’ she said, getting into the vehicle next to the cockatoo and slamming the door. Beside her, the bird turned his head to the bars of his cage. She thought of Joe’s office back at the homestead, with its withered plants resting in jam tins, and the glass jars that held the variegated soils of their land. ‘Don’t blame me if he stuffs you.’
Chapter 21
Richmond Valley, 1867
The next morning Brandon woke at first light. Men’s voices were breaking through the birdcall. A flicker of movement attracted his attention and he watched a black-and-white bird fluttering overhead before shaking himself fully awake. Folding the hide blanket, he left it on Hetty’s veranda and then, axe in hand, pursued the voices past the stables and a field of pale stubble to where men headed towards a paddock of grain. A burly worker swore as a second man threw a number of sacks atop the pile in a dray and then jumped up front. With a wave of his hat as if in farewell the driver climbed up into the cart and struck off along the track in the direction of Wirra. Brandon increased his pace. If he could get a lift in the dray it would save him the walk to the village.
‘And where are you running to at this hour with an axe?’ Miss Schaefer was dressed in her hunting garb, a falcon perched on her gloved hand. She had come from the direction of the homestead and was heading due west across the paddock.
‘Miss,’ said Brandon.
‘You’ll walk with me,’ she announced. ‘I hear you’re to be employed, and as I’m supposed to be chaperoned at dawn and dusk, I’ll take advantage of your presence.’ She removed the hood from the falcon perched on her glove and the bird swivelled his head towards his mistress. ‘Athena, Glanville. Get Athena.’ The bird stretched its wings and flew skywards.
Brandon glanced at the departing dray.
Miss Schaefer followed his interest. ‘You’re heading to the village? Thriving metropolis that it is,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Brandon, falling into step beside her.
‘To fetch your cousin. Is he once or twice removed? You’ll forgive me, but I doubt that my uncle will take to him in the manner that he has you,’ she said bluntly.
‘He’s a good worker,’ said Brandon, in Sean’s defence.
‘But is he a good person? One to be trusted? My uncle is canny when it comes to interpreting the varied aspects of personality. He has made a particular study of it. That and the differences between those saved and lost. Protestants and Catholics. The Orange and the Green. You do understand what I’m talking about?’
‘Of course,’ said Brandon. He was now wondering at the propriety of a worker escorting a lady.
Miss Schaefer’s attention moved to the sky where the falcon circled overhead. Brandon was distracted from the bird’s progress by the sight of bloated grey cloud hanging across the range, until Miss Schaefer clapped her hands in excitement. The bird suddenly swooped low towards the timberline behind the men’s quarters and disappeared.
‘He was struck by your fort
hright and rational nature. That is quite an irregularity out here for someone in your position. Be ready for his discussions. He is one for vigorous debate, an inclination more suited to parliament than this societal outpost, but it must be expected, for he has read more than any living soul I’ve ever met. A great friend of his, Mr Handalay, is embarking on an adventure out in the western portions of the colony and my uncle has taken it upon himself to begin compiling a list of all the great works that must be included in their library. You can read?’
‘Yes, Miss Schaefer.’ He looked again at the wagon. There was still time to catch it.
‘Good. Now that we have addressed each other by name, the next time we meet you won’t need to be so ill at ease,’ she said.
The falcon reappeared in the sky with its quarry, a large bird clutched in its claws. The victim was struggling, causing Glanville’s speed and height to alter repeatedly. It appeared to be taking a direct path towards them, eventually landing nearby.
‘Is that another falcon?’ asked Brandon.
Miss Schaefer clucked her tongue. ‘I always doubted Athena would ever be trainable. The first hood I placed on her was ill-fitting and ever since she has been loath to wear one. If you can’t keep the animal calm, they are useless. Temperament is everything,’ she said, moving towards the grounded falcon and its wounded prey.
‘You must excuse me.’ Brandon ran after the wagon, his boots skidding in the loose gravel, hat in one hand and the axe gripped firmly in the other. Eventually he caught up with the dray and called out to the two men up front, begging a ride to the village if that’s where they were headed.
‘Fine day for it,’ the driver called, as Brandon drew level with the travelling dray.
‘Fine, to be sure,’ replied Brandon, trying not to pant.
‘You’re a strange sort. Running with that there axe as if you were a madman,’ said the driver’s companion, his lilt revealing Irish heritage. He wore a peaked cap and a dirty necktie, his red nose proof of his hours spent beneath the sun.
The Cedar Tree Page 13