September Moon

by Candice Proctor

  Missy shook her head. "No. Never. Jacko went walkabout once, last year. The other Aboriginal stockmen and shepherds do it, too, sometimes. But Sally never has. She always told me she'd stay as long as I needed her."

  Amanda heard the catch in the little girl's voice and knelt down to wrap one arm around her thin shoulders. "I'm sure she'll be back," Amanda said, although it was only wishful thinking and they both knew it.

  Missy rubbed her fist across her eyes. "It's because of the didgeridoo. I know it is. It was calling her and she had to go." Suddenly, the pinched little face crumpled. "Who's going to take care of me? Sally always took care of me."

  Amanda clutched the child to her, feeling the sobs that wracked the small body, feeling the little girl's pain and fear as if it were her own. "Oh, Missy." She pressed her cheek against the child's downy soft hair, breathing in her sweet scent. She remembered O'Reilly once telling her that Sally had first come to Penyaka as Missy's wet nurse. Which meant that in a very real sense, Amanda thought, Sally was the only mother that Missy had ever known.

  Amanda's chest felt tight and she sucked in a deep breath, trying to ease it. "I'll take care of you, Missy," she whispered, hugging the child to her. "Don't worry."

  Something stirred in the air, and even before Amanda looked up, she knew that O'Reilly was there.

  Still kneeling with Missy clutched to her, Amanda twisted to find him standing in the open doorway, one arm braccd against the frame. He wore his moleskin trousers and his boots and nothing else. His chest was bare and beautiful, his cheeks unshaven, his sun-streaked hair still ruffled from sleep. A strange, brittle light shed never seen before glittered in his eyes as he stared at her.

  She glanced away quickly, suddenly wary of what he might see in her eyes.

  His attention focused on the child in her arms. "What's wrong with Missy?"

  "It's Sally," said Amanda quietly. "She seems to have disappeared."

  He straightened and took a step forward, his gaze sweeping from the empty pallet to the dry, endless plains. "Gone walkabout, has she?"

  "She didn't tell you she was leaving?"

  "No. But I can't say I'm surprised. It's this bloody drought. She has a husband and a couple grown kids of her own. I guess she decided they need her more than we do."

  "But I need her," said Missy, her voice muffled against Amanda's shoulder.

  Amanda tightened her grip on Missy's small body and stood up, bringing the child with her. "You have me." She shifted Missy's weight to her hip. "I think perhaps Sally knew that."

  She straightened, achingly aware that she wore only a wrapper thrown open over her nightdress. She watched the heat leap into O'Reilly's eyes as his gaze traveled slowly over her, from her unbound hair to her bare ankles. Heat, and a resentful kind of anger she didn't understand. She expected him to make some provocative remark, but he didn't. He just stood there, staring at her, his big, half-naked, masculine presence disturbing her in a way that needed no words.

  Missy lifted her head from Amanda's shoulder and looked at her, her tearstained face tight with misery. "Will you stay?"

  An overwhelming feeling of tenderness rose up and caught at Amanda's heart. "I'll stay, darling," she whispered, turning toward the door.

  O'Reilly stood to one side, silently watching her. But as she passed him, she thought she heard him say something. Something so soft, it was little more than a thought breathed aloud. "Yeah? For how long?"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The following morning, in an attempt to cheer Missy up, Amanda finally gave in to the little girl's pestering and walked down the creek bed to the woolshed to watch one of the last days of the shearing.

  The ground around the woolshed was flat and crisscrossed with rough, weather-worn rail fences that divided the area into several large yards and numerous smaller holding pens crowded with milling, bleating sheep. Dust hung thick and acrid in the air, and the flies were hideous. One hovered around Amanda's mouth; another landed on her nose. She shooed them with her hand, but a moment later they were back again. Australian flies could be unbelievably, maddeningly persistent. She hated them.

  Swatting absently at the hovering flies, she stared out over the undulating sea of woolly backs. She had always thought of sheep as white or pale gray. Surely the sheep in England were white? But not here. These sheep were a dirty red- brown. As she watched, an Aboriginal shepherd swept one of the bawling creatures off its feet and threw it to another man standing waist-deep in the water hole. The sheep hit with a splash, sending water spraying high up into the air. The men laughed.

  "What are they doing?" Amanda asked, bringing up her hand to shade her eyes from the harsh sun. "One would think they're giving the sheep a bath."

  "They are," said Missy, skipping along beside her. "Papa says fleeces keep better if the sheep aren't washed before they're sheared, but the poms pay more for washed wool, so

  Papa always does it. Only with the creek not runnin' this year, they had to dig a channel from the spring to the water hole. See?"

  Amanda watched the man in the water dunk the sheep's head and shove it under a bar to a second pen, where four or five men took turns rubbing the sheep's fleece as they passed it down the line.

  "It's not nice to call the English poms," said Amanda, her gaze following the waterlogged sheep as it staggered out onto a gravel bank and gave an indignant bleat.

  "Papa does."

  "I know. But you shouldn't do it." She glanced down in time to see the little girl's chin jut out rebelliously, and had to turn away to hide her smile. "Why don't you show me the shearing shed?"

  The shearing shed was an enormous building with massive walls of rough, gray-pink stones mortised with lime. A great doorway on the eastern end opened into a central pen crowded with unshorn sheep. Down either side of the central pen stretched two shearing floors where the shearers worked in rows, each with his own stand. Behind them ranged the outer pens into which the shorn sheep were thrust until they could be counted to arrive at each man's tally.

  Amanda hesitated just inside the door, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the dim, golden light. The atmosphere in here was thick with the smell of sheep and hot tar and working men's sweat. In the pens, sheep bleated in panic, their tiny hooves beating a restless tattoo against the hard-packed earth. As Amanda watched, one of the shearers—a tall, thin man with narrow, stooping shoulders and a dirty blond beard, nicked the wrinkled neck of the ewe he held clamped between his knees. He swore and threw up his head to shout, "Tar boy!" Liam came on the run, a bucket of molten tar ready to dab on the cut. From the distant wool room came the thump of the wool press, joining with the whirl of the grinding wheel, the click of the shears, the soft swish of the fleeces, hitting the board. ..

  And the deep, rich cadence of O'Reilly's laugh.

  "There's Papa!" said Missy, tugging her hand. "Look, he's shearing today."

  Amanda had already seen him. He stood at the far end of the board, half-turned away from them so that he hadn't seen Amanda and Missy come in. It was hot in the shed, and like many of the men he'd stripped off his shirt. Amanda let her hungry gaze rove over his naked, sweat-streaked shoulders and back. He stretched slowly, flexing tired muscles, then reached over to snag a wether out of the central pen and upend the sheep onto its backside in one smooth, practiced motion. The sheep let out a startled baah, then slumped resignedly on its rump, looking for all the world like an old man sitting down for a rest.

  O'Reilly tightened his knees on the wether and bent gracefully at the waist, the long, thin blades snapping continuously in his hands as he swept the shears around the animal's neck, down its flank.

  Amanda felt her breathing grow shallow and rapid as she watched. He was so big and strong and masculine. The muscles beneath his smooth, sweat-slicked skin flexed and bunched as he worked; the veins of his bare forearms bulged. She had never thought of a man's body as beautiful, but O'Reilly was beautiful. His shoulders were broad and corded with muscle, his back long
and lean as it tapered down to a narrow waist. His every movement was agile, controlled, and unbelievably gentle. She thought she could stand there and watch him forever.

  The fleece tumbled to the board in one continuous piece. O'Reilly eased the pressure of his knees, and the wether scrambled to its feet naked but free. O'Reilly straightened. And saw her.

  Across the length of the shearing shed, their gazes met and locked, and it was as if something shimmered in the hot air between them. She could see his sides heaving as he sucked in air. His dark, taut body was wet with sweat, his lean face dripping, his golden hair plastered dark against his head. Without taking his gaze off her, he hooked his shirt off the railing of the nearest pen and wiped his face with it as he strolled toward her.

  He stopped in front of her. "You came," he said, still breathing heavily, something warm and disturbing lighting his eyes.

  Amanda watched a bead of sweat form on his tanned forehead and trickle down his temple to disappear into his hair. She knew a forbidden urge to reach out and touch him, there, and had to swallow hard and lace her fingers together behind her back. Turning half away from him, she watched Hannah swoop up a fleece and carry it to the wool-rolling table. "Yes," she said, her voice as light and airy as she could make it. "Missy wanted me to see how it's all done."

  "Mm-hmm." A dimple flashed in his cheek, and she knew he wasn't fooled one bit.

  She should not have come, she thought with something like a panic. By coming to see him, by so obviously, so betrayingly watching his body while he worked, she had crossed some sort of invisible line that she had carefully observed for weeks now.

  And they both knew it.

  That afternoon, Amanda went for a ride by herself.

  She normally rode with Missy, but the after-shearing races and dance were now just days away, and Missy was busy "hulping" Ching make gingerbread cookies.

  "You go and leave her with me," said Ching, giving Amanda a wink over Missy's bowed head. "I no can do without my helper."

  So Amanda saddled Calypso and followed the track that ran southeast along the creek bed. The mare's hooves thudded dully in the dust as Amanda squinted at the shimmering horizon. It was the beginning of November now, still spring. But the sky above her burned a searing blue, the sun was dazzling, the air hot and dry.

  She rode to where the creek had cut a rocky gorge through a bank of low hills. There she pulled up and slid out of the saddle. In the shade of the red cliffs, patches of grass still grew, and she eased Calypso's cinch and tied the mare to a deadfall where it could graze. Then she climbed onto the flat- topped rock that jutted out over what had once been a deep, fair-sized water hole but was now only a small, tranquil pool.

  She had been here before, with Missy, but she had always wanted to return alone. In some ways this spot reminded Amanda of Cadnowie; it had that same sense of almost supernatural harmony. It was why she had come here today. She felt restless, edgy. In need of peace.

  Sitting on her haunches, she wrapped her arms around her bent knees and sucked in a deep breath scented with the heavy oils of the bush, then let it out again in a long sigh. There was something about these windblown, timeless ranges that struck a wild, lonely chord deep within her that she hadn't even known still existed. This country was like O'Reilly, she thought; both the man and his land frightened her and disturbed her and attracted her, all at the same time.

  She kept remembering the way he had looked in the woolshed that morning, his chest naked and shiny with sweat, his muscles bulging, his eyes hot with desire. Just the thought of it was enough to send the hunger flashing through her again, tormenting her.

  Reaching up, she tore off her hat and tossed it aside, then yanked the pins out of her chignon and shook her head to let her hair tumble free about her shoulders. She loosened her cravat, too, and unfastened the top buttons of her riding habit.

  She felt abandoned, wicked. Needy. If she had never allowed Grant to touch her all those years ago, she wondered, would she still be like this? Yearning for O'Reilly's touch, for his kiss?

  She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the hot spring sun and the wild wind. She imagined what it would feel like to strip off her clothes and lie here, caressed by the fingers of the sun-warmed breeze. She undid two more buttons, then stilled. A feeling of anticipation came over her, of subtle, fine-tuned awareness. She knew even before she opened her eyes that O'Reilly was there.

  She lowered her head and looked at him. He sat tall and easy in the saddle, one wrist resting on the pommel as the chestnut shifted weight from one side to the other. She thought he must have been there, watching her, for some time.

  "Mr. O'Reilly," she said, her voice surprisingly calm and clear, although her heart thudded wildly beneath the unbuttoned jacket of her habit.

  She watched him urge the horse around the edge of the water hole toward her. On the near side of the creek bed he stopped, and a forbidden thrill of excitement and fear shot through Amanda as she watched him swing out of the saddle and loop the reins around a scruffy bottlebrush.

  The wind gusted, sighing through the overhead branches of the gums and fluttering the tawny hair that hung over his collar. He braced his hands on the edge of the flat rock and swung up beside her as graceful and agile as a wild animal on the prowl. He landed on the balls of his feet, his knees bent, his moleskins pulling taut over the muscles of his thighs.

  "Ching told me you'd ridden out alone," he said, his gaze capturing and holding hers. The air between them throbbed with things known but unsaid.

  "And so you followed me."

  "Yes."

  He suddenly seemed too near, too intimidatingly masculine to bear. She swung her head away to watch a pair of vivid green-and-red resellas fluttering through the lower branches of a gum across the creek.

  She heard his boot heels scrape over the rock as he eased himself down beside her. "I remember my grandfather had a water hole with a big flat rock beside it," he said, "very similar to this, in the hills behind his house in Tasmania. It used to be one of my favorite places when I was about four or five."

  She cast a quick glance at him. "Was your grandfather really transported for stealing a horse?"

  A wicked smile curled his lips, taking her breath away. "Sure was. I remember one time when I was a lad, he showed me his scars. The ones on his back, from the cat-o'-nine-tails. And the marks left by the shackles on his ankles and wrists."

  He paused. She waited, hoping he would go on, and after a moment, he did. "He served seven years. But after that, he got his certificate of freedom, took up a run, and had the most amazing luck finding sheep and cattle to stock it."

  "In other words, he stole them."

  He let out a huff of laughter. "Well, let's put it this way: if he did, he never got caught. He found a free Irishwoman willing to marry him, and had himself a half-dozen children by her, so that by the time my mother's family came out a few years after Waterloo, ol' Patrick O'Reilly was one of the most prosperous men on the north end of the island."

  "So he was respectable by then."

  "Oh, no." Something about his expression hardened, and he lowered his head until his hat brim hid part of his face. "The O'Reillys were never that. Not to the likes of my mother's family. The Beaumonts were so poor when they first got here, they lived under canvas for more than a year. But they were still gentry, and my mother was a lady. My father was just convict's spawn."

  "But your mother didn't care."

  "When she was eighteen, she didn't. My father was a handsome devil, and he knew how to make my mother laugh." Amanda watched his throat work as he swallowed. "Then they left Tasmania to take up a new run in Victoria. She didn't laugh so much anymore."

  He breathed. She could see his chest lifting against his shirt, and her heart ached for him, ached for the pain she knew he was feeling. He was no longer looking at her, but sat with his head lifted, his gaze fixed on something in the distance.

  "Does your sister look like her?" Amanda asked q
uietly.

  "Hetty?" He brought his gaze back to her face. "Yeah, she does. Hannah takes after her a bit, too. Although she has more the look of Katherine."

  His wife's name hung in the air between them, like something unwanted and oppressive. To push it away, she said, "What about your brothers? Where are they?"

  He took off his hat and tossed it onto the rock beside his thigh, then leaned back to brace his weight against his outstretched arms. "Luke still has my father's old station down in

  Victoria. But John died of pneumonia about ten years ago, in Bendigo."

  She saw the tightening of his jaw, and the shadows shifting, deep in his blue eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. She rested her chin on her knees, letting her gaze drift over the red cliffs on the far side of the creek. The lower part of the rock had been worn away by the ebb and flow of the water hole through the aeons, until it formed an indentation almost like a shallow cave. Looking at it now, her eyes began to pick out patterns in the gloom.

  "Are those handprints, painted on that rock?" she asked.

  "That's right. They're Aboriginal rock paintings. The spirals, too. You see them a lot around here."

  "I didn't realize the natives had any kind of painting."

  He grunted. "A lot of folks assume that because the Aborigines see themselves as a part of the land, and because they don't have much interest in accumulating personal possessions, then they must exist at a level little better than that of animals. But the way I see it, a people's culture consists of a lot more than things."