The Ranger in the Hills: A Heartwarming Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  ‘Tom’s advice!’ Stella said caustically. ‘By the way ‒ any sign of Tom coming in here? Did you watch the cars, as you promised?’

  ‘Not after dark. How could I? If he’s too late for usual dinner I suppose they’ll give him a tray in his room. Do you think we’d better ask, or shall I stock up from the biscuit counter and order some milk? Thank God for that hot-water jug, etcetera, etcetera. There’s fruit from the car and a carton of milk in the fridge.’

  Bern Malin had opened his room door for Katie.

  ‘I’ll take a walk round while you’re settling Andrew,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget to show him how to adjust the television set. He can watch it from the bed. I’ll see you presently, Katie.’

  Katie knew Stella did not mean her to arrive at that coffee party too early.

  She sorted out Andrew’s pyjamas and advised him to be first in the shower in the morning, then keep out of Bern’s way.

  ‘A man likes to shave in peace, Andrew. Get up early, dear, and come over and have your breakfast with me. I’ll order for two on my chit.’

  ‘Yes, I might. If I remember ‒’ Andrew said from his stance on a chair from which advantage he was adjusting the television set for sound and viewing.

  ‘How did you know how to do that?’ Katie asked surprised. ‘There are so many knobs.’

  ‘Out of a book.’ Andrew was sometimes bored by Katie’s wonder. ‘It was in the box library from the Air School about how television sets worked.’

  Andrew climbed down from the chair and stood back to see if all was well with the picture on the screen.

  ‘I’ll turn up the sound when you go,’ he said.

  Katie bent over him and kissed his forehead.

  ‘Good night, Genius,’ she said. ‘One day you might make a picture for television yourself. Only they don’t paint them in colours do they?’

  ‘They don’t paint them at all. They act them,’ Andrew said scornfully.

  ‘What about cartoons?’ Katie asked.

  ‘Oh, them? Kid stuff!’

  Katie went to the door.

  ‘Well ‒ once again ‒ good night, dear.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Andrew hadn’t really heard her. He was busy divesting himself of his shirt, one eye on the television set.

  Katie started to walk slowly across the courtyard towards her own room. She was wondering at the long way she had come in her own thinking since that subject of the school had first come up. She had rebelled then; and run away to find Gideon Dent to save Andrew from such imprisonment. Now, she wasn’t sure

  Gideon Dent!

  He was a shadow; a man lost to himself in the bush.

  Yet she remembered those arms around her; and the hand that had held her head against his breast. She loved him, too!

  ‘It happened, but it was all a dream. Can that be possible?’

  She had crossed the courtyard.

  Then she saw Bern Malin.

  His tall figure was silhouetted against the white moonlit wall; a cigarette glowed in his hand.

  Something squeezed at her heart: her torn heart.

  ‘Aren’t you going to coffee, Bern?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. I wanted to see you, Katie. Will you invite me in?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She found her key in her handbag and gave it to Bern to unlock the door.

  He opened it, switched on the light for her, then stood aside to let her pass him.

  Katie put her handbag on the bed, determined to be natural and easy with him.

  ‘You look so serious,’ she said with concern. ‘I hope nothing has gone wrong about our trip ‒’

  She broke off. His expression was puzzling.

  ‘Something has gone wrong?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘Possibly. Are you any good at making coffee out of that packet stuff, Katie? You’ll find several brands of it in the cupboard under the bench. Also a carton of milk in your fridge. The maid put it there earlier.’

  ‘But aren’t you having coffee with Stella and Jill?’

  ‘They have an unexpected visitor. They won’t want me to be punctual now. I imagine they are hoping I’ve taken a mile walk down the road and won’t come back for at least an hour.’

  Katie shook her hair as she glanced in the mirror. Her reflection smiled back at him. She felt she was being very natural and was pleased with herself.

  ‘Of course they want you, whoever is visiting them. They’re expecting you. Life for the Rydes begins with you ‒’

  ‘Supposing you sit down, and I make the coffee,’ Bern said unexpectedly.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Katie protested. ‘I’m useless at sitting down. Besides, you are my guest ‒ for the moment anyway.’

  She moved quickly to the bench where the electric jug stood. She filled it from the tap above the sink and plugged in the switch. She kept her back to him.

  ‘Do sit down, Bern. You make me nervous standing up. There’s an ash-tray on the table under the mirror‒’

  ‘It’s easier to talk standing up. Please go on making coffee, Katie. What I am going to say might make you angry and I’d just as soon you didn’t look at me while I’m saying it. It will make it easier for both of us.’

  Katie’s heart seemed to stop, then race on again. What was he going to say?

  She found a packet of coffee.

  ‘Go on,’ she said quietly. She found cups and saucers, two teaspoons and a packet of sugar and began tearing the top from the coffee packet.

  ‘I don’t want to interfere with your life, Katie,’ he was saying slowly. ‘You probably think I haven’t the right to do that. Actually I have ‒ by remote control.’

  ‘Because Gideon Dent asked you to look after us?’

  Her voice was steady. She was pleased about that. She put her hand on the jug to feel if it rumbled enough to hint of boiling.

  She was suddenly wonderfully calm. Her heart was behaving beautifully now.

  She was Katie James, and full of dignity. That was what the people back home used to say, if they only said it to please her father.

  Bern was silent. What was he doing, back there behind her?

  ‘Please go on, Bern. I’m listening.’

  ‘I don’t know how much friendship there is between you and Tom Ryde, Katie. What I do know, or think, is pure guesswork. You can’t have known him long enough, or have seen him often enough to be very attached. I don’t want you to marry him. That is all I wanted to say to you. I have to advise you against it early: before you become too involved.’

  There was a long pause. Katie switched off the electric current and stood holding the jug in her hand.

  ‘Tom Ryde is a country grazier with only two thoughts in his head,’ Bern went on. ‘One is making money, and the other is of horses. That is not enough for you, Katie.’

  ‘You are trying to tell me that he is not suitable, or something old-fashioned like that? Is that what you mean, Bern?’

  ‘No. Far from it. A grazier is a man of prestige in this State. I mean something quite different but I can’t discuss it with you yet, Katie. There is such a thing as noblesse oblige to one’s neighbours ‒ especially when neighbours in such a remote place cannot do without one another. I would not care for Tom to express too forthright an opinion of me, if he didn’t like me.’ He paused, then added, almost regretfully: ‘It is for your sake, Katie, that I am asking you to take my advice in this matter. I have to offer it to you as a simple duty.’

  ‘Duty?’ Katie’s chin was beginning to tilt ominously. ‘Why do you have any duty to me, Bern? I’m only an uninvited girl who came off the Overlander bus at Malley’s Find. I landed myself on your hands, didn’t I ? Unexpected?’

  She switched the jug on to let it come to the boil once more. In the long silence that followed she poured the boiling water on to the instant coffee in the cups.

  ‘I advise you against marrying Tom Ryde,’ he repeated slowly. He sounded as if he minded saying this.

  She had not
once turned round, but she knew he was still standing up.

  She stared into the dark steaming liquid in the cups. Suddenly she was angry. It had been gathering inside her painfully.

  Did he have to take the role of schoolmaster? Was that all he would ever be to her? He would stop her marrying someone, if he could, even though such an intention had never entered her thoughts.

  There was sheer injustice in this. The idea had been in his mind. His and Mrs. Potts’s mind too.

  Katie was stone cold all over.

  In a minute something inside her would burst, then she wouldn’t be cold any more: only so angry it would boil over.

  This is my wounded vanity, she admitted to herself.

  ‘You don’t like Tom Ryde, do you, Bern? So you don’t want me to marry him?’ she said aloud.

  ‘I’d sooner marry you myself than see you make such a mistake.’

  There was a split second of silence. The only reality to Katie was dark brown coffee in the bottom of two cups.

  ‘Then why don’t you?’ she asked.

  The words echoed in her ears.

  Dear stars in heaven! What had she said?

  She put her hands on the bench.

  Oh, no!

  She felt stripped, as if she were naked. Who had said that? Not herself; some other person surely.

  ‘It’s the red in my hair,’ she said regretfully, after a long pause. ‘It gives me a temper and always did get me into trouble.’

  She seemed to stand there, leaning on the bench, an aeon. Bern came across the room to her. Her last words had touched him. He put his hand on her shoulders and turned her round.

  She had to meet his eyes because to have avoided them would have been the last indignity. God knows, she thought, Katie James will never have pride or dignity again.

  ‘If that is a question, and I am the one to answer, then ‒ yes, why don’t I do just that?’ he said. ‘I can safeguard you, and us. I can look after Andrew.’

  He was looking into her eyes.

  She was speechless. She was afraid to push him away and afraid to let him stay.

  She knew that a whole new glistening world was in her hand, but if she moved or spoke, she might drop it, and shatter it.

  She closed her eyes to escape the mesmerism in his. They stood quite still.

  He traced the line of her lashes on her cheeks with one finger. He took her chin in the other hand and lifted it up.

  There was something inscrutable in his eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘Why not? You can look after me, and I can look after you. Then we both can look after Andrew ‒’

  Did she say that too?

  ‘Don’t be cynical, Katie. It doesn’t suit you. You were born for fun-making and tossing that pretty head of yours in the sunlight. You weren’t made for sick fathers and obtuse brothers to burden your shoulders. You were made to be somebody’s wife one day, when you’re really grown up. It had better be me than ‒’

  ‘Tom Ryde?’

  ‘Tom Ryde. Perhaps anyone else.’

  ‘You are dreadfully wrong, Bern. You are not saving me from Tom, because I never thought of marrying him. He hasn’t even asked me ‒’

  ‘But he would have done that. He was building up to it. I know Tom better than you do. You are safer this way.’

  The world, the wonderful sparkling diamond-dancing world, was still in her hands. Yet she was frightened of it. She should reject him, and this loveless offer, of course. Yet she was afraid of dropping her world and breaking it for ever.

  Besides, he had said ‒ when she had really grown up. When was that?

  She nodded ‒ or at least something outside herself dominating her, nodded and spoke for her.

  ‘I think it might be quite a good idea.’

  She could have been cogitating whether to buy, or not to buy, an extra pound of tea.

  He actually smiled.

  ‘And no talk of love?’ he asked. There was that quizzical expression in his eyes again.

  ‘None whatsoever. I love another.’

  Bern’s eyebrows went up. He dropped his hands.

  ‘So young? And so foresworn?’ He was laughing at her, of course. He knew it wasn’t Tom Ryde now.

  Katie was serious.

  ‘I love Gideon Dent. That surprises you, doesn’t it? You had the wrong man in your mind ‒’

  He turned away, reaching in his breast pocket for his cigarettes as he went. He stopped by the table, lit one and slowly flicked out the flame. In that silence the match tossed in the ash-tray sounded like falling timber.

  He did not look at her.

  ‘Don’t fall in love with a shadow, Katie.’

  ‘I met him. He touched me. He put his arms around me.’

  ‘He did, did he? I’ll have a few short words with him about that when we next meet. On two minutes’ acquaintance? And in the dark?’

  ‘How do you know it was dark?’ Katie asked, her chin up of its own accord this time.

  Bern sat down in the chair, his long legs stretched out before him. Now he looked at Katie under level brows. His eyes could have been laughing at her: but she wasn’t sure.

  ‘My dear child, I know everything that happens in the bush within a hundred-mile radius of Malm’s Outpost.’

  ‘Secretary, I suppose?’

  ‘Secretary, Jack Bean, and about four others of the same ilk and the same race. How else do you think I watch my mining rights out in that Never country? There’s no legitimate man in that area, other than my diggers and the Rydes, in a thousand square miles ‒’

  ‘Except Gideon Dent.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Except Gideon Dent! I mustn’t forget him. Katie, if you are my wife-to-be, will you promise me to serve coffee hot? What you have in those cups behind you on the bench might be getting on for cold right now.’

  So he was playing with her? Like a cat and a mouse. He would marry her, but make fun of her for marrying him.

  Katie’s lips parted as if she would like to say something. She closed them again as she turned round to make fresh coffee because she dare not say anything. She loved him, in a different way from Gideon Dent, of course. She was afraid to have him ‒ whose kindest emotion towards her was one of sardonic amusement. She was afraid to lose him because otherwise she might want to die.

  Yes ‒ she thought, being dramatic to release her feelings: she emptied the cold coffee into the sink and put more tea-spoons of powder in the cups. She just might do that. Die! Of humiliation, if of nothing else!

  She poured the boiling water on the coffee for the second time that night, then brought Bern’s cup to him. She looked at him thoughtfully, over its brim. He was smiling at her, in an amused way.

  She put the coffee down on the table beside him then sat on the stool. It was easier to hook her heels in the bar of the stool and bring her knees just that much nearer her chin than let them tap restlessly on the floor.

  ‘It’s a long time since I had a cigarette,’ she said, throwing back her hair, pretending not to be nervous. ‘Way back near Malley’s Find ‒’

  ‘Then it was ‒ I think you said ‒ bravado.’ He was still amused, and hadn’t yet touched the coffee.

  ‘I forget. But it might be helpful if I have one now, please ‒’

  Bern gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. Katie, perched on the stool, looked more like a bush sprite out of place than a conscientious girl troubled with the upbringing of a young brother.

  ‘Something worrying you, Katie?’

  ‘Yes. You see ‒’ She watched her spiral of smoke rise, then float away into nothingness, up near the ceiling. ‘I’m a minor, as you mentioned ages ago; in connection with my being responsible for Andrew.’ She let her eyes come back to meet his. ‘Who gives me permission to marry you ‒ or marry anybody at all?’

  The corners of his mouth turned down, and his eyes were sardonic.

  ‘Have you no relatives at all to take on that honour?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Katie re
plied, very slowly. ‘Gideon Dent. You hadn’t forgotten him, had you?’

  Bern reached for his coffee.

  ‘I suppose we get the fellow’s permission, then,’ he suggested wryly.

  ‘Why do you call him “the fellow”? He was much nicer about you ‒’

  ‘You mean he thought I was qualified to give you the best advice? Was that being nice about me?’

  ‘I thought so at the time, but then I really had very little time.’

  Katie felt she was being very worldly and composed ‒ on the outside. Inside was turmoil.

  He didn’t love her now, of course! Some time in the future? She would take a chance on that. Any girl would, except for the problem of loving Gideon Dent ‒ in a kind of a way ‒ too. That couldn’t be real, of course. She had only been with him a few minutes. It had been his arms round her ‒ the tenderness ‒ the comfort of her head on his breast.

  ‘Oh, darn!’ said Katie. There were sudden tears in her eyes. ‘The smoke, of course,’ she said aloud. ‘How do you keep it out of your eyes?’

  ‘By not thinking of painful things, Katie. What is troubling you at the moment?’

  ‘This loveless marriage ‒’ Katie said, more composed.

  She was being casual now, watching her latest spiral of smoke on its course upwards. She might, she thought, be talking about the problem of buying that pound of tea.

  ‘Who ‒’ Bern asked very quietly, ‘said it would be a loveless marriage?’

  Katie’s chin came back to normal and she looked straight at him.

  ‘You are very lovable, you know,’ he went on thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh! Like a child is lovable? You said something about when I grew up a little while ago, Bern. You wouldn’t know that I grew up years and years ago when my mother died and I was left with a tiny toddler called Andrew. I grew up, bang-on. Right then.’

  Bern looked at the tip of his cigarette.

  ‘I see.’ He was quite grave.

  ‘So if you think getting married is a wise thing for us to do,’ Katie went on, still flying her colours, ready to nail them to the mast of businesslike methods, ‘you’d better ask Gideon Dent’s permission, because, as I pointed out before, I’m a minor ‒’

  ‘Yes,’ Bern said thoughtfully. ‘I’d better do just that. It will take a little time, of course. I have to go to Perth on business, as you know ‒’