The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  When Joanna entered the kitchen, she found a fire blazing in the hearth, filling the room with heat and a cozy glow. Peony, Jacko's daughter, was sitting at the table cleaning the glass chimneys of the oil lamps, while Adam sat at the table eating buttered bread dipped in egg. "Mama!" he said, running to her.

  Joanna took Adam into her arms and hugged him. Then she removed her hat and hung it up. "Where is Mr. Westbrook?" she asked.

  "Down by the river with Mr. McNeal," the girl said. "Mr. Westbrook came home. He says a big storm is coming."

  "I shan't be long," Joanna said, drawing her shawl tightly around her and heading out the door.

  "Can I come too?" Adam said.

  But Joanna said, "You stay here and keep Sarah and Peony company."

  As she followed the path to the river, Joanna saw flashes of lightning on the horizon. She looked up at the gray winter sky, and marveled that this was June. In India, the British women would have already made the journey to the mountain resorts in their annual escape from the summer heat. But here, on the western plains of Victoria, it was the dead of winter.

  Joanna entered the clearing, where the billabong reflected a pewter sky, and looked for Hugh and Philip McNeal. In the gloom Joanna could see them walking through the trees, examining the cement footings that were going to be the foundation for the new house. Hugh and Joanna and McNeal had together agreed upon a site that was far from the sacred ruins, where neither the spirits would be disturbed nor the house threatened by river floods. And they had not torn down a single tree to clear a place for it. Maude Reed had once said to Joanna, "When we built our house, we tore out all those filthy gum trees and planted sensible English willows and elms."

  Joanna paused for a moment to watch her husband as he talked with McNeal.

  Hugh was bareheaded, his hair ruffling in the wind. His boots and trousers were caked with mud; his shirtsleeves were rolled up and there was mud on his bare arms. How different Hugh was from other graziers, Joanna thought, men who seemed to need to show the world how prosperous they were. Even when they were out riding their paddocks, or showing prize stock at the Graziers' Show, John Reed and Colin MacGregor and all the rest looked like English country gentlemen who got about as close to the land as a game of croquet.

  Did these feelings ever go away? Joanna wondered as she watched him. The thrill of suddenly seeing him, the jolt that went through her each time she encountered him, when he came in at night from the paddocks, when he appeared unexpectedly in the kitchen doorway, when she caught his voice on the wind. Did the excitement ever fade? she wondered. Did the electricity die? No, she prayed. I want it to always be like this.

  Joanna called out his name, but her voice was drowned by distant thunder rolling down from the mountains. A few seconds later lightning flashed.

  "Hugh!" she called again.

  He turned, his smile broadening; and Philip McNeal raised a hand in greeting.

  "Be careful," Hugh said, as Joanna stepped over the bare cement threshold. He held out his arms and Joanna went into them. Please, she thought as he kissed her. Let it always be like this.

  "I'm glad you're home," he said. "I was getting worried. Another few minutes and I would have sent someone out on the road to get you. Philip and I were just making sure everything was secure here. I don't like the look of that sky. Watch your step here." He took Joanna's hand. The concrete floor was littered with tools, rubble, and the sawed-off ends of lumber. One of the workers had left a billycan in a corner, half filled with tea.

  Finally they stood in what was going to be the drawing room. A dark shadow was spreading across the plains. Hugh said, "What did Poll Gramercy say?"

  "She said we're fine, and that I am about five months along."

  "Was there anything in the mail?" he asked.

  Joanna thought of the letter that had arrived from Aunt Millicent, a reply to Joanna's request for more information about her mother's childhood. It was very simple and direct. "Your poor mother is dead," Millicent had written. "Leave her in peace."

  The wind began to rise, rippling the surface of the billabong. Hugh looked up at the sky and murmured, "Storm's going to hit any time now. It's going to be a long night for the men, out in the paddocks."

  "Hoy!" came a voice on the wind. "Hoy there! Hugh!"

  The three turned to see a station hand named Half-Caste Eddie riding up at a fast gallop, waving his hat. "Hugh! You gotta come quickly!"

  Hugh went to him. "What is it, Eddie?"

  "Cripes, Hugh, it's terrible! Lightning struck a tree near three-mile! The sheep have bolted!"

  "Get the men on it then."

  "Hugh," Half-Caste Eddie said, his face drawn and white, "the mob's broken through the north fence and we can't contain them! They're runnin' wild! Hugh, they're heading toward the river!"

  "Get back to the house, Joanna," Hugh said as he went to his horse. "Mr. McNeal, will you please escort my wife back to the yard?"

  As they watched, Hugh rode off into the turbulent night.

  Hugh and Eddie rode across plains exploding with lightning. Their horses jumped creeks that had been dry but which now ran deep with water; they flew past trees bent nearly in half beneath the force of the wind. By the time they reached the northern boundary, the rain was coming down in slanting sheets, and Hugh looked down on a sight that made his blood freeze.

  Thousands of sheep, panicked and stampeding, were racing over the stormy landscape, with men on horseback riding back and forth, trying to control them. Sheepdogs were barking frantically, while lightning continued to fork down, splitting earth and sky with great fiery swords.

  "How the hell did that fence get down?" Hugh shouted as he rode up to Stringy Larry.

  "The mob didn't do it, Hugh!" Larry shouted back, his voice barely heard over the wind. "Look, it's fallen down this way!"

  Hugh rode along the broken fence and saw that Larry was right. The posts and wire were lying toward the oncoming sheep. It had already been down when they got here. The storm hadn't done it.

  "But these five thousand acres belong to Frank Downs!" Hugh said. "He's always kept this fence in good repair!"

  A man named Tom Watkins rode up then, the brim of his hat overflowing with rain and running onto his oilcloth coat. "Jesus, Hugh! The mob's in the river!"

  And then the real nightmare began.

  Back at the house, Joanna and Philip McNeal hurriedly fixed storm shutters over the windows while Peony sat in frozen terror, listening to the thunder crash overhead, and Sarah quietly tried to distract Adam. The cabin seemed to tremble as great gusts came down the chimney, shooting sparks and cinders into the kitchen. The hearth rug caught fire and Joanna rushed to stamp it out. "Peony," she said. "Get the spare billycans out of the pantry. We'll need lots of water for tea."

  Philip said, "Will your husband be able to save the sheep?"

  "I don't know," Joanna said, recalling stories she had heard about men who had drowned while trying to pull sheep from a river.

  She looked at the faces of her companions, white with terror. Sarah held Adam, and Philip hovered close to them. They'll be all right, Joanna thought. I haven't had any nightmares, no premonitions about this. But the next crack of thunder reminded her of Hugh out there in the elements, trying to save sheep in the storm.

  Sarah came up to her and, glancing over her shoulder to be sure the others didn't hear, said, "There is bad magic tonight."

  Joanna felt a familiar stab of terror. She had experienced it before—in nightmares, and during the typhoid epidemic. She had hoped then that her fears—that she was the cause of the trouble—might only have been her imagination, but she could tell by the look in Sarah's eyes that the poison was back; the curse was striking again.

  "Bad things happen tonight," Sarah said quietly. "Men get hurt. Someone dies. The Rainbow Serpent is angry."

  Joanna stared at her. "Why the Rainbow Serpent, Sarah?"

  "Because the Serpent created the rivers in the Dreamtime, and guides the
m now."

  Joanna thought of her mother's dreams, and her own, of the giant snake, and its single, terrifying eye. Had Lady Emily overheard something about the curse of the Rainbow Serpent? Was this fear based on something that really happened, involving a snake?

  "Yes," Joanna said, as she and Sarah looked at each other. "I understand. And if that's the case, then we had better be prepared." She reached into the cupboard for her medicine kit. "Mr. McNeal, would you please go to the bunkhouse and get some spare blankets? And fetch the large billycans from the cookhouse, please."

  There was a sudden pounding on the door, and it flew open to admit wind and rain and a station hand named Banjo. He was holding a blood-soaked rag over his left arm.

  Joanna and Philip helped him inside, while Sarah took Adam into the other room.

  "Cripes, missus!" Banjo said, as he gratefully accepted a glass of whiskey. "It's bad out there—by the river! Lotsa blokes getting hurt and no one to take care of them."

  After Joanna cleaned and bandaged his arm, she hurriedly gathered together a healing kit, bandages and whiskey, and went to the door, where an oilskin coat hung on a hook. Putting it on, she said, "Mr. McNeal, will you please stay with Sarah and Adam?"

  "You're not going out in this, Mrs. Westbrook," he said. "I mean, considering the baby and all."

  "I shall be all right, Mr. McNeal. I'll take Matthew with me."

  He watched as Joanna pulled the door open, and he thought to call her back, but Joanna was already going down the veranda steps and vanishing into the night.

  In the stable, Matthew, whose eyes were popped wide with fear, hitched the horse to the wagon. While he did so, trying to steady the nervous animal, Joanna threw blankets into the back, a lantern, a box of matches, and the medical kit, covering it all with a canvas sheet. Finally, she climbed onto the seat, and Matthew climbed up next to her.

  Joanna knew where the three-mile well was. Hugh had taken her all over Merinda's seventeen thousand acres, showing her the tracks and the gates and the wells and the out-stations where the boundary riders and musterers camped. But it was one thing to take a leisurely ride over sunny pastures, with the nearby mountains a tranquil and reassuring landmark, and another to plunge headlong into a stormy night, praying that luck and guessing would get her to where she needed to be.

  She and Matthew rode through the storm, holding tight to the reins; the rain came down hard, and Joanna was soon soaked. The horse reared when lightning struck nearby. Twice Joanna thought the wagon was going to go over onto its side.

  They passed a flock of sheep—the wethers and ewes not in lamb, over a thousand of them, being herded into a tight, nervous flock by men on horseback and quick-footed sheepdogs. As Joanna sped by, a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the scene, and she recognized one of the men on horseback. He was giving her a startled look and shouting something at her.

  Finally, Joanna and Matthew arrived at the crest of land that divided the southwest paddock from the one where she knew the in-lamb ewes were being pastured. She urged the horse to climb the muddy incline, and then she was over the top and her gaze fell upon a horrific scene.

  A flat plain stretched before her, black with night and rain. Directly ahead, the mountains looked mighty and wrathful, frequent flashes of lightning creating the illusion that the stony summits were moving, rolling toward her like a giant rocky sea. To her left Joanna saw the river, which was normally peaceful but which now seemed to boil down from the mountains in a furious tide, sweeping everything out of its path, the gum trees along its banks whipping in the wind, and sheep, hundreds of them, tumbling into the raging water.

  Joanna stared, unable to move.

  Sheep were running all over the landscape, while men and dogs tried to control them. They swarmed like a white tide, a thousand at a time, bolting, suddenly turning as if one body, like schools of fish. The men on their horses shouted and whistled and the sheep came together; then lightning would flash, and part of the mob would break off. It was mesmerizing and terrifying.

  And at the river—

  The men had managed to head off the major part of the stampeding flock, creating a wedge with their horses, making the frightened sheep veer away from the river. But many had already made it to the muddy banks and were slipping, sliding, plunging into the rampaging current. Men were frantically chopping down trees, trying to create a dam, a way of stopping the sheep from being carried away.

  Joanna shouted, "Geeyap!" and snapped the reins and her horse began to run. The wagon flew down the hillock, bouncing crazily, nearly spilling over, while Matthew clung to his seat. When they finally came to a stop and climbed down, their feet sank into ankle-deep mud. The rain came in such punishing gusts that they could hardly see. But they saw enough: sheep trapped in the muck, bleating and struggling, dropping their premature lambs, tiny dead things that lay in the ooze; men with ropes were trying to save some of them, their horses rearing and whinnying; a sheepdog lying still, his head submerged in a deep puddle; the men at the river, up to their waists in the rushing water, working furiously with axes and ropes, felling trees, trying to lasso ewes that had fallen into the river.

  Joanna could barely find anyone in the rain. Where was Hugh? While Matthew ran to the river to help with the ropes, she picked up her soaked skirts, and struggled over the muddy ground. She saw Larry, and recognized another man, Tom Watkins. They were both hatless, their hair plastered to their heads; they were wearing long oilskin coats, standing on a fallen eucalyptus, throwing ropes out to drowning sheep.

  The thunder was almost constant as the heavy clouds clashed and rolled overhead. The rain came down harder.

  Finally Joanna saw Hugh. He was down on the river bank, hauling in a ewe. The animal was struggling against the lines, its head disappearing under the water and then emerging again while men waded out and tried to seize it with their bare hands.

  One of the men slipped and fell, the rope snaring the ewe gave way, and she swirled helplessly on the current. She crashed against a rock and rolled over like a log, her legs sticking up out of the water, kicking furiously. And then she was gone.

  Joanna scrambled down the bank. "Hugh!" she cried.

  He turned and squinted through the downpour. "Joanna! What are you doing here!"

  "I want to help!"

  "Get back to the house!"

  "Hoy there, Hugh!" Larry shouted from his makeshift eucalyptus bridge. "Caught another one!"

  Three men waded out into the water and grabbed hold of Larry's ropes. They pulled the lifeless animal in and dragged her up onto the river bank. Joanna stared in shock. The sheep was dead. Her half-born lamb, only its head showing, was also dead.

  Suddenly there was a shout, and Hugh and Joanna looked up to see Larry disappear into the river.

  "Oh God!" cried Tommie Watkins, jumping in after him.

  "Freddo!" shouted Hugh, signaling to one of the men. "Tie that rope around me. Come on! Hurry!"

  Joanna watched in horror as Hugh, securing the rope around his waist, dived into the water and vanished.

  "Hugh!" she screamed. "No!"

  She ran to the two men who were holding onto the other end of the rope, their heels dug into the mud, leaning back with all their might against the pull of the river. But they were sliding down the bank, losing their foothold. Joanna got behind Freddo, seized the rope, and started to pull, but he shouted for her to get away.

  Through the storm they caught glimpses of Hugh as he tried to swim against the powerful current. Several times he disappeared in the foaming water, only to reemerge, still swimming, trying to reach Larry and Tommie.

  Joanna sobbed and grabbed again for the rope. Freddo lost his balance, fell back against her, and they ended up in the mud. The man left on the rope nearly lost it, but two other men came running down the river bank to take up the loose end.

  As Joanna held on, she felt the sickening dance of the rope in her hands and thought of Hugh on the other end of it, out there in that ferociou
s river. And suddenly she hated the river—this same river which, only four miles away, branched out into the creek and billabong that she had once thought so peaceful and beautiful. And then she hated Merinda and Victoria and the whole continent of Australia. She swore that if Hugh died tonight she would never forgive this land for killing him.

  And then the men closer to the water were suddenly backing up; Joanna was pushed out of the way by Freddo as they hauled Hugh out of the water. He had hold of someone—a man who was dragged up onto the muddy bank as limply and lifelessly as the sheep had been, and Joanna saw that it was Larry.

  She dropped the rope and ran to them. "I'm all right," Hugh managed to say. "Look after Larry. The boy's still out there."

  He dived in again, and Joanna watched in the rain as he swam out among the swirling debris and sheep carcasses. She left the men to hold onto his rope, and turned her attention to Stringy Larry who was, she discovered, barely alive. There was a bad gash on his forehead, and she saw in horror that his leg was badly broken, the bone jutting up through the fabric of his trousers. It was bleeding furiously. Joanna removed his belt and tied it around the leg as a tourniquet, then she got Half-Caste Eddie to help her carry him to the wagon.

  "I need a board!" she shouted above the wind, as Larry was placed in the wagon bed. "I have to set his leg."

  Eddie picked up a rock and pounded it furiously against the side of the wagon until one of the boards came away. He climbed up next to Stringy Larry and watched with frightened eyes as Joanna worked in the rain, trying to clean the wound and staunch the bleeding.

  She felt the river behind her, mighty and awesome as it thundered along its course, carrying trees and debris and animal carcasses with it, and two men—fifteen-year-old Tommie Watkins, and Hugh.