by Barbara Wood
Soon, my darling, Hugh thought, as he imagined Joanna waiting for him at the Golden Age Hotel.
He went back to his journal, a book that was starting to resemble a chronicle of failures, beginning with the first entry:
Wool of two-tooth ewes, dipped in tobacco and sulphur, still infested with eggs.
Week Three—Flock wethers sick after lime-sulphur dip. John Reed suspects inhalation poisoning. Will discontinue.
Week Five—Experimented with higher water temperature.
Found to scour yolk out of wool, thus damaging it. Will next try to lower the water temperature, although Ian Hamilton has tried this without success.
Week Eight—Angus McCloud reported an experimental formula he used on six-month lambs. Found it stained the wool. And blowfly still present.
Week Ten—Frank Downs reports disastrous losses at Lismore.
Week Eleven—Merinda flock rams badly infested now. Must destroy them.
Hugh picked up his pen and wrote: "Week Twelve—Am convinced that the green blowfly breeds almost entirely on living sheep. This, therefore, accounts for the failure of trapping to effectively minimize blowfly strike in sheep. A method must be found to interrupt the life cycle of the blowfly."
He looked at the jars that were lined up on his workbench. They contained specimens he had collected from Merinda flocks that had been treated with the usual insecticidal dips. They were labeled: BLOWFLY EGGS, ONE DAY OLD, BLOWFLY IN PUPA STAGE AND MAGGOTS FOUND ON CRUTCHINGS. These proved that the traditional dips used to keep sheep free from blowfly had not worked against this particular strain.
Hugh resumed writing: "Will now check results of experimentation with arsenic dip."
When he had announced his plan to try the radical arsenic formula on his sheep, some of the graziers had warned him against it. "I don't know," Ian Hamilton had said. "Arsenic is a dangerous thing. It can make your stock sicker than they were with the fly-strike. And then there are the shearers to think of—they won't shear if they think there's poison in the wool."
But Hugh had decided it was time to take risks. In the past three months he had made some remarkable discoveries. Among them was the fact that a single green blowfly produced two thousand eggs. Carrying that statistic out mathematically over several breeding cycles, and assuming that at least half of those young flies then each produced another two thousand eggs, Hugh came up with results that were staggering. When the warm weather broke again and all the eggs hatched, there was going to be a new infestation of blowfly so overwhelming that nothing anyone did was going to prevent a catastrophic loss of sheep.
He looked at the sacks heaped against one wall of the tent. They were tagged with labels that read: STUD RAMS, TOBACCO &SULPHUR, JULY 10, 1886, and WETHERS, CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE, JUNE 30, 1886. Neither had been successful. And so, two weeks ago, Hugh had decided to run the cull ewes through the highly controversial arsenic dip. Jacko had just brought in those wool samples, and Hugh decided to look at them.
He picked up a sack labeled: CULL EWES, NORTH CLOVER PADDOCK, ARSENIC FORMULA #12. Cull ewes were sheep past breeding age, kept on the station as foster mothers to rear orphaned lambs. He removed a few specimens from the sack and went to the workbench, placed some wool fibers on a slide, adjusted the microscope, then looked into the eyepiece.
He frowned, angled the mirror to catch more light and adjusted the fine-focus knob. The magnified wool fibers on the slide filled his view. Moving the slide around, he switched to a higher-powered lens and he studied the fibers.
There was no evidence of blowfly.
He went back to the sack and took out another specimen; this one from another animal but from the same flock.
The fibers under the microscope were all clean. Not a single blowfly egg.
He took out another, and another, until he had examined nearly twenty specimens. And they were all clean.
The arsenic had worked.
He hurried to the doorway of the tent and looked out, expecting to call Jacko over. He was surprised to see a buggy arriving in the camp.
"This came for you today, Hugh," Sarah said, when she and Philip entered the tent. "Philip brought it by. We thought it might be important."
Hugh opened the envelope, unfolded the single sheet of paper, and read: "Dear Mr. Westbrook, We have just been informed that telegraph lines are down near the South Australia border. I have sent messages to you which I realize now must not have gotten through. Therefore, I write this letter. It is my sad duty to inform you, Mr. Westbrook, that your wife, by her own decision, went into the desert on May 6, in the company of her daughter, Mr. Eric Graham, Captain Fielding and a black tracker. Apparently the party were the victims of a flash flood. There was only one survivor, Eric Graham, and he is in critical condition. Mrs. Westbrook and the rest of the party have not been found."
He stared at the letter. He read it again. "My God," he said. "Sarah, my God—"
"What is it?" She took the letter from him and read it. "Oh no ..."
Sarah laid a hand on Hugh's arm. "Hugh," she said. "Joanna is alive. I sense it. If she were dead, I would know. But Hugh, she is in great danger. We must find her."
Judd MacGregor was in his father's study, working at the desk. He was no longer afraid of this room; the ghosts had left with his father. There was a knock at the door, and Pauline entered.
"Hello, Mother," Judd said. "I say, you look smashing."
She smiled as she pulled on her gloves. "Thank you, Judd. I'm on my way to Lismore to visit Frank. There are still a few things to iron out before I can take title on Kilmarnock. What are you so hard at work on?"
"Well, I was thinking that, since we can't save the remaining stock because of the blowfly, we might as well boil it down for tallow and clear the grazing land. I have a new idea for Kilmarnock—wheat farming. It's very profitable right now, Mother. Do you recall those shares in the Broken Hill silver mine that Uncle Frank gave me last year, for my twenty-first birthday? Do you think he would mind if I sold them?"
"I shouldn't think so. After all, they are yours. So it's to be wheat farming, is it? I think I rather like the idea."
"It requires less initial financial outlay, far less labor, and ultimately higher profits. Especially since I have been working with an experimental strain of wheat that will grow in drought conditions."
Pauline watched the way his hands moved as he spoke about his plan, the eyebrow that went up slightly whenever he was excited. He was so like Colin, she thought, the Colin of long ago, before years of bitterness and frustration had etched lines into his youthful face. Judd was like his father in many ways, she realized—stubborn, dedicated to a dream, but he also showed the gentling influence of his mother, Christina, who had died fourteen years ago.
"I'll be home in time for dinner," Pauline said, as she bent to kiss him on the cheek. "I've asked Jenny to cook your favorite pudding tonight."
As she was about to go out the door, Judd said, "He never appreciated you, you know."
She smiled sadly. "I think maybe he did, in his own way."
"Do you think he will ever come back to us?"
"I don't know, Judd."
"Kilmarnock will belong to you by then. Will you let him come back?"
"I don't know that either."
Pauline tried not to think of what might be, or what the future possibly held. She was determined to continue living life her own way, despite what she suspected her friends were thinking. She had seen it happen before, Western District society laying the blame on an abandoned woman as if she were somehow at fault because her husband had deserted her. But Pauline refused to regard Colin's actions as abandonment. He had run away because he was ashamed of himself, and because he thought he could salvage some shred of self-respect if he returned to the ancestral castle in Scotland. She could not blame him for wanting to escape both from a marriage that should not have happened in the first place, and from financial ruin. Pauline continued to be seen around the district, to attend social
events, and to hold her head high even though people gave her covert looks. And she had refused to give up Kilmarnock. She had used her own inheritance, with additional financial help from Frank, to pay off Colin's debts. This was her home now, and she intended never to leave it.
"Everything is going to be all right from now on, Mother," Judd said. "You'll see."
As Pauline reached for the doorknob, she thought of the miracle that had occurred, somewhere along the way, when she had stopped thinking of Judd as another woman's child. She was about to say something more when a voice came from behind her. "Ah, there you are!"
She turned, startled, and saw Frank standing there. "I was just on my way to Lismore to see you," she said.
"Yes, I know," he said. "But something has come up. I have to go to Merinda at once, and I just dropped by to tell you that we shall have to put off our business meeting."
"What is happening at Merinda?"
"It seems Joanna has run into some serious trouble in Western Australia, and Hugh has asked for my help."
"What sort of trouble?"
"The note that he sent over didn't say. But it's urgent, whatever it is."
"I'll go with you," Pauline said.
Judd reached for his jacket. "I want to come, too."
As they rode down the drive toward the house, Frank said, "That's Reed's horse."
"And isn't that the Hamilton carriage?" Pauline said. "Hugh seems to have asked help from everyone."
"Then it is serious," Frank said, as he helped his sister down from the carriage.
They were surprised to find a crowd in the parlor. Even Ezekiel was there, his bushy white beard tucked into his belt. As the three entered, the Aborigine was saying, "Got keen eyes. You take me. I find your missus."
"Thank you, Ezekiel," Hugh said. "I appreciate your willingness to help."
Pauline was startled by Hugh's appearance. His hair was uncombed and he wasn't dressed the way he usually was when receiving visitors. And there was something in his voice and eyes that she had never seen before.
"Hugh," she said, going up to him. "What's wrong? What's happened?"
He explained to her about the letter from Commissioner Fox, and how he had then tried to send a telegram to Western Australia. But when he had been told at the telegraph office in Cameron Town that the lines were still down in the Nullarbor, Hugh had decided to take a rescue expedition into the territory.
"That's right up my alley," Frank said to Hugh. "God knows I've had experience putting together expeditions. And there will be no reporters this time. I'm going to go with you. If Eric Graham dies, I shall never forgive myself."
Judd went up to Hugh and said, "What about your daughter? Beth went to Western Australia, too, didn't she?"
Hugh could hardly speak. "She's missing, too."
"If I may, then," Judd said, "I would like to go with you and search for them."
But Hugh shook his head. "It'll be better for all of us if you stay here, Judd. My experimental arsenic dip worked. Now the rest of the graziers need to be told. Some of them might still stand a chance of saving their stations. You're the best man for that job, Judd. You know the formula I used, and everyone trusts you. They'll listen to you."
Later, when all the plans had been made and the members of the expedition chosen, and Mrs. Jackson's coffeepot emptied many times—after everyone had gone and a waiting, ominous silence had been descended over the house, Sarah went to Hugh and said, "I will go to Western Australia with you. I will help you find Joanna and Beth."
THIRTY
M
OTHER," BETH SAID, "WHAT IS HAPPENING? THE WOMEN are acting strange."
"Yes, I've noticed it, too."
Shielding her eyes, Joanna scanned the western horizon as she had done every day of the five months she and Beth had been with the Aborigines. But, once again, there was nothing out there—no men, no camels, just red desert as far as she could see, disappearing over the edge of the earth. But she would not give up the hope of being rescued. Hugh would find them, she was certain.
"You're not afraid, are you, darling?" she said to Beth, as she looked around at the Aboriginal women who were foraging for food, women who were their friends. Something was clearly agitating them today, making them unusually spirited.
"I don't think so," Beth said. "But I've never seen them like this. They wouldn't leave us out here, would they, Mother? I wish Father would find us. I want to go home."
In their early days with the clan, Joanna had tried to find a way to get back to Kalagandra. As soon as Beth had become stronger, Joanna had conferred with the clan leaders in the hope that they might help the two get back to civilization. But the clan was on a relentless eastward course, heading toward a gathering place where they were to take part in an important corroboree. They could not be persuaded to go westward, back toward Kalagandra, nor could they provide Joanna and Beth with escorts. When Joanna had suggested that she and Beth might head back on their own, the elders had reminded her that Kalagandra was hundreds of miles away, across hostile terrain. Alone they would certainly perish. But the old clever-woman, Naliandrah, whose name meant "butterfly," crouched over her fire, had assured them that once the tribe had held the corroboree the clan would turn westward again, and help return Joanna and Beth to their own people. And they believed her, for Naliandrah was wise: It was to her people came for advice. The elders consulted her before a hunt, young girls in love asked her for love amulets, barren women came to inhale the smoke from her magic fire in hopes of getting pregnant—she even arranged marriages as she squatted there. Her hair was long and white, her small, doll-like body dusty and shrunken, but her eyes were always direct and penetrating, sparked with wisdom and knowing.
Joanna had kept track of the number of days they had lived with the clan, wondering when they would come to the place where they would turn around. It was already late November; Hugh must certainly be searching for them. She had continued to leave a trail as she went, marking each campsite and leaving pebbles pointing in the direction she and the clan had gone. She consulted the compass every day, watching the needle grow more erratic the further eastward the clan went, as if they were heading toward the source of the disturbance. Now the clan was camped at a site they called Woonona, which was Aborigine for "place of the young wallabies," and because it was true to its name, the clan ate well here. While the men trapped the small animals, the women carried out their timeless function of foraging, and, as usual, Joanna and Beth helped them.
A sudden eruption of laughter caused Joanna to turn in time to see Coonawarra, a young widow, do one of her impersonations of old Yolgerup, the chief of the clan. He had a ferocious brow and a menacing growl, but he was as threatening, Joanna had learned, as a lazy old cat. Everyone loved Yolgerup, and the women made fun of him out of affection. Coonawarra, whose name meant "honeysuckle," strutted around with her digging stick, making fierce sounds, as the old chief did whenever he wanted to remind the clan of his status; the next instant she was mimicking the old man sitting on the ground playing with invisible children and laughing his toothless laugh.
The women howled and made comments Joanna could not understand. During her stay with Yolgerup's people, she had learned only a few Aborigine words; the language was highly complex and difficult. And so she was thankful that Naliandrah, who had helped Joanna nurse Beth back to health, had spent her girlhood in a Christian mission, and could speak some English. It was from Naliandrah that Joanna had learned what she knew about the people she was living with.
Once, one of the young men in the clan had come back from a hunt with a broken arm. Old Naliandrah had skinned a wallaby and applied the warm, bloody hide to the arm, wrapping it around snugly and securing it with string. The hide stayed there for many weeks, during which time, Naliandrah had explained to Joanna, the spirit of the wallaby went into the arm and healed the bone. But Joanna observed that, as the skin dried, it stiffened until it was as hard as a board; it had in fact become a splint, imm
obilizing the broken bone and allowing the ends to knit back together.
It was from Naliandrah, too, that Joanna had learned the many laws and customs that governed the tribe, from the taboo of speaking the names of the dead to the marriage ceremony, which consisted of nothing more than a woman sleeping with a man, and publicly declaring him to be her husband, she, his wife. "Does your husband have other wives?" Naliandrah had asked, explaining that an Aboriginal man can have more than one wife. Then she had asked Joanna, "How many husbands have you had?" and had explained that, since Aborigine girls got married when they were ten years old, and a man didn't have his first wife until he was well into middle age, by the time a woman reached her mid-thirties, as Joanna had, she would have gone through several husbands.
The more complex concepts had been less easy to understand, such as the way the Aborigines regarded time. Everything revolved around the Dreamtime, which, Joanna had discovered, occurred not only in the past, but also in the present and the future. They had no words, in fact, for past, present, and future—all was Dreamtime. And the clan had no separate words for yesterday, today and tomorrow, just the word pun-jara, which simply meant "another day."
Everything that governed the Aborigines' lives, Joanna had learned, was derived from nature. The way they counted, for instance. They had no words for individual numbers, but instead referred to animals. The word "dog" meant the quantity "four," because a dog has four legs; a bird was "two," and a kangaroo, "three."
Joanna had also learned about death, which the Aborigines regarded as just another part of life. One did not die, one "went back." To die was to become an Ancestor. When Naliandrah had asked Joanna what her Dreaming was, and Joanna had said that she didn't know, the old clever-woman had shaken her head sadly and said, "Then what becomes of your soul when you die?"