Jamie O'Brien took Hannah by the wrist and ran with her. "Down here!" he shouted as, all around, the rest of the men headed for the mine shafts.
"Hurry, Hannah! I'm right behind you!"
"What about the horses?"
"There's nothing we can do for them. Hurry!"
She descended, groping for the handholds gouged into the stone wall, getting her feet caught in her petticoats. She saw Mike Maxberry send Nan down a nearby shaft, their silhouettes eerie against a sudden fork of lighting. Hannah thought they had been struck, but then she saw Mike climb over the rim shaft after Nan.
When Hannah was halfway down, she looked up but Jamie wasn't descending. "Mr. O'Brien!" she called. "Jamie!"
He appeared briefly. "I have to help the others." And then he was gone.
When Hannah reached the bottom, she turned her face upward, to watch anxiously for Jamie. Lightning forked and struck the ground, illuminating the night with a brilliance brighter than day. In between lightning bursts, the mine shaft was plunged into the deepest blackness Hannah had ever known. She heard men shouting. She smelled smoke and sulphur.
And then there he was, lowering himself into the crater. She watched Jamie clamber down, while above, white light flashed in the night and thunder cracked and roared.
"Everybody's down the shafts," he said breathlessly as he neared her.
Thunder rumbled and the ground shook. Hannah thought of Ralph Gilchrist's cave-in.
"We'll be all right down here," Jamie said when he reached the bottom. By the light of a lightning flash, he found a wall torch, which all the mines were equipped with and, striking a match, lit the tarred tip. The flame cast light on a narrow tunnel with rough stone walls. Hannah saw chisels and small pickaxes on the floor. When she saw the blanket, she realized they had chosen Tabby's mine, where he liked to take cat naps.
The tunnel was narrow, with the ceiling just inches above their heads, and it didn't stretch far underground, about twelve feet Hannah reckoned. It might have felt like a grave, but cool air wafted down the shaft, the torch flame flickered, and Hannah could hear the storm above.
"Might as well make ourselves comfortable," Jamie said as he took Hannah's hand and helped her down to the floor littered with sandstone chips.
"What if rain comes down the shaft?" Hannah asked, as he sat next to her, their backs to the wall.
"I'll keep an eye out. For now it's the lightning we have to worry about."
Hannah watched shadows dance on the wall opposite. She was able to stretch her legs before her, but there was little room beyond that. Jamie's nearness made her heart race.
She needed to talk. "Mr. O'Brien, when I came out of Church's tent, you made Tabby apologize to me for something he said about a dog that sat on a tucker box?"
Jamie laughed softly while, above them, lightning streaked down from the sky and burned the desert floor with a fiery fork. He looked at Hannah, sitting so close to him her arm was pressed against his. This close, and in the glow of the torch on the wall, he saw the fine details of her face, the arched brows, the thick lashes framing irises the color of doves. Her complexion had warmed in the past months. Hannah Conroy was no longer pale but glowed with a healthy Outback tan. He shuddered with desire. "Do you know the story?"
She shook her head. His nearness made it suddenly impossible to breathe. Hannah struggled with her feelings, fought down the rising desire in her body, the ache that was both familiar and new.
"It's an old story," he said. Jamie sat with his knees bent, his wrists casually propped on them, a relaxed posture that hid the inner turmoil of his emotions. "It goes back to the early days of exploration in New South Wales. They were hard and hazardous times with supplies and stores having to be transported along makeshift tracks over rough terrain by bullock teams. Sometimes the wagons would get bogged down and the bullocky would have to go in search of help. The story is about the bullocky's dog guarding its master's tuckerbox—where the drover's food is stored—while he was away seeking help.
Jamie turned to Hannah, his eyes meeting hers. "It was a summer of droving and my team got bogged down nine miles south of Gundagai. After trials and troubles, when I got back, old Prince was still there, guarding my tucker box. But he'd starved to death doing it, because he wouldn't roam from the treasure he was meant to guard. Starved to death guarding a box of food. I buried old Prince in that tucker box he'd sat on for so long."
"It's a sad story," Hannah said.
"That's why Tabby had to make a joke. Men don't like to cry in front of their mates, so they say the word wasn't sat on the tucker box."
Hannah looked at Jamie for a moment, and when she caught the meaning, she smiled.
"You should write your stories down, Mr. O'Brien," she said quietly, the breath trapped in her lungs, her chest tight with desire. She had secretly pledged herself to Neal, counted the days until they would be together again. But here was this man, rugged and sunburnt, as colorful as the tales he told, and living by a curious code that mixed honor with crime. Hannah wanted to be held by him, wanted to experience the excitement and exoticness of Jamie O'Brien.
"Don't know that I can sit still long enough to write things down," he said. He kept his eyes on her, watching the gray irises reflect the flickering torchlight. "You know, a few minutes ago, when I went to help the others and you called out to me, you called me Jamie."
"Did I?" Hannah whispered.
Jamie wondered, if he were to kiss her right now, would she kiss him back, and would they keep kissing until the storm had passed?
In the past, when a woman took his fancy, Jamie had no trouble wooing and courting her until they were both blissfully enjoying the pleasures of a bed. He had no qualms about kissing and saying farewell afterward. Not that he was without feelings. Jamie always made sure a woman didn't surrender her heart to him, that she was of like mind when it came to having a sporting romp, no strings attached. And when he picked up his swag and hit the road, he always made sure that he left the woman with a smile on her face.
But Hannah was different. As much as he would like to take her into his arms right now—burned for it, in fact—and as much as he knew it would leave him with the memory of a lifetime, it didn't seem right. And for the first time in Jamie's checkered life, the word "marriage" came into his mind.
The moment stretched as the storm rolled over them, sending cold wind gusts down the shaft, and flashes of bright light. The tunnel had become intimate. Hannah tore her eyes away from Jamie's and, clearing her throat, said, "How can I convince your men to return Spencer Gulf before they come down with scurvy?"
Before he could reply, Hannah added, "I know what the men say about me, that I am just a midwife so what do I know? I have heard it before. But I did fix your leg, did I not? You, at least, Mr. O'Brien, know that I have skills and learning beyond midwifery."
He gave her a long, considering look, then said, "And how is that, I wonder? How does a lady learn things that only men know?"
She told him about her father, how she had helped him with his patients, how he had taught her everything he knew, and the things she had learned since. "I know what I am talking about in regards to the threat of scurvy."
"I don't doubt it."
"It is frustrating, Mr. O'Brien.
He watched her pink, moist lips. "What is?"
"All I want do is make sick people well."
"Sounds easy enough."
"For a man, yes. Women are limited."
"And who is it that's limiting you?"
Hannah was held in his opal-blue eyes for several heart beats. Then she looked up at the rough-hewn ceiling of the tunnel. The thunder had rolled on and could be heard in the distance. The lightning had stopped. "Listen," she said. "It's raining."
"We can't go up just yet. Not until we're sure about the lightning. I'll keep an eye on the shaft, make sure no rain floods us out. It's going to get very cold down here, Hannah." Jamie reached for Tabby's blanket and handed it to her. "Bundle
up in this."
Hannah spread the itchy blanket over the two of them as they sat with their backs to the wall. The temperature was dropping, but the glow from the flickering torch created the illusion of cozy intimacy. Listening to the gentle sound of the whispering rain, Jamie put his arm around Hannah, holding her tight. She leaned into him. Jamie O'Brien smelled of dust and sweat, his body was as hard as the rock that sheltered them. As Hannah felt his warmth permeate the fabric of her gown, she thought of the stories at the campfire, the things he had said about the men he had brought to this desolate place, their deep bonds, their unique, shared history, and Hannah thought about her attraction to this man, that it stemmed in part from his being Australian. Jamie O'Brien was born here. His soul had received its generating spark from this ancient land, tying him to the red earth and gum trees in a way no immigrant could be.
Hannah desperately wanted to be with him, to be part of Jamie O'Brien as surely as she wanted to be part of Australia, to belong to them both. But her heart still yearned for the man who had held her and kissed her as the Caprica teetered on the edge of certain doom. Bonds of love and shared experience connected her to Neal Scott in a way no other person could understand.
She wanted to be with Neal. But at the same time . . .
Jamie was thinking of the woman sheltered beneath his arm. He knew it would be easy to kiss her, hold her and take her now. But he felt strange shiftings and changes within himself, new feelings and an unaccustomed stab of conscience.
He needed to think.
Withdrawing from the warmth of Hannah and the blanket, Jamie went to station himself at the base of the shaft while the rain whispered above. He had never looked inside himself. He knew the lay of Australia's land, but his own inner landscape was unknown to him. It didn't profit a man, he always believed, to examine things too closely, especially himself. Live for each day and don't ask questions, was Jamie O'Brien's rule.
But now he was looking back over his life and seeing things with a new eye. Had he always had his mate's best interests at heart? Jamie had always believed himself to be a generous man, even when cheating at cards because he always shared the winnings with his mates. But all the larks were his idea and his friends just went along. It hadn't occurred to him to say, "What do you think, Bluey?"
He thought of Hannah, who was having a strange effect on him. She wasn't like the Bible-thumpers who stood outside pubs to hand tracts to the men stumbling out. She didn't seem disapproving of him at all. But she made him think about his own mother, whom he hadn't thought about in years. What if she had lived? Would his life have gone differently? Where would that gentle, taming influence have led him? Was that what Hannah Conroy was doing to him now? Jamie enjoyed his life on the roam, stopping where he felt like it, moving on when the horizon called, sometimes working at honest labor, sometimes dealing from the bottom of the deck.
Hannah hadn't judged him, but Jamie was now judging himself. And as he revisited his life, his actions, as he weighed his deeds and motives—as his conscience, asleep all these years, woke up—the most astonishing revelation illuminated Jamie's mind. That, maybe it wasn't up to him to punish the greedy men of the world just because his own father had been greedy.
Clearing his throat, Jamie turned to Hannah and said, "I'll talk to my men. I'll tell them about the scurvy, and if they agree, we can all leave tomorrow."
Tomorrow . . . "You'll see me before Christmas," Neal had said back in April. Now it was October. Christmas was just weeks away. Was he already back in Adelaide, looking for her, worrying Liza Guinness now that she knew Hannah hadn't gone off with him?
"Thank you," she whispered. And watched Jamie climb up the mine shaft, to disappear into the night above.
32
W
HEN HANNAH AWOKE, DAWN WAS BREAKING, AND ONCE SHE was out of the mine and in the bracing cold air, she saw that the rain had left puddles and ponds, with puffy clouds reflected in them. The world smelled fresh and new again.
Like a child's schoolroom slate, clean and brand new and waiting to be written upon, Hannah thought as she stretched her aching muscles. She was spellbound at the sight of this breathtakingly beautiful landscape. She had witnessed many sunrises at this fantastical place the men had nicknamed Coober Pedy, but she had seen it as a barren, lifeless and colorless wasteland. But now, as golden rays of sunlight swept over the desert, illuminating ancient rock formations and the more recently man-made craters and rock mounds, she saw that the desert sparkled, as if blanketed in jewels. Salt pans glittered with rainbow-colored mineral deposits. The sky luminesced like mother of pearl. Birds carved pathways in the sky above. Hannah saw small lizards and burrowing rodents appear as if by magic from the sand. She knew that, soon, flowers would bloom here, if only briefly. And the wind gusted fresh and pure, bringing the promise is a new day and new starts.
Suddenly Hannah was thinking of people she had met: Lulu Forchette, whose name surely was false, living in luxury, and Mr. Day, the prosperous newsagent on Victoria Square, who would be mucking out horses' stalls had he stayed in England, and Alice Starky, now called Star, from kitchen maid to golden throated darling of a music hall stage. She thought of a man named Gladstone who came into Kirkland's Emporium one day, a barber-dentist who had the audacity to call himself "Doctor" and whose office on Hindley Street was always busy, his dental chairs constantly occupied, with patients waiting.
"Who's restricting you?" Jamie O'Brien had asked down in the mine.
And Hannah was now able to reply: I am.
At the Australia Hotel and Seven Oaks sheep station, in Dr. Davenport's office and Lulu Forchette's parlor, everywhere Hannah had gone, she had handed out a card that identified herself as Miss Hannah Conroy, trained midwife.
I told people who and what I was. But what if I say I am something else?
She turned toward the camp, where the others were now straggling in, marveling that the tents were still standing and only the roof of the opal shed had burned leaving the stones still there, intact. Hannah looked for Jamie and found him at the burned opal shed, sifting through cinders with Mike Maxberry. When he raised his head and saw her, he dropped what he was doing and came running. "I was just going to go down and fetch you, Hannah. Are you all right?"
"I could not be better, Mr. O'Brien." She hugged herself in the chilly dawn, no longer fighting her desire for this colorful Outback man, but embracing her unique love for him, relishing it, not knowing where it would lead or what tomorrow held, knowing only that, suddenly, the future sparkled.
What if I say I am something else. . .
"Hannah," he said, touching her arm. "Talk to the men about the scurvy. Ask them if they want to go back. I'll go along with whatever they decide."
"Thank you," she said, marveling at the way his dark gold hair caught the dawn. "I will look in on Mr. Gilchrist now."
After making sure Ralph was comfortable, Hannah went to her own tent and was relieved to find that her things inside were dry. She freshened up, and when she came out, saw some of the men pouring tea from a billy over the fire, and chowing down on biscuits while they all spoke at once about the electrical storm. Banger and Tabby were rounding up the horses that, miraculously, had survived the night. Mike Maxberry and Jamie O'Brien were still brushing off and inspecting the gemstones in the charred shed.
Hannah joined the others at the campfire, where they said "Good morning," and asked how she was doing, did she get through the night all right in Tabby's mine, and how was Church this morning. Accepting a cup of tea from Nan, Hannah addressed the men who listened politely.
As she told them about Church's scurvy, how serious it was, and that they were all going to come down with it—speaking to the men with authority—Hannah felt new strength within her. "Who's restricting you?" Jamie had asked, and when Hannah had finally, honestly replied, I am, she had discovered a fundamental truth.
We are who we say we are. I told people I was a midwife, thus restricting myself. I cannot blame
others for placing me in the very pigeonhole that I created! But the world has been washed clean like a slate, and I can write anything on it that I wish.
"So you see, gentlemen," she concluded, "we must return south, at least to the head of Spencer Gulf, as soon as possible."
When she saw their blank faces, she added, "I know you all have thought of me as a midwife. But I am more than that, I am a health practitioner. And therefore I know what I am talking about."
Roddy wrinkled his freckled nose. "What's that? What did she say?"
"She's a healthy something," his brother Cyrus replied.
"I am a health practitioner," Hannah repeated.
Blackie White scrubbed his beard. "Never heard of it."
"Health what?" said Maxberry.
"It means," Jamie said as he came striding up, "that the lady knows what she's talking about."
"What's a health practitioner?" asked Bluey Brown the axeman who knew about doctors and barber-dentists but nothing more.
"It means that if Hannah says we leave, then we leave. Get started packing up, you lot, we're going back."
"She ain't a doctor," argued Mike Maxberry who was so covered in soot and cinders that his hands were as black as Nan's.
"She's a lady doctor," Jamie said. "And believe it when she says we're all going to lose our teeth and die scurvy deaths. Besides, a fierce summer's coming, and we've found enough opal to set ourselves up on our own land. So start packing up."
They hurried away, all secretly pleased to be getting out of this desolate place and anxious to start spending money. Maxberry scratched his head, looking back over his shoulder with a dubious expression on his face. Was she right about the Barcoo rot? He ran a finger over his gums and felt his first loosened tooth.
Jamie turned to Hannah and grinned at her with deep creases at the corners of his eyes. "Health practitioner, is it? It's for sure no one can tell you you're not what you say you are. And you get to make up the rules. And now, Miss Practitioner, I've a brilliant idea to share with you . . ."
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