The Postmistress

by Alison Stuart

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I think we have run out of options, Adelaide.’

  ‘Hold me,’ she said. ‘If we’re going to die, let it be together.’

  Caleb slid in beside her, putting his arm around her and drawing her to him and trying to put his own body between the woman and child and the entrance to the adit. Anything to block the smoke. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he eased Danny from her grip, laying the boy’s head in the crook of his own arm. The boy’s breathing was faint, his pulse weak and irregular. His pain seemed to have eased but the sweat still ran from him. Caleb drew him in close so their hearts beat as one, willing his own life force into the child.

  Held close by both adults, Danny relaxed, falling back into his uneasy sleep.

  Adelaide held a hand to her mouth. ‘How long does it take to die of asphyxiation?’ she asked, as if she were asking how long it took to boil an egg.

  ‘We’ll fall asleep,’ Caleb replied, without much confidence. His experience with victims of smoke inhalation was hardly extensive.

  Adelaide coughed again and he tightened his grip around her shoulder. ‘Adelaide,’ he whispered, ‘I want you to know that I love you. You and Danny—you are my world now.’

  It had taken him a lifetime to utter those three words, and now it was too late.

  ‘Thank you, Caleb,’ she said and closed her eyes, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘It is good to be loved. To die in that knowledge—’

  A flash of light, followed almost immediately by a crack that shook the earth, jerked them both from their torpor. Adelaide squeaked with alarm, her fingers tightening on his.

  ‘Just what we need,’ Caleb said. ‘Lightning to start more fires.’ His words were almost drowned out as the earth beneath them shook again with the accompanying thunder. The storm must have been right over them.

  They sat listening as the lightning moved away. The earth stilled, the wind dropped and from outside the cave came a new sound, a heavy plop … plop … plop. The humus smell of wet earth rose in the smoke-filled air as the rain came down in sheets, lit by lightning.

  Caleb released Adelaide and crawled to the mine entrance, knocking out the wall he had built. When he returned to her side, Adelaide gripped Caleb’s hand and began to laugh. The smoke that only minutes ago had clawed at their throats and eyes slunk out of the cave to be flattened by the torrent beyond, the fires on the hillside above them vanishing in a last sizzle of resistance.

  ‘It would be ironic if we were to drown,’ Caleb remarked.

  ‘I hope we are out of here well before the river gets that high,’ Adelaide said.

  Another, more distant, arc of lightning illuminated the sky and the bare limbs of the tortured trees on the ridge above them.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘So beautiful.’

  She relaxed into the circle of his arm. Danny stirred and whimpered but did not wake.

  Caleb let his head fall back against the rough rock wall. The crisis had passed but they still had to survive the night and get Danny back to Maiden’s Creek alive.

  As the welcome, steady rain fell, Adelaide shivered and huddled closer against Caleb. ‘You didn’t finish your story,’ she said.

  ‘Which story?’

  ‘What happened after Maria died?’

  ‘Ah,’ Caleb said. ‘I left the ranch and drifted into San Francisco, where I made ends meet doing handyman work and gambling.’

  ‘But you could have been a doctor?’

  Caleb shrugged. ‘I’d stopped thinking of myself as a doctor long before then. I’d endured the battles, the field surgery, but in the end Elmira broke me. Men were dying around me but there were no supplies, no anaesthetics, nothing. Nothing I could do. When they let me go, I went back to Virginia to visit my father’s grave. The farm had gone to some Northener. I swore then and there I was never going back and I headed west.’

  Across the wide Missouri …

  ‘A new life?’ Her fingers tightened on his. An assurance that she understood, and he thought that she may well be the one person in the world who did appreciate what he had been through. Scarred by war, his faith in everything he believed in destroyed, it had not been a life, just an existence.

  ‘God alone knows I’ve done things I’m not proud of, Adelaide. I told you about Elmira. What I didn’t say was I stole food, and that is as low as you can get.’

  He had told the guards he’d been stealing food for one of his patients. The truth had been far less palatable. He’d been stealing food to keep himself alive.

  ‘And if you’d died, what hope did the sick men in your care have?’

  ‘That’s never sat well with me, Adelaide.’ He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Then there’s the matter of the man I killed in San Francisco.’

  Adelaide’s fingers tightened on his. ‘You killed a man?’

  ‘The ghosts of those men I couldn’t save in Elmira had followed me west and I took to drinking and gambling to keep them away. Blood runs high after a night of drinking and I got into a game with a one-eyed soldier who’d fought for the North.’

  ‘How did you know he fought for the North?’

  ‘Damn Yankee still wore his hat, but he was no better than I. When I started to win, he called me a Dirty Johnny Reb. I accused him of being a deserter and he took offence at that and drew his gun on me. He got a shot off that missed me by half an inch and he would have fired again but I got in first, and I didn’t miss.’

  ‘It was self-defence,’ she said with such certainty that he laughed.

  ‘Do you have an answer for everything, Adelaide? I suppose it was self-defence, but I had my doubts whether the law would look kindly on me and I wanted no more of prisons. So, I judged it to be in the interests of my health to leave San Francisco and the first boat sailing that night brought me to Melbourne.’ He chuckled. ‘To be honest with you, I’d never even heard of Melbourne.’

  Danny stirred and cried out. Caleb checked the boy’s pulse and shook his head. ‘He should be home in his bed with proper bandaging and Netty’s broth,’ he said.

  ‘He’s still alive and that is you, your skill as a doctor. Have faith in yourself, Caleb. We could have died here, tonight. The same horrible death that took Richard, and I wouldn’t want to die without telling you how very much I love you. I meant every word I said. I cannot imagine my life without you.’ In the light of the candle, her eyes blazed with the ferocity of the bushfire.

  That word, that one word he had never uttered in his life, hung on the heavy air between them. Love. When he thought they would die he had told her he loved her.

  ‘Adelaide—’

  ‘It’s all right, Caleb. If you said what you did just to make dying easier, that’s fine, but don’t give me hope when there is none.’

  ‘No, you mistake me, Adelaide. I meant what I said. I didn’t think I was worthy of your love—of any woman’s love. You know the worst about me and yet …’

  She laughed, a musical sound. ‘It’s because I know the very worst about you. Don’t you see that? You know the worst about me. I am a fallen woman, and a liar.’

  He took her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up. ‘You are none of those things, Adelaide. You were an innocent child, seduced by a man who knew damn well what he was doing—who wanted only one thing from you: your father’s fortune. You have fought for your son every day of your life and if that means you had to invent an imaginary past, no one can blame you for that.’

  He leaned in so close their foreheads touched and her soft breath caressed his cheek.

  ‘Adelaide,’ he murmured. ‘I have loved you since I first saw you defending Lil’s girls in the post office. You will always fight for the lost cause and God knows, I am a lost cause.’

  Thirty-Six

  17 February 1872

  They must have slept.

  Caleb stirred first, realising that he had lost all feeling in his left hand. He gently extricated his arm from behind Adelai
de and bit his lip in agony as the blood started to flow again to his fingers.

  Danny lay across their laps, ominously still. In the dark, Caleb groped for the pulse in the boy’s throat. At first he could feel nothing. He adjusted his touch and released his breath in a whoosh as he felt the weak but regular beat of the boy’s heart. He still lived. Every hour that passed must surely be a good sign. He gently lifted the sleeping boy off them, laying him on the ground with the waistcoat under his head. Danny stirred and curled onto his side but did not wake.

  Caleb’s movement woke Adelaide, who groaned and straightened, stretching her own cramped arms above her head.

  ‘Danny?’ she whispered.

  ‘He’s still with us, Adelaide.’

  She bent and kissed her son’s face. ‘He feels cooler. Is the fever broken?’

  Caleb chose his words carefully. ‘I don’t know enough about snake bites to say, Adelaide. Let’s see what the morning brings.’

  ‘What is the time?’

  ‘No idea. It’s still raining.’

  A cold wind blew scuds of rain into their shelter and beyond the entrance, the world that yesterday had been alive with fire and terror had gone completely black. Only the stench of water-soaked ash gave any indication of the torture the bush had endured.

  Adelaide crawled to the entrance and stood up, turning her face to the rain and stretching and twisting her stiff limbs. The rain drove her back inside and Caleb drew her in beside him, burying his face in her damp, smoke-scented hair. She turned her face to his and they kissed, losing themselves in each other for a few moments before reality had to be faced.

  Neither could sleep again and they sat at the entrance to the adit looking out into the dark, burned night.

  As the first grey streaks lightened the sky, Danny woke and called out for his mother. Adelaide reached him first.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Danny swallowed. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he said and frowned. ‘My head hurts and my stomach and my arm.’

  Caleb checked the boy’s pulse, relieved to find it weak but steady. ‘I’m sorry everything hurts,’ he said, ‘but it will be light soon and then we can look at getting you home to your own bed.’

  Adelaide raised her son up to let him drink from the flask.

  Danny pushed the flask away and looked at the lightening sky beyond the mine entrance. ‘Is the fire out?’

  ‘We think so,’ Adelaide said. ‘It’s been raining most of the night.’

  Danny’s face screwed up and tears glistened on his eyelashes. ‘I told him I wanted to go back. He said I’d been with my mother too long and when we got back to England, he’d teach me how to be a man.’

  Caleb’s fingers clenched and he kept his unChristian thoughts about Barnwell’s suitability to be a father to himself.

  ‘You’re with us now,’ Adelaide said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’

  Danny shook his head and curled up on the floor. When they were satisfied the boy was asleep once more, Caleb and Adelaide ate the last of the bread and cheese as the sun rose on a blackened landscape.

  Caleb brushed the crumbs from his filthy shirt and stood up. ‘Come outside for a minute, Adelaide,’ he said.

  He looked down into Adelaide’s face. She had runnels down her dirt- and ash-smeared cheeks where she had wept for her son, her brown eyes reddened from the smoke and sunk in dark circles. He wiped at a smudge of soot across her cheekbone with his thumb but only succeeded in smearing it further.

  He cupped her face in his hands, running his thumbs along the line of her jaw. ‘We survived, Adelaide.’

  She smiled, a tight-lipped, humourless smile. ‘We did. I think God and his angels were watching over us. By rights we should never have outrun that fire. Unlike poor Richard.’

  Privately, Caleb had no sympathy for Richard Barnwell. He’d left them to die and had got his just reward.

  ‘Do I look as bad as you?’ he asked.

  ‘Worse.’ She scuffed at the whiskers on his chin.

  He hunkered down by the river and washed his face as best he could, then ran the cold water through his hair. She joined him, letting her long, dishevelled plait of hair loose and rebraiding it. He watched her deft fingers working and thought he would never tire of watching her.

  When he was satisfied that he looked the best he could in the circumstances, he stood, mindful of his stiff, sore muscles.

  ‘I’m going for help,’ he said and glanced back at the cave. ‘I think Danny is on the improve.’ He did a rough calculation in his head. ‘It will be late morning before I get to town and then I have to find some transport for Dan. It could be a long day for you, Adelaide.’

  She nodded. ‘We’ll be here. Go now, Caleb.’

  The river had risen with the rain. Caleb waded across, his boots slipping on the rocks. He paused on the other side to wave to Adelaide, who stood at the entrance to the mine, her arms crossed, watching him on his way.

  The absolute silence of the bush overwhelmed him as he climbed up the track. No birds, no rustle of trees. Nothing. The fire had laid waste to the hillsides, countless wildlife dead in the ashes, the trees reaching skeletal black limbs to the sky. His feet chafed in his damp boots and the sting of rising blisters reminded him that he still had miles to walk.

  He passed the charred body of Richard Barnwell and his horse, giving them only a passing glance. Despite the horrific way he had died, Caleb only felt rage for the man. Adelaide was too forgiving.

  He’d been walking for a couple of hours when he heard low voices and the clink of harnesses. Ignoring his blistered feet, he began to run. As he reached the top of a rise, he stopped, his hands on his knees, catching his breath as three riders breasted the next ridge, coming towards him.

  He recognised the broad shoulders and long stirrups of Amos Burrell, the slouch of the bushman, Mick, and the proper English riding seat of Will Penrose.

  Mick saw him first. Then Penrose pulled his hat from his head and waved, kicking his horse into a faster pace up the hill towards Caleb, followed by the other two.

  Amos and Penrose left their mounts to join Caleb on the ground, slapping his back in a fraternal embrace.

  ‘Geez, we thought we were looking for your corpse,’ Amos said. ‘Sones said three of the ’orses got back last night, a bit singed but otherwise uninjured. That’s when we knew something bad ’ad ’appened to you.’

  ‘Mrs Greaves and the boy?’ Mick, as always, had few words.

  ‘They’re safe. We were saved by an abandoned mine adit down by the river but the boy got bitten by a snake. He’s in a bad way.’ Caleb glanced back the way he had come. ‘I need to get him into town as soon as possible.’

  ‘Crikey! A snake!’ Amos said. ‘What about that mad English bastard?’

  ‘He’s dead. You’ll find his body a few miles up the road. He got caught by the fire.’

  Penrose and Amos glanced at each other. ‘What do you want to do?’ Penrose asked

  ‘I’ll keep going on foot,’ Caleb said. ‘I think between the three of you, you’ll be able to bring in Adelaide and Dan. I don’t want to risk leaving the boy out in the bush while you head back into town.’

  ‘There’s some big trees down across the road into town,’ Penrose said. ‘A wagon won’t be getting through any time soon.’

  ‘Did the fire reach the town?’

  Amos nodded. ‘It got within a few ’undred yards of the Chinese gardens and we thought we were goners, but the wind bloody changed, didn’t it.’

  ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘A few burns in town but the worry is about the outlying mines like Blue Sailor and Victoria. A party’s gone out there this morning,’ Penrose said.

  Caleb nodded. If there were significant injuries, he would be needed.

  ‘Go and bring in my girl,’ Caleb said. ‘You’ll find me in town.’

  Mick dismounted and handed Caleb the reins to his horse. ‘Take him,’ he said. ‘You’re dead o
n your feet, doc. The walk back to town will do me good.’

  Caleb didn’t argue. He thanked Mick and swung into the saddle.

  The other men remounted. Amos touched his fingers to his hat and kicked his horse forward. Caleb watched them until they were out of sight, then turned the horse’s head towards Maiden’s Creek.

  Adelaide shivered and drew Danny closer into her, hoping to instil some warmth in him. She had lived in this country long enough now not to be surprised by the ferocity with which the weather could change. Yesterday the temperature had soared well over a century with the hot, dry northerly fanning the furious flames of fire. Today it had plummeted, bringing with it scudding rain and a wind that came from the South Pole.

  No birds sang, there were no leaves to rustle in the breeze. The fire’s destruction had been absolute and the silence that hung in the air, punctuated only by falling timber, was unearthly.

  ‘Cooee!’ the bushman’s cry reverberated around the silent valley, the first sound of life she had heard since Caleb left. She started, causing Danny to stir.

  ‘Mama?’ he murmured.

  ‘I do believe that may be help,’ she said. ‘You’ve done so well, Danny. We’ll be home soon.’

  She crawled out of the mine and ran down the river bank to the place where the track crossed the river, waving and almost jumping up and down in her excitement at seeing the two familiar figures riding towards her.

  Penrose and Amos sloshed across the river. Then they were off their horses and, all propriety forgotten, she flung her arms around them and kissed them in turn.

  ‘We met Hunt on the track. He’s taken Mick’s horse and gone on into town. Mick’s following him back on foot. Now where’s the lad?’ Penrose said.

  Adelaide led them to the mine and Amos carried Danny out. ‘I’ll take the boy,’ he said. ‘Mrs Greaves, do you mind riding up behind Mr Penrose?’

  They helped Amos to settle Danny in front of him on his big horse. He cradled the lad in his right arm, leaving his left free to hold the reins and guide the horse. Penrose pulled Adelaide up behind him, a manoeuvre she would never have accomplished in skirts.