She was too tired not to sleep, in spite of the discomforts that plagued her. Her skin itched with perspiration and her clothes and hair were gritty with dust, but she rolled herself in her swag and slept as one dead. The last thing she remembered was listening to the lad’s whistling as he circled the drowsy herd. Then Divine was leaning over her, shaking her awake.
Struggling bravely from sleep, she climbed out of her swag and hastily pulled on her boots. Divine helped her to mount and, looking back, she saw him fall into his swag without even loosening his belt.
Louise’s first experience of night-watch was an ordeal. Her eyelids drooped with fatigue and her body ached from the long hours in the saddle. She took Kavanagh’s advice to sing to the herd, although she felt foolish serenading the unappreciative cattle. But it did relieve the tedium and help her to stay alert. She hoped only that her companions were too busy sleeping to listen.
~*~
After breakfast the next morning Louise packed her belongings and, as she rolled her swag, retrieved the revolver she’d hidden under her pillow. Carefully unloading it, she looked up to find Kavanagh watching her.
‘Do you know how to use that thing?’
She flushed, not wanting him to know she’d doubted her safety. ‘Yes, I do. Mr Barclay showed me.’
‘Well, I hope so, because I don’t want one of us getting shot by accident. Yourself included. You won’t need to protect yourself in this camp.’
She smiled at him soothingly, the night’s fears seeming ridiculous in the light of day. ‘It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Mr Kavanagh. I’m just not accustomed to sleeping in the bush.’
He shrugged. ‘Sleep with it if it makes you happy. Just be careful of the damn thing!’ His expression lightened and his eyes twinkled. ‘Did you buy that off Barclay too?’
She smiled back at him, determined not to let him ruffle her this time. ‘Yes, I did. Without his knowledge, of course.’
Laughing, he shook his head at her, then gathered up her swag and carried it over to the waiting packhorse. He quickly strapped it to the pack-saddle, his mind already obviously on other things.
Today he’d saddled one of his own horses for her. Kavanagh held the chestnut mare while he helped her to mount. ‘She hasn’t been broken to the sidesaddle but she’s so quiet, I’m sure she’ll be all right.” As she settled the skirts of her habit he added, “I think you’ll find her a better ride than that horse of yours. Barclay has a reputation for horse-breeding, but I can’t say your nag lives up to it. He might be a thoroughbred, but he’s a hard-mouthed brute. It’s a shame–someone must have ruined him along the way. Doesn’t look like he can walk much, either.’
Louise bristled inwardly, some perverse reaction making her fly to the defence of the horse she’d been so out of charity with earlier. Nag, indeed!
She smiled coldly. ‘At least he’s quiet and good-natured and no trouble to catch. Personally I prefer a horse to have looks and breeding.’
This was spoken with a significant glance at the big, rawboned creamy that Kavanagh had tethered nearby, a common-headed gelding with a coarse black mane and tail. The horse had tried to avoid capture that morning and then had stood trembling, the muscles along his belly and thighs taut with nervousness, while Kavanagh bridled and saddled him.
She hadn’t seen evidence of Kavanagh’s self-alleged Irish temper before, but the smile in his eyes quickly faded at her scathing words.
‘Why, you...!’ He dropped her mare’s rein as if it burned him and swung away to his own horse, snapping, ‘Dynamite mightn’t look much, but when it comes to cattlework he’d piss all over that bloody thoroughbred of yours!’
He mounted abruptly, startling the nervous animal into a forward lunge. Yet he found the saddle effortlessly and rode away with the agitated gelding sidestepping and chomping at the bit, leaving Louise bristling with indignation.
Kavanagh continued to avoid her for the rest of the morning. Louise told herself it was a good thing, if that was the language he planned to use. However droving cattle was dull work without that ready sense of humour and even the unwelcome curiosity to break the tedium. It seemed he was proud of his big creamy horse, whatever his lack of pedigree. Once her temper cooled, she began to regret that superior, snobbish remark. But his crude outburst made an apology difficult.
At lunchtime Louise watched Kavanagh dismount in the shade of a stunted brigalow, wondering why it should be up to her to put an end to hostilities. She approached him anyway, soothing the big creamy horse with her voice when he would have sidled away. Her hand stroked his rough neck as she studied Kavanagh’s averted cheek.
‘Mr Kavanagh, I’m sorry if I offended you this morning, but I shan’t tolerate being spoken to in that fashion.’
Kavanagh turned quickly from loosening the girth and glanced at her. ‘I’m sorry about the language.’ He had the grace to look ashamed. ‘But you should’ve expected that when you decided to go droving with a rough cove like me.’
‘No doubt. But if I try not to antagonise you, will you attempt to speak civilly?’ She tangled her fingers in the gelding’s coarse mane and surprised herself by adding, ‘You’re right, of course. Old Dynamite might be no oil painting, but I suspect in cattle-sense and stamina he’d surpass many well-bred horses.’ She looked up at him and her mouth quirked. ‘Listen to me. Any more of this and I’ll be grovelling.’
‘That I can’t imagine.’ Kavanagh laid a hand on Dynamite’s tense rump as he moved around him, unbuckling his quart-pot from the pouch attached to the dees of the saddle. He turned to her with the blackened quart-pot in his hands, the humour back in his eyes and gave her a lingering, crooked smile that did something strange to her stomach. ‘But if you want to get along with me, just remember one thing. Criticize me if you like, but don’t criticize me horse.’
Chapter Four
Lloyd Kavanagh hadn’t known a girl like Lucy Forrest before, but he wasn’t about to let her intimidate him. He supposed she was used to lording it over people like him, but at the moment he was the boss and he didn’t plan on letting her forget it. Fortunately the episode with the horse seemed to have brought them to a better understanding.
They might almost have been alone, so much did Cecil Divine keep out of their way. Lloyd pitied the lad’s shyness but was amused at his endeavours to avoid Miss Forrest. Divine volunteered to watch the cattle while the others ate, and consumed his meal alone while Lloyd took his place with the mob. At midday the stock sought respite in the shade from the humid heat, leaving their drovers free to relax. While Divine sat in self-imposed isolation, Miss Forrest unbent enough to engage Lloyd in conversation.
She was as lonely as he was, he realized, and not nearly as stuck-up as she’d first made out. He discovered she was curious about his origins and he found himself telling her things he rarely volunteered to anyone. He supposed that was what the company of a comely girl did to a man.
‘My dad had a small cattle run near Grenfell, in New South Wales,’ he told her, noticing the sheen of moisture on her clear skin. She hadn’t once complained about the heat, despite the dark, close-fitting jacket she wore. ‘He’s still got it, as far as I know, if he hasn’t gone broke on it. It was wild and woolly, uncivilised country when I was a kid and most of the people around there were pretty wild and woolly to match.’ He rubbed his chin, hearing the disparaging note in his own voice. ‘Including me old man.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Her grey eyes were alert and interested, flattering him to continue.
He shrugged. His father had been an abusive drunk, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. ‘It was bushranger country. I grew up on stories of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and Johnnie Gilbert. When I was a kid I wanted to be a bushranger meself, but when Ben Hall was shot down I reckoned there had to be better ways of making a living.’
‘So you decided to be a cattleman instead?’
He grinned. ‘First up, I decided to leave, but I didn’t get to be a cattleman s
traight away. I got a job on a sheep station further up the Lachlan and the owner, Mr O’Donnelly, tried to set me on the straight and narrow.’ He remembered the wild boy he’d been, angry at his father’s beatings and his smile faded. ‘O’Donnelly was a real decent old bloke–he took me under his wing and was more of a father than me dad had ever been.’
He hadn’t intended to betray his bitterness, hadn’t wanted or asked for the concern in her eyes. ‘Wasn’t your father good to you? What about your mother?’
Lloyd drew breath, trying for a more neutral tone. ‘Ma did her best, but she was always overworked. She was supposed to have been something before she married Pat Kavanagh. He was a real no-hoper.’ Why was he telling her this? He hadn’t talked about his father in years, but now he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop. ‘He never made anything of that place he had. I was the oldest and once I was big enough to run over to me grandmother’s house I didn’t stay there much. Old Grandma Griffiths had more of a hand in bringing me up than me own mother did.’
‘Your mother’s mother?’
He nodded, the pressure in his chest easing as his memories took a more welcome turn. ‘She was a wonderful old lady. She taught me to read and write, which was just as well because I never went to school. Not that Grandma’d had much education herself – she’d just picked up a bit here and there. She was a coalminer’s daughter, but she’d worked as a lady’s maid.’ He’d always known he was her favourite; perhaps she saw that he was more Griffiths than Kavanagh, for all that he looked like his father. ‘It was after she died that I left home.’
‘So she’d lived close by?’ Miss Forrest sipped delicately from her quart-pot. It could have been a china cup at a ladies’ tea-party.
‘Yeah.’ He plucked a stalk of dry grass and chewed it, remembering a tiny cottage smelling of home-baked bread and biscuits, comforting fare for a boy who was always hungry. The peace and quiet had been comforting too, in contrast to the frayed tempers and crying kids at home. ‘After me grandfather died she came to live on the selection, in a little hut about a mile from the main house. It was right on the creek, near a waterhole where I used to go fishing. It was a nice spot. Grandma had a big garden there and she was pretty-well self-sufficient, right up to the time she died.’
‘What about your father’s parents?’ She set the quart-pot down and leaned towards him, her eyes alight with interest. ‘Were they still alive?’
He found himself watching the rise and fall of her breasts under the dark stuff of her jacket and dragged his gaze away before she noticed. ‘The two old lags?’ He snorted derisively. ‘Yeah, they were alive, but I only saw ‘em once or twice, which was enough. They lived in Bathurst.’
Her mouth twitched. ‘You don’t seem to think much of your family, Mr Kavanagh.’
‘If you’d met them, you’d know why. It wasn’t just because they were ex-convicts. They were pretty rough, I can tell you.’ He stood up and held out a hand to help her rise, knowing he’d told her more than enough for one day. ‘Come on, we’d better get these cattle moving.’
~*~
Louise mused over Kavanagh’s revelations, surprised how much his story had touched her. That glimpse of an unhappy childhood tugged at her emotions, bringing a new sense of empathy for him. Their backgrounds were totally different, yet they both seemed to be escaping their families. She admired him for trying to make something of his life despite a dubious upbringing.
Not that there was anything distinguished about his present occupation. She’d been quick to discover the romantic image of the drover belonged only to fiction. The routine of the days was dull and monotonous, with Kavanagh’s company at mealtimes the only bright spot. The nights she positively hated, when, with her body aching with exhaustion, she had only the hard ground to lie on and a few brief hours of sleep.
Kavanagh told her it was normal to have at least four men to share the night-watch, with one of these men acting as cook and another as horse-tailer. With only three of them to share these tasks the load was heavy, particularly for Kavanagh who was responsible for the greater percentage of them. It was he who took the longest watch before sunrise, when the cattle were at their most restless. It was also he who prepared their meals while Divine attended to his duties as horse-tailer. He’d seemed stunned when Louise told him she’d never cooked in her life.
But the biggest trial for Louise was the lack of hygiene. Generally it was easier to wipe their eating utensils clean with a clump of grass, than wash them at the muddy edge of the waterhole in the green, fouled water they were forced to drink. Opportunities for bathing were rare, especially when privacy was a necessary factor. Louise supposed bushmen must learn to tolerate their own body odour, but, in the fashion of the fastidious Queen Victoria, she was accustomed to bathing as often as every day in the hot weather. Her brief efforts at mustering hadn’t prepared her for working and living without respite amidst the heat and dirt. Her hair was snarled and stiff with dust, while her body felt grimy and sticky, the smell of stale perspiration mingling unpleasantly with the odour of horses and cattle dung.
Yet there was little she could do about it. She hadn’t the time or the means for a proper bath, so she had to content herself with the knowledge that the men were just as dirty as she was.
~*~
On the third day out from Bauhinia Downs, they had a dry stretch of about twenty miles to cover. It was a stifling, hot, still day, the sky pale and hazy with heat. It was no weather for driving cattle. They pushed the animals hard in the cool of the early morning so there would be time to rest in the hottest part of the day. One roan heifer became overheated, her lolling tongue streaming saliva, her gait stiffened.
‘Leave her behind,’ Kavanagh told her when Louise approached him for advice. ‘She’ll probably catch up tonight.’ He swung his horse away to head a wayward steer, then yelled, ‘Watch out!’
A swarm of wasps flew at them, buzzing angrily, their disturbed nest concealed amongst the leaves of a brigalow sapling. Kavanagh’s horse leapt away in response to a well-placed spur, but Louise was slower to react. She cried out as the stings pierced her skin like red-hot needles and thumped her heel against the mare’s ribs, urging her into a gallop. At a safe distance she dragged the horse to a halt, rubbing her smarting cheek and upper arm.
‘Are you all right?’ Kavanagh drew his mount alongside, his eyes glinting with sympathy. ‘Did the wasps get you?’
Louise nodded, gasping.
‘Here, I’ll put some water on it.’ Without dismounting Kavanagh unbuckled the canteen from his saddle and kneed his horse close, splashing water on her cheek. Louise’s mare shied away and he leaned across to grasp her rein with the other hand. ‘Did they get you anywhere else?’
‘Yes.’ She rubbed her arm, indicating the spot and he slopped water from the canteen, soaking her sleeve. His knee pressed against her leg as his strong hand restrained the fidgeting mare. Louise tried to ease away, uncomfortably aware of the improper contact.
His eyes narrowed and he loosened her rein, moving his horse away. ‘It’ll sting for a bit, but you’ll be all right.’
‘The water helps.’ Louise looked down in confusion, wondering if her cheek was red and swollen. ‘Thank you.’
When they took their ‘dinner-camp’, Kavanagh looked up at her quizzically as she sat on the opposite side of the fire. ‘How are you feeling? Your face looks a bit bunged-up.’
Louise’s cheeks heated. It wouldn’t be so bad if she could see for herself, but without a mirror she had no way of knowing how awful she looked. For some reason she found herself minimizing her pain. ‘I’m much better now. Thank you.’
He grinned sympathetically. ‘The first time you’ve run into wasps? Sorry, I was the one who stirred ‘em up and you got the brunt of it. Lucky you got away as quick as you did.’
His concern only made her feel foolish that she hadn’t spotted the wasps herself. She changed the subject–she’d discovered she preferred to be the one asking
questions. ‘How far is it to your selection now?’
‘Another day. We’ll be there tomorrow night, all being well.’
‘How did you become a landowner, Mr Kavanagh?’
He didn’t reply immediately. He crouched before the fire, shaking tea leaves from a small bag onto his palm. Using the same bag to protect his fingers, he grasped the handles of his quart-pot, lifted it from the flames and tipped the tea leaves onto the bubbling water. ‘I’d been in the carrying business for a few years, hauling from Westwood to Banana. I had horse teams and I did pretty well with ‘em. They’re faster than bullocks, though you’d never get an old bullocky to admit it.’ He smiled briefly and Louise envisaged the crusty old bullockies belittling a young upstart teamster with his horses. ‘Once I had the money I took up the lease for Myvanwy.’
‘That’s an unusual name.’
‘I named it for me Welsh grandmother.’ He added two handfuls of sugar to the tea and reached to break a clean twig from an overhanging branch, using it to stir the brew. ‘Thought I owed her that much.’
She smiled, wondering how many young men would bother, in similar circumstances. ‘Is it a large property?’
He tapped the side of the quart-pot, encouraging the tea leaves to settle. ‘It’s fifty square miles, with five miles of river frontage. There’s plenty of permanent water and good flats for grazing. I’ve always wanted land and cattle of me own.’
Louise observed him silently, calculating his age. What had he said yesterday–he’d left home in ’65 and he’d been fifteen then? That would make him twenty-three now, the same age as Charles. He’d achieved much in a few short years. There was a toughness about his face and an air of self-reliance in his manner which no doubt came of having to make his own way in the world. The three days’ growth of beard on his jaw mingled with the grime of the droving camp to make him look older. She remembered how differently he’d looked when he was washed and freshly shaved.
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