‘What about you?’ He broke into her reverie. ‘Why are you having to earn your living, then? I thought girls like you stayed at home with their sewing. Won’t your father send you money?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I’m out of favour with Papa at the moment. But I enjoy teaching children. A life of idle luxury becomes boring eventually.’
He gave a short huff of a laugh. ‘Teaching is one thing, but what would your Papa say if he could see you now?’
Louise smiled. ‘He’d succumb to one of his rages and keep me under lock and key for the rest of my life.’
‘Yeah and I can’t say I’d flaming blame him,’ Kavanagh muttered dryly, digging in one of the pack bags for food.
She had a sudden urge to confess all, to tell him who she really was. It was ridiculous, for she had no reason to trust him with her secrets.
Only later did she wonder how different things might have been for them, if she had.
~*~
At dusk they came through Kavanagh’s boundary and onto the waterhole in Roundstone Creek. Louise’s heart lurched as she spotted a group of Aborigines camped beside the water, crouched around their cooking fires. There were perhaps fifty of them, men, women and children and nearly as many dogs; flea-bitten, half-starved animals, cringing at the edges of the group in anticipation of discarded scraps.
The cattle milled nervously, lifting their heads at the strange scent of people and dogs. Louise was about to seek Kavanagh’s reassurance when she saw him ride ahead to talk to the natives. She clung to the rear of the herd, well out of the reach of boomerang or spear.
Her revolver was rolled away in her swag, where it was difficult to retrieve at short notice. She’d heard of the massacres at Hornet Bank, on the upper Dawson and at Cullin-la-Ringo, north of Springsure. The last of the two had taken place only twelve years before, with nineteen white people murdered, including women and children.
Most recalcitrant tribes had since been subdued, but even so, fear parched her throat. How could she sleep tonight, knowing the rider on night watch would be too busy with the cattle to guard the camp? Kavanagh carried a rifle on one of the packhorses and another revolver strapped to his saddle, but firearms were only effective if one was awake to use them.
Kavanagh spent almost half an hour with the Aborigines while Louise and Divine watered the restless cattle. Eventually they settled them for the night on a stretch of clear ground, on the opposite bank to the natives’ camp. This was despite an argument with Divine who was reluctant to select a campsite without his boss’s direction. Bad positioning of the herd meant danger to men and animals in the event of a rush, but Louise was too tired and hungry to wait any longer.
‘We can always move them if we have to.’
Divine looked sulky but obeyed her without further protest.
When Kavanagh returned, he didn’t even comment. He looked preoccupied and appeared surprised when Louise asked if the Aborigines were friendly.
‘Yeah, they seem to be. I haven’t seen this mob before–apparently they’re from the Wadja tribe. They’ve come from the Expedition Range, but they’ve all broken up and scattered now. Doesn’t seem like they’ve had much contact with whites. A bit of Pidgin was the best I could get out of ‘em.’
‘How did you manage to talk to them, then?’
He shrugged. ‘Oh, we got by. I’ve picked up a few words here and there and there’s always sign language. At least this mob seems to have kept to their old ways, instead of hanging around the stations for their flour and tobacco.’
‘I wish I could see their camp at close quarters. Are you sure they aren’t hostile?’
He shook his head. ‘Most of the blacks around here have learnt to keep on the good side of us. I’ll take you over there if you’re game, but I warn you they’re just about naked.’
She looked away quickly, heat washing her cheeks. There was an awkward silence and she stole a sideways glance at him. He was playing with his bridle reins, his face expressionless, but she had the feeling he was laughing at her. Bristling inwardly, she turned in her saddle to look at the blazing campfires. ‘What are they cooking over there?’
‘Wallaby, goanna, a few yams. They offered me a bit of goanna. It was pretty good, too–a nice young, fat one.’
Louise swung back to him, horrified. ‘You didn’t eat it?’
‘Why not?’ He was grinning openly now, obviously enjoying this. ‘I’ve tried it before. It’s not bad tucker, a bit like fowl.’
‘So, while we were battling with the cattle, you were sitting over there, yarning and eating goanna.’ Her voice sounded waspish even to her own ears.
‘True enough.’ He was still grinning. ‘You should see the way they do their cooking. None of this skinning and gutting business. They chuck ‘em on whole, the skin burns off and the gizzards dry up into a hard little mass in the middle. Saves a lot of trouble.’
She knew he was taunting her and she lifted her chin, not about to be bested. ‘You’ll have to show me. To use your vernacular, I’m game to go over there if you’re game to take me.’
He chuckled. ‘If you put it like that, how can I say no?’
~*~
After their evening meal Kavanagh walked with her to the natives’ camp. As they approached, Louise picked out the men folk squatting on their haunches around a dying fire while the women crowded, chattering noisily, in front of one of the gunyahs. Suddenly all conversation stopped and a couple of the men, presumably elders, came forward to meet them. They were naked as Kavanagh had described, except for a twisted grass belt about the hips from which another clump of grass hung to serve as a scanty loincloth.
It was the first time Louise had seen aAborigines in their natural state at close quarters. She hardly knew where to look. She was used to the half-domesticated tribes who hung about the stations and who were supplied with clothes by their white benefactors. Louise fixed her eyes on the black faces, trying to hide her embarrassment from her companion. Although he kept a straight face, she suspected he was still laughing at her.
The two elders drew them into the circle about the fire and Kavanagh handed out plugs of chewing tobacco, before filling and lighting his own pipe. Louise, awkward and ill-at-ease, followed little of the following conversation. She turned her head to smile at the women and children hovering curiously in the background. That one smile was enough to make them scattter, giggling nervously.
One of the men, who she gathered was called Wollamba, spoke Pidgin English and seemed to be the interpreter of the party. When at last Kavanagh rose to go, the aborigine pointed towards the west where a bank of heavy clouds hung low in the moonlit sky.
‘A big-feller storm bin come longa sun come-up,’ he observed. ‘Plenty big-feller thunder, lightning, Wollamba bin think.’
Kavanagh’s gaze followed his pointing finger and Louise sensed his anxiety. The extreme heat threatened to build into an electrical storm. This was unwelcome news to anyone overlanding stock and she’d earlier heard him ask Divine to keep extra night-horses. Apart from the obvious dangers of lightning, wind and hail, a storm was likely to panic both cattle and horses.
As they returned to their camp Kavanagh said, ‘I don’t like the feel of the weather myself. It’s been so flaming hot. I’ll rig the fly up now, in case we get some rain out of it. If it starts to look threatening, I’ll help Cec with the cattle. You stay out of it, Miss Forrest.’
She didn’t protest. At least his concern with the weather had put an end to his teasing.
Lying awake in her swag, she watched while Kavanagh set up the tarpaulin he’d referred to as the “fly”. Her thoughts returned to the near-naked women at the Aboriginal camp. He’d seemed quite unconcerned by their exposed breasts and buttocks and she supposed he was accustomed to seeing them that way. She remembered the vague, whispered stories she’d heard of white men gratifying themselves with the lubras, paying the black women’s husbands in tobacco, clothing, foodstuffs or alcohol for services
rendered. The thought sickened and disgusted her and she wondered if her young companion had ever participated in anything of the sort.
Surreptitiously she watched him as he shifted gear under the tarpaulin and was pleased to see him take to his swag once he’d finished. She lost the battle to stay awake, but was roused by the storm onwards of ten o’clock. In the faint glow of their dying campfire she could see Kavanagh pulling on his boots. Surely he couldn’t have sought himself a woman and returned to his bed in that span of time.
Not that his morals were any concern of hers, of course. It was merely intolerable to think of any man behaving with such lack of respect for her presence.
Chapter Five
Lloyd stared at the night sky and swore silently. A mass of black cloud swirled above them, obliterating the moon and stars. Lightning flashed incessantly to the west and south. He judged the storm to be a quarter of an hour away at most. Although he couldn’t hear the cattle above the wind or see more of them than a vague mass outlined in the lightning flashes, he sensed they were stirring restlessly. If they rushed tonight the girl would be a hindrance, an added responsibility, rather than an asset to him. If he’d had any sense he’d have left her at Bauhinia Downs.
He turned to fire instructions at her. ‘It’ll be here any minute–you’d better move under the fly.’ Shoving his hat on his head, he threw a couple of logs on the fire. ‘I don’t think there’ll be much rain in it, but you never know. Keep an eye on the mob though, won’t you? This is the sort of night they could go. If they do rush, be ready to run.’ He gestured towards a large box tree not far from their camp. ‘Get behind the tree if they come this way, climb it if you can. Whatever you do, don’t try an’ help us. It’s no job for a woman riding sidesaddle.’
He didn’t wait to hear her reply, quickly saddling and mounting the horse he’d tethered nearby. His stomach knotted as he noticed the cattle milling in agitation. Young animals like these, without the steadying influence of breeding cows, were particularly prone to panic.
Lloyd sought his young assistant in the dark and paused to exchange a few words with him. He could barely make out Divine’s features, but he caught the frightened gleam of the whites of his eyes and heard the tremor in his voice.
‘Do you think it’ll be a bad one, Lloyd?’
‘It’s looking that way.’ Lloyd’s voice was grim. ‘You been caught in a storm with a mob before?’
Divine mumbled the negative. ‘Do you think they’ll rush?’
‘I bloody-well hope not.’ A rush was no picnic at the best of times, but with only this inexperienced lad and the girl to worry about, it could end in disaster. At the quick sickening of apprehension, he thrust his thoughts aside. He’d heard of men who cracked-up on the droving camp, unable to cope with the unrelieved tension of handling half-wild bullocks that sometimes rushed night after night in succession. These weren’t touchy bullocks, only well-handled youngsters he’d become almost sentimental over in the days since he’d taken delivery of them. But if he was worried, could he blame his young offsider for feeling a bit panicky?
He tried to sound reassuring. ‘Don’t worry, Cec. They should be all right, but if they do go, keep with ‘em until they’ve steadied down and then we’ll try to get ‘em ringing. Turn the lead in towards the tail and keep ‘em going in a circle.’
He sensed rather than saw the boy’s nod and left him to it, smiling grimly. Here he was playing the father-figure, the man of experience, at all of twenty-three.
The storm was almost upon them. Jagged forks of lightning, incessant and vicious, tore open the darkness of the night while the thunder exploded loudly in its wake. The wind whipped up great clouds of dust and leaves, forcing Lloyd to close his eyes against the grit and shield his face with his arm. But there was as yet no rain and nor did he expect it. This was one of those dry electrical storms that go hand in hand with drought and heat.
Busy holding the cattle, his nervousness was pushed aside. At least the darkness was no longer an obstacle, for the lightning flashes crowded and overlapped each other in merciless succession. It was as much as he and Divine could do to hold the animals together. He almost began to wish he’d called upon Miss Forrest after all.
He was turning back a breakaway heifer when he saw the sudden streak of flame. His ears pounded with the simultaneous thunder-crack and the crash of splintering timber. Something hard hit his arm, tearing the sleeve, but although he registered the impact the pain didn’t follow until a moment later. By then he had no time to think about it, for the mob had broken in unison, galloping at an angle towards the creek, sweeping Divine along on its outskirts.
Lloyd was riding his favourite, Dynamite, and he was glad of it, for there was no horse to equal him in the dark. As they raced to wheel the lead, the gelding cleared obstacles his rider hadn’t seen and as always if allowed his head dodged trees and low branches unerringly. Lloyd thought each moment must be his last, but miraculously when Dynamite stumbled into a shallow depression and partially lost balance, he recovered and quickly regained his stride.
The rush wasn’t a severe one and already the cattle were slowing. Lloyd was able to overtake the leaders before they reached the creek and turn them back on themselves. Divine had extricated himself from the mob and was close behind him. They had them “ringing” nicely when he noticed a third rider out of the corner of his eye, galloping almost as recklessly as they. He knew it could only be Miss Forrest, riding sidesaddle on her hard-mouthed bay gelding, but he had no time to do anything about it then. It was perhaps half an hour later, when the worst of the storm was past, before they had the herd firmly under control and he could afford to protest.
He’d meant to be diplomatic, but he was exhausted and generally in a bad humour. His comment reflected that in spite of himself. ‘I thought I told you to stay out of it if they went!’
She stared back at him defiantly. ‘I know you did, but what was the use of that? You were obviously having difficulties.’
‘We would’ve managed,’ he retorted shortly. ‘I could’ve done without the extra worry of trying to keep an eye on you. It gave me the cold shivers seeing you galloping about in the dark in that blasted sidesaddle. And on that blasted horse!’ he added for good measure.
She didn’t reply, but another distant flash of lightning illuminated her pale, tense face. Her lower lip trembled and she looked close to tears. Lloyd was immediately overcome with remorse
Abruptly he leaned towards her. ‘Here, are you all right? You’d better get off for a bit.’ He slipped from the saddle and moved to her stirrup to catch her in his arms. He held her for a moment, long enough to feel her shaking. Now that he came to stand on them, his own legs were none too steady–the unremitting tension and all the hard riding of the past hour had taken its toll. And his injured arm burned like a hot brand.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ he asked her gently.
‘No, I’m all right now.’ Despite the reassurance her voice sounded tearful. ‘It was just the storm–I thought the camp was about to be struck, or blown away. And when that tree was hit–I didn’t know what to do.’ Her voice quavered. ‘I’m afraid I almost panicked. But Shadow had pulled away–I had to catch him–and then it seemed only sensible to help. After all, it was I who insisted we leave without your other man.’
He’d never heard that note of uncertainty, even contrition, in her voice before and his heart contracted. He had to admire her courage, for she wasn’t stupidly unaware of the danger as he’d at first thought. A rush of emotion overtook common sense and he hugged her impulsively. The movement made him wince and he let his arms fall away.
‘Is there something wrong? Are you hurt?’
‘Just me arm. A lump of wood hit me when that tree was struck.’
She dropped Shadow’s reins and swiftly examined the wound. It was too dark to see much, but Lloyd knew his sleeve was rent almost in two and what was left of it was soaked with blood.
‘Oh, Lloyd!’ Her f
ingers fumbled with his sleeve. ‘It’s been bleeding–is it very painful?’
Her use of his Christian name was disconcerting, almost distracting him from the pain. ‘It is a bit, but I’ll survive.’ He stepped back. ‘I haven’t got time to do anything about it now. These cattle will need a couple of us to hold them for the rest of the night and if anyone needs a spell it’s Divine. He hasn’t been off his horse for hours.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She bent to pick up her horse’s reins. ‘I’ll help you. You’d better tell Divine to go to bed.’
When the dawn came, it revealed a greater destruction than any of them had realized. Shattered pieces of timber, some two or three feet long, had been flung from the lightning-stricken tree in a radius of a hundred yards. Close to the camp, another small tree had been uprooted by the wind and fallen branches were scattered around. The fly was blown almost from its moorings and hung limply from one corner. But most significant of all, in the spot where the cattle had camped before the rush, was a dead steer. It had apparently been killed by a flying piece of wood.
Lloyd joked, ‘Lucky that bit of stick didn’t hit me on the head, or I’d have been a goner, too,’ but Miss Forrest frowned at him and told him it was no laughing matter.
She seemed surprised that he wasn’t more upset at the loss, but in reality he was considering himself fortunate. When he counted the mob out, he was only the one beast short, with the only other injuries a lame shoulder and a crushed hip. The rush hadn’t been crazed enough to result in the usual casualties of broken legs and animals trampled to death.
‘A man’s bloody lucky,’ he said to Divine. ‘I think someone must be looking after me this trip–whether it’s the Good Lord above or what.’
Perhaps Lucy Forrest had brought him luck. Despite his earlier misgivings she’d proved her worth with the cattle. She’d certainly saved a long delay at Bauhinia Downs, or the problem of finding a replacement for Thompson, who might not have been fit to travel for some time. And God knows she’d brought a bit of pleasure to an otherwise dreary trip.
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