“Francis, come look! Clouds. Wonderful, boiling rain clouds.”
For a moment, he stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he ran past her, out the store door, and into the wagon yard to observe the clouds. As if they were some miracle sign from heaven.
She caught up with him. “Beautiful, aren’t they.”
“Aye.”
It was all he said. He appeared mesmerized. They stood and watched the formation rumble across the sky toward them. Maybe thirty minutes passed, and they were still standing. Wives and children came out of their cottages to watch. The hands put aside their work to join the others.
Pinned to the clouds was a tattered blue-black curtain of rain. Robert scampered to the gate, and Amaris opened it and caught him up in her arms. At six, he was tall and awkward as a colt. "Rain,” she exulted, pointing toward the phenomenon.
Soon a breeze gently lifted the tendrils of her hair. Following on the fringes of the breeze were droplets of rain. Great, globular droplets that made plfat sounds as they smashed against the hard-baked earth.
She spread her palm to feel the sting of the rain and stuck out her tongue to taste it. Its dusty smell filled her nostrils. She began laughing.
Francis wrapped his arms around her and Robert, who was laughing also. All three of them. He pushed the wet hair back from her face. “You didn’t give up, Amaris. When all around us station owners were selling out or going under, you found a way to keep us going. You’re beautiful, do you know that?"
She could see he really meant what he was saying. He really thought she was beautiful! After all these years, now that time and weather had begun honing her face so that her character showed through, her husband found her beautiful. Sudden tears mixed with the raindrops on her face.
Feeling the abiding love for this man, her husband, she kissed him. He looked astonished. Then he grinned.
“Kiss me, Mama!" Robert said. His eyes were wide as he tried to assimilate the euphoria that had swept across the station. Around them, the hands were hugging one another and shouting in exultation.
She and Francis pecked Robert on both cheeks and he laughed with delight.
At last, she thought. At last, they were coming into a family unit in all ways.
The alternative to having no water at all was often having too much. Droughts were usually followed by higher than usual rainfall that could produce floods.
As the rains continued into weeks, then months, Amaris had taken the precaution of having Baluway bring the lambing flock inside for protection. Some of the lambs were put in the shed and others were yarded nearby.
Everything was saturated. The crops could not be put in because the fields stood in water. Clothes in trunks and armoires were mildewed. The sheep had been standing in mud and water for nearly a month.
At first, during the drought, everything had seemed to be colored brown. Now everything was colored gray: the clouds, the sunlight, the river, even the mold.
She tried not to let the weather depress her, but the mud-mired trails made travel difficult. Those visits between Dream Time and Never-Never had to be curtailed.
Then one night she was roused by a shout from Baluway: “The water, it is rising in the sheep yard!”
She grabbed her robe from the end of the bed and rushed downstairs just ahead of Francis, who was struggling to button on a pair of trousers.
“What the bloody hell now!” he muttered beneath his breath.
Rushing out onto the veranda, she found that the house was on an island, the water separating it from the workers’ cottages and other outbuildings. Lanterns in the distance reflected eerily on the water’s surface. She could hear exclamations by those who had been aroused by the rising creek water. From the intervening gulf, Baluway called out, “The sheep, they drown!”
She and Francis were closer to the sheds, but even then a rivulet of untried depth divided the house from the sheep pens and sheds. In the dark, there was no gauge as to just how deep the rivulet was. Who knew how much more the water would rise?
Without even looking for Francis, she waded into the water. The rivulet turned out to be a gully rushing with cold water up past her hips.
“Come back!” Francis shouted between cupped hands.
She ignored him and concentrated on finding footholds in the silt. She could tell she had passed the deepest part because the water was receding from her thighs. On the other side, the lambs bleated their terror. Half a dozen or more had ventured too close to the waters. Their carcasses bobbed against the fence, of which only a meter or so showed above the water's crest.
Once on the other side, she let the lambs out and trod through mud with them to high ground farther up. “Rogue,” she ordered, “stay with them.”
The dog watched her, barked, and wagged his tail, as if assenting.
As she waded back to Francis, she reminded herself that the flood would also benefit the land in resulting feed and full water holes. The creek had risen more than twelve meters, and she could practically row a canoe to the other doorways. Realistically, she estimated that she would probably have five hundred sheep drown.
Francis caught her by the waist and supported her as they returned to the house to wait for daylight. Her robe and nightgown were sopping wet. He helped her strip away her clothing, cold and clammy against her skin. His fingers chafed her flesh. “You’re trembling. Just get out of this and get into bed.”
His hands lingered at her shoulders, then slid to her waist. By the gleam in his eye, she knew he was aroused. “Your nipples are erect,” he murmured.
“From the cold.” She was too exhausted to be excited by the way he massaged the small of her back, then her ribs. She turned from his embrace and took another gown from the chest. “Francis, I am exhausted beyond belief.”
“Of course,” he said and climbed into bed with her, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
The warmth of his body next to hers was welcome. Tomorrow she would worry about how many sheep she had lost. Right now, she wanted only to count the kind of sheep that came with sleep.
Yet as she drifted deeper asleep, something niggled the back of her mind. Her nape prickled. She sprang upright.
“What is it now?” he demanded, struggling to sit up beside her.
“The house—’tis too quiet.”
“What?”
Then she knew. A sixth sense triggered something too horrible to bear thinking about. “Robert! All this commotion should have awakened him!”
Throwing back the covers, she rushed from the bedroom to the one across the hall. Fear’s talons clutched at her heart. Robert’s bed was empty!
Francis took one look, glanced at her, then stricken, he dashed from the room and down the stairs. She followed in his footsteps. He ran out into the dark night, but she paused long enough to grab a lantern and light it. Her chest was pounding painfully hard. She could not breathe.
Ahead of her, Francis began circling the house’s perimeter. “The lantern,” he yelled. “Bring the lantern!”
The horror in his voice communicated to her. Oh God, don’t let it be so. No! She wouldn’t let herself think that far ahead.
When they reached the point at which they had set out, he whirled on her. Frustration and panic contorted his features. “Maybe Robert is in the house somewhere.”
“Of course. Aye, that’s it! I’ll go look.” Lifting her gown, she ran back toward the house. She could hear the workers once again stirring, and the lights of other lanterns glinted across the temporary lake like fireflies.
“Robert!” she called, running through the house. “Robert!”
She searched in the parlor, behind his bedroom door, under his bed, then hers and Francis’s. She called Robert’s name again and again in a frenzied voice. She peered under the couch and searched through armoires. Passing a mirror, she caught sight of her face and only then realized she was crying.
“Missus!” It was Baluway. His breechcloth waterlogged, he appeared i
n the library doorway. “Mr. Marlborough—he’s gone!”
“Baluway!” She grabbed his arm. “We can’t find Robert!” Suddenly she felt hope. The solid little man represented strength. Baluway could track anything. “You must help us!”
“You don’t understand.” There was such a sadness in his face that she knew she didn’t want to hear what he was saying. “Mr. Marlborough . . . he found . . . he found Robert.”
“He did? Is . . .” She saw the almost imperceptible shake of the aborigine’s head.
She pushed past him, but he grabbed at her. “Let me go!” she ordered.
“You must listen to me first, missus. Mr. Marlborough, he went into the water after Robert. He was trying to carry the boy ashore. There was a drop off. The Englishman don’t swim too well. I tried to get there, missus. I was too late.”
“Francis ... too?”
He nodded. Water drops dripped from his woolly hair.
All life drained from her. “’Tis raining again,” she commented.
“The angels, they are crying, missus.”
§ CHAPTER TWENTY §
The Dark Night of the Soul. That was what Sin had called her grieving. Sin and his dark Irish view of life.
“Every soul goes through the experience. It can last a day or years, but eventually light returns. When it does, one has been tested. One is stronger.”
“And those who aren’t?” she challenged, angry. Angry with life and everyone who had someone to love and love them in return.
“They exist, they survive, but they don’t thrive. You see them every day, with the emptiness behind their eyes.”
It had been Sin who, in searching the creek banks along with the others, had found Francis’s bloated and blackened body lodged in the fork of a tree two days after the flood. Robert’s body had been found the following day, entangled in underbrush where the water had receded.
It had been Sin who had taken her in his arms in the privacy of her office and simply held her, not saying anything.
She had been hollow-eyed, cold, rigid. His hand had stroked her back slowly, as if they had all day and there weren’t fifty people waiting outside to hear some kind of an announcement from her. Celeste had kept the people at bay.
Gradually, Amaris’s blood had started flowing, and she had been able to take control once more—at least outwardly.
The tragic aftermath of the flood was a turning point in her life. She tried to focus not on her loss but on what was left for her.
No more did she have to defer to Francis. No more did she spend time rectifying mistakes made out of his hardheaded judgments. No more did she have to maintain her silence. Over that next year, she worked harder than ever. Hard enough to make Dream Time one of the most successful sheep stations in the area despite the hardships plaguing Australia.
If she was making a name for herself as a shrewd and formidable woman of the Never-Never, Nan Livingston had far outdistanced her, going on to become Australia’s wealthiest woman. That was the gist of the occasional gossip that reached the bush from Sydney.
Amaris knew the woman was astute enough to maintain the illusion of Tom as New South Wales Trader’s figurehead. However, a faded seven-month-old copy of the Australian Herald that Amaris had received in one of her stores’ packages indicated not everyone bought that charade. One being the Herald’s owner, Miles Randolph. Randolph, also premier of New South Wales, attacked Nan, rather than her husband, in print for New South Wales Trader's supposedly unpatriotic policies.
Sometimes, mostly in the deep of night, when Amaris couldn’t sleep, when the loneliness threatened to burn a hole through her heart and the ache choke off her breath, she would wonder wildly whether Nan Livingston had indeed sold her soul in exchange for the power to rule Australia and the power to deal death blows to those who stood in her way.
Losing Francis and Robert had been a death blow to Amaris’s soul.
Occasionally, she and Sin and Celeste met for dinner or some celebration or maybe just to discuss business trends. Sin had certainly done well by diversifying his investments and was easily the most respected man in the outback.
Amaris looked forward to these times when the three of them got together. These were the times she could relax with friends—and that was all she let herself consider Sin: a friend.
Finally, she thought, she had made herself immune to the powerful attraction he held over her, had always held over her.
She never let herself think for one moment about the needs of her woman’s body clamoring to be met, the yearnings that tortured her soul.
She never let herself think about Sin’s own intimate needs. If his soul hungered, she never knew. Whether in the presence of others or dangerously alone, she and Sin treated one another with respect for the other’s business acumen and with the deep affection that might exist between brother and sister.
The years seemed to fly by. Then, at the age of thirty-two, Celeste announced that she was with child once more.
There was no doubt as to the veracity of her statement. She had regained all of her beauty, that look of a Durer Madonna and that soft roundness that made any man in the outback look twice with appreciation.
The serpent Jealousy coiled around Amaris’s heart again. Celeste had Sin. Celeste knew the thrill of being fulfilled as a woman. Celeste knew Sin’s passion—all of which Amaris would never know.
As Celeste drew near the last month of her term, Amaris made arrangements to leave the station in Baluway’s capable hands. After packing some clothes, she went to stay at Never-Never. By now there was a score of women living on the station, including Mrs. Delaney, their Scottish housekeeper. Any of them could have acted as midwives and assisted Celeste in birthing her baby, but Celeste wanted only Amaris.
As a precaution, Celeste had taken to bed that last fortnight. The afternoon of Amaris’s arrival, Celeste held her hand. The most beautiful smile Amaris had ever seen gently curved Celeste’s mouth. “We’re all three together again, Amaris. All these years and all the tragedies we’ve suffered, and we’re still together. What a blessing the Lord has given us.”
“You sound like my father now,” Amaris teased tenderly.
“I want you to know that if I have a daughter, she will be named after you.” Celeste’s eyes were full of loving compassion. “If I bear a son, his name will be Robert.”
Amaris swallowed. “You know, Celeste, you are right. I am extremely blessed. I have you and Sin as friends. One can ask no more."
Except for the release of the ache rending her heart whenever Sin was near.
Later that evening, she observed him from Celeste’s bedroom window as he rode into the yard. A true Irishman, he rode magnificently, seeming a part of the horse.
She watched him approach in that arrogant wholly male stride. She tried to remind herself that she was thirty-seven. Too old to be thinking suggestive thoughts.
She heard him climb the steps, his spurs clinking. When he entered the bedroom, his presence filled it. His glance took her in, her lavender-sprigged morning gown in contrast to her usual masculine attire. He removed his bush hat and dropped a kiss on Celeste’s cheek. In a protective gesture, his big fingers grazed her mounded stomach. “’Tis feeling all right you are?”
Celeste’s smile was like dawn’s soft light. “Wonderful. I’ve never felt so wonderful in all my life.”
Detachment. Amaris strove for total detachment. She watched two people she didn’t know. She felt nothing. She was merely an observer.
Sin turned to her. His face was sun-browned and dusty. His expression was as detached as hers. “Thank you for coming, Amaris. Your presence means a lot to us.”
Us. The word was full of significance and substance. Of belonging. Oh, to be cherished like that. To be loved like that.
Reverting to the most mundane subject of which she could think, she asked, “Have you heard about the camel train? The stores should be due to arrive any day now.”
“The bush drum ha
sn’t brought any word,” he said, just as matter-of-factly. “Has Baluway heard anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“I hope the supplier provides something close to the baby crib I described,” Celeste said. “Last time I ordered crockery, white dinner plates with blue edging, we received plates painted with pink roses.” The talk turned quite naturally to the stations with Sin recommending that she consider establishing a string of stations in areas of high rainfall as guard against a drought like the last tragic one years before. “The rainfall has been even for so long that we’re due for a change.”
At last, shadows deepened, and Sin lit a lamp. Mrs. Delaney brought up dinner for the three of them. “Why, Mrs. Delaney,” Sin teased, “you’ve outdone yeself. A cobbler, no less.”
Her apple-dumpling cheeks were flushed with pleasure. “For a special occasion.” She liked Amaris’s no-nonsense approach to work, the same as hers.
The casual, relaxing conversation continued through dinner and the brandy afterward. Watching and listening to Sin, Amaris wondered how long she could remain at Never-Never in such close proximity to him.
Of course, the nights would be the worst. Knowing he was so close. Only a room away ... but holding Celeste.
“It’s here, it’s here!” The aborigines came running from the creek. Everyone stopped work. The rail-thin bespectacled old governess dismissed the station schoolroom. The house staff hurried out to watch with the station workers as the supply train approached.
Slowly, silently, the great packing cases creaking as they swayed, the long string of camels came padding into the station compound. They looked haughty and slightly disdainful. Their great packs, weighing slightly more than five hundred pounds, were unlashed.
At once, all the hands began opening cases and carrying goods to storerooms. Even such things as foodstuffs were a thrill when they came only twice a year. Amaris helped Sin inventory the arriving cases: three tons of flour, twenty bags of sugar, fifteen saddles, and, among the other packing cases—a baby crib.
Dream Time (historical): Book I Page 25