Shadows Over Taralon

by Jacquelyn Webb

  “All the last lot of two-year-olds back,” he gloated. “Not only have we got them all, but the racket in the stolen stock is broken.” He looked severely at Jenny. “You are the limit, Jenny Wren. I thought I was keeping you out of the way.”

  “You knew about the Bickertons all the time,” she accused indignantly.

  “Only suspicion,” he was quick to disclaim. “Wayne remembered about the secret paddock. It seems the Bickertons blasted a gap through to drive the trucks in. It made a perfect hiding place.”

  He glanced around. The paddock was emptying. Men were herding the cattle towards the narrow end of the paddock.

  “It’s a fair walk, Jenny,” he apologized. “We couldn’t bring any vehicles too close. Are you right to walk out?”

  “Of course,” Jenny said, taking in deep breaths of the heady air of relief and freedom.

  “You can head home with Ben and some of the station hands,” Bill Williams continued. “We have to take this last lot to the local lock-up.”

  “I’ll see her home,” Wayne offered.

  Bill Williams looked at the way Wayne had Jenny so securely tucked under his arm. Jenny flushed at his grin and the way he winked at Wayne before turning on his heel. Wayne grinned back, and with Jenny still closely against him, they walked towards the high-barred gate.

  The parked truck was empty of cattle and the Bickertons and three other men were huddled into the back, together with grim-faced neighbors as guards. The tailgate was put up and the truck rumbled off into the darkness.

  Wayne and Jenny joined the slow procession of neighbors and cattle through the widened fissure of the gorge. Jenny recognized the cheerful faces of the Sullivan boys and Terry.

  Ben saw them and gave a grin. He also looked amused at the tight grasp Wayne had around Jenny.

  “Police are in for a busy night.”

  “Do them good to do a bit of work for a change,” Wayne said cheerfully.

  The fissure wound and twisted through the darkness. After a while it narrowed and turned. Jenny peered through the darkness at the raw freshly blasted walls. At last they pushed through a dense screen of willows. They were at the creek and on the side where the screen of willows followed the creek around. Just under the apparently unbroken wall of plateau a portable bridge led across the creek.

  “Oh!” Jenny gasped in comprehension.

  “Exactly,” agreed Wayne. “Straight up the creek and into the gorge. Vanished without a trace.”

  They kept walking across the paddock. When they reached the main road Jenny saw a convoy of cars, trucks and bikes parked there. More cattle were being disgorged from the hemmed-in trucks and neighbors moved around sorting out stock.

  “The car’s over here,” Wayne said.

  He opened the door. Jenny sat down in the grey Mercedes with a sigh of relief. She felt as if the day had gone on forever, so much had happened.

  “Did Buttercup get back?” she asked.

  “No problems,” Wayne replied.

  He drove back to Taralon in silence. Soon they reached the house where the lights glowed their welcome through the darkness. Wayne slowed the car to a stop by the veranda steps.

  “Thank you for driving me back,” Jenny said primly.

  Wayne turned off the car lights, his face a blur in the darkness. He still hadn’t said anything. He leaned closer and brushed her hair back from her face. His fingers traced down the side of her face to gently touch the pulse of her neck. She felt it give a treacherous leap, as he lowered his mouth on hers and kissed her gently.

  Jenny raised her hand to push him away, but somehow almost of its own volition her hand curled around the back of his neck to pull him closer. The kiss went on and on. Jenny tried to remember the reason she had been so upset with Wayne that morning, but the warm mouth on hers evaporated her resentment and any memory of anything apart from the completeness of being kissed. She felt her mouth softening and opening under the insistent demands of that kiss. A dreamy lassitude spread over her. Wayne was the first to pull away.

  “Being nearly burned alive seems to have thawed you out very nicely, Jenny Wren,” he murmured.

  “Oh,” she gasped.

  Cold sanity returned with a rush. She removed her hand from the back of his neck as if it had been stung. She had actually encouraged him to prolong that kiss! She stared at him through the darkness, aware of the startled thudding of her pulse. The wave of heat rose to burn her cheeks.

  “It was a pleasure,” he drawled, as he released her.

  She made her escape from the car. A small figure sitting on the veranda rail eyed Jenny with disapproval.

  “Where have you been, Jenny? Daddy went out searching for you ages ago. Nobody seems to be going to bed tonight.”

  “See you in the morning,” Wayne promised as he drove off.

  “Where’s he going now?” Merry pouted. “Why is your face so red?”

  “It’s past your bedtime,” Jenny said at last, instinctively putting a hand to her burning face.

  It had been along and exciting day, and too much had happened. She couldn’t cope with Merry’s questions as well.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was something different about Taralon, Jenny decided a few weeks later. She stood on the veranda after breakfast one morning and looked around. The house, stables and outbuildings all looked the same, but there was a difference.

  Suddenly, she realized what it was. Every single person on the property was smiling. Mrs. Harris hummed to herself as she slammed the dishes around the sink. The boys ran off to their school bus without a single bickering dispute. Bill Williams, who came in late from wherever he had been, had a cheerful smile all over his tired unshaven face.

  Ben went past, leading Pretty Boy, and winked broadly as he saw Jenny. She smiled back. It was so easy to smile these days. The suspicion of complicity in the rustling of the stock and the doping of the horse had been removed.

  By now, every one of the far-flung neighbors knew about Jenny’s efforts to alert the countryside by starting the grass fire, and the Bickerton’s doping of Pretty Boy and their involvement in the largest cattle rustling combine in the state. Jenny grinned as she thought about the mysterious grapevine of the country district. Even Mrs. Harris was full of the details of the Bickerton’s brief period of freedom from the overnight country cell, and the passports and airplane tickets found on them.

  “I heard they got one of those expensive city barristers to defend them,” she said with a sniff. “I bet they managed to wriggle out of all the charges lighter than anyone else. Those Bickertons always get things easier than anyone else.”

  Taralon had settled down again, but Jenny felt curiously unsettled. Bill Williams was brisk and efficient as he took over the running of the property and gradually the tired haggard look faded from his face. Wayne Paterson hadn’t dropped in at all. Mrs. Harris mentioned vaguely she had heard he was trying to finish the renovations on the cottage, and she supposed that he had a lot to catch up after being away so much. The weeks slid past and still no one had seen him.

  Jenny wondered why Wayne hadn’t dropped in. For some reason his absence gave her a desolate feeling. Mrs. Harris didn’t say much about him these days. Jenny got the idea that everyone seemed to be watching her out of the corners of their eyes. She sighed again.

  “Breaking up at the end of the week and no more English lessons,” Allan gloated as the two boys and Jenny sat at the kitchen table with their homework.

  “You still have to finish this batch,” Jenny ordered. “Think about verbs as doing words.”

  “Doing, done, I hate it,” Allan grumbled as he underlined the required words.

  Jenny watched him. She definitely was a country person, she decided. Her job finished with the start of the school holidays and she was going to miss this peaceful place and the quiet friendliness of everyone.

  “You want to get yourself to bed early, Jenny Wren,” Mrs. Harris ordered. “You sound tired to me. This hea
t is a lot to cope with if you’re not used to it.”

  “I’m thriving on the heat,” Jenny protested.

  “Suppose you are looking forward to getting back home?” Mrs. Harris probed.

  “Yes,” Jenny agreed flatly.

  Somehow she couldn’t raise any anticipation about her homecoming. Her mother would be pleased to see her, but then her life would settle into a future that suddenly seemed bleak and boring. Jenny sighed. Perhaps she was tired. She would have an early night.

  Once in bed, though, the depression settled more heavily. She tossed and turned as she tried to get comfortable. The least Wayne Paterson could have done, she thought crossly, was to have the decency to drop in to apologize for his actions. She punched her pillow into subjection, and wished it was Wayne’s head.

  He had taken advantage of her and kissed her when she was still too shaken to fight him off. Except she didn’t want to fight him off, the logical, unsympathetic corner of her mind pointed out. The slow tears started to trickle down her cheeks. She definitely was very overtired, she told herself, and squeezed her eyes shut tightly and concentrated on counting black poddy calves jumping over ledgers until she fell asleep.

  One Friday night at dinner she told the assembled Williams family she would be packed ready to leave in the morning. Bill Williams looked upset and Merry and the boys set up a horrified clamor.

  “Ease up, you kids,” their father yelled. “’Jenny Wren will come back and visit when she’s got the time.” He looked a question. “What about after Christmas while the kids are still on holidays?”

  “I might have another job straight away,” Jenny said. “But I will certainly accept the invitation and see you all again sometime.”

  “Have to get Wayne to come over and drive you back,” Mrs. Harris said thoughtfully. She looked at Bill Williams. “You and the boys had organized to repair and paint the roof this weekend.”

  “If someone drops me across at the station, I will get a train down,” Jenny said hastily. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to spend those long hours alone with Wayne on the drive down.

  “Rubbish!” her employer declared. “Wayne brought you up, he can deliver you back. I'll give him a ring later.”

  After breakfast the next morning, Jenny sat on the front veranda drinking tea with Bill Williams and Mrs. Harris. Her hair was pinned up in a neat chignon and she wore her slack suit. Merry clutched at her tightly, her mouth screwed up into a sulky pout.

  She was going to miss all of them, Jenny thought to herself as she watched the boys playing cricket in the cleared space below the veranda. She looked down at the sulky Merry, and smoothed a hand over her face. Most of all she was going to miss Merry.

  “Here’s Uncle Wayne,” Merry said, her face brightening.

  Wayne fought off the boys’ welcome as he got out of the car, and tossed the shrieking Merry high into the air. This morning he looked well-groomed and assured as he put Merry down, and came up the steps.

  “Ready are you, Wayne?” Mrs. Harris asked enigmatically.

  “Quite ready,” he said with a grin. He nodded a greeting at Jenny and picked up her cases. “The question is whether Jenny Wren is ready?”

  “I have been waiting for the past half hour,” Jenny said coolly.

  “Come back soon, Jenny Wren,” Bill Williams said. He stood up, shook her hand and kissed her cheek.

  “Make that very soon, Jenny,” Mrs. Harris smiled as she also kissed her.

  “Give us a kiss goodbye,” Jenny coaxed Merry.

  “Come back straight away,” Merry demanded as she flung her arms around her neck and clung tightly. “In fact, don’t bother to go.”

  This raised a laugh from the assembled watchers and then Jenny waved goodbye to them all as the grey car drove up the winding track, and out the entrance of Taralon.

  “We haven’t seen you for a while,” Jenny said, trying to break what seemed to be an awkward silence.

  “Just pottering around,” he drawled. “Did you go back and see just where the entrance into the paddock turned out to be in daylight?”

  “By the creek,” Jenny remembered grimly.

  “Where it curves around to join the river up from Panniken Bend.”

  “Yes,” Jenny said.

  At the time of the mysterious attack on her down the river, she had been standing across the river almost opposite to the concealed entrance. Someone must have got very nervous at her standing on the riverbank gazing across at the heavy screen of trees opposite.

  If it hadn’t been for Wayne, the attacker would have succeeded in silencing her, despite the fact that she didn’t know anything. She gave a nervous giggle. Wayne’s brows came down in a black bar and he reached over to imprison her hand.

  “Tony said he didn’t intend everything to get so out of hand, but the Combine had them in pretty deep and they were in real trouble if they didn’t play along.”

  “Was that his idea of an apology for abduction, imprisonment, and attempted murder?” Jenny snapped.

  Wayne’s brows flung up into surprised arches. Jenny noticed that when he smiled he had a dimple in the very center of his chin. She fixed her eyes on it. It was odd that she hadn’t noticed it earlier, but maybe he had never smiled so broadly before. She tried to pull her hand away, but he had it securely held. She wondered if he felt the clamminess of her palm and the treacherous quickening of her pulse.

  “It sounded like quite an adequate apology to me,” he drawled.

  “So attempted murder and abduction are the only reasonable reasons for giving an apology around here?” Jenny demanded.

  Wayne appeared in a very good mood, but for some reason Jenny was nervous. It occurred to her that he hadn’t apologized for any of his actions. She sneaked a look at him from under her lashes. Perhaps he didn’t consider he had done anything wrong?

  “You’re a deadly female, Jenny Wren,” Wayne said. He let go her and concentrated on his driving.

  The car crossed the main highway and turned off it and into a winding dirty track.

  “This is not the way home,” Jenny said.

  “Just a little detour,” Wayne drawled.

  He turned the car into a winding avenue lined with trees and drove along until they opened out into a protective semi-circle about a house. Jenny gasped with pleasure.

  The house slept in the sun like a perfect gem. It had been lovingly restored in the colonial period, with sheltering verandas all around supported by graceful pillars and edged with iron lace. It had French windows opening off onto the verandas, and a heavily carved front door, surrounded by stained glass, with a rose motif picked up in the top of all the French windows and the line of upstairs windows.

  “Paterley,” Wayne said. There seemed a hint of awkwardness in his voice. “It’s only a small place.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Jenny said, realizing how inadequate the comment was as she admired the house.

  “Want to have a look?”

  “Of course.”

  Jenny followed him through the front door and into the echoing empty house. The floorboards had been stripped and glowed almost golden.

  “Kitchen and bathrooms are thoroughly modernized,” Wayne explained. “I don’t know how my grandparents coped with all the inconveniences of that era.”

  “You were raised here?” Jenny asked.

  She paused to look in one of the back bedrooms. It was empty except for an Edwardian rocking horse, shining with new varnish and paintwork.

  “No,” Wayne said. He leaned against the door and studied the rocking horse. “My father commuted to the farm. My mother was a city lady, so Gwenda and I were raised in Adelaide.”

  “So I suppose you would like to know that your children would be raised on the property?” Jenny said.

  “A nice thought,” Wayne agreed.

  There was a silence. Jenny started to feel nervous. Why had he brought her to see the house? Wayne straightened and looked at Jenny. There was a wry smile on his mout
h.

  “You can stop waiting for an apology, Jenny Wren. I’m not sorry I kissed you. I just got carried away. I was so scared when I realized it was you inside that burning shed.”

  “You couldn’t have been as scared as I was,” Jenny said with a shiver.

  Wayne pulled her into his arms and tilted her face up. “Have you ever thought of developing a nice streak of forgiveness?”

  “Maybe I would have to if I had too much to do with you,” Jenny admitted. “What about your friendship with Marise?”

  She thought again of how secure and natural it felt to be tucked up against him. Almost as if she belonged with him. He wasn’t really a bossy and arrogant person, he was just very responsible, she decided. She tilted her head back willing the feel of his mouth on hers, but he was murmuring an explanation.

  “The rustling started six months ago. We thought the animals were just straying, but soon realized they were being stolen, and selectively, by someone who knew which were the most valuable animals. Gwenda suspected our free-spending friends were the key to it all. She wanted to discover who their outside connection was. She appointed herself as Marise’s constant companion and, when she died, I took over.” He smoothed Jenny’s hair away from her face. “She wasn’t my type anyway.”

  “Who is your type?” Jenny asked.

  “You’re very slow today, Jenny Wren,” he murmured. “Do I have to put you back into a burning hut before I get any cooperation?”

  “Cooperation for what?” Jenny stammered, even as her hands crept around his neck, and she willingly cooperated in that lingering kiss that went on and on.

  “Don’t give me a hard time, Jenny Wren,” Wayne ordered, lifting his head at last. “If you don’t agree to marry me, and very smartly, the Taralon mob will have my hide and what about my reputation? Stop fighting me and leading me on simultaneously, at least until after we’re married. You’ve got me all confused.”

  “That will do for starters,” Jenny said in her most docile tone.