Lang Downs

by Ariel Tachna

  “Okay,” Sam agreed.

  Jeremy got a good grip on Arrow’s collar and ordered him to sit. Arrow plopped his butt down and looked up at Jeremy adoringly. Sam couldn’t help but smile at the expression. He knelt down so Arrow could see the kitten in his arms. She flattened her ears back and hissed, but Arrow ignored the warning, nosing her gently, but not, Sam noticed, near her sore ribs. She hissed a second time, although with less enthusiasm. Arrow responded by licking her face. She shook her head a couple of times, trying to dislodge the slobber that soaked her fur, but when she settled in his arms again, she was purring.

  “I think he likes her,” Jeremy said.

  “I think it’s mutual,” Sam said when Arrow nudged her again and she tilted her head into the contact.

  “Let’s go see what Kami has for her,” Jeremy suggested.

  The kitten squirmed when Sam stood up, and Arrow yipped unhappily, so Sam set her down, poised to catch her if she stumbled or seemed in pain, but she wrapped around his ankles and then padded over to Arrow. He stood up as she walked between his front legs. She twined around his legs for a moment, with Arrow standing patiently.

  “Or we could leave them together and go talk to Kami without them,” Jeremy said with a smile.

  “Maybe if Arrow comes with us, she’ll follow,” Sam said. “I’m not sure we should leave her alone yet.”

  “We can try,” Jeremy said. “Heel, Arrow.”

  Arrow moved obediently to Jeremy’s side, careful not to step on the kitten. She took a second to catch up, but before long, she was right between Arrow’s legs again.

  “At her pace, we’ll never make it to the canteen,” Jeremy said, scooping her up and setting her on Arrow’s back. “Let’s try this instead.”

  The kitten didn’t seem to know what to make of that, turning around a couple of times to get her balance. Arrow stood perfectly still, patiently waiting for her to settle. She finally sat down on his back. As soon as she did, Arrow looked up at Jeremy as if to tell him they could go now.

  “She’s not going to be my cat. She’s going to be his cat,” Sam said.

  “I’m sure he’ll share,” Jeremy replied with a grin.

  They made it to the canteen with no problems. The kitten seemed perfectly content to sit on Arrow’s back, and it didn’t seem to bother Arrow to have her there. Sam figured Jeremy knew his dog well enough to know if it was a problem and to say something about it.

  They left Arrow to cat-sit on the porch of the canteen and went in to find Kami.

  “What did I tell you boys about disturbing me while I’m fixing dinner?” Kami snapped.

  “We were hoping you’d have some scraps we could have,” Sam said. “I found a kitten in the shed, and she’s hurt and hungry. I’ll get some cat food for her the next time someone goes to town, but I’ve got to take care of her until then. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Just whatever you have left over.”

  Kami pursed his lips sourly, but Sam had already learned that was the cook’s default expression, so he waited silently while Kami bustled around the kitchen. He came back with a thermos and a big bowl. “Keep that cold until you’re ready to give it to her. You don’t want the milk or the meat to spoil.”

  “Thank you,” Sam said. “We’ll get out of your way so you can finish dinner.”

  “If it’s late, I’m telling everyone it’s your fault for disturbing me.”

  “If it’s late, we’ll take the blame,” Jeremy said.

  They walked back outside with their goodies. Arrow had lain down on the porch, and the kitten was walking all over him. “She doesn’t seem as sore as she was earlier,” Jeremy said.

  Sam picked her up, ignoring her yowl of protest. “Arrow can’t stand up to carry you if you’re on top of him,” he told her. “Be patient a minute, and I’ll let you go.”

  Arrow stood up immediately and woofed in Sam’s direction. Sam returned the kitten to her perch on Arrow’s back, and the strange little procession made its way back to the bunkhouse. Sam found a bowl and poured some of the milk into it. The kitten jumped off Arrow’s back to investigate, eventually settling down to lap at the milk with a little pink tongue.

  Sam cut the chicken innards into tiny pieces and put them on a plate next to the bowl. The kitten sniffed at them hesitantly. “It’s okay, Little Bit,” Sam said. “They’re for you to eat. I know you’re hungry.”

  She mewled at him and took a tentative taste. Sam couldn’t imagine it tasting good, but she seemed to think it did, falling on the meal like she was starving. Then again, given her size, she probably was.

  Jeremy came back with a cardboard box lined with newspaper. “Until we can set up a proper litter box for her, we should probably keep her in this while we’re gone. We don’t want to come back to messes all over the bunkhouse.”

  “You think she’ll stay in that?” Sam asked.

  “Not for very long,” Jeremy said, “but we ought to get a couple of days out of it before she’s healed enough and strong enough to jump out of it, and by then, we can figure out something better.”

  Sam wasn’t convinced, but he figured it was worth a try, so when she had scarfed down all her food, he set her in the box. Immediately she started crying. Arrow whined in sympathy, sticking his head into the box and nudging her like he could figure out what was wrong. That seemed to calm her. Sam patted him on the head. “Keep an eye on our girl, okay, Arrow? We’re going to eat dinner, and then we’ll come back and let her out so you can play.”

  “I wonder if Jason found her litter mates,” Jeremy said as they walked back to the canteen for dinner. The bell hadn’t rung yet, but they weren’t the only ones going in that direction.

  “We can ask him at dinner,” Sam said. “I hope they’re okay and that she just got separated from them somehow.”

  “I hope so too,” Jeremy said. “It’s not like a mama cat to lose track of one of her kittens, though.”

  The expression on Jason’s face when they entered the canteen and caught sight of him sitting in the corner didn’t bode well for their fate, though.

  “I found her den,” Jason said when he saw them. “I don’t know what predator found them, but the mum was pretty torn up, and there was no sign of any other kittens. I don’t even know how many she had. We searched the shed and couldn’t find any more, so I’m afraid whatever it was carried them all off.”

  “That’s pretty brazen, isn’t it? Coming into an inhabited area that way?” Sam asked. “I mean, I don’t know a lot about wild animals, but that seems odd.”

  “Depends on what it was,” Jason replied. “We’ve had owls nesting in the sheds before, and we found a wombat in one of the drover’s huts in the spring. It’s not common, exactly, but it’s not unheard of either. If it was a bird of some kind, a falcon or a hawk or something, it could have been in and out when no one was around. Feral dogs don’t usually make it this far down into the valley, but it’s possible they did this time. Now that the breeding is done, we’re not in there all that much.”

  “Is the mum going to make it?” Jeremy asked.

  “It’s too soon to know,” Jason said. “I bandaged her up as best I could.” He held up a hand covered in scratches. “Caine said he’d call the vet, but he can’t get here until tomorrow. He’s on an emergency call and can’t come until that’s sorted. I keep telling Caine we need to hire a vet of our own, but he says we don’t have enough need to justify having one here all the time.”

  “You know he’s right,” Jeremy said gently. “There are times when a second vet in the area would be beneficial, but a lot of the time there isn’t even enough work for Dr. Walker. He complains about it being feast or famine all the time.”

  “When I grow up, I’m going to be a vet, and I’m going to come back and work here,” Jason said stubbornly. “Caine can hire me as a jackaroo and then pay me instead of another vet when he needs me.”

  “If you put all that work into getting your degree, you won’t be satisfied just w
orking as a jackaroo 90 percent of the time,” Jeremy said. “It’s a great plan, but don’t lock yourself into it until after you get your degree and have a chance to think about it.”

  Jason’s expression turned mulish, so Sam changed the topic to what they’d done for the kitten so far and how they intended to take care of her. Jason approved their choices, which shouldn’t have made Sam feel as good as he did. Jason was a teenager, for heaven’s sake, not a vet. Not yet.

  When they finished dinner, Sam and Jeremy headed back to the bunkhouse. They opened the door and found Arrow sitting in front of the fireplace with the kitten curled up between his front paws, sound asleep. The box they had left her in was overturned on the other side of the room.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Sam said with a sigh. “I guess we’ll have to think of something else.” He bent to pick up the kitten, only to be discouraged by Arrow’s deep growl. “Okay, maybe I’ll just leave her there for now.”

  “Arrow,” Jeremy scolded, “leave Sam alone. He’s not going to hurt Little Bit.”

  “Oh, is that her name now?” Sam joked.

  “It is until you come up with a better one,” Jeremy said. “I can’t just call her ‘the kitten’.”

  “Arrow, come,” Jeremy said. Arrow looked down at the kitten and back up at Jeremy, obviously torn between his desire to protect his charge and his obedience to his owner.

  “Don’t make him get up,” Sam said. “They’re not hurting anything, and it’s cute how protective he is of her.”

  “She’s going to be a pain in the arse,” Jeremy muttered. “Completely spoiled already. I bet she whined until Arrow couldn’t stand it and knocked the box over to get her out. She’s not big enough to knock it over herself.”

  “Maybe he’ll keep whatever made off with her siblings from grabbing her too,” Sam said. “You want a beer or anything?”

  “Sure,” Jeremy said.

  Sam smiled and went into the bunkhouse kitchen. Except for the kitten sleeping next to Arrow by the hearth, it was just like every night in the week since he’d moved into the bunkhouse, and Sam thought he could get used to this routine.

  Thirteen

  CAINE STARED at the Google search in front of him. Sarah Armstrong was a much more common name than he’d anticipated. When he added Tumut into the search, nothing came up at all. He’d just have to check each name individually and see if he could narrow it down. Reminding himself that he had time, that he didn’t need to be anywhere other than where he was on that cold, dreary May morning, he sighed and started clicking on links, eliminating anyone under sixty-five. He didn’t know how old Macklin’s mother was when Macklin was born, but he figured sixty-five was a good cutoff. It put her in her early twenties when Macklin was born.

  Two hours later, he had it narrowed down to seven possibilities based on age and not having anything else to eliminate the person as a choice. He’d left off one lady who was about the right age because she was a judge. Macklin hadn’t even mentioned his mother working, and if she’d been a judge or even a lawyer at the time, surely she would have used her knowledge and connections to get away from Macklin’s father. He’d eliminated another because she was aborigine, and the picture Macklin had of her showed she was clearly white. Mostly, though, with the women that age, there wasn’t a lot of information. Name, city of residence, and little else. If he’d had her birth date, even without the year, he might have been able to narrow it down a little more, but he couldn’t ask Macklin without revealing what he was doing, and he didn’t want to say anything to Macklin until he knew more.

  It took another two hours to chase down phone numbers for the seven women on his list, and by that point, he had to put it away for lunch. He hid the paper beneath a stack of old ledgers. If Sam found them, it wouldn’t matter. Sam knew what Caine was doing. Macklin wouldn’t touch the ledgers because he didn’t want to mess up the system Sam and Caine had established since Sam started working in the office. Caine stood and stretched his back. Hiring Sam had been a stroke of genius. Now they just had to figure out how to keep him.

  SAM WAS in the office when Caine returned after lunch, so Caine took a few minutes to discuss his progress and answer the questions that had come up as Sam worked on negotiating a new insurance policy to replace the one Uncle Michael had set up thirty years ago or more. When that was done, Caine took his list of names and went upstairs to his and Macklin’s bedroom. The phone calls would be hard enough to make without someone listening in.

  He looked at the list of names and his notes one more time and picked the woman he thought had the best chance of being Macklin’s mother.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Sarah Armstrong?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “My name is Caine Neiheisel. I run a sheep station in New South Wales. I’m trying to find the mother of my foreman, Macklin Armstrong.”

  “I’m sorry, son, but you’ve got the wrong Sarah Armstrong. My husband and I never had children.”

  “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” Caine said before ending the call.

  The second call went almost exactly as the first, only that Sarah Armstrong had never married.

  After striking out on the next call too, Caine wondered if he’d lost his mind, trying to do this without more information. He hid the list in his drawer under his clean socks and went outside to find Macklin. He’d already wasted enough of the day on a wild goose chase. He could call the rest another time.

  “HEY, SAM,” Jeremy said, sticking his head into the office. “I need to take Arrow out in the paddocks for a bit. Macklin wants to move one mob a little closer to the valley.”

  “Okay,” Sam said, not sure why Jeremy was telling him this. Not that he minded knowing where Jeremy was, but it seemed odd that Jeremy would detour to find him.

  “I need you to come get Little Bit,” Jeremy said. “They both pitch a fit when I separate them. It helps if Little Bit is with you.”

  “I’ve got to come up with a better name for her,” Sam said with a shake of his head, but he rose from the desk and followed Jeremy outside. Sure enough, the kitten was perched on Arrow’s back, looking for all the world like she intended to go to work with Arrow and Jeremy.

  He plucked her off Arrow’s back, only to be met with a yowl of protest from her and a head-butt from Arrow. “Hey, you two,” Sam said. “It’s just for a few hours. Arrow, you can’t watch her and do your work, and you, missy, are too small to go play with the big smelly sheep. They’d trample you without realizing it. You can sit in the office and play with my pens while I work.”

  “Thanks,” Jeremy said. He called Arrow to him. Arrow went reluctantly, making Sam smile as he watched them head down the road toward the horses’ paddock.

  “Now that’s a lovely sight, isn’t it?” Caine said from behind him.

  Sam felt himself blush all the way to the roots of his hair. “What do you mean?”

  “A man and his dog,” Caine said. “There’s something special about that bond.”

  “I think Arrow is more interested in my kitten than in Jeremy these days,” Sam said.

  “What about you?” Caine asked. “What are you interested in these days?”

  “Insurance premiums,” Sam said with a grimace.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Caine said. “As lovely a sight as man and dog are in the abstract, the look on your face wasn’t very abstract.”

  “I can’t even file for divorce for another six weeks,” Sam said. “I’m not in any position to be interested in anyone at the moment.”

  “The heart doesn’t work on any timeline,” Caine said. “Don’t let a good thing slip through your fingers because it’s not the right time.”

  “It’s not a question of the right time,” Sam said. “I don’t want to give Alison any ammunition.”

  “I thought you said you’d already agreed on the terms,” Caine said.

  “We did,” Sam replied, “but that was before I had a job. If I don
’t give her any reason to want revenge, she probably won’t try to make me pay her back for the money she spent on an apartment for me before I came up here. If I give her a reason, though, she could insist on a settlement of a different kind, and she’d probably win. She didn’t have to support me for nine months before I got fed up with her and asked Neil for help, and if I’ve done something unsympathetic like had an affair with a man during our separation period, no judge is going to side with me.”

  “Jeremy’s quite a catch,” Caine said. “Worth waiting for. Just make sure he understands what’s waiting for him too.”

  “We’ve talked about it,” Sam said. “He said he understood.”

  “Then I won’t say anything else about it,” Caine said, “but if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m happy to listen.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. The kitten squirmed in his arms. “I’d better take her inside and get back to work.”

  Sam carried the kitten back into the office and closed the door so she couldn’t go wandering through Caine and Macklin’s house. She batted at the door with great dissatisfaction, but when it didn’t open and no one came to help her, she gave a little huff and came back to Sam’s feet. He bent down to scratch her ears, and she wrapped her little paws around his wrist so that when he straightened, she went with him. She jumped into his lap, circled around a couple of times, and plopped down across his thighs to begin grooming herself.

  “Comfortable?” he asked with a smile.

  She purred up at him and butted his hand.

  “How am I supposed to work if you want to be patted?”

  The look she gave him was supremely unconcerned. Sam just smiled and rested one hand on her tiny little back while he went back to entering data into the accounts with the other hand. If he was a little slower than he might have been with two hands, there was no one else in the room to notice, and the comfort of the kitten’s purrs was more than worth the delay.