‘You really mean to join your sister?’
‘I can’t wait.’ Joanna met the girl’s eyes and saw them sparkling. So one more member of the Corraine clan would be glad to see her go! She gripped the rein and Brindle broke into a gallop. Before she knew what was happening he was heading for the hills that swept down to the cattle run, and because she was still a stranger to him he wouldn’t obey when she tugged on the reins. He had got his head and a sniff of the pasturage, and his hoofs pounded the ground as he carried her downhill at such a pace that her slouch hat blew off her head and she could see the rusty shapes of cattle looming ever nearer.
‘Brindle ... whoa!’
The pony took not a bit of heed, and suddenly the pair of them were on the range of the cattle and one of the stockmen was riding full tilt at a bull and it was swerving towards Joanna. A great lumbering creature with fire in its eye, coming straight for Joanna and the pony, and the next moment halted in its tracks as the stockman leapt from his horse and grabbed the bull by the tail.
Joanna saw this as Brindle galloped on, and then she felt the pony stumble and the next moment she was flying out of the saddle, the breath knocked out of her as she landed in a spinifex bush.
‘Ouch!’ She scrambled to her feet and felt stung, bumped and breathless. She rubbed her behind and then looked up slowly as a shadow loomed over her. She half expected to see the scrub bull, and it was almost as disconcerting to find the Boss looking at her.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘ENJOY your ride?’ He sat his horse against the sun and looked down at her from the saddle of the chestnut.
‘Exhilarating.’ She felt herself blushing and bent her head as she brushed at her trousers. Brindle stood a little way off, cropping the grass and flicking his tail with careless indifference. She bit her lip ... it was extra maddening that Adam should be out stockriding and a witness to her tumble.
‘How come you’re down this far getting tossed into a spinifex bush?’ he asked laconically. ‘And where’s Bonney?’
Of course, he would be more concerned for that young lady! Joanna looked him in the eye and forgot the flush in her cheeks. ‘Bonney was taking me to see the rain-forest when the pony broke loose and brought me down here on the range. Like everyone else at Raintree he takes me for a lemon, but I’ll learn, Mr. Corraine.’
His eyes flicked her soft tousled hair. It had come loose from its chignon and the sun was stroking its fairness. Her fall had half pulled the shirt out of the waistband of her slacks, and there was a smudge of dirt across her forehead where she had pushed her hair out of her eyes.
The smile at the edge of his mouth told her what an urchin she looked. ‘You’re green all right,’ he drawled, ‘but gritty with it.’
Even as she felt a stab of confused pleasure at what, for him, was a compliment, a stockman rode up and Joanna recognized him as the one who had thrown the bull. He stared at Joanna, then spoke to the Boss. ‘I cut that clear-skin out of the herd, Boss. Missy here nearly got in his way.’ It was a laconic understatement that carried all the weight of what might have happened to her if he had been less prompt in dealing with the bull. His hat was pushed to the back of his forehead and his face was shiny from the heat of his exertions. He was a young man, and had rather nice eyes set round with the sunray of lines that somehow increased the attraction of these men who lived most of their lives in the open.
‘Thank you for what you did,’ Joanna said gratefully.
‘My pleasure, miss.’ He grinned shyly. ‘You got to be firm with man and beast in this part of the world, and I guess that pony fooled you into thinking him docile because he’s so neat and pretty.’
‘He must have helped to win many a chukka,’ she smiled, aware of Adam up there on the raking chestnut he handled so firmly with his lean, sun-bitten hands.
‘You know about polo?’ The young stockman looked impressed.
‘I saw a game played at Windsor Park once.’
‘You mean Prince Philip was playing?’
‘Yes, it was marvellous.’
‘Can you beat that?’ The stockman’s eyes were bright against his sun-tanned face. ‘Wait till I tell Nita—’
‘Right now, Boye,’ Adam drawled, ‘we’ll join the others for smoko. I expect you could go a cup of tea, Miss Dowling, after your little adventure?’
‘Yes,’ her response was heartfelt, for a cup of tea seemed always to lighten a burden and it felt like one, to be always in scrapes like a schoolgirl instead of a reliable home-help.
Adam swung from his saddle and hooked the reins over a nearby branch so Blaze could crop the grass in company with her pony, who looked so innocent, the devil, with his silky mane and tail, and his head cocked in her direction as if very pleased with himself for getting his own way. Jackeroo! He tossed his mane and nuzzled the wheat-warm grass again.
Joanna walked with Adam and Boye, to where a fire had been made to boil the large billy-can, into which a couple of handfuls of tea would be tossed, to brew smoky and brown over the flames. Boye squatted, a leg stretched out as he rolled a cigarette. Adam leaned against a tree, a hand in the narrow belt of his trousers, his boots crossed at the ankles and mellowed to a goldy shade. He seemed to blend in with his background, strong and alert, the lightning play of his glance on his men, his cattle, his sun-golden lands that stretched to the mountains.
The air was so good, primitive somehow with its nutty tang of animals and woodsmoke. Joanna breathed it in, and her bruises and scratches, her hair in fair disorder, made her feel sixteen again. It was just after her sixteenth birthday that she discarded youthful pranks for the cares of an early womanhood. Viviana had run away from the farm and left her to be Gran’s solace and companion, at work, and in the evenings when other girls were invited out to the cinema or a local dance. She hadn’t minded too much. A girl doesn’t question duty when it’s done out of affection, and Joanna had always been fond of her grandmother, even in her stern moods.
Life with Gran on the smallholding, and the scent of summer roses, seemed part of another time. This was the reality, a mug of campfire tea enjoyed in the company of sun-weathered men with rugged faces and eyes with a faraway look in them.
Joanna drank deep of her tea ... bravado alone had made her tell Bonney that she couldn’t wait to get away from Raintree. She knew in her heart that love of the place had already taken root there, and it would be a wrench when the time came to uproot herself. Right now she dug her heels into Corraine soil, felt on her lips the tang of open places, and the sudden impact of sky-grey eyes as she tilted her head. That gaze was disturbing. It stirred the memory of the night he had said grimly that she wasn’t for Vance.
Was Adam remembering that night as he lounged at his ease against a tree? There seemed to be a glint way back in his eyes, but as always it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. It was a strange fact that his eyes were made inscrutable by their clearness, as a pool is when sunlight flashes across its surface. Was he laughing at her a little, for thinking she could become a permanent part of Raintree? Or was it mere male amusement at the way she had been tossed into a spinifex bush?
She finished her tea and handed back the mug. ‘I’d better be getting back to the homestead,’ she said. ‘You boys don’t want to have to wait for your tucker.’
Boye Dawson gave her a grin. ‘You’re getting to talk like one of us, Miss Joanna.’
‘Thank you for saying so.’ She smiled at Boye and felt the Boss looking at her. ‘But I think it will be some time before I stop being the jackeroo around here.’
‘We could do with a few more cut from the same pattern,’ drawled Tye, the young stockman who had pearled the waters off the coral islands, and who fetched her pony across to her, docile now with a belly full of grass. Tye gave her a hand into the saddle, but Adam Corraine was no longer there to take heed with eyes that saw everything and gave nothing away. He had strolled off to talk to his foreman, and Joanna cantered off in the other direction, escorted by Tye u
ntil they were clear of the cattle.
‘Can I come up to the house this evening and talk with you on the back veranda?’ he asked.
She was about to give him a lighthearted yes, when she remembered that she mustn’t become involved with any of Corraine’s men. He wanted none of that sort of trouble, and though Tye was a nice boy, mere friendship with him was ruled out by the very way they were placed up here at Raintree. Miles from a town, from the gay and attractive girls who could be flirted with for a few hours without other people getting the idea that a romance was in the air.
According to Bonney the valley community believed that Joanna was out to land a husband, and she didn’t wish to add fuel to the wagging tongues.
‘After that toss into a bush I’ve got a date with a shampoo,’ she said lightly. ‘Sorry, Tye.’
‘In other words,’ he said wryly, ‘I’d be treading on someone’s corns.’
‘I don’t quite—’
‘It’s Vance Corraine, isn’t it? He’d be the big catch around here - next to the Boss, and everyone knows that he’s a loner and has his heartstrings tied to Raintree.’
Her heart gave a queer lurch as she looked at Tye, his slouch hat pushed back off his forehead and his good-looking face storm-clouded. ‘I wish you people wouldn’t assume so much,’ she broke out. ‘Let me do my own thinking and feeling. I’m not out to catch anyone, do you understand? And if you’re lonely for company, Tye, why not ask Bonney to walk and talk with you?’
‘She’s a bit too stuck up for me,’ he retorted. ‘That little madam wouldn’t give the time of day to a feller.’
‘She’s very pretty, Tye.’
‘Sure, like the tree-fern that hides a stinging-bush!’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’ Joanna gave a laugh. ‘She may be shy with young men. Some girls are, and they develop a kind of father fixation about older men.’
‘You mean the Boss?’
‘Y-yes, I suppose I do.’
‘Bonney Ryan doesn’t look upon the Boss as a father!’ Tye swung his horse around and prepared to gallop away. ‘She’d like to marry him and become missus of Raintree ... and maybe she’ll get her wish, though he’s a loner, like everyone says. A man with all this land, and one of the finest herds this side of Queensland, has got to think about the future, and King Corraine before him married a pretty young thing just to make sure the heritage went to a Corraine. Me? All I’ve got to offer a girl is a friendly nature and a warm heart. I reckon the Boss has a heart like those eyes of his - distant as the skies to touch!’
Tye rode off, and Joanna sat her pony on a hill that overlooked the range where the sleek roan cattle roamed and fed. The sun shone down upon her, but she felt curiously cold. A heart as distant as the skies to touch. Bonney was not to be envied, if her wish was to win the Boss of Raintree. But maybe Bonney was the type of girl to be satisfied with position and possessions. Maybe a strong and passionate love was not her hunger.
Joanna touched her heels to Brindle and he cantered on towards the house, that basked in all its pleasant, mellow-walled proportions among the shade trees. She hadn’t known until coming here, until perhaps a few minutes ago, that it was her own hunger, to share with a man a love so strong and warm that the world itself could never offer more delight.
The coldness went and her cheeks felt warm in the stables as she made Brindle comfortable, and then went indoors to wash and change before helping to prepare the chops, onions and roast potatoes for dinner — not forgetting the fruit pies with lashings of custard.
It was good to get to work. To lose herself in the spicy atmosphere of the big kitchen, where the two girls talked softly together over the mound of potatoes they were peeling, and the drone of bees drifted in with the scent of gum-tree blossoms.
All at once the peace was shattered as the door breezed open and a tall figure filled the kitchen with wide shoulders and the ring of spurs. ‘I need some first aid!’ It was Vance, his right hand bound in his neckcloth, which was rusty with blood.
‘Bring the box, Peg!’
Joanna steered the patient to the sink, where he let his makeshift bandage be unwound by her deft fingers. She caught her breath at the jagged cut in the palm of his hand. ‘It’s deep, Vance!’ She held his hand under the cold water, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop and she looked up anxiously into his blue eyes. ‘How did you do it?’
‘Barbed wire. Give me a pack of cottonwool and I’ll grip on it.’
‘Right.’ She took the first-aid box from Peg, who watched with big eyes as Joanna pulled open a packet of cottonwool and tore off a chunk for Vance to grip against the tear in his hand. She saw him wince and suggested that one of the girls make a pot of coffee. In no time at all he was settled in a chair with the girls buzzing around him, waiting on his every whim.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m a full-blooded lad, remember.’
He winked at Joanna, who refused to treat the matter as a joke. ‘You wouldn’t care to be like Bushy, now would you? Now please keep still and let me fix this bandage—’
‘Two arms are better than one,’ he murmured, his uninjured arm stealing around her waist.
‘Vance, behave!’ She tended to him with the same concern she would have shown anyone in trouble, but as she bent over him she looked very fair against his tanned ruggedness, and he wouldn’t remove his arm from around her. She saw a shadow and knew they were observed, and a quiver ran through her fingers as she secured the bandage.
The Boss stood just inside the screen door, a sardonic look on his face as he surveyed the chaos in routine created by his handsome cousin. Not a potato had been set to roast, and the onions bobbed about in the bowl waiting for the slicer. Instead of domestic order there was a strew of antiseptic, cottonwool and coffee cups.
‘So what happened?’ drawled Adam. ‘Did you leave a finger on the wire, or was it a whole hand?’
Joanna looked up quickly. ‘There’s no need to be funny,’ she said, stung on Vance’s behalf. ‘We’ve had a job to stop the cut from bleeding.’
‘That bad?’ Adam quizzed his cousin, taking in his ruffled hair, slight smile, and bandaged hand.
‘A cow had her hoof through the wire and I got torn getting her free.’
Adam frowned. ‘Your right hand, I notice.’
‘It might be okay with a glove on.’ Vance’s smile was valiant.
‘No, rest the hand for a day or so.’ Adam turned to leave the kitchen. ‘I’ll put Boye in charge of branding the young stock - and Miss Dowling, if your patient is well enough to walk will you shoo him out of your way and get dinner organized?’
‘Right away, sir.’
He gave her a long look over his shoulder, and then he sauntered away - but she could have sworn there had been a gleam of amusement in his grey eyes.
In the next couple of days Vance made the most of his injury. Joanna had to dress it for him - he said her cool and soothing touch was working wonders - and afterwards he stretched out in a long chair on the veranda and yarned with Aunt Charly, or argued with Bonney.
Joanna heard them as she sat in the cool of the dining room polishing the family silver, evocative to handle because it had been wrought from the treasure found in a ship sunk off the Great Barrier Reef. She liked the gleam of it in her fingers, and the thrilling fact that long ago it had lain in the coffers of some Spanish or Dutch pirate. It seemed typical that a Corraine should take it for his own to adorn the table at Raintree ... on special occasions.
Bonney had a birthday at the week-end and there was to be a party for her. Aunt Charly had suggested to Adam that they use the silver, and he had agreed with an indulgent smile to do the thing in style. Joanna had been given the task of cleaning it, but because of its beauty and its history she didn’t find the work tedious. Adoniah, the headmaster of the valley school, had promised roses for the silver bowl, and an iced cake and other goodies were coming by aeroplane on Friday - and no doubt a very special gift from Adam would be am
ong the packages.
He had said firmly that Bonney was not yet ready to have a car of her own. Raintree was so many miles off the main highway that she could lose herself, or have a breakdown and be stranded. No, he was responsible for her until she came of age, and with that sudden switch from demand to demureness the girl had touched a hand to his sun-lined cheek and given in to him.
‘Bossy Adam,’ she had said, her brown eyes fixed on his face, and every eye in the lounge fixed on the couple last night as if fascinated. ‘What a demanding husband you’re going to make!’
His answer to that provocative remark had been to clamp his pipe in his mouth and puff a screen of smoke, but the sudden bright pink in Bonney’s cheeks had seemed to indicate that they had a secret he was not yet ready to share with the family. With a faintly nervous laugh the girl had put a record on the radiogram and hummed the tune while the others talked of this and that. But there had been tension in the room, a current of awareness rippling from person to person, and Joanna could almost smell again the tang of tobacco smoke mingling with the night flowers that gave off their scent in the darkness beyond the homestead.
The scents were less apparent in sunlight, and as she glossed the silver with a soft rag she could hear Vance talking to Bonney in a lazy, teasing voice. ‘I suppose you’re hoping for lots of loot on Saturday, eh? What would you like me to give you?’
‘Do you mean you haven’t ordered me a present from town?’ the girl exclaimed. ‘In that case I’ll go without. I don’t want some old thing you forgot to give to one of your girl-friends.’
‘Hold on, I haven’t a string of the fillies,’ he laughed. ‘They’re passing acquaintances who add a bit of light and laughter.’
‘Does the same go for Joanna Dowling?’
Joanna paused in her work as she caught her name on Bonney’s lips, and she found herself sitting tensed for Vance’s reply. Would he jest, or reveal something she would rather not hear? Don’t, she wanted to cry out. Nothing can come of what I feel, or what you feel. We left our chance behind at Hawk’s Bay.
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