The Last McAdam

by Holly Ford

  ‘No!’ Tess said quickly. ‘She’s not too old. Look at her.’ Shit. ‘I mean, she’s fit as a fiddle. You both are. You don’t need to be in a retirement home.’ She thought fast. ‘We’ll find you a place of your own, somewhere that takes dogs. You’ll both learn it in no time.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know so.’ Tess swallowed hard.

  ‘Thank you, love,’ Stan smiled, not raising his head from his dog. ‘That’s nice of you to say.’

  ‘I’m not just saying it.’ She touched his knee. ‘Stan, it’ll work out. I promise.’

  ‘Well,’ Stan said, ‘I’d better go in and get on with the tea.’ Easing his feet out from under Peg, he got up. The dog lifted her head, then settled back with a sigh as he opened the door. ‘It’s getting too cold to sit out here.’

  ‘Stan, I’ve been meaning to say’ – Tess got out of his way – ‘it’s fine to bring Peg inside if you want.’

  ‘Inside?’ A look of shock crossed Stan’s face. ‘Oh no, love. I couldn’t do that. She’s not that sort of dog.’

  Sitting back down on the step as he took himself off to the kitchen, Tess pressed her hands to her eyes. Well. She sniffed and, with a quick look around, wiped her nose. It hadn’t been as formal as she’d intended, but thanks to the Kerrows, that was one redundancy consultation over. One down, three to go. Tess sniffed again. Hauling herself up, she made her way inside.

  ‘Stan?’

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘Did you tell Nate what Rick Kerrow said about a new team coming in?’

  ‘No, love. I didn’t think it was my place to do that.’

  No – it was hers. Tess picked up the phone. ‘Nate,’ she told his machine, when the greeting had run, ‘can you come up here tomorrow at ten? We need to have a talk.’

  •

  ‘No,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t agree. I don’t want to take the money.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tess said gently, ‘but that’s not how it works.’

  ‘Then why is it called a consultation?’ Red-cheeked, he continued to stare at a spot over her left shoulder. ‘What’s the point if you’ve already made up your mind? Why don’t you just tell me I’m fired?’

  ‘You shouldn’t think that you’re being fired. You haven’t done anything wrong. Your position is being made redundant, that’s all.’ Tess shifted in her chair. ‘And the reason we have a meeting like this is to discuss what’s going to happen and get your thoughts.’

  ‘I think I should get to stay here with Nate and Mitch.’

  ‘Harry, Nate and Mitch aren’t going to be here. Look at the structure.’ She pushed the chart closer to him. ‘It’s like I said in the group meeting yesterday. There’s going to be a manager and one other guy. It’s a general purpose role. You don’t have enough experience for it, and Nate and Mitch have too much.’

  Tess bit her lip. The reason Harry was staring so fixatedly, she realised, was because he was doing his best not to cry.

  ‘Look, you won’t have any problems getting another job,’ she told him. ‘You’re a good stockman, you’ve got great dogs, and you’re one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Then why are you getting rid of me?’

  ‘Come on, Harry. You’re not even twenty-two years old. This is the first place you’ve worked. Did you really think you’d be staying here for the rest of your life?’

  ‘Stan did,’ Harry said. ‘Nate has.’

  ‘You should be moving around, building up your CV, looking for jobs that’ll get you on the next rung. More responsibility, better pay. Start saving up your deposit so you can buy into a place of your own one day.’

  ‘That’s what my trust’s for.’

  His what? Tess stared at him. ‘You have a trust fund?’

  ‘Shit,’ Harry muttered under his breath. ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway,’ he shrugged. ‘Yeah, Bob set one up for me. He wanted me to have this flash new arm that had to come from Texas or somewhere, but I wasn’t into it. I hate wearing all those bloody things, they throw my balance out, make me feel all wrong. It’s easier without them. When I found out how much it was going to cost, I told him I’d rather he bought a new tractor instead, but Bob said he was going to put the money aside for me in case I changed my mind.’

  Stunned, Tess continued to stare. So that was where the missing chunk of insurance money had gone.

  ‘When the shit hit the fan around here, I told Bob to take the money back,’ Harry said. ‘I wasn’t going to change my mind about the arm. But he said it was too late for it to do any good and it’d just go straight to the bank anyway and he’d rather I had it than those bastards. He said in a few more years, if I still hadn’t changed my mind, I should use the money to set myself up on a place instead.’

  She let out her breath. ‘Does Nate know about this?’

  ‘Yeah, course he does.’ Harry looked puzzled. ‘He has to, he’s the trustee.’

  ‘Right,’ Tess said faintly. Dragging herself back to the matter at hand, she indicated the payout sum on the sheet of paper between them. ‘Now you can add this to your deposit as well.’

  ‘What if I never get another job?’ Finally, Harry looked her in the face. ‘What if nobody will hire me?’

  ‘They will,’ she said. ‘You’ll check out with a pretty solid reference, I can promise you that.’

  ‘Checking references,’ Harry said. He looked away again. ‘I know what I cost this place. Everybody does. They put it in the paper. Between that and the arm, you think I’ll get that far?’

  As he left, Tess could see Nate waiting for him in the hall.

  ‘I’m gone,’ she heard Harry tell him.

  ‘I know, mate. We all are. Come on, it’s not the end of the world. Let’s go home, I’ll buy you a beer.’

  Getting up, Tess walked to the window and stood for a while looking out at the rain. Bloody hell. She could use a drink herself. And Harry was going to be the easiest of the three. Maybe setting these things up in ascending order of difficulty hadn’t been the way to go after all.

  Over the pelt of the rain on the veranda roof, she could just hear the crunch of wet gravel outside as Nate and Harry drove away. If she listened hard, she could hear the roar of the river too. When she’d driven down that morning to take a look, it had been running almost bank to bank, a big, ugly mass of angry water. There’d be no bringing stock through it this week, that was for sure. Thank god the rain had come now, while there was still time for the levels to drop, or she’d be rescheduling the muster.

  Making her way through to the kitchen, Tess was relieved to find it empty. She flicked the jug on, watching the cloud rolling down the hills as she waited for the water to boil. Coffee in hand, she perched herself on the bench, pulled out her phone, and started going through her contacts.

  ‘Bryce,’ she said, into the receiver of the landline. ‘Tess Drummond here. Yeah, good, thanks. You? That’s great. Hey listen, I was wondering if you know anyone who’s looking for a stockman.’

  •

  The following day, Mitch walked, with a barely perceptible limp, into what Tess had come to think of as her office and pulled out a dining chair on the opposite side of the table. In another situation, she might have smiled. For a guy she’d mistaken for dead three weeks ago, he looked in tiptop form.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hey.’

  Suddenly, she found herself unable to utter one more platitude. ‘Here’s the figure.’ Tess slid his termination letter across the table to him. ‘We’ll finalise your last day, but basically, it’s going to be as soon as we finish crutching.’

  He nodded, his eyes moving over the brief letter.

  ‘I’m not going to patronise you with the rest of the spiel,’ she said. ‘Unless you have any questions?’

  ‘No, I’m all good.’ With a dust-dry look, Mitch picked the letter up and f
olded it. ‘I’ve been discharged before.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tess said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He put the letter in his pocket.

  ‘I know it’s none of my business, but ...’ She hesitated. ‘Look, Mitch, you’re a smart guy. You’ve got a commercial pilot’s licence, for god’s sake. You could be earning a salary that comes with an extra zero.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He eased himself to his feet with a wince you’d have to be trying hard to see. ‘But I worked out a couple of things a while back that I’ve been trying to stick to since, and the first one is that life’s too short to do things just for money.’ Mitch headed for the door.

  ‘What’s the second?’

  ‘Don’t always follow orders.’

  ‘Mitch?’

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘I’m probably the last person you want to be with right now,’ Tess sighed, ‘but do you feel like grabbing a beer?’

  They were on their second when Nate turned up at the kitchen door.

  ‘I guess your meeting’s finished,’ he said wryly. ‘Does that mean it’s my turn? I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts.’

  ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow,’ Tess reminded him. She shrugged. ‘But you can share now if you want.’

  ‘They’ll keep,’ Nate grinned. ‘In fact, if it’s okay with you, I’d rather hold onto them for an extra day. If the rain stops, I want to take a run up to Gorge Hut tomorrow, see if it’s still there. The way the river’s been, the yards might have seen some water.’

  ‘You won’t get over Dead Cow Creek for another couple of days,’ Mitch said.

  ‘I’m not planning on walking.’

  ‘No,’ Tess shook her head. ‘Mitch isn’t supposed to fly for another week.’

  Mitch glanced out the window at the low sky. ‘Wouldn’t want to start trying in this anyway.’

  ‘And you’re not going solo again,’ she ordered Nate. ‘It isn’t worth it.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting I did,’ he said patiently. ‘I can take the jet boat. Get a good look at what the river’s been up to between here and there before we start trying to move stock down.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Getting up, Tess fetched him a beer. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘What, have you run out of people to fire?’

  ‘I can wait a day if you can.’ Shit. ‘I’m sorry.’ She held Nate’s eyes. ‘That wasn’t funny.’

  ‘Actually,’ Mitch said, ‘it kind of was.’

  Nate looked at him.

  Mitch shrugged. ‘You started it, mate.’

  Nate twisted the top off his beer, his cheek dimpling. ‘I can wait as long as you want,’ he told her.

  ‘Yeah?’ Tess gave him a measuring look. ‘You’re not curious about the figure, at least?’

  ‘You told us the formula,’ he said. ‘I can do the maths.’

  ‘For you,’ Mitch said, ‘that’s going to come out to a pretty chunky number.’

  ‘Half a year’s salary,’ Nate agreed. ‘They must really want me gone.’

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ Tess said, ‘if this was my operation, I’d want both of you here.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Nate nodded slowly. ‘For what it’s worth’ – he gave her a small smile – ‘we know this isn’t your fault.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Mitch and I, that is. If I were you, I might stay away from Harry for a while.’

  Sixteen

  The next morning, Tess followed Nate down to the river, the jet boat trailer bouncing behind the tractor as it bumped across the paddock to reach the shingle. It was a considerably shorter trip to the water today than the one she’d made with C.J. Mackersey. The river was no longer bank to bank, but it was still high and dirty, bedraggled clumps of gorse and scrub protruding from its flow, their branches draped with silty grass.

  Holding the nose of the boat as Nate parked the trailer up, Tess studied the clearing sky. The sun was out, and the day wasn’t exactly cold, but the hills were sharp with the threat of it, the sense that under the cover of the cloud the year had finally turned.

  Nate dumped his pack and a fish bin of gear in the back of the boat and stepped in. Putting the key in the ignition, he fossicked under the dash.

  ‘Here.’ He threw a lifejacket over the bow to her. ‘It looks like a good day for these.’

  Shouldering it on over her jersey, Tess snapped the buckles across her chest, not ungrateful for the way the jacket’s bulk cut the breeze. Nate stepped out again, doing up his own vest.

  ‘Hop in.’ He nodded at the boat. ‘I’ll push off.’

  Stowing her pack beside his, she sat down, staying out of his way as he worked them out into the stream.

  ‘Keep an eye out,’ he yelled, as the engine churned into life, ‘for anything in the water. Let me know if you see us heading for any debris.’

  Heading up the broad channel, Tess watched the grey-brown water speed by. Beside her, Nate was standing at the wheel, scanning the river ahead, taking the boat no faster than he had to. As the combined roar of the motor, the river, and the battering rush of the wind removed the option of conversation, she relaxed.

  It felt good to be out here. Better than good. The cold air, the sensation of speed, were wiping the last few days from her brain, and suddenly she was happier than she’d been since she first heard the name Rick Kerrow. She was looking forward to seeing the gorge and the country above it, the hut where they’d start her first high country muster. Finally, this last block of Broken Creek was going to be more to her than marks on a satellite map.

  As they carved their way up the river, she could understand why Nate had wanted to do this today. Why he’d felt the need to come up here. Ahead, the tips of the Southern Alps were gleaming in the sun, newly dusted with snow. Clambering back around the seats, Tess got her jacket out of her pack.

  Nate was still in his shirtsleeves, the lifejacket the only thing between him and the wind. Zipping her own up again, she wondered if she should offer to take the wheel while he put something else on. But he looked happy enough, all his focus on the increasingly rough water. Dutifully, she returned to scanning her side of the river.

  ‘Nate!’ she yelled, as the black head of a branch reared out of the current to their left. But the boat was already turning, manoeuvring neatly out of its path. Tess watched the branch sweep away behind them, riding the waves.

  An hour upriver, as its course curved and disappeared, at last, between the bluffs of the gorge, Nate slowed, holding the boat in place against the current. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’ Ahead of them, the water was surging over the branches of a dead tree in two swift bow waves.

  ‘There’s not much room to manoeuvre in there at the best of times,’ he yelled. ‘A lot of the corners are blind. And the side creeks were holding a tonne of dead wood last time I was here. We could meet anything coming down.’

  Tess eyed the flow coming out of the gorge. It didn’t look that bad. But then, she wasn’t the one driving.

  ‘I’ll have to take it fast, especially coming back downstream,’ Nate said. ‘It might be more than I can handle in there today.’

  Seriously? There was something Nate McAdam couldn’t handle? Tess hid a wry smile. She would have laid money on the fact that he didn’t know it.

  ‘Sorry, but I think we’d better turn round.’ Nate was looking back over his shoulder, studying the river behind them. ‘I maybe shouldn’t have come this far.’

  ‘Nate!’

  He flung the jet boat into reverse as the tree in front of them tore loose, its massive trunk rearing out of the water. Shit. Shit. Tess gripped the rail beside her hard. The thing was huge. It was turning on the current, sweeping the river like a broom. Accelerating away from it, Nate spun the wheel hard. The next thing Tess had time to process was a feeling of inertia as the angle of the sky changed, then a sickening whump as the hull hit the water.

  They were upright. Heart hammering, Tess managed to drag in a breath. They were floating, the distant bank turning as th
e current spun them slowly around. The motor had stopped, the roar of the river the only sound. And the seat beside her was empty.

  Oh, Jesus. Where was he? Grabbing the wheel, she tried to restart the boat, letting out a little involuntary cry of relief as the engine turned over. Tess hit the throttle. Nothing. No, no, no. She didn’t have time for this. She needed to find him. She needed to move, move faster than the river. Now. She scanned the water downstream.

  As the eddying current turned the boat again, there was a soft scrape along the side of the hull. Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw something yellow bump the stern and begin to float free. She threw herself across the boat, lunging desperately. For a second – two – as the boat lurched and Nate’s weight rising clear of the water dragged her down, she thought she’d reached too far. Then, somehow, she had him against the side, her hands gripping the straps of his lifejacket.

  As she tried to pull him on board, he started to struggle. ‘Hey,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you. Come on, get in.’

  Nate clamped one hand, then the other, to the top of the hull. The strength of his grip had her almost sobbing with gratitude to whatever power had answered the prayer she hadn’t had time to make. As he heaved himself up, Tess dragged him over the side with all the force she had. Landing in a heap on the floor of the boat, Nate remained there for a second or two. Then he sat up slowly. Drawing up his knees, he leaned back against the seat, looking up at her from a spreading pool of water. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. The boat went up in the air, I think. There was a bang.’ She frowned, trying to order the sequence. ‘Maybe the bang came first. When I looked over, you were gone.’

  Nate thought hard. ‘There was a tree.’

  ‘Yeah, we missed the tree.’ Half-crazy with relief, Tess found herself close to laughter. ‘We must have hit something else instead. Something under the water.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  She did laugh. ‘I’m fine. How about you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He rubbed the water out of his eyes. Suddenly, his head flew up. ‘Who’s driving?’ Struggling to his feet, Nate moved forward to grab the wheel. The boat was drifting faster.