After scouting around for a while, the two girls found a nearby creek, which was seasonal, and a spring not too far off. It seemed like a good spot. Then Pearl spied an abandoned claim near the spring. “Let’s try this house—if you can call it that.”
“What if the owner returns?” asked Enid.
“We’ll promise he may have all the jewels we find,” replied Pearl, “and we’ll sew his buttons on.”
What a ramshackle dump! The building was constructed of corrugated metal sheets set on slabs of bark and rough-hewn lumber. There was a makeshift verandah attached to the house, but no windows relieved the gloom inside. It probably leaked in rain, for Pearl could look up at the roof and see dots of light. But no rain fell in this drought, so the question was academic. She needed a good lock for the door. Silly. Anyone could break down the wall as easily as open the door.
Washtubs? She’d sweet-talk the local smith into cutting a discarded oil drum in half for her. Then if she scrubbed the inside sufficiently with sand, she’d have two adequate tubs. She’d get some scrub boards, and buy about a hundred feet of stout cord from the general mercantile to provide enough clothesline to start with.
The girls found someone to bring their trunks. The next few days were spent in making the “house” livable and in gathering the needed supplies. Pearl knew she couldn’t whittle clothespins, so she had to pay an exorbitant fee to the general mercantile proprietor to have some clothespins shipped out from Rockhampton. With the purchase of all the yellow soap the proprietor had in stock, they were in business.
“Business” was an exaggeration, of course. Surely nobody wanted to carry his laundry nearly half a mile; but neither did the girls care to carry all their water from the spring to some location closer the main settlement. Around town they put up some signs, complete with a map of their location, and then waited for their first customers.
They received two the first week, one of them the barber with his white tunics. How much should she charge? Pearl quoted a price two shillings above Mum’s and a shilling extra for all-wool garments. She expected resistance to the inflated price, but with only two customers the girls had to make a living. Both customers looked at her with mild surprise. “Is that all?”
Two customers in a week. This would never do.
“Very well,” announced Pearl the following Monday morning, “it is time for the mountain to move to Muhammad.” From her trunk she dug out the elegant calling cards she would have used in Brisbane. She drew a sketchy map on the back of each and on the front wrote “laundry expertly done.” While Enid minded the laundry shop, Pearl walked from hovel to hovel, from rickety shop to false-front bank, distributing her cards and shaking hands and making pleasantries as she had learned to do beside her papa at the church door.
The afternoon brought twenty-six customers. Pearl and Enid were elated. The business was taking off!
Twenty-three showed up the next afternoon.
Late Tuesday they hired a local aboriginal girl to help. She didn’t last long—only until she had earned enough money to buy her father some tobacco and booze. They put up a help-wanted sign and toiled on.
By Wednesday another seventeen customers had come.
On Thursday they bought out all the mother-of-pearl buttons the mercantile had and ordered more. Pearl also bought four more flatirons, but she had to put them on account; she had not been paid yet. They had to use the irons without seasoning them properly, so the ironing took twice as long as it would ordinarily.
On Friday they opened a bank account. It contained four pounds and eight shillings more than they had when they arrived.
On Saturday they finished the last of the shirts.
On Sunday they rested—gratefully.
Customers were fewer the next week. Apparently the gem miners felt no need to be spotless every week. Pearl purchased a ledger and notebooks and worked out a more efficient way of keeping track of bundles.
The next Sunday Enid learned of a man over in Quartz Gully who was sick with the ague. She prepared some vegetable soup and took it to him. There she heard about an epidemic of dysentery around the Nullywog dig. She suggested they carefully boil all cooking and drinking water at least ten minutes. When the dysentery abated within a week, Enid became a folk heroine.
Word continued to spread. Sister Enid, they called her, though she was certainly not a trained sister. The next week she reluctantly set a broken arm, for her medical skills were rudimentary. Before long she found herself elevated to virtual sainthood.
Pearl did not enjoy a similar position of distinction in the community, and while she was properly happy for her little sister, she distinctly felt the snub. Pearl was the blond beauty who did as fine a job on the shirts as any laundry in Brisbane. And yet the only commendation she received was from the lewd comments of the men who didn’t realize she had heard them. The boors. The only thing that kept her in Anakie all that first month and the months that followed was, quite frankly, the money. The business cycled up and down from week to week. Even the slow weeks were pretty good weeks, and the good weeks were profitable far beyond her expectations.
But what about Marty and Jason? Pearl swore to herself she would not be first to mention them. So she waited and waited for Enid to bring up the subject. If Enid returned Marty’s puppy love at all, she hid her feelings perfectly, and Pearl knew that hiding feelings was not Enid’s way. And why didn’t the boys come around? By now they surely must have heard about the girls. Everyone in Anakie knew of the Fowkes girls and their laundry.
Summer faded into autumn subtly, gently, as seasons on the Tropic do. Easter fell late this year, April 18. Enid traveled back to Barcaldine to spend the holiday with Mum and Papa and her church friends. Pearl missed Mum and Papa, of course, but she felt no desire to see that town again—not that she particularly enjoyed Anakie, either, which was entirely another matter. She temporarily hired a strong, stocky woman named Mave Hurley, whose background she did not care to investigate, and continued making money.
Pearl spent a quiet Easter, embroidering on that final napkin and trying to recuperate from exhaustion. She thought back to the days when she wished she could work like Mum and stay home from church and rest on Sunday. What an utter fool she had been! Now it hardly seemed like a fair trade.
Monday morning Mave arrived at ten—with a hangover. In disgust Pearl sent her home. That day Pearl worked until dusk, finishing up all but one batch. If Enid caught the train in time, she would be here tomorrow, Pearl thought. Let her take over some of the work. She sprinkled tomorrow’s ironing as she steeped a pot of tea, then built a cozy fire in the little stone fireplace for it was becoming chilly outside. She poured a cuppa tea and put her feet up. The day was done—at last.
Or was it? Who would be knocking on the door so late? It was nearly dark. And how did they plan to leave again, to negotiate the crooked path from this door to what passed for civilization in Anakie, when the moon wouldn’t be up for an hour yet? She mustn’t be impatient. Another customer, another quid. She was in this blasted settlement to make money, and the knock at the door meant more money. Stifling her impulse to tell them to come back next May, she answered the knock.
“G’day, luv.” They loomed in the semidarkness with toothy smiles glowing in the light of her fireplace. She intensely disliked this form of address, but it was the common manner in Anakie.
“Mr. Sark. Mr. Riley. Good evening. What can I do for you?”
Mr. Sark stepped forward unbidden. “For starters, call us Pete and Rob. Mister’s too formal.” He held out a shirt. “The button you put on this came right off again; thought I’d bring it by.”
She did not step back to invite them in any farther. She distrusted the tall, gangly Mr. Stark and trusted the robust, bumbling Mr. Riley even less. Besides, he stuttered. She glanced at the shirttail. “Mr. Sark, I did not launder this shirt. I always put my mark where the button band meets the hem.” She stuffed it back in his hand. “I dislike ruse. Good night,
and have a safe walk back the way you came.”
Unmasking his lie didn’t put him off at all. “Come, luv. Be hospitable. Invite us to tea, eh?”
As Mr. Riley stepped in beside him, the cold hand of fear gripped her heart, squeezing it. No time now to weigh the foolhardiness of choosing a place so far from other human ears and voices. She was alone. Her voice said, “I think not—good night,” as her mind feverishly sifted options. She must reach the door somehow and run outside. She surely knew the path better than they did; it was nearly dark now and she was wearing a black dress. If she could just make it to the Kookaburra claim…three hundred yards down the draw in darkness…Charlie should be there—
“Ah, right here’s the pot, Rob, and all hot and waiting. Told ye she’s a good sort once she warms up a little.” Sark strode over to the table on his stilt legs. He dumped her teacup out on the floor and poured himself a cup. He leered. “Lump of sugar, Sugar?”
She crossed her arms and tried to look relaxed. “You, Mr. Riley. Do you and he always go everywhere together? Do everything together?”
“M-m-m-mosta the time, yair.”
“Hmph. I should think you’d do better on your own, a strapping, handsome man like you.”
Sark looked instantly suspicious, but Riley absorbed it like a cotton towel. Bashfulness is unbecoming to a man that size. He shuffled, and in the shuffling moved aside more. She had nearly a clear shot at the door.
She looked right at Riley and pointed over his shoulder. “Sugar’s up in that cupboard. Would you get some for your chum there?”
Sark started to say something, but like an oaf Riley turned his back on her and headed for the cupboard. This was insane. Even if she made it through the door, she could never outrun them—but it was her only chance! She bolted. Riley yelled. Sark bellowed at Riley. She heard her teacup smash. Her hand was on the latch. Riley grabbed at her shoulder, and she felt a few buttons pop on the back of her dress. She swung the door wide open…
…and cried out for joy.
“Marty!”
His arm was up, his knuckles poised to knock. Without missing a beat, he seized her arm and with a hefty yank dragged her around behind him into the cool darkness.
Jason was there, too; silent as a cat he flattened himself out against the wall beside the door. Cautiously, soundlessly, he unsnapped the holster at his side and drew out the pistol.
She was safe.
Sark started explaining in truculent tones how this was certainly none of some stranger’s affair, and Riley added his protest, stuttering angrily.
“Is Enid safe?” Marty asked.
“Yes. Out of town.”
With a nod he backed out of the doorway, keeping her behind him. He motioned but once, briefly, for the men to leave. Pearl cowered behind Marty’s broad shoulders and was startled—yet reassured—by the radiating warmth.
She couldn’t see well and didn’t want to. She knew the two were coming out. Marty moved aside farther. Jason stood like a statue against the wall, unnoticed.
Sark was abreast them now, glowering, his narrowed eyes looking down at Marty because he was nearly a head shorter. A sudden movement from Sark caused Marty to explode into motion; Sark swore, groaned, and doubled over—all at once. As Sark went down, Jason yelled. Riley wheeled around to stare down the barrel of the cold steel pistol.
“Reconsider,” Jason said, his voice edged with warning.
Marty kicked aside the big skinning knife by Sark’s hand and picked it up. He wiggled it. “Thanks. I always wanted one.”
Riley and Sark needed no play script to know the next move. Riley gave his partner a helping hand, but the gangling miner scuffed away, bent over in pain. They disappeared into the gathering darkness.
Jason looked at Marty and Marty looked at Jason and they wagged their heads. It was over. Pearl need fear no more. She must be a refined and sophisticated adult about this. After all, it’s the way of the world, these things happen, and one must accept it and carry on. She never even got a chance to look at those dark, deepset eyes before she latched on to Marty, wrapping herself so tightly around him she couldn’t breathe. No matter; she was sobbing too hard to breathe right anyway.
Marty finally reached up and released himself from her stranglehold. Taking her by the arm, he led her inside. Jason followed right behind, closed the door, locked it, and jammed the ladderback chair under the latch for good measure. Marty seated Pearl in the chair, and she tried to pull herself together again. For nearly four months she and Enid had advertised their business, had made themselves known in this dinky settlement. These two fellows had had a hundred days in which to hear of the Fowkes sisters and look them up. She finally composed herself sufficiently that she could speak without blathering.
At last she could look steadily into those melted-chocolate eyes as she asked, “What took you so long?”
Chapter Nine
Gems of Anakie
“A toast! To the gems of Anakie!” Jason flourished his teacup.
Marty raised his too. “To the gems of Anakie; both of whom sit before us.”
Pearl giggled as the cups clinked. Why did she feel a tinge of naughtiness about a perfectly proper afternoon tea on the verandah of their little hut? The reference to toasts, no doubt. Enid blushed.
There was a strangeness about it all, too. Marty and Jason in their bush clothes, shirts open at the neck, and sleeves rolled to the elbows, sipping tea from china cups like city folk. Enid was still wearing her traveling dress, for less than an hour ago Pearl and the boys had greeted her as she stepped onto the Anakie railway platform.
Pearl ran the scene through her mind for the hundredth time, trying to read the memory of Enid’s face as she alighted from the train. What were her little sister’s real feelings? Weariness? Joy? Enid was absolutely delighted to see both boys. But did she favor one over the other? Not then, that Pearl could see. Nor did she now.
Enid met either boy squarely eye to eye. No coy glances, no shy averting of the eyes. She laughed with the same enjoyment at Jason’s outrageous comedy and Marty’s sly and gentle humor. She listened wide-eyed, obviously horrified, as they described the encounter with Sark and Riley. In short, she was purely Enid, and she put on no show for one colonial lad over the other. Either Marty’s puppy love was unrequited or this could be an interesting triangle of affection.
Triangle—Enid, Jason, and Marty. Not a rectangle. Somehow, again Pearl was the odd one. She could feel it even now, in this loose camaraderie among friends drawn together in the common bond of having come from elsewhere. Plain—even mousy—Enid was once again the focus. Why?
Pearl listened to the conclusion of the Sark/Riley narrative. “Marty, how could you see him pull the knife? It was almost dark.”
The boyish face grinned. “As I recall, the first time I spoke to you, I said something about having good night vision.”
“You remember that? Six years ago!”
“Every detail, right down to Ross Sheldon accusing me of doing dastardly things to you.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t quite fourteen yet, and still dumb about life; know what I mean? I thought the dirtiest thing you could do to a girl was spit on her.”
Enid shook her head. “The Lord’s timing. I never cease to be amazed by the wonderful way He does things. Like bringing you two to the door at the moment Pearl needed you. We never had trouble of that sort before. We never even thought about it once we got settled.”
“We explained to Pearl last night.” Jason poured himself another cup of tea. “We just got back to Anakie late yesterday, and came by an hour after we heard about you.”
“Where were you? I thought you were going to dig for gems here,” Pearl said.
“The livestock business is so bad with this drought that half of Queensland is here digging. It’s hard to find a decent place to look, and then you can’t relax your guard against claim jumpers.”
“We had no trouble finding this place. Someone just abandoned it.” Pearl started ano
ther kettle for tea.
“Because it’s a bad site. Too much overlying rock. The quartz seam surfaces a quarter mile away.”
“Charlie’s Kookaburra Mine is three hundred yards down the track.”
Jason nodded. “And he’s on the fringe. Whoever built this place didn’t know where to look. Anyway, we decided to try our luck over at Quilpie. Opals there—at Opalton, too. We heard things were better here and came over to see for ourselves. Appears it’s about the same all over. Anyhow, we’re back. Ta daaaah!” He spread his hands and bowed.
“Jase is back,” Marty corrected. “I think I’ll go over to Opalton again. Try to get enough together to return to doing what I know best—cattle and sheep.”
“With your father.” Pearl sprinkled loose tea into the pot and tried to hide her disappointment. She didn’t want him to leave.
“No. You can’t believe how bad this drought is. Pop lost half his cattle to thirst and more’n half his sheep. The Torrens Creek boiling-down plant is the only place buying, with the tick quarantine and all. A lot of pastoralists are turning bottom up. Some big runs have gone under. Jase and I had some luck over at Opalton. If I can do as well these next couple years, I can put a hefty payment down on a nice place. In fact, we stopped to look at it on our way over from Opalton.”
“Oh. So this is more definite than just dream-spinning.” Pearl felt her conflicting emotions well up. She fought them back. Bitterness. Elation. The first four months, when the boys hadn’t appeared, she had felt…well, irritated—at least partly. Now that they had come (admittedly, the moment they heard), she was no longer irritated. Instead, she had to contend with a whole different set of feelings. Feelings that she could not describe any better now than she could then. Life is so…so…so inexplicable.
Jason laughed. “Yeah, he’s buying the L in ‘Queensland.’ I know, ’cause I saw the map.”
“You don’t buy it,” Marty smiled. “You sign a lease on a run and pay the government a rental fee. All you actually buy is a couple square miles around the main station.”
Power of Pinjarra Page 10