Power of Pinjarra

by Sandra Dengler

  Marty laid a hand on Pearl’s elbow to escort her inside. “Goonur doesn’t like to do anything unless it’s from the back of a horse.” He paused inside the front door. “Hallo!”

  “What’s this I hear?” A familiar voice cackled from off to the right. Jason came bounding out with red jam all over his mouth. He froze. He gaped. He stared at Pearl, at Marty, at Pearl again. What a broad, bright, irrepressible grin swept across his face! Pearl saw right here the value of sticking with old friends. She was welcomed and loved and cared about. Jase didn’t bother with formal handshakes or elegant pleasantries. He scooped her up into a rambunctious hug. “What a glory you are, Miss Fowkes! More beautiful every time I see you!”

  He turned to Marty and pumped his hand exuberantly. “Beaut! Now tell me, who’s bringing who here?”

  “I brought her, and she bought me.” Marty swiped a finger across Jason’s sticky cheek and licked it. “Raspberry. Where’d you get raspberry?”

  “Your mum sent it down. She and your pop are on their way shortly. Come on! Indirri and I are raiding the bread and jam to keep us going till dinner.” He led the way through the far door.

  A guest would be entertained in the parlor. Pearl was immediately ushered into the kitchen, like a member of the family. That pleased her immensely. Marty held her chair. She settled into it and removed her hat. The slim young black Marty introduced as Indirri nodded cheerfully to her and went directly back to work on a big chunk of bread and jam.

  “Rosella in the summer kitchen?” Marty asked. “How about some tea?”

  “Yair!” Indirri hopped up. He paused. “Much glad him home again, Marty!” A score of white teeth, all outlined in red jam, flashed in a happy smile. He disappeared out back.

  Jason grinned smugly. “Indirri there tracked our sorry red cow clear down to the railroad. Amazing piece of work! Then we went into town and I turned detective. Had a glorious time!” The smile turned grim. “Your ticky cattle were shipped from Alpha personally by Mr. Ross Sheldon. The engineer remembers what a scraggly bunch they were; couldn’t understand why someone would pay good money to move them that short distance when they weren’t worth the freight cost. I mailed our lawyer the engineer’s written statement. Incidentally, the dates match exactly with Indirri’s tracking.”

  “Ross Sheldon.” Marty closed his eyes briefly. “Great piece of work, Jase.”

  “I’m not done. On the way Indirri came across a fake beard. Big black beard. It definitely belongs to Harry Bagley, the guy with the scar over his eye. At the moment he’s one of three monkey-dodgers working Sheldon’s southside camp.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Got it on the best authority. Indirri’s nose.” Jason raised a finger. “I’m still not done. That Albert Samson you hired with all the beaut references? Forged. He was a manager on one of Sheldon’s holdings on the Thomson. Sheldon planted him.”

  “Sheldon!” Pearl looked from face to face. “Why would he do these things? We’re talking about terrible things. Illegal. Immoral.”

  “Yair.” Marty looked at Jason. “Why?”

  “Pick up this run cheap, is one good guess. Or at the very least, run his stock onto it and then say, ‘Oops—the fence musta broke.’ His is so overgrazed and so underwatered that his stock are dropping right and left. He needs this land, needs it bad; I might even say he needs it just to stay in business.

  “Politics would be my other guess. Your pop and you have Bickett and the others behind you. You’re the major barriers between him and his march to the prime minister’s seat—or whatever ambitions he has. If he can damage your pop’s reputation by ruining yours, that’s two ducks down, and he’s got one foot in the door at Brisbane already.”

  Marty leaned both elbows on the table. “You say Pop’s on his way?”

  “Soon’s he clears up some odds and ends at the Downs.”

  Indirri came flowing like water through the door with a pot of tea. The man was extraordinarily graceful.

  “He’s gotta know about this. Sheldon’s on his hammer, too, it looks like.”

  “Yair.” Jason jabbed Indirri’s arm. “You know what a holiday is?”

  “Naw.”

  “Walkabout, no work. You earned yourself a bonzer day off. How about you take Goonur and your boy and a dilly bag full of tucker and go enjoy the country awhile? Ask Goonur to explain a day off. Come back by and by?”

  The black face shone. “Good-oh. Take Goonur, take lad out, tell him about honey-ant people. Honey ant him clan Goonur side.”

  “Yair. Don’t forget. Take lotsa tucker.”

  The black eyes twinkled. “This maybe? Goonur, lad, him much like.” He hefted the jam jar.

  Marty laughed and his rich baritone rumbled. “Sure, why not?”

  Indirri disappeared like smoke on the wind.

  They finished their tea presently, amid the happy chatter of friends too long apart. Then they moved to the verandah, where it was much cooler and breezier. Pearl might not know a good station from a bad one, but she could certainly tell a pleasant view when she saw it. She settled into the wicker chair offered her and gazed out beyond the dooryard to a gently sloping tree-studded ridge.

  Jason sprawled by the verandah step and leaned back against the roof post. He closed his eyes, a contented man.

  Marty scrunched down on his spine in the pine chair beside Pearl’s and stretched his feet out. “I can’t tell you how good it is to be here. Pearl, I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Thanks are unnecessary, now that I’ve seen Pinjarra. I can understand your love for it, at least a little.” She let the peace and beauty of the place drain the tension from her body. Serenity is potent medicine.

  Out across the dooryard, Indirri and the half-caste girl waved enthusiastically. They each carried weapons and large dilly bags. A small child gamboled at their side. With long, flowing strides they walked up the hill and disappeared into the trees.

  “So he could smell that beard and tell who wore it,” Marty mused. “You know, he’s getting so civilized he’s not going to be able to do that sort of thing much longer.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Jason opened his eyes. “He’s never gunner be just another station black. Even when he’s scared spitless, you can see dignity in him. I think there’s a lot going on in that head we’ll never know about.”

  “That’s a moral certainty, unless his English improves considerably.”

  “Now what’s this?” Jason sat up, squinting. His hand darted to his holster; Pearl heard the snap click open.

  She looked down the track toward the south. A brilliant waistcoat seized her eye. Ross Sheldon.

  Two men accompanied the squatter: Mr. Edding the constable and a rough-looking stockman. They came riding up to the door in a choking cloud of dust. The stockman and constable remained astride their horses. Mr. Sheldon dismounted.

  The constable removed his hat and bowed from the saddle. “G’day, Miss Fowkes. Mr. Frobel, this is Mr. Harry Bagley, an experienced stockman who is assisting me. Standard procedure requires that I check for strange cattle now that you’re free on bail. I’ll just take a turn around.”

  “Rubbish!” Pearl snorted. She remembered Jason mentioning a scar over the eye. This Harry Bagley had one.

  Her outspokenness startled Constable Edding. He collected himself and he and Bagley rode off toward the barns and paddocks.

  Mr. Sheldon extended a hand to Marty. “Marty!”

  Marty made no move to shake. “Sheldon.”

  Jason leaned back again and casually laid his gun in his lap.

  If Pearl had not seen it herself she would not have believed the transformation. Instantly Sheldon’s face turned from open to black, from friendly to hard and cold. His demeanor frightened her, though she was fully accustomed to hard men.

  Marty rumbled, “I hope you didn’t ride clear out here for a friendly visit, ’cuz we’re not feeling real friendly. You can understand why, I trust.”

  Sheldon glared at
Jason. “I want to know who your abo is, the one you hauled out to my southside camp. I want to talk to him.”

  “You don’t have Buckley’s chance of finding him.”

  Had Pearl thought this place was serene? Nothing could be further from reality now. The tension sang like wind in telegraph wires.

  Sheldon laughed suddenly, harshly. “An abo’s testimony’s not worth a brass razoo. You know that.”

  “Yes, it is.” Marty drew his legs in and sat forward. “Hear this, Sheldon. Your game’s out in the open. Now that we know where trouble lies, we’re ready for your shenanigans. If you’re smart, you’ll back out of this power play right now and cut your losses.”

  At that moment the constable and Mr. Bagley came across the dooryard, still astride their horses. Harry Bagley shook his head at Sheldon. “The only one here who’s anywhere thin enough and young enough is a scarred-up cripple who can’t use his arm and leg right.”

  Sheldon’s eyes dripped malevolence. He swung aboard his horse and reined it viciously away. They clattered off, leaving only their dust.

  The tension did not lessen once its source had gone. Pearl took a deep breath and realized she’d been holding it until now. “Jason, you’re the expert on enemy tactics. What would he do if he found…what’s his name?”

  “Indirri. I think when Harry reported in, Sheldon added two and two and realized we’d backtracked him. To do that you need a good blackfeller. And if Harry noticed his beard was missing, he probably added that one up right, too. What Indirri can do and what stories he can tell hasn’t got Sheldon half-worried, I ’magine.”

  Pearl frowned. “Might Sheldon do a Herod?”

  “A what?”

  “You know. When Herod killed all the babies in Bethlehem just to make sure he got the one baby that posed a threat. Might Sheldon kill all the young blacks he can, just to get Indirri?”

  Marty’s lips formed a tight line. He nodded. “Most men with strong prejudices, like Sheldon, can’t tell one black from another. There’s a good side to that, though. If Sheldon does come across him somehow—or probably even if Bagley does—they won’t know who they’re looking at.”

  “Got another good thing going for us,” Jason added. “Indirri doesn’t have any reason to go seeking out Sheldon. Sheldon means nothing to him. To Indirri, Sheldon would just be your average whitefeller in a garish brocade vest.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Fear of Firearms

  Golden evening. Marty’s favorite time of the day. He settled deeper into the wicker chair and stretched his legs out. On the rise beyond the dooryard, yellow evening light gilded the trees. All the elements were in place; where was the magic?

  Beside him in the upholstered pine chair, Pop sighed audibly. “Almost as pretty as the Downs.” He raised a finger. “Mind you, son, I said ‘almost.’”

  “The Downs. No place is as pretty as home.” Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just yearning for the old days, when problems that loomed large were actually very simple.

  Uncle Edward shifted in the wingback chair beyond the verandah step. “Be a lot better with some sign of civilization. Railway. Smokestacks. Progress, you know.”

  Mum came out of the house with her carpetbag. Marty leaped up and gave her the wicker chair. He plopped down on the step and leaned back against the post, very weary.

  Mum peered a moment into her bag and hauled out the big needlepoint frame. She settled it in her lap and took up the laborious stitching, almost by habit.

  Marty closed his burning eyes. “By the time you finish all four of those chair covers, Mum, you and Pop will be ready for the pensioner’s cottage and you’ll only have room for two chairs.”

  “Oh, these aren’t for us. They’re your wedding present.”

  Marty opened his eyes. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  Mum smiled slyly. “That Pearl is a lovely girl.”

  “Who never married yet because she doesn’t want a backblocker. She’s said so a million times. She’s just an old friend.”

  Uncle Edward chuckled. “A girl with taste. But you don’t know, lad. She might be quite happy at Pinjarra.”

  “There’s not gunner be a Pinjarra.”

  “Good point.” Uncle Edward’s chair creaked.

  Pop’s voice sounded almost bitter. “You giving up, lad?”

  “Look what’s happened. I sank all the money I ever made into this. You gave me more than you could spare, putting the Downs at risk. Jase lost a wad. Now Pearl’s life savings are going down the chute. I buy another hundred bullocks thinking that as the state lifts the tick quarantine, bullock teams will be in demand again. It’s not happening. Bullocking’s a thing of the past. There’s more cattle in Queensland than there are people in Australia, and nobody’s gunner eat a cow apiece. This last drought clinches it. I’m in the wrong business making the wrong decisions and losing everybody’s money besides my own.”

  “So you flop over on your back and let Sheldon take over. If you get tonked, boy, it’ll be because you let yourself get tonked.”

  Marty’s voice was rising as he answered. He shouldn’t be yelling at his own father. “He bought the constable; he’s probably bought the judge. He buys anything that’ll make him the money to buy more, and everything he owns turns into a money-spinner. He’ll buy himself a seat in Brisbane and there’s a better’n even chance he’ll buy his way clear to the federal level.”

  “Now that he’s shown his true colors, we’ll back him down.”

  “No, we won’t.” Now Marty was sounding like Uncle Edward and he hated that, mostly because he knew everything his uncle was saying was true. “He has money, and that’s power. And you don’t have any and all I have is debts. That’s minus power!” He waved a hand. “You see this big beautiful run in the golden sunshine? All the gold’s in the sunshine, Pop. There’s no power here. Pinjarra is lovely, but she’s weak as a sick cat.”

  The pine chair groaned as Pop leaned forward. “You been praying about this?”

  Marty stared at him. “I thought you let Mum handle the religion stuff.”

  “Yair. Then before Luke left, he set me down with the Bible. Your mum can’t save me by being a Christian; I gotta do that myself. And she shouldn’t have to carry it all; it’s a man’s place to head up the family, religion as well as other things. Some of Luke’s notions are bull’s wool; but when it comes to religion, he’s worth listening to.” Pop stopped suddenly and looked beyond Marty.

  Goonur stood there, her blue eyes almost black. “Marty.”

  “That’s Mr. Frobel, girl,” Uncle Edward fumed.

  Marty sat forward. “What do you need?”

  “Dunno. There’s a problem, bad problem. Indirri and Mungkala went bush.”

  “Thought Indirri, at least, was more responsible than that. Left without you?”

  “No. That ain’t the problem. He wanted me to go and I said no, I won’t do it.”

  “What’s the problem if that’s not it?”

  “Remember how he has an enemy? And he been looking for him for years?”

  “He found him? The whitefeller?”

  She shuddered and nodded. “Couple days after we come back from walkabout, Indirri took Bohra out. Gunner teach him tracking. Took him into the east paddock. Gunner track roos, I suppose. Lots there. And he saw him. He saw the whitefeller.”

  “He almost made a mistake once. Maybe he—”

  “It’s him. You’d know if you saw Indirri when he brought Bohra back. He wouldn’t come near the whitefeller when Bohra was with him, for fear Bohra’d get hurt. Now he’s all over the country gathering up blacks. By ’m by, gunner take fen…I forget the word.”

  “Vengeance?”

  “Vengeance, that’s it. Gunner wipe ’em all out.” And her facade of composure dissolved. Her wailing voice broke. “Marty, he’s gunner get himself and Mungkala and all those others dead is all he gunner do. Even if they kill some of their enemies, the whitefellers gunner hang ’em. Shoot ’em.
They gunner be destroyed every one. And he knows that and I can’t talk him out of it. I tried an’ tried.”

  “Know about where he’s going?”

  “Northwest, above Muttaburra. Heard about some blacks there. Left late this morning. Woulda left earlier, but I was arguing with him a long time.”

  Marty stood up and stretched his back. “Blacks don’t like traveling by night, but I don’t mind it. Moon’s coming full. I’ll ride out that way and see if I can catch up to them. Talk to him. With Mungkala along, he won’t be moving very fast.”

  She looked near tears. “They took your horse. He’s riding. The skewbald.”

  “That’s horse theft!” Uncle Edward snorted loudly, instantly irate.

  “Going out this late’s a wee bit dangerous, son.” Pop looked grim.

  “So’s a war between blacks and whites. Besides, I need to get away awhile. Can’t just sit here watching Pinjarra die.”

  Pop stood up and unbuckled his belt. “Take my gun.”

  “No.”

  “Take it!”

  Marty looked at Mum. She stitched away silently, her face sad yet resigned, mirroring the faces of all the women in history who stayed behind—grieving—while their men rode forth to do foolish things. He accepted the holster with its lethal load and ran his own belt through its loop.

  He took the roan Indirri usually rode because he knew how well Indirri liked this horse. Every little bit of familiarity, every fond memory, would help now. He angled across country to the northwest, watching everywhere for movement or night fires. When it grew too dark for even his owl eyes, he rested the roan as the moon climbed above the horizon.

  He rode to the crest of the only rise left between here and Cameron Downs to the north. If Indirri and Mungkala were in this area at all, he’d see the dull orange dot of their night fire out there somewhere.

  Firecrackers. Firecrackers? Surely not. They pop-pop-popped again in the distance off to his right. He reined the roan aside and dug his heels in. In his breast welled the secret dread that the war had started.

  If Mungkala were involved here at all, the skewbald’s white markings would show up in the rising moonlight. He broke the roan out of its ground-eating jog into a full canter. The broad, open expanse of silver-gray bushes gave way to scattered trees with their towering shadows—black blobs that marred the clean moonlight and obstructed vision. He pulled the roan up; the gelding danced in place, tossing its head and flinging about the foamy sweat on its neck.