‘Alice, this is Mary, Benji’s sister,’ said Leilani. ‘She’s your family too.’
Alice stood up and held out her hand, but Mary pushed past her and plopped down into another of the miscellaneous chairs. She continued to regard Alice with an unfriendly stare as Leilani went on.
‘Benji has another sister, Ruby, but she gone north with her man to Lockhart. His brother Reuben died already too.’
Alice looked from Leilani back at Mary and smiled tentatively, sitting down. At this Mary spoke. ‘Heard you showed up. Didn’t take ya too long. Never come when Benji was alive, did ya? Or when he was sick. Jus’ when he was dead.’
Alice drew in a sharp breath but Leilani was indignant. ‘You shut your angry mouth, Mary. This little girl never knew. You know like I do Benji wouldn’t let us tell.’
‘What she come here for anyway?’ Mary was still glaring at Alice. ‘Jus’ look at that coconut sitting there. Why don’ you just get your stuff and go?’
Alice remained silent. After Leilani’s warm welcome she’d let her guard down and now she felt shaken. But worst of all, she knew that there was an element of truth in what Mary said. She’d never made any effort to find her father. She’d waited until it was too late.
But Leilani spoke reassuringly. ‘Don’ you take no notice of Mary, honey. She’s real sour. Sour old fish. She don’ really mean it. She talks cranky to everybody like that. But specially you ’cause you’re so pretty an’ she’s so ugly and sour.’
‘You the ugly old sour one, Leilani. Don’ know what Benji wanted with you. Not right in the head, I reckon.’ Mary was scowling at Leilani now.
‘See, sweetheart?’ Leilani smiled calmly at Alice. ‘Talks like that to me too.’
Mary sat there sulking while Leilani told Alice all about Benji. He’d grown up further north on a large station where his father had worked. As a teenager and young man he’d been employed on several stations around Queensland. Not long after leaving Redstone, he’d met Leilani in Cairns and decided to go out on his own as a contract musterer and horse breaker. They had married and Benji had worked in the Cairns area ever since. He was highly respected in the community, despite his well-known occasional benders. When he became ill he’d sold all his working dogs but one, and all his horses except for two.
‘Reckon he loved those animals more than he loved me.’ Leilani laughed quietly and rocked back and forth in her seat. ‘Loved that truck too. Was like his baby.’
Later that afternoon, some of the kids condescended to let Alice play with them. Leilani brought out a cricket bat and some stumps obviously used only on special occasions. Mary seemed to have cheered up and the two older women sat on the veranda and cackled as they watched the game. The children were in ecstasy. After that, Alice had a permanent trail of kids behind her.
Three unspeaking men arrived just on dark and nodded to Alice before stretching out on the veranda. She rolled out her swag on the quieter side of the house and lay awake listening to the tropical hum. She thought first of her father, and found that the thought of him no longer made her angry; then for some unfathomable reason she thought of Jeremy and wondered what sort of a stir he’d have caused with these people had he come. Would they have liked him? To her surprise, she had a feeling that they would have. With the image of him uppermost in her mind, she drifted off to sleep at last.
The next morning, Alice found that she was first into the kitchen, so she made a pot of tea. Mary wandered in shortly afterwards, her wiry hair sticking out at all angles. She stood regarding Alice for a moment.
‘Want a cuppa?’ Alice asked, pouring her one. She’d noticed the day before that Mary had her tea black with two sugars. Alice handed it to her and Mary took it wordlessly and sat down, still examining Alice as she began to sip.
‘You a good girl,’ she said finally. ‘Benji would’ve liked his girl.’
‘Thanks, Mary.’ They sipped their tea. ‘Do you know any of the places where Benji worked? I would like to meet some of his friends.’
‘Take you after breakfast,’ answered Mary briefly.
So they spent all that day visiting in Mary’s car. Mary, solemn and withdrawn, with two little boys hiding behind her legs, waited patiently at each property while Alice chatted to a variety of people about Benji. She saw horses he had broken in and dogs that he had bred and trained. As the day wore on she became aware of a growing warmth inside her, a building pride in her father, who had been so highly regarded by so many.
That afternoon they returned to Leilani’s and ate sausages around the fire; this time the men spoke a little. Four more carloads of people arrived and another round of sausages and onions was put on to cook. The cricket set came out again and everyone from the very young to the very old joined in, playing until it was too dark to see. Alice was named ‘man of the match’. Things went downhill when another, rowdy carload of people arrived bringing grog.
Alice disappeared inside before midnight to roll out her swag in a back room. She was thinking of the long drive ahead. However, not long after going to sleep she was awoken again when a few of the children, dragging blankets, came and nestled in beside her, accompanied by an old dog.
After breakfast the next morning, she loaded the horses and the dog onto the truck, somewhat mechanically. She hadn’t really even looked at them properly yet. There would be plenty of time for that back at Redstone, and for the emotions it would no doubt arouse in her. Then she drove back over to the house to make her farewells.
By this time, the fire had been relit and the last of the sausages and onions were cooking. The mob gathered around and Alice was hugged, kissed and slapped on the back. The children hung on to her clothes while Leilani and Mary squeezed her and cried.
Leilani put the soft palms of her hands on Alice’s cheeks and looked deep into her eyes. ‘You let me know if you ever need anything, honey. I love you, sweetheart.’
And Alice knew she meant it, this tired little woman who already had too many people to care for. ‘Thank you, Leilani. I will. You too.’
Mary walked with Alice to the truck holding her hand. As Alice hoisted herself up into the driver’s seat, the children clung to her.
She drove down the dirt track honking the horn, a trail of squealing barefoot children pelting along behind her. The few men who were awake, standing by the fire, raised their hands in farewell salutes. Alice’s face was streaked with tears. For the first hour that she drove, they flowed like two little salty streams down her cheeks, splashing onto her jeans. But she was smiling.
Chapter 28
It was nearly Christmas and Redstone was critically dry. The storms that sometimes came in October, bringing the first relief from the dry season, hadn’t arrived. Then November had come and gone with unrelenting sunshine and skies that were endlessly blue.
If it hadn’t been for the few unseasonal showers they’d had on Redstone through the winter, the grass would have been completely gone. As it was, it was becoming sparse and unpalatable for the cattle. The ground was baked hard and cracked in places. All the dams were low or dry and their boggy banks had become treacherous for the weakened cows. All the cattle were showing the strain, their bones visible through their hides; the lactating cows were doing it particularly tough, and their calves were stunted from lack of milk.
The dingoes were making their presence felt, coming in from the national park and killing or mauling the feeble calves. The cows, usually so protective of their babies, were too weary to put up much of a fight. Each day there were new grim discoveries, heralded by circling crows and eagles that could be seen from a distance. Wild brumbies, goats and pigs also began to break the boundary fences in search of water and feed. Checking became an even more vital and frequent duty than usual.
But as her grandfather admitted to Alice at dinner one night, the cows had hung on much longer this time before starting to ‘crack up’. This could only be due to the mineral dry lick Alice had insisted they begin to use three months earlier. It
had involved more expense, with small shelter sheds needing to be built, and replacing it regularly was time-consuming. But now, as significant numbers of cattle on the neighbouring properties began to die, the Redstone cows hung on.
In December, the time of the usual wet season, the clouds began to build. Each day, the sky taunted all the thirsty creatures inhabiting the parched country below. Starting mid-morning as almost invisible wispy tendrils of vapour, the clouds would accumulate throughout the day. By early afternoon the sky would be half full of a spectacular fluffy display that piled higher upon itself as the day drew to a close. But no amount of wishing, praying or gazing skywards would induce it to release a single drop of moisture, and by the next morning the clouds would have evaporated again. This pattern continued for a few weeks until the inhabitants of Redstone began to go about their business ignoring the empty promise of the clouds.
On her return from up north, Alice had turned the yearling colt from her father out into the Brigalow paddock with the pack ponies. She’d watched him gallop away with his tail held high and thought back to what Leilani had said when she’d taken Alice to see the horses: ‘Benji sold all his horses and dogs when the sickness came. Except for two and one. The big grey mare he said you might not like. But ’e wanted me to tell you, she’s strong and will get the job done. He was going to breed from her. The colt he said was the one for you. He knew you will like that horse.’
But apart from occasionally checking on the colt to make sure he was behaving himself, Alice hadn’t given him a lot of thought since then. The liver chestnut was still at the gangly adolescent stage, but she could see he was a large part-Arabian. He had a perfectly sculpted head with a small nose, large flared nostrils and a deeply dished-out face in true Arabian style. His eye and manner were a little fiery and her grandfather had shaken his head ominously at the sight of him.
The grey mare was six or seven years old, judging by her teeth. Also visibly Arabian, she had a dash of something more solid – Sam thought perhaps even Clydesdale. Alice had ridden her once: she discovered that the horse was indeed willing and sound, but that she and the grey had nothing in common. The mare was a hard-headed man’s horse. Alice gave her to Jeremy to ride and they hit it off immediately. She also gave him the honour of naming the grey, since she’d forgotten to ask Leilani what she’d been called. He named her Carmen, after a lesbian he’d once met and liked immensely. Strangely, it suited her to a tee.
Benji’s pup had been living under the veranda, and to everyone’s surprise Olive seemed to have taken a fancy to him. King Henry the Ninth was the only creature the old woman had ever previously admitted to any affection for, so why the ungainly pup was considered worthy of this special attention, Alice could only wonder. He was tall and long-legged, his bony frame covered by course medium length hair, mainly white, with a few large brown splashes. Clearly a cocktail of working dog breeds, he also had something of an overgrown terrier about him. Regarding the unrefined-looking creature, Leilani had said, ‘That big ugly pup, Benji made us keep for you. He said don’ be put off by his ugly head.’ She’d chuckled then. ‘He’s real special, that pup.’
Alice still felt a strange ambivalence about the intimacy of inheriting her father’s animals, and had so far avoided spending any time with the unattractive creature. She told her grandmother to choose a name for him; to Alice’s dismay, Olive named him after Mr Darcy. Alice thought it a terrible waste to use the name on such a timid, badly proportioned mongrel.
Although she would never have articulated them to her husband and granddaughter, Olive had her reasons for her attachment to the pup. By being kind to Darcy she felt that in some small way she was making amends for her treatment of Benji. After all, the stockman had given them Alice, and while it had seemed a disaster at the time, life without Alice was now unimaginable. Olive could clearly remember the day Benji had come back to Redstone in search of his daughter. She’d been filled with apprehension, afraid that he had come to take Alice away. At that moment, she’d realised how deeply she’d come to love the fey little creature that was her granddaughter, and just how vital a part of Redstone Alice had become.
Olive had always considered herself an excellent judge of character. But just recently, her confidence had been shaken. Since Benji’s death, she’d even gone so far as to wonder anew about Lara’s actions leading up to Alice’s conception. At the time, she’d laid the blame solely and heavily on Benji’s shoulders, always maintaining that he’d taken advantage of a young, innocent girl. But now she wasn’t so sure. Even as a small child, her daughter had never agreed to do anything unless she wholeheartedly wanted to do it. In recent years, with Lara always absent, Olive had been able to view her daughter’s actions more objectively. In doing so, she had realised that self-interest was now, and probably always had been, Lara’s prime motivation in life. She never contacted Redstone unless she needed something. She’d been back only twice since Alice’s first birthday, and her three children were virtually strangers to their bush grandparents.
Then there was Jeremy. Sam had seen his potential from the very beginning, while Olive had blindly adhered to the bad impression she’d already formed, based solely on the stories and gossip of others.
‘Well, it’s never too late to learn,’ Olive told herself one day, as she sat on the steps patting the pup.
For Alice, now wasn’t the time to dwell on her father’s death. She’d only allow herself the luxury of mourning for the father she’d have loved to know once it had rained and they were on top of things again. And only then, too, would she attend to the pup. With so many drought jobs to do, there had been little time to work with any of the animals.
All Alice’s leftover energy was devoted to Mushgang’s Arab filly. The animal’s sensitive, fast responses and the speed at which she was learning thrilled Alice to the core. Her grandfather had always talked about the ‘horse of a lifetime’, the kind a person only encounters once, and even then, only if they were lucky. Alice strongly suspected that she’d found that horse.
But her grandfather was concerned. ‘Horses like that filly can be killers, Ali. It’s not just the bucking. I saw her double-barrel Jeremy that day. Once a dirty horse, always a dirty horse. Can’t ever trust ’em.’
Alice had tried to explain that she and the filly truly respected each other and therefore she believed she had nothing to fear. But he wouldn’t listen. ‘Arabs are bad news, Alice. Spooky bloody things. Lunatics when they’re fresh, which is most of the time. Your dad always had Arabs – now he’s the only bloke I ever saw that could handle ’em.’
Alice was delighted with this piece of information, and Sam clearly regretted making the comment.
‘Stick to what you know, Ali. You won’t beat the old Australian stockhorse.’
‘Pa, she’s the most intelligent horse I’ve ever handled.’
‘Oh, Arabs are intelligent alright, I’ll give ’em that. That’s their biggest problem. Too many brains and ideas of their own.’
‘That’s what people say about Brahman cattle, too,’ Alice argued. ‘You always say that intelligent animals are either the best or the worst kind, depending on how they’re handled. I remember you telling me that if I was having a problem with a horse, to hop off and go inside for a good look in the mirror.’
At this her grandfather had chuckled. ‘You’re a good listener, Alice. But this horse is damaged goods. It’s already made up its mind that it hates people. Very hard to reverse that kind of attitude.’
However, Alice continued to work with the filly in defiance of her grandfather, and she could feel the connection growing stronger by the day. Lately she’d noticed that at the sight of her the filly raised her head, pricked her ears and gently flared her large nostrils. Then she’d walk towards her, quivering her lips in a silent nicker. She came of her own free will: this was more than enough reassurance for Alice. The filly wanted to learn. She wasn’t a fighter, but like any free spirit, she could become one when backed into
a corner. The name on her papers was Desert Storm; Alice renamed her Desert Rose.
Late in November, with her grandfather spying anxiously from the house and Jeremy hovering in the shed nearby, she’d ridden Rose for the first time. As the site for the momentous occasion she’d chosen the open sandy side yard, with its dappled shade and a trough. Her grandfather had argued with her the night before, insisting that she should start in the tiny forcing yard. This would ensure that the filly would have to curve her body, making it harder to buck. But Alice knew that Rose needed breathing space.
Apart from breaking into an instant sweat, her body tight and trembling, the sensitive creature had behaved like a lady. Alice had mounted quickly and then simply sat, stroking the mare and talking softly for a long time. Then she’d dismounted and mounted again several times in quick succession before unsaddling Rose and letting her go. Jeremy had asked her later if she’d ‘chickened out’, but she assured him she’d achieved exactly what she’d set out to do for that day.
Since then, Alice had ridden Rose at every opportunity, usually at daybreak or sunset, but always within the safety of the yards. Alice could now turn her, stop her and move her with the slightest touch of a leg, twitch of a finger on the reins or shift in her body weight. In the paddock, Rose had mated up with Snoopy, her grandfather’s old bay stockhorse. He was well and truly at the bottom of the herd pecking order, just as Rose was clearly at the top. Therefore, the two were no threat to one another and soon became inseparable.
One afternoon a few days before Christmas, Jeremy and Alice were home a little earlier than usual from ‘pulling’ a windmill. This was a greasy, strenuous job that involved hauling the pipe under the windmill up from under the ground, section by section, with a block and tackle type pulley, until the damaged length was found and could be replaced. They were having smoko with the old couple, who had been out checking on the back country. On this rare occasion, Olive had accompanied her husband, to keep his spirits up, Alice supposed. Sam was complaining about the way windmills always played up in the driest times when there was no surface water lying around to rely on for back-up.
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