Never mind. Once she got a bit nearer, she’d ask to be dropped off at a service station to use the phone. She wouldn’t feel guilty calling Overflow, to ask Michael to pick her up. He only had to drive half an hour or so to get her. She swung her swag onto the back seat, into a bare space between what looked like a rolled-up mattress, a couple of bulging sacks, and two blue-and-white Eskies, as clean as the kombi itself. Jed slid onto the front seat next to the driver and clicked on the seatbelt. The kombi van moved off smoothly.
She looked out the window at the now-familiar plains, surprised at her affection for them, the intensity of her longing to see Nicholas, Nancy, Tommy, Scarlett, even Drinkwater, Overflow and the river. Today of all days even the Dragon couldn’t resent the time she spent with Tommy. She could tell him what the world still did not know, what a close call the landing had been, what that double step from Neil Armstrong had meant. Tommy would understand that the most critical of all times was still approaching, not just landing on the moon, but returning and landing safely.
She’d try to see Tommy tonight, then Nancy would give her a lift to River View tomorrow to see Nicholas. They could go down to the river again, that lovely endless river that kept flowing no matter what humans did on Earth or in the skies. She could tell Nicholas all about it, share the excitement and triumph. Maybe after school they’d play ‘balloon catch’ with Scarlett. Her small hands could manage a balloon now . . .
She’d forgotten her hitchhiker’s duty to be friendly. She turned to the driver. ‘Thanks for picking me up. The swag was heavy.’
The man nodded without speaking, his eyes on the road. Shy? She didn’t think so. He looked strangely intent. Worrying about a problem, maybe. ‘Do you live in Gibber’s Creek?’
No answer. It was almost as if she wasn’t there.
She smiled again. People always smiled back at you. This man saw the smile, but his face didn’t change.
She had seen hunger on men’s faces. Had known Merv’s possessive lust. This man showed neither of those, but alarm prickled along her spine.
‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind,’ she said casually. ‘My auntie’s place is just along here. See that house up on the hill? If you could drop me at the driveway, that would be great.’
He didn’t answer. Nor did the kombi van slow down as it passed the driveway she had pointed to.
Strangely, she felt no fear, but almost a curious elation. Two years back she had been a victim — she had been asleep and unprepared.
She was neither now.
‘Stop the car, please.’ Her voice didn’t shake.
Still he didn’t look at her. Jed reached into her shoulder bag, took out her fruit knife, held the blade up. ‘Please stop the car.’
He smiled then, the smile of a man who knows that in a fight he would always overpower a girl, even one armed with a fruit knife.
He was right.
She leaned forwards and placed the blade on the clean dashboard. ‘Stop the car now or I start slicing. Dashboard first, then the seat. Then I’ll break your windows: see the heels on my shoes? I reckon they’ll do it.’
She saw him blink, startled, before he began to stop the kombi almost without thinking. She had learned one thing in the past two years. Men — some men — might relish the thought of a tussle with a woman, the chance to overpower, to hurt her. They’d laugh off any minor injury to themselves. But not to their car — or kombi van. A certain type of man’s dashboard was more precious to him than his own skin.
She flung the door open quickly as the kombi van slowed and tumbled out onto the spiky roadside grass and gravel. The driver accelerated, but too late to stop her, the kombi’s door swinging wildly. The kombi van halted about a hundred metres down the road, then reversed, fast, towards her.
She forced herself to stand, trying to evaluate her injuries. Shoulder, knee, hip hurt. Hurt a lot. But bruises, no breaks. She could move. Had to move. Had to run. Because now she knew what she had smelled in that kombi van.
It was the smell of death.
Why had she thought this could never happen to her? She, who knew that bad things could happen?
No time to think now. She scrambled between the wires of the barbed-wire fence, ripping the skin on her arms. Across the bare paddock, cold air and sheep droppings. If she could get to the house on the hill, the people there might help her. Or at least be witnesses that the monster behind her must avoid. Unless the house was empty, or its occupants were at work, out in the paddocks or in town . . .
She risked seconds glancing back along the road. No cars. Her pursuer swore as he tried to clamber through the barbed wire too. She staggered on towards the house, her mind working faster than her limbs. The best weapon on Earth is the human brain.
Who had said that? Her? If it was hers, she must give it to Nicholas for his book.
Think! She had been right to climb through barbed wire. She could put up with torn skin, but the man behind could not. Injuries to his face or clothes might have to be explained. Care would slow him down. But once he began to chase her across the paddocks he’d overtake her fast.
Should she risk wasting breath on calls for help from the house beyond, or save it for running? She screamed, ‘Help!’ and felt her legs slow for a few seconds as she did.
Two years earlier people had heard her scream, and no one helped. But this was Gibber’s Creek, or near enough, where neighbours fought bushfires together and men stopped to help a wheelchair up a gutter.
A shadow moved among the trees on the hill. Someone had heard her! The shadow on the hill turned, as if about to come closer . . .
‘Help me!’ she cried again, waving her arms. ‘Please! Help!’
Behind her, tyres shrieked to a stop on the road. A voice, a man’s, vaguely familiar, yelled up the hill, ‘You okay?’
She turned.
A ute, with a rainbow across its side, was parked behind the kombi. Raincloud stared up at her, dressed in jeans and turquoise Nehru shirt.
She screamed, ‘Help! Please! Help!’
Raincloud looked from her to the man halfway through the fence. He parted the wire with the long-practised hands of a young man who had grown up with barbed-wire fences and slipped through. He began to run towards her as the man from the kombi ducked back from the fence into his van. It vanished in a scream of spitting gravel.
She looked back up the hill, trying to catch her breath. The figure in the trees had vanished.
She found the strength to look down towards Raincloud, already halfway to her side.
‘Hey, man, what’s happening? You all right?’
Her heart pounded, relief vying with terror. Relief won.
Raincloud would not hurt her.
‘What happened? Was it that fella who took off? Was he trying to . . .?’ Raincloud hesitated. Suddenly she liked that this young man could not even say the words ‘rape’ or ‘kill’.
She said ‘Yes’ and both of them knew exactly what she meant. ‘I was hitching. Managed to get out of the van.’
‘He hurt you?’
She shook her head, aware of a trickle of blood on her arms, her cheek.
‘We’d better get you to Doc McAlpine, anyhow.’ Raincloud hesitated, then put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, grateful for his unexpected strength under the embroidered garish shirt as he led her down to the road, held the wires of the fence expertly again, so she could climb back through without the barbs snagging her, then opened the passenger door of the ute.
‘Thank you. I . . . I don’t know how to thank you . . .’
‘No thanks needed.’ Raincloud sounded embarrassed. ‘You need a hand into the ute?’
‘No. I’m all right. But he took my swag. My tent, my clothes. My books!’
‘Bastard. You get the number plate?’
She tried to concentrate. ‘It had a New South Wales number plate. I can remember the first few letters . . .’
‘That should be enough. Give the cops a ring.’
>
‘No, I —’ She stopped. Would the police know the name Jed Kelly? Unlikely. She’d been Janet Skellowski at school, and at the reform home. And even if the police knew her name, she had a duty to stop that man from killing. He’d been so sure of himself, so blandly driven: she was sure he’d killed before. The next girl he picked up might not know to threaten his dashboard with a fruit knife. In a flash she remembered the girls found in Victoria. The remote locations; the hitchhikers. Matilda had been right. Drat it.
‘I don’t need a doctor.’ She pulled a hanky from her jeans and wiped the blood from her arm. The bleeding had stopped already. ‘Could you just take me to Drinkwater? I . . . I want to see Tommy. Mr Thompson.’ That was what was important now. To see Tommy before he died. ‘They can ring the police from there. I’ll tell them what happened. I can describe him. What he looked like, what his car is like.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ll tell the police too. Can’t have b— blighters like that running about the place. If me and the boys find him, we’ll show him what for. But better the cops get him.’ He looked at her with respect as she sat, still trying to steady her breath, in the front seat of his ute. ‘You got away from him. That’s pretty incredible. You’re pretty incredible.’
She flushed. ‘Th-thank you.’
‘Got some carrot cake behind the seat there. And a Thermos of tea. Mum makes good carrot cake. You need something sweet for the shock.’ He rummaged behind the seat, found the Thermos, and used the lid as a cup to pour tea out for her. The Thermos of tea — ordinary tea — in the rainbow-painted ute seemed so incongruous she nearly laughed.
She took it, found her hands were shaking, drank the pre-sweetened liquid and felt both the heat and sweetness soothing. She took a bite of cake. The world steadied.
‘You okay to go on now? You’re not going to faint or anything?’
‘No. I’m not going to faint.’
‘Didn’t think you would. But we need to get those cuts cleaned up.’ He started the engine. The ute moved out onto the road.
‘I . . . I wanted to say I’m sorry,’ he said suddenly. ‘You know, when we met in the shop? I shouldn’t have said what I did. Your boyfriend did what he believed in. If we all had the guts to do what we believed in, the world would be a better place.’
Did Nicholas believe in what he had been doing? She didn’t even know. Nor was she sure that everyone fighting for their beliefs with guns and bombs or whatever other tactic they thought necessary would make the world better either. But she was glad of Raincloud’s apology.
Raincloud glanced at her again. ‘You’re looking better,’ he said with evident relief. ‘Got some colour in your face. Get that cake into you.’
Jed nodded. She nibbled more cake and found that the few minutes with her attacker had almost vanished into the magnificence of yesterday and all she had to share with Tommy.
Tommy. Nicholas. Nancy. Scarlett O’Hara and all of Overflow and Drinkwater and Gibber’s Creek, and the astronauts even now heading back to Earth.
The good remained, and would be built on. The bad would one day be dust, and forgotten.
Chapter 62
JED
‘Oh my goodness gracious!’ The Dragon stared at her. ‘Has someone pulled you through a hedge backwards?’
‘Some b— blighter tried to attack her,’ said Raincloud. ‘I got a good look at him, though, and his kombi van, and she got part of the licence plate. Okay if I phone the police?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. It’s in the hall.’ Matilda Thompson stepped back, looking too shocked to even glance disdainfully at Raincloud’s embroidered shirt. ‘Jed.’ Her voice was lower now. ‘Are you all right? Do you need the doctor? Moira is upstairs. I can call her.’
‘He didn’t hurt me,’ said Jed, suddenly more weary than she could remember ever being. There had been days when she had been more tired, but adrenalin had kept her going. This was Drinkwater and safety, and her adrenalin had drained away. For a while, at least. ‘Tommy, is he . . .?’
‘He saw man walk on the moon,’ said Matilda Thompson gently, and Jed saw tears gather in her eyes. ‘He’s been watching that television thing all day, in case there is a news flash.’
‘It’s all going okay? I haven’t heard anything all day,’ said Jed urgently.
‘You’re as bad as he is. My dear, may I suggest a shower . . .?’
‘Could I see Tommy first? Please?’
‘Yes,’ said Matilda Thompson. Her voice still had that strange gentleness. She led the way upstairs.
Tommy’s room smelled of Tommy, and starched sheets and a faint whiff of Matron’s rose perfume.
‘Jed.’ His voice was not quite a breath. She saw him look at the cuts on her arms, her face. At least they had stopped bleeding. She had used Raincloud’s hanky to wipe most of the mess away.
She ran to Tommy, kneeled by the bed, so she didn’t get dust from the roadside on his white sheets. ‘It’s okay. I’m okay. Just had an argument with a barbed-wire fence.’ Not for anything would she let Tommy be worried by what had so nearly happened, what might have happened if Raincloud hadn’t stopped. ‘Tommy, they did it. We did it! Humankind! I was in the control room. I saw it all. The astronauts nearly didn’t make it, only forty seconds of fuel left . . . Did they put that on television?’
He smiled. A hand like feathers lifted and stroked her cheek. ‘Tell me later. All of it. I’ll be waiting.’
She stood up. ‘I resigned from the tracking station. I want to be with you when the astronauts come back to Earth. I —’ She realised she had taken it for granted that Nancy would take her back at Overflow, that she might even be given a job again at River View.
Behind her, Matilda Thompson said, ‘Best if you stay here. I suspected you’d be back before the weekend. Anita made up the bedroom at the end of the hall for you this morning.’
Jed stared at her, this small fierce woman who was married to her (perhaps) great-grandfather. This intelligent woman who’d had the insight to know Jed would come here as soon as she was able to. The compassion to know that she would want to stay there — that Tommy would want her there until the astronauts were safe on Earth, until . . .
She took a breath, looking again at the man in the bed. Until Tommy, darling Tommy, allowed himself to die.
‘A shower,’ said Matilda Thompson. They moved outside together.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any clean clothes. The man took my swag. He’s even got my schoolbooks.’
‘We can provide clothes. Have you had lunch?’
‘No. Nor breakfast. Or dinner last night. Raincloud gave me some carrot cake. He . . . he stopped to help me.’ No one had ever stopped to help before. Except Nancy, who had been asked to by Matilda. Those warm, good people . . . The small cold knot of fear she had held for almost her entire life began to melt inside her. ‘Could you thank him for me?’
‘Of course. I’ll leave you a dressing gown in your bedroom. Anita will bring up a tray. Clothes should be here by the time you’ve eaten.’ Emotion oozed, thick as cooling toffee, between them. Dislike? Distrust?
Then, suddenly, it snapped. Another emotion, too new for Jed to understand, took its place. Matilda Thompson leaned forwards and placed a softly scented kiss on Jed’s cheek. ‘I’m glad you’re home. Don’t worry about this morning. Don’t worry about anything. We will take care of it all.’
Chapter 63
JED
‘We will take care of it all.’
Jed felt tears as well as shower water on her cheeks. Would they still say that if the private detective proved she wasn’t Tommy’s great-granddaughter? Please, she thought. Please let me be. We have to be! Two people can’t share dreams like we do and not be related.
Except of course across the world tens of thousands had seen the same dream come true, were waiting for their heroes to return now.
In the past forty-eight hours she had seen the best and the worst of humanity. She smiled slightly. She knew which one would be with h
er longest, and most profoundly.
She dried herself, examining the bruises that had bloomed on hip and leg and arm. The barbed-wire scratch on her arm had almost vanished — luckily, as the dressing gown was silk. Thick and embossed with — of course — dragons, Chinese ones, red dragons on a green silk background. She had just tied it around her waist when Anita knocked on the door.
She sat cross-legged on the bed and ate with her fingers: thickly buttered mutton-and-chutney sandwiches on fresh bread; a generous piece of apple pie in a pool of yellow custard; a small plate with slices of fruitcake, two buttered halves of a date scone and three home-made fat gingernut biscuits. No pot of tea, but an egg flip in a tall glass, tasting of sugar and vanilla.
Her hand had trembled as she’d reached for the first sandwich. But by the last drop of egg flip it was as if more than food strengthened her: the land itself was warming her, wrapping hands of power all around her.
‘We will take care of it all.’ Suddenly the words seemed to refer to more than Matilda Thompson and her family, or even the community in which they lived.
She heard the sound of an engine below: Raincloud’s ute, leaving. She would need to thank him in person, but for now she needed quiet, the people that she knew. Then she heard the sound of a van pulling up. For a heart-wrenching second she thought it might be the kombi van, its driver intent on silencing his witness, with only an old woman, a nurse, a housekeeper and a bedridden man in his way. But then she realised that there were farm workers within call; and that even she and Matilda Thompson together would make a formidable defence team, despite her youth and Matilda’s age; and, when she peered out the window, that the van was not a kombi, but had ‘Lee’s Emporium’ written on the side.
Voices below, the van driving off again. Another knock on the door.
‘Come in.’
Matilda Thompson entered, carrying bags labelled Lee’s Emporium. Jed smiled. She doubted they contained jeans or Indian dresses.
A mini dress in apricot with a pale green border, the sort you might wear to town; two pairs of moleskins and two checked shirts; socks; boots; two pairs of sandals — one with highish heels — all the right size, just like the clothes. There was more: two sun dresses, one purple with orange stripes at the hem, one in yellows and pinks with psychedelic swirls; a pretty dress — there was no other word for it than ‘pretty’ — with blue flowers on a white background; underpants, none of which were white or remotely sensible; sturdy but lace-trimmed bras; two cotton nightdresses and one silk; and an Akubra hat as well as a straw one decorated with dried flowers.
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