Down Outback Roads

by Alissa Callen

  Bill, the barkeep, nodded at Ewan as he dragged up a stool. ‘Nice shirt,’ he commented in his unhurried drawl.

  ‘That’s enough cheek from you,’ Ewan said with a smile, eyeing off Bill’s unfamiliar collared shirt, which had the Calf and Cow logo on the right front pocket. ‘I could say the same thing about you.’

  Bill had owned the bar for as long as Ewan could remember. He’d served him his first beer as an eighteen-year-old when his father had brought him in to celebrate his milestone birthday.

  Bill grimaced and tugged at the chambray-blue shirt collar. ‘It’s Jordy’s fancy idea. She thinks if I dress more professional-like, when tourists come they’ll visit again. She has pink ones for herself and even had a small green one made for Mikey.’

  Ewan accepted the beer Bill slid to him with a small nod. ‘Your Jordy has a good head on her shoulders. She may very well be right.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘Things that bad?’

  ‘They’ve been better.’

  Ewan took a sip of the cold beer. ‘It takes time. You’ve survived your share of droughts and know the drill. For farmers to have money in their wallets, their stock has to fatten and their cash crops ripen first.’

  The older man wiped a tall glass clean. ‘How about you? Got any crops in?’

  ‘I’m trying. The winter oats are in and if I ever get the airseeder fixed the canola and wheat will soon be in, too.’

  ‘How’d it go with the bank?’

  Ewan knew the shrewd barkeep wouldn’t have missed why he was dressed in his Sunday finery. Bill, Travis and Old Harry were the only people privy to his financial jam. ‘As well as can be expected. I don’t envy the city-bankie his job, but direct city ways don’t work out here. I don’t need to be told how serious things are. I sure as hell know.’

  ‘So, he’ll back you into those fancy-sounding cattle?’

  ‘I’ve got the green light but only for half the amount I need.’

  Bill placed the glass he’d polished on the counter. ‘Ewan, you know your dad and I go way back. Your father was a good and decent man and you’re a chip off the old block.’

  Bill’s mouth firmed and Ewan knew he’d mentally finished his sentence with the words, ‘unlike your brother’. He’d never asked Bill why he and Fergus hadn’t got on. Maybe it had something to do with Fergus’s willingness to start a pub brawl.

  But Bill hadn’t finished speaking. ‘It would be an honour if you’d let me help. I’ve got a nest egg and I’m sure my money would be safe with you. Knowing you, those cows won’t be any hare-brained scheme.’

  Emotion constricted Ewan’s throat. When the wheat silo on the property they’d share-farmed had fallen and killed his father, Bill had taken him on as though he were the son he’d once lost. And now Bill was offering him financial help when he should be making provisions for his and Jordy’s future.

  ‘Bill, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Say, yes. Little Mikey is only three and he and Jordy won’t need my nest egg for a while yet.’

  ‘Thank you, but you know I can’t. I couldn’t forgive myself if I wasted a cent of your savings.’

  Bill collected another glass to wipe. ‘Well, my offer stands for anytime you need cash. If my boy had survived his motorbike accident, I hope he’d have turned out like you. Tish and the twins would be lost without your help.’

  Ewan took a deep gulp of beer. ‘Thanks again, Bill, but I’ll find a way to afford the UltraBlack cattle … So how’s Mikey doing? He looked like he’d grown a foot when I last saw him.’

  As Ewan had hoped, Bill’s faded brown eyes brightened at the mention of his adored, red-haired grandson, who lived behind the pub with him. Ewan’s tight grip around his beer glass eased. He was safe. There’d be no more talk about money or about the reason why caring for Tish and the boys had become his life’s mission.

  Sweet dreams.

  Tish zipped the plastic cover of her small greenhouse shut and smiled at the two new pots on the middle shelf. The thumb-high shoots would grow into clusters of white agapanthus. When Ewan had returned from town yesterday, he’d delivered Travis’s latest gifts. When the drought had started, Travis’s generosity had kept her vegetable garden full. Her smile widened. And now he was back in the district he’d again taken to sending her plants via Ewan. Despite his years away, a love of gardening still linked them.

  She pulled on her worn leather gloves, grabbed her small spade and continued to prepare a new garden bed. When she’d first arrived at Marellen, Travis had taught her what plants grew where and how to make her small garden at the cottage water-wise. Though she’d been naïve and city-green, he’d spoken to her as an equal, something Fergus hadn’t ever done. But then she’d fallen pregnant, rain had become a distant memory, and everything had changed.

  As her stomach grew, marking her as Fergus’s wife, Travis’s visits to Marellen slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Heavily pregnant, she’d bumped into him in town one summer afternoon and he’d gazed at her with his serious hazel eyes and wished her all the best with the twins. On that hot and dizzying day, a part of her had shrivelled and died. It’d felt like he was saying goodbye. Their friendship had provided her with the laughter and emotional support her marriage had lacked. Without Travis to talk to, it was as though a light had switched off in her world.

  The next time she’d seen him was when he’d come grave-faced and solemn, to tell her he’d be heading south to set up a crop-dusting business so he could someday buy his own farm. Tish paused in her digging. She hadn’t seen him again until Fergus’s funeral. Travis had guided her through the French doors into the garden and held her under the wisteria-covered pergola until no more tears could fall.

  She thrust the spade deep into the friable soil. She might make jokes about Travis and Ewan’s bachelor status but if she was honest with herself, the day Travis married would cut far deeper than losing the husband who’d only ever wanted a trophy wife and never wanted to be a father.

  Tish straightened to rub the dull ache in the small of her back. A flash of red and yellow caught her eye and she turned to see two small bodies pushing a sand-loaded dump truck.

  ‘Boys, you’re not going where I think you are, are you?’

  Darby instantly took his hands off the large toy truck while Braye continued to push the laden vehicle.

  ‘Braye Edward Mackenzie, stop right there. Sand stays in the sandpit and doesn’t go into my pumpkin patch. The soil there is sandy enough as it is.’

  She’d spent a day carting horse manure from the pile near the stables to dig into the area and increase the soil’s organic matter.

  Braye stopped but his eyes remained on the pumpkin patch at the far edge of the veggie garden. The vast expanse was perfect for making a series of roads in between the rapidly expanding vines.

  ‘Braye … turn the truck around.’

  With an exaggerated sigh, Braye did as he was asked.

  Tish repressed a smile. ‘Thank you. When the sand is back in the sandpit, how about you head inside, have a drink and a piece of chocolate slice and then we’ll start the afternoon jobs.’

  The boys upended the dump truck in the sandpit and bolted over the lawn towards the back screen door, with brown and white Midget close behind. A plate of sliced oranges sat next to the container of slice but she knew if she used the word ‘fruit’ the boys wouldn’t have abandoned their play so quickly.

  She removed her gloves and carried them and the shovel into the potting shed Ewan had custom-built for her. The sun had commenced its downward arc. Holly, the lovable old grey pony, didn’t like being kept waiting for her dinner. If Tish and the boys were late with her bucket of grain, she’d whinny and hit the metal gate with her right front hoof. The chooks, too, would be expecting their afternoon food delivery.

  She and the boys would open the top half of the split chook-pen gate, throw in the garden weeds and any kitchen food scraps. They’d then leave filling the feeder with l
ayer-mash and the collecting of the usual six eggs to Ewan. Lancelot, the rooster, considered the chook pen his personal kingdom and Ewan was the only person he didn’t attack. Concerned for the boys, Ewan threatened to replace Lancelot with a placid rooster, but for some reason Braye was attached to the strutting red and black cockerel. Hearing Lancelot crow in the morning always made him happy.

  As Tish neared the homestead, Darby ran out into the garden with the kitchen phone, but it was Braye who spoke. ‘There’s some lady wanting you or Uncle Ewy. She sounds really weird.’

  Tish took the handset, held it to her ear and walked closer to the house to ensure she received good reception. ‘Tish Mackenzie speaking.’

  ‘Hi, Tish, sorry to bother you and Ewan again,’ Kree’s American accent sounded, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve more water problems … and this time inside the house.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  What wouldn’t she give for a shower?

  Kree poured the bore water she’d heated in the electric kettle into the sink. She plunged her hands into the soapy liquid and washed the milky bottle and teat she’d just used to feed Fudge. Getting her hands wet would have to do. The farmhouse had no internal water.

  Kree had thought taking photos and walking to check on the lambing ewes might kick-start her creative thinking. She needed to find a way to thank the Glenalla community for saving Seth. Cooking Travis and Ewan a special dinner was a start, but she also needed a plan that would benefit the entire town. But her afternoon stroll hadn’t encouraged her muse, just left her feeling over-cooked.

  Kree set the bottle to drain on the sink rack and pulled the plug. As the water gurgled down the drain in the opposite direction to what she was used to, she twined her hair into a knot on the top of her head.

  Tish said Ewan was coming in from the shed and would head straight over. Thank goodness his property adjoined the Tylers’, and he’d be here soon. He’d be able to work his pump magic and she could have that long-overdue cold shower. She glanced at her bare legs. And also do the washing she’d been putting off. All she had left to wear were a pair of jeans – now cut-offs thanks to her episode of climbing over the fence yesterday to rescue Freckle – and a snug, hot-pink tee. The cotton must have shrunk in the Aussie sun, either that or the lamingtons she’d developed a taste for were adding curves in all the wrong places.

  Kree turned to the plastic bowl filled with cold bore water on the bench and scooped water over her cheeks. She blinked at the chill. Ewan had to be able to fix the pump, and if not, worst-case scenario she could shower and sleep in town. She could make the forty-five minute drive to Berridale before Fudge needed her morning bottle. Sure, the little goat and puppy might not like being on their own at night, but the alternative was to intrude into Ewan’s personal life and that wasn’t happening. She knew him well enough to know he’d offer to have her stay. But she couldn’t accept.

  Ewan wasn’t only married. He had kids.

  Kree grabbed the clean tea towel she’d pulled from the kitchen drawer and patted her face dry. When the tiny voice had whispered ‘hello’ into the phone, shock had held her silent. Then a second louder, more boisterous, voice had sounded. She hadn’t considered the possibility he’d be a father. The gentleness and respect with which he treated Whiskey had warmed her heart. She could only imagine how involved and hands-on he’d be as a dad. Tish really was a lucky woman.

  The excited clack of Fudge’s hooves and clip of Freckle’s toenails sounded on the verandah floorboards as they raced around to the driveway. Kree draped the tea towel on a cupboard handle. Ewan had arrived.

  She pushed open the screen door. Unlike when he’d last visited, Ewan had come dressed in his farm gear. Kree bit the inside of her cheek. Even after a day in the paddocks, a man just wasn’t supposed to look so good in a dusty, emerald-green shirt and faded jeans.

  As he drew near to where she stood on the top step, a warm breeze brushed across her stomach letting her know her snug, hot-pink tee had again worked itself free from the waistband of her cut-offs. Ewan’s grey eyes flickered over her. She thought she caught a flare of deep and dark emotion, but knew it had to have been a trick of the strong light.

  ‘So, no water inside this time, Kree?’ he said, pulling the brim of his hat a little further over his face.

  ‘Not a drop. I hope what you said before about the pressure pump being a nightmare to fix won’t prove true. I so need a shower.’

  ‘I know how you feel. It’s a scorcher today and I swear it was at least five degrees hotter in the machinery shed.’

  ‘Tish said you’re working on an airseeder?’

  ‘Yes, I was replacing the hydraulic pump so I can start sowing while there’s still moisture left in the soil profile.’

  ‘Sorry to have dragged you away. This has to be the last thing that can go wrong.’

  ‘No worries.’ He cast her a grin that disappeared too quickly. ‘I’d almost finished, anyway.’

  ‘Thanks again. Touch wood when you next visit, it will only be for dinner.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right. Now, how about we check on this pump.’

  Her eyes lingered on his profile as he turned away. Had the mention of their dinner caused his mouth to tense?

  She followed him along the side of the house to where two cream-coloured poly tanks were nestled. At their base rested a steel pump. Ewan bent to read the small, round dial.

  ‘Right, there’s no reading on the pressure gauge, which means there’s no pressure in the line. There could have been another power surge, so I’ll check the fuses.’

  Kree scooped up Freckle as he bit the bottom of Ewan’s jeans, growled and shook his head as though intent on killing a snake. Fudge bleated, and spun on her tiny hooves before bouncing off to nibble the grass beneath the wire hills hoist clothes line.

  ‘You deserve a medal, Kree. Those two would do my head in.’ The smile in his eyes softened his words.

  Kree dropped a kiss on Freckle’s wriggling head. ‘Believe it or not, I’m going to miss them when I’m home. Life will be rather boring.’

  Ewan chuckled. ‘With Seth for a brother, I don’t think your life could ever be called boring.’

  Kree joined in with his laughter. ‘True.’

  ‘Now, if I remember correctly,’ Ewan said, striding away, ‘from when Maureen had power problems while Don was away, the fuse box is located further along the side.’

  Ewan stopped at a wall-mounted metal box. He lifted the cover and from where she stood beside him, Kree could see all the small circuit-breaker levers were facing the same direction.

  ‘Okay, so no fuse has blown,’ Ewan confirmed with a small frown. ‘Let’s check the pump has power.’

  Once at the pressure pump, he followed the electric cord that trailed from the base of the pump to an external power point on the house. He checked the plug was inserted firmly.

  Ouch.

  Kree pulled her thumb out of Freckle’s needle-sharp mouth. Ewan’s deepening frown had distracted her from safeguarding her fingers. She placed Freckle on the ground and he scampered away to sit in the grass beside Fudge, his nose on his paws as he kept his eyes trained on Kree and Ewan.

  Ewan returned to the pump and examined the round dial that still showed no reading. He leaned in close to the pump motor. ‘Can you smell that electrical smell?’

  ‘No.’ All she could smell was the in-bloom daphne.

  Worry blossomed in her belly. Any electrical smell usually meant trouble, and in this case could also mean no inside water anytime soon. The forty-five minute drive twice daily to the hotel if she had to stay in town suddenly didn’t seem as reasonable. She still wasn’t used to driving on the other side of the road.

  He straightened, took off his hat and speared a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, Kree, the pump’s seized.’

  ‘Seized? That doesn’t sound good?’

  Ewan slowly shook his head. ‘The motor’s had it.’

  He looked across to where Freckle and
Fudge now played. The little bush goat gave Freckle a playful head butt as the pup attempted to jump on her back. They both ended tangled in a noisy ball of tiny limbs.

  The tanned skin of his throat moved as he swallowed. ‘The three of you will have to come and stay at Marellen.’

  The one person Ewan most needed to stay away from would be living under his roof. Unease, heavier than the bags of canola seed he’d unloaded from the ute into the shed last night, pressed onto Ewan’s shoulders. Surviving a dinner party in close proximity with Kree was now the least of his worries. Until the pump was replaced, he’d see her on a daily basis. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know his self-control would take a battering.

  He pulled to a stop in front of the white, wrought-iron-trimmed Marellen homestead. Once the sprawling redbrick home had filled him with pride; now the financial responsibility of maintaining the historic building was another thing to keep him awake at night.

  The heavy front door burst open and Braye and Darby, dressed in identical navy shorts and yellow t-shirts, sped down the path. Tish had clearly relayed his phone message about having unexpected visitors.

  Behind Ewan, the chug of the Tylers’ slower, dual-cab diesel ute sounded as Kree entered the circular driveway. Tish briefly appeared at the front door, an untied apron over her gardening clothes, waved and raced inside. Dinner must be cooking on the stove.

  Whiskey and Midget shot into sight from around the side of the house and made a beeline for Kree’s now-parked vehicle. Ewan pushed open his driver’s side door. In less than three seconds it would be bedlam if Whiskey leapt into the tray-back where Fudge and Freckle were tied. He pursed his lips and whistled. The black kelpie came straight to his heel. But the way the dog whined and didn’t take his eyes off the goat and pup told Ewan the peace would only be short-lived.