“Should have taken the train to Gwalia. Would have saved you hours. Didn’t you get the directions?” he asked sharply.
Tom rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, well.” He smirked. “Half my orders get lost out here, sucked up in this bloody desert.” He nodded then, pleasantly. “We’ll get you settled in a bit.” Then, letting the cigarette rest loosely in the side of his mouth, he stuck out a hand. “Alexander Harrington. Call me Alex.”
James reached out and shook the man’s hand, their grips firm. “James O’Reilly.” He cocked his head to Tom. “Thomas Shelby.” Tom stuck out his hand and leaned forward in nearly a bow, caught himself and stepped back with a manly puff of his chest.
“I’m surprised.” Alex squinted, studied the new arrivals intently and sucked in a long drag. “When Mitchell told me about you, I pictured a couple of sunburned roughens. Seem young to be station managers.”
Tom choked, shuffled his feet and opened his mouth to set the record straight when James stepped up. “You kind of surprised us, too,” he said casually. “Seem young to own a station this size. No disrespect.”
“None taken.” The man put one hand in his pocket and grinned. “I’m relieved actually. You’ll bring some energy to this place.”
Alex dropped the simmering butt, used his boot to cover it with dust. “Position pays six thousand a year with a five-hundred-dollar advance. Divide it any way you want.”
Tom’s mouth fell open. James shot him a look and Tom clapped it shut.
“I know the base is a little less than you made before,” Alex added. “But there’s bonuses if we make our numbers and, if you work hard, you’ll be bringing in a heck of a lot more than you were in New South Wales. I’m a firm believer in incentives.” Alex clapped his hands once and rubbed his palms together. “Let me take you around and get you acquainted.” And then as an afterthought, “You need to clean up first? Get something to eat?”
“Ate on the way,” James answered easily. “Might as well get started.” He stepped in front of Tom, his face still naked with bewilderment.
“Good.” Alex clapped again. “Pick your horse.”
Once saddled, the three riders trotted past the two-story homestead, the steel roof pearly and blinding. French doors leading out to the verandah lined every few feet. Fruit trees, new and recently planted, hung limp and thin as willows in the sun. A wiry rosebush tried to grasp its stems to the side of the house, but besides that the vegetation was slim.
“I had the old house leveled,” Alex explained. “Everything’s new—the barns, the water towers—everything. Once we get settled, we’ll work on the landscape. There’s a lot to do.”
Alex kicked his horse. He was a good rider, strong and postured. The men rounded a corner to a wide riding arena. A cluster of Aboriginal men, odd and uncomfortable in Western clothes, leaned against the fence posts; a few sat crisscross on the dirt.
Alex pulled his horse to a stop. “I’ve got twelve Aboriginal stockmen, hand-me-downs from the last station that was here. Live about five miles that way in a bunch of shacks, like a shantytown. I’ve only been out there once. Would have cleared them all out, but the neighbors tell me they’d stick around regardless, sleep under the sky as easily as they would under a roof.”
Leaning back in the saddle, Alex raised a long leg up and bent his knee, rested his elbow against it. “Can’t understand a word they say, can’t even make out if it’s English. But heard they make good stockmen, as long as they’re led and directed, that is. Cheap, too. Seem happy enough working for sugar, tea, meat and tobacco.” He looked at James, then Tom, then back at James. “But you’re the ones that got to manage. If they’re not pulling their weight, they’re out.”
A couple of white men lingered past the ring—one sinewy, his neck tight and stringy; the other a bit taller but with short, stubby arms. “Who are they?” Tom asked.
Alex shrugged indifferently. “Beecher and Russell. Roustabouts that I hired from another station. Quiet, seem harmless enough. Take orders but aren’t thinkers. I needed someone to take care of the horses right away.” He scratched his neck. “Keep them or fire them, it’s up to you.”
Five horses centered the arena, their muscles slick and defined as they stepped within the perimeter. “Beauties,” Tom said. “You planning to breed them?”
“That’s the plan. Should get some good racers out of them.”
“Got some wild ones out there, too,” Tom noted.
“Stallion’s a beast. Won’t let anyone near him. Have to bring someone in to break him.” Alex clicked his tongue, put the horse in motion again, rode between James and Tom over the flat, low-lying country. “Property is three million acres,” he announced.
Without looking, James knew Tom was gripping the reins with white knuckles and probably sweating through his shirt. “How much stock do you have?” James asked.
“Ten thousand sheep right now. The bullocks are coming in a few months. You’ll need to meet the drover halfway. Bringing them from up north—hundred and fifty thousand head.”
They rode in silence a few miles more to a granite range, a large pool of freshwater reflecting the jagged walls. The men dismounted, let the horses drink. Alex leaned against a tree and lit another cigarette, offered two, then tucked them back in his pocket when declined.
Prickly moss lined the water, the yellow flowers round like pompoms. A salmon gum bloomed with parakeets, their chatter bouncing off the stone, magnifying. Tom reclined atop a boulder, finally at ease. “Got a beautiful piece of land here, Mr. Harrington.”
“Alex,” he corrected. “She is indeed.” He looked over the land with ownership.
James skipped a flat stone across the water. “You’re taking over the Coolgardie mine?”
“That’s right.”
“Long commute.”
“Have a place in Coolgardie, too. I’ll divide my time,” Alex noted. “Besides, this place is more for my wife. I don’t want her anywhere near those mining towns.” Alex tapped the cigarette in the air. “That reminds me. In a few days I leave for Perth to pick her up.” He looked at them carefully. “I’m trusting you to keep the place running and watched while I’m gone. I kept the managers’ quarters close for that reason. You’ll find it half a mile toward the creek. There’s running water, electricity.”
The American flicked his burning smoke to the pond, pulled out a black flask from his pocket and took a long drink. He pointed it to Tom, who took it gratefully, dropped his head back and gulped. Alex took the flask back and handed it out to James. “You’re next, my friend.”
“I don’t drink.”
“No?” Alex sucked in his cheeks, then dismissed it. “To each his own.” He wiped his mouth with a fist and put the flask back into his pocket. “You boys married?” he asked.
“Naw,” Tom answered. “Don’t need the distraction.”
Alex laughed hard. “Smart. Very smart.” He pulled his horse from the water’s edge.
“Your wife American?” Tom asked.
“She is.”
“Bush can be hard on a woman.” Tom glanced at the sun trickling through the branches. “Especially if she’s not used to it.”
“And trust me, she’s not.” Alex stroked the horse’s nose, inspected the hair along the mane. “My wife’s as spoiled as a child. This place will do her a world of good, toughen her up a bit.” Alex winked at the men. “A good woman’s like a good horse, just needs some breaking in.” He settled upon the saddle and jerked the reins. “Australia’ll work her better than a whip.”
CHAPTER 42
She was Australia.
Leonora pressed her forehead to the hot window of the train car, her eyes racing with the speeding land. Endless miles of red earth blurred along the tracks, stretched off to the edge of the world, and her gaze fell into its rusted hue and the white heat that shimmered above it—the land of her birth.
She was Australia. Its air was her air, its cells her ow
n.
Leonora sat on the train as a woman. She returned to this flowing land, both a dead and living land, a named woman—branded a Fairfield, then a Harrington: names of wealth that trailed and spoke of her and said she was not a daughter of Australia but of a pedigree. But she knew.
A month ago, America waved from the deck of the steamer and sent kisses from her shores, wished her well toward the other land, just as an aunt says good-bye and gently pushes a child to her mother. After weeks and weeks upon that ship, where the wind shifted and called to her, Australia grew from the very sea, rose to greet her with sheer cliff walls and ocean pinnacles that had not changed a stone but waited patiently for her return. And secretively, she unfolded the creases, smoothed out the edges of her wrinkled Australia, but she did not breathe—not yet.
Southern Cross. Kalgoorlie. Menzies. Kookynie. The towns swung past. The train stopped at each, the firebox exhaling in rest before eating coal and chugging forward again. And then they stopped. Alex took her elbow and led her through a hard, smoking town with hard, smoking men and led her to the car. Australia slowed now and drifted and heated the car on an unshaded journey upon a lone road.
The land cut in two with a wiry fence, a fissure that extended as far as the eye’s gaze could follow. Every mile, a gate stopped them. Alex let the car idle as he undid the lock, drove ahead, shut the gate and moved on through the entrances shielding one empty acre from the next.
And there it was. Wanjarri Downs. The house rose from the dirt, its yellow brick mellow and baking against the sun. Alex opened her door and put his arm around her waist, gazed at the house. “What do you think?”
But there were no words. This land was her home, her home! Here she could begin anew, breathe life into this house, raise a family, create new memories that would wipe away the nightmares. Life was new again and she was grateful. She reached for Alex, hugged him and felt his smile in her hair. She would forget about the past, erase any history before this moment. She would try to love him. He had brought her back to Australia and she could forgive him for the scars. She would be a good wife. Her soul bloomed. The breath was coming, filled her lungs and wanted to erupt as tears, but it was still not time.
Alex shuttled her through the house, showed her the rooms, opened up the French doors so the curtains billowed upon the hot breeze. He chatted about the land, about the mine, but her ears were dull to the words and only heard the sounds—the sound of his voice, the swish of drapes as they embraced the window frames, the echo of her and Alex’s footsteps on new hardwood and the cackle of nearly a million birds from outside.
She was Australia.
The day’s light waned. Alex took leave to his office. Leonora stepped to the verandah where the setting sun met with a fiery orange eye. Her body moved now without her will, her thoughts just a passenger. She watched her feet, told them to walk when they wanted to run. The dirt below her soles was red and knew her feet, dusted and coated her high heels. The birds laughed, asked in shouts and shrieks where she had been.
Leonora headed to the trees, buried herself in a cluster of ghost gums, so closely knit that their bony boughs intertwined and latticed. And she pulled herself up into their limbs, gathered her silk dress around her legs and touched the smooth peeling bark with her fingertips, sank her cheek to the white skin. She hung to the boughs, peered with the wide eyes of a chuditch into the growing dark. Kangaroos grew from the shadows, seemed to pop up from the very spot they stood and dotted the plain with raised paws and twitching ears. Her body shook then. Her chest opened. She clung to the tree limbs and cried into its creases like an infant to a mother’s breast.
And she grew from Australia again and she was made of Australia again. And she was here under the deep sky, stained by its earth and greeted by bloated flies. And Australia broke her heart with its grace, that it had not forgotten her just as she had never forgotten it. Her lungs broke with sobs and the air broke in and she breathed.
She was home.
CHAPTER 43
Tom paced the floorboards that lined the managers’ quarters, the crevices between the new wood still filled with sawdust. He stopped at the window for the hundredth time. “Think he knows?”
“Hard to say.” James held an empty boot between his thighs, rubbed the leather with wax.
“Been back for hours,” Tom continued. “Would have come down by now if he knew, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “What d’you think he’ll do if he knows we ain’t the guys?”
“Throw us out,” James said calmly as he squared a soft cloth and spread the grease over the boot’s creased tongue.
“Christ.” Tom scratched his head. “He’ll be pissed. Looks the type.” He turned to James. “What should we do? Tell him first?”
“Out of our hands.” James buffed the lines near the sole and around the eyelets. “If he knows, he knows. We’ll find out soon enough.”
“But Christ, James! Six thousand dollars! Be sick till my grave if we lose this job.” Tom paced back and forth, his mouth twitching.
James picked up his other boot and threw it at Tom’s back.
“Ouch!”
“You’re putting a hole in the floor. Clean up your boots,” James directed. “Least we can try and look halfway decent when he fires us.”
“Aren’t you worried at all?”
James stopped buffing. “We can run this place, Tom. I’m hoping this guy knows it.” He handed Tom the tin of lanolin. “Either way, we’ll have our answer soon.” He glanced at their bags slouched near the door. “Wouldn’t go unpacking, though.”
Tom picked up a boot, set it on the table, raised and lowered the heel without paying attention to the movement. “Did you catch a glimpse of his wife?” Tom grinned.
“No,” James said, disinterested.
“Only saw the back of her.” Tom’s face softened with a wide smile. “Bet she’s a looker.”
James chuckled. “What happened to your vow of celibacy?”
“Just lookin’.” Tom raised his hands innocently. “Man goes crazy staring at nothin’ but a sheep’s arse.” He sweated under his Akubra hat, stood and nearly knocked the chair over. “Can’t take the waitin’ no more. Let’s go take our lumps.”
Outside the quarters, the homestead was quiet. The sun warmed the right sides of their faces while the left sides stayed cool with morning air.
“Here he comes.” Tom pushed up his sleeves, stared past James to the house, his jaw set. “G’day, Alex!” he called out, shuffling like he needed to use the loo. “How was the trip?”
Alex sauntered up the wide drive, his hands resting easily in his trouser pockets. He wore a light tan suit, white shirt and blue tie knotted thickly at the stiff collar. “Fine.” The man looked around, smiled under the sun. “Gorgeous day, eh?”
Tom relaxed, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“How were things here?” Alex asked.
“We made a map of the property, assessed the best feeding areas for the stock,” James told him. “Wrote down the numbers, list of supplies you’ll want to stock, shearing schedule, number of men needed. Should cover it.”
Alex nodded with pleasure. “Good. I’m impressed.” Then he leaned back, loosened his tie. “Not bad for a couple of farm boys.”
Tom lowered his head and closed his eyes. James did not flinch, stared out to the distance as if he hadn’t heard a sound.
“Didn’t take more than a few calls to figure it out.” Alex winked. “Nice try, though.”
James turned to him, met his eyes square. “Never lied to you. Not once.”
“True.” Alex furrowed his brow and thought about this for a second. “Of course, you didn’t try and set it straight, either.”
James remembered his promise to Mrs. Shelby. “We can run this place.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Alex said. “But there are men much more qualified begging for work.” He narrowed his eyes in challenge. “Give me a reason why I should keep you.”
James gazed intently around the land, at the house, at the barn, and settled his eyes on the horse ring. “Said you needed to bring someone in to train the horses.”
Alex studied James’s deep look with amusement. “That’s right.”
“I can do it.”
“Is that so?” Alex laughed then. “You know horses?”
“Yes.”
Alex rubbed his chin, enjoying himself greatly. “You a bettin’ man, James?”
“No.”
“Hmmm. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t gamble.” His face opened in mock wonderment. “You’re a man without a vice!” Alex clapped his hands then, rubbed them exultantly. “All right, since you’re not a betting man, how about a challenge?”
James watched him narrowly, straddled his legs. “What do you have in mind?”
“You get on top of that stallion”—Alex pointed at the black body in the ring—“and stay on him for one minute, you got the job.”
Tom gave up, slouched his shoulders. “We’ll grab our stuff an’ get going.” But James was already bent under the top fence beam, easing into the arena.
Along the rough-hewn wood, Alex leaned his elbows and pulled out his cigarette case. He opened the tin, pounded the tobacco and lit the match, then sucked in deeply through a smile. “Hope you know how to fix a broken rib.”
In the ring, the black stallion stood alone, raised and lowered his front hooves as James approached. The horse flared his nostrils and snorted, but James paid him no mind, walked past him to the more sedate mare, rubbed her shoulder and nose.
Alex folded his arms, covered his grin with one hand, cleared his throat. “Ummm, Mr. O’Reilly?” His eyebrows pointed arrogantly. “The stallion’s the black one—behind you.”
James ignored Alex and pulled the brown mare closer, stepped back until the stallion was right behind his head, the breath hot and angry in his hair. James reached into a feedbag and fed the mare from his hand. The stallion pushed James in the back with his nose. James talked to the mare with soothing words and shoulder scratches.
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