Dust of the Land

by J. H. Fletcher

  It was twenty-two months since her first muster and she seemed more at home than ever, which to Colin was not good news. She was proving to be one tough lady and tough, Colin knew well, was the road to his father’s heart.

  What was going on? Nearly two years she’d been there, far longer than any of her predecessors. Surely she wasn’t planning to marry the old man? She was way too young, younger even than he was! Yet Dad was smitten with her; blind Freddy could see that.

  ‘Isn’t she marvellous?’ Garth had said, with a fond expression that did not suit his hard features. ‘A real gem.’

  If they did get married and she had a son, where would that leave Colin?

  He had played with the idea of coming on to her himself, to see how she reacted, but it was too risky; the last thing he wanted was to fight Dad over a girl. Instead he thought he’d try something else. Dad had met her at the Johnsons’ place, in Charters Towers. As far as he knew, she had never said why she had left them. He would write to the Johnsons and find out.

  The post took forever in this part of the world but halfway through August a letter came.

  Colin read it and took it to his father, who was working on the plane.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A letter. I think you should read it.’

  Garth gave him a sharp look but took it, handling it gingerly with oily hands. He read it through, then looked at his son. ‘How come we’ve got this?’

  ‘I wrote to them.’

  ‘Without a word to me?’

  The look that Dad gave him! Colin quaked but it was too late to change tack; he would have to tough it out. ‘I thought we owed it to ourselves to find out about her.’

  It was plain that Dad, face darkening with rage, did not see it like that. ‘You went to the Johnsons behind my back? Mate, I ought to knock your block off!’

  Fists clenched the way they were, he might just try it, too. Colin was as big as his father and probably as strong but he wasn’t game to fight him; a lifetime of respect made sure of that. So he did not respond but stood with unclenched hands at his side.

  Seeing it, Garth regained control of his temper.

  ‘Clear off,’ he said in a dull voice. ‘Before I do something I might regret.’

  ‘And the letter?’

  ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  Bella read the letter to the end, put it on the table and walked to the kitchen door, while Garth stood watching her.

  The chooks were kicking up a racket in the run that Bella had persuaded Garth to have built so they could enjoy fresh eggs. She liked the warm, homely smell of their feathers; it awoke a childhood memory of the cottage and carrying the precious eggs indoors in hands barely large enough to hold them. Now these hens represented all she valued about the past and how much she had lost over the years. The memories were especially important now, alone in an uncertain world.

  She turned. Garth was watching her.

  He had come in with a face like thunder. Busy preparing tea, she had turned to greet him and he had thrust the letter into her hands.

  ‘Read it.’

  Since then he had neither moved nor spoken. She read his silence as an accusation and it made her angry.

  Anger was good; anger might save her. ‘You wrote to the Johnsons without a word to me? How could you?’

  ‘Never mind that. Is it true? What she says there?’

  She would not dignify his question by giving him a straight answer. ‘That I’m a home-wrecker who tried to seduce her husband? You think I’d admit it, if it was true?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I just wonder why she’s saying it.’

  ‘Because her husband tried to rape me and I fought him off.’ The words were out of her mouth before she knew they were coming.

  ‘Rape?’ His eyes went round. ‘You never said.’

  Snake-quick, she struck back. ‘You think it’s something I like to talk about?’

  ‘How did you stop him?’

  ‘I kneed him in the crutch. Twice.’ She spoke with satisfaction, remembering how Johnson had collapsed after she’d done it. ‘That took the steam out of him,’ she said.

  ‘Lucky I didn’t know that before I tried my luck with you,’ Garth said, making a joke of it.

  ‘You’re different.’

  ‘What happened afterwards?’

  ‘He must have spun Mrs Johnson some yarn about how I’d come on to him and she threw me out.’ She shuddered. ‘As though I would! That slimy little man!’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I tried to get a job in Townsville but there was nothing doing. So I remembered what you’d said and came here.’ She spoke as though crossing the continent was nothing.

  ‘You took one hell of a chance,’ he said.

  ‘No choice.’ She lifted her chin and looked at him challengingly. ‘Are you going to chuck me out, too?’ she said.

  ‘Not unless you want to go.’

  ‘I want to stay,’ Bella said. ‘But I need you to trust me.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And you want me to stay?’

  ‘Forever, if you like.’

  So all that had seemed lost was regained. Now, conscious of victory, impulse drove her.

  ‘I don’t want to be another of your women. I want us to do it properly.’

  She would not think of Charles Hardy. Because the letter had contained a cutting from the society page of the Yorkshire newspaper that Mrs Johnson received every week.

  It is rumoured that an engagement will shortly be announced between Charles, only son of Mr and the late Mrs William Hardy and heir to the extensive Hardy estates, and Jane, younger sister of the Countess of Clapham.

  There was also a note for Bella’s benefit, written with such glee that Bella could almost see the venom glistening on the page.

  When we engaged Miss Tempest she mentioned that she had been a close friend of the Hardy family, so she may find this of interest.

  I want us to do it properly… There could be no mistaking Bella’s meaning. But Garth said: ‘Colin is my son. I would like him to be friends with you before we take things further.’

  Neither of them had mentioned love.

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Bella. ‘But you should speak to him, too.’

  After Garth had left her Bella walked out into the air. How she needed the air!

  The sky was darkening; leaves rattled in the breeze and the creek glowed with sombre fire as the night came down. In the chook house, all was quiet.

  Charles and Charlotte’s sister, she thought.

  The world was indeed a lonely place.

  * * *

  It was Sunday, the third of September. She had decided she would speak to Colin the following morning but that night the wireless broadcast an announcement that put everything else out of their heads.

  ‘War?’ Garth said. ‘Bloody hell!’

  Bella remembered what Jenny had told her about the last war and how she had waited, week after week, to find out whether Father was alive or dead. She thought: not again. Let us pray that no one we know becomes involved.

  The next morning Colin informed his father he intended to join up. Within seconds Garth was shouting.

  ‘Not without my say-so you won’t.’

  If he’d thought about it for a week he couldn’t have come up with a worse way to handle his son.

  ‘I’m twenty-one years old, Dad. I’m gunna do it. Get used to the idea.’

  Within the week he was gone. Before he left, he spoke to Bella, but it was not a friendly parting.

  ‘With me out of the way, you’ll have a free run,’ he said. ‘The old man will marry you now.’

  ‘There was nothing to stop him marrying me before, if that was what we wanted,’ Bella said. ‘Even if it happens you’ll never lose Miranda Downs. Neither your dad nor I would want that.’

  But she could not reach him. It saddened her, but she told herself he must think what he liked; it would make no difference in
the end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Perhaps it was inevitable; within two days of Colin leaving, Garth made another move on her. As before, it went nowhere. Once again Garth accepted her rejection, returning to his own room without too much of a fuss, but this time he didn’t hide his exasperation.

  ‘This is hard yakka for a bloke,’ he grumbled.

  Not only for a bloke. Bella was twenty years old, healthy and very much aware of her own sexuality, but she was also scared. She wanted Garth, all right, but say yes and down the track he might lose interest in her. She wanted to stay on at Miranda Downs and keeping him at arm’s length was the only way she knew to make it happen. Even that might not work; say no too often and he might chuck her out anyway.

  She got off the crumpled bed, hearing the faint whistle of the kerosene lantern as she walked naked to stare at herself in the wall mirror. She checked out the blue eyes, tousled black curls, the smooth skin of her shoulders, the firm breasts that no one but Charles Hardy had kissed.

  Not bad, she thought. No wonder Garth fancied her. She fancied him, too, increasingly. She knew she had been eyeing him more and more over the last weeks, the hard chest and muscled back. Against all her inclinations she had rejected him again tonight but she could not go on saying no forever. Do that and she would lose him for sure.

  Garth said: ‘How about taking a trip?’

  Bella stared at him. ‘At this time of year?’

  It was the third week of September, dry weather with loads of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-twenties. It was cattle roundup season and Garth was not given to taking time off when there was work to be done but he said he was edgy about the war.

  ‘The air force will take Minnie any day now. And I heard the other day they’re gunna cut out petrol for private use. So I was thinking, why not make the most of it while we still can?’

  ‘I’m game,’ Bella said.

  She was not only getting used to the country but to the lingo, too.

  She had thought Derby, or maybe even Perth, but Garth had never been one for the city and had other ideas. He took her into the emptiness.

  On the evening of their fourth day they put down on an open stretch of country beside the Carlisle River. At this point the river flowed through a rugged gorge out of the unknown country to the southwest, but there was no time to explore. By the time they had anchored Minnie against any wind that might come up in the night, fetched their swags from the cockpit and made a fire, it was too dark to see much, anyway.

  Bella chewed on salt beef and yesterday’s damper, looking at the stars like a million fireflies in the black sky, and was overwhelmed by wonder. She felt close to the roots not merely of the land but of the universe. She wanted to share her feelings with Garth but knew better than try. Garth loved this country, too, without seeing any reason to say so. He was a practical man; flights of fancy never got off the ground with him.

  No matter. She looked at him in the flickering firelight and took perhaps the biggest gamble of her life.

  ‘Do you think we should get married?’ she said.

  It was against every rule in the book and Garth, forthright but deeply conservative, might run a mile. Or be offended that she had usurped what by tradition was his prerogative.

  She risked a glance; Garth was staring at her, open-mouthed, across the flames.

  ‘Stone the crows!’ he said.

  Her smile might have quivered, had she let it. ‘Does that mean yes?’ she enquired.

  ‘If I marry you, does that make me a duke?’

  ‘I’ll call you Duke every morning before breakfast, if that’s what you want. Particularly out in the bush. The boys would love it.’

  ‘My oath they would. What about Colin?’ he asked.

  ‘Garth, please… Say yes or no. If it’s yes, we can work out the details in the morning.’

  ‘And if it’s no?’

  ‘Turn down being a duke? Not you,’ Bella said.

  Silence, while Garth chewed on it.

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Deadly serious.’

  ‘All right then. Yes,’ Garth said. ‘We’ll give it a go.’

  What happened next… Afterwards Bella never quite worked it out, but there she was on Garth’s swag, naked beneath the firefly stars, and now there were no inhibitions and her arms went around his neck. Something else she remembered: waking during the night, loins stinging, thinking drowsily that now at least she wouldn’t die wondering. Thinking, too, that what had happened was right, every bit of it right. The future stretched before her; she saw it clearly in the moments before she fell asleep again, and it was glorious.

  It was barely light when Bella woke. She yawned and stretched and only then became aware of something different in herself and the texture of the morning. She opened her eyes, remembering. She was astonished that she had dared do what she had done. A woman proposing to a man? And being accepted? It was unheard of, surely? She almost laughed but did not, not wishing to disturb the man sleeping beside her. What would the countess think of such behaviour? As if she gave a damn what that old bitch might think.

  Careful not to wake him, she eased her body away from Garth and stood up. The air was fresh in the half-light and she took her discarded shirt and slipped it on. She could hear the river running in the pre-dawn stillness and walked to the edge of the gorge. Far below the river was lost in shadow, with only an occasional flicker of light to show the presence of rapids. The air was still. There was no cloud and along the horizon the eastern sky glowed apricot with the approaching sun. Old Sarah the camp cook had told her of ceremonies that the traditional people held every morning to welcome the sun’s return. Bella, half-naked on the brink of the gorge, could relate to that. She took off the unbuttoned shirt and let it fall. Rock still, she stood and waited for the dawn.

  A new sunrise; a new future. So strange… Only yesterday it had been impossible; today it had happened and nothing could change it. It was a gamble; Garth might go back on his word. There might be delays, excuses, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Because it had happened.

  The sun broke the horizon. The apricot sky had turned to a blue so pale as to be almost no colour at all. Within the instant, the level plain was flooded with light. Every rock and blade of grass shone yellow but Bella, naked on the gorge’s rim, stood as white as alabaster in the stillness of the dawn.

  She waited, skin puckering in the chill air, until the sun had cleared the horizon, then put on her shirt, buttoned it and returned to the camp and the remains of the dead fire, black now and wet with dew. Garth still slept, black hair tousled, one arm thrown out. She pulled on her breeches and knelt to remake the fire.

  Breakfast was black tea, very strong, and more of the chewy beef. At least the damper was fresh, mixed and cooking on the coals of the new fire while Garth still slept. That was something else she had learnt: how to live in the wild. The Mrs Johnsons and countesses of the world might think themselves superior but in reality were as helpless as lambs, and it was the quality in her they would have most despised – the blood of her grandfather, Nate Tempest the bait-digger – that had made her able to handle the challenges of her life.

  She was tough and knew when to make a stand. Knew when not to, as well, which was just as important.

  ‘Where does the river come from?’ she asked.

  Garth poured himself more tea from the kettle.

  ‘Through the mountains some place. There will be gorges and white water up there, but where it rises I’ve no idea. Upstream from here is all unknown country.’

  It was exciting to be on the edge of the unknown. Like her life, she thought. The challenge of an unknown future. Perhaps a little better known than it had been yesterday, but still a mystery. She would not have had it any other way.

  ‘When do you want us to get married?’ she said.

  ‘I must speak to Colin first.’

  ‘We don’t need Colin’s permission.’

 
‘Of course not. But he’s got it into his head that we’re planning to cut him out –’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘But what will he think if we get married as soon as his back’s turned? I want the three of us to be friends. No, I’ll tell him about it, face to face. I want him at the wedding, too, if he’ll come.’

  ‘When will he get leave?’

  ‘No idea. Couple of months, maybe.’

  Don’t go getting cold feet on me.

  But she would never allow herself to say such a thing to him or permit herself to think it, except occasionally.

  Colin came home for Christmas. He was polite, smiling and even shook Bella’s hand, so that she dared hope his resentment was behind him. Unfortunately it didn’t last.

  In Europe Poland had been carved up between Germany and the Soviet Union and at Miranda Downs Garth told Colin he was marrying Bella Tempest. Oh dear. Colin stormed out of the house, grabbed a horse from the paddock and rode off. He was not seen again that evening.

  It grew late and Bella, concerned for Colin’s safety, wanted Garth to go looking for him, but Garth refused.

  ‘Never find him in the dark,’ he said. ‘Besides, he’s got to get used to the idea.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘I told you. I would like youse to be friends. But if he won’t come round…’

  ‘Then what?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Like it or lump it,’ Garth said.

  On Christmas Eve, Garth and Bella flew to Wyndham in a torrential downpour as the Wet tightened its grip on the land. They came back with all the Christmas goodies they could lay their hands on. It was a hairy ride but they made it without incident, spray exploding around the wheels as they landed. The engine died and Bella heard the rain drumming on the wings above her. The ground was the colour of blood and awash with water. In the air, the plane’s design had protected them from the worst of the weather but it would be no use now. Laughing like children, they ran for the shelter of the house; it was not more than twenty yards, yet they were soaked by the time they got there.

  ‘How do we get everything indoors?’ Bella wondered.

  ‘Maybe we could persuade the turkey to swim for it,’ Garth suggested.