Wedding at Blue River

by Dorothy Quentin

  Stewart staying with those trouble-makers, Joan and Andy Blackmore, was bad enough; Stewart, envious all his life of everything Steve possessed—his property, his horses, his popularity—riding against Steve in the Pastoralist Stakes might spell disaster. He had always been a bad loser, and losing this race would make him more spiteful than ever; if he won he would be insufferable.

  “I heard Moonie telling Mrs. Mulga ’bout them havin’ a flamin’ row,” Jamie was explaining reasonably to his grandmother, who seemed to be very far away. “I think it was true, ’cos he went away without saying good-bye to me.”

  “He went in a hurry because he had to catch the plane for England, Jamie, and ye should never repeat gossip ye hear in the quarters.”

  Jane listened to the small interchange with only half her mind. She was still dazed with the shock of having come face to face with Stewart, here of all places. She had not expected him to have the barefaced cheek to return to the Blue River; and obviously her presence had been as much of a shock to him. Practical joke on Steve! she thought indignantly, glancing at Lisa’s animated face beside her across the gangway. Then she remembered the absolutely blank stare in Stewart’s eyes when he had seen her—a look she had seen before only in the eyes of mental patients.

  The blank stare of someone with an obsession that was more real to them than reality, changing to a cunning that was infinitely spiteful ... a warning bell rang in Jane’s mind suddenly and she half rose in her seat.

  “We must stop this race—Stewart—I think he’s out of his mind,” she whispered urgently to Joel.

  He pulled her down again gently. “Too late. They’re off.”

  There had been a sudden hush in the stands, broken only by the nasal voice of the radio commentator for the Cloncurry network as he spoke into his microphone in the giraffe-box beside the grandstand. With him were two reporters from the local paper and Cairns.

  “—several false starts. High Jinks, the roan stallion owned by Andrew Blackmore, is restless. He seems a difficult horse to control. Today he's ridden by Stewart Finch, one of the best riders in the shire. Ifs going to be a good race, the favourite Moonstrike is fast, but I don't know if he will stay this distance. There'll be personal competition between Finch and his cousin Steven Forrest, riding the black stallion Ranger—oh, it’s a wonderful horse, this! Right out of Genghis Khan!

  Jane had been dimly conscious of the commentator’s rapid, nasal twang, so different from the usual Queensland drawl, but now at the sound of Steve’s name she listened attentively.

  “Most everyone who can get here comes,” Joel said in her ear, “but folks who have to stay put like to know. There’s a lot of money on this one, besides the local bets.”

  “Arrowhead’s fast and a stayer—O’Riley’s a promising two-year-old. Jabiru has Arab blood—here in Oonga it’s a clear fine morning, not too hot as yet, the going should be good. Now they’ve got ’em lined up—they’re off! Just listen to the sound of hooves thudding past me here—the sweetest sound in the world!”

  Jane stared, her heart thudding in unison with that sound, her eyes searching for Steve. Only for Steve. He flashed past her, dark man and black horse welded together like one fantastic creature from a Greek myth. If Stewart had not been riding in this race, she would have enjoyed the sight of twenty-five splendid horses settling into the rhythm of their pace for this long, gruelling contest.

  “Moonstrike’s well out in front—it’s a big twenty-five of the best horses ever seen on this track—followed by Arrowhead and Ranger—he’s a dark horse this, literally. A black stallion Forrest has not raced locally before—High Jinks riding wild on the outside—next comes Jabiru and O’Riley neck-and-neck, and Polly’s Son, Vigo, Gumnut, Beat Boy, and Sorello in a bunch...”

  The leading horses were a distant tangle of colour and movement on the far side of the course now, the jockeys’ shirts like flowers being borne on the light breeze from the north. Jane tried to pick out Steve’s, midnight-blue shirt, but it was hopeless at this distance. They had to rely on the commentary, relayed throughout the stands by loud-speakers, until the horses came round the final bend into the straight.

  Copper, using his binoculars, was watching the progress of the film truck, well in front of the horses. “Pete sure will be glad to have in the can,” he murmured softly, and smiled into Lisa’s glowing, excited face. She was more than a pretty doll, he realised suddenly; she was a girl he wanted to keep with him, wheel chair or no wheel chair...

  Her slender hands gripped the arms of the chair as she watched and listened eagerly, and he knew she was out there on the sunlit track, riding in this race, in her mind...

  A vast compassion swept him, and something more than compassion.

  Dr. Banjo glanced automatically across the racecourse to where the ambulance stood beside the tote in the shade of the blue gum trees. Dr. Jeffries was leaning on the bonnet, talking to the driver and an orderly as they waited for the horses to come into the straight. The two nursing Sisters were sitting close to the entrance to the stand, leaning forward eagerly like everyone else to see the result of this race. The hospital, as usual at race-times, had suddenly emptied itself of patients; all except little Don Warraboree in isolation, recovering well from infective meningitis. Nurse Moore and his parents would be sitting with him today.

  Everything was as it should be, yet Dr. Banjo was aware of the tension all about him, more than the normal tension of an exciting race. He had overheard Jane’s whisper to Joel about stopping the race, and he was disturbed by the knowledge that Stewart Finch was back, and riding against Steve. Stewart was dangerous, an emotionally unbalanced man who had been eaten up with jealousy of his cousin since he had first come to visit on the Blue River, a small boy with a beautiful twin sister, an unlucky prospector for a father and a tired, overworked, prematurely aged mother.

  He had not known Stewart until the boy was six years old and Steve ten, the year he had come to Oonga as a New Australian, the year Steve had lost his parents during their holiday in England. He had been working in a road gang then, it was not until ten years later that he had returned to Queensland to practise among the people of the Outback, and by then Stewart and Alison had made their home at the Blue River when they were not away at boarding school. By then Steve was a very adult man of twenty, running his property with the help of Joel’s father Ed, and he had consistently ignored the tentative warnings offered by the doctor against practically adopting his cousins, as he had ignored Mrs. Newbery’s misgivings.

  The doctor knew the truth, from Mrs. Newbery, about Stewart’s dismissal as manager of the Blue River last June, and the end of Steve’s engagement to Alison; Steve had only alluded casually to the trip to Europe and the Argentine that Stewart was taking.

  He turned now and looked at Mrs. Newbery, sitting behind him, and found her expression as troubled as his own.

  “Why has he come back?” he asked quietly.

  “To make trouble, ye may be sure,” she whispered back shrugging, “I don’t like it at a’, doctor.”

  Arrowhead’s tiring, dropping back—” the voice of the commentator claimed all their attention again as the thunder of approaching hooves grew louder again, “now it’s Ranger well clear of the rest of the field but High Jinks is coming up on the outside—he’s crowding Ranger a bit against the rails, though there’s plenty of room—I should think he’ll be disqualified for this—”

  The leading horses had rounded the final corner into the straight and everyone was standing up, craning to watch the finish.

  The commentator’s harsh nasal voice suddenly changed its experienced sporting-patter pace to one of absolute amazement.

  “It looks as though Finch is deliberately riding just on to the rails! The black stallion is rearing up against this treatment—my God! I’ve never seen stallions fighting on a racecourse before! They’re all over the place—there'll be a pile-up like the Grand National in a minute when the others come up—my God! these might be
wild stallions fighting it out in the bush—the riders have been thrown—Forrest hit the rail as he went over. Finch is lying on the track—”

  Men shouted and women screamed. Jane screamed Steve’s name in agony, but no sound issued from her dry throat. Lisa pulled herself up by the top of the rail in front of her.

  Copper said angrily, “That blond guy’s the worst rider I ever saw.”

  Joel muttered, “Bad rider nuthin! This is bloody murder, chum!” and vaulted the rail on to the course. Dr. Banjo followed and in a minute men were streaming on to the track from all directions.

  It was all over in less than a minute, but to Jane those sixty seconds seemed a lifetime.

  Joel ran out to the middle of the course and stood there, shouting and waving his hands at the second wave of horses coming into the straight.

  “He'll get himself killed, but he’s a brave man,” the commentator was still trying to describe the chaos on the racetrack below him.

  Copper was putting Lisa back in her chair. He was the only man left in the stand now. Lisa had gone very white and he was trying to reassure her and Jane. “Steve won’t be dead,” he said breathlessly. “That guy knows when and how to drop off a maddened horse.”

  “He hit his head on the rail going over, I saw it,” Jane slid under the railing. Copper reached over and held her by the arm, firmly. “Wait until—you won’t help him by being killed yourself, Jane.”

  “Joel won’t be killed, either,” Mrs. Newbery said in an odd rusty voice, “he’s used to facing a rush—a stampede. Look, the horses are swerving to avoid him.”

  The commentator was signing off, unable to describe the tragedy any longer. “This is one race that will be disallowed, anyway. We’ll let you know the extent of the damage later. The man who ran on to the course off-headed the last bunch of horses, but the first lot ran over Finch. He was obviously unconscious and it was mercifully quick—one of the two fighting stallions has been ridden down, too. The sergeants are going out now with guns—this is the most horrible scene I’ve ever witnessed on a racecourse.”

  “Let Jane go,” Lisa said quietly, “she’s a nurse. She wants to go to Steve.”

  “O.K., I’ll come with you, Jane.”

  Mrs. Newbery handed over the white-faced, wild eyed Jamie to Mrs. Cooper. The women in their gay summer frocks stood about in odd groups, pale and shocked, still staring at the racecourse. Now the other riders were gathering about the scene of the accident, where several riders and horses formed a tumbled heap on the ground. The shrill neighing of the wounded horses added to the general pandemonium.

  “Is Uncle Steve dead?” Jamie demanded on a high, hysterical note. He had seen too many dead animals in the bush not to know what death meant.

  “It’d take more than a spill to kill your Uncle Steve,” Elsie Cooper gathered him up to her comfortingly, “they’ll just keep him in hospital a day or two, I expect. Now we’ll take Lisa back to the hotel, and keep out of the way until they’ve got this lot sorted out, shall we?”

  Lisa, still white-faced and trembling herself, said gently, “Will you push my chair, Jamie? It’s quite a long way back to the hotel.”

  It gave the little boy something to do and he nodded. Most of the women decided to start walking back into town, as their menfolk might need the cars to transport the injured, and it was a strange, silent procession that wended its way slowly back from what had been a scene of gaiety for the past two days.

  “I don’t want to ride tomorrow,” Jamie announced suddenly; he had not seen or heard much of the accident, but the atmosphere was still full of the grown-ups’ horror, “I don’t want Shiver to be hurt.”

  “I expect there won’t be any more races, love,” Elsie Cooper tried to sound cheerful about it, “not this year, anyway.” A hot milky drink for Jamie, she thought, a couple of aspirin—and bed. Lisa looked as if she could do with the same treatment, and maybe a, dash of brandy in her milk.

  Inured as she was to road accident cases being brought into Casualty, Jane felt very sick as she saw Steve’s mangled leg where Ranger had been driven against the hard, strong railing; and she had never before seen a brown-skinned person deeply unconscious. His face was a curious greenish-grey, his eyes closed.

  She knelt beside Dr. Banjo on the short, warm grass and felt for Steve’s pulse at the wrist nearest to her. It was there, slow and faint, but there. Her eyes asked a question and the doctor answered it. “Multiple fractures of the femur, and concussion. We may have to do a trephine, if there is pressure. But he will live, he is very strong.”

  Dr. Jeffries was attending to the casualties on the course. For a moment the little Polish doctor and Jane were alone with the man lying so still on the grass—Copper had stopped to help disentangle another rider from his horse.

  Jane whispered desolately, “It was all my fault ... Stewart was mad with me when he went out for the race.”

  If Dr. Banjo was surprised he gave no sign of it. He said gently, “No, Jane. If not you, then something else. Stewart was always intensely jealous of his cousin. Now, just remember that Steve is going to need you more than ever.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IN the bright spring sunshine a pall of gloom fell over the little town of Oonga; after the accident, the stewards cancelled all further events. The pressmen and the radio commentator fortified themselves in the hotel bar, discussing how best to dilute their accounts of the tragedy. When all the casualties had been taken to hospital, small groups of men gathered on the verandas to talk, to try and make some sense of what had happened. The women, as if by common consent, returned to their homes or the hotels and kept indoors, and kept the children occupied. The bunting that had stretched so gaily from side to side of Main Street for the past three days was quietly removed by one of the policemen.

  Oonga, from a place of well-earned carnival, became suddenly a town of mourning, though Stewart Finch was the only person dead and he had not been popular.

  These people were inured to hardship and accident in their daily lives, and there were usually a few minor casualties at the races—in the steer-roping contest, the exhibition riding or horse-breaking display. But nothing on this scale had ever happened before, and it had not been an accident.

  The word murder was not spoken by the local people, but it was in the minds of every adult who had been a witness of the finish of the Pastoralist Stakes. If Steve Forrest died from his injuries he would have been murdered as surely as if his cousin had pulled a gun on him—and in general opinion far more brutally. These men had an abiding passion for a fair fight, and for horses; Stewart had outraged their code, and this race would be a blot on their record for many months to come.

  When Stewart’s body had been taken to the mortuary, the police helicopter flew Alison and the Blackmores back to the Marjorie station. Alison sat silent and brooding throughout the flight, Andy grumbled because High Jinks had been shot.

  “I bet Old Quinsy could’ve patched him up, good enough for stud anyway. You killed a good horse, Sarge.”

  Sergeant Collins, still shocked from the events of the morning, said bluntly, “He wasn’t a good horse any more. You never should’ve let that young—you should’ve ridden him yourself, Andy.”

  When he put the helicopter down he refused to come in for a cup of tea. He stood formally by the machine, awkward in the face of Alison’s stony self-control. “There’ll have to be an inquest, on Monday, Miss Finch.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said with sudden bitterness, “and after that I never want to see Oonga again as long as I live! You should have shot that black beast of Steve’s, he went berserk.”

  Outraged by this fantasy, the sergeant became stern.

  “I’m sorry about your brother, Miss Finch, but he was the one who went berserk. He rode High Jinks in to make a savage attack on Ranger. Ranger was only defending himself. Maybe if he hadn’t reared up, quick, Mr. Forrest would be dead now and your brother alive, and—” he looked the cold woman squarely in t
he face and quietly, deliberately finished his sentence, “facing a charge of murder.”

  “Nonsense! He was just trying to beat Steve, to come first on the inside,” Alison retorted sharply, and turning on her heel followed the Blackmores into the shabby homestead.

  Collins shrugged and clambered back into the helicopter, eager to get back to town. He had never in all his years as a policeman seen a more blatant attempted murder, but these Finches were cold-blooded fish. Stewart, he thought, had been lucky in a way to get himself killed so quickly, or there might have been a mob lynching. There had been plenty of witnesses. There hadn’t been a lynching for eighty years in Oonga, and Sergeant Collins didn’t want a revival of bush justice now.

  When he’d berthed the helicopter in its shed he went round to the hospital for news of Steve, and discovered that the injured man was still in the operating theatre.

  The little hospital that had been so empty this morning was quietly and efficiently busy now.

  Steve was in the theatre for more than four hours. Dr. Banjo, assisted by an anaesthetist and Sister Moira and two of the native nurses, performed a trephining and attended to the complicated fractures of the femur, while Dr. Jeffries and Sister Mollie attended to the rest of the injured. Seven riders had been thrown, besides Steve and Stewart, and they were brought in suffering from broken collar bones, a broken arm, multiple bruises, lacerations, and shock. Paddy Shaughnessy had had his jaw broken by a kick from a terrified, riderless horse, and Tom Elliot had a couple of broken ribs. Normally there would have been a stoical acceptance of bad luck, with simple jokes going around the Casualty Department as man after man was treated and made comfortable in the wards; but today the hospital staff worked swiftly and silently, and the injured men avoided each other’s eyes ... this had been no ordinary accidental pile-up and most of the spectators as well as the injured were suffering from shock, appalled and hardly able to believe what their eyes had seen happening on the racecourse.