“Shall I pray for what I want, do you mean?”
“I cannot advise you on that. You must pray as the Holy Spirit leads, not as Reginald Otis leads. Don’t let your heart drown out the Spirit, though. Do you know what I mean?”
“I understand, but I’m not sure I can do it. You don’t know how loudly my heart is crying out.”
“Yes I do, Ellen. Yes I do.”
Samantha.
****
From clear out in the summer kitchen, the teakettle shrieked loud enough to interrupt their conversation. Samantha left Cole to finish his berry pie and hurried out to fetch the kettle before it called all the cats in Echuca to her door. She filled the teapot, dunked the little porcelain tea infuser and returned to the table.
She sat looking at the teapot intently, pretending she could watch the tea steep. “I be nae sure why I told ye all this. It does seem the best way out for Barmah Mission. He’ll ne’er get as much money as he really needs to run the place right. This would help.” She glanced up.
He was glaring at her. “The lurk merchant’s taking you, Sam. Can’t you see that? He’s using you!”
“Nae, Cole. ’Twas me own idea, nae his.”
“Does the word persuasive mean anything to you? He makes a business out of persuading people. Believe this. Do that. And one of the important tricks of persuasion is to make the person you’re manipulating think it was all his own idea. His or hers. You’re being led down a primrose path, and it scorches my hair just thinking about it.”
She should have known better than to think he might be open and understanding about it. How foolish she was to believe he’d be helpful, or offer some additional point. “Meself has been reading Scripture daily since I gave meself over to Christ, and I found the perfect verse for ye.” She rose to fetch her Bible from the bedroom, but he didn’t stand up. He usually had better manners than that.
Samantha sat again at the table and began thumbing. It took her a while to find it. He poured himself another cup of tea and did not bother to warm up her cup. The grouch. The supreme grouch!
“Here ’tis. Titus one, verse fifteen: ‘Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.’ When I refused ye up at Sugarlea, ’twas because I could nae trust ye. Ye cannae see the purity in Reginald for y’r own blindness.” She closed the book. “At least, now I know ’tis y’r own skewed view and not Reginald. Nae too long ago, I would’ve let ye plant doubts in me, for I place so much weight upon y’r opinions and y’re good will.”
He scowled black as death at the Bible. “At least there’s nothing in the verse about straying.”
Straying? Someone was knocking at the door. She abandoned the discussion—it was fruitless, anyway—and went to answer it. She opened the door and gasped, delighted.
“Why, look here! Martin Frobel, a thousand miles from home. Do come in, and welcome!”
Chapter Sixteen
Betrayal
Marty Frobel. Sloan studied the young pastoralist and tried to add two and two. It wasn’t adding. They sat across from each other at Sam’s table. Sloan was doing that a lot lately—sitting at her table. This happened to be breakfast. It could as well be lunch or dinner. He had come over here from the hotel at dawn because he couldn’t afford to eat there. She was so open and friendly, so eager to assist—to a point. Reach that point, and you slam into a steel wall. She was in essence holding him at arms’ length, and the torture was killing him.
And Frobel. Frobel was staying at the Cattlemen’s. If Sloan got attacked by toughs again tonight…Sloan still couldn’t decide whether to hold Frobel responsible for that incident or not. His denial seemed genuine, but that meant nothing. The very best liars can make it sound ex cathedra. But then, essentially the same thing happened in Adelaide, and Frobel wasn’t anywhere near there. Was he?
“Frobel. Have you ever been to Adelaide?”
“No. Farthest west I’ve ever been is Cloncurry. Understand Adelaide’s a nice place. Not much of a cattle district, though.”
Samantha brought the kettle in from out back. “Is that what makes a place worth being in, Marty? Cows?”
“Used to think so. Not so sure these days. Beginning to look as if we’ve a few more cows than we need. What I was talking about with Sloan here yesterday afternoon and evening: you see, the cattlemen and some private developers built meatworks. There were eighteen of them in Queensland for a while. It’s a good idea, but they just can’t seem to get profitable.”
“Meatworks. Abattoirs?”
“Partly. There’s been boiling-down works for fifty years. In drought years, when your cattle are dying anyway, you sell them for a few pennies to the boiling-down works, and they take the hides and tallow. Waste the meat, essentially. So we put in freezing plants. Gladstone and Lakes Creek are two big ones. Freeze the carcasses, put them on freezer ships, and send them all over the world.”
Samantha stared at him wide-eyed. “They can do that?”
“We’re getting better at it, but there are still a lot of problems with the mechanical end of it. A freezing plant needs a steady cast and a steady—”
“What is a cast?”
“The cattle out of your herd that are ready for market. The crop. The product. That fluctuates up and down, depending on the weather. Dry year, wet year. But the market doesn’t fluctuate. You have a given number of people eating just so much beef a year. There are other complications, but mostly, we need markets to make it pay.”
“Sure’n ye’d nae ask a better man than this.” Sam was looking at Sloan with what could only be described as admiration. “Ye give him the facts; help him learn all about it; and he’ll find what ye need.”
Sloan desperately wished it were true in this case. He wished that Australia were not already glutted with beef and lamb. He’d love to sell Frobel’s beef. But where?
Sam turned to Frobel. “I thank ye again, ever so much, for bringing me trunks and saddle. With all me worldly possessions here at last, sure’n I can feel a bit more at home.”
Frobel casually waved a hand. “They arrived at Pop’s for some reason, and Mum sent them on to me. Mum has this feeling that if I’m in Sydney, I’m only a few miles from anything in southern Australia. She understands that Queensland has distance, but she doesn’t think any other state has any.”
Sloan watched Sam’s face. He savored the memory of her clear and overflowing delight when her saddle had arrived here on her doorstep. She obviously treasured it, his gift to her. So why didn’t she treasure Sloan as much?
She stood up and pulled her hat off the rack by the door. “Gentlemen, feel free to relax as ye wish. I must hie meself off to work. Ye need nae worry about locking the door. Just pull it to when ye leave. G’day.” She stepped outside and took the sunshine with her.
The men talked a few minutes more of inconsequential things. Frobel mentioned taking a horse out into the countryside to look the area over. They shook hands and went their separate ways, pulling the door shut behind them.
The overcast sky promised rain. Frobel was going to get wet if he went out there today. Sloan wanted to send telegrams to Henscke, to Basedows’ and Hamilton wineries so badly he could taste it. “Are the wines I ordered on the way? Will I be saved from ruin by a timely river rising?”
For want of something better to do on so glum a morning, he wandered over to the wharf. After its summer sleep, the wharf was stirring. Skippers on the larger boats were starting to come in now. He ought get to know them. He wished it would rain and get it over with. The sullen cloud cover weighed down upon him. Everything weighed down upon him. Sam was such a sensible woman. What could she possibly be thinking of?!
She could never be happy with Reginald Otis!
Yes, she could, too. When he talked to Sam, Sloan undermined Otis every chance he got, trying in vain to convince her of something he knew was false. For although he might sling off at Otis on every o
pportunity, he knew the man was real. Sam needed a stable man, a sensible man, an everyday, down-to-earth man. Otis was all those things. Sloan was none of them. She could trust Otis, and probably with justification. And she was absolutely convinced she could not trust Sloan.
An intense jealousy seized his heart and turned the gray day black. Sam had found the kind of man she wanted and needed. And it wasn’t Sloan.
He heard his name called. At the far end of the wharf, a portly gentleman he did not know beckoned. This was not Drummond. Sam had introduced him to Drummond.
The fellow shifted a batch of papers from his right hand to his left and gravely offered a handshake. “My name is Wiersby. I’m one of the port commissioners. I wonder if we might talk to you a few minutes in chambers?”
“Certainly.” Now what?
Sloan followed him past Sam’s vacant office into the street and across the esplanade to a bluestone building. Their footsteps ticked on the varnished red gum floor down the building’s long, echoing hall. They entered a narrow meeting room. The door clicked shut behind them.
At a miles’ long polished table sat Drummond, two other puffed-up gents, and Samantha. Her face was drawn tight as a drumhead. Sloan felt his anger rise, and he had no idea what to be angry about. But they were giving Sam a bad time; he could tell that much just from her expression. How dare they cause a splendid woman like this a hard moment? You could see by looking at them that they were a fair prize themselves. Pompous, overweening, self-important shysters, the whole lot of them.
Commissioner Wiersby introduced the other two strangers as commissioners also, but their names didn’t register. Sloan was too busy trying to figure out the situation.
Finally, Commissioner Wiersby waved toward a chair. “Do be seated. We convened this morning to investigate certain activities involving Miss Connolly. I saw you by chance as I was gathering some papers from her office, an opportune happenstance. You figure prominently in the accusations against her.”
“Accusations?”
“The port commission is the most crucial governing body in this area, Mr. Sloan, because trade and transport are our lifeblood. Only the finest citizens, unblemished by scandal, are chosen as commissioners, reflecting the immense importance of the post.”
“I’m sure.”
“The wharfmaster is the extension of the commission, the link between authority and the trade itself. The wharfmaster and those he would hire must be absolutely above reproach.”
“Absolutely.”
“Despite damning evidence against her, Miss Connolly insists so strongly upon her innocence that we felt a hearing was necessary—to clear the air, as it were.”
“Evidence of what? Innocence from what?”
“A number of things. Foremost, the wharfmaster is never to use the influence of his position to further his friends’ fortunes or his own. And his assistant no less so.”
“You mean, set up good deals for his mates.”
“Precisely. Miss Connolly has been working behind the scenes, contrary to regulations, to arrange special favors for the Barmah Mission and, frankly, for you yourself.”
“She’s not done a thing illegal. She introduced me to some boatmen, showed me a few things—”
“She is a clerk, Mr. Sloan. That’s all. A clerk. She has neither power nor authority to influence trade on the wharf. If her activities were not suspect, she would have worked properly, through Mr. Drummond. And then, again involving you, Mr. Sloan, there is the question of her moral conduct. We—”
“Why, you lazy galahs! How can you sit there and—” Hold your tongue, Sloan boy! Think before you attack these rats! THINK!
If she lost her job here, she would be far less inclined toward that marriage of convenience with Otis. In fact, if the stigma of a dishonorable release plagued her badly enough, she’d have to leave the area and seek work elsewhere. Surely Sloan would be doing her a favor were he to destroy her plan to wed Otis, for he’d be saving her from a horrible mistake.
Sloan dropped his voice. From the looks on these drongos’ faces, they weren’t accustomed to being called galahs. “My apologies, gentlemen. I was overcome with the enormity of the moment. What specifically do you need from me?”
“Are you engaged in an unwholesome relationship with this young woman?”
“I prefer to keep private matters private, gentlemen. I’ll not discuss it.”
“We would appreciate a yes or no. A no on your part would clear it.”
“You’ve no authority to expect any answer from me that I’m not ready to give. What is your next question?”
Wiersby laid a sheet of tissue out on the table, a list of some sort that Sloan couldn’t read at this angle. “Miss Connolly sent telegrams to the skipper of the Mayflower at Swan Hill and to the wharf at Mannum. No Echuca Wharf business would require those messages. Were they to promote your personal business?”
“She lined up a shipment for me, yes.”
“Without going through proper channels.”
“I neither know nor care what the proper channels are.” Had he done enough damage? Probably the damage was complete before he’d even gotten here. He was the frosting on the cake, his testimony their final justification for sacking her. “I don’t like the accusatory nature of your remarks toward me, and I choose not to participate further. Good day, gentlemen.” He started to rise.
Wiersby raised a fat, ugly paw. “The inquiry is not directed toward you in any way, Mr. Sloan. Please, just a few more points.”
Sam stood up suddenly. “Do as ye will. I’m past caring.” She sounded shocked, her voice taut and razor thin. Sloan couldn’t look at her face. He felt her brush past his chair; the door clicked; she was gone.
Sloan stood up. “You don’t need me.”
Wiersby, that nark, was still thanking him for his cooperation as he walked out.
Why was he following her? She’d never speak to him again. He didn’t want her to; at least not for a while. Would she go running to Otis’s arms anyway? It was a possibility. Not a probability.
Out at the east end of the wharf the train hooted. So it was that time of day already. Sloan followed her, keeping a respectable distance between them. Sam stopped at her office—her ex-office—only long enough to retrieve a broad-brimmed hat on a rack. As she stepped outside, a sweet, familiar voice called her name.
It couldn’t be! Sloan took a dozen jogging steps to get in closer, to see better. It was. Linnet had just detrained and that Chris What’s-his-name was with her. Linnet and Sam ran to each other and embraced. If Chris was responsible for that attack in Adelaide, and Frobel for the one in Sydney, Sloan was in a barrel of trouble; both were in town now.
Sloan could not make out words; he could only hear the voices. The women were still locked in embrace. Sam sank to her knees, then sat heavily on the worn and roughhewn platform, her legs folded under her. Linnet knelt, cradling her, hugging her, rocking her back and forth. Sloan had never heard a woman weep as Sam was mourning now.
****
It did rain later that day, but whether Frobel got wet Sloan neither knew nor cared. Wearied for no discernible reason, he took a nap in his hotel room. He ate a cheap dinner at a little dive of a place. About dark it began to rain in earnest. He slipped down the backstairs to the cellar of the Esplanade, where the rain didn’t matter, and there he stopped cold, two feet short of the bar.
Chris “Whoever” was perched on a stool right by the door. He wore a great, black, musty-smelling opera cape. What was it with this lair, anyway?
Sloan grimaced, an adequate substitute for a smile, and parked himself two stools away. He glanced at Chris. The lad was looking at him. He might as well speak. “So, how’s she doing?”
“She’s getting on. She and Linn are at her place. Girl-talk. I got a room at the Bridge.”
“I’m at the Esplanade.”
Silence. “You’re despicable, Sloan. You know that, don’t you? In fact, I’m spending a pleasant evening her
e making a mental list of all the unflattering names you are.”
“What’d she tell you?”
“Nothing. She told Linn plenty, and I listened. She was all primed to fight Drummond until you killed her chance of winning.”
“Fight Drummond? I thought it was the commissioners.”
“Drummond dropped his bundle. Told them she came to him for a job when it was actually the other way around; told them he knew nothing about her activities when she kept him informed all the way. The spineless lizard told them anything they wanted to hear. And then you turned on her.” Chris shook his head. “I’ve met moles and white ants you wouldn’t believe; the diplomatic corps is riddled with them. But they can’t top you.”
“And now she hates me.”
“Maybe later. Right now, she’s numb. Glassy-eyed, like someone punched her up.”
“Speaking of which…” What good would it do? “Never mind.”
“Speaking of what?”
“A couple of jacks in Adelaide jumped me, right after you left. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Chris looked at him mildly, his face loose and relaxed. “No. Sounds like a good idea, though. Who won?”
“I got done like a dinner.”
“Good on them.”
The barman set a beer in front of Sloan, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want anything. Yes, he did, too. But he couldn’t tell what it was. “You ever been in love, Chris?”
“I am now.”
“Enough to lie and cheat for her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I suppose.”
Through the foggy, sweating glass, Sloan watched the little bubbles rise in his beer. “Me, too.”
They sat there, suspended in unmeasured time. Finally Chris lurched erect and wished the barman good night. Not a bad idea. Sloan pushed away and followed the silly black opera cape upstairs and out into the rainy night.
Taste of Victory Page 18