Where the River Runs

by Fleur McDonald

  Chelsea had been glad to get back to the Conservatorium after those holidays. To play and forget everything else. This time she worked hard, harder than any of the other students, and because of this she often wasn’t available when phone calls from her parents came. She rarely returned them. Chelsea protected her heart and feelings by becoming abrupt and rude, demanding the best of herself and of other performers around her.

  She became a person she’d never wanted to be nor thought she ever would be. Her strained relationship with her parents had never got back on track, then Dale had died and it couldn’t be salvaged.

  Aria let out a little groan in her sleep and the thought of his kind present brought Cal and his comments about her dad to mind again. What could she do to help? Realistically, she was the only family he had left, so she couldn’t not help. Her dad had sacrificed a lot for her and it was time for her to return the favour.

  Cal’s question earlier had got her thinking in a different way—was there some chance she’d like to stay at Shandona?

  A note from the piano sounded, then another and another. Opening an eye, she stayed exactly where she was when she saw her dad sitting on the stool, his hands on the keys. He couldn’t know she was there.

  The tune he was trying to play was ‘Red River Valley’—it had been one of her mum’s favourites, but it was clear her dad couldn’t quite remember the notes.

  She coughed slightly, to make him aware she was on the couch; the music didn’t stop but the keys were pushed down with more force and the notes jarred as he hit the wrong ones. Chelsea closed her eyes and tried to imagine the score in her head. Not that she needed to; more it was for an overview of the notes. Holding her hands up in the air, she pressed her fingers down onto imaginary keys and heard the whole tune playing in her mind. It was an easy piece.

  For a little while she watched her dad try to find the right notes. He was becoming increasingly frustrated. Chelsea had an inkling of how her mum might have felt on the side of a netball court, calling out instructions to her. Maybe she’d experienced the frustration Chelsea was feeling with her dad now. It wasn’t a difficult piece, so why couldn’t he get the notes right?

  Getting up quietly, she went and sat beside him. He jumped, then started to get up.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I—’

  ‘Stay,’ Chelsea said quietly. ‘Let’s see if we can figure this out together.’

  Carefully she touched the right keys. ‘Here,’ placing his fingers where hers had just been. Then she began to hum the tune as she pushed his fingers down in time to what she was humming.

  ‘From this valley they say you are leaving …’ Tom started to sing quietly. As he did so, it was as if all the notes fell into place. Then he made a mistake, touching two notes side by side. They made a harsh clashing noise, and Tom frowned, testing another key for a different note.

  ‘Try the beginning again,’ Chelsea suggested. ‘Here and here.’ Again, she placed his fingers on the keys and started to hum.

  ‘From this valley they say you are leaving …’

  His fingers moved of their own accord to each different note and chord. This time there were no mistakes and he started on the second line.

  ‘We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile …’

  Chelsea broke into a smile as this time he didn’t falter once through the whole verse. She nodded in time and sung with him softly until he’d played the whole song.

  When he finished, he started the piece again.

  ‘I don’t want to forget,’ he said quietly, looking at his fingers as they moved across the keyboard.

  Chelsea got up from the stool and went to stand against the wall. Even though Tom was remembering all the notes, he was jittery, and the way he pushed the keys down was edgy rather than gliding, the way her old teacher Mrs Maher had shown her. But that was okay; she guessed it was a while since her dad had sat down at the piano. She’d been a bit edgy when she’d first laid her fingers on the keys a few days ago, after three months’ break.

  Her dad started from the beginning for the third time.

  Not wanting to interrupt, she walked over to the bookshelves that lined one wall of the room, and looked through the titles, hoping there was something she could read. The Billabong series she wanted to read to Aria was still missing; maybe the books had ended up in here.

  The first shelf was filled with the biographies her mum had liked to read: John Howard, Frank McCourt, Maya Angelou. Her dad liked westerns and they filled the next shelf. Then there were novels: mysteries and crime.

  The piano still played; she’d lost count of how many times Tom had played ‘Red River Valley’ now.

  She wasn’t sure she could read something dark at the moment. She needed something light and happy. A laugh-out-loud book. Something like Bridget Jones’s Diary.

  A cover depicting the back of a naked man lying in bed caught her attention. At first glance she thought it was Cal, then she mentally slapped herself. As if he’d be on the cover of a novel. And why was she even thinking like that anyway?

  She was intrigued as to why this book was sitting on her mum’s bookshelf when she’d never usually read that sort of thing.

  When she looked at the title she raised her eyebrows in astonishment. The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. When she saw the word ‘bonking’ in the blurb, she had to stifle a giggle. Oh my God! she thought. Mum, really?

  Shooting a quick glance at her dad, she wondered if he knew there was a raunchy novel in the bookshelf of his very conservative home. It looked like the perfect book for her right now, so she tucked it under her arm.

  She realised the piano playing had stopped. Turning around, she saw Tom watching her.

  ‘Do you remember it now?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘I used to play it all the time,’ he said. ‘For Granda Baxter. All those American folk songs, he loved them. Never understood why when we have great folk songs over here but, still, that was him.’

  ‘“Clementine” and “Oh! Susanna”. We used to sing them to him.’

  ‘And “Home On The Range”!’

  Chelsea smiled at the memories—they were good ones.

  ‘Wait here. I’ve got something for you.’ Tom got up from the piano and left the room.

  Wondering what it was, Chelsea lay back down on the couch and flicked through the novel. The naughtiness of it grabbed her attention and she was giggling to herself when Tom came back in the room again, holding a box. It was larger than the one which contained her mother’s funeral cards, and she could see from the way her dad was carrying it that the box was heavy.

  ‘You asked why,’ was all he said as he handed it to her. ‘Maybe you’ll understand now.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Here you are, Mr Oakes,’ Kim said, handing the elderly man a tray. ‘You’ve got prawns in a mango salad for entrée, roast chicken and pork, veggies and gravy for main, and a piece of pav for dessert. Dave is bringing it in now.’

  ‘Thank you, lassie. Sounds just like the Christmas dinners me ma used to make, ’cept we never got prawns. If we were lucky there might be a few yabbies around, but not real often.’

  ‘I know! But prawns are just so nice they’re hard to leave off the menu these days—especially now they’re easier to get. We’re lucky that Ashley Binder from over in Port Pirie donated them to us this year. It’s really great when stores do that.’

  ‘That country spirit.’ With shaking hands, Mr Oakes took the serviette Kim offered him and tucked it into his collar, before lifting the plastic lid from the entrée.

  Dave came in with another tray and opened the fridge. ‘G’day, Mr Oakes. Got a pretty big piece of pav waiting for you right after you finish what’s on your tray there.’

  ‘It’s a wonder you’re not the size of a house the way your wife cooks, young man!’

  ‘Yeah, she’s pretty good at it.’ Dave looked around at the pictures on the wall. They showed a group of young men dressed in jeans and bright shir
ts, wearing large hats and sunglasses. ‘Your grandsons?’ he asked.

  Mr Oakes looked up with a reflective expression on his face. ‘Sure are. Different to my generation, let me tell you.’

  Dave laughed. ‘I hear that all the time. You farmed?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Broke me heart when I had to leave and come into town. Especially when my head was still all right. Just me body which was giving up. The family got a bit concerned about me all the way out there on me own. Legs are no good,’ he said, patting his wasted thighs. ‘Me dear old girl passed away in her sleep five years ago, so it was time for me to go. Miss the paddocks and me dog,’ he told them.

  ‘Where was your place?’ Dave asked, still examining the photos. The country looked similar to Tom Taylor’s.

  ‘About twenty miles east of Barker. Where the deep gorges run with water when it rains and the hills are high. I tell you, we had some interesting times mustering that country. Rocks and steep hills. We’d muster on horses. We were hard on them though.’

  ‘Pretty country out through there,’ Dave said as Kim washed the few dishes sitting in the sink and listened to them chat. He saw her glance at her watch and he guessed she was thinking about the next delivery, but risked another question anyway.

  ‘Hard on the horses how?’

  ‘Rabbit holes and ankles don’t go well together.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, real Man from Snowy River stuff, except in the Flinders Ranges. Do you know if there used to be cameleer trains throughout that area sixty or so years ago?’ He heard Kim sigh quietly. She knew he wouldn’t be able to help but ask, just in case this elderly man had some information that would assist him in identifying the remains.

  ‘Oh, that’s a long time ago. But, yeah, there was them and other men who had horses and drays and would sell things off the back. They’d turn up at the house and offer me mum socks and boots. Maybe a pair of overalls. But there wasn’t any money back then, so sometimes we’d get something but more often than not we didn’t.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Mr Oakes pushed himself up in his chair, his face animated. ‘Sometimes, people would steal things off the back. Usually most people were honest back then, but sometimes life was tough and women’d try and grab a few extra spuds or a bag of sugar without them seeing. Specially during the Depression years.’

  ‘That would’ve caused a few upsets.’

  ‘It did, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Anyone ever get murdered because of that?’

  The old man’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Murder? You betcha! No rules back then. Anything and everything happened.’ He picked up the fork and speared a prawn. ‘Anyways, you two had better be off and finish the rest of the deliveries, hadn’t you?’ He leaned forwards and sniffed the food. ‘I tell you, Kim, this is going to be the best Christmas dinner I’ve had in years, even if me girl didn’t cook it.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Kim answered cheekily as she bent down to kiss his cheek. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow with leftovers for Boxing Day. Do you need anything else?’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine. Thank you.’

  Dave clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said. ‘Can I ask one more thing?’

  Mr Oakes stopped with a prawn halfway to his mouth. ‘I feel like I’m being interviewed.’

  ‘More like a curiosity question.’

  ‘Fire away then.’ He waved the fork around as an indication for Dave to continue.

  ‘Do you remember there ever being a death of any kind up around the reserve on Taylor’s property?’

  The faded blue eyes focused on Dave. ‘Now why would you be asking about such a specific area?’

  Dave dug into his pocket and brought out his phone. ‘We found this in the ground up there. Have you ever seen anything like it before?’

  Mr Oakes put down his fork and reached for the phone. ‘Are you ever off duty?’

  Kim muttered a good-natured ‘humph’ and put her arm around Dave’s waist. ‘Not likely,’ she answered for him.

  ‘And you found this up on the reserve area, you say?’

  ‘Yeah, it was buried up there.’ Dave held his breath, hoping the old man would say it belonged to his grandmother or something else that would make his job easy! But he knew that was unlikely.

  Mr Oakes shook his head. ‘How the hell did you find that then? There are millions of acres out there and you just happened to stumble across this piece of jewellery?’ His watery eyes regarded Dave curiously.

  ‘We were called out there for another reason. This just happened to come to the surface—excuse the pun!—while we were looking at something else.’

  Mr Oakes handed the phone back. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that before. Wish I’d been able to give it to my girl. She liked pretty things, but I couldn’t afford many of them.’

  ‘We’re all like that, Mr Oakes,’ Kim said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, we’d better get on. Have a few other deliveries to make yet.’

  ‘Yes, yes, be away with you. Hurry home to enjoy your own Christmas lunch. Happy Christmas!’

  Out in the car, Kim leaned across and gave Dave’s thigh a gentle slap. ‘Are you going to interrogate every one of my clients?’ she asked. ‘If you are, then I don’t think I’ll take you with me again.’

  Dave held up his hands in protest. ‘Hey, just making the most of a useful situation. Never know what you might get out of an oldie. Look at how I solved the one last year with the help from the minister’s diaries.’

  ‘And you were hoping you were going to solve the mystery right then and there, weren’t you?’

  Winking at her, he asked where they were going next.

  After the deliveries were all finished, they headed home to enjoy the spread that Kim had prepared before they’d left that morning.

  Their lunch was different—cold crayfish and salad and a couple of glasses of wine.

  ‘What did Mandy and Dean and the rest of the family do today?’ Kim asked as she pushed a small mouthful of cray onto her fork.

  ‘They were at the hospital. Dean hasn’t been allowed out yet.’

  ‘Yuck, hospital food for Christmas lunch.’

  ‘I’m sure Mum would’ve taken something nice in though. Christmas lunch when I was growing up was all about roast turkey, veggies and Christmas pudding. I bet she still made a pudding.’ Dave winked at Kim and reached for his glass of wine. ‘Sometimes I reckon all you think about is food.’

  Kim gave him a smouldering look. ‘Not all the time.’

  ‘Hmm, crayfish or you?’ Dave said, getting up from the table. ‘I don’t think there’s a choice.’ He held his hand out to her, and she stood up and they headed to the bedroom.

  Later, as they were doing the dishes together, Kim’s mobile rang.

  ‘Hello, Mr Oakes, is everything okay?’ she asked, putting the phone on loudspeaker while she dried her hands on a tea towel. Dave had rinsed out the sink and was moving on to wipe down the bench.

  ‘Fine, fine. Lovely dinner. Thank you,’ Mr Oakes responded. ‘You’re a very good cook, Kim.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She paused, wondering what he wanted.

  ‘Is your policeman friend there?’

  Her eyes flicked across to Dave. ‘He sure is. I’ll just pass you over.’ Holding out the phone, she cocked her head at him with a half-smile. ‘Looks like you’re back on duty,’ she said, and took the sponge out of his hand.

  ‘Dave Burrows here, Mr Oakes,’ Dave said, taking the phone and walking into their home office.

  ‘You asked about a death up on the reserve.’

  Grabbing a notebook and pen, he said, ‘Yeah, I did. Do you know something?’

  ‘Well, my mum told me an old story once. Not sure if it’s true, but I thought I’d better pass it on. Goes back to the early 1900s, when the travelling hawkers used to go through. There was a family living on the reserve; lived in a semi-permanent shanty village. They had canvas tents and a fire pit that was always going. Mum said she could smell the smoke mo
st afternoons when the wind blew from the north. There was a freshwater well there, so they had a constant supply, which made it easy for them to stay put. There were a few chooks and goats for meat and eggs. Almost like a farmyard.’

  Dave made a few notes and turned to the computer to bring up the Trove website. ‘How long did they live there?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, mate, I dunno. Like I said, this was just me mum’s story. But the thing about it was, everyone was a bit wary of them. The fella that lived there, rumour had it that he was being chased by police for a murder in New South Wales.’

  ‘A murder?’ Dave’s fingers hovered above the keyboard.

  ‘Yes, sir. According to my mother, he was a nasty piece of work, beating dogs and women alike. Anyway, one day they just weren’t there. Up and left, just like that. No word about where they were going or why.

  ‘Two days later the police rode into our farm. I was real little, but I remember the mounted troopers coming.

  ‘When I was older and Mum told me this story, she said they wanted the man for questioning in relation to two shootings. One in Broken Hill where the man fired a gun at a young lad. He was left on the main street picking shotgun pellets out of his leg.’

  Dave blew out a breath.

  ‘And the other one. A girl. Her throat had been slit.’

  ‘Slit? Was she related to him, or his wife?’ To Dave that sounded like a crime of passion.

  ‘Mother said it was his daughter. That’d she’d seen him do something real bad and threatened to dob him in to the coppers, so he got rid of her.’

  Nothing surprised Dave anymore, but the thought of a father murdering his own daughter horrified him. ‘Can you remember the name of this family, or would there be records anywhere?’

  ‘Nah, I just remember the story. It’s a long time ago now and most of the people would be dead.’

  ‘Any letters or diaries from your parents still around?’

  ‘Me parents couldn’t write.’

  Damn. Actually, that didn’t surprise Dave. When he’d met Mr Oakes this morning, he’d assessed him as the sort of bloke who’d sign a cheque then turn it around for the shopkeeper to fill in the amount. His formal education would have been sparse but his life experiences rich.