‘No harm in a few drinks.’ Jarrod dried his face, wincing at the sight of his blood. ‘Is it bad?’
‘No it’s not.’ Cora pointed at his arm. ‘What about your arm?’
‘No thanks to you, it’s busted. You reefed it over your shoulder.’
‘Selective memory, eh, Jarrod?’ Harold undid a few of Jarrod’s shirt buttons. The boy’s collarbone was near poking through his skin. He glanced at Cora. ‘Reckon I’ll take him straight to the hospital. It’s a bit much for our doctoring skills.’
‘Fair enough.’ Cora could set straight arm and leg breaks, but anything else was beyond her. ‘I’ll call and tell them you’re coming.’
Once Jarrod was settled in the front of the utility with blankets and pillows, Harold turned his key in the ignition. ‘You’ll have to look after the horse.’
‘Don’t you touch my horse!’ Jarrod slumped back in the bench seat.
‘You better go.’ Cora waved them off, side-stepping the dogs. In the kitchen she made the necessary calls to the police and hospital, the party-line telephone system ensuring the majority of the district would know of the accident within the hour. It only took one interested matron to pick up the telephone and listen in when the manual exchange was rung for the news to travel like the proverbial. Once the authorities were informed Cora holstered her revolver, slipped into her work coat and set her wide-brimmed hat firmly on her head. The business of putting an injured horse down lay ahead, a hateful task.
Chapter 6
The New England Tablelands, 1965
The final rise was a beauty. The high spot gave Scrubber a grand view of the countryside. Spread out like a fancy banquet, squares of jade, brown, gold and murky green were intersected by lines of trees, roads and homesteads. The view folded over slopes until haze met the foothills to disappear into a land not visited by Scrubber for nigh on thirty years. He couldn’t smell it yet – the tang of dry dirt and real acreage, of sheep in their thousands, of a land that tempted like a bag of candy. He could remember it, though; could see his arrival at the Purcells’ property. Twenty-two years of age, swag at his feet, white gold dangling before his eyes. His missus once said he should have stayed in the flat country. Maybe he should have. He never could forget the scent of lanoline; of a fleece thrown six foot in the air, sunlight catching the burry edges of it before it landed on the wool table to be skirted and inverted into a lump of snowy whiteness. His boots tapped Veronica’s flanks as they plodded up the road. The old girl had a tendency to doze off when he tarried. Come to think of it, so did he.
Behind them, cars were starting to protest. Were he a betting man, Scrubber reckoned the young fella behind would overtake, regardless of road rules. They were travelling downhill, the bitumen hard on the three horses’ hoofs, the road twisting like a desert sidewinder. It was his right to travel the highway like any other person, even if there were now eight cars caught behind him desperately wishing for a slow lane. He patted Veronica on the rump, glanced at Dog padding rhythmically alongside him, and adjusted the scarf about his neck. The car was low and slate-grey; the kind of vehicle that would be invisible in bull dust and eventually get run over by a road train. The double white lines stretched ahead around the next blind corner.
His mount kept her head down and stayed centred on the road. If he’d been a believing man Scrubber almost considered it possible that his Veronica, the woman variety, had come back as the nag he now rode. He clicked his tongue and the mare dropped her head a touch lower. Yep, he mumbled, just like his V. She’d always been stubborn, like the time the doctor warned about diabeates. No one was gonna beat her, V bit back. Of course the illness eventually got her a good five years ago at about the same time his own body began to fail him, which was why he was finally heading west to see Cora. With no one left to care for and his own illness worsening, he had no excuses left. Besides which, he had his conscience to clear.
The mare brightened and lifted her head as if attuned to his thoughts. Samsara and Petal weren’t so obliging: they pulled on their lead ropes and kicked out at the pushy prestige car behind them. Eventually Scrubber got bored with the noise of it all and gave an off-hand wave to his stalker, narrowing his eyes against flying grit as the car sped past.
At the end of the first week it was a relief to reach the start of the stock route. The horses knew instinctively when the real part of the journey began. They snuffled at the winter-whipped grass and whinnied when the bitumen grew invisible.
Scrubber stopped early that day. The warm sun was unseasonal and a camp spot hung enticingly in his mind like a good slug of rum. Once his girls were unpacked, their saddles resting at the foot of a gum tree, Scrubber stripped off, sitting the leather pouch on his folded oilskin jacket near a fast-flowing creek. Running into the water he splashed and yelped with delight. This, he decided, was living.
He could have sat by the water for hours, but with his stomach cantankerous he set about getting a feed. A lump of old mutton tied to a bit of string enticed two snappy craybobs to dinner. Scrubber grabbed at their thick slimy bodies, apologising for their unfortunate demise so late in the season. By the time he’d fished, fired up, and roughed together a bit of water and flour, the sun’s rays were streaming fitfully through the trees.
Scrubber boiled water in a faithful camp oven and plonked the fractious old man craybobs into the bubbling pot. They cooked in minutes and he tore off their pincers, gnawing at the white fluffy innards with teeth past chewing. Dog, not one for fish, ate damper from a tin plate and drank his share of hot billy tea, belching in contentment as he lay down near the fire.
‘Good, eh?’ In the past Scrubber had struggled with dinner conversation. Dog turned on his side and rubbed his head in the grass.
The camp fire struggled throughout the night. The wood, leached by numerous floodings, alternated between outpourings of smoke and rare flashes of unenthusiastic flame. When the timber did burn it turned to ash quickly. Scrubber watched the dismal offering with amusement, a piece of grass clamped between dry lips. He’d grasped long ago that some form of genetic flaw had pursued him out of the birth canal and into life, rendering him incapable of following a straight track. Knowing that – accepting that some things from the past were beyond his control – well, it made certain incidents easier to live with. Scrubber glanced at the pouch. He itched for conversation, however the stars were a little too close for comfort, a little too interested in what he planned to say.
Chapter 7
Absolution Creek, 1965
The sight of the twisted float didn’t endear Jarrod to Cora. The boy’s utility was buckled head on against one side of the stock grid. The float had jack-knifed, rolled over and come free of the rear of the utility. Cora walked the couple of hundred yards through ankle-high grass to where the float lay on its side. The steel of the horse trailer was ripped jaggedly at the front, and she could hear from within the horse’s laboured breathing and the float wall being kicked intermittently.
She scrambled up onto the side of the float. Inside, the chestnut mare glared back at her with wide, frightened eyes. There was a deep gash along her rump and another on her chest where she had hit the front of the trailer on impact. These wounds probably would have healed nicely under the care of the local vet were it not for the extent of the mare’s leg injuries. Both front legs were broken, and a hoof partially torn away. A crow flew overhead and gave a single vulturous cry. Slipping a bullet into the chamber of the revolver, Cora took aim and fired. The animal stilled.
In the silence that followed, Cora examined the scene. The mare was still saddled and, judging by the extent of the caked dust and sweat along her girth and legs, hadn’t even warranted a rub down at the end of yesterday’s draft. Aware that young men were inclined to be foolish and that the float was insured, Cora might well have only reprimanded Jarrod and deducted his wages for being thoughtless; what Cora couldn’t abide, however, was injury to animals.
‘You could have called me.’
‘No one. I was on my way to check on some calving heifers next door. The pistol shot was the giveaway. I’d recognise it anywhere. How’s the kid? I assume it was Jarrod?’
Cora nodded. ‘Drunk as, with a busted collarbone and more attitude than a cut snake. Harold’s taken him to the hospital.’
‘Looks like he was lucky.’ James peered into the float. ‘Well, it was a nice clean shot, Cora, not that I would have expected anything else.’ He looked at the wreckage. ‘All this will have to stay as is until the police arrive.’
They walked back through the grass to where their vehicles were parked. ‘So, how’s business? I didn’t think you had the time for it any more.’
James patted his bag. ‘Just keeping my eye in: all those years of study and then half the family clears off to the big smoke and the rest are pushing daisies.’
‘You’re lucky. At least you’ve got something to fall back on if things go pear-shaped. So, how are things going over in squatterdom?’ James’s property was six miles away as the crow flies and a good thirty by road.
‘Not bad. The clip will be patchy though. The season hasn’t been too kind to date. And you?’
Cora pinched the bridge of her nose. A headache loomed. ‘Staff problems. There are always staff problems.’
‘I’m hearing you.’ James dropped his bag through the passenger door of his utility.
‘This accident will just about pull Jarrod up at Absolution. I’ve been thinking of getting rid of him – he’s just too unreliable.’
James glanced over his shoulder at the wrecked float. ‘Well, I can’t blame you. Anyway, miss me?’ He was leaning against his ute, arms and legs crossed, hat tipped back on his forehead.
‘Nope,’ Cora replied quickly as an image of a billowing white sheet came to mind. ‘I mean –’
James lifted his hand. ‘Don’t worry, I know how you like your space. You forget we’ve got a history, Cora, and neither of us are selling out any time soon.’ He gave her a lopsided grin and opened his car door. ‘I’ll be seeing you, kiddo.’
Cora waited for him to look back, for their eyes to meet, and was surprised when disappointment swelled inside her as road dust smothered his departure.
‘You can’t fire the kid while he’s still in hospital.’
They were sitting outside beneath the kitchen window. Some years ago Harold had helped her dig out a few feet of dirt in a sizable square, and now the second-hand pavers they’d laid supported a peeling wooden table and three chairs. Cora sipped her tea, a diary and paddock book beneath her elbow. ‘I guess you’re right.’ One night’s observation had turned into a week. Jarrod’s arm was broken in three places, his collarbone too. ‘At least he’ll be dried out by the end of it.’
Harold added another teaspoon of sugar to his tea. ‘I feel sorry for him.’
‘What’s to feel sorry for?’ Cora asked. Tripod followed Curly in a limping gait through the flower bed adjoining the chicken wire fence.
‘Well, he’s only got his mother and they reckon she’s a tough master. Anyway, he’s out for the count now by the sounds of it.’
‘Would you keep him?’ She set her cup down on the table.
Selecting a pre-rolled cigarette from his leather hat-band, Harold lit it and coughed thickly. ‘He’s a good worker.’
‘Too unreliable. I just don’t know why we have to put up with people like that. Either they want work or they don’t.’ Cora called the dogs over, affectionately pulling each of their ears. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Jarrod’s great, when it suits him.’
Harold drained his cup and flicked ash onto the patchy lawn. ‘Well, I can’t make staff out of a broom and a bucket.’
‘Some of the ones we’ve employed on Absolution have been about as handy as that.’ Cora sighed. ‘No, I think Jarrod’s days here are over.’
‘How about I tell him?’ Harold suggested. ‘He’s still pretty fired up about you putting his horse down.’
‘Like his hide.’ Cora stacked the cups and empty cake plate noisily.
After Harold left, Cora stayed out in the weak autumn sun. Jarrod’s accident disrupted everything. Now they were down one jackeroo, jobs were postponed – including the corn delivery date – to be rearranged accordingly between visits from the police, the dealings with the insurance company and an irate mother. Close to informing Mrs Michaels of what she really thought about her beloved boy, Cora managed to listen for all of five minutes before putting the receiver down.
Cora scribbled some stock movements in the diary and wondered about her staff conundrum. Absolution Creek was a middle-sized holding of 8000 acres. Not massive by any means, but large enough for a single woman to need the assistance of Harold and a jackeroo to oversee. As Absolution’s seventh jackeroo in seventeen years, Jarrod followed a line of bush-bred greenhides who needed to be broken in. Stupidity was fast becoming an employee characteristic she could do without. It seemed best to employ a qualified station hand; not only would that alleviate the hair-tearing rigmarole of the past seventeen years, it would relieve some of the strain.
Cora knew eventually her injuries would make full-time work on Absolution difficult. The fall that occurred forty years earlier damaged her eye, leg and hip. If such an accident happened today she would have been treated for breaks, fractures and muscle tears, and perhaps something could have been done for her wounded eye. She did what she could, of course. Long walks, hot-water bottles and hanging from the door to stretch out her spine. Old wounds, however, were hard to heal and increasingly she relied on Harold for the more labour-intensive jobs. Over the last three years she’d stopped drenching the sheep, fencing, carting hessian sacks of chaff, lifting small bales of hay; separately they were small tasks, but combined they took away a great part of her work day, relegating her to the office or her daily rides about the property. These rides were Cora’s salvation, for at night the land spoke to her, reminding her of another time and place. Like her injuries, there were some things a person could not be free of.
Having acknowledged she could never forgive those who had made much of her life difficult, Cora nonetheless tried to keep past hurts firmly in the past. It took some time for her to discover that she was incapable of setting memories aside or compartmentalising her anger. Everything from her earlier life continued to directly affect her present and future, including her failed love affair with James Campbell.
It was time, Cora decided, to repay her sister Jane Hamilton. There was the very real possibility that her future at Absolution Creek could be cut short by management agreements put in place decades ago, and it was important to Cora that she still be on the property when the injuries done to her and her family so long ago were finally brought to light. She wanted to be on the land she loved.
Her plan involved employing someone under the guise of a paid female companion. ‘A malleable female companion.’ Cora looked at the tea leaves in the now cold cup. Why bring a perfect stranger into her home when one could nab a relative? Jane’s daughter, Meg. The great pity of life was that one couldn’t choose their own relations. Still, she satisfied herself with the belief that surely Meg couldn’t be as troublesome as her mother. Meg’s birth had been announced somewhat triumphantly in the ‘hatches’ section of the Sydney Morning Herald in the early forties, and although the silence between Cora and Meg’s mother extended over forty-two years, a quick search courtesy of the Sydney telephone exchange had located her sister.
I’ll just have to try and see, Cora thought. She attempted to list the benefits of the arrangement from the girl’s viewpoint. She could dangle the prospect of some form of inheritance. It didn’t matter really. Her aim was to take from Jane her only child and show the woman that Cora had not forgiven her or forgotten. Cora put pen to paper.
My dear Meg,
At some stage in your life your mother may ha
ve mentioned me. Although she and I are not close, I am your aunt and I live quite a distance from you on a property in north-west New South Wales. I am younger than your mother but I find myself in need of a companion, and of course immediately thought of you. I am by no means an invalid, however I do require some assistance indoors, and how wonderful it would be if you decided to leave dreary Sydney and join me. In return I offer you a place in my spacious homestead and, of course, a most generous allowance.
Absolution Creek is a large well-known holding which produces beef and wool. It is a beautiful, productive property with the added benefit of fresh air and unending space. I have no children of my own, which is why I have decided to make contact with you. Your mother will see little benefit in such an arrangement, however do believe my heart-felt invitation.
With best wishes,
Cora Hamilton
Cora briefly thought of Jane Hamilton and when she finished writing the letter – addressing the envelope to Meg – a grim smile of satisfaction settled on her face.
Later in the afternoon Cora walked around the corner of the enclosed veranda to the room where she intended Meg to sleep. The bedroom was musty. Crossing the dusty floorboards she opened the faded curtains and casement window. The breeze encircled her, lifting dust from a leather chair, narrow wardrobe, hardwood dresser and four-poster bed. Cora ran her fingers across the polished brass bedknobs, her eyes drawn to the bunched mosquito netting hanging from the ceiling. The netting was shadowy with dust; fragile with memories.
The bedroom needed to be painted before her niece’s arrival. She could probably even find a picture or two to tart up the walls. A scattering of leaves on the corrugated-iron roof startled her. For a moment Cora imagined it to be the heavy step of a man and she closed her eyes, constructing his image. He was with her still, breathing life into every new day. The man who saved her and deserted her.
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