‘Okay.’ Squib smoothed her skirt as she’d seen Olive do.
‘Do you know where Thomas has got to? I thought we might ride out and check the ewes.’
‘I’ll come.’ It was days since Jack had doubled her on his horse across the creek. During that time Squib waved Jack off to work in the morning and welcomed him home at night while Olive either slept or tidied herself before their evening meal. That single event had altered things between them. Although neither of them spoke of it Squib knew they’d crossed their own creek that day.
‘Won’t Olive need some help in the house?’
‘If I wasn’t here she’d have to do it herself,’ Squib argued.
Jack turned to her. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Squib asked, genuinely surprised. ‘I’m not staff.’
‘Have I ever treated you that way?’
‘Sometimes, a bit.’ Squib kicked at the dirt, becoming overly interested in a line of ants heading to a nest a few hundred feet away from where they sat. ‘No, not really. The others do, though.’
Jack brushed dirt from his trousers. ‘And I’m sorry for that. Olive’s used to a different life.’
‘My father would call that a poor excuse.’
‘Smart man, your father. I wouldn’t mind meeting him one of these days.’
‘It would be real good if that happened,’ Squib agreed. ‘So can I come?’
‘No. I want you to find Thomas for me and then help Olive.’
‘Well,’ Squib answered carefully, ‘he’s probably with Olive. They spend a lot of time together.’ Squib knew her father would not be happy if he could hear her now, however what was she to do? Captain Bob had told her that she would be safe with Jack, yet Olive’s dislike of her was a danger.
‘I hadn’t noticed.’ Jack took a few steps backwards and looked up at the stable roof. A piece of corrugated iron was flapping in the breeze. ‘I better fix that.’
Squib took a breath. ‘Well, maybe you should notice – Olive and Thomas, I mean.’
Jack turned to her. ‘Meaning?’
‘I’m not a child, Jack. I see things.’
The pallor of Jack’s face resembled the blue-grey of the iron above him. ‘What have you seen?’
It was enough. Squib patted him on the arm and, lifting her skirts, walked away.
‘Hey, Squib, Cora, come back!’
She kept on walking. Jack Manning only used her real name when he was being serious Jack, and on those occasions she rarely answered him. There was, she realised, some advantage to belonging to no one. Yet she knew one day Jack would say those words again and it would be proof of his need for her, of his wanting. She crossed the short distance from the stables to the dirt track and looked eastwards. Part of her wished they’d not moved from Jack’s original house site with its tall sheltering trees. She had a sense things would have been better on that side of the creek – happier, safer. Now she couldn’t even revisit the site without Jack by her side, for the creek lay like an impenetrable barrier between the past and present and Squib knew her fear of water would remain with her for life.
This then was her home – this place that once belonged to another. This place with its roughly built homestead and wind-twisted trees. The soil varied from hard ridge areas to rich black soil such that Mr Purcell would have dreamt about, yet trees layered some paddocks like the hairs on Jack’s hand and to make a go of things he would have a hard time thinning them so that grass could grow. This place contained both a multitude of possibilities and nothing. It could be the best and worst of things to come.
Squib wasn’t sure what made her turn northwards. The wind blew from that quarter and she faced the strong breeze as a gnawing sensation grew in her stomach. Without knowing why, she ran to the stables. With Jack gone she peered out from behind a tree, the hairs prickling on her arms. The screech of hens carried on the air. She heard a door slamming and then raised voices. Two men on horseback dismounted at Jack’s campfire at the front of the homestead. Squib pressed her shoulders against the bark, craning her neck to look again at the strangers. A tall man and a squat one with a beard. ‘Adams,’ she breathed. His build and facial hair were unmistakable. She recalled Captain Bob’s words: that the spirits would not protect her, that there would be a reckoning. Swiftly untying the tight leather shoes, Squib hid them under an old canvas bag in the stables along with her hat, then she did the only thing she could. She ran as fast as her maimed leg allowed.
Chapter 45
Absolution Creek, 1965
Cora sat at the base of the great tree in her bedroom, her shoulder blades pressed tightly against the bark. By her side lay Tripod. The blood from his ear had congealed nicely, although his breathing remained erratic, his nose warm. Running her hand lightly across his back, she tucked in the old blanket around him. She hoped he would recover. It was asking too much of her at this moment to lose him as well. On the long, lonely return journey from Campbell Station Cora had dwelt sadly on what she was riding away from. She’d been so careful after Jack with her emotions; careful of not getting too close in relationships. Then she’d met James and he’d opened her eyes to something Cora had long since forgotten. Hope. She shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. Once again she was alone.
Relationships were impossible, Cora decided as she rubbed her scalp against the knobbly bark. Fate turned against her with the first and pride had destroyed the second.
Cora wondered how she would manage to pay out Jarrod Michaels and not default on the lease payment. If the worst happened, where would she go?
Outside the wind lifted. A scatter of leaves skidded down the corrugated-iron roof. A soft spray of rain patterned the open veranda and louvred glass. Although still winter, the rain would certainly help the parched oat crop. It had been struggling since a late March planting, surviving on intermittent showers that appeared unheralded and passed over the countryside. Every cleansing shower, however slight, left in its wake an optimism that one day soon it would rain, relieving both the land and those upon it from the burden of an unfathomable future. Cora carried this faith like a woman carried the thought of her lover. It was a seed planted by her beloved father, tended by Jack Manning and carefully cultivated by her own considerate hands once the management of Absolution Creek passed to her.
This mantle of responsibility was so much more than the daily running of the property. It was an understanding of the land, of the living matter within and on the earth’s surface, whose survival was linked to the vagaries of the weather. Rain was life-giving out here. Nothing could survive without its presence. The more Cora thought of the coming rain, the more restless she became. Laying her hands against the bark of the great leopardwood, she recalled those who had walked the land before her, the old people of the bush. Through the woody plant she could feel their energy, their comprehension of all things beyond that made and controlled by man.
In her mind’s eye they walked the earth again. Eight men, warriors all; stalking the moon-drenched night as Cora rode for help that wasn’t forthcoming. She should have known better. She should never have gone to see James. It was always the same. You could never depend on anyone except yourself. Yet those men last night hadn’t shown themselves for James’s sake – they were beyond the loves of mere mortals.
A remembrance came to her then. It was over forty years ago. She could see the clearing, and Captain Bob and the two men with him who appeared like wraiths out of the scrub. It was his finger that captured her attention. She’d followed its line of sight, the bent finger pointing to evidence even Jack Manning could not ignore. And there it was: the telltale ring of darkness that stained the large trees around them. The marks so high neither man nor animal could survive such a deluge.
For a second it was as if the world went black. Cora took a steadying breath, recalling the words spoken to her during the dead of night at Waverly Station.
When the people of the night sky come together in battle you will underst
and, for this will be the sign. This will herald the ending to the beginning of it all.
Everything depended on the rainfall east and north of Absolution. There had already been one flood here of shocking proportions, and Cora, having seen the evidence, knew the result could be catastrophic. Even now she could picture Jack looking at the watermarks on the trees, shaking his head in concern. Why hadn’t she realised before how much rain was coming? Why had her gift failed her? Certainly in the past her intuition did not always present itself accurately, yet nor did it abandon her so that action became impossible.
Running her hands against the bark of the tree, Cora’s fingers touched an unusual bulge. Hidden in the shadowy corner of the bedroom a crystallised bubble of the tree’s life force welled up through the bark. The oozing sap was the tree’s attempt at healing whatever ailed it, and as Cora prodded the timber she understood that this life as she knew it was about to change.
Chapter 46
Absolution Creek, 1924
Jack squared up opposite Adams on the dirt path at the back door. It was clear the postal and supply rider wasn’t here on a social call, for the man accompanying him carried a carbine rifle, and an air of expectancy showed in his dusty face.
‘Where’s the runaway? The Hamilton girl?’ Adams spat on the ground, his companion’s shifty gaze alert and untrusting.
‘What do you want with her?’
‘She accused me of stealing Campbell’s sheep, she did.’ Adams hooked thumbs through his braces and stuck his chest out so that a lard-hard belly folded over his belt.
Jack recalled his father’s words about men who wore both belts and braces: no confidence, he’d said; men such as that always figured on being more than what they were. ‘And?’
‘And?’ Specks of saliva gathered in the corners of Adams’s mouth. ‘Well, firstly there weren’t no proof and no witnesses came forward, since the lie was told to a black fella, Captain Bob, that works for the Campbells. But that didn’t stop them from throwing me in gaol for a week,’ Adams complained, turning to his companion. ‘Isn’t that right, Will?’
‘It’s the truth, so strike me down if I lie.’
‘So why are you here? It seems to me the matter’s been solved.’ Jack edged closer to Adams and his shifty company. ‘You don’t strike me as the type of man that would take umbrage with a female.’
‘I’m here cause of this.’ Adams produced a newspaper from his pocket. The print was creased and stained and he went to some effort to flatten the paper, brushing it against a meaty thigh.
Jack took the paper suspiciously and glanced down to where Adams’s ragged thumbnail pointed. ‘Move your finger.’ Thomas and Olive looked over Jack’s shoulder. Adams tipped his hat on Olive’s arrival. ‘Well, what of it? That’s the notice you and I talked about regarding the girl. Has someone come forward?’
Will took a step forwards and rested the stock of his rifle on the dirt path. ‘There was this theft, you see, by one Abigail Hamilton. She stole jewellery from a Mrs Purcell of Waverly Station.’
‘I knew it!’ Olive interrupted.
Jack held up his hand to silence Olive. A furious sigh was her response.
‘She was the missus of a big-time sheep stud owner over to the east in the slopes,’ Adams continued, ‘the one with the ram on the shilling coin.’
Olive huffed. ‘The audacity.’
‘I know of them.’ Jack could still see the shilling coin spinning across Mr Farley’s desk.
The man called Will cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, the story you tell about finding the kid after she fell off a dray and was washed down the creek . . . well, it matches the yarn going about the place, about the Hamiltons running from the law in the middle of the night, about a kid being lost, a girl. That is the girl’s name, isn’t it? Hamilton?’
Jack wasn’t following. ‘So you have found her kin?’
‘What we found, thanks to a traveller by the name of Scrubber –’ Adams displayed yellowing teeth ‘– is the girl holed up here with you is most likely of darkie blood. Her real mother was a half-caste.’
Olive lifted a hand to her mouth. ‘Never! In this house?’
‘I’m sorry to say it, missus,’ Adams commiserated, ‘but yes.’
‘You’re sure?’ Thomas stepped from the threshold to join his brother.
Olive lifted her chin. ‘I told you to send her to an orphanage, Jack.’
‘Be quiet, Olive, this is man’s business. Now,’ Jack continued more amenably, ‘if she is who you say she is – and that would have to be proved – what if I’m happy for her to stay here?’
‘Jack!’ Thomas placed a hand on Olive’s shoulder to quiet her.
‘Don’t let your enthusiasm to be rid of the girl get in the way of the truth, Olive,’ Jack reprimanded. He sensed her fury in her steely voice and erratic breathing.
Adams cleared his throat.
‘The law says any child –’
‘She’s not a child,’ Jack corrected.
‘Any child,’ Adams repeated firmly, ‘with mixed blood has to be sent away. It’s for their own good.’
‘An orphanage,’ Jack replied, ‘their own good, really?’
‘It’s the law,’ Adams said as if he had a shiny badge of authority pinned to his chest. ‘So where is she?’ He turned in an ungainly half-circle.
Jack gestured vaguely about them. ‘Who knows? The girl’s never been one for normality. You said that yourself once.’
‘She’s not in the house,’ Olive said. ‘She was with you, Jack.’
‘Some hours ago,’ he countered mildly, making a show of shading his eyes to stare off into the shimmering bush.
‘Well, we’ll be having a look about and if we don’t find her this time we will eventually.’ Adams tossed Jack a canvas bag. ‘There’s your mail, friend.’
‘Thanks.’ Jack caught the mail bag, then waited as the two men walked back to their horses.
‘I knew that girl was trouble,’ Olive snapped, ‘and here are you, Jack Manning, kowtowing to her and giving me lectures about getting on with her.’
‘That’s enough.’ Jack bustled Olive and Thomas inside. ‘For starters, Squib doesn’t look black to me. Does she look Aboriginal to you?’
Thomas gave a non-committal shrug.
Olive lifted her chin. ‘I wouldn’t know what she is, Jack.’ Turning to walk the length of the hallway she paused to stamp her heel on a black beetle. ‘I’ve never mixed with natives before. Now, who is for tea?’ she asked sweetly.
Chapter 47
Absolution Creek, 1965
Cora tucked a spare sweater into the saddle bag and hung a water bag and stock whip from the pommel. Horse, attuned to the slightest variation in Cora’s mood, waited patiently as she swung up and into the saddle. He settled beneath her slight weight, lifting a hoof in turn as if measuring her balance. In the distance the homestead appeared almost bereft. It sat squat and ungainly amid motionless trees, a messy line of add-on roofs of various heights running into the squat forms of the power house, meat house, laundry block and garage. Only the leopardwood tree relieved the asymmetrical lines of the homestead, its great branches rising up and over the structure like a chivalrous gentleman holding a rain coat. Cora hoped the old girl withstood the coming storm. Although she did her best to wad up the opening between the iron and the tree’s trunk, netting and builders putty were no match for the elements, nor the continual movement that stretched and tugged at the old building as the earth moved. Heavy rain made doors catch and foundations slip and resettle; prolonged dry weather saw cracks appear in walls and ceilings. Cora knew instinctively her home was failing her. It was sinking into the ground from which it had come.
A single whistle brought Curly running and, with Sam and Kendal saddled up, they set off three abreast, a disgruntled group of riders heading east to the creek. Once or twice Curly turned to bark in the direction of the homestead. Cora whistled at him softly. They both missed Tripod but he was yet to make a ful
l recovery.
‘So what’s the rush, Cora?’ Sam finally asked when half an hour of silence turned a pleasant ride uncomfortable. Lunch wasn’t even considered.
‘I’m pretty sure the rain will come in this afternoon and we only need a couple of inches to make the creek crossing impassable.’
‘Montgomery?’ Sam asked. ‘He might get caught over there, right?’ Everything up here was about the weather. It was either too hot or too cold, or there was too much or too little rain, or it fell at the wrong time.
‘Ten points,’ Kendal grunted. ‘We’re mustering the block over the creek.’
‘I just have a feeling we might be in for a bit more rain than we bargained for,’ Cora explained, ‘and I don’t want Montgomery caught with the rest of the rams on the other side.’
‘You see, old mate,’ Kendal said, ‘there’s been a sign.’
Yeah, Cora thought, there has been. Eight black fellas walking across the countryside in the dead of night and the last time I saw them I fell off the back of a wagon and lost my family. ‘You could say that.’
‘Hell of a way to run a property.’
‘Well, Kendal, as I have one and you don’t, clearly it’s working.’
Sam was almost inclined to turn around and head back to the work shed. He was no mediator, and Cora and Kendal’s jibing was enough to drive a man back to the bottle. He rubbed a hand over his wounded leg, wishing he’d remembered to put his pantyhose on, wishing he’d had that extra chop at breakfast. He just knew it was going to be one of those days. The sun was diminishing in strength as they wound through the trees in an easterly direction. When they reached the denser trees near the creek its rays barely penetrated the thick canopy above. Kangaroos, wallabies, even a pig and some suckers crossed their path, the latter dodging between him and Kendal with a series of snorts and screeches that set Sam’s mount to bucking, and Curly on a brief chase.
‘Hang on there, ringer,’ Kendal called laconically over his shoulder.
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