Connor slept, his tongue protruding through his beard with each gentle snore, the green-brown of the bush blurring through the window. There was talk of the British-owned Vesty’s meatworks in Darwin closing down. Ross gathered it was a combination of the unions continually striking for higher pay and lack of management. Which meant there was an opportunity for another privately owned abattoir in the town.
‘What are you planning, Ross Grant?’ Connor opened one eye. ‘I can hear the mice spinning wee wheels in that mind of yours.’
‘Nothing. Just thinking.’
‘That’s what worries me. You’ve said nought since we arrived in Darwin. You’ve the look of a man fairly bursting with knowledge.’
‘Cattle. I was thinking about cattle,’ admitted Ross. ‘And money.’
‘Well, as long as it’s something worthwhile I’ll leave you alone,’ said his friend with a grin.
‘Don’t go cracking your hide with plans.’ A man in the next seat tipped his hat. ‘Gilruth, the last administrator, and the unions have buggered the place. Vesty’s big outfit at Bullocky Point will be overrun with goats and white ants in a matter of months. All this land and no industry. There’s barely a man on a station south of here and hardly a coin to rub between your fingers among us all. Even some of the mining companies have pulled out.’
‘Great,’ said Connor. ‘And I was worried about the steamer we came here on sinking.’
‘I thought you were sleeping?’ Ross asked him.
‘Who can do that with the prospect of so much opportunity waiting for us,’ lamented Connor. ‘To think I was daft enough to want to leave Adelaide.’
Adelaide. Ross had done his best not to think of the place, for the moment he did, Darcey entered his mind. Not that she was confined to his thoughts of home. His mind settled on her as soon as he placed his head on the pillow at night. The steamer with its quoits and cards had provided distraction, especially after the rush of events leading to their departure. However, dry land brought reality with it. Ross found it impossible not to think of the woman. She crept into his mind at the most unexpected moments, teasing him to recall their marriage. To remember. In his harsher musings, Ross saw Darcey for what he believed her to be. A manipulator. A woman prepared to ensnare him to ensure a comfortable existence. And yet she was also a bargaining tool exploited by him and his family so that both parties could settle their differences and receive a form of compensation for the mess they’d found themselves in.
He imagined Darcey happy and content. Her momentary distress at his departure and her offer to accompany him northwards was a measured response to a situation already decided. And if she wasn’t happy, well, neither was he. In doing what they’d all wanted, Ross had offered himself up like coin on a church plate. He couldn’t help but be angry at all of them, including himself. He should have refused the marriage and walked away, discarded the family that expected so much of him. But he couldn’t. Ross wanted this future, and to move forward he needed to make amends for the past – both his and Alastair’s. That was done. Ten times over. Now all Ross wanted was his freedom, and for that simple pleasure he could never return to Adelaide again.
The conductor who’d spent the journey chatting to the other travellers jumped out briefly as the train slowed. He plucked a hessian bag from a tree before nimbly climbing back on board the moving steam engine. ‘Mail,’ he announced when he noticed Ross’s interest.
Timber made thick by pale-barked trees spun by as Ross sank back in the hard leather seat. Isolation meant freedom. As the air grew heavy, he felt freer. It was as if he’d not taken a proper breath since leaving Gleneagle.
When the locomotive slowed again the conductor approached them. This was their stop, he announced. They were to stay put and not go wandering about because no one would ever find them again, or if they did they’d be a pile of bones only needing a shallow grave. No matter how long they waited, they were to keep on waiting. Someone would eventually appear, but if something happened they were to wait by the tracks for the returning train. The train would come, he promised, as long as it didn’t rain and the line wasn’t washed out. And if it was washed out? Ross asked. Can’t much help you there, he replied.
Connor hunched a shoulder, his moustache twisting up in one corner as he looked at the trees and thick scrub on either side of the line visible through the windows. ‘Good spot to be abandoned. Middle of nowhere.’
Four hessian bags held provisions and personal items and these they divided equally, hoisting their load over a shoulder along with rifles and swags before stepping off the train. The whistle blew sharply and a blast of steam pooled out from beneath the engine as it rattled forwards, the carriages slowly pulling away.
Connor dumped the bags and rifle at his feet. ‘I hope that’s not the last of progress that we ever see.’
‘So much for the wet season.’ Perspiration trickled down Ross’s spine.
Some of the passengers waved at them as the remaining carriages, two empty cattle crates and a goods section trundled past. The air was so damp Ross could feel his skin grow slippery.
‘Well, then,’ said Connor, ‘that’s that. And now we wait and hope that somebody shows.’
Ross barely heard Connor speak, for on the other side of the tracks stood a girl. She too stared after the departing train and then very slowly turned towards them. Dressed in a beige dress, she held a tawny carpet bag in one hand, an overly large straw hat on her head.
‘This is a pretty mess,’ complained Connor, seeing her for the first time. ‘What if nobody comes for us?’
Ross looked to the left and right out of habit and crossed the tracks. His hello was not answered. The lack of response gave Ross time to place her, for he knew he’d seen her before. Then it struck him.
‘I saw you outside the Terminus Hotel with your friends.’
She wasn’t as young as she appeared. Maybe eighteen. He was taken once again by the symmetry of her features, by the calmness of her gaze. The dark almond eyes that studied him suggested a certain maturity. Her nationality was impossible to pick. Ross saw characteristics in her features that on another face would have appeared out of place and unattractive. Why he thought of Darcey at the moment he couldn’t decipher. Perhaps it was because contact with young women had been scarce since the outbreak of the war and now in the space of weeks he’d found himself thrust into the company of two of them.
‘Ahem,’ said Connor.
‘I’m Ross Grant and this is Connor Andrews,’ Ross blurted. ‘We were told to take you to Waybell Station. After that, someone will escort you to Mr Holder’s Run.’
The girl appeared almost disinterested. Had he really needed to speak that quickly?
‘Now what?’ asked Connor. He leaned in to Ross. ‘Is she mute?’
‘We saw her talking the other day,’ responded Ross.
The Scotsman slapped his thigh in recognition. ‘The pretty one from the banyan tree.’
‘Tree of Knowledge,’ the girl corrected softly.
‘The tree of what?’ said Ross.
‘It’s called the Tree of Knowledge.’ The girl looked at the bruised clouds above them and then walked to the timber that fringed the tracks. A few seconds later lightning crackled and it began to rain.
‘No wet season, eh?’ complained Connor as they sought shelter with the girl. ‘Blue sky and hot, eh?’
Rain burst through the leaves. They huddled against a tree, the water sliding down the bark and drenching their clothes. Ross knew they must stay put, but as the hours passed and the rain continued, he wondered if they should build a shelter.
‘Eleven inches in one day. Thirty-five in a week,’ mumbled Connor. ‘Isn’t that what he said? Cripes.’
The girl sat hunched between them, sombre in her quietness. She still hadn’t given her name. Connor tried to draw her into conversation, although it was almost impossible to hear over the storm.
‘How long should we wait?’ Connor asked.
Ross didn’t know. He began to wonder why Bill Sowden was sending this man called Mick to meet them, instead of coming himself. If anyone was indeed coming. It would be easy to leave them by the railway tracks, to concoct some excuse. And if the train didn’t return? Miles to the north lay Darwin and in between the scrub closed in, throbbing under the force of the rain.
‘Have you got a map, Ross?’ asked Connor. ‘Maybe we should see what direction we should be going in?’
‘Not yet. We’ll wait a bit,’ replied Ross. ‘Let’s face it, we won’t die from a lack of water.’
Chapter 16
Through the cascade of liquid that fell from the brim of his hat, Ross finally saw movement across the railway line. He stood up, reaching for his rifle as the foliage trembled violently. A full-bearded black man rode across the tracks leading two horses. He stopped where they sheltered and slid from his mount, leaving the reins to dangle free. Tall and well-made, he was not one to single out for a fight. He eyeballed each of them in turn, taking in their small party and Ross’s lifted gun.
‘I’m Mick. Head man.’ He shook their hands.
‘Headhunter, more likely,’ whispered Connor.
‘Not before tea,’ said Mick, with a show of white teeth. ‘Which one of you is the Boss fella?’
‘I am,’ said Ross. ‘And this is Connor. We didn’t think you were coming.’
‘Why? It’s good fine weather,’ replied Mick.
They stared at each other through the bucketing rain, the uncomfortable silence brief but obvious. Ross gestured to the girl, explaining her circumstances, as the downpour lifted up the mud, splattering their trousers.
Accepting the girl’s presence without a change of expression, Mick split the swags and supplies between the three horses. When they were ready to leave he sat the girl behind Connor. She straddled the horse with ease. They rode for three hours, the weather unchanging as they twisted through the trees. Reddish ant mounds, some small and conical in shape and others cathedral-like, were scattered through the bush.
‘They look like tombstones,’ said Connor. ‘Great lumpy monstrosities.’
Water was beginning to gather in soaks and the ground became boggier. Then the sun came out and the steam rose from their bodies. Mick stopped up ahead, hesitating before veering off on an angle.
‘Do you think we’re heading in the right direction?’ asked Connor.
‘Of course,’ said Ross.
‘But dinnae you think we should check that map you’re lugging about?’
‘He’ll let us know when we’re on Waybell,’ replied Ross.
‘We’ll camp soon,’ announced Mick.
They snaked through the timber and came to a muddy river. At the bank, Mick waited as his horse sniffed the water and settled before taking a tentative step. The other two animals walked steadily forwards. Ross felt the draw of the current beneath the river’s surface and urged the chestnut gelding onwards against the flow. Next to him, Connor did the same. The girl seemed entranced by the water as it rose to the horses’ bellies. Then the muddy bottom grew firmer as the riverbed gradually eased upwards to the dry bank.
‘Good crossing,’ Mick remarked, as they left the watercourse and rode on through the stringy bush. ‘No crocs. You’re lucky you’ve come now. We haven’t had much wet. Near Waybell it’s a bit wetter. A big storm went through there last night. Gudjewg coming now.’
‘And Gudjewg is the wet season?’ stated Ross.
‘Yes, Boss. The water apple’s flowering.’
They continued until the sun was low, a dim orb masked by clouds. Up ahead, a cluster of paperbark huts, which Ross knew were referred to as wurlies, were shadowed by trees. Flat grassland extended to the bottom of low brown cliffs. They came into a clearing where a campfire was burning. Two Aboriginal women dressed in men’s clothing prodded something in a fire and a couple of Aboriginal men squatted around it, smoking. They jumped up on their arrival, greeting Mick with a smile while cautiously observing Ross and Connor.
‘You the Boss?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes,’ said Ross, and they all shook hands enthusiastically, Mick making jokes about the train running to time and Waybell’s owner getting baptised by a brief shower on the first day. The men, whose names were Toby and JJ, unsaddled the horses and carried the gear into one of the lean-tos.
Ross looked for the girl. She’d already retreated to the shade where she fixed her gaze on the clouds rising in the east. Rummaging through a sodden hessian bag, Ross pulled out his brother’s books and carried them to the campfire to dry. He watched as one of the women, who had a pockmarked face, broke a turtle’s neck and sat it on the coals still in its shell. There was another turtle already cooking, and this one she lifted from the ashes. Deftly cutting the neck, she stuck her fingers down the windpipe, pulled out the intestines and then placed it back on the fire.
‘Dinner?’ Connor didn’t look impressed. He smacked at his arms and the side of his neck, mosquitoes rising from his body.
Toby poured tea from a worn teapot and handed around full pannikins. ‘It’s a good feed.’
Along with the turtle there was fish and waterfowl, a feast compared to what they’d been served at the hotel in Darwin.
‘Come on. Sit.’ At Mick’s bidding, they arranged themselves in a semicircle while the Aboriginal women and the two other stockmen ate their meals a short distance away. The girl sat slightly apart from the group, yet close enough to receive food when it was passed around on tin plates. She watched to see the quantities Ross selected before choosing for herself, and he’d been aware of her attention on him earlier when he’d been setting each book on the ground to dry.
One of the women called out to Mick and pointed at the books, clearly waiting for an explanation.
‘She wants to know if you make the words,’ said Mick.
‘I read them.’ Ross poked at the strip of turtle flesh. ‘I didn’t write them.’
Mick translated using a mix of English and local dialect. The woman nodded, satisfied. ‘So how come you’re here?’ he asked.
‘None of my family have ever visited Waybell,’ replied Ross, as he chewed a piece of turtle.
‘So why now?’ repeated Mick.
There was no answer Ross could think of that would reassure the stockman, although it was clear by Mick’s studied concern that he was intrigued by the visit after so many years. ‘It was time, I guess. None of us have ever been here. What about you, Mick? Have you been working on Waybell for long?’
‘Long time. Since I was young.’ Mick cupped the pannikin in his hands. ‘No better person to work for than Mr Sowden. He’s always been good to us. To my people.’
‘And how far is it to the property?’ Ross was eager to reach the station and meet the hostile Bill Sowden.
Mick opened his arms, encompassing the land. ‘You’re on it now.’
‘What? You could have said so earlier.’ Ross felt foolish.
‘You didn’t ask,’ replied Mick. ‘Besides, you whitefellas always seem to have a map.’
Connor made a snorting sound. ‘What did I tell you?’
Ross wiped the plate with a crust of damper, swirling the bread around until the dish was dry.
‘There are nets in the lean-tos,’ explained Mick. ‘Wrap them around your swags. That will keep most of the mosquitoes out. And don’t leave them books laying around, Boss. It takes no time at all to get white-anted out here.’
The women began tidying and Mick wandered off. Unasked, Connor gathered up the books, reading each of the titles. Then he flicked through a volume and, noticing Alastair’s name written inside them in a schoolboy’s scrawl, walked to Ross’s side. ‘I thought they were his. Best take care of them.’
‘Something to read,’ replied Ross, ‘when the wet sets in. You’ll check on the girl? Make sure she’s got some bedding?’
‘Sure. Night, mate,’ said Connor.
Ross returned to the wurley and repacked the books. Among his belongings wa
s the pastoral lease map he’d carried from Adelaide. He unfolded it on the ground and placed a compass on the top right-hand corner. The needle quivered and then settled on North. The top half of Australia was apportioned off into hundreds of irregular-shaped parcels of leased land, of which the Grant name was written within one. There were rivers, creeks and hills traversing the 700-odd square miles of country they owned, delicate pencillings on parchment noting down surface shapes and features. From the named waterways on the property Ross concluded they were somewhere between the Mary and South Alligator rivers. He thought of what they’d ridden through, the miles traversed, and hazarded they’d travelled in a northeast direction. Within the areas marked as flat country, grassed plains, lagoons and low gravelly hills, Ross placed a cross on where he believed they were.
A mist of rain carried across on the breeze. Ross sat in the opening of the wurley, the map hanging between his knees. Birds flew low across the grasslands, stark white plumage against a darkening sky, and the honk of geese was rhythmic and loud as if someone was hitting a hollow log.
Ross remembered when he’d first learned of Waybell Station. He’d rushed to Alastair’s bedroom after dark, keeping his brother awake with his whisperings of their going into the unknown, of befriending the Aboriginal people who could spear a man on sight, of becoming great cattle barons.
Now Ross was on the property he’d dreamt of visiting for so many years, and he’d not even known when he’d taken that first stirring stride onto Grant land. Perching his elbows on his knees, Ross gazed out at the land of his imaginings. After everything that had occurred, it was a bittersweet moment.
Chapter 17
Stone Country Page 11