The River is Down: (An Australian Outback Romance)

by Lucy Walker

  It was a glorious night: so quiet that even if a kangaroo had hopped out there on the plain it would have sounded like timber falling, in the stillness. The blue-black sky was a distant bowl, inverted and star-ridden. The moon was an arc lifting slowly over the eastern rim of the world.

  Best of all, Jim Vernon was waiting for her.

  Cindie could see his dark figure leaning against the door, a cigarette glowing in his hand.

  ‘Well … there you are!’ he said in his soft drawly voice. ‘Like a night bird coming through the shadows. My, Cindie, that’s a pretty dress, now you’re close up and I can really see you.’

  ‘Thank you, Jim. It’s nice of you to notice. I put it on because it’s a special occasion. I mean, having a friend of my own to meet. The children thought it was something of a joke my dressing up.’

  ‘Well I don’t. I like a girl to look like a girl. Those slacks, now. They’re cute. But come nightfall ‒ well, I like a girl to be a girl. Am I repeating myself?’

  ‘You are, Jim,’ Cindie laughed, taking his arm as he offered it to her. ‘But nice things are worth repeating, aren’t they?’

  ‘You’ve said it. Now where’ll we go? Last time I visited the construction camp it was two hundred miles farther north. The way they move these mobile towns about these days stretches the imagination a bit. That is, until you see it done. I haven’t found all my bearings on this new site yet.’

  ‘There’s a pile of timber sleepers way over behind Nick’s house. Let’s go there. They make a seat just naturally.’

  ‘Good for you. I’m glad you know your camp geography, Cindie. All I’ve discovered is the way to the canteen from my own digs; then to Nick’s house, and the short track through the caravan rows to D’D ‒’

  Cindie dropped his arm. ‘Oh, no, Jim! Not already?’

  He laughed, picked up her hand again, and tucked it in his arm. ‘My, you sound jealous. Aren’t I allowed to take tea with three talkative ladies who, besides other virtues, know how to make a good cake?’

  ‘Of course,’ Cindie laughed regretting her dismay. ‘It’s just that I wanted you first. Yet I haven’t any right, have I? I mean, we’re really only acquainted ‒’

  ‘In the best possible way.’ He dropped his voice to the sepulchral: joking now. ‘We’re the sharers of secrets.’

  They wound their way between the row of caravans, past Nick’s house, which was dark and silent.

  Perhaps Nick was taking Erica for a moonlight walk. Cindie wondered why this last thought made her feel ‒ well not exactly captious, because that was something alien to her nature ‒ but nearly that.

  They came to the neatly-tiered pile of timber sleepers, and Jim found a comfortable seat for Cindie where she could lean against the pile above. Then he sat down beside her.

  ‘Well now, all joking apart ‒’ his voice was still kind, but the teasing was gone ‒ ‘what’s been troubling you, Blue Eyes?’

  ‘I suppose you can call me that easily, Jim, because you know that Cindie Brown is not my real name. You know what it is because of that cheque. It’s Cynthia Davenport.’

  ‘Okay. So what’s in a name? You know the little bit about the rose that smells so sweet?’ He took out his cigarettes and offered them to Cindie, but she shook her head. Her profile was pale in the light from the waxing moon. He still thought her the prettiest, if the most anxious, girl ever.

  ‘I didn’t want to deceive Nick, or anyone on the construction camp,’ Cindie began slowly. ‘But I knew they would call my rescue from the river over the air. Regulations, and all that. I didn’t want the Stevens brothers at Bindaroo to know I was coming. That’s the only reason for the deception. They would have picked up any call.’

  ‘I see. But they’re relatives, aren’t they? The Stevens brothers?’ In the glow of the match Jim held to his cigarette, Cindie could see his face was suddenly thoughtful. The smile, and the whimsical kindliness, was gone. His expression was almost as dead-pan as Nick Brent’s could be. Cindie knew already that this was a north-west character trait. They all do it, she thought.

  ‘The Stevens brothers are more connections than relatives, I expect. I’ll explain that in a minute, Jim. What I want to ask you is this ‒ what is going on at Bindaroo? Living in the district, and knowing everything about every other station ‒ as the people up here do ‒ you must know something that could help me.’

  ‘Well, maybe ‒’ Jim was cautious now. ‘What do you mean by “connections”?’

  ‘It’s a long story, but I do trust you, Jim. I don’t know why, but I do. Something about a woman’s insight, I expect.’

  ‘Like me knowing the right and the wrong of a horse by the sound of his hoof-beats, eh? And the rattle of an old Holden, too?’

  Cindie saw he was smiling again. His teeth flashed white in the shadow of his face.

  ‘Thank you for being so nice about it, Jim. I mean, about my name, and all that …’

  He took the hand lying beside him, and squeezed it gently. Cindie let her hand lie in his, because this way it was easier to go on with her story.

  ‘My father’s uncle lived in England. My parents and I came to Australia when I was a child. When my great-uncle died, he left quite a large sum of money to be divided equally between his nephew, who was my father, and his wife’s nephews, who are Neil and Athol Stevens at Bindaroo.’

  ‘That’s “relations” near enough for me, Cindie. Go on.’

  ‘The Stevens brothers were already here in Australia ‒ as we were. They’d been working up in the north, and seemed to know it quite well. They had worked on sheep stations. They came to my father and suggested they all three put this legacy, in one lump sum, into buying Bindaroo.’ She hesitated, but Jim’s silence was a reassuring one.

  ‘My father wasn’t foolish. He did make inquiries, and he was told a sheep station was a good investment. Also that both the Stevens brothers had good reputations as hard workers. Besides ‒’

  ‘Besides what, Cindie?’

  ‘My father didn’t want to dissipate the legacy by spending it. He thought we could carry on as we were, not well off, but not badly off either, and then we would reap the extra gains later on.’

  ‘Sound enough. What happened next?’

  ‘The Stevenses were able to buy Bindaroo, and it took the rest of the legacy to restock it and replace obsolete equipment ‒ bores and windmills. That sort of thing. My father received interest on his money all along, because Neil and Athol Stevens were getting their living off the place, and we weren’t. Within five years it was expected a bigger income would come in from the wool clip. Then ‒’

  ‘Then what?’

  Cindie retrieved her hand from Jim. She was distressed now.

  ‘My father died the year before last. That was the fourth year after he had invested in Bindaroo. Since his death, my mother hasn’t even received the interest. Last year or this. She has to live on a pension. It’s not very big: not adequate ‒’

  ‘Didn’t you make inquiries through a solicitor? Or even your bank?’

  Cindie nodded. ‘Of course. But Neil ‒ he’s the one who is technically the manager ‒ always wrote about the drought, or the stock dying: the grass drying out. He seemed to be putting us off. Then the bank manager told my mother there was a rumour that someone ‒ or some others ‒ were likely to take the station over. He even thought this was a good thing. Because of the drought, I expect.’

  There was a long silence in which Jim Vernon butted out his cigarette, putting his heel on the dead stub as Cindie had seen Nick do.

  ‘My father was what was called the sleeping partner,’ she added.

  ‘That, Cindie-brown-all-over, was the trouble,’ Jim Vernon said gently, letting her down kindly. He took her hand again and held it tight. What he had to say now might hurt, but it had to be said. This girl had come a long way to find out the truth; so the truth she would get.

  ‘Had he been on the property he would have known what was going on. He’d have had his
say.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You only see a little, my child. Neither you, nor those Stevens brothers, know enough about running a station. The young men might be hard, honest workers. They might have been first-class stock-men, bore-sinkers, musterers, and fencers. They might have been the lot, and good at it. But they knew nothing about sheep-classing, or wool-classing for that matter. Worse, they knew nothing about over-stocking on eroded country. Those last three deficiencies were the main causes of their troubles. Then came the drought over land that had already been eaten out by over-stocking earlier. That, the drought, settled ’em. Do you understand all that?’

  ‘But surely there were friends, or neighbours with experience, who could have advised them?’ Cindie’s voice was indignant. ‘Marana? They’re next door.’

  ‘Friends? I don’t know, Cindie. They’re a lone pair, those Stevenses. Some people become that way, up in this country. They live alone with the space and the silence and they become part of it. They merge with the land, and become part of that too.’ He paused. ‘Isolates! It’s their own choice.’

  ‘You seem to know so much about them, Jim. Couldn’t you have forced advice on them?’ There was a cry-of-the-heart in this question.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Jim replied gently. ‘It might have been different if the Overtons and myself at Baanya had known the sleeping partner, your dad. Specially if I’d known there was a girl called Cindie-brown-all-over connected with Bindaroo. But you see, we didn’t know any of those things. Besides ‒’ Jim hesitated and fossicked in his pocket for his cigarettes again. Smoking seemed to be relieving some tension in him that had not been there before.

  ‘Go on, Jim ‒ please.’

  ‘It’s simple, Cindie. In this country you leave well alone till you’re asked. They didn’t ask.’ He paused. ‘In their enthusiasm the Stevens brothers overstocked and the sheep ate the place out ‒ like I said. Then the drought came. Then someone ‒ well, there’s always bound to be someone with an eye to the main chance ‒ probably came in at the moment to take over. That someone, or those some people, held the whip hand from then on. Who knows? I don’t, Cindie, because I abided by the custom of the land. I didn’t ask …’

  Cindie sat absolutely still. She could not bring herself to ask ‒ The lady with the mania for sheep? The engineer wanting to buy into property cheaply? Erica and Nick? She simply could not bring herself to put the thought into words.

  Jim did not utter them for her.

  She thought he knew. He liked Nick Brent, as a man, whatever he thought of Erica. So he would be loyal.

  ‘I see,’ Cindie said, her voice a dying fall on the quiet air.

  Jim lit his cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully. Cindie’s hands, on either side of her now, were holding the plank of timber, pressing her nails hard into the wood till it hurt.

  So there would be nothing for her mother, after all! Is that what this meant?

  The pension was all right, but not enough for the some-time comforts Cindie’s father had once given his wife.

  Mrs. Davenport was in poor health. She had no courage without the husband who had once been such a good companion. She had never really got over his death.

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ Cindie said aloud, rebelliously. ‘I’m still going on to Bindaroo. That is, when I can cross the flooded country. I mean to do something. Anything!’

  Jim sighed. ‘Well, that’s the spirit, anyway,’ he said slowly. ‘But promise me something, Cindie. Wait. Have patience. You will have to wait anyway, because you can’t get out of this area except ‒’ his voice suddenly took on a lighter tone ‒ ‘except on an ant-eaten log with your best friend: meaning me, Jim Vernon. That way out, of course, would take you back to the coast road and Baanya …’ He paused for thought. ‘But then again, if the land dries out quickly, there’s always the road up north ‒’

  ‘Way up hundreds of miles at the beginning of the road? Past Mulga Gorges?’ Cindie remembered Nick’s half-promise he would take her up there some time. He’d probably forgotten.

  Jim nodded. ‘But you’d need an aeroplane to get to Bindaroo from there.’

  ‘There’s no track from Mulga Gorges to the upper tableland.’ Cindie wrinkled her brow and thought. ‘Erica Alexander came across the claypan country from Marana in the east. If she could come in, why couldn’t I go out?’

  ‘Erica has the courage and the nerve of her kind, Cindie. You have to accept that. The Alexanders might be hard and unneighbourly, but as a clan they conquered this country before there was even a track from the coast. No one can ever put anything over an Alexander. Erica knows the way, and has the know-how for driving through that country, even when it’s all but water-logged.’

  ‘I have courage,’ Cindie said stubbornly. Then added more moderately, ‘Well … of a kind ‒’

  ‘Not the right kind for this job, Blue Eyes. Take Jim Vernon’s word for it. Remember time was on Erica’s side. Three hours later, and even she couldn’t have come across the neck between the claypans. Ask Nick ‒’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask Nick anything. I suppose that’s why he thinks such a lot of her. As a person, I mean.’

  ‘Could be other reasons too. He’s a man, like any other man, and she’s good on the eye. Don’t forget that, Cindie. She has a mind too. That’s something Nick always respects.’

  He looked at the girl beside him, a silhouette against the pale starlit sky that now was reflecting splendour over the plain. The sickle of moon was a curved torch shedding moonbeams on her hair.

  ‘Wait, Cindie,’ he advised again quietly. ‘The drought has broken. Who knows, but the Stevenses may salvage something out of Bindaroo. Remember evaluators, lawyers and government leasing agents can’t cross to those areas yet. Nothing can be done without those chaps. Time is on your side. Play for time. Promise me?’

  Cindie thought about this, her head bent down and the moon playing fey with the shadows cast by her lashes on her cheek. The sight of her sitting thus pulled at the toughest fibres of Jim’s heart.

  ‘Whenever there is time, there is hope,’ he added gently. ‘Will you trust me, Cindie? I may be able to do something. I can’t figure out what, yet, but where there’s a will, there’s a track: even if the one to Bindaroo is under mire right now. I’ll do something. That’s a promise.’ Cindie’s eyelashes flew up. She lifted her head.

  ‘I never trusted anyone so much in my life,’ she said sincerely. ‘It’s just something about you, Jim. Besides, you’re the only person north of Twenty-Six who knows my real name, and you haven’t given me away. You won’t ask Nick for anything, will you?’

  ‘He could be your best friend,’ Jim suggested carefully.

  ‘Never.’

  He seemed surprised.

  ‘What makes you dislike him so, Cindie? I didn’t think you had that kind of feeling in you. Not a girl with a straight back, dark hair and beautiful eyes ‒ a girl with a face like a delicate flower when the stars are shining on it.’

  ‘Jim dear, you are so nice to me. Why? Somehow it makes me feel guilty ‒ that wrong name, and all that ‒’

  ‘Maybe I’m just a little bit in love with someone who first came in a dusty rattler, brown-all-over, but now looks as if a mopoke brushed by her, dusting her cheeks with magic. Maybe it’s because you’re a stranger in this tough country, and the iron hearted overseer from Baanya suddenly feels he likes the role of crusader on a white horse.’

  Cindie dropped her head on Jim’s shoulder. If it hadn’t been for her mother’s plight, she knew she would give up the struggle right now. It was too easy to stay put; to do nothing but rest here, safely in the circle of Jim’s arm.

  She looked up again. The moonbeams were shooting sparks in his eyes now.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why do you look at me like that?’

  ‘It’s the little dark curl that falls down on your right temple: a sort of beckoning finger. I’d like to drop just one kiss on it. Just one ‒ for luck.’

>   Cindie’s face creased in a happy smile.

  ‘Please do, Jim. And when you’ve finished I’m going to drop one kiss on you. Right there ‒’

  She put the tips of her fingers on his forehead.

  ‘Then let’s swap now, while no one’s looking,’ he said with a grin.

  One minute later the grass a few yards away crackled as if someone ‒ or maybe two ones ‒ walked across it.

  Nick and Erica were moving quietly against the mantle of shadows into the silver light washing Nick’s house.

  They could have seen her pull Jim’s head gently down so that her kiss, the brush of a butterfly, could touch his brow.

  It doesn’t matter anyway, she thought. I don’t even like them very much as a pair. Not when I think of Bindaroo.

  ‘A star dropped from heaven, right there,’ Jim said, touching his forehead. ‘Thank you Cindie Brown. That’s the nicest present a hardened bush-whacker ever had. I won’t wash my head ever again. I might lose my lovely kiss.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning at breakfast time, Dicey George called at the house to tell Mary Deacon that Nick had finally given his permission for the canteen party the following Saturday night ‒ a week away.

  ‘The wives up in D’D had taken it for granted,’ he added with mischievous grin. ‘Little do they know what could have happened! Nick might have decided there were other things more important to do.’

  ‘Good luck to them.’ Mary was on the wives’ side for once. ‘It will give them something to do. Remind me on Friday that the next day is Saturday, will you? I work seven days a week, and I never know one day from the other.’

  ‘You’ll get warning enough. Dash it all, you won’t have room in the canteen to work on that Friday, old girl.’

  ‘Nobody moves me unless I say so,’ Mary said flatly. ‘Meanwhile, those three ladies up in the row beyond are likely to keep you on demand, Dicey, my lad.’

  ‘Tied to their apron strings?’ he said ruefully. ‘Some have luck in, and some have it out. I’m of the “out” breed.’