Home at Sundown: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  Five minutes later, as they drove over the sand-plain he seemed to have put the prospectors, and all that, behind him as he turned his mind to work again.

  ‘When you have time, Kim, make at least one duplicate record of the terrain: also detailed drawings of the plants I hope to find. Myree will want copies. It’s possible we may write up a report in collaboration. The research she has been doing on other plant-life leads up directly to this species.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He was thoughtful and the small muscle at the corner of his jaw appeared to Kim to be in fine working order. Her heart dropped.

  They were back to zero again. And he was thinking of Myree!

  Already, with that preoccupied look, and that jaw muscle beating a tattoo, he was mindfully in a deep and fascinating ‘collaboration’ with Myree. Kim could imagine the two heads ‒ his strong-featured and dark close to Myree’s beautiful golden curled one ‒ bent over a microscope. Or maybe over the great botanical treatise they would write in partnership? And find fame!

  John said nothing for a long time, for which Kim was grateful. It gave her time to put her feelings back in a strait-jacket. She didn’t really want the armistice over, and the war on again.

  The carpets of everlastings had been left behind many many miles ago. The scrub had changed to blue-grey in colour, sprinkled with the small ground-level prickly wattle, and here and there a brilliant flame-coloured grevillea struck a firelight in the bush.

  They passed unexpected, almost unreal, groves of the brown and yellow banksia that she had not known grew so far inland. Some hours later they came again upon sprawling creepers of the blood-red sturt pea with its uncanny black eye staring up to the pale hot sky.

  ‘Oh I wish we could stop ‒’ she began.

  John gave her a look meant to settle such ambitions.

  ‘And pick some flowers?’ he was caustic. ‘We are not on a picnic, Kim. We are in search of one very particular species.’

  She shook her head sadly.

  ‘Fame bought at such a price!’ she remarked judicially. ‘All facts and no beauty!’

  Silence.

  ‘Of course I know,’ she went on, as if agreeing with some inner argument that might win favour with John. ‘We must find that species. Some for you and some for Myree. Very important. It’s just that when one sees curious flowers growing madly in their natural state ‒’

  ‘You think they’re striking? And you’d like to spend valuable hours sitting down beside them and looking at them ‒’

  ‘Don’t you ever look at flowers?’ Kim asked gently ‒ still not wanting the war on again. ‘Or are they just specimens to you ‒ like they are to Myree?’

  Darn! Why did she put that last bit in? Being meanie again.

  ‘Myree would have had a scientific approach to the work,’ he said, then added thoughtfully, ‘There’s some larger species of hibbertia over to the far right. Very unusual. She would have found this useful.’

  ‘She would have had the correct scientific approach to it?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘She would have been very “particular” about detail?’

  Silence!

  Now I know, Kim thought darkly. He and Myree would have been able to wallow in beastly scientific names. Whereas, I bet, if I told him that same flower is just plain ‘Yellow Bush’ instead of that hideous Latin name he gives it, he would throw me out of the jeep here and now, and let me walk for it.

  Even as this last thought crossed her mind she felt a hint of events casting their shadows before. If she really behaved irritatingly enough, it was not beyond John to open the jeep door and say ‘Out! Keep going till you strike Base. It’s the place marked X on the map.’

  It was two hard working days later that it really happened ‒ the long walk!

  They had crossed a narrow tongue of sandy desert and were finding the rare specimens for which John had come. Pathetic tiny straggly bushes, Kim thought them. Not so John Andrews. From his manner he might have been digging up nuggets of gold.

  On the third day, almost out of nowhere, came a sand storm.

  To Kim this was terrible, yet in a strange eerie way ‒ wonderful. At first she was not even frightened.

  The eastern sky grew black, almost as if this might be a rain storm coming ‒ except that rain could not come from the north-east, across thousands of miles of the Great Sandy Desert which lay to the north-east of their own particular neighbour desert ‒ the Gibson.

  Their jeep had been all the afternoon parked under the shade of a clump of bedraggled bushes, while John hunted around for this strange, rare and straggly plant which he so treasured. Now and again he called to Kim.

  ‘Sketch that as it grows,’ he would command. He would thrust in a stake by the plant and tie a white tag to the top of it. This was so the plant could be found again later. Each time this order came, Kim, with her drawing-board, and materials carried in her shoulder bag, would sit down cross-legged on the ground under the pitiless sun, and with a fine pencil draw the plant exactly as it grew. The drawing would be to scale if it was a large plant. If small, then she drew it as nature had made it. Later John would dig the plant for his specimen case.

  Sometimes John, wandering away in the distance, would be long gone before he came back with news of another find. In these intervals Kim took out her indian ink, her hair-fine drawing-brush, and translated the pencil drawings to ink on good quality drawing paper.

  Then, as the strange haze crept over the eastern arc, she became so absorbed in this last rite of committing the growing plant to paper, she did not hear John come back.

  He stood over her looking down first at her work, then at the top of her brown dust-laden hat. He had to admit it was the finest brush work he had ever seen. Some lines were indeed as fine as the hair of a new born child ‒ so shining clear and delicate were the strokes.

  He looked down at this strange girl who had the manner of a too-young person one minute, the sharp perception of a gipsy the next: sometimes the quiet contemplative air of a very adult person.

  And the way she wore that hat! Anywhere on her head that was comfortable! He would have liked to smile about that foible, but other matters were too pressing.

  Right now, as she was drawing, she was someone way out of the world ‒ absorbed in the life of a plant which she translated to paper with such sureness. Somehow her drawings lived. She gave them tenderness and a right to existence as if they were human beings.

  Then he looked again at Kim herself. She was in a world of her own. She sat cross-legged, her board across her knees, the ink held by a miniature tripod beside her. The tip of her tongue peeped restlessly from the corner of her mouth. Her hat was at that ridiculous angle!

  This, John told himself, was why she had that unworldly expression when sometimes she looked directly at him. Her eyes didn’t quite, quite focus. He had to see her at the business of drawing to understand it.

  ‘Over my dead body!’ he said aloud.

  Kim finished one long downward stroke. She looked up under the brim of her hat.

  ‘You mean my drawing? You think it’s not good enough?’ she asked, instantly ready to give battle. She knew her penmanship was good and even John Andrews, botanist, could not take that piece of self-knowledge from her.

  ‘I was thinking of oculists, not drawings,’ he said unsmiling.

  Kim wrinkled her brow.

  ‘Oculists? They’re eye doctors. Specialists or something ‒

  He squatted down beside her and picked up the folder of pencil drawings she had done earlier. He leafed through them casually.

  ‘Sure. That’s what they are. Eye doctors. I wouldn’t let one loose on you Kim ‒ except, as I said, over my dead body.’

  She stared at him wondering if he had taken leave of his senses.

  ‘You mean an eye doctor might interfere with my ability to draw a straight line, or a curved one?’

  ‘Yes, that and for other reasons ‒’

  �
�Other reasons?’

  He turned his head and looked straight into her eyes. Odd, but it was almost impossible to perceive now, but those very innocent clear grey eyes didn’t really focus. Not to the millionth of a millimetre anyway. Yet that very fact gave them their unique expression ‒ almost of inward wonder.

  ‘Never, under any circumstances whatever go to an eye doctor, Kim,’ he repeated ‒ flatly giving an order.

  She dipped her pen in the ink again.

  ‘I won’t if you say so. At least ‒ not while I’m working under your command. Of course, that only lasts twelve weeks in all, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Blackmail?’ he asked.

  Kim looked too innocent to be true. It was those eyes again!

  ‘Well, who knows? In about a hundred years time you just might need an expert penman at those Botanical Gardens of yours at the Mount.’

  ‘I thought so,’ he said coldly. ‘All women are blackmailers. Now you have one more reason why I don’t like women on my expeditions. They’re inclined to twist a man’s arm ‒ to get further advantages. Don’t you realise the Director at the Mount has University graduates after those jobs?’

  ‘I’m just a typist who can draw,’ Kim concluded for him sadly. ‘If you had Myree ‒ if she could type as well as draw ‒’

  ‘Myree can draw very well,’ John said bluntly. ‘Her main contribution would be a scientific one which, of course, is the most valuable contribution they need at the Mount.’

  ‘She’s also very bee-oo-tiful,’ Kim added, her head on one side, looking past his shoulder at the great black swathe dominating the skyline in the east. ‘She really is beautiful, you know,’ she added: always truthful.

  ‘We all know that. However, when it comes to a matter of ability, it is beside the point ‒’

  Not so very much ‒ Kim thought. Not with that note in your voice, Mr Botanist.

  It was time she changed the subject. It wasn’t really in very good taste.

  ‘John ‒’ she nodded her head towards the east. ‘What is happening to the sky? It can’t possibly be rain ‒ not from over there.’

  He glanced over his shoulder. Then suddenly straightened up.

  ‘Blast!’ he said. ‘A raking dust storm!’

  ‘But dust is red, not black,’ Kim said puzzled.

  ‘It’s what the light does to it. It will change ‒’

  He stared at the sky for several minutes in silence. The black had become purple. Even as they watched it was changing to acquamarine, shot with red lights. To Kim it was becoming an incredible and wonderful sight. Red, like fire, now.

  ‘It’s moving fast,’ John said suddenly springing into action. ‘Can you manage your equipment? I’ll get the specimen cases I left back in the bush. Pack all the camping gear you can manage into the back of the jeep. And hurry. Run! You can hear the wind coming!’

  Far far away there was a throbbing, then a moaning sound.

  Kim heard. She packed her gear at top speed and headed back over the scrub to the jeep.

  ‘Not so easy!’ she decided. ‘That camping gear is heavy. The camp oven ‒ the sleeping bags. Worse, the cartons of tinned provisions ‒ Of course, those beastly specimens would come first!’

  She withdrew that thought. The specimens were John’s heart’s blood!

  All the same, she ran about doing things very hard and fast. She even forgot to look at the skyline again till she had most of the stuff in the jeep. After she had thrown her own equipment on to the front seat she looked up to see what was happening in the eastern arc of the sky. She stood stock still, and gasped.

  The great vast cloud was black at the base only. The area above the dark swathe was unlike anything anyone ever dreamed of. A red fire shaped like a wave was lifting itself up into the sky. All around was darkening as if night was drawing on, instead of the midday lunch hour. The mountainous wave-cloud in the east came on, gathering greater fury of colour as it came. There were a hundred different reds in it. Crimson, flame, gravel-brown, tangerine ‒ and all their possible combinations. The swoosh, then rush and roar was of a million voracious death-dealing dingoes. The fiends of hell seemed let loose!

  With whip lashes the first of the wind and the dust swirled round Kim.

  ‘John! John! Where are you?’ she called wildly. Against the wind she lifted, then shoved the last few items of gear into the jeep. She managed, against the wind, to climb on to the back tray and draw down the canvas covers. She had the wit to pull out the large roll of canvas camp-cover first. They would need more than the frame of the jeep behind which to shelter. The dust and wind were already sweeping under it. Inside the jeep they would surely suffocate.

  John, she was sure, was lost for ever in that dreadful pall of dust. He would never find his way back. He would be covered with sand. He would smother. He would lie out there in the bush and die ‒ all by himself.

  A mountainous lump gathered in Kim’s throat as she mourned in advance.

  Oh John! John!

  All the time, as thoughts stumbled through her head, and tears for John’s certain death were forming mud baths in her eyes, she went on strapping down the canvas cover of the jeep.

  She managed to work her way round the side of the jeep once more, lever open the door, and cover her work bag and John’s specimen cases which had been left there earlier.

  ‘They are the most important of all. Something for posterity. One day, months from now, they’ll dig us out. But the drawings will be found ‒ John’s cases too ‒’

  Then she thought of John going for those other specimens far off in the scrub, instead of seeing to their own safety.

  She went on working madly at cords and canvas ‒ in the teeth of the wind. It was a very wild howling dust storm now!

  ‘What about those doctors who first drank foxglove tea to see if it really did have digitalis. People saved from heart failure just because of that! The man who first ate a mould or fungus, or something, to prove it was penicillin ‒’

  Dear, brave, scientific John! She wished she could have lived long enough to put a cross, or more likely a cairn, on the spot where he died. All the same, no one was ever dead till they really died ‒ John was too virile. He could never die.

  Chapter Eight

  She had unrolled the camp canvas by now and was desperately trying to hoist it ‒ hard against the wind and sand ‒ to tie it to the jeep tailboard. She heard a stumbling noise that was more relieving to her heart at this moment than reflections on the heroism of scientists. It was John coming ‒ not struggling towards the jeep ‒ but being blown along with the sand.

  He carried his burden of specimen boxes under his arm.

  Safe!

  ‘What in the name of yellow-striped snakes are you trying to do?’ he gasped in a dust-choked voice. ‘That’s too heavy for you!’

  He probably couldn’t hear much of her reply. ‘You’d better put the specimen cases in the cabin. Please don’t uncover my drawings ‒’

  ‘Your drawings?’ John caught the last words. ‘Priceless jewels? I have here a specimen of the genus Duboisia: myoporoides, no less. Unknown to grow in this area. More important ‒ hopwoodi. Unique!’

  His words were lost again in a fit of coughing.

  ‘Then put your precious jewels in the cabin too ‒’ Kim shouted against the wind. ‘I’m awfully busy trying to tie up this canvas ‒’

  This was the first time he had mentioned the names of his great ‘finds’. It had taken sand, sand and sand again to make John forget to distrust her!

  The finds ‒ Duboisia, myoporoides and hopwoodi ‒ were too rare in this state for John Andrews to think of doing anything but exactly what Kim had said. He struggled against the sandladen wind round the jeep and cached away the specimen boxes. By the time he came back to the rear of the jeep Kim had given up. She sat on the ground holding the canvas before her face trying not to suffocate.

  ‘Here, take this ‒’ John’s voice was rough against the thundering noise all around. He
swayed about like a drunken man as he ripped his shirt over his head and passed it to Kim. ‘Hold it six inches from your face. That’ll leave an air-space. You do have to breathe ‒ Think of the veils the Arabs wear ‒’

  Kim, exhausted, did as she was told. John, as strong as the devil bedriven by the wind, hoisted the canvas aloft and attached it by ropes to the jeep’s hood on its lee side. The section usually used as a tent flap, he pinned down to the side of the vehicle. Next he stretched the main sheet outwards and leewards a yard or two, then pegged it down.

  Suddenly they were in an air-space. They were not free from dust but were at least in an atmosphere that was breathable.

  He sat down, knees hunched up and put his head in his hands. He leaned his elbows on his knees and fell silent. Kim could see the heaving of his chest as he fought for breath.

  She said nothing for a long time. When she could see his chest movement was easing she touched his arm.

  ‘Guess what? Storm or no storm, life and death desperation or not, I brought the Thermos and the picnic bag out of the jeep first.’

  He eased his head out of his hands and looked at her.

  She started to laugh.

  ‘You do look funny, John,’ she said. ‘Like you have a mud-mask on, or something. Only it’s all dry. Your eyes are black holes ‒’

  ‘So are yours,’ he said bluntly. ‘Where’s that damn’ Thermos?’ Then he smiled painfully, slowly, and in a very tired way.

  ‘I’ve heard of bush angels, but I never met one before,’ he finished.

  She scooped the sand away from the picnic basket, opened it and brought out the Thermos. The vanguard of the sand storm had blown across them and was racing away to the west, but its body and tail were still a dusty billowing veil over everything. Kim unscrewed the double Thermos tops, poured tea into the bigger one and handed it to John. She filled the smaller one for herself. They raised their cups to one another.

  ‘Your good, undusty health!’ John said gravely.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kim replied with equal gravity. ‘Long may you and ‒ what did you call it? Hopiwoodi something? Anyhow long may it last too.’