Home at Sundown: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  ‘Cast your hat somewhere, sweetie. There’s nothing to put it on, as well you know. By the way ‒’ He went on talking as if words might ultimately avert the thing he possibly feared. He had seen recognition of a special kind in Kim’s eyes. She had fooled Smith. He’d already discovered that. Not without brains was the little Petso.

  ‘By jingo! And by the way!’ he went on. ‘We laughed our heads off when we saw that six inch scribble on the wall outside. Kim Wentworth Was Here!’

  ‘Yes,’ Kim said gravely. ‘And underneath I wrote ‒ So Was John! You saw it when you were here before, Stephen. Maybe it saved our lives then. Now it puts a sort of claim on the homestead doesn’t it? Our homestead!’ She was very meaningful about this last bit.

  He was fiddling with the billy on the stove. He turned round and looked at her.

  ‘Myree might say, right now, possession is nine points of the law ‒’ he began, pretending cheerfulness. ‘We’re in possession ‒’

  ‘But our names were on the homestead first, Stephen dear ‒’ Kim persisted.

  That ‘dear’ warmed his heart just when he needed it most.

  He lifted the billy off the stove.

  ‘Yes, my pet. What can I do for you?’

  Kim was standing quite still in the middle of the old weathered floor. She had not taken her hat off. She had it cocked at a curious angle over her brow. This way she felt it gave her stature! Made her look taller.

  ‘I want you to take Myree away. To-night‒’ She said it quite simply as if she was spelling out a one-syllable word. Her eyes under the brim of that dusty, waifish, worse-for-wear jungle hat were clear and frank; yet determined.

  Stephen put the billy on the hearth, fetched four cups from the camp gear in the far corner and began to ladle boiling tea into them.

  ‘Come, come!’ he said jokingly. ‘Myree has a mind. And knows how to make it up. Darling Kim, she has come out here to find something that John knows about and that will be invaluable to her work. You don’t really think she’ll budge?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But she could be kidnapped.’

  Stephen looked up as if he’d really seen a snake. He now waited for the hiss and fang.

  ‘You wouldn’t be a little desert-happy, Petso?’

  ‘Don’t call me “Petso”, Stephen. I’m not that any more.’

  ‘Sit down, Kim. You make me uncomfortable. If you aren’t the Petso, what are you?’

  ‘Well,’ Kim said, considering. ‘You could have said I was a blackmailer. That is, if you’d known me a little better in the olden times, back at the Base.’

  Stephen, the tilted billy of tea in one hand, stared at the girl in front of him.

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘Don’t be so surprised, Stephen. You’ve been dealing in it a long, long time. So you know what I mean.’

  He put the billy down, squatted on his heels and went on staring at Kim. She noticed he was a little paler now. All brashness gone.

  She moved across to the wall: then let herself slide down so that she sat on the floor, her sunburned legs stretched out before her. She dragged off her hat-ridiculous, and plonked it on the floor beside her.

  She looked out through the doorway to where John and Myree, now both of them leaning on the bonnet of the jeep, were still deep in talk. Very possessive talk too ‒ Kim thought ‒ even if it was botanical. She had to play the valiant; and the unscrupulous with Stephen ‒ but inside her heart was crying.

  She knew that Myree might be too strong for her. Myree carried too many guns. Even now ‒ out there ‒ looking up into John’s face, talking vivaciously, smiling into his eyes, Myree was playing for a knockout win. For her, there were no such things as ‘marriage-lines’.

  Kim closed her own eyes.

  ‘Talking about blackmail ‒’ she remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘Talking about blackmail?’

  ‘I’ll trade secrets with you, Stephen. I know why you went to the other side of Australia to work for that man Smith ‒ or whatever his real name is. “Mathews” I think you once said. That was what the “M” was for in his signature at the Stopover, I guess. You had three years of studies in Botany behind you ‒ then, like the ass you are ‒ you borrowed someone else’s assignment and sandwiched it in to your own. They stood you down for that, so you couldn’t take out your degree that year.’ She looked across the short distance between them. Stephen passed her a cup of tea, then sat back against the wall himself, and sipped his own tea. He was silent.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she asked.

  ‘Go on,’ he said tonelessly.

  ‘You minded that very much, Stephen,’ Kim said gently. ‘But it was a two year suspension only. Though you’ve taken longer yourself. Why? You could go back and finish ‒’

  ‘And face Professor Watts again? And those lecturers?’

  Kim considered this.

  ‘It takes courage ‒’ she agreed at length, her head on one side, cogitating. There was a long silence. Then she finished ‒ ‘Seems like a better way of life than taking money to act as a “spy” for an industrial chemist!’

  He glanced at her quickly.

  ‘You knew? I mean ‒ why I was in the Expedition?’

  ‘You asked too many unnecessary questions, darling Stephen. Specially about plants I was supposed to keep confidential: and which had to do with medical uses. Then there was that scrounging through George’s lab. That was all back at Base. Before we ever came out here. I only surmised, but ‒’

  Stephen sipped his tea, an excuse to keep his eyes averted.

  ‘And I thought Myree was the one who had brains!’ he said after a long silence.

  ‘She has too. That’s why I’m afraid of her.’

  ‘With John?’

  ‘With anyone.’

  Outside the sun had gone down. A wonderful pink and mauve haze clothed the land. It made Myree ‒ where she stood talking eagerly to John ‒ almost ethereal in her attractiveness.

  ‘That man Smith ‒’ Kim went on, out of a void of silence. ‘He borrowed my record book. But it was only the record and drawings that I had done from memory of my own trip up from the Darling Ranges as far as Manutarra. Pretty, but that was all. Quite irrelevant to the Expedition. Nothing really botanical in it. He had to bring the copy he made of it, in the still dark hours of night, to you ‒ out here ‒ to interpret. You had to tell him that’s all it was ‒ a girl’s own picture-story of her travels. Was he very mad about it, when you told him?’

  Stephen sat hunched and despondent.

  ‘How did you know he came here?’ he asked at last.

  ‘A Land-Rover went through travelling west, in the last forty-eight hours. We saw its tracks as we came in. It was the same Land-Rover that called for Mr Smith at Bim’s Stopover in the middle of the night, I guess. Another of his employees at hand? Flown into Bim’s the night before? How much did he dock your pay-packet Stephen, when you told him he’d brought away ‒ from that sucker of a girl at the pub ‒ something that was worth nothing to anybody, except to that girl?’

  Stephen remained pale and silent.

  Through the doorway Kim could see the other two.

  Myree reached up to brush away a night wasp that had tangled itself in John’s hair.

  Kim’s heart hardened. It had to harden. That small intimate gesture of Myree’s cut her very heart-strings. Also made her blood soar boiling-wards.

  ‘You know something, Stephen?’ she said mildly. ‘It would be so much easier for me to stack on a show, stamp my foot or burst into tears! Then say ‒ “Stephen Petso, let you and me just cut and run.” Two vagabonds!’ she sighed. ‘But I’d rather stay.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said looking into his tea cup. ‘So what next?’

  ‘Kidnap her. She’d never go if you just asked. She’ll stick with John till he’s taken her out to the sand plain; and he’ll take her all right. A twosome according to rules. His precious botanical find comes first. I don’t know how you’ll do it.
You’ll have to think it out yourself. But please do it.’

  ‘You love him?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘You know what, Kim?’ He was looking at her now. ‘In the right kind of a way, I love you. I hated this blasted thing that was between us ‒ I mean my being in someone else’s pay.’

  She smiled across the space at him. It was a bleak smile, but it shone true.

  ‘We’re a couple of way-out misfits ‒ our lives behind us full of silly mistakes. Is that it? Me always posing as a sort of bratto. You ‒’ She broke off.

  ‘I guess that’s it. We don’t conform.’

  ‘Don’t be too quiet, Stephen dear. I haven’t twisted the noose right round your neck yet. I’ve something more to ask. Another piece of blackmail ‒’

  ‘Ask the world, Kim. After that walk of yours ‒ four days and nights through the sand dunes with nothing but a compass and a water-bag ‒ you can have the moon and stars too.’

  ‘With my hat on my head. Don’t forget that Stephen,’ she smiled, though painfully. ‘Dr John Andrews’ last and most fear-inspiring command was ‒ Keep your hat on your head! And I did. Jolly clever, considering, don’t you think?’

  ‘You can laugh about it?’

  ‘It’s all over. I’m alive, and I’ve married Dr John Andrews. What better could I do for myself?’

  ‘Nothing, except get rid of Myree. Well, go ahead. I’ll take her off. Heaven knows how ‒ but I’ll do it. When my courage falters ‒ Or Myree, a trussed chicken in the bag, kicks or hollers too much, I’ll remember you kept your hat on your head and beat the sun. Did you know the sun is more powerful than any other force in the world?’

  ‘There’s the other question I have to ask. Remember?’

  ‘Fire away!’

  ‘As we haven’t any Bible here you will have to spit your death, and promise.’

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘Never ‒ ever ‒ to any living soul ‒ cast a smear-doubt on Ralph Sinclair’s doctorate. You heard me, Stephen. The drawings I did for him were only related to his topic. They were for reference purposes only. He did all his own drawings for his thesis.’

  ‘Sorry about that one, Kim. It was dirty of me. You knew what I was up to?’

  ‘Buying my loyalty. That’s when I first guessed you were up to something. Then came all those questions.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Outside the twilight haze of gold and mauve, rose-pink and amethyst, had turned to purple against a wounded sky. Then darkness came on like the slow pulling down of a blind over the western arc.

  Footsteps were coming towards the homestead.

  Stephen and Kim caught one another’s eyes. Solemnly each spat on a forefinger and each made a sign over the heart. A trading of blackmails it was. Stephen would daring-do with Myree; and Kim would never speak of Stephen’s past ‒ to anyone.

  Only Myree came right into the homestead. John called Stephen out for a short talk.

  Kim found herself once again in the role of cook. Stephen and Myree, like themselves, had brought with them a plentiful variety of stores. Myree made a point of having to jot down at once a few botanical details John had given her. Kim thought this could have been an excuse not to play cook. Then again it might not. Myree and John did have important information to exchange. Kim had to be fair about that. Hadn’t she had to make duplicate copies of John’s notes for Myree? Meantime Myree was ignoring Kim’s existence.

  Later, when the evening meal was finished and cigarettes were out, Stephen seemed, almost unnaturally, to become confident in his role of host.

  ‘I guess you want to take a last look at your specimen cases, John,’ he suggested. ‘Adjust the thermostats, and all that. Myree and I were here first, so we choose the next chores as ours. We’re going out to the trough to wash up. Don’t look surprised, Myree! If you really want top marks with the boss you’ll shake a hand with the dishes. Kim’s done her whack as cook. Besides,’ he finished, ‘we haven’t been travelling all day. They have!’

  Myree’s quick mind took less than half a second to jump the hurdle. She saw the point of Stephen’s suggestion.

  A willing heart and a ready hand! That, of course, would win any man! But to the lengths of dish washing ‒?

  She intended to go out to that place where John had found the almost extinct ‒ therefore unique ‒ specimens of hopwoodi. And she intended John to take her. She would please the man ‒ as from now. The plant was of the same generic origin as some of the plants she was studying herself.

  Surprise would make the reference in her thesis worth a mint of gold. She would even get publication. Her name and Dr John Andrews linked together? Oh no, she was in no danger of telling anyone, as John well knew. No scientist ever foolishly threw away a chance of success by talking.

  Myree’s thoughts moved on with cold calculation. Out there on the desert fringe ‒ with John ‒ there would be other things to think about too. It was a modern world. It was a see-all and take-all world ‒ permissive, as far as men were concerned. She was an amoral person by her own decision.

  As for Kim! Well, poor Kim. It would be her turn to be hindmost again. As usual! Personnel had to work with partners, so dear little Kim would have to go back to Base with Stephen!

  ‘Dishes out to the trough first ‒’ Stephen was saying. ‘Here ‒ tuck the cutlery under your arm, Myree. I’ll bring all the plastic ware. I suppose we’d better wash the billy’s bottom. My, oh my! How black can a billy get?’

  While the collection of dishes and give-and-take of instructions were going on, Kim sat near the fire with her legs curled under her. She thought it ‘fair’ that Myree was let in for the washing up.

  The temperature was beginning to drop. In two hours it would be fifteen degrees below midday temperature. In four hours it would be very, very cold.

  Kim thought of the long night, and the cold hard boards. The sleeping bags and rugs were in the jeep! Perhaps she ought to make things less embarrassing for John by suggesting she slept in the jeep herself?

  She would have to wait until Stephen and Myree were out of the door, and out of earshot. It had only been a vain hope that Stephen could take Myree away to-night. Too late now. To-morrow probably! Or the next day ‒

  John, sitting with his back against the wall, had been reading the papers brought out from Base by Stephen. To Kim he seemed preoccupied to the point of not being present at all.

  What were their several sleeping arrangements to be? The pantry? The spare room with its hole in the wall? One visitor here and one visitor there? How did she bring the subject up?

  Stephen and Myree, cluttered with utensils, had gone through the door. In the stillness before the night wind rose across the desert lands, their voices could be heard as Stephen attempted to give Myree advice at the veranda’s edge. Myree ‒ superior and sceptical ‒ was rejecting most of it.

  ‘You’d better see if all’s well with your specimens, Myree ‒’ Stephen was saying. ‘I put them in the caravan just before dinner when I came out to talk with John. I locked the door too. I have the key here. Let me carry those things. Mind the plastics now‒’ They had stopped to rearrange their burdens.

  ‘What in the name of fortune were you doing interfering with my collection?’ Myree’s voice was rising with annoyance. ‘The temperature was properly controlled where they were ‒’

  ‘Sure!’ Stephen sounded airy, not at all disturbed. ‘Who’s to know those prospectors won’t come back in the night? Or a kangaroo hop in from the desert to have a munch at your plants? The caravan’s the only safe place for them. Specially when it’s locked up ‒’

  ‘They were perfectly safe where I had them!’

  They had begun to move on again now, but Stephen’s voice came clear and soothing. ‘Okay, okay! Let’s fix them now. I’ll give you a hand. We’ll dump this stuff in the trough first, then we’ll check if all’s well with the caravan. The torch is in the cabin of the utility.’

  The voices faded
as distance and the corner of the homestead intervened.

  Kim, only half listening, stared info the fire coals in the stove. In spite of the echoing sounds of activity outside she had been aware only of the utter stillness inside. It was a long time since John had turned even one page of the paper he was reading.

  Kim stole a glance at him ‒ only to meet his eyes straight-on. He was sitting, his back propped against the wall, his long legs stretched before him ‒ looking at her over the top of his paper. In a way that made her heart turn over too. There was something knowing in a whimsical kind of way in his eyes.

  The paper went down in an untidy sprawl on the floor.

  She wanted to blink, but her eyes wouldn’t obey.

  ‘Kim ‒’ he said very gently. ‘Come over here. This wall will stay warm long after that fire goes out ‒’

  She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to stand on her pride. She was afraid of something smarting behind her eyes that would embarrass her beyond endurance when Stephen and Myree came back info the room.

  ‘I’m beautifully warm just now ‒’ she began. ‘I think Stephen has bagged that place against the wall ‒’

  ‘Damn Stephen!’ John said. Had she heard right? There was a whole world of emphasis in the very quietness of his voice. ‘Damn Myree too! I have a hunch they won’t be back for a long, long time ‒’

  Kim stared at him. Maybe it was her ears that had gone wrong. John was suddenly very free with ‘damns’. One for Myree too!

  In the moment’s silence her ears really did hear something ‒ a clang followed by a very final bang from outside. A car door being slammed? No, two doors surely! The caravan, then the utility?

  John too had heard, for he bent his head in a listening way. The queer little smile in his eyes was edging round the corners of his mouth now.

  ‘The wind catching the loose iron on the old outhouse?’ Kim asked tentatively. Anything to escape the mesmerism with which, bent head and all, his eyes were still holding hers.

  John was really smiling now. He was enjoying some small joke. Or was he?

  ‘Kim,’ he said softly. ‘Kim darling.’ He held out one hand. ‘I want you. Because ‒’