Girl Alone: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  ‘They’re being chatted along by the Richies in the bar. They’re staying for a meal, and what’s better, they’re staying the night.’

  ‘Holy smoke! Who’s worked the miracle over there? It sounds too easy. Over.’

  ‘You’ve been out here longer than I have, David, but seems you haven’t learned everything about Mr and Mrs Richie yet. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but I could hear them. They have their own brand of miracle-making for winning some people over.’

  David’s laugh was so knowing Mardie wrinkled her brow in thought. What goes on? she wondered. She did not ask aloud for David’s next words made her heart miss a beat.

  ‘You won’t be getting any air-call from Jard,’ he said. ‘You’ll get him personally. He’s on his way now. You should see his dust in another hour.’

  ‘But his leg? He’s not risking driving yet, is he?’

  ‘No. Joanna’s taking him. She says she has private personal business to do at The Breakaway, anyway. Needless to say, they’ve taken two of our roustabouts along with them to give might to their right arms. It just could be a party, Mardie. By that last, I mean trouble. In which case, you and the Richies are to get right out of sight. Immediately. Understand? Over.’

  ‘But Joanna’s with them! What about Joanna … if there’s trouble?’

  ‘Joanna can look after herself. Not to worry, Mardie. My private guess is that her private business is to see she’s there to mend any wounds if Jard collects again. But joking apart, I’m fairly sure there’ll be trouble. You have your builders on hand. Have the two men recognized you? Over.’

  ‘They haven’t seen me yet. When I cut out the call I’ll go over to make their acquaintance as The Breakaway’s housemaid, believe it or not. Table-waiting thrown in as a side line.’

  David’s ready laugh was like a roll of gay notes across the ether.

  ‘Richie strategy!’ he said. ‘Well, well! Don’t crawl into bed with either of them, sweetheart, will you? And Joanna wouldn’t let you crawl in with Jard, so I think you’ll come out of the occasion with your fair name intact. Over and out now. I’ve the electrical engineer and two mechanics waiting outside wanting to see me. Something bunged up, I suppose. We all have our troubles. ’Bye, love.’

  ‘’Bye, David. Out.’

  Mardie went in for a lot of ‘Yes, Mrs Richie’ and ‘No, Mr Richie’ in as meek a voice as possible ‒ all to convince the two strangers of her pseudo-subservient status at The Breakaway. When she had first gone into the dining-room with steaming plates of brush-turkey plus ‘vegs for two’, she had kept her head down. But, as she turned away after placing the dishes, she was sure the one called Jim Smith stared at her rather keenly. As she neared the door she looked in the sideboard mirror and saw him lean across the table and say something in an undertone to the other man. She went through the door, not waiting to see if Mr Brown also turned to look at her.

  ‘I’m more than ever certain it’s the two men,’ she whispered to Mrs Richie. Voices carried easily through the pressed iron wall between the dining-room and the kitchen. ‘I think the Jim Smith one recognized me … but I’m not quite sure.’

  ‘Give them ten minutes to mop up that turkey, then go back ‒ see if there’s anything else they’d like before I turn on peaches and cream, both tinned. That’s all they’ll get for dessert if they’re a couple of baddies. But don’t mention the “tinned” part. That’s bad for business. Let them find out for themselves.’

  ‘Oh, but …’

  ‘No fresh fruit for them. They didn’t help you, did they? Hold your head up, Mardie, and let the other one get a good look at you. Don’t give any sign that you recognize either of them. Mr Richie’s gone to stow their bags in the truckies’ room. After that he’ll disconnect the battery in their station waggon. They can’t make a quick getaway that way.’

  ‘But that’s illegal, isn’t it?’ Mardie began.

  ‘So’s abandoning people in the bush. That’s inhuman, which is worse. By the time they smell a rat ‒ if they do ‒ Jard and his pals ought to be here, or near.’

  Mrs Richie seemed a different person altogether. Mardie was almost fascinated by watching this change. She did not realize the tiger in Mrs Richie’s womanly heart had not been roused by Jard’s plight on that night, but that of someone who had become her own child ‒ Mardie herself.

  ‘Do you think I should say anything to the builders?’ Mardie asked, still blinking at the sudden change in The Breakaway’s usual comfortable atmosphere.

  ‘Mr Richie’ll look after that. Maybe not till Jard gives one or other of us the nod. Don’t look so worried, Mardie, we aren’t doing anything wrong, you know. We’re just doing what many in the outback have to do nowadays since the mining boom has brought all sorts of oddies up here.’

  Mr Richie came in through the door at that moment.

  ‘Not that much out of the ordinary either, sad to say,’ he finished for his wife. ‘There’s plenty of baddies round these days ‒ not just this pair. It’s kindergarten stuff to what it was in the old gold-mining days. Those days it was gold-stealing. Real murder done more than once, even round these parts. There’s old abandoned spec’ mines not five miles from here and tales can be told about them, I can tell you. These days it’s claim-jumping, over-pegging someone else’s claim, spying for the rumour-mongers down at the Stock Market.’

  Mrs Richie nodded her head.

  ‘I’m sure it’s something to do with that sort of thing that’s made Jard Hunter interested in our Mr Smith and Mr Brown. The way those shares on the Stock Market go up and down like a yo-yo, often on false information! It’s a crying shame.’

  Mardie, easier now, laughed as she dished tinned peaches into two small bowls.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ she said, ‘but when I first came here I thought Jard was the mystery man and perhaps he had something to do with exploration spying.’

  She looked up. The smile disappeared from her face, for Mr and Mrs Richie were standing quite still staring at her. Not a muscle moved on either face.

  She felt her own face flush from ear to ear. ‘Well … I was sort of … only joking …’ she began lamely. Then added defensively: ‘But he is something of a mystery ‒ the way he comes and goes.’

  ‘It’s to do with his work,’ Mr Richie said bluntly. ‘Everyone knows some facts, but not all the facts, about the Dig-in. He has to watch what he does, where he goes, and why. He’s exploring something special. The others out there at the Dig-in are drilling already. Percussion drilling only, of course. That’s exploring the mineral zone. But everyone knows what for and where they’re doing it and why. The informers want to know more. How much are they finding and is it high grade or low grade.’

  ‘And Jard’s presence in the area raises speculation sky-high,’ Mrs Richie put in. ‘If there’s to be a mine, then they need water. So if the Dig-in’s after water already, then what? They say any mine needs a million gallons of water ‒ enough to drive a car one hundred and forty times round the world ‒ to put in and run a real mine.’

  Mr Richie polished a glass to breaking-point. He threw the pieces in the waste-bin and picked up another one.

  ‘The chaps who move around in the bush nearby are the ones that need watching,’ he said. ‘They want to know what’s in the drill pipe when it comes up. And how much. And why there’s a “water” man already at work. And where. Maybe they want to shift “claim pegs” and stick their own pegs in instead ‒ if they think there’s a good nickel strike likely. Maybe they think it is likely because the Dig-in have got a “water” man exploring already. They’re speculating ‒ that’s the word.’

  ‘Sometimes they sell information,’ Mrs Richie said. ‘When it leaks out, up goes the Stock Market balloon sky-high.’ She sounded very matter-of-fact. Evidently she was used to this sort of situation. ‘Which reminds me ‒’ She turned to her husband. ‘When Jard comes in, don’t forget to tell him that big dump-package has arrived for him. You know the thin
g marked “Impact-Drill ‒ Petrol-driven”. That makes good business news for the store, Mardie. If they’re going to start using petrol-driven drills we’ll have to increase our orders from the oil company. Big orders!’

  ‘Now who’s using “inside information”?’ Mr Richie demanded. ‘And speculating?’

  ‘Mardie love, you’d better take those peaches and cream to our guests,’ Mrs Richie said, for once ignoring her husband. ‘We don’t want them coming out here looking for it. Don’t forget to hold your head up this time and let them both take a good look at you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Mardie assured her as she carried the bowls of fruit doorwards.

  Jard and his party arrived not long afterwards. Mardie was sure ‒ from the manner of the two men ‒ that they recognized her. The Bill Brown one was not quite so certain. Maybe this was because it had been false dawn that morning of the ’copter crash and his sight wasn’t as keen. Maybe he had been too busy recognizing Jard. She probably had had strands of hair falling over her face. Besides, she hadn’t had any clothes on to speak of, had she? She was glad she had done what she had done. It had helped Jard. But how was she to live with it once she saw him again and remembered those long hours through the night?

  She watched the Dig-in’s utility turn in to The Breakaway, then stop in a situation that crowded the station waggon. Mr Richie had gone out earlier and asked the builder to back down one of his trucks so it, too, was now parked under the trees alongside the fence and only a foot in front of the station waggon. Meantime Mrs Richie was keeping Mr Smith and Mr Brown talking in the bar over a strong liqueur. ‘On the house,’ she had said, adding that this was because they were staying guests. The usual thing. Alongside each man also stood a cup of black coffee.

  ‘No meal of my cooking is complete without a liqueur and coffee to follow,’ she had said. ‘We do things properly at The Breakaway. That’s why our customers come again. It’s good for trade to treat customers well.’

  The one called Jim may have had special thoughts about Mardie but the good meal and those little doses of pure alcohol surreptitiously slipped in the men’s beer earlier ‒ topped off now with a noble Drambuie liqueur ‒ were matters that worked their charm. He lounged one elbow on the bar counter and quizzed his hostess on the subject of The Breakaway’s customers.

  ‘Plenty of those mining blokes about,’ he supposed. ‘What are they all up to round these parts? Everyone knows they’ve had something of a nickel strike out at the Dig-in. It was all in the papers. But how much and what’s it worth? That’s the thing, eh, Missis?’

  Bill Brown, less loosened up, was more guarded. Mrs Richie had been well aware he had given his mate a kick on the shins on the far side of the bar counter. But she made no sign. She addressed herself exclusively to Jim. He was the one she must keep talking ‒ even if it meant leaning on her highly polished bar ‒ till Jard arrived.

  ‘Well, everyone asks questions,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Like you, I only read what’s in the papers. I’m for always wondering why those that wants to know don’t go out to the Dig-in and ask. There’s a well-worn track out there … so I’m told.’

  ‘Huh! They’d be same as the rest of the type. Keep a guard on the place. Warn off callers. Scared stiff someone might jump their claim, I guess, or take a quick snook at their plastic sample bags. Even read the labels.’

  ‘Well, that’s been done … so I read in the papers.’ Mrs Richie shrugged again as she refilled the coffee cups. She didn’t like her visitors well enough to give them a second liqueur ‘on the house’. That Drambuie stuff cost money and she wouldn’t care to put a bill in to the Dig-in because of it. After all, the Dig-in were good customers. Likely to be better, too, with them taking up those petrol-driven drills. All she had to do right now was keep these men talking. That was what Mr Richie had said. And Mardie had agreed.

  Jim and Bill drank the coffee while they eyed the Drambuie back on the shelf.

  Mrs Richie’s sharp ears had caught new sounds in the distance. Under her apron she crossed her fingers. Let this be Jard, she thought. Then he can take over from here. So long as they keep Mardie out of the fire-line.

  Mrs Richie had her own views as to what kind of bullets might come Mardie’s way and they weren’t bullets from fire-arms, that was for sure. Mardie had told her a little … a very, very little … of that night after the ’copter crash, but her diffidence in telling and the high colour that had suffused her face while the words came stilted, had told a tale of their own. Mrs Richie had done a little guessing, and her concern now was that the girl would come to no harm because of that nightly vigil.

  If these two men ‒ right baddies in her estimation ‒ really recognized Mardie as the girl on the ground with Jard, well then, they could make something of it, couldn’t they?

  Mardie saw the Dig-in ute swing round at a hot pace and stop, slightly angled, close behind the station waggon. If Mr Smith and Mr Brown went for their vehicle they couldn’t back it out. It was parked-in. The builder’s truck in front, and the ute behind. The station waggon could neither move forward nor back out.

  When the ute slammed to a halt Mardie stopped thinking about the two men in the bar. She didn’t even look at Joanna in the front seat beside Jard, or the two roustabouts sitting on oil drums in the tray. She looked only at Jard.

  He was someone different now. He was a man with whom she had spent one long, cold, memorable night. Someone who had ‒ for one short space in time ‒ belonged to her.

  They all four, including Joanna, tumbled out of the ute simultaneously. One of the roustabouts stayed with it. He leaned with his backside against the bonnet, his arms folded and his dead-pan face watching the others move across the ward to the trellised way.

  Mr Richie, outside talking to the builder, walked quietly towards the rear entrance of The Breakaway. The builder moved over to the station waggon as if looking it over in the casual manner of a man who might be thinking of buying something like it some day.

  Mardie watched the scene with a mounting mixture of anxiety and excitement. It all looked like a planned deploying of man-power and a silent imminent invasion.

  She shook her head.

  But this doesn’t happen here, she thought. It’s not real. I’m dreaming it. Before any mining boom, the outback was known as so safe.

  But it was happening.

  This was Western Australia in the same kind of mining boom that had happened at the turn of the century ‒ then gold ‒ and in these same mining areas here at The Breakaway. The only difference was that out there now there were cars and utes and trucks whereas, in those other boom days, there had been horses and camel trains. And even now, Jard, Joanna and the roustabouts didn’t carry firearms.

  But the way they deployed themselves! And the way they walked ‒ their heads slightly lowered but looking up from under the brims of those hats! Even Joanna in her khaki safari jacket and shorts, her broad-brimmed flop hat, suddenly seemed to look and walk like the men.

  One more notch up to Joanna, Mardie thought. Something else she can do. Match it with the men in a take-over.

  Chapter Eleven

  Behind the bar counter Mrs Richie heard them coming.

  ‘More through-travellers,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘All good for business. By the sound of those boots they’ll be mining men, and they’re better spenders, you know. Not used to being left out at those mining camps for long stretches like the station people.’

  Jard came through the door, walked casually towards the bar and nodded to Mrs Richie. Jim Smith and Bill Brown were elbow-leaning on the counter and clutching a glass in the spare hand. They turned casually to take in the newcomer.

  Suddenly there was something different in the air.

  Joanna slipped silently behind the bar and took Mrs Richie’s arm. She said one word, ‘Out.’

  ‘Anyone would think this is your stop-over,’ Mrs Richie said sharply. But nevertheless she went. Joanna took her place.

&nb
sp; ‘Drinks, gentlemen?’ she asked, but no one answered her.

  The two strangers had straightened up. They held their glasses in their hands almost as if they could, if necessary, use them ‒ broken-ended ‒ as weapons.

  Jard and his roustabout stood side by side, their hands tucked in their belts almost in identical stances.

  ‘So? You two called in for a drink?’ Jim Smith asked, an edge of care in his voice.

  ‘No. We called in to see you.’ Jard’s voice was soft, but in a deadly way. His eyes were expressionless. Stony. ‘We heard you were round about this area.’

  ‘So what?’ There was unease in Bill Brown’s expression but a touch of insolence in Jim Smith, who spoke. ‘It’s a public stop-over, isn’t it? The area is crown land whether the station owners lob their homesteads and run their sheep on it, or the mining mob line up their bun-houses round their drill sites. Like it or not.’

  ‘Whatever it is ‒ whoever is squatting ‒ you two put a distance between yourselves and the area. Or else!’ Jard’s voice was as stony as his eyes.

  ‘Or else what?’ Jim Smith was very insolent now. ‘You show me any law that says we’re trespassing here … any more’n you and your mate there are trespassing right this minute. We’ve registered for accommodation. Take a look-see for yourselves.’

  ‘Pull the register from under the counter, Joanna,’ Jard said. ‘Open it at the last page and turn it round so I can see it.’ His voice had not altered by a note or a cadence. It was quiet and deadly.

  Mardie had been told to stay in her office and out of sight. But she too had a will of her own. She slipped round the back of the building, then came via the kitchen into the dining-cum-sitting-room that was on the far side of the three-quarter wall next to the bar. As of earlier in the day, the polished brasses and the baskets of hanging ferns could not keep out the voices from the other side. She had not deserted her office. She had left it with deliberate intention. The Breakaway was hers. While Joanna might automatically be included in an invasion party she, Mardie Forrester, was not going to be kept hidden away, an over-protected frail piece of femininity. She not only had a right to be where Joanna was part of the party, she had a duty to be where she belonged. If anything went wrong then it was on her property.