by Lucy Walker
He said nothing. But he held out his hand.
Mardie’s will had suddenly gone like the wildflowers that went with the coming of the Dry and the terrible heat. It was lost somewhere in the sand dunes and over the spinifex plains.
So she put her hand in his.
He drew her up so they stood together, still looking at one another.
‘Give me your other hand, Mardie.’
She did so. He held both her hands now in his two hands.
‘Will you listen to me if I tell you something?’
She nodded.
‘I know what happened on the night of that crash, Mardie. A little of it. Not all. That night every now and again I nearly came to. Not quite, but nearly. And someone was holding me, and was caring for me ‒ with a kind of loving. I thought it was no more than the loving of one human being who was trying to help another survive. I’ve learnt in my life in the outback that, when you look after someone, then it is a caring that is a loving. That’s what caring for is. I felt it and I wanted it to go on for ever.’
His arms had gone round her, and hers around him. Her head was suddenly on his shoulder, her face cradled in the curve of his neck. But she could say nothing.
‘When I really came-to in that half-light,’ he went on, ‘someone was leaning over me and I saw her face. That is what I meant when I told you that once I fell in love with a face.’
‘What was it like … that face? Tell me again.’
‘Kind and tender. Eyes that were soft. Afraid, yet holding courage.’ He paused as he rested his cheek on her head. ‘And loving. That was what mattered. The blasted dizziness came over me again and I had to close my eyes. Then I wasn’t anywhere. I was on my own. Hell! It was a ghastly feeling.’
He suddenly straightened up, took her by the shoulders and held her away from him.
‘Not any more, Mardie. You will marry me, won’t you?’
‘Are you sure it is not because of those two men, Jard? And what they said? The baddies? Why were they scared of you enough to go off and not help us?’
He laughed. It was an amused laugh and held no animus in it.
‘I’d caught them some months ago shifting pegs on a claim. I stood over them and made them put every peg back in its right place … one by one. Miles of them. It took all day.’
‘Weren’t you afraid?’
‘No. I was the one who had a rifle that time. I’ve never used it except to shoot game, of course. And it’s registered. But that couple wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t know what I was capable of doing ‒ or not doing. So they didn’t take a chance, and did what they were told. Replaced the pegs. And smartly too.’
‘Were they valuable claims?’
‘Not for minerals. No. But for water, yes. They were The Breakaway’s claims, Mardie, and even if they’d repegged and applied to the Warden’s Court for a mineral claim they’d have won nothing. They didn’t know the only treasure under that ground was water. And water under the ground belongs to the State of Western Australia. Not to any one, two, or a dozen people. They may use it, but they can’t buy it or sell it or form a company to control it. Not even you, Mardie. Your Breakaway sits on it and can use it ‒ give it away in gallon drums ‒ till Kingdom Come. But you can’t sell it. That’s the law.’
Mardie’s arms tightened round him. He could not see the smile in her eyes so he did not know she could now tell Mr Lawson that Jard would not be embarrassed about seeming to marry her for her mineral claims. There weren’t any minerals. She must be the only person in the mining world who was, this minute, thanking God there were no such things as minerals under her claims.
‘You did say something a minute ago, Jard,’ she said, lifting her head and looking up at him. His face was a pale oval in the coming darkness of night.
‘What was that?’ He looked down at her, his eyes gentle and kind.
‘You asked me to marry you.’
‘Have you an answer ready?’
‘Yes. It’s yes. And, Jard, I do love you very much. Since the day you first walked across the bitumen on to The Breakaway’s gravel, I think. Even if you didn’t ever come to love me … or even like me, you were someone for me to wonder and think about. It was as if I had someone in my heart to keep me company.’
‘Now we both have company.’
‘For ever.’
‘And ever. How about our going to tell Mister Falldown? He’s out there in the bush somewhere. He’ll be able to promise us that after this life we’ll still have each other in his Dreamtime World.’
He bent his head and kissed her. It had caring-for as well as love in it. Then something warmer, and possessive ‒ but in a wonderful way.
‘Mine!’ he said, and meant it.
Night had fallen and the blue-black skies were pricked with stars.
It was by the faint light of these stars that Mrs Richie, coming towards them laden with two beefsteaks and two wedges of her pavlova cake, saw them.
She stopped. With her head on one side she stood and looked.
‘There you are!’ she muttered to no one in particular, unless it was to the night owl, sitting silent and watchful on the branch of an ancient bush scrub. ‘I said there’d be a party at The Breakaway inside a month. I must tell Mr Richie to order some special stores. And not another day lost. Dearie me … who knows but the next thing will be a new house on Mansell’s Corner.’
Then she was struck by another more brilliant thought. ‘Grandchildren for me and Mr Richie! You never can tell what will happen next in the outback, can you?’
The wise old owl on the tree branch had an answer to that ‒ but he did not make it known.
Books by Lucy Walker
from Wyndham Books
The Call of the Pines
Reaching for the Stars
The River is Down
Girl Alone
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