In which I’d bet on Roberta. She’d have you for breakfast, Derek.
She was surprised, although not disappointed, when Bevan, Ted, and Roberta didn’t snap at the bait. They all looked at each other, eyes passing some silent message between them, but kept silent, whereupon the argument quickly died away from a sheer lack of fuel. And, Judith suspected, because everyone was physically exhausted from the day’s activities. Certainly, the aura of antagonism around the camp faded as quickly as the echoes of the thumping generator, which Ted had insisted from the very start could be used only in emergencies and to run the video equipment.
“Anybody who wants to spend time in the bush watching bloody television can do it without me,” he’d stated emphatically during the very first planning session, with an attitude that brooked no argument. “And the same goes for the wireless.”
His truculent attitude was explained by Bevan’s relating the tale of how Ted had once been weathered in during a prospecting trip with a much younger man and a transistor radio. “The boy survived because Ted kept him fed,” Bevan had said. “The wireless starved to death in a matter of half an hour.”
That night, everybody seemed glad enough to hear the end of the generator. They all headed for bed within minutes. Judith’s tent companions were asleep in moments, but she slid into a series of erotic nightmares that were so vivid that she thought, in the cold light of dawn, she’d have done better to have stayed awake.
The worst part was not being able to remember them except as mingled images that were wildly erotic, exotic, and probably psychotic. Images of Bevan and her finally alone together, naked together, laughing and crying together. And mingled with that, images of wolves and Tasmanian tigers and even real tigers, all jumbled together in an orgy of sexuality that made no sense whatever when she awoke.
*
The next day, Saturday, was the first proper full day of monitoring. Everyone but Roberta trekked round the entire run of cameras and sensors, exchanging film and discussing the possible results with enthusiasm that seemed to expand visibly as each camera was found to have been tripped into use. But it was a long day made longer by the need to spend time sifting through each new video, only to find the same cheeky Tasmanian devil still intent on becoming a movie star.
Ted’s cackling I-told-you-so laughter did nothing to improve the situation.
“The little bugger’s got your number, Jan,” the old bushman said during dinner. “I reckon we’ll have to lay a bait or two just to keep him in one place. Otherwise, it’ll be just more of the same. I think he’s in love with you, myself.”
Jan didn’t seem enamored of the idea, and to Judith’s discomfort, Bevan not only laughed, but seemed to take the comment as an excuse to resume his watching of Judith. Fair enough for him to be bored by the video show. He’d certainly seen as many wombats, Tasmanian devils, wallabies, and native cats in his life not to need more, but he spent the entire show looking at her, touching her lips, her cheeks, her breasts with his saucy glances. His smile tormented her, his occasional twisted, quirky grin promised things she’d rather not have thought about.
The issue of laying baits was raised again with breakfast the next morning, Ted insisting that if they didn’t do something to occupy the curious Tassie devil’s attention, they would only end up with more videos of the cheeky little devil at the expense of anything better.
“Nothing much else is going to travel around that area with our scent and his all over the place,” Ted insisted. “And sure as damn it you won’t have any hope of drawing in a tiger; I can guarantee you that.”
“I am totally against it,” insisted Derek. Not unexpectedly. “All the research is quite clear that tigers never return to a kill and will not take baits, but you want to go off and slaughter innocent wildlife anyway.”
“Tigers don’t usually return to a kill, and no, they aren’t noted for taking baits, either,” Ted said. “But they are known to investigate them. I can personally assure you of that. As for the innocent wildlife, if we don’t give this devil something to occupy himself, he’ll just keep on following Jan around disrupting everything. I’m sure the state can spare a wallaby or two in the interests of science and my poor old geriatric belly. Or didn’t you know that wallaby is about the best meat a person can eat in terms of low fat and low cholesterol?”
“I do not have a cholesterol problem,” Derek replied almost haughtily, “and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t use it as an excuse to go around destroying native animals.”
After that, the argument began to escalate. Judith stayed out of it, and so – surprisingly – did Bevan, but Roberta and Ted both seemed to have awakened in a particularly frothy mood, and both were spoiling for a fight. They laced into the conservationists in a combined assault, Roberta citing documentary evidence about how many kangaroos ate how much grass compared to how many sheep, Derek responding with the argument that kangaroos did less damage to the environment than sheep, and Ted chiming in, occasionally, about the quality of ’roo and wallaby meat and its ultimate potential both for the restaurant trade and export markets.
When he tried to turn to Judith for support, she found Bevan watching her closely but making no attempt to interfere as she was forced – against her better judgment – to confirm much of what both sides were shouting.
I’m the meat in the sandwich here. And she decided moments later it was a particularly apt cliché, considering the way Bevan kept watching her and licking his lips.
As the participants grew more and more vocal in their argument, pans were rattled and the table thumped and voices raised to the point where Judith thought they might as well forget about seeing any wildlife at all that day because everything would have been alerted for miles around. The day before they had spent a half hour watching a mob of Foresters lounging in a warm, sunny clearing, and later an echidna rollicking his way along the track in front of them, safe in his armor of hedgehog-like spines.
But now, over breakfast, it was Roberta’s unexpectedly vehement attacks on the issue that surprised Judith the most. Bevan’s attractive neighbor, who truly deserved the cliché about being beautiful when angry, seemed to be deliberately fomenting the situation, her dark eyes flashing like black opal and her entire aura alive with energy.
At the same time, she continued her cooking and serving duties without missing a beat. While Derek was spouting off about protecting wildlife and the like, Roberta was snarling her rebukes and thrusting a plate of steak-and-eggs under his nose at the same time.
Ted Norton, Judith suspected, was just stirring for the sake of stirring. Or so she thought until he glanced her way with a particular mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Then she caught him exchanging glances with Bevan, who returned that mischievous look. Suspicion no sooner flared than it was confirmed. Ted returned to his now-hoary cholesterol argument. Derek, in the process of eating the second large chunk of steak to hit his plate, responded as expected, with nods of approval from his conservationist companions, and Roberta pounced.
“Right,” she declared. “I’ve had just about enough of this rubbish. You have got cholesterol problems, Mister high-and-mighty Derek Innes, right between your ears! But if you don’t want to eat wallaby, you shouldn’t have to, and I’d be the last one to force it upon you – SO GIVE IT BACK!”
Judith nearly fell off her chair as the verbal missile found its mark. And she was not alone. Everyone sat mesmerized, their gazes switching from Derek to Roberta and back again as the conservationist leader absorbed the message.
At first he registered surprise, then his expression ran the gamut from utter astonishment to outrage as Roberta reached her hand toward his plate and its half-eaten steak.
“You ... you ...” he spluttered, his gaze flickering from Roberta to the plate and back again. “You mean this ... this ... this ... I ... I ...” He couldn’t manage to complete any statement. Words formed and reformed as his Adam’s apple pulsated in tune to his obvious distress. Around the table,
his companions stared at the offending wallaby steak as if it might suddenly bound off the plate before their very eyes.
Jan Smythe, the most confirmed of the vegetarians, swallowed a gulp that didn’t want to stay swallowed, and with an anguished, apologetic glance at her chosen leader, fled the tent with one hand over her mouth.
Now that’s an overreaction if ever I saw one. You haven’t touched a bite of meat since puberty, by your own words, but you get sick because somebody else does? Judith, already having problems keeping from laughing aloud at Derek’s dilemma, found Jan’s reaction only added to the humor of it all.
“You had it for dinner last night, too,” Roberta said with a sneer at the dumfounded Derek. “And you thought it was bloody wonderful, then! Flaming hypocrite!” Roberta’s dark eyes flared with frank delight at his stammering confusion.
“But I ... I ... wouldn’t have if I ... I’d known!” His despair was almost childish, but he got no slack from Roberta.
“You wouldn’t know if your ass was on fire,” she snapped, snatching up the plate and dumping its contents into the rubbish bin.
Judith, who’d actually thought she was eating venison and was enjoying it thoroughly, looked down at her own plate and shook her head, more in wonderment at Roberta’s outburst than anything else. Certainly not, she accepted blithely, with any feeling of concern about whether the steak was wallaby, venison, or spring lamb. It wasn’t quite rare enough for her taste, but that was all.
Damned good steak, wherever it came from. I’ll never be a proper conservationist, I guess. She speared another morsel and chewed it thoughtfully, holding back the urge to laugh at the horrified looks her actions gained from the remaining greenies.
A pall of silence hung over the large cook tent, tangible in its aura of discord and anger. The inhabitants seemed willed to stillness, sitting and staring at each other with something, Judith thought, approaching total disbelief. This time, when Roberta spoke out, it was to Bevan.
“I’m sorry, Bevan. I guess I’ve stuffed the whole thing up rather thoroughly, but I just couldn’t take any more,” she said, contrite now that the explosion was over. “I’m just not devious enough, I guess.”
23
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Judith told her cousin Vanessa two days later, days in which preparations for the great tiger hunt took a ninety-degree turn that gave all participants a week off to regroup and replan.
“For a moment there, I thought Bevan would pick Derek up and shake him like the mangy dog he is,” she continued. “But he just kept agreeing with Derek, and asking more and more questions, and adding more and more suggestions, and the next thing you know, Derek was agreeing with Bevan and everything had miraculously changed.”
“It’s called ‘agreeing until you get what you want.’ It’s a feminine ploy you should know well enough, Judith. I expect Bevan learned it from his sister, and you’d have recognized it if you weren’t so emotionally involved. And speaking of changing ...”
Judith’s no-longer rotund cousin had only been half listening, keeping one ear tuned to the nursery where the infant Judith and Bevan had been napping between feedings and now were making sounds of wanting to be changed – or fed some more.
A moment later, Judith was holding her namesake while the baby Bevan – “demanding to be first – typical male,” according to Vanessa – was enjoying his first meal of the day before the subject of the other Bevan was raised again.
“So, have you slept with him yet?” Vanessa asked.
The question was so unexpected, not least coming from a woman with a babe at her breast, that Judith nearly dropped the twin she was holding.
“Certainly not!” Judith managed to get the words out in what she hoped was a suitable denial, but she’d dropped her head to hide the blush provoked by the question, and had to repeat herself after Vanessa failed to hear her. Or pretended she hadn’t heard. Judith’s cousin was nothing if not devious.
Worse than devious. Vanessa had an uncanny talent for luring even total strangers into admitting the most intimate personal details. Judith knew she had to change the subject quickly or she might find herself admitting – boasting, Judith Theresa. You’d be boasting! – that she mightn’t have slept with Bevan, but she’d come dangerously close and loved every inch of the experience.
The real problem was that thinking about sleeping with Bevan had never been far from Judith’s mind since they’d left the bush camp in an exodus so cunningly orchestrated that everyone was back at Bevan’s and deep in the planning for next week’s return to the tiger hunt before most of them even realized what was happening. Bevan’s revelation of the trick he’d played drew only polite laughter and insincere complaints about the unnecessary long trek they’d made to end up only a few minutes’ drive from where they’d started.
And Judith had been the most confused of all. Still was. From the moment it had been stated openly that Judith was considered manageable, Bevan’s attitude toward her had become steadily cooler. He designated her a seat in a different vehicle for the brief trip back to his property, had pretty much ignored her once they’d gotten there, and without actually saying one word on the subject, seemed to have shunted her squarely into the conservationist ranks.
So much for trust.
She’d thought, and uttered, far more colorful comments on his abrupt change in attitude during her long drive alone back to Hobart, knowing she was venting, suspecting she might be overreacting, but unsure. The sole saving grace of the journey was not having to share her vehicle with Derek or any of the other conservationists.
Vanessa’s curiosity, however, made it difficult not to think of Bevan, and the blatant question brought forth a flood of repressed feelings Judith would have been happier to have kept repressed.
She was utterly, totally confused by his rapid change in attitude. She was hardly less specific in replying to Vanessa’s next question, a question about trust.
“He’s told me he trusts me, and he obviously expects me to trust him,” Judith said, letting her anger spill into her voice. “But then he goes along with his plans, refusing to tell me anything! That’s not trust, Nessie. That’s blatant manipulation.”
“You have so much to learn about men, Judith,” was the calm reply.
Vanessa didn’t divert her attention from the feeding frenzy, and the infant Judith held was writhing and fussing, clearly overdue for her own feeding.
“When a man says he trusts you,” Vanessa continued, “he expects absolute, unwavering, blind faith on the subject in return. He doesn’t expect to have to repeat himself constantly just to be sure you’ve gotten the message.”
“There’s damned little sense in me being the information hub of the expedition if nobody is going to give me any information,” Judith said. “I’m telling you, something’s going on that I should know about, and I don’t, and it’s driving me crazy, and your Mr. Bevan Keene knows that and doesn’t care one whit so long as his planning isn’t disrupted by it.”
“He’s not my Mr. Bevan Keene. He’s all yours, and you’re welcome to him,” Vanessa replied. “I’ve got enough trouble with his godchild, here. The original would be too much to expect a new mum to deal with. And too much for you, too, obviously,” she added as she adroitly disengaged her male infant – now finished his noisy suckling – and swapped him for the girlchild Judith had been holding. “Here. Do something really useful and burp this monster.”
Then, once baby Bevan was suitably burped and his sister happily attached, Vanessa said, “Maybe you should sleep with him. At least you’d be sure about getting his attention for a little while.”
Judith gasped, more in pique than surprise. She’d already recognized that her cousin’s sense of humor was typically Tasmanian in its directness and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“I’m not even talking to him until next week, and maybe not even then, unless he gets his act together and starts treating me like a professional instead of some sort o
f yellow-dog lackey for the green movement,” Judith replied huffily. “And I have no intention of sleeping with any man I’m not even talking to.”
“You Americans are very strange people,” Vanessa said, amazingly oblivious to the fact that she was, at least by birth, one of them. Judith had already found herself astonished at times at just how thoroughly Vanessa had taken on the speech patterns and attitudes of her adopted country. “You take everything literally, and far, far too seriously. Be fair, Judith, at least to yourself. You have every intention of sleeping with Bevan, talking or not. You’re in love with the man, which is hardly surprising. Why can’t you just admit it and get on with things?”
“Once bitten, twice shy, that’s why. And before you even ask, Nessie, I did not sleep with Derek Innes either, although it wasn’t for lack of trying on his part. But at least when Derek was being devious, he was properly devious about doing it, not right up front and in-your-face like Bevan.”
Vanessa’s laugh tinkled through the room, nearly drowning the lighter sound of the doorbell. “I wish you could hear yourself,” she said. “And you the professional communicator. You’ve got it bad, my girl, and unless I miss my guess, it’s about to suddenly get much, much worse. Go answer the door, would you? I’m sort of busy here.”
Judith crossed the room, cautious of the squirming bundle of baby Bevan in her arms, then nearly dropped the infant when she opened the door to find an adult, full-sized Bevan smiling down at her.
What are you doing here? Go away. I’m not talking to you. I don’t even want to see you.
But she said, “This is a surprise,” and stepped back to allow him into the house, drinking in the sight of him, reveling in the sight of him, even as she called out to alert Vanessa to their visitor.
Bevan was dressed for the city. An expensive Harris Tweed jacket over a ribbed, camel- colored turtleneck over chocolate brown slacks and the inevitable – if highly polished – elastic-sided riding boots favored by so many graziers. Good enough to eat, Judith thought, and had to shake the thought from her mind. I don’t care how pretty you are. I’m not talking to you!
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