by DIMORRISSEY
‘Stay with him as long as you need to, Millie. Ruthie can take over here.’
‘How is she?’
‘Fine, I guess. I haven’t seen her yet. Why do you ask, Millie?’
Queenie wondered at the strained tone in Millie’s voice.
‘She’s bin having boyfriend problems.’
‘Oh no, that’s all I need. Well, she can’t go mooning off over some lad. I need her to help in the house and look after Sas.’
‘I didn’t want to bother you with it. I hoped she would sort it all out.’
‘Sort what out? Millie, tell me what’s been going on.’
Queenie listened with her head in her hands as Millie told her that Ruthie was being courted by two young fellows. One, an itinerant half-caste stockman, the other, a full-blood warrior from Ruthie’s traditional tribal home who had been seen staying at the blacks’ camp which had established itself in the no-man’s land between Tingulla and the township.
‘Ruthie may be a full blood, but she’s a mission girl, Queenie. She don’t know anything about what to do. Them boys are filling her head with such nonsense. And one don’t know about the other,’ finished Millie.
‘Right. I’ll soon fix all that. Thanks for letting me know, Millie. Keep me posted on Jim. Cheers.’
Queenie hung up the phone. She’d better get Ruthie’s love life straightened out. It had all the ingredients of a major conflict. The blacks had an incredibly complex social system, and relationships had strict rules. Anyone who broke tribal law was in for big trouble.
Nervously Ruthie sat in the kitchen twisting a corkscrew curl of her thick dark hair against her cheek. She hung her head, mumbling, and avoiding eye contact with Queenie.
‘Now, Ruthie. Look at me. Which of these two boys do you like?’
‘Both good fellas.’
‘I’m sure they are. But you can’t have two boyfriends. How serious is this? I mean, do you want to marry one of them? Have they asked you to marry them?’
Ruthie shook her head from side to side. ‘They just want me go down the back with them.’
‘Sleep with them, you mean?’
Ruthie’s frightened face stared at Queenie. ‘I know it’s wrong. I ain’t done nothin’. The nuns teach me. I’m a good girl.’
‘I know you are, Ruthie. I think it best if you tell both of them you can’t see them any more. And they are not to come onto Tingulla land. Okay?’
Queenie rose, patting a miserable Ruthie on the shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard, Ruthie, but it’s for the best. You’ll soon find a nice man you’ll like much better.’
The following night Queenie was awakened by dogs barking and raised voices at the rear of the kitchen. Pulling on her cotton robe Queenie grabbed the torch from beside her bed and hurried downstairs.
Ernie, who had graduated from rouseabout to stockman, was hammering on the door to Ruthie’s small room by the laundry.
‘What in heaven’s name is going on, Ernie? Don’t tell me you’re one of Ruthie’s boyfriends too!’
‘No, no, Queenie. Them two fellas bin fightin’ over Ruthie. Georgie got drunk and went and punched up Freddy at the camp and Freddy say he gonna spear ‘im good.’
‘Where is this Georgie fellow now?’
‘He run away but I hear he coming to hide at Tingulla, so I tell Ruthie.’
‘Thank you, Ernie. You go back to your quarters. I’ll take Ruthie inside.’
Ruthie spent the rest of the night huddled on the couch in Millie’s workroom.
In the morning Queenie visited all the men on the property, telling them firmly that no strangers were to be sheltered at Tingulla — white, black or brindie.
She thought about putting in a call to Sergeant Harris but decided against it. In the sober light of day, she hoped Georgie, the half-caste stockman — now hungover — and Freddy the visiting Aborigine, would both have realised that courting Ruthie was inviting trouble.
There hadn’t been serious trouble among the Aborigines in the district for years and Queenie hoped that was the end of it. Ruthie went meekly about her chores and Queenie settled down to going through the pile of account books.
That wasn’t the end of it.
The following evening Queenie pushed the accounts to one side, feeling troubled and confused. She went upstairs to her room, searching in her bathroom for a headache tablet. She took the pill and glass of water onto the upper verandah off the bedroom and stood in the night air. The moon looked watery and faint, and the wind made the trees rustle and whisper. She was glad she wasn’t out there, the night didn’t feel friendly. She shut the French doors and returned to the cosy, softly lit bedroom.
Queenie wished Warwick was back. She needed to talk to him. The books weren’t adding up correctly. They balanced, but there had to be something Warwick had overlooked. They couldn’t be so deeply in debt to the bank. She didn’t even know where to contact Warwick. When she’d phoned his hotel they told her he had checked out. Maybe he was coming home early. Queenie pulled down the bedspread and shook her pillow. She certainly hoped so. She tiptoed in to check on the sleeping Saskia and wished she could sleep as peacefully.
While Queenie tossed and turned in her troubled sleep, a dream-like figure moved silently, stealthily, through the shadows and pale moonlight of the landscape.
It was the figure of an unearthly man. His skin was thick with grey clay paste, white and red ochre markings were painted in ceremonial patterns on his body. His face was obscured by a mask; and leaves and feathers formed a tall headdress and a brief covering around his genitals. His feet were shod with thick pads of soft grasses which left no mark as he ran swiftly and lightly, his spear balanced in his swinging arm.
Georgie rolled in his blanket by the embers of his campfire. He was well hidden in a small gully close to the eastern boundary of Tingulla. His few possessions were tied together ready to hit the road at dawn, seeking a stockman’s job. He had contemplated sneaking close to the homestead in the hopes of finding Ruthie, but decided it was too risky. In any case, there were plenty of other girls about who would be only too happy to share his blanket.
His horse was hobbled nearby but it pricked its ears and gently swished its tail as Georgie slept.
There was no sound, but Georgie opened his eyes and went cold with fear, his hair rising in prickles on his head. The ghostly figure stood above him with spear raised. Before Georgie could move or utter a sound, the spear flashed down, piercing his thigh.
He screamed in fear and pain, and his horse, now let loose, took fright and galloped into the night.
The figure withdrew the spear, turned and melted into the trees.
The next afternoon Snowy appeared at the kitchen door asking for Queenie. ‘Some boys found a stray horse down the eastern fence. Me and Ernie back-tracked ‘im and found that fella Georgie. He bin speared, cut up pretty bad.’
‘My God … I suppose it was the other man — Freddy. I was afraid something like this might happen.’
Snowy was shaking his head, his eyes wide and fearful. ‘Not Freddy. Well, not exactly. He speared by kadaicha man. Now all the black fellas working here want to go away from Tingulla.’
Queenie was about to make a quick retort, but bit back the sarcastic comment. That was all she needed now — a walkout by the Aboriginal stockmen.
The mysterious kadaicha, or payback man, meted out justice as violently as deemed necessary. No one ever knew who was the unidentifiable member of the tribe who became the kadaicha man to revenge a wrongdoing. Many believed the kadaicha man was a spirit called back to human form to carry out these deeds.
‘Has someone called the Flying Doctor?’
‘He no want white medicine. He get fixed up with Aboriginal medicine.’
‘And then will he go away? Far away from Tingulla, Ruthie and Freddy?’
Snowy nodded. ‘Yeah. He look for work some other place. He sorry he punched up Freddy. Now he mad at Ruthie.’
‘Well, you tell one of the boy
s to get the message to this Georgie that Ruthie isn’t having anything to do with Freddy either. The matter is finished. Okay, Snowy? Tell the men they have no need to fear staying here.’
Queenie went in search of Ruthie to tell her what had happened and found her at the clothesline unpegging the washing.
She knew all about it. Ernie was squatting by the large wicker washing basket repeating the story in graphic detail. A wide-eyed Saskia sat nearby pretending to play with the clothes pegs, but following the story as best she could with a frown of concentration.
Ernie rose to his feet and grinned as Queenie approached. ‘Ruthie’s famous. The kadaicha man came after her boyfriend!’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Ruthie isn’t having anything to do with Freddy or Georgie or anyone else for the moment. She has plenty to do while Millie is away looking after Jim. Isn’t that right, Ruthie?’
Ruthie dumped the last of the sheets on top of the washing basket, nodding her head in firm agreement. ‘That’s right. I got to work hard. No time for boys,’ she answered emphatically.
Queenie turned away and headed back to the house so Ruthie wouldn’t see the smile twitching up the corners of her mouth.
Ruthie pushed the mountain of washing down into the basket and grasped the handles.
Ernie sprang forward. ‘Here. I’ll carry that, Ruthie.’ She was about to answer she carried that and more every washday, but seeing Ernie’s eager face, she smiled shyly at him. ‘Thanks, Ern.’
Warwick drove up to the front entrance and slapping his hat on his leg to shake off the dust, he flung it on the hat stand in the vestibule. It was two days since the spearing drama, and things had settled down.
‘Queenie … where are you, my love? I’m home.’
He gave her an affectionate bear hug as Saskia clung to his leg, squeezing it tightly. ‘So how have things been while I’ve been away? Nice and quiet?’
Queenie stood back and, folding her arms, spoke calmly. ‘Jim had an accident and Millie is looking after him in hospital. We had a falling-out between two suitors of Ruthie’s which was settled with a spear and the kadaicha man, half a dozen sheep have died with ticks and, according to your accounting, we are over our heads in debt — and you checked out of your hotel and disappeared off the face of the earth. What in heaven’s name is going on, Warwick?’
Chapter Eighteen
Saskia perched at the desk before the bulky two-way radio unit, talking animatedly into the microphone. ‘… And my horse is called Admiral and I ride him every day, and we have a cow called Bessie and lots of chickens. Oh, and sheep.’
She finished, but Queenie, who was sitting next to her gently prompted, ‘Say “Over” and flip the switch’.
The teacher’s voice crackled back from the fabric-covered loudspeaker of the old wireless. ‘Thank you, Saskia, for telling us about your pets. That was Saskia Redmond of Tingulla. Now we’re going to hear from Jason Browne at Barcoola.’
The School of the Air session finished and Queenie and Saskia walked hand in hand to the verandah for morning tea.
‘I have to do a drawing for school, Mummy. I think I’ll draw Bessie.’
‘You can do that this afternoon. I think Tom, the mailman, might be round tomorrow and we can send it on to your teacher right away.’
‘I like school, Mummy.’
‘I’m glad, Saskia. But when you are older you’ll have to go away to school. To boarding school.’
Saskia’s lip trembled and tears sprang to her eyes. ‘I don’t want to go away.’
Queenie reached out and scooped her into her lap and hugged her. ‘Oh, Sas … it won’t be for a couple more years. When you’re a big girl. So don’t worry about it. By that time I bet you’ll really want to go and have fun with all the other girls.’
Saskia was now crying steadily into Queenie’s chest but managed a firm but muffled response. ‘I don’t want to go away from Tingulla …’
Queenie rocked her, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it so early. She wasn’t looking forward to that day either. ‘Tell you what, possum. Dry your eyes … I’ll make you a promise.’ Gently she wiped Saskia’s wet cheeks as the child stared hopefully at her mother. ‘When you’re ready for big school, if you still don’t want to go away, Daddy and I will get you a governess, a special teacher, to come and live here at Tingulla and teach you. How does that sound?’
‘Good.’ The little girl slipped down from Queenie’s lap, her problem solved. ‘I’m going to get Bessie so I can draw her.’
Queenie gazed through the window at the bleached, yellowing ground as Saskia scampered off. Six months with no rain. Feed was getting scarce. She and Warwick would have to help the men start hacking off branches of the mulga trees for the sheep to eat. She hoped it wouldn’t get to the point of having to buy in feed. Warwick had explained away their huge debt at the bank as the cost of their expansion and ‘investment’ plans, which he confidently promised would more than be recovered at the end of the next shearing season.
Queenie had remained unconvinced. She was a risk-taker, but not a gambler. Patrick had cautioned her on getting into anything ‘over her head’. Queenie well knew the vagaries of the outback climate and this drought had struck at the worst possible time for them.
She got to her feet and went towards the stables, kicking at the dust, leaving a trail of small ochre clouds at her heels. But they would weather it. They’d lose some sheep but it would take more than a drought and one bad season to knock Tingulla over.
She sighed as she saddled Nareedah. There always seemed to be a crisis lately. Perhaps Colin was the smart one, after all, swanning around Europe on his honeymoon without a care. It struck her again — she and Warwick had never taken their honeymoon trip abroad. Well, one day, when the finances were healthy again. Tingulla had to come first.
TR decided to concentrate his energies on setting up the horse stud at Guneda. He hired a team of workers who began repairing and painting the miles of fencing over the property. Some of the old sheds were torn down and plans for elaborate stables and training facilities were drawn up. It was by no means as fabulously over-the-top as the stud at Bon Vite in Kentucky, but TR combined the best of the new with the best of the old.
Some of the new buildings looked like colonial slab wood huts, with wooden shingle roofs; whilst others were built of slices of bush rock so they blended in harmoniously with the landscape. They were insulated and lined so they would be cool in summer and warm in winter, the interiors freshly whitewashed. The floors were concrete and each horse box was comfortable and well ventilated. The stablehands had a modern bunkhouse and a special room near the horses in case any needed to be closely monitored during the night.
A two-mile racetrack was carved out of the bush for training, and TR surprised the old hands by digging a special dam with a pontoon. As part of their fitness programme, the thoroughbreds would take their exercise in the dam, swimming up and down while the trainer walked around the pontoon holding the lead rope.
The old homestead was renovated and TR had plans to eventually add a wing of guest rooms for buyers and breeders. That would come later. First he had to buy his horses.
He had hired two young stablehands — a couple of hopeful bush jockeys who had grown too big to race, but still wanted to ride. They would exercise and care for the horses. He also hired two Aboriginal horsemen to help with the horse-breaking. He wished he could find a couple like Millie and Jim to manage and run the house and oversee the property, but settled instead for Mum Ryan, a capable, nononsense widow who had raised ten children and buried two husbands. There wasn’t much Mum hadn’t seen in her days as a ‘bushwife’. From giving birth at home alone, to bushfires, and snakes in the bed. Mum cooked, washed, cleaned, and bossed everyone about.
That left one more man TR wanted to find — Bobby Fenton, the legendary strapper who had cared for some of Australia’s greatest racehorses back in the 1930s. Now in his sixties, Bobby had retired quietly a
nd dropped out of the racing world. TR remembered his father telling him about Bobby. How he had special ways with horses, that he was considered a bit unorthodox, especially with his feeding methods, but the horses he cared for were strong, with enormous stamina and heart.
After a lot of letters and phone calls TR found him living in a Brisbane suburb with his daughter. TR wrote to him, phoned him and finally visited him, to persuade him to come and work at Guneda.
TR and Bobby sat on the lattice-trimmed verandah of the old Queenslander house, built on stilts to catch the afternoon breeze. TR outlined his offer. Old Bobby scratched his head. ‘I dunno. I’m a bit old for that sort of caper now. Though I do miss having horses around.’
‘What do you do with yourself, Bobby?’
‘Aw, do a bit of gardening. Go to the pub occasionally. Do the crossword in the paper,’ and with a grin added, ‘and follow the nags a bit. Have the odd bet.’
‘I reckon you could be really valuable to me and teach me a lot, Bobby. Be a shame to take all your knowledge with you.’
‘Yeah, I got a few secrets,’ grinned the wiry old strapper. ‘So, your old man used to ride, and you’re setting up as a trainer. Where’d you get the money?’
TR laughed. ‘It’s all above board, Bobby. I’m working for a rich American horse breeder who wants an investment out here. I’m in it because I love good horses and I want to make a quid or two.’
‘Fair enough. You seem an honest sort of a bloke. I’ll think about it.’
‘Come out and look around before you decide, Bobby.’
A few weeks later Bobby turned up at Guneda unannounced. He stowed his ‘port’ packed with his special possessions under his bed — ‘for the moment’ — and never left.
He and Mum Ryan quickly engaged in open but friendly warfare, each constantly contradicting the other. ‘Keeps you on your toes, stops the brain being addled if you stir her up a bit,’ Bobby confided to TR.
Mum referred to Bobby as ‘that silly old fool with his whacko ideas’ but always managed to drop the tenderest bit of steak on Bobby’s plate or the last of the treacle pudding would turn up for his morning smoko. TR relaxed when he realised the two were actually developing a firm friendship through their cracks and digs at each other.
