Discipline Down Under

by Patricia Green

  “You get used to them with time. Just keep doing the Aussie salute.”

  “What’s that?”

  He showed her by waving his hand in front of his face, as she had done.

  “Right.” She honestly didn’t think she’d ever get used to the irritating bugs.

  They hung close to camp for the next two hours. Peg did manage to take a picture of an Australian bustard in full mating plumage. It was a sight she’d remember for her whole life; that large white gullet sack streaming down the bird’s lanky body was amazing. But that was the only picture worth taking. She did insist on getting one of Tripp, complete with his Akubra hat perched on his head. He’d shaved that morning, and to Peg’s delight, a dimple appeared in his chin. He couldn’t have been more rugged and handsome-looking in a tuxedo. It was a picture she’d cherish for a long time, long after they’d have to go their separate ways.

  Eventually, they made sure the camp was clean and ready for the next campers, hefted their packs and started out through the bush. The forest got less and less dense as they traveled, though many more trees could be seen along the water course. They stayed far away from it, of course, but Peg wished she could see the birds and animals that visited the water.

  After they’d gone on a couple of hours, and Peg had taken several more pictures of pretty birds, they stopped for lunch at a ranger station. The place was in a cleared patch, graveled all around the main bungalow. A few small houses stood nearby, and Tripp explained that the rangers lived there, tending to the tourists and keeping track of the wildlife. If the crocodiles got too plentiful, it was their job to report it so that conservationists could come move them elsewhere. They also posted and maintained the croc warning signs, especially in the areas where salties were spotted.

  There were several rangers in evidence when they arrived. Tripp knew them all, and Peg discovered that he’d worked as a ranger in Nitmiluk Park which wasn’t too far away. There was one woman ranger present, as well as an aboriginal man, and a youngish Caucasian man who greeted Tripp with great enthusiasm, patting him on the back hard and joking around.

  “Hey, Matt. G’day!”

  “G’day, mate. Who’s that with ya?” the ranger asked Tripp, though his eyes were solidly on Peg.

  “Peggy Fisk, mate.”

  Peg shoved out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Matt. Call me Peg.”

  “A pleasure to meet ya, too. Yer a Yank, are ya?” he replied, holding her hand a bit too long.

  “I’m an American.”

  “Right-o. Yer accent gave ya away. Come into the station for tucker, why don’t ya? The flies are less pesky inside.”

  “Lunch would be lovely,” Peg told him. In fact, she was starving. She’d been trying to moderate her food and water intake, so that she’d be faced with fewer embarrassing trips into the bushes, but it left her hungry and thirsty. Here at the station, they had some sort of plumbing, so it wouldn’t be such an awkward situation.

  “Apples,” Matt said, gesturing toward the bungalow.

  “You have apples?”

  “Oh, right,” he said with a smile. “Forgot ya were a Yank for a moment. Apples just means that things are all good.”

  “Ah.” Peg vowed again to pick up some of this Aussie slang. She felt like she was in a country with a language other than English, and without a Berlitz translation book. Peg consulted her phone while they were on their way toward one of the buildings, and found that she had a connection again. She popped off a few quick texts and listened with half an ear while the two men talked about ranger business.

  They went inside and pulled out their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while Matt ate vegemite. Peg thought that was kinda gross, but she didn’t say anything.

  Matt, on the other hand, was quite focused on her.

  * * *

  “So what has ya hooked up with this disreputable bloke?” Matt asked Peggy with a smile.

  Tripp took it in the spirit of joking, as it was intended. He’d known Matt for a number of years, hoisted a schooner or three with him a few times. They were mates, well enough.

  Peggy answered. “He’s my guide. I’m a nature photographer.”

  “That explains the camera hanging off yer pack.”

  She nodded, biting into the sandwich. Her small, even, white teeth and the way she licked her lips did something to Tripp. Something he tamped down firmly.

  “Care to share yer piccies?”

  “Uh…”

  “She might like to Photoshop them first, Matt,” Tripp said, seeing Peggy’s discomfort.

  “No, no, that’s okay,” she said, getting up to grab her Nikon. “They’re probably not good enough for what I have in mind, but I’m trying to get something special.”

  Matt took the camera as Peggy turned on the display. “We’ll be the judge of that, miss.” He clicked through the digital pictures, eyes narrowing, growing wide, focusing on the various pictures critically.

  Tripp was a little resentful. He’d not been offered more than a glimpse into what Peggy had been shooting. He held out his hand. “May I?”

  Peggy’s frown was small, a little worried look. Why would she be more concerned about him seeing them than Matt? But her answer was a nod.

  Matt spoke up while Tripp was looking at the photos. “Those were exceptional, Peg. Never seen better, even in my field guides. Ya have a knack, ya do.”

  Peggy’s cheeks went pink with pride. “Thank you so much! I’ve been awfully determined about what I want to do ever since my mother cut me off… I mean, ever since I came to Australia to be with my father.” She paused, looking between Tripp and Matt for some sign that they’d noticed her gaffe. Tripp most certainly had, but he decided to wait until they were alone to explore the information with her. Matt, on the other hand, was smiling flirtatiously at Peggy and touched her hand as she put the camera down on the Formica table top.

  Tripp didn’t much like the looks that passed between the two. “They really are bonzo pictures, luv. I’m sure they’ll get published. Ya ought to write a travel article to go with them and become a photojournalist.” He was telling her the unvarnished truth, too. Her photos were excellent

  He watched her preen a little. “I might do that. I got decent grades in English at… uni. Uni, right?”

  Both Tripp and Matt nodded. “Finish yer lunch, Peggy-girl. We need to be off if we’re to make the Fernie Billabong before it grows dark.”

  “I hope you’ll come back and add a little bright spot to this dull old station, Peg,” Matt said. “We don’t get many visitors pretty as ya.”

  Tripp’s annoyance meter popped up a peg, but he forced it down. If Peggy wanted to flirt with Matt, Tripp had nothing to say about it. He was her guide, not her boyfriend. His jaw remained tight, however, despite his best efforts.

  “Thank you, Matt,” she said, finishing her lunch. “It’s been fun meeting you. It would be nice to see you again sometime.”

  Matt jumped on it, much as Tripp might have done under other circumstances. “Where are ya based?”

  “Katherine.”

  “Not far, in outback terms,” Matt said. “We could meet for a meal or a pot of piss sometime.”

  “Pot of…”

  “Blimey. My mouth’s run off with my tongue again. I mean a beer.”

  “Oh! Well, that would be nice. I love Fosters.”

  Matt laughed. “We have a few other beers too, but if ya want a Fosters, Fosters it will be.”

  “We really need to get along,” Tripp interjected, unhappy about them planning a date in front of him. He felt seriously left out and more than a little bit jealous. He had no right, though, and he had to keep telling himself that.

  Matt addressed Tripp when he asked, “When is the bushwalking done?”

  “Three more nights,” Tripp supplied.

  Turning back to Peggy, Matt said, “I can meet ya in Katherine in four nights, in that case. I have a day off coming soon enough. If not, I’ll take a sickie.”

&nb
sp; Peggy’s smile was wide and she touched Matt’s arm, right after giving Tripp a satisfied smile. “I’d love that. You can call the hotel and leave word about where and what time. I’m staying at the Best Western Pine Tree Hotel.”

  “Oh, sure. Nice girl like you should be staying at a bonzo hotel like that.”

  Peggy giggled, and Tripp had had enough. “If yer done making yer plans, we need to leave. Peggy, say ta to Matt and get yer pack.”

  Her smile never wavered. She seemed awfully pleased with herself. Matt took her hand as she rose and cupped it in his two big paws. “Until then, luv.”

  Nodding and giggling, Peggy got her pack and walked out of the station behind Tripp.

  Matt followed them out, and Peggy excused herself and went off to the ladies room, while Matt and Tripp eyed each other.

  “She a good root, mate?”

  Tripp’s jaw tightened again. “Wouldn’t know. She’s my client, remember?”

  “She’s also a looker. Ya keepin’ yer old feller on a leash these days?”

  “I’ve never chased after a client. Bad business. Ya shouldn’t be sniffing after the tourists either, mate.”

  Matt shrugged. “Something to do. Besides, a man’s got to be a man, especially around a woman with a round little fanny like that.”

  “Fuck, Matt, will ya keep those thoughts to yerself?”

  Matt took a step back, holding his hands out, palms outthrust. “No offense. I thought ya were keeping yer distance. If that’s the case, why would ya care?”

  “I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “She’ll be fine, Tripp. Give her some credit for having a brain in her pretty blond head.”

  Tripp would have liked to say more, but Peggy walked up at that moment. Perhaps she felt the tension in the air, because she looked from Tripp to Matt and back to Tripp again, asking a silent question.

  Adjusting his hat, he nodded his goodbye to Matt and started leading the way away from the ranger station. He heard Peggy and Matt exchanging their own goodbyes, and after a moment, Peggy’s footsteps on the gravel drew near.

  “You’re being a bear, Tripp,” she told him. “I don’t know why you’re so pissed.”

  “Pissed doesn’t mean what ya think it means. Learn the goddamn language, Peggy.”

  “How can I? You guys never explain what you’re saying! So far, only Matt has been kind enough to translate for me.”

  “Matt this and Matt that.”

  “Damn, Tripp. You’re acting… jealous. Are you jealous?”

  Was he? Probably. But he still had no claim on Peggy and couldn’t have. “Doesn’t matter.”

  She stopped walking behind him, but after a few moments hurried to catch up.

  “Do you want to kiss me again?” she asked, her little-girl voice making it sound like do you want a lollypop.

  Out of sight of the station now, Tripp turned around to her and, unable to stop himself, pulled her up against him and kissed her aggressively, roughly. Resentful at losing his cool, Tripp disengaged from her and took a step back. “No. I don’t want to kiss ya again.”

  “But you just did.”

  “Not because I wanted to.”

  “Are all you Australian men so confusing? Or is it Tripp Ruf’s specialty?” Her smile was small, teasing.

  He knew he was speaking in riddles, but he really didn’t understand what was going on. How could he be so determined to keep her at arm’s length and then do just the opposite? “Let’s keep going. We have a long walk ahead.”

  “Okay. But I won’t forget that you kissed me.”

  “Let’s not talk about it, Peggy.”

  “I mean, I still think you want to kiss me. More, that is. I don’t think two kisses will be enough for you.”

  Unfortunately, she was probably right. “Leave it be, woman.”

  “You say you don’t want to kiss me, but the evidence says exactly the opposite. I’ll bet you want to kiss me right now, even.”

  “Peggy…” he growled.

  “You know, I liked kissing you too. You seemed to really get into it. Like when your tongue glided over my teeth, I thought, whoa, now there’s a guy who knows how to kiss.”

  Tripp’s pulse was beating like a jackhammer. He stopped in the middle of the trail, barely holding himself in check, because it was entirely true. He wanted to kiss her, kiss the daylights out of her. He had to get control of himself!

  “Why are you stopping?” she asked. “Is there another snake? Or is this a kissing break? Because I’m fine with that. If you want to kiss me, that is.”

  “Gah!” Turning rapidly, he took the two steps back to her and pulled her up into his arms, planting a searing kiss on her pouty lips. He thrust his tongue in her mouth and savored the soft mewling sounds she made as she teased his tongue right back. Her hands came up to his shoulders and she pressed the length of her torso to his. She was a petite little bundle of sex kitten, and at that moment, Tripp couldn’t get enough.

  He kissed her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids. They both were breathless when the kisses slowed. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he whispered against her hair.

  “No. You didn’t. I wanted you to do it, though.”

  Chuckling, Tripp tilted her face up an inch and kissed her lips again. A light kiss, full of promises they couldn’t keep.

  “No more of this, minx.”

  She sighed. “If you say so.”

  “And no more talking about kisses. That’s an order.”

  Shrugging, she adjusted her pack and compressed her lips. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Determined to resist her, Tripp trudged forward along the trail through the mulga. They had a ways to go, and there would be no more time for kisses.

  * * *

  Tripp slept out of the tent that night. Peg found it more than a little frustrating, and she could tell by his rustling that he wasn’t sleeping any better than she was. It seemed like she’d barely closed her eyes when a kookaburra started its morning cackle and oo-oo-ah-ah-tooky-tooky sounds. The loud birds woke them every morning at dawn. Peg liked it, in a way. It was better than an alarm clock—so much less industrial.

  Tripp called her from outside. “Time to get up, luv.”

  Before crawling out of her sleeping bag, Peg looked at the latest pictures on her camera. She barely ate the food Tripp had prepared, she was so excited by the idea of getting pictures of the nighttime animals. Flying foxes flapped in the nearby trees, eating fruit and gathering pollen as they went. They were big bats, nothing like those she’d seen while spelunking in Utah on a school expedition. And their chuckling was funny, not scary, even when they flapped close enough for her to hear their wings push the air. She got a few pictures of them, but her light source wasn’t really up to the task and the pictures were too dim for anything but her memory album. The bilbies came out better. They were a weird combo of cat, rat, and rabbit, in her eyes, and their snuffling around in the leaves was fascinating to watch. The pictures might be good enough to add to her work. She’d pretty much decided to try writing a photojournalistic article. It couldn’t hurt to give it a go; they could only say no, they wouldn’t hit her.

  To that end, she repurposed her notepad to include her emotional reactions to the animals and plants, carefully keeping her feelings about her guide to herself. Mostly what she felt was defeated, but she refused to fall down completely. There was time. Two more nights to make something happen.

  “Peggy? Ya coming out?”

  Answering in the affirmative, she hurried out to start the day.

  Although she hadn’t really eaten dinner the night before, Peg skipped breakfast, too, in order to minimize bathroom breaks. She didn’t know why that embarrassed her so much; she was being foolish, certainly. But that didn’t change the fact that she was embarrassed and wanted to keep those pauses as infrequent as possible. She swished a bit of water in her mouth after brushing her teeth, but had little more than that before they left for their day’s adventure.

  Aft
er about an hour, Peg found her pack getting heavy. She stopped to re-adjust the straps, but it wasn’t any better when she hurried to catch up with Tripp. She felt like someone had put rocks in it overnight. But she was soon distracted by a particularly interesting bird, and Tripp quietly guided them into the bush so she could photograph it, and then he guided them back on to the trail again, Peg admired his ability to find their way through the dense growth, but then, she didn’t know how long he’d been doing this. He could have grown up out in the bush.

  “Hey, Tripp?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long have you been a guide?”

  “About four years. Why do ya ask? Worried about getting lost?” There was humor in his voice.

  “Just curious. Did you have to take a class or something?”

  “I went to uni, but that’s not where I learned how to make my way through the bush. I mostly credit it to my partner, Victor Gray. He’s an abo and brilliant at getting into the bush and surviving on next to nothing.”

  “Wow. I’ll have to meet him someday.” It was a hollow statement. There was little likelihood that she’d see Tripp’s partner after the bushwalking. Peg tried not to think about how unhappy she’d be separating from Tripp when the tour was over. If she could just convince him to give her a chance, coax him into a few more kisses, maybe they could make something out of their mutual attraction. The chemistry was there, but the logistics were a tangled mess. She’d have to go back to Perth upon returning to Katherine, and it seemed unlikely that Tripp would pursue her there or anywhere. She didn’t even know how long she’d be in Australia. Right now, her mother wasn’t talking to her, having called her a spoiled brat, but that was sure to change as her mother came to forgive her for wrecking her new car and dropping out of yet another college.

  Maybe she was a spoiled brat. But now that she’d found her calling—nature photography—she felt much more centered and focused. Of course, she wasn’t quite sure how to make something of it. She’d never had a job, much less put herself out there for the public to judge. She might be a dismal failure at it, and that thought was scary. What if she couldn’t ever make it on her own? Fortunately, Mom and Dad could keep her afloat, but their patience wasn’t endless.