River Run

by Alexander, Nicole

  For her mother and stepfather it was all about perception and decorum, values imposed on the family by the two founding River brothers in the 1870s and stoically carried down through the generations to Georgia, who, as an only child, had married a Webber, two Webbers in fact. Such standards ran in tandem with the family’s rise to prominence in pastoral Australia. Eleanor’s grandfather had been savvy when it came to land acquisition, with the early death of his brother, Montague, sadly ensuring River Run could be passed down in its entirety. Eleanor didn’t have any issues with a family trying to better their standing in the world – indeed she was a firm believer in each generation improving upon the last – but she felt there was something wrong here. It almost seemed as if Georgia was more concerned about public opinion than the shocking behaviour of her son. Were it not for Colin and idle tongues, Eleanor guessed that Robbie would not be sent away, Georgia wouldn’t allow it. ‘So you think Robbie should be treated leniently, Mum?’

  ‘It was an accident after all, Eleanor.’

  ‘You know I never said that.’

  ‘Outside the walls of this house, that’s what people will think.’ Georgia’s response was curt. ‘And they will think that because there is nothing to the contrary to suggest otherwise.’

  Eleanor didn’t respond.

  ‘What would you have me do? Have your brother thrown into some home for delinquents?’

  ‘Of course not, Mum, but boarding school may only be the first step. He may need more help. I told you what happened and we both know that the shooting of that man was not an unfortunate accident. You yourself said he’s been running wild. Well, what if there is something else? What if Robbie shares that same fragility that struck Lesley, except that in his case it’s –’

  ‘Stop. Stop right there. I will not have my own daughter drawing such ridiculous parallels. You were with him yesterday, were you not? Why didn’t you stop him before this debacle occurred?’

  ‘Why did you let an eleven-year-old roam the bush with a rifle?’ Eleanor retaliated.

  The fan made a squeak of complaint and then stopped. A burning smell quickly followed.

  ‘The engine’s burnt out.’ Rising, Eleanor flicked the on-off switch. The fan remained dead.

  ‘Colin …’ Georgia faltered at the saying of his name. ‘Colin gave it to Robbie on his ninth birthday. He and your father shared one at the same age apparently.’ She opened the door to leave, hesitating at the threshold. ‘I told him not to. I told him Robbie was too young, but Colin said I was just mollycoddling the boy.’ She paused, moistened her lips. ‘He’s an excellent shot, your brother. Everyone says so. Takes after his father, and your father, Eleanor, and they were both snipers during the Great War. Steady and patient. They could stand in a shell-hole filled with water for days on end. And they always got their target. I’m not silly, Eleanor. I know your brother shot that man on purpose.’ Georgia swallowed, turned to the man on the bed. The finality of her words, the conviction, was reinforced by the steadfastness in her eyes. She gave the man a disinterested glance, rolled her lips as if she’d tasted something bitter. ‘But don’t forget, Eleanor, no matter who this man may be, at the end of the day he was trespassing on our land.’ She shut the door.

  Monday

  Shearing Begins

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sound of barking dogs and the dull hum of an engine carried across the rear of the garden to where Eleanor sat, sketching in the early morning light. A string of jenny wrens preening themselves from their perch on the new trellis caught her attention as they fluttered heavenward. She watched them absently from the bench near the kidney-shaped ponds, before resuming her view of the house. The pale sandstone of irregular-shaped blocks sat squarely on the earth. The expanse of stone on the ground floor was broken up by five narrow windows, a contrast to the rooms above with their white-trimmed doors, windows and decorative louvres. A drooping vine twisted along part of the wall leading to the only door at the rear of the house, the kitchen entrance, while at the corner of the building grew the tree Robbie had scuttled down only a few days prior.

  The illustration she’d recently completed captured her half-brother perfectly. He stood with his palms and nose pressed against the glass of the French door leading onto the balcony. Eleanor returned Robbie’s half-hearted wave, watching as he disappeared from view, no doubt readying for his lessons. The governess was under instruction to escort Robbie to and from the schoolroom and Miss Hastings had risen to the challenge. Yesterday, although a Sunday, she’d marched her young charge across to the schoolhouse, as if Robbie were a convicted felon and she a prison warden. There he’d spent the entire afternoon. Eleanor guessed that her brother was sorry for what he’d done, for he was miserable, bored and nervous when she’d visited him last night, but he’d not voiced an apology for his actions.

  Directly below Robbie’s space was the sickroom. The figure of Athena Pappas hovered near the bedroom window, perhaps checking the flow of the drip on its makeshift stand. Eleanor hadn’t known what to expect, but the beauty of the willowy, dark-haired woman was almost equalled by the sadness shadowing her almond eyes. Although professionally polite on first meeting, the woman’s curiosity regarding her charge was obvious. Athena asked many questions of everybody, curt, intelligent questions, which quickly led Georgia to tell the nurse to mind her own business.

  ‘Morning, Eleanor,’ Athena called loudly through the flyscreened window. ‘What a fine day it is.’

  Closing the sketchbook, Eleanor walked towards the house, agreeing that it was indeed a lovely morning, one that would soon be ruined by the day’s expected heat.

  The nurse ignored the comment. ‘No change, I’m afraid,’ Athena continued, as if they were standing face to face and there wasn’t twenty yards and a flyscreen between them. ‘But it’s only been a couple of days. Are you still able to sit with him while I go into the village this afternoon? I need to buy some dressings.’

  Eleanor confirmed that she could, politely avoiding further conversation and the offer of a cuppa out in the sun. It was not that she didn’t like Athena, she was still strung out by recent events and idle chitchat was beyond her at the moment. Were the nurse not quite so conscientious, Eleanor would have visited the patient more often, in fact she felt compelled to do so, but she wanted to be alone with him.

  Although not to blame for the shooting, despite the allegations of some, an element of guilt remained with Eleanor. Time and again she revisited the events of the afternoon leading up to the incident. She never should have climbed down the tree and left Robbie that afternoon, she should have paid more attention to what he spoke about; noted his obsession with war and communism. In contrast, Eleanor tried to draw comfort from the fact that it would have been impossible for anyone to have known Robbie’s thoughts that day, for a childish conviction had overtaken reason. But in the end it was she who’d been with Robbie, no-one else.

  This was the bush. Eleanor had been born and raised here. The cosseting she saw in city streets as parents drove their children to class or dropped them off to meet the school bus was far removed from the early independence that came with growing up in rural Australia. But the shooting made her wonder how attentive her mother and stepfather had been to Robbie’s needs. How many parents let a boy ride off with a rifle?

  Slipping pen and paper into the satchel left sitting on a garden table, Eleanor slung the bag over a shoulder and walked across the lawn and out the gate, joining the dirt track that led down towards the station outbuildings. The blue truck was parked at the meat-house and Rex and the Aboriginal butcher and general kitchen hand, Dawson, were dropping the tail gate. The wiry gardener lifted one of two sheep carcasses from where it rested on the hide on the vehicle’s tray and, labouring under the weight of it, carried it inside the meat-house. Dawson helped him hang the sheep from its hocks and then walked outside to lean against the vehicle where he spat on a sharpening stone and began honing a knife. Blood dripped from the remaining shee
p hanging from the tray onto the ground.

  The blood month, Eleanor thought, waving away flies.

  It was some years since she’d been at River Run for shearing. But now she was home again, Eleanor knew that the decision to return had been the right one, marred though it was by the shooting, and shadowed by Dante’s duplicity. Her employer had reluctantly granted Eleanor a fortnight’s leave. She’d proved more than capable in her secretarial role over the last two years. So much so that Eleanor now handled much of the inventory for the hardware store as well. It was not a glamorous job by any means, but the position suited Eleanor’s straightforward, hands-on approach to work. She was pleased now that she’d asked for the extra week. She had run away from Sydney, but she was beginning to feel the benefit of being home.

  The thought of sketching their sheep, as she’d done as a child, made Eleanor recall mustering on horseback with her dad, his black and white kelpie padding along between them until the dog was called to action. When she smiled at these memories, the absence of happiness over the last few weeks grew pronounced. She’d come home and in the doing, in spite of everything, had found her smile.

  The overseer’s cottage was quiet, as was the nearby bunk-house where the jackeroos lived. Eleanor didn’t expect to see anyone loitering on the first day of shearing, and it was nice for a change to wander around her home without the usual stockmen and young jackeroos eyeing her with interest. Some of the men had been part of the team for years, and Eleanor counted them as friends, but the jackeroos came and went with regularity, with only the very capable having the necessary ability to last the full outback apprenticeship.

  The large shearing shed, its iron roof rust-coloured in parts from age, materialised like some primeval dwelling from among the trees. In the late 1800s the shed had grown rather erratically. Old black and white photos showed the gradual addition of skillions with sides made of timber slabs and corrugated iron. Now there were many more providing protection for the engine room and covered holding pens in case of bad weather. The roof cavity held the remnants of saplings used as insulation against the heat of the iron roof, some of the returning shearers still jokingly referring to the shed as the iron lung, remembering bygone days of poor insulation. Still others called the building the old elephant, on account of the weather-beaten timber that resembled an elephant’s hide.

  Balls of dust rose from the adjoining yards, spiralling into the sky. From this angle it appeared as if the dirt was reaching up to grasp the wispy white cloud above. Captivated, Eleanor sat down in the middle of the road and began to sketch what she saw. She worked quickly, the pencil sliding across the page as the sun left its mark on her skin. As she drew, Eleanor occasionally paused to jot down an anecdote, thought or description. Rex’s comments regarding the blood month, Dawson sharpening the butcher’s knife, the way the heat shrouded the countryside. So absorbed was Eleanor that when a fat plop of moisture landed on the drawing, she was jolted back to reality.

  A large red kelpie was eyeing her quietly, drops of saliva dripping from his tongue onto the drawing. The dog was dirty and wet to the flanks and he wasn’t at all interested in moving when Eleanor told him to do so. So she gave him a shove but was more than surprised when he pushed back, showing his teeth. Eleanor moved instead, clambering to her feet and walking away at a brisk pace. The canine was unknown to her, and she to him. The big-boned animal stayed close to her heels as she approached the shed. More than once she checked his progress, a little unnerved by the dog’s proximity, but soon the sight unfolding ahead consumed her.

  Men and sheep could be seen in the distance, moving in the yards among the dust, while in the paddock beyond, another mob of sheep were being walked towards the sprawling woolshed by men on horseback. Eleanor’s artist’s mind delighted in the scene. The dust and dirt engulfed both sheep and men, so that the image was discoloured by a veneer of blurry beige. It was a tableau of almost ghostly rendering, which brought to mind all the previous stockmen and shearers and shed-hands who’d toiled on River Run over the decades.

  ‘Eleanor.’

  Disturbed from her daydream, she waited as the overseer whistled the red dog. The big animal instantly obeyed, running swiftly forward to halt by horse and rider before springing up into the air to land in front of Mr Goward, his paws resting across the man’s thighs. The bay mare whinnied in annoyance. ‘How’s everything going? How’s the patient?’ he asked, ignoring the softly growling kelpie and irritable horse.

  Eleanor shaded her face against the sun’s rays, noticing the worn patches on the knees of Mr Goward’s trousers. ‘Nothing new to report unfortunately,’ she replied. ‘The patient is still unconscious and Uncle Colin’s gone into town with Mr Winslow.’ Eleanor restrained the urge to stare at the blue-green-eyed man. In the dark of Saturday night, the distinctiveness of his appearance had gone unnoticed, but now it captivated her.

  ‘Car problems, I hear?’ Mr Goward patted the red dog, who gave a low growl in response.

  ‘Yes, although Constable Graham wanted to ask Uncle Colin some more questions as well.’

  The man scratched at a clean-shaven cheek. ‘And Robbie?’

  ‘Under lock and key when he isn’t doing his lessons. To be honest,’ Eleanor acknowledged, ‘I’ll never understand why he did it. And I know I was there,’ she continued quickly, ‘but I wasn’t in the damn tree.’

  The overseer dipped his chin, a nod of sorts. ‘Apportioning blame,’ he said noncommittally, ‘is a pretty common human condition. Can I give you a word of advice, Eleanor? Don’t get too upset about what other people think or say, you can’t control any of it and one of these days the truth will out. As for young Robbie, he’s a tearaway, always was, always will be. I couldn’t count the strife he’s been in over the past year. On Friday he had an altercation with one of the jackeroos, on two separate occasions. Next week it will be something or someone else. Hopefully not on a par with this most recent incident. But frankly, and I’d only say this to you, I think there’s blame on both sides.’

  The bay horse shifted the weight on its feet, a pile of dung landing hot and soft on the ground. Mr Goward chewed a bottom lip as if worried about the breaching of his usual reserve.

  Eleanor waited. He was referring to her mother and Colin. In any other circumstance such personal commentary would have been totally inappropriate, but then it wasn’t every day that an eleven-year-old shot someone.

  ‘Everyone knows that Robbie’s fascinated by war,’ he carried on. ‘He’s always asking questions about the Japs and the submarines coming into Sydney, about Mr Webber’s shrapnel wound and your own father’s service.’ Mr Goward stroked the mare between the ears. ‘Robbie’s surrounded by stories of war, past and present.’

  He didn’t need to explain further. Lesley wasn’t the only one of them to be damaged by war. Perhaps they were all touched in some way. A weak heart brought on by the stresses of combat had left their father little to fight with when he was diagnosed with cancer.

  The overseer reached into his pocket, retrieving the makings of a cigarette. ‘Some kids just get carried away.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Eleanor watched as, with a paper stuck to his lip, he rolled the tobacco in the palm of his hand. The movements were deft, but it was not the lighting of the cigarette that drew her, but rather the taut definition of his bicep and the angular line of his masculine jaw. The horse grew impatient, pawing at the earth. Eleanor could commiserate with the animal. She wouldn’t like the red dog sitting on her back either.

  Mr Goward folded one hand over the other, the cigarette dangling nonchalantly in his fingers. ‘I suggested to your stepfather that the police place a description of the man in The Worker.’

  Eleanor had heard the Australian Workers Union published this paper. Distributed widely to workers in the pastoral industry, even Dante and his friends talked about some of the content on occasion.

  ‘There’ll be someone out there who knows our wounded stranger.’ The overseer seemed convi
nced of this. ‘A man just doesn’t appear out of the blue. Everyone’s got a past and he looked to me like a bloke who’d made his living outdoors. There’ll be someone working on a farm, station or in a shearing shed who knows him.’

  ‘That’s what I thought too, Mr Goward. He looks like a worker to me.’ She didn’t want to broach the subject of gossip, her mother and Uncle Colin were worried enough for all of them, but she wasn’t particularly comfortable either with the thought of the bush telegraph pulling apart the lives of her family. ‘Do the men in the shed know what happened?’

  ‘Not specifically,’ he rubbed his chin, ‘but they were all told this morning that a stranger had been injured on River Run and they were given a rough description.’

  Eleanor could only guess at the talk that was currently circulating. Athena’s family would certainly know about the incident and the doctor would have told his wife. The overseer was loyal to the core, as was Rex, however, both men liked a beer at the Royal in the village and it was hardly the type of event that could be kept quiet forever.

  ‘It is best everyone knows.’ Mr Goward picked a shred of tobacco from his tongue. ‘Stops the talk getting out of hand.’

  ‘I heard Mum say she was concerned about the agreements after what had occurred. Did everyone in the shed sign?’

  ‘Not everyone, not yet. There’s always a couple who like to bide their time. Make a show of walking around and having a think. I’m sure the shed overseer, Mr Lomax, will make those that haven’t signed do so. The last thing we want is a couple of shearers starting to bargain for conditions over and above what’s in the agreement. It stirs up trouble. So far there’s been a complaint about the vibration in the overhead gear, another about the burr in the fleeces and one about the thinness of the mattresses in the shearers’ quarters, which led to a request for compensatory payments for the accommodation not being up to scratch.’ He paused. ‘Don’t worry, Eleanor, that last one was a joke. They’re just taking the mickey. The shed and quarters pass the pastoral industry standards.’