“I have more common sense—and self-restraint— than you credit me with.” He braced a hand on the wall, near her head. His voice was deeper, indicating his own fatigue. “Why don’t you stay the night and get some rest? I can ride back with you tomorrow morning.”
“No. No. I need to start back to Dream Time now. I need to see to the wounded aborigine. Besides, with it being lambing time, I need to be there.” She couldn’t sleep in the same house with Sin. Not the way she felt about him now.
Even at that moment, standing so close in the dark, she was weakened by her body’s betraying demands.
“Now this doesn’t make sense. If you ride back tonight, you won’t be in any shape to work tomorrow. Get some sleep, and you can start back early.”
“No. I’m leaving now.” She pushed past his arm that blocked her way and strode into the main room to collect her hat and slicker.
He followed on her heels. “Damn it, Amaris, if you’re going to act like a man, you’ve got to think like one.”
She swung around on him. “What the hell does that remark mean?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You bloody damn well know what I mean!”
Defiant, she stared up into his eyes. “No. Tell me.”
His fingers gripped her shoulders, then he released her with a push. “Go on with yeself, then. Be an ocker. I’ll saddle the horses.”
“No! I don’t need you escorting me back. I can find my way on my own, thank you.”
She stomped outside, slamming the door behind her. Taking the porch lantern from its peg, she crossed to the stalls. Quickly, she began to saddle Renegade. The horse turned its head and eyed her balefully.
“Mrs. Marlborough, you want me to saddle Renegade?”
Startled, she spun around. Jimmy crawled from the next stall over. His sloping eyes had that sleepy look, and hay littered his frizzy orange hair that was thinning at the crown.
“No, I can manage, thank you,” she said, giving him a tired smile.
As she was mounting, she noticed he stood at the door watching her, concern evident on his ruddy, sunbaked face. Then the darkness and the emptiness of the outback swallowed her.
Overhead, the Southern Cross glittered. Her lodestar. She loved her aloneness. She was at one with the land and the night. She wasn’t afraid.
Unless she listened too closely to the ghostly echo of her horse’s hooves.
§ CHAPTER SIXTEEEN §
Within three weeks, the injured aborigine was walking with a sprightly step. Each day that passed, Amaris expected him to disappear back into the bush, but she would be riding boundary and come upon him, repairing a pen’s rail, cleaning the woolshed, or relaying a damaged spout pipe for washing sheep.
Come lunch or supper time, he would be waiting on the porch. Her expression timorous, Molly would give him a plate of whatever the fare was and watch him take it out to the stables. There he would squat on his hindquarters and shovel the food into his mouth without benefit of utensils.
Obviously, the little man was not going to leave.
Finally Amaris communicated to him her curiosity about his intent. His usually stoic face took on a guarded look. He replied in surprisingly passable English. “Baluway work hard. Fix hard. Herd sheep hard. Eat good.”
She tried not to smile. “In return for hard work you want room and board? Is that it?”
He nodded enthusiastically. His grin showed the missing teeth.
"All right, let’s give it a trial period then.”
The trial period was never necessary. Baluway had the uncanny knack of anticipating potential problems. She had no sooner planted a garden than he erected a rabbit-proof fence. Several times she had lent him Renegade, and it was obvious he could have been born to the saddle. He could track stray sheep better than a mastiff a runway convict.
Moreover, he apparently appointed himself her protector. To Francis, he gave taciturn obedience. To her, adoration. Whenever evening caught her out in the bush, she was sure he would soon find her. In silence, he would trail her on foot until she returned to the station.
She might have identified Baluway as her ghostly companion the night she returned late from Sin’s house, except that her aborigine overseer had been laid up, and she would have sworn she had heard the clip-clop of horse hooves.
Soon it became obvious that Baluway could accomplish much more work mounted rather than afoot. She decided to ride over to the Tremaynes’ to bargain with Sin for one of his horses. Besides, it would be an opportunity to visit with Celeste, whom she had not seen since the miscarriage.
Early summers were beautiful in the Never-Never. What appeared various shades of brown suddenly caught color from the intense sunlight, like rainbows in a rain. The vegetation ran the gamut of glorious greens, and she saw terra-cotta snakes, chartreuse lizards, tea-colored ground squirrels, red-gray kangaroos. A flock of dark brown emus paced her and Renegade.
A black speck was moving fast across the level plain, too fast for a solitary kangaroo or emu. Soon she made out that it was a lone mounted man. She felt for the reassurance of her pistol in her saddlebag but needn’t have worried. The man was moving swiftly in a diagonal away from her.
The rider was one with the wild picturesqueness of the surroundings. The wind filled his loose white shirt, making him seem gigantic. Her interest flared. In the vastness of the Never-Never, she was passing another ship. The silent desolation was vanquished by the unknown purpose and life of the rider.
She hated to see him vanish. He didn’t. Suddenly he reined his mount sharply and dismounted. Then she saw his purpose. He was chasing a whirlwind spinning across the heated plain.
Her attention was charged. She was excited. Was the man demented? All at once, he did the unexpected. He extended his arms outward from him and began to spin like the whirlwind. She heard his shout, a shout that came from someone who was living the moment.
Envy filled her. She wanted that childlike abandon. Fascinated, she sat still in her saddle and watched. Too soon, his unconventional behavior ended, and he remounted, wheeling his mount around to canter back. He must have spotted her and realized he had had a witness. His horse slowed its pace, then altered direction again— toward her.
As Sin rode within speaking distance, she said nothing. Neither did he. The bright noonday sun revealed his expression to be a mixture of chagrin, defiance, and a boyish shyness that she had not expected beneath that scarred wall of manhood.
His shirt lay open to the waist, and sweat glistened in the whorl of hair on his chest and the smooth, muscled midriff. Desire unfolded in her, a blossom of sweet, wild wanting.
“You wanted me?” he asked, his tone deep, breathless from his ride.
She almost laughed. Want him? Did sunflowers want sunlight? All these years she had denied her attraction to him. Feared the power his maleness might wield in subjugating her female . . . until she had witnessed his self-abandon. No, he would not dominate her. He would complement her. Except he was not hers to have, nor she his.
“I came to buy a horse. For me. To bargain. A good stock horse. I saw a liver roan you have.” What in God’s green earth was she rattling on about?
He leaned his forearm on the saddle horn and watched her with a disconcerting steadiness. Oh, my God, he knew. He knew she wanted him. He knew her weakness. The reins trembled in her hand.
“I have a dun that would better fit you. All four feet stockinged.”
“How is Celeste?” Celeste, her defense, her wall between her and surrender of the self to this strong-willed man.
“She’s doing fine. ’Tis geranium beds she be digging around the house now. She’s determined to make the outback bloom out of season. Her father and mother will be paying a visit, and she wants the place to look grand.”
In accord, they turned their horses toward Sin’s station that he had taken to calling Never-Never. “Jimmy will be disappointed Molly didn’t come with you. He’s sweet on her.”
They rode clo
se enough that their legs brushed in the stirrups. “Molly mopes when she goes too long without seeing him.”
Why was she talking about Molly when she wanted to talk about Sin, to know where that little boy she had glimpsed today had come from? “You never told me . . . why you were transported.”
His blue-eyed gaze was fastened on the distance. Somewhere she had once heard that blue-eyed people made the best marksmen, but she had never seen Sin carrying a pistol or rifle. “I didn’t think you were interested.”
“I am,” she said softly. “After all, we’ve known each other more years than I care to count. Yet I know very little about you.”
He flicked her a glance. “And I know everything about you. At least, everything since you were the age of twelve, too tall for twelve, and gauche. Since you stared down at an emotionally and physically beaten convict, not with compassion. That would have made me feel even more self-pity, something I didn’t need. No, you stared at me with outrage. That outrage filled me soul and overflowed it with the energy and will to survive.”
She was astounded by the passion in his voice. “I thought you detested me, Sin.”
“I admire your strength. For those you love, you will be a source of good and caring and giving, a source whose taproots reach far down into Australia’s underground tablewater.”
She felt breathless. “You are eloquent.”
“I should be. I was a law student. I was protesting English repression of me country.” He shrugged those broad shoulders. “That’s how I lost me heritage, me land and ancestral home . . . and me freedom.”
“But you have your freedom again.”
“Aye, and I’ll not give it up any easier this time.”
“This time?”
His eyes narrowed, as if seeing even farther than the horizon. “As Australia’s prosperity increases, Great Britain will start taking even more interest— and taking away the autonomy of the people. But Australian colonies, like the American ones, are too far from the mother country. We have that in our favor. We only need men like the American General Washington who will be willing to lead when the time comes.”
“That could be you,” she said softly.
He glanced at her sharply. “No. I’ll fight me own private battles. But lead? No, there are men better suited for that.”
By this time, they were riding into the station yard. Still astride Renegade, she watched Sin dismount and talk to Jimmy. There was such purpose in Sin’s movements and voice. Such vitality in his being.
He strode back to her and held up his hand. She stared at it, unsure of what he was wanting. He looked from her face to his hand, and she realized he thought she was repulsed by its mutilation. “I was offering to help you dismount,” he said and began to tum away.
At once she took his hand. “I didn’t know. I’ve never had anyone offer to help me.”
“You always seem so capable,” he said, releasing her hand to take her waist and lift her down.
For only a moment, she allowed herself to be held, reveled in the exquisite feeling. Contact with Sin excited her in ways that she didn’t know were possible. She took his hand again, her fingers clasping those two callused ridges that were absent of fingers. “I see your hand and am reminded of a time we shared, a crisis.”
“A bonding.” He squeezed her fingers. “Come on. Celeste will be eager to see you.”
Celeste was on the other side of the house. Amaris came around the veranda to find her on her knees with a spade in hand. One cheek was streaked with dirt. Her brown hair fell in damp ringlets at her neck. She looked like a little girl, Amaris thought. A too-thin little girl who enjoyed life and people to the maximum.
Celeste glanced up, and pleasure lit sparklers in her eyes. “Amaris!” She tossed aside her spade and sprang up to hug Amaris. “Now my day is complete. The two people I love most are here.”
Amaris realized that Celeste was including Sin, who had followed her around the veranda. Celeste turned to slip her other arm around her husband. “The three of us together,” she said softly. “How blessed I am.”
That summer, Baluway was a remarkable sight, proudly dressed in a short breechcloth, spurred Hessian boots that had been worn to the sole, and a station owner’s bush hat. Amaris had put it on her list when she ordered stores from Melbourne, the closest port.
Flour, sugar, pepper, mustard, fencing wire—each order had to be prepared with great care as anything overlooked had to wait for the next order, which would be another six months away.
Baluway had become so efficient that he had taken over keeping an inventory of what needed to be ordered to maintain the sheep stock. His inventory was a mental one, since he could neither read nor write, but she could depend on it to be as accurate as her own.
Because she relied upon her aborigine overseer, she felt at ease in leaving him in charge while she was away for several days. The major and Elizabeth were hosting a celebration of the January twenty-sixth founding of Australia in 1788. Amaris and Francis planned to travel to the major’s station, some twenty kilometers distance, in the company of Celeste and Sin.
When Molly discovered Amaris and Francis were going to Never-Never before journeying on to the major’s, she said, “Oh, missus, please let me go with you to Never-Never. With you gone, I don’t need to be a’cooking. I want to see me Jimmy.”
Amaris stared down at that once world-wearied face. It was radiant. She envied the woman, who felt no guilt in her passion for her middle-aged swain. In the outback, no impropriety was found in a courting couple sleeping together.
“Of course, Molly. There’s plenty of room on the dray.”
They set out early in the morning. The flat bed of the open dray was covered with a layer of straw. Boxes were used for seats. The oxen were slow but hardy. By midday, they reached Never-Never.
Molly jumped down from the dray and ran to Jimmy, who swept her off the ground with a shout of “Whahoo!”
“You don’t mind if she stays while we are at the major’s, do you?” Amaris asked Celeste.
Celeste’s eyes twinkled. “It looks as if we will be needing your father to come out here and officiate at a wedding.”
At that moment, Amaris decided to write her parents and persuade them to come to Dream Time. After all, Nan and Tom had traveled this far to visit Celeste.
Waving good-bye to the couple, the Tremaynes and the Marlboroughs set out once more. Amaris drove the bullock team so Celeste could ride with her and they could talk, while Francis and Sin rode horseback.
All were in high spirits. None more so than Celeste. Taking off her broad-brimmed hat, she turned her sun-browned face to the sky to soak up the sunshine. Her skin had once been pure alabaster. A heated breeze tickled the wisps of hair at Celeste’s nape. “Ahh, Amaris, I love it out here!”
“So do I. Until the sun boils, or the sky pours rain, or the earth puffs up dust storms for days on end. You know what I want on the next stores shipment? A hip bath. My legs are so long I have to stand in the half barrel we use.”
“Not I. Not with my short legs. No, I want a set of long-stemmed glasses. I remember Mama’s pale pink crystal.”
“You miss your old life, Celeste?”
She looked thoughtful. “I miss the rituals. There was something lovely and reassuring about them. Tea at four. Wine with dinner. But my life has purpose here, with Sin.”
Amaris cast her a sidelong glance. For all her contentment, she appeared tired. Her rounded figure was gone, replaced by that drawn, thin look.
“Let’s stop there for our afternoon break,” Celeste said, pointing at a small pond hole bordered by the ubiquitous gray-green gum trees. “I’d like nothing better than to unbutton my shoes and wade into that water.”
Amaris laughed. “Then let’s do it.” She turned around and signaled to Sin to halt.
The wagons stopped in a spot where the grass was plentiful. Celeste spread a blanket, and Amaris took from her basket wedges of bread and paper-thin slices of mu
tton.
Sin surprised everyone by producing a bottle of sherry. “From a drover, looking for work. I couldn’t afford him. But he was in need of a billy and willing to trade the sherry bottle that another soul had paid him for shearing the day before.”
“So even you miss the amenities of civilization,” Francis said, opening the bottle.
Though his tone had been a little pompous, it had been amiable enough and the remark well intentioned.
For some reason Sin took umbrage. The dark side of his Irish nature turned his beautiful voice caustic. “Though a former convict, I nevertheless share with mere humans their affinity for simple pleasures such as this.”
Celeste put her hand over his. “You deserve more than simple pleasures, darling, and one day you will have those and more.”
There was such tenderness and love in her eyes. In Sin’s presence, she was a woman content, while Amaris was still restless and disturbed. Watching the smile of contrition he sent his young wife, Amaris felt that old stab of jealousy. Except now the jealousy was worse because its recipient was the sister she had come to love.
Amaris knew that jealousy could destroy her soul, and she hated herself for it, but she couldn’t fight the attraction she felt for Sin. She disguised her discordant feelings with banter. “I don’t know about you men, but Celeste and I are going wading.”
They reached the major’s station just before sunset. The big house the major had built was impressive. Of two stories, there had to be at least eight rooms.
Elizabeth had surrounded it with an aesthetically laid-out, very English garden. With care and maintenance to be considered, due to climate difference, the garden was all the more lovely and unexpected there in the outback.
In the parlor, ornate oil lamps and porcelain objets d’art filled the room. Portraits of family members looked down from gilt-papered walls. French doors opened onto a veranda bordered by a section of Elizabeth’s garden.
Dream Time (historical): Book I Page 19
