Shadows Over Taralon

by Jacquelyn Webb

Buttercup ambled onwards. Jenny was not watching the scenery. One gentle bend gave way to another and one group of gum trees reflecting the water gave way to another. There was a soothing sameness to the river as Buttercup followed the trail around. They reached Panniken Bend, and Buttercup veered inland past the dense bush.

  The riverbank started to chop up into deep gullies and stony winding creeks, with clumps of rocks rearing in massive formations. The ground was rising to the high stony plateau that divided the start of the Millalong Property from Taralon.

  Jenny came back to the present with a start. She understood why the Bickertons had boated down to the picnic area. It would be hard to pick a track around the boulders, crevices and ravines across to the river.

  She checked the horse. It was really time to start moving back. The sun was directly overhead and glaringly hot on the unshaded rocky ground. Ahead of her the ground sloped down between sheer walls.

  Buttercup had drifted well inland. Jenny looked over the hot mass of tumbled rocky ground. She could cut back and across the top of the plateau until she came out on the road that led to the back paddocks at Taralon, but it would a long hot unshaded ride. She turned in the saddle and looked back. She could go back, but how far into the tumbled mass of broken ground had Buttercup ambled? She had been in such a deep reverie she hadn’t noticed how far she had come.

  She studied the slope in front of her again. It looked as if it led around the tumbled mass of rock and back to the riverbank. Mind made up, she urged Buttercup down the slope. It was going to be a lot more pleasant to find her way back along the shade of the river, than cut cross-country.

  Buttercup moved forward placidly. Around them the ravine sides rose higher, and the ground became stonier. The natural corridor wound and twisted with other fissures crossing it.

  After a while Jenny got worried. She was now sure that the track led away from the river. She pulled Buttercup to a stop. The last thing she wanted to do was get lost in those desolate gorges. They covered a lot of the countryside, and even locals sometimes took the wrong turning. She turned Buttercup around when she heard the sound of cattle. She paused and listened. Sound was deceptive among the narrow winding walls, but somewhere not too far away were cattle.

  “And cattle mean someone’s property, and a property means a road,” she told Buttercup, as she urged the horse forward again.

  Around another corner she stopped. A stout railing fence barred her way. She tied Buttercup to the rail and climbed over and started walking. Around the next bend, the high walls widened out to enclose a paddock. She kept on walking, skirting cautiously around the cattle milling around. Cattle usually dozed in the midday sun, but these were restless.

  A jet-black poddy calf bellowed. With a sudden shock Jenny recognized it. It was one of Merry’s favorites and she had been inconsolable when it vanished with its mother and other cattle one night a few weeks earlier.

  Jenny inspected the cattle more carefully. They could have been Taralon stock, but she wasn’t sure. She knew the black poddy calf and she thought she recognized a gaunt cow with a broken horn. Had she stumbled on the stolen cattle, or were they strays? She remembered the stout railing fence and bit her lip. The fence meant that the cattle in this paddock were confined, not strays!

  The high stony cliffs reared in an unbroken wall and the paddock curved around below it. Jenny kept on walking, curious to see where it led. The paddock opened out again into another longer area, closing at the other end with a high barred gate. Beyond it the fissure wound around out of sight behind concealing walls.

  Against one side of the paddock was a solidly build small wooden hut. Beside the one straggling tree was a large closed cattle truck with its ramp down. Two men watched two riders on trail bikes herding cattle up the ramp. The tailgate was then lifted into position and the men wrestled briefly with the latch before climbing into the cabin.

  One of the figures got off the trail bike and walked to the front of the truck to give something to the driver. The other trail bike roared over to the high barred gate and opened it. The truck rumbled through and vanished from sight. The gate swung shut.

  One trail bike was pushed into the open shed, as the other rode back and into the shed. The two riders came out. One of them pulled off the obscuring helmet to throw it into the shed, and ran a hand through shining long blonde hair.

  It was a very familiar gesture. The other figure threw his helmet into the shed as well and shut and bolted the door. He had short hair that gleamed in the sun. Despite the hot sun a chill went through Jenny. Now she knew who was behind all the cattle rustling! The well-hidden paddock in the lonely desolate gorge and the black poddy calf were damning evidence!

  She stepped back against the shadow of the cliff. The movement caused both heads to swing around. There was something ominous in the way the figures sprinted towards her with such desperate speed.

  Jenny wasted a valuable second wondering what Marise and Tony would think about a witness to their cattle-rustling activities. She then turned and fled along the winding paddock towards where she had left Buttercup tethered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Jenny,” Tony called sharply.

  Jenny ignored him and kept on sprinting around the herd of cattle, causing them to shift uneasily. She risked a quick backward glance as she ran. Tony and Marise were catching up fast! Even in that panicky moment, reluctant admiration welled up. Marise ran as freely and smoothly as an athlete, the shining hair flowing behind her.

  Jenny flung herself up on to the fence, one hand releasing Buttercup’s bridle. Another few seconds and she would be away! Not even Marise could keep up with a galloping horse. Without slowing her pace Marise scooped up a stone and threw it! It landed on Buttercup’s rump with a thud. The bridle slid through Jenny’s fingers as the startled horse galloped off.

  Marise reached Jenny ahead of Tony and grabbed her wrist. Jenny struggled to pull away, off-balance with one leg over the fence. Her heart sank at the sound of Buttercup’s hooves fading in the distance. Marise pulled her off the fence and flung her towards Tony who caught her arm in an iron-hard bruising grip.

  “Take your spying little playmate,” she said coldly.

  Jenny’s breath came in sobbing gasps. Marise wasn’t even winded. Tony’s eyes met his sister’s and a hidden message passed. Jenny looked from one to the other. The chill at the pit of her stomach spread and spread. The Bickerton twins were extraordinarily good looking, with their magnificently coordinated bodies, shining blonde hair and regular featured faces, but it wasn’t the contemptuous dislike in Marise’s face causing her to feel so sick but the dawning horror on Tony’s face. Why was he so horrified and refusing to look directly at her?

  “Tony,” Jenny pleaded.

  “Shouldn’t spy, Jenny,” Marise said.

  She slid off the fence and captured Jenny’s other hand and jerked her into movement as they walked back, around the milling cattle and the curve of cliff towards the small hut.

  Anger swamped Jenny’s apprehension and stiffened her back. The fear and panic faded as she stared at Marise. Everything added up! The district gossip about the Bickertons’ extravagant tastes and the vague assumptions that they were subsidized by overseas wealth. The continual leakage of stock from all the neighboring properties as well as Taralon.

  “I recognized some of the stock in that herd,” Jenny accused coldly. “Thieves, how very inelegant.”

  The desolate gorges isolating one side of the Bickerton property made a perfect place to hide all the missing stock. No wonder that road blocks and truck checks revealed nothing. The stolen cattle would be whisked to the hidden paddock, held until everything settled down and then disposed of.

  Her outburst was ignored. She was dragged closer to the hut. Tony hesitated then, his face dark and moody, one hand tight around Jenny’s wrist.

  “Can’t afford to be squeamish,” Marise reminded him as if in answer to the unspoken plea in his eyes. “Even if she was coopera
tive and she’s not.”

  Tony shrugged, his face setting into grim lines. He stared down into Jenny’s face for a long second. His eyes were somber, ruthless and impersonal. Jenny stared back. Without the mask of careless good humor Tony looked an unpleasant stranger, bitter and desperate and a lot older. The sort of person who would also dope racehorses.

  “How did you manage to get to Pretty Boy?” Jenny demanded.

  “All done with your help Jenny,” Tony said, even white teeth showing in a mirthless smile. “Ben was quite prepared to trust your evening cloak, if not Marise under it.”

  Jenny thought briefly of all the misery and unpleasantness she had endured those last weeks, the malicious rumors, the slights and the covert appraising stares of neighbors who wondered if she was guilty.

  “What a pity there still isn’t a death penalty for rustling,” she said distinctly. “You deserve prison for life.”

  “Still places without extradition treaties,” Tony explained.

  “Hurry up,” Marise ordered as she dragged Jenny up to the doorway of the hut. “We’ve got to get that last lot out this afternoon. Time could be running out.”

  Tony gestured. Marise held Jenny as he patted her pockets. Under her horrified gaze he slid out her mobile phone and casually stamped on it. Then she was flung through the doorway. She fell sprawling on the dirty floor. The heavy door slammed behind her. She heard the bolt slide across. She picked herself up and hammered against the door. It was solid wood planking. She yelled and yelled, and her voice echoed around the enclosed wooden space. No one answered.

  She sat down again with her back to the wall and tried to control her panic and steady the racing thud of her heart. What did they intend to do with her? The words “no extradition treaty” and “time’s running out” hammered at her brain. Of course they intended to leave the country, and soon, but what was going to happen to her?

  Marise’s words, “can’t afford to be squeamish” suddenly acquired a more sinister meaning. She shivered in spite of the airless heat of the hut. Surely they wouldn’t murder her in cold blood? The cold voice at the back of her mind reminded her that this couple who had grown up in the district had been systematically thieving and cheating their neighbors. She represented a danger to them and the efficient Marise would certainly find a way to silence her.

  Jenny prowled around the hut. The solid roof had heavy rafters with tin nailed over them. There was no window. The thin line of daylight through the gaps in the planks showed only the two bikes and the hump of an old saddle in one corner. There was nothing else!

  Even if the Bickertons didn’t kill her and left her locked up here while they escaped the country, she could starve to death before she was found. This paddock was tucked away somewhere among the maze of ravines and gorges of the plateau. No one knew of its whereabouts.

  Jenny pushed the hair out of her eyes, and tried to control her frantic thoughts. The more she thought about her situation the more her head ached. There seemed absolutely nothing she could do.

  The slow hot hours dragged on. Soon it would be dusk, and then no one had any chance of finding her! Even if and when Buttercup arrived back at Taralon, no one knew in which direction to start searching. Bill Williams probably believed she was somewhere near the river.

  During the long afternoon, she watched with one eye pressed to a narrow chink between the planks as the trucks came and went. Each of them stayed long enough for their load of cattle to be loaded on, and then rumbled away again.

  Jenny’s eyes flickered around the darkening hut. She tried to think of a way out. She had tried to scrape a hole under the wall with her bare fingers, but the ground was iron hard. The light faded. She huddled down and put her head into her knees. She just had to think and stop these waves of panic from flooding over her.

  If only she could light some sort of fire. Any smoke in the district always brought someone up to investigate. An untended fire was dangerous at this time of the year, with the grass and bush so tinder-dry. She sighed. She never carried matches with her. She went through her pockets carefully.

  All she had was a handkerchief. She strained her eyes through the darkness of the hut. The trail bikes had petrol in them, but it wasn’t much use without matches. Her eyes focused on the shapeless mound of the old saddle. Saddles had saddle flaps sewn into them and most of the old stockmen used to smoke!

  She squatted beside the saddle and checked the pockets under the saddle flaps. She found an old check handkerchief, dirty and stained, some grey waxed thread and a flattened half-empty packet of matches. She pulled the saddle away from its corner. Beneath it was an empty chaff bag.

  Her fingers shook as she frayed string off the sacking and twisted it together. She unscrewed the petrol cap off the tank of one of the bikes and dipped one end of the string down. All the time her mind worried at the problem. If she could push the thread through under the gap of the door and light it, would it catch on the dried grass outside?

  The rumble of another truck became louder. If this last batch of cattle were spirited off, there would be nothing except her word against the Bickertons to connect them with the rustling. On her second try, the match flared, the frayed string caught, and a cheerful flicker glowed redly in the darkness. Her hands trembled as she fed it under the door and waited. Nothing happened!

  She put her eye to the chink in the door and tried to see out. Surely there would have been some smoke if the grass had caught? She tried to steady her mind to think more clearly. Would the petrol cause the string to flare too quickly without catching the grass?

  Outside the door a truck stopped. The sound of the herded cattle thudding up into the truck was very close to the hut. A mounting urgency made her fingers clumsy as she frayed some more string off the chaff bag.

  This time she made sure she had a healthy blaze going without using the petrol, before pushing the clumsy string under the door. It must catch! It was her last and only hope! The flame flickered higher and she fed it the frayed string, the ruddy flames lighting every corner of the little hut. Then she pushed the rest of the long string through the chink in the planks, too absorbed in her task to feel the flames as they scorched her fingers.

  The pungent smell of burning grass mixed with the musty smell of dried wood reached her. The dusk suddenly had a reddish glow. There was the sudden crackle of dried grass and the snap of twigs burning.

  Jenny found another chink in the wall to peer through. She gave a sigh of relief. Within her limited range of vision she saw the flames creeping towards a desiccated clump of bushes. Clouds of smoke billowed up into the still air. Smoke that should alert everyone that a fire had started!

  The billowing heavy smoke drifted back under the narrow gap of the door and through the splits in the planking, to catch her throat and make her eyes water. Surely there shouldn’t be so much smoke in the hut? There was no wind!

  She tried to place her eye against a gap in the wall to see, but leaping flames obscured her vision. She drew in her breath sharply. She hadn’t realized that the timber of the door was so dried out that it would catch so easily. The hut was on fire! She screamed and beat on the door. The heavy smoke kept billowing under the door and the loud crackle of the flames devouring the dry planks of the door sounded vicious. She screamed again.

  Could anyone hear her? Why didn’t they come? Of course it would suit the Bickertons to have her burn to death in an unexplained fire, but surely the men helping load the stolen cattle wouldn’t ignore her screams? Jenny gasped for breath, and strained for a breath of clear air through a narrow crack in the opposite wall.

  In the limited vision of the gap, she distinguished Marise’s lithe body swaying backwards and forwards as she fought the flames. The fire was halfway down the paddock and three other figures were outlined against the red glow fighting the fire. The cattle had stampeded down from the truck and were moving down the other end of the paddock.

  Jenny screamed again and hammered on the door. It was hot
to touch. Tears poured down her face as she coughed. She put her eye back to the narrow crack. Tony’s tense face was illuminated by the flames as he pointed at something. Marise nodded agreement. An engine started up with a full-throated roar and then stopped again.

  More and more shadowy figures appeared silhouetted against the flames. Jenny hammered on the door again and kept screaming. Surely someone would rescue her? There seemed a lot more people fighting the fire. Where had they come from?

  The bolt slid back, and the blazing door flung open. Jenny stumbled out into Wayne’s arms. The flames lit the horror on his face.

  “How did you end up here?” he snapped.

  “The Bickertons locked me in. How do you think?” she snapped back and promptly burst into tears.

  “Hush, Jenny,” he soothed. “It’s over now. Don’t cry.”

  Jenny clung to him. She had never felt anything as safe and secure in her life as the feel of his hard body against hers. She clung as if she would never let him go. She tried to control the shudders sweeping over her.

  “The truck,” she wept. “It’s gone!”

  “Not too far,” he drawled. His face lit with a wide grin that made him look surprisingly young. “Bill and the others were waiting.”

  “You knew all the time,” Jenny accused.

  She tried to draw back from him, but his arms were remorselessly tight holding her against him.

  “We weren’t sure,” he said, as he smoothed back her hair and produced a handkerchief. “We had to wait and catch them with the cattle.”

  Jenny looked over his shoulder. The paddock swarmed with people. The grass fire was out, leaving a blackened smoldering expanse, but behind her the hut was a lurid bonfire that lit the surrounding paddock.

  A group of men checked the cattle, milling around at one end of the paddock. Marise and Tony stood together, watched by another group of men. A truck was parked in the shadows by the high-barred gate.

  Bill Williams came over. The smile on his face made him look almost carefree. Jenny tried again to pull away from Wayne, but his arms were too tightly around her.