‘I don’t reckon much to this God-bothering,’ Charlton told him. ‘Opening up the interior like we’re doing, that’s what I call leaving the world a better place.’
‘You think the natives would agree with you?’
‘Who cares what they think? They’ve been here for thousands of years and what have they done with it? Nothing. Now it’s our turn.’
‘I only hope we know what we’re doing, that’s all.’
‘You want we should live like they do? Walk around stark naked and live off witchetty grubs? You think that leaves the world a better place?’
‘It doesn’t do any harm. Here we are bringing cattle and horses out where there’s never been any in history. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do but there are times I wonder. Gold, cattle, sheep, new settlers on every boat … We’re changing everything.’
‘You’ve been into sheep and gold,’ Charlton pointed out. ‘Now it’s cattle and horses. You’ve done your bit for change.’
‘I admit that. I wonder if we’re right, that’s all.’
Charlton snorted. ‘If we’re not, you and me have been wasting our lives.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Charlton.’
Back at the camp Nance, Maggie and the rest of the boys were waiting to greet them. Matthew looked for Aggie but could not see her.
‘Where is she?’ he asked Nance.
Nance jerked her head. ‘Sitting out there by herself.’
‘Nobody with her?’
‘It was the way she wanted it.’
He went and found her. She did not turn as he came up. He put his arms around her. Her face was wet.
‘Tears?’ He was surprised, not associating Aggie with tears. She turned to him, her arms round his neck, her body straining against his. ‘I was afraid …’
He held her at arm’s length so he could look at her. ‘Afraid? You?’
‘When I heard the shots …’ She seized his hand. ‘I want you to love me,’ she said. ‘Now. So I know you’re truly alive.’
He smiled at her, very close. ‘I’m alive, all right.’
She smiled back wanly. ‘I always seem to be saying the same thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Prove it.’
As soon as it was light Matthew took Charlie and went out to look for the men they had killed. New grass was growing tall in the gullies between the rocks and it took longer than he had expected but he came at last to the crumpled bodies of his assailants.
‘We going to leave ’em there?’ Charlie asked.
‘For the moment. I want to have another look at the house.’
They climbed the mound and Matthew went inside the building. He looked around but there was nothing to see. He wondered what had happened to the original owners.
A shout of alarm sent him running back outside.
‘What is it?’ And froze.
A dozen black men stood ten yards away, expressions threatening, spears poised.
Matthew spoke urgently to Charlie from the side of his mouth. ‘Whatever you do don’t move!’
He did not move either; did not dare even to breathe. There was movement at the bottom of the slope. Matthew risked a glance, another one, and stared incredulously at the face of the white woman who was climbing the slope towards him.
‘My God,’ he said aloud, ‘that’s Catriona Simmons.’
‘I would never have believed it,’ Matthew told Aggie later. ‘I knew she’d gone north after she was married but I never thought to come across her out here.’
‘A pleasant surprise,’ Aggie said. ‘I reckon you were glad to see her.’
‘I certainly was,’ Matthew said with feeling. ‘So would anyone, with all those spears pointing at him.’
‘Your old flame,’ Aggie said.
‘That was long ago,’ Matthew told her.
She turned and went into the tent. He hesitated but did not follow her and shortly walked away. If Aggie wanted to act jealous, let her get on with it.
Later he rode across to the house to see if Catriona needed any help.
‘I better not come in,’ he said. ‘I’m married now.’
‘Well, well,’ Catriona said, smiling brightly. ‘And who is the lucky woman?’
‘Her name is Aggie. You don’t know her.’ An awkward pause. ‘I’m sorry about your husband.’
‘I shall miss him,’ Catriona said, ‘but there’s no use dwelling on it.’
‘Will you stay here?’ he asked. ‘Alone?’
‘I am not alone,’ she corrected him. ‘There is Cassie. And Sarah, of course.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘I know what you meant. Tell me,’ Catriona asked, ‘do you ever hear from Lorna?’
Matthew was embarrassed. ‘I’m the world’s worst correspondent. I doubt she even knows where to get hold of me.’
‘You knew your … You knew Mr McLachlan was dead?’
He stared at her. ‘No, I didn’t. When?’
‘Over a year ago. A tree fell on him, apparently.’
‘Then what about Lorna? That means she’s all—’
‘Yes,’ Catriona said. ‘She’s all alone now.’
That night by the fire Matthew had lit outside their tent he told Aggie the news.
‘I never cared for him. I left home because of him. Yet when she told me he was dead I found I could remember only the good things. He was a decent man, by his own standards. He was honest. He brought me up after his own child died. I thought he was indestructible. And then to be crushed by a falling tree …’ He shook his head.
But Aggie was not in a mood to listen to Matthew’s reminiscences. ‘She’s a widow, then, this friend of yours.’
Matthew misunderstood her. ‘Lorna?’
Aggie set her mouth grimly. ‘Catriona Brigshaw.’
‘It’s funny,’ he said, failing to observe the storm warnings, ‘I can’t get used to her being anything but Catriona Simmons.’
‘Perhaps you’d prefer her to be Catriona Curtis!’
Matthew stretched his hands to the flames, telling himself to be patient. ‘That’s nonsense.’
‘She’ll be looking for a new husband now, I expect.’
‘The man’s only been dead five minutes. Catriona’s not the sort to go looking for another husband so soon.’
Aggie smiled savagely. ‘I was forgetting how well you know her.’
Matthew frowned. ‘You talk as though I came up here deliberately, just to find her.’
‘Maybe you did.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I didn’t even know she was here!’
She watched him, eyes shadowed by the firelight. ‘I’ve no way of knowing, have I? I don’t know anything about you.’
‘I’m married to you.’ Voice rising despite his efforts.
She turned on him. ‘No you’re not! All that nonsense with Maggie … She’s got no more right to conduct weddings than I have!’
‘Nonsense? Is that how you think of it?’ Hurt and angry, he glared at her and saw tears shining on her cheeks. He went to her at once and put his arms around her.
Aggie turned to him. ‘I know nothing about you,’ she wept.
She had asked him more than once but he had put her off, telling her there was nothing to know. It had all seemed so unimportant, so irrelevant to their present or future life. Now he saw it was not unimportant at all.
‘You really want to know?’
She nodded, rubbing wet cheeks with her fingers.
‘You’ll be sorry,’ he teased her, making a joke out of it.
‘I love you,’ she said, voice congested, ‘I want to know about you. I want to know everything. I don’t like surprises.’
So, while the flames sank and the stars twinkled overhead, he told her. She lay still in his arms while he talked. He told her about his childhood, of the fights he had had with McLachlan and how he had run away. He told her about life on the goldfields. He told about his determination to come out here to the empty count
ry of the outback.
‘I’m not sure I realised it at the time but I know now that it was what I always wanted to do. It was like a fire burning in me.’
He thought she was asleep but kept talking all the same until at last he had said it all and fell silent. His arm was cramped but he did not move, continuing to hold her to him.
She said, ‘You never loved her then? Or that other one? Janice?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, saying what he thought she wanted to hear, wondering if it was true.
‘But you lived with her, didn’t you?’
‘Never with Catriona.’
‘The other one.’
‘Yes.’
‘Without loving her. Just like you live with me.’
‘I never married Janice.’
‘You haven’t married me!’
‘I’ve done as good as I can,’ he told her. ‘I stood up with you in front of the people we know. They certainly think we’re married. I think we’re married. Why can’t you accept it?’
‘I do,’ she said, weeping again, ‘it’s just that—’
He did not wait to find out what it was. He leant forward and sealed her mouth with his.
She tried to prevent him. ‘Wait,’ she protested, ‘this don’t prove—’
He kissed her again, holding her close until her sobs and protestations diminished into silence.
‘I love you,’ he told her softly. ‘You, nobody else. You are my wife.’ She stirred and he raised his hand, cutting off her objection before she could voice it. ‘My wife,’ he repeated, ‘the person I hold most dear in all the world. I like Catriona. I’ll help her if she’ll let me but you are the one I care about above all others. I like her but I love you.’
Her fingers tightened on his. Presently she said, ‘What can you do to help her?’
He smiled in the darkness. ‘I suspect not much. A woman who’s done what she has—have a child out here in the wilderness, bury her husband, get away from those scoundrels and organise a raiding party of black spearmen to claim back her home—doesn’t sound like she needs much help from me or anyone else. Hell,’ he said, ‘we’ve been talking about having a million acres of our own. What she’s done so far, we’ll have to look smart or she’ll beat us to it.’
‘I didn’t mean her,’ Aggie said. ‘I was talking about your foster mother.’
Matthew looked at her, frowning. ‘What about her?’
‘You talk about Catriona managing alone. What about her?’
The knock on the door startled Catriona. After the last two days it would be a while before her nerves learned to behave themselves again.
She fetched Clive’s gun and stood to one side of the closed door. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Who is it?’
‘Charlton Grange,’ a man’s voice said.
For a moment she felt a twinge of disappointment. No, she thought, he is married.
She unlocked the door and opened it an inch or two. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘I was wondering about you,’ he said.
‘That’s kind of you. Everything’s fine.’ She smiled at him and opened the door wider. ‘Come in a minute.’
‘That won’t be necessary—’
‘Maybe it’s not but I don’t plan to stand on the doorstep all night. Please come in.’
He did so, awkwardly, and stood just inside the door.
‘Please close it,’ Catriona said. ‘It’s cold out there.’
He did so.
‘Please sit down, Mr Grange.’
He did that, too, perching on the edge of the chair, twisting his hat between his huge hands.
‘Can I offer you a drink? I believe we still have some of our special bush tea.’
To take tea, alone, with a woman recently widowed was too much of an undertaking for Charlton Grange. ‘Thank you, no. Thank you.’
She laughed lightly. ‘It’s not real tea, anyway. Wild marjoram is all we can get out here.’
‘I have drunk it before,’ Charlton said.
‘You know this part of the country?’
The direct question shut him up again. ‘I have been here before,’ he managed. Then, surprisingly, added, ‘A man can breathe out here.’
Catriona was pleased. ‘Indeed he can, Mr Grange, indeed he can.’
Charlton walked down the hill. Handsome woman, he thought. Brave, too, all alone and with her husband dead. The right sort of woman for this country. Strong in her body, strong in her head too. And handsome, undeniably handsome.
Inexplicably, he was whistling as he came into camp.
Matthew and Charlton visited the black camp and, with help from Catriona and Murrumbee, recruited a number of natives to come with them.
‘In case the boys really do decide to leave when we get there,’ Matthew explained to Aggie. ‘We must have someone to handle the stock.’
Aggie was doubtful. ‘How do we speak to them?’
‘We’ll learn and so will they. We’ll manage, you’ll see.’
Ten days after they had arrived there, the drive left Catriona Brigshaw’s place and pushed on northwest into the wilderness. They crossed more rivers, passed through the low, eroded hills of the Grey Range and came at last to a vast plain of blue grass, Flinders and Mitchell grass, of kangaroo and button grass, flourishing, knee-high and rippling in the light breeze. There were winding creeks shaded by coolibah trees. The creeks were empty of water but moist mud along the beds showed where the recent floodwaters had flowed. There were numerous waterholes where the parrots and waterfowl, pelican, ibis and brolgas screamed and called or stalked in stately silence through the black mud. Here and there the tide of grass was interrupted by dazzling red sandhills of fine quartz.
Matthew and Charlton, ahead of the mob, reined in their horses. Their eyes feasted on the plains spread out like an offering before them.
‘I came to look for a butterfly,’ Matthew said. ‘A blue butterfly with dark edges to its wings. I haven’t seen it. Perhaps it doesn’t come from this part of the world. Now I don’t reckon it matters. I believe I’ve found what I’m looking for.’
Book Five
Homecomings
Where shall go the rovers
When all the lands are old?
Henry Lawson
THIRTY-NINE
They camped by the waggons and in the morning set about the arduous task of manufacturing the buildings they would need. There was not enough wood; instead they were forced back to the type of construction they had seen on their long journey: walls constructed of mud fetched from the waterholes, churned well with leaves and rammed between upright planks that formed and secured it while it dried. The roofs they made from paperbark.
‘Home,’ Aggie said, her eyes glowing. She rode far across the plain at Matthew’s side. ‘You remember telling me how you wanted to come out here so much it was like a fire burning you? I never knew this burning land of yours would be so beautiful.’
‘The cities are far away,’ he warned her. ‘No shopping trips for you.’
She laughed joyously, wheeling her horse to stare about her at the vast expanse of plain and sky. ‘Who wants cities when they can live in a place like this? How are you going to sell the stock though?’
‘There’s a place called Kapunda down in South Australia,’ he said. ‘From what I hear they have stock sales there.’
She frowned. ‘Isn’t South Australia a long way?’
‘Nearer than Sydney.’
Aggie looked about her with pleasure. ‘What did you promise me? A million acres? What are we going to call it?’
Matthew shrugged. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’
‘A place must have a name.’ She looked at him, suddenly shy. ‘What do you say to Bilyara?’
‘Bilyara?’ He frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s a word in one of the black languages. One of the women back at Daisy’s place told me it’s the name for a type of bird. I always liked it.’
‘A type of bird,’ Matthew repeated. ‘You don’t happen to know what type, I suppose?’
‘A sort of hawk.’
‘Bilyara …’ He tasted it thoughtfully. He liked the idea of his land being named for a hawk. He also liked the idea of a black name. They were here first, he thought. It’s their land too. ‘I like it,’ he said.
A month after their arrival the boys went to Matthew. Three of them were awkward and shy; Charlie, the spokesman, had no inhibitions.
‘We thought of heading back south,’ he said. ‘We’d like to draw our pay now.’
‘I can’t talk you into staying?’ Matthew asked.
Charlie shook his head. ‘Reckon we’ll be moving on,’ he said and that was that.
It wasn’t easy saying goodbye. They had been together for months, they had undergone drought and floods together, they had brought cattle and horses a thousand miles to a place where neither had been seen before. Perhaps because of everything they had done together, it seemed to the rest as though they had known the four young blokes all their lives. Everyone, including the men who were leaving, were sorrowful when the time came for them to go, although no one allowed themselves to show it.
Only Aggie made anything of it. She kissed all of them, even Bill who it was rumoured never washed. ‘Take good care of yourselves, now.’
The remainder stood and watched until the four figures had dwindled to faint dots that came and went in the heat haze and at last disappeared altogether.
Aggie sighed. ‘That’s the start of it,’ she told Matthew that night. ‘The others will go, too, now. You’ll see.’
So it proved. Maggie decided that, after all, she and Hud should return a little nearer to Fort Bourke, where there was more likelihood of finding some settlers to whom she could preach the word of God. Philosophical and silent, Hud harnessed the waggon and soon they were on their way too.
The evening they went Nance got hold of Git and punished his ears for a while. ‘I told you from the first I wanted a place of my own. Now you kin make up your mind. Either we do what we said or I’m takin’ off too.’
The Burning Land Page 43
