Turn Left at Bindi Creek

by Lynne Wilding

  Brooke stared back at her. ‘I can’t? How can I, how can anyone, stop it? Banks do as they please, go where they think the greatest profits are. It will be inconvenient for a lot of people. They’re trying to soften the blow by saying they’ll turn the building into a county museum.’ She laughed again, this time cynically. ‘Hah! That won’t cut much ice locally.’

  ‘We could start a people’s bank, a community bank,’ Jason suggested. ‘It’s been done before, some place down in Victoria.’

  ‘What a great idea,’ Jean enthused, her features brightening. ‘We should call a town meeting about it, as soon as we can.’

  Jason grinned at her. ‘As soon as it stops raining.’

  The rain didn’t stop. Over the next several days it alternately poured, drizzled, almost fined up, and then heavy clouds would bank up and the heavens would open again. The playground around the primary school flooded. The school had been sited in a slight depression and the surrounding land was soon under almost half a metre of water. Access to school rooms was considered too dangerous, so the children had to stay home. Half the business premises along Tyrell Road were leaking like sieves. The creek was rising steadily—it was now almost halfway up the timber supports of the bridge which gave access to and from the town, with floodwater churning and pulsing through at breakneck speed.

  At the d’Winters home the family watched the creek rise up and over the bottom paddock. Domino, the twin’s pony, had to be moved to higher ground, the chook run was a quagmire, and the ten hens and one rooster which perched high off the ground were ominously silent. Most of the vegetables in Brooke’s garden were ruined, but she had salvaged what she could in a weather break and was endeavouring to pickle parsnips, cauliflowers and beetroots.

  Jason came into the kitchen, saw that Brooke was using just about every saucepan and appliance she had, shook his head and gave her a kiss, even though she was too distracted by what she was doing to appreciate it.

  ‘I’m off to the nursing home. Mrs Gross has taken a turn for the worse. Then I have a call to the Teseyman place, out around Milburn Creek.’

  ‘Will you be able to get through?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to Ric Stephanos on the phone and he said the area’s okay. I’ll probably go out to his place too. Angie is having morning sickness problems. Ric’s acting like a mother hen, ’cause Angie’s forty-one and he’s read up on pregnancies in older women. He wanted to know what could be done for her.’

  ‘Do be careful.’ Brooke brushed her fringe back from her forehead and listened for a moment for sounds coming from the back verandah—above the noise of the television—where the children were playing. The noise seemed normal enough. For some unknown reason she felt jumpy. It’s the rain, she convinced herself. Brooke’s first experience of how water could rule the lives of man and beast when it got out of hand was unsettling her more than she was comfortable with.

  ‘Don’t know when I’ll be back; depends on the road,’ Jason said. He turned back to her as he neared the hall doorway. ‘You’ll be all right, love?’

  She waved him off. ‘Sure.’ Then she grinned at him. ‘Go get your feet wet.’

  Ten minutes later Adam came into the kitchen, hopping from one foot to the other with impatience and boredom. ‘Mum, the rain’s stopped. Can we go outside for a while? We want to check on Domino, see if she’s all right.’

  Brooke looked out the window. The deluge had eased to a fine drizzle. She knew that being housebound for several days was stretching the twins’ ability to amuse themselves to the limit. ‘Put your rain gear on, and ask Sheridan to come in here. I don’t want her traipsing around in the mud, she’ll have it all through the house before we know it.’

  ‘Yeah, Mum,’ said Adam, agreeing about his two-year-old sister. ‘She’s a little grub and we know how she loves to make mud pies.’

  ‘Hmm, and feed the chooks too, Adam. There’a bucket of scraps near the back door for them.’

  ‘Okay.’ He tore off to get his raincoat and gumboots.

  For two seven-year-olds, the temptation not to check out the water’s edge of the churning creek was too much. Mud-coloured water swirled past, carrying tree branches, cardboard boxes, items of clothing and anything it could devour in its mad rush. Both boys were fascinated by the dramatic change in the creek they’d played and swum in for several years, for no longer did it resemble the gentle flowing stream they were used to. In its place was an exciting, lively body of water, a place for real adventure.

  ‘Let’s build a raft, like in Huckleberry Finn,’ Luke suggested.

  ‘That’ll take too long. I’ve got a better idea; wait here.’ Adam bounded up to the carport.

  Several minutes later he returned with the boogie boards they’d got last Christmas and a length of rope.

  ‘What you gonna do, Adam?’

  ‘Lukey, the water’s like real waves. Let’s pretend we’re at the beach, like when we went to Bendalong last summer.’

  ‘I dunno.’ Luke, the sensible twin, studied the fast-flowing water. ‘It looks dangerous.’

  Adam pulled a face at him. ‘Don’t be such a baby, it’ll be all right. I’m gonna tie the rope to the board then lash it round the fence post.’ Adam’s voice was full of confidence. He looked at the mirror image of himself. ‘You can hold the rope for extra safety if you don’t wanta have a turn.’

  ‘Okay, but be careful.’

  Adam was never careful. The word wasn’t in his vocabulary. He hurriedly tied the rope to the top of the fence post, then, in his raincoat and minus his gumboots, he jumped on the board and paddled out into the stream until the current caught him. The board bucked and rolled as small waves hit it from all sides. Adam laughed, excited and ignorant to the danger he was putting himself in. Before long the rope played all the way out and he was almost in the middle of the swollen creek, where the flow wasn’t so rough.

  ‘This is great, Lukey,’ he called back to his brother. ‘Yahoo!’

  Luke grinned and shook his head at the same time. For three or four minutes he watched his brother have fun and then he turned to check the rope on the fence post. Adam had tied it too high and, with the weight of his body plus the pull of the water, it was working its way over the top of the post.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Luke cried.

  He reached the fence post just as the loop came free. He grabbed the rope and held on with all his might. For maybe thirty seconds he managed to keep Adam in the same position, but then, inexorably, as his young muscles lost the battle against the river, the rope started to run through his fists, even though he had them tightly clamped around the nylon length.

  His head swivelled from side to side, desperately trying to find something close to tie the rope to or use as a block and tackle, as he had seen his father do when he’d moved heavy rocks in one of the paddocks. He could see nothing. The rope continued to pull away from him until only the loop was left.

  He dug his heels into the mud, but there was too little traction and his gumboots sank ineffectually. The next instant he was flat on his face in the water. The rope was wrenched out of his grasp and Adam, no longer held by the constraints of the rope attached to the land, began to float away.

  ‘Help, Lukey! Help me!’ Adam cried out, realising the predicament he had got himself into.

  On the creek bank, Luke picked himself up, brushed the water and mud out of his eyes and took in what had happened. His face blanched and, calling out ‘Adam, Adam…’, he ran through the mire towards the cottage as fast as his legs would go.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Brooke was in the kitchen with Jean, who had just popped in, and Sheridan was on the floor, playing with her dolls, pretending they were having a picnic, when a drenched, mud-spattered Luke burst into the room.

  At first he was incoherent, out of breath and in shock. Jean took him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake, to startle him out of his shock. Seeing that Adam was missing and knowing his adventurous nature, she pinpointed the
predicament in a matter of seconds. ‘Dear God, Adam’s in the creek, isn’t he?’

  Luke nodded dumbly. Shaking with fright, he began to cry and stutter. ‘I…I tried to hold him…but the…the r– rope on the boogie board came off the fence and he…’

  There was no time to panic. Brooke galvanised herself into action. ‘Mind the kids, Jean.’

  ‘I saw Wes Sinclair’s ute outside the supermarket,’ Jean called as Brooke raced from the kitchen. ‘Go get him. I’ll call Frank Galea; his station’s near the bridge—he can watch for Adam. Frank’ll marshal other people too.’

  Somehow Brooke managed to take in Jean’s words as she sped down the hallway. She had looked at the flooded creek earlier that morning and knew how dangerous it was, and…her little boy was somewhere in its swirling, uncontrollable mass. She ran out the front door. The rain had started again, and by the time she reached the supermarket she was drenched. She saw Wes’s work ute there.

  Brooke screamed his name as she ran into the supermarket. ‘Wes! Wes Sinclair! Oh, please, where are you?’

  Wes and Drew’s heads appeared around one of the aisles. Drew was pushing a grocery-laden trolley.

  ‘Adam’s in the creek. Luke said he was boogie-boarding with a rope anchoring him to a fence post…The rope…Luke said the rope worked free,’ she gasped, then took in a breath. ‘Jason’s not here, he’s off on a call and…’ Her brown eyes widened, fear setting in. ‘My baby’s in the water, Wes. He’ll drown.’

  Wes and Drew glanced at each other. ‘No, he won’t,’ they said in unison.

  Leaving her panting for breath and spreading a puddle in the middle of the supermarket floor, both Sinclairs ran to the ute. In what seemed no more than thirty seconds, they were halfway up Tyrell Road, heading for the bridge.

  By the time Brooke reached the bridge, a party of men was preparing a rescue bid. Word had got around that Adam had been seen—in his yellow raincoat he stood out in the water—clinging tenaciously to his boogie board. He had been swept around a bend in the creek and was coming down a straight section of water towards the bridge.

  ‘We’ve got just one chance to get him,’ Wes called out as he tied a length of rope around his waist. ‘The rocks before the bridge, though they’re underwater now, slow the flow marginally. I should be able to grab him when he reaches the bridge pylon.’

  ‘You’d better hurry, Wes,’ yelled Vince, the chemist, above the driving rain. He had his mobile phone to his ear. ‘Adam’s been seen halfway down the straight part; he’s still on the board. He’ll be here in half a minute or less.’

  Handing the end of the rope to two of the men, Wes plunged into the roiling stream. He thanked providence that he was a strong swimmer. He had been used to doing several laps almost every day, ever since Claudia put the pool in. In half a dozen strokes he was at the pylon. Against the drag of rushing water, he pulled himself out and stood thigh-high in the water, balancing as best he could on the submerged base of the pylon. Impatiently, he brushed water and hair from his eyes as he peered, with narrowed vision, for the first sight of the youngster.

  ‘There he is!’ someone yelled.

  Sure enough, in the middle of the flooded stream, clinging for dear life to his beloved boogie board, was Adam. His face, the features pinched, was as white as the foam which crested the small waves around him.

  He’s so little, and there’s so much water! Brooke, relegated to the role of spectator in the drama of her son’s rescue, squinted against the blurring rain as Adam got closer to the bridge. The churning water gushed, rushed, a mindless body of liquid energy, and, as she watched it, an intense fear swallowed up her inner strength. Her knees began to buckle.

  Someone—she didn’t turn to see that it was Drew—moved to support her by the elbow and keep her upright. Her hand shot to her mouth to still the cry of alarm which echoed her feelings. That Adam was still alive was a miracle in itself; she tried to take comfort from the thought.

  As he passed over the submerged rocks, the current changed to form a mini whirlpool, which caught the blue boogie board. The board shot up in the air and Adam lost his grip. Then, in the space of two heartbeats, he and his yellow raincoat disappeared beneath the swirling foam.

  ‘Shit, the rocks have got him!’ Frank yelled above the rain and above the mad, gurgling stream.

  Wes dived off the pylon into the water and he too vanished. The small crowd of people stood and waited. Silent, all praying in their own way. Two men, Vince and Gino, held the rope attached to Wes. The full length played out and then went slack.

  Brooke turned to Drew, putting her arm around him to give and gain comfort from another person’s body. It’s too long. The sentence screamed inside her head but she wasn’t game to voice the fear. Seconds ticked by—it felt more like hours—and her heart thudded painfully in her chest as she waited. They’ve both been under for too long. Oh, please, please, let them be all right.

  The oppressive silence broke: a round of cheers went up as Wes’s sandy head rose above the water, and with him a smaller, dark head.

  ‘Come on, lads, pull them in,’ Frank ordered anxiously, and he too grabbed the rope and began to haul the pair towards the shore.

  Brooke, chilled to the bone but unmindful of it, was at the water’s edge when Wes staggered upright with his small load. As soon as he was clear of the water, he placed Adam on the grassy verge and rolled him onto his back.

  ‘He’s probably swallowed a bit,’ someone said, stating the frighteningly obvious.

  Brooke knelt beside Adam and saw that he was unconscious and blue around the mouth. He wasn’t breathing. Years of training overcame the panic within her and she began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with a fervour that soon saw results. Adam coughed, brought up some water, coughed again and then began to inhale noisy gulps of air. Gently, she rolled him onto his side and that was when she saw the contusion at the side of his head, behind his left ear. Something—a rock, she supposed—had hit him under the water.

  Oh, Jason, where are you? We need you here. Now. She whispered the little prayer as she began to chafe her son’s hands. Once they had a touch of colour in them, she ran a professional hand over the rest of him. No bones seemed broken or fractured.

  Someone brought blankets to Brooke, and Frank and Vince organised a make-do stretcher. They rolled Adam onto it, taking care to disturb the still-unconscious boy as little as possible.

  ‘Put him in the tray of the ute. Drew can protect him with the tarp. We’ll take him to the cottage.’ Wes took command again. He pulled Brooke up off her knees and saw that she was crying softly. He gave her a quick, reassuring hug. ‘He’ll be all right, Brooke. The worst’s over.’

  He was the only one who would ever know how desperate he had felt under the water, trying to find the boy. Visibility had been zero. The current was strong. He had been almost out of breath when something, he’d thought it a tree branch at first, brushed his face. It had been Adam’s arm and, just as Wes thought his lungs were going to explode, he wrenched the young boy free of where the undertow had trapped him against the submerged rocks, and brought him to the surface. Wes closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and stored away the memories. That was as close to a life-and-death situation as he ever wanted to get.

  At the d’Winter’s cottage Brooke, in Jason’s absence, took on the role of medico. They had been able to contact Jason, but with local flooding it could be up to an hour before he reached home. Brooke examined her son, checking his lungs with the stethoscope, noting the bruises on his body, his chest and his legs, and a few minor cuts too. By the time they’d got him home he had regained consciousness, though he seemed groggy and disorientated. That was a concern, but also of concern to her was his intermittent coughing; she could detect no build-up of fluid in his lungs, but she was worried all the same.

  ‘He must have swallowed a lot of water, not just when he was under, but during his ride down the creek. There’s bound to be some left inside him, even though he vomite
d a fair bit up,’ Wes said in his no-nonsense way. ‘And that bump on the side of his head,’ he said, whistling softly as he touched it, ‘it’s as big as a duck’s egg. No wonder he’s feeling out of it.’ He saw that his words weren’t lightening Brooke’s mood, so he added, ‘I’ve seen a few stockmen come off their mounts and end up with lumps bigger than Adam’s. It took a while for them to regain their senses properly.’

  ‘I know, but I’ll be happier when Jason gets home to check him over.’

  Wes glanced across at Brooke again. She still wore her saturated clothes. They were moulded to her body like a second skin. He dropped his gaze, uncomfortable with how the sight of her made him feel, what it made him want—things he had no right to want. Damn and double damn. What was the matter with him? She looked like a half-drowned rat with her hair plastered to her face, anxiety for her son drawing her features tight, but to him she was the most beautiful, exciting, desirable…He had to get out of the room. Straightaway.

  ‘I’ll check on the kids, see how Jean’s coping,’ he muttered. He did an abrupt about-turn and left. As he walked down the hall, he balled his fingers into fists and thrust them deep into the pockets of the overalls he’d purloined from Jason’s wardrobe. A muscle flexed at the side of his jaw. Damn and double damn, he repeated to himself. He didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel this way. He hadn’t sought it or asked for it but, be that as it may—he shook his head in consternation—he could no longer deny the fact. What he felt for Brooke d’Winters was more than admiration, more than infatuation. Oh, yes. It was much more…

  He found Jean in the kitchen tidying up with her usual efficiency. Sheridan had gone down for a nap and Drew sat in the living room reading the latest edition of The Land.