Page three shouted at her. The memories of the past united in a feverish dance with the headline today. She hopped to her feet and marched quickly to the ticket window.
Chapter Eighteen
The Rescue of a Dream
Longreach was a nice enough town, Marty mused, sprawled across the flats beside the dry bed misnamed the Thomson River. Somehow, it lacked the atmosphere of Barcaldine, though. The unpretentious cow town was simple, practical, good for a laugh on Saturday night. By contrast, Barcaldine was entertaining in its very puffery as it strove with its population of two thousand to be the Melbourne of the north. Looking back, Barcaldine lay claim to history with its shearers’ strike of ’91. Looking forward, it courted new businesses and public service facilities. Barcaldine’s deep artesian bores made it the Garden City, the cultural center of the outback.
Marty was stuck here in Longreach—for a long time to come, considering how high his bail was set. Either the judge or the constable was in somebody’s pocket. Outside his barred window, a chattering flock of honeyeaters attacked the berries on a gum tree, free as birds. Inside this encompassing little cell, the hot air hung close and still. Confined. Confining.
“Martin Frobel Junior, cattle theft?”
Marty sat up on his pallet and looked toward the tiny barred window in the door. “There’s two people in this jail right now, and the town drunk’s the other one. You have to ask who I am?”
“According to the law, when addressing a prisoner I must confirm his identity and the charges against him. I operate by the law. You have a visitor.” Constable Edding, for all his freedom, was bound by bars and chains more cumbersome than Marty’s.
Marty stood up. He knew who the visitor was. Jase. And he knew the news Jase was bringing: Pinjarra existed no longer. His dream had withered on the vine. Back to digging, or droving, or perhaps a future of begging in the streets. But Jase’s ever-cheery face did not appear at the window. Instead, the door clanked, scraped and opened. “Bring your hat, Mr. Frobel.”
My hat?
In blind obedience, Marty stepped into the dismal passageway and preceded the constable through the cellblock door from gloom into brightness. Then he stopped so suddenly the constable ran into him.
She rose from the bench by the door, and the broadest, loveliest smile graced her pretty face. She crossed to him, extending a hand. “Mr. Frobel.”
“Miss Fowkes.” He could do no less than take that graceful hand in his and kiss its soft, white knuckles. This was definitely not the hand of a washerwoman. “Despite the circumstances, I’m delighted. Overwhelmed. You look beautiful.”
“And you look absolutely terrible. Four days’ growth does nothing for those handsome, weatherworn cheeks of yours.”
“The constable was afraid I’d fling shaving cream in his eye.”
Constable Edding actually started to protest, so slow was he to catch the joke. Abashed, he marched to his desk to leaf through paperwork.
“Ah! Here’s the lad.” Pearl turned as a boy in knickers came hustling through the door with a fistful of papers. He glanced at Marty and looked a bit disappointed. Apparently Marty didn’t appear quite as dangerous as a felon ought. The court page laid the papers before the constable and stepped aside, his big brown eyes ever on Marty.
“Miss Fowkes, you sign here and here. Mr. Frobel, there. Also these copies. Miss Fowkes, you understand the responsibility you’re assuming if he fails to appear in court. I believe you are aware he resisted arrest.”
“Yes, and I can hardly wait to hear about that.” With a flourish she struck an ornate Pearl Annalee Fowkes across first one, then another official-looking form.
Someone better read these papers first. Marty scanned the sheets as she passed them to him. He stared at her. “Pearl, do you realize how much my bail is? You can’t afford this!”
She straightened and drew herself to full height. Her eyes came just to his nose, but somehow she seemed as tall as he. “Martin Frobel, don’t you presume to tell me what I can and cannot afford. For years I’ve…” She drew a deep breath. “I’ll explain later.” She blipped the tip of his nose with her finger. “For now, just assume you’re worth it. Sign them.” And she stuffed the final form into his hand.
Marty signed.
He stood erect. Now what? For the first time since he had stepped out from under Mum’s roof, a woman was calling the shots. He felt uncomfortable with it. Constable Edding handed him a slip of paper, a permit releasing his horse from the police department stable. The august officer launched into the final duty, reciting by rote a litany of do’s and don’ts for prisoners out on bail. Marty wasn’t really listening. It was mostly common sense anyway. He was trying to sort this confusion out, and nothing was falling into place.
With a clap, Pearl rubbed her hands. “You’re a free man. I’ve hired a buggy and bought a picnic supper. As soon as we’ve stopped by the bank, let’s enjoy blue skies and freedom.”
“Shouldn’t I shave first?”
She pondered that a moment. “I think not. You want to play on the banker’s sympathy—as if he had any—and you don’t want to look too spiffy. Not like a no-hoper, of course, but more like a man in dire straits.”
“A man in dire straits. That won’t be hard. But why do I want to impress a banker?” He held the door for her as they stepped out into the sunshine. His eyes would definitely have to get used to direct sunlight again.
“Manipulating bankers is always a good thing. I do it all the time.”
He eyed the slim figure, the dark golden curls. “No worries for you—you have the tools.”
They crossed Swan Street to the bank and went in the front door. Mr. Grosvenor rose from his desk as if he had been expecting them. Marty took part in the required pleasantries, all the while watching Pearl with growing admiration as she handled this imperious financial icon. Clearly Marty was there to observe, not to negotiate.
She charmed. She baffled. She promised nothing, and yet the promise was there somehow, implicit in her very being. With a smile and a firm voice she accomplished what all Marty’s trips to town had not. Half an hour later—thanks to a hefty draft on Pearl’s bank—Pinjarra was safely shoved back an inch or two from the brink of ruin.
More pleasantries, more smiles, more shaking of hands, and Pearl and Marty were whisked out into the sunshine. The doors closed behind them, the end of the business day.
“What’s next?” Marty squinted against the brightness and scratched an itchy shoulder. “Do I get to shave soon? A bath wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. And flea powder, or maybe paris green. They should have a law in that jail against anything smaller than a rabbit.”
She stepped back to study him. “No bath. I think I prefer to watch you suffer.” She marched up to the corner and turned right onto Emu Street.
He fell in beside her. All right, be that way, your Highness. Throw your weight around. You have a wad that would choke a wombat and you’ve decided to buy me with it—probably Pinjarra as well. And there’s no way to prevent you. I’m all yours, courtesy the power of the almighty British pound sterling.
“I need to get my horse at the police station. Where are we going?”
“We’ll stop there first.”
After retrieving his horse, Marty and Pearl walked down the street into Duck Street, where she veered suddenly off the curb and climbed into the seat of a dusty buggy. Marty tied his horse to the back and then untied the buggy’s lackadaisical old hack, arranged the lines and hauled himself up to the seat. At least she was letting him drive. A picnic hamper sat at their feet and she gave no specific directions as to destination, so he turned the little horse off Duck Street into Eagle Street and headed north out of town.
The exquisite heat of afternoon was just now beginning to wane. Land and sky dipped gently to the west, and beyond the dip rolled away endlessly. A patch of lacy trees here, a low rise there softened the level line between stolid earth and soaring heaven. From the roadside a mob of noisy
galahs rose up, a churning cloud of gray and vivid pink.
And Marty’s spirit rose with them. His heart sang as the unpleasant memories of that oppressive jail and intimidating banker gathered behind them in the dust. The sheer infinity of the land and the sky beguiled him and burst his bonds of care. He didn’t even mind anymore that this beautiful woman beside him had him tightly wrapped in her purse strings.
Beautiful? Yes. Beautiful indeed. “Flash,” Jase called her, and flash she was. In addition, there was a new firmness about her, a comfortable new self-confidence that Marty found most appealing.
Three miles out of town, the road climbed over a shallow ridge and swooped down through an open grove of gum trees. Marty turned the horse aside and drove back among them. He chose a huge gnarled patriarch of a gum tree primarily because of the generous shade it cast and tied the horse to a nearby sapling.
“This good enough?” He hopped down even before she replied, “Delightful.” He gave her a hand out of the buggy and scooped up the picnic basket. Either there was enough food here to feed a shearing crew or she had purchased a hod of bricks by mistake.
She spread a carriage robe under the tree as he lugged the hamper over. When he had set it down, Pearl reached into the basket and began to unpack it: china dishes, a quart pot full of water and a two-cup teapot. So that’s why the thing was so heavy. As she set out plates and food, he built a fire to boil the quart pot, but he had to ask her for matches. Felons aren’t allowed to have matches in jail, lest they burn down the iron, brick and stone structure.
It was a simple supper of bread, meat, cheese and apples, topped off with fresh-steeped tea. With the rustle of gum leaves overhead and the fresh breeze of evening, the supper tasted infinitely better than jail food. They dawdled over the meal, laughing, and playing a back-and-forth game of “do you remember…?”
The sun was angling low enough now that their shade would soon yank itself right out from under their picnic. Marty watched the light of evening ripen from white to gold.
With admiration he studied the interesting things the yellow sun did to those golden curls. “Why are you here?”
She considered for a moment, apparently deciding on an answer, or perhaps simply deciding on the phrasing. “Rescuing dreams.”
“That doesn’t tell me much. Or don’t you want to let me in on your mysterious motives?”
She giggled, a bit nervously. “‘Mysterious motives.’ I like that. They’re so mysterious I’m not sure I know what they are. I miss Enid, Marty. I miss her so much.”
“Yair. Every time something religious comes up—anything at all—she comes to mind. And you. Sometimes I think of you with no reminder at all. Those were good times, those days. Footloose. Good friends. You and Enid. You were our best friends.”
“All I could think about was making money and more money so I could hit the big city in grand style. You know what? I really dreaded having to take Enid along. She was such a bother sometimes. A millstone around my neck, I thought. Suddenly she was gone and I was free of the bother. Pretty soon I had the money. But without Enid…” She shrugged helplessly. “She didn’t figure in my plans at all. She wouldn’t know how to dazzle a sophisticated city man; in fact, she probably wouldn’t want to. And now I didn’t want to go without her. Isn’t that silly?”
“So you stayed in Anakie and made more money.”
“Wasn’t anything else to do. I was so empty. But I didn’t know what to…” Her voice trailed off. She sighed. “I won’t get into all that. When your friend Luke came through, I finally saw the light about Jesus Christ. I suppose I thought that would instantly cure everything. It changed things. I take part in a church service now, instead of just sitting there, and it has infinitely deeper meaning. It’s fun to read the Bible, and meaningful. But it’s still not the same as Enid’s faith. Or your friend’s.”
“We haven’t had contact for years. What possessed you to come today? How did you know?”
She smiled. “I saw a piece about you in the local paper. Cattle theft, falsifying complaints, I don’t know what else. Jail—I read that and it hit me in the stomach as if they’d accused me of those things. As always, I acted first and thought about it later. I was on the train and headed this way before I worked out what was going on inside me.”
“Then you’re way ahead of me. I don’t have a clue what’s going on inside me.”
“I know this much. I left for Brisbane to realize my dream—to marry well. But what’s well? A man with money? I don’t need one. I have my own money. A man who will take care of me? You find those all over. Big city? Nice, but it has very much lost its luster. I’ve come to understand this country and the people in it. You might say it’s rather grown on me.”
“I can’t picture you being content in Anakie.”
She giggled again, like music. “Neither can I.” She sobered. “My mother writes frequently. Every letter’s the same. She hates Barcaldine because it’s so provincial. No one influential lives so far outback. Her life is so hard. She can’t buy nice things. She has no friends because there are no women in such a small town that she’d want to have for a friend. She wants me to come home and live with them, as if I were still sixteen. And on and on.”
“Maybe she’s a city lady like you.”
“That’s it exactly. She yearns for the city, same as I did, and she’s absolutely miserable. But you know what? When she lived in Sydney and in Brisbane she was miserable then, too. Never content, never close to anyone. Sydney or Barcaldine—it didn’t make any difference.”
What could he say? “I’m sorry your mum’s not happy.”
“She wants me to keep her company so she has a shoulder to cry on. But she’s not content to seek happiness where she is. Marty, I almost became that woman myself.”
He watched the earnest, lovely face a moment. “Are you answering my question? I asked why you’re here.”
“Yes. I’m here because I don’t want to become like my mother, lonely and discontent. I don’t know anyone in Brisbane anymore. If I move there I’ll have to start all over building friendships and evaluating business associates. I wouldn’t know whom to trust. I hate trying to figure out whom to trust.
“Then I realized something: I already have friends, who accept me just as I am. Certainly it’s a dumpy little town. But it has very nice people in and around it, and one of them is in trouble. I can go off looking for friends that couldn’t possibly be any nicer than the ones I already know well, or I can help an old and valued friend out when he needs it.”
He stared at her the longest time. She was not at all the shallow Pearl he remembered, and the new depth in her amazed him. “That’s very beautiful.”
“It’s very selfish. I’m trying desperately to avoid unhappiness.”
“Aren’t we all. So you’re rescuing a dream. Am I a dream?”
“You’re part of it because you’re such a good friend. My dream is happiness, ultimately. You know what? If you hadn’t gotten into trouble like this, I’d still be in Anakie wondering what to do with myself. Wondering what God wants. I might never have figured out these things about Mum and friendship and all; you never know. Your problem here has been most unpleasant for you, I realize, but it’s been life-changing for me.”
He watched the light play across her face. Do you kiss an old and valued friend? More important, would kissing that friend wreck the friendship? He looked into those wonderful eyes, more beautiful now than when he first saw them so many years ago. They told him very clearly: Give it a burl, mate—it’s well worth the risk.
He kissed her softly, the barest touch of lips. She didn’t back away. He kissed her properly, firmly, gently, as a beautiful woman ought to be kissed (he supposed; he had precious little experience in that arena). And he learned what he might have known all along, had he thought about it. Kissing an old and valued friend is infinitely better than dreaming the most wonderful dream in the world.
Chapter Nineteen
Just a Taste of Serenity
Pearl Fowkes prided herself on her business know-how. When she bought that restaurant she had personally inspected every inch of it, including the crawl spaces. She had known the general store’s exact inventory before she ever signed the papers. Now here she was—contrary to everything she knew to be wise—up to her ears in the finances of a cattle station, sight unseen.
Until this moment. And now that she laid eyes on it for the first time, she had absolutely no idea what she was looking at. Was this a superior station or a miserable one? Were the buildings commendable or deplorable? What was the standard and how did this place compare?
Marty turned slightly in the buggy seat beside her, smiling. “Welcome to Pinjarra.”
“Thank you. Forgive me, but somehow I imagined a couple of stringybark shacks. This is actually quite, er, civilized. Lovely home. Big barn.”
“One of the better ones. You should see Elizabeth Downs, though. There’s the best of the lot.” He drove up to the front door. From out by the barn a young black girl, half-caste with pretty blue eyes, came striding across the dooryard.
She grinned as she took the buggy horse’s bridle. “Indirri’s back; he got big good news for you! Him and Jason.” She giggled. “You should hear the stories he tells ’bout town. First time in a town. And see a train…” She rolled her eyes in delight.
Marty laughed. “You’ll have to translate them for me; his five-word vocabulary probably wouldn’t do these stories justice. Where’s Jase?”
“Inna house. You need your horse anymore?”
“No. You can put him up.”
She nodded. Pearl expected her to leave the horse where it was, tied to the back of the buggy, and lead the buggy to the barn. No. The girl untied the horse, vaulted into the saddle and led the other horse and buggy to the barn.
Power of Pinjarra Page 20
