by Becca Van
* * * *
Present Day
Jewel Ellesworth had been driving for three days straight. She was still sore from the beating Reilly had given her and now, after spending hour upon hour in her 1967 Kombi, she was stiff, too, and knew she had to take a break to get a decent night’s sleep. It had been hard napping in wayside stops off the side of the highways because she could still hear the trucks roaring past, and their air brakes, when they were applied. Plus, every time she’d turned over, her body had let her know it was still healing.
The bruises on her face were beginning to fade, but they were still quite stark and noticeable with the mottled blue-green and yellow colours. The marks on her ribs were a lot darker than her face, but they had begun to change colour, too. She was hungry and thirsty because she had gone through the last of her small supply of food last night, and the last water bottle had been emptied three hours ago. It was almost four o’clock and she wanted to find a camp ground before it got dark. She wanted a long, hot shower, food and a good night’s sleep, but she also needed to stop into a town and load up on some more supplies. Maybe she would treat herself to a decent meal at a café or restaurant, too.
When she saw the turnoff to a town called Passion, she giggled. Who would call a town that? Although, that was pretty mild after some of the town names she’d seen in the last few years. Some of the names were so long she couldn’t even begin to try and pronounce them. Jewel flicked the indicator on and took the exit and slowed her speed as she hit the outskirts of the rural Victorian town.
The scenery was such a contrast in landscape from the Outback. Living and working in the desert had been an amazing experience, but the red desert sand had gotten into everything. No matter how hard she’d tried to keep her white T-shirts white, it hadn’t happened. The bore water had also been tinted with the red sand, but it didn’t really matter. As long as she knew her clothes were clean and they smelled fresh, she didn’t care if they didn’t look it. Working on a million-acre cattle station had been hard, especially when it was well above forty degrees Celsius, sometimes even fifty, but she preferred the wide-open spaces and working with animals any day to being stuck in a city full of smog, traffic and way too many people.
Jewel wasn’t a people person. That was one of the reasons she’d become a jillaroo. Animals never let you down the way people could and did, and once you had their love and loyalty, it never came with conditions. It didn’t matter what you looked like, what your beliefs were, or anything else for that matter. Animals accepted you as long as you treated them with love and respect, and took care of them.
She breathed deeply and sighed at the wonderful scent of gum and eucalyptus smells wafting in the lowered window. It was such a different aroma to the desert. The fragrance was lush and fresh and clean. Just as she passed the five-kilometre mark outside of Passion, Benjy coughed and spluttered. Jewel stroked his steering wheel lovingly.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll be stopping very soon and you can rest.” She’d been pushing him hard and was worried about the smoke billowing out of the back, but she had wanted to get as far from the Northern Territory as possible.
She loved her Kombi van. They had spent the last eight years together. She’d set up the insides of Benjy a bit at a time, refurbishing the interior of her vehicle, which was now like a campervan she could sleep, cook and eat in. The only thing she couldn’t fit inside her Kombi was a bathroom, but that didn’t matter because there were heaps of caravan parks along the way she often stopped at to shower. She had a small, portable, two-burner propane stove, and she’d fitted a sink inside the van. She could cook up most things if she wanted to, but more often than not just ate salads, fruit and sandwiches when she was travelling. It was faster and more convenient, even though she did have a very small fridge inside Benjy.
Jewel cringed when he coughed again, but this time, instead of stroking the steering wheel, she stroked and patted the dashboard.
“Not long, baby. Please don’t die on me now.”
After glancing down at the fuel and temperature gauge and seeing that she had plenty of petrol and the engine heat was well within normal range, she sighed. She had no clue about cars. Of course, she could change a tyre. Being on her own made that a necessity, and she knew how to check the oil and water, and if she had to, she could actually do an oil and filter change herself, but beyond that, she was clueless.
She did know that her little Benjy didn’t have a radiator, but his engine was air-cooled rather than water-cooled, so it had taken her longer to drive the 2100 kilometres, because she’d had to rest Benjy often because of the hot ambient temperatures while she was still in the desert. However, now that she was way further south, he shouldn’t be having any trouble at all, and it worried her that his spluttering was getting worse when there didn’t seem to be any heat problem.
This time, when Benjy coughed, he backfired and then he went quiet. Jewel bit her lip and as he slowed in speed she eased him to the side of the road.
“Please, wake up, Benjy? You can’t quit on me now. We’ve been through so much together.” Jewel knew she was being ridiculous and if any saw or heard her, they would probably think she was a load shy, but Benjy had been the only constant in her life and she was attached to him, as she had no living relative or any real close friends. Although she had a lot of acquaintances since she had been travelling the country working from place to place as a jillaroo for eight years, she hadn’t really let anyone get very close.
Jewel had learned from a young age not to depend on anyone. Her mother had dumped her on the steps of an orphanage when she was five years old and she hadn’t seen her since. She had no idea who her father was and, since he didn’t seem to give a shit about her, wasn’t interested in finding or knowing him.
The orphanage had been okay, and after she’d gotten over her shellshock of being left behind and grieving for her mum, she’d made friends with Susan, but she should have learnt from the pain of her mother leaving her. Susan had been adopted, and once more Jewel had been left behind. At the ripe old age of six, she had decided it hurt too much to get close to anyone. The pain and grief inside had made her hard and even a little bitter, but it had also helped her to toughen up. From then on, she’d concentrated on school with a single-minded determination, and although she had graduated two years early, she’d had to spend another two years in the orphanage until she was considered an adult at eighteen.
She had seen an advert in the local paper for a stable hand just after she’d graduated, and since it was close enough to the orphanage for her to get to work on foot, she had applied, and to her surprise, she’d gotten the job. Those two years of hard work had taught her a lot about horses and cattle, and she had decided that she would become a jillaroo.
She’d worked hard, taking any overtime she could and covering when people were sick, and saved all of her money, except for her driving lessons. The day she turned eighteen and taken and received her driver’s license test, she’d been free. The very next day, she’d gone to the home of the old man where Benjy had been sitting in the front yard with a “for sale” sign on him, and after taking him for a test drive and haggling over the price, she bought her very first and only car. She’d driven back to the orphanage, packed her things and left to start her life.
Little by little, Benjy had been cleaned up from the inside out and once he’d been looking good, she’d had a black moustache painted on the front to show his character.
Tears pricked her eyes and she took a deep breath. There was no way she was leaving him behind. She had money saved up and would pay anything to get her friend back to normal.
Jewel wiped at her damp cheeks and sniffed as she got out and headed toward the back. A puff a black smoke billowed out when she opened the boot, but what she saw made her heart race. There was a spark plug lead dangling out of the engine and a hole was left behind. What was left of the spark plug was hanging off the lead.
“Oh, shit. Benjy, my poor
baby.” Jewel stroked the side of her van. “That had to hurt.”
The only reason she knew what a spark plug and lead were was because the last time Benjy had been serviced, the mechanic had told her the spark plugs and leads had to be changed. Did that mean the guy hadn’t done his job properly? Had he somehow stuffed up and not put the spark plug in properly? There was no way she could go and ask him, since the man was over two thousand kilometres away, but she was mad that something the guy had done to her precious Benjy had left him in this state. She sighed and reined her anger in, because she couldn’t be sure that was the case at all. She was probably responsible since she’d kept driving even as the black smoke pouring out the back got worse, but she was too tired and cranky to be reasonable.
“Now, what are we going to do, baby? I have no idea if there is a mechanic in this Passion place, and even if there is, it will probably take time to get the parts in. Shit! I don’t want to leave you out here all alone, but it’s the only option. I’m going to have to walk and find someone to tow you so we can get you all fixed up.”
Jewel straightened and closed the engine access lid. After looking around and seeing pastures and trees on both sides of the road, and no cars coming either way, she headed back to the front, grabbed the keys, locked Benjy up and started walking toward Passion.
She didn’t carry a bag. Everything she needed was in the pocket of her jeans. Her wallet with her bankcards and ID were on her at all times. She always carried two hundred dollars in cash with her, thank goodness, so at least she had money to pay a tow truck driver if she found one, and hopefully, there was a bank or ATM machine where she could get some more money out to pay for accommodation, and to get her precious baby fixed.
She’d managed to accumulate quite a stash in her bank account. Living and working on cattle stations and farms with accommodation and food thrown in made for less spending. The only time she spent her money was for fuel and supplies when she was travelling. If she wanted to, she could have bought her own house a couple of years ago, but she loved moving around from place to place. She’d often wondered if her mum had been a drifter and maybe she was following in her footsteps. Not that she cared one way of the other. Not really.
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, girl,” she muttered as she trudged on and wondered why she was thinking about her mother right then. She hadn’t thought about her since she was six years old.
Pushing her thoughts aside with a sigh, she tilted her head when she heard a low rumble and turned around to see a large vehicle in the distance coming toward her. She turned and walked back toward Benjy, hoping she could borrow a cell phone to call for help or maybe hitch a lift into town. Just as she stopped next to her van and saw the dual cab utility full of young men slowing down, she got nervous and wished she was inside her Kombi with the doors locked.
The car pulled in behind Benjy and as the passenger got out, Jewel pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the driver’s door, before opening it. She wanted to be able to have some sort of protection if she needed it.
“Hey there, good-looking,” the young man with black hair said as he sauntered toward her with a shit-eating grin and a lascivious smile on his face.
Jewel wanted to jump into Benjy and slam and lock the doors. The way the guy was looking at her was all too familiar. Her heart stuttered, her breathing escalated and her knees began shaking, but she held her ground. There was no way she was letting this idiot know she was scared of him. When she heard another door slam, and then another, she glanced around the guy who had stopped a few feet from her and sweat broke out onto her brow as her nerves hitched up another notch. Three more young men were walking toward her.
“Did you break down, sweetheart?” the blond driver of the ute asked.
Jewel’s first instinct was to roll her eyes and say “duh,” but she tried to keep her expression stoic and nodded.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Black Hair asked. He was too close to her, and then he was reaching out for her hand.
Jewel jerked to the side and scowled at him. “Don’t touch me.”
“Whoo-wee,” one of the other guys, wearing a blue T-shirt, said as he came to stand behind the dick with black hair who had tried to grab her hand. “You’re just a little firecracker, ain’t ya?”
“Dickhead,” Jewel muttered under her breath.
“What did you say?” Blondie asked.
“She said ‘dickhead,’” the fourth man with the red hair said.
Jewel drew in a ragged, nervous breath. She hadn’t noticed him moving closer to her as she kept her eyes on the other three. Her muscles tensed in preparation. The hair on her nape was standing on end and she knew things were about to go south. All four of the young men looked pissed.
“I bet you like it rough, don’t ya?” Red asked.
Jewel ignored him, her eyes on Black Hair as he moved closer. There was such malicious intent in his eyes, she was scared out of her wits. All she could see was Reilly when he hit and fondled her as he tried to rape her. Her breathing was so fast and she was shaking like a leaf in a brutal storm, but she couldn’t give into her fear. She needed to get it together so she could get out of this situation unharmed.
“Please, just go. Leave me alone.” Jewel couldn’t understand how she could sound so confident and emphatic but was pleased that her voice didn’t come out shaky and weak.
“No, I don’t think so,” Blue T-shirt said as his hand shot out and wrapped tight around her wrist. “You must like it rough. The bruises on your face tell me you do.”
She dug her heels in, but he was bigger and stronger than she was and he was tugging her toward their ute. Using her free hand, she made a fist and slammed it down into his forearm as hard as she could.
“Fucking bitch,” Blue T-shirt snarled as he released her and spun around. “You’ll pay for that, you slut.”
“Fucking prick,” Jewel yelled, before turning quickly, only to slam up against Red-Hair. His arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her feet from the ground. She twisted, bucked and wriggled, and then groaned as she was dropped onto her arse on the road. It took her a moment to get her breath back, and when she did, she saw that the four men were running toward their ute. Doors slammed, the engine roared, wheels spun, spraying gravel, and then the rubber tyres squealed as they gripped the bitumen. The vehicle did a U-turn before speeding back the way they had come from.
She sat on the road, shocked and shaking in disbelief as the vehicle disappeared over the rise. It wasn’t until she heard a feminine voice close by and turned her head that she noticed the Mustang convertible parked on the other side of the road.
Two men and a woman were moving toward her. Jewel moaned as she tried to stand. Her arse felt bruised, and since she was still healing from her encounter with Reilly and had been driving for three days straight, she was exhausted and aching from head to toe.
“Hey, are you okay?” the woman asked.
Jewel nodded.
“Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“Here, let me help you up.” The red-haired woman offered her a hand and Jewel latched onto it gratefully, moaning as she was pulled to her feet.
“Are you sure you aren’t hurt? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
“No. Thanks. I’m okay.”
“My name’s Tiffany Murray. These two guys are my husbands, Matt and Todd.”
Jewel felt her mouth drop open and quickly closed it again, hoping Tiffany hadn’t noticed her shock. “I’m Jewel.”
“Wow, that’s a pretty name,” Tiffany said. “Do you want me to call the police?”
“No,” Jewel answered. She’d had enough of dealing with the cops and judges recently to last her a lifetime. “Do you have a cell phone I could borrow? I need to call a tow truck.”
She met Tiffany’s gaze when she gasped, and ducked her head when she saw the woman looking at her face.
“Did they do that to you?” Tiffany aske
d angrily.
Jewel shook her head.
“Tiff, why don’t I go back for the tow truck?” Matt asked. “You and Todd can stay with Jewel and keep her company.”
“I don’t need—ˮ
“Good idea, Matt. Thanks honey.” Tiffany looked over at Benjy. “Is this your Kombi?”
“Yeah,” Jewel answered.
“I would love to take a look at the engine. I’m a mechanic. Can I?”
“Be my guest.” Jewel sighed with relief. She was surprised that Tiffany was a mechanic. She was a tiny woman and looked so feminine, but she as well as anyone should know to never judge a book by its cover.
Tiffany lifted the engine cover and clucked her tongue. “Damn, this must have run rough with only three cylinders. These things don’t have much power to begin with. How long have you been having trouble?”
Jewel glanced to Tiffany and then at Benjy’s engine. “He was okay until about ten kilometres ago. He started coughing and sputtering just before he died, but he’s been blowing black smoke for a while.”
“Well, you’ve popped the spark plug out of the head.”
“Is that bad?”
“Well, it’s not good. You need all four cylinders to keep this van running well. If it’s been blowing smoke, you will probably need to have the rings replaced while it’s apart.”
“Can you fix him?”
“Yeah, but it will take time to get all the necessary parts.”
“How long do you think?”
“At least two to three days to get the parts, and two to three days to put the engine back together, but I have a couple of other jobs to finish first, so I can’t see you getting it back for two weeks, tops.”
Jewel sighed. She didn’t like being without Benjy, but she wasn’t about to leave him the way he was.
