Her Australian Cattle Baron

by Margaret Way

  “Endless storms pass over without a single drop of rain materializing,” Royce told her. Though his dark eyes revealed little, he admired her prowess in the saddle. She had confided that her mother, a good weekend rider, had initially taught her to ride before she had joined a very good pony club.

  “At one time, I was horse mad!”

  No wonder the problematic Marigold had said there was nothing Melly couldn’t do.

  “It must be immensely frustrating,” she said, referring to the cloud build-ups that yielded not a drop of the all-important rain.

  Royce shrugged. “It’s the way it is.”

  “How Irish is that?” she said with a laugh. She tipped back her blond head, protected by the wide-brimmed cream felt hat Anthea had found for her.

  It had never looked remotely as good on anyone else, Royce thought. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The Irish coined that phrase,” she said.

  He nodded. “I believe the Irish also have a saying, ‘God does take an interest in your prayers, but most times, He can’t be bothered.’ ”

  “It must seem that way to too many people,” Amelia said. “Even God must be flat-out tired of coping with our manmade ills and disasters.”

  “Governments of the world are taking too long to get their act together,” Royce said.

  They rode on.

  For the time being, in perfect harmony.

  * * *

  The late spring rains had performed their miracles all over the station. Amelia had found the wildflower display phenomenal. Kooralya was in fine condition. Great flights of tiny wild birds native to Australia, the budgerigars, green and gold, streaked ahead of them in near-perfect squadron formation. Their speed was fantastic, a blinding sheet of emerald.

  “I’m fascinated by the birdlife on Kooralya,” she called to Royce, riding a short distance away. She had marvelled at the huge flocks of pink and grey galahs, the cockatoos, the millions of red-beaked finches, not to mention the predators: the hawks, the falcons, and the wedge-tailed eagles with their nests in the hill country.

  She was enjoying this shared experience immensely. There had been no bucking, no rearing, no prancing, or signs of ill humour from Tamara. The filly too was thoroughly enjoying her outing with her female, sensitive-handed rider.

  “The desert and the desert fringe are among the hottest, driest places on earth,” Royce said, “but it’s alive with birdsong and these extraordinary flyovers we’re looking at now.”

  Amelia stared up. “The leader or leaders have to make an amazing decision where to land.”

  “That’s right.” Royce was impressed. Miss Amelia Boyd, lawyer, might as well have been born on the land. “They descend as one. Thousands and thousands of nomadic birds arrived here with the rains. God knows where they all come from, but they always turn up to breed in our lignum swamps. I have to tell you, the lignum swamps are barely accessible.”

  “Where the pelican builds his nest?” Amelia turned her head to smile at him.

  Once more, he surprised her.

  The horses were ready, the rails were down,

  But the riders lingered still—

  One had a parting word to say

  And one had his pipe to fill

  Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer

  And one with a grief unguessed

  “We are going,” they said, as they rode away—

  “Where the pelican builds her nest.”

  Amelia’s heart gave a little excited leap. She decided to contribute some remembered lines of her own.

  No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,

  Where the pelican builds her nest.

  “We all learned that poem in primary school,” she said.

  Royce looked away into the distance. “My mother used to read it to me,” he revealed, most unexpectedly. “I couldn’t have been more than three or four. She had a wonderful way with children. Visiting kids, relatives, loved her. She was a fine, natural rider like you. Maybe a shade reckless, which I suspect you are. She could lift everyone’s spirits with a smile. My father was a hard man, immensely abrupt. No one stood against him. There were no bedtime stories for a small son. No poetry readings around him. No pat on the head. God forbid a kiss goodnight. No kisses, yet he was passionate about my mother. It was primitive. So wildly pronounced. He thought he owned her.”

  Tears shimmered in Amelia’s eyes. She blinked them back. “When you are blessed with children, Royce, will you find the time to read to them?” she asked.

  He flicked her a wry glance. “I have to find a wife first.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “It would have been good to have my mother around.”

  “Maybe she didn’t desert you at all, Royce.” she said gently. “You never have bothered to find out the real story.”

  “Maybe I can recruit you to do it,” he returned, in a hard, mocking voice. “Let’s move on, Amelia.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  Amelia remained quiet as requested. To this day, talk of his mother disturbed him. He and Jimmy must have had a brutal time of it with their dreadful father, she thought. Her own father was the loveliest father in the world. She adored her parents. She was one of the lucky ones. Both Charles Stirling’s sons had responded to their father’s harshness differently. It had toughened up Royce. It had almost broken Jimmy.

  The hills were close. “Opal matrix was found up there from the early days,” Royce told her. “My father gave my mother a magnificent opal necklace and earrings as a present. The opals came from Kooralya. I suppose if we ever had the time, we could go prospecting again. I’m certain the opals are still there, ready to be mined. My father was always plying my mother with jewellery. He insisted she wear the jewellery he gave her to dinner, even when they were on their own, and certainly whenever we had guests, like the family friend she ran off with.”

  “And never married. He could simply have been helping her escape.”

  “No, he was in love with her. They all were.”

  End of story.

  Only there was a story begging to be told.

  * * *

  Amelia found this ancient land breathtakingly beautiful in a wild, mysterious way. Apart from the extreme remoteness, the great width and openness of the desert that gave the spirit a great sense of liberation, the stark contrasting colours played a big part. There was the dense furnace-red of the soil, the gold of the dry but luxuriant grasses, the lacy leafed trees and the pure white boles of the ghost gums under the intense blue of the sky.

  Even the passing storm clouds pierced by shafts of gold had such a depth of colour, silver-grey, ink black shot through with plum-purple, acid green and streaks of a pinkish-red. A pair of emus, which thrived in the Outback, had joined them. Probably mates, male and female. The taller bird stood some two metres in height, the other noticeably shorter. In size, emus were second only to ostriches in the bird kingdom. They were pacing along on their ungainly long legs, yet Amelia knew emus were incredibly fast. They could reach speeds up to sixty miles an hour in short bursts. They looked amazing in their natural habitat.

  Gradually, the flightless birds got bored and moved off. The bigger bird, the male, was making loud drumming sounds. A prelude to mating?

  “ ‘Emu’ isn’t an aboriginal word,” Royce turned his head to her, having noted her interest in the birds.

  “I always thought it was.”

  “It comes from the Portuguese ema. It means large bird. Even aboriginals stuck to it. Our aboriginal people have lived in peace in this land for upwards of fifty thousand years. My family took up this vast holding a little over one hundred and fifty years ago. Just think of it! In the main, we treated our original landowners well.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. A treaty with the aboriginal people, the first landowners, is long overdue.”

  “Agreed. Still, may I point out, Miss Boyd, it was the white man who pioneered this land and built up the nation’s gr
eat stations both for sheep and cattle? Aboriginal people may respect the white man. I hope, know, they respect me, but I can never become a blood brother. That’s out of the question.”

  “Yet this is your kingdom?” She glanced over at him, so straight-backed in the saddle. No slouching. Not for one minute. He looked so splendid he took her breath away.

  “A king without a queen,” he said, dryly.

  “What about Charlene? I would have thought she was eminently suitable.”

  “She is. Charlene is my friend. I wouldn’t like to lose her friendship. I wouldn’t have made love to you if I were committed to Charlene, Miss Boyd. I’m not. At one time, she and Jimmy hit it off very well. They were, as they say, an item. Charlene has the qualities Jimmy needs to keep him on track.”

  Amelia shot him a surprised glance. “I could have sworn she was madly in love with you. It looked that way at the wedding.”

  “Sorry to be so ungallant, but that’s wishful thinking. I suspect Charlene’s mother, Stella, had something to do with it. Why go for the younger brother when the older brother is the bigger catch? I know the thinking.”

  “So what happened? This is very surprising news. Jimmy never mentioned a Charlene, though I did see him dancing with her at the reception.”

  “Jimmy had it drummed into him he couldn’t compete with me. I told you. Dad was a cruel man. Never physically cruel. No beatings. Maybe the occasional biff I managed to duck. He couldn’t have taken me on from about age sixteen. I was already over six feet. It was more prolonged mental cruelty. Instead of staying here and maybe getting engaged to Charlene, Jimmy took off. I find it very hard to be angry with him.”

  “Then you should understand how I found it very hard to be angry with Marigold.”

  “Except James has a conscience,” Royce pointed out shortly. “It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I believe Marigold was born without a conscience. Not so extraordinary, when you think about it. Thousands and thousands of people—men, women, children—have been born without a conscience. They’re indifferent to the feelings of others. You must know that’s true.”

  Amelia swallowed. Essentially, she did. “We’re hoping Marigold will benefit greatly from therapy and medication.”

  “There’s always hope.” Then after a minute’s reflection, he said, “Some people have great inner strength. Take Pippa. She won’t have told you this. None of us can bear to talk about it, for that matter, but Pippa’s husband, Cliff, was gored to death by a bull.”

  Amelia was aghast. Pippa was always so cheerful. “Here on the station?”

  “Where else? Station work is dangerous work. We’ve had broken legs, broken arms, serious kicks in the head, all over the body, fatal riding accidents, but nothing as bad as losing Cliff. He was a great bloke.”

  “When was this? I’m so sorry.”

  “Eight years ago. Pippa is a stoic. We took her into the house. Anthea looked after her until she got back on her feet. I wouldn’t mention it to Pippa. If she wants to talk about it, she will.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t dream of bringing up such a painful subject. Nothing is ever what it seems, is it?”

  “No. Many, many people experience tragedy. Just as many don’t talk about it. Stirling men, the ones who went off to war and managed to come back, never spoke about their experiences.”

  “Too horrific.”

  “Our young men, all the young men particularly of the New World were innocents. Some thought they were going off to a great adventure.”

  “And perished. War is such wanton destruction. Men blindly obeyed lunatics like Hitler and Stalin and their modern counterparts. Human life was treated as meaningless. Yet instead of hating it, men live to keep wars going. Men, not women. Out here, thank God, war seems so very far away.”

  “We’re blessed,” said Royce, “but if our country and our allies are threatened, we fight.”

  “Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that. Some men must hate life if they’re so ready to die. I would hate to think peace was just a fantasy.”

  “Men also fight wars for justice,” Royce said.

  * * *

  The long line of hills to the west and northwest was so lit up it was as if gigantic coal fires were burning inside the caves. When they arrived at the base, they took the saddles off their horses and then left the animals loosely tethered to one of the ubiquitous mulga trees. The broad, deep, overhanging rocks acted as a shelter from the hot sun. A little grass and vegetational cover, a sprinkling of wildflowers, were growing in the shade for them to munch. It was clear these two stable-mates were happy together.

  “Take my hand and don’t let go.” Royce ordered.

  “What do you think I’m going to do, race you to the summit?” She gave him a scornful look.

  “I wouldn’t put it past you.” He put out his hand.

  She held on, her fingers laced through his. It came to her like a revelation: She would go anywhere with him. To the ends of the earth.

  “Watch where you put your feet,” Royce called back to her, his tone imperative. “Hug the wall. Don’t look down. It seems we’re going to get a shower after all.”

  “Told you.”

  A sea of shadow was descending on them. As yet, no drops of rain had fallen, but Amelia could smell it. She was happy. So happy. Madly in love. Was it wise to be?

  They barely made it into the chosen cave before the rain fell down. There was no violence to it, no strong whistling wind, but if one were standing out in it, one could get very wet. There was plenty of light inside the cave, which was great. Amelia had expected deep gloom. Brilliant spears of lightning were shooting down from the heavens to fork into the receptive earth, increasing the amount of light.

  “Will the horses be okay?” she asked, concerned they would be frightened by the bluster.

  “They’re used to it,” Royce said. He watched on while Amelia stared all around her, From her expression, she was caught in a spell of wonder. It gave him immense pleasure that she felt such kinship with this ancient land and all it had to offer. Not everyone felt that way.

  Amelia tread carefully over the bone-dry pale yellow sand. It was thick and crunchy underfoot, deep and clean. No lizards ran hither and thither, for which she was thankful. The interior was the land of the lizards: the great perenties, the giant goannas. The roof of the cave soared to about ten feet at the highest point. She looked up. The ceiling and the sandstone walls were covered in all manner of drawings.

  “Oh my gosh!” she murmured, as prayerfully as if she were in a cathedral.

  “Quite something, aren’t they?” Royce said. “These are the best and the clearest of the drawings. They may not be the oldest, but they are plenty old enough.”

  “They’re fantastic!” Her eyes swept around her. Normally, she would have felt a bit claustrophobic, but not here. Not in this place. Not here with Royce.

  The grace with which she moved and acted, as always, had a powerful effect on him. In the strangely eerie light, her beautiful skin had a lambent quality, like the lustre of a pearl. These caves were sacred places. Ancient meeting places. He had known about the caves all his life. He would never have been allowed to see them by his father, only his mother. He had ridden out into the great landscape one afternoon when his father was overseas on business. Those were the times when they all had freedom from his endless brutal remarks and piercing scrutiny.

  He would have been seven or eight. His mother had been his touchstone. It was Amelia who had turned the key on the lock on all these memories of his mother. Amelia didn’t speak to him as others spoke to him. She was her own woman. They were on an equal footing. After his traumatic childhood, he firmly believed men and women should be partners; equals. For all that, his closest women friends continued to act as if he were somehow their superior, the alpha male. He had grown impatient of that.

  Inexorably, he had to question his own behaviour. For all he appeared to show little in the way of emotion on the surface, his emotio
ns ran very deep. His mother, the woman who had given birth to him, who had appeared to have loved him as much as he loved her, had run away and abandoned him, was still his mother. Some families were safe sanctuaries, where members could turn to each other for love, for support, for comfort.

  Other families were battlegrounds. He had to acknowledge his family had been the latter, only it had been his father’s behaviour that had accounted for most of the unhappiness and discontent within the Stirlings. They were many accounts of happy times under his grandfather, his father, and the father before him. Happy photographs, letters, snapshots. There was plenty of evidence his ancestor Captain Richard Stirling had been a fine man who had bound the family, his workers, and the aboriginal people on the station into a cohesive whole.

  “This is the giant Rainbow Snake, isn’t it, Royce?” Amelia called. Royce was standing still near the mouth of the cave. He hadn’t joined her. “These undulating coils? There are stick figures caught inside the coils.”

  He could hear the excitement in her voice. He closed the gap between them. He had been deliberately keeping some distance in an effort to tamp down the strength of his feelings. He wanted to take hold of her and pull her into his arms. He wanted to lie down with her on the sand, watched over by the ancient erotic drawings on the cave ceiling.

  “The great Rainbow Snake,” he confirmed, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Wanambi to the desert people. The Rainbow Snake is a terrifying and powerful snake hundreds of feet long. Whenever Wanambi was angered, which was often, he used to rear up into the sky. There he was even more powerful. Wanambi could wreak punishment wherever he pleased. He could stop the rains. He could cause the drought. The desert people believed he lived on earth at Uluru, Ayers Rock. Yet they didn’t fear Uluru. They love it. It’s their most sacred place.”

  “I’ve never been there,” she confessed, suddenly feeling a sense of shame she hadn’t made the pilgrimage to the Centre. So many did, and reported on its wonders.