By the time she got back from Port Douglas that night, the clouds were piling up against the mountains to the west, promising another drenching rainstorm by morning.
Those gnomes had better get busy with their swabs.
Chapter Seventeen
Up and Down the Hills
The moment she heard the front door slam, she knew who it was. She left her book face down on the kitchen table and ran the length of the ell to the parlor. He was standing there shaking his drenched hat, trying to reshape the brim.
“Welcome home, sir.” Samantha snatched up the kangaroo-hide bag. “I’ve mutton stew on, just mayhap you’d be coming this night and had nae eaten yet.”
“Thank you. Is the table set?”
“Nae, sir; I’ll get to that directly.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll eat in the kitchen.”
“As ye wish, sir.” She put the bag down in order to catch his soaked jacket as he shrugged it off his shoulders. She shook it out. “And how did your business go? Well, I hope.”
“The fat’s in the fire. We’ll see what happens next. The mill’s operating. I saw the smoke and steam beyond the trees as I was coming in.”
“Part time. Mr. Gantry says there’s good cane coming on, to make it worth your while. He knows his cane, aye?”
“Ought to. Grew up with a cane knife in his hand. Set my place. I’m coming.”
“Aye, sir!” She draped his jacket across a dining room chair to dry out and left the kangaroo bag at his bedroom door. This was absolutely ridiculous. Why did she feel so bubbly? She had rather enjoyed the absence of the master—less pressure to keep the place in perfect order, fewer chores, less service. Now here she was bouncing about like a schoolgirl in the throes of a first crush.
She stopped cold. That couldn’t be what it was. Surely not. She forced herself into motion again. By the time he came into the kitchen, she had black pekoe steeping for him in the flowered teapot.
He paused to pick up her book and glance at the front page. “The Passenger from Scotland Yard. H. S. Wood.”
“Mystery tale written perhaps fifteen years ago. Five men board a train in Paris. One is murdered and ye must figure out from the clues who is the culprit. ’Twas in that little used-and-abused shop in Port Douglas. A great fan of used books, meself.”
“Been shopping in Port Douglas?” He sat at the place she had laid and snapped his napkin open.
“Hardly the most of it.” She ladled stew into his bowl. “Your humble servant here has been overstepping her bounds again, sir. We can discuss it now or later, but there’s things ye must know.”
“Now’s better than later. I need a good laugh. You’ve eaten, I take it.”
“Aye, but meself can join ye with a bit of bread.” She pulled the towel off the plate of muffins and was pleased to see they were neither hard nor cold yet. She set the muffins and butter before him, poured his tea and sat down across from him.
“Overstepping your bounds. What now?”
“Not long after ye left, Fat Dog appeared. His trackers, out hunting, came upon a white man in the hills to the west of us. A fossicker, it appears. He described the man and the description fits the fellow I met near Cairns; Abner Gardell.”
He stared at her transfixed, the stew forgotten. “Here! Did you see him?”
“Nae, sir. Burriwi and Wurra Whoever are keeping an eye on his whereabouts and daily doings, at me request. That’s one of the instances where I took it upon meself to give orders.”
“So far so good. You’re sure it’s Gardell?”
“Nae atall, sir. But Mr. Gardell does occupy himself with tramping about the mountains in search of a particular gold strike, and your trackers seem to think that also be the intention of our mystery fellow here. Walkabout, they call it. On the chance it is … and by-me-by he should find some gold here …” She licked her lips. “I, uh, er … took the liberty of going down to the land office and filing for mineral rights in the hills behind Sugarlea. On your behalf, of course. Brought the papers home, forged yer signature and took them back. Uh, there be costs involved in it, and something about squatter’s rights …”
“You forged my signature on state documents.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And filed for mineral rights without my approval.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Just on the spare chance that some drongo back in the hills is a half-mad fossicker who might, million-to-one, find gold.”
“Aye, sir,” she muttered. Her grand notion had always seemed foolish to a degree, but the way he described it now revealed her splendid idea for what it truly was—absolutely asinine.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it, sir. Plenty, I warrant.”
He bolted to his feet, grabbed both her upper arms and yanked her out of her chair. He kissed her harder, more violently, than she thought ever a man could. With a triumphant “Ha ha!” he plopped her back into her chair and returned to his own.
“Sam, you’re a beaut! I love you!” He scooped his napkin off the floor and tackled his stew with renewed exuberance.
Her heart would have pounded to hear those words but for his tone of voice. He was using the word as does one who loves to ride in a carriage in the park, who loves iced desserts, who loves a good brouhaha at the bear and bull pits. “Ye be nae angry with me?”
“Angry? You acted in my best interests and acted quickly, as the situation required. And it was blooming clever of you.” His voice dropped a notch. “You really think it might be Gardell?”
“Possibility. I only met the man briefly on one occasion, and sure’n there be a thousand fossickers out there somewhere, all fitting the description. But possibly.”
He waved a hand. “Regardless who it is, if he finds anything yellow I automatically get part of it.” He abandoned his stew again. “Come out on the front porch. I have something for you.”
Samantha followed him through the darkening house. Linnet was coming down the hall, carrying an oil lamp, as he passed.
She curtseyed. “Welcome back, sir.”
“Hello, Linnet.” He hardly glanced at her. He scooped the lamp out of her hand and continued without breaking stride. Samantha heard Linnet fall in at the rear of the parade, but she said nothing.
Out on the porch he handed the lamp to Samantha and wrenched the lid off a wooden crate. He lifted the gift out and plopped it on top of its box.
“A saddle.” Samantha smiled suddenly. “A saddle! Look at the scoop seat; not atall like the seat I rode to Cairns on. And it feels softer—more padded.” She ran her fingers across the smooth-grained leather. Clearly it was shaped for comfort. “What a lovely gesture.” She could feel herself glowing as she looked into his eyes. “Thank ye so very much, sir.”
He seemed quite as pleased. “I was all set to buy you a sidesaddle and the shopkeeper advised against it. Says they’re passing out of fashion and difficult to ride in hilly country. Uphill fine, downhill no. This style is popular with drovers, who spend day upon day on a horse.”
“’Tis a fine thing to do, but ye needn’t have.”
“If I needed to, it wouldn’t have been as much fun.” He rummaged in the bottom of the crate. “This goes with it. You can open it later.” He handed her a parcel tied with string and turned to Linnet. “I’ve brought a load of shrubs up, too. Bottle brush it’s called; nice bloom, pretty foliage. I want you to plant them along the south side of the house tomorrow morning.”
Movement down the road caught Samantha’s eye. At the worst possible time, here came Meg back from an afternoon with the object of her affections. Luke Vinson walked with her. Obviously she had forgotten her umbrella and obviously he was walking her home under his. How touching. Samantha glanced at Mr. Sloan. He glared at the two of them.
If Meg was perplexed, she hid it well. She curtseyed. “Welcome home, sir.” She slipped out from under the umbrella and bounded up onto the porch. Vinson acknowledged Samantha and Linnet, offered Mr. Sloan a
few cheery words and headed home.
Mr. Sloan scowled at Samantha.
“Meself can do things both legal and illegal in the land office, but I cannae control me sisters, sir. I’m sorry. I thank ye again for thinking of me so nicely.” She dipped her head and walked into the house.
Behind her she heard him snap, “Meg. In my office.” She stepped into her own room and closed the door.
The parcel was a pair of bloomers. No, it wasn’t. It was a divided riding skirt, nicely tailored. Splendid. Samantha hated bloomers—she’d not wear those ugly things to her own funeral—and she was nearly bound to wear whatever Mr. Sloan gave her.
The next morning, immediately after serving Mr. Sloan his breakfast, she donned her new riding skirt and tried out her new saddle. Comfort. Bliss, compared to Sheba’s flat saddle. He had said something about sidesaddles and hills. She would try out this superior saddle on hills. She rode north out of the stable clearing and then turned west onto the forested mountain.
The saddle felt marvelous; the track was a wreck. Within half a mile she was off Sheba and walking, fighting her way through tangles and low-hanging branches. Enough of this. She turned around and headed back.
The nicest part of riding locally here was the horse. Samantha could not become lost so long as the horse knew how to get home. They came out into a more open park of pandanus and stately white-trunked trees. She climbed back aboard. Her saddle wrapped gracefully across the back of her bottom, cradled her in snug comfort. Almost certainly she would get stiff again, but equally certain, it would not be nearly as bad. And she felt much more secure.
And she knew now what a forest horse was. The mare picked her way safely through tangled growth. She didn’t wipe Samantha off under low-hanging branches. She had a feel for the trail and could follow it along those stretches where Samantha saw nothing.
Here was a track, now overgrown, that seemed to go straight up the mountainside. She turned Sheba away from her beeline home, and dug in her heels. Her nose nearly touching ground, the mare scrambled up the track. They topped out on a knife-edge ridge. Through breaks in the ubiquitous vegetation, Samantha could glimpse afar the patterned sea. Dark green and light green blotches marked, she guessed, coral gardens beneath the surface. The lucid blue-green melted into gray haze that melted into the filtered blue of distant sky. How bright and beautiful—how peaceful—especially when compared with dear Erin’s dark and turbulent shore.
They followed the ridge for a quarter mile. These narrow trails must once have been logging roads wide enough for a team of horses to pass. Flat-topped stumps betrayed the use of axe and saw. They descended a tortuous old trail, topped a little hump and angled eastward toward home.
Sheba strolled out into a clearing so open a few sickly blades of grass could survive here. She wound among low, gangly bushes and was about to reenter the forest when Samantha stopped her. Over there along the edge of the opening was a camp. A lean-to of woven ferns and palm fronds provided protection from rain. The firepit in front of it, lined with stones, still sent stray wisps of smoke up now and then.
Burriwi and Wurraoonah? Their mysterious fossicker? Aborigines simply passing through? She wished she knew more about such things, and could read the signs invisible to her now. She urged Sheba forward, her eyes still on the little camp.
Sheba jolted to a stop.
He leaned against a tree not ten feet in front of the horse’s nose and he was smiling. “First a bicycle, now a horse. You need some instruction on how to get through forests, lady.”
“Mr. Gardell—the top of the morning to ye! I’ve a brand new saddle and I’m trying it out.”
“I’m disappointed. I thought you were spying on me, too.”
“Hardly, sir. Ye know as well as anyone that I be useless outside the city limits.” She tilted her head. “As I recall, ye were seeking a rock so high, marking a gold mine.”
“Still am. You’ve a good memory; particularly as flustered as you were that night.” He nodded to the east, toward nothing but forest. “So there’s Sugarlea.”
Samantha smiled. “Ye’ll have to ask me horse, sir. She knows the way better’n I. Where she takes me, aye, that’s Sugarlea. Do ye care to visit us, ye being so close?”
“No. Thank you for the invitation. Since I talked to you, I’ve learned that quite possibly the hills I want to search are west of Port Douglas, not Cairns. So I’ll sniff around here awhile.”
“I wish ye all luck, sir.”
“Thank you. Enjoy your new saddle.”
“Sure’n I am, Mr. Gardell. G’day.”
He dipped his head. Sheba shoved past him into the forest eagerly, homeward bound. Branches splacked Samantha in the face, mostly because she was not concentrating on her ride. She was thinking about the strange man, McGonigan’s partner. She should have asked him about the significance of that. She probably should have asked him many things, having unexpectedly gained his ear. But what? At least she was certain now of the identity of their mysterious fossicker.
Even Sheba’s shuffling trot, her most jarring gait, failed to shake Samantha dangerously loose. They plop-plopped into the stable clearing and Sheba parked herself in front of her makeshift stall. Samantha slid to the ground.
Fat Dog chuckled. “You grin your whole face. Big fun, eh?”
“Marvelous! Sure’n I’ll pay for it tomorrow, but today was lovely.” She hurried down to the house. It ought be very close to lunchtime and she must make soup yet.
She burst into the kitchen.
Meg sat at the table lackadaisically cutting up carrots. “I’m to make lunch and you are to go help Linnet plant the bottle-brush bushes. He says they’re going to die before she gets them buried. His words.”
“I planned lentil soup and cold mutton sandwiches. That’s enough carrots. Add some onions and plenty of garlic and a can of tomato juice. There should be several on the pantry shelf.”
She really should change out of her riding skirt before groveling about in the dirt, but she didn’t. She found Linnet out on the south side, surrounded by droopy plants with feathery silver leaves.
The limpid gray-green eyes looked up at her, woebegone. “I dinnae understand why he sends me out to the gardening. I cannae do this sort of thing.”
“Ye’re a natural, Linnet; ye have nae fear atall of being covered with dirt head to feet. Ye’ve got dirt streaks on yer face even though yer head’s supposed to be the farthest thing from the shovel.”
“Make fun. How far down do I dig? How deep do they go? He told me naething.”
“If he had to explain everything, he’d as well do it himself, aye? Go up to the stable and bring a barrow of manure—the oldest ye can find at the back of the pile. Meself’ll dig the holes. And be quick. These poor bushes may croak quicker than the frogs.”
Linnet made an unappreciative noise and disappeared around the house.
The bushes had been pruned back severely. Samantha studied the cut ends and tried to imagine how big they had once been, and therefore how big they were likely to get again. She measured by eye and by guess how far out from the wall to set them and began to dig.
The window by her head gritched open and Mr. Sloan leaned on the sill. “How does the saddle work?”
“A genius ye be, sir, a sheer genius.”
“I’ve been called many things, but never that before. Where’d you go?”
“Up and down the mountain to try out the seat.” She paused her digging. “Ye told me once to stay away from Abner Gardell. I disobeyed ye, sir, and conversed with him, though not by intent. I stumbled onto him, so to speak.”
“So it is him.”
“Aye, and he’s aware he’s being watched. He claims to be seeking his gold mine and allows it might be west of Port Douglas instead of farther south. He declined an invitation to call. Sir? What might a gold seeker carry in the way of tools?”
“Pointy hammer, small shovel, a pickaxe, ropes perhaps.”
“He had nae such. Carried na
ething on his person and had nae tools atall in the camp. Not so much as a water pail. Nor did I see a gun, though I’d expect him to carry one if only to bring down fresh meat.”
“You’re saying he’s not seeking gold?”
“Meself be saying he’s not equipped for it.”
He looked at her awhile, but there was no reproof in his gaze. At length, he nodded. “Don’t go back up there.”
“The abandoned trails all about there—logging tracks?”
He nodded. “My father logged the hill extensively, soon after he arrived. Ebony, mostly; a couple of kinds of gumwood. There isn’t much left back there in the way of costly timber, but there’s some cheap and middle-priced wood. Might bring a nice penny if shipped to England. Heard from your father yet?”
“Nae. Mum writes, but he dictates. Soon, I’ll wager.”
He waved a hand toward his bushes. “Think they’ll make it?”
“Aye. A bit to eat—Linnet be bringing it now—a cool draught to drink and they’ll be soon chipper and fit.” But the holes wouldn’t dig themselves, so Samantha set to work. Minutes later she realized he was still watching her. She stood erect. “Sir?”
He shook his head. “Just noticing that the skirt fits.” He stepped back and closed the window.
Chapter Eighteen
Sweet Savor
A cricket, the town crier of Sugarlea, chirped its review of the day’s news from beneath the baseboard in the hallway. Across a wall in the darkness rustled a house gecko intent on seizing some luckless multilegged thing. Samantha doused the light in the parlor. The frogmouth outside the glowing parlor window would be deprived of its private smorgasbord soon, once the moths decamped. Sullen, humid darkness. Night. Sounds. In Ireland when night came, most everyone except mice went to bed. Here in the rain forest, nightfall brought most of its denizens to life.
She paused beside the somber stone face to glance down the side hall. A light shone out from under the office door. The door opened and a familiar shadow stood in the yellow gleam.
Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) Page 17
