Outback Fire

by Margaret Way

  When things settled, perhaps after he had a chance to visit the outstations, he would discuss it with her. He just hoped she hadn’t been too irritated by Carla’s comments and performance last night. Carla’s wish to hold onto him seemed almost neurotic. God knows what Carla would think when she got around to hearing the Major had left him a half share in Winding River. She would hear it if he took up his bequest. She would hear it and half the world if either Storm fought the will or he forfeited the bequest. He had come to see Carla had a strange pattern of behaviour. She had gone to considerable lengths last night to make it appear to Storm their short affair was far from over. At the same time she was seeing Les Marshall. Sex was very important to Carla. Les would be sure to oblige.

  He returned to the bungalow at dusk, found a little note from Storm asking him to come up to the house for dinner. Noni must have delivered it, he thought, pleased in one way Noni was home, but mindful in another Storm now had a chaperone. No glorious night in Storm’s bed. He was still light-headed at the thought of it. He couldn’t possibly let her get away. He loved her. Extravagantly. She knew that of course. He had always loved her.

  He knew the minute he saw her something was wrong. He had been an excellent student of her every expression, every mood, though she covered up well. Noni ate with them, the meal hour quiet but companionable. Afterwards Noni withdrew to the kitchen, refusing his offer to carry in the dishes.

  “I’ll pile them all on the trolley, dear.” Noni smiled. “You two enjoy the cool of the verandah. I’ll bring coffee out shortly.”

  She allowed herself to be carried, looking absolutely beautiful in a light dress that was the colour of lilacs he supposed. Or maybe jacaranda. Her face was so close to his he wanted to kiss her, his eyes travelling to her mouth as lustrous as a rose. The scent of her intoxicated him. She smelt so delicious, cool even when the temperature soared.

  The moon was out with a glittering trail of stars, so close to hand one only had to reach out.

  “You’ve been very quiet,” he remarked, after he settled her comfortably in her favourite peacock chair.

  “I’m finding it a bit wearing not being able to get about,” Storm explained, inside shaking with nerves.

  “The swelling is subsiding.” He glanced approvingly at her ankle.

  “At best I might be right in about another ten days.”

  Behind Luke’s handsome head was the dazzling sky and the moon. She fixed her eyes on it. If only issues didn’t constantly present themselves.

  “So what’s wrong?” he asked when she finally looked back at him. “I suppose it has something to do with Carla?”

  “Why would you say that?” She levered herself up a bit, straightening her shoulders.

  “Carla suffers from delusions,” he drawled. “That was only an act last night. There’s nothing between Carla and me. You of all people should know that.” How could she not?

  She picked up a cushion and held it to her like a child. “Except you do talk to her?”

  “About what?” Luke’s strong features tensed. Hadn’t it always been like this? Why did he allow himself to hope things would be different?

  “Oh, Luke!” Storm expelled a long sigh, her beautiful hands working a little. “I know there’s a perfectly good explanation?”

  “I repeat, about what?” A thousand confrontations crammed his mind.

  She looked at his taut face, such an aching in her. “All right, Carla said you told her in confidence about Dad’s will. How you inherited a half share. How it was termed a life estate. How—”

  “And you believed her?” He cut her off abruptly.

  “Only because there was no other way she could have known.” Storm’s eyes pleaded with him.

  “I bet you told Noni,” he said.

  “Yes, I did. I love Noni. She loves me. She’s been with me since I was a child. I trust her.”

  “But you don’t trust me. You’ll sleep with me. You lose yourself in my arms. I can arouse you again and again, but it’s only sex—a great charge of emotion. Maybe it even makes you feel wicked.”

  “Luke!” She was shocked to the depths of her soul.

  “Who the hell am I anyway?” he demanded. “Just the kid your father took on. The kid left without a father and mother. Hell, you’ve hated me all your life.”

  An answering anger flashed through her. “Hate you…hate you…” How she longed to spring up. “I love you. I’ve been ill thinking about all this.”

  “You love me do you?” He moved towards her like a panther, pinning her face in his hand. “Let’s hear your little cry of pleasure.” He bent his head and took her mouth, in his fevered state letting his hand shape her breast, feeling the instant swell of the nipple. He kissed her long and hard, as if they were about to be estranged and he wanted her to remember.

  “Luke,” she whispered. “Please stop.” She had to, had to beg his forgiveness.

  Immediately he stepped back, full of self-loathing. “I don’t know how it is or why it is I let you do these things to me. But it’s all over, Storm. I won’t be your scapegoat for the rest of my life.”

  Pressing her hands down on the sides of her chair, Storm managed to stand up, in her agitation putting her injured foot to the floor.

  “Aaaah!” She couldn’t control the whimper of pain.

  He couldn’t not help her. Even now. He went to her, took her weight, pressing her back into her chair.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to visit the outstations,” he said in a perfectly hard voice. “I’ll be gone probably a week maybe a little more. I’ll let you know. I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you this, but I told Carla nothing at all. It would be impossible feeling the way I do…did…about you. But I’m not swallowing your distrust any more. I don’t know how Carla came by her information, but I think you might consider Carla is not above snooping.”

  “That’s it!” Storm’s knees were trembling. She suddenly remembered the little sound she had heard when she and Noni were talking in the sunroom. “That’s it! She overheard me talking to Noni. Oh God, Luke, you must let me apologise.”

  “Don’t bother!” His voice rasped, his eyes like blue fire. “I thought I loved you, Storm. I thought I loved everything about you even your astonishing aberrations. I wanted everything from you. I wanted it all. I wanted to marry you. I wanted you to have our children. I was fool enough to think we could start again with Winding River to be held in trust for the heir who was strong enough to hold it together. But it’s over. You’ve given me too much pain.”

  Sick with emotion, Storm held out her hands to him. “Don’t do this to me now, Luke. You’ve always been able to forgive me no matter what I’ve done.”

  “Not any more.” He looked around him blindly, hardly seeing anything for his upset. “I’ve known no other home but here on Winding River. It’s time now to move on.”

  It was the longest ten days Storm had ever known. She filled in her time as best she could, working on her collection—the ideas weren’t coming—replying to Sara who had sent her a long, loving letter from Rome, where the news of Athol McFarlane’s death had reached her; replying to innumerable sympathy cards; replying to Alex who had been told of her father’s death on his return from Hong Kong. Alex wanted to come and visit her.

  “I’ll throw up my job if I have to,” he told her. “I just want to be by your side.”

  She thanked him for his genuine expressions of sympathy and his many kindnesses to her, but told him at this sad time she needed to be on her own.

  The only tiny ray of sunshine was the fact she was able to put her foot to the ground. Could in fact walk on it. She had mended well. She confided in Noni how Luke had reacted—in any case Noni had guessed something had gone terribly wrong—so both women were feeling powerfully disturbed. Luke had become the linchpin in their existence. Recognising he could go out of their lives left them with feelings of acute depression.

  Storm agonized over how she could put things right. P
ossible courses of action seemed to occupy her mind every single hour of the day and into the night. She simply couldn’t envision a life without Luke. Her entire happiness hinged on his being there. She was part of him and he was part of her. Now their alienation made her feel terribly isolated. How very easy it was, she now discovered, to realise the worth of a loved one when the loved one decided to go his own way. It probably wasn’t even unusual in relationships but it always came as a great shock. Why hadn’t she heeded the warnings? It seemed her time of grace had finally run out.

  Luke had left word when he arrived on Duranji, Outstation One, and when he left. There was a great sense of relief that the days were passing and soon he would be coming home.

  Home.

  It struck Storm cruelly it was just as Luke had said. He had always lived on Winding River but it had never been his home. It was up to her to change that. Her task was to get them started on a new life. That’s if he would ever forgive her. Knowing Luke she had to consider seriously that once he had made a decision he would stick to it. Winding River had been a battlefield far too long. Outstation Two, Mungin, was more remote, two hundred miles to the northwest. Luke arrived at the designated time, took off at a designated time. His inspections were complete. He would arrive on Winding River around 3:00 p.m. that Friday afternoon. Over an hour and a half later, Bill Davidson, the head stockman came up to the homestead a worried man. Luke’s flight was overdue, when Luke was a man who stuck to his schedule. Bill had already contacted Mungin only to be told everything had been fine when Luke left. If he had kept to his flight plan he should have landed on Winding River.

  “The weather was brilliantly fine when he left,” Bill was saying. “Scorchingly hot!” No electrical storms in the area predicted. “Of course he could have put down for some reason or other,” Bill continued, looking anxiously at Storm for some kind of agreement. Storm, however, felt such a clutch of fear it was like her heart had seized up. Bill continued to ramble on, as though talking was a relief, his forehead furrowed with all sorts of anxieties. Storm vaguely heard him say something about the automatic distress signal. It hadn’t been picked up. Both knew, none better, how many lives had been lost in light aircraft crashes throughout the Outback.

  The sunset was glorious, turning the riverine desert to a land of molten gold. But for once Storm didn’t feel her heart lift at the spectacle. The imperial sun sank behind the great pyramids of fiery red sand dunes. The brief lilac dusk set in with thousands of birds flying into the billabongs in multi-coloured clouds. Somehow Storm had come to grips with her tearing panic. Air Services Australia Search and Rescue was informed, Storm giving all necessary information, her voice falsely calm. Controlling the tone and speed of her delivery helped her keep sane. No radio contact had been made by Luke. Neither could he be reached by radio. No distress signal had been picked up. Search and Rescue had the flight path, which would make the task of finding Luke, and his aircraft less difficult but these occasions were always time for worry. Full-scale operations would begin at first light.

  It was going to be a long, long night for everyone on Winding River. There had been plenty of drama over the years. They all had their memories of the Major. But Luke was young. Someone special. Nothing could happen to Luke. Station people relied very heavily on each other for support and comfort. Storm turned to Noni at this anxious time. Both of them far too uneasy to think they could find a few hours oblivion in sleep, but both women tried very hard to keep their emotions under control. There was always the possibility of total electrical failure. Luke would have to make a forced landing. He would have to find a clear space to use as a runway. There was a whole inland out there. Mulga country. Spinifex country. Desert. There wasn’t much leeway for making a mistake. The only comfort was, Luke was an experienced pilot.

  He loved flying with a passion. It was an immense exhilaration. The twin engines roaring into life, soaring into the blue. He loved the colour blue. He supposed everyone had a colour they loved best. Blue was the sky. Blue was peace and freedom. The vast ancient land drifted by beneath him scorched a fiery red by a million suns. It was a wonderful feeling to know he was part of it, this great sun-baked land with its ancient plateaus and its isolated mesas. He rejoiced in the connection. Beneath him lay the desert; the Dead Heart credited with many deaths. Explorers, pioneers, pastoralists, later day tourists who for reasons he could never understand didn’t heed the warnings. Some came from a world where there was abundant water everywhere. Down there water was the difference between life and fearsome death.

  Up here in the cobalt-blue sky his mind always seemed clearer. Perhaps it was because he was totally alone with his thoughts and the simple exultation of flight. As always during these past, heat filled, hectic days he had been wrestling with what he was going to do with his future. The disabling truth was he could not contemplate a future without Storm in it. No escape for him, he thought wryly. His love for Storm was a raging fever that might never be cured.

  The Cessna had been cruising as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce so it came as a tremendous jolt to see his entire instrument panel shut down. Total electrical failure. That meant he had lost all communication. Battery? Choke in the fuel pipe? His mind hit on two likely possibilities. Things happened despite regular maintenance. The twin engines were still humming efficiently but he had no other option than to make a forced landing. And as quickly as possible. He dropped altitude descending to a height where he could search for a reasonably safe landing strip. In this area larger than the United Kingdom there were no highways to hand. No dirt roads. No grassy paddocks. No nice, helpful people. Plenty of mulga country. Spinifex country. Blood-red sand. A land majestic but frightening in its ruggedness. He was well off course before he spotted a wide sandy flat that was dotted with golden spinifex in seed. That would have to be it. He turned downwind in preparation for the landing.

  A few hairy moments coming in to land, the spears of the spinifex scratching the undercarriage, the gnarled and twisted trunk of a mulga almost clipping a wing. A desert oak loomed up and for a few heart-stopping moments when his whole life seemed to rush by, he wondered if the Cessna would stop in time.

  It did and he swore aloud in his relief.

  Once on the ground he looked around him with an awe he had never lost. The immensity, the great silence, the unmistakeable brooding challenge thrilled him, fired his imagination.

  I am the desert. I am the Dreaming Place. I will still be here when man is no more.

  The landscape was so highly coloured it almost hurt his eyes. Ancient pottery baked hard. He had the shivery feeling he might easily have been the first white man to ever have looked upon it. This was forbidding country for anyone who didn’t know it intimately. The sun at its peak generated temperatures of more than forty-three degrees. Ally that to the excessively dry atmosphere, and a man could dehydrate within forty-eight hours, leaving a mummified corpse. He always carried water without fail. He was a skilled bushman. He had lived in this environment all his life. He had learned well at the feet of the tribal elders. He knew where to dig for water. He knew what plants to eat. He could survive but he was pitted against the cruellest environment in the world. The desert.

  Surrounded by so much primordial splendour he felt no fear. He wasn’t going to perish. Maybe it would take time but Air Rescue would find him. Besides he had to live to tell that woman, that Storm McFarlane, he was going to marry her. There wasn’t anything she was going to be able to do about it, either. He knew her mind better than she did.

  He turned to make his inspection of the Cessna, discovering like he thought the problem was battery melt down. In the near distance he could see a family of dingoes on the prowl, ears pricked, at the alert. Further off a couple of camels were running wild and his mind harked back to the day he had saved the Major’s life. Even now he could feel the Major’s strong hand on his shoulder, hear the deep rumble of his voice:

  You stood your ground in the face of fear. I promise you I won’t
forget it.

  He had saved the Major’s life. Now it had come to him his destiny was to give his daughter the best possible life. To love her and involve her in all his plans. She had such energy in life. So had he. They needed to combine it for the future. For their children. For Winding River. By now she would have learned the news. He hadn’t turned up on the station. Communication lines had been broken. He knew in his heart she would be desolate if anything happened to him. If nothing else, they had to get their love out into the open. Once settled they could work together to find answers.

  So heartened, with the vision of Storm very clear in his mind, Luke went about the job of preparing to spend the night in a desert where the great heat of the day would drop to a comparative freezing.

  It had been a terrible night for both of them. By midmorning they still had not received word, though they all clung to hope. A full-scale search was in operation. The downed aircraft would be spotted. Luke would be safe and well.

  Thirty hours. Thirty minutes. Forty seconds. Storm thought. All that morning in torment. It was like living with a knife in her breast. To have parted in such anger! It was more than she could bear. Why had they spent so much time in arguing? More to the point why had she? All their lives it was Luke who had shown the understanding, the tolerance. She, especially vulnerable as a girl child then a young woman, had railed against Luke’s position in her father’s life. For this maybe her father was to blame but she was old enough now to get her futile hang-ups under control. She would do anything, be anything, give all her money away, to have Luke safely back in her arms.

  Driven by emotion the anguish that would never empty out until Luke was safely home, Storm gathered branches of white bauhinias in flower from the home grounds; sheaves of the sun-loving zinnias and masses of greenery taking the Jeep to Sanctuary Hill. Of course the flowers couldn’t possibly survive, not in the heat, but her grief directed her to strip the orchid trees and pile up the gorgeous open-faced zinnias that flowered profusely even in the dry.