"My father will pay for my transportation costs. The chestnut gelding is my horse, but the other horses and the rest of the things are yours by right of forfeiture. You killed the bushrangers, not I."
"I had a great deal of help, which I appreciated."
Alexandra dismissed the subject with a shrug, and both of them fell silent again. After they ate, she washed the dishes in a water bucket, and David got his blanket and brought it to the fire. Sitting down, and puffing on his pipe, he looked across the fire at Alexandra. "You can sleep in the hut, if you wish," he suggested.
Alexandra nodded her thanks, stacking the dishes beside the fire. She went to the baggage for her blanket and took it into the hut. Surrounded by Kerrick's belongings, she experienced a twinge of the disquiet that she now felt when near a man. She shrugged off the feeling, wondering if it would continue to haunt her after she returned to Sydney. That seemed irrelevant, however, because she knew no man of her choice would show an interest in her after her captivity.
Looking out the doorway at David, she thought about his attitude toward her. His kindness toward her had seemed to be motivated by something more than an innate sense of courtesy. Although he had murdered her cousin, she had to admit that he was anything but a common criminal. No man could be more different from the bushrangers.
As he smoked his pipe, he took a hardwood stick and a knife from his coat pocket. His back to Alexandra, she was unable to see what he was doing, but he appeared to whittle on the stick for a moment before putting it and the knife away again. Then he took out a watch and opened the lid. At first she thought he was looking at the time, but he continued gazing at the watch as the minutes passed. He was still sitting beside the fire and staring at the watch when Alexandra fell asleep.
She woke before dawn when David stirred the ashes of the fire and stoked it. He went to check on the sheep and horses, and the dogs followed him into the thick darkness away from the fire. Alexandra rolled up her blanket and left the hut. Picking up the utensils, she prepared breakfast, making porridge and tea. Hearing David's footsteps, she put the pan and billy on a rock beside the fire.
After sitting down, David ate. "This is very good," he commented, "and I appreciate your preparing it. But you're under no obligation to see to anything other than your own needs."
"I realize that," she replied. "But I am being accommodated, and as I told you last evening, I'll do my share of the work while I'm here." She put leftover pieces of mutton and damper in a cloth, then tied up the corners. "This is for your tiffin."
David reached to take it, but instead of handing it to him, she placed the cloth on a rock between them. Then she moved away, going to the other side of the fire. Having noticed that she avoided being near him, David had concluded that it was simply a measure of her antagonism toward him.
Taking the cloth containing the food, he went to the horses. After saddling and mounting one, he led the others and opened the gate in the fold. The sheep poured out and down the slope as David followed them. When he passed the hut, Alexandra turned from the fire and glanced at him. He touched his hat, and she nodded in response.
While the sheep and horses grazed, David felt more content than the previous day. Instead of an oppressive sense of invasion by an outsider who had only reminded him of an old sorrow, he had a feeling of companionship in the valley. Despite the hostility between them, Alexandra was a fascinating woman. Rapturously beautiful, she was also the most courageous human being he had ever met, having withstood the bushrangers' cruelty and abuse.
His feelings were shadowed by a warning voice in the back of his mind that recalled the turmoil he had endured because of another woman. But he knew the situation with Alexandra was temporary and would last only a few months at the very most. He would never see her again after she left with Pat and returned to her home in Sydney.
There were other compelling reasons why his past experience was a false basis for drawing conclusions about Alexandra. While eating the food she had wrapped in a cloth for him, he thought about her insistence on doing her share of the work. She did what she considered right, whether or not she wanted to. His former wife had lacked such principles, living more for the moment and whatever enjoyment it might bring.
Long before, he had logically reasoned that it was unfair to judge all women by his former wife. However, the depth of agony he had suffered had made it impossible to accept that emotionally, and furthermore, he had not wanted to. Clinging to the bitter, tarnished fragments of his love, he had wanted nothing to do with women. But as the afternoon passed and he thought about Alexandra, that was changing.
Chapter Twelve
Late that day, as he drove the sheep down the valley, David knew Alexandra would be at the hut, but he had an irrational, demanding need to reassure himself of it. When only one shoulder of a hill was between him and the slope where the hut stood, he rode away from the flock and out into the valley, looking toward the hut. Alexandra was watching for him, shading her eyes with a hand and gazing up. Seeing him, she turned to the fire as he rode back to the flock.
Over dinner that evening, their conversation was less constrained, the reserve between them fading. In reply to his compliment on the food, she said that her experience in cooking had been limited until very recently. As she began explaining, evidently having to refer to cooking for the bushrangers, she broke off and fell silent. Understanding her reluctance to talk about the men, David quickly changed the subject and asked her how long the mutton hanging near the hut would remain fresh.
"For another two more days or so," she replied. "After that, it will be too strong to eat."
"Very well, I'll bring in the flock earlier the day after tomorrow and butcher a wether. I have plenty to spare."
"Indeed you do because that's the largest flock I've ever seen. Do the sheep belong to you?"
David nodded, explaining how he had acquired them. "It's a risk for a single stockman to graze this many," he continued, "but I did it last year without serious losses. If I can do the same this year, I'll hire some employees to help me with them next year."
"I'm sure you will succeed, and I wish you the best of fortune, of course. Is this Tibooburra Station?"
"Yes, it is," David answered, surprised. "How did you know?"
"I heard about it in conversation with Mr. Samuel Terry, one of the principal shareholders in the Bank of New South Wales. He mentioned that an account had been set up for a new sheep station in the outback and mentioned it by name. Were you a stockman or a farmer in England?"
"No, I'm an engineer by training."
It was Alexandra's turn to be surprised, but only to a degree. David was obviously well-educated as well as different in many other ways from the average farmer or stockman. He was a cosmopolitan man and an interesting conversationalist, and with a strong, compelling personality, he seemed more accustomed to exercising authority over others than to working alone.
While Alexandra washed the dishes, she mentioned having seen a flock similar in size to David's at the station to the south. The stockman was accompanied by an Aborigine woman and numerous children. David told her that the stockman was Adolarious Bodenham, and described Bodenham's family and the man's eccentricities in such amusing terms that Alexandra smiled, almost laughing.
It was the first light, cheerful moment she had experienced since the day the bushrangers had captured her, and she was still amused when she went to bed. Lying on her blanket in the hut, she looked out the doorway at David. Like the previous night, he sat beside the fire and looked at his watch, and he was still staring at it when she fell asleep.
The following day, after David left with the flock, Alexandra thought about their conversation of the night before as she went about her tasks. She reflected that it had been exceptionally fortunate for her that the bushrangers had chosen David and his flock as the target for their evil scheme. At least some men who were capable of killing the bushrangers would not have had the gentle nature David had shown to
ward her.
She also realized that she had been fortunate that her captivity had ended in the distant reaches of the outback. The combination of snubs, salacious curiosity, and well-meant, but intrusive, solicitude that she would have met with in Sydney would have been unbearable immediately after her ordeal with the bushrangers. Here, she had simple work to occupy her hands and solitude to help her adjust to what had happened as well as to prepare for what she would face when she returned home.
At dinner that evening, Alexandra and David conversed even more than they had the night before. Through an unspoken understanding, they talked only about safe, neutral subjects, and Alexandra enjoyed it. It was evocative of conversations with her friends in Sydney, which seemed so very long ago. After cleaning up, instead of going to bed, she sat down again.
David smoked his pipe as he told her about the grazier near Parramatta who had helped him and taught him how to care for sheep. "Frank Williamson also helped Pat," he added. "Frank hired Pat when he was a boy, and Frank was the original owner of Wayamba Station. He sold out to Pat and moved back to the Nepean River. But it wasn't called Wayamba then and was much smaller, with only a fraction of the sheep that Pat grazes."
"I think I've heard of Mr. Williamson," Alexandra mused, then she recalled the conversation at Camden Park with the old gardener who had mentioned Williamson. "Yes, now I remember. Mr. Williamson has a son who is a shopkeeper in Sydney, and he approached Mr. John Macarthur with an offer to sell his father's property. I'm sad to say that it seems your friend was in poor health and was not expected to recover."
David frowned somberly, shaking his head. "I'm very sorry to hear that, and Pat will be as well. But Frank came here on the First Fleet. If he has passed away, he had very good innings."
"Why did you choose to be a grazier? As an engineer, you could have done very well for yourself in Sydney."
"Yes, I probably could have. But in Sydney, I would have always been a former convict and an engineer. Here I'm simply a grazier."
The answer came close to a subject that puzzled Alexandra, a fact that was at complete odds with what was obvious about David. While he was entirely unlike an ordinary criminal, he was a convicted murderer. Knowing that she would have to ask him about it sooner or later, she broached the subject. "Why did you kill Wesley Hammond, my cousin?"
The question violated their tacit agreement to discuss only uncontroversial subjects, but David had been expecting it. Her cousin's death was the foundation for the antagonism between them, and with their mutual reserve fading, it had to be brought into the open. As he replied, he watched for Alexandra's reaction. "Because I returned home unexpectedly one day and found him in bed with my wife."
Her beautiful face revealed nothing, but in her large, blue eyes, he saw at least understanding, if not agreement, with what he had done. She nodded as she stood up and entered the hut to go to bed. The conversation was over for the night, and David was more than satisfied with how it had ended, not wanting her to think ill of him.
Putting aside his pipe, David took out his knife and calendar stick to make a notch in it. He put them away and fed the fire for the night. Then, having no urge at all to look at the portrait of his former wife, he slept.
The next morning, while he was eating breakfast, Alexandra reminded him that they needed fresh mutton. "I'll have everything ready to butcher a wether as soon as you put the flock into the fold," she added.
"Very well, I'll bring the sheep back an hour or two early. When I've seen to the wether, I'll kindle a fire at the bottom of the hill and burn the rest of that other carcass to keep dingoes from getting it."
"No, I'll have time to do that today. The canvas that protects the mutton from flies is quite grubby, so I'll also wash it."
The conversation created a domestic atmosphere between them that David found extremely pleasing. She put leftover mutton and damper in a cloth for his midday meal, still placing it on a stone instead of handing it to him. But when he took the flock down the slope, she smiled at him as he rode past. It transformed her lovely face, making her so radiantly beautiful that the sunrise seemed dim by comparison.
Then he firmly reminded himself that a woman like Alexandra Hammond would never make her life with a stockman, or even a grazier. With an energetic, practical nature, she would turn her hand to the most common labor if she thought she should, but her birthright placed her in the wealthy, privileged class. Misfortune in her life had made their paths cross, but eventually her path would lead her in an entirely different direction than his.
While driving the flock, he noticed that the mulga and grass were thinning. Within a very few days, he would have to move the sheep northward to another paddock. It was risky as the flock would be vulnerable to attacks by dingoes when separated from the permanent folds, as well as laborious. But with Alexandra attending to the time-consuming tasks of making camp and cooking, it would be much easier for him than before.
As the sheep grazed, David kept himself from thinking about the months in the future when Alexandra would be gone. In his impatience to see her and talk with her again, the hours passed very slowly. To fill the time, he moved the sheep twice to better forage. Then, about noon, he steered the flock back down the valley, letting the sheep graze along the way.
His first glimpse of her brought him pleasure, and even from a distance, she was poignantly beautiful, waving back as he waved to her. While the animals drank at the pond, she went to the fold. David drove the flock up the hill, and Alexandra waited beside the gate, then closed it behind the sheep and helped him attend to the horses.
''Everything is ready," she told him. "I chose a place down there in the trees away from the hut, and dug a hole to bury the offal. The knives, rope, and canvas are there."
David nodded, taking the saddle off his horse and putting it aside. "Very well, I'll fetch a hammer and pick out a wether."
"Don't knock it on the head in front of all the others, David!" she exclaimed. "There's no point in terrifying the poor creatures, and the hammer is with the knives."
It had never created visible distress among the sheep, but David nodded in agreement, amused by the contrast between the practical and tender sides of her nature. He selected a wether from the fold and led it down the hill as Alexandra walked ahead. At the place she had prepared, he removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves, then she turned away as he took the hammer and dispatched the wether with a single, swift blow.
A rope around its rear feet, he hoisted the animal up to a low limb. Alexandra rolled up her sleeves and tied a piece of canvas around herself to protect her dress, then helped him skin and clean the sheep. Her chin set at a determined angle and her lips in a pale, thin line, she appeared to be fighting her squeamishness, and David told her that he could attend to it by himself, as he was accustomed to doing.
"No," she replied firmly. "This is as much my task as yours, and two can finish it far more quickly than one."
They worked side by side, and a moment later, David found out that at least a large measure of her disquiet had nothing to do with the goriness of the work. As he was tugging the skin off a foreleg, his hand slipped and brushed against hers. She jerked her hand away as though she had been burned, retreating from him.
"It isn't you," she explained, flushing in confusion. "After being with those savage men, I find it vexing to be near any man, and" She broke off, shrugging helplessly. "I know that it's strange and unreasonable, but I'm unable to rid myself of it. I didn't mean to offend you.''
Realizing that was the reason she never handed him anything and kept a distance between them, David shook his head. "I'm not offended, Alexandra. Now that I know about it, I'll be careful not to distress you. You see, I've had feelings myself that aren't entirely unlike yours."
"What do you mean?"
He turned back to the sheep, pulling at the skin. "After my wife betrayed me, I was inclined to distrust any woman. That is even stranger and more unreasonable than your feelings, Alexan
dra."
As she moved back toward the sheep, Kerrick edged to one side of it. They finished the work in silence. Alexandra wrapped canvas around the carcass to protect it from flies as David buried the entrails. She took the canvas from around her dress and wrapped the knives in it, then picked up David's coat and went toward the hut. With the carcass over one shoulder, he gathered up the skin in his free hand and followed her.
Alexandra left his coat beside the fire and went down the hill. After hanging the carcass, David put the skin on top of the hut to dry and went inside to get his razor, soap, and mirror. When he arrived at the pond, Alexandra was washing the canvas and knives.
She glanced at him as he knelt at the edge of the water to rinse the blood off his hands and arms. "In some respects, what happened to us is similar," she observed. "We both suffered through the iniquity of others, and we both met with circumstances that destroyed our lives."
"What happened to us is also dissimilar," he countered. "You are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but my trouble was mostly of my own making. I didn't have to kill your cousin."
"Yes, that's true. It was poor judgment to allow your anger to rule your actions. But those bushrangers were able to abduct me only because I used poor judgment in being without an escort."
"Perhaps, but a woman should be able to go wherever she wishes by herself. And if those who live only to prey on others are ever dealt with as they should be, women will be able to do that. In any event, circumstances did destroy my life, as you say. But that happened only because I permitted it, and you must avoid doing the same thing."
"How can I avoid it? It is done."
"No, nothing in life is final except death. Even after I was transported to Australia, I could have overcome my bitterness and put the past behind me. But I didn't, because I didn't want to. You must dismiss what happened and go on with your life as before."
Outback Station Page 22
