Outback Station

by Aaron Fletcher

  Alexandra sighed impatiently as she wrung water from the canvas, her manner indicating that he had missed some vital point. She silently picked up the knives and canvas and returned to the hut. As he took off his shirt to wash and shave, David thought about the conversation, but he was unable to find any further meaning in what she had said.

  The sun was low when he went back up the slope, where Alexandra was cooking. Her attitude not inviting conversation, he put his things in the hut and began checking the equipment to see that it was in good condition for when he moved the flock northward. After looking at the packsaddles among the baggage, he carefully inspected the rope he used to make a temporary fold.

  When dinner was ready, he put the coils of rope away and went to the fire. Alexandra talked with him as they ate but only about commonplace, impersonal subjects. Avoiding the more meaningful previous communication about themselves, she apparently regarded him as unable to understand her feelings.

  During a pause in the conversation, he broached the subject they had discussed at the pond. Even if it annoyed her, he considered it important to warn her against his mistake. He told her that she had to take control of her life and put what had happened behind her. "It's simply a matter of determination," he continued, "and I know you have that"

  "No, it is not," she interrupted curtly. "David, my life as I knew it is destroyed. To be painfully blunt and bold about it, as far as my marriage prospects are concerned, I am damaged goods."

  "Nonsense!" he replied emphatically, then thought again. "Well, perhaps to those with the narrowest minds, and the spineless sort who rely upon others to make decisions for them. Why would you care what they think? You were a victim of criminals, with no control over the situation, and that is all any sensible man will think of what happened to you."

  Studying him, Alexandra wondered if he was merely trying to cheer her, then she saw that he was as completely sincere as he was wrong. She had seen the effects of a blemished reputation and the crushing weight of public opinion that few men would challenge. David was one of those rare men with the inner strength to follow his own convictions, and she reflected that his former wife had been very stupid to betray him.

  "No, you're wrong," she said, stacking the dishes. "Also, in more general terms, what has gone before shapes the present, and trying to dismiss the past is futile. But let's not talk about this."

  "Very well. I've set up the paddocks here so a flock of two or three thousand sheep can be grazed on them indefinitely, but the size of the one I have now must be moved. I'll have to do it soon."

  Alexandra was pleased as this place held unpleasant associations for her. "When do you intend to move it?"

  "Within the next two or three days. We'll go north, to my home paddock. I planted a garden there during the spring and I want to see how the vegetables are growing."

  "I daresay that you'll find weeds doing well," she remarked, amused. "One doesn't plant a garden and then leave it."

  David laughed, saying that keeping the sheep in good graze was more important than the garden. They discussed moving the flock, and Alexandra asked how he kept the sheep together at night. He described the procedure for making a temporary fold, then explained its shortcomings and the risks involved in moving the flock between paddocks.

  Their conversation lasted longer than usual, and the fire waned. David put wood on it, then took out his knife and the hardwood stick that Alexandra had noticed before. The stick had rows of notches on it,

  and as he added another, Alexandra realized its purpose.

  "That's how you keep account of the date, isn't it?" she commented. "I've quite forgotten the date myself."

  "It's very easy to do when away from towns," David replied. "One day is much like another in the outback, but it's necessary for a stockman to keep track of the date, because sheep must be taken in at the right time for shearing." He glanced over the rows of notches, counting, then put the stick away. "Today is the fourteenth of November."

  Gazing into the fire, Alexandra recalled that the fateful day she had ridden to Camden Park had been the eighth of September. It had seemed about two months to her since the bushrangers had abducted her, but she had been unsure of the precise length of time. Some fact in connection with the date hovered at the back of her mind momentarily, then she listened to David as he spoke again of moving the flock. Then, the hour growing late, she went to bed.

  Sitting beside the fire, David pulled out his watch and opened the lid. After staring at it for a moment, he closed the lid and then hurled the watch far into the night. Sitting up in surprise, Alexandra started to call out and ask why he had thrown away his watch, then she changed her mind.

  It was apparently connected with his past, which he thought he could dismiss, but Alexandra knew he was wrong. A cut on a child's finger remained as a scar, however faint, when that child became an adult.

  The following day, after David left with the sheep, Alexandra thought about her family as she performed her tasks. She longed for a way to send them a message so they would at least know she was still alive. In particular, she was concerned about her grandmother and the effects of constant anxiety on her as the weeks had turned into months.

  While musing about those months, a related fact occurred to her, one that had barely brushed her thoughts the night before. Until this moment, the date had meant nothing to her as she had spent every waking moment occupied with trying to evade the bushrangers' brutality. But the exact date of events during the past few weeks was abruptly crucial. It seemed as if over a month had passed since her last menses.

  Walking blindly toward the fire, Alexandra tried to force aside her chilling, somber dread so she could think clearly. Starting with the previous day, she began recalling specific events and counting the days between them. When she reached twenty-eight days, she could still recall things that had happened over the course of a week or so since her last menses.

  Mounting horror gripped Alexandra as she frantically counted the days again, searching for a mistake. She was less than certain about the time between some events that had occurred three and four weeks before, but the possible error was only two or three days at the very most. The conclusion was just as inescapable as it was disastrous. Her menses a week or more overdue, she was pregnant by Hinton.

  Now the ordeal she had anticipated upon returning to her family would be infinitely worse than the pity, snubs, or knowing smiles. Her disgrace would have a visible resulta bastard child who would always bear the additional stigma of having been fathered through rape by a hunted criminal.

  She was suddenly beyond sorrow, her future promising only unending grief. Hinton's final words had been prophetic, because she was still unable to rid herself of him, even though he was dead. During her torment as a captive, she had never surrendered to despair, but this final, crushing blow was too much, plunging her into hopeless anguish. Collapsing beside the fire, she burst into bitter tears.

  When her tears were exhausted, she continued sobbing dryly in abject misery, her life now worse than meaningless. She lay numbly beside the fire, the hours passing in a blur that was an eternity to her in one way and an instant in another. Then it was late afternoon, and she heard the distant murmur of the sheep bleating as they moved toward the pond.

  Reacting to a sense of responsibility and necessity, Alexandra climbed shakily to her feet, her grief an immense burden. Her eyes burning and swollen from crying, she proceeded mechanically about the routine of preparing their meal.

  A moment later, hoofbeats pounded up the slope at a headlong run. The horse slid to a stop and David leaped off and dashed to her. "What's wrong, Alexandra?" he exclaimed worriedly. "What happened?"

  Unwilling to talk, Alexandra silently shook her head as she cut pieces from the mutton. David looked all around anxiously, then ran a few paces past the hut and looked down the other side of the hill. He turned back. "Alexandra, I can see nothing that's amiss. Please tell me what's wrong."

  Shaking h
er head again, Alexandra motioned him away, then carried the mutton to the fire. David looked around once more and hesitated for a moment in perplexity, then reluctantly went to his horse. "I must see to the flock, but I'll be back as quickly as I can."

  He mounted the horse and rode back down the slope as Alexandra put the mutton on the spit. She fanned the fire, then mixed a pan of damper and put on the rice and peas to cook, numbly proceeding about the tasks without thinking.

  A short time later, after the sheep passed with the dogs racing beside them, David reined in. The spare horses behind him stopped as he looked at Alexandra for a moment, then rode up the hill. A few minutes later, he hurried back to the fire. "Alexandra, you must tell me what's wrong," he insisted. "Please tell me, and I'll do anything I can to help."

  Grimly resigned to the fact that she would have to explain sooner or later, Alexandra started to speak, but her voice broke. As a flood of tears began again, she buried her face in her hands. "I'm with child," she wailed, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "I'm with that vile swine's child."

  David started to say something, then shrugged helplessly as he sat beside the fire. Alexandra wiped her eyes and picked up a fork with a trembling hand. She turned the mutton on the spit, then stirred the food and moved the damper off the coals. Then she fed the dogs and filled a plate for David.

  Having lost his appetite, he carried the plate aside and emptied the food on the ground for the dogs. He sat down, filled his pipe and smoked. The hours passed as they sat in silence.

  Late in the night, he brought Alexandra's blanket out of the hut and put it around her shoulders. Physically and emotionally exhausted, she slept fitfully for a few hours, waking each time he built up the fire. She woke again near dawn, when he stirred.

  After taking his tiffin, David went toward the fold. As the first gray light of dawn spread across the sky, he returned with her gelding sidesaddled. He tethered the horse beside the hut, entered it and came out with the man's coat and hat she had worn.

  "Come with me, Alexandra," he told her, then he lifted his hand as she started to refuse. "No, you mustn't be alone today. The flock needs to go to pasture, but I can't leave unless you come with me."

  As she nodded in resignation, he returned to the fold. Alexandra put on the coat and hat, then checked the saddle on her horse. The girth somewhat tighter than she liked, she adjusted it and then mounted. Prancing about, frisky from its days of rest and good graze, the horse quickly came under control as Alexandra exercised her deft, practiced skill.

  When he passed with the flock and spare horses, Alexandra followed David, holding her horse to a walk. At the foot of the hill, he whistled and motioned to the dogs, sending them around the flock to turn it up one side of the valley. Alexandra rode toward the other side, letting the gelding canter to expend its excess of energy.

  The wind against her face gave her the feeling of fleeing from her crushing burden of anguish, and she relaxed the pressure on the reins. The young, powerful horse lunged into a full run, its hoofs pounding. It was a complete escape from grief for Alexandra, the headlong pace among the brush and other obstacles requiring her full concentration and all the skill she had learned as a girl while riding cross country in England.

  While the sheep moved slowly up one side of the valley, she rode back and forth on the other side, leaping over ditches and brush. Then, when the sheep began grazing and the hobbled horses were browsing on a slope, she rode up the valley to them. She dismounted, and David helped her unsaddle and hobble the gelding. "I've seen some very good riders," he commented in admiration, "but you're the best I've ever seen."

  Alexandra nodded to be polite, knowing that her riding skill was now largely irrelevant, because she would never again be invited to join a hunting club. Seeking the shade of a nearby tree, she sat down, writhing inwardly in abject misery, and David sat in silence beside her.

  The hours passed, but David made no attempt to speak. At midday, he put a water bottle and the cloth containing leftovers between them. "Try to eat something, Alexandra," he urged, untying the cloth. "Please, just try."

  She took a small piece of the damper, which stimulated a gnawing emptiness in her stomach as she ate. Then she took a piece of the mutton.

  "Perhaps this isn't a good time to talk about your situation," he said as he ate, "but I don't think there'll ever be a good time. Considering how you feel, though, I don't think you'll want to go back to Sydney now."

  Tears rose to Alexandra's eyes as she realized that he had gone to the very heart of the matter, pointing out a conclusion that she had avoided even thinking about, because it was too painful. But it was true, completely inescapable. In addition to what she would endure herself, she would inflict humiliation upon her family, even if she returned to England.

  Holding back her tears, Alexandra wiped her eyes. "No, I can't go home now," she whispered brokenly.

  "Then it follows that you'll have to stay here. In time, though, much of your sadness will pass. It's natural for you to miss your family, and that can't be helped. But as for the rest of it, you can put it behind you in time and make a good life for yourself, Alexandra."

  Wiping her eyes again, Alexandra made no reply. As before, she knew he was wrong in believing that the past could be buried. Somehow he had blinded himself to the fact that joys and regrets were the harvest of previous actions and decisions. As for making a life for herself here, she was unable even to think about it. She could only grieve because any semblance of her former life was now lost to her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alexandra peered into the shadows under a bush, searching for the animal that David had pointed out, then she saw it. Frightened by the sheep, dogs, and horses, it had curled into a ball of yellow and brown bristles. ''It looks a bit like a hedgehog," she mused, "but only a bit. What is it?"

  "An anteater," David answered. "Those bristles do make it resemble a hedgehog, but they're a kind of fur, not quills. It's a very strange creature in many ways. Instead of giving birth to young, they lay eggs and carry them about in pouches on their stomach."

  As he talked, they rode past the bush. During the past few days of moving the flock northward, David had constantly pointed out things to her. Alexandra knew he was trying to take her mind off her sorrow, and, to a degree, he had been successful. While she had seen a few kangaroos and other unusual animals near Sydney, the outback teemed with bizarre creatures.

  While the sheep browsed on tender shoots and seed pods growing in a wide stand of mallee, David called Alexandra's attention to a large mound of leaves, twigs, and dirt off to one side. Atop the mound, a speckled bird somewhat smaller than a hen was digging furiously with its long, powerful legs.

  "That bird is large enough to be a predator," Alexandra observed. "Is that some small animal's den, and the bird is trying to dig it out?"

  "No, the bird is a mallee fowl, and it eats only these seeds you see here. That mound is its nest, with its eggs under the debris."

  "Its nest?" Alexandra echoed in astonishment.

  "Yes, apparently it uses a combination of heat from the sun and from decaying vegetation to hatch its eggs. The egg is about the size of a goose egg, and the bird knows how to keep the temperature in the mound constant. On hot days, it covers the mound with more dirt to protect the eggs from the sun. On cooler ones, it scratches away the dirt."

  "I suppose that when the eggs are ready to hatch, then, the bird digs them up in order to keep the chicks from smothering."

  "No, the chicks dig their way out of the mound. When they do, they have full feathers and are entirely capable of caring for themselves. As far as I've been able to tell, they never see the parent bird. They must know how to survive and how to go about that complicated means of hatching completely by instinct. That's very interesting, isn't it?"

  Alexandra sighed despondently, glancing away. "Yes, but equally disheartening to me in my present situation. It suggests that the child I have might well become a criminal, come what
may, and I know that already."

  "No, it will be a human being with free will to choose between right and wrong, not an animal. Also, children can be trained, Alexandra. A sapling will grow tall and straight if it's supported properly."

  "We aren't prisoners of the past, but we are its result, reaching back to our birth. People choose between crossroads, but the junctions they come to are a result of previous choices. And properly supporting a maple sapling will never turn it into a tall, straight oak."

  The basic point was one on which they could never agree, and David made no further comment. Alexandra also fell silent, reflecting that she was venting moodiness by taking an argumentative attitude instead of discussing the issue. During the past days, her sorrow had been joined by helpless rage, a frustrated, smoldering resentment at her situation. Her temper flared occasionally, but David never became angry in return.

  He began talking about the garden at the home paddock, naming off the various vegetables he had planted. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you think about it when we get there," he added.

  "As I mentioned, most of my experience is with flowers, but I enjoy working with plants, and I'll be pleased to see what I can do with the garden. We'll be there within a few days now, won't we?"

  "Yes, within three or four," he answered, glancing up at the sun. "There's a billabong a short distance ahead, with a spring on a small hill just above it, and we can camp there tonight. You made camp when we stopped yesterday, so I'll ride ahead and do it today."

  Alexandra reached back to a ring on her saddle, untying the halter ropes on the pack horses she was leading, then leaned over and handed them to him. David turned and disappeared into the thick growth, circling the flock. Uncoiling the spare stock whip he had given her, Alexandra watched the sheep.

  For the first time in her life, she could take part in all the activities around her, which she enjoyed intensely. David had showed her how to control the dogs and sheep, and she knew that his purpose had been to distract her from her grief. But he was also willing to share any of the work and let her do what she wished, a novel and rewarding experience for her.