Master of Moonrock

by Anne Hampson

  ‘He’ll be taking on something if he does.’

  ‘I told him that, but he’s fed up with town life and yearns for the wide open spaces.’

  ‘Like so many others.’ Again that dry tone, and containing

  a hint of disparagement. ‘Doesn’t he mind living in a shack?’ ‘What a snob you are, Thane! Everyone has to start. What about Gran Amelia?’

  ‘ She was made of the right kind of stuff. ’

  ‘And still is,’ came the swift and significant retort. ‘You’re quite right,’ was Thane’s grim rejoinder. ‘She still is made of the right kind of stuff,’ and as he lapsed into silence Loren wondered sleepily what he was thinking. Perhaps he was considering marriage to Felicity, just to put Gran Amelia where he wanted her. Loren knew that he would go down in her estimation if he decided to do this. Why choose a girl like Felicity when he could have a girl like Dena? For a long while Loren thought about this, becoming more and more drowsy with each mile covered. And suddenly it was borne upon her that she did not want Thane to marry either girl, but before she could ponder on the reason for this sleep claimed her and she did not open her eyes again until the Moonrock homestead was reached.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  True to his word, Thane found time to ride with Loren and they would go off into the bush, Thane riding his magnificent chestnut gelding, a high-bred animal with its mane breaking both sides; Loren’s horse was silver-grey, a hardy country-bred, but gentle as a lamb.

  This diversion of Thane’s from the routine of uninterrupted work naturally aroused curiosity among the stockmen and their wives, who seemed nowadays to look at Loren with a trace of amused perception every time she came into contact with them. Cooper had once said, in an impudent yet malicious tone,

  ‘So that’s how it is with the Boss. But it’s only to be expected that he’ll find some way out of his difficulty.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Loren did not like him, although he was usually quite affable towards her and she often told herself that she had no reason at all for her dislike.

  ‘You don’t know yet, eh? You soon will!’ And he strode off and left her, fury evident in his haste.

  Gran Amelia had said, her lips drawn back and her eyes

  glinting,

  ‘What do you two talk about out there all alone?’ And she hadn’t given Loren the opportunity of replying as she continued, ‘I never believed he’d be such a damned fool! You’ll never stick it here and I should have thought he’d realize that! But perhaps it’s only a temporary measure.’

  ‘Gran Amelia, you talk in riddles.’ Loren said, slanting her a bewildered look. ‘I don’t understand a word of what you say.’

  ‘Poor wretch! No, because you’re too simple. Off you go,’ she added, glancing through the window. ‘He’s waiting for you!’

  Thane smiled as Loren joined him, but on noticing her flushed face and puzzled expression he wanted to know what was wrong.

  ‘It’s nothing really.’ She put her foot into the irons and mounted her horse. She was in slacks and a blue checked shirt and wore a wide-brimmed hat. ‘Gran Amelia was talking in an odd sort of way.’

  ‘Odd?’ frowningly as they began to ride away from the homestead. ‘In what way, odd?’

  Loren hesitated. The subject of Gran Amelia was best left out of any conversation with Thane; that much Loren had learned very soon after her arrival at Moonrock.

  ‘She said I wouldn’t stick it here,’ came the evasive reply when it seemed that Thane would force her to explain.

  ‘Then she must be getting absent-minded. She knows you have to remain here for two and a half years.’ He looked curiously at her before adding, ‘That small comment didn’t produce your heightened colour, or your puzzlement. ’

  Loren shook her head in agreement, but she remained reticent and he asked her what else his grandmother had said.

  ‘She asked me what you and I talk about when we’re alone.’ They were riding deeper into the bush, under a metallic and merciless sun. From somewhere in the vicinity a jacko was dispensing his loud laughter as he perched on a stunted eucalypt, and a pair of blue wrens, their dazzling plumage made even more resplendent by the sun’s fierce rays, flew across the bush track and disappeared into the scrub.

  ‘She did?’ with a start of surprise. ‘And what had you to say to that?’

  ‘She didn’t give me time to answer her.’ Too late Loren realized she had opened the way for further questions, and as she saw no escape from continued persistence by Thane she told him all that the old woman had said. A small silence ensued and then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Thane threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Well, well. ...’ He turned his head and examined Loren’s face, amusement and perception in his gaze. ‘Imagine Gran Amelia coming to a conclusion like that! She comes by the oddest ideas at times ... and yet I suppose it does seem feasible. I wonder if everyone else is thinking the same?’ Loren sent him a speaking glance; she was fast losing patience with all these obscure remarks and her voice was edged with an unaccustomed sharpness when presently she spoke.

  ‘I wish you’d explain. I’m fed up with all this secrecy! ’

  ‘I’m sure you are, my dear,’ he replied calmly. ‘However, the fact that you haven’t guessed what it’s all about will ensure your peace of mind. Do we ride further or have you had enough?’

  ‘I’d like to go on, if you have the time,’ she returned, fully aware by his change of conversation that she would get nothing out of him, no matter how strongly she persisted. ‘I like riding with you,’ she added naively, ‘because we go further into the bush when you’re with me. When I’m alone I’m afraid of getting lost.’

  ‘Then stay afraid,’ he advised. ‘This land should be treated with respect. Many people have lost their lives by flaunting its hostility.’

  ‘I know; Dena was telling me about the family who were recently found dead. ’

  ‘Their bones were found,’ he corrected. ‘Whitened and dried by the sun. They ignored the first rule of the bush: when lost you stay with your vehicle. That way you have a chance of being found. In any case, that family didn’t heed the warning to inform the station owners where they were going. We keep in touch with one another over the air and so we’re ready to receive visitors. If they don’t turn up when expected we send out search parties. That’s why people should stay with their vehicles if they become stranded, without water or fuel. We can’t help them if they’ve strayed off into the wilderness.’

  Loren shuddered as she visualized those people, wandering about, scorched by the sun, their throats parched as the hot air drew the water from their bodies, swiftly and cruelly dehydrating them. She glanced around; there was an undeniable beauty and splendour about the harsh landscape, but a terror also, a sort of vicious malevolence that seemed to exude a hatred of man for his intrusion into its primeval purity.

  Thane’s voice broke into her thoughts as he suggested that they dismount and sit down. This surprised her since he had made no such suggestion previously when they had been out riding. On the contrary, she had always had the impression that he considered riding for pleasure as a waste of time, and that he would give so long to it and then he must get back to work. But this morning he seemed more relaxed than she had ever seen him; he appeared to be quite content to stay out until she herself should wish to go back.

  Loren readily agreed to take a rest and they sat d

  altogether, and from then on the conversation took

  Loren readily agreed to take a rest and they sat down on a fallen tree, Loren’s eye catching a cheeky little lizard that sat on a brown boulder, watching them, motionlessly. All was silence, with the solace appearing to be accentuated by the strange wild tang of bushland scents, carried on a soft breeze. Some of the gums had their leaves turned edgeways to the sun and Loren remarked on this, her big brown eyes greatly puzzled.

  ‘Nature’s wonderful safeguard against excessive moisture loss,’ Thane explained. ‘Transpirati
on is cut to the minimum, as if the leaves had their full flat surfaces exposed to the sun more water would be drawn into the air.’

  ‘It’s marvellous! When you think of it. Thane, man isn’t nearly so clever as nature.’

  ‘Man’s efforts are puny in comparison,’ he agreed, turning his head and smiling at her. ‘But then nature’s had a fair start on us.’

  She laughed and sensed his interest increased. And all at once she felt shy and faintly disturbed. It was by no means the first time she had experienced this sensation on being alone with Thane. Somehow, in an inexplicable way, he was beginning to affect her; she knew a strange excitement each time he came riding with her, and on occasions a wild spiralling of expectancy would quicken her pulse, with a resultant floundering on her part as she endeavoured to collect her thoughts into a clear and comprehensible pattern.

  ‘I had another letter from Janet,’ she said in a sort of breathless haste as the all-pervading silence continued and she felt compelled to break it. ‘She doesn’t sound too happy, somehow.’

  ‘Not happy?’ Thane’s dark eyes interrogated as they met Loren’s. ‘In what way?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but there’s something. I gained the impression that she’s discontented.’

  ‘With her husband, or her new country?’ Thane’s voice was tinged with a sort of lazy boredom, as if the subject were faintly irksome to him. Casting him a sideways glance from under her long curling lashes Loren saw that a lock of black hair had fallen on to his forehead, having escaped as he took off his hat. She was fascinated by it, because it added enormously to his attraction, giving him a softer, almost boyish look which contrasted so greatly with his usual austerity of countenance.

  ‘With both - I think,’ replied Loren with the hesitancy of unsureness. ‘She was terribly in love with Robert at first.’ But Janet had been terribly in love so many times, Loren recalled.

  ‘At first?’ One black brow lifted and Thane’s expression was now one of amusement mingled with contempt. ‘But not now? She’s in the fashion, then. Why the devil don’t people make sure! How long has she been married?’

  ‘Less than a year.’

  A disdainful shrug was Thane’s only reaction and silence ensued, broken only by the twittering of birds in the branches of the trees. A solitary rosella, flashing its brilliant scarlet and blue and yellow plumage flitted about, searching for food, and a small flock of galahs rose and soared across the plain, their colour changing from salmon to pink as the sun reflected off it.

  Loren leant back contentedly against a tree and an audible sigh escaped her; Thane, whose narrowed gaze had been on his cattle and his men, turned and a half-smile hovered on his lips.

  ‘Sighing? What for?’

  ‘Not home, if that’s what you’re concluding,’ came Loren’s instant reply. ‘No, it was contentment. This is living

  - to get away from all hustle and bustle, and traffic and transistors. ’

  ‘Really?’ with surprise. ‘You weren’t so enthusiastic at first, if I remember correctly.’ His dark eyes wandered over her in a manner reminiscent of the way in which he had examined her on the night of the movie show when Felicity had in her condescending manner referred to her appearance as pretty. Thane had seemed to be discovering something and now he was again subjecting her to that exploratory regard. She flushed and her lips trembled and Thane’s smile became more pronounced. Crinkly fan lines at the corners of his eyes deepened and Loren sensed that he had guessed at her embarrassment and was considerably amused by it. If only she didn’t blush so easily — just like a shy and unsure schoolgirl.

  Janet had never been so lacking in confidence and Loren felt sure that was why she got on so well with the boys. Loren had never done so, simply because as soon as they began to bring up subjects that embarrassed her she would turn in on herself and colour up - just as she was doing now, she thought with a little stab of self-disgust.

  ‘I didn’t know what this place was like.’ Her tone was defensive, yet attractively low and sweet. ‘People think the Outback’s a wilderness.’

  Thane nodded, his eyes sweeping the undulating landscape before settling on a stockrider who was at a bore-trough, sitting his horse while it drank.

  ‘A great deal of it still is a wilderness,’ he said rather absently at length. “Yet what a change since the pioneering days when there was so little water - Australia’s the world’s driest continent, but you learned that at school.’ She nodded and he continued, ‘The river channels are dry for the greater part of the year, but we have subterranean water.’ He remained preoccupied, speaking almost to himself as he added, ‘Yes, much of it’s still a wilderness, in spite of this artesian water.’

  ‘You love it, though.’ Loren felt a strong urge to draw him from his preoccupation. With a small shock of surprise she realized she wanted him to notice she was there, to take some interest in her, just as if she were a young woman, like Dena or Felicity, and not his ward at all. ‘I can tell you do.’

  ‘I couldn’t live anywhere else.’ Faintly he smiled, yet as she glanced at his profile she saw the severity portrayed in the finely-etched features, which were hard and sharp and distinctly forbidding. They matched his tough wiry body and his hard brown hands; they matched his personality also - his plutocratic arrogance which, like that of all wealthy Outback graziers, stemmed from possessions, and the wealth which these possessions brought in. Thane had many other traits to his character though.

  He was kind to his animals and thoughtful for his employees, all of whom looked up to him - all except Cooper, who appeared to have manufactured some sort of grievance because, Dena had said, he went round telling people that

  Thane was discriminating between him and the other stockriders.

  ‘It’s time we were getting back.’ Thane glanced at his wristwatch and stood up, putting on his hat as he did so. With a totally unexpected gesture he extended a hand to Loren who, concealing her surprise, put her own hand into it, a little thrill passing through her as with a jerk he had her on her feet; she came up close to him and would have moved away in confusion, but her hand was imprisoned in his. Her thoughts fluttered, out of balance as Thane said, not without a hint of amusement as he looked into her flushed face,

  ‘Are you afraid of me, Loren? I ask the question because of that scared expression I see in your eyes.’

  ‘I’m n-not scared,’ she stammered, confusion spreading rapidly as her hand was retained in his. ‘Why sh-should I b-be?’

  He laughed suddenly, throwing back his head.

  ‘You sound afraid, too. My child, what is it? Tell me!’ ‘Nothing.’ She stared into his dark eyes, trying to read what they held. Amusement, most certainly, and inquiry, as if Thane were faintly puzzled at the way she was acting. ‘You said it w-was time we were getting b-back.’

  Another laugh, quieter this time, and an odd light entered his eyes as they moved from hers, flickering over her lovely face and throat and unrestrainedly down to the enchanting curves, giving shape to the amber-coloured check shirt she wore. He looked at her waist, where her tucked-in shirt was held in place by the wide belt attached to her slacks. Finally his eyes rested on her sandalled feet and her bare brown toes. As he bent his head as if to kiss her her heart hammered against her ribs and her legs felt weak. But she looked up at him with expectancy, her lips parted, her brown eyes clear and bright and smiling. With a little nervous gesture she pushed her hat from her forehead and ran a hand over the dampness which had collected there. Thane watched her, his body motionless, his face close to hers; and his glance dropped presently to the small hand lying in his open palm.

  The moment was profound, filled with strange impalpable tensions, yet it was a moment of wonder and revelation for Loren, as she stood there with Thane, the sun’s golden rays slanting through the branches of the trees, showering the immediate scene with pure supernal beauty. Loren’s senses were quivering and alert, stimulated by the nearness of Thane, by his supreme masculinity and streng
th ... and by the expression in his dark eyes, alarming in an exciting sort of way, owing to its unfamiliarity.

  ‘Yes—’ Abruptly Thane withdrew his hand, turning to where he had secured his horse, Danger, to a tree. ‘It’s time we were getting back.’ The change in him was like the first shock of a cold shower and Loren’s lip trembled as she went to untether Silver. What had she done to cause Thane to adopt this cool impersonal manner towards her? If only she were more experienced she would know what she had done wrong. Perhaps she ought not to have stood there looking at him in that particular way just like Janet used to do, recollected Loren, going hot all over. Janet had been flirting with Thane, and Uncle Thomas used to warn her that Thane was no fool and that he knew full well what she was about. If she really desired to attract him, her father had said, she should act with more womanly restraint - use a little of her inherent feminine ingenuity; be shy and always appear reluctant - never eager. Loren became even hotter as she thought of how she had stood there, almost asking him to kiss her. She bit her lip, wishing she could re-live the past few minutes, because some instinct told her that she could have used them much more successfully than she had.

  She was silent and withdrawn as they cantered in the direction of the homestead, taking a slightly different route, through the cattle-run. The animals grazed peacefully under the sun - Santa Gertrudis cattle introduced to Moonrock by the astute Gran Amelia just before she made the station, and all the other properties, over to her son, Thane’s father. This breed was resistant to drought and most of the other vicissitudes of the Outback, and Gran Amelia had been thoroughly disgusted when Thane bought his Asians and settled them on Babet Downs, one of the other stations the old lady had acquired from a man who, unable to afford the cost of bores, had been forced to sell out cheaply to her.

  ‘What—!’ Thane’s sharp exclamation brought Loren’s gaze from the distant low hills to the face of her companion, black as thunder. The stockriders were mustering the calves for branding and although she followed the direction of Thane’s gaze Loren could not discover the reason either for his exclamation or his anger. His eyes were narrowed against the sun as he watched the men — or could it be one man? Suddenly he pressed his heels into the gelding and within seconds he was streaking away over the rolling grasslands towards the men, who had become alert on seeing the Boss galloping in their direction. Loren followed, but the distance between them widened rapidly; she was frowning, puzzled by his behaviour. He rode like the wind, one with the animal, a centaur flying as if on wings. What had he seen to make him shoot off like that? Loren wondered, but as she came a little nearer she heard his order ringing through the clear crystal air.