by Lucy Walker
All right, he needed her help. Then why was he taking Tracy to that awful place twelve miles back on the stock route? Why Tracy? Because he loved her! That, Cherry supposed, was excuse enough.
All right for Stephen and Tracy but not good enough for Peter.
Cherry, so deeply immersed in these thoughts, didn’t notice the silence of the truck driver or the fearfulness of the track. She didn’t even notice how much Peter was enjoying himself.
She came out of this deep and melodramatic state of mind when the truck driver suddenly braked and they came to a stop. He leaned sideways out of the cab and looked back along the track.
‘The other feller’s coming,’ he said, pulling in his head and looking at Cherry. ‘The tall one what owns the baby.’
Cherry said nothing. She let her chin sink down on Peter’s head and there she waited in silence until the horseman came alongside. She stared straight ahead and did not turn her eyes when Stephen’s head and shoulders appeared in the glassless window of the truck. She knew, however, that he was not smiling and that his dark grey eyes were almost black with anger.
He swung himself from the horse, slung its bridle over the exposed radiator cap of the ancient vehicle and with a slow and purposeful tread walked back to the cabin door. He pulled it open with a jerk.
‘Get out, Cherry!’ he said. ‘This has wasted several hours of precious time.’
She turned her head and looked at him now. Her eyes were quite clear.
‘And walk back?’ she asked. ‘You’ve only brought one horse, Stephen. When you were going to take Tracy, with Peter, you had borrowed two horses.’
‘Very well,’ he said evenly. ‘You can stay in the truck. Peter goes with me.’
Cherry shook her head.
‘You said we had to stay together in twos. One man and one girl.’
‘You’ve got the truck driver. You’re safe.’
‘I’m sure I am. And so is Peter ‒ with me.’
Stephen spoke very slowly. ‘Peter is my nephew,’ he said. ‘I am taking him back to the nearest point of civilisation. He is an infant, and it is my duty to take charge of him.’
The truck driver rolled himself a cigarette, pulled his hat down, almost over his eyes, and gazed with a bored expression into the sameness of the track that lay ahead.
‘Well, I don’t think that place back there is civilised,’ Cherry said conversationally. ‘Of course, if I went with Peter I would be a good judge of that.’
Now she smiled, guilelessly and straight into Stephen’s eyes.
‘Tracy doesn’t like rocking-horse saddles … she said so … she doesn’t like holding Peter. And the only kind of civilisation Tracy can recognise with an expert’s eyes is the stage of Covent Garden. Preferably with Dame Margot Fonteyn on it.’
A muscle moved in Stephen’s cheek. He dropped his foot from the step of the truck and reached in his pocket for cigarettes. There were none. Cherry took what she called her ‘bribe packet’ from the pocket of her shirt and opening it took out one cigarette and handed it to him.
‘You’ve forgotten rationing days went out with the finding of the drover’s camp,’ she said sweetly.
Stephen was silent, looking at her as if he hadn’t made up his mind whether to drag Peter from her arms and leave her in the truck, or smack her.
‘You can smell it if you don’t want to smoke it,’ Cherry said, cajolingly. ‘They say that helps when you’re trying to give up the vice.’
Stephen took the cigarette from her, and the truck driver, without turning his head or saying a word, handed him a box of matches over Cherry’s head.
Stephen drew on the cigarette, looked down at the ground and then through slitted eyes out across the plain.
It was daylight and the sun, rising in the east, was reflected in the pink carpet of grass to the west.
He looked back at Cherry. His eyes all but relented.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You win. Move over while I tie the horse on the back of the truck.’
‘Where you goin’ now, mister?’ asked the truck driver.
‘You turn round and drive us back to the camp. Swing wide of the cattle. I’m paying you ten pounds for your trouble.’
‘Ten pounds for two miles?’ said Cherry, indignant.
Stephen tied the horse to the tailboard of the truck and climbed in beside Cherry.
‘That,’ said Stephen dryly, ‘is what it cost me for you to run away.’
‘Suits me,’ said the truck driver and, pushing his hat to the back of his head, put the truck into gear and let go the brake. He swung wide out from the track and now the bumping was worse than before.
‘Pretty bad,’ said Stephen, looking down at her when they gave one particularly bad lurch over a miniature canyon in the middle of their way. It seemed to give him pleasure.
‘Not so bad now,’ said Cherry airily. ‘I’ve got you to bump against. Before it was the cab door I kept hitting.’ She looked at Stephen. ‘But that wasn’t quite so hard,’ she admitted.
The cattle were beginning to string out when they got back to the camp.
The drover was on horseback somewhere out on the wing and Billy the stockman was on the near side. The blue heeler, Stopper, was bringing up the rear.
Tracy and Alan were drinking tea over the near dead fire. There was another horse, an enormous brown animal with a white star on his forehead and a long flowing mane, tied to a tree limb.
‘What goes on?’ said Tracy, looking at Cherry as if she was something impertinent that had turned up uninvited at a society tea-party. ‘You eloping with yet another man?’
‘You mean the truck driver?’ said Cherry innocently. ‘Well, actually he’s the first. Unless you count Peter a man.’
‘Have some tea, darling,’ Tracy said to Stephen, holding up a billy of black tea. ‘And please explain what happens next.’
Cherry put Peter down on the ground where he immediately began to scrabble around for sticks with which to play. She, herself, took her comb from the hip pocket of her slacks and began to comb her fringe down flat.
Stephen took the billy from Tracy and poured some of the tea into a plastic cup.
‘You go in the truck with Alan,’ Stephen said quietly. ‘He’ll look after you. Right?’ He looked up inquiringly at Alan.
The pilot nodded his head.
‘Right as rain,’ he said.
‘Pleasant if we had some rain,’ said Tracy. ‘Apart from being able to wash ourselves clean Cherry could lick that fringe down into form. It has been uncooperative ever since we landed on the treetops in that plane.’
Cherry, standing above Peter so that no one could take him from her, her feet a little apart, went on combing her hair and said nothing.
‘Cherry and I’ll go on to Kunders’ place. They’ve a Transceiver set and if they haven’t motor transport a station that size will have a dozen horses in the home paddock.’ He paused, looked up at Cherry. ‘Tea?’ he asked, coldly polite, holding out the cup.
‘Thank you,’ said Cherry.
She took the cup but did not move her guardianlike stance above Peter. She hadn’t had any breakfast so standing on her dignity and politely declining the tea wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
If only someone would offer her a good charcoal-burned steak too! She might swallow her pride enough to take a peck at it.
Alas, during her two-mile trip there in the truck and two-mile trip back the camp had been cleared and packed except for the billies of tea and the cups they were holding.
No one had noticed ‒ not even Alan Donnelly ‒ that Cherry had not had breakfast. Well, she had no one to blame for that state of affairs but herself. She drank the tea with pleasure.
‘And Cherry goes with you?’ Tracy asked askance, looking round Stephen at Cherry.
‘Cherry will look after Peter,’ Stephen said. After a pause he added, ‘She is more used to him. I feel I must put Peter first, Tracy.’
‘Have you ever ridden on
one of those iron frame saddles, Cherry?’ Tracy asked sweetly.
Cherry shook her head.
‘I haven’t ridden on any saddle,’ she said. ‘But I’ll get there. After being plane-wrecked in a jungle I can take anything.’
‘Oh sure,’ said Tracy affably. ‘But I promise you you won’t take anything, not even a kind word or a fillet cut for dinner, after you get there. You won’t be fit.’
Cherry had put her comb back in her hip pocket and over the rim of her cup her eyes met Alan Donnelly’s. He winked at her.
‘At least you won’t have to walk on a lame ankle,’ he said. ‘That ought to be something.’
Stephen’s eyes went to Cherry’s feet but she quickly moved her left foot, the injured one, behind the right foot.
‘So long as Peter is safe ‒’ she said equably.
‘We ought to get back to Mulga’s End before nightfall,’ Stephen said to Alan. ‘With any luck we’ll find a car or utility at Kunders’ Station. The important thing is that I can get through to the world on that Transceiver set. I think we owe Hugh and Betty that.’
‘And the rest of our folks,’ Alan said.
‘Funny,’ Cherry thought, swallowing the last of her tea and shaking the drains out on the ground. ‘On a walkabout like this, one forgets that each person has “other folks”. Everyone has, of course. I wonder who Alan is worrying about. He never says anything. But then I don’t either, do I?’
In some ways, Cherry thought, they were all very uninhibited. She herself emptying the drains of her cup on to the ground, for instance. And combing her hair like that too. Was that just shaking off the shibboleths of convention or was she measuring up to Tracy, Tracy’s way?
On the other hand they were all buttoned up in knots inside. Her own worry for her parents, Alan’s comment about ‘our folks’ were good examples.
What private woes and worries did Tracy really cover up behind that manner of the bored sophisticate? If she was really in love with Stephen, and really intended to marry him, she at least had him on hand to share her worries.
Cherry stooped and picked up Peter. His new playthings, a fistful of sticks, had to be gently eased from his grubby hand, a piece of wet cloth had to be found to wipe those same hands and his little shining eager face.
Another breakfast had to be made for him and meantime the last remains of the camp were cleaned up by Stephen and Alan.
The truck driver remained aloof, except for the last of the drover’s plant which it was his duty to assemble in a pile ready for his return trip. His manner seemed to say for him ‒ I wish you people would hurry up.
Chapter Fourteen
Eventually all was ready and the truck started away with Tracy in the cab and Alan sitting on top of the gear in the back. He waved a nonchalant hand of farewell to Stephen and Cherry standing beside the two horses that were to carry them in the opposite direction.
‘See you for dinner,’ he called. His eyes, smiling ruefully, lingered on Cherry. ‘Chin up, girl,’ was his last piece of advice. ‘Half a dozen hours and we’ll meet again.’
Cherry smiled back as she waved. Stephen turned and looked at her a moment.
‘I should have made you go with Alan,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me that I start having my decisions altered by a small piece of womanhood like you.’
‘Not me,’ said Cherry. ‘It was Peter. Otherwise I assure you it would have been fun to ride up on the back of the truck like that.’ She put her head a little on the side and pursed her lips. ‘Consider my riding off with you on that great big horse the stern call of duty.’
Stephen rubbed the back of his forefinger across his chin. He looked thoughtfully from Cherry to Peter, again scrabbling for sticks where he sat on the ground.
‘ “And a little child shall lead them”,’ he quoted.
Then his face relaxed and he smiled. ‘Strange how a whole world will turn the opposite way when an infant’s welfare is involved.’
‘If you and I are the whole world,’ said Cherry, ‘then we’d better turn the opposite way at once. Otherwise I won’t be able to keep that appointment for dinner with Alan at Mulga’s End.’
Stephen went to the tree where the horses were hitched and led the two animals round to stand side by side. He adjusted the stirrup leathers of Cherry’s mount then looked over the saddle at her.
‘We call a temporary truce then?’ he said, his dark grey eyes asking a question, his mouth eased in that small, amused smile that always made Cherry think he was laughing at her.
She nodded.
‘How do I get up?’ she asked. ‘Will you hand Peter up to me?’
‘Yes.’
She already had Alan’s carrying-bag across her shoulder and Stephen came round to the left side of her mount and held the stirrup for her.
‘Put your weight on the ball of the foot,’ he said. ‘And spring up from your right.’
Mounting a horse looked so easy for other people but Cherry didn’t have any illusions as to how badly she might do it herself. She concentrated on what Stephen told her to do. The stirrup iron was high because the horse was big. She felt as if she had got her left knee somewhere in the realm of her chin when she put her foot in the iron.
She glanced at Stephen, expecting to see him laughing at her, but his face was concentrated and serious. With a pang of remorse Cherry realised that whatever else his faults, he was too gallant to do that. His manners to the ladies, though distant, were always chivalrous.
‘Hand on pommel and grip,’ he said. ‘Now up.’
Unexpectedly his own hand was under her right foot as she sprang and she sailed up into the saddle of this enormous horse like a bird.
She could not help the look of surprised amazement on her face to find herself sitting there, on top of the world, both feet nicely placed in the stirrup irons and Stephen standing down there on the earth making no attempt to hide his expression of ironic amusement. It was not a muscle that was moving in his cheek now, it was his tongue.
Then he turned away, bent down and picked up Peter.
‘Ready?’ he said. ‘Up. Sit steady while you fit his legs in the bag. Good.’
He held the mount at the cheek strap while Cherry adjusted Peter into a comfortable position.
‘You are now mounted on a packhorse,’ Stephen said in an enlightening manner. ‘He won’t gallop or canter but he just might trot if he gets cantankerous. You can hold the reins and otherwise forget about him. He’ll follow me and I’ll keep the pace down. Right?’
An old packhorse! And she had thought she was going forth on a stockman’s charger!
How Stephen must really be laughing behind that curious expressionless glaze of his eyes.
He did have nice eyes, though. It was a pity they always had the wrong expression in them. Well, nearly always.
Cherry sighed. She nodded.
‘When you get tired ‒ and you will ‒’ Stephen cautioned, ‘I’ll take over Peter. Now, we’ll get away.’
With considerable envy Cherry watched Stephen go up into the saddle of the other mount in an effortless way. As he sat a moment and looked round the camp to make sure they had left nothing behind ‒ he had the waterbags with him and food rations in his saddlebags ‒ Cherry looked at his straight back, the easy way his feet hung long in the stirrups. There was nothing ramrod about him and he looked so easy he might have been born in the saddle.
He glanced across at Cherry.
‘Right?’ he said again.
She nodded.
He touched a rein and his horse walked forward, out of the clump of trees on to the cattle track which was well churned from yesterday’s travelling bullocks. Cherry’s mount rocked and swayed into motion behind him and it didn’t take her five minutes to discover why Tracy had given in to the change of arrangements so readily and why Stephen had worn that slightly amused smile that had seemed to say … ‘You asked for it. Now you’ve got it.’
Peter, of course, was thrilled.
He was on a real live rocking-horse and in addition the world from this elevation had achieved a new wonder for him. He kept turning his face up to Cherry to make sure she registered just how remarkable a thing it was to be alive. Then he would heave a fatuous sigh of satisfaction and return his gaze to the splendours of a grassless plain.
How simple are the joys of a child, thought Cherry, as she rocked this way and that; backwards and forwards, the horse’s feet clopping along at a pace that would take them all day to-day and possibly to-morrow to travel twelve miles.
She understood perfectly what Tracy had meant ‒ or was it Alan? ‒ by a wood and iron-framed saddle. Certainly there was leather under her but everywhere else ‒ across her instep, against her back, thrusting at her forelegs, were iron bars and wooden barriers. Or so it seemed to Cherry.
Meantime her inside organs rattled around like peas in a pod.
Each time Stephen glanced around she jerked up her head and put on an expression of nonchalance. She could never have counted the number of times that expression arrived on her face only after an uninhibited grimace of pain.
They hadn’t gone very far when they reined in. Stephen swung his leg over his saddle and slid to the ground. He came back to Cherry, the reins of his own mount over his arm. The packhorse automatically stopped. Its manner indicated it was not likely to take another step forward.
Stephen was too polite to smile. He rubbed his cheek with the back of his finger and then said:
‘Now do you think you could trust Peter to me?’
So he had punished her. She would never forgive him but of this she could say nothing at the moment. She merely nodded, defeated.
She loosened Peter from his shoulder bag and handed him down to Stephen who set the child on the ground. He now held up his arms to Cherry.
‘Do I get off?’ she said.
He nodded. Again that infuriating half smile flitted around his mouth.
‘The big bay is quite docile and more comfortable to ride,’ he said.
‘But you ‒’
