Amy's Touch (41 page)

Joe had worked out a plan. His will to survive told him he had to get as far away from Gindaroo as quickly as possible, but he wasn’t going to leave empty-handed. There was money in his father’s safe, as well as his mother’s jewellery, and he’d take as many small valuables as a pair of saddlebags could hold, then head south-east into Victoria to start a new life in Melbourne. He had been told that many opportunities, as well as anonymity, could be found in a large city. Or maybe he’d take a berth on a ship and go and visit Danny. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. But first…

Breakfast at Drovers was over and the men had left the homestead to work on their various tasks when the telephone in the hallway rang.

Nora was closest so she answered it. She held a hand over the receiver and called Amy. ‘It’s Constable McSweeney. He wants to talk to Randall. I told him he’s ridden out to one of the boundary fences. He says he’ll talk to you.’

Amy, ready to leave for work at the hospital, tried to curb her impatience. What did the constable want now? When were they going to be left in peace?

‘Amy,’ the constable’s voice crackled through the line and, as usual, he didn’t mince words, ‘Joe Walpole escaped last night. Knocked me unconscious and took off on my horse. Beth Cameron-Smith reported that he’s been to Ingleside, got a fresh horse, stolen some cash and jewellery, and he’s armed. According to Beth, he rode south, but in an easterly direction.’

‘That’s awful. I take it you’re going after Joe?’

‘I’m putting some men together now.’

‘And you want Randall, Jim and Mike to join you?’

‘Not exactly. Joe’s going into rugged country but I have enough men for the chase. I’m ringing to warn Randall that Joe’s out.’ He paused, then added, ‘Joe blames your husband for being found out.’

Amy frowned. The constable’s tone was decidedly serious. ‘I know that…’ She chewed her lower lip in agitation. ‘What are you trying to say, Stuart? That Joe might go after Randall?’

‘The possibility can’t be dismissed. If Joe’s smart he’ll keep riding and hope we don’t catch up with him. But I reckon he’s the vengeful type. Can you locate Randall on the property, warn him to be on the lookout?’

‘Of course. I’ll ride out to him straight away.’

‘Good. And Amy,’ Stuart’s voice dropped a tone or two, ‘Joe has his back to the wall now, he’s desperate. Tell Randall to be careful.’

Amy replaced the phone’s receiver in its cradle and looked at Nora, who was leaning against the kitchen doorway. ‘You heard?’

‘Enough to know that Joe Walpole’s on the loose.’

‘I’ll have to change into suitable riding clothes. Could you keep an eye on Ian and Kate? Kate won’t be going to school today.’

‘Of course.’

Amy changed into culottes, a blouse and riding boots in double-quick time and took her wide-brimmed felt hat and leather gloves from the top of the wardrobe. She hurried outside to the paddock where the Duchess resided. Not unusually, the animal was feeling frisky and it took a good fifteen minutes to settle her down enough for Amy to get the bridle and saddle on. Mounting, Amy took a deep breath, and with a gentle nudge in the horse’s ribs, she urged her into a trot, a canter, then a gallop…

With the early-morning sun warming his back and promising a blisteringly hot day, Randall swung the long-handed metal spike used to soften the soil enough to enable a hole for a fence post to be dug. He glanced down the line of the boundary fence to where Jim worked, some forty feet away. Despite his disability, Jim had no trouble putting in fence posts and wiring. Randall was amazed at the tasks his foreman could accomplish. Because they weren’t herding cattle or sheep, Tinga lay asleep in the shade of a gigantic saltbush, quite uninterested in what Jim and Randall were doing.

As he worked, Randall recalled the conversation he’d had last
night with Amy, mostly about Beth coming home to manage Ingleside. He had welcomed the news that Beth had no intention of carrying on the feud that had existed between Drovers and Ingleside for so long. In Randall’s opinion, Bill’s properties couldn’t be in better hands. Beth was smart and she knew how properties ran in the Flinders, and she would be a better manager–grazier than Joe could ever be. Not that Bill’s heir had much chance of taking up his inheritance now. Randall silently acknowledged that he felt little pity for Joe, now locked up for his father’s murder. Rather, he felt a simmering anger, because the unscrupulous weasel had tried to implicate Randall as the perpetrator of
his
crime.

But then…Randall’s features relaxed and his mouth curved in a smile. Life was going to be different around Drovers with Bill and Joe out of the way. He could get on with the task of building up the herd and the even larger flock of sheep, plant more wheat for diversification, and, he, Jim and Mike had debated the idea of breeding thoroughbred horses, starting with a sire with a good bloodline to service the Duchess. Randall grinned as he swung the spike downwards again. All he had to do was convince his darling wife that it was a sound idea.

In the silence of the bush, Jim’s piercing whistle made Randall look up from his work. Jim cupped his good hand around the side of his mouth and yelled, ‘I’m out of water.’ He rattled his water flask at Randall. ‘I’m riding down to the creek to fill up. Do you need some?’

Randall’s head gave a shake. ‘I’m fine.’ He picked up the shovel, pushed it into the soil with his boot and began to dig a hole for the replacement fence post.

From behind a clump of low bushes, a pair of pale grey eyes watched Jim Allen ride away, with the cattle dog loping alongside the horse. Joe Walpole licked his dry lips and rocked back and forth in his saddle several times, savouring the moment for as long as possible, then he made his decision. Now was the best chance he had of having it out with Randall. He kicked his horse’s flanks viciously and flicked the reins as he emerged from his hiding place. He wanted to see the expression on Randall’s face when he aimed the rifle at his chest, wanted to hear him beg for his life…He’d make him get down on his knees and…

Anticipating revenge brought a smile to his lips as he rode down the slope to where Randall worked, oblivious to the danger he was in.

Joe was almost upon him by the time Randall realised a rider had come up behind him. It couldn’t be Jim, he’d gone in a different direction. He turned as Joe reined his horse in, about fifteen feet from the fence.

‘Joe!’ Shock made Randall drop the shovel. ‘What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be locked up.’

‘Did you really think I was going to hang around in that sweaty police station and spend the rest of my life in prison? I’d rather be dead. I’m on my way south, but before I go there’s something I have to do…’ He left the sentence unfinished but pointed the rifle he’d taken from Ingleside directly at Randall. ‘If it hadn’t been for you dobbing me in to McSweeney I might have got away with killing my mean old bastard of a father.’

Randall shook his head. ‘McSweeney’s too smart. He’d have worked it out with or without my help. You did a dreadful thing, Joe. Bill didn’t deserve to die the way he did.’ He pointed an index finger at Joe. ‘The law will make you pay for it.’

‘They’ve got to catch me first,’ Joe retorted with a certain smugness. ‘I know the bush around here better than most men, certainly better than McSweeney. I’ll be drinking a beer in Geelong or Melbourne while the constable and his mates are still stumbling around in the scrub.’

‘And why are you telling me this?’

Joe’s mouth stretched in a wider smile. ‘You’re not going to be able to tell anyone because you’ll be
dead
.’ He lifted the rifle, aimed it, and fired.

The bullet caught Randall in the right shoulder, the force of the shot knocking him to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, as he used his left hand to stem the blood flowing from the wound, Randall saw Joe bring the horse closer, close enough so that he could be pulled out of the saddle
if
Randall could get up in time to do it. But in the next instant, because of the shoulder wound, he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He sat up, his gaze trained on Joe, his intention being to distract him from making another shot.

‘You’re crazy, Joe. If you kill me you’ll definitely hang.’ As they stared at each other Randall’s free hand dropped from his shoulder and edged towards the metal spike. If he could grab it and hurl it at the horse, it might rear up and unseat Joe. It was worth a try. His fingers closed around the spike.

‘Well if I do, I’ll see you in hell.’

Seconds before Randall tried to throw the spike at the horse’s forelegs, a second and a third shot rang out. Randall gasped as the bullets went deep into his abdomen. Blood began to spurt from the wounds. He stared down at the blood staining his shirt, covering his hands that, instinctively, had moved to span the wounds in an attempt to contain the blood loss. Stopping the flow was impossible. He fell backwards onto the earth and lay there, his features contorting with pain.

‘Goodbye, Randall,’ Joe said, and from the side of his mouth came a triumphant cackle. He pulled on the reins to control the horse, who’d got fidgety because of the rifle shots, and turned to the right without a backwards glance at his victim.

Joe’s horse had travelled no more than thirty feet when a snarling, barking dog began to snap at its forelegs. Behind Tinga raced Jim Allen, catching up to Joe fast. He’d seen what had happened but had been too far away to intervene any faster.

Joe didn’t have time to turn and fire a shot at Jim. Before he knew it, Jim had hurled himself out of his saddle and grabbed Joe around the chest. The two men fell in a tangled heap to the ground. Both were winded from the fall, but Jim recovered first. More solidly built and stronger than Joe, his eyes were dark with near uncontrollable anger. He shook the slimmer man like a rag doll.

‘You rotten bastard.’ Jim’s fist connected with Joe’s jaw. The blow snapped his head back, then, before Joe could retaliate, Jim placed his hook against Joe’s throat. ‘Move again and I’ll rip your bloody Adam’s apple out.’

Joe could feel the sharp piece of metal against his skin, and as he stared balefully up at Randall’s foreman he didn’t doubt the man’s capacity to carry out his threat: the look in Jim’s eyes dared him to move. And the damned dog had grabbed the bottom of his trousers and was shaking his leg as if it were a juicy bone.

‘All right, all right.’ His Adam’s apple wobbled against the hook. ‘But call your dog off.’

Jim rolled off him and, continuing to hold the hook against Joe’s throat, used his good hand to pull Joe to his feet. He whistled for his horse, which was standing ten feet away. The horse trotted up to Jim, and within a minute Jim had Joe trussed up like a calf about to be branded. Then, spying a gum tree with a good sized-girth, he pushed Joe down into a sitting position next to it and roped him to the tree.

‘I’m going to Randall, but I’ll be back for you. Tinga,’ he snapped a finger at the dog. ‘Guard.’

Randall had managed to get his shirt off and was using it to stem the flow of blood from the wounds in his abdomen, but exhaustion was setting in, and as he lay there his gaze fixed on the sky and a patch of white clouds passing overhead. He knew it was important to stay conscious, but the pain was becoming so intense that he was getting dizzy.

Jim and Amy rode up to Randall at the same time.

Before she got off the Duchess, Amy looked at Jim and, by some small miracle, controlled her reaction at seeing her husband’s injuries, though internally her heart tightened and shock made her drop the horse’s reins. At a glance she could see that Randall was gravely wounded.
Oh, no!
Not her brave, handsome husband, the man she adored, the one she intended to grow old with. He’d suffered much in his life and he didn’t deserve this. And neither did she. She said quietly, ‘Ride to Drovers, Jim. Get a horse and cart and the medical valise I keep in the study. Ride as fast as you can.’

Jim acknowledged the order by dipping his hat, and before he rode away he assured Randall, ‘I got him. Joe’s hog-tied to a tree with Tinga guarding him.’

As Amy examined Randall’s wounds, she managed to keep her features impassive, disguising the fear mounting within her under a mask of professionalism. ‘Darling, it’s not too bad,’ she said softly. ‘Once Gavin operates to remove the bullets, you’ll pick up in no time.’

Anxious to be doing
something,
she took the shirt away from his abdomen and saw how serious the wounds were. She began to rip the bottom of her culottes to make a rough bandage. The shoulder wound wasn’t as serious, but she formed a make-do compression pad with a sleeve of Randall’s shirt to slow the blood loss. She watched her fingers tremble as she went about the work of securing the wounds as best she could, all the while smiling encouragingly at her husband to imply that all would be well. Other than that, all she could do was pray that Jim would ride like the wind and come back posthaste.

Randall knew as well as Amy that they were kidding each other. Like her, he’d seen similar wounds before. As Amy watched his features contort with pain and stroked stray strands of hair from his
forehead, the thought suddenly came to her how ironic the situation was. The German soldier whose life Randall had ended all those years ago had had the very same wound as Randall now had. As well, she knew from experience that men shot this seriously rarely recovered, and if they managed to, they lived what was left of their lives as invalids. But, she tried to convince herself, her husband was strong and fit, and she wouldn’t give up hope that he would defy the odds.

As wave upon wave of pain devoured Randall’s energy he tried to stay conscious, but by the time Jim and Mike returned with the horse and cart, he had accepted that fighting for his life was a lost cause. All he knew was that he had to survive long enough to organise certain matters.

Danny sat behind the desk in his cramped office on Suva’s docks. He was checking the
Geraldine
’s sailing manifest when a young native boy brought the cable from the post office. Slitting the envelope, he took out the contents. The first thing he looked at was the date: the communication system in Fiji wasn’t efficient, so the cable had been received two days ago. Then he read it: