Absolution Creek (58 page)

‘What do you want with her?’

‘She accused me of stealing Campbell’s sheep, she did.’ Adams hooked thumbs through his braces and stuck his chest out so that a lard-hard belly folded over his belt.

Jack recalled his father’s words about men who wore both belts and braces: no confidence, he’d said; men such as that always figured on being more than what they were. ‘And?’

‘And?’ Specks of saliva gathered in the corners of Adams’s mouth. ‘Well, firstly there weren’t no proof and no witnesses came forward, since the lie was told to a black fella, Captain Bob, that works for the Campbells. But that didn’t stop them from throwing me in gaol for a week,’ Adams complained, turning to his companion. ‘Isn’t that right, Will?’

‘It’s the truth, so strike me down if I lie.’

‘So why are you here? It seems to me the matter’s been solved.’ Jack edged closer to Adams and his shifty company. ‘You don’t strike me as the type of man that would take umbrage with a female.’

‘I’m here cause of this.’ Adams produced a newspaper from his pocket. The print was creased and stained and he went to some effort to flatten the paper, brushing it against a meaty thigh.

Jack took the paper suspiciously and glanced down to where Adams’s ragged thumbnail pointed. ‘Move your finger.’ Thomas and Olive looked over Jack’s shoulder. Adams tipped his hat on Olive’s arrival. ‘Well, what of it? That’s the notice you and I talked about regarding the girl. Has someone come forward?’

Will took a step forwards and rested the stock of his rifle on the dirt path. ‘There was this theft, you see, by one Abigail Hamilton. She stole jewellery from a Mrs Purcell of Waverly Station.’

‘I knew it!’ Olive interrupted.

Jack held up his hand to silence Olive. A furious sigh was her response.

‘She was the missus of a big-time sheep stud owner over to the east in the slopes,’ Adams continued, ‘the one with the ram on the shilling coin.’

Olive huffed. ‘The audacity.’

‘I know of them.’ Jack could still see the shilling coin spinning across Mr Farley’s desk.

The man called Will cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, the story you tell about finding the kid after she fell off a dray and was washed down the creek . . . well, it matches the yarn going about the place, about the Hamiltons running from the law in the middle of the night, about a kid being lost, a girl. That is the girl’s name, isn’t it? Hamilton?’

Jack wasn’t following. ‘So you have found her kin?’

‘What we found, thanks to a traveller by the name of Scrubber –’ Adams displayed yellowing teeth ‘– is the girl holed up here with you is most likely of darkie blood. Her real mother was a half-caste.’

Olive lifted a hand to her mouth. ‘Never! In this house?’

‘I’m sorry to say it, missus,’ Adams commiserated, ‘but yes.’

‘You’re sure?’ Thomas stepped from the threshold to join his brother.

Olive lifted her chin. ‘I told you to send her to an orphanage, Jack.’

‘Be quiet, Olive, this is man’s business. Now,’ Jack continued more amenably, ‘if she is who you say she is – and that would have to be proved – what if I’m happy for her to stay here?’

‘Jack!’ Thomas placed a hand on Olive’s shoulder to quiet her.

‘Don’t let your enthusiasm to be rid of the girl get in the way of the truth, Olive,’ Jack reprimanded. He sensed her fury in her steely voice and erratic breathing.

Adams cleared his throat.

‘The law says any child –’

‘She’s not a child,’ Jack corrected.

‘Any child,’ Adams repeated firmly, ‘with mixed blood has to be sent away. It’s for their own good.’

‘An orphanage,’ Jack replied, ‘their own good, really?’

‘It’s the law,’ Adams said as if he had a shiny badge of authority pinned to his chest. ‘So where is she?’ He turned in an ungainly half-circle.

Jack gestured vaguely about them. ‘Who knows? The girl’s never been one for normality. You said that yourself once.’

‘She’s not in the house,’ Olive said. ‘She was with you, Jack.’

‘Some hours ago,’ he countered mildly, making a show of shading his eyes to stare off into the shimmering bush.

‘Well, we’ll be having a look about and if we don’t find her this time we will eventually.’ Adams tossed Jack a canvas bag. ‘There’s your mail,
friend
.’

‘Thanks.’ Jack caught the mail bag, then waited as the two men walked back to their horses.

‘I knew that girl was trouble,’ Olive snapped, ‘and here are you, Jack Manning, kowtowing to her and giving me lectures about getting on with her.’

‘That’s enough.’ Jack bustled Olive and Thomas inside. ‘For starters, Squib doesn’t look black to me. Does she look Aboriginal to you?’

Thomas gave a non-committal shrug.

Olive lifted her chin. ‘I wouldn’t know what she is, Jack.’ Turning to walk the length of the hallway she paused to stamp her heel on a black beetle. ‘I’ve never mixed with natives before. Now, who is for tea?’ she asked sweetly.

Chapter 47

C
ora tucked a spare sweater into the saddle bag and hung a water bag and stock whip from the pommel. Horse, attuned to the slightest variation in Cora’s mood, waited patiently as she swung up and into the saddle. He settled beneath her slight weight, lifting a hoof in turn as if measuring her balance. In the distance the homestead appeared almost bereft. It sat squat and ungainly amid motionless trees, a messy line of add-on roofs of various heights running into the squat forms of the power house, meat house, laundry block and garage. Only the leopardwood tree relieved the asymmetrical lines of the homestead, its great branches rising up and over the structure like a chivalrous gentleman holding a rain coat. Cora hoped the old girl withstood the coming storm. Although she did her best to wad up the opening between the iron and the tree’s trunk, netting and builders putty were no match for the elements, nor the continual movement that stretched and tugged at the old building as the earth moved. Heavy rain made doors catch and foundations slip and resettle; prolonged dry weather saw cracks appear in walls and ceilings. Cora knew instinctively her home was failing her. It was sinking into the ground from which it had come.

A single whistle brought Curly running and, with Sam and Kendal saddled up, they set off three abreast, a disgruntled group of riders heading east to the creek. Once or twice Curly turned to bark in the direction of the homestead. Cora whistled at him softly. They both missed Tripod but he was yet to make a full recovery.

‘So what’s the rush, Cora?’ Sam finally asked when half an hour of silence turned a pleasant ride uncomfortable. Lunch wasn’t even considered.

‘I’m pretty sure the rain will come in this afternoon and we only need a couple of inches to make the creek crossing impassable.’

‘Montgomery?’ Sam asked. ‘He might get caught over there, right?’ Everything up here was about the weather. It was either too hot or too cold, or there was too much or too little rain, or it fell at the wrong time.

‘Ten points,’ Kendal grunted. ‘We’re mustering the block over the creek.’

‘I just have a feeling we might be in for a bit more rain than we bargained for,’ Cora explained, ‘and I don’t want Montgomery caught with the rest of the rams on the other side.’

‘You see, old mate,’ Kendal said, ‘there’s been a sign.’

Yeah, Cora thought, there has been. Eight black fellas walking across the countryside in the dead of night and the last time I saw them I fell off the back of a wagon and lost my family. ‘You could say that.’

‘Hell of a way to run a property.’

‘Well, Kendal, as I have one and you don’t, clearly it’s working.’

Sam was almost inclined to turn around and head back to the work shed. He was no mediator, and Cora and Kendal’s jibing was enough to drive a man back to the bottle. He rubbed a hand over his wounded leg, wishing he’d remembered to put his pantyhose on, wishing he’d had that extra chop at breakfast. He just knew it was going to be one of those days. The sun was diminishing in strength as they wound through the trees in an easterly direction. When they reached the denser trees near the creek its rays barely penetrated the thick canopy above. Kangaroos, wallabies, even a pig and some suckers crossed their path, the latter dodging between him and Kendal with a series of snorts and screeches that set Sam’s mount to bucking, and Curly on a brief chase.

‘Hang on there, ringer,’ Kendal called laconically over his shoulder.

Sam dug his thighs and heels in, and finally his mare steadied up. Dolly was a spritely old girl and, Cora assured him, steady of foot.

It was damn cold in the shade and the path they rode along was non-existent. Cora led them through trees packed so tightly that Sam was certain his clothes would be torn from him. As it was his face was whipped by prickly belah branches and he spent every second ducking, weaving and contorting his body around branches. Eventually they entered a clearing.

‘That’s some track.’ Sam wiped a cobweb from his face and flicked at a greyish spider cadging a ride on his thigh. He didn’t really go much on the plate-sized variety Cora bred.

‘It’s a good place to cross and as we’re now on the south-east boundary it’ll make the mustering easier.’ Cora clucked Horse down a slight bank and then trotted him quickly across a narrow trickle of water.

‘She hates water,’ Kendal whispered as they followed. ‘It’s actually quicker to follow the track and cross a good mile or so to the west.’

‘Well, we’re here now,’ Sam said.

‘Must be nice being so amenable, Sam,’ Kendal commented as they rode up the far bank to where Cora waited. ‘Must have something to do with being paid.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam agreed. ‘It does.’

Cora dismounted and drew a mud map of the paddock in the dirt with her finger. ‘This is us.’ She made a cross on the squiggly creek line. ‘You two split up. Sam, I want you to follow the fence until you get to the next corner, here –’ she tapped the dirt ‘– then come a good five hundred yards into the paddock and muster in a weaving motion in a northerly direction. Got it?’

‘Yep,’ Sam answered. Cora sounded pretty serious.

‘Kendal –’

‘I know the drill, Boss. Halfway down the paddock to start mustering.’

‘If you lose each other just follow the creek. Sam, the plan here is to get the rams over the waterway. I’m going after Montgomery.’ Cora remounted and cantered Horse off into the scrub, Curly tight on her heels.

‘What’s the go with chasing one ram?’ Sam wondered aloud as Horse’s hooves and the crackle of brush echoed through the timber.

‘He’s not just one ram.’ Kendal mounted up. ‘He’s a bit like the Colt by Old Regret. He’s worth a thousand pound.’

Sam followed the boundary fence, skirting wide-girthed trees and the odd gravel-edged ant hill. He eased back into the saddle, relaxing the reins. This was the life. Absolution provided a man with a bit of everything: arguments, honest work, intrigue and a spot of adventure. Who would have thought that Sam Bell, the citified mechanic with a hankering for the bottle and a good fistfight, would be riding a horse over seven hundred miles from Sydney? Sam gave a chuckle. If his Sydney mates saw him now they’d be cock-eyed in disbelief. Well, lap it up, boys, he murmured. He was home and hosed. Sam Bell was on the road to the good life. No grog, no fights, and a wife who knew what side her bread was buttered on. Yes, siree. One day Meg would own Absolution Creek, Sam was sure of it, and no over-sexed vet would be getting his hands on the place. In a few years they’d be riding the high life. All that was required on his part was to be a bit amenable to everyone.