Dust on the Horizon (7 page)

“You are welcome.”

William watched Jundala bend her head to the bowl and slurp up the last mouthfuls with her spoon. Uncle Binda and his family often didn't use a spoon at all but ate with their fingers. If he ate like that he would earn a reprimand from his father.

“I like the hat you chose, William. Did you enjoy your trip to Hawker?”

He looked up at his mother's question. Her face was composed with the hint of a smile. He shrugged his shoulders.

His father frowned. “Answer properly, son.”

“We had sweets.” Violet chipped in before William could respond, her face lit up in a smile.

“Did you? Your father spoils you.” Clara gave her husband a brief glance.

“The lady gave them to us,” Violet said.

“One for each of us.” Joe's grin was wide.

“How nice of her.” Clara looked back at her husband. “Where is this shop?”

“It's near the railway station.”

“A proper shop?”

“It had four solid walls and windows.”

“And a big wooden counter.” Violet's voice was pitched high with excitement. “And shelves with lots of things. There was a doll. It was so pretty, Mama.”

Clara clasped her hands together. “Perhaps I can go into town if there's a proper shop.”

“I don't want to go there again.” William put down his spoon. “The man in the shop didn't like us.”

His mother chuckled, reached across and tickled his cheek. “How can someone not like you?”

“He called us a funny name,” Violet said.

“Vagabonds.” William frowned. “What is a vagabond, mother?”

Clara opened her mouth.

“It's of no consequence.” Joseph's spoon hit his empty plate with a clang. “We won't go there again.”

“I like the lady,” Violet said.

“If we go there again we'll get more sweets.” Joe folded his arms across his chest. “You can't stop me from going.”

William was shocked. Joe rarely spoke in front of the adults and here he was being disrespectful to his … what was Joseph to him? Anger surged through William's body.

“It's your fault he didn't like us!” William's shout drew all eyes to him.

“Why is it my fault?” Joe's voice rose a notch.

Joseph put a gentle hand on Joe's shoulder. “It's nobody's fault, son.”

“He's not your son.” William clambered over the bench and around the end to stand between Joe and his father. He thrust out his arm and placed it alongside Joe's. “He's too black.”

Clara gasped.

“Where did you learn something like that?” Joseph's voice was low but William knew the tone well enough to know he'd crossed some invisible line. He remembered their neighbour's words.

“Mr Prosser said we were black, white and brindle.”

“Joseph,” Clara gasped. “Where has our son been to learn such things? He's only six years old.”

The shock in his mother's voice sucked the fury out of William. He saw the smouldering anger in his father's eyes and put his hands behind his back. He figured this was about to be another of those occasions when he would feel the slap of his father's hand on his backside. Joseph lifted his hand. William flinched but instead of hitting him his father pushed his plate back and rested his hands on the table. He closed his eyes and when he opened them he looked down the table at Uncle Binda and smiled. Uncle Binda nodded.

Once more William was puzzled by the hidden messages between adults that he wasn't privy to.

Joseph reached out and took both William's hands in his. “In this family we don't judge people by the colour of their skin.” He flipped over his left hand taking William's hand with it. “You see that scar?”

William nodded with barely a glance. He knew his father had a small, jagged scar on his left wrist.

“Binda is my dearest friend. He saved my life twice. I love him like a brother. We cut our arms and our blood was the same colour. This mark is where our blood was mixed. Mr Wiltshire and Mr Prosser do not understand this. They are not charitable men.”

William gave a quick glance in Uncle Binda's direction. How had his father been so weak that the smaller native man could save him from anything?

“You are a better person than them, William.” Joseph let his hands go.

They fell limply to his sides and tears brimmed in his eyes.

“I think that's enough, Joseph,” Clara said. “He's only a boy. He can't be blamed for the way you've chosen we should live.”

“I've chosen?”

Clara held out her arms. “Come here, my young man.”

William scampered past his father and into her arms. His tears flowed freely now.

“Shhh. Shhh.” She patted his back gently.

Behind him William could hear the sound of the metal plates being gathered up.

“Leave them please Jundala. I will manage.” His mother's voice rumbled in the ear he had pressed against her chest.

Chairs scraped. Binda said something in his own language to Jundala then he called to his son. “Come Joe.”

Baby Robert began to cry from his crib in the corner of the room. Esther joined in. Joseph rose from his chair. “I will meet you at the yards in the morning, Binda?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you my friend. I'm sorry for—”

“No,” Binda said. “No sorrow.”

William raised his head a little and looked over his mother's shoulder. Mary was standing in the doorway holding Esther. William's gaze met hers. He was shocked by the hostile glare on her face.

Clara let go of him and used her thumb to wipe the tears from his cheeks. The noise created by Robert and Esther was loud in everyone's ears. Clara sighed and stood up.

“You see to Robert,” Joseph said. “I'll take Esther.”

Robert's cries ceased instantly with Clara's cuddle. Esther's grew louder in her father's arms.

“Thank you, Mary.” Joseph lifted Esther over his head and sat her on his shoulders. Immediately she began to laugh.

“There's no understanding that one,” Clara said.

William looked down as Violet's little warm hand slipped inside his. She smiled up at him. Mary crossed the room to collect the plates.

“Please leave them, Mary.” Clara cuddled Robert's chubby body to her. “Join your family. We can manage. It's about time William learned to dry dishes.”

William opened his mouth but closed it again when he saw the sly smile on Mary's face.

“Okay, missum,” she said and left the room.

Apart from the noise of the younger children, nothing was said once Mary had left.

William noticed the angry look his mother gave his father.

“We'll talk later.” Joseph's voice was low.

William knew that meant there'd be an adult conversation the rest of them wouldn't hear but he badly wished he could listen. He still had an uneasy feeling about his family and their close cohabitation with a native family.

Six

The bulk of the large wood-and-iron shearing shed was still in shadow as Joseph walked up the slope from the house. The sun had not yet risen above the highest ridge to cast its heat over the yards filled with sheep. The shearing shed had been built on a small plateau and Joseph had extended and improved it since moving here after he and Clara were married. Clara had wanted a better house and he had been more than pleased to knock down the old place that only served to remind them of his uncles' past misfortunes at Smith's Ridge.

Now his thoughts were on his stock. The sounds of the lambs and their mothers filled the air. He was working on creating a strain of merino better suited to the rugged conditions of the Flinders. These lambs were the offspring of his first trial.

The early morning air was cool on the skin below his rolled up sleeves. With five hundred lambs to tail he knew he would soon be warm. Across the rails he could see the dark curly hair of Binda as he bobbed up and down, separating the ewes from their lambs. Jundala and Joe worked with him. Mary was down at the house with Clara and the younger children. William had been sent to feed the hens and collect the eggs and then he could join the men at the yards.

Joseph stopped at the wooden rail. He still worried over William's outburst at the dinner table. A week had passed since then and life had settled back to normal. Joseph had been too busy to find an opportunity to talk about it with William. The boy had always been a deep thinker and was often hard to read.

Clara had been distressed by her son's words and had given Joseph a tongue-lashing that night. He puzzled over that too. It wasn't like Clara to lose her temper like she had with Esther, even though he knew the little girl's tantrums were enough to test a saint. Then there had been Clara's accusation that including Binda's family with theirs was Joseph's choice not hers. He'd never realised she'd felt that way. Binda had been his friend to the detriment of the native's relationship with his own father and the rest of his family. He was like a brother to Joseph.

“You going to help or daydream all day?” Binda's words brought him back to the task at hand.

“I thought you had it all under control.”

The first of the sun's rays reached them, giving everything a pink hue.

“We have but you keep scaring the sheep. You look like a great white ghost hanging over the rails like that.”

“Just as well you've got pants covering that shiny black backside of yours or they'd be blinded by the sun reflecting off it.”

Joseph climbed the rails and dropped to the other side, enjoying the sound of Binda's chuckle. Joseph only had one sister. Ellen was much younger than him and while they'd had lots of adventures together she wasn't a brother. He'd formed a strong friendship with Timothy who'd come to work for them at Wildu Creek but he was several years older than Joseph. Back then Joseph had also played with Tommie, the son of Gulda, who worked with Joseph's father. Once Tommie had reached initiation age his mother, Daisy, had taken him bush to be with her family. Joseph had missed him until he met Binda. He'd become the brother Joseph never had. They joked about things like the colour of their skin but now Joseph was second-guessing himself. A man like Prosser was a bigot and his words of no consequence but the new shopkeeper was a different proposition. He knew nothing about Joseph's family or Binda's and yet they'd been given such a hostile response.

Binda's call and the sound of hooves heading his way brought him back to the present. There was no more time to ponder, he had work to do.

Clara gripped her hands together. She was worried if she left them apart she would slap Esther again like she had the other evening at the dinner table. Violet was trying her best to placate her little sister but was having no success. Esther wanted to be outside watching the sheep and she was wailing her frustration. To top it off Robert hadn't been sleeping well and he was restless again now. Clara knew her milk was drying up and the baby was reluctant to take any form of alternate sustenance. She'd tried cow's milk, custard and runny porridge like she'd fed the others but Robert would have none of it. He lay on a blanket on the floor kicking his legs and chewing on his fists.

Esther gave an extra loud yell. Clara managed to reach her before she clouted her sister with the wooden doll Violet had been trying to amuse her with. Clara hugged Esther to her but the little girl kicked and screamed. Mary was in the kitchen. It would have been so easy to swap places with her. She could always distract and placate Esther but that was the reason Clara had insisted she do the inside housework while Mary prepared the morning tea for the workers. William's anger and confusion over their living arrangements with Binda's family was something Clara had thought might happen one day. She'd lived in Port Augusta before she married Joseph. She'd seen what white settlers thought of cohabiting with natives and how they were treated. Joseph had grown up with natives living close by. His parents had always had native workers at Wildu Creek and treated them with respect.

She accepted Joseph's close bond with Binda and she enjoyed Jundala's female company even though her English was basic, but she had often thought their arrangement unusual. They got away with it living so far from others but there were more and more settlers in the region now and towns growing on the plains. She knew there were plenty of people who would look down their noses at the close bond between Binda's family and theirs.

Esther struggled in her arms. One small bare foot connected with her shin. Clara yelped.

“Hello, what's going on here?”

“Grandpa!” Violet called.

“Gram pa! ” Esther's response was much louder.

Clara looked at her father-in-law through watery eyes. Thomas Baker was tall like Joseph but with dark hair now peppered with grey and a face that Clara always thought of as gentle, in spite of his bushy eyebrows and weathered skin. “Hello Father Baker. What are you doing here?”

“Came to offer some help.” He patted Violet's head as she clung to his leg. Esther slid from Clara's grip and raced across the room. Thomas hefted her up in his arms and stepped inside to allow his wife to follow.

“Hello, my darlings.” Lizzie Baker carried a huge basket in two hands. She was a small woman but with enough energy for ten. Clara took a deep breath. She smoothed her dress with her hands. She had always felt inadequate in her mother-in-law's presence.

“I told you I'd bring that in for you, Lizzie.” Thomas put Esther down and tried to take the basket.

“Nothing wrong with my two hands that I can't carry a little bit of food. There's plenty more to be brought in.” She put the basket on the big table. “Hello, Clara dear.” She turned back to the two little girls. “I think I might be able to find a small piece of toffee for anyone who can help Grandpa unload the cart.”

Violet and Esther squealed with delight and raced ahead of their grandpa across the verandah and down the steps.