East of Outback (23 page)

“Not maybe, Hannah. Definitely.” A green lump on his shin was rapidly turning purple. Little red clawmarks made a curious pattern up and down his leg.

“We missed a hole behind the counter. Some of them escaped down it. Did you see? Do you suppose we’ll catch as many tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. Some, though, for sure.”

Max tossed another rat in the air, number two hundred thirty-nine. He ferreted out a few more, but essentially the hunt was over. Max, jubilant in his own misanthropic way, curled up near his Lady at the livery on the edge of town, and the tired but happy hunters retired to their rooms at the inn.

A real bed. Genuine bedsheets. Hannah burrowed into the unaccustomed softness. Still, it took her a long time to fall asleep. Her dreams that night were marred by myriads of ghastly little creatures—what
were
those things-that pursued her through the family’s camping ground on that distant, familiar ridge in the Blue Mountains.

After receiving his pay from the butcher, Colin sold the rats, all hundred and fifty-seven pounds of them, to the knackerman as tankage, to be rendered for fertilizer. Three shillings ten pence more is three shillings ten pence more.

The next night they caught another hundred and seventy-four, earning eighteen shillings four from the butcher plus two shillings tuppence from the knackerman.

Hannah visited two other butcher shops the next day, describing in lurid detail how well their rat-catching system worked and how safe it was, for it used no traps or poisons. One shop agreed to let them come in. The other butcher seemed all ready to sign them up until he erred by asking his wife’s opinion. Aghast, she loudly proclaimed there were no rats to catch in their elite establishment. Hannah spotted three holes from where she stood by the counter, but she knew better than to argue. Let them live with their rats.

The third night their harvest, as Colin called it, was sixty-seven. Five shillings and a few pence. What with food and lodging and stabling for Max’s Lady, it didn’t quite meet expenses. They helped the happy butcher plug all his holes and lay bait for the few remaining pests, and moved on to the next job.

From the second butcher shop, a more extensive operation with three large rooms, they reaped four pounds two in five days. A fortnight after they began the rat-catching business, they had successfully put themselves out of work.

Hannah gave Colin nearly all her part of the earnings, because he asked it of her. With her bit remaining she purchased undergarments and stockings at a lovely little shop.
In whatforgotten nook does my schoolbag lie?
she wondered. It seemed so very, very long ago that she’d lost it. She also found a modest little carpetbag with a leather handle long enough to hang over the saddle horn.

She bought a strawberry sundae and sat at a white, wrought-iron table outside an ice cream parlor. Bendigo was such a pleasant town, notwithstanding the one butcher’s wife. The ice cream was so cold and smooth. She paused to savor the last plump, red strawberry. She sat shaded by a gaily striped canvas awning, and thought about the weathered canvas marquee in the jarrah forest on the other side of the oontinent, beneath which young James Otis had preached so fervently. He knew God. Mum knew God. Clearly, Papa knew Him. Hannah, though not quite certain she
knew
Him as such, had learned quite well that she could ask Him for help and get it. Why did Colin resist Him so?

In her mind she reviewed her first awful bit of treachery when she lied to her parents, stole from them, and ran away. Did God sufficiently forgive her for that? How would she know when the slate had been sponged clean?

Perhaps she might consider her life these last few months as evidence of His forgiveness. She left home in the fear that Colin lay ill or worse; he was healthy and strong. She had envied his exciting travel and adventures; now she was taking part in them. True, adventuring was not altogether comfortable, but the cold rain and mud of the forest, the parched sand along the bight, the hot, stuffy shearing shed all seemed a universe distant from this gentle place. Adventuring had its delightful moments as well as its sweat and tears. She was truly blessed.

That was it! She was blessed! Blessings equated to God patting you on the head and saying, “It’s all right, lass.” Colin partook of the blessing with her. Did that mean he, too, basked in God’s grace and mercy? She scraped the last of the ice cream from the bottom of her dish and licked the spoon.

“There you are!” Colin came riding up at a jog. He swung down, tied Max’s Lady to a lamppost, and plopped into the chair beside her. “How much money do you have?”

“Two bob, and you can’t have it.”

“Not enough anyway. How do you manage to spend so much?”

“Me? You had all the balance of it.”

Colin absolutely glowed. “I stopped by the feedstore for hay for the mare and happened to fall to talking with a pastoralist from up north. He needs a rabbiter.”

“Max can catch rabbits.”

“No, a full-out rabbiter. He says they’re the worst this spring he’s ever seen them. He’s willing to hire us for six weeks. Give me your two bob, and we’ll buy as many apples as we can. Last year’s will be cheap because of the drought—they’re all going soft. Then we’ll use the proceeds to buy more apples to finish the job. It promises a handsome profit, they say, at the end of it.”

“Up north. Near Shepparton? That’s where Joe and the crew are. Perhaps we can visit them. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

Colin shook his head. “They’re moved on by now. Planned to finish the season near Gundagai, remember?”

“Well, we can ask, anyway.”

“Give me your two bob. I’ll be meeting Mr. Slotemaker later and he’ll haul the apples. He has his truck down here. We can be on the road and making money by tomorrow morning.”

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Hannah handed the sum over to him. As he disappeared up the street on Max’s Lady, she fingered the coins that remained. Seven pence. Here was another facet of adventuring no one ever mentioned—one never got wealthy at it.

Hannah returned her empty dish to the parlor, and walked back to her little room. Rat-catching lay in the past, and good riddance. For all the money made, rats were still vermin, a most disgusting creature. Now rabbit-killing lay in her future, with its promise of good money and further adventure. She looked forward to working in the great outdoors, the profit and the exciting life of a rabbiter. Why, then, did her spirit languish so under this gentle spring sun? With a heavy sigh she climbed the stairs to the home that was not home and packed her bag.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

G
HOSTS

“See those trees up ahead? That’s Echuca. We’ll stop and get a bite to eat there.”

Colin watched the thick green smudge of red gum wave and bounce in the distance beyond the windshield of an ancient farm truck. On his left Hannah bobbed jerkily. If springs once existed in this old truck, they no longer functioned with any efficiency. Every rut and hole in the road communicated itself to their aching backsides.

On Colin’s right, Emory Slotemaker clung tenaciously to the rickety steering wheel. Wooden shoes were all he lacked to complete the image of the perfect Dutchman. His gray, thinning hair looked to have been blond once. His gnarled hands told the world he worked hard; his ample midriff the fact that his wife fed him well. “You tads ever been around the River Murray before?”

“No, sir.” Colin glanced at the wall of dust they were kicking up behind them.

“I was,” Hannah chimed in. “My train from Sydney to Perth crossed the river at Albury.”

“Ah, yes. Any family around here?”

“Not very near.” Her head jerked about as they bounced along, and Colin wondered if she was nodding. “Our aunt and uncle live in Adelaide, but they’re out of the country until fall.”

“Farmers?”

“Musicians, sir. He’s a rather famous organist and she sings. Chris Yorke and Linnet Connolly. She’s Mrs. Yorke, of course, but she uses her maiden name because she’s known by it. Uncle Chris says professional people often do that.”

“The Adelaide Lark!” Mr. Slotemaker cackled happily. “Why, I saw her on her first tour down the Murray. When was that, now? Aught seven, I think, or perhaps aught eight. Around there somewhere. Adele and I happened to be in town at the time, and we went to the showboat to hear Miss Connolly. Sweet, sweet voice. I understand her sister lived in Echuca for a while.”

Colin looked at Hannah and she looked back. “Here?” Colin asked. “Samantha or Margaret?”

“Not Margaret, I don’t think. Must have been Samantha, then. Didn’t stay around very long. Married and moved away, like so many do.”

Colin’s brain whirled.
Mum, here! But, why? What brought her from Queensland and the shadow world of Sugarlea?
He and Hannah both barraged him with questions all the way into town, but Mr. Slotemaker, though he tried, could recall nothing more.

The rabbiter recruiter parked his rattletrap truck on what he called the Esplanade. As he left them, he instructed his new rabbiters to get lunch and be back at the truck in an hour.

Neither Colin nor Hannah had any money left. They would have to remain hungry until they reached the station. Colin ran the mare off the truck to give her a rest and tied her to a gum tree between the broad open avenue and the river. He grabbed half a dozen soft, bruised apples out of what would soon be rabbit bait. He handed three to Hannah.

Mum, here?
Colin wandered out onto a wide wharf to gaze at the amazing river below. A complex crisscross of beams and diagonals, the wharf stood nearly thirty feet high, its footings in the water and its top level with the town and esplanade. Below, the yellow river wound a leisurely course in a big S-curve among a mass of trees and beached boat hulks.

Hannah murmured, “I can’t imagine Mum standing here just as we are now, but I suppose she did.”

“Me either. Mr. Slotemaker said she married and moved away. That means Papa would have been here, too. Or passed through, at least.”

“I’ve never even seen this place before. Why does it make me feel homesick?”

“That’s odd. Me, too.” Colin’s little sister had just put into words what Colin felt but couldn’t express. Homesick. In a strange, inexplicable way, that was it.
Mum was here
.

“All right,” Mr. Slotemaker’s voice boomed behind them. Colin jumped. “What is the story with you two youngsters? You asked all those questions, and now you find the wharf more interesting than food. What troubles you?”

Colin didn’t care to bare his soul to a stranger. “Not troubled, sir. Just surprised. We never knew our mother came this way, or lived here. It’s, ah—it’s very interesting.”

“Interesting! Absolutely. I was hoping the
Adelaide
would come through with a load of red gum from the Barmah, so you could see a paddle steamer in action. The
Adelaide
is one of the very few left anymore, though the trade is picking up a little. The government’s building dams, flood control weirs, and the river steamers haul the materials.”

“The Barmah Forest?” Hannah looked around Colin to Mr. Slotemaker. “Someone we met south of Kalgoorlie worked there. A preacher lad—James Otis, by name.”

“Otis! Of course. Half-caste he is. His father started the Barmah Mission upriver from here.” The farmer frowned. “I’m trying to recall the connection. I think perhaps your mother was involved at one time with the mission, too. Of course that was a long time ago.”

“She’s very religious. It could be possible.” Hannah nodded vigorously.

Colin’s head swam.
Did Mum ride in a paddle steamer? Did she visit the mission? Did Papa? This man couldn’t know, but Mum would
. How could he break the wall of silence? Did he want to? Through his mind flashed plots of Victorian novels he’d read—by George MacDonald and others—wherein the son discovers secret relatives, long-lost brothers. Romantic as they were, such things never
really
happened, or
did
they?

“Here now, listen! You’ll see a paddle steamer after all.” Mr. Slotemaker pointed to the bend beyond the east end of the wharf. Colin could hear it now, a chugging noise like a locomotive and the sound of paddles flogging the water. Then she appeared from beyond the bend, flailing her way toward them. Colin was accustomed to the great, deepwater freighters in Sydney Harbor. This was such a tiny boat, hardly more than twenty-four feet long. Her wide deck sprawled out flat on the water and Colin could just barely see a paddle wheel slap at the river from beneath its housing. Spewing smoke, she chugged past the wharf. Her pilot waved and hooted her whistle. Colin found himself waving back exuberantly. Infectious, these little boats!

“That’s the
Etona
,” Mr. Slotemaker announced, though the name on her pilothouse was plain to see. “Built with mission funds from Eton college in England, many years ago. She served as a missions boat until churches were established all up and down the river. The mission board sold her. Now her owners use her for fishing, over around Boundary Bend, I believe.”

Hannah mused aloud, “‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.’ The
Etona
did it backwards. Fishers of men first and then fishers of fish.”

“Never thought of that,” Mr. Slotemaker chuckled. “True, though.” He watched the departing boat, lost in thought, until it disappeared. “The river used to flood regularly. Usually twenty feet or so. But occasionally a real banker would come through—a thirty-foot crest. Never happens anymore with the weirs holding the water back. Let’s move on. You say you find the place interesting. I’ll show you the waterfront. The railways nearly put the paddle steamers out of business for a while. The town almost died for a few years. But after the Great War, a lot of veterans settled in the area. Selectors, businessmen. Echuca’s much livelier than she used to be.”

For another hour, while Colin’s stomach churned with hunger, they walked the streets of Echuca. Mr. Slotemaker showed them the old mills on the east end. They talked about the great cranes, only a few of which still worked, that lifted tons of wool and timber from the river to the rails. They passed a vacant lot with a crumbled arbor and tangled weeds, said to have been an elegant tea garden serving the best scones in town.