Haunted Creek (12 page)

It was uncomfortable on the ground at first, after months of sleeping in a bed. As he looked up at the stars Erik listened to the puffing and blowing of contented cattle. They were all lying down, dark shapes with white faces glimmering in the faint light of the fire. There was the occasional gurgle as an animal regurgitated its cud. The men would take turns to watch them, but they were not likely to stray, tired as they were. Sep took the first watch.

Far off Erik could hear the croaking of bullfrogs in a waterhole and the hoot of an owl. The night was cool and fragrant with the scents of the bush, the aromatic, sharp eucalyptus mingling with the bottlebrush flowers’ perfume. He imagined as he drifted off to sleep that you could bottle this essence of the bush, to give to Rose as a present….

A sudden bellow woke Erik with a start. Several steers were on their feet and soon they were roaring through the rest of the herd, which had been dreaming peacefully. Sep was obviously taken by surprise as the terrified cattle jumped up and took off in all directions. The night was full of frenzied bellowing, mounting to a roar as the whole 200 cattle joined in. George jumped up as Erik did and Sep yelled to them, but they couldn’t hear what he said above the noise.

Erik shrugged on his coat and ran towards the horses. He had slept in his boots in case of emergency and here it was, on their first
night. The cattle had been tired and he thought they wouldn’t go far, once the first rush of panic was spent. Something had scared them; it could be a wild dog. They would have to be rounded up again.

The next moment a huge steer rushed straight at Erik in its mad panic. It was a dark Longhorn with wild eyes, foaming at the mouth. He was knocked off his feet and lifted as the terrified animal tossed its head. There was sharp pain as the steer’s horn pierced his skin and then he fell down, down into the soft earth and darkness.

T
HE HARDEST PART
of caring for a baby turned out to be the incessant crying. Ada cried a lot, sometimes screaming and sometimes sobbing, but never quiet for long. Often she was too hot. The summer was declining into autumn and there had been rain, but the heat persisted. Flies were bad that summer and it was impossible to keep them out of the hut, so the baby’s cradle was swathed in muslin all the time, Ada cocooned in a strange white world of her own.

Rose could hear the sobs and cries in her mind even when the baby was quiet, a discordant background to her days and nights. If only the child could tell her what was wrong! Martha suggested gin as the cure-all for babies, but they had no gin. Even though Martha had more experience, how could gin be good for babies when it was bad for adults?

Ada’s crying was tiring for her mother, but Luke said it was worse for him. He could not bear it. After a few nights he suggested that he move into the new cabin he had built and Rose suspected that this was why he’d that day finished off one room.

‘I think that I should sleep there with the baby, not you,’ Rose said, keeping her eyes fixed on his face. ‘It’s much cleaner and better for little Ada.’ Without waiting for his reply, she moved the cradle and the baby’s bath into the cabin, put up fresh curtains and wondered why she had not claimed the room immediately. ‘Could you buy some glass and fit the window? To keep the flies out, and mosquitoes at night.’ She inspected for spiders before Ada was allowed inside; a spider bite would be serious for a baby.

Luke was a little happier once he was able to sleep through the night, but he never offered to help with the baby. He did as Rose asked, fitted the window and then put up some shelves. He had made a big wooden bed and stuffed a mattress with dried bracken. Looking round the cabin when Ada was sleeping, Rose thought that it was a great improvement on the hut. That Spider seemed to have been left behind.

One day Luke came home with a borrowed cart, bringing an iron stove with a metal pipe for a chimney. Over the next week he installed it in the cabin, cutting a hole in the roof for the chimney. ‘You can cook on it in winter when it’s raining outside,’ he said as though it was all for her benefit. It was a relief to know that she’d be able to keep the baby warm in winter.

As soon as she could, Rose had taken charge of the poultry again and Luke delivered the eggs for her. They were getting along together reasonably well, although they seemed to live separate lives. Luke never came to the cabin and Rose never joined him in the bed in the hut. Thinking about him, Rose decided that Luke didn’t like women very much. He’d never courted a girl in Kirkby that she could remember. He’d only come to see her and talked her into marriage because he thought a settler needed a wife, but he seemed to prefer a bachelor’s life.

How could a woman with a baby move about in the bush? While Ada was very small, Rose carried her everywhere tucked in a shawl, but she couldn’t carry baskets of eggs or buckets of water at the same time. She couldn’t leave the baby alone and there were no near neighbours who might mind her. This meant that work at the school was out of the question, in spite of Freda’s wish to start the sewing class; again. Rose missed the class, she missed the talks with Freda. She tried not to think about Erik.

One Saturday after the school term had started Freda came to see Rose, carrying a parcel. After she had cooed over the baby and drunk a cup of tea, she gave the parcel to Rose. ‘This could help you,’ she said and sat back in her chair.

It was a kind of rope harness, attached to a canvas bag with holes in it. What could it be? Freda laughed and slipped her arms into the harness. The bag fitted on her back. ‘Baby can ride on your back, Rose. It’s strong enough to hold her, maybe until she can walk! You can move about, carry things and little Ada will be safe. Women in several countries carry their little ones this way.’

Freda admitted under pressure that Erik had made the baby carrier. ‘He likes to work with his hands,’ his mother said. ‘But he doesn’t want you to know that he made it. You might think it’s not proper, or something. I can’t think why. I thought you’d just be grateful!’

Rose grasped her hands. ‘I am so grateful to both of you! Thank you so much for thinking of it. I’ve been trying to work out how to carry her ever since she was born.’ Erik was still thinking of her, caring for her, although they never met. A warm feeling, mixed with guilt, spread through Rose. She couldn’t even thank him. ‘It will make all the difference to my life. Please tell Erik that, won’t you? Tell … tell him how pleased I am.’

Freda nodded, smiling. ‘So as soon as baby settles down a little and sleeps more often, you can walk to school.’ She paused. ‘If you agree, the baby can sleep at the back of the room while you teach the sewing class.’

‘Thank you. The problem is, she doesn’t sleep much and she …’ As if on cue, Ada gave a long wail. ‘She cries, Freda. I wish I knew why.’ Rose reached out and rocked the crib automatically and after a while, Ada slept.

Freda was brisk. ‘It could be colic, that’s the most likely. There are several things we might try – dill water, for one. I have some dill seeds, Rose, I keep them for digestive problems.’

Rose’s memory went back to her grandmother’s garden and the ‘gripe water’ she’d made for the village babies from the feathery dill. Of course! Why had she not thought of it herself? ‘I’d forgotten about dill, Freda.’

Freda returned to her theme. ‘Once Ada is more settled, I’d like 
you to come to school. Lydia, the eldest girl, can walk her out a little – we have an old baby carriage. Lydia wants to be a nursemaid and will be pleased to get experience.’ She smiled. ‘There are more ways of learning than copying exercises into a book.’ Rose
discovered
much later that the old baby carriage had been found by Erik in Moe and completely refurbished for little Ada’s benefit, and that his Moe acquaintances had teased him about fatherhood. Erik had told them he believed in being prepared.

Before she left, Freda said gently, ‘Erik’s gone off for some weeks, Rose. He’s droving, helping to take cattle to Melbourne.’

Erik gone … Somehow Rose had never imagined that Erik would go away. But in one way, it might be easier for her if she could go to the school without running into him. She looked down to hide her expression. ‘That will be … a nice change for him. He might come back with a wife!’ Her voice trembled slightly, but that was all. The pain of loss came back, with an overwhelming sadness. ‘He’ll evidently make a good father!’
And a wonderful husband for some lucky woman. Bless you, Erik, and good luck
.

‘Not many young women on the droving routes, I would think, but you never know. He might meet a damsel in distress. He’s rather good with them, isn’t he?’ They both laughed, but Rose thought that Freda might have guessed how she felt. Of course she knew about the wild dogs. Would he meet attractive women on his travels?

Rose wondered why Erik had gone off so suddenly and was surprised to hear that Luke knew about the trip. ‘Luke has
promised
to help me on the farm, if I need it,’ Freda told her. ‘If he’s here, that is,’ she added doubtfully. ‘That’s what he said.’

Feeling almost deceitful, Rose told Luke that Freda had given her the baby harness, but not who had made it. There were now quite a lot of things that she did not tell Luke, but he took little interest in her doings. He and Jim were still trying to work out how to make money.

Rose was glad to hear Luke and Jim had decided not to go
prospecting for gold any more. One evening the men talked together for a long time and afterwards, Luke told her that they had decided finding payable gold was a gamble. ‘We’re just dabbling in the creek and turning over the old mullock heaps, it’s boring,’ he said. ‘To do the job properly you need a crusher – all the machinery they used to have and plenty of men to work it.’

He didn’t tell her what they planned to do instead, but when Rose said she was going back to the school Luke said, ‘Good. You’ll earn some money, which is just as well. I’ve got to go away again. Tom Appleyard – you remember the bloke with the tree house – has another timber contract. I meant to tell you before.’ He looked slightly guilty.

‘Oh, Luke, I thought you were staying—’

Luke cut in. ‘This time it’s a big one, opening new tracks through the bush round Noojee. They’ve surveyed a road – there’s tin mining there.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve fenced the cattle and there’s no sheep, so it will be easy for you.’

Rose sat down suddenly, feeling giddy. What about clearing their own land? So that was why Tom had visited them one evening and why Jim was uneasy when he spoke to her. Jim Carlyle had the occasional meal with them, sometimes bringing a duck or a rabbit to be cooked, but lately he’d seemed to have something on his mind.

‘Why would they need tracks out there in the bush where nobody goes?’ Erik had gone away and now Luke was going. She would need to be strong, as Maeve had said, especially with a baby to care for. There was no point in protesting; Luke’s mind was made up, as usual, but it was a pity he couldn’t discuss his plans with his wife.

‘So that people can go there, silly. To carry out the timber, that’s why, and to open up farming land. There’s a demand for building timber, but it’s locked up, they need to pull it out. It will open up this country, Rose. There’ll be more settlers soon. They might build a railway through here in time. Then you’ll get your shop and
church and everything, just like Kirkby.’ Luke made it sound as though the tracks were being cut just to make Rose’s life easier.

Freda brought some dill water the next day and they gave the baby a few drops. ‘Only what I expected,’ she said when she heard that Luke was going away.

The change in the baby was noticeable; in two days she had almost stopped crying and slept much more, or gurgled to herself happily. The belching had lessened, although as Martha said, babies have wind because they are bound to suck in air with the milk.

Perhaps because of the quiet in the cabin, Luke came over to join Rose one night. They sat in the twilight and talked about what he would need to take with him to Noojee. He looked down at the sleeping child. ‘I haven’t been much of a father so far, have I? Or much of a husband, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stand the noise she makes, or the smells at times, poor little devil. I should’ve helped you more, but … well, Rose, I’ll go with Tom this one more time and then I’ll settle down and be a real family man and farmer.’ He smiled at her and Rose saw a hint of the young man who had made himself so agreeable that she’d come to Australia. ‘You sorry you came here?’ Luke asked her.

Rose was not sure. ‘There are so many contrasts, Luke. I love the country, the look of the valleys and mountains, the space and the beautiful trees. And then, there’s so much opportunity, the chance to buy land that we would never have been able to afford at home.’

‘That’s why we came,’ Luke agreed. ‘I like the freedom – you can shoot and fish more or less anywhere you like. There’s plenty of room between the selections. You certainly can’t do that in England unless you’re a poacher, and most of ’em get caught in the end. And there’s nobody lording it over you, no gentry to put you in your place.’

‘And yet in dry, hot weather the place is ugly.’ Rose decided not to mention the hut, the spiders, the flies, or the hazards of wild dogs and eucy men. ‘Everything’s grey and brown, everything’s
covered in dust, the trees droop and the grass crunches under your feet. No wonder the older people look stringy and dried out. We’ll be like that one day.’

Perhaps the hardest thing to bear was that they were so shut away. Sometimes Rose felt the sadness of the bush weighing down on her spirit and adding to the hardship of isolation. These trees, this mile upon mile of dark forest, was not on a human scale. Ada would have no other children to play with until she went to school, unless Rose had another baby. But it would be too hard to cope with two small children, especially if Luke went away so much. She would try not to get pregnant again.

Rose looked up and found that Luke was still smiling at her. ‘You’re very quiet, lass,’ he said. ‘You know, I’m proud of the way you’re managing out here. It isn’t easy for a woman.’

It was the first time he had ever seemed to notice what she did. Luke said he was proud of his wife! She could hardly believe it. He took her hand. ‘Let’s go to bed.’ Tonight, things seemed more friendly between them.

Luke went off two days later with his pack on his back to meet Tom. He kissed Rose and looked down at her. ‘Look after yourself and the bairn.’ He sounded more Yorkshire than usual. ‘We’ll have a better life when I come back, a proper house … I’ll make it up to you, lass. You’ve had it hard, I’ve begun to see that, and Jim let me know about it the other day. Called me a selfish devil, he did.’

Rose smiled at him; she was not going to tell him the truth about himself just as he was leaving. ‘We’ll both try harder when you come back, Luke.’ She had hardly ever criticized him, but her silences must have felt hostile. ‘Why do you like to work with Tom so much?’

‘The money, of course! But I like to be with the lads, I don’t like working on my own.’ He grinned apologetically. If Rose could only arrange things so that some of the settlers helped each other – this might be the way forward for Luke. ‘See you in a month or so.’

He strode off abruptly as usual, but where the track disappeared
into the trees Luke looked back and waved. Framed by the bush, young and vital, he looked like a portrait of an ideal settler. Then he was gone, but afterwards that image stayed with Rose. Luke had his faults, but so did everybody; he had good points too, and he was very likeable if you didn’t have to depend on him. When he came back they must start again; she would try to understand him better and encourage him. If she had talked to him more he wouldn’t have felt so lonely.

Rose toiled up the track a little later with Ada on her back to take the Wednesday sewing class. Her hair was tied back neatly and she wore her blue teaching dress with a white collar. The baby seemed to like being carried in the harness and fell asleep, soothed by the motion. Thank goodness for dill water! Rose decided to plant some of the seeds in her garden.