Journey to the Stone Country (24 page)

‘Les would know.’

‘You think I can trust his prediction, then?’

Bo said nothing.

‘Me and Ruth would like to think it’s not an unreasonable estimate. It gives us an idea, you know? A time frame to plan around. Les seemed to know what he was talking about.’

‘He does. But that don’t mean a thing like this is a certainty till it’s done.’

‘Are there problems?’

‘There’s always problems. In my experience. With everything. But I don’t know what they are with this dam. If that’s what you’re asking me.’

Both men fell silent. There was the sound of motorbikes. The pack of dogs ran out along the road barking and snapping at each other. The boy and girl came into view, riding through the hysterical dogs, their machines trailing a blue haze of exhaust smoke.

John Hearn said, ‘The dam will give the children a future from this place, Bo. That’s not something we could be sure of before. The dam was only ever a rumour. I think we can forget about those scrubbers. Don’t you?’

Bo looked at him. ‘I always thought that was a good idea.’

Ruth Hearn and Annabelle came in from the kitchen. Ruth said, ‘Running a hostfarm is not the life we came up here for, Bo. It’s easy to have illusions when you’re looking at maps. But maps aren’t reality.’ She asked Bo if he would shift the map and when he had done so she set down the big two-handled teapot on a coaster. Mrs Anderson, the schoolteacher, came in with the boy and the girl and everyone said hello.

John Hearn said, ‘So, did you find anything interesting at the old homestead, Annabelle?’

They sat around the table and Annabelle told them about the library of books that had become a termite’s nest and they all listened. She said she had searched for George Bigges’ photographic plates but had not found them. These, she said, would have been a great prize. While Annabelle was telling the story of the books Arner came in. Ellen made a place for him next to her at the table. Arner thanked her gravely and sat down. He took off his dark glasses and hung them at the neck of his T-shirt. The girl passed him a plate of sandwiches. She watched him make his selection then left the plate in front of him.

‘Where are Mathew and Tracey?’ Ruth Hearn asked.

The girl said, ‘Her name’s Trace, Mum, not Tracey.’

‘Trace is short for Tracey, dearest.’

‘No it’s not.’

‘Do you know where they are?’

The girl looked at Bo. ‘She’s with Mathew. They’re giving Dancer some oats.’

‘Has that scrubber bull of yours paid you another visit yet, Ruth?’ Bo asked.

Ruth Hearn turned to him, her eyes serious. ‘No, he hasn’t.’ She reached and touched the girl on the arm. ‘Run over and call them, will you, dearest. Tell them it’s on the table.’

The girl did not move. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’

Mrs Anderson said in a reproving voice, ‘Ellen! Did I hear your mother ask you to do something?’

They watched the girl, waiting to see what she would do. The boy sitting close against his teacher, his gaze on his sister, a spectral presence among them. When Arner shifted, the boy’s eyes darted to him as if he anticipated violence.

There was the screech of the verandah flywire. Ellen looked up at her mother. ‘See?’ she said.

Mathew and Trace came and stood in the doorway side-by-side, their shoulders touching. They stood looking into the room.

Ruth Hearn looked at them. She said quietly, ‘Mathew?’

John Hearn said, ‘Sit down, the pair of you. There’s plenty of room. Move up everybody. You come and sit over here Trace.’

No one moved.

Mathew said, ‘They’re putting men on at the Maryvale cane mill, Dad. I thought I’d go down and try for a job there.’

There was a silence.

A flock of crested pigeons flashed through the timber out in the day.

‘Can I take the Bedford? I’ll bring her back as soon as I get some wheels in town.’

John Hearn put a biscuit in his mouth and chewed. He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Aren’t you going to be busy cutting in the cabin sites with the dozer?’

Mathew said, ‘That’s way off, Dad. For all we know the dam may not even get built.’

John Hearn said, ‘It seems very likely to get built.’ He looked at Bo, ‘Wouldn’t you say, Bo?’

Bo did not react. He was watching Mathew. Seeing this boy who was nearly a man meeting this test.

Ruth Hearn said in a cold voice, ‘That’s not what Mathew means, John.’

Mother and son looked at each other.

‘I’ll go and put a few things together,’ Mathew said. He turned to Trace and touched her hand as he went out.

Ruth Hearn stood up. Her cheeks were flushed. She murmured an apology and went out after him. Trace stepped aside to let her through. Ruth did not meet her eyes.

Ellen looked up at Trace. She smiled and pointed to the vacant place left by her mother.

Trace didn’t move.

Bo said, ‘You’d better sit down with us and have a drink of tea, Trace.’

‘I’ll wait outside,’ she said. She turned and went out.

Arner placed his hands on the table and raised himself. He stood looking at John Hearn.

‘What is it, Arner?’ John Hearn asked, a sadness and concern in his voice.

‘I’ll top up the radiator on the truck if that’s okay, Mr Hearn.’

It was the longest speech Annabelle had ever heard from Arner.

‘Sure. Go ahead, Arner.’ John Hearn half stood, gesturing out the window. ‘You’ll find a hose right there by the trough.’

Arner said, ‘Thanks,’ and he went out.

Mrs Anderson rose and took the children’s hands and when Ellen would have hung back she pulled her roughly to her side.

John Hearn watched them go then reached for a sandwich. He changed his mind and pushed the plate away. He looked at Bo. ‘If you want to smoke, Bo, you go ahead.’

Bo said, ‘Thank you, but I think I’ve just about got out of the habit of smoking inside a house.’

In another room somewhere there were sudden shouts of anger. It was the voice of Ruth Hearn.

John looked at Bo and Annabelle. He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of apology and helplessness. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s just not what Ruth’s been dreaming of for the boy, that’s all it is. It’s nothing else. She’s had ideas for Mathew. But I believe she’ll settle down.’

Annabelle said, ‘Women need time, John.’

He looked at her gratefully, ‘You think they do?’

‘Yes, I believe we mostly do.’

He gazed at her and cleared his throat, ‘Trace’s family, they wouldn’t be Catholic, I suppose, would they? Not that it matters to me. But it would help Ruth.’

Ruth Hearn came and stood in the doorway.

They fell silent, looking at her.

‘Can I speak to you, John?’ She had been crying.

John stood up. ‘Help yourselves to more tea,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ He went over and stepped into the next room with his wife.

They heard Ruth Hearn say in a voice filled with distress, ‘Just go and tell him he can’t do this to us.’

They couldn’t hear John Hearn’s reply, but then Ruth shouted fiercely, ‘Just go and tell him! That’s all I’m asking from you.’

Annabelle made a face at Bo and whispered, ‘We’ve got to escape!’

Bo said in a louder than normal voice, ‘He needs to give that woman a bloody good hiding! Every family needs a fight once in a while to clear the air. And I reckon now’s a good time for these Hearns to have one.’ He made an impatient flinging gesture out the window, ‘Get out there with sticks and lay into each other. Kick up some dust. Them dogs would think Christmas had come early.’

Annabelle leaned close to him and whispered, ‘I bags Mrs Anderson! I’d love to give that woman a thump.’

‘Well you could too. Stretch her out on that dust. Clear her head for her. She’d thank you for it.’

‘My dad used to tell us you people fought like wild dogs over there at Verbena.’

‘Wild dogs? Well we fought when we needed to fight, that’s what we did. We had some real good fights out in front of that big tamarind tree of Grandma’s. I don’t recall your old feller ever getting himself mixed up in one, but he might have, he was always over our way and there’s plenty of things happened there I never knew about. We’d belt each other with sticks till we drew blood. That old Fargo truck we used for spotlighting them wild pigs, we had a fight on the back of her doing forty miles an hour through the bendee there once. Grandma driving like a wild old scrub dasher. Dougald got tipped off and left behind. She kept going and let him lie. He had to walk home. Took him all night. He was pretty sore. Me and dad was getting ready to go out with the horses next morning when Dougald come in and sat down at the table. Grandma said good morning to him and dished him up his breakfast. She might have give him a bit of extra bacon, I can’t remember. But no one said nothing, only I could see the old man was laughing to himself.’ Bo sat fingering his tobacco, smiling at the memory. ‘The old Dougald was limping for days.’ He sniffed hard. ‘There’s nothing like a good fight.’

Ruth Hearn’s voice came in sudden angry shouts as she and her husband drew away further into the house.

‘That’s what these Hearns need! Get out there and roll around in the dirt and thump the hell out of each other. Things settle back sweetly after a good fight. Before they know where they are they’ll be laughing about it, whatever it is that’s upsetting them.’ He drew breath and said with considerable emphasis, ‘This snipping and wheezing around the place is no bloody good to anyone! They’re angry about something but they’re acting polite. What’s that supposed to mean? They can’t come right out and say nothing! That’s the trouble with these people. It’s got to be all this tippy-toeing around with them, as if someone’s just died of something shameful.’ He turned to Annabelle and said angrily, ‘What’s he mean, It’s not what she’s been dreaming of for her boy? Mathew’s a good boy all right, but this is not what Dougald’s been dreaming of for Trace neither. They don’t know how to ease up, these people.’ He stood up and slipped his tobacco out of his pocket. ‘They’re just too bloody
white
, Annabellebeck,’ he said, dismissing Ruth and John Hearn with this judgement as people beyond the reach of rehabilitation. Satisfied with his expressed judgement upon the Hearns, he grinned at her and said mildly, ‘I’m going to have a smoke. You coming?’

They went out together onto the wide verandah with its scatter of woodworking equipment and unwieldy pieces of half-finished native timber furniture. They stood under the eaves by the step looking out towards the machinery sheds on the other side of the clearing. Bo rolled a smoke. Arner was sitting behind the wheel of his truck out in the middle of the yard. He was motionless, gazing ahead through the windscreen. Ready to go. His sunglasses catching a white reflection from the drifting cloud, as if two holes had been drilled through his head and he had no eyes. The beat of his music floating across to them. Annabelle thought how familiar his presence had become for her since Burranbah. He was still a mystery to her, but now he seemed a familiar mystery. The side door of the truck closed and the windows wound up. She could smell the air in the cabin. Dogs nosing around the wheels. Peeing. The pale brindled bitch approached Bo, dragging her hindquarters and whining softly. He spoke to her and she flattened against the dirt and lay gazing at him, her tail sweeping the dust slowly side to side like a windscreen wiper. He licked the paper and stuck it down. ‘You a pussycat or a dog?’ he said. The bitch wriggled closer on her stomach. Bo lit the cigarette and dragged in the smoke. He spat a strand of loose tobacco. The dog looked at it. ‘Trace not sitting in there with Arner.’

‘Where is she?’ Annabelle asked.

‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘Maybe we should go and have a look for her?’

‘If we can’t see her, maybe it’s because she don’t want us to see her. Maybe we ought to leave them two to get this thing done their own way. I don’t believe they need us to do it for them.’

‘Supposing his dad won’t give him a vehicle?’

‘He’ll give him one.’

‘How can you be sure of that?’

‘I can’t be sure of it, but I think he’ll give it to him.’ Bo motioned with his hand to where the road they’d come in on crossed the saddle a hundred metres higher up the hill, beyond the machinery sheds. ‘We’ll wait out by the Eungella dam for them to pick us up when they come by. Throw in a line and brew up a drink of tea while we’re waiting. Might catch us a couple of perch.’

‘And if they don’t come by?’

‘They’ll either come by or they won’t. And if they don’t come by they’ll be here. Either way we’re not going to lose track of them.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. She was reluctant to abandon Trace. She thought the girl might need her support.

‘I am right,’ he said firmly. ‘Mathew’s gonna stay staunch to her.’

‘I might just take a stroll over to the shed and see if she’s there all the same,’ Annabelle said.

Bo said nothing to this.

The brindled bitch sat up and yawned. There was the screech of the flywire. They turned around. John Hearn was standing by the door propping himself with one hand to the frame and pulling on his boots. He came across and stood with them at the verandah edge, looking out at the yard, the white truck and the Pajero. Half a dozen of the dogs making their way across, looking up at him expectantly, scratching and snapping at themselves. The clouds were dispersing, patches of sunlight moving through the trees.

‘That’s the end of the rain,’ John Hearn said.

‘Looks that way.’

The day was windless and quiet, the beseeching cry of crows off somewhere along the ridge among the timber, lamenting existence, a faint dampness from the rain lingering in the cool air. The three of them stood looking out at the day, no one speaking, as if the bush had the power to rob them of their voices. High above them trails of a jet plane creeping across the limitless azure of the sky. After some time the sound of a door closing and voices. A moment later Mathew Hearn walked out across the yard from the rear of the house. He was carrying a khaki bag and wearing his hat. He didn’t see them but walked across the yard and passed out of the sunlight and into the purple shade of the machinery shed. They heard the metal screech of an ill-fitting vehicle door, then the sound of voices.