The mountain that went to the sea

Jeckie leaned her head against the back of the shabby arm-chair.

She closed her eyes. It was hot. She was tired and not very happy.

This was a small outback airport . . . a single waiting-room affair with a bar for quick drinks across one corner. The only thing that loomed in Jeckie's mind at the moment was a large question. Why had she let herself be bulldozed into coming?

Property! The old, old family story of property!

She had sometimes thought it better for anyone to have no money, and no property, than have along with it, and attached to it, all the family dissensions that were to be found in her mother's family. Her father's farm — which was her home — was happy and good enough for anyone. So why did her mother have to cling to this Mallibee Station share? Better to let it go. Drop it into the ocean and say goodbye to it for ever.

Jeckie's mother was one of the descendants of old pioneering Great-Grandfather Ashenden of Mallibee Downs. They were a stiff-necked, debating lot, those Ashendens, Jeckie often thought. They were always arguing about what was to be done with bits and pieces of the station when really most of them, uncles, aunts and cousin — some of them to the third and fourth degree of relationship — lived hundreds and hundreds of miles away from it.

Jeckie's mother had for years been wanting her to go up and make the acquaintance of the distant cousins who carried the prestige name of Ashenden, and who lived and worked the original station of Mallibee Downs.

Well, now she was here waiting to be called for by one of those same distant Ashenden cousins. Then to be driven miles and miles out over ironstone and spinifex country — somewhere towards the desert lands.

Ah well!

Jeckie draped her left leg over the knee of her right leg and curled up in the corner of the arm-chair. She wasn't very big so she fitted the chair quite easily. Her left foot wavered in air and dropped its shoe on the floor. It didn't matter. It was an old habit of Jeckie's to shed a shoe . . . sometimes two shoes . . . when she curled up in an arm-chair.

She forgot the two slim sunburned young men who were leaning their backs against the bar in the corner. She closed her eyes because she was tired, so she did not see the mild amusement her shoeless foot, making irritable circles in the air, was causing over in the corner.

The two men, in khaki drill clothes, had amiable attractive smiles as they sipped their sundowners and watched Jeckie's feckless airborne foot. Now and again it dive-bombed towards the floor as if to find its lost shoe of its own accord.

`Pretty!' One man made a judicious statement as he looked at Jeckie. 'I like fair hair and I like blue eyes as long as they're very blue.'

'Same here,' the other said. 'The first thing you notice is those eyes. Sort of bright, and challenging. The way she walked in and over to that corner! She really has something. Quite a girl all right!'

Right now she's kind of lost-looking, though. Sort-of sad . . . in a way. Somebody ought to have been here to meet her.'

`She's one of the Ashenden cousins, I guess. I saw Mallibee Downs on the card on her case outside. She came in on the afternoon plane, and looked round as if she was expecting someone to meet her.'

`Can't be Andrew Ashenden. He'd be dead punctual. It has to be Barton. He'd be punctual if he remembered to look at his watch. I heard they've about finished the sheep muster out at Mallibee. You can bet your best Australian dollar that mustering will always come first with the Ashendens.'

`And blow coming in a hundred and twenty miles for a relative! Even one as pretty as that one in the corner. King of the plains out there is Andrew Ashenden. One word from him, and Barton would'uv been on time. Andrew's the Boss out there.'

`Four generations of Ashendens, and the eldest son of the eldest son is always King Pin. Same in most of them land-owning families. Back in colonial times this country was nothing but heat, sorrow and sun. That's when old Surveyor Ashenden came out here and settled. Quite a hero he was — so the legend says.'

`Hey! Look who comes now.'

A tall well-set man — thirtyish and a bit more — had come through the palms dividing the waiting-room from the entrance. There was a certain impressiveness about him, especially about his assured easy-going manner. His eyes were friendly. His smile broadened as he recognized the two men over by the bar.

'Hi, Jason!' the shorter of the two men called. 'How about a sundowner? Come and join us. We've news for you. It just might brush off on that Mallibee mob. On King Andrew anyway, that's for certain.'

'Hi to both of you! I dropped in to see if you'd made it. You finished surveying that stretch of grassland?'

'We have, and it's all you expected it to be. There's money in it for someone interested in cattle. It's no good for Westerly-Ann Mine — I'll tell you that.'

Jason was half-way across the room, then he saw Jeckie curled up in the corner chair, her eyes closed. Her shoeless foot was wavering in the air — lost-looking like the tired and faintly sad expression in its owner's face. At that moment the freelance foot descended floor-wards again, as if searching for something.

Jason glanced at his friend and his grin grew wider. `We'll talk about the land later. I've other things to do right now!' Quietly he cat-walked across the floor, stooped, picked up the shoe and neatly fitted it to Jeckie's foot. He straightened up. With his head on one side, he gazed down with benevolence on his handiwork.

'It actually belongs,' he remarked.

Jeckie's eyes flew open. She looked up, straight into other blue eyes that were smiling down at her impishly.

`Thank you,' she said stiffly, sitting up very straight now. She tossed aside a strand of bright honey-gold hair that had fallen across one eye. 'Are you Barton? Or Andrew? I've been waiting — '

He shook his head. He seemed to be very amused at

that mistake: but in a kindly way.

'Neither,' he said. 'I don't even lay claim to the name of Ashenden.'

'But you know them?' Jeckie asked. Her turquoise blue eyes were nearly angry all over again. Her mouth was firm in order not to droop with disappointment.

'Oh yes, I know them all right.'

'You bet he does! ' one of the men over by the bar said with a laugh. 'Jason knows everyone. Leastways everyone knows him. When you get back up across the tableland, Miss Ashenden, you'll find he's actually everyone himself. Shire President, Justice of the Peace, Warden of the Wardens' Court, and what's more important — he runs the only town store and the only town petrol pump. He's— '

'Jack of all trades!' Jeckie finished for him. 'But I'm only an Ashenden on my mother's side. My name is Bennett. Jeckie Bennett.'

'Very nice to meet you, Miss Bennett,' the shorter man said. 'Come on, Jason. You being that Jack of All Trades, you're the most respectable one present. Please introduce

us.'

'Certainly. Miss Bennett, I'm Jason Bassett — two s's instead of two n's as in your. name. I'd like to present to you John Robertson, chief engineer at the Westerly-Ann Mine back over the range. And Marcus Donovan, the same company's geologist. He's the one looking for more iron when he's not finding copper, silver and manganese. Just now he's been obliging by surveying some pasture land for me. In his spare time, of course.'

'Did you know Westerly-Ann Company is one of the biggest mining companies in the world, Miss Bennett?' John Robertson spoke in a challenging way. 'Up here we've been mixing trucks and trains and railway lines in amongst the sheep and cattle over the tableland back east.' He spoke as if he anticipated some doubtful reaction to the mining activities.

'Yes, I do know,' Jeckie said coldly. She already knew of the conflicting interests between the mining company and the pastoralists. 'And you, Mr Geologist, are responsible for pegging claims all over other people's private grazing property, aren't you?'

She stopped because yet another man had come through the palms into the lounge. By his dress — the broad-brimmed pastoralist's hat, the khaki drills; the sun-weathered skin and the slightly rolling gait — he was clearly more certainly a cattleman than any of the other three in the lounge.

With a quick, almost wicked look, he took in the scene of Jeckie straight-backed in the arm-chair, and before her. an audience of three amused men.

`So there you are,' he said to Jeckie cheerfully. 'They told me outside I'd find you here. They didn't mention the company you'd be keeping.'

`Hallo,' Jeckie said. 'Are you Andrew Ashenden, or Barton Ashenden?' She carried her head high and at a slight angle. 'Whichever — you're late,' she added.

'I'm Barton Ashenden and I'm very late,' he said with a grin. He took in everything about Jeckie. His grin signalled he was pleased with what he saw.

Jeckie herself had the silly feeling she was meeting a deputation, or something. All these men around her! Her mother's example, she supposed. Her mother always greeted visitors with an extended hand and a distant courteous but faintly grande-dame-ish manner. Jeckie's father was only a small-time farmer — so she had always been embarrassed by that manner of her mother's. Now she felt cross and a little forlorn to find herself accidentally imitating that very manner. Sort-of sitting straight-backed and holding Court!

This was because she had fallen half asleep, of course. And was tired. Now these men had gathered around and begun taking stock of her. And here had come her very distant cousin, Barton. He'd caught her in this semi-circle of outbackers, each of whom seeemed to be sharing some kind of private joke concerning her. Or weren't they?

Well, not quite the Jason one. He was different. Kinder, she thought, in spite of being Shire President, Warden of the something-or-other Court, and owner of the only town store and only town petrol pump. 'What town?' she wondered. A town-pump meeting-place she supposed, and he — this one called Jason — kept the peace. Law-and-order in the outback!

'Have you had something to eat, Jeckie?' Barton

Ashenden asked, dusting his hat against his knee. He had a hurrying look about him. 'If not I'll get the manager to stow away a carton of something for us in the Land-Rover. Sorry, but we can't waste time — '

'A hundred and twenty miles to the airport and a hundred and twenty miles out again. Not even time for a drink, Barton?' the mine engineer asked. His eyebrows were doing a zigzag as he looked at the dark-haired, dark-eyed impatient member of the Royal Family of Ashenden. Everyone for hundreds of miles around knew about the Ashenden family and Mallibee Downs. They also knew of the State-wide Ashenden row about Westerly-Ann Mining Company having pegged claims over Mallibee's sacred acres. It was a row still waiting for final settlement in the Warden's Court. Everyone had known of the three-generation split in the Ashenden family's holding in Mallibee Downs.