The mountain that went to the sea (18 page)

`Well, they say that when a young girl has a broken love affair she sometimes falls into the arms of the first nice man who happens along and is kind to her. Of course I'm sure Jeckie wouldn't — '

'You're sure Jeckie wouldn't make that error? It's a state of mind commonly called the "rebound". In this case, Jane dear, it could all turn out to be for the good. Were you thinking that Jeckie might be attracted to Barton — in a special way?'

'Well — no. Not exactly. I just wish it were so. They seem such good friends. They really like one another's company, don't they?'

Miss Isobel straightened her back.

'Then of whom are you thinking, Jane?' she demanded. 'Out with it! Loyalty to Jeckie is not the only kind of loyalty, if that's what is making you hesitate. You and I have lived together on this station all our lives. You have a loyalty to the family. We all want to do our best to protect Jeckie.'

'Yes, Miss Isobel. Well, when Jeckie first arrived Barton was late getting to the airport and Jeckie had to wait in that pokey little lounge. Oh, for quite a long time! There were three other people in the lounge. Men.'

'Really, Jane! What is wrong with three men in a public airport, even such a small outback one? No one, not even anyone as spirited as Jeckie, could fall in love with three men all at the same time.'

'Strange things happen,' Jane said, showing a little spirit of her own. 'Two of the men were from that dreadful

Westerly-Ann Mine. Jeckie wouldn't know at that stage how we feel about the mine — '

'Why don't you come to the point, Jane? You are not suggesting that Jeckie is interested in two men from Westerly-Ann Mine?'

'No. It is the third man I'm thinking about. He came into the airport to meet the Westerly-Ann people. Doing business with them again. It was Jason Bassett.'

`Jason Bassett?'

'You do know what he's like when he's being nice to people, Miss Isobel. He has people eating out of his hand. He was very nice to Jeckie apparently. And she likes him. I know about it, Miss Isobel, because Jeckie told me herself. She asked me all about him. Then — she met him again the very next day. That was when Barton took her to the Turn-Off. She liked him even more the second time. She said so —'

'Just pause and catch your breath,' Miss Isobel said flatly. 'I'll pour you another cup of tea. There. Now tell me slowly and calmly why you're rushing out this information at such a pace. It has nothing to do with us at Mallibee.'

'Thank you, Miss Isobel,' Jane said as she took the refilled cup of tea. She sipped nervously. 'I didn't like telling you,' she went on, 'because I didn't want to worry you. And — well — it's not being very loyal to Jeckie — I mean — for me to repeat things.'

'And as Barton is your favourite, you fear for his prospects?' Miss Isobel said with dignity, but bluntly. 'You are in a pickle with your loyalties, aren't you, Jane? But I'm glad you've told me. Jason Bassett is quite undesirable. We must be careful when we go to Morilla for the barbecue week-end. He's bound to be there.' She paused a moment. 'People make such an absurd fuss of him,' she went on, a little testily. 'As for Barton, when he sees the main chance in anything, he sets to work and takes it. I don't think I would worry about Barton failing to get his own way. He may surprise you, my dear Jane, Barton doesn't always mean what he says.'

'Well — ' Jane gathered up her dignity. 'You favour Andrew, you know,' she said.

Miss Isobel stared at Jane coldly. Then suddenly she

unbent. She put out her hand and touched Jane's arm.

`I think we're both a scheming pair where our affections lie. What a good thing it is for Mallibee that we don't favour the same person. It would be so unfair to the one left out, wouldn't it?'

The eyes of the two ladies met. Then they smiled.

`After that, I think we'll have a fresh pot of tea altogether,' said Miss Isobel. 'You have had two cups, Jane, but I have had only one.'

The utility trucks were filled with exotic foods, clothes, sleeping bags, portable coolers, and — most important of all — sun-dew melons that had ripened in abundance on the far side of the windmill.

Everything was being made ready for the week-end at Morilla.

To Jeckie it looked like a total evacuation of all souls. The strangest array of vehicles appeared from under the lean-to galvanized iron sheds behind the staff quarters, and from down by the creek. These vehicles belonged mostly to the stockmen. They were their own possessions. All had been spring-cleaned and polished up the day before, and now were filling up with petrol from the station pump.

Two days earlier several of the men had set off on horseback, each taking along with him a string of change horses. Two of the men took Andrew's and Barton's mounts along with their own. They had all departed — like a posse — in a flurry of dust amidst much `wha-hoofing', and the barking of dogs. The excitement was terrific, and Jeckie felt part of it. She knew now she felt real happiness — if only temporarily. Soon she would have to go home, but right now she wanted to stay at Mallibee for ever. She loved the life.

Immediately after sun-up on D-Day, Andrew helped Aunt Isobel and Jane and their belongings into the overlander. It had been agreed earlier that Jeckie would follow

with Barton in the Land-Rover, and they were to wait half an hour before starting. This was so that they would not
have to drive through the brow
n pall of Andrew's dust cloud.

It was a glorious morning. The heat had not yet set in. The cool land breeze which blew from the east in the early morning stirred the leaves in the whitetrunked gums around the homestead. Further out where the buffel grass spread upwards to the track from the creek, even those long narrow leaves waved gladly in the moving air.

'Andrew will be there hours before us,' Jeckie said as she tucked hersel
f in beside Barton. 'I'm surpris
ed Aunt Isobel isn't scared at his speed. Look at his dust, Barton. He's leaving a trail at about a mile a minute.'

'Aunt Isobel is not scared of anything Andrew does,' Barton said as he started up, then went into first gear. `She would feel as safe with him as if he were the Angel Gabriel'. He changed gear again and slewed his eyes round to look at Jeckie. 'She could be right, you know.'

'Down in the dark depths of your not very good soul, you think a lot of Andrew, don't you, Bart?'

I'll have to give it some thought, since you've brought the matter up, sweetie. Come to think of it, most people think a lot of Andrew. That's excepting you, of course. You ought to take a lesson from the line Sheila takes. Or should I say the line she pursues? My, oh my! She knows how to influence people and win friends the right way. Specially Andrew. "Yes" is his favourite word where Sheila is concerned.'

The Land-Rover was in top gear now. Suddenly they were blazing along the out-track, turning east into the sun. 'Did Sheila influence you too?' Jeckie said.

'Certainly, me too. Why not? I made a point of attend-ing to that.'

Jeckie thought this sounded a little cryptic till Barton answered his own question.

'With Sheila two men around are always better than one. That way she can: play one off against the other. Or don't you know Sheila very well?'

'Yes, I know her — very well,' Jeckie said. 'And I don't think you're being exactly gallant talking about her that way.'

Barton threw back his head and laughed. 'Well — we'll wait and see, hey? Meantime you're my girl till we get to Morilla. Agreed?'

Jeckie did not answer. She couldn't think of anything clever to say at the moment.

Marina homestead stood shielded on three sides in a wide amphitheatre against a background of low hills. Spread around the sides of this curve of high ground were the out-buildings and all other appendages such as the smithy, engine house, store, stables, garages. Further on the south side stood the cottages, the shearing shed, and the shearers' quarters. It was like a scattered village. Tall trees, planted perhaps fifty or more years ago, shaded most of the out-buildings, and all four sides of the homestead. An avenue of snow white ghost gums led from the homestead to the station entrance. In front of the house stretched a green lawn. Along the cyclone-wire fence flowered a gorgeous array of bougainvillaea, pampas grass and oleanders. Here were brilliant reds, brilliant orange colours, deep glowing purples, and the white plumes of the pampas. The timber work of the homestead was painted white — just as the trunks of the ghost gums looked as if they had been painted white.

Way over in the distance beyond the encircling hills reared a single cone of bare red rock mountain.

'Quite a sight, isn't it?' Barton said. He had brought the Rover to a stop so that Jeckie could admire the view.

'But I've never seen anything so beautiful!' Jeckie said with delight. 'Such colours! It's like a painted oasis in a desert, isn't it?'

Barton gave a mock laugh. 'Don't you let any of the Singletons hear you talk about "desert" out here, Jeckie. That is, if you want to leave for home unscathed. Every station owner thinks he has the finest stretch of pastoral country in the north west. It's neighbourly to let them go on thinking it.'

'As pastoral country is it better than Mallibee?'

'No. We have fifty miles of creek along the out-paddock boundary. They have only thirty. That much of the difference is obvious. The real winner — when it comes to good pastoral country up here — is the underground water.

Parts of Mallibee could be described as huge land slabs lying on vast underground artesian lakes. That's why everyone reveres old Grandfather Andrew Ashenden. He was the first of the first men in the north to survey underground water. And, of course, he snaffled the best strip of country for himself. But we don't rub it in to the Singletons, or to the Nana Bindi crowd. We just admire their lawns and their windmills and water troughs. We draw in our collective breath and shake our several heads and tell them how lucky they are. We just don't tell 'em how many bores we have on Mallibee. That way everybody is happy.'

'That way,' Jeckie said, 'is a way of never telling the exact truth. I don't think it is strictly straight, but it is tactful, I suppose.'

'Strictly peace-making, that's what it is.'

'True . . Jeckie nodded, giving these ethics some deep thought. 'Peace-making is a good way of life. But why don't you carry out those principles with Jason? I mean Jason Bassett.'

Barton looked down at Jeckie. He pulled in the corners of his mouth and manufactured a hefty scowl.

'There you go again!' he said. 'That Jason Bassett has really got you in, hasn't he? You've seen him twice only, so what's happened to you, Jeckie? You can't be like the rest of the Shire. They're all flat on their noses — kotowing ! '

'Nothing's happened to me, Barton. Except I liked him Lots and lots. Now I've told you the truth, the whole truth and only the truth. If the rest of the Shire feels that way, too, then we can't all be wrong, can we?'

'All depends which side of the mountain you own,' Barton said succinctly. He started up the Rover again and it rolled forward, down the tracks towards the colourful homestead.

Half-way down the slope he braked suddenly.

'Timed it dead right,' he said. 'Here comes Andrew. Must have made it at more than your "mile a minute", Jeckie. He had to go to the outcamp first to get old Bill Snowden, the hutter out there.'

Jeckie's feet stopped fishing for her shoes and she sat bolt upright. 'Where?'

'Over your left shoulder. He's coming in from the west track.'

Jeckie put her head out of the window. Half a mile to her left she saw a cloud of red dust streaming out — the signal of a fast-moving car in the distance.

`All that dust!' she said, a touch of wonder in her voice. 'Nobody could ever sneak up on a station in daylight, could they? You can see something coming for miles.'

'Look through the rear vision mirror. You'll see the first of the men following our dust from Mallibee.'

'And way off behind them another dust cloud. The next lot. What fun they must be having down at the homestead watching the cars coming in across the plain. A sort-of

cloud-invasion.'

'Like you said, Jeckie. No one can sneak up except at the dead of night. Everyone leaves his dust behind him.'

'Let's race Andrew in.'

'No can do. With my usual skill and dexterity at the wheel we might just make the station square at the same time. Collision course! Hold tight. We're about to go!'

Barton let out the clutch, went straight into second gear and started down the hill. He missed out the third gear and went into top, all with a quick flick of his fingers. Jeckie hung on to the window frame with one hand, but kept her eyes on Andrew's gathering dust trail as his car sped on towards Morilla homestead.

They pulled into the station square almost dead on. Andrew opened the drive door and eased himself out. He walked over to the Land-Rover.

'You gone mad, or something, Bart?' he asked coldly. 'That's a pretty hot slope you came down.'

'Ask Jeckie all about it. She goaded me on,' Barton said with a grin. 'She wanted to beat you in. But don't ask me why.'