Absolution Creek (59 page)

It was some time before Sam realised he’d not travelled the designated five hundred yards into the paddock. He edged Dolly away from the fence and instead of retracing their tracks began to do a half-hearted sweep across the land. He watched birds swooping in and out of a mimosa bush and paused as two young foxes scampered through the grass, snapping at each other intermittently. Sam’s leg began to pain as he steered his horse reluctantly away, rain splattering his face. The sky was peppered with swirling blue-tinged cloud and he spurred his horse, suddenly conscious of the task at hand.

Dolly refused to break into a trot, preferring to walk a zigzag path through the trees. The rain came across from the west in soft waves, and kangaroos hopped by to camp under branches shiny with water as Sam rode past. It was soon apparent he was lost. Every tree looked the same, every angle of the paddock similar in aspect: a flat horizon of stock-clipped pasture interspersed with variegated patches of tall wavering grasses and clumps of trees. With no sun for guidance, Sam turned the collar up on his jacket and let Dolly have her head. The old girl walked steadily across the paddock, oblivious to the rain now pelting down. As the soil was becoming soggier Sam guessed they were heading west from where the rain originated.

‘Good on ya, Dolly.’ Now he knew why Cora talked to her animals as if they were human.

They reached the creek as a crack of thunder sounded overhead. Sam wasn’t a softie, but with no rams in sight, a wet afternoon holed up under a tree seemed a waste – particularly when he could have a go at the feeder that waited under cover back at the work shed. Dolly led him along the waterway where thick lignum grew, the air dense with moisture. Ten minutes later they were across the earth-covered pipe crossing and walking back towards the homestead. Sam gave a satisfied nod, patted Dolly on the neck and rode happily home.

Sam flicked up the visor on his welding mask and turned the gas off on the cylinder. The sharp splatter of rain hitting corrugated-iron sounded like a thousand marbles being scattered on the roof above him. He stood upright, wincing at the pain in his thigh. Meg was right: the cut could have done with a few stitches, however he wasn’t letting any vet stick a cow-sized needle in him. Heck, he probably would have ended up being sown together with bailing twine, while Cora’s vet tried his best to entice Meg with his lopsided grin. Stitched up or not, the painful gash certainly didn’t like the long ride over the creek. He was pleased to be home.

The work shed quickly became an island as the rain thundered down, the wind carrying sheets of moisture into the building. Sam watched the downpour obliterate Harold’s house in the distance, blur tree and sky so that it became impossible to tell what was land and air. It would be a struggle to get back to the house in all the mud the way his leg was feeling, particularly as the wind was becoming stronger. For the briefest of seconds he imagined being lifted into the sky and hurled into the scrub, never to be found. Removing his thick welding gloves, Sam examined his handiwork. The feeder was usable again. Sure, it looked a bit battered and pockmarked from where he’d bashed it into some semblance of its former shape before welding it, however it had actually come up better than anticipated. He began stacking the sharp metal cut-offs against a 44-gallon drum, and rested the heavy mallet he’d used to bash the feeder into shape on the edge of the pile. His thoughts turned to Meg. After all what else did a bush man do on a wet afternoon? Even though he couldn’t promise he’d be at his peak, he’d give it a good go.

‘So you managed to get home.’ Kendal trudged into the shed, soaked through, Bouncer by his side. The dog looked like it could do with a feed.

‘Well, I didn’t see any rams. You?’ Sam wiped his hands on a greasy rag. Rivers of rainwater were beginning to flow into the shed.

‘I got them. They were hanging in the north-west corner. Is Cora with you?’

Sam shook his head. ‘Didn’t see her.’ Bouncer was snuffling at Kendal’s ankles. ‘I thought that dog –’

‘A dog has one bad day and Cora wants them put down. Won’t have anything disobedient on a sheep run,
she
reckons. As if she’d know anything about that.’

Sam turned back to the feeder.

‘Not a bad job, for a city bloke.’ Kendal gave the feeder a brief once over.

‘And like you could have done better.’ Sam placed the gloves on the workbench and began tidying the tools he’d used.

‘Meaning?’ Kendal rolled himself a smoke, drips of rain falling from his hat brim.

‘Your mother know you’re smoking?’ Sam hoped for a break in the rain; bad leg or not he just knew he was inches from an argument.

‘What’s it like then, having a wife related to Cora Hamilton?’

‘Well, it gave me a paying job.’ Sam wasn’t really sure what Kendal was angling at. ‘What’s really up your nose, Kendal? Lobbing in here unwanted and discovering you weren’t going to be paid or working for a woman? Cause it sure doesn’t bother your uncle. He mightn’t agree with everything Cora says but I notice he’s still here.’

‘Working for a woman doesn’t sit well. It’s not in the natural order of things.’

Sam slid welding rods into a packet and sat them on the work bench. The shed was getting wet and muddy; a gap in the iron overhead ran water along timber girders to spill in a curtain. ‘It seems to me neither you nor your uncle have anywhere else to go and you resent that.’

‘She couldn’t run the place without Harold.
He’s
doing
her
the favour.’

‘Really?’

Kendal took a drag. ‘I suppose if you can’t tell what she is, it doesn’t really matter, but folks know. You ever wondered why no one’s rung up and asked you around for a meal or a beer?’

The kid was angling for a punch in the nose and with the trouble Sam’s leg was giving him it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

Kendal took two steps forward and poked his finger against Sam’s chest. ‘Well?’

Sam gave Kendal a shove. ‘Back off.’ The dog growled.

‘If youse went to the flicks there’d be special seating, you know.’ Kendal took a final drag of his smoke, flicking it onto the now waterlogged ground. ‘But you’d be in one section and the blacks would be in another and Cora Hamilton, well, she wouldn’t be welcome in either.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Sam looked at the youth standing opposite him in the cold and wet of the shed. Kendal was all rangy limbs and attitude, but there was something about his words that bit into Sam’s brain.

‘She’s a darkie. You know, touch of the tar brush and all that. Cora Hamilton probably shouldn’t even be holding this land; which means youse shouldn’t be here and your citified wife shouldn’t end up owning it.’

Sam lunged out with a swift uppercut. It was the same swing he’d used in the mechanic’s workshop in Sydney. He followed his fist with the full weight of his body, a smile of satisfaction lacing anger as he envisioned the boy laid out in the mud of the shed. Sam’s knuckles struck flesh and there was the resounding crack that only came with the shattering of a nose. Kendal gave a yelp like a wounded animal and stumbled backwards. For a moment Sam doubted the kid would fall and he readied himself for another punch, a quick felling jab to the kidneys. Sure enough, Kendal kicked out with his boot, striking Sam in his wounded thigh. Sam collapsed immediately, landing on his backside in the mud, aware Kendal had also fallen to the ground.

The dog hovered about Kendal, snuffling and whining like a tired child. ‘Oh be quiet,’ Sam chastised, struggling upright, using the feeder for support. Blood was soaking through his jeans and they were soggy with mud. He began to wonder if now he would need stitches, thanks to Harold’s hoodlum nephew. ‘Great, we’ll both end up dying of blasted pneumonia.’ He winced as he put equal weight on his injured leg. ‘Hey, Kendal, wake up.’ The boy appeared to be out cold. His face was a grey colour, blood oozing from his nose and a split on his top lip. Sam rubbed his bruised knuckles into the palm of his hand. For a kid, the boy sure had a hard skull.
Wait till Lady Cora hears about this
, he thought with amusement. It was just damn lucky Harold wasn’t here.

He walked to where Kendal lay, cautious of any underhand tactics. He’d been in plenty of fights in his youth when a ‘sleeper’ had jumped up unexpectedly to land a sneaky right-hander; or worse, lift a leg for an attack on the crown jewels. He skirted Kendal and kicked him ever so lightly in the thigh. The boy didn’t stir. Sam leant down warily and tapped the boy on the cheek. It was then that he noticed the blood seeping out from beneath Kendal’s body. The boy had fallen onto the pile of steel cut-offs. Sam took a step back, his face turning pale.

Chapter 48

A
dams spent an hour or so riding about the property, leaving with a none-too-pleased expression on his face. Jack watched as the pair rode past the homestead, the one called Will pointing at the leopardwood sapling growing out from the side of the house. A steely light settled over the countryside as Jack made a point of walking to the middle of the dirt track, sweat masking his face in the noon heat. Adams looked through the dust, coat-tail flapping, and laughed. For the briefest of moments Jack visualised lifting a rifle, aiming it at the solid target of Adams’s back and dropping the man in the dirt of the road. Instead he trudged through the back yard, with its timber fence, wood shed, copper and outdoor toilet, hopeful Squib was hidden somewhere nearby. At the vegetable plot Thomas and Olive could be heard indoors, their voices murmur-soft. Only able to imagine their conversation, Jack gave the wind-twisted trees and scrubby bush a final scan. He knew Squib’s absence was premeditated and he thanked the saints his girl’s intuition was strong.

The kitchen grew silent as he entered. Olive held a skein of wool. Thomas concentrated on a penny-dreadful novel. The pretence at normality angered Jack. Where were they when he battled alone in the scrub? Where were they when he and Squib mustered sheep on foot and checked for maggots in the dusty haze that was Absolution Creek?

‘Well?’ Thomas asked. ‘They didn’t find her, did they?’

‘No,’ Jack confirmed. His thoughts alternated between what he wanted to do and what the law allowed. Maybe Adams was wrong. Maybe the girl they searched for came from a different family. Jack wiped sweaty palms on his trousers. His father’s Bible sat in the centre of the table. Of course she didn’t, the similarities were too great: the fall from the dray, the surname, and then there was Squib’s own revelation of having once lived on Waverly Station.

‘We have little choice in the matter.’ Thomas sat the book to one side and cut a wedge of bread from the loaf in the centre of the table. ‘We have to assist the authorities.’

‘And no doubt you two reached that decision unanimously,’ Jack challenged. Olive didn’t meet his gaze. ‘There’s always a choice. What I can’t fathom is why Adams would go out of his way to chase after the girl.’

Thomas considered his brother’s question. ‘Well, apart from the law, are you thinking revenge for that sheep-thieving business?’

‘Revenge is for fools and madmen,’ Olive interrupted. ‘Besides, the law’s the law, they’re merely doing their duty.’