Daughter of Australia (46 page)

T
hree months after the Ford had disappeared in a predawn haze and taken Leonora from Wanjarri Downs, the Ford returned.

The January day was one of the hottest on record. The flies were fierce, swarming in black tornadoes around any breathing, warm body. Tom watched the car approach dustily from the road, smacked at the fat, hairy flies; James remained still and absent to everything but the moving car that finally parked with a dead rattle. James walked briskly, forced himself not to run. Tom grabbed at his shirt, but James ripped his arm away. Alex stepped out first, looking bright and satisfied. A dark pit spread in James's gut.
So help me if he touched her . . .

Tom jogged up and greeted Alex before James had a chance to lay his hard eyes on the man's face. “
America, America!
” Tom crooned. “
God shines his grace on thee!
”

Alex laughed. “Shed,” he corrected. “God
shed
his grace on thee.” Alex gave Tom a hearty handshake and slapped him on the back.

“Lucky I got ‘America' right! Geography isn't my specialty,” Tom joked even as his eyes watched James from the corners. Subtly, he turned Alex away from the car. “James'll grab your bags. So, how was the trip?”

Leonora opened the car door and stepped out. His breath caught at the sight of her—of her pink lips, the smooth skin, the silken hair. She was here. And the torturous ticking of eternal seconds finally stopped—just stopped. His lips tingled to kiss her. Each nerve ending waited to touch her skin. He stepped toward her, but she shook her head.
Not now,
she mouthed.

He glanced at Tom, saw Alex's back was turned. Keeping his eyes glued to Leonora's face, he reached over her shoulder for the suitcase on the backseat. He brushed his lips against her cheek. The smell of her perfume wafted from her neck. He leaned into her hips and touched her waist. James pulled the suitcase out and stepped back.

“Come on, Leonora!” Alex hollered from Tom's side. “I'm starving.”

 

Leonora couldn't shake the seasickness from the rough ocean waters that had bullied the steam liner; she couldn't shake the carsickness that had left her green over the endless straight roads. Sleep did little to revive her fatigue. Each day, she retired before evening had set and rose long after morning had begun. And she knew. She knew with heartbreaking joy and cold terror that it was not the journey that left her bones weak as jelly and her stomach retching.

She sat across from Alex at the table. He perused the newspaper without focus, rambled on and on about metals and labor and dollars. Her head was heavy and her forehead beaded with sweat. The monotonous words churned her stomach like a bad smell. Bile came quickly to her throat. She covered her mouth and gagged.

Alex inched down the newspaper and grimaced. “What's wrong with you?”

“I don't feel well. . . .” Her stomach twisted again and she jolted for the toilet, knocking her hip into the table corner and clinking the teacups in the process.

After a few minutes, Leonora returned, her face white, hands shaking. A plate of scrambled eggs sat on the table, curled her stomach with fresh vigor. She covered the eggs with a napkin and pushed them away. Meredith refilled her tea.

“Feeling better?” Alex asked, his mouth half-full of food.

“Yes,” she lied.

Meredith set the teapot on the table. “Guess congratulations are in order, eh?”

Leonora's stomach plummeted to her legs like a cut anchor.

Alex stopped chewing. “Congratulations for what?”

“Fer the baby of course! My mum had twelve children. Know a pregnant woman when I see one!” She winked at Leonora and left the room.

Crouching dread stretched like a waking cat. Leonora touched her belly protectively.

Alex's fork hung suspended in his fingers. His eyebrows spread and his forehead softened. “Is that true?” he whispered.

“I-I don't know,” she stammered.

In a strange, choppy dream, Alex neared, knelt before her, clutched her hands, his eyes glistening.

Her insides retreated with his joy. It was crumbling. James. The child. It was all turning to dust under Alex's fingers.

“A baby?” Alex's face bloomed with wonder. His lips stretched over his teeth. “We're going to have a baby?”

Leonora stared at her hands, limp and dead in his grip. And she waited—waited as the sentenced wait for the slice of the guillotine. It would all register within his skull. There was no use lying. She would be showing soon. And so she waited, felt it all dissolve—for Alex only needed to calculate the days and weeks and months—a baby could have been conceived and born within their abstinence. Her body chilled, shivered uncontrollably. Tears pushed behind her eyes. And she waited.

His hands tensed. The waiting stopped. He knew. Leonora raised her eyes in surrender, met his black pupils. The tenderness, the joy, was hacked to shreds—only ice and hate and black ugliness remained. “Whose is it?” he growled.

“I . . . I don't know.”

Alex squeezed her hands, dug nails into her skin. “
Whose is it?
”

Leonora whimpered and tried to pull her hands away. The nails dug farther, cut through the skin. “
I don't know!
”

Alex dropped her hands and slapped her square across the face, the force snapping her head to her shoulder. Leonora clutched the burning cheek, tasted the blood that trickled out the corner of her mouth. “Please, Alex!” she begged.

But he was blind. He seized her by the shoulders and shook her as a dog shakes a rabbit. “Tell me who it was or so help me . . . !”

“He was from the hospital!” Leonora screamed with a desperate attempt to end it. Her mind scrambled for a name. “Dr. Edwards!”

Alex released his hands like her skin was acid.

“It was after the funeral . . . ,” she hurried, “when you were at the mill.” Her mind sped with the lie. “I'm sorry, Alex.”

For a moment, he stood perfectly still. But then his black eyes flitted, back and forth like the insane. He twisted his neck, his lips wet. “Dr. Edwards died in the war.”

Leonora screamed in terror. She backed up, shielded her stomach. Alex lurched and grabbed her by the hair, tossed her against the wall, sending a mirror crashing to the floor.

Meredith ran in from the kitchen. “Whot's wrong? I heard—”

Alex grabbed Leonora by the throat. “
You lying whore!
”

“Get yer bloody 'ands off her!” Meredith shouted as she tried to pry his fingers from Leonora's neck. With his left hand, Alex smashed his palm into the woman's face, sent her flying. Meredith scrambled for the front door, crawling on her hands and knees.

 

James led the stallion around the riding ring. A noise, high-pitched and indistinguishable, caught his ear, raised the hairs along his arms. The sound drew in from its echo, sharpened to screaming. James jumped over the split-rail fence.

“Help!” Meredith's large frame circled in front of the house. “Somebody help! Help!” She saw James. “Mrs. 'Arrington!” she screamed. “He's tryin' t'kill her!”

James charged the house, his mind blank, every muscle, every nerve, a live, twitching wire. He plowed through the front door, heard Alex's curses from the next room, heard a head thumping against the wall.

“No!” James pounced on Alex, grabbed his shirt and threw him to the floor. Leonora slid down the wall. “Leo!” James grabbed her limp neck in his hands, frantically kissed her forehead. “Leo, can you hear me?”

“You!” Alex spit, pushed up to his knees. “
It was you!
”

James turned just as Alex's fist barreled into his shoulder. But the white rage blocked out the blow and James balled his hand, punched Alex square in the jaw. Alex fell, but James grabbed him by the shirt collar, pummeled him again and again until his fist slipped on blood and Alex's body flopped in his grip. James saw the blood then, looked at his raw, red-stained knuckles, dropped him with quick release. Alex lay hunched and crumpled as a rag.

James pulled his gaze from his bloodied hands and slid down to Leonora's side. He rubbed her hair, tried to rouse her. Her mouth was bloodied, her cheek purple and swollen.

“That fuckin' bastard!” Tom stood in the doorway, his eyes bouncing from Alex's body to Leonora's and then back again.

“Get the doctor!” James ordered. “Better get the sheriff, too.”

Leonora moved her head, opened her eyes and looked at James, let her gaze drip over his features as if she couldn't quite see them. James kissed her eyelids. “Thank God.” He kissed her hair. He pressed his forehead against hers. “Thank God you're all right.”

Leonora touched her cheek gingerly, then pulled her hand away from the pain. She saw Alex's body and her mouth dropped. “Is he . . .”

“No.” James seethed for a different answer. “He's not dead.” James stroked her hair. “What happened, Leo?”

She touched her belly. “I'm pregnant.”

James's jaw dropped. Adrenaline flooded under his skin.

“It's yours. Ours, James.” She squeezed his hand. “Ever since that day in the paddocks, that first day you kissed me, I never let him touch me again. I swear it, James.”

It wouldn't have mattered. But the relief was still there, warm and full. James put his hand against her unmarked cheek and kissed the bridge of her nose. He moved his hand down and placed it against her belly. He smiled, closed his lips in amazement.

James turned to Alex and his eyes turned hard again. “We're getting out of here.”

“But James—” she started, but he cut her off.

“I don't care, Leo.” His face grew fierce. “I only care about you right now.” James looked down at his bleeding knuckles. “Tom went to get the sheriff and the doctor. Then we go.”

Suddenly, Leonora bent forward and grabbed her stomach, her face distorting in agony. “What's wrong?” James wound her into his arms. “Leo?”

She gasped soundlessly. James took her elbow and helped her up, scooped her gently into his arms. “You need to lie down, Leo.”

The usual warmth of her body was fading, her face pale. An old image of Tess flashed, left him unnerved. James pulled Leonora closer to his chest, carried her up the stairs. Her eyes were down, the focus directed at her stomach. James lowered her to the bed and she faced the wall, curled away from him, brought her knees to her chest and held them with her arms.

James swallowed, reached out a hand to rub her shoulder, then pulled it back. “I'll bring you some tea,” he said, the offer hesitant. Leonora did not move, did not answer, her gaze vacant.

James nodded at the curved spine and turned away, rubbed his eyes with his palms and pulled at the front of his hair. His limbs were heavy and sluggish as he left her, walked down the steps to the dining room. Alex's body remained broken and clumped on the floor.

James stopped with his boot against Alex's back. The man's face was crusted with blood, the nostrils blocked and black. The white shirt was ripped and stained with rust-colored fingerprints. James knelt down slowly, his knee hovering over Alex's purpling, bruised face. “I should kill you.”

A stream of light filtered from the window. The sharp gleam of metal picked up the yellow light and highlighted the revolver hanging inside Alex's jacket. James reached for the gun, rubbed the cool, smooth steel with his fingers, his reflection blurry and distorted in the cylinder's curve. A painful vibrancy itched under his skin. His palm wrapped around the sculpted handle, his index finger found the arch of the trigger. James stood to his full height. He pointed the gun at Alex. The gun grew into his hand and up his arm, turned his flesh into one cold, silver extension. Then, without a bend of his elbow, James lowered his arm, let it drop straight by his side. The gun dangled loosely from his finger and he didn't look at it again. James turned from Alex, entered the kitchen and dropped the gun into the garbage.

James scraped the teakettle harshly across the stove burners and set it under the faucet. His brows pulled at the skin of his forehead, tried to drag it past his eyes. The water splashed into the bottom of the hollow kettle, the sound dull as it filled. He smacked the faucet off and dropped the kettle to the stove. Beads of blood formed across his knuckles as the thin, newly formed scabs broke open again. He lit the pilot light, stared at the blue flames as they licked the bottom of the black iron.

James opened the icebox and shoveled some shavings into a bowl. He slammed the door closed and thrust his cut fist into the hard ice. It numbed the raw pain. His fingers throbbed, matched his pulse beat for beat. James glanced at the garbage, saw the gun resting upon broken eggshells and coffee grinds and wilted lettuce. James stuck out a long leg and kicked the garbage can into the pantry. He slammed the door closed and pounded his fist back into the ice.

The teakettle hissed. Boiling water spluttered out of the spout of the overfilled pot and fell upon the flames, turning them white and yellow as they flickered. The kettle blew its whistle, shrieked with sudden impatience. James snapped off the flame. A shadow elongated and took shape above his own. A shift of air passed across his back. His head cracked. James fell hard to his knees. The teakettle exhaled with a waning wail. The smack crashed across his lower back. His head bounced and landed hard on the floor.

 

Leonora's throat ached as she swallowed, the pain waking her. She didn't know she had fallen asleep. James hadn't returned with the tea. She bent into her abdomen, the pain grating and cramped. At intervals, the pain grew with steady steps and cut like razors, every organ twisted like a wrung towel. Then everything loosened, returned to grating and cramping again. She was sweating, her body tired with the straining waves of pain. She didn't want James to see her like this. She tried to straighten her body, but her knees wouldn't leave her chest. Her head was fuzzy. She was thirsty. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second noisy and magnified within the quiet room.