Ironbark (20 page)

‘Poor lass won't live through the night with that head injury.'

Keziah searched around for Jake and finally heard the laboured sound of his breathing. She called out to the doctor to come quickly and knelt beside Jake's body as O'Flaherty examined him.

‘Mr Andersen is going to live, isn't he?' she demanded.

His forearm was bruised and swollen to twice its normal size and his temple was grazed from the bushranger's bullet. Far worse, though, was the sight of his broken leg lying at an unnatural angle. When Keziah tried to help the doctor to move him, Jake regained consciousness long enough to swear at them, rattling off a string of colourful oaths she had never heard before.

Keziah smiled wryly. ‘Well, that's a good sign. Jake Andersen's certainly alive!'

Between hiccoughs Dr O'Flaherty stated the obvious. ‘We must be waiting for dawn to seek help, Mrs Smith. None will pass along that road tonight. There is not enough light to be setting his leg.'

Jake grabbed hold of Keziah, his fingernails biting into the palm of her hand.

‘Never mind me! Help the poor bloody horses!'

The team had taken the full brunt of the fall. Keziah freed the terrified chestnut – miraculously he was unhurt. Two horses lay dead, a third was in its death throes.

‘Shoot the poor bastard!' Jake ordered, ‘Get my shotgun.' Keziah had seen where he kept it stowed in the coach and fumbled around in the darkness until she found it. She knelt beside the stricken animal. At the sight of his mangled legs she did not hesitate. His blood splattered her shawl as the shot rang out. She gave a choked cry at the sound.

Dr O'Flaherty was doing what little he could for Saranna. On his instructions Keziah removed the girl's outer clothing then loosened her petticoat and bodice to aid her breathing. She used her own Romani shawl to cover Saranna and added the oilskins from the coach in an attempt to warm her.

‘We need a fire,' she told herself. Remembering Jake's use of tobacco, she carefully felt through his waistcoat pockets for his wax matches and soon had a campfire blazing.

Dr O'Flaherty's medical bag had disappeared but when Keziah
found her carpet bag with its treasured box of medicinal herbs, the doctor grunted his disapproval.

‘We'll be having none of that mumbo jumbo, thank you!'

Leaving the doctor alone to drink his whisky, Keziah brewed an infusion of her St John's wort in the dented billycan. She blew on it to cool it then held the pannikin to Jake's lips.

‘Drink this. To ease your pain, lad. It will help you sleep.'

‘Jesus wept!' he cried out when a fresh wave of agony swept through him, but he seemed to trust her because he drank as he was told. Within minutes the pattern of his breathing assured her he had slipped into a deep sleep.

In the dead of night the bush was bitterly cold beyond the perimeter of the campfire. Jake's body trembled with shock but sleep seemed to release him from his pain.

A few yards away Saranna was dying, alone and helpless. Keziah fought to control her fear, mindful of her grandmother's teachings. A healer must never turn her back on those in need.

‘I'll stand watch by her, Doctor,' she offered, realising she could expect no further help from him. No doubt the poor man was suffering from concussion but when he slumped against a tree she saw the glint of his silver flask in the firelight as he kept raising it to his lips. His whisky would be put to far better use easing Jake's pain but Keziah knew there was no hope the doctor would relinquish it.

For what seemed like a period divorced from time, Keziah kept her anxious vigil, trying to warm the unconscious girl's icy hands between her own. She whispered to herself in an attempt to hold her fear of death at bay.

‘I'm so sorry it took time for us to be friends, Saranna. You are a good person – for a
gaujo
.' To her surprise the girl's eyelids flickered open and the blue eyes focused on her.

‘My fault. You have a kind heart, Mrs Smith.' Saranna gave a deep sigh and looked anxious. ‘Is it much further to Ironbark? They're
expecting me. I really
need
that work.'

Keziah was quick to reassure her. ‘Not far at all. It will soon be daylight. Then we'll get you safely to Ironbark. I promise you!'

Saranna's eyes seemed to be searching for another dimension.

‘I promised … my beloved I would join him.' In a moment of lucidity she grasped Keziah's hand with surprising strength.

‘If only I could foresee the future. Will I marry my love? Have children, do you think?'

Keziah felt her throat tighten. ‘Yes! I have the gift of second sight. I can see you in a bush church on your wedding day – a beautiful bride wearing your mother's cameo brooch. You will have a long, happy marriage. I can see your husband holding a little boy with blond hair.' She spoke firmly, giving conviction to her lies. ‘Believe me, I'm
never
wrong about these things.'

‘Thank you.' Saranna's smile was serene. ‘Will you do something for me?'

‘Of course. Name it.'

‘Tell my beloved … my last thoughts were of him. Tell him he must always live for … his mistress.'

Keziah was startled by this strange request but was quick to promise her. ‘You can tell him yourself. What is his name?'

Saranna gave a long, peaceful sigh then closed her eyes. Keziah knew it was for the last time.

‘Doctor!' she called.

Dr O'Flaherty staggered across. He again felt for the girl's pulse and shook his head sadly. ‘The lass has gone,' he said and stumbled off into the darkness.

Alone with Saranna's body Keziah shook violently.

In her attempt to say the
gaujo
Lord's Prayer for Saranna's soul, Keziah mangled the English words and completed it in Romani. She removed two gold coins – Caleb Morgan's money – from the hem of her skirt, placed them on Saranna's eyelids then covered the face with
her bloodstained shawl. Her ingrained Romani fear of the unnatural state of death was magnified by the alien sights and sounds of the Australian bush. Strange stars moved behind the giant trees blocking the sky. She heard the ominous hoot of an unseen owl – the Romani harbinger of death.

Keziah felt a wave of confusion as she stoked the dying fire. Why hadn't she foreseen this? Saranna was too young to die. Her death would break her fiancé's heart. Keziah's eyes searched the shadows beyond the firelight, afraid that the dead girl's
mulo
would return to haunt her.

She crossed to Jake's side, lay down beside him and held him in her arms. Even though he was unconscious, he was a man and she felt his presence would protect her if Saranna's ghost walked.

When Jake cried out in his sleep and began shivering again, Keziah knew she must find a way to warm him. It was unthinkable to steal the covers from Saranna's body.

‘Don't get the wrong idea, lad,' she said as she pressed his head against her naked breast to give him her body heat. ‘Anyway, you won't remember a thing.'

The firelight revealed a strange expression when he stirred, as if he looked right through Keziah to someone else. Words were torn from his throat.

‘Come back to me, Jenny. For God's sake
come home
!' He gripped hold of Keziah, who was overwhelmed by his sense of loss.

She whispered the words she thought he needed to hear from this lost love, Jenny. ‘I'm here, Jake. I'll never leave you again.'

‘Thank Christ for that.' He sighed and gave himself up to the blessing of sleep.

Keziah lay awake thinking how extraordinary it was that strangers had the power to comfort each other in the face of death. Here she was giving her body warmth to a man who cried out his love for another woman. While at the same time the babe she had conceived with Caleb,
the man who had betrayed her, kicked in her womb to remind her of its presence. And all the while her heart beat for Gem, the love of her life.

• • •

At first light Keziah seized the opportunity she had thought about during the long cold night. The tragedy of Saranna Plews's young life cut short had given Keziah an unexpected gift of destiny.

Dr O'Flaherty lay snoring, his empty whisky flask cradled against his chest. And Jake was mercifully still asleep.

With only minutes to act, Keziah exchanged some of her clothing with those of the dead girl. She hesitated as her fingers brushed the cameo brooch. It had meant so much to the girl but if it was discovered on the corpse it would identify Saranna. Keziah had no choice but to wear the brooch herself. Having placed her own feathered hat and reticule beside the girl's body, she forced herself to abandon her treasured Romani vest.

She needed to keep her black skirt because it had a drawstring waist to allow for the growth of her belly but she realised she must leave behind all her other clothing and possessions, including her beloved Tarot cards, to make Saranna's corpse appear to be that of Keziah Smith.

Baxt
had given her the chance to take a new name and keep her babe from the clutches of the Morgans.

She suddenly remembered that Mrs Smith was a widow and Saranna was unmarried. Keziah felt a stab of pain as she looked at the filigree gold ring on her left hand. The ring Gem had given her on their wedding day. She kissed the ring and gently removed it from her hand. Quaking in horror she placed it on the cold hand of the corpse.

Must she also leave her
Puri Dai's
amulet?
No! How could that protect a corpse?

On impulse she also decided to keep her box of herbs and the Australian natural history book that Caleb had given her from the
Morgan library. The book contained details of plants in the colony that she might need to practise healing.

The dead girl's own purse was pitifully short of money so Keziah quickly transferred Saranna's few coins to add to the money in her own reticule, which she placed beside the body. To steal money from a corpse would indeed incite a
mulo
to haunt her.

She removed her last remaining gold coins from the hem of her black skirt and added them to the reticule. She owed Saranna for her new life so she must leave the dead girl enough money for a proper funeral.

All Keziah had left was Saranna's empty purse, but inside the pocket of Saranna's blue cloak she found a sealed envelope and slowly read the words. ‘To George Hobson Esquire, Ironbark Farm.'
This must be the girl's future employer
, Keziah thought.
I'll need that work now
.

She tried to convince herself Saranna would be buried under the name of Keziah Smith. The two were alike enough in height, hair and eye colouring, although Saranna's body was more slender than hers. But who would notice that, given the evidence of Keziah's Romani clothing, wedding ring and Tarot cards? Jake Andersen would never have been fooled but he was in no condition to identify anyone – including himself.

There was a good chance that in the chaos of rescue the only person available to identify her, Dr O'Flaherty, would be so concussed and drunk that he would identify the corpse as the Widow Smith before travelling on to Melbourne Town.

When Caleb Morgan's spies searched for her they would find the Gypsy Keziah Smith's grave and look no further. Meanwhile she would be safely living as Saranna Plews in Ironbark.

But what of the babe?
Keziah hastily dismissed this awkward thought. That was tomorrow's problem.

Keziah quickly searched until she found the box containing Jake's billy tea supplies. She placed a handful of sugar in her armpit to absorb
the scent of her body. Then she fed the sugar to the chestnut stallion in the traditional way her father, Gabriel, had taught her to bind a horse to her.

She tied Saranna's valises across the horse's back, careful to keep her back turned on the girl's corpse in case she sighted her
mulo
. O'Flaherty was still snoring. Jake Andersen remained unconscious, his red-gold hair falling across his forehead made him look like a sleeping child.

‘I'm sorry to have to leave you like this, Jake,' she whispered under her breath. ‘Destiny has set us on separate paths.' A backward glance confirmed that all in the camp was quiet before she led the chestnut stallion into the bush in search of a more accessible slope that would lead them up to the road.

As Keziah rode bareback along the empty road back towards the Shamrock and Thistle Inn she spoke soothingly to the horse to reassure him. ‘I know how badly you're feeling but the accident was not
your
fault. And it wasn't Jake Andersen's either. If poor old Dr O'Flaherty hadn't been drunk none of this would have happened. Think of it this way, boy. It's a beautiful day and we're both lucky to be alive. Now we must get urgent help for the others.'

She looked at the sky – it was obvious the beautiful day had changed its mind. The heavens unleashed a thunderstorm out of nowhere. Within seconds she was drenched to the skin. In sight of the inn she hurriedly dismounted and fished around in Saranna's valise for the girl's long blue cloak to throw around her shoulders. It was still raining when she used a sash as a halter to secure the horse to the railing at the front of the inn.

This was the test. Could she pull off her new identity? Their coach had visited this inn the previous day so it was imperative that she looked and sounded like Saranna Plews but also avoid close scrutiny by the publican, Fingal Mulley, who had met them both. She pulled the blue hood tightly around her face and burst into the saloon. Even at this early hour rough-looking drinkers were slumped over the bar.

Keziah cast her eyes around the room, searching for some man who seemed responsible.

And then she saw him. A burly young man with a shaggy beard as wild as King Neptune nervously rose to his feet at the sight of her and removed his hat.