Outback Sunset (33 page)

She gazed through the fuzziness of the fly screen. A quarter moon shone dully on the side yard and
the station’s buildings and now wide awake, she stared at the sky, blacker than black, trying to distinguish specific stars. Curtis, who had an interest in astronomy, was attempting to educate her about the various galaxies and constellations. She was pleased when she, finally, recognised The Southern Cross, the Big Dipper and Venus. One by one she studied them as she sipped the water.

A different sound disturbed her concentration — barking. She looked around for Sandy and couldn’t see him. He usually slept in his basket in the sleep-out, with them. When the dingoes prowled she kept him on a lead at night to stop him from running off and getting into trouble. In the low glow of a night light she found the lead, went over and checked it. The little devil. Sandy had chewed the rope through and escaped. Why hadn’t she put him on a chain, as Curtis did Ringo? She gave an annoyed sigh. Sandy, the rotten little monster, was roaming free and, if he got close to the dingoes … Her heart started to race. She didn’t want to think about what a pack of wild dogs would do to her dog if they got close to him.

She shook Bren by the shoulder. ‘Wake up, Bren. Sandy’s got loose.’

‘What?’ he muttered.

Wearing a long singlet top, she pulled on a pair of shorts and found her boots. ‘Sandy’s out. Get up, Bren.’ She shook him again but he was in such a deep sleep that he couldn’t be roused. ‘Oh, stay asleep then,’ she said crankily. She would find Sandy herself.

Leaving the house via the back verandah, she had the commonsense to pick up the Winchester 30/30 rifle kept high — out of Kyle’s reach — on wall
brackets near the back door in case of emergencies, not like the station’s other rifles which were locked in a cupboard in the office. She flicked the switch on, and two floodlights lit up the ground as far as the breaking-in yard. Whistling and calling Sandy, she checked the chicken coop. All was well there with Ringo guarding the sleeping chickens. She moved past the breaking-in yard towards the hangar, picking her way carefully as the light faded. Sandy wasn’t barking anymore so … where could he be?

Vanessa turned the hangar-workshop lights on. Dingoes had been there. A couple of oil barrels lay on their side, the contents rifled through. She noted a T-bone from a steak picked clean. Who, on the station, had been silly enough to leave food scraps there? Everyone knew dingoes were on the prowl. She shook her head in consternation and her right hand tightened around the rifle. The beat of her heart increased the further she moved away from the established buildings.

‘Sandy,’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Come here, boy.’

He answered with a series of furious barks. Thank God, he wasn’t far away. Then she heard the dingoes howl … Alarmed by their closeness and what followed — a sudden, high-pitched squeal from Sandy, then a long whimper — she picked up a torch from the bench. It was a big one, the type used to check the plane and chopper’s engines. She began to run towards the first paddock fence …

When Vanessa saw the first pair of yellow eyes in the torch’s beam, then a second and third pair, her
courage almost failed her. She moved the light, spraying the ground and low bushes until she found Sandy. Her darling little dog, so brave and utterly foolish, stood with his back to a low, scrubby bush, facing the dingoes. One front paw was bent and off the ground — obviously a dingo had nipped him — but he was otherwise stiff-legged and defiant. His cropped tail stood high in the air, his ears aggressively at attention. He barked defiantly for all his worth, then growled deep in his throat as his attackers closed in.

Vanessa didn’t have the luxury of time to be frightened as, without hesitating and awkwardly one-handed, she trained the rifle’s barrel at the closest dingo. She squeezed the trigger. Bang!

The torch’s glow showed a cloud of red earth rising where the bullet, missing the animal, rammed into the soil. The dingoes yipped with fright then just as quickly snarled in unison as they turned their attention to her. Though the night was steamy a chill snaked down Vanessa’s spine and her heartbeat quickened. How many bullets were in the rifle’s magazine, she wondered? Four? five? she hadn’t taken the time to check. Undaunted, she squeezed off another round. One animal gave a high-pitched squeal. She let off two more shots and within seconds the animals with their yellow eyes had slunk back, disappearing into the darkness to leave a still growling, triumphant Sandy to have the last bark.

‘Come on, boy, come to me.’

The Jack Russell limped towards her. He tried to leap into her arms but couldn’t. Sliding the rifle under one arm, she bent down and picked him up,
cradling him close. She could feel a stickiness on one of his front legs and when she trained the torchlight there she saw blood. ‘Oh, Sandy, one of them bit you. What am I going to do with you, boy?’

Within a minute or two she and Sandy were joined by Bren, Curtis and Nova, torches in hand, who’d come to investigate the rifle shots.

Bren took the rifle from Vanessa, Nova took the torch. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ Bren asked with a frown, his tone more than a little critical.

‘Are you okay?’ Nova asked with feigned sincerity. Secretly she was pleased by Vanessa’s shaken demeanour.
Good
, Nova’s little voice giggled inside,
a little going away present
. In a solicitous gesture she put her hand on Vanessa’s arm.

‘I will be,’ Vanessa confirmed. She could feel Sandy trembling against her as she held him to her chest. She was trembling too, as reaction to the drama set in. ‘Bren, I tried to wake you but you were fast asleep. You couldn’t be roused.’ Her comment made Bren scowl. He didn’t like it, but too bad, sometimes the truth hurt and Vanessa was becoming increasingly weary of having to couch her comments in terms that, because he could be so prickly, didn’t offend him.

Bren glanced at Curtis and they gave each other meaningful nods. ‘The baits don’t seem to be working so I guess we have to do something about the pack now. Vanessa managed to nick one,’ Bren said as he trained the beam of light from his torch on a puddle of blood that trailed off into the bush.

‘First thing tomorrow.’ Curtis’s gaze was focussed on Vanessa. He gave her a strange, assessing look, as
if concerned as to whether
she
was all right, but didn’t ask it aloud. ‘Warren and I will pick up their trail at first light and finish them off.’

‘Come on, hon, let’s go back.’ Bren tried to take Sandy from Vanessa but she wouldn’t relinquish him. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘All right, but we should tend to Sandy’s wound quickly. Bloody dingoes carry all kinds of germs. The little feller will be lucky if he doesn’t get infected.’

In silence, the four began the long walk back through the steamy night to the homestead.

The early morning air, half an hour after sunrise, was refreshingly cool. Nova, as she stood inside the hangar watching Bren load Vanessa and Kyle’s luggage into the plane, pulled up the collar on her sleeveless, zip-up vest. It hadn’t been necessary for her to get up to see them leave but she wanted to, even though she too was leaving the next day for Sydney, energised by the prospect of resurrecting her career. She needed to see Vanessa leave with her own eyes. A smile flicked across her mouth as she remembered the image of Vanessa’s pinched features as she’d boarded the plane. The ‘episodes’ she had created had sunk in and affected ‘Little Miss Perfect,’ and Nova believed, possibly because she desperately wanted to, that the consummate, cool actress’s nerves had been severely rattled.

Nova knew Vanessa liked to analyse things through and to mull matters over in her own time before she acted. That suited Nova perfectly. Vanessa had the next five months to contemplate her future and whether Amaroo was the best place
for herself and Kyle to spend long periods of time. The only negative was that she wasn’t sure if she had put enough fear into the actress to make her think seriously about spending perhaps half her time at Amaroo and the other half in London or wherever else she chose to live. If she hadn’t, other episodes could be arranged to encourage Vanessa to her way of thinking.

As she watched Bren do the instrument check before take-off, in her mind she reviewed the dinner table talk last night, about the movie Vanessa might become involved in because she had written its script. Nova hoped, she’d even prayed — and wasn’t that a novelty — that the deal would go through because it would keep Vanessa away longer. She had also noted Bren’s mouth turn down sourly when Vanessa and Curtis had talked about
North of the Nullarbor. Bren doesn’t like his wife and son being away for so long
, Nova’s inner voice piped up with.
Whereas you don’t care if you never see either of them again!
The admiration Nova had once felt for Vanessa and the desire to emulate her career success had been eclipsed by a growing jealousy, bordering on unreasonable hatred because Curtis liked her.

As she straightened to her full height and stretched her arms up over her head in a wave, the plane taxied down the packed earth runway.
Good riddance. Now you’re free to concentrate on Curtis and make him forget that Vanessa exists.

That same evening, after dinner, which was a quiet affair because Vanessa and Kyle were absent and
Bren was unusually quiet because he was missing them, Curtis was the first to leave.

‘Night, everyone,’ he said as he left the homestead’s kitchen and headed for the cottage. He opened and closed the door then leant against its solid timber, and shook his head in confusion. He stayed there for a while, his thoughts stuck on Nova … Hell’s bells, she was driving him crazy but, thank God tomorrow morning she was leaving.

Her leech-like behaviour towards him had been going on for weeks. Every time he turned around she was at his heels. Wherever he went on the range or around the paddocks, doing various chores, she would wheedle her way into accompanying him even when he didn’t need help. What was he to make of it? At first he had thought she was lonely for company, anyone’s company but it had gone past that and her ‘devotion’ was damned annoying. What was the matter with her? He scratched his chin as he pondered the irritation of her constant presence. She had been through a lot and mindful of that he had wanted to be understanding, accommodating and patient, but his patience had worn dangerously thin.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, he hadn’t a clue what to do about her. His brother thought her attentions amusing and reckoned she had a crush on him. Curtis closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head emphatically. A possible romance between himself and Nova? No way. Besides, she didn’t flirt or come on to him she was just … there.

Seven years older than her, he had watched Nova grow up and change from child, to girl, to woman.
As a person, and accepting of her character shortcomings, he liked her but he wasn’t sexually attracted to her, not in the least, despite Reg’s occasional joke — he’d assumed it was a joke — that one day he and Nova might get together. Not in his lifetime. Still, there remained a reluctance to hurt her feelings by telling her to bugger off and leave him be. His parents had taught him too many good manners to do that, but he was fed up with her shadowy presence.

Continuing his disgruntlement, he moved away from the door towards his bedroom. If she hadn’t been going tomorrow he’d have invented a reason to visit Cadogan’s Run.
That’s running away, mate
, his conscience prodded him. So what? Wasn’t that better than a confrontation in which he might say things to upset Nova’s delicate mental balance? Yes, he believed she was still fragile mentally because most of the time it didn’t take much to get her upset. Now thoroughly out of sorts, he moved to the bathroom, stripped, turned the shower on and stepped under the lukewarm spray. As he did, another disquieting thought teased his mind. Was it Nova he wanted to be rid of, or was he suffering from withdrawal because Vanessa and young Kyle would be away for months, and that he’d miss them?

Oh, shut the hell up, he told himself, and lathered up …

‘W
hat do you think she wants?’ Bren asked. He was watching Curtis throw clothes into a duffle bag on his bed.

‘With Georgia, who knows. She wants to meet me at Mum’s on the seventeenth. She, ummm, didn’t care to discuss it on the phone but I’m sure it has something to do with Regan.’ Curtis’s reply was distracted. He had been going over and over various scenarios since Georgia’s phone call. What did his ex-wife want? More money? Well, she could whistle in the wind for that.

‘So you drop everything to be at her beck and call. Bro, she still has you by the short and curlies, hasn’t she?’

The look Curtis gave Bren was cutting. ‘I couldn’t care less about Georgia, I’m going because it concerns Regan. Maybe she’s sick or Georgia could be having problems with her. Hell’s bells, Bren, I don’t know and I won’t until she tells me.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Bren backed off in the face of Curtis’s growing irritation. ‘You’ll keep me posted?’

Curtis closed the bag and slung it over one shoulder as he headed for the doorway. ‘Of course.’

Curtis had plenty of time to think about what Georgia might be up to as he flew the chopper from Amaroo to Darwin. Time to worry if Regan was all right, time to consider what options he might have, time to school his dislike of his ex-wife and, because of the things she’d done to him, get that dislike under control. It was interesting that she’d wanted them to meet in Darwin instead of making him fly to Sydney. Throughout the course of their separation, divorce and afterwards, his mother had played a non-committal, sitting on the fence role, neither condemning Georgia nor siding with him simply because she wanted to maintain contact with her only grand-daughter. Hilary did that by having Regan spend school holidays regularly at her Cullen Bay home.

In the early afternoon, at his mother’s home, Curtis stood by the floor to ceiling windows, looking at the view but not really seeing it. Like him, Hilary had no idea why Georgia had requested the meeting but had, diplomatically, decided to be out when she arrived. Curtis glanced at the clock on the chrome and glass wall unit. She was late, another Georgia-ism that annoyed him. He believed she did it on purpose to create an effect. Well, the effect it had on him was to make him irritable. He believed himself to be a patient man but where his ex was concerned, most of the patience had dissipated a long time ago.