The Cattleman's English Rose

CHAPTER THREE

THEY took off down Mirrabrook’s main street, passing a little wooden church, the police station and the tiny post office, several shops and offices, a freshly painted café, and a larger modern building which housed the library and the Mirrabrook Star, the local newspaper.

Then followed a row of little timber houses with iron roofs, deep, shady verandas and front gardens bright with flowers, and suddenly gum trees crowded close to the narrow blue bitumen and the road plunged into bush again.

Shortly after that they came to a signpost pointing to Breakaway Station and Southern Cross Station and they took a dogleg turn off the main road and were rattling along a dusty and bumpy outback track.

Beneath a startling blue sky the stark landscape flashed past in a blur of brown and khaki streaks—dusty green foliage, grey-brown tree trunks and pink-red earth showing through a scant covering of dry grass. In the distance menacing mountains loomed, studded with black granite boulders. The Star Valley was nothing like the pretty valley Charity had expected. She didn’t understand how civilised people could give this wilderness such a charming name. The valleys of her experience were pleasant green and grassy dips in a gentle English landscape, more like folds in a green velvet skirt.

Of course, she had known that a valley in Outback Queensland would be different from one in Derbyshire. Her brother’s letters had told her about the vast and rugged outback, but somehow she’d never quite grasped how very vast and how exceedingly rugged it was.

And now, as she looked out into the rushing bush, she shuddered. It was into this wild, hostile wilderness that Tim had vanished. Seeing the inhospitable landscape for herself made his disappearance even more impossible to accept, too awful to believe. Where, oh, where was her fearless, daredevil little brother?

The truck hit a deep wheel rut and she was forced to clutch the door handle and brace herself with her feet against the floorboards. Why on earth had Tim been so eager to come to Australia? If she had had the chance to travel, she would have chosen to visit elegant European cities like Paris or Venice, Vienna or Prague.

Not this endless bush.

She’d read an article on the plane that said Australia was twenty-four times the size of Great Britain—and Tim could be anywhere in this enormous country.

They travelled on and on over the winding dirt road, dipping down to cross rocky, dry creek beds, climbing out on the other side between steep red banks and then continuing across the plains till they reached yet another dry creek crossing.

What startled Charity most was that there were no signs of human habitation. And yet there had to be people somewhere because someone had placed a sign that said:

Beware

Cattle on the road.

And not far past that sign she saw a mob of strange-looking, droopy-eared cattle lying in the inadequate shade cast by dusty gum trees. The grass around them looked dead. ‘How on earth do you raise cattle in this country?’ she asked.

‘Your British breeds don’t do well here, but we have Brahman cross cattle that are bred for the tropics.’

‘But what do the poor things eat?’

‘Dried grass still has nutrients in it—a bit like dried fruit for us, but we give them supplements as well. The hard part is keeping enough water for them. We have to pump water out of the creeks up into troughs. When the dams and creeks dry up completely, we’re in trouble.’

‘Living out here must be hard work.’

He shrugged. ‘Who wants a cushy job?’

A well-paid cushy job was the goal of most of the fellows she’d met. A cushy job, a pretty little wife…

Apparently, Kane McKinnon wanted neither.

‘Of course, you’re seeing this country at its worst—at the end of the dry season,’ he said.

‘Is it very different after rain?’

‘You wouldn’t recognise it.’ After a bit he added, ‘We don’t hold the cattle here for too long. These properties are for breeding stock. You wouldn’t try to fatten them here. We’ve shipped all our young beasts over to our other property near Hughenden. With luck, they’ll fatten up nicely there.’

‘They certainly couldn’t grow very fat on this grass,’ Charity commented, but already her thoughts were straying from the plight of cattle and back to Tim. Was he lost and starving? ‘In England we often hear about people dying in the outback.’

‘Yeah, it happens.’ Kane stared ahead of him at the yellow track. ‘This is a tough country, but the people who perish are usually folk who don’t have a clue what they’re doing and should never have left the city in the first place. Your brother was a quick learner and I’m sure he’d be okay in the bush.’

She turned to look out through the side window and saw a grey kangaroo hopping with an easy, fluid bounce-bounce-bounce as it made its way between the trees. It was her first kangaroo sighting, and she might have been excited if she wasn’t so worried.

‘What was Tim’s state of mind?’ she asked. ‘Did he seem happy?’

‘He was fine. Look, the one thing I like about your brother is his ability to keep to himself. He quietly got on with the job and he didn’t have to be the centre of attention. He fitted in well out here. I’m sure he’s still doing well wherever he is.’

Kane sounded so certain that Tim was fine that Charity wondered again if he knew more than he was letting on. Was he hiding the truth from her? She turned to study him. His eyes met hers and he sent her a quick, reassuring smile and she realised with something of a start that she wanted him to do it again. In that momentary flash of friendly warmth, the mockery had left his eyes and his mouth had softened and she’d felt a queer little kick in the stomach.

They stopped under the shade of trees beside a creek to drink from their water bottles.

‘At least you’ll be safe from Marsha out here,’ Kane said as Charity took more tablets to keep her headache at bay.

She was surprised to hear him make such an ambiguous comment about his girlfriend. ‘When will we reach Southern Cross?’

‘We’ve been travelling on the property for the past half hour. Won’t be too much longer now.’

She had no idea what to expect when they finally reached the McKinnon’s home, but five minutes later they pulled up outside a tiny, tumbledown shack, and Kane jumped out of the truck and began to untie the tarpaulin covering the load in the back.

Her heart sank as she stared at the house. This was Southern Cross homestead? It was a sorry sight, crouching in a dusty paddock beneath a rusty iron roof, with a sagging front veranda and unpainted timber walls left to weather to a silvery-grey. And Charity started to question her impulsive decision.

Her headache returned as she pushed the passenger door open and stepped down into the dirt. The heat of the sun beat on to the back of her neck and her unsuitable clothes stuck to her. With every step, her feet picked up fine red dust that slipped between her sandals and the soles of her feet and caught between her toes.

Kane hefted two boxes of groceries from the truck and balanced them on his shoulders.

‘Can I help?’ she asked.

‘Could you grab that box of tinned stuff?’

‘Certainly.’

As she followed him into the hut the wooden front steps creaked ominously. A dog barked and she saw that a blue speckled dog had been tied up to one of the veranda posts.

‘G’day, Bruiser,’ called Kane. ‘Is the boss home?’

The dog seemed to go back to sleep as Kane shoved the front door open with one elbow. Charity couldn’t suppress a shudder as she followed him inside. Surely Kane’s sister Annie couldn’t be responsible for this untidy interior? The floors looked as if they hadn’t been swept for weeks. An old coffee table was littered with beer cans, magazines and filthy ash trays. There were no curtains at the windows and a piece of fraying hessian had been tacked over one frame in place of glass.

The floor of the narrow passage leading to the back of the house was covered by cracked linoleum that looked a thousand years old. Kane carried the groceries through to the kitchen and dumped them on a rickety table before opening the fridge.

Charity gasped. ‘It’s full of beer!’

He sent her a withering glance over his shoulder. ‘Blokes in the bush have to get their priorities right.’

‘But what about your sister? How could she live here?’

Slamming the fridge door shut again, he turned to her and rested his hands lightly on his hips. ‘I take it you’re not too impressed with this place?’

Charity gulped. She couldn’t bear the thought of living here, but her upbringing had made her excruciatingly tactful and she didn’t want to hurt Kane’s feelings.

His upper lip curled and his voice grew cold as he said, ‘Maybe you don’t have what it takes to look after a place like this.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she croaked. ‘But, to be honest, I can’t see much evidence that this house has been carefully looked after.’

He laughed then. Actually laughed. And she wanted to hit him. Her hands clenched and she drew in a sharp, angry breath. She was hot and headachy and worried about Tim and the thought of living in this messy, tiny, shabby hut was the last straw.

‘Chill, Chaz,’ he said.

‘Chill?’ she almost shouted.

‘Calm down. This isn’t Southern Cross homestead. This is an outstation, a camp the ringers use as a base when they’re mustering. One of the guys has stayed on here, keeping an eye on this neck of the woods, and I’m just topping up his supplies.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ She glared at him. ‘You can’t resist teasing me, can you?’

‘You left yourself wide open for that one.’

Again, she wanted to hit him.

‘Sorry,’ he said, but he didn’t look the slightest bit sorry. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been teasing Annie since she was knee high to a mosquito. It’s a bad habit.’

‘It certainly is. I feel very sorry for your sister and I’d appreciate it if you’d desist.’

‘Annie has a good sense of humour.’

‘Good for her. Mine disappeared along with my brother.’

That took the smug smile from his face.

Casting a quick eye over the kitchen, Kane shrugged. ‘It doesn’t look as if Ferret’s here, so I’ll leave this on the table and we may as well keep going.’

‘To Southern Cross?’

‘Yes.’

The ringers’ hut had shaken Charity’s fragile confidence and as they continued their rattling journey along the dirt track that wound its way through more dusty bush she prepared herself for more disappointment. She supposed that if people lived in the middle of nowhere there wasn’t much need to have a nice home to impress visitors, but she hadn’t realised that outback people managed with so few creature comforts.

How did women like Annie McKinnon cope?

‘This is our place coming up now.’ Kane’s voice broke into her thoughts. She peered ahead through the dusty windscreen and caught snatches of white and fresh green flashing between the trees.

Then they rounded a bend in the track and she saw iron gates painted pristine white and, beyond them, an expanse of green lawn flanked by lush palm trees and clumps of white bougainvillea, as pretty as bridal veils.

And then she saw Southern Cross homestead.

It was a huge, sprawling low-set house, built of timber painted snowy-white and wrapped around by deep, shady verandas. A garden of green shrubbery and white flowers fringed the verandas.

‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said, knowing she couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and found herself in Wonderland.

‘This place more to your taste?’ Kane asked.

It was like coming across an oasis in the desert. ‘It’s fantastic.’ Unable to contain her amazement, she asked, ‘How do you manage to keep the lawn so green?’

‘That’s old Vic’s job.’ Kane nodded towards the tree-lined watercourse that had run parallel to the road for the last part of their journey. ‘He pumps water up from the creek,’ he said. ‘But when the creek runs dry, we lose the lawn.’

‘Does that happen very often?’

‘Every few years we get a bad drought. If we don’t get a good wet season this year, we’ll be in trouble.’

He drove on around to the back of the house so that they could unload the stores directly to the kitchen pantry. As they pulled up a chorus of barking greeted them.

Dogs—a black Labrador, a blue and white spotted dog and a Border collie—came racing from several directions. Kane shot a sharp look in Charity’s direction.

‘Do dogs bother you?’

‘No, not at all. I love them. We have a Border collie at home.’

She noticed, however, that the collie, after peering hopefully up at the truck, turned and retreated to the veranda where it lay with its head on its paws, paying them no more attention.

‘That’s Lavender,’ Kane told her. ‘She’s Annie’s dog and she always mopes if Annie goes away.’

‘Oh, the poor thing.’

They climbed down from the truck. ‘The blue-heeler cattle dog’s mine,’ he said. ‘His name’s Roo.’

‘Hello, Roo.’ She gave his speckled head a friendly scratch.

‘And the Labrador’s Gypsy. She’s Reid’s dog.’

‘Oh, Gypsy, you’re very beautiful.’

A wizened, sunburned fellow, bowlegged no doubt from years astride a horse, ambled around the side of the house, and Charity was introduced to Vic. He beamed at her when she complimented him on the beautiful garden.

‘If you enjoy having flowers in the house, miss, pick as many as you like,’ he told her.

‘You’ll have a friend for life if you keep feeding him compliments,’ Kane said, as Vic left them. Then, with the greetings over, he ordered Gypsy and Roo to clear off. ‘We’ve got work to do,’ he told them. ‘So give us some room.’

The dogs retreated happily to lie in the shade and Kane and Charity unloaded the truck. As they carried boxes of groceries through to the pantry room, Charity stole curious glimpses down hallways and through doorways to the rest of the house. She gained an impression of unexpected coolness and casual elegance—of very high ceilings and polished timber floors, antique furniture and beautiful rugs.

The last thing she’d expected was to be charmed by Southern Cross. What a pity she was so worried about Tim.

If she wasn’t continually haunted by his disappearance she might have been able to enjoy working here.

Kane found his brother in the machinery shed, working on the diesel motor of one of the station’s trucks.

‘I’ve found us a housekeeper, so you don’t have to worry about getting dishpan hands.’

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