Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (12 page)

Burriwi himself hovered overhead, and he wagged his head even as he smiled. “There you are. Ready to sit up? Wanna wait awhile more?”

Surely this nightmare would right itself if viewed from the vertical. Luke struggled to sit up, but he wouldn’t have made it even that far without strong hands helping. Not just his nose burned. His left arm blazed. His ribs ached. Fire tortured his left shoulder. Blood kept trickling down into his left eye. He sloshed a handful of seawater on his face to wash it clear and looked to Burriwi for some sort of explanation.

The loincloth-clad aborigine hunkered down in front of him. “Coral cuts, they don’ heal up for forever. No worries. Jus’ tell your grandkids is ’nitiation scars like these.” He thumped the pattern of cicatrices on his own chest. “Is true, eh? Now you’re ’nitiated about coral.”

“You can afford a little optimism. It’s not your blood.” The confusion abated and anger took over as he realized what he had done—and had not done. He would never have made such an off-kilter lunge among rocks back home. Too dangerous. And yet these rocks were just as hard; worse, they claimed the paradox of being at once rounded or flat and very, very sharp. They had torn his left sleeve nearly off in their eagerness to lay open his arm.

The two grandsons, with gleaming grins on their black faces, brandished the little shark between them. Out of the water, it looked even less like a shark, not even a brown-blotched parody of a shark.

Why had Luke worked so vigorously for
that
? Had he not moved a muscle, the lithe boys would have caught it all the same. His efforts were not only useless but damaging—to him.

Luke gestured toward them. “Dinner tonight?”

“There’s better-tasting fish than that one. But that one is caught; that makes it better than all the fish swimming in the coral, eh? Here. You think nothing’s broke mebbe, I give you a hand up.”

Luke surveyed the visible damage and identified by its pain that damage not easily seen. “I don’t read your book very well, Burriwi.”

The bright grin widened. “Naw, is okay. You jus’ skipped a couple pages, eh?”

Chapter Nine

By Hook or Crook

Viewed from afar, from out in the open, the rain forest was not just a smooth green carpet to cover the angular mountains. It was a very nubby blanket, a globby patchwork of many kinds of green. Here and there at random, deep green trees with white limbs stood head high above the jumble. They seemed out of place, too tall for the forest they found themselves in. Palm trees studded the steep slopes with frothy mounds of pale green.

Samantha stood at the south end of Cole Sloan’s latest clearing near the water’s edge. From here she could see not just the clearing but the clearing process. Very near her, workers were churning up the rusty-black forest soil. Moldy loam that had not felt the heat of direct sun in millennia began immediately to dry out under the unbroken sky. Over there they were ripping out brush, pulling big stumps with the big draught horses and smaller roots with Sheba, hacking at mangled low growth with cane knives. On the far side they were just now cutting into virgin forest.

The measured cadence of
che, che, che
ended. An expectant silence, the passage of a long moment, and one of the palms shimmied. Slowly, gracefully, with an air of disbelief, it tipped out over the clearing. It slammed into the underbrush. Almost instantly the axes’
che, che, che
commenced again.

Samantha gave the pot of rice a stir. She dipped out a few grains and pinched them. Ready. “Meg, put the bread and cheese out. Linnet, be the fruit bowls on the table?”

“Almost.”

Samantha rolled her eyes skyward. The easiest job of all, and …

She motioned to Fat Dog and stepped up to the open fire. The aboriginal stable foreman gripped one end of the spit and Samantha took the other. Together they swung the side of roast mutton onto a wooden slab. Fat Dog commenced whacking it apart with his big machete. He was far more efficient with that thing than Samantha could hope to be with a properly honed butcher knife. She cut the savory chunks into serving pieces.

Meg rang the dinner gong just a bit prematurely, but no matter. It would take the workers at the far end of the clearing a while to get here.

Laborers brown, white, and black came crowding around, laughing, jostling, boasting, sweating. None seemed interested in washing. They queued up, tin plates and spoons in hand. Meg plopped great dollops of rice on the plates and Samantha served the mutton. She tried to do it properly and in sanitary fashion, but her apron and hands were greasy in moments.

The line dwindled. The last of the crew arrived, accepted their food and wandered off to eat. There was no such thing here as a properly laid table. The bowl of jam and the bread, cheese and fruit were set out on split logs on the ground, a puncheon table without legs. Men filled their plates and sat about anywhere the notion struck.

By the time Samantha could fill her own plate, the ants had found the jam and cheese, and flies covered the mutton. She was almost accustomed to picking off the bugs before dining. Almost. It would never be easy. She seated herself on the tailgate of Fat Dog’s wagon and ate just as eagerly as the rest.

From beyond the forest wall came Mr. Sloan, riding Gypsy along the rough track. Samantha put her plate aside quickly and tossed a chunk of mutton onto the embers. By the time Mr. Sloan arrived and dismounted, she had warmed up his meat and filled his plate. He perched on the tailgate and watched her curiously.

She hesitated not at all. He knew where she had been sitting. She picked her plate up and settled back into her place.

He poked at the rice. “What’s in it?”

“I’ve nae idea, sir. Fat Dog’s wife showed Linnet this herb and it smelled as if it would complement rice well. So I tried it out because rice gets rather boring after a time.”

“Tastes good.” He smiled. “Very adaptable of you.”

“Until I choose the wrong herb and we all turn shoe soles up one dreadful morning.”

He chuckled. “I’ll risk it for some decent food.” He waved his arm toward the ruined forest. “Not what you’re used to, is it?”

“Meself sat here thinking the very thing when ye rode in. Unimaginable to this Irish city girl. Nae proper furniture, nae proper tableware, few kitchen implements, open fires. And all these mouths to feed. A side of mutton roasted whole, and see—it be nearly gone. What frightens me, may I be so bold, is that ’tis not nearly as alien to me as it ought be. I
like
the refinements of civilization. I dinnae want to become inured to savagery.”

“Adapting and becoming hardened aren’t the same thing.”

“Too close for me comfort.” She set her empty plate aside and studied for a while the flat wall of forest at the far side of the clearing. “Curious. Here’s meself, preferring all the trimmings of the civil life, and yet … and yet, there be a profound sadness about watching the forest die.”

“Die? Poor choice of words. The forest isn’t dying any more than a caterpillar dies as it turns into a butterfly. ‘Transform’ is the word.”

She looked at the tangled green wreckage and the fallen giants, and kept her tongue in check.

Mr. Sloan pronounced an ugly word. He was staring at the track. From the forest trail came a mill worker pushing a handbarrow heaped high with something. Samantha couldn’t see what, for the barrow was covered with a wet sheet or tarpaulin of some sort. The man brought the barrow almost nigh and unceremoniously dumped it. Short thick chunks of green wood they were. He tugged at the wet sheet until it more or less covered them and turned to leave.

“What’s going on, Dakins?” Mr. Sloan demanded.

“Sir?” The burly man put his barrow down. “Your bananas.”

“I know. Why a hand barrow?”

“Mr. Gantry told me to, sir. Only thing about.”

“Send him up here.”

“Aye, sir.” The man picked up his barrow handles and trundled off, in no hurry.

Samantha looked at her employer quizzically.

Mr. Sloan scowled at his mutton. “Gonna take ’em forever to bring up the banana stocks with a handbarrow. What can he be thinking of?”

“Ye might use Fat Dog’s wagon here, sir, if need be. Meself need not take things back to the house just yet.”

“We have wagons and oxen. Gantry’s out of line.”

The mill foreman appeared in person with the next barrow load, followed by that same burly man and another wheelbarrow. “Ye wished to see me, Mr. Sloan?”

“What’s going on?”

“All our oxcarts are on the road, sir. This is what we got left to haul your rootstocks.”

“On the road carting what?”

“Your downed cane. You said get rid of it any way I found. I tried dumping it in the sea but it floated back in and the boys say it messes up the fishing too much. Since most of them live on fish, I figured I best find someplace else. I was gonna just go dump it in the bush somewhere, but the oxcarts have trouble getting off the road with it. Then Vinson came along with th—”

“Vinson!”

“Aye. Took it off m’ hands for free. Only charged me for the stuff we’d chopped, because it’s so hard to transport, he says. And so I loaned him use of some oxcarts, since he’s doing us a favor more or less. Carts should be back in a few days.”

“Took it where?!”

“Don’ matter by me, sir. Took it. Between the oxcarts and the sugar trams, he sent it all down to Townsville, I think.”

“And we’re left with two wheelbarrows to plant forty acres of bananas and twenty of cane!”

“Three barrows, sir. And I might with your permission use Fat Dog’s wagon here a few hours. Uh, you say you want to put twenty acres more into sugar?”

“Told you that weeks ago.”

“Aye. Forgot. I think we still got enough if we dig some out of the established fields.”

“You got rid of
all
the fallen stuff?”

“It’s whatcha said, sir. Don’t worry. I’m sure I can come up with enough good joints to put in twenty acres.” Hastily Mr. Gantry dipped his head and snatched up his empty barrow. Away he went.

Mr. Sloan stared after him. “Vinson!”

“Excuse me ignorance, sir; what would a preacher wish with a mountain of useless green sugar cane?”

“I plan to find out.”

“And ye feel nae gratitude that he solved a weighty problem for ye? Even admiration?”

“Do you admire a fox for his skill at reaching the hens? The meddler’s up to something.” And Mr. Sloan returned to his herb-flavored rice.

In Ireland one might prepare a plot for planting by first removing the tons of rocks and stones. Then one would plow the whole, disk or harrow the rough furrows, and perhaps hand rake it as a last touch. Of course, in that last pass one would remove further tons of rock and stone.

Not here. Stones like bald white heads lay wherever they appeared. The ground remained all chopped up and lumpy, for no one took the trouble to smooth it in any way. Sticks and leaves and severed branches stuck out of the tortured dirt, and you just knew that in a few days the weeds would be back—the forest’s first steps toward reclaiming its own. In this jumbled plot that could nowise be called a garden a score of hands planted the banana stocks.

Samantha the cook found herself pressed to service as farmhand as well. Under penetrating sun they worked, burying in the disturbed soil each chunk of banana plant along with a few fish for fertilizer. The scrambled mess which Mr. Sloan called his banana patch was completed by evening, but supper would be late.

Finally, after an eternity in the broiling sun, Samantha could return to the dark and quiet kitchen. Her nose would probably never forgive her for frying it so today. She tried to wash her poor roughened hands. They smelled of thoroughly dead fish, no matter how hard she scrubbed. Her fingernails were broken back to the quick, and yet they still tenaciously held dirt that could not be brushed out, try as she might.

Why did Mr. Sloan hate Luke Vinson so? Was it those notes or something else, something deeper? And what could the preacher man ever want with all those oxcart-loads of useless vegetation? Such a disquieting place this was! Samantha felt even more an alien and she couldn’t explain why. Nothing seemed to fit right; nothing lined up correctly with what she had always assumed was common sense.

She tried to write a long letter to Mum that night. She said they planted bananas but there she stopped. How could she describe the lackadaisical way they halfway cleared the land? Her parents would think this place even more savage than it was. Mum’s letters already as much as accused Samantha of living in a grass hut and eating insects. Or would they, after all, be right?

She found herself wandering through the darkened house. She rapped softly at the office door and obeyed the call to enter. “Would ye be liking tea or such, sir, before I retire?”

“Your father’s a cabinetmaker, you said.” His sleeves were rolled to the elbow and his shirt open. He looked even wearier than Samantha felt.

“Aye, sir.”

“What does he pay for planed ebony and mahogany?”

“I’ve nae inkling, sir, but I’m writing to them tonight. I can ask.”

“Do that. I want the retail price he pays as a workman. All the major hardwoods, particularly imports. A steamboat will be leaving Mossman Friday morning. Make sure your letter’s aboard her and request a prompt reply. Tell him I asked.”

“Aye, sir. Tea?”

He rubbed his face. “Why not? What’s in the pantry?”

“Meself’ll prepare ye a tray as the water’s heating.”

He nodded and stared at his desk. “Serve me an extra five hundred pounds sterling along with tea while you’re about it.”

“I’ll check the pantry, sir, and fetch whatever money I find there.”

Their eyes met and for a delicious moment shared the escape that friendly banter provides. She returned to the kitchen with a lovely, strangely warm feeling. For a few brief minutes at least she was shaking that miserable sense of alienation.

The fruit bread was gone so she sliced fresh fruit itself and arranged it on a platter. She thought long and hard about putting two teacups on the tray and decided on one. Two would be presumptuous. Then genius struck. She would leave a teacup and saucer on the mantel in the parlor halfway between kitchen and office. Should he suggest she get a cup and join him, she could do so quickly. Delighted by her own cleverness, she returned to the office and poured tea for her master.