Matilda's Last Waltz (36 page)

A stunned silence filled the dusty room as all eyes turned towards them.

‘I'm sorry, but if you feel like that then perhaps you'd be better off moving away.'

Black mascara tears rolled down her face. ‘I don't want to go bloody travelling,' she snivelled. ‘What I want is here. Can't you see how I feel about you?'

He felt like a dirty yellow dingo, and hung his head. ‘I never realised,' he muttered. ‘I'm sorry, Lorraine, but you got me wrong. I thought you understood.' He couldn't look her in the face, he was too ashamed.

‘You bastard,' she hissed. ‘It's that hoity-toity Mrs Sanders you're after, isn't it? Get her into yer bed, and you got Churinga. Well, you'll get yours, mate. You'll see. She'll go back to the city where she belongs and you'll be out on yer flamin' ear. But don't expect me to be waiting for you – I'll be long gone.'

‘What the flaming hell is going on in here?' Lorraine's father still retained thick traces of a Russian accent that mingled strangely with his Aussie twang.

Brett looked at Nicolai Kominski and shook his head, relieved at the interruption. ‘No worries, Nick. Lorraine's just letting off a bit of steam. She'll be right.'

The full glass of beer hit him in the face and drenched his shirt. ‘Don't patronise me, you bastard!' she yelled.

Nick grasped his daughter's hand. He was shorter by several inches, and whip thin, but he seemed to have the measure of her. ‘I flaming told you, girl. This man not interested. I find good Russian boy. You settle down. Have kids.'

Lorraine shook him off. ‘I don't want some flamin' immigrant. This isn't flamin' Moscow.' She left the bar, heels licking like castanets on the floorboards.

Nickolia shrugged and poured himself a vodka which he sank in one. ‘Women,' he sighed. ‘That girl cause trouble ever since her mama die.'

Despite the soaking, Brett couldn't help but grin. ‘She fair let rip, Nick, and no mistake. I'm real sorry she's upset but I never…'

Nickolia waved away his apology and poured him a shot of vodka. ‘I know, I know. You fine man, Brett, but not for my Lorraine. I get Russian boy for her, shut her up good.'

He laughed and slapped the bar with a bony hand. ‘Women don't know what is good for them until a man tells them. I see to Lorraine. No worrying.'

Brett took the shot in one, then finished his beer and reached for his hat. He had no wish to get into a long drinking session with Nick; he'd done it before and ended up with a sore head that lasted for days. And his system was already overloaded after the sessions with John and Davey.

‘See you at the races, mate.' He left the hotel and climbed into the ute. The episode in the bar had disturbed him. He was sorry he'd hurt Lorraine but had had no idea she'd felt so strongly. Hindsight told him he'd been playing with fire and had just been too bloody dumb to notice.

Chapter Thirteen

Jenny and Ripper had fallen into an easy routine once Brett and the others had gone and in the peace and solitude of an autumnal Churinga she felt the healing begin. She had needed this space and time to find the inner calm that had been missing for too long. To evaluate her life and the tragedy which would always be with her, and deal with the anger. She found she could examine that rage now, distance herself from it, understand it was a necessary part of her healing and then put it away. Memories of Peter and Ben would remain throughout her life. although this was still painful, she'd come to realise it was time to let them go.

The days followed a seamless rhythm, melting one into another with a soothing influence that brought her inner strength with which to face the future. The mornings were spent tramping the fields or riding out to the winter pastures to capture the sights and sounds of the men and the great white flock. The stock horses were mean-mouthed and half wild, the men who rode them just as tough and unforgiving. Here was rugged colour set against pale grass and blue mountain, and as her pencil flew over the paper, Jenny tried to capture the movement and strength in the scenes.

Ripper trotted along beside her. When he was tired, she would put him in the saddle-bag where he sat grinning with pleasure as the cooling breeze flapped his ears. In the heat of the afternoon, they would find a cool spot on the verandah and Jenny would put the morning's work on canvas. She worked with a speed and skill she'd never known before – as if there was a time limit on what she was doing, an inner force that urged her not to waste a second.

With autumn slowly creeping towards winter, the early-morning dew sparkled in the grass and the nights became cold enough to light the cooking range and snuggle in a chair in front of it. Ripper snuffling at her feet, Jenny once more immersed herself in Matilda's world.

This was the largest diary, covering the greatest number of years. The writing was more forceful than in the previous books, the sentences shorter, as if Matilda had had little time to record the events of that busy time.

*   *   *

1930 brought the Depression into the outback. It had swept through the cities, leaving women and children to fend for themselves and collect the dole as their men went tramping. These itinerant swaggies humped their blueys from one station to another in search of food and employment. They were a ragged army of nomads, searching for something that existed only in their minds. There was a restlessness about them which drove them into the unknown, and they never stayed in one place for very long. It was as if the purity and vast loneliness of the land beyond the Black Stump encouraged them to drift and it beat sleeping in the Sydney Domain.

Matilda buried her money beneath the floorboards and kept a loaded rifle by the door. Although the majority of the swaggies were harmless, it wasn't worth taking the risk. There were rich pickings around Wallaby Flats, especially after word got out of an opal find in a long disused mine, and as the recession deepened it brought the bad men from the cities. Men who looked at her with eyes like Mervyn's. Men who wanted more than a hot meal and a bed in a barn.

But the women who accompanied their men Matilda admired and could empathise with. As tough as the land they traversed, this new generation of Sundowner meandered across the outback in wagons that clanked with pots and pans and billy cans. Like Peg some of them were cheerful, others sour – and yet she could understand why they hid the sorrows their lonely lives brought them. She knew that somewhere in the vast Never Never was a special tree or stone that marked the burial place of a child, a husband or a friend. These places might seem unimportant to others but their significance would forever be carried in these stoic hearts.

The men helped with the chores in return for flour and sugar and a few shillings. And as food was cheap, Matilda always made sure they left Churinga with full bellies. When they left, they were replaced by another man, another wagon, another family.

Matilda knew what it was to fight for survival. Thanks to Tom, who still let her share his shed, the wool cheques enabled her to restock with good breeding rams and ewes, and to hire a couple of drovers. These men were generally easy to come by but finding the ones who would work for a woman was more difficult. The bushmen had their own set way of thinking, which did not include woman bosses, and yet this taciturn attitude soon turned to respect when they stayed long enough to discover that Matilda asked no more of them than she was prepared and able to do herself. She took on Mike Preston and Wally Peebles who'd come down from Mulga country where their boss had gone bankrupt, and was glad of their company with so many drifters coming on to the property.

Ethan Squires was proving a wily adversary. Although he never came to Churinga again she could feel his malignant influence on her land. Fences were dismantled so her mob wandered into his pastures, their markings obliterated by the green dye of the Kurrajong pine tree. Lambs were snatched as the ewes dropped them and one of her rams found with its throat too neatly cut to have been the victim of a boar or dingo. Yet she and her drovers had no proof against Squires. Despite the endless patrolling of her fields and the long nights spent sleeping rough it was impossible to cover every acre, and he always seemed to know where Matilda was most vulnerable.

It was winter, the air frosty enough to cloud her breath as she lay silently beside Lady in the dry gully that traversed the far corner of the southern pasture. The others were patrolling nearby fields where the breeding programme was in full swing. She'd opted for the more isolated corner of Churinga. It was quiet in the darkness, the thin blanket poor insulation against the chill. Even the sheep huddled together in miserable silence.

The sound that jarred her from a light sleep was soft, stealthy and very close. Too sly to be a wild pig, but careful enough for a dingo. Matilda eased back the firing pin and crouched in the shadows. Her night vision was good and she soon spotted the moving figures near her fence. These hunters came on two legs, and their purpose was obvious.

She moved silently down the gully, keeping low and in the shadows until she was behind them. Bluey followed her, teeth bared, hackles rising. There was tension in his stance, a pent-up readiness to spring in his powerful shoulders, but he seemed to understand the need for silence and waited for her signal to attack.

The three men began to cut through the smooth wire and dismantle the fence posts. The sheep shifted uneasily. Dogs whined. Matilda waited.

‘Keep those bloody dogs quiet,' hissed a familiar voice.

The coldness that ran through her had nothing to do with the chill of winter but was akin to hatred. Billy, the runt of the Squires litter, was doing his father's dirty work.

‘I wish I could see her face when she finds half her mob gone!'

‘You bloody will if we don't get a move on,' rasped Squires' stockman. ‘Get those dogs working. Now!'

Matilda waited until her mob was almost gathered then stood up, rifle poised, fifteen-year-old Billy Squires in her sights. ‘That's far enough. One more move and I shoot.'

Bluey's growl accompanied her threat, but still he waited for her signal.

The three men froze but their dogs kept working the sheep nearer and nearer to the gap in the fence.

Her shots thudded into the ground at Billy's feet, kicking up dust and making him jump. The sheep took fright as she knew they would and scattered to every corner of the field. She pumped two more cartridges into the barrel and held the stock firm. ‘Call off the dogs and get off my land,' she yelled.

Blue's belly scraped the earth as he sidled towards another Queensland Blue – a brute of a dog, the leader of the pack, with long fangs and a nasty snarl. Still the three men hesitated.

‘You ain't gonna shoot that thing, Matilda. You wouldn't bloody dare.' Billy didn't sound as confident as his words.

‘Try me,' she replied grimly. Her finger squeezed the trigger, the boy clear in her sights.

The men muttered uneasily but it was Billy who first broke away and headed for Kurrajong land on the other side of the fence.

The two dogs were at stand off. Drooling, wild-eyed and with hackles high, they circled each other on stiff legs. ‘Call it off or I'll kill it,' she warned.

The sharp whistle was almost lost in the thunder of approaching hooves. Matilda didn't have to take her eye off Billy to know Wally and Mike had heard her shots. ‘Round 'em up, boys. They've got a fence to mend and sheep to catch.'

The men from Kurrajong ran for their horses, but they were no match for a stock whip, a lasso and a very angry dog. Matilda climbed on to Lady's back and joined Mike and Wally whose rifles were covering the working men. Once satisfied her fences were back in place, she turned to Mike. ‘Tie them up. It's time Billy boy went home to Daddy.'

Mike grinned as he helped to round up the horses and truss the squirming, furious men over their saddles. With Bluey snapping at their dangling feet and hands, they began the long trek to Kurrajong homestead.

The sun had almost set on another day as they passed through the final pasture and saw Kurrajong sprawled before them. There were lights glimmering from every window of that elegant stone house, spilling over the formal gardens that swept down to the river, highlighting the deep shadows in the trees and surrounding barns.

Matilda hauled in the reins and all three of them stopped to stare at the majestic sight. Known as one of the richest stations in New South Wales, it had nevertheless come as a shock to see it for the first time. She gaped at the two-storey house with its fine balconies and intricate iron lacework. Sighed when she saw the lush lawn and the sweep of rose bushes and weeping willows. How beautiful it all was.

Then her gaze fell on Billy and her admiration drained away. Squires already had more than enough. How dare he encourage his youngest son to steal? She took the reins more firmly and kicked Lady forward. It was time to give that bastard a piece of her mind.

With the others following closely behind they made a strange procession down the immaculate driveway, but Matilda's anger was far too great for such grandeur to distract her. With a signal to the others to stay put, she climbed off Lady and marched up the steps to hammer on the front door.

Squires emerged, filling the frame, almost blotting out the light which streamed from the hall behind him. He was obviously startled to see her.

Matilda caught a glimpse of rich carpets and crystal chandeliers – and she wasn't impressed. ‘I caught Billy stealing my mob,' she said coldly.

His jaw dropped as he saw the three helpless bundles thrown across the saddles. Then hardened as he noticed Mike and Wally's rifles pointed at his youngest son. His glacial stare returned to Matilda. ‘They must have wandered on to your land by mistake,' he said with icy contempt.

‘Bullshit!' she spat. ‘I saw them taking down my fences. They even had their dogs with them.' She swept her arm towards the pack that snapped and snarled at one another between the horses' legs.