Miles Off Course (23 page)

“Are you planning on finishing your painting for the classical figures exhibition?” Clyde’s voice was painstakingly casual. “The one of Miss Martinelli?”

Rowland hadn’t thought of the model in some time. “Only if I don’t have to use her again.”

“It’s hard to finish a piece like that from memory,” Clyde mumbled, “and it was coming along so well.”

Rowland’s brow rose. “You think I should get Rosalina Martinelli to pose for me again? Clyde… she’s impossible.”

Clyde reddened, and smiled self-consciously. “We all have to suffer for our art, Rowly.”

“Not that much.” For a time neither said a word.

“Have you forgotten all the weeping and praying?” Rowland asked finally.

“You can’t hold a moral upbringing against her, Rowly.”

“Why not? It’s damned inconvenient.”

Clyde shrugged. “I’m just saying, she’s rather pretty.”

Rowland stared at him. “Why don’t you ask her to model for you then?”

“I’m not really interested in her as a model.” Clyde sighed, coming clean at last.

Rowland laughed. “All the more reason to ask her to model for you, I should think.”

Clyde looked ahead. “That would be highly unprofessional, Rowly.” He smiled. “Besides, I think I’d rather be the shoulder she cries on.”

Removing his hat, Rowland wiped his brow with his forearm. “She does do rather a lot of that, Clyde old man.” He shook his head in disbelief. Clyde had always been the most
level-headed of them. “Are you sure? You might find her moral upbringing more inconvenient than I did.”

Clyde sighed again. “Quite possibly. But Cupid’s arrows don’t always fly straight.”

“Cupid’s arrows? Good Lord, you sound like Milt!”

Clyde looked startled. “You won’t mention this to Milt, will you? He’d never let me…”

“No, I won’t tell him.”

“And you’ll re-hire Miss Martinelli?”

“Falling in love with models is rather a bad idea, Clyde.”

“She won’t be my model.”

Rowland groaned. “She’s Catholic at least. That should make your mother happy.”

Clyde grinned. “Thanks Rowly. You’re a mate.”

“So it seems.”

Clyde’s romantic ambitions thus sorted, the conversation moved to more technical subjects. Rowland had been experimenting with the palette knife over the summer. The resultant work was
softer and more textured. It suited his style and he was quite intrigued with its possibilities. Clyde was committed to his brushes, insisting that he had no desire to become a plasterer.

It was in the midst of this good-natured debate that they first noticed the smoke.

“W
hat the devil?” Rowland stood in the saddle and squinted towards the smoke. It was clearly more than the output of the fire pit.

Clyde kicked his horse into a gallop. Rowland followed suit. The smoke thickened, a billowing column churning skyward. Rope’s End came into view. It was ablaze.

The horses baulked but Clyde and Rowland urged them on and brought them up to the burning hut in a cloud of dust and panic.

“Rowly!” Edna screamed from near the door.

Rowland slipped off his mount and ran to her. He seized Edna in his arms, forgetting himself in his relief. It was short-lived.

“Rowly, Milt’s still in there.”

“Mr. Isaacs! Mr. Isaacs!” Sarah Brent shouted into the window. It was impossible to see anything through the smoke.

Rowland released Edna. They didn’t waste any further time. Clyde gulped air and entered the hut bent low as the flames engulfed the roof. Rowland dived in after him. The room was black
with smoke. Rowland stumbled first on the body facedown in the middle of the floor.

“Clyde!” He kept one hand on the body and reached for Clyde with the other. A beam crashed down somewhere in the hut. Rowland could hear Edna scream outside. The heat was intense, it
seemed to suck the air from their lungs. There was no time for anything but a blind frantic lunge for the door, dragging the body between them. They pulled Milton clear of the hut, and collapsed
beside him, coughing black soot and choking for clean air.

Edna knelt beside Milton. She rolled him over, calling his name. Sarah Brent loosened the unconscious poet’s cravat. Clyde was still coughing. Rowland was on his knees, gasping.

Sarah Brent took charge. She held Milton’s head in the crook of her arm and dribbled water from a canteen onto his blistered lips. At first, nothing, but she persisted. Eventually,
wondrously, Milton gagged and spluttered, and finally he swore.

Edna smiled faintly, reassured by the spontaneous profanity. She passed the canteen to Clyde and Rowland, concerned now for them.

They watched, bewildered, as Rope’s End burned to the ground. The fire did not spread—the area around the hut was too bare to provided passage away from its source. In time, the roar
of the flames subsided and Rowland was able to make his hoarse, scorched voice heard. “What happened?”

“A log rolled out of the fireplace and caught.” Edna stared at the remains of the hut. “Milt went back in with a blanket to try and put it out.”

Milton winced as Sarah Brent poured water over the burns on his left hand and wrist. “I knocked over one of the bottles of Eichorn’s Snakebite Cure that were on the mantel,” he
rasped. “Bloody thing exploded.” He brought his good hand gingerly to the back of his head. “I must’ve knocked myself out when I fell.”

Clyde raised himself onto his elbows. “That was a close shave, Milt.”

Rowland nodded. “Next time just let the place burn.”

“Well, it did anyway,” Sarah Brent said curtly, tearing some of the fabric from her voluminous skirt to make bandages.

Rowland dragged himself to his feet and offered his hand to Clyde. “If you ladies can take care of Milt, Clyde and I had better go and catch the horses.” He spotted the two saddled
animals not far away. “Then we’ll work out what to do.”

As it turned out, Clyde and Rowland were able to retrieve only four of the five horses they had hired from Lawrence Keenan. They took those animals down to the creek for
watering before tethering them to a tree.

They returned to find Milton sitting up, demanding the return of his cravat.

Rowland put down the pail of water he had brought up from the creek and sat on a log.

“How’s Milt?” he asked Sarah Brent, because she seemed to know what she was doing.

“He should be seen by a doctor as soon as possible,” she replied, wrapping strips of soaked cloth around the poet’s blistered hand.

“Can he ride?”

“I’m fine,” Milton muttered, straightening.

“The burns will probably be more painful in a while,” Sarah Brent said, frowning. “But he should be able to stay on a horse.”

“We’re down one horse,” Clyde said. “And it’s too long a ride for one horse to take two of us.”

“Mr. Isaacs needs to see a doctor as soon as possible.” Sarah was insistent.

“What if we do this?” Rowland glanced from the horses to his companions. “Clyde, you and Miss Brent ride back to Rules Point with Milt. Ed and I will take the other horse and
ride for O’Shea’s. It’s just over an hour away. I’m sure they’ll give us shelter for the night.”

“Shouldn’t you send Ed back?” Clyde asked. “I could stay with you.”

Rowland shook his head. “The weight of the two of us would be too hard on the horse. There isn’t much of Ed at the moment.” He glanced at Sarah Brent and continued hesitantly,
fully expecting to cause the writer offence. “I’d be happier knowing you were escorting Milton and Miss Brent… just in case.”

The writer bristled momentarily, but she said nothing.

Rowland moved on quickly.

“Once you get back to Rules Point, send someone back to us with an extra horse, just in case O’Shea’s men don’t have one spare.”

Clyde nodded. He could see the sense of Rowland’s plan. He checked the position of the sun. “Fair enough. If we move quickly, we’ll get most of the way before dark. We
don’t want to be stuck out overnight without swags.”

“We’re lucky the saddles weren’t in the hut.” Rowland walked over to his horse and pulled his riding coat from the pack behind the saddle. He’d worn it that morning
so it had survived the fire. The day wasn’t yet too cold, but the weather in the mountains was highly localised and temperamental.

“Take this,” he said, pushing the riding coat into the saddlebag of Milton’s horse. Sarah Brent seemed to have a shawl but Milton’s overcoat had obviously been in the
hut.

“What about you and Ed?” Milton protested.

“We don’t have as far to go.”

Rowland and Clyde saddled and checked the horses, and refilled the canteens, while Sarah Brent and Edna tried to protect Milton’s injuries for the journey. For the moment the poet did not
seem too bad, but he was unusually quiet.

“Look, Clyde,” Rowland watched the poet, anxiously, “as soon as you’ve made sure Milt’s all right, would you get in touch with your brothers?”

“Why?”

“I need some men I can trust. They’d know the locals. I want a dozen men up here to look for Harry. I’ll pay whatever wages they want.”

Clyde snorted. It was clear Rowland hadn’t made the Sinclair fortune. “Okay. I’ll send word to Jim. I’m sure he knows a few blokes who would be glad of a job. What about
Moran’s crew?”

“I haven’t decided if I need to sack them yet, but I don’t trust them to look for Harry.”

Clyde nodded. “Fair enough.” He glanced back at the smouldering hut. “They’re going to get a surprise when they come back.”

“That won’t be for a few days. Hopefully by then we’ll have sorted this jolly mess out.”

They helped Milton into the saddle, and tethered his horse to Clyde’s. The poet’s hand was too painful to grip the reins properly.

Edna said goodbye a little tearfully. “You look after Milt,” she entreated Clyde. “I’m not sure he should be riding.”

“I’ll be all right,” the poet said slowly. “I won the buck jumping, remember?”