‘There!’ Mrs Allinson said briskly. ‘Now! Go to the bunkhouse with my men and strip off. You’ll have dry stuff in your swags?’
‘If they ain’t got soaked,’ Mal said rather gloomily, but he need not have worried. His bedroll was dampish but the clean shirt and breeches rolled up inside were dry, if rather creased. And presently he had the satisfaction of coming back into the living area, dressed in clean clothes, to find Uncle Josh conscious, though weakly, still.
‘I’ll do, now I’m bein’ took care of,’ the old man said faintly, when Mal sat down beside the stretcher and told him how much better he looked. ‘You want to go back, feller? Leave me here? I’m in good hands.’
‘But what about the station?’ Mal asked. ‘The Wandina’s your home, Uncle Josh.’
‘Oh aye, I know it. As soon as I’m stronger . . .’
‘Do the Allinsons mind?’
Uncle Josh grinned faintly. ‘Mind? To have a handsome feller like me as a payin’ guest, an’ them a lonely widder woman an’ a spinster? Course they don’t mind! ’Sides, soon as I’m fit . . .’
‘All right, Uncle Josh,’ Mal said. ‘We’ll wait for Tom and go home as soon as he arrives. He’ll be back here in the morning, no doubt.’
They stayed four days and nights but Tom didn’t come and Mal began to get restive. Coffee Allinson was a pleasant, competent young woman, but he thought she was forward, wanting to get him alone all the time. She was twenty-one years old, scarcely knew any men save the ones who worked for her mother – her father had died when she was ten – yet it seemed to Mal that she was experienced beyond her years. Once, she had caught him on his way out to the bunkhouse and had pressed him into the corner where the kitchen and the verandah met and kissed him. He still went hot all over when he thought how she had kissed him . . . she had opened her mouth and virtually tried to
eat
him, embarrassing him so much that for a whole day he had been unable to look her in the eye. I’m twenty-five this year, he thought, but even so I wouldn’t do that to a girl I wasn’t even engaged to . . . I wouldn’t do it to a girl I wasn’t
married
to, come to that. But Coffee had done it without a qualm, and had laughed afterwards, and patted his cheek . . . But he hadn’t been a stockman for so long without realising that Coffee was looking for a mate, even if she didn’t know it. Only he didn’t want to be that mate, pretty though she might be. I don’t want to marry someone just because she’s the first girl I’ve ever really known, he told himself defensively. Besides, I don’t really know her at all, and the Bartok Range is a long way from the Wandina.
She caught him again, inevitably. Down by the river, searching the heaving, tumbling waters for some sign of the boat and Tom. It was early morning, yet it was hot and languorous already, the sun still hidden in the early mist but the heat promising a fine day. Mal was standing on the bank under the trees, staring out, when a soft hand closed over his and a voice said in his ear: ‘Well, Mal Chandler, down here already, before you’ve had your breakfast? Want a swim? I’ll come in with you, if you do.’
He looked down at her, wanting to be frank, to tell her to go away, but totally inhibited by the fact that one was never rude to a woman.
‘No, I ain’t swimmin’,’ he said gruffly. ‘If you want a dip I’ll make myself scarce.’
She laughed softly, then pressed herself against him. He could feel the shape of her, the soft mounds of her bosom, the thrust of her stomach, the taut length of her thighs. He swallowed uneasily, ashamed of the physical response which her shameless closeness provoked in him. I’m no better’n a ruttin’ steer, he thought miserably. And I don’t even like the girl above half!
‘Mal? You wanna touch me? Put your arms round me – I won’t holler out, I promise.’
He stood there, rigid, unmoving and extremely uncomfortable. Would it be an insult to Coffee to turn down advances so blatant? He did not think that nice girls ever behaved in such a way – perhaps she was not a nice girl? But her mother was respectable, and Coffee was only twenty-one. But whilst he pondered, Coffee was not simply standing still. She was pressing against him and her fingers were tracing little circles in the palm of his hand. He meant to push her away but once his hands were on her it wasn’t so easy; without at all meaning to do so, he grabbed her by the soft flesh of her upper arms and, suddenly furious with himself and with her, he tugged her closer still, squashing her breasts against his hard chest, pushing his knee between her legs, breathing hard as he did so. If she wants it, he thought with a viciousness foreign to his nature, she can bloody well have it – then see how she feels!
‘Mal? Oh Mal, at last! Take me, take me!’
They fell against a tree, then on to the ground, Coffee rolling over on impact so that she ended up beneath him. He tore at the flimsy shirt she wore, and breasts like small, golden-brown melons came into view. He sighed, gazing at them. They were sweetly feminine, enticing, the chocolate nipples standing out as though imploring his attention, and as he watched he saw her skin goose-flesh as she curved her back, thrusting her breasts clear of the constraining cotton.
Heart beating nineteen to the dozen, he touched a breast, brushing the nipple with the palm of his hand. Coffee groaned and drew his hand down, tearing open her side-fastening skirt. She wore no drawers beneath it and she had his hand in an iron grip, forcing it lower, lower. Scarcely knowing what he was doing, he began to caress the bare and supple flesh, then, as she began to whimper and move, he touched the division of her thighs and gave a whimper of his own. He mustn’t – he’d be in deep trouble! If she said she’d not been willing he could be accused of rape. In any event, they’d make him marry her and he really didn’t want to do that!
He took his hand away as though she was red-hot and pulled her skirt across. He realised afterwards that she thought he meant to undress himself the better to pleasure her, because she didn’t drag him back when he moved away but lay there, on the long, wet grass, smiling up at him, her lids half down over her eyes, her mouth open, the tongue just showing, touching her lower lip.
Mal stood up. He turned away from her, intending to return at a run to the house, then turned back. He couldn’t leave her lying on the ground with that look on her face! Suppose someone came by?
He reached down and caught hold of her hands, pulling her to her feet. Her breasts bounced as he did so and he was forced to look away, swallowing. Oh my God oh my God oh my God, why did you make me this way and then give me a conscience which tells me such things are wrong?
‘No!’ he said forcefully. ‘No, Coffee. It ain’t right. Come on, there’s no sign of Tom, we’d best get back to the homestead.’
She couldn’t believe he didn’t intend to go on with whatever it was he had so nearly started. She stared, then put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes, big and dark-brown, widened.
‘Mal? What’s wrong? Don’t you like me?’
‘Sure I like you, Coffee, but . . . I don’t know you all that well, do I? You’ve not met many young fellers and I’ve not met many girls. Right?’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I bloody well want you, Mal Chandler! What d’you mean workin’ me up like that and then droppin’ me flat? There’s words for fellers like you, Mal.’
She hissed the last sentence, outrage in every syllable, but Mal couldn’t help himself; he laughed.
‘Words like “gentleman”, d’you mean? Come on, Coffee, you know we mustn’t. We ain’t wed, nor engaged, nor nothin’.’
She began to use words which he did not think women knew; words he scarcely knew himself. He tried to hush her, but her voice rose to an angry shriek so he broke and ran, not looking behind him until he was well clear of the river and then only checking to make sure she wasn’t following.
She wasn’t. Mal took a deep breath and wiped sweat off his forehead. What a helluva thing – what a weird, pink-haired girl she was, and how lucky he had been to escape from her toils before he’d done something he would later regret. He had been running, but he slowed to a walk, then a saunter. He shouldn’t have left her flat, like that, and in such a foul temper! But he wasn’t going back, not he – she would have to find someone else to tease and tickle into wrongdoing.
Having made up his mind, Mal strode back to the homestead. The sooner I’m out of here the better, he told himself. That Coffee ain’t no little lady, that’s for sure, and she’s quite capable of telling her mother I misbehaved down by the river so must be persuaded to marry her.
He wondered how he would face her, too. But he was lucky. Rupert was waiting for him up by the verandah.
‘Boss? We goin’ to wait another day for Tom? Only there’s work to be done back at the Wandina and we ain’t doin’ much good here.’
‘We’re leavin’ now,’ Mal said at once. ‘I’ve checked, and there’s no sign of Tom, nor of the boat. My swag’s ready. We’ll live on the country goin’ home. There’s plenty of game in the bush.’
‘Right, I’ll tell the hands,’ Rupert said, immediately accepting what Mal had said and not arguing, like some would. ‘You goin’ to tell Miz Allinson and Uncle Josh?’
‘Yup. You saddle up.’
And thus it was that they left the Bartok Range before Coffee Allinson had gathered her wits enough to come up from the river and tell her tale, or do whatever all that bad language had indicated.
‘You’ll be all right, Uncle Josh?’ Mal asked anxiously, his swag slung over Sandy’s withers, his saddle-bags laden with the bread, cheese and cakes which Mrs Allinson had pressed upon him. ‘Send a message when you’re ready to come home.’
‘I’ll do that, boy,’ Uncle Josh said. ‘I’m gettin’ stronger by the day . . .’t won’t be long now before I’m ridin’ home.’
Mal thoroughly enjoyed the journey from the Bartok Range to the Wandina. The weather stayed clear and sunny, and though it was hot, it wasn’t that damp, oppressive heat of the week before and without the worry of a sick man, even the hands felt in a holiday mood.
‘We’ll have a big corroboree when we get back,’ Mal said jubilantly. ‘To celebrate Uncle Josh bein’ all right and our journey bein’ successful. There’ll be plenty of food an’ plenty of root beer.’
‘Good on you, Boss,’ Rupert said, whilst Soljer, riding just behind them, gave a subdued cheer. ‘We celebratin’ anythin’ else?’ he slanted a sideways glance at Mal which spoke volumes.
Mal grinned. ‘What d’you mean, Rupe? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘She was good cook,’ Soljer remarked. ‘Woman make homestead good place. She plant garden, make curtings, all sorts. Mrs Kath made the Magellan good place.’
‘Yeah, but it’s got to be the right woman,’ Mal said. ‘Just any woman may not be the right one.’
Rupert nodded sagely. ‘She like you, Boss, but you din’t like her,’ he said. ‘No good, that.’
‘True. You’ll have the last word on that, Rupe old son. Hey, where’ll we make camp tonight? By the river? We could build a platform in a tree, save a lot of work.’
The men agreed and when evening began to come on they turned off their track and went down to the river bank. There they chopped trees, made a platform in a tree, stretched the bark, and lit their smoke-fires. Only then did they get out their tucker and decide what they would eat that evening.
‘Fresh meat good,’ Soljer said. ‘You make dampers, Boss, me an’ Johnny go hunting.’
Mal agreed and watched the two men melt into the bush, their hunting boomerangs in their hands, and presently they returned with a wallaby which they had killed and skinned.
‘Good eatin’ on this,’ Johnny said, squatting by the fire they had built and holding out a joint on a sharpened stick. ‘We got any bread, Boss?’
They had bread and also a bag of mustard powder of which Mal was very fond. Presently, when the meat was almost cooked, he went down to the river for some water to make up the mustard. The sun was setting and the river, turbulent still, looked like a river of flame. Mal was standing looking at the flame and blue of the water and wishing he had the ability to paint when he noticed something else. Loose timber, several sizeable planks of it.
‘Rupe, come an’ fish this wood out,’ he shouted. ‘It’ll save us cuttin’ any more trees down . . . come on, give me a hand!’
The men came running and they all waded into the water to fetch back the planks, which had caught, temporarily, in the back-eddy caused by a particularly stubborn old tree which the flood had not yet managed to uproot.
‘There’s somethin’ else, caught in the roots,’ Johnny said breathlessly, as the four of them – for Toulu had been left to cook the wallaby meat – wrestled the planks out on to the bank. ‘Here, give me . . . aargh!’
‘What is it?’ Mal splashed forward, wet to the waist, and peered at the curled-up object in the lee of the great tree. ‘Oh, my God!’
It was a body. And when they reached the bank and laid the bloated corpse close to their fire, all Mal’s worst fears were confirmed. It was old Tom.
The dream had never left him, but that night, as they lay on the platform in the tree, it came back as badly and painfully as it had in the first few weeks after Petey’s death. All over again Mal, Bill and Petey traversed the long tongue of rock, took their places, made their preparations. Petey grew bored, the storm got steadily worse, the sea rose and rose . . . and Mal, screaming, saw his small brother’s tiny corpse dragged off the rocks and curled into the curve of a great green breaker.
Only tonight it wasn’t only Petey who was seized and smothered by the sea. It was old Tom. And the guilt which had never quite left Mal over Petey’s death – for had he not stood by and watched his brother drown, his father overcome? – came back again tenfold. He had sent old Tom ahead of them to find a way across the torrent and Tom had taken the boat as he had meant him to do. Whether he had even reached the further shore was doubtful, for when he had left the Bartok Range the weather had still been at its worst. So once again, Mal had allowed someone else to do the dirty work. First Bill, then Tom. Both dead.
But Bill had survived his rescue attempt, had lived to be a hero for his valiant effort to save his small son. Kath had stuck by Bill because she knew what losing Petey had done to her husband. What did I do? Mal thought, waking, wet-haired, the sweat pouring off him in a steady stream. I did precisely nothing. I let my father struggle in the water, I sent old Tom off to do what I didn’t fancy.