The Great Plains (40 page)

Opinions, however, could change. People changed. Tobias stared at the sleeping figure. ‘I would never hurt you, Abelena,' he whispered. But he would make her his. Marry her and care for her and raise children with her and, unlike his grandfather and father, he would succeed in taming this girl.

Abelena yawned and moved. A lock of hair slipped from her slender neck revealing lengths of fine leather connected to a small pouch on the floor. Tobias had not seen the object before. It appeared old and faded, an Indian relic that should be destroyed. He reached out, readying to tear the pouch from her neck. Instantly her hazel eyes opened. They flashed green and yellow, her hand rose to grip his wrist. A dark fury lurked in the depths of those beautiful eyes and Tobias backed away and left the room.

September, 1935 – Condamine Station, Southern Queensland

Will walked to the window of the bunkhouse, sipping a mug of tea. Spring had come early in the last week. A northerly wind whipped the windmill around. The structure creaked and groaned relentlessly as the wind lifted the dirt from the road. Station residents began appearing from their houses. Women clutched at their hats and turned their backs to the grit as vehicles were driven around to collect them for the journey to church. Will recognised the one-armed gardener as he joined the farrier's young family in the back of an old pick-up. Five young children jostled each other for the right to sit with their legs dangling over the end of the tray. They were still bickering when a cart went past carrying the two maids, the housekeeper Mrs Brightman and her grey-haired husband. The maids tugged on their straw hats and ducked their faces close to their chests as an eddy of dust blew towards them. The small convoy moved off slowly. Will wouldn't have minded attending church either, just to do something different, but he wasn't sure how Mr Crawley would react if word got out that he wasn't really a heathen.

The tea was strong and sweet. It reminded Will of breakfast after milking when, with the cows back in their paddock, he would sit down with his parents and eat freshly baked bread or, more recently, fried mutton. He thought of the tin under his mattress in the bunkhouse and of the pound notes that were starting to accumulate within. By rights he should have returned home for the weekend, visited his parents and handed over the money. He'd go next month, he promised himself, and give them half of his earnings. That was fair, he reasoned. After all he was not living at home anymore and he had his own future to be considering. It was not that he didn't love his parents, but there were many things that he didn't miss about his old life. Two of those he would never be able to reconcile – his father's newfound attitude towards stealing and his mother continually being with child. Will figured it was nearing the time when his father should stay away from his mother lest she die from grief.

Through the window, the shiny black Buick halted in the middle of the road. The overseer, Mr Kirkland, was at the wheel, the American sitting in the passenger seat beside him. In profile Mr Wade appeared reasonably young, more his father's age, but it was difficult to tell with the distance between them. Both the overseer and the owner got out of the car as the unmistakeable black van belonging to the village copper parked alongside the stationary vehicle. Constable Maine was a tall, middle-aged man who favoured a neatly trimmed moustache and wire-rimmed glasses. He shook hands with the overseer and Mr Wade and the three men stood talking in the wind and flying grit.

Will viewed these proceedings with interest. Constable Maine only travelled from the village to either attend a crime or warn of a problem in the district, such as when a number of houses were broken into and ransacked for food and valuables last year. Mr Kirkland seemed to be commandeering the conversation. He pointed westward and then, leaning through the rear window, retrieved a cylindrical tube of paper from the backseat, which was unfurled on the bonnet of the Buick. It was then that Will noticed the girl. She was in a corner of the homestead garden, hidden from the road where the Buick idled, but obvious from where he stood.

Will placed the half-drunk tea on the window sill. The girl was squatting behind the tree and seemed to be hiding from the occupants of the two vehicles. She remained in that position for at least ten minutes until both the Buick and the police van drove away. Finally she stood and turned in the direction of the bunkhouse. Will flattened his body against the wall. When he peered out the window again, the girl was gone. Pulling on his boots, he walked outside.

The windmill was now still. There was not even a zephyr to stir the air. Will stood with hands on hips on the verandah, considering the vagaries of the weather. On the road heading out of the property, there was only the faintest trail of dust lingering in the sky. Apart from the generator, the property was quiet. There were no men bustling outdoors and shouting orders that echoed across the flat. No discussions as to which fences needed to be checked or what mob of sheep had to be yarded. There was only the occasionally barking dog, darting jenny-wrens and a sun that stained the morning gold. The girl had disappeared. Run back inside the house, he guessed, either out of shyness or perhaps she didn't like church. Maybe she didn't have religion where she came from. All the nobs went to church and now Mr Wade was here, he'd be the biggest squatter in the district. Will began the mile walk to the stables behind the big house. He was of a mind to take Pat for a ride and decided to take a shortcut past the homestead, something he'd never done. The girl, he convinced himself, was the furthest thing from his mind.

As he neared the two-storey homestead and the wavering native trees and shrubs bordering the garden, Will paused to take in the view across the plains to the west where the chocolate brown of the earth extended to the horizon as if an ocean.

‘It was once an inland sea.'

It was as if Will's thoughts had been read. The girl's voice was soft with highs and lows that, although similar in accent to Mr Kirkland's, held no harsh edges. She was leaning against the garden fence, the soles of her feet cushioned by herbage, her shoes discarded on the ground.

‘I often think about following a setting sun. Do you?'

Will gave a series of ‘ums' and ‘ahs' and wondered if he would not be better off keeping quiet. The girl before him was younger than he, probably by a couple of years. Olive-skinned with waist-length glossy hair, she had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. They were almond-shaped and hazel in colour.

‘You don't belong here.'

Will frowned. ‘And you're not from here, so that makes us even.'

The girl laughed, transforming a very pretty face into something beyond beautiful.

‘Why aren't you at church?' she asked.

‘Why aren't you?'

‘I have a different religion.'

‘Well, I'm a heathen,' Will countered.

‘No, you're not,' the girl disagreed. She looked at him quite earnestly. ‘I am.' She held his gaze. ‘Where were you going?'

‘To the stables for a ride.'

‘I'll come.'

The girl laced her shoes and they fell into step as they followed the perimeter of the garden fence. Once behind the house, they caught sight of the dun-coloured hills in the east. They watched the play of light across their surface, pink quickly morphed into beige, until the familiar pale brown of the range came into being as the sun climbed further from the horizon.

‘I can see those hills from my bedroom. I wonder how long they have stood. I imagine them suffering the hot breath of summer, shaking off great slabs of rain when the heavens open, and hibernating during winter.'

Will had never heard a person speak that way. ‘Are you one of those people who write poetry?'

‘No.'

‘Why do you talk such a funny way then?'

The girl spun on one heel, twirling in the dirt. Long hair lifted and extended in a glossy veil. ‘I only say what you probably think, just in different words.'

Will scratched the light fuzz on his chin. He'd forgotten to shave. ‘What's your name?'

The girl was looking beyond the stables and woolshed towards the spine of timber in the south. ‘Is there a river there?'

‘Yes, it twists and turns and flows east to west.' He tried to think of something clever. ‘The Aboriginals say a living creature made the rivers and creeks and where it came up for air there are big waterholes.'

The girl tilted her head. Her skin was lustrous. ‘I'm Abelena.'

‘Abelena.' The name was vaguely familiar.

She leant down to brush the tips of the swaying grasses on the side of the road and then turned to walk across the paddock. Will wasn't sure if he should follow the girl, but decided he couldn't very well leave her alone. Anything could happen to her out in the bush.

Abelena's diagonal path led Will to a slight rise where three flat-leafed trees had been planted by a previous owner before the turn-of-the-century. Mr Crawley reckoned someone had been buried there once but there was nothing to suggest a body lay beneath the plants that punctuated the landscape like ancient watchtowers. By the time Will caught up with Abelena she was sitting cross-legged at the base of the eucalypts, her dark hair cascading around her shoulders like a waterfall.

‘Where do you come from?' he asked.

‘Over the sea.'

‘I know that. Why did you come? I mean, none of your family have ever lived here.'

‘I was brought here by Tobias.'

‘So Mr Wade isn't your father?'

Abelena studied his face. ‘Tobias and I are cousins. My family has a big tree with many branches. Do you have a father?'

‘Everyone has a father.'

‘Of course,' Abelena agreed. ‘And do you come from here or somewhere else?'

‘Here, well, a good ten miles away. My parents have a dairy farm. So how come you don't have to go to church?'

‘Tobias doesn't trust me. He thinks I'll run away, that's why he keeps me locked in my room.'

‘Gee, that's no good. How'd you get out?'

‘The windows are unlocked.'

‘Would you run away?'

‘Maybe, probably … yes.'

From this new viewpoint Will thought the homestead and garden appeared besieged by the countryside. Encircled by grassland and the squares of neat buildings and roads, the great homestead rose up from the dew-glazed ground to stand alone among miles of uninhabited land. ‘How come you came with him then? Where's your family?'

The girl dug into the ground with her fingernails. For a moment Will wondered if he'd said something wrong.

‘What is this place like?'

‘Here? Condamine Station is on a prime bit of dirt. I don't know if Mr Wade told you but he runs hundreds of thousands of sheep. That's what I do. I look after them, with some other men that I work with. I'm a stockman but my parents –'

‘Tobias's father purchased it,' Abelena informed him.

Will was only slightly put out at being interrupted. ‘Then you know that the wool produced here was made into uniforms for the war. My father fought in the war,' he finished proudly.

‘What war?'

‘The war against the Germans. You know, Gallipoli and France.' It was clear by the blank expression on Abelena's face that she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Where have you been living? Under a rock or something?'

The girl shrugged. ‘What's out there in the west?'

‘More land like this, I guess.'

‘And what's beyond the hills?'

Will struggled to answer. ‘I don't know.'

‘It's a strange land then, even to you.' She placed a palm on the ground. ‘A mysterious place.'

‘I don't know about being mysterious.'

Abelena closed her eyes, her palm cupped dirt, leaves and bits of grass. ‘One minute parched and airless, the ground cracking underfoot, the next groaning under the weight of grasses.' Her eyes opened. ‘Your people have not cut up the land for crops.'

‘Some people have, especially north and south of us. But this property is all grassland.'

‘That's good, very good. Don't let them plough it up, only bad can come of it.' A flicker of movement caught Abelena's attention. A large eagle landed in the grass ten feet from where they talked. She pressed back against the tree. Although surprised at the proximity of the bird, Will told the girl not to be afraid. ‘It's a wedge-tail, see the shape of the tail and the way its legs are fully feathered?'

‘I see it,' she muttered.

‘It's got something in its claws.' Will studied the giant raptor as it extended its wings. It was the same blackish-brown shade of the eagle that had caught everyone's attention on Friday afternoon when the Wades arrived.

The great bird lifted a leg to reveal a weakly flapping black crow. The eagle tilted its head sideways as if surprised at the crow's untimely demise and then turned towards Abelena, its dark eyes flickering with interest.

Will experienced a strange sensation, as if he were witnessing a meeting between kind. Abelena was perfectly still, her unblinking gaze focused on the bird. Suddenly she took a gulp of air as if she were a swimmer returning to the surface long out of breath.

‘Are you okay, Abelena?'

The eagle gave its prey a few cursory pecks and then, lifting the bird in its claws, flew off. The girl returned to examining the dirt and grass in her palm.

‘It'll be heading for the river flats. They like the lightly timbered country along the waterway for nesting.'

The girl drew her knees to her chin. ‘Tobias thinks that by bringing me here he will change me, like his father wanted to change me.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘It would have been better if he'd let me stay in the land of my people, for they will not leave me alone.'

‘Who are your people?'

Abelena gave a soft smile. ‘Do you have money?'

‘Me? Why yes, of course.'

‘Would you give it to me?' Her voice grew soft.

Will wanted to say yes. ‘Why don't you ask your cousin? He's got plenty.'

‘Forget it.'

The girl began walking across the paddock towards the homestead. ‘Wait, what do you want it for? To run away?'

‘If you don't care enough to give, you certainly don't care enough to know.'

Damn it
. Will watched the girl as she grew small in the distance. Now she was gone he felt utterly alone. He squatted at the base of the tree, touching the ground where her hand had rested. Abelena was different, made him feel different and it was more than the simple fact that she came from the other side of the world.