‘No, I got it all here.’
I had to use my handkerchief to open the door, the metal of it was so hot, and inside it was like a furnace. I started up and drove along the spur and down into the shade of the gully, thinking of that boy … an only child, his problems similar to my own. Yet not entirely, for my father had been a very different man to Chris Culpin. Then I was thinking of Ed Garrety. He’d been an only child, too. But he had worshipped his father.
I was still thinking of Garrety when the sunlight hit me at the bottom of the gully, the mine buildings blazing red and a streamer of dust coming down the track from the outcrop. It was the station ute and coming fast, and when it was near, it slithered to a halt and Janet got out, coming towards me quickly in the heat. ‘It’s you, Alec. Thank God!’ She spoke in a rush, her face sweaty and covered in dust. ‘I was coming up to get you. Daddy’s back and I don’t know what to do. He’s got Tom loading the Land-Rover, petrol, water, a new set of tyres we’ve been hoarding, and he’s sitting there alone in his den going through his papers, writing letters. He won’t say what he’s up to, won’t tell me anything. All I know is that they’re going to start repairing their fence in a few weeks. They’ve given us to the end of February; any of our cattle left on the Watersnake after that they’ll regard as scrubbers. They’ll just add them to their own stock. They’re going to run a cattle station of their own to supply their township.’ She paused, breathless, her eyes wide, the whites brilliant in the hard light. ‘I’m scared,’ she breathed. ‘Scared of what he’ll do.’
‘When did he get back?’
”Bout three hours ago. And he’s driven non-stop from Port Hedland. He’s dead tired. But he won’t rest. He’s wound up so tight I don’t think he knows what he’s doing. And he looks bad. He’s told Tom to load the Land-Rover, food and water for a fortnight, and just about all the fuel we have in the pump.’
To get the stock back on to your own land?’
‘No. He knows they’d die. It’s something — something else. But he won’t say. He won’t tell me anything. He’s so dead tired I can’t get any sense out of him. And now he’s locked himself in. Please. You must come and talk to him.’
She was trembling, half out of her mind with worry. ‘If you can’t get him to tell you — ‘
‘He’ll talk to you,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sure he will. I’m just a girl. Oh God! If only Henry were alive. He says you remind him of Henry. Please, Alec. Come back and try. I’m sure he will. I’m sure he’ll talk to you.’ She was staring at me, her eyes pleading.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see him anyway.’
She clutched my arm. ‘Oh thank you. I knew I could rely on you.’ And she added. ‘If only I understood what was in his mind. When he drove in, I’ll never forget — he looked … he looked quite crazy, his eyes staring, and so white, so short of breath. It wasn’t just tiredness. It was something else. But I don’t know what. I just don’t know. He won’t tell me.’ Her grip on my arm was tight and there were tears in her eyes.
‘Okay, you lead the way.’ I said. ‘I’ll follow.’
She nodded slowly. Then she turned abruptly and ran back to the ute.
The sun was dropping behind the Windbreaks by the time we reached Jarra Jarra. No dogs and the Land-Rover standing under one of the poincianas, Tom squatting beside it, his wide-brimmed hat tipped over his broad nose, his back against the rear wheel. ‘Is he still there?’ Janet asked him.
‘Yes, Jan. Alia time in den.’
We went through into the cool house and along the dim passage. The door to the den as shut, and not a sound. ‘Daddy, are you there?’ There was no answer. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. ‘Alec’s here. He wants to see you.’
There was a moment’s silence, then his voice, hesitant and weary: ‘What about? What’s he want?’
Janet glanced at me, her eyes just visible in the dimness. ‘Can he come in?’
‘It’s about the land above the gully. I’ve got a drill up there ‘AH right, I suppose so.’ His voice sounded reluctant as though he were too tired to talk to anybody. A long silence, then the scrape of a chair, the sound of the key turning in the lock. ‘Come in, then.’
He was standing in the middle of the room staring at the desk, which was littered with papers. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said, ‘but it’s important.’ The Alsatian had her head lifted beside the desk, her ears pricked, her tail just moving.
He nodded absently. I don’t think anything to do with Golden Soak was important to him at that moment. His mind was on something else. But I wasn’t to know that. Not then. He turned, his eyes lack-lustre. ‘Hot,’ he said vaguely. ‘Very hot.’ And then he added as an afterthought, ‘Some tea?’
The tired blue eyes shifted to Janet as though seeing her for the first time. ‘Daughter, you get us some tea, eh? The big tin pot — full.’
She nodded, relieved. ‘Yes, of course.’
The door closed and we were alone. ‘Sit down.’ He waved me to a chair stacked with papers. ‘Push that lot on to the floor. Never realized there was so much. Should have dealt with it years ago.’ He sat down, with me facing him across the desk, and I was glad to see an empty plate there. At least he had had something to eat. ‘Jan told you, did she? About what was decided.’
‘The cattle, you mean?’
He nodded. ‘Can’t blame them. The lease is theirs now.’ He leaned back, his hand brushing across his eyes, smoothing the unruly bushiness of his eyebrows. ‘Glad you came. Something I wanted you to sign.’ He searched the litter on his desk and produced a foolscap sheet, handwritten. ‘Do you mind witnessing my signature on it?’
‘No, of course not.’
He signed his name and pushed it across to me. It was his will and I hesitated, looking across at him, seeing the lines of his face, the tiredness of his eyes. ‘Why now?’
He looked out of the window at the dying sun flaring the sky, the gums all gold. ‘Suddenly realized I hadn’t done anything about it since Henry’s death.’ His voice sounded vague. ‘Not that it’ll do Jan much good. They’ve given us till the end of February. But with no rain …’ The words trailed away, his tiredness engulfing them. ‘Still, if anything happened to me, then she’d get something out of selling Jarra Jarra.’ The words were muffled, almost a whisper.
‘I’ve got a drill operating up on Coondewanna.’
‘Yes, Jan told me.’
But when I asked him about the mineral rights, he shook his head. It was Crown land and he hadn’t registered a claim. ‘Nobody wants gold and the price of antimony won’t last.’ Prophetic words, but I was in no mood to listen to them. My own future was at stake. I witnessed his signature and pushed the paper back to him, telling him about Freeman, how if we struck the reef I could pull off a deal that would give Jarra Jarra a new lease of life. But he didn’t seem able to take it in. ‘You do what you like.’ He said it vaguely, his mind on something else. ‘I’m fifty-four and I had two years on the Burma railway. Seemed like a lifetime, and nothing to do but think about Jarra Jarra, remembering what it was like when I was a kid here. That was about all that kept me alive, the thought of coming back. And when I did. ‘ He was staring out of the window again, his eyes narrowed against the reddening blaze of the sunset. ‘Soft! I did but dream.’ He sighed, remembering the words and smiling sadly to himself. ‘Give me another horse! bind up my wounds. But there wasn’t another horse, only Jarra Jarra, jaded and sick, the land gone sour, a desert in the drought, and those damned sheep dying in hundreds. Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream. Two years I lived on that dream and when I did get back …’ The door opened and Janet came in with the tray of tea, a large tin pot and slabs of ginger cake. He nodded absently as she put it down, waiting for her to go.
She hesitated, her eyes switching from her father to me, and then she was gone and the door closed. ‘Milk?’ His hand shook slightly as he poured. There were just the two cups and he took up where he had left off — ‘That’s what Golden Soak did to this place. A war is always good for Australia. Wool for uniforms, y’see. The quality don’t matter then, provided it’s a northern war. The last good war we had was Korea. Vietnam …’ He shook his head, remembering his son’s untimely death. ‘When I got back in ‘45 Jarra Jarra was lousy with sheep and nothing left for them to feed on. AH I could do was watch them die, the old man half insane and the debts mounting.’ He stared at me, his blue eyes bluer than ever, staring at me very wide. ‘You do what you like. Get yourself a prospector’s licence, peg a claim, sell it if you can. That vein of glittering quartz has never brought anything but sorrow to my family.’ He gulped at his tea, his hand still trembling. ‘Sometimes I think it was cursed long ago, by the elders of the tribe my lather took it from. That soak was important to them, y’see. Not just the water that vanished into the bottom of the mine as they dug down for the gold; it was a ritual place. If you climb the sides of the gully you’ll find all manner of rock drawings — strange animals that represented their Dreamtime ancestors, concentric circles and other ritual patterns, and drawings of men and women — the men with enlarged genitals, the women with marks that represent menstruation. You look next time you’re there.’ He looked down at his empty cup. ‘Mapantjara — witches … adder’s fork, and blind worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing …’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Mebbe the luck will change for you. But for me — never.’ He leaned back, his eyes closed. The sunset glow was on his face, but the skin had an unhealthy pallor, his forehead damp with sweat.