Absolution Creek (67 page)

They packed up their belongings at first light. Scrubber silenced Veronica’s questions with a peck on the cheek and enough coin to keep her fed for two days. If the worst happened, he told her, he wanted her to return to the boarding house. Not one for tears usually, Veronica fell to blubbering like a waif. In hindsight, Scrubber decided, it would have been easier to lie. He held her, patting her head until she told him to leave off – that she ‘weren’t no dog’. He grinned then. Such ministrations usually did the trick.

He sat her down on their lumpy flock mattress, and decided to fib to her about what he’d left behind at the boarding house. After all, he would have a God’s holy time trying to keep his woman’s grubby paws off it. Instead, he simply said it was their nest egg for when they were past working; a trinket saved for hard times. Having cautioned her good and proper like a husband should, lifting his hand for emphasis, he would have lain her down and lifted her skirts to seal the business between them, if it weren’t for the pressing needs of the day. He left with a sharp slap to her arse instead.

With the directions to Absolution Creek marked out in Scrubber’s mind like a moveable mud map, courtesy of the publican, Matt and he saddled up at the stables before leading their horses onto the road. The air was already laced with dirt as Matt tightened the girth strap on his tawny Clydesdale. A flock of swallows swooped low across the road from one hotel to the other.

‘Bought him for a song.’ Matt brushed the gelding’s whiskered muzzle. ‘He’s a little long in the tooth but I figured he’d get me here and to wherever I’m going next.’

From the eaves of the hotel a clump of dried mud crumbled to the ground. ‘Blasted swallows,’ Scrubber complained, his hand reaching automatically for his rifle. An amused look crossed Matt’s crinkled face, and Scrubber decided not to follow his natural inclination to blow away a few of their nests. Diagonally across the road another traveller was saddling up a fractious mare. The bay sidestepped the approaching saddle, but the next attempt was successful and the man flew lightly up onto the mare’s back. The horse gave a couple of pigroots, its hind legs kicking up swirls of dust, before the rider quickly took charge of his mount with a single tug on the reins. He was repaid with a rearing horse, hoofs striking the air. Scrubber figured the horse could do with a good flogging. In contrast, a sturdy horse more inclined towards packing goods than being ridden waited patiently nearby.

‘Righto.’ Matt swung up onto his horse, leaning forward to drag his leg over the hefty animal’s back. ‘Which way?’

For a moment Scrubber dawdled. The intersection was quiet. It wasn’t like him to be indecisive, not when Squib was so close, but at the far end of the street a horse-drawn carriage appeared. In the opposite direction two men rode abreast up the centre of the road, one of the riders firmly holding a struggling bundle in front of him on his horse.

Scrubber knew instinctively something was wrong.

Chapter 57

‘W
hat will we do now, Mummy?’ Having devoured two Sao biscuits Penny smeared Vegemite fingers on the kitchen table. ‘I’m bored.’ Large drops of rain dripped from the overhead light into a saucepan on the table.

Jill nodded furiously. ‘I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored.’

‘So am I.’ Meg gathered empty milk glasses and plates and sat them on the kitchen sink. Through the window the rain moved across the paddock towards them. Appearing as a sheet of whiteness in the far west it gradually crept towards the homestead. The storm arrived in a splatter of egg-sized droplets, which increased in intensity until the only noise within the kitchen was the pounding of rain on the iron roof. It was the third such rainstorm in the last hour. Meg pursed her lips and thought of Cora.

‘Mummy?’ Penny called above the din. ‘Mummy?’

‘Go and check the house for me, will you?’ It was the fourth time this morning Penny and Jill had been sent to check the rainsodden rooms. Meg was beyond it. The old house was a disaster zone; every room weeped water. In the dining room it ran down the walls, slowly turning the floor dark with moisture. If it kept on raining the house would soon become uninhabitable. A portion of Cora’s bedroom ceiling had already fallen in, and pieces of ancient bark, which looked like part of an earlier roof, lay strewn on the floor.

The slamming of the back door and the slosh of water on the porch announced Sam’s return. He stomped down the hallway. ‘I can’t do anything about the power. This whole place could go up if I get that old generator going.’ He indicated the overhead light and the steady drip. ‘But Curly’s back, covered in mud and exhausted. I fed him and left him in the laundry. It’s dry enough in there.’

‘That’s not a good sign.’

‘She must have fallen from her horse,’ Sam decided. ‘It was a pretty cold night last night, so let’s hope she’s hunkered down somewhere.’

‘Cora’s bedroom ceiling is beginning to fall in.’ Meg filled the kettle and sat it on the Aga. She had to keep busy, otherwise her thoughts kept returning to Cora’s lifeless body lying somewhere out in the drenched paddocks.

‘Well, it was bound to happen,’ Sam replied with more than a trace of annoyance. ‘Damn ridiculous living like that, a great tree sticking out of the roof. You can imagine how much water has leaked into the house over the years.’

‘Sam, this house is going to be unliveable if it keeps raining. I don’t want to desert Cora but I have to consider the girls and Kendal. We need to get out of here.’

Sam ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Well, we can’t do much at the moment. The only thing we can do is to wait until we hear from James. At least he knows we’re stuck here so that’s something.’

‘I guess.’ Meg sounded unconvinced.

‘What will you do? Go back to Sydney?’ Sam gave Meg a questioning look as he leant against the sink.

A month ago Meg would have waited for Sam to make the decision. ‘Yes.’

‘I thought you liked it here?’

‘I thought you did,’ Meg countered, not that it mattered any more. Managing to stay with someone out of need and for the sake of children was one thing, but once disappointment mingled with a lack of respect . . . ‘I would have stayed if I thought it might make a difference.’

‘To us?’ Sam confirmed. ‘Well, before all this happened things might well have worked out for us, Meg.’

‘But not now,’ Meg agreed.

‘We stayed together because we once needed each other, not because we wanted each other. There’s a pretty big difference.’

‘What you’re saying, Sam, is that now is as good a time as any to jump ship.’ Meg wanted to come right out and say it – accuse him of being a bigot. The whole thing was laughable. It wasn’t as if Sam Bell had the right to be bigoted about anyone. He hunched his shoulders and yawned. ‘That’s how I feel too, Sam,’ she retaliated. ‘Disinterested.’ Having fought and complained for the duration of over five years of marriage, Meg was at the point where she couldn’t endure it any more. She didn’t love Sam and probably never had. Maybe he was right. Maybe she did marry him to both spite and escape from her mother, for there had been a time when all she wanted to do was crawl out from under her shadow. ‘And my having an Indigenous-blooded aunt doesn’t help.’ There, she’d said it.

‘No,’ Sam admitted, ‘it doesn’t. I don’t want my children growing up in her home, Meg. They might be slighted and taunted because of their association with Cora.’

Meg threw a handful of tea leaves into a pot and added the boiling water. ‘That wouldn’t happen.’

‘Really? You were the one who told me Cora was treated differently in Stringybark Point. Anyway, I’m not surprised. For years this country’s lived under the mantle of a White Australia Policy.’

‘Hey, that was for immigrants; to ensure our culture was protected during the early years of development.’

‘And you don’t think that attitude extended to Aboriginals? There were acts passed, you know. Aboriginal children were taken from their homes. Cripes, there’s still those cordoned-off areas at the flicks and the separate drinking bit at the Stringybark Point pub for Cora’s kind.’

Meg tasted bile in her mouth.

‘You know, you’ve got to wonder how this Jack Manning managed to leave Absolution Creek to Cora and how a part-Aboriginal woman managed to hold onto it.’ Sam sat down. ‘I give Cora credit for what she’s done. But I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that you probably won’t be inheriting Absolution Creek, Meg. How could you? If Cora’s holding onto it illegally, then she certainly can’t pass it on to anyone.’

Meg poured tea for them both, her hands shaking. Beyond the kitchen the twins were racing up and down the covered walkway, their feet splashing against the sodden boards. So there it was, Meg thought miserably, the real reason Sam was leaving. They weren’t even arguing. After all the years she and Sam had been together they were past even that. ‘What will you do?’

Sam cradled the cup between his hands and blew at the steam. ‘Head north. I might find work on another property. I figure Kendal could be a problem if I hang around and he decides to point the bone at me.’

‘In some ways this move was good for you, Sam.’ Meg didn’t mean to sound condescending.

‘I still care, you know,’ Sam admitted, ‘just not enough. I’ll send money for the kids.’

Meg sipped her tea. She wouldn’t count on that.

‘Anyway, I suppose you better try calling Campbell again. Check and see what’s happening with the search for Cora. Maybe another chopper can get us all out of here. Combine Kendal’s injury with the twins and I’d imagine the authorities would consider us to be a bit more of a priority for an air lift; especially with this old house starting to disintegrate around us. And you should probably tell Campbell to get a message to your mother. She should know what’s happened to her stepsister.’

In the corner of the kitchen Tripod gave a noisy yawn and managed to stand.

‘You better add two dogs to the passenger list,’ Sam suggested. ‘I don’t want to end up getting speared over a three-legged mutt.’

Meg ignored the racist reference. ‘You think Cora’s still alive?’

Sam gave a look that verged on disappointment. ‘I reckon it would take a whole lot more than a bit of water to wipe Cora Hamilton off the map.’

Chapter 58