Outback Sunset (22 page)

Things always appeared worse at night. It made her remember the night in Guy’s Hospital in London when doctors had tended to David. That had
seemed to take an eternity. But with the sun up now and its warmth defrosting her bones, she felt more optimistic and hopeful that her ordeal would soon be over.

By now
they
, Nova, Warren and Tony, would have assumed she was lost and informed those at the homestead. And, she knew it wasn’t the first time Amaroo had had to mount a rescue. Bren had told her about one of Stuart’s scrapes. When in his teens, Stuart had had a monumental row with his father and had ridden off into the night, and remained missing for three days. A group of wandering Aborigines found him near Sandy Plains Paddock, the driest area on the property. Horseless, he had two broken ribs, was dehydrated and was going in and out of delirium. The rescue party found him at the Aborigines’ camp.

She disliked having anything in common with Stuart, but at the moment her situation was similar. She moistened her lips with her tongue but resisted the urge to reach for the water bottle. Right now though, she would kill for a glass of cold water. She was trying to take just an occasional sip to make the liquid last as long as possible.

Vanessa did her best to glean some comfort from Bren’s story about Stuart, that all had ended well, but as the day wore on and the temperature moved into the mid-thirties, her confidence crumbled. She glanced at Runaway who, like her, looked miserable. Her horse wasn’t even bothering to forage. She felt guilty about not sharing what water she had but Bren had been very insistent at pointing out that a person’s survival was more important in
the outback than an animal’s. It made sense, but it didn’t make her feel any better, nor any less guilty.

By midday all the shade was gone around the boulders and every time she moved a blast of pain darted through her shoulder and down her spine, making her cry out. Not that anyone other than Runaway heard her cries. The horse would raise her head, give a whinny and snort, then become silent again.

Weakened by the injury, lack of food and liquid, Vanessa dozed, woke, moved into a more comfortable position then dozed again. The next time she woke her mouth and throat were so parched she couldn’t produce saliva, and her lips were beginning to crack. She should put some lipstick on: her lipstick with its small, attached mirror was the only piece of make-up she’d brought with her. Her right hand touched her cheek — it was hot and, increasingly, she found it hard to concentrate. Is this what it’s like to die from dehydration? The thought made the thread of fear deep within her that she would be found too late — she had kept it at bay during the night and for most of the morning — grow disproportionately. Of course she would be found, she reprimanded herself … soon.

Still, in spite of her attempts to gee herself up, her imagination drifted into overdrive. She had ridden off course so, would they assume she had fallen to her death over the escarpment like the exploring Frenchman, Guy La Salle, had done when he’d been prospecting? She had read an account about La Salle in a compilation of stories and facts, including a compact history of the famous Durack family, and
legends and tales about those who came to the Kimberley to make their fortune.

What if they didn’t find her?
Get a grip
, she told herself, frowning furiously to reinforce the order.

Curtis, Reg and Nova knew her capabilities as well as her shortcomings. They knew she wasn’t equipped to survive alone in the bush, as they were. Bren … he would be worried sick too. Her earlier irritability towards him disappeared as she thought about her husband. So … he wasn’t perfect, neither was she! She’d been cross because he was with Stuart, someone she had little time for. And … she wanted him home because they were trying to make a baby and start a family. The frown left her forehead as she forced herself to contemplate how wonderful that would be; a little girl or boy, like Bren, to love and nurture and teach. She was looking forward to motherhood, very much.

After that she tried her standard pep talk routine. In the past it had helped when she was having difficulty adapting to a stage role.
Vanessa, my girl, if you want to be a mother, first, you have to get out of this situation!
And then she posed the question. If a chopper came along could the pilot see her in the scrub? Mmmm! A signal fire would be good, no, it would be excellent. Unfortunately, she had no means to make a fire — no matches and no Girl Guide expertise in that regard. Perhaps … something to reflect against the sun’s light!

Her gaze ran over the saddle, dissecting it inch by inch. Once the metal stirrups had been polished steel but they were now dull and coated with a veneer of surface rust. They’d never reflect the sun’s rays. Still,
there had to be something she could use. The stinging sensation from her cracked lips helped Vanessa find the answer: her lipstick with the mirror. She rummaged through the up-ended contents from her saddlebag until she found it. She had bought it at Harrods before they’d married because she had been taken by the idea of a lipstick that conveniently had a mirror attached to the top that lifted off. She applied the lipstick then put the top with the mirror attachment into her right hand and rolled it around in her palm, studying it.

The mirror part was small, three centimetres wide by about six centimetres high, oval shaped with a gold metal edging. Experimenting, she positioned the mirror towards the sun and after some adjustment was rewarded by a ray of light reflecting onto a boulder about eight metres away. It would work!

Then she studied the sky, looking so hard that after a while her eye muscles hurt, as she prayed to see a speck that would become an aircraft. Nothing, not even a cloud or a bird flew by. Exhausted, hungry and with her thirst growing, she let a dejected sigh escape. She raised her knees, cradled her head on them with her good arm and, finally, gave way to tears.

Curtis blinked, and blinked again. Behind the sunglasses his eyeballs ached from peering out the chopper’s windows. He and Reg, and Simon from Linford Downs, were using the quadrant method of air search. They had been at it for hours, returning to Amaroo only to refuel and grab something to eat
before returning to the sky. Hell’s bells, where was she? He was considering flying over the escarpment towards Frenchman’s Leap, though Nova had told Vanessa to go in the opposite direction. But, after several hours of searching, he knew one thing; his sister-in-law wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

Fran and Nova still hadn’t made contact with Stuart’s boat. Damn his uncle and … damn Bren too. He should be here. He should always have been at Amaroo instead of running off to play sailor with Stuart. Sometimes his brother’s casual attitude to the property from which a small band of people derived a living, made him want to shake some sense into him. Clamping his anger down, he pushed the joystick forward then to the left and flew towards the escarpment.

Knowing they only had a few more hours of daylight left in which to search heightened Curtis’s sense of urgency. He sweated profusely inside the chopper’s, mostly glass, cabin and it reinforced in him how hot it was in the scrub. Reg and Simon had just reported in — stating they had found no sign of Vanessa but that the mob they’d been herding towards Spring Valley were straggling in that direction because the cattle could smell the limited water in Gumbledon Creek.

Because Vanessa should have been located by now, because Bren hadn’t been informed that she was missing, a knot of anxiety was tying up Curtis’s stomach muscles. He hated how his gut did that when he got tense. He was always uptight around Georgia but this feeling was different. Somehow, he felt responsible for Bren’s wife. Nothing had been
said to the effect that he was but instinctively he knew Bren had left her in his care, and the sense of responsibility weighed heavily on him. No-one was to blame for what had occurred, nature and the Kimberley being what they were. Commonsense told him that but knowing in no way eased the growing, anxious feeling inside him. Where the hell was she?

Curtis angled the chopper down into the escarpment where the gums were taller and the growth thicker because the area received more moisture. All of which made spotting anything not naturally there a matter of good luck rather than effective searching. An experienced bushman, he knew how easy it was to disappear without a trace in the Kimberley. He had heard and read many stories about such happenings, and could picture the British tabloid headlines if Vanessa wasn’t found: RENOWNED ENGLISH ACTRESS MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD IN THE KIMBERLEY.

Another thought jumped into his head as he stared down at the dense bush. If Bren lost Vanessa, it would just about finish him. His brother had, over many years, exhibited an unwillingness to take things seriously, traits inherited from their maternal grandfather, Bernard Curtis, who had won and lost several fortunes in his lifetime. Marrying Vanessa had gone a long way to curbing that aspect of Bren’s personality. However, knowing Bren as he did, that could change if he became unsettled. Then where would Amaroo be? An aggressive, moody Bren was capable of almost anything … even selling up and doing something else. He shook the disloyal thought away. Bren would never do that, no matter what …

Rising above the escarpment, he flew along the rim, about thirty-five metres above the ground. An upwards draft made flying tricky, and he kept both hands on the joystick to maintain control as he squinted against the sun’s glare for clues to Vanessa’s whereabouts. Then, a flash of light bounced off the windscreen, caused by something glinting on the ground. It disappeared then came back again. What was it? Curtis banked to the right for another sweep. There it was again, a speck, something bright and not very big, obviously metal or a mirror. Adrenaline coursed through him. Maybe …?

He dropped lower and hovered, trying to locate what was glinting. There, away from the escarpment’s edge, on a clump of boulders, flicking on and off as it reflected the sun’s rays.
Vanessa
. Hell’s bells. She was flashing a piece of metal at him and raising a welcoming arm. Grinning as a wave of relief washed over him, the taut muscles in his stomach began to settle. He scoured the terrain for somewhere to set down and found a reasonable bare patch of ground after which, with more speed than grace, he landed.

Curtis grabbed a full bottle of water and a blanket, exited the cabin and sprinted to the boulders watching, as he ran, Vanessa climb down awkwardly. She collapsed onto her knees in the earth and bowed her head.

‘Vanessa!’

She didn’t have the energy to look up as Curtis closed the distance between them. It had taken the last reserve of her energy to scale the rocks on
hearing the most wonderful sound in the world, the chopper’s whirring blades.

‘Thank God, you’re all right.’

He knelt in front of her, taking in her state. She didn’t look good. Beneath the sunburn he knew that her skin would be as pale as a ghost. Her left shoulder was unnaturally lower than the other one, and the bandanna she’d tied around her wrist wasn’t doing much of a job supporting the dropped shoulder. She had to be in a lot of pain and he saw that she was when her head came up to look at him. Vanessa couldn’t even manage a smile, feeble or otherwise, she was too done in.

He put the bottle of water to her lips, let her have a few sips then took it away. When she tried to get it back he suggested, ‘Drink just a little at a time, otherwise you’ll puke.’

‘So … thirsty …’ Her tone was faint, thready. ‘Can’t be sick, there’s nothing in my stomach.’

He thought that she could bring up bile but he didn’t bother to tell her that. ‘You’ve injured your shoulder. Anything else wrong?’

Vanessa shook her head. Her eyelids drooped with fatigue and her breathing was shallow. Curtis gauged that she might be going into shock. She had kept herself alert for so long, but now she was running on empty. Her shoulder injury was one he was familiar with. Curtis had seen more than one stockman dislocate a shoulder; he knew what had to be done. Vanessa wasn’t going to like his treatment, but getting her to Amaroo would be intolerably painful for her if the shoulder wasn’t put back in place.

He gently removed the bandanna and after she’d had more water, laid her back on the ground. ‘I’m going to have to, umm, attend to your shoulder, make you more comfortable …’ Trying not to telegraph his intention, he took her arm, straightened it and before she could ask why he was doing that, gave the arm a single, mighty jerk downwards.

Her eyes went wide. She screamed as loud as exhaustion allowed her. ‘You bastard …’ was all she got out before her eyes glazed and she passed out.

Curtis grimaced. He felt awful about doing what he’d done but it was for the best and, with luck, she wouldn’t come to until they were at Amaroo. He glanced across at Runaway. The mare was a curious animal and had whinnied on hearing Vanessa scream. ‘I know. It was a mean thing to do but she’ll get better more quickly now, girl.’ Talking
and
justifying his actions to a horse! Was he crazy? He shook his head as he got up and walked towards the horse with the water bottle in his hand. He poured water into his peaked cap and let Runaway drink her fill.

‘I’ll have to leave you here tonight, girl. Reg will drop someone off in the morning to ride you home.’ He gave the horse the rest of the water then walked back to where Vanessa lay.

For several moments he stared at the unconscious woman at his feet and a rush of sympathy went through him, its emotive quality surprising him. As knocked out as she was, injured and sunburnt, dishevelled and dirty, Vanessa still looked … magnificent.

Bren was a lucky bugger. Born first, he’d inherited the station. He was better looking, more robust,
and
he had Vanessa. A muscle at the side of Curtis’s jaw tightened. He looked away and stared at the nearby boulders for maybe thirty seconds then he sucked in a breath and pushed several peculiar, disquieting thoughts from his head. Twilight was almost upon them and he had things to do. Like letting Amaroo know that he’d found Vanessa so …