The river is Down (12 page)

Erica's hair was a lovely chestnut brown, not blonde, as Cindie had imagined. It was brushed sleekly back to one side of her head. Her face was tanned a smooth outback

Well, why not? Cindie thought. After all, I'm just the waif washed up by the river when it was down. She is somebody. She's called the Queen of the Spinifex.

Cindie came down the length of the floor towards Mary. As she neared Erica she glanced sideways and smiled diffidently. She felt taken aback when Erica made no attempt to return the smile. The other girl simply went on watching Cindie, the dark eyes moving as Cindie moved: one smoothly tanned hand lifting a cigarette to her lips, and one long spiral of curly smoke rising above her head like a delicate film of cloud.

'Oh, there you are!' Mary exclaimed, looking up. All the men sitting in the row of chairs looked up too. When they saw that Erica, at the end of the hall, had not returned Cindie's smile, they grinned broadly at the newcomer to cheer her up. Their welcome was meant to make up for Erica's lack of it. Cindie knew this at once. She smiled back at them gladly. It was almost like a conspiracy of friend ship—against odds. Miss Alexander of Marana being the. odds.

`I'm flat-out busy, Cindie,' Mary said. 'For the time being there's a job you can do for me right now. More later.' She pushed a sheaf of foolscap ledger-ruled papers across the table towards the girl, then pointed with the end of her pencil to the doorway that led to the back of the hall. 'Take those through there and you'll meet someone called Mike Matthews. He's the canteen manager. He's taking stock for the next call-out. The food'll come in by freezer-truck if and when it can get through that river.' Mary was in such haste to be done with talking, she was almost breathless. This was about to be her busy day, and she was in that kind of mood already. Short and to the point.

Cindie lifted the paper from the table.

`Mike'll tell you what to do,' Mary went on. 'He'll call the orders, and you make the lists. After that you can come back and-sort the orders into categories. He'll show you which and what. You don't list fruit with medical stores; or soap with a truck driver's uniform. Okay?'

`Shall do,' Cindie said eagerly, thrilled that she really did have a job. It hadn't been a mistake on Myrtle's part.

'When you come back you can type out the home letters for that gang at the end of the row. They can speak English but can't write it. All four of 'em are from Central Europe.'

'Hey, Cindie?' the man sitting nearest Mary asked. 'You a dab at writing love-letters? I'm plain English but I don't know how to tell my girl . .

'That'll do, Smithy,' Mary Deacon interrupted. 'You let Cindie get along with her work. She has other things to do than write your love-letters

'Is she the new care-all, Mary? You shooting through to better places? Don't forget the river's down!'

'I won't forget you have more to'say than any of the other two hundred and seventeen men on this site, Smithy. No, I'm not shooting through. Cindie is the assistant care-all. As from to-day.'

'Phew!' Smithy whistled. 'You see they pay you the basic wage, Cindie, plus site allowance, plus amenities and minus most tax if you stay north of Twenty-Six more'n six months—'

'I will,' Cindie smiled at him. She realised that Smithy was one of the men who had been with the Euclid out at the road-site yesterday. They were all so slim, burned and brown-dusted it had been hard to distinguish one from another. She recognised him now.

'Oh . . . !' Mary had just remembered another thing. She put her pencil down and stood up. 'Come over and meet Miss Alexander from Marana. I'm so sorry. I'm that busy I clean forgot my manners.'

Erica had remained as she was before. Only her eyes and the hand that held the cigarette moved.

She did not stir now as Mary brought Cindie across the floor to meet her.

'Cindie Brown, Miss Alexander,' Mary said, making the introduction. 'I guess you know already this is the girl who was stranded on the rise over the river, Erica.'

'Oh, yes, Nick told me.' Erica's voice drawled, but not in the simple, light-coloured tone with which the men talked. This was a cultivated drawl. Affected. The thought popped up in Cindie's mind uninvited. She wished she hadn't had to think that.

'How do you do?' she said courteously, holding the sheaf of papers with both hands as if clinging to something important. This saved her the embarrassment of proffering a hand that might not be accepted.

Vindie? What did you say the rest of the name was? Oh, Brown! Of course. I think Nick called it . .

`Something?' Cindie asked, finding that unexpectedly she was becoming a little suave herself. I must stop this, she thought. This isn't me. All the same, Erica deserved it. She wasn't being friendly, or even very nice.

'It would be odd to go round the world with a name like Something tagged on behind the Cindie,' Erica said, eyebrows raised. 'By the way, what does "Cindie" stand for? It's a shortie name, surely?'

`Just Cindie.'

To admit to the full name, Cynthia, would be coming too close to her real surname. Besides, as she had always thought, she needed to be tall, blonde, and beautiful to fit 'Cynthia' She was above medium height, but not that tall.

Erica removed her left foot from the carton, unwound herself and stood up. She was the tall one, and oh, so beautifully built. Everything was in proportion: the long flowing lines of her body and the Roman-type modelling of her face. Except for the colouring of her hair, she ought to have been called Diana. She was as striking as that. Cindie felt like forgiving her the cold greeting because she was so good to look at.

Erica tucked her shirt-blouse in her slacks top needlessly. Hers was a lovely outfit, the colour the same as the wings of the bronze eagle. Cindie felt, dwarfed in all respects, specially when Mary, adding interest to the meeting, said:

`Miss Alexander runs a large sheep station as equal partner with her father. She is quite renowned in these parts for her ability as a pastoralist in her own right.'

`That's wonderful.' Cindie meant it. She knew that running a big sheep station was running a major industry. Hundreds of thousands of pounds could be won or lost on the turn of a season, or a miscalculation in stock-holding. It needed expertise, judgment, and a lot of outdoor supervision, as well as indoor book-work.

That was why she herself needed to know what the Stevens brothers at Bindaroo had been doing since her father, the sleeping partner in the city, had died.

`Well, I must go back to Nick and report,' Erica said in her calculated drawl. 'It's close on time for morning tea.'

`Report what?' Mary muttered in a tone of annoyance as Erica walked away with the graceful swaying motion of one who not only rode horses often and well, but who knew

just what that walk would mean to someone with a back view.

Cindie, glancing at the men on the chairs along the wall, guessed that if the young woman walking the length of the long floor had been anyone else but Nick Brent's friend, they would have whistled soft and long—sheep station regardless. They had that look in their eyes. It would have been in admiration, of course!

`I'd better get on with that job you gave me, Mary,' she said.

`Yes, you do that, Cindie, while Miss Erica goes back and `reports' to Nick. Reports what, I'd like to know.'

Mary Deacon, it seemed, was not too happy about Erica's visit to the camp.

Where was Nick anyway, Cindie wondered. And what doing? She went through the rear door to find someone called Mike. Nick was not out engineering a road that stretched half-way across a hemisphere, that was for sure, if he had an appointment for tea with Erica. He must be very very taken up with other business affairs, or love. Perhaps both.

An hour later, when Cindie came back into the main part of the building from the nether regions of the store-room, it was to be greeted with news from the children.

Cindie !' Myrtle called across the room. 'You know what we heard on the news-talk? Jim Vernon said he's coming up-river to see if he can cross it some time maybe in the next day or two. All depends on how high the river is

Cindie's heart gave a jump of joy.

Mary, still hard at work at the table, tapped it angrily with her pencil.

`Get on with your work, Myrtle, and don't gossip.'

`What's on the air is not gossip,' Myrtle insisted. It's talk. Anyhow, Jim Vernon sent the message to the construction camp specially. How do we know Nick would get the message, if he wasn't listening? No one but Jinx answered. We have to tell because someone would have to go out to pick him up. He can't cross in a car . .

`You're supposed to be doing your nature-study drawings, aren't you?' Mary demanded. 'How much have you done of yours, Jinx?'

`Only a bit because it's a frilled lizard and I've got to go out in the spinifex to see Swell, my own lizard. Copying from a book isn't good enough. The teacher said to draw it

from real life. She knows we live out here and she sets us things we can see for ourselves.'

Mary looked up at Cindie with exasperation.

'Don't ever buy into an argument with children,' she cautioned. 'Their logic is too deadly.'

'I won't,' Cindie agreed. 'Shall I type out this pencilled list now, Mary? Or should I get on with the letters for those men?'

'Do the list first. The men are outside having tea and a smoko with a couple of walking patients out of the sickbay. By the way, can you bandage, Cindie?'

Cindie nodded assurance. 'There are only a few things I do well,' she admitted. 'Typing and first aid are two of them. At one time I thought of being a nurse

'Good,' Mary interrupted her. 'There's plenty of bandaging that has to be done round here. When they don't break a finger it's an arm or a leg. With the Flying Doctor unable to land, you might discover you have more than plenty to do. Meantime—after the list, and after the letters, you'll find two chaps out on the step having that smoko. One has a broken bone in his wrist, and the other, a sprained ankle. They need their bandages changed—'

'Will do,' Cindie said gladly.

Mary looked at the girl, slightly puzzled.

'You seem so eager to do everything. Do you like work? Don't you mind I'm off-loading on your first day a large whack of my chores?'

'I like work. I'm thrilled to be given a job instead of just being a hanger-on waiting for the river to go down. Besides, I think you must have too much to do, Mary. You can off-lo
ad a lot and still look busy.'

'You're telling me!' Mary half-grumbled, taking notice only of the last part of what Cindie had said. 'Look at this pile of forms. Two hundred and seventeen of them. Do you know what that health department down below in the city wants to know? When each man working on this site last had his compulsory X-rays: who did it, where, and what was the result. As if I know! I'll have to ask each jack one of them, and most of them won't know either. Paper work! They need ten care-ails on this job.'

'I'll leave you to it, then,' Cindie said. 'I'll get on with this list. Is that the typewriter I'm to use on the far table?'

'That's it. The one and only, so you'd better take care of it. If you need new ribbons, Mike will give them to you. You have to sign for them.'

'I will, and with pleasure.' Cindie's smile had a touch of mischief in it. She had liked Mike the canteen manager very much.

What was really in her mind, however, was something so much gladder.

Jim Vernon was coming. Somehow he would get across that river, and when he did he would tell her what was going on at Bindaroo—since everyone in the north knew everyone-else's business. He would give her advice, and it would be kind advice; so she was certain it would be good too. Funny, but because Jim Vernon had been the first person Cindie had met in this area east of the Meridian, Longitude , she felt he was not only her oldest friend but her best.

If only he would think of her as someone special too! He was the only person who could make her forget a person like David—for keeps!

That's because I'm Cindie Brown now. A brand new person. She fed the paper into the typewriter. I'm new, so everything about me and my life is new. Brand new. My friends, my work, my world.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if she could stay here more than six months? Token tax only—to begin with: and a job! And—Jim

Suddenly, once again, Cindie felt the thrill of starting life again from scratch, with a new identity. All old mistakes, like her ignorance of universal constants, and how computers worked, were erased.

Mary Deacon noticed Cindie's new air of poise. A kind of happiness, a sort of joy, radiated from the girl as she bent her head over the typewriter. Mary had also noticed the quick flush that had coloured Cindie's face when Myrtle had announced the news of Jim Vernon's impending visit—if he managed to cross the river.

A combination of love, and a willingness to be useful, Mary thought dryly. Ah, well, nice to be young! Wait till she's my age.

Her thoughts turned darkly, for one spare moment, to Erica Alexander and that ill-considered way of putting things —I must go and report to Nick. Report herself? Or what was going on in the canteen? Probably report on the new girl, and first impressions!

That's love for you, Mary thought with an unusual touch of cynicism. Catch as catch can—and be wary of the dark stranger.

' One thing for certain, she was not going to spill Cindie's secret for her—if Cindie had really come outback to consolidate a more-than-budding friendship with the overseer at Baanya. It was, of course, still a mystery as to why the girl had come on up-river.