The river is Down (2 page)

'Well, I'll pass the word on that you're coming, Cindie. You mind me calling you Cindie?' She shook her head. 'You see,' he went on, 'you have to cross that river yet. Then there's things like kangaroos hitting a car at thirty miles an hour and emus at sixty—if you travel by night. That means collision course up to a hundred and twenty miles an hour. You'll mind your pace, won't you, Cindie? That is, if you're driving on through the dark? You'll be over the dry river-bed by then—if your luck holds.'

He was really concerned for her. He, a stranger, cared.

Which is absurd, she told herself, blinking uninvited moisture from her eyes.

'Thank you for being so kind.' Her sudden smile was like a rainbow shining through clouds.

I always thought that thumper of mine was horny. He wondered at himself. Now it's being tweaked by this slip of a girl. Must be the eyes: and something valiant behind them.

She paid for the petrol and oil by cheque, forgetting it would bear her full signature. She was too busy thinking gratefully about the cheque being acceptable because a car registration number was identification enough.

Jim Vernon would have liked to make a gift of the petrol and oil—he liked her violet eyes that much, and was sorry for the hidden trouble that was in her. Unfortunately the stuff wasn't his to give away. It belonged to the Overton Pastoral Company, of which, as overseer, he was a not-verybig shareholder. He didn't bother, at the moment, to look at the cheque: or her signature. He honoured her wish for anonymity that much.

`Well, so long, Cindie,' he said, lifting his outback, dusty slouch hat. 'Don't forget to give my message to the boys up at the Road, will you? The thousand-miler they call this stretch of it. Specially give cheers from me to Nick Brent. Don't forget him, will you? I wouldn't want to miss him out. He's a good friend of mine.'

Cindie started up the engine and pushed the gear stick into reverse. 'Nick Brent?'

`He's the boss up there. The site engineer. But he's a nor'-wester like myself. Born and bred up this
away and buying into property as he goes along. Making a come-back on the land the hard way—'

He broke off.

Hopping kangaroos! He'd nearly told her Nick was said to be buying into Bindaroo Station, the place where she was going. A bad break to talk that kind of business to a relative of the Bindaroo crowd! Rumour was only rumour anyway. . . .

Cindie backed away from the pump, swung the car round, and lifted her hand in a last wave.

If only David . . . she thought again.

How could anyone expect a dedicated, serious, unsmiling research scientist like David to look, or even smile, like an outback station man? She had met the wrong man in her life when she met a scientist. It wasn't anyone's fault, not even her own: nor David's. Just Fate.

She had driven away from Baanya Station, out on to the

dusty ironstone track, and away eastwards for a hundred and fifty miles. She had crossed the billabong just in time, and now had come to the twin avenues of river gums between which a depth of water was racing, too soon, to the west.

The river was down already!

Cindie sat in her car, her arms on the steering wheel and her dusty face creased in thought. A few minutes ago she had felt anxiety. Now this was gone because she remembered Jim Vernon's promise, back at Baanya Station. She had dreaded those radio conversations across the outback, but now she felt relief. Jim Vernon would have told the whole world north of Twenty-Six that she, Cindie, in a nineteen-sixty-two model Holden, was somewhere on the track to the breakaway country. Somebody, elsewhere across the air-world, would have passed the news that the river was down. Someone, somewhere, would come looking for her. She had that much faith in the nor'-west.

If only it could be Jim Vernon himself ! That, she told herself, was only a day-dream. The happy kind.

Well, why not dream?

Then she jerked up her head and stared through the windscreen. Something far far away on the other bank was coming. The river was inches higher now, although the land over there, between the river gums, was dry and arid as ever. There weren't even any clouds in the pale heat-dazzled sky, but that thing away over on the other side of the river was a very important cloud indeed. It was dust-smoke at ground level, which meant something was coming. It raced along too fast to be sheep on the move, or even a mob of wild brumbies.

It had to be a car.

Minutes later it was a car. A Land-Rover. It came on, smoking red dust behind it. Then it stopped on the high bank of buffel grass on the far side of the river.

Cindie expelled a long sigh of relief. She hadn't been scared—well not very much. She had made herself believe in that day-dream of Jim Vernon and the radio air-world of the nor'-west. Now it had come true.

The two doors of the Land-Rover opened, and two men seemed to spill out: one on either side of it.

From the distance they were alike in their dress. They both wore the light-brown clothes, uniform of the outback. On their heads, pulled down on their brows, were their dusty brown cotton hats, like the ones the jungle soldier

wore. One was tall and the other short. They stood, their feet slightly apart, hands dug in their belts. They looked across the river at Cindie, who had slipped out of her car now and was staring back at them.

She waved her hand. Unexpectedly, the silent unnerving stance of the two men took the spirit out of her wave: and they did not return it.

Exasperated at having to rescue a traveller?

The tall one pushed his hat on the back of his head, came round the front of the Land-Rover, and began giving the short man instructions. He pointed across the river, then back to their own car. The short man pushed his hat on the back of his head too, then nodded. The first man leant in the window, and when his head and shoulders came out of it he was holding a megaphone.

'Hullo, over there!' he called through it. 'Have you a tow-bar to your car? Raise both arms for "Yes". Drop both arms by your side for "No".'

Cindie raised her arms. A tow-bar on her car was pure luck. She had bought the car cheap from a second-hand dealer. It probably had been a country car before it was traded in.

'Good. Next question. Is your name Cindie Something—maybe Brown?'

Cindie's chin firmed, just that much. She wished she too had a megaphone. She would have called back—'It's Cindie, but not Something. Just Brown-all-over.' She was about to be rescued—but she wished they had been as nice about it as she was relieved.

All she could do was raise her arms to signify 'Yes'.

'Right! Now listen carefully. Turn your car round rear-end to the river. Move any luggage and gear on to the back seat. That's two instructions. If you understand both, lift your hands over your head.'

Cindie did as she was told.

'Right!' the answer came back. 'We're coming across.'

Both men climbed back into the Land-Rover, started up and drove down the sloping bank into the water. Having a four-wheel drive, the Land-Rover could do more than any ordinary car. Cross a river, for one thing. The churning of mud was a wonder to behold, but the Rover kept on moving through the river, water almost up to chassis level. It had a relentless, powerful engine.

Cindie felt her eyes rounding while this was going on. Supposing they bogged! The thought appalled her. She was

so concerned about their safe transit she was bound by anxiety to the spot. She also realised that they perhaps considered she could have driven over too—if she had had the nerve. They were annoyed with her. That was it. They hadn't wanted to come to rescue her. How different from Jim Vernon!

They knew her name was Cindie. That was Jim Vernon's air-call. The thoughts rattled, unrelated, through her anxious mind.

The Land-Rover churned upgrade now, which meant it had safely made the deep part in the middle of the river The mud was a chocolate-brown pudding again.

She felt herself tense all over as she watched the from wheels, enormous rippled rubber tyres, roll forward on to dry land, on her side of the river. Only then did she coma out of her trance.

The shorter man put his head out of the window.

`Say, miss, didn't we tell you to get in your car and turn it round? You forgotten, or something?'

Yes, she had forgotten because she had been fearful that the Rover would bog.

She turned guiltily,
and slipped back in her car. She
moved the key and pulled the ignition switch. Nothing happened.

`Oh, no!' she thought. 'Not now! Not a flat battery. It isn't possible.' She used the choke and pulled the starter button again. The engine clanged, then petered. She tried again, this time using the throttle. The engine barely fired, clanged again, then died. She looked in the rear-vision mirror in despair. The Land-Rover had come to a halt a few yards away and had about-turned. The tall man was out of the car bringing with him a tow-line.

The short man came towards her.

`You got engine trouble?' he asked, almost too casually. `That why you stopped up here? Or too scared to come across t'other side?'

Cindie decided he was like a brown wizened monkey with his small round lined face, and his quick jerky movements.

`There was nothing wrong with the engine earlier,' she said lamely. 'It was all right when I stopped here. I was warned back along the track not to go over the river if it was down because of clay-bog. I didn't know what to do

A shadow was thrown across her window from the other side.

He had to bend quite a lot to look at her through the far window, because this was the tall one. He was different. He was very brown, but not lined. His body was still, yet wary, as if he only moved when ready. Then he'd go into action like the flash of a stockwhip, maybe. His eyes were penetrating, very direct. He was a man of command. Even the quiet, forbidding antagonism she sensed in his bearing did not lessen her own first response to respect him.

`Are you from Marana Station?' she asked, hiding an unexpected shyness. He was impressive and she was a little scared of him.

`I am not,' he said briefly. 'We're down from the construction camp. The thousand-miter. What is the trouble with your starter?'

'I didn't think there was any.' She was flustered and apologetic, though in her heart she wanted to stand up to this man, and keep her dignity.

`Move out, then, will you?' he asked briefly. He held the door open for her but looked across to the monkey man who was leaning in the window on the drive side of the car as if time was nothing and they now could take all day. Cindie sensed him telling himself : if women are stupid enough to travel alone in the outback, they ought to learn how to look after themselves first. She scrambled across the passenger seat and slipped out of the car. The taller man had to bend low to ease through the door to the steering wheel.

'Smell any petrol, Flan?' he asked his companion. The monkey man sniffed the air.

`Maybe she's flooded the carburettor some, boss, but can't smell anything much enough to worry about.'

The man at the steering wheel moved the gear stick, then pulled the starter. The engine sprang into life and purred as sweetly as if it had been a brand new car straight from the show-floor.

Cindie's face flushed scarlet, as he glanced at her. His unrelenting expression spoke volumes.

He eased his foot on the throttle and the engine rolled beautifully. He glanced up through the window again.

Her chin went up. 'I was nervous. I must have stalled it. That's why

`You were still in gear ' he said casually, yet with the

hidden superiority of an elder statesman.

`Jumping 'roos!' the little monkey man said. 'She comes across from the coast, maybe all the way up north first—

she's got a city number plate—and she says she's nervous. She starts a car in gear

`Now's not the time for cracks, Flan,' the boss said without emphasis, unexpectedly. 'Nothing will get back over that river in another hour. I'll back up and turn this car. Get the tow-rope hitched on the bar while I set the luggage up high and back in this lot.'

So he had spared her his spoken annoyance! Cindie was grateful.

She felt lost and just a little forlorn, standing there while her car was backed away and the driver turned it round.

Neither of the men spoke to her again while they went about their business of attaching the tow-rope, then using a kind of winch on the back of the Land-Rover to raise a miniature crane from under the canvas hood. The tow was then attached through a pulley.

Her car suddenly looked dreadfully deserted and undignified as the winch raised the back wheels, and the car rested, nose dipping forward with its rear part suspended in the air like the helpless end of a goose. Her heart was remorseful that she had caused this indignity to her only beloved possession.

`Poor darling car !' she said sadly to herself, shaking her head.

She stood by, wanting to offer to help, but afraid of a snub if she said anything. The quiet efficient authority of the two men had an intimidating effect on her.

That dreadful blush about muffing the starter had thrust her straight back into the class of helpless womanhood that should not have become emancipated. She could almost hear what they were thinking. Ought never have left her mother's apron strings.