The river is Down (22 page)

`You and I are above those sort of games, Cindie girl.' He patted her hand where it lay in the crook of his arm. `Which way to-night? Would we lose our track if we went out to see Swell?'

`That would make Jinx and Myrtle mad with envy. But we could go part of the way: half a mile. There's a nice big lump of ironstone sticking out of the ground all by itself. I'm sure it would make a good seat.'

`Incidentally, how are the children? I haven't seen them in two days.'

`They found Swell quite safe from the fire some days ago. Since then the preparations for the party have driven the poor little lizard, and everything else, from their minds. They're terribly excited.'

`And you too?'

`Yes—except for something else that has cropped up. Nick wants me to act as his secretary for a special job. Jim dear, I have to start talking worries to you all over again. Will you mind?'

`Not on your life. That's what I'm here for.'

They walked on together, the moon lighting them as clearly as if it had been daylight. They were two lone figures arm in arm, wandering over a plain that led only to the rim of the world. They were black silhouettes against a night-blue sky.

Cindie, after talking of the party preparations, told Jim the details of Nick's offer of this special job, and of her own problems in accepting it.

`My oh my, you do have a conscience!' he laughed. 'For a girl who wanders about no-man's land nor'-west trying to put a wedge in a big business deal that would frighten most station owners,' he added, 'you must have plenty of courage, too. Why not skip the conscience?'

`But it's like double-dealing

When they reached the rock they sat on it, but not before Jim pretended first to dust it clean with his handkerchief. A year's downpour of soap and suds, they both knew, would not have cleaned the red dust and iron stain from that piece of rounded stone.

`Let's get this straight, Cindie,' Jim said more seriously, after a few minutes. He lit a cigarette. 'There isn't even a game of top-grade football, or Test cricket, that doesn't depend for victory on tactics. Nobody calls a sporting game double-dealing, though there's an awful lot at stake in the end result. National prestige. You understand that?'

Cindie nodded. He went on, more slowly, a steady note in his voice:

`You set your hand to a plough when you hefted yourself in that outdated Holden of yours, lass, and came up north to find out what went on with your mother's stake in Bindaroo. Now you have to furrow to the very end, or quit. Are you a quitter, Cindie?'

'No. Never!'

`Good for you. All you have to do is keep right on till Father Time is on your side. Being a certain person's secretary has nothing to do with it—so long as you treat your boss, in that situation, with strict honesty. In any other situation? Well, that's different!'

Cindie thought about that for quite some minutes. It was logical.

'You do make everything seem simple, Jim,' she said finally with a rueful laugh.

'What about me?' he asked. 'I'm Nick's guest, and what's more, I'm his friend. While here in those roles I don't mix in his private affairs, though I sometimes have them thrust on me by the talkers. Once I'm back at Baanya, it's different. I mean to make inquiries about Bindaroo. That's business! And business, like love, has its own rules.' He drew on his cigarette. 'If I pick up some ideas by accident, that's different too.'

Cindie was silent because she didn't know how to show her gratitude. She knew Jim was doing this for her sake alone. This knowledge touched her in her most susceptible place—her heart. He had no other interest but her in what Erica or Nick did with their spare time or their spare money. They sat a long time talking of stars and constellations, and why the spinifex grew where nothing else could. On their way back to the camp, Cindie's arm in Jim's again, he told her he would watch out for any new developments he might hear, via the radio, of Erica's movements while Cindie was away.

Something of the spirit of fun lightened their mood as they made plans to communicate with one another by radio. 'We have to have a code,' Jim said.

'The things that sound so innocent over the air!' Cindie laughed. 'After this experience I'll always wonder—even if it's only an announcement of some baby's christening—what is really behind anything said.'

'That's what we all do,' Jim replied sagely. 'We'll rename that car of yours. From the day you leave the camp, till the day you come back, Holden will stand for Bindaroo. Right?'

Cindie nodded. 'If you refer to my Holden in a message, I'll know you really mean Bindaroo.'

'Good. If we refer to the "heat" we'll mean the pressure's on for that sale. I'll think up a few more code words and let you have them before you leave. Will it be sometime next week?'

'Nick didn't say so, but Mary thinks it may be Monday or Tuesday—according to how quickly Nick can organise the foreman and the work on the road. She said he has known about this conference for some time, so he has things pretty well worked out already.'

She did not tell Jim how much it had hurt ha' pride that Nick had first suggested the trip north as a gesture of kindness after his outburst at the spinifex fire. All the time it had been because he needed a secretary. A wily, astute man was Nick!

When they reached the door of Mary's house Jim kissed her a gentle good night. This time it was on her lips, and not for the curl that sometimes dropped over her right temple. Cindie, still a little shy of this new kind of comforting love—so different from David's selfishness—could not bring herself to return the kiss except with her usual one. Yet she drew his head down and kissed his forehead. If it was more tender than usual, Jim's only comment was—`That was my luckiest star to-night. An extra bright one. Good night, sweet Cindie Brown-all-over.'

She stood and watched him go, a tall strong figure, soon enveloped in the shadows of the first caravan row.

The party was a wonderful success.

The sun had barely gone down, and the light—pink, amethyst and purple—was still on the land when the six barbecue fires were lit: each on its own iron grille. Presently, when reduced to coals, those fires would grill the mountains of steak. There were T-bones, rump, and fillets of young beef : all brought out of the freezer-truck that stood behind the canteen. Fresh bread rolls, still hot from the oven, had been baked; and the chef's own version of French mustard had been supplied in plenty.

Several of the men in from the road, led by Jim Vernon and Dicey George, all full of high spirits, showed themselves adept at turning the steaks and rescuing lost ones from the coals. Cartons of tinned ginger beer, orange juice and real beer were delivered-from Mike's store to the long tables, magically decorated with dyed spinifex and gum leaves, and set out around the main square.

When Nick and Erica arrived three minutes late, it was like the coming of royalty. The men, for the fun of it, gave them a cheer and raised their glasses.

Cindie, helping Mike with the opening of cans, thought they were indeed royalty—of a kind. They looked it. Nick was in a spotless white shirt, wearing the only tie in the camp. Erica wore her most striking dress—patterned with glowing bronze and gold—that suited her colouring. She carried herself with such an air, she seemed like someone from higher realms.

`No wonder they call her the Queen of the Spinifex,' Cindie whispered to Mike. She was too honest not to admire

the other girl, and too honest not to admit there was something enviable about someone who could make an entrance like that.

`They're quite a pair, aren't they!' Mike said dryly. It was a statement, not a question.

Jinx and Myrtle had run clamouring to Nick and Erica. Though they professed not to like the visitor, they were immediately under the spell of her glamour.

'I'd like a dress like that,' Myrtle said in her uninhibited way. 'Do I have to wait till I'm grown up?'

'You do,' Erica replied. 'Groomed and educated, too. Do you think that's in the least likely?'

'Anything's likely,' Jinx answered philosophically. This was a catch-phrase he had picked up from the men working on the road.

'Where have you two been these last few nights?' Nick asked the children with a grin. 'Have you deserted old friends? There are still plenty of Cokes in the fridge

'You don't put ice in our drinks when Miss Erica's there,' Myrtle reproached him. 'You only pay attention to her.'

'She's a visitor, little miss. Besides, it seems to me you're the one right now who is busy admiring Miss Erica. Why shouldn't I join in sometimes? What's more—do you blame me?'

It could all have been in the spirit of the party, but Cindie thought Nick really meant that last remark.

Even Myrtle's small childlike glow shone but dimly beside Erica's brilliance to-night.

Jim, making a great play of it—bowing deeply as he did so—came up and presented Erica first with a drink, then with the best of steaks, beautifully folded in a lettuce leaf and tucked into a bread roll. Dicey, enveloped in an apron, followed. With much elaborate pantomime, he bestowed the same offerings on Nick. Cindie, watching from the serving table where she was now buttering rolls, felt a pinprick of dismay. It was all very amusing, but it gave her an unaccountably left-out feeling. Her world was, for two minutes, bleak.

When the barbecue was over, and the film about to begin, everyone trooped into the canteen.

The trestle tables had been put outside for the meal, and now the chairs in the canteen had been placed side by side, row behind row, ready for an audience.

Dicey immediately came into his own. He was suddenly very professional, and had forgotten his earlier flippancy

while bowing to Erica and Nick. He was intent and serious while de-canning his film and adjusting his projector.

Mary insisted that she wanted to sit at the back of the hall.

`I'm long-sighted,' she maintained. 'Besides, I like being by myself. I can duck outside and do some star-gazing if I don't like Dicey's choice of film.'

Cindie guessed this insistence of Mary's was only an excuse. It made her feel unhappy, specially as Jim had arrived to sit with them.

`Please do stay with us, Mary,' Cindie begged. 'We can sit nearer the back too. Can't we, Jim?'

`Nothing doing!' Mary was quite emphatic. `Mr. Vernon is short-sighted, I know. I heard him talking to the Flying Doctor about it over the air once. He was recommended spectacles—though I don't see him wearing them over here.'

`The specs were for reading only,' Jim said with a grin.

'I'm glad to hear it. I did ask myself at the time—"How can the overseer at Baanya oversee, if he can't see?"'

She was already in the aisle, moving towards the back row, where Flan sat watching her approach. Flan, Mary had declared once before, was so long-sighted he could see a lizard digesting its dinner back on the Mulga Ranges.

`She really means it, Jim,' Cindie said regretfully.

'I'm sorry too, but Dicey did ask me to sit close by. He wants a hand to help wind on the film, when it comes to the joins.'

Nick and Erica sat in aisle seats two rows behind Cindie and Jim. Jinx and Myrtle, like all children, thought the best fun was in the front row.

The lights went down to the accompaniment of whistles from the men. Then the film began.

Within a few minutes Cindie leaned towards Jim.

`I've seen it before,' she whispered. 'But it's quite good.'

`You can afford to miss it, then,' he whispered back. 'I don't like films anyway. Bob your head down, and listen while I talk.'

They leaned forward, their heads coupled together and lowered beneath the eye-level of those behind. An imp of fun suggested to Cindie that Nick and Erica might have quite a lot to think about at such intimate behaviour.

Then she forgot about any kind of behaviour as she listened.

`I've been hearing news about that Bindaroo deal, I'm

afraid, Cindie,' Jim kept his voice low. 'Can you take it, girl? Or shall I wait till some other time?'

'No. Please go on, Jim.'

'I've been up the road to-day. All of a hundred miles. I kept away from you earlier for that reason. Did you mind?'

Cindie nodded. 'I did,' she said frankly. 'Quite a lot.'

'Sorry, sweetheart. I thought it wiser. We are conspirators, aren't we? Well, it's like this—before the big rain and the wash-out, the men on the site up there were in the habit of talking to Marana's stockmen as they came across to see the road. And to old Alexander, too. The men are of one mind that Erica came across the claypan neck specially to talk Bindaroo business with Nick—before the rain cut her off. They're only guessing, of course. They think there's a promise of matrimony in it too. It doesn't make your job so easy, does it?'

'Go on, Jim. What else did the men talk about? I have-to know.' Cindie's heart had taken another plunge. She couldn't quite understand why this news had such an effect on her. After all, she'd known about the bid for Bindaroo all along.

'It's just that the betting is on a double partnership, that's all. For Erica, matrimony as well as Bindaroo. It's only guesswork. You know what the men are, Cindie. They'll bet on anything—even flies crawling up the other fellow's back.'