The river is Down (7 page)

`Here's Jim now.'

Dicey handed the mike to Cindie, pushing back his chair as he did so, to walk away.

`Can't be too private,' he reminded her. 'I won't listen, but the rest of the world will.'

Cindie gave him a wry smile as she took the instrument. Now her thoughts were in a helpless tangle, thanks to Mrs. Overton.

`Jim Vernon here,' the next voice came over the air. 'You want me, Dicey?'

Cindie recognised the light soft tone instantly. She forgot

her doubts connecting Nick, Erica and Bindaroo. Time enough later for that. How slowly Jim drawled his words! She could have cried. How strange things were. She'd bought some petrol from a station overseer, talked and laughed with him a little while, signed a cheque that could embarrass her beyond words, then driven away. Yet suddenly his voice sounded like the voice of home: of safety. An endearing voice.

`Jim—' There was nearly a frog in her throat, certainly a prayer for understanding in her heart. 'It's Cindie. You know—Cindie . . .' She hesitated, then emphasised it. 'Cindie Brown-all-over. You remember how I was? Covered in dust. At least—'

There was a chuckle of pleasure over the air. 'Do I remember? Now that you're a long way away, Cindie, I can say what I couldn't say then. Blue eyes, straight back, dark hair, a smile like a rainbow. I remember all right.'

Cindie, alone by the tranceiver, blushed. Was he joking? No, he wasn't. He was being utterly nice and didn't care a darn that the whole nor'west could be listening to him saying flattering things to a girl over the air.

She had heard Dicey go out, but now it seemed that he had come back. Behind her she heard footsteps come into the unit, then halt just inside the door. She didn't mind Dicey. He was a friend in need.

`Thank you Jim for sending my movements forward. I was rescued all right,' she said, a waver in her voice. 'You won't forget me, Cindie Brown, will you? Please forget the rest of it because—'

`The rest of it?'

`Yes. The "allover" that came after the Brown. Just Cindie Brown. You see, Jim, I've had two cold showers, and I'm not all over dust any more. So I'll just be Brown. All by itself. I'm sorry I didn't take enough notice of your advice about speeding along faster, and getting across the river in time.' She was hurrying on now. 'I put you to trouble, and the people here at the construction camp too. I just want you to know that Cindie Brown's sorry she's put everyone to trouble--'

`Listen Cindie Brown-all-over . . . Oh, I'm not allowed to add the "allover"? Right, I've clicked! You don't like names with more than one syllable! Well, I don't either, though mine's got two. The Vernon part. Most people just call me plain Jim to make it short. How's that? Brown's a nice name anyway. Kind of warm.'

`Yes, Jim. Thank you for being helpful . . . about . well, directions and advice. . . Cindie's voice was so low

with relief she was afraid, when she thought about it later, that the listening ears across the nor'-west would have thought the tenderness in her voice was too marked for an air-talk, and for what ought to be said in a letter, or face to face. But Jim Vernon had clicked. That was what really mattered. She was Cindie Brown. What would he wonder? What would he be thinking of her?

`Jim . . . I'd like to see you. I know I can't because of the river. But when I come back I want to explain something

`You'll see me all right. When the river's down a bit. I'll come across by flying-fox. I'll be there. Don't you worry, Blue Eyes.'

'If you can come over by flying-fox can't I go on eastwards the same way? I mean to the upper tableland? I don't want to go back to the coast yet. Not till I've gone through

'No flying-fox east or north for you, Cindie. It'll be flood-land any time now on the other side of the thousand-miler. You can't take your car over that way. You wouldn't want to say good-bye to it? And you can't walk! You stay right where you are till it's safe. It's me who'll have to come to you. No hardship that, Blue Eyes--'

A male voice cut in on the air. It had a tease in the tone.

'Come off it, Baanya! There's other stations want to get through, including Marana. Who you courting over there at the construction camp, Jim? You've about a hundred and twenty likely competitors up thataway.'

'Okay, we'll break off now, Sam,' Jim Vernon told the intruding voice. 'But in case you think I'm courting—you're dead right. How's that, Cindie?'

She knew he was joking. A weight had fallen from her shoulders, and she could have laughed with relief.

He was a man, known for a short moment in time only, but he was her friend. He knew she was in some private difficulty about her name, and was playing the part for her.

'Good-bye, Cindie Brown. Golly, I nearly said "Brown-all-over." Wish I could see you, right now. 'Bye, Cindie-girl.'

He kept repeating her name to let her be sure he understood her message.

"Bye Jim. Thank you so much. I love you—for that. The way you said it, I mean

Silver bells were in her voice. Now she was really—suddenly and completely—happy. She could have danced.

She turned the 'Off' knob and sat, the tips of her fingers on the bench, her toes tapping on the floor as if she heard far-off music.

A new land, a new person, and someone who cared.

The footsteps that had come into the unit a few minutes earlier came across the floor towards the panel.

Cindie started. These were not Dicey George's footsteps.

There was a quiet insentient tread about them. They came towards her with the cold precision of a guided missile.

She swung around. Bang went the beat of her day-dream! She almost heard the last chord; then the dying-fall.

It was Nick Brent.

'The men, and there are more than two hundred of them, are not allowed to use the air for social calls.' His voice was spare, yet firm. He leaned over the set and turned the 'On' knob. The Sam-voice of a moment ago was talking to another about the dust haze on the new road and the racket made by bulldozers, earthmovers and graders across his station lease. Nick turned the tone down to 'Low' so that this air conversation was now no more than a faint sound.

'I do have to let people know,' Cindie began, trying to be logical. 'I mean, after all, people could wonder, or be alarmed about me. I had to let them know

'The overseer at Baanya?' There was irony in his voice.

'You mean Jim Vernon? Well, you see, he'll let people

know. He can send the news home for me. That is

She broke off. She was in a maze of half-truths again.

Her backbone seemed made of rubber.

He was looking straight at her. She did not let her own eyes waver. That would give her away completely. So she was angry instead; her only defence. The safest, too.

'Why don't you like me, Mr. Brent? Why are you judging me before you even know me? You did that down there at the river when you rescued me. It can't be only because I'm a girl. There are several other women here, besides Mrs. Deacon. Do you look at them this way? As if they had no right to exist on a construction camp? It can't be wrong for them to be here, else you wouldn't have special houses in a row called D'D for the men's wives to visit them occasionally.'

'That is the point, Cindie.' He spoke with a simplicity that had subtle depth. 'And, by the way, I'm not Mr. Brent to anybody, I'm either "the boss", or Nick. I'm being the boss right now. The point about the women over at D'D

is that they are wives. They have their husbands to look after them.'

`I rank as defenceless?' Cindie asked, tilting her chin. `Yet Mary Deacon is not defenceless

`Mary is self-sufficient as a person. That is the difference.' `Then why have you judged me in advance? How do you know I am not self-sufficient too?'

His brows went up and his eyes went stone-cold.

`You didn't sound like it on the air to Jim Vernon. That conversation was particularly personal in tone. It was not an urgent matter. Yes, Cindie, I'm afraid I heard it, as the rest of the air-world did. It is my business as boss to know what's going on: and why rules are broken. Everything that goes on in this camp and on the site is my business. I need to know why any unauthorised air-conversation is taking place. Of course, Dicey George gave you permission, but then I'll have a "please-explain" from him later. I wanted first to know just how blameworthy he was. Or if you had some motive in persuading him to relax a rule.'

How dare you! she thought. She knew her expression must have said the words aloud for her. But she didn't care. Here she was, embarked on the business of crossing the west side of the dead heart of Australia to deal with a million-acre property, to which her mother, poor in health and helpless by nature, had some financial claim. Yet this man—this Nick Brent—thought she was a stupid female bent on beguiling people like Dicey George, and Jim Vernon, for purely frivolous reasons. Perhaps he thought she was a man-chaser, or something?

A simpleton, male or female, couldn't have come safely as far as she had come—until that darned water came down too soon

`It was that beastly river,' she said bitterly. 'Oh, yes, I know it is a kind of watery paradise-on-earth, and big money, to the pastoralists. But to me it has been no more than something ' She broke off. Something what? Only a minute ago she had thought she had found heaven! How far could one fall in a moon-drop?

The voices of Sam and the other man interested in dust hazes and bulldozers on the thousand-miler were continuing their duologue like a distant low-pitched refrain to this conversation-piece between Nick Brent and herself.

`The river is no more than something in your way? I think that was what you were about to say, Cindie. You think you have a right to foreclose on rivers? Probably

mountains too?' His voice was pointed with sarcasm. 'Where were you going on this track? There's nothing past Marana to the upper tableland. Beyond that there's only the breakaway country and Bindaroo Station.'

Cindie grew suddenly calm. She had to be careful and logical and convincing now. She had business with Bindaroo —but that was her private affair. Erica, Nick and Bindaroo! Mrs. Overton had linked them all together!

`There's a track right through to Alice Springs in the Territory,' she Said with a new confidence. 'The oil prospectors have gone through there. Then the R.A.C. reported on it. Finally, only a few weeks ago a group of journalists went through for the Daily News

`And so?'

`You think that what they can do is not possible for a girl?' Cindie lifted her chin. Her eyes were fearless again. 'Do you know that a girl holds a commercial licence for flying helicopters in South Australia? My two cousins, girls, went across the Nullabor in an old jalopy. Eleven hundred miles of it. Two English girls came right across the north—alone. The longest stretch of houseless road in the world—'

Nick's voice became subtly different. It was patient: sardonic.

`Alone is not quite the right word, Cindie. Two cousins crossed the Nullabor. Two English girls crossed the north. The word alone applies to one person. Yourself.'

'You sound like my uncles trying to advise me about what I can or cannot do.' She was angrier still.

'Forgive my mentioning it, Cindie, but probably those particular relatives would have been concerned and responsible enough to have told you you could not cross a northwest river when it is down. Or the miles of flooded land below the ranges.'

She knew what he said was just. 'I'm sorry,' she said, deflating. 'That was mean of me. You are the boss. I realise that. I just felt—well, kind of desperate. Sometimes a girl has to face things. Situations. I'm sorry that I can't explain, but please believe I was going up that track to the tableland because I had to.'

'To Bindaroo? Or beyond?'

She did not answer.

Again his expression changed subtly. A momentary weariness, exasperation perhaps, crossed his face like a shadow. He looked away from Cindie towards the window.

'Very well,' he said. 'You were going on business of your

own for reasons of your own. None of those affairs are mine, except that it is my duty—general instructions from police headquarters—to report any lost persons found, or not found. I am required to inform them of having taken in charge any stranded traveller, giving that traveller's identity, postal address and destination. This is no more than a safety regulation for the individual's own benefit. I am not by nature in the least curious, I can assure you of that.'

Identity? Postal address, and destination? All over the

air?

Cindie's heart sank. She had to keep silent. She had to find out if and why the Stevens brothers were selling out at Bindaroo: and why no information or money had been sent to her mother, who had no other private means of support than her share in that property. Nick would send the information about her identity over the air. Up at Bindaroo they would hear of her coming.

The silence between them had become strained.

With an effort Cindie smiled as if this speech of his could be no more than a joke to an honest law-abiding citizen.

'There's no need to be concerned with regulations, Nick,' she said quietly. 'You see, I've talked to Jim Vernon. My mother will know I'm safe and in good hands. I'm not lost any more, am I? Not now that you've found me, and I'm here! I planned to let my mother know exactly where I was at certain stated intervals. She wouldn't expect to hear from me for some time anyway. There's no need to send messages to the police if that is only a safety measure. Mother would be alarmed at that. But thank you for thinking you had to go-to the trouble.'