East of Outback (30 page)

Where on earth was Griffith? The sky streaked gray as the track leveled out across a barren flat. The trail looked unused. Was he lost after all? The mare could easily have wandered off onto a side track when he fell asleep. No choice now. He must press on. Where would he end up if he missed Griffith? He tried to think of other towns in the area, but none came to mind.

A persistent tickle scratched in his throat, but no amount of coughing could budge it. He began to fear pneumonia in this miserable weather. Was that a town up ahead? The sun was coming up and he could barely discern buildings in the distance. He urged the mare to a canter. She lunged into her rocking-horse gait, dinner-plate feet splacking through the mud.

The ride increased Colin’s headache and he began to feel dizzy. Or was he disoriented? The horizon undulated. Max’s Lady seemed distanced from him and her head waved weirdly.

She stumbled and very nearly unhorsed him. Colin held her to a dog-trot. By the time they jogged into the main street, the townsfolk were out and about on their daily business. People looked at him oddly.

“Dr. Newsome’s office, please?” Colin asked the first person he could stop.

“Left at the next cross street, and three blocks down.”

He turned left, but then lost count of the blocks. He found the office by backtracking. A shingle promised Dr. Harold Newsome. No one about. Colin tried the door. Locked. A wave of panic started to rise in his breast. He forced it down and crossed the street. A woman passed and he called to her, “Ma’am, do you know Dr. Newsome’s office hours, please? I have to find him.”

“Hours? I don’t think he has any. Try his home, half a mile out the Rankins Springs Track. You can’t miss it.”

I wouldn’t bank on that
. Colin bade her good day and climbed back into the waterlogged saddle. The mare shivered now the way Colin had during the night. What a miserable trip it had been.

Somehow, by sheer luck he thought, he found Rankins Springs Track. The rain began again. The mare groaned and dropped to her knees. Colin pitched forward, slid out of the saddle and down her neck. His ears burned hot with embarrassment. He wondered if anyone had seen this pitiful display of horsemanship. He began coughing again, and urged the mare to her feet.

She took a few steps forward and fell again.

An automobile chugged to a halt in the muddy track. A heavyset fellow in a business suit stepped out. “Who do you think you are, larrikin, to maltreat a horse so!”

“Uh, yes sir . . .”
Maltreat?
He had no intention of mistreating his beloved old mare.
How could the man think such a thing?
“Uh, sir, can you tell me how far to Dr. Newsome’s house? I have to find him.”

The man stared at him. “I believe you do. Get in.”

Colin walked around the front of the auto; he slipped in the mud and lurched momentarily against the car. He climbed into the passenger side as the fellow shifted into gear. “Uh, sir? I can’t just leave her. I have to put her up at a stable, or maybe a farm nearby. Let her rest. It’s been a hard night.”

“I believe you. In your condition, you should have sent someone else.”

“I am the someone else, sir. Spanish flu down at the Colfax selection.”

“Colfax. Don’t know the name. Flu, eh?”

“Yes, sir.” Colin felt disoriented again as the auto jiggled roughly along the track.

They pulled into the driveway of a pleasant bungalow. It reminded Colin of the sprawling, airy homes of the pearl dealers in Broome. The businessman beeped his horn.

Colin slid out and thanked the fellow. He stepped under a portico and knocked. The driver loomed behind him.

Dr. Newsome appeared in the doorway, towering above Colin. For some reason, he’d expected the doctor to be short and paunchy. The man before him looked like a heavyweight bare-knuckle boxer. He had to be at least three inches taller than Papa and thirty pounds heavier; not an ounce of it flab.

“Dr. Newsome? Uh, Colin Sloan. We need you. I mean, uh, a family south of here, the Colfaxes. They’re—”

“Mmm. Colfax didn’t happen to send something on his account, did he? I told him clearly last time I was down, ‘I’m not coming again until you pay something on account.’”

“He said he’d pay you something when you arrived.”

“Not good enough.”

Colin licked his lips. They were feeling very dry and chapped. “Here. I’ve six pounds. My sister and the Colfaxes’ four-year-old are the only two people that aren’t sick. They need you now, sir. My sister is only thirteen. She can’t handle it herself.” He dug into his pocket, handing the wad of money over to the doctor.

The doctor counted the money. “We’ll pay yours first and put any extra on the Colfax account. John, please take this young man over to the hospital. Go with him, lad.”

“No, sir, you don’t understand. I have to go with you. My sister’s alone there, and Uncle Edgar died. You’ll need help burying him.”

The doctor nodded to the businessman. He stepped forward and seized Colin by the arm. “Come with me, lad. The doctor’s orders. You’ve done your part.”

“But, my sister—”

“There’s help on the way to her. Now, come with me.”

Colin had just ridden all night. He was more than ready to sleep. But the mare. . . . “Sir?” His joints ached; he coughed again. “Is there a farmer or a stable for my horse—”

“We’ll see to your horse, lad.” The brusque driver loaded Colin into the passenger seat, making his head throb. Moments later they passed Max’s Lady. She lay in the rain, motionless, where she had fallen. It was all a blur in Colin’s mind, and he could not say another word. The next coughing brought blood from his nose.

They pulled up to a low-slung, white clapboard building. A burly woman in a white dress and a brisk young man emerged. The nurse yanked the door of the car open, and the two marched Colin inside. They stripped off his wet clothes, ignoring his protests. He could vaguely hear them speak of influenza; they must be talking about the Colfaxes. Then they lay him in a clean white bed with cool sheets. A genuine bed. He’d not slept in a real bed for months. What was he protesting? He curled up on his side, and between bouts of coughing, he slept like a baby.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE

T
HE
C
ALL OF
H
OME

Sloan settled into his easy chair and kicked off his shoes.
Ah, home
. Whatever the pressures of his trade, at home he could relax. He unfolded the paper and shook it open. Across from him in her rocking chair, Sam picked up her tatting.
Sam
. She wore her rich copper-brown hair bobbed in the latest style. She still carried herself straight and proud on a willowy frame, no more than five pounds heavier than she had been twenty years ago when he met her. A few tiny laugh lines only made her eyes more interesting; her only detectable sign of aging. If Cole Sloan had been told twenty years ago he’d be a one-woman man for eighteen years, he would have laughed out loud. But here he was with that one woman.
Samantha
.

Sam couldn’t know he was thinking about her. Yet she glanced at him self-consciously. “So, what’s new tonight?”

He scanned the front page. “The Great White Train traveling exhibition. They plan to tour New South Wales for a year, displaying Australian-made goods.”

“That will help your business, too.”

“Too right. Also, lots of election speculation.”

“Bruce will have his way.”

“That’s what they’re saying, but it’s taking them half the paper to say it.” He spotted an article below the fold. “There’s a minor outbreak of influenza down around the Murrumbidgee, probably a result of unsanitary conditions caused by those severe floods. A couple of deaths.”

“It sounds foolish, but I’m glad Colin and Hannah are still on the west side and nowhere near trouble like that.”

“We don’t know where they are, Sam. They could be right in the middle of it.”

She slipped momentarily into her familiar, warm Irish accent. “Sure’n a fine ray of sunshine ye are, Cole Sloan.”

He laughed.

Mary Aileen came strolling into the room. She looked more preoccupied than usual. Sam watched her settle onto the loveseat as Smoke left her lap to watch some birds outside the window. Mary Aileen picked up the book she’d been reading all spring and leafed idly through it.

“What’s on your mind?” Sam asked quietly.

Mary Aileen looked up sheepishly. “I think perhaps Smoke is in a family way. Her behavior has changed somewhat lately. I read in a book on cat husbandry about such symptoms.”

“Kittens! If any of them are tortoise-shells, they’ll find a home easily enough, I’m sure. What delightful news.” Sam studied her daughter knowingly. “Is there something else?”

“Edan. He was cross with me tonight.”

Sloan snorted. “Nothing unusual. He crabs at everybody.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

Mary Aileen shrugged. “I can’t explain. It’s—it’s just different somehow. I think something’s very wrong.”

Sam looked at her husband. Cold fear distorted his face. She knew he was thinking of all his children. Colin’s flight could be called an aberration, a case of simply not getting along. Then Hannah. Now the water around his youngest was starting to ripple.

Sloan took a deep breath. “Wrong in what way?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about things. All he does is get angry. I’m so tired of him getting cross with me all the time.”

Cole waited for Sam. She said nothing. Sam had some level of expertise in these areas. Usually she spoke to Edan if there were problems.
Well, the father is the head of the house. Maybe I should—
He nodded. “I’ll speak with him.”
About what?
Edan didn’t usually talk to his papa about anything. He stayed to himself. Cole could respect that in a son. How could he pry into the shell of a boy who had deliberately and consciously closed himself in? For that matter, should he?

Cole’s eyes stayed on his paper, but his mind did not.
What could it be with Edan?
Mary Aileen was always so quick to defend her brothers and sister, whatever the charges. Now she herself was being accusatory; it must be serious.

In the past, Mary Aileen had praised virtues she saw in Colin in the same way she supported Hannah and Edan.
She should take up writing advertising promotions. She always sees the good points in everyone and everything
. And then there was this Romales fellow—making almost identical claims about Colin that Mary Aileen made.
Maybe Romales should be the one to talk to Edan!
The Spanish Texan would have the lad eating out of his hand. Hadn’t he practically led Sloan down the primrose path?

Or did he? What if Romales was right when he said simply that Sloan ought listen to Colin? Really listen. No preaching, no contradicting, no arguing.
Hah! Wait until Romales has kids of his own and discovers the value of preaching a godly life
.

The thought struck him so forcibly he lay his paper in his lap without thinking. Had he glibly believed he played father to all four of his children magnificently? The family founder—aloof, and yet present for them—counselor and king. It was the way his own father, Conal, had served the post. For the first time Cole gave the fruit of Conal’s fatherhood more than a passing thought. Of Conal Sloan’s three sons, Aidan was a cowardly crook and Liam an alcoholic. Cole himself would have continued a conniving, disreputable lout, unworthy of the slightest trust or honor, had he not encountered God—and Samantha Connolly.

Of his own four children, two were gone right now-having fled the nest before fully fledged. He was learning
ex post facto
that he may have greatly misjudged them both, in different ways; Colin too harshly and Hannah too leniently. Might he not be just as out of touch with the other two?

Edan! What can I say to him? What can I do? Lord, I try to be the father I perceive you want me to be. It’s not working. Show me what I’m doing wrong. Help me
.

He sat forward and pulled his shoes on. “Where’s your brother now?”

“I don’t know. He was in his room an hour ago.”

Sam’s glowing, understanding eyes watched him leave the parlor. Cole checked upstairs. Nowhere. Maybe the storage shed out back. He heard pounding as he approached. He shoved the shed door open with difficulty. It was sticking worse than ever.
I must remember to send a workman out to repair it
.

Edan was perched on a stool at the potting bench pounding nails into boards. He looked up at his father and returned to his work. Sloan stepped in close and leaned on the bench. It looked like the boy was mass-producing bird-houses. He had drilled tidy holes in a number of boards for the house fronts. Now he was nailing sideboards and floor boards together.

Sloan picked up one of the completed houses. “Well, I’ll be. One side is hinged and pegged. For the cat to get in?”

“Papa! So you can open it and clean it every winter. Take out the old nests and brush out the bird lice.”

“I see. How many of these are you making?”

“As many as I can.”

The narrow shoulders shrugged; the child’s head dipped. He seemed suddenly so small and fragile, so easily blown adrift by the winds of fate. Sloan felt desperately like hugging him, encasing him in strong arms and promising him safety.

“Why?”

He shrugged again. “Birds can use them. Especially the sparrows—lots of them around now. They aren’t native, you know. People brought them in, like the rabbits, in 1863. Now sparrows are making pests of themselves, same as the rabbits. They take the houses of other birds. So I’m making houses just for them. Understand?”

“I see.”
What now? Where do I take the conversation from here? Do I confront him with Mary Aileen’s accusation?

“Hold this, Papa,” the lad said simply. He propped one piece upon another. Sloan held it and Edan nailed the two parts together. Silence fell between them, even with the noise of the hammering.

The boy spoke presently, “Are you and Mum going to the Melbourne Cup this year?”