Journey to the Stone Country (21 page)

She didn’t say anything. She held her breath and closed her eyes.

Annabelle woke in the early dawn and rose from her swag. Bo was asleep and did not stir. She fetched her towel and her toilet bag and stood at the door of the kitchen, looking back at him before turning and going out into the cold morning.

As she walked along their path through the morning to the riverflat she wondered if she was in love with him. How did one tell at forty-two? When life was no longer simple? When everything one did was shot through with ambivalence and uncertainty? When other, more sensible, safer choices stood in one’s path? On the flat a mist was drifting through the soft drooping branches of the casuarinas, glistening like hoarfrost on the sweet couch grass. Mathew’s mare standing head down, asleep as if enchanted. Annabelle went through the trees to the edge of the water. She stood on the rock shelf looking along the creek. Mist drifting off the glassy surface of the water. She undressed. The air chill and damp on her bare skin, the colours of the day subdued, grey and silver, a touch of pink in the water from the clouds. Naked, she stood on the edge of the rock. She took a breath and dived. She surfaced out in the middle of the hole, letting her breath out with a sharp exclamation of pleasure. She laughed and dived again, swimming strongly through the cold clear water of the Ranna, the taste of the springwater in her mouth, the taste of the stones of the escarpment. Or did it matter that she could not speak confidently of love? Might not all the other things be enough? Trust? Respect? Desire? The body’s message that love would work? Fondness even? Companionship? . . . She dived beneath the surface again. He seemed sure of her. As if he waited for a sign from her, certain it would come. The sky glowed pink and violet on the surface above her. She swam strongly through the cold limpid water of the Ranna, trailing a shoal of small translucent fishes, revelling in her nakedness, the pleasure of her body, a feeling of youthfulness in her limbs that she had not felt for years. How she had neglected all this! She surfaced and breathed and dived again, kicking out hard for the far bank and the deep hole where Bo had hoped to find a big old black bream for their dinner.

The days went by and they were like a little family, settlers in the valley, concerned only with their own lives and their own problems. It was mid morning at Ranna homestead. The fourth day of Annabelle’s survey of the contents of the house. Bo had walked the outbuildings with her and given her an understanding of the layout and situation. He had taken Mathew and Trace down the river after breakfast to look for the wild cows and calves. He seemed in no hurry to make a start with the work of surveying the valley.

Annabelle was sitting at the pedestal desk in George Bigges’ old study, a pile of summary sheets beside her, keying her notes into Susan’s laptop. She had titled her report,
A Preliminary Survey
of Significant European Remains at the Homestead Site, Ranna Creek Station
. Outside, the day was warm and clear. From behind the kitchen the steady throb of Arner’s truck recharging the freezer batteries mingled with the thump of his music. Through the open shutters of the French window in front of her, the silhouette of the squatter’s chair and low table, as if George Bigges might return from riding his pastures and settle there to enjoy a pipe of tobacco. Beside the near verandah post the crimson petals of a wildgrown geranium catching the sun, catching Annabelle’s eye whenever she glanced up from her work. A hundred metres beyond the verandah and the wild garden, the dark line of the rivergums and casuarinas. Annabelle worked quickly, absorbed, George Bigges’ old swivel chair creaking, scarcely a pause in the tickety-tack of the keys:

Ranna Creek Station is situated within the coastal ranges northwest of Mackay and
southeast of Collinsville in the County of Hillalong, Parishes of Beckford and Cauley.
There are two access roads, one via the Eungella Dam Pipeline, the other via Emu
Plains and Mt Cauley. The country rises from the Broken River and its principal
tributary, Ranna Creek, through savanna woodlands to steeper topland. The whole
property is enclosed within one valley and is surrounded by mountain ranges. The
Ranna Creek is spring-fed from the ranges and produces a reliable flow of water
during even the driest periods. Several smaller tributaries to the creek have permanent
and semi-permanent waterholes, and there are numerous springs in the foothills to
the ranges. There is little evidence of European intervention in the shaping of the
landscape. No significant ringbarking, clearing or poisoning of standing timber was
ever undertaken on Ranna and the pastures are largely unimproved—except for an
area of a hundred acres or so directly to the east of the homestead, where Italian rye
grass was evidently successfully seeded at some time, probably for haymaking purpose.
The bulk of the pasturage, however, remains principally the native kangaroo and
nutritious sugar grasses first described by Ludwig Leichhardt during his overland
expedition through the region in 1844–45. Indeed, apart from fences and buildings,
the entire property is in much the state it was before European settlement took place
with the arrival of the Bigges family in the valley in the early 1860s.

The main house is a handsome weatherboard dwelling of seven principal rooms.
It is sited a hundred metres east of the creekflats on a rise, well above flood level
and occupying a commanding position to the west—towards Ranna Creek—and
to the east—towards the open savanna and wooded foothills of the distant Broken
River Range—and overlooking the other station buildings, which occupy the
sloping shoulders of the rise to either side of it. The other numerous station buildings
are all constructed from ripple-iron sheeting over heavy pole and pit sawn timber
frames, except for the kitchen, which is evidently the original dwelling and is of
an earlier construction than the main house. The kitchen is attached to the house
by a covered way and is constructed from split slabs. It is in a near perfect state
of preservation, with no termite or interior weather damage visible. [Photograph 1
facing: A southern, oblique view of the house, the kitchen clearly visible to the left
of the picture. Photo taken just after sunrise from beside the old dray shed, harness
room and blacksmith shop—foreground left. The ringers’ quarters are just visible
at the extreme right of the picture. The rusting remains under the bloodwood tree
in the middle distance is old haymaking machinery. Bo Rennie says this machinery
was under the tree and no longer in use when he and Dougald Gnapun rode onto
the station to muster stock for Nellie Bigges in the mid seventies. The machinery
probably dates back to the fifties, or earlier, and may even be from the last century,
possibly having been adapted from horse shafts to tractor towbars.]

Annabelle paused and looked up, her wrists resting on the edge of the desk, puzzling at the altered sound of Arner’s truck, which had broken into her concentration. It sounded as if the motor were accelerating out of control. She sat looking out the window, listening. The noise became a deafening roar. The windows trembled and Annabelle stood up. A billowing of dust, grass, leaves and small twigs rushed across the garden towards the house, whipping the branches of the trees, stripping leaves and sticks, debris clittering against the windowglass. A shiny blue-and-red helicopter settled onto the grass beyond the perimeter fence of the garden, the faces of men pressed to the cabin windows, peering into the havoc of dust and whirling grass as if they touched upon an alien planet. The motor cut and the rotor lost power, slapping around loosely, dust drifting in the sunlight, the windless day settling back. The steady throb of Arner’s truck motor and his music coming up through the silence.

She stood behind the desk looking out resentfully at the gleaming helicopter with its cargo of men, annoyed that the industry of her day had been brought to an abrupt end and the illusion of their isolation in the valley shattered by this sudden invasion. The cabin door swung open and a short heavy-set man stepped down onto the grass. He wore a black shirt, black jeans and a black cowboy hat with theatrical yellow and red feathers stuck in the band. He examined the house closely, his feet apart, hands on hips, as if he were the chevalier of a masterful order visiting his presence upon an outlying fiefdom of his domain, suspicious of treachery among the inhabitants during his absence. She felt his gaze penetrate the shadows of the room and touch her, a challenge in the set of his thick body, his detection of her presence uncanny, an insistence, malevolent and without forbearance that made her fear him instinctively. She wished Bo had not been away down the river.

Three other men stepped down from the helicopter one by one and stood stretching and looking around. A bearded young man wearing a green baseball cap back-to-front went to the tail rotor and unzipped his fly. He stood in the sun, his white cock drooping between his fingers, looking down at himself and pissing into the grass. Annabelle had the unsettling impression of something childlike and oblivious in the group of men, a faint bewilderment and uncertainty of motive rendering them unpredictable, as if with all their power they might be swept into the sky on a sudden gust of panic and destroy everything, returning to earth to stand shamefaced and astonished by what they had done.

Annabelle picked up her hat and went along the passage to the flagged entryway and out into the heat. The man in black swung towards her as she turned the corner of the house. He raised his hand, pointing at her and calling back to the other men to bear witness, as if he viewed their quarry. He turned from the men and shouted to her rudely, ‘Where’s Bo Rennie?’

The three men standing behind him watched her walking towards him. The young man with the baseball cap turned away and climbed back into the pilot’s seat. The other two stood their ground, observing the meeting.

Annabelle stepped up to the man in the cowboy hat and offered her hand. ‘I’m Annabelle Beck.’ It was the first time she had used her maiden name for fifteen years.

He looked at her narrowly, ignoring her hand. ‘Les Marra,’ he murmured grudgingly. He looked at her again, ‘You not one of them Becks from out there at Mount Coolon?’

‘Yes. We had Haddon Hill.’

He grunted and looked past her suspiciously, examining the kitchen and the covered way. ‘Bo in there?’

She felt herself blushing at his rudeness. ‘He went down the river early this morning,’ she said. ‘Looking for wild cattle.’

Les Marra eyed her uncertainly, suspecting derision. ‘You fair dinkum?’

‘He didn’t know when you were coming. There’s no network coverage down here.’ She might have added that they had all completely forgotten that he was coming.

‘A business like yours should have a satellite phone.’ It was an accusation of incompetence.

She said, ‘I’ll tell Susan.’

‘She here?’

‘No.’

He turned away abruptly and left her standing there, stepping across to the men who were waiting beside the helicopter. ‘Bo Rennie’s not here. You want to hang around and see if he turns up, or you want to get going?’

One of the men looked at his watch then turned to the other man, ‘What d’you think, Tom?’

The man addressed as Tom looked at Les Marra. ‘How long do you imagine it’ll be before Bo Rennie gets back?’

‘Well you wouldn’t know with Bo. He could be away bloody days.’

The pilot leaned out. ‘I’ll go up and have a scout for him. He won’t be hard to spot in this country.’

Les Marra spat to one side and said contemptuously, ‘If Bo Rennie don’t want to be spotted, you’re not the man to spot him out there, mate.’

The pilot looked at him as if he would say something. But he changed his mind and looked away.

The man called Tom said to the other, ‘You want Drew to go up and have a look around or not, what do you think? We’ve got an hour at the outside.’

The other man considered Annabelle. He stepped across and offered his hand. ‘Henry Duncan,’ he said. ‘Department of Natural Resources, Brisbane.’

She shook his hand. ‘Annabelle Beck. You’re a geologist?’

‘Engineer, Annabelle. Water infrastructure and planning.’ He nodded at the other man. ‘That’s Tom Glasson. He’s the construction engineer for the project with Folson and Harbin. He’s dead keen to meet Bo.’

She looked at the man. ‘Folson and Harbin are building the dam?’

Henry Duncan smiled, ‘They certainly hope to.’

‘What are the chances of it going ahead, now they’ve got the elders on side?’

‘About a hundred per cent I’d say.’ He grinned at her and looked around. ‘You’ve got yourselves nicely tucked away in here.’

‘Isn’t it beautiful.’

‘Any chance of Tom taking a look around? He’s interested in this sort of thing.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re the archaeologist in charge of the cultural survey?’

‘Me and Bo Rennie are doing it together.’

‘He’s off chasing wild cattle?’

She laughed. ‘He won’t be chasing them. Just looking around. Maybe doing a spot of fishing.’

‘Lucky bastard.’

The other man came over and stood with them. He took off his sunglasses and offered his hand, his gaze steady on hers, his expression interested and respectful, as if meeting Annabelle Beck were possibly the principal reason for him taking the helicopter ride out to Ranna. ‘Tom Glasson.’

She took his hand, charmed by him, despite herself.

He stood with her facing the house.

‘It’s a fine looking homestead, Annabelle. This must have been some place in its heyday.’ His voice carried a distinct trace of an educated East Coast American accent. His manner was calm, affable, reflective and concerned, as if he had time for all this and was prepared to give it much thought, his enthusiasm restrained, serious and substantial, his perceptions sure to be those of a man of education and refinement.