Novels 01 Blue Skies (6 page)

Chapter 11

At the end of a very busy week, Amanda sat on the verandah nursing a beer. She was pleased to see the end of the crutching and most of the sheep work for the time being. The large workload had been harder to manage than she’d expected.

At the beginning of the week while getting the first mob in for preg-scanning, she’d felt sad that her mother was no longer there, yet she couldn’t help but feel a bubble of excitement welling in her chest. This was what she had always wanted. A farm that was hers, that she could run the way she wanted. Turn into a tidy, well-organised, profitable piece of land.

Louise, the vet, had arrived on Monday morning, joking that she’d not been expecting to pull out the preg-testing scanner until next year.

‘What are you up to, Mandy? Did you re-mate your dry ewes?’ Amanda had explained that since her mother’s death they’d been knocked around a bit. ‘Dad and I forgot to take notes of what happened when. I have an awful feeling that we may even have forgotten to put the rams in with one mob! I just need to know what I’m dealing with.’

‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’ Louise had said and proceeded to set up while Amanda moved the mob into the forcing yard and down the race to the scanning crate. The sheep work had just reinforced that she needed a working dog. She wouldn’t be able to handle sheep work without one. Sourcing a good, partly trained pup now topped her to-do list.

The two days of crutching and three days of preg-scanning had made her ache in places she’d forgotten she had. Her thighs were even sore to touch from rousing in the shearing shed and using her knees to force the sheep into the race. Amanda now realised that she wasn’t as fit as she’d thought. In fact, she was coming to understand that running a farm and having to do all the manual work herself was a bigger job than she’d imagined.

The major blemish on the week had been the run in with Slay, and that still played on her mind. His parting words had been laced with menace and his features twisted with hate. His threat had left her uneasy. Amanda was certain he would get over it! He wasn’t the first shearer to be sacked on Kyleena and she was sure he wouldn’t be the last.Overall, she was pleased with how the week had panned out. It had taken nearly a month to get to this point, but she was feeling a sense of satisfaction.The sheep were sorted.They were in the mobs that would be easy for the husbandry practices that she intended to implement. The ones that she’d thought may not have been mated were pregnant! She was so relieved when Louise hadn’t called out ‘Dry’ once in the first twenty sheep, Amanda had almost wept with relief. There would be more lambs than she had budgeted on.

There was a creak of boards and Amanda realised her father had sat down next to her and was looking out over the darkening green pastures of the front paddock. Like her, Brian had a beer in one hand, but he also had a whisky in the other. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

Since the signing of the papers a month ago, he’d been conspicuous by his absence. Oh, he was around. Amanda would hear the low hum of the radio in his office as he sat with his glasses perched on the end of his nose, pretending to be buried in paperwork, when really all he was doing was staring at the desk, lost in memories, a glass of whisky always within reach.

At night she’d hear him in the bathroom or roaming the house. Sleep didn’t seem to come easily to him, whereas Amanda fell into bed exhausted each night.

This last week, though, he’d appeared more often and Amanda had sensed a subtle change in their relationship. He’d be at the kitchen table when Amanda came in to grab some lunch or sitting in the lounge room watching the news when she finished work for the evening. He’d started to make conversation more too.

Last night’s conversation was still fresh in Amanda’s mind. She’d known that Brian wanted to talk to her about something as he’d come in while she’d been cooking tea. Almost dropping with tiredness, Amanda knew that she had to eat properly, so every night she tried to cook. Last night she couldn’t bring herself to face the stove, so she’d popped her head into the living room and said that baked beans on toast was on the menu. Her father had smiled at her briefly and said that sounded good then turned back to the news.

Unexpectedly, he’d arrived in the kitchen before she called him and sat at the table, facing her. Amanda could see him looking at the once cream-coloured walls. Above the stove, they were now a grimy brown from the grease that had risen over the past months. Amanda knew her father was thinking of all the times he’d come into the kitchen to see Helena scrubbing the wall. She’d wanted a rangehood for so long but it had never eventuated. Amanda didn’t have the time to scrub walls.

Her father cleared his throat and began uncertainly. ‘I’ve been thinking about your mum’s grave. We need to put a headstone up.’

‘We can’t do it for about a year, Dad. I looked into it not long after the funeral. I hated to think of her lying there unnamed, people not knowing who is buried in that grave. But it’s got something to do with the earth settling properly before they can put up a headstone.’

Amanda took the toast, buttered it and poured the baked beans onto the plate.

Her father nodded. ‘That’s right. I remember now from when Dad died.’ There was silence. ‘Have you got any ideas about what you want on it?’

Amanda flopped at the table and handed over a plate. ‘I can’t think of the right words to describe how special she was yet.’

‘Me either.’ They ate in companionable silence for a while.

‘I really miss her,’ Brian said.

Amanda was quiet. It was the first time that he’d said anything of the sort. ‘Me too. Is it getting any easier for you?’ she asked delicately.

Her father chewed slowly and then shook his head. ‘What about for you?’

Amanda tried to analyse how she felt. On the one hand, she didn’t have time to miss her mother. But she longed for her.The conversations, the laughter. Amanda had always wanted to work with her and it would never happen now. Not able to find the words, she just shrugged and her father nodded as if understanding her feelings – maybe for the first time.

Coming out of her thoughts, she looked at her dad and asked ‘How would have you handled Slay during the crutching, Dad?’

There was a silence as her father took a sip of his drink and scanned the horizon. Waiting for him to answer, Amanda looked over and noticed he’d stiffened.

‘Looks like someone’s coming up the drive.’ Brian said, ignoring her question. She took a swig of her beer; despite the chill of the air, the beer was warm and flat. She screwed up her nose.

‘Who’d be coming here now?’ she wondered. ‘It’s nearly dark.’

‘Not expecting anyone?’

‘No.’

They watched as the lights from the car came closer. Amanda couldn’t really make it out in the darkness, but it looked like some sort of four-wheel drive.

She frowned as Brian leaned forward in his chair, suddenly watching intently.

‘You’ve got to be joking!’ he murmured quietly. ‘After all this time. What the hell does he think he’s doing, showing up on my farm?’ His voice began to rise in anger. ‘You make bloody sure he knows he’s not welcome here.’

Amanda looked at her father in surprise. His face was bright red and furious. As she watched, her dad stood bolt upright, tipping his chair over in his haste, and disappeared into the house. The sound of him slamming the office door shocked her. Who could possibly evoke such a reaction?

Curious, Amanda walked to the garden fence, pulling her jacket closer around her, and watched as a top-of-the-range, dark blue Toyota LandCruiser pulled up at the gate. She recognised the driver now, though she still had no idea what he was doing on her farm, or why her father had reacted so violently.

Amanda watched as a handsome man got out of the car. He was dressed to the nines tonight.

‘Amanda! After all this time. How are you?’ he asked as he walked towards her, hand outstretched.

‘Mr Major. This is a bit of a surprise. I don’t think I’ve seen you since I was about nine or ten.’

Adrian laughed. ‘Oh, call me Adrian, please. “Mr Major” makes me sound so old – I’m not much older than you really.’

‘Well, it’s hard to change the habit of a lifetime, but I can try . . . Adrian.What brings you here?’

‘I heard that you’ve taken on running Kyleena, so I thought I’d do the neighbourly thing and offer my services to you. I’ve been meaning to come over and renew our acquaintanceship since your mother died, but the time never seemed quite right. I was afraid of intruding on your grief. But then I heard . . . well, the gossip mill has been working overtime, as I’m sure you’re aware.’ His mouth turned up in a half-smile and he held up his hands in an apologetic manner. ‘I guess I wanted to see how you were getting on and if I could do anything to help.’

Amanda couldn’t help grin back at his infectious smile.

‘Well that’s very nice of you. Thank you. But I’m managing just fine.’

‘I had an inkling you would say that. Miss Independence! Just like you were as a child. But please, Amanda, if you need any sort of help, let me know. If I can’t come, I can send one of my workmen.’

Amanda smiled. ‘Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.’

Adrian looked towards the house curiously. ‘Is your father home? I haven’t seen him about for some time. Don’t tell me you’re here all by yourself?’

‘No, no. Dad comes and goes,’ she answered in a noncommittal voice.

‘Right. Well, like I said, give me a call if you need anything.’

Adrian got into his car and drove away. As his tail-lights disappeared down the driveway Amanda noticed the curtains in the office moving. She turned and headed back into the house. She’d always thought her Dad was on good terms with the owners of the neighbouring properties. What on earth had got into him?

Chapter 12
Winter 1934

Michael’s hand hovered over the letter to his family.
Outside the rain lashed the tin hut and the wind
threatened to tear the roof from the wooden rafters.

Bowy huddled closer to the fire as Michael realised
that it was slightly smoky inside tonight. The wood he’d
collected must have been damp. It wasn’t surprising
since it had been raining for five days straight and
dry wood was hard to come by.

The river was rising and he was worried about
his stock. He imagined the animals falling into the
raging waters, being swept away and
. . .

Shaking his head, he decided not to continue in
this line of thinking. ‘What will be will be.’ He could
hear his mother’s lilting tones echo around his head.

He turned his mind instead to the previous
weekend, when Thomas Cramm had ridden into his
camp with his sister Kathleen. Michael had danced
with her the last time he had been in Esperance. He
remembered the tinkle of the piano and the thump
of heavy feet on wooden floorboards. Kathleen’s
smile had left him spellbound, as had her dancing.
He decided he would like to get to know her better so
he invited her to visit.

The weekend had been a pleasant one. Michael
had planned a small walk from his camp to the
river’s edge, where all three had marvelled at
the smell of the bush, the vivid red flowers of the
bottlebrush trees and the granite rocks that lined
the banks of the river.

Kathleen had then spent some time in his veggie
garden and tidied his hut, making it look very much
like a home. Michael had been struck by how natural
she looked in this setting; it seemed obvious to him
that this was the woman with whom he should spend
his life.

A particularly strong gust of wind whipped past
and the tin rattled so hard that Michael thought it
would pull away from its fastenings. He wondered,
as he did when things got hellish, if he would ever
be able to make Kyleena what he wanted and was it
fair to ask for Kathleen’s hand, before he had?

Chapter 13

Amanda sat at the kitchen table, flicking through the latest farm magazine that had arrived in the roadside mail box yesterday. Her cup of tea and toast were beside her and the radio was on, with the weather report from the Bureau of Meteorology. As she skimmed an article on abattoirs’ killing space, she vaguely heard the announcer say: ‘So there’ll be quite a lot of rain for the South Coast, John?’ Putting down the magazine, she started to listen intently.

‘Yes, Bernadette, with the strong front that’s approaching the Southern Coastal district is likely to receive a lot of heavy rain.The front is expected to cross the south-west corner tomorrow morning and move eastward reaching Esperance by Wednesday. There’ll be strong squalls with the passage of the front and we have a sheep farmers’ weather alert, we recommend that any loose items are tied down.’

Her father, sitting quietly at the other end of the table, seemed unmoved by the forecast, while Amanda’s heart started to flutter and her mind raced. She had ewes that were only two weeks off shears.

Looking at her father, she said ‘Sounds like a bit of bad weather.’

He nodded, and Amanda struggled to hide her frustration. Her father had begun to heal and their relationship had been steadily improving until the night Adrian Major had turned up uninvited a few weeks before. Since then, Brian had withdrawn back into his shell. His drinking had increased once more and the silences were long and brooding. His office had become his safe haven from which he rarely ventured.

Amanda had noticed the photo albums disappearing from the bookshelves and when she’d cautiously put her head into the office to call him for dinner one night she’d seen them piled up on the corner of his office desk. She didn’t know what he wanted with the old albums, and she doubted he’d tell her if she asked, so she’d thrust it to the back of her mind and concentrated on farming.

Now she pushed back her chair and without another word to her father headed out the door. Sitting astride her bike, she whistled to her new pup, Mingus, a bouncy black and tan kelpie with keen eyes. Mingus flew from under the bush where he’d been dozing and landed with a thump on the back of the bike.

At nine months old, he’d been a lucky find. After the week of heavy stock work and no dog, Amanda had scoured the pages of the farm journals. Spotting a small ad for a partly trained dog in the Esperance shire, she’d called the number, not really expecting to strike gold – but she had.

The shaky voice of an old man had answered the phone, but when Amanda had explained why she was ringing, his voice had become stronger.‘Only to a good home,’ he kept repeating.

‘Why do you need to pass him on?’ Amanda had asked.

There’d been a long silence and finally the man had said: ‘I’m dying of cancer. I thought I’d have a few years left and I’d still be able to keep a few sheep and work him, but I’ve got two months tops.’

‘He’ll have a good home with me,’ Amanda promised.

From the moment she had picked him up, Mingus had seemed to understand that Amanda was his new mistress and had loved her without hesitation. He was a natural sheep dog and the sick man had started to teach her well. Amanda had read with sadness the death notice in the paper not a week later. But, however forlorn she felt, she enjoyed Mingus’s company – it gave her someone to talk to. Hannah’s phone calls had become few and far between since she’d moved to Sydney and she rarely heard from Jonno other than when he sent her a rude chain email. She missed her friends, and didn’t really have much in common with the few acquaintances she’d met through the local stock firm or knew from primary school. At least Mingus listened and looked interested in what she was saying!

Riding down the laneway, Amanda decided to shift the shorn ewes from the open paddock on the road to Karru paddock. There was oodles of scrubby bush for them to shelter in and places for them to hide their newborn lambs to keep them warm and away from the cold southerlies. They were due to start lambing any day although the stock check she’d done two days ago had turned up some early lambs.

Pushing the mob gently together, Amanda watched carefully to make sure none of the lambs were mis-mothered. It was only about a kilometre to the next paddock, but it took her well over three hours to push the heavily pregnant ewes through the gate and head on to the next job: lunch!

She turned her bike towards the house, enjoying the cool sun on her skin. This autumn, now heading into winter, had been quite mild, making for idyllic lambing conditions, and today was no exception. But the atmosphere was heavy, she noticed, as she pulled up at the house. And there was no sound. Glancing around, Amanda thought the landscape looked different, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Then she realised all the stock were sitting down and there wasn’t any wind. It was almost like nature was waiting for something to happen.

She walked into the house and yelled to her father that she was back, then set about getting some lunch. Amanda looked up as Brian stumbled into the kitchen, his face flushed from whisky.

‘All the stock are camped up. Bit unusual isn’t it?’ she asked, pretending not to notice that he was drunk again.

‘Storm comin’ today,’ he muttered thickly.

Amanda looked at him curiously. ‘How can you tell that? The bureau says it’s not due until late tomorrow or the next day.’

Brian took her arm, pulled her roughly toward the door and held up his finger. ‘Listen.’ Silence. ‘No noise. No birds or crickets or nothin’.’ He then pointed towards the paddocks. ‘Sheep’ve got their back to where the weather’s gonna come from and the cows are camped as far away from the south as the fences let ’em.’ He let go of her arm, lurched towards the table and sat down. ‘Lunch?’

Amanda rubbed the spot where his fingers had gripped her arm. She couldn’t decide if she felt resentful or just so sorry for this broken man. She walked over and kneeled beside him, her hand on his arm. ‘Dad, why do you have to drink so much? I could learn so much from you if you wanted to teach me.’ Even as she said the words, realisation dawned. Her mind raced back over the conversations which had turned into arguments.
This is what he’s been trying to tell me
, she thought.
Now I understand what he’s been saying
. She needed her dad – but she had pushed him away.

‘You know it all already,’ he said, looking at her without anger.‘You told me in the bank. You don’t need a drunken old man like me tellin’ you what to do. Don’t worry about lunch.’ He stood up from the table and weaved towards the door and back down the hall to the safety of his office.

Amanda lay in bed and tried not to think about her father. He hadn’t left his office since lunch but she’d decided not to let it upset her. She’d made her choice as he had made his and now they would both have to live with the consequences.

She wondered if she’d done all she could to protect her freshly shorn ewes from the coming storm. Before she’d turned out the light, she’d checked the weather radar on the internet and seen the large band of rain that was crossing the western coast. Still a day or so before it would arrive at Kyleena, she thought.

But at 12.30 am the first crack of thunder sounded and the wind started to blow.

By daylight, the wind had dropped and Amanda was bleary-eyed, having not slept since the storm started. She was sitting at the window of her mother’s study, her head in her hands, as first light appeared. She peered into the grey light in the hope of seeing if there’d been any damage, but nothing immediate struck her.

Looking around, she couldn’t believe it was dry, save the light, misty sprinkling that came through in waves and that wasn’t enough to wet the rain gauge. To the south, the looming murky clouds held more chance of rain than the dirty ones above her at the moment.

It was too foul to contemplate work today, but knowing Mingus was scared of storms she ventured outside long enough to collect the quivering dog from his kennel.

Amanda felt a drop of rain as her foot hit the front garden. Looking skyward and holding out her hand in anticipation of another, she was disappointed. As her gaze swung over the land, she noticed the trees on the far southern boundary bending as if buffeted by gale-force winds, while where she stood only a soft breeze blew. With her feet glued to the ground, she watched in amazement as the wind came towards her – she could follow its path. First the grass started to move like a rippling sea, then the leaves and loose debris flew into the air, and finally there was a gust that was so strong it almost knocked Amanda off her feet. The rain started almost immediately, the needle-like drops stinging her skin. The temperature plummeted too.

Bolting for the house with Mingus at her heels, she stood on the verandah and watched.The rain drummed into the ground so hard that the raindrops broke into a thousand smaller drops and splashed back towards the sky. The gutters filled quickly and started to overflow under the eaves of the house and she turned to find the paddocks devoid of stock.

With mixed emotions, she shivered as the sweet smell of rain on dry earth rose to meet her. Storms were beautiful but they could be deadly. She jumped as thunder reverberated around the sky and the lightning flashed. The noise of the rain on the ground and tin roof was deafening.

For most of the day,Amanda sat at the window with Mingus at her feet and watched the rain pelt down. She marvelled at the ferocity of the storm and tried to quell her rising anxiety until it eased to a steady, gentle drizzle just before dark.

Beyond the house and sheds, there were gutters in the ground that had been eroded by the force of the water, there were small lakes in the low-lying areas of each paddock and, without venturing outside, Amanda could hear the roar of the river in Karru paddock. There would be a massive wall of water racing through its deep river walls today.

Amanda, dressed in a bright pink windbreaker and rubber boots, sloshed through the mud to get her bike. The shorn ewes that were due to lamb in Karru paddock were her main concern. None of the other ewes had been shorn.

Slipping and sliding on the bike she followed the waterlogged track to the paddock, stopping at a couple of dams to see how much water had run into them.

Her anxiety rose again as she pulled up at the gate. She couldn’t see any of the ewes. She’d noticed on her way here that some of the other stock had ventured out to graze after taking shelter in the bush all day.They were hungry.

The stock usually preferred to graze the clovers at the front of Karru but none were there. She rode alongside a sheep pad, which was flooded but would lead her to the river, and looked out over the gushing water. White foam gathered around the walls and the water was a muddy brown from all the soil it had picked up in its course upstream.

A white body floated past. Then another and another.

She stood still, watching them being carried by the water, bumping into the bank, logs and debris that were also on a non-stop trip to the sea. Then, with a cry of desperation, she ran, her boots covered with heavy mud, towards the bush that lined the river, Mingus at her heels.

Weaving her way through the bush, she ignored the cold, heavy drips from the leaves and the first two bodies she saw. Without stopping she headed towards the riverbank. There she came to a skidding halt, staring at the carnage that lay before her. The white bodies of five hundred ewes tucked in against trees and rocks, piled on top of one another. As she watched, a few dropped over the edge into the water as the crumbling bank gave way beneath their weight. Amanda could see the sheep had vainly tried to find enough shelter, but had failed. A low moan of despair passed her lips as she sank to her knees, tears running down her cheeks.

After some time, she finally found the strength to get up and walk towards the sheep, looking for survivors, but all she found were a few small lambs pushed against their mother’s bodies, bleating mournfully.

She gathered the lambs; some still covered with newborn blood, and put them under her jacket. She might be able to save these ones.

Feeling utterly desolate, she walked back to her bike, Mingus once again trotting at her heels. She sat astride the bike for a while, staring but not seeing, until the wriggling of a lamb roused her. She started the engine, called to Mingus and, revving the engine loudly, twisted the hand accelerator too fast for the weather conditions and brought the front wheel off the ground. As she gathered speed the back wheel caught in a muddy bog and slid out from under her, throwing the bike sideways. Instinctively, one hand let go of the handlebar to try to hold the lambs to her chest, but the bike toppled the other way and Amanda lost her grip. As if in slow motion, she felt herself being thrown towards the river. Mingus jumped clear just as the bike finally landed on the ground with Amanda a distance from it. She lay on the river’s edge, one arm hanging over the bank. Blood gushed from a gash where she’d clipped her head on a rock as she fell.