The Ranger in the Hills: A Heartwarming Australian Outback Romance Page 3

  It was like going home, after the long day’s work. The Gap was a door. The pink sky was becoming opalescent. With every passing moment the sun’s reflecting rays changed the colours.

  The Gap was a door to home.

  She was sorry now she had been so hurt and angry with Bern Malin.

  It was all her own fault, she could see that. Of course, he had been surprised to see her. He hadn’t expected her. Of course he didn’t understand Andrew’s preoccupation with things other than human beings, Andrew had to be known to be understood.

  It was she herself who had been difficult.

  She would tell him she was sorry when she arrived there ‒ home with Gideon Dent. She would be very sincere about it too.

  She leaned back in the corner and half-closed her eyes. She could see his back, his broad shoulders and the dark hair under the slouch hat.

  She liked the way he wore his hat. It was at a tiny angle. Hardly any angle at all, but just enough. It gave him an air. There was a touch of conscious carelessness about it; something that had meaning and purpose, yet gave nothing away.

  Katie, dreaming now of a hat, could not prevent her eyelids drooping. She was tired. Very tired: regretful for her silly pride. She had travelled all day for many days. The hum of the car mimed a rhythmical tune in her ears; the bump and turn and twist of the track made a cradle of the car on its powerful suspension springs. She was very sorry. She would make up for it ‒ if he only would like her.

  Why should she want him to like her?

  There was such a dreamy silence in the waiting, sun-drowsed world outside.

  Katie fell asleep.

  The braking of the car woke her up. Bern Malin slammed the drive door and walked round to the passenger seat. A minute later he was lifting Andrew out. He held him in his arms. Andrew too had fallen asleep.

  Katie tried to gather her wits. She shook her head and stretched her back to ease the stiffness.

  There was something wrong with the world.

  The sun had gone down. It wasn’t yet dark; only the short twilight of a bush night. Everything was grey and oh, so still. Nothing moved except Bern Malin’s feet as he strode away from the car, carrying Andrew. The trees were still and the hills on either side were sentinel still. The grass and short clumps of undergrowth were silent. In a moment the stars would come out and they too, being stars, would be still.

  ‘Only planets twinkle,’ Katie thought.

  Then she came to her senses.

  Where were they? Why had they stopped?

  She started to scramble from her seat. Bern Malin was already back at the car, holding the door for her.

  ‘Where is Andrew?’ There were overtones of anxiety in her voice.

  He was looking down at her. She couldn’t read his expression but something told her it wasn’t hard or forbidding. Yet there was that hint of the sardonic in it again.

  ‘Still asleep, I imagine. He’s over by the cliff wall, under a group of saplings. There’s a rock fireplace there, used by drovers bringing cattle through from the plains.’

  He helped Katie from the car.

  She stood still, looking around her.

  It was a wonderful, beautiful world in the near twilight. Everything was still ‒ the walls on either side of the Gap ‒ the groves of trees standing here and there, their leaves pointing downwards to the earth, their trunks inert; all was etched in black against the last haze of a pink sky; moveless.

  It was an eerie, ancient bunyip world.

  The sudden crackle of dried leaves as Andrew stirred and sat up broke the silence.

  Then Bern Malin shut the car door.

  ‘Over to your right,’ he said. ‘We’ll make camp here.’

  ‘Make camp?’ Katie was certain she was wide awake now but couldn’t quite comprehend what he meant by ‘make camp’. At this twilight hour of the day it could mean a camp for the night.

  Surely?

  ‘Yes. This as as far as we go to-day. To-morrow we’ll do four hundred miles. That will bring us to my homestead about sundown. There’s no road, only a track. Slower going.’

  Katie stood as still as the trees scattered here and there in quiet groups.

  ‘To your homestead?’ she asked in surprise. ‘Four hundred miles? Do you mean we won’t reach my cousin’s place even by to-morrow night?’

  There was quite a silence.

  ‘I’m afraid my homestead is the end of your journey, Miss Katie,’ Bern Malin said quietly. ‘Gideon Dent is not a man to be found at a moment’s notice. Or even a week’s or a month’s notice. He is here, there and nowhere when most needed. Willy nilly you and Andrew are my guests. That is, unless you would prefer to stay here or go back to Malley’s Find?’

  The twilight world was a no-man’s-land in a forgotten place.

  ‘You mean Gideon Dent is away?’ Katie asked slowly, carefully.

  ‘He is a man who is often away. He’ll come back. He always does. Some time‒’

  Bern Malin’s face was inscrutable as he watched the changing expressions in Katie’s eyes.

  ‘You mean ‒?’

  ‘I mean you are my guest. You as well as Andrew. You will live in my homestead, and I will be responsible for Andrew.’

  Katie’s voice froze in her throat.

  ‘Not‒?’ It hardly came out at all; only a whisper of it.

  ‘Not Gideon Dent,’ he said briefly. ‘At least, not for quite a long time.’

  Katie’s voice was suddenly accusing, disillusioned.

  ‘You took my letter ‒ written to him. You opened it, and read it!’

  ‘Yes. I had to do that. You see ‒ it’s impossible to find Gideon Dent just now.’

  ‘Why? I don’t understand ‒’

  His voice was even. ‘Do you mind staying with me so very much?’

  Her reply, whatever it might have been, was frozen in the silence of bewilderment.

  Besides, she ‒ she and Andrew ‒ had nowhere else to go.

  ‘I simply do not understand why you did not tell me in Malley’s Find ‒’ she said when her voice came back. Her chin was up: her dignity had returned in the shape of a very upright backbone. ‘It’s very good of you to take us in, of course ‒’

  He was watching her through half-closed eyes, summing her up and hiding whatever thoughts he had of her.

  ‘We would have wasted time discussing whether you would stay or come, Miss Katie, and I haven’t time to throw away. We would have had to go into the matter of the Overlander which wouldn’t be back for fourteen days. Also the very delicate subject of your finances. I imagined you would prefer silence and reticence ‒’

  ‘Thank you‒’ Katie’s lips were stiff.

  ‘In any event you had to come with me. You did not give me any choice in that matter when you decided to arrive unheralded yourself. I decided not to waste time. It’s as simple as that.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You see it was your decision all along, Miss Katie!’

  Her decision first, that was true. Now she had the helpless feeling she would never make one again. All decisions were his: implacable and irrevocable!

  They camped that night by the cliff wall in the Gap. Bern Malin raked together the dried gum leaves, some sticks, and later, a larger log to keep the fire glowing through the night.

  Some of the stores he had bought in Malley’s Find provided the evening meal of potatoes roasted in the coals, tinned curry mixed with diced pineapple that was surprisingly sweet and good. Later came the fresh peaches. Tea was made from the camp-kit he kept permanently in the boot of the car.

  He worked at great speed while making camp. During the whole process of lighting the fire and preparing the meal Katie sat beside Andrew, her back propped against a tree, and watched the man.

  It wasn’t that Katie didn’t want to help. Bern Malin wouldn’t let her. She was in a state of daze as if she had been stunned.

  Twice she had made an attempt to shake off this terrible feeling of
stiffness, and do something ‒ if only go through the motions of collecting fire sticks ‒ but each time she made a move Bern Malin said, ‘Sit down. I can manage better unhindered. You have come a long way to-day. I’m used to this kind of life.’

  His words had been said too abruptly to be kind, she thought. Yet she wasn’t sure. It was true that she had come a long way. They had travelled by the Overlander since daybreak. Then from Malley’s Find here ‒ to the Gap.

  ‘Andrew,’ she whispered, ‘we are not going to our cousin’s place yet awhile. We are to stay with Mr. Malin. Do you mind?’

  ‘No,’ Andrew said unexpectedly. ‘He seems okay to me. He makes a hollow with those sticks. That’s for an air tunnel facing north. That’s against the air current, Katie, so the sparks won’t blow about and maybe start a bush fire.’

  ‘There is hardly any bush here, Andrew. Only clumps of trees. We’re not likely to have any bush fire that matters around here.’

  ‘If there’s a high wind in the night the sparks can fly miles.’ Andrew was sitting, both knees drawn up under his chin, his arms wrapped round them. He was chewing a stalk of dried grass. The firelight burnished his hair to copper colour.

  ‘How do you know, Andrew?’

  ‘I read it in a book before I came. I looked up Pandanning ‒ you know where the bus stopped at lunch-time ‒ but there wasn’t anything about Malley’s Find. This range of mountains was in it though and you could see by their direction which way the wind erodes them.’

  Andrew so rarely had anything to say but when he did Katie was always surprised at his observation. In other things, more simple childish things, he was ignorant.

  When they had their meal by the camp fire Bern Malin took a storage petrol can and filled the fuel tank of his car.

  While he was doing this Katie tidied up around the camp. The plates and mugs used for the meal had been of cardboard and were now burned.

  Andrew was star-gazing by this time. Really star-gazing: not just dreaming. If he had been a communicative boy he might have told her all about the stars.

  She knew that the unusual things that Bern Malin did had attracted Andrew’s attention and interested him too.

  ‘That will be helpful,’ Katie thought hopefully. ‘If we have to stay any time with Bern Malin it’s important for Andrew to co-operate.’

  From under the car seat the man brought bush rugs and began to dig shallow troughs in the earth with the heel of his boot. Katie had slept this way in the bush before so she knew what he was doing. The trough was a cradle for the body. This was a bushman’s camp in every way.

  ‘Please let me help,’ she asked, across the fire. ‘I’ll dig Andrew’s bed.’

  ‘I think it might be a good idea if we allowed Andrew to dig his own bed.’

  He looked up to where Andrew lay on his back on the mat of gum leaves, his hands under his head and his face turned skywards.

  ‘Up, young fellow!’ Bern said. ‘You’ve got work to do.’

  Andrew did not move. He did not appear to hear.

  ‘He’s thinking about the stars,’ Katie said. ‘He concentrates when he’s thinking so he doesn’t really understand …’

  ‘Up, Andrew!’ It was as unexpected as the crack of a stockwhip. The boy sat up and stared across the darkling space at the man.

  ‘Up and over here. Quick, you feller! At the double!’

  Andrew did not exactly hurry but he was fast enough to surprise his sister. He was now looking through the firelight at the man with great interest.

  ‘Yes, Mr. Malin? What did you say?’

  ‘Dig yourself a trough there. With the heel of your boot. Like the one I’ve just completed. It’s your bed for the night.’

  ‘With the heel of my boot?’ Andrew asked, puzzled.

  ‘Oh, Andrew … we’ve done it at home,’ Katie said in exasperation.

  Bern Malin interrupted.

  ‘You heard me, Andrew, and you see how it’s done. At it, young feller. Here ‒ catch.’ He threw a bundled rug and Andrew caught it clumsily.

  The man glanced at Katie. The firelight illuminated her face. She looked at him, chin tip-tilted, her blue eyes wide, her figure young and tender. She was like a wraith, some dream out of the solitary bush.

  ‘Andrew is quite capable ‒’ she began.

  ‘I’m sure of that.’ There was a tiny light in the depths of his eyes. ‘You do not like the way I handle Andrew, Miss James?’

  He sounded as if he wanted to hurt her, and not because he and she differed about how to deal with Andrew. She felt as if there was something personal about her, this moment, that was angering him.

  There was a long silence and Katie did not answer him. She stood, not trusting herself to words because they would have been indignant ones. They would have been a defence of herself. His mood and words, in some strange oblique way, were only partly to do with Andrew at all.

  ‘Well?’ he asked her, that will to express anger and to hurt still in his eyes. ‘Andrew does not seem to object. He’s working quite diligently ‒ almost as if he’s enjoying it. Have you ever given him a lesson in doing things for himself?’

  A lesson in doing things for himself!

  How would this man, or perhaps any other, ever understand the problems of a motherless home? Of a sick father ‒ a day-dreamer of a little boy who had been hers to care and love and worry about since he was no more than a toddler?

  Katie’s face, in that glory of firelight, was without expression: her eyes like empty stars.

  Wells of grief for the things left undone and for things done wrongly: remorse for neglected moments and foolish decisions, strained for release inside the tight walls of her chest.

  All her past was a burden to her at that moment because it did not take Bern Malin to tell her all had not been done for Andrew that ought to have been done. It was why she was here, with Andrew ‒ to do something for him.

  She stood perfectly still, the firelight on her frozen figure, but she said nothing. There was not a single word to be said, because he could never know. He would have had to have gone through it himself to have understood.

  It was Andrew who broke the silence, rescuing Bern Malin, not Katie.

  ‘Don’t be mad at him, Katie,’ Andrew advised his sister complacently. ‘He’s okay ‒ really.’

  Katie’s small hands pressed down the sides of her dress.

  Andrew had changed sides and gone over to the enemy. She was lost. She had no ally.

  Bern Malin turned his head.

  ‘You are an authority on people, Andrew?’ he asked. ‘You are a judge of character?’

  Katie still had the strange feeling that all this had nothing to do with Andrew. Bern Malin was merely playing at questioning the boy.

  ‘I know about birds and animals; and ants too,’ Andrew remarked noncommittally as he spread his rug in the hollow which he had now finished making.

  ‘Thank you very much for that,’ Bern Malin replied dryly as he threw a small log on the fire. ‘I’m grouped with the ants amongst other things. The underfoot world, as it were ‒’ He broke off, straightening up and turning so that once again he was looking at Katie on the other side of the fire.

  Her face was quite still as if she was depleted of all strength. The firelight played over her. Her hair shone as if the fire was in that too.

  She stood so still, so small, so young: so alone.

  The muscles clamped above the jawline in his face.

  ‘The bush is no place for a woman ‒ for more reasons than one. I’ve said that before.’ His voice was not quite even.

  He bent and threw a second log on the fire.

  ‘There’s a trickle of water that breaks through the rock stratum on the east side of the cliff,’ he went on roughly. ‘You’ll be able to wash there. It’s time you and Andrew went to bed ‒’ he paused, then added abruptly as he straightened up ‒ ‘Good night, Miss James.’

  He turned and walked away, out of the ring of firelight, as if he had
far to go ‒ and was going it alone. He wanted to put distance and darkness between himself and his guests.

  Katie watched his tall figure merging with the scattered trees, then their shadows.

  Then he was gone ‒ as if gone for ever.

  She forgot her guilt and remorse and sorrow about Andrew: even the hurt Bern Malin had dealt her.

  What if he had done just that? Walked out on them? Gone for ever?

  She hadn’t realised he hated her presence quite so much, or that his going away might leave her quite so forlorn.

  Chapter Three

  By the middle of the next day Katie had come to look on those bad moments of the night before as unimportant. There had been so much to do as soon as dawn, eerie and grey, had crept like a mist through the trees.

  First there had been the sheer relief of seeing Bern Malin stir in the rolled rug on the far side of the remnant fire.

  He had come back and the fear had been a nightmare; no more.

  Nothing else mattered to Katie in that first hour of making, then breaking camp, except that he was there. She must have been dreadfully tired last night to have supposed, even dreamed, that he might have left them.

  She had been dreadfully tired, of course. She had gone to sleep instantly.

  Now, this morning, she laughed at herself.

  ‘I wasn’t so very scared, or I would have stayed awake. I knew he was not far away because I knew, back there in Malley’s Find, I could trust him. I think I wanted to doubt him because I was in a bad temper. That’s the red in my hair, of course …’

  She went on talking to herself as she made the breakfast over the newly livened coals while Bern Malin rolled the rugs and repacked and restowed things in the boot of his car.

  She didn’t mind that he had little to say.

  ‘Lots of men are like that …’ she went on in her private tête-à-tête with herself. ‘My father, for instance! Not a word till the sun had been up an hour!’

  The camp had been eventually broken; the last fire coal stamped out then earthed over; the ground checked then rechecked in case some piece of apparatus had been left behind. Bern Malin was a very thorough man and Katie in the exuberance of her newly-turned leaf saw to it that Andrew noticed, even promised to take a lesson from it.