The Ranger in the Hills: A Heartwarming Australian Outback Romance Read online

  Once the car had passed through the Gap a great plain lay spread out before them, as far as the eye could see. Passing through that narrow gorge was like travelling through a gate out of one world into another.

  The white gums had gone, and in their place across this farther plain stood the beautiful pink-stemmed salmon gums with their dark oily green leaves hanging from umbrella tops to make entrancing shadows on the red ground. The track was no more than an earth track made by the occasional passage of a car or truck winding a way between trees north-east out into the never-never.

  The horizon was a pencil line between the earth and sky ‒ never to be reached.

  All this filled Katie with a kind of awe; and wonder, too.

  ‘When did someone last come through here?’ she asked Bern Malin.

  ‘Myself ‒ yesterday. Before that? I should say no one for months.’

  She was in the front seat beside him now. Evidently he had changed his mind about communicating with Andrew. He had said ‒ they were setting out ‒ ‘Try the back seat for a change, Andrew. There’s more room to think there.’

  He had actually smiled after that remark.

  ‘Katie doesn’t want to think,’ he had added. ‘She wants to see the view.’ His eyes had smiled at her too.

  Yes, she thought, yesterday is gone. To-day it will be different. He had shown some kind of understanding of both of them in that hour before departure from the camp. It lifted her spirits. The whole world seemed different.

  She remembered her father often saying ‒ ‘Don’t worry, Katie. In the morning it will be different. One always sees things in a better light in the morning.’

  And so it was.

  She knew now, traversing these interminable distances, the track sometimes indiscernible, she and Andrew would never have found Gideon Dent without a guide.

  She ought to have been grateful to this man, instead of angry with him. She was so grateful now she wished there was some easy, unembarrassing way of saying it.

  An hour after start they had to stop because smoke began billowing from the bonnet of the car.

  ‘The first casualty,’ Bern Malin said, braking to a stop, easing himself out of the car. ‘It’s a “short”. That will be for sure.’

  Katie had no idea what a ‘short’ in a car engine meant but she followed Bern Malin on to the track and watched him as he raised the bonnet.

  ‘Broken battery bracket,’ he commented as he disconnected one of the terminals. He looked up. ‘Out of there, Andrew, and take an interest in what I’m doing.’

  He took insulating tape from the glove box. When Andrew had arrived, in his slow fashion, at the front end of the car, Bern Malin began taping the wire from the coil to the ignition switch.

  ‘The sooner you learn about a car the better, young feller,’ he was saying through half-closed lips as he worked. ‘You might strike trouble out on a bush track yourself one day.’

  ‘I’m not likely to drive a car,’ Andrew said politely. ‘I’m not old enough and we haven’t very much money to buy one.’

  Bern Malin ceased working and stared at the boy.

  ‘Ever heard of growing up?’ he said. ‘It could happen to you one day and it might be a good idea to begin getting ready for it.’

  He ripped off the insulating tape.

  ‘Watch,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ll do it again. Next time we strike this sort of trouble I’ll expect you to know what to do.’

  ‘Does it happen often?’ Andrew asked thoughtfully, almost academically, as his red head bent over the engine and he peered into the mysteries.

  ‘Not for another ten years unless we’re unlucky,’ Bern Malin finished the job with a final deft twist of the tape.

  ‘By that time I’ll have taught you to take the entire car to pieces and put it together again. A man’s no good in the bush if he’s not a motor mechanic.’ He looked up into the blue eyes of the young boy.

  The eyes were the same as his sister’s, blue and bright ‒ when his attention was aroused.

  ‘Are you a good student of practical things, Andrew?’

  ‘I could be; that is if I was interested enough.’

  Bern Malin slammed down the car bonnet. He stood looking down at Andrew, wiping his hands on a piece of waste as he did so.

  ‘Then you smartly get interested, boy,’ he said briefly. ‘You’ve a long time to spend in the outback and you’d better get acquainted with the practical side of life, like motor cars, jeeps, and trucks ‒ as soon as possible. A hand-winch too ‒ come to think of it.’

  Katie, standing watching the work, listened to this conversation with a feeling of puzzlement.

  How was Andrew to be educated if he stayed for a long time in this kind of bush hundreds and hundreds of miles from anywhere? That ‒ Andrew’s education ‒ was what she had written to Gideon Dent about. He had written back and said ‒ Send the boy. I’ll see that he is educated, and wants for nothing.

  It had been so terse a letter! She had had to see what Andrew was going to, and what his future would be. She thought about Bern Malin’s words ‒ If ever this happens again I’ll expect you to know what to do ‒ as if Gideon Dent would not be in the picture at all. He had also said something about ‒ Not for another ten years.

  Ten years?

  Why did Bern Malin speak as if Andrew was his responsibility?

  Katie decided not to ask questions. When she had asked questions yesterday Bern Malin had tangled her up. Each time she had ended up standing on her dignity or being embarrassed, then being angry and hurt ‒ and finally afraid.

  She would not let that happen again. Only the future could really tell her what Andrew’s life was to be.

  They had been standing there beside the car while Bern Malin cleaned the grease from his hands with the piece of waste. There was nothing around them in all the world but the listening bush.

  Funny, Katie thought. How the bush always seems to be listening!

  ‘Are you worrying about something?’ Bern Malin asked her, looking at her quizzically.

  ‘No …’ she said slowly. ‘Not really. I was hearing the silence in the trees …’

  ‘Like the stars shouting at night? I seem to have two other-worldly people on my hands. We had better get back in the car and continue our journey. Time might listen too; but it doesn’t wait. Not for any man.’

  On his hands!

  Katie’s chin began to tilt and she nearly threw back her head to shake out her hair. She knew now that this was her outward sign that something inside her was getting ready to do battle. She held herself in tightly to stop those little mannerisms from showing themselves. She walked back to the car and climbed in. She was certain by the way Bern Malin looked at her that he knew what was happening inside her, and what she was feeling.

  She let her chin go up then. It was good to be proud. Now she felt like Katie James ‒ head up. And a lot better, too.

  ‘Hurry up, Andrew. Don’t dawdle,’ Bern Malin said to the boy as he stood by his own seat door waiting. ‘Pick up your feet ‒’

  ‘He doesn’t understand that,’ Katie said quickly. ‘Andrew is very literal, and logical too. My father and I were cured long ago of using idiom ‒’

  Bern Malin shut the door behind Andrew, pushed his long legs under the steering wheel and slammed his own door behind him.

  ‘You take too much care of Andrew,’ he said quietly as he started up. ‘In his silent way he is a tyrant. Small and gentle about it. But a tyrant.’

  ‘Never!’ Katie protested. ‘He’s not always silent, or inactive either. Andrew also takes care of me. You would be surprised how much. He would not allow you to touch me, for instance ‒’

  Bern’s foot jerked on the accelerator and the car did a kangaroo hop.

  ‘Don’t imagine I would do such a thing as touch you ‒ with or without Andrew on guard,’ he said evenly.

  Katie’s heart sank.

  Such good intentions! Such determination to be easier and more friendly
to-day! She was sure he had had them too. She felt herself burning all over. She hadn’t meant what he thought she had meant. She had put it badly ‒ stupidly.

  ‘You misunderstood me,’ she pleaded. ‘I meant you, or anybody … that is ‒ generally. I mean he would protect me ‒’

  ‘You are getting in deeper.’ He was faintly amused now.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Katie said soberly. ‘What I really meant ‒’

  ‘I would give up explaining if I were you.’ He swerved the car round a fallen log, then brought it steadily back on to the track again. ‘What you are probably trying to say is that you are loyal to one another. Well done! I am pleased to hear it. Andrew goes up two points in my estimation.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Katie said, chin up again ‒ regardless. ‘Would you please tell me why you have rated him so low so early in your acquaintance?’

  ‘I didn’t say I had rated him low. One could get a ninety-eight per cent rating and still leave room to move up two points ‒’

  Katie glanced at him quickly. Was he being sarcastic?

  He looked straight ahead but knew what she was doing. She saw the faint ironic smile at the corner of his mouth telling her he knew she was looking at him.

  Here we go again, she thought. All my good resolutions gone with the morning glory.

  ‘I apologise,’ she said aloud. ‘I don’t think I understand you very much. Could we please talk about something else?’

  ‘Certainly. I suggest we call one another by our Christian names. That might make things easier. It would bring us a little nearer to one another, as it were ‒’ He turned his head. His eyes might have been laughing at her. ‘Not touching, of course,’ he added carefully. ‘That would bring Andrew, protective-wise, from his nest back there in the corner seat.’

  There was a tiny silence.

  ‘You couldn’t resist that, could you?’ Katie said quite bitterly. ‘You know I didn’t mean ‒’

  ‘I think we had better beat a retreat into silence,’ Bern said gently. ‘It’s my turn to apologise, Katie. I’m afraid I couldn’t ‒ as you said ‒ resist that one. You shouldn’t have such a disdainful chin; and so much challenge in your eyes.’

  Yes ‒ silence was her only safety. She knew that now. If only he had not made that personal remark about her chin and her eyes! She had a feeling of being subtly bested by him; or was it that she was worsted by herself? Silence was her only retreat while they travelled hour after hour covering mile upon mile of red earth, hemmed and hedged by the lovely slim pink and green trees.

  Better to think of them ‒ the trees.

  If only she could.

  They travelled a long way in this new silence. The day was very warm and the purr of the engine, the somnolence of the midday bush, had the effect of making Katie once again forget her self-inflicted embarrassment.

  They stopped once in the shade of some trees for early lunch but were then quickly on their way again.

  Half an hour later Bern stopped the car and took a small two-way radio from its place under the dashboard.

  He adjusted the wireless for working, and beat the end of a ball-point pen on the instrument’s casing. He worked intently ‒ doing whatever it was he was doing with his pen. His head was bent and his face wore a faraway preoccupied expression as if he was thinking deeply; or listening. It took Katie quite a few minutes to realise he was operating a kind of Morse code.

  To whom was he talking? And why didn’t he use words? One could talk into those things and hear any reply too. Katie knew that anyone mobile in the outback carried a two-way. Even the stockmen on their horses used them to keep contact with the homestead.

  Presently after a minute or two of listening Bern Malin pushed in the antennae of the radio then thrust the whole thing back under the dashboard.

  He let go the brakes and the car rolled forward, gathering speed, for the track was easier hereabouts.

  Katie slid down again in her seat, leaning her head against the back-rest, and closed her eyes.

  She wondered why he said nothing about what he had been doing.

  Well, she had asked for silence, hadn’t she? Now she had it. She wasn’t entitled to complain.

  She had only known him twenty-four hours. He was a stranger, after all ‒ a man who had come through the Gap in the hills to take them to Gideon Dent.

  Unexpectedly, at the thought of Gideon Dent ‒ at the soundless sound of his name as she had said it to herself ‒ her eyes without warning became moist. Her dilemmas would all be over ‒ then ‒ when she found him.

  ‘It’s getting cooler now, isn’t it?’ she said brightly. ‘Have we been silent long enough, do you think?’

  She glanced at him to make sure he realised she was being co-operative, not difficult.

  ‘Not far to go now,’ he replied. ‘There’ll be someone to meet us at the foot of the mountains. You’ll see the mountains in a minute when we break through this last run of scrub.’

  Half an hour later the track broke through the trees and there before them stretched an empty country sprinkled only here and there with groves of low-growing trees. The northeast sky showed a rim of such vivid blue that it startled Katie. So did the three mountains rearing up their heads like signposts on the edge of this world.

  She pulled herself upright in the seat and turned to speak to Andrew. He was curled up in the corner, fast asleep.

  ‘He’s been like that for two hours,’ Bern Malin said. So he had been watching Andrew through that rear-vision mirror now and again!

  Katie’s feelings about the man beside her had gone once more into neutral.

  ‘I think he’s tired with travelling,’ she said softly, looking at Andrew, her face touched momentarily with the pity she felt for all the defenceless young.

  Bern’s hand reached into the glove box and he drew out a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Light up for me will you? And have one yourself.’

  Katie swung round again.

  ‘I don’t often smoke ‒’

  ‘Have one now. It’s good for the immortal soul. More important, it’s companionable.’

  He had flicked a cigarette into his own mouth and was holding the packet towards Katie. He kept his eyes on the track.

  She took the cigarette, then taking the packet from him put it back in the glove box.

  ‘Use the lighter on the dashboard,’ he suggested. She held the lighter to the tip of his cigarette ‒ not looking at him ‒ then to her own.

  Funny, she thought after a few minutes of quietly puffing, but it was companionable. Very much so. It was peaceful.

  ‘Better?’ he asked.

  Katie sat up sharply.

  ‘Better from what? I am quite well, you know ‒’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you are now. Look straight ahead and I’ll tell you the names of the mountains and why they’re there. That rim of hills is an ancient coastline and the mountains were the headlands. Millions of years ago this plain was the gulf of an inland sea ‒’

  ‘But the hills, and the Gap we came through from Malley’s Find?’ Katie asked.

  ‘They formed the distant south-west coastline of the same gulf. We’ve been travelling across the old sea-bed ever since we came through the Gap. Interesting, isn’t it?’

  He glanced at her to see if she liked this little piece of geological history.

  ‘It’s incredible. How long ago was the sea here?’

  ‘About a thousand million years ago. Look! Now you can see the mountain outlines clearly. That is Black Rock to the north-east, King Rock in the middle and Mount Do-It-Yourself at the end. That is where we’re going.’

  ‘Do-It-Yourself!’ Katie exclaimed. ‘What a strange name!’

  ‘We call it You-self for short.’

  ‘Who gave them those strange names?’

  ‘Gideon Dent.’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘I mean Gideon Dent first surveyed them, and named them. That’s why he called one of them Do-It-Yourself.
He did it himself ‒ climbed them, surveyed them, and dug for minerals and gold behind them. He’s quite a famous name hereabouts‒’

  ‘Oh,’ said Katie softly. ‘I’m so glad. And proud of him, too. Is he in history books, or geography books, or something?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. They’re things I never look at. It takes time and new publications to catch up with the kind of things Gideon Dent did ‒’

  ‘You said ‒ “did”?’ Katie asked quickly. ‘Do you mean in the past? Not now?’

  Bern Malin drove with one hand while he leaned forward to butt out his cigarette.

  ‘We don’t live the whole of our lives in the present,’ he answered guardedly. ‘There’s a past and a future too. For everyone.’

  Andrew stirred in the back seat and broke into the conversation.

  ‘What’s the time, please?’ he asked straightening up, stretching. ‘When do we get home, Mr. Malin?’

  ‘It’s four o’clock now, and you’ll get home for an evening meal, Andrew,’ Bern said. ‘Keep your eyes on the bush and let me know if the kangaroos or emus are coming out. It’s about their wake-up hour, and I don’t want to hit one.’

  They drove on for another quarter of an hour; the mountains seemed now to advance on them.

  ‘We go up there,’ Bern said, making a gesture with his hand out of the window, ‘through the gap between Mount King and You-self. It’s a bad track, but discernible. At the foot of the mountain I must leave you. You follow the stream up the gully. There will be someone to meet you. A farming family lives through there on the other side of the range. They’ll take care of you ‒’

  Katie couldn’t believe her ears. Dismay left her silent; suddenly bereft. So she needed him ‒ this strange man Bern Malin, after all. This was what that signalling on the two-way radio had been about. Would someone else please take over this carload of bother!

  ‘You are leaving us? But you said ‒’ she began.

  ‘That you would stay with me? That is true. You will stay at my place. I have to go on because I have urgent work to do first. I will come back later. You will be met and well cared for.’

  He was holding the steering wheel with one hand as he leaned forward and took another cigarette from the glove box.