Cobram
Raff had arrived in Cobram. Needing food, he headed first for the general store, got himself a loaf of bread and some ham. Needing a bath, he checked into the hotel. Needing a drink after that, he headed for the bar.
It wasn’t as crowded as he expected it would be late in the afternoon. Few men were in. Amid the sweet stale odour of spilled beer, and the fumes of rum, the mouth-watering scent of lamb cooking somewhere out the back tantalised, had his stomach groaning. The aroma of potatoes roasting in lard … An evening meal would tide him over until he left in the morning to make his way home.
By way of Bendigo. He wouldn’t bypass it, not with Evie likely to be in some trouble.
At the bar, he nursed a rum the big barman had poured for him. Moody, going over and over his interactions with Evie since her finding him at the Echuca railway station, the more nervous about seeing her he became. One thing was for sure: if she was in trouble in the courts, he would, he would … What? Run her off to his wheelwright shop, protect her behind the anvil and the forge, maybe his timber lathe? Have her live over the shop without so much as her own kitchen, or a copper for laundry? Right. And when was the last time he washed his bedsheets—
Whoa, man. You’re putting the cart before the horse.
‘Mate, reckon you need company. Save you talking to yourself.’
‘Robbo.’ Raff laughed a moment. ‘Was I making sense?’
‘Just a mumble.’ Robbo nodded at the barman, who took the coins he slid across the counter and handed him back a beer. ‘You hear about McCosker?’
Raff nodded. I sure have.
‘Haines and the other trooper, they’re gonna be hauled off to Melbourne,’ Robbo said. ‘In fact, they could already be gone, under escort. Constable Stillard weren’t too happy to have ’em here.’
‘I bet.’
‘That, uh, Mr Morgan. I mean Fitz, the other O’Shea. He get away all right?’
‘Gone to visit his brother’s widow, deliver the sad news.’
Robbo shook his head. ‘Aye. All this sorta business is hard on the women, the kids. Left to fend for themselves, and some their little kids dyin’—’ He waved a hand. ‘Bah. Gotta stop talking about that stuff, the doc says. Gotta stay off the hard liquor, too. I am allowed to have this.’ He held up the beer. ‘Where are you headed?’
‘Home is Ballarat. I’ll leave tomorrow morning.’
‘A fair few days’ ride.’
‘I’ll cut down to Rochester, maybe Elmore, hitch a lift on the train from there.’ He’d be well knackered by then anyway. He was knackered now. ‘How’s Mrs Robinson?’
‘Good. Matter-of-fact, she talked of askin’ the powers-what-be how we go about buying up the Bayley place. Acquire it, or apply for it, whatever we need to do. I’m good for workin’ at it. We’d sell ours, freehold an’ all that.’
For a time, that same idea had appealed to Raff. He shook it off. Not right to be thinking about it now.
Robbo was nodding at nothing in particular; the idea was a good one, it appeared. ‘Our two lads are in the cemetery in town here, not on our place, so, nothin’ to keep us there, really.’ He wrapped both hands around his pot of beer. ‘Might be good for Miss Emerson to know she can visit her sister’s resting place whenever she feels like it.’ He studied his hands, sniffed loudly. ‘Bugger it, here I go again.’ He wiped his nose with a sleeve.
Raff clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I know how you feel, mate.’
They sat at the bar, side by side, silent, and the rest of the world drifted by.