The first hour was bad. George was tense and found it hard to keep up with the easy stride of the black men. He soon had a stitch and had to stop. A few minutes’ rest and they were off again. This time it was easier and after another hour he had his second wind. They ran at a steady jog that ate the miles.
For a long time the countryside did not change. On their right the river flowed between heavily wooded banks; to the left, the plain extended its thirsty miles. George was gasping for lack of water, his legs increasingly heavy, but the black men never stopped or spoke but ran lightly and without apparent effort to the east, their long spears bobbing in their hands.
The ground folded and became a line of hills, crests yellow against the sky. The men swung towards the hills, leaving the river behind them. The change of direction made George uneasy. So long as they followed the river he knew he could find his way back to Mary and the boy. Out here it would be easy to get lost and a lost man without water would die very quickly.
He wondered what would happen if he refused to go further. Maybe they would wait but they might abandon or even kill him. Perhaps he had better keep going a little longer.
Ten minutes later they came through a defile between the hills and he saw below him and not more than a mile distant the meandering course of a creek, the surface of the water shining black between green banks, and a cluster of wooden houses off to one side.
For a long time, it seemed to her, Lorna fought frenziedly with all the strength induced by horror, terror and disbelief, lashing out with knees and feet, screaming, throwing her body about as she tried to stop Charlie from pinning her down. Neck and back arched, mouth wide, she would have bitten him if she could. Her knees and feet could not reach him. Her screams achieved nothing. Her violent contortions died as little by little he suppressed them. He could have beaten her but did not. She realised that he was enjoying it, watching with amusement her desperate and unavailing struggles to resist him. His legs and thighs, heavy as tree trunks, crushed her. His elbows pinned her arms. He grinned, foul-breathed, into her face as she strained her neck upwards unavailingly, seeking to lacerate, tear. She felt his hand, groping, ripping at her clothes.
‘I allus said yer was a spunky little bitch.’
To the last she fought, knowing it was hopeless.
Afterwards she lay, eyes blind, limbs slack, strength gone. She sensed him shift from her but did not move. She supposed the others would come now. It meant nothing. The sense of horror and disbelief, the frenzy of resistance, all was finished. She lay in the stinking shack, sweat drying on her belly.
George limped down the straight and dusty trail that led to the station. He was alone. The warriors had pointed the place out to him then turned and loped away, running so easily they might have been out for an evening stroll.
From the top of the hill the buildings had looked to be only a mile away, possibly less, but now the track seemed to go on forever. He was limping badly, muscles sending sharp messages of pain with every step. He looked down the trail and saw a horseman riding towards him in a cloud of dust.
Horse and rider drew up at his side. A fine black mare, George saw, and wondered if he would ever see Domino again.
‘Name’s Dan Grant,’ the man said. ‘You in some kind of trouble?’
‘Reckon you could say I am,’ George admitted.
‘Had to be. A man out here without a horse. Walked far?’
‘Tweren’t the walkin’ so much. Twas the runnin’ near killed me.’
‘Running?’ Grant’s dark eyebrows rose under the brim of his hat. ‘That what you do for fun, is it? Run around the countryside with the temperature in the middle nineties?’
George explained about the natives. ‘When I first saw ’em, I thought they was goin’ to kill me,’ he confessed.
‘I’d say you were lucky they didn’t,’ Grant said. ‘I had a shepherd speared a year ago, not five miles from here.’
‘Maybe twasn’t the same band.’
‘Or maybe it wasn’t their day for killing people. You want to come along to the station and tell me what this is all about or would you sooner stand here and speculate why the blacks didn’t take the trouble to kill you?’
The man, who would have been about forty or forty-five, with a red face and long black moustaches, certainly had a sharp way of speaking.
George said, ‘I reckon I’d sooner head down to your station and get my boots off a spell.’
‘Can you walk that far or d’you want a lift?’
It was an awkward question. George had been walking or running for what seemed half a lifetime. He would have much preferred a lift but didn’t want this man to think he was incapable of walking the distance that remained between him and the station buildings.
‘Reckon I can walk,’ he said.
Grant looked at him. ‘I reckon you can, too, if you’ve made it as far as this. But I think Mavis here can manage the two of us for that short distance. Hop up. If you kin manage it.’
George did manage it but with little to spare. He clung on as best he could while Grant put Mavis into a canter. In no time they were at the station.
The homestead was built of wood but in other ways reminded George of Inverlochrie—well made and substantial. A veranda ran the length of the building, with a table and a couple of chairs on it.
‘Sit down there,’ Grant said. ‘Take your boots off if you want.’
He fetched a bottle and glasses, lifted down a canvas water bag from a hook at the end of the veranda and came back. He poured himself a stiff drink—more whisky than water, George noticed—and pushed the makings across the table.
‘Help yourself,’ he said and waited, boot heels on the edge of the table, hat tipped low over his eyes, while George poured himself a more modest drink.
George took a sip. He knew Dan Grant was waiting for him to tell him what he was doing here but it was in George’s nature to creep up on facts rather than blurt them straight out.
He nodded at the black mare tied to the veranda railing. ‘Nice horse.’
‘Mavis? Not bad.’
‘Unusual name.’
‘Named her for my sister. She reminded me of a horse, all the years I lived with her. Now my horse reminds me of her.’ He tipped half his drink down his throat. ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t reckon you walked two days to talk about my horse,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
Unable to avoid the point any longer, George explained.
Grant moved only to replenish his glass.
‘Where you camped? Two days west of here?’
‘Plus half a day’s run,’ George corrected him. ‘On the banks of the Murray.’
‘You got two problems, as I see it,’ Grant said. ‘First, how to keep your drive going with no horses and no guns and with the man who was running it injured or possibly dead. Second, how to get this woman back. If we can get her back.’ His eyes gleamed at George from beneath his hat. ‘That it?’
George thought carefully around what the squatter had said. It was a complicated situation and he wanted to make no mistakes. ‘That’s about it,’ he said finally.
‘On the other hand maybe not,’ Grant told him. ‘We can’t do anything about the man who’s sick. He’ll either recover or he won’t. If we get the woman back we also recover your guns and horses. So that’s what we should concentrate on. Isn’t that so?’
‘I see what you mean,’ George said cautiously.
‘You say their leader was called Charlie?’
‘That’s what they called him.’
‘That’ll be the Smith gang, then. Charlie Smith’s bad trouble and always will be and the two young fellers with him are no better. I knew they were down the Murray some place but I thought they were further west. Last I heard they’d crossed the river and gone south. They’ll be raiding the new settlers down that way, I suppose. They’ll be the ones took your lady.’
George thought about things for a while. ‘Any way we can get her back?’ he wondered eventually.
‘Reckon there is,’ Grant said. He tipped the last of his drink down his throat and stood up. ‘Let me get a few of the boys.’
‘You going now?’ The sun was already sliding down its westwards slope. It would be dark in three hours, at latest.
‘Damn right I’m going now. Leave it any longer, there may not be anything of that girl to pick up but a few pieces.’
In a matter of minutes Grant had organised a party of half a dozen white men and one black and the group was riding across the plain in the direction of the river. George never did get around to taking off his boots.
George had assumed they would camp when it got dark but Dan Grant kept riding. ‘No time to waste,’ he said. ‘Those men got to be stopped before they slip away.’
They had to slow down after nightfall but still made good time, following the bank while the Murray River gleamed silver under the stars.
They reached the camp three hours after sunset.