Early in the morning, two weeks after crossing the Murray, they came to a place where the ground fell away before them into a wide, deep valley. Between the trees they looked out at an expanse of land bordered at its far end by a line of hills. No smoke rose above the trees to indicate the presence of other settlers. A few birds flew through the bush but that was all. The valley dreamed in the sun, empty and enticing and so beautiful.
Andrew stood at the point where the land fell away. His eyes drank in the sweet curve of the hills, the miles of timber, the dark shine of the river running through the valley bottom. He turned to George, standing at his elbow.
‘What d’ye think, George?’ Voice excited, hungry.
‘Looks good to me.’
Andrew knelt and sifted the dusty soil through his hands. He looked up. ‘Soil’s thin. But it’ll be good for pasture, won’t it, George?’
‘Should be, with the river down yonder. Mind you, she’ll get a lot o’ rain, this close to them ’ills.’
Too much rain brought footrot but Andrew did not want to hear that. ‘It’s well drained. See.’ Again he sifted the soil. Falling, it left a smear of dust in the air. ‘Nae water will stand long in that.’
He stood up. ‘What do ye think, George? It’s your decision, too, mind.’
They both knew the decision had been made.
George nodded slowly. ‘Reckon she’ll do.’
Andrew stared with shining eyes at the prospect before them, at the future that he could see so clearly, embodied within the hills and valley at their feet. ‘I reckon she will, an’ all.’ Exuberance overcame him. He seized George by the shoulders and shook him, laughing out loud. ‘Look at it, George! There must be fifty thousand acres there.’
‘More,’ George assured him. ‘Double.’
‘And all ours!’ He sobered. ‘This is a great day.’
‘Some glad to ’ave somewhere at last,’ George agreed.
Andrew knelt, closed his eyes and lifted his hands and shining face to the heavens. ‘Lord God,’ he prayed, ‘ye have brought us out of the darkness into the promised land. Grant that we do not forget this day. Grant that we labour fruitfully in this place to your glory and the betterment of ourselves and our families. May we prosper and be fruitful here and never be unmindful of your goodness to us. Amen.’ He stood, dusting his knees. ‘Let’s get down there and see what the land’s like closer to the river. I want to start work on a shelter before the day’s oot.’
The slope was gentle and the dray negotiated it without difficulty. Within two hours they were camped beside the banks of the river and the flock was already spreading out across the valley floor. Along the riverbank trees overhung the water. There were reeds and the grass was lush.
Andrew and George walked along the bank, Andrew throwing his hands repeatedly in the air with excitement.
‘We shall call it Montrose,’ he said.
‘Sounds good.’ George knew well his opinion had not been asked.
‘Plenty o’ water, George. Must be four feet deep. More, in places.’
He climbed down the bank, dipped his hand into the water and drank. ‘Cold,’ he said.
‘D’come from they mountains,’ George said, pointing. ‘Reckon we’ll get snow yur?’
It was a startling thought after the long journey across the thirsty plains to the north.
‘Nae matter if we do. There’ll be nae heavy drifts so far down the valley. A wee sprinkling willna hurt.’
‘That may.’ George pointed at the branches of the trees overhead. They were clogged with debris from past floods. ‘That muck be ten feet over our ’eads, easy.’ He cast an appraising glance across the land bordering the river. ‘Floodwater that high, I reckon ’twill reach half way up that slope yonder. We’d best not be buildin’ too close to the river, Andy.’
Andrew looked dubious. ‘Yon’s a long step for carrying water.’
‘Better’n ’avin’ to swim for it later.’
They found a knoll, closely covered in trees, a quarter of a mile from the river. The summit of the knoll was twenty feet above the flood plain. They would be safe there.
‘We’ll camp by the river for now,’ Andrew said. ‘It’ll be safe enough. There’s been nae rain for days and it’s a lot handier for fetching water.’
They picked a site thirty yards from the river where a group of trees cast a patch of shade that would shelter them from the midday sun. The men left the women unpacking the dray while they returned to the knoll with shovels and heavy axes. Minutes later, the valley resounded with noise—axes biting into wood, the groan and crash of falling timber.
Mary and Lorna erected the tent while Matthew tried importantly to help them. They laid a fire and began to prepare a meal: the normal routine at the end of a day’s trail. It was hard to take in the fact that this time was different from the others, that they had arrived at their destination and would not be striking camp tomorrow and heading on into the unknown.
‘I’m gunna like it ’ere,’ Mary said.
‘Aye.’ Lorna pushed her hair back. ‘It’s pretty enough.’ But so far from anywhere. So much on our ain. They had already proved they weren’t capable of protecting themselves.
Lorna seemed much better now. She did all the things she had done before the bushrangers had ambushed them. She talked to them all. Gaily, at times. Too gaily, perhaps. She helped Mary with the chores. She threw off any suggestion she should rest. Not knowing her, a stranger would have heard her laughter, observed her gaiety and never realised that anything had happened. If anything had. She never spoke of it, not a word. She seemed to have done what Mary wished so much she could do—put it out of her mind. But Mary was not a stranger, or had not been for now Lorna’s eyes were opaque and Mary hardly knew her.
‘You mustn’ think there’s blokes like that behind every bush, you know,’ Mary said, catching Lorna’s tone.
‘Thank God for it.’
Andrew had shot a roo the day before. Mary fetched the joint that remained and began to cut it up. ‘I was that frightened for you,’ she ventured.
‘I was concairned, myself.’ Lorna’s voice, her expression, gave nothing.
‘There ’asn’t been a chance to talk till now. You wanner tell me what ’appened?’
‘Nothing happened.’
Mary’s silence showed what she believed.
Lorna’s eyes blazed. ‘I tell you—’
Mary put down the knife. She seized Lorna’s hands in her own. She could feel them shaking, Lorna’s whole body shaking. ‘All right …’ Soothing. ‘I thought maybe you’d feel better if you let it out, like. Tha’s all.’
Lorna stood, head averted. The too thin column of her neck rose above the worn dress. Mary put out her hand and caressed it. ‘Nuthin’s changed as far’s I’m concerned. Nuthin.’
Lorna’s lips were trembling, her eyes screwed tight.
‘Don’ say nuthin if you don’ wanner.’ The hand stroked. The neck was taut as wire. Mary took a deep breath and said what she had wanted to say for so long. ‘I still love yer. Whatever those bastards did.’
Lorna was shuddering uncontrollably. A fat tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.
‘Easy, girl, easy …’
Something broke and tears flooded silently down.
‘Tha’s the way. Let it all out. Tha’s the way.’
Lorna mumbled something through stiff lips.
‘Watcher say?’
She tried again. All Mary heard was, ‘Guilt …’ She was shocked. ‘You got nuthin to feel guilty about. Wasn’t yore idea, was it?’
‘I should have died.’ Lorna’s teeth were chattering. Mary could just make out the words. ‘I wanted to.’
She held her, enfolding the shaking body of the girl with her tenderness. Lorna’s tears soaked into her dress.
‘I love you.’ She meant it absolutely, the declaration a balm. ‘Whatever happened can’t change that.’
Lorna choked and sniffed. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Tha’s right.’ Cradling her in her arms, recognising the lie.
Lorna moved away from her. ‘I should hae died,’ she said again.
‘Don’ say that!’
‘I should. I’m empty. There’s nothing inside me. Nothing.’
Mary had to say it. ‘Not even for me?’
‘For no one.’ Speaking calmly now. She seemed not to feel the hurt she was causing or perhaps did not care.
‘It’s early days yet,’ Mary said as much to herself as Lorna. ‘You’ll git over it.’
‘Aye. Mebbe.’ A deep breath. ‘But there’s anither thing.’
The summit of the knoll was fifty yards square, level and densely covered in bush. They cleared only what was necessary to make room for a hut. When they had felled the trees they needed they selected the four with the straightest and strongest trunks and trimmed away the branches. They dug holes six feet deep where the corners of the hut would be. It was murderous work—never before had the land been broken—but they managed it eventually. They manoeuvred the trunks until the butt ends were over the holes.
‘No’ the problems start,’ Andrew said.
They took the first trunk, lashed a stout rope to the end furthest from the hole and ran it over the lowest branch of one of the nearest trees. They hauled together on the rope until the end was clear of the ground. With the heavy trunk teetering on the edge of the hole, Andrew ran to position the butt and hold it while George continued to haul on the rope until at last, when their eyeballs were bursting from their heads, the trunk slipped with a sigh into the hole. George secured the rope to keep it upright, they shovelled the loose soil back into the hole and tamped it down.
They were exhausted by the time the first upright was in place but forced themselves to continue, muscles groaning, sweat pouring from their bodies, until the other three were done. They rested, panting and wiping their brows, looking at what they had achieved.
‘Don’ look much,’ George said.
‘Ye think no’? That’s the real hard work finished. The rest’ll be easy.’
By now it was evening and the fire shone out of the gathering darkness as they walked back down the knoll to the camp site.
‘How’s it goin’?’ Mary asked.
George slumped on the ground by the fire and took the cup of tea she offered him. ‘’Ard an’ slow,’ he said wearily. ‘’Ard an’ slow.’
‘But getting there,’ Andrew added. ‘We have the uprights in place.’ He saw Lorna watching him from the far side of the fire, her fingers twisted in her lap. ‘Like the spot we’ve chosen, do ye?’
‘It’s grand.’ She laughed a little. ‘What was that ye said on top of the hill when we first arrived?’
He stared at her, puzzled. Her eyes rested on him, their expression hidden by the movement of the firelight.
‘I dinna mind what I said.’
‘“May we prosper and be fruitful here.” That was it.’ She laughed again, the sound strange somehow. ‘I’m sure ye’re right, Andrew. I’m sure we’ll do that.’
‘I pray so.’
That night, sitting over the dying coals after the others had gone to bed, she told him what she had already told Mary—that she was pregnant. He had wanted it more than anything in his life but now he stared at her in an appalled silence. ‘Ye canna be sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘It’s nae long enough.’
‘I’ve missed,’ she said. ‘Dinna talk to me aboot long enough.’
‘But that means …’ His voice died, mind grappling with dates, hopes, suspicions.
‘Means what, Andy?’
She had started calling him that, too, since she had come back. He hated it, had hated the others calling him it. Andrew was his name. Now his wife, too, was saying it. He had thought to reprimand her when she had first done so but it was such a little thing. He had been trying to be gentle with her after her ordeal so he let it go. Now it had become a habit.
‘I wish ye would use my proper name,’ he said irritably.
‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It suits ye fine.’ A pause. ‘Means what, Andy?’
He felt life was getting away from him, that this day that had seen the culmination of everything he had striven so long to achieve was becoming one of uncertainty and loss.
‘I need to know,’ he said.
‘Know what?’ A look of such innocence. He could have wept, bedevilled by doubt.
‘Wha’ happened with yon men. I ken it’s no’ easy but …’
‘Nothing happened.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Nothing at all.’
He did not believe her but wanted to, oh, so much.
The memories he had tried to forget returned to plague him. The dark hut, the outlaw lying dead on the floor, Lorna crouched against the wall, arms and legs tucked into her body like an unborn child. Wearing a nightgown. That was all. Dirty and torn, barely preserving her modesty. Not that one should blame her for that, in the circumstances.
She had been in such a state that, later, when he was able to do so privately, he had helped her wash. There had been bruises.
Now she said nothing had happened.
Dear God, he cried out in anguish, how can I know? It could be mine. If what she says is true, it must be mine. If …
‘Ye mind the time,’ she said. ‘The night before you rode off to find the river crossing.’
He had never forgotten it, the way she had cried out, startling him, shaming them both. He would not admit it. ‘I dinna recall it.’
‘Ye mind it fine,’ she told him.
That was another thing. She was much quicker to contradict him now. It was something she had never done before. It was something no decent woman did.
‘That was when it was,’ she told him. ‘I felt it happen. That was why I cried out.’
That was something else he did not like. She was too quick to talk about things that were best left unsaid.
Something must have happened for her to be so changed. More than ever he was convinced of it.
‘So when is it due, this child?’
Cold despite his efforts. He could not bring himself to acknowledge parentage, not yet. As to the joy he had anticipated so often, that was far away indeed.
The next day Andrew and George continued to work on the hut. They used their axes to groove the timber they intended for the wall plates. After they were secured to the uprights they took the big two-handed saw and spent hours cutting the rest of the timber into heavy slabs which they slid into position between the grooves of the upper and lower wall plates. They inserted the last slab, anchoring the whole wall into place, and secured it top and bottom with two of their precious nails.
They grinned at each other: it was a good moment.
They repeated the process with each of the remaining walls, leaving spaces for one door and two windows. By the time they finished the day was gone.
‘Tomorrow we’ll put in the partitions and the roof,’ Andrew said. ‘We should mebbe use bark for the roof. There’s no’ enough long grass for thatch. Besides, I’m no’ keen on it. One spark and the whole lot goes up.’ He glanced restlessly across the valley at the line of distant hills. ‘I wish we’d finished today.’
‘No rush,’ George said, expressing his life’s philosophy. ‘The weather be ’oldin’. Tomorrow will do fine.’
‘It’s no’ the weather I’m thinking aboot,’ Andrew said. ‘If I dinna get to the land commissioner’s office and register our claim someone may beat us to it.’
He looked at the valley with something like the lust he had once felt when eyeing his wife. The idea of someone staking a claim and taking away from them what he had already come to regard as his own appalled him. ‘I think mebbe I’ll ride out tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The hut can wait. I shall na rest easy in ma bed until we’ve registered our claim.’
‘What did he say when you told ’im?’ Mary asked.
‘He doots it’s his ain.’
Lorna knew Mary wanted to ask but could not. She might not have told her even if she had been certain. As it was there was no point in saying anything.
‘Now it’ll be your turn to look after me.’
‘You know I will. With all my ’eart.’
A man needs a son, isn’t that what Mary had told her? The next generation, that’s what you live for, isn’t it, to see your blood carry on into the future? A son to leave the property to. Andrew had wanted a son so much. Poor Andy, she thought bitterly. Now there’s a child and he doesna know if it’s his ain or not. She felt nothing.
We should never have left Scotland, she thought. Then he would have known. It’s his ain fault.