‘Back off, Dad. Don’t even think about touching her.’
Berry whipped around and saw Nate standing at the edge of the gully.
‘Nate,’ she breathed as a wave of relief washed over her. Without giving Sam another thought, she raced as fast as she could towards the ghost gums.
‘Nate, you shouldn’t be here,’ Sam said with a frown.
‘But I am. Dad, what have you done?’ His voice was thick and sounded on the edge of cracking. Berry watched as Nate turned and made his way to the edge just above the trees.
‘I’m protecting us. No one has to know—it can be our secret.’
‘Really? I think Berry might have something to say about that.’
Berry started to scramble up the slope towards Nate, but the pebbled ground kept sliding beneath her feet. After three attempts, she finally made it to the first tree. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Sam was striding towards her. Looking up, she saw Nate appear above her. He gestured to her with his hand.
‘Come on, baby, move it,’ he said as he glanced down towards his father. Then, more urgently, ‘Berry, he’s coming.’
Berry pushed off the tree trunk and tried to make it to the next gum, but it was harder going up than coming down.
‘Nate, are you really going to side with her? I’m your father, and everything I’ve done was to protect you and Tarantale,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘You don’t want to do this. What would your mother and sisters say if they find out that you betrayed me?’
‘You’ve already betrayed us—you did that when you killed Berry’s family,’ Nate said quietly.
Berry froze as the impact of Nate’s words hit her. Confusion and nausea swirled in her and she stumbled back onto the tree, unable to grasp the enormity of what she had heard. ‘W-what?’ she stuttered. ‘He killed my family?’
Sam and Nate stared at each other, neither moving, the tension building between them. Suddenly Sam scrunched up his eyes and ran his hand though his hair before flinging his hand back down by his side, a sharp movement filled with such intensity it made Nate flinch. His father stood for a moment and stared at the ground with a frown, and to Nate it almost looked as if the man was grappling with his thoughts. After another second or two he finally looked back up at Nate and sighed. ‘So, now the truth is out,’ he said. Then he continued, defiance lighting in his eyes. ‘Jordy wouldn’t tell me where it was, and he knew how desperate I was back then. I was out of my mind with worry and I snapped. I didn’t mean to do what I did—it just happened.’
‘My father didn’t murder my mother,’ Berry stated simply, as if by saying it out loud her mind might comprehend the fact.
Sam shook his head. ‘Your dad loved her beyond reason—he would never have harmed her. I doubt he’d could have hurt anyone.’
‘You killed them all … My grandparents.’
‘Yes, well, I had to, didn’t I? I didn’t want to, but they saw what happened. They would have sent me to jail, and I couldn’t let that happen.’
Berry started to tremble violently as realisation hit home and anger welled up inside her like a volcano. ‘All these years …’
His eyes pinned her. ‘I’ve wronged you and I’m sorry for it. In hindsight I would have acted differently, but you can’t erase the past.’
‘You bastard,’ she hissed. ‘You murdered my family, and you made me believe it was Dad. Everyone despises him and tries to forget him, when he was the most loving and caring man. You did this!’
‘Berry,’ Nate said, ‘don’t talk to him. Just come up here now—you’re not safe.’
‘He destroyed my family! He butchered my mother and my grandparents, and set up my father to take the blame.’
‘Look,’ said Sam, ‘I never planned for it to happen.’
‘Don’t you dare speak to me!’ she spat at him. ‘What sort of a person are you? You’ve come into my home and talked to me like a friend when all along you had the blood of my family on your hands. You’re scum, Sam Tarant. Scum!’
Sam glanced up at Nate with a look that resembled sadness and regret, but it was laced with something harder, darker. ‘Ah, Nate, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. How did you work it out?’
Nate looked at his father. ‘Well, for a start, your sleazy friend Laurie gave the game away. Oh, he tried to hold out and not say anything, but when the police hinted about how much jail time was up for grabs, he confessed everything.
‘He told Rob Mendez that you’re the guaranteed buyer and you’re the one behind all his actions. That made me wonder why you would go to such great lengths to scare Berry and buy Stone Gully. And then I remembered you told me where Berry’s mother was killed. I asked Rob about it and he confirmed she had been found near the dam, but he also said that no one knew about that. But you knew about that, didn’t you? The only way you could have known about that is if you had been there when it happened. What was it Dad … the gold?’
‘Nate—’
‘And the fire—that was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but listen, son—’
‘No!’ Nate exclaimed. ‘I won’t listen to you. Never again. You’re a low-life murderer. You destroyed Berry’s family and disgraced ours.’ Nate straightened and stared down his father. ‘When you’re locked away for the rest of your miserable life, I’ll know that I no longer have a father.’
‘It doesn’t have to be that way, Nate.’
‘Actually, it does. There’s no avoiding it now. You have to pay for what you’ve done,’ Nate said as he quickly tied one end of the rope he was carrying around a sapling at the top of the gully.
Berry had just made it to the second tree when she looked behind her and saw Sam had made it to the first.
‘Berry, here!’ Nate tossed the rope down to her. ‘Hold on and I’ll pull you up.’
She grabbed the rope with both hands and started walking up the slope. The ground was still moving with each step, but she hung onto the rope and managed to move towards Nate.
‘Think about this, son,’ his father called out. ‘I can make this right. All you have to do is walk away. I can take care of everything.’
‘Just shut up!’ Nate called out. ‘That’s never going to happen.’
Nate made eye contact with Berry. ‘Just keep moving. You’re almost to the top. Don’t listen to him, he’s talking bullshit—I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise,’ he said as he pulled on the rope.
Berry grimaced as she pushed herself to keep going. She could hear Sam behind her, but with a final yank of the rope she was almost there. She reached out her hand and Nate took it.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said as he grabbed her under the arms and drew her towards him.
But before he could pull her all the way to safety, Sam’s hand wrapped around her ankle and clung on with an iron grip.
Berry’s eyes widened with fear as she felt herself slip back down.
‘Nate!’ she called out.
Nate held onto her but his father was almost to the top and he still clutched her leg.
‘Just let her go,’ his father said as he looked up and managed to grab the edge of the gully. ‘Just let her go and everything will be back to how it was. We can put this all behind us and no one needs to know. Come on, son—she’s nothing to us.’
‘That’s not true. She’s everything to me—I love her,’ Nate said as in one final effort he shoved his boot onto Sam’s shoulder and gave him a shove in an attempt to free Berry.
For a second, there was a look of confusion in Sam’s eyes as Berry was wrenched from his grasp and he began to fall back down into the rocky gully. The momentum of pulling Berry free sent her and Nate flying backwards until they both hit the ground. They lay there for a moment stunned and wrapped in each other’s arms, and the only thought that went through Berry’s mind was that he hadn’t let her go.
Nate sat up and looked at her. He ran his hand down the side of her face. ‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she whispered.
‘Good,’ he said as he got to his feet and pulled her up into a tight hug. ‘You’re safe now, it’s over and nobody’s going to hurt you.’
Berry held onto Nate. Her body trembled as she tried to process everything that had happened, but she couldn’t. All she could do in that moment was to hang on to Nate and let the warmth and strength of his body enfold her.
Finally Nate let her go. He looked down at her, his hands resting on her shoulders. ‘You stay here. I’ll be back in a second. Okay?’
‘Where are you going?’
Nate glanced over to the gully. ‘I have to look.’
‘Then I’ll come with you,’ Berry replied.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I think I do,’ Berry said quietly.
Hand in hand they walked back to the edge and looked down. For a second Berry couldn’t see Sam but then she found him, lying at the bottom of the gully near the blackberry bushes. He was alive but Berry saw that his left leg was at a strange angle.
A low-pitched wail echoed through the gully as Sam tried to move. He looked around until he stared up to where they were standing.
‘Nate! Nate, help me!’ Sam Tarant called out. ‘Nate!’
For a moment Berry looked dispassionately down at him before turning and taking a few steps away from the edge.
Berry glanced at Nate as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through and found the number he was looking for. It rang a couple of times before it was answered.
Nate took a deep breath before he spoke. ‘Hi Rob, it’s Nate Tarant. Could you come to Stone Gully Farm—we’ve got a situation down here. Berry and I need your help.’