The desert wind cut like a knife. I shouted into it defiantly. Great cries of anguish came out of my mouth, wrenched from the deepest part of my being. Ghastly sounds that flew shrieking into the vast, empty spaces of the land and died there. The shifting sands absorbed them. Rocks, flecked with fool’s gold, scattered them, and hid them amongst the bones of other dead things. ‘Jack! Jack! Wait! Don’t go without me.’
I must have been making plans, not even knowing I did so, never really doubting that my life and Jack’s would always be linked. One minute I was angry with him for being so careless. Because it had to have been an accident. He wouldn’t leave me like that on purpose, and who could want to hurt Jack? The next minute I was furious with myself for never saying the most important things to him. The future had been swept up and thrown away, discarded in the empty shafts, the ‘white man’s holes’ of Coolgardie. What use was a king’s ransom? All the gold in the world would not buy one more moment of time for me and Jack. I turned my head to one side, then the other, looking for some way forward. Even with my eyes wide open I could not see anything but emptiness. My head began to turn more quickly, from side to side, until I was shaking it like a dog with a flea in his ear, desperately trying to dislodge the unwanted truth.
Finally exhausted, I slumped down on the sand.
Sometime later I became conscious of a human presence. I lifted my head. An Aboriginal woman with a baby on her hip stood looking down at me. I got slowly to my feet. She did not move, but stood regarding me steadily with her large black eyes. The naked baby stared at me with its matching black eyes.
‘You bin sleep long time, missus,’ the woman said at last.
I looked up at the sun and saw that it was well past midday. The sky was bleached almost white. There was not a cloud anywhere to cast a cooling shadow on the parched land. I shook red dirt off my skirt and tugged at my apron. It was crumpled and stained with tears.
‘Lallie,’ the woman said. I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry and I couldn’t get my tongue to work. ‘Lallie,’ she said again, placing one hand on the bones of her chest above her bare breasts.
I moved my tongue over cracked lips. ‘Clara,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Come.’
Other, more distant voices came softly at first, then more urgently, and I shifted my gaze in their direction. Three women and several children stood in a group about fifty yards away, watching us. Lallie beckoned and they slowly came closer, eyes lowered.
‘Come,’ Lallie urged, and started to walk. The sun blazed down. My skin felt tight, sunburnt. I looked around for any sort of landmark that would tell me where I was. In my anguish I had broken the first rule of this unforgiving land. I had not given a single thought to my surroundings, or to checking my direction. There was nothing I recognised. Without Lallie I would be hopelessly lost. I hurried after her.
Lallie moved effortlessly over the sand while I stumbled along behind. The sun beat down on my unprotected head. My dry eyes squinted against the glare.
Lallie stopped and pointed. At first, I could see nothing but low, sandy ridges, blown by the wind to form ripples on a blood-red sea. Lallie pointed again. Away in the distance, scoured into the plain, were two straight lines, starkly white against the red-brown country. They could only be the tracks of many wheels.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and held out my hand to Lallie. With a slight nod of her head she hitched the baby higher on her hip and walked away. ‘Thank you,’ I called after her.
It was mid-afternoon, but there was no-one in the kitchen when I reached the hotel. I heard voices in the dining room and hesitated in the adjoining doorway.
‘Clara!’ Mrs Fagan saw me first. ‘There ya are, pet! Come and have a cup of tea.’ I didn’t move, but looked at them in turn.
‘We were worried about you,’ Mr Wisdom said gently.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Are you all right?’ Arthur Williams looked at my dishevelled hair, my sunburnt face. Then he went behind the bar and lifted a bottle of brandy from the shelf.
‘Thank ya, Arthur.’ Mrs Fagan took the bottle from him, put her other arm around my shoulder and ushered me into the kitchen.
Mrs Fagan poured tea into two mugs and laced them both with brandy. We sat together in silence, sipping the strong, sweet liquid. When I had drained my mug, Mrs Fagan offered me more.
‘No, thank you,’ I said. She poured another mug of tea for herself and seemed in no hurry to go on with the work, which I was feeling guilty about. But I didn’t move. My legs felt weak and shaky. I wanted to go on sitting there, safe in the kitchen, with the familiar sounds of the hotel going about its usual business, and the solid presence of Mrs Fagan sitting opposite.
‘Do you know an Aboriginal woman called Lallie, Mrs Fagan?’ I asked, wanting to keep her there just a little longer.
‘Can’t say I do,’ Mrs Fagan replied. ‘I do think it’s a shame, what’s happenin’ to them. It’s our fault, mind. Ya can’t expect them to keep themselves healthy when camels foul their waterholes and the dams and soaks are so dry.’
‘I say the same thing to Jack – said the same thing.’ I looked at Mrs Fagan, who reached across the table and patted my hand. ‘Lallie showed me the way home today,’ I said.
‘’Twas kind of her, so it was,’ Mrs Fagan said. ‘No doubt she went out of her way.’
‘I had not wanted to be brought back. I had wanted to be with Jack.’ I knew I was not making any sense, but I wanted to say more, as if words would bring back some certainty to the world, if only I could produce enough of them. Mrs Fagan sat listening, nodding occasionally, until no more words came. Then she covered my hand with hers.
‘Come now,’ she said and stood up. She took my arm and walked with me to my room. I clung to her and she helped me into bed. My eyes were already closing when she leaned down and said softly, ‘Nothin’ will ever be the same as yer first love, pet. But ya’re here, and Jack is not. Think on it, so.’
The next morning I woke with grit in my mouth and puffy eyes. I got up and washed my face, rinsed out my mouth, being careful not to swallow any of the water from the bowl, and dressed in clean clothes. My mind was numb, but I felt the need to be moving around, doing things, anything that kept me busy and stopped me from thinking too much. It was still early, but I went to the kitchen. The new batch of dough had risen overnight and everything was neat and in its place. I wondered how long Mrs Fagan had had to stay up working, on her own, to make it that way, and felt a rush of gratitude for her unquestioning support.
I stirred the coals in the kitchen fire and added the last of the wood from the box next to the hearth. The box needed refilling so I carried it out to the woodheap at the back of the shed. As always, the brushwood had been sorted, cut into different lengths and neatly stacked according to size. I filled the box and carried it back to the kitchen. The sun was not yet up and the kitchen was still dim. As I stepped through the door a figure came towards me. It was Jack’s friend Bill Lockhart.
‘Hello, Bill,’ I said, but didn’t look at him. I knew he would speak about Jack. My feelings were still too raw, my thoughts too confused. I didn’t know what to say, so I hid my face by bending over and carefully putting the box down beside the hearth.
‘Terrible … what happened to Jack,’ Bill said quietly
I straightened up slowly to face him. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I have to tell you, just so you know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That Jack’s death was an accident. A freak accident. There’s no way it could have been anything else.’
I stared at Bill then, shocked that anyone could possibly have thought otherwise. ‘What are you saying?’ I asked.
‘Nothing! Well, no, that’s not quite true. Warden Finnerty has to investigate any sudden or suspicious death. And you were the last person to see Jack alive.’
The rifle, long forgotten in the corner, seemed to leap out at me. My legs buckled. Bill rushed to my side and helped me to a chair.
‘The last person … Is he saying …?’ I couldn’t go on. Did they think I killed Jack? Even Warden Finnerty? My head felt as if it didn’t belong to me. I laid my arms on the table and rested my head on them.
‘I’ll make you some tea,’ Bill said. He put more wood on the fire and moved the kettle to the middle of the hotplate. When it came to the boil, he swilled out the teapot and tipped the last of yesterday’s cold tea and spent leaves onto the straggling mint plant. Mrs Fagan was determined to grow mint in a pot, just outside the door. ‘To keep away the flies,’ she always said, but it never did.
‘You know that a dingo had been raiding Jack’s camp,’ Bill began, spooning fresh tea-leaves from the caddy into the pot.
‘Yes,’ I said, lifting my aching head. ‘But Jack had dealt with it. He had put his flour in a barrel and everything else in tins with lids.’
‘Them dingos don’t give up easy,’ Bill said, shaking his head slowly. ‘I heard Jack come back to his tent after the dance. There was a lot of swearing and sounds of Jack moving around. Then he went somewhere. Padraig says Jack had borrowed his rifle earlier. Said he was going to sort out the pesky bugger once and for all.’ Bill lifted his mug of tea and blew across the top of it. ‘There was a big moon that night,’ he continued. ‘But you know that.’
Immediately my mind leapt back. I saw the feldspar glinting in the rock, and heard Jack’s voice. I saw him smiling and tried to block out a sudden image of his face damaged beyond recognition. I swallowed hard to stop the tears from escaping. ‘Some of the fellas, the ones who weren’t too drunk, they say they heard a shot, but they thought nothin’ of it. In the mornin’ though … Well, you know the rest.’
‘I don’t! No-one will tell me! They won’t let me see him. I need to see him, Bill.’ My voice was shaking and the tears were streaming down my face, soaking the front of my blouse. I mopped at them angrily.
Bill stood up and came around to my side of the table. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘They’ve taken him away, Clara. Warden Finnerty had the body removed.’
I blew my nose, and tried to compose myself. ‘Please, Bill, I need to know what happened.’
Bill hesitated, but he understood. ‘It’s obvious that Jack was after the dingo,’ he began. ‘He was climbing up the ridge, probably to get a better look, or to take a shot. The marks are still there, where his boots slipped on the loose stones. He must have fallen and the rifle in his hand went off.’ Bill turned his face towards the door and took a deep breath. ‘In the mornin’, when I went outside to have a leak, I noticed somethin’ on the ridge. At first, I didn’t want to look, but I had to be sure.’ He tipped his mug and drained the tea from it. ‘He didn’t suffer, Clara, I’m certain of it. He might have heard the bang. That’s all.’ Bill stared into his empty mug, avoiding my eyes. ‘Padraig is blamin’ himself, for lendin’ Jack the rifle, and … Well, I should have got up when I heard him leave his tent.’
‘Will you take me out there, Bill?’ I said at last.
‘Jack’s not there,’ Bill said. ‘There’s nothin’ left.’
‘I know. But I want to see where Jack died,’ I pleaded. ‘You found him. You can show me the exact spot.’ I caught hold of Bill’s hand and held it tightly, as if I was drowning and he was my last hope of rescue. The first rays of the sun sent a shaft of light into the room and I looked into Bill’s eyes. There was hurt there. He shuffled his feet, obviously reluctant, perhaps as much for his own sake as mine. But I could not let go of him until he agreed to take me.
‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘But it’s about a mile out.’ I stared at him. ‘Sorry, I was forgettin’ you walk further than that most mornin’s.’
‘If I had to walk a hundred miles, I would still want to go,’ I told him.