REDLEY HAD BEATEN DARLIS THE NIGHT BEFORE.
Jacy wasn’t surprised, really, but she was horrified, and the reality was devastating. “I want to see her,” she said, and without waiting for permission from Bram she headed for the back of the shop. Beyond a doorway covered by a green plastic curtain was a living room with a linoleum floor and fifties-style furniture.
Darlis lay on the overstuffed sofa, covered with a ratty crocheted afghan. Her face was so bruised and swollen that it took all Jacy’s willpower not to avert her eyes.
She did raise one hand to her mouth, and for a moment she thought she would faint.
“Tell me about Gladys,” Darlis said, and there was both desolation and pride in her manner. “Did she get away safe?”
Jacy’s eyes filled with tears, she was so stricken by the enormity of Darlis’s predicament, and she nodded her head once. “Gladys is perfectly all right,” she managed to say. “You can join her as soon as you’re ready.”
The ghost of a smile touched Darlis’s battered mouth and then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “That’s fine, then,” she said, plucking once at her cotton skirt.
Jacy took a hesitant step toward the other woman. Bram’s wife, Sara, whom Jacy had met at church and at Jake’s funeral, stood near Darlis like a reluctant sentinel. Sara was obviously a good-natured person, and it was plain that she disliked confrontations. It was just as clear that she was fiercely protective of Darlis.
Jacy rubbed her cheek with the back of one hand. “I’m so sorry you were hurt, Darlis. I would have given anything to prevent that.”
Darlis looked away toward the filmy curtains at the window above the old-fashioned cabinet radio, and Jacy couldn’t guess what she was thinking. Even when she spoke again the defeated woman did not meet Jacy’s gaze.
“Redley’s gone off doggin’ with his mates,” she said in a strange, detached voice. “Sometimes it’s weeks before he comes home. But you mind your back all the same, Mrs. Yarbro, and you tell Ian to look out for himself, too. My Redley carries a grudge longer than most, and he’ll want his revenge on the two of you if it takes the rest of his life.”
The cool, quiet words sent a chill tripping down Jacy’s spine. This was the bush, a place apart, with laws and customs all its own. There was no one to turn to for protection, for the nearest police were fifty kilometers away, in Willoughby.
“We’ll be careful,” Jacy said awkwardly. “What about you, Darlis? Are you going to stay here and wait for him to come back?”
At last Darlis looked her way again, and the hopelessness and despair Jacy saw in the other woman’s eyes nearly brought her to her knees. “Where would I go?”
For one frenzied moment Jacy wanted to shake Darlis in frustration. “You can go to Gladys. Make a new start, just the two of you.”
Darlis made a contemptuous sound, meant to pass as a laugh, though there was no trace of mirth in it. “It ain’t easy for women such as me,” she said. “I’m not smart like you are, or beautiful, or rich.”
Jacy opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again without making a sound. Anything she knew to say would have sounded glib just then.
“You helped my girl,” Darlis sighed. “I’m thankful to you for it. Beyond that, I don’t know what there is to say.”
Jacy ached. She’d always be something of an outsider, she knew, because she hadn’t lived all her life in or near Yolanda, like the others. Still, she had hoped to be accepted, if not actually welcomed.
She nodded and turned to leave the room.
Sara McCulley caught up to her in the store proper. Bram was gone, and there were no customers.
“Don’t take this too hard now,” the stocky, florid woman whispered, taking Jacy’s hand and patting it. “You’re a brave woman, walking straight into the Dog and Goose—merciful heaven, I’ve never been in there myself, and my own husband owns the place—and standing up to the men of this town, too—especially that no-gooder Redley Shifflet. Don’t think the rest of us haven’t noticed.”
Jacy searched Sara’s plain, friendly face. “None of the children came to school today besides Chris and the McAllister boy, Thomas Jr. I assumed—”
“That the people of the town were taking a stand against you?” Sara finished for her. “Well, the men might be thinking some such thing. They’ve been the ones to balk all along, in case you hadn’t guessed it. But we women have a different view—we want our little ones to get an education for themselves and have good lives. Most of us are on your side.”
Hope touched Jacy’s heart like a soft, fickle breeze, lingering a moment and then passing. She shoved a hand through her hair, which was already messy from a hundred preceding gestures just like that one. Then she sighed. “It may be a hopeless battle, Sara,” she said. “The men can make things pretty hard for us. Look at poor Darlis in there—she should be in a hospital. I’m not sure I can live with any more of that.”
Sara misunderstood. “Why, miss, Ian Yarbro would never lay a hand on you—he doesn’t even spank the boy, as far as I know.”
Jacy knew Sara was right; whatever form Ian’s anger took—and he was angry—there would be no violence. “I’m not afraid of my husband,” she said wearily. “It’s the others—”
Sara shook her head. “They’re stern, our men, and they like getting their own way, to be sure. They’d make all the rules if we let them, but most of them wouldn’t strike a woman or a child.”
Jacy nodded distractedly. She hoped the female population of Yolanda wasn’t expecting her to lead a rebellion, because she wasn’t up to it. Not just then, anyway. “I’m glad you’re looking after Darlis,” she said, and then she left.
By time she’d given Nancy a full report, collected Chris and Thomas Jr., and driven the dry and dusty distance between town and the property, she had a pounding headache and a sick stomach. Chris stayed at Corroboree Creek to play with his new friend, and the house was blessedly quiet when Jacy reached it.
She took two aspirin, retreated to the master bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed onto the mattress with a groan. The room was hot, so after a while Jacy got up and pulled off all her clothes except for her bra and panties.
She lay there and suffered for a few minutes, then dropped into a restless, slightly fevered sleep, and her dreams were a jumble of disjointed horrors. The one she remembered clearly on awakening was the worst—in that subconscious tableau, Ian was making sweet love to her, and they were reveling in each other. At the last moment Ian turned into Shifflet, and their beautiful communion turned to something ugly and cruel.
The experience seemed frightfully real, and Jacy was ill and shaken as she got up from the bed and put on shorts and a top. The sense of terrified disgust was still with her while she splashed her face with cold water in the bathroom, and it pursued her when she went into the kitchen to start tea.
When Ian arrived Chris was with him, and the boy was chattering at top speed about all the plans he and Thomas Jr. had for the next school holiday. Ian, covered in dirt as usual, his blue cambric work shirt sweat-stained and grubby, listened with half an ear. His gaze followed Jacy as she moved between the gas-powered refrigerator, the stove, and the table.
Jacy’s heart twisted, for Ian’s blackened eye looked worse rather than better. After he’d washed and eaten she meant to examine his injury more closely. He probably needed to see a doctor, but she knew without asking that he would scoff at the idea. That roused her irritation.
She set a big bowl of mashed potatoes down on the table with a thunk, shoved a hand through her hair, which needed cutting, and shifted her gaze to Chris. It was something of a struggle, but she managed a smile.
“Go and get cleaned up, honey,” she told the boy. “Dinner is ready.”
Chris beamed, happy beneath his layer of dirt, and bounded down the hall to obey. Ian lingered, as Jacy had expected.
“You look like hell,” he said in his forthright way.
“Thanks,” she replied. “You’ve seen better days yourself.” Within the moment she was busy again, taking the meat loaf from the oven, pouring the green beans she’d heated into a serving dish, tracking down the silverware.
Ian hesitated briefly, as if he wanted to say something, then followed Chris out of the room. By the time he came back some fifteen minutes later, taking his accustomed place at the table, the mashed potatoes were cold and the meat loaf was starting to congeal.
Jacy had waited for Ian, but Chris was nearly finished with his dinner. It was a good thing he lingered, rattling on about the plans he and Thomas Jr. had made to mine for opals and get rich. If he hadn’t been there chattering away, the silence would have been deadly.
Chris finished describing the grand scheme, took a breath and a second piece of the shop-bought cake Jacy had found in the fridge, and shifted conversational gears.
“Nobody came to school today except for me and Thomas Jr.,” he said. “Everybody else was scared Mr. Shifflet would be there.”
Jacy’s gaze collided with Ian’s at the mention of Redley; her expression was defensive, and his plainly said I-told-you-so. He glowered at her for a few seconds, and she could not look away until, by some conscious decision, he released her.
She dumped her half-eaten dinner into the slop bucket, her appetite completely gone, and was standing at the sink rinsing her plate when she heard Ian tell Chris to leave the room for a little while.
Jacy kept her back to Ian, and he didn’t make a sound as he crossed the floor, but still she felt him there when he finally stood behind her. She had absorbed some essence of Ian into every cell of her body, and now, by a magic as old as the aborigines’ Dream Time, it often seemed that they were one person.
“Turn about and look at me, love,” he said. It was a gentle command, but a command all the same.
Jacy turned and immediately winced. Ian’s eye was badly swollen, bruised to glorious shades of purple and green, and perhaps because of the link between them she felt his pain.
“Oh, Ian,” she whispered, gently touching his face. “I’m sorry I involved you—I’m so sorry.” He caught her wrist in his hand and held it, but his grasp was gentle. With his thumb he caressed the heel of her palm. “Don’t be regretting that,” he said. “I’m your husband, sheila. Your troubles are mine as well, remember.”
She nodded, but she was frazzled and very near tears, and when Ian pressed his hand against his hard chest she felt his heart beating strong and sure beneath. Her voice sounded choked and hoarse when she spoke.
“Ian, Redley beat Darlis. He practically killed her.”
Ian said nothing and offered no judgment. He simply waited for Jacy to go on.
“I was so scared all day—I jumped at every sound, I was so sure Redley was going to show up at the school. At the same time I was certain he would go after you with that damn rifle of his.”
Ian nodded, lifted her hand to his mouth, and lightly kissed her palm. The gesture was comforting rather than sensual. “I didn’t have the easiest day myself,” he confessed. “I wanted to let the property go hang and stand guard over you the whole time.” He paused and sighed heavily. “I hate having you at that school, out in the open the way it is, but I’ve come to see that you wouldn’t be any safer here, really.”
Jacy waited. She knew what was coming and was ready to fight; for all her fear and trepidation, she had a new sense of her own strength and competence. She was facing what might be a life-and-death problem, and for the first time in her adult life, she wasn’t running for cover.
Ian went on reluctantly. “I think you should go away for a while, Jacy. Back to the States, or at least to Sydney or Adelaide.”
Jacy closed her eyes for a moment. Somehow, her anticipating his words hadn’t taken the sting out of them. Whatever the reason, the fact was that he wanted her to leave, and that hurt. For all their philosophical differences, Jacy hated the thought of being apart from Ian.
“My mother and stepfather can arrange to have my house in Connecticut closed up and sold,” she said softly at long last. There might have been a note of pleading in her voice, but she couldn’t help that. “I would like to go to Adelaide at some point—to have my trust fund transferred, buy that satellite dish I promised Chris, get some things we need at the schoolhouse—but I was hoping we could make the trip together. During school holidays, maybe.”
Ian’s emotions, often so plainly visible in his handsome face, were unreadable now. “Jacy—”
She laid her hands on his shoulders. “It’s useless to argue, Ian. I’m staying.” She smiled tentatively, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Unless of course you throw me out bodily. In that case I’ll just room with Nancy.”
His grin appeared then, bright as the morning sun, and a little more crooked than usual because of the swelling. “You know, if I don’t figure out how to handle you, and fast, I won’t be able to show my face at the Dog and Goose.”
Jacy stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “When it comes to handling, Ian Yarbro, you’ve got a way about you,” she teased in a low voice. “As for your reputation at that hellhole of a bar, well, as they say in America, tough shit.”
He laughed, hooked his index fingers in the belt loops on her shorts, and pulled her onto the balls of her feet and flush against his torso. He was kissing her in earnest when they heard Chris’s bright voice.
“May I come back now?”
They broke apart, Jacy flushed and a little bedazzled, Ian amused and probably somewhat frustrated.
The next day, when Jacy went to the schoolhouse, bringing Chris and Thomas Jr. with her, all the lost students were waiting in the yard with their resolute mothers. The women’s show of support lifted Jacy’s spirits considerably, and as she was leaving Sara McCulley told her that there would be a meeting of the townswomen in the old institute—the Australian term for the movie house—the following night at seven-thirty.
Jacy nodded and lingered a moment at the gate while her students greeted each other with lilting chatter. “How is Darlis?”
Sara shook her head. “She insists on working—needs the money, you know. And she’s gone back to that place of theirs, even though both Nancy and I offered to put her up for a while.” She shuddered, and the expression on her ruddy, moon-shaped face betrayed her fears even before she went on. “Redley’s off doggin’, him and those other no-gooders he runs with, and there’s no telling how long he’ll be away. It scares me to death just thinking of what he might do to her when he gets back, though.”
“Me, too,” Jacy agreed sadly. “I wish we could have avoided this whole thing, but Gladys—”
“I know,” Sara interrupted, patting Jacy’s hand. “There was Gladys, living with that monster. It wasn’t to be borne.” She frowned, gazing thoughtfully off into the distance for a few moments. “Have a care, Mrs. Yarbro. Have a care.”
The ominous warning notwithstanding, the rest of the day went well. There was no sign of Redley, and the children, once they’d settled in again, were attentive and even studious. After school Jacy picked up the mail and a few groceries and headed back to the property with Chris and Thomas Jr.
As it happened, Tom Sr. was there. He and Ian were on the roof of one of the sheds, evidently conferring about the state of the shingles. It was reassuring to know that Ian had accepted Tom Sr.’s presence at Corroboree Springs and was giving him work to do.
The boys ran into the house looking for milk and biscuits, and Jacy lingered in the dazzling late-day sunshine, shading her eyes with one hand and watching as the men descended the ladder and came toward her.
“How’re things going over at the other place?” Jacy asked, meeting Tom Sr.’s smile with one of her own.
Tom Sr. beamed. “I’ve been hard at it all the day, mum,” he told her. “Soon you’ll be able to put up some horses over there if you want.”
Jacy had ridden a lot when she was younger, during her visits to Jake, and she had been thinking about taking it up again. “Maybe I’ll do that,” she said, catching Ian’s eye as he came to stand beside Tom Sr. “I could raise racehorses and give my husband a run for his money.”
Ian’s face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, and Jacy couldn’t guess what he thought of the idea. It had appeared in her mind unexpectedly, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it herself.
“When’s tea?” he said.
Jacy loved the man to distraction, and she’d already committed herself to him heart and soul, but his question annoyed her. “Soon,” she replied with acid sweetness. She couldn’t resist adding, “I’ll certainly be glad when Alice Wigget gets back.”
“So will I,” Ian retorted. He turned to Tom Sr., who had surely sensed the charge in the air but was doing his darnedest not to let on. “Stay for tucker, Tom?” Ian asked.
Tom Sr. shook his head. “Thanks, I’d like that, but Mrs. McAllister’s been cooking up one of her special recipes today. She’ll be a twin to herself if the boy and I aren’t there to eat it.”
Ian might have smiled—Jacy couldn’t tell because of that infernal hat—but he did extend his hand to Tom Sr., and they shook. They were just two bewildered males, their manners seemed to say, doing their best to cope with the strange customs of womankind.
“G’day, then,” Ian said.
Tom Sr. nodded, collected a biscuit-munching Thomas Jr. from the house, and set off for Corroboree Springs in his old truck.
Ian and Jacy lingered in the dooryard, that odd, intangible electricity arcing between them. They’d been in accord, since yesterday at least, and especially in bed, but now there was a certain well-mannered hostility in the air.
“So you’ve decided they’ll do?” Jacy asked, to make conversation. “The McAllisters, I mean?”
Ian tugged at the brim of his hat, a sure sign that something was brewing behind that shadowed face. “They’re good people,” he allowed. “What’s this about your raising horses?”
So that was it. Inwardly Jacy sagged with relief. “It was just a thought, Ian. I mean, if I’ve got a perfectly good stable over there—”
“If you want a horse, I’ll give you one,” he broke in. His tone was short, and from that point on, so was Jacy’s patience.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ian,” she whispered, starting toward the house, “will you stop acting like I was going to cut off your balls? I was just talking, that’s all—I never intended to become your competition!”
He caught her arm and pulled her back, and silent thunder rolled through the hot stillness of the afternoon. Her nose was a quarter of an inch from his, and she could see his face plainly, despite the hat. His normal eye was shooting blue fire.
“I’m getting tired of hearing you talk like that,” he informed her in an ominously quiet voice. “And you couldn’t hope to compete with me when it comes to raising horses.”
Jacy tried to pull free, but he held on. “Damn it, Ian, what is it with you?” she demanded in a soft hiss. Lately there had been entirely too much drama in the Yarbro home, and it wasn’t good for Chris or any of the rest of them. “Are you stressed out by this Redley Shifflet thing, or are you actually chauvinistic enough to be threatened by any hint that I might presume to compete with you?”
“I wanted a wife when I married you,” he argued back. “Not a station hand. Good God, if you get your way, I’ll be the laughingstock of South Australia!”
Understanding dawned. Ian had been to the Dog and Goose for the momentous chat with Bram McCulley, and his male ego had been seriously bruised in the process.
Jacy softened her tone. “What did Bram say?” she asked.
Ian murmured a swear word, resettled his hat, and hustled her toward the shade trees in the front yard. “Let’s get out of the sun, at least,” he grumbled.
Jacy hid a smile. Poor Ian. His image as an incorrigible man of the outback had been tarnished. He would have to be handled very carefully.
When they reached the lawn Jacy sat down in the sweet grass, cross-legged, but Ian remained standing. He’d taken off his hat—that was something—but his manner was volatile, and some of Jacy’s breezy confidence deserted her.
“What did McCulley say to you, Ian?” she persisted, even more gently than before.
He spat another barely audible curse, then met her eyes. “We’ve got our ways out here. A man looks after his own in the bush, and his woman doesn’t go barging into pubs and stirring up trouble.”
Jacy shrugged. “I admit to pub-barging, and you know I’m not going to apologize, so let’s not waste time on it. And if by ‘stirring up trouble’ you mean my getting Gladys Shifflet out of that house, you’re not being fair. You knew what I was planning. You even helped me.”
At last Ian stopped his pacing and fretting and crouched in front of her. He tossed the hat aside into the grass without ever looking away from her face. “It’s not that,” he said with an obvious effort at diplomacy. “It’s this meeting the women are planning.”
Word gets around, Jacy thought. She sighed. “Sara McCulley told me about that,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea, Ian.”
“Maybe not directly,” Ian conceded furiously, “but if there’s a rebellion afoot, you planted the seeds of it.” Jacy groaned and fell back against the trunk of the tree behind her. “Or so the men of Yolanda have decided,” she said.
“That’s right,” Ian replied. “And they’re ready to strip my hide for letting you run wild the way you do. These are my mates, Jacy—people I’ve known all my life. It matters to me what they think.”
She wanted to help him, she truly did, but she didn’t know how. “What is it you want me to do?” she asked, laying her hands gently to either side of his face.
Enough of Ian’s fury had faded for him to turn his head slightly and place a light kiss on her palm. Then he grinned, and half her heart melted then and there. “Nothing you’d be willing to go along with, sheila,” he said, his good eye twinkling.
Jacy ached, despite the turnaround in Ian’s mood, because she knew the issue was a serious one. He was an intelligent man, but his ideas were old-fashioned ones, and they were ingrained. He could not be expected to change in any fundamental way; the life he led called for strength and, yes, stubbornness. For her part, Jacy was just discovering her own power to make a difference, and there could be no going back.
What if we don’t make it? she wondered to herself, and the question filled her with such despair that tears sprang to her eyes. “Do you ever wish I hadn’t come here?” she asked aloud.
Ian allowed her to cry, and she loved him for that, among other things. “No, sheila,” he replied without hesitation. “I wouldn’t change that. I often wish you were different, though—more like Australian women in some ways.”
His honesty left Jacy a little stricken, as usual.
“What ways, Ian?”
He sighed. “I’d like to be the head of my family again,” he said.
“Fair enough. You’re the head of the family.” She took his hand. “Ian, I’m not trying to take over your position or make you subservient to me in any way. I simply want to be your partner. I want to share your problems and responsibilities as well as your authority. Is that really so difficult to understand?”
“No,” Ian answered readily. And somewhat sadly. “It sounds grand in theory, sheila. But it’s damnably hard to bring off in the real world.”
She nodded. It might, in fact, be impossible. In those moments Jacy understood as never before the problems her mother and father had experienced in trying to blend two cultures and two very different mind-sets.
I’ll die if I lose Ian, Jacy thought despairingly. But she knew the same fate awaited her if she lost herself.
Once again Ian and Jacy had reached an impasse, or so it seemed.
They went inside. Ian took a shower and put on clean clothes, and Jacy made tea. During the meal they talked around their differences, and when it was time for bed they both pretended their other problems didn’t exist. The bedroom was enchanted, the one place where their relationship was perfect.
Ian was already up and gone when Jacy awakened the next morning. She’d slept well, perhaps because Ian had loved her so thoroughly during the night, and she felt rested and strong. Even optimistic.
After breakfast Jacy and Chris picked up Thomas Jr. at Corroboree Springs and headed for town.
Redley Shifflet stayed away that day, too, and Jacy began to think she’d been paranoid to fear him in the first place. He was obviously a coward, and it followed, after the beating he’d taken from Ian, that Shifflet would be afraid to make any more trouble.
She breathed easier after coming to that conclusion, taught the day’s classes—the schoolroom was crowded with kids—and went home at the regular time. Ian wasn’t around, but that didn’t worry her. Their combined properties were far-ranging, and he could be anywhere.
Jacy made sandwiches for dinner, since it was so hot, and she and Chris ate on the front veranda. She put Ian’s food on a plate in the refrigerator, wrote a note explaining that she’d gone to Sara’s meeting, then set out for Yolanda again, bringing the boy along. Undoubtedly, she wouldn’t be the only one who’d brought a child; the kids could play outside while their mothers talked.
Surprisingly, there was quite a crowd at the institute that night. Word of the meeting had spread by bush telegraph, apparently, because there were women from faraway farms and properties. They sat in their plain dresses, sun-weathered and hardworking women, their jaws set with determination.
There was definitely a rebellion in the making, and Jacy was both afraid and honored when she realized she’d’ been appointed to lead the revolt.
They weren’t asking for a great deal, these sturdy, practical females. They didn’t seek careers, or even money of their own, in most cases. They wanted educations for their children, girls as well as boys, and they were willing to fight for them.
Once again Jacy was torn between her love for Ian and her principles. She bit her lip and, hoping he would understand, took her place in history.