The bus driver, a short-tempered man in his forties with a paunch and thinning hair, unhooked the microphone and addressed his passengers.
‘Right, folks. This here’s Charlotte Creek. The only reason I’m stopping is to let one of yous off. That’ll take five minutes. Now, you might reckon that’s time enough to have a smoke or grab something from the roadhouse. But you won’t be eating it on the bus and if you ain’t back on board when I am, yous’ll stay here.’
‘When do we get to eat, then?’ a man from the front seats queried, his tone petulant.
‘Ti-Tree Roadhouse, sunshine. Same as it says in the bus schedule.’ He pressed the door release and Sara hauled her smaller bag down from the overhead rack and exited the bus into a blast of heat and brilliant light that the coach’s tinted windows had diffused. Her other bag was unceremoniously dragged out from the compartment beneath the passengers’ seats and dumped on the dusty ground. She thanked the man, who ignored the courtesy as he rearranged the remaining luggage. A few moments later the driver’s door clunked shut, the passenger door followed and the big vehicle moved off, blurring the incurious faces gazing down at her from the windows as they pulled away.
Sara stared after it, momentarily wishing she was still aboard. The Stuart Highway, and the bus, ran all the way to Darwin, which was at least a city, with streets and shops and proper houses – not this godforsaken-looking dump. What to do now?
She recalled her new employer’s voice on the phone: The bus stops at Charlotte Creek. That’s as close as you can get to us on public transport, but the mail comes through Fridays so you’ll be right. When you get to the roadhouse, ask for Harry. Sometimes he runs a bit late, but he’ll bring you out.
First things first, then. Sara donned her sunglasses, then towed her dusty case into the shade of the building. The roadhouse had fuel bowsers out the front, and the building sat back behind a post and rail fence that enclosed a scrap of green lawn. Metal steps that winked in the light led onto a long, shaded verandah and a door veiled by coloured plastic strips. A couple of native trees completed the attempts at a garden, but at that it was the best on view. The rest of the houses – shanties? – sat behind sagging enclosures containing perhaps a tree or a collection of tired-looking pot plants, and vehicles of various ages and decrepitude.
Immediately next to the roadhouse was another huge tank and a great slab of concrete flooring beneath a roof, as if the builder had got that far and given up; or perhaps, Sara thought, wiping her sweaty face, he had thought better of walls. This certainly wasn’t the climate for them and it was still early in September. She wondered with some trepidation what December would be like.
There was nobody about. Presumably the inhabitants of Charlotte Creek had learned to ignore the traffic along the bitumen. Sara could see a battered-looking Toyota LandCruiser parked at the shady end of the roadhouse. Harry’s, perhaps? Deserting her luggage, she went to find out.
The public room was dim and blessedly cool; banks of louvres front and back allowed for a cross flow of air and showed up the framed photographs on the wall. There were pictures of rodeo action, of huge road trains, one of two kangaroos boxing against a rising sun. Above them was a heavy timber rail with collections of numbers, symbols and letters burned into them like strange arcana from a foreign land. There were tables and chairs, a wide bar, the glass face of a huge, humming refrigerator, shelves and display cabinets – and then suddenly a male figure shooting to his feet exclaiming, ‘Shit! Of all the friggin’ mismatched junk I’ve ever seen —’ He wrung his right hand, then sucked at the knuckles, catching sight of Sara hovering just within the door as he did so.
‘G’day.’ His gaze took in the slim figure in jeans and shirt and he jabbed a finger at his hat brim, lifting it slightly. ‘Sorry for the language. Didn’t know you were there.’
‘I came on the bus,’ she said. ‘Are you Harry?’
‘Nope. Jack Ketch. Which Harry did you want?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sara confessed, flushing a little as she saw his brow rise. He was tall, lean looking and long faced; he was about thirty, she judged. He wore a khaki shirt, rumpled and stained, and the rest of him was below the level of the bar. ‘I didn’t ask,’ she said. ‘I’m going to a property called Redhill and I was told to get off the bus here and Harry would pick me up. Only he might be late so – well, I’m wondering, how late exactly?’
‘Coupla days,’ Jack Ketch replied. ‘Mail comes Friday. Didn’t Beth say?’
Sara closed her eyes in vexation. ‘Oh, God! He’s the mailman. I didn’t realise. Yes, she did say, only I – well.’ She glanced around. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to stay here till then. They do have accommodation?’
‘Nope.’ The man cheerfully contradicted her. ‘Hang on.’ He went to a door at the back and bellowed, ‘Mavis! Customer.’
Somewhere a door slammed and shortly a plump, white-haired woman clad in a skirt and scoop-necked blouse entered the room. Her hair colour belied her age. She had an ample body with firm upper arms, and an unlined face save for the deep squint lines about her hazel eyes, which embraced Sara with a welcoming smile.
‘G’day, love. What can I do for you?’
‘She’s got herself stranded,’ Ketch answered before Sara could speak. ‘Waiting on the mail to get out to Redhill. She’s Beth’s new governess.’
Sara closed her mouth and frowned at him, her stomach twisting nervously. ‘How do you know that?’
‘You told me.’ He glanced at Mavis. ‘By the way, that fridge of yours is cactus. Made of tin and glue. I cracked the bloody pipe and I’ll need an oxy torch to fix it. Then it’ll want re-gassing. So I’ll run her out and bring the oxy gear back, but you’ll have to get the gas out from the Alice. Harry might fit it on if you catch him in time.’
‘Right, well, that’s no drama.’ The woman called Mavis smiled at Sara. ‘Not to worry, it’s all sorted. What’s your name, love?’
‘Sara Blake.’ She eyed the rough-looking man. ‘Did he – is he offering to drive me?’
‘Yeah, Jack’ll see you right. What about a cuppa before you leave?’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘You must be peckish. I know that cranky sod of a driver, all rules and schedules. If he had his way, his passengers wouldn’t even breathe.’
Sara glanced at her watch, realising that she was hungry. It was after two. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said gratefully to Mavis. ‘If we’ve time?’ She looked at the man. ‘How far is it?’
‘Plenty of time,’ he assured her. He reached to shake hands, his own none too clean, the nails rimmed with grease. ‘Only a coupla hours, but a cuppa’s a good idea. So, Sara . . .’ His gaze swept over her from head to foot. ‘What brings you out here?’
Nettled by his inspection, she said primly, ‘The job, Mr Ketch.’
He grinned, seemingly amused. ‘Jack’ll do. We’re not big on formality in the mulga.’
‘No? So how far is it to Redhill, Jack?’
‘I just told you, a coupla hours.’
‘Oh.’ It seemed an odd way to measure distance, but Mavis was returning with the tea and a substantial plate of sandwiches so she asked for the bathroom, then settled down to satisfy her hunger before they left.
It turned out that the battered Toyota Sara had seen was Jack’s. He brought it round to the front of the roadhouse, loaded her luggage, then pulled the passenger door open to sweep away the clutter on the seat.
‘You’ll have to get your feet round the water bottle,’ he said. ‘Hop in and we’ll be off.’
‘Thank you.’ Sara had taken the opportunity while being conducted to the bathroom to ask Mavis about Jack. She didn’t intend getting into a vehicle with a stranger whom she knew nothing about, but the woman had laughed at her fears. ‘Lord, you’re not in the city now, love. Everybody knows Jack. He’s fine.’ It was reassurance of a sort, she supposed, though the state of his vehicle came as a shock. The cab was coated with dust and a large rifle was secured in a rack across the back, above the seats, the covers of which looked as if they had never been washed. Her thoughts must have been plain to read.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Jack said. ‘She’s a working vehicle.’ Three flies had entered with them and buzzed noisily about the window. His hand shot out to slap them against the glass, the sound and sudden movement making her jump. ‘Curse of Oz,’ he commented, wiping the mess off on his jeans. ‘Now you’ve seen this,’ the wave of a hand indicated the dusty nothingness beyond the bitumen, ‘how long d’you reckon you’ll stay?’
‘Till the job’s over, I expect,’ Sara responded tartly. ‘Why would you even ask?’
‘Hard to get good help in the mulga. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea. The last girl quit after a fortnight.’ They crossed the bitumen and shot off down a narrow track between the grey scrub at which Jack jerked his thumb. ‘That’s mulga, by the way.’
Sara stared at its unvarying sameness and the barren-looking red soil beneath. ‘It all looks very – very parched.’
‘Yeah, well, there’s a drought on. Has been for a coupla years,’ he said dryly. ‘That’s why.’
She immediately felt guilty for not knowing. Seeking to change the topic, she asked, ‘Are you employed by the roadhouse? And if you are – don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – but why are you driving me to Redhill?’
‘Why not? I’m going there anyway. And no, I don’t work for Mavis. I’m a fencing contractor and, for my sins, the district’s Mr Fix-it. She’s got a problem with her fridge.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m helping her out.’
Sara was aware of his gaze upon her, taking in the straw beach hat, and the undisciplined riot of red curls about her sweaty face. He sniffed discreetly and she hoped it was perfume he could smell and not the perspiration on her body; she folded her hands to hide the pink sheen of her nails that all at once seemed frivolous and rather silly in this barren setting – as if they might reflect poorly upon her capabilities.
She studied him in turn, noting the dark hair under his grease-stained hat, the glimpse of grey eyes when his head turned towards her. He had high cheekbones and a couple of days’ dark stubble on his jaw. She said lightly, ‘And this includes knowing everyone’s business? Even strangers who have just arrived?’
He laughed. ‘Got you going, did it? Beth Calshot’s my sister, so when you said you were headed for Redhill . . .’
‘I see. Not hard to work out, then. This other girl, why did she leave?’
‘Because of who she was, I suppose. A European backpacker. Danish, or German, something like that. Said she’d worked on foms before. But our “farms” are a bit bigger and further apart than anything she knew. The isolation got to her, I guess.’
‘That’s understandable.’ Sara gazed around at the landscape, at the dull red soil and grey scrub with the narrow ribbon of bumpy road unspooling through it. She could see no living thing; even the stray tufts of grass looked dead, and much of the timber – the mulga, Jack had called it – was broken off in swathes as though a giant windstorm had blasted through, flattening the trees as it went.
‘What happened here?’
He twisted the wheel to avoid a hole. ‘Bungy’s been pushing scrub. We all do it.’ Reading her incomprehension, he explained. ‘Stock can eat mulga, but you have to push it for them. Cattle aren’t giraffes.’
‘I see. Would this Bungy be Mr Calshot?’
‘Nope. Bungy Morgan. He owns Wintergreen, which we’re currently driving through. He’s Redhill’s western neighbour. North and east is national park and south is Munaroo. So you’ve got two neighbours, and the rangers at Walkervale, in something like,’ he squinted, doing sums in his head, ‘say, six and a half thousand square miles of country.’ He glanced at her with a humorous lift of his brow. ‘You want it in kilometres, you’ll have to convert it yourself.’
The areas were staggering. Sara blinked. ‘I see then why that poor girl found it hard.’
‘Ah, well,’ Jack said. ‘It’s desert, you need big areas.’ They rattled across another grid and a half-dozen crows rose cawing from a carcass beside it. Sara glimpsed the desiccated frame of a cow, its horns and jaw and empty eye socket. A brief whiff of corruption overlaid by the smell of dust and they were past. He nodded at the windscreen. ‘Right, here we are. Welcome to Redhill.’
Sara gazed about her, saying doubtfully, ‘I don’t see a home-stead?’
‘That’s miles away yet. I meant, we’ve crossed the boundary and we’re now driving on Redhill land.’
‘Oh.’ Feeling foolish, she fell silent again.