Bella was in her element now that she’d settled into her life at Mullinjim. Checking kilometres of fencing, waterlines and dams was all in a day’s work for her. Each morning, she headed off early for distant corners of the property, monitoring water troughs and licks and making sure that cattle weren’t bogged in muddy dams.
Under the slamming heat of the North Queensland sun the days were long and exacting, but she got the jobs done and it gave her a buzz to know she was doing it well. On her own.
Now, when she rang her father, he didn’t quiz her minutely about every detail of her day and that had to be a sure sign that he was beginning to trust her and to believe in her ability to run the show here.
‘You’ve taught me well,’ she told him fondly.
It was the truth. Every day she was reminded of all the little ways her father had passed on his knowledge. There’d been many conversations on horseback or leaning on a stock rail, even squatting in the dust, when he’d talked about how to read the country and to handle the cattle.
But despite her busy, tiring days, Bella wasn’t sleeping well. Most nights she lay beneath the inadequate, slowly circling ceiling fan, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Thinking about Gabe, of course. Which was pointless.
Much better to concentrate all her thoughts on her dad and to will him to get stronger and stronger.
She thought about the years she’d spent in this room, lying in the dark. When she was little she’d actually been afraid of the dark. Truly terrified . . . and in the end, it had been her dad who’d come to her rescue. Good old Dad . . .
Like all little kids, she’d had nightmares and if she cried out at night it was usually her mum who came hurrying in to give her a warm cuddle and tuck her in safely, assuring her there were no monsters under the bed.
Luke, being a typical older brother, did his best to undermine this and he’d told her scary stories about the Yewengie, the Gulf Country’s version of the Bunyip.
‘It stalks down from the north-west at night,’ he’d told her in a creepy stage whisper. ‘And it takes babies from their beds.’
Bella screamed, of course, and Luke got into trouble, but this didn’t stop her from being afraid. Her fears exploded one night when she walked down the hall from the bright comforting lights of the kitchen and into her bedroom and found that the fearful Yewengie was waiting to take her.
Its huge, evil dark claw scraped across the bedroom window and it let out a horrible screech.
No amount of cuddling from her mum could comfort Bella. She was past listening to explanations about the night wind blowing a dead she-oak branch on the window. She was beyond logic. She was near hysteria.
Then her father came into her room.
‘Okay, love,’ he said in his quiet, steady voice. ‘I’ll go outside and chase it away.’
Bella was flooded with relief.
‘But it will only work if you come, too,’ her dad said next.
Oh, help. Her father was the bravest man in the world, but Bella couldn’t bring herself to take a single step outside into that terrifying darkness.
Naturally Luke was grinning like mad and making scary faces at her from behind their parents’ backs.
Perhaps her father guessed this. He turned to Luke. ‘Mate, I’ve heard you telling Bella all about these Yewengies and how they’ve suddenly turned up on Mullinjim. You’re the expert, so you’ll have to come with us. Get the battery-pack spotlight from the cupboard.’
Luke almost rubbed his hands with glee. ‘Can I get the rifle from the gun cabinet as well?’
‘No, you bloody can’t.’ Their father gave an exasperated shake of his head. ‘You’re supposed to be the Yewengie expert. You should know rifles are useless with them. Their problem is they can’t hack bright light. That’s why nobody’s ever been seen them in the daylight.’
Luke looked less smug as he fetched the spotlight.
Then Bella was hitched high onto her father’s hip, and Luke was taken by the hand and told to focus the light ahead of them as they walked across the dry lawn towards the big fig tree that covered most of the closest shed.
The light was very powerful, beaming out far into the distance.
‘Don’t go flashing it all over the place,’ Dad warned. ‘Keep it on the fig tree, Luke. That’s where the Yewengie will be hiding.’
Bella’s heart pounded and she clung to her father more tightly than ever, grateful that he was so big and strong and that he knew everything.
‘Okay, Luke,’ her dad said. ‘Flash the light up and down and across the tree, but do it quickly.’
The beam flashed over the dark branches and leaves, turning them silvery grey.
To Bella’s surprise, her father suddenly yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Bugger off, Yewengie. There are no babies here.’
Feeling safe in his tight grip, she couldn’t help giggling.
‘Okay, Bella. You call it out, too.’
She didn’t stop to think twice. ‘Bugger off, Yewengie. No babies here!’ she squawked.
She heard her father’s cry of triumph. ‘See that? It took off from the back of the tree. Out towards Red Top. A big dark shadow.
‘I saw it, Dad,’ Luke whispered. ‘I saw it.’
Her father slid Bella gently to the ground then and he stood between her and Luke with a hand on each of their shoulders.
‘Right,’ he said solemnly to Luke. ‘Now you saw it go, didn’t you?’
Luke nodded, but he looked a bit guilty too.
‘So, we’ve seen the mongrel off our property and that means there’s no need for any more Yewengie stories to frighten your little sister. Got that?’
Luke nodded vigorously, slightly overawed.
Bella felt her father’s hand squeeze her shoulder. ‘Now, Bella,’ he said gently. ‘I want to show you something special. Do you see the little red eyes in the tree?’
‘I – I think so.’
He took the spotlight from Luke.
‘Look on that branch. Four little red eyes.’
‘Yes, yes, I see.’ They were glowing and scary.
‘That’s a beautiful little mother possum,’ her father said ‘A mother and her baby. And they’re not afraid of the dark, are they?’
‘No,’ Bella whispered, not quite sure.
‘That proves the Yewengie’s gone,’ her dad said. ‘A mother possum would never bring her little one out if she thought something bad might happen to it.’
Bella shook her head, thoroughly impressed.
‘Now let’s take a quiet walk around the house and see what other animals might be out. Luke, you were a great help tonight, but I think Bella can have a go with the spotlight now.’
So Bella’s night-time bravery had begun via the security of a bright spotlight.
It led to walks along the creek at night, spotlighting.
Then to nights on the sand by the water with nothing but the campfire’s glow to spoil their night vision, as she and her Dad and Luke fished for jewfish in the dark.
Later she’d been fearless, and she was always the first to challenge the children of dinner guests and party visitors to hide-and-seek contests in the dark around the homestead.
Later still, Bella had avoided using any unnecessary artificial light around a camp . . . taking comfort and security in the stars blazing in the night sky as she swagged down in the open.
Now she smiled into the darkness. She thought about the heart trouble her father was fighting.
Bugger off, Yewengie.