Ironbark Farm sounded alive with activity when Keziah awoke the next morning in the wattle and daub hut, startled by a peal of strange, raucous laughter. She instinctively protected her belly then ran to the window to investigate.
On the highest branch of a pine tree sat a strange bird with a coat of brown-speckled feathers and a plump white chest. His head was unduly large for a squat body. His beak reminded her of the cutting shears her father had sharpened on a grinding wheel for farmers’ wives.
The bird’s laughter was the most amazing sound as if he ridiculed all the follies of mankind. Keziah decided to adopt these birds as a good luck totem in her new life because her grandmother had taught her laughter was the cure for many ills.
When Polly entered bearing a tray, Keziah hastily wrapped Saranna’s blue cloak around herself.
The girl’s skinny build and sharp, pinched features suggested they were the legacy of generations of poverty and poor diet, but Polly’s youthful vitality triumphed over her lack of conventional prettiness. Her accent was a strange mixture of Cockney with an overlay of the Currency drawl.
‘G’day Miss, here’s your breakfast. I thought you might be too poorly to get up.’
‘I’m fine now.’ She held out her hand. ‘My friends call me Saranna.’
Polly hesitated in surprise then shook the hand offered to her. ‘Polly Doyle, Miss. I’m a Transport. Been assigned to Mr Hobson two years.’
‘He’s a good master to you?’ Keziah asked.
‘I get well fed. Other overseers sell the government stores meant for us and pocket the brass. But Hobson makes his overseer Griggs, the pig, do right by us.’ Polly relaxed. ‘I know you came free, Miss. Where from, if I might be so bold?’
Keziah stopped herself from saying North Wales. She had to lay full claim to Saranna’s world, completely discarding her own. Fortunately her clan had travelled through Chester and she had often dukkered there. ‘Chester. You know it?’
‘No, I’m a true Cockney, born within the sound of Bow Bells. When I got transported I felt I’d been swept out of the gutter but there’s some good things here in God’s rubbish dump.’
Keziah held back a grim smile. This was the same solution the gaujo magistrates employed to rid England of Romani ‘vagabonds’ like Gem.
Polly rattled on. ‘The colony’s good for young ’uns. Ma lost three of ’em to croup in our ruddy London winters!’
‘I know. It is – it must be terrible to lose a babe,’ Keziah said, reminded of Saranna’s single status. Her gaff was camouflaged by screeching laughter from her totem bird.
Polly explained it was a laughing jackass that the blackfellas called a kookaburra.
Keziah was impressed when the plump bird spread his wings and swooped on a snake, then repeatedly dropped its prey from the top branch of a pine tree until the snake’s back was broken.
‘He’s certainly clever at living off the land.’ She tried to make her question sound casual. ‘How many children does Mr Hobson have?’
‘Two little boys. The missus died of the scarlet fever last year.’
‘The nearest neighbours?’ Keziah asked.
‘His partner, Joseph Bloom, a Hebrew. Odd chap. A bachelor. Just got himself a new assigned housekeeper. No doubt she keeps his bed warm as well as his dinner.’ Polly flushed. ‘No offence, Miss. It’s just the way of the world down here.’
‘None taken,’ Keziah assured her.
‘Gawd! Clean forgot. Mr Hobson wants to see you when you is ready.’ Polly ran out the door.
Keziah pinned up her hair and spoke to the face reflected back in the mottled old mirror. ‘Listen, Saranna Plews, just spin a good story.’
She patted her belly. ‘Your father’s the real bastard, not you. I won’t let you down!’
Dressed in Saranna’s best clothes but unable to button up the tight jacket, she assessed her appearance. It was funny what a difference gaujo clothes made. Today she could easily pass for Italian or Spanish.
She angled her inherited bonnet to counteract its prim look. Accepting the path baxt had chosen her to travel, she was determined to bluff her way into the job of governess to Hobson’s two little boys.
Mi-duvel! My arm’s supposed to be injured! She ran back inside the hut to tie it in a sling.
In George Hobson’s sitting room Keziah combined Romani guile with Saranna’s sedate middle-class manners. She was desperate to gain the approval of the employer who had hired Saranna sight unseen via a Sydney Town clergyman.
To her consternation she discovered that she must face three employers. George Hobson explained that his partner, Joseph Bloom, would soon join them. The third was their neighbour Gilbert Evans, the largest landowner in Ironbark who, Hobson explained, was miles away inspecting his boundary fence near Bolthole Valley.
Polly brought them a tea tray. Keziah’s mouth watered at the sight and smell of the pyramid of scones, blackberry jam and clotted cream. She reminded herself she was now a middle-class girl who would never appear too eager to eat and she must keep her pinkie finger curled as Saranna did when holding a teacup.
The ritual pouring of tea gave her a moment of respite to study her employer.
George Hobson looked different from her first impression of him in his nightshirt. A florid, bewhiskered man, his barrel chest resembled that of a kookaburra as it strained the buttons of his Harris tweed jacket and waistcoat – unseasonable English winter clothes worn with pride. Polly said he was decent so Keziah took his pomposity in her stride.
‘We, the triumvirate, are determined to educate our children. My Georgie and Donald are five and six. Gilbert Evans Junior is seven. We’re building a little schoolhouse for them.’
Keziah smiled in relief. Three small boys only need the alphabet, songs and stories – I can manage that on my ear!
She utilised the gift that was second nature to her when telling fortunes and absorbed the unspoken message in the tone of Hobson’s voice and gestures. He was clearly a self-made Cornishman who had had minimal education and wanted better for his sons. Both he and Evans were widowers. Hobson boasted that Evans was a successful grazier, a lay preacher in Bolthole Valley and a man highly respected by the county’s police officers.
‘Gilbert Evans is known for keeping his finger on the pulse,’ he said.
Keziah did not doubt this suggested the man was a police informer. No matter how far you travelled in the world there were always ‘respected’ men eager to send other men to gaol – for a fee.
When Hobson’s partner, Joseph Bloom, joined them, Keziah was instantly on guard. This man would be difficult to read. He was clearly well educated, probably younger than his beard implied. As he listened he rested the fingertips of his fine hands together in the shape of a steeple. When he spoke, his fluent English had a formal German accent she recognised from hearing Prussian officers speak.
‘My lifelong interest is education. I endorse Rousseau’s ideas, which many consider radical. Education should not be a privilege but available to rich and poor, master and servant.’
Keziah nodded, but instinct warned her she must tread carefully in this man’s presence.
Mindful that she was new to the colony, Bloom explained that he was of one mind with Governor Bourke’s proposal to set up a national system of education on the Irish model, which favoured no single religion.
‘It is a tragedy Sir Richard Bourke felt impelled to resign as governor. I believe his plan will eventuate in time but when?’ he shrugged. ‘Meanwhile we must do what is possible. George and I are hopeful that the number of your pupils will grow over time.’
Keziah’s smile hid her anxiety. Was there enough time for her to learn to write fluently?
George Hobson was gruffly apologetic. ‘The schoolhouse is shy of a roof. And the teacher’s cottage is also unfinished. Griggs’s hut is at your disposal until then.’
‘Thank you but no. I wouldn’t want to put anyone out. I assure you I’m happy to live in a tent.’ Oh dear, would the very proper Saranna have said that?
‘Our assigned carpenters are mending the twenty-mile boundary fence. Cattle duffers stole our best herd.’ He turned to his partner. ‘Bolters grow bolder by the hour, eh Joseph?’
Joseph Bloom translated for Keziah’s benefit. ‘Escapees who take up arms are known as bushrangers.’
Keziah promptly replaced her teacup on the table to mask her reaction. Imagine their horror if they discovered their respected new schoolmistress is married to a bushranger.
Hobson stood up. ‘No doubt you’d welcome a tour of inspection? Would you prefer to ride?’
Mindful she’d be given a lady’s side-saddle which she’d never ridden before and which would make it difficult to camouflage her condition, Keziah smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you, but after months at sea I just love to walk.’
In dramatic contrast to the deluge of rain she’d encountered the day before at the Shamrock and Thistle Inn, this land was so dry the eddying dust soon covered their boots. Hobson pointed out a dam that had shrunk to a muddy puddle surrounded by cracked earth that looked like a red-brown patchwork quilt. Wilted bulrushes marked the dam’s original perimeter.
‘Last summer that dam was overflowing. Mad country this!’ barked Hobson.
Joseph Bloom said prophetically, ‘He causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.’
Keziah was reminded of the Romani belief that rain was God’s blood.
She noted three tethered ponies in the school paddock and decided they belonged to her three small pupils. How difficult could teaching them be?
Hobson pointed to the brass school bell, the bell rope swinging in the wind.
‘We also ring this as a warning when bushrangers are sighted on the horizon.’
Keziah tried to assume an expression of polite interest but her stomach was churning. She prayed this bell would never be rung at the sight of Gem – who’d be the target of all their weapons.
The one-room schoolhouse was fronted by the apron of a veranda. To Keziah the schoolhouse looked absurd in isolation, like a cast-off from one of the rows of terrace houses in Sydney Town. Built of raw timber, the unglazed windows were open to the elements, the roof a skeletal frame, but the stone chimney appeared to be the sturdy relic of some older building.
Hobson anticipated Keziah’s response to the chimney. ‘You’ll need a fire in winter as our seasons are wildly unpredictable. Often cold at night even in high summer.’
Through the half-open doorway Keziah could see a blackboard and teacher’s desk. A jar filled with bush flowers surprised her. A far greater shock awaited her as she stepped inside. Keziah stood face to face with a score of wide-eyed, nervous children.
Hobson introduced her and the students responded with a singsong chorus, ‘Good morning, Miss Plews.’
‘No doubt you will want to begin at once,’ Hobson said. Prompted by Joseph Bloom’s polite bow, Hobson quickly bowed and then both took their leave.
‘What a lovely surprise!’ Keziah tried to sound genuine as she threw her arms wide in a gesture that embraced all the children. She needed to dukker very fast indeed.
The children were clearly as anxious as she was, so she bent to their eye level and held out her hand to each in turn as they introduced themselves. Most were boys. Four brothers were lined up in diminishing height beside their big sister. Ten-year-old Winnie Collins was the first product off an Irish family’s assembly line of Collins boys with curly carrot tops and freckles.
All the pupils were barefoot and wore hand-me-downs except for the Hobson and Evans boys. Georgie and Donald were miniature Cornish replicas of their father. Wearing their Sunday best suits and polished shoes they bowed with military precision.
Gilbert Evans Junior was so shifty-eyed Keziah suspected he would run tattletales to his father to report the first mistake she made. She knew she had to keep her eye on him.
Three girls stood in line, their dresses shabby but their faces scrubbed pink. Each shielded small siblings behind their skirts. But could Keziah expect trouble from two other older lads who stood apart?
Harry Stubbs had a belligerent jaw – perhaps a necessary defence against his patched trousers of hessian sacking with the name of a brand of billy tea stamped on one leg.
The tallest was the shepherd boy who had given Keziah directions the previous night. He stammered when he introduced himself as Big Bruce MacAlister. It seemed that he hadn’t had a haircut or new clothes in years and he looked more like a scarecrow than a boy. His smile allowed Keziah an inner sigh of relief. He’s all of twelve and could probably read rings around me but I can see in his eyes he’s my ally.
‘What a fine bunch of Currency Lads and Lasses you are! I promise I’ll soon learn all your names. Till then please be patient with me.’
The children exchanged startled glances. Little Davey Collins piped up to big sister Winnie, ‘When’s the dragon lady gunna knock us into shape, Sis?’
Keziah bit her lip to prevent a smile. No wonder they were all so wary of her. Ironbark parents must have put the fear of God into their offspring about their new teacher.
She squatted down to Davey’s eye level and tucked stray curls behind his ears.
‘All you children are in perfect shape already. You’ve nothing to fear. We’ll all learn from each other. And because I am a newcomer to your most beautiful country I need to learn many things from you! I’m counting on you all to help me.’
Half the class fell instantly in love with her, the other half were only minutes behind.
Keziah exclaimed over a box full of apples and pears beside her desk. ‘What a generous gift! Would one of you lads kindly share them out?’
She smiled at Harry Stubbs, a tough leader if ever there was one, as he rationed out the fruit.
‘As you see my arm is still healing, so I can’t write on the blackboard yet.’
Big Bruce sprang to his feet. ‘I can do it for you, Miss!’
Keziah was afraid someone might volunteer. ‘What a very kind offer, Bruce, and one I will gladly accept a little later. First I’m going to tell you a story.’
They chomped on the fruit, eyes glued to her face.
‘I know how it begins,’ Keziah added, ‘but I’ll need your help to finish it. May I borrow your names for the characters?’
The children all nodded eagerly.
Through the unglazed window Keziah could see small shadows between the trees, as sensitive as half-wild animals. She sensed other children were gauging the response to the dreaded dragon lady so she pretended not to see them until they wished to be seen. She moved her class outdoors to sit cross-legged on the grass to hear her story.
At midday Polly brought freshly baked loaves of bread and a giant ball of cheese for Keziah to share with the hungry children. Polly must have known none of the children had brought food to school and Keziah guessed that some of the farmers would be struggling to survive in the drought.
Her Romani guedlo folk story was a gently disguised moral tale about kindness to animals. She held her audience spellbound, enacting the characters with different voices. Breaking off at a dramatic point, she promised to continue it tomorrow. Indoors. Two brave ‘shadows’ had crept closer to listen. She knew her class would be full tomorrow.
• • •
Overnight the bush grapevine attracted pupils from surrounding farms. Whole families rode to school bareback on a single pony, the smallest child clinging on for dear life at the rear. Some brought the weekly ‘threepenny bit’ to supplement Keziah’s salary. Others came empty-handed but boxes of eggs, fruit and vegetables regularly awaited her on the school veranda; farmers’ produce in lieu of the fee. She made sure no child was ever embarrassed.
Keziah altered her Romani tale to take in Australian elements, including local bushrangers. The children knew all their names and aliases and regarded most as heroes. She tried to make the question closest to her heart sound casual.
‘Have you ever heard of a Gypsy bushranger?’
Several voices answered in unison. ‘What’s a Gypsy, Miss?’
Keziah sighed. ‘Never mind. They’re most interesting people but I’ll explain another day.’ She resumed her story. ‘Now what do you think Harry the Wombat did next?’
• • •
The first tussle Keziah faced was over her temporary accommodation. Griggs was furious that Hobson had evicted him from his own hut. Although Keziah took an instant dislike to the overseer she did not want to make an enemy of him. She assured George Hobson she’d prefer to live in a calico tent close to the schoolteacher’s cottage so she could supervise the final details of its completion.
In her little schoolhouse over the next few weeks Keziah discovered the joys of teaching, despite her anxiety about the triumvirate’s planned formal visit to the school. No date had been set. They could arrive unannounced at any time.
At night in her calico tent Keziah studied frantically, her arm magically healed each sundown. She practised her writing on a slate, aware she had little time to surpass Big Bruce’s writing skills. He’d been a great help, always ready to assist the younger children with their alphabet.
But he’d been absent for a week. Today she’d found out the reason. Farmer MacAlister was dead. No more time for school for Big Bruce.
Keziah felt a pang of sorrow on both counts; the loss of Bruce’s father and the end of her brightest pupil’s education. Tomorrow she would call on the Widow MacAlister after school.
• • •
Keziah carried a bowl of stew as she hurried towards the dilapidated farm where Big Bruce had herded his sheep the night of her ar-rival in Ironbark. Was it only five weeks ago?
Her whole life revolved around this odd little backwoods village with its mixture of Currency farmers and settlers from every corner of the British Isles, plus one German. She had scant time to concentrate on anything except holding down her role as schoolteacher but it was a blessing because she must now bide her time before resuming her search for Gem. He was jealous enough at the best of times. She could hardly confront him with this growing bulge in her belly. In another three months that bump would push its way out into the world. What then? She closed her mind to the question that had no answer.
A front window at the MacAlisters’ farm was boarded over. The rusty front gate hung by a single hinge. The barn leaned so precariously that only the trunk of a tough ironbark tree prevented its collapse.
In an adjacent paddock where a field of corn struggled to survive the drought, Keziah was halted by the sight of a scarecrow planted in the centre to ward off magpies. Garbed in a man’s cast-off slop clothing and frayed straw hat, its arms rested horizontally on a broom and its straw hair blew in the wind, giving it an oddly lifelike appearance.
When a dog ran up and chewed a trouser leg the scarecrow called out, ‘Piss off!’
‘Mi-duvel! It’s Bruce!’ she whispered in horror.
A woman ran from the house towards her. ‘Come to spy on us have you, Miss High and Mighty?’
Mrs MacAlister’s face was burnt by the sun and furrowed like a dry field but her dank hair had no signs of grey.
Life has worn her down. She probably isn’t a day over thirty. Keziah faltered. ‘I am so sorry for your trouble. Bruce is my brightest student – he’s been so kind to me.’
‘You’ve seen the last of him.’ Mrs MacAlister hastily untied her apron to reveal her shabby black mourning and eyed Saranna’s dress with ill-concealed envy. ‘He’s man of the house now. Got to work to keep bread on the table.’
Keziah’s eyes turned toward the scarecrow.
The widow’s voice was shrill. ‘Don’t you dare judge me! The likes of you ain’t never been hungry. He’s doing only work he’s fit for. Sprained his ankle carrying the coffin.’
Keziah said gently, ‘My people in Wales were no strangers to hunger, Mrs MacAlister, but I only brought this because you have more important things to attend to.’
The widow’s eyes blazed. ‘We ain’t no paupers! We don’t need your charity.’
Keziah’s hands shook as she placed the bowl on the veranda. ‘I’m sure you don’t.’
She retreated in haste, tears stinging her eyes. Bruce’s father had wanted him to be literate but a son’s first duty was to feed his mother. First she felt angry she had wounded the widow’s pride then startled to realise her gaff. My people in Wales. Saranna is from Chester!
• • •
Joseph Bloom blinked in surprise over the rim of his spectacles when he opened the door to Keziah.
She blurted out the reason for her call. ‘Bruce MacAlister is working in the field as a human scarecrow. Don’t blame his mother – the poor woman’s desperate but too proud to accept charity. Can nothing be done to help them survive and keep Bruce in school?’
Through her tears the image of Joseph Bloom quivered like a figure under water.
‘Do not despair, Miss Plews. I have already given thought to the matter. It is said the best form of charity is to give a family work so they don’t need charity.’
Keziah nodded her thanks and fled down the track. She angrily blew her nose and admonished her unborn babe. ‘This is all your fault. Since you’ve been inside me I’ve been unable to control my tears or laughter. Everything seems either terribly sad or terribly funny.’
• • •
The following Friday was a surprisingly hot, lethargic day. Keziah underlined the words she had written on the blackboard. The heat made the children unusually restless and the two small Collins brothers argued over the use of their last stub of chalk. Keziah quietly supplied a fresh one.
‘All right, all you clever children. Who would like to read for me? You don’t have to be perfect. Just have the courage to try. That’s how we learn.’
Her pointer froze at the first sentence. All three members of the triumvirate stood in the doorway headed by Hobson. Gilbert Evans didn’t wear a clerical ‘dog-collar’ as he was only a lay preacher, but his hands were folded in an attitude of prayer. He eyed the schoolroom as if on the lookout for sinners to save. Keziah now firmly agreed with Polly’s initial warning. Evans never talked – except when paid by the traps to be their informer. Or when he preached hellfire and damnation from Bolthole Valley’s pulpit.
Joseph Bloom’s eyes twinkled at Keziah as he ushered Big Bruce MacAlister inside. Wearing his late father’s jacket the lad resumed his former place with a self-conscious grin.
Keziah gave Joseph Bloom a special smile of thanks. She was aware that unofficially he had assigned one of Ironbark Farm’s government men to work the MacAlister farm and that washing baskets of Bloom’s household linen were discreetly delivered to Mrs MacAlister each week to provide her with paid work.
George Hobson peered at the blackboard. ‘A for Australia, B for Bandicoot, C for Cockatoo? How unorthodox. When I was a lad it was A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat.’
Joseph Bloom leapt to Keziah’s defence. ‘Yes, George, but things are different here.’
‘My son tells me there are no school rules,’ Gilbert Evans said. A faint smiled played on his lips. ‘How do you punish wrongdoers, absentees and laggards?’
‘Fear is a poor teacher, Mr Evans,’ Keziah replied. ‘Children who run happily to school learn faster, yes?’
Joseph Bloom was determined to have the final word.
‘Indeed so. Well, gentlemen, Miss Plews has already doubled the attendance. How can we argue with success? Shall we allow her to continue her good work?’ Ready or not, he gestured for the triumvirate to make their exit.
• • •
It was a scorching December afternoon. The little creek that ran behind her tent was a double blessing. It enabled Keziah freedom to practise her Romani women’s tradition, separating the clothes for the upper half of her body from the lower half to wash them upstream or down. The creek also allowed her to conserve the rainwater – God’s precious blood.
Scrubbing clothes on the creek bank she sang a Romani love song her father had played. The passionate words reminded her how starved government men were for the sight of a woman. Some had openly stared at her voluptuous body. If only they knew her secret.
She felt uneasy when the distant figure of a man dismounted from a black horse and entered Gilbert Evans’s homestead that lay on the rise of the hill a few hundred yards away on the far side of the creek. No doubt someone is up to no good. As my grandmother used to say, ‘Clean water never came out of a dirty place.’
After she draped her washing over the bushes to dry, she paddled up to her knees in the creek, her skirt bunched up in one hand. There was no one in sight but with her usual custom of precaution she had placed a horsewhip nearby. Suddenly her spine stiffened, her ears pricked like a hunted animal.
A few feet across the shallow creek a man was crouched, spying on her. A stranger. Black hair, black beard, virile body. She shuddered when he playfully flexed his fingers like claws, ready to pounce on her. Not another soul was in sight.
Her hunter had now edged close enough for her to see the pupils of his eyes – no light was reflected in them. Nothing but lust.
Keziah inched her way towards the horsewhip, hampered by the weight of the wet skirt that clung to her legs. Conscious of his slightest movement she lunged towards the whip.
In one leap he grabbed her from behind and twisted her arm behind her back. His hand gagged her mouth and pressed her head against his chest. She tried to bite his hand but her teeth only closed on air.
‘You won’t scream!’ he said with maddening confidence. ‘Because you know what’s good for you, don’t you!’
She nodded vehemently. He freed his hand to paw at her breasts. His breath was hot and urgent in her ear, his soft voice was like thick honey.
‘I’ve been watching you. You’re a bitch on heat, girl.’
The blood pounded in her ears. ‘Let go. My husband will hunt you down like a dog!’
He gave a curt laugh. ‘Little liar. I know you. No man of your own. And you’re a woman who’s hungry for it, Miss Plews! You’re single and you’re English. But if you’re a good girl to me, I’ll be forgiving you the English.’
She tried to coax him. ‘I’ll forgive you your mistake if you tell me your name.’
He laughed pleasantly. ‘The devil has many names.’
The friction of his hands on her body excited him and Keziah felt his erection against her skirt.
‘God, you smell good enough to eat, girl. You’re going to love this! The biggest and best you’ve ever had.’
When he lifted the back of her skirt Keziah slumped against him like a willing partner. Then she wrenched free and forced her knee into his groin with all the violence she could muster.
He doubled over in pain, and she grabbed her horsewhip and slashed his face.
‘Mr Hobson!’ She screamed out the name knowing full well that he was far away in Berrima Courthouse on jury duty. Her desperate bluff worked. Her attacker backed off but Keziah was chilled by his laughter as blood streamed into his eyes.
‘Like it rough? I’m the man for you. I’ll give you pain and teach you to love it!’
He did not wait to see if Hobson would come to her rescue but ran off, calling over his shoulder, ‘Till we meet again, little witch!’
Keziah stumbled through the bush to Joseph Bloom’s cottage and was frustrated when his assigned housekeeper informed her he had gone to Goulburn to celebrate Shabbat.
She was half afraid to confront Gilbert Evans but she abandoned caution and ran across the paddocks to his homestead. There was no sign of the stranger’s black horse. She banged on Evans’s front door until he opened it.
Silently he took in her dishevelled state. His eyes lingered on her thighs.
‘Who was the dark-bearded man who visited you this afternoon?’ she demanded.
He avoided her eyes. ‘I’ve been alone writing my sermon. No one called here today.’
Keziah’s mouth went dry. He was lying and didn’t care that she knew it.
‘You seem distressed. May I help you?’ he asked smoothly.
‘No. I’ll speak to Mr Bloom on his return. I’m sure he’ll advise me.’
‘Clever man, our Hebrew neighbour.’ The words sounded far from complimentary.
Keziah turned to leave but was halted by the innuendo in Evans’s voice.
‘May I suggest, Miss Plews, it is unwise to dress indiscreetly.’ He gestured to the wet skirt that clung to her thighs. ‘Some men may interpret that as an open invitation.’
Keziah suppressed her rage. ‘I’ll tell you this for free, Mr Evans. If that man tries to molest me again, he really will get an invitation. To Norfolk Island till his hair turns white!’
She hurried away knowing she had made an enemy who would never show his hand.
• • •
It was full moon. The night seemed full of malevolent shadows as Keziah sat inside her tent, trying to read a copy of the children’s primer by the light of an oil lamp. Through the tent flap she saw wind rustling the trees. Shadows jumped on the calico roof when a branch fell with the noise of a gunshot retort.
Determined to control her fear, Keziah held the lamp as she circled the tent chanting a Romani spell of protection. The words died on her lips as she sensed a presence lurking in the bush. Had imagination given form to her fear?
And then she saw a figure on horseback, the face hidden in the darkness. She heard the soft tinkle of metal. Terrified, she trained the light in the figure’s direction, only to find it had vanished.
Was it the stranger who’d tried to rape her? Or a spy for Caleb Morgan? Had Saranna’s mulo returned to haunt her? Or was Gem risking the sight of her despite the danger?
Keziah examined the ground where she had seen the rider appear. A mulo left no footprints. She desperately searched among the fallen leaves and twigs.
No hoof prints.