Matilda's Last Waltz Part 19

They ate in silence, and when they'd finished, leaned back in their chairs with mugs of good, strong tea.

Tom regarded her thoughtfully. 'You've changed, Molly. I remember a skinny little girl who wore ribbons in her hair and liked to dress up in her Sunday best for the picnic races and barn dances.'

Matilda took in his handsome Irish looks, the character etched in fine lines around his eyes, the sunbaked skin, the broad, capable hands. 'We all change,' she said quietly. 'You're a man now. Not the horrid little boy who used to pull my hair and rub my face in the dirt.' She sighed. 'The time for ribbons and party dresses is over, Tom. We've both had to grow up.'

He leaned forward. 'That doesn't mean you can't have fun, Molly. You're young and pretty under those old rags. You should be going to the parties and looking for a husband. Not sleeping rough and up to your armpits in sheep s.h.i.t and daggy wool.'

Matilda laughed. She felt a hundred years old, and knew she must look a sight in her father's old flannel trousers and much darned shirt. 'If you think that, then you've been out in your own fields for too long, Tom.'

He shook his head. 'This is no life for a young girl on her own, Moll. And there're plenty who'd like the chance to get to know you.'

Her amus.e.m.e.nt died. 'Men, you mean?' she said sourly. 'Andrew Squires still sniffs around, and there've been one or two others, but I send 'em off with a flea in their ear.'

His green eyes were full of humour, and she glared back at him, daring him to laugh at her. 'I don't want or need a man about the place unless he's a shearer and leaves when he's done his job.'

Tom pushed the pouch of tobacco towards her then rolled himself a cigarette. 'Talking of shearers,' he drawled, the humour still making his eyes dance, 'how many head do you reckon you got?'

'Just under the fifteen hundred,' she said promptly as she inexpertly tried to roll her own. 'But I'll manage this year. No worries.' She kept her eyes on her cigarette, afraid to let him see the hope in her eyes.

'I got the shearers coming next week. If you can get your mob marked, crotched and over to Wilga by then, they can be done with mine.'

'How much will it cost?' Tom's kindness was overwhelming, but she had to be practical.

He grinned. 'Well, now, Molly,' he drawled. 'That all depends.'

She raised an eyebrow and looked into his face.

'I got me a deal with Nulla Nulla and Machree. They're bringing their mobs to me this year, and they can both afford an extra penny here and there to cover your expenses.'

She grinned back. 'Crafty.'

He shook his head. 'Not at all. Old Fergus can well afford a few pennies, and so can Longhorn. Tight-fisted b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, the pair of 'em. Now, what do you say?'

'Thanks,' she said simply, real appreciation in her eyes, offering the firm handshake of a deal agreed.

'Another cuppa wouldn't go amiss. Me mouth's like a drover's armpit.'

She poured him more tea, wishing there was some way in which she could repay him. But Tom Finlay had always been able to read her mind and age apparently hadn't dimmed that particular talent. 'You'll live in the house with me and April, of course, but you'll not be getting your sheep sheared for nothing, mind. There's plenty of work you can be doing, and you'll be too tired at the end of it for grat.i.tude.'

Matilda smoked the last of her cigarette in silence. One day, she promised herself, she would repay Tom. He was the only one out of a dozen neighbours who'd offered help, and she would never forget it.

After he left, she crossed the yard to the Abo gunyahs. 'Gabe, I want you to ride out with me tomorrow and finish mustering. Your two eldest boys can stay here and make sure they're kept in the home pasture. We're taking the mob to Wilga.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y good shed here, Missus. Why we going Wilga?'

She eyed the bony figure in the thin blanket. 'Because we can get the job done cheaper there.'

He frowned, his mind working slowly. 'Big job, Missus. Taking mob to Wilga. Me and the boys is tired,' he said mournfully.

Matilda swallowed her impatience. She was tired as well, exhausted if the truth be known, and Gabriel was a lazy good-for-nothing bludger. 'You want sugar and baccy, Gabe?'

He nodded with a grin.

'Then you'll get it when the mob's back here from Wilga,' she said firmly.

His smile disappeared and he looked slyly at his wife. 'Can't leave the missus. Baby coming.'

Her exasperation reached boiling point. 'There are six other b.l.o.o.d.y women to look after her, Gabe. This is her fourth kid, and you never stuck around when the others were born.' She eyed the grubby children playing around the encampment in the dirt. They ranged from crawling babies to adolescents, from rook black to pale coffee. Most of them had the wild, black hair of their ancestors, but some were tow-headed, almost blond. A drover or two had obviously got lonely for female company on his way through. 'Where are the boys? I'm going to need them too.'

Gabriel looked into the distance. 'Kurrajong,' he muttered. 'Good money for jackaroo there.'

If it's so d.a.m.n good, she thought furiously, then why the h.e.l.l didn't the whole b.l.o.o.d.y lot of them move over there? She kept her thoughts to herself, though. Until things improved around Churinga, she would have to encourage them to stay. They cost little to keep, but G.o.d almighty they were irritating.

'One sack of sugar and flour now. Another when the mob's in from Wilga, plus some baccy.'

They stared at one another for a long moment of silence. Then Gabriel nodded.

The two young boys he brought with him were as nimble as Blue at herding, chasing and gathering in the strays. But the muster still took almost three days. Days where the sky grew dark with thick black clouds and distant thunder growled a promise of rain. Yet as one by one the pastures were emptied, each herd brought to the home paddock and fenced in before they went back for the next lot, the clouds held their precious cargo, scudding away on the hot, dry winds that rustled the gra.s.s and made the sheep nervous.

It was not yet dawn on the fourth day. Matilda had packed her saddle-bags with the things she would need for the coming few weeks, and with Lady saddled and ready, she stood by the fence and looked over the shifting woolly backs. Despite the lack of rain, Churinga gra.s.s had held out, and the fat, fleecy animals looked healthy and strong. Some of that tallow would be worked off in the coming trek to Wilga, but the quality of the wool was the important thing.

'Storm coming, missus,' said Gabriel who was astride her gelding.

She looked up at the sky. The clouds were gathering again, the air electric as though sky and earth were giant fire sticks rubbing together. 'Then let's go.' She signalled to the boys to open the gate.

Blue sank to his belly at her sharp whistle, moving swift and sure-footed over and around the mob as they poured into the paddock. With a nip here, a nudge there, a race over woolly backs to collar a Judas, he kept the mob tightly packed.

Matilda rode at the back of the mob with Gabriel, cajoling them forward, flicking the stock whip with consummate ease above their stupid heads, eating the dust of fifteen hundred sets of feet. The electricity in the air was making her tingle, lifting the hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck. Storm clouds gathered in layer upon ominous layer, blotting out the early sun, bringing pewter dullness to the day.

'Dry storm, missus. Not good out here.'

Matilda nodded, the dread returning. She had to get to Wilga before it broke. There was nothing more terrifying than a dry storm and at the first crack of lightning she would lose control of the mob.

Bluey seemed to sense the urgency. He raced after a frightened ewe, chivvied a dawdler, and kept an eye on the Judas. He nipped and snarled, ran in circles and across their backs, hovered, belly in the dirt, until the right moment to head off a stray. It took all that day but finally, as the defeated sun disappeared behind the mountain, they reached the pastures of Wilga and the welcome sight of drovers coming to meet them. The sheep were finally herded into the small paddock behind the shearing shed, separated from the other three great mobs by the vast labyrinth of pens.

'You can sort and grade them tomorrow,' said Tom. 'Looks like the storm's about to hit.'

Matilda finished her counting and breathed a sigh of relief. 'I haven't lost any on the way. Good thing we came when we did.'

They looked up at the rolling waves of thunderous clouds. 'Gonna be a fair cow,' Tom said grimly as he walked with her to the corral. Her two horses joined the others, their flanks twitching with apprehension at the approaching storm. 'April's indoors. Come on. Time for tucker.'

April was perhaps three, maybe five years older than Matilda, her hands reddened from work, slender figure looking too frail to survive this heat as well as her pregnancy. She was drawn and obviously tired, her feet restlessly taking her in a never-ceasing round of table to stove, sink to table. The sleeves of her dress were rolled to her elbows, hair trailing pale damp wisps across her face where it had escaped the knot on top of her head.

'Nice to see you again, Molly,' she said, her smile weary but welcoming. 'I could certainly do with another pair of hands around here just now.'

Matilda looked away from the swollen belly. Sadness welled and she pushed it aside with remorseless determination. April had chosen to marry and have babies. They didn't fit into her own plans, so why feel anything but unshackled?

Wilga homestead was bigger than Churinga, sprawling across the crest of a low hill, its verandahs looking out over the creeks and home pastures. Wilga trees gave shade to the men's barracks, and box and coolibah lined the creek banks. Like Churinga, there were no trees too near the house. Too much of a fire hazard.

April poured hot water from the kettle into a tin bowl, and handed Matilda a sc.r.a.p of towel and a bar of homemade soap. 'Have a wash and a bit of a rest, Moll. Tucker won't be for a while.'

Matilda's room was at the far eastern end of the house. It looked out towards the stock pens, was small and cramped with heavy furniture and a vast bra.s.s bed. But it smelled wonderfully of beeswax polish and the floor had been recently swept with fresh wood shavings. She listened to the sound of the children playing in the yard. How many did Tom have now? she wondered. Four, or was it five?

She shrugged, caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and stared in horrified fascination. Was this brown-skinned, wild-haired woman really her? She hadn't realised how much she'd grown, how thin she was, or how old the lines around her eyes made her look. If the hair was a shade darker, the eyes a little bluer, she could have been looking at the ghost of Mary Thomas.

With a rueful grimace she eyed the flannel trousers she'd cut down to fit. They were stained and worn, tied at the knees and ankles with bowyangs, the strips of 'roo-hide a necessary addition to stop creepy crawlies from climbing up her legs. The grey shirt had once been blue but had been bleached by the sun and too many washes in lye soap.

She sighed. Mary Thomas had liked to wear the rough, easy clothes of the drover, but hers had always been immaculately clean and mended, not like these disreputable rags.

She thought of April and her neat cotton dress, and remembered how Tom had said she should put on a dress and go to the parties and dances. Grimacing, she stripped off the soiled clothes and began to wash. It had been a long time since she'd bothered to dress up, and now she probably never would. She had chosen her way of life, and if that made her more like a man, then so much the better. Women had it too tough anyway, and she meant to survive.

Matilda had fallen asleep on the feather mattress when the tucker bell was rung. She hurried to join the others in the kitchen. It was daunting to eat in company, to be the focus of six pairs of eyes that followed every move she made.

The four children, all boys, had not inherited the pale yellow hair and gentle face of April but the stormy black brows and Irish green eyes of their father.

'The men arrive day after tomorrow,' said Tom, shovelling in stew and following it up with a chunk of bread. 'Should get around to yours sometime around the middle of next month.'

Matilda nodded, her mouth too full to speak. After living on cold mutton and damper bread for months, she didn't want to waste time talking.

'April's almost finished clearing out the barracks. You can help with the stock pens, or in the cookhouse. It's up to you.'

Matilda glanced at April's wan face and decided that although she'd have preferred working in the pens, she was needed more in the cookhouse and barracks. They would need scouring and the beds repairing. The shearers would bring their own cook, but Wilga had a lot of men working for them and there were always vegetables to prepare and bread to make. Then there were the children to watch over. April couldn't possibly be left to shoulder that on her own.

'How you off for water, Moll? Got enough in the tanks to see you right if we don't get rain?'

She pushed back her plate and began to roll a cigarette. She was sated. 'Yeah. Those tanks are about the only thing Dad kept in good order,' she said dryly. 'We've got the bore head, of course, but the river's down to a trickle.'

'Your grandad was wise to put up all those tanks. I put an extra couple on just before the rains two years back but we're lucky here with the creeks and the rivers. The artesian well waters the fields, but it's too full of minerals and doesn't help the house any.'

A deep, ominous rumble silenced them and all eyes turned to the windows.

The world and every living thing in it held its breath, suspended in terrible expectancy. Endless seconds followed, dragging out the suspense, filling each of them with dread. The younger children crept from the table to burrow into the folds of April's ap.r.o.n like small, timid creatures.

Her face was white, eyes round and unblinking. 'It's all right,' she said mechanically. 'We've got a conductor. It can't touch us.' She shivered. 'Please G.o.d, it can't touch us,' she added in a whisper.

The crash rocked the house, tore the sky apart and spilled its fury. Blue flares of forked light streaked through the lowering clouds, turning night into a day brighter than any of them had seen before. Electricity cracked like a stock whip, lashing from one cloud to another, ripping the heavens apart as if possessed. The earth trembled as thunder crashed and rebounded off the iron roof. Jagged blue and yellow seared the hills and paddocks, touched the sentinel finger of a lone tree in the middle of a distant pasture, and sizzled a demonic halo around the bark before dying. The storm echoed in their heads and rang in their ears. Blinded them with its light, deafened them with the sheer weight of its force.

'Got to check the stock,' yelled Tom.

'I'll come with you,' Matilda yelled back.

They stood on the porch and watched the awesome display of nature's pent-up fury, knowing there would be no rain, no remission for the parched earth and tinder-dry trees. The air was so thick Matilda could hardly breathe, the electricity making her hair dance and weave, spark if she tried to tame it. They hurried to the pens where the other men were already checking the fences and gates. The sheep rolled their eyes and bleated, but they were tightly packed with nowhere to go.

Matilda ran across the yard to the paddock. The horses shied, pawing the air, their manes flying, tails stiff with fear. No one could catch them and after a fruitless chase Tom and Matilda decided they would have to take their chances. The dogs howled and whined in their kennels, the cattle lowed and sought shelter by hugging the earth. It was as if the whole world was writhing in agony.

The storm went on all through the night and into the next day. Thunder crashed, clouds stripped the sun, and lightning slivers burned blue fire through the sky. They became immune to the noise, the children creeping to the window to watch in awed silence. But none of them could voice the fear they all felt. One blade of gra.s.s could be struck, one hollow tree, dead and forgotten in the midst of a pasture, could attract the lightning bolt that would begin as a tiny blue flame and spread in seconds.

The shearers arrived along with the extra jackaroos, drovers and tar boys. Work in the cookhouse became a ceaseless succession of meals, of bread and mutton, cakes and pies, anything to take their minds off the storm. The sweat ran down Matilda's ribs, plastering her clothes to her skin as the barometer crept up to a hundred and twenty degrees. The kitchen sweltered, and although she was used to the hard work of the fields, she was drained by the end of the day and filled with admiration for April. Eight months pregnant and with over eighty people to feed, she never stopped and never complained.

At the end of the second night the winds came. They coiled the earth into spirals, barrelling across the ground, knocking down anything in their path. There was no way of fighting the w.i.l.l.y w.i.l.l.i.e.s. You just had to pray they didn't grow into tornadoes and come your way.

Tom watched from the verandah as they swept over his fields, ripped trees and fence posts from the ground and tossed them like matchsticks to the four corners of Wilga. Great tunnels of wind kicked up the earth, raced in one direction then turned in another, each giving birth to smaller ones, which whipped up the shallow water in the creeks and spewed it out in the spinning, ceaseless vortex. Roofs clattered and flapped, the wall of the machine shop tilted and swayed then collapsed with a crash against one of the empty stock pens. Shutters slammed and the air was full of choking dust.

But the winds blew the storm away and by noon on the third day the land was quiet. The people of Wilga emerged like ship-wrecked survivors to a.s.sess the damage.

The willow trees by the river had survived, their long, pliant branches bending towards the stony bed where only pools of murky water remained. The ghost gum at the end of the nearest pasture had split. It lay on the ground, its silver trunk cloven in two branches clawing fruitlessly skyward. Two of the six precious water tanks had blown over and were the first thing to be repaired. Corrugated iron roofs needed replacing, the machine shed to be demolished and rebuilt. Luckily it hadn't crushed any of the animals in the pen, just given them a scare and made them more jumpy than usual.

One of the stockmen returned from mending fences, his face grim and dirty after his long ride. 'Found five cows, Tom. Sorry, mate. Must have got the full brunt of the wind. They was miles away from their grazing. Dead as doornails.'

Tom nodded was resignation. 'At least it wasn't more. And the mobs are right, despite the shed almost falling on 'em.'

Matilda fretted about Churinga as she and April returned to the broiling kitchen. The devastation wrought on Wilga could quickly be repaired with so many willing hands, but what if Churinga had been wiped out? The tanks spilled, the house and sheds ripped from the earth? With stoic determination she put her worries aside. Her mob was safe she could survive.

The shearing shed was fully operational within hours of the storm's departure, the shearers making up for lost time. A gun shearer can get through over two hundred sheep in a day. They wielded the narrow boggies with a co-ordination of grace, strength and endurance, sweeping the length of the sheep's body, keeping the razor close enough to the loose, fragile skin to free the wool in one piece and please the most demanding shed boss. It was exacting work, done in an atmosphere of sweat, noise, flies and the stink of a thousand woolly backsides.

When Matilda could escape the kitchen, she would hurry to the woolshed to watch these master craftsmen, for unlike some sheds, Tom had no qualms about women helping in his. She would grab a bucket of fresh water and a ladle, and pa.s.s each stooping shearer a drink. Each man would need about three gallons of water a day in this heat. She watched them work. Most of them were short, wiry little men who had the permanent stoop of a life-long shearer and the elongated arms necessary to sweep the boggies through the fleece that went right down to a Merino's hoofs and nose.

There were no dreadnoughts in Tom's shed this year, she realised. None of the rare breed of men who could shear over three hundred in a day, and who made a fortune on side bets. She watched the shed boss stride up and down the lines of sweating, cursing men. His word was absolute and the shearers were expected to reach his high standards. No second cuts and no ripping of that fine skin.

Fergus McBride and Joe Longhorn patrolled the lines as their sheep came to be shorn. They tipped their hats to Matilda but in their shyness found it awkward to strike up a conversation and concentrated on their woolly harvest instead.

It was almost six weeks before the shearing was over. The days had been filled with a keener heat, as if soaked by the storm. Matilda sweated in the kitchen and sought relief in the pens and sheds, where it was just as hot, but less humid. She felt stifled, being shut in the house all day, and liked to feel the sun on her face, and the weariness of hard labour in the stock pens.

As McBride and Longhorn followed their newly fleeced mobs to their own winter pastures, the shearers climbed into their wagons and left Wilga. The wool was already baled and on its way to the rail head at Broken Hill.

Matilda had wondered if she would see Peg and Albert this year, but no one could remember seeing them for a long time and she supposed they'd gone back up towards Queensland this season. Probably too ashamed at having filched her meat and flour, she thought. No, she wasn't surprised they'd decided not to show their faces around Churinga this season.

Her last supper with Tom and April was over, the dishes washed and put away, the children finally in bed and asleep. Matilda sat on the veranda with the others, in her mind turning over the words she wanted to say to these kind people. And yet she was finding it hard to express her thanks in a way that would truly show the depth of her feeling for she'd learned too well how to hide her emotions. 'Thanks, Tom,' she said finally knowing it was inadequate.

He seemed to understand. He nodded, patted her shoulder awkwardly and returned to his perusal of the yard. 'Reckon me and some of the blokes better come with you tomorrow, Molly. The storm fair kicked up a lot of damage and I wouldn't like to think of you stranded for the winter.'

'No,' she said quickly. 'You and April have done enough already. I'll manage, Tom. Really.'

'You always were stubborn,' he said without rancour. 'April could never have fed all them men on her own, Moll. I reckon you earned the cost of your shearing.'

'But you've got to get the mob to winter pasture, Tom, and there's things to do here yet,' she protested.

'No worries,' he said calmly. 'Our repairs are almost finished, the drovers can muster the mobs. And besides,' he looked at her with laughing eyes, 'what the h.e.l.l are neighbours for if they can't help one another now and again?'

April put down the sock she was darning. The mending basket was overflowing as usual, and despite the long hours she'd spent doing the household ch.o.r.es, she couldn't sit idle even though she seemed permanently tired. 'We'd be happier if we knew you was all right, Molly. I don't know how you can bear it out there all on your own.' She shuddered. 'It's bad enough here when Tom's away with the mob. I don't think I could survive at your place.'

Matilda smiled and picked up a sock. 'It's surprising what you can do when you have no choice, April.'

The other woman watched her thread the needle and inexpertly begin to darn one of Tom's socks. 'But I thought Ethan offered to buy you out?' she said softly.

Matilda stabbed herself with the needle, watched the drop of blood blossom, and stuck her finger into her mouth. 'He did,' she mumbled. 'And I told him where he could stick his offer.'

Tom roared with laughter. 'You sounded just like your mum then, Molly. Good on yer. You'll make a squatter yet.'