Chase the Stars (Lang Downs 2 ) (7 page)

C
HRIS
stumbled down the stairs the next morning at the appointed time, quite sure he wasn’t awake enough for whatever Kami would ask him to do, but he wasn’t going back on his word the first day on the station. He still didn’t think he’d be much help with his broken arm, but he wouldn’t compound that by being late.

“There’s hot water in the kettle for tea or coffee brewing for the jackaroos if you want that,” Kami said as Chris walked into the kitchen. “Pour a cup and then come break these eggs.”

Chris fumbled a little with holding the kettle in his left hand, but when he glanced furtively at Kami, the cook’s back was turned, giving Chris the privacy to negotiate the task without scrutiny.

He managed the water, but the tea strainer was beyond him with only one hand, and his weaker one at that. He had no idea why they’d had tea bags the day before and a tea strainer and loose leaves this morning, but he didn’t want to ask. “Kami,” he said tentatively, “I hate to disturb you but I can’t get the tea leaves into the strainer.”

Kami chuckled. “We take such simple things for granted when we’re well,” he said, scooping tea leaves into the ball and handing it back to Chris. “You will be well again. You just have to give it time.”

“Not my strong suit,” Chris muttered as he carried his tea to the counter where Kami had eggs sitting out. “So I just break the eggs into the bowl?”

“Yes,” Kami said. “I’m not frying eggs for that many people. They’ll eat scrambled eggs or something else.”

Chris nodded and picked up the first egg. The shell had an almost bluish hue. “These are an interesting color.”
“That batch is from our chickens,” Kami explained. “Caine’s been pushing us toward organic certification for the sheep, but he’s also made some other changes. We can feed the men less expensively with our own chickens than we can buying eggs elsewhere. They’re fresher, healthier, and we have the added bonus of fresh meat when we want it.”
“It sounds like he’s made more than a few changes around here,” Chris commented as he continued breaking eggs into the bowl. “I always heard stations were pretty backwards when it came to accepting change.”
“You heard right,” Kami said, “but that’s because they’re run by people whose families have been here, doing things the same way, for generations. The average jackaroo doesn’t have anything to do with whether change comes. It’s the graziers who make those decisions.”
“Caine’s great-uncle ran the station, didn’t he? So it’s in his family.”

“It is, but not the same way,” Kami said, putting a tray of scones in the oven. “Caine didn’t grow up here so he isn’t looking at things through the eyes of his uncle. He sees everything with fresh eyes and a business degree.”

“But nobody seems to resent that,” Chris said. “Sure, he’s the one in charge, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to like it.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kami agreed, continuing to bustle around the kitchen, “and there are some faces missing from the jackaroos this year, maybe because of him, but there are new faces too, and there’s one face still there that might not be if it weren’t for Caine.”

“Neil?” Chris asked. “I heard someone say Caine saved his life.”

“Damn fool boy with no more sense than any of our sheep,” Kami muttered, “but yes, he saved Neil’s life, and Neil won’t let anyone forget that. Now finish those eggs. We have hungry jackaroos on their way for breakfast.”

Chris knew the end of a conversation when he heard one, but given what he’d seen of Kami with Neil and some of the others the day before, he’d already gotten more out of the cook than most people did, and that reassured him. Working in the kitchen wouldn’t be easy with his arm banged up, but Kami wouldn’t make it miserable either. F
IVE
hours later, he wasn’t so sure about that. Kami hadn’t been cruel, but he’d been grumpy and demanding, snapping orders right and left as they worked on dinner. Chris had reached a breaking point and needed out. Tossing the knife on the counter, he stomped out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. He made it all the way to the fence separating the house from the road when his ribs started aching and he had to stop. He leaned heavily against the rail, trying to breathe through the pain.

“You all right, mate?”

Chris looked up to see Jesse walking his way, a toolbox in his hand. “Yeah, just sore,” Chris replied. “I forgot to take it easy.”

“Kind of hard to do on a sheep station,” Jesse said with a wave of his hand at all the industriousness going on around them. “You pull your own weight or you end up out on your arse. It’s the way stations work.”

Chris lifted his plaster-covered arm. “I’m not pulling much of anything at the moment.”
“You’re helping in the kitchen. Isn’t that what Seth told me?”
“I’m trying to,” Chris muttered, “but that stupid drongo won’t let me finish one thing before he’s told me to do ten more, and then he yells because I haven’t done any of them. I’ve never worked in a kitchen before. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m trying to learn with only one good arm.”

“And seventy-odd people waiting for dinner tonight,” Jesse finished. “I feel for you, mate. I wouldn’t want Kami’s job, and yours even less, even with two good arms.”

“I wouldn’t mind it so much if he’d let me finish one thing before asking me to do something else,” Chris said. “I can learn whatever I need to learn, even one-handed, but I can’t keep up with the speed of his demands.”

“Try telling him that,” Jesse suggested. “Maybe after dinner’s over rather than now while he’s busy, but let him know. Some people are born managers. Other people have to learn, and from some of the comments I heard this morning, Kami isn’t one to let anyone in his kitchen, so he may never have learned.”

“Great, now I’m an experiment on top of a charity case,” Chris sighed.
“Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself,” Jesse scolded. “Take it from someone who’s been around a few more times than you have. You won’t win any friends or solve any problems by moping. You needed a break. Fine. You’ve taken a break. Now go back in there and do your job. Talk to Kami after dinner, and if it doesn’t get better, talk to Caine or Macklin. They’re fair men. They’ll listen to you. They hired you to work at Lang Downs, not necessarily to work in the kitchen, right?”
Chris nodded.
“So then if working in the kitchen is going to cause problems, ask if you can do something else,” Jesse suggested. “What’s the worst they can do?”

“Kick me off the station,” Chris said.
“For asking a question?” Jesse replied. “They wouldn’t have the kind of loyalty they do from the yearrounders if they were like that. I’ve worked on enough stations to have learned that lesson. If you want to know what kind of men the foreman and the boss are, you look at the way the year-rounders think about them. The men here are so loyal to Caine and Macklin that they defend them, not just turn a blind eye to them being together, but actively defend them. I’ve never been on another station where something like that would happen, even the ones that were otherwise good places to work.”
“Otherwise?” Chris asked, the choice of words striking him as odd.
“It’s nice to be somewhere tolerant,” Jesse replied with a shrug. “It makes being different easier.”
“Different how?” Chris asked impulsively. He knew better than to assume Jesse’s comments meant what he hoped they did. Asking outright if Jesse was gay could be as bad as letting the drongos in Yass find out. Knowing someone was gay was a far cry from having someone assume the same applied to you as far as reactions were concerned.
“How do you think?” Jesse asked in reply. “I tried to get a job here because I heard the boss was gay. I didn’t expect him to be interested in me—though the rumors didn’t say anything about the foreman being his partner— but I figured a station with a gay boss would be less likely to take issue with a gay jackaroo.”
Chris let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You say that so easily.”
“That I’m gay?” Jesse verified.
Chris nodded.
“I don’t really, but you aren’t going to hit me for it, and even if you decided to tell everyone, they probably wouldn’t either, so I don’t have much to lose,” Jesse explained. “I don’t say it often. I don’t even think it all that often, because it’s not like there’s anybody to do anything with, out here in the bush. Before I got here, I’d never met another person in the outback who would admit to it. Maybe there were some people like me who were good at hiding it, but this is the first time outside the city I’ve ever told anyone.”
Chris resolutely refused to imagine why Jesse might have told someone in the city. The other jackaroo was his only friend on the station. He was perving over Jesse enough as it was without imagining him hooking up with some guy in a bar.
“I guess I’d better be grateful Seth stumbled into the right place when he went looking for someone to help me,” Chris said instead of what was really on his mind. “If he’d asked a different group of men, they might have come to help kill me instead of save me.”
“Even if all they’d done was ignore his pleas, you’d still be a lot worse off than you are now,” Jesse agreed. “That shiner is looking even blacker today than it did yesterday. Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts,” Chris admitted. “I don’t want to take the drugs they gave me because they knock me out, but regular Nurofen isn’t taking care of the pain.”
“I’ve never been hurt as badly as you are all at once,” Jesse said, “but I’ve taken some tumbles off a horse and some falls that have left me pretty bruised and battered. You may want to wait a few more days before trying to work anywhere, even in the kitchen. The harder you push now, the longer it will take you to get well.”
“Tell that to the bosses,” Chris said. “I owe them my life. I’m not going to repay them by being lazy.”
“You aren’t going to repay them by hurting yourself worse and making them call the flying doctor to come out here either,” Jesse replied. “They’ll already have to take you back to Yass to take your cast off. Making them arrange a second doctor’s visit because you’re too proud and stupid to tell two reasonable men that you’re hurting is not a way to say thank you.”
“Hi, Chris.”
Chris spun around, wincing as the movement jarred his ribs. “Hi, boss.”
“Taking a break?” Caine asked.
“A short one,” Chris said nervously. “Kami was….”
“Being Kami?” Caine finished with a chuckle. “He’s a superstitious old aborigine with an attitude the size of Ayers Rock and a heart of gold buried underneath it. I’ll talk to him and remind him you aren’t at full strength yet.”
“About that,” Jesse said. “Sorry to interrupt, boss, but Chris is hurt pretty bad and—”
“And nothing,” Chris interrupted. “I’ll be fine.”
“You aren’t fine,” Jesse snapped. “You just told me everything hurt.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name,” Caine said to Jesse.
“Jesse Harris,” Jesse said. “Chris and I talked a little last night and a little more just now, and he’s got a broken arm and busted ribs. He won’t take the prescription because it knocks him out and he feels like he needs to be working, so he’s biting his cheek and trying to deal with it, but that’s going to make things worse, not better.”
“Slow down,” Caine said, his voice amused. “Chris, is he telling the truth?”
Chris kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot. “Yes, but he wasn’t supposed to tell you,” he said sullenly. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, you will be,” Caine said, “but there’s no reason to slow that process down. You’ve been working since before breakfast. You should go upstairs and take whatever the doctor gave you. If you sleep through dinner, we’ll have Seth bring you a plate. You can work breakfast again tomorrow so you feel like you’re contributing, but I’ll check in with you after that, and you will tell me if you’re in pain.”
“I don’t need special treatment,” Chris protested.
Caine cocked an eyebrow at him. “That lump of plaster on your arm says you do for now. We aren’t bbabying you, and we aren’t talking d-down to you, Chris. As soon as you are healed, we will work you as hard as we do everyone else, but you have to let yourself get well or you could end up permanently disabled, and then who would take care of Seth?”
“That’s a low blow.”
“It wasn’t intended to be one,” Caine said. “It was intended to make you look at all the consequences of your choices, that’s all.”
“Fine, I’ll go inside and take a pill, but if I don’t come down to dinner, send Seth to get me,” Chris insisted. “I don’t want anyone waiting on me like an invalid.”
He walked back toward the house, doing his best to walk like his ribs weren’t broken and his whole body didn’t hurt.

“W
ALK
with me, Jesse,” Caine said when Chris crossed the veranda and went inside.

“Sir?” Jesse asked, hoping he hadn’t done something to upset his new boss already.
“I need to find Macklin, and he’s supposed to be out in the sheds,” Caine said, “but I want to t-talk to you as well, so walk with me.”
Jesse fell in step beside Caine, waiting to see what the grazier wanted.
“This is your first season on Lang Downs, isn’t it?” Caine asked after a moment.
“Yes,” Jesse replied. “I worked out of Cowra and Grenfell the last few years, but I didn’t really find a station where I fit.”
“You seem to have made friends with Chris.”
“He’s a good kid from what I can tell,” Jesse said. “Maybe caught in a bad situation, but trying to do what’s right.”
“That was my impression as well. He wants to impress me, to thank me for helping him, and that’s fine, but he doesn’t trust me yet, and he’s not going to tell me if something is wrong,” Caine said. “I need you to be the kind of friend he needs and keep doing what you did today. If he’s pushing himself too hard and lets you see it, I need you to tell me. Macklin has driven into my head the fact that getting hurt or sick out here is bad from start to finish. I can’t change Chris being hurt, but I can do my best to keep him from making it worse.”
“You could just keep him in bed until his ribs have a chance to heal,” Jesse suggested.
“I don’t want to break his spirit while I’m helping his body heal,” Caine said.
“Me spying on him isn’t going to help his spirit,” Jesse said. “He needs a friend, someone he really can trust to look out for him.”
“Then find ways to keep him from overdoing,” Caine said. “I’ll tell him and Kami both that he’s off duty after breakfast cleanup for the next week, but he’ll find ways to fill his time if I do that and don’t order him to bed.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I have chores of my own to do,” Jesse protested. “Macklin said the big tractor stopped running. Patrick and I have to tear the whole engine apart to figure out what’s wrong with it.”
“So have him hand you tools,” Caine suggested.
“He isn’t a mechanic,” Jesse said.
“Maybe not, but I bet he knows the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver,” Caine said with a chuckle. “The point isn’t whether you need his help. The point is to make him rest until he’s well enough to work a full day. There’s Macklin. I’ll leave you to your repairs.”
Jesse watched Caine walk across the shed to where Macklin stood, checking the preparations for shearing which would begin in a few days. Macklin smiled briefly when Caine joined him, the expression so fleeting Jesse wasn’t entirely sure he’d seen it, but it was more than anyone else got. Jesse wondered if other people saw it, the tiny little signs of a deeper relationship, or if he was the only one sensitive to it because he was a gay man in a world that wouldn’t, he’d believed until now, accept him as he was.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he headed toward the shed where the tractor was parked. Maybe Patrick had found something while he was talking to Chris and they could get the bloody machine fixed.