Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (4 page)

The mitchell grass was long since nibbled away, and no new growth had come in to replace what had been grazed to the nubbin. Grass needs water to sprout. The acacia thickets provided a fourth the shade they usually do. Their gray-green leaves had all shriveled and fallen. Tightly gnarled branches curled in on themselves and waited patiently for rain.

There would be no rain today. Globs of fluffy white strewed themselves across the endless blue sky. None of them, though, sported dirty bottoms. These were empty clouds, waterless clouds, left over from some wild storm in the rain forest on the east side of the hills. They provided a moment’s respite from sun if they happened to pass overhead just right, but they would give Martin Frobel and his tortured land no relief from drought.

Already the land suffered. Already the pulverized soil was literally disappearing into thin air. Frobel didn’t have enough good soil as it was, let alone to lose it on the wind. The land—his land—could not tolerate much more of this.

Neither would his stock. The cattle stood about with blank expressions, or lay in the dappled shade of the acacia thickets and stared at infinity with hungry, vacant eyes. Their flanks had long since sunk in. You could count ribs from a mile off. None of them had enough meat left to make butchering them worth the water to wash the knife. The young and the weak were gone, and now he was starting to lose the prime stock.

Half a mile away a willy-willy dipped down to the earth. A dust cloud exploded where it touched and instantly filled its swirling cone. The miniature tornado bumped along a short distance and lifted again. Its dust thinned, and at last it disappeared completely.

A mere dot of a horseman appeared from behind the thicket east of Frobel’s scenic viewpoint here. The dot grew larger. Now he could see it was a dark brown horse, and now he could see that the rider, too, was dark brown. The old gelding was nearing fourteen now, but he still moved like a five-year-old. Frobel had raised that colt by hand—practically raised the rider by hand, too, for turning a wild bush Abo into a top drover takes more work and patience than training a stock horse.

The horse jogged up this last little rise at the same speed he had jogged the distance around the thicket, without breaking stride. Jack pulled in beside Frobel. The horse’s shoulders and flanks were wet, lathered at the rubbing spots, but he wasn’t blowing.

“So what’s out there, Jack?”

“No calves. I counted forty down and another fifty ready to fall over. Water wagon might save a few.”

“They all in the thicket?”

“Yuh. Not eating, though. No grass.”

“The mob over by the creekbed isn’t any better off.”

“Nothing left but bare dirt on the far side there, either. I took a turn around to the east a ways—thought maybe beyond the sand ridge.” Gimpy Jack shook his head. “Not very good, Mr. Frobel. No good atall.”

“No good atall, Jack.” What was it that Luke Vinson had said? Prayer? Miracles still happen? Maybe. The preacher-lad claimed he’d found an Irish girl he really fancied. That rated as a miracle, considering the boy was pushing thirty without ever getting tangled up with a woman before. But rain?

Frobel took one last look at the sheer glory of uncut distance, and at the hollow sky with its drifting wool-balls. Someone else, someone luckier, had gotten his rain again and left him nothing but a stiff breeze and sterile, mocking clouds. He reined his mare aside and led the way off toward home.

Chapter Three

With Malice Toward Some

Sure and Ireland was never like this. The sea stretched away forever, dancing. A million wavelets snatched bits of sparkling silver sun and tossed them playfully at Samantha’s eyes. Dividing the worlds of sea and land, a thin ribbon of beach stretched itself between the green and the blue. No mere strand, this beach had once been alive. Doobie had explained to Samantha how the pale “sand,” so called, was actually ground-up coral and that coral was a living animal—great colonies of tiny living animals.

Samantha paused and stooped down where the ocean meets the sand to study a chunk of coral cast ashore by that storm. It stank, for one thing, and its pallid gray was absolutely disappointing, not at all the bright red one calls “coral.” Its upper face, no doubt the living part of which Doobie spoke, was not just rough and hard but sharp. The notion of a nearly flat surface being so sharp intrigued her.

As green as anything in Ireland, the forest beside her shimmered in the sun with a vibrating warmth unknown in Erin. In Ireland the constant green seemed a sort of backdrop to life, a landscape canvas against which the major characters of the drama of Samantha Connolly played their roles. This rain forest, though, was a living thing unto itself, a dense and brooding entity. It crowded relentlessly against the narrow white line of shore; in places, mangroves breached the line and brought the forest wading down into the very sea. Death lurked here, they said, and tangled resistance to even the most innocent of attempts to penetrate its ominous darkness. Samantha couldn’t quite believe that; it was much too beautiful.

Sun. In her few short months on this Queensland coast, Samantha had basked in more sun than she had seen her whole lifelong in Ireland. And she wasn’t even trying to bask—nor should she; her nose exhibited a pronounced tendency to peel.

Today she strode, inundated in brilliance, along that shifting, halting line twixt land and sea. The slurry of sand gave beneath her bare heels and squeezed up between her bare toes. Crystal ripples flung themselves up the beach where she walked and fell back to nothing, over and over and over. She tried to remember the storm and this surf crashing against the front porch a quarter mile beyond its normal confines. She couldn’t anymore, not clearly, and that had been only a few short days ago.

Hoofbeats? Samantha wheeled. Here came Mr. Sloan along the beach. He was riding Gypsy today for the first time since the tragedy at the stable, and she appeared in rare form. She carried her nose high and her ears up. Her nostrils flared and snorted. Samantha almost wished Mr. Sloan would simply let her go and let her fly—let her run free and wild with her mate the sea—but he held her firmly to a brisk collected canter.

Gypsy was following the surf line, too, so Samantha stepped out into the water a few feet to give way.

But Mr. Sloan didn’t pass by. He drew Gypsy to a reluctant halt in front of Samantha. “Out touring, Sam?”

“I suppose, sir, in a way. I just now helped Kathleen take dinner down to the men at the mill. She’s driving the wagon back, but I thought it too nice an afternoon to bump along the road. ’Tis no farther, and slightly quicker, to return home along the beach here. And ’tis lovely, the day, aye?”

He swung down out of the saddle. Gypsy skitted aside and waltzed in a tight circle around him. He commenced a gentle stroll just above waterline, so Samantha fell in beside him. She shifted her shoes from her right hand to her left, lest they accidentally brush against him and make a dirt mark on his clean white jodhpurs.

His dark eyes held hers only a moment, then gazed off to far distance. “You seem t’ve become something of a mother hen to the house staff. You know your sisters quite well, I presume.”

“Too well, at times.”

He chuckled. “I understand; I grew up with two brothers. And how well do you know Amena O’Casey?”

Samantha considered a moment. “Not well, not really. We became acquainted, of course, on the voyage here. She indentured herself the very same day we did. But then and now she tends to explore her own pursuits and meself has other interests. And ’tis Linnet with whom she shares a room. I be nae her supervisor and she works outside the house for the most part, so we’ve scant contact.”

“Her own pursuits. Byron Vickers?”

“The cane cutter with the black beard, aye. A jovial bear of a man.”
Good friend of the Reverend’s,
Samantha thought—but she didn’t say that—not the way Mr. Sloan failed so obviously to tolerate the preacher, much less get along with him.

“Just wondering. I heard a rumor that she might try to break indenture.”

“She’s never mentioned anything to meself, but then, she’d have nae reason to.”

“And Kathleen Corcoran?”

“Ah, now ourselves have become quite close, with her in the kitchen and I as housemaid. A delightful girl, that; always jolly and always helpful.”

“Any romances on her horizon?”

“Romances? I’ve nae idea, but I doubt it, sir. She’s not been acting moony or anything of the sort.”

“How about you? Romance got you yet?”

Samantha’s cheeks warmed instantly. Now, why should that be? “I’ve an indenture to serve out first, sir. No use to think of romance yet.”

“Your sister’s not waiting.”

At last she could see where this conversation was headed so obliquely. She stopped and turned to face him, which drew him up as well. “Forgive me speaking boldly, sir, but ye as much as asked. We Connollys be an honorable clan, and if we make agreement to something, we hold up our side of it. She agreed to work for ye three years and ye may rest assured she’ll serve her full indenture.”

“And if Luke Vinson decides the Connolly honor isn’t worth the wait … ?”

Samantha began walking again. She was getting much too lippy with her employer; she must cool down, resume her proper place. “I admit Meg fancies the preacher, sir, but that may or may not come to anything. She’s fancied any number of swains in times past. Besides, ’tis not Luke Vinson’s honor to be maintained, ’tis ours. And we shall. Ye needn’t worry about Meg.” She glanced up at him.

He was watching her with a bemused, lilting twinkle in those dark, dark eyes. “Ah. Now I see what it takes to build a fire in Samantha Connolly. Challenge the family honor.”

Her cheeks were hot again. “Honor bought with a heavy price, sir. Me father worked for a major cabinetmaker in Cork. When he refused to take part in a scheme to defraud a builder, he was fired. The best joiner and cabinetmaker in Ireland, and for years he could get nae work. And me brother Edan died for honor. Honor and freedom. ’Tis not a thing to be taken lightly.”

“Obviously not.” Suddenly he turned and vaulted into the saddle. Gypsy stumbled two steps back and danced in place, held to the spot by that firm hand. “I want you to tell me if you hear any rumblings about Amena quitting the crib.” He twisted Gypsy’s head around, and in a spray of stinging, flying sand they were off at a canter down the beach.

Samantha resumed her walk along the restless edge of the sea.
So. Cole Sloan certainly didn’t pass the time of day with me merely to be friendly. He wants an informant. He pumps me of what I know and sends me out to learn more, eh?
She sighed. How she hated these intrigues employers seemed always to place upon the staff!
Tattle here. Spy there. Find out what my wife does tomorrow. Tell the gardener such and so. Let me know when …

Somehow, she realized, she had almost thought she could put that sort of thing behind her when she put Ireland behind her. But no matter where she went, she could never escape human nature.

There were the loading docks in the distance. Samantha turned right onto the quiet little side path to the house. It angled from the shore up through the dim and sober forest to join the main walkway between house and stables. She found herself walking faster through this gloom. A dazzling little green pigeon with a red cap and yellow tail tip settled in a tree ahead and froze, as if by simply sitting quietly it could hide its lovely colors. Samantha stepped out into the walkway and headed left toward the house.

The house, like the pigeon, seemed to hold its breath as if in suspended animation, cool and dark and silent. Where was everybody? Without Kathleen’s bounding good cheer the kitchen sulked, abandoned. Samantha inexplicably felt abandoned, too. She took a turn through the rooms, fluffing already-fluffy pillows, straightening doo-dads that were not in disarray, preparing the house to picture-perfection should unexpected visitors drop by.

Surely Kathleen was back by now. Perhaps Samantha ought to walk up to the stables to see if she could use some help unhitching. No, of course not; Fat Dog would be putting away the wagon team, not Kathleen; besides, Mr. Sloan was certainly there now. It might appear as if Samantha were chasing after him. That would never do.

Her stroll along the beach had been quite pleasant. Why did Samantha feel so irritated, so out of sorts? Nothing in the day should have put her on edge like this … unless it was Mr. Sloan’s spy mission.

As Samantha returned to the empty kitchen, Linnet entered the back door. The girl looked like something a cat had dragged through a swamp. Chocolate-colored mud, green slime and putrid brown water spoiled her black skirt as well as her apron. Her hair hung in muddy strings where the bun had been teased loose.

“Linnet, whatever … ! Yer clothes are never going to come clean!”

She smiled broadly. “Fat Dog’s wife, a woman named … oh, what is her name? I forget. Anyway, she was showing me how to dig out these roots along the creek. Ye find them in swampy areas, ye see. She says they taste good roasted, but what she uses them for is to make her hair glossy soft. She says ye pound them and then rinse the juice through yer hair after ye’ve washed it.”

“Ye’re supposed to be laundering the bed linen and mending the ripped seam in that blue dust ruffle.”

“I’ll get it done.”

“Linnet, Mr. Sloan, he’s not paying ye to pursue roots through swamps. The work comes first; ye know that. Now go clean yerself up. Meself’s never seen such a royal mess. Sew up the dust ruffle and then start the washing. Perhaps if the man sees the ruffle’s mended, he’ll not think about the laundry. Run off now!”

“Meg’s right, Sam; ye fret too much about work. Nothing wrong with a spell away from work. Kathleen’s out enjoying a bit of a holiday herself, until time to start dinner. And she be as hard a worker as any.”

“She was up before dawn and deserves the break. Ye slept in to breakfast. Go get busy. And set those clothes to soaking, though I doubt it’ll do any good. They’re spoilt, ye know.”