Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (7 page)

“I wish to thank ye—express me gratitude—for coming to me rescue moments ago. I should never have walked to that part of the shore; ’twas pure foolishness. I would have gone the way of—” her voice stuck a moment—“of Kathleen, had ye not dispatched the beast so promptly and skillfully.”

He laughed. He threw his handsome head back and laughed so heartily even Samantha could feel a wee bit of his pleasure, though she hadn’t the foggiest notion why. “You were safe that far up the shore, Sam. I didn’t save you from as much as you think.” He sobered. “Kathleen must have waded out into the pool, probably with her shoes in her hand, much the way I saw you on the beach yesterday. She probably almost escaped its first attack—the blood and hat on the bank.”

“So that’s why ye forbade us going near the estuary. Linnet and meself. And Fat Dog said … I see now.” She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close away the constant, hideous buzz of the flies. “I am grateful anyway, Mr. Sloan, for yer concern.”

“And you’re very, very sorry you came.”

She opened her eyes. “Aye, I am that. But as I’ve already told ye, a Connolly can be trusted. I made the deal and I’ll stick it out to the end.”

“You’re a good woman, Sam.” He laid his warm hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze and shake. “A good woman.”

From the far side by the jackstraws, a man’s voice called out. “We found her.”

Mr. Sloan strode back out into the rain.

And the good woman sat down beside the buzzing butcherblock and buried her face in her apron and wept.

Chapter Five

Rotten Cane

For years now, postal service had been the responsibility of the new federal government, although each state still issued its own postage stamps. Unfortunately, no higher level of competence prevailed despite the change of leadership. Luke Vinson didn’t trust the postal service any further than he could finance it. He sent Martin Frobel a letter. He also sent a telegram. And at the last moment, almost certain something would go awry, he went himself.

An hour west of Townsville, Luke perched on top of a load of fetid green sugar cane as the sun beat on his head, and watched the flies work the sticky sap. He had abandoned chemistry and physics but they had not abandoned him.
In spite of myself,
he thought,
I can never help pondering a sticky, excuse the pun, problem in physics.

This was an open slat-side railroad car and the train’s velocity had to be close to thirty miles an hour. And yet, unless a fly flew above the top rail where the wind caught it and whipped it away, that insect, unattached to any surface, could zig and zag, hover or cruise, as if the train were standing still. There was a defined physical principle involved here, and Luke was certain that at one time he could have quoted it, but he could not for the life of him remember it. And while he racked his memory, the flies nonchalantly ignored the fact they were hurtling west at breakneck speed.

The fellow named Josip popped up like a jack-in-the-box from the back end of the train. He had worked his way forward, hopping from car to car, staggering drunkenly across the shifting loads until he could join Luke here.

Josip settled cross-legged on the pile and grinned. “Goot ting dis cane going in stakesides. Stink to high hebben. Inside closed boxcar, build up, and
poom
.”

“
Poom!
” Luke chuckled. “The dreaded cry of the chemistry lab. I’m contemplating flies and physics, but you’ve offered me a more pressing question: why don’t you fall off the train? This cane is treacherous footing indeed.”

“Fall off! Not yet. Tricky going is when you haf the open car of cows. Walk on cows’ backs, den it gets snakey. I don’ unnerstand why preacher-man rides on stinking cane. Come back to dem caboose. Haf a little drink, relax, don’ stink, eh?”

Luke grinned and spread his hands. “But I’m having a wonderful time up here. Blue sky, wide open spaces, wind in my face—”

“Also all dis smoke and soot. You don’ ride train much maybe, tinks is great, eh?”

“I rode the train constantly in Canada. That’s the way to get around there, especially in winter.”

“Snow. Snow, eh? Lahssa snow in winter there, right?”

“More snow than any man deserves.”

“Been long time I don’ see snow. Since old country. Miss it, sometimes.”

“No, not I. Look at me. It’s late April, we’re coming on winter here, and I don’t have a coat on. I don’t even own a winter coat anymore, Josip, and it’s glorious! No shoveling snow, no bundling up. No calculating the coefficient of friction of glare ice when all you want to do is get across the street. This is
my
kind of winter.”

“So you shovel cane. I seen you. And sit on stinking bundle. You hopeless.” Josip rearranged his seat in vain pursuit of comfort. “Where your friend? West a piece?”

“About a hundred miles out from Charter’s Towers, give or take some. Quite a cattle station he has, he and his brother. Both of them dinkum Aussie.”

Native Aussies, good colonial boys
. The distinction was still being made, but not as much anymore. A generation ago most of Australia’s population, barring aborigines, had been born under distant fealties. Today most Australians knew no other flag. History. And lack of it. It intrigued Luke. When the Hudson’s Bay Company was turning Luke’s native land from a wilderness into a civilization, this country had not yet begun.

Gentle slopes and open woodland gave way to prairie and broken patches of gray-green acacia. Six at night, dinnertime, they pulled into Frobel’s siding. Possibly someday it would be a town—Frobelsville, or Frobel’s Corner. Martin’s Landing, perhaps. Right now it was a siding.

Beside the stock tank, Martin Frobel himself sat astride his horse and watched the modest engine huff to a stop. He urged his old mare forward to meet Luke halfway.

Luke hopped off the car and crossed to him. He offered a hand and received a warm, friendly shake. “Which got here first, the letter or the telegram?”

Martin looked a bit blank. “Didn’t know you were coming. Just rode out here in case there was any mail. You’re welcome, though. More’n welcome. Hope you can stay awhile.” He nodded toward the train. “What’s all that?”

“Cattle feed. The letter will make things clear—if it ever arrives.”

Martin studied him a moment and rode over to a car. He stood in the stirrups, sniffed and touched. “Some larrikin’s got himself a lucky streak longer’n my line of credit.”

Josip yelled, “I get to do dis alone, eh?”

“Coming.” Luke would let Martin figure things out unaided. He could barely stand not staring at the old stockman’s face.

The weight of this wet green cane bulged the gates out and made pulling the pins more than a little difficult.
Talk about your basic coefficient of friction!
Luke thought. He was sweating profusely by the time they sprang the gate open on the first car. He and Josip let tumble out what would and pushed the rest out with coal shovels. One car unloaded, four to go, and it had taken fifteen minutes. They’d be here all night, and Luke was starved.

Josip must have been reading his mind. They took a breather before tackling car number two, and the railroader leaned on his shovel, grinning. “Look the goot side. You do dis on a railroad in New South Wales, eh? Different gauge. Irish gauge. Dese tracks tree feet six, but New South Wales, the tracks five feet tree. Trains twice as wide, hold twice as much. Take twice as long. We’re lucky, eh?”

“Aren’t we. On to the next.”

The engineer stepped down from his cab, in no hurry at all. The engineer does not, as part of his job, load or unload. “Marty. You got two letters and a telegram here. One from the Townsville Bank and one from some fellow named Vinson. And a package from your sister in Brisbane. Gotta sign that you got the package.”

“It’s the letter from that drongo Vinson that I wanna see.”

Luke cast an occasional glance toward the stockman and almost lost his thumb when the second gate gave way while he wasn’t paying attention. He watched Martin read his letter. He saw Martin wipe his eyes, but squatters are tough old cockies who would never in a million years admit to being misty-eyed. And then Martin, strong as new hemp, was in there helping with the unloading, and it all went much quicker.

The train departed and Luke had no idea where Josip was going to eat his dinner; he knew only it would be late, for the sun cowered close to the flat line, ready for the plunge. It was nearly seven by now.

Martin beamed like the noonday sun upon his long, long pile of cattle feed. “Still don’t quite understand where it come from.”

“I overheard a sugar grower tell his mill foreman to dump it. It’s apparently not good quality. I got the mill foreman aside and offered to take it off his hands, all of it. Knew you could use it. And the foreman was grateful. Didn’t have to bother with it.”

Martin grunted. He pulled a rifle from his scabbard. “You take the horse home, Luke. Send Jack to me with the hay wagons. All of ’em. Tell Grace I said she’s to feed you a seven-course dinner by candlelight. Tell her I’m gonna count the courses when I get back and it better be the full load and it better be extra grouse or there’ll be he—” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Keep forgetting you’re a revrin now.”

“You ride and I’ll walk, Marty. We’ll dine together.”

Martin grinned suddenly. “I ain’t leaving this pile of gold. It’s dusk. The kangaroos’ll be abroad now, and they’ll find this stuff in no time flat. But ain’t no ’roo in Queensland gonna get a taste of it. Go on now.”

Luke climbed on the mare. He didn’t even have to turn her head. She started off home with a relieved sigh. When he looked back over his shoulder, Martin was standing on top of the highest stack of cane looking for all the world like the bronze statue on a military monument, his rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. And he was smiling the smile of a hopeful man.

———

Not a bad place, Sloan, considering. Not a bad place at all. Assuming you can just hang on to it. And you do have to agree, the European women on the house staff make it a lot homier. You got clean socks when you want them, the place stays cleaner and the food’s better. Sloan’s harem. There are worse things to have, Cole, boy.

He simply sat on Gypsy awhile and let her squirrel around in place as he admired his major possession. From down here at the bend, with the house just barely in view up ahead, it looked majestic, almost a manor. Soon as he got a little further out of the hole, he’d fix the place up. Add to it. Patch the roof better where the pandanus blew down, maybe even replace the treadle organ. He didn’t play—didn’t know anyone who did—but it looked good sitting in the parlor there.

He could just barely see Linnet out in the side yard hanging bed sheets on the line. Cute little number, but a bit young for his taste. She seemed fragile—a delicate orchid you almost didn’t dare touch. On the other hand, youth is its own excuse for being desirable.

Margaret came up the side path with a basket of mangoes on her arm and continued around back, no doubt to the kitchen door. She couldn’t have been down visiting the minister again; Vinson was out of town. How should he handle this? Just let her go awhile and see if the infatuation faded? If he forbade her to get near that wowzer, she might set her hackles and slip around all the more. The Irish were noted for their temper and stubbornness and with her reddish hair she looked as Irish as a shamrock.

The postman had gone rattling up the lane in his pony cart just ahead of Cole. He reached the front door, then climbed down and knocked. Strange. Until recently he simply blew his horn and expected someone to come to him. New postal regulations? Sam answered the door, smiling. They swapped goodies, the mail for a slab of bread and jam. No, not new postal regulations. Greed. The woman did bake good bread.

The old galah climbed awkwardly into his cart, holding his bread high, and went his way. Sam leafed briefly through the mail, her willowy body draped against the doorjamb. Surely she must have a past. She was too good-looking to have escaped every suitor’s clutches over the years. What kind of man warmed up this cool, efficient housemaid with the razor-sharp mind and overworked sense of honor? She lurched erect and walked inside, closing the door behind her.

Cole eased up on the reins, and Gypsy needed no urging. She pressed forward, homeward. He paused again halfway up the lane. The house definitely needed something along this south wall. It looked flat, blank, unattractive. Plain. That’s it. Plain was for people who couldn’t afford fancy or didn’t care.

Bushes. He’d plant some sort of ornamental bushes there. Something imported.

Sloan dismounted near the corner of the house and swatted Gypsy on the rump. She cantered off up the hill toward the stable. He stepped from bright sun into cool gloom and had to wait in the foyer a minute until his eyes adjusted. The house even smelled homier. The aroma was bread fresh from the oven, and the postman had beaten him to it.

He stuck his head in the kitchen door. “Bring me a pot of tea and a slab of that bread.”

“G’day, sir. Jam or marmalade?” She was whacking apart a large orangish fish at the kitchen table. The fish was dinner, probably. And probably in mornay sauce.

“Better bring ’em both; it’s too important a decision to make casually.”

She grinned, bright as the coral sea. Did she have a crush on him? She seemed to perk up when he was around, but then, he didn’t know how perky she was when he wasn’t around. And she kept up this facade, this mien of servanthood. Hard to tell, not that it made much difference to him. The girls he hired often did. Kathleen had been the boldest in letting him know.

Sloan’s harem.

Sam had left Sloan’s mail in a neat stack on his desk. It waited for him, simply smacking of efficiency and businesslike procedure. He had seen her dossier with her employment history, but he couldn’t remember that she had ever performed office and clerical duties. Too bad. She’d be a natural.

He popped the top straps on his boots, swung his feet up on the desk and scooped the orderly stack into a haphazard pile in his lap. The Brisbane bank.
Now,
what did they want? A note from Chestley, the Sydney buyer. Probably bunging on an act about how bad things were and why Cole shouldn’t expect him to pay full price for raw crystal this season.