Dream Time (historical): Book I (23 page)

“I’d wager no one has ever seen him do it,” she said with equally dry humor.

Her humor was short-lived. Sin and Johnson made their last pass at the tree. Her lungs suspended action. Dust flurried. Why was it so important to her that Sin win? The dust cleared and applause rippled through the spectators. Johnson’s ax had found its mark, besting Sin’s aim by the breadth of a centimeter.

Her pent-up breath zephyred from between her lips.

“I get the dance with your husband,” the heavy-jowled woman crowed.

“It will be his good fortune,” Celeste replied pleasantly and politely.

Sin cantered over, an easy smile on his lips. Perspiration dotted his upper lip and dampened his shirt so that it clung to his torso, emphasizing the breadth of his chest and his stomach’s corrugated muscles.

Afraid he would catch her staring, Amaris quickly glanced away. She had thought she was over her gauche days, but now she was finding herself tongue-tied—and over nothing. Nothing had happened between them. She had simply become aware of him in a sexual way.

He leaned from the saddle and presented Celeste with his ax. “In the days of courtly love, the triumphant knight presented his lady with a jeweled crown or something similar. I am the vanquished knight, but would me fair damsel accept me battle weapon along with me humble regrets.”

Celeste smiled up at him. Amaris thought the young woman had never looked so beautiful. “You will always be the champion of my heart, Sir Sin.”

Amaris rose, brushed off her skirts, and excused herself. “I think I’ll take a nap before the festivities tonight, Francis.”

She didn’t even wait for his reply. She knew she was behaving churlishly. Instead of enjoying the three-day outing, she had become self-conscious and unable to relax. That she would revert to such childish behavior aggravated her.

Feeling restive, she forewent the nap and strolled through the grounds. On the veranda, guests played cards or discoursed. Rather than have to invent excuses, she rambled farther from the big house.

For days she had looked forward to visiting the major’s station and mixing with the other squatters and station hands. Now she only yearned for the seclusion and silence of Dream Time.

She wandered down to the bank of Wallabee Creek to inspect the major’s new wash pen. She had to lean over the bridge to view better the suspended stage for the washers. The station hands were then lowered into a pen that was waist deep in the rushing water. The creek’s current washed the sheep’s wool, which, when clean, resulted in cheaper freight than wool made heavy by dirt and grease.

Her lace underskirts, her only petticoat, caught on a nail. Cursing beneath her breath, she bent to unsnag the lace—and lost her balance. She fell against the railing. She felt the rough timber skin her cheekbone, then heard the cracking as the railing gave way.

Her fall was broken by the pen below, which kept her from being swept downstream. Gagging on water she had swallowed, she fought to stand upright. Her heavy skirts, thoroughly wet now, were entangled around her legs and the railings. Her left shoulder felt bruised and both knees stung as if scraped.

“Well, bugger it!” she said. “Of all the bloody—”

Laughter interrupted her cursing.

Her gaze darted toward the bank. Sin stood there, arms akimbo, legs spread in that arrogant stance of his. “Are you going to stand there like a bloody fool,” she sputtered, “or are you going to help me?”

“Ahh, so you’re the helpless female now.”

“You damned insolent paddy.”

He turned and began climbing the tree-fringed embankment.

“Wait!”

He peered over his shoulder. Those long-lashed eyes danced. “You wanted me?”

“Damn it, Sin, aye!”

He gave that one-sided grin. Its sheer masculinity sucked the last vestige of breath from her lungs. At that moment, hardly a passionate moment, she realized that it was the force of his masculinity that threatened. Her father had been something of a passive male. She could deal with him. She didn’t know how to deal with Sin, or maybe it was that she didn’t know how to deal with the feelings he aroused within her.

He waded alongside the chute that funneled the washed sheep back up to the bank. Soon, water poured over his knee-high Hessians.

Waiting, she clung to the railing. She never took her eyes off him. He waded into the water and climbed through the chute. At last he reached her and scaled the pen to drop inside with her.

Neither of them moved. She realized the very thing she had been avoiding during the holiday festivities had happened: coming face to face with him when no one else was around. He was within arm’s reach. At that instant, she wanted to be held in his muscular arms. Had he embraced her, she would not have resisted. But he did not.

The realization of how close she was to capitulation panicked her; she wondered what had happened to her self-control.

“Well, are you going to help me?” she demanded. Her breathlessness was the only evidence of how much he unsettled her and hopefully he would attribute that to her present circumstances.

“I am mightily tempted not to.”

Still gripping the railing, she glared at him. “My hands are getting tired of holding on.”

“The pen won’t let you go anywhere.”

“Sin!”

He grunted. “All right. Turn your back to me somewhat so that I can unhook your skirt fasteners.”

“What?”

“There is no way I could lift you out of the pen, me luv. Not weighted down as you are by those wet skirts.”

Me luv? Memory of Rose calling her by that endearment stung tears behind Amaris’s eyes. Docilely, she did as he bade.

His fingers were dexterous for being so large, and soon he worked her skirts and petticoats down over her hips and thighs so that they were swirling around her high button shoes.

He straightened. His gaze followed his ascent, taking in her state of semi-undress—her damp, revealing pantalettes; her breasts, barely covered by her camisole. Even so, her wet nipples had hardened and were thrusting against the material.

Why, with him, was she always so intensely aware of her womanhood?

“Well? You’ve seen me in pants and a shirt before. This isn’t so much different!”

As if dazed by a punch, he blinked, refocused on her face, and said in a voice as grating as a rusted wagon wheel, “You know better than that, Amaris.”

He reached past her shoulder and pulled on the rope that lifted the chute gate. “Grip the railing, and you can work your way to the bank.”

Without glancing at her again, he led the way through the narrow chute. Hand over hand, she hauled herself along in his wake. Splinters poked into
her palms. After a half-dozen steps, the water level lowered abruptly so that she no longer needed to hold on. She followed in Sin’s long striding footsteps until she and he reached dry land.

“Wait,” she called.

He stopped but did not turn around. She stalked past and whirled to face him. “You’re running away.”

“Celeste is your friend.”

She took a deep breath. “She’s more than that. She’s my half-sister.”

His voice came out in a
corked whisper. “What?”

“My
half-sister. But if she were to ever learn that fact, it would devastate her. I know you love her, so please for her sake—”

“Aye, I do.”

Suddenly, she felt deflated. Had she been hoping he would deny his love for Celeste?

“Would you care to tell me how this blood tie came about?”

“No. Yes. Maybe someday. But you’re right. This wanting of you can only end up hurting everyone concerned.”

There it was—out in the open—the acknowledgment of her desire for him. She felt unworthy.

Pushing back the hair that plastered her forehead and cheeks, she glanced down. Not until that moment did she realize that a veritable pool of water was forming around her and Sin. As his had with her, her gaze traveled up the length of his long legs and halted on his crotch. The wet nankeen material clung to the distinct bulge there. She smiled. “It seems nature has taken its course with both of us.”

He looked down, then back at her. A slow smile
started at the end of one comer of his mouth and erupted into a full grin. “Nature has exposed both of us for shams. Shall we start back?”

As she donned her dress and petticoats, her relief spilled out into her laughter. Sin’s grin answered hers. Together yet forever separated by a tacit, mutual agreement, they returned to the big
house.

§ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN §

The gala at the major’s was a turning point for Amaris. From that time on, she committed herself to Dream Time and to her husband. Somehow, by acknowledging her attraction, she was freed from it.

Gradually, Dream Time began to prosper to the point where she and Francis were able both to pay Baluway a monthly salary and to hire two shepherds, fellow tribesmen of Baluway’s, as well as a new cook.

Molly had gone to live with Jimmy that fall at Never-Never, and Celeste took pity and hired her as cook. The new cook Amaris hired was Ryku, a cousin of Baluway’s. The tattooed young woman was comely. Amaris found it difficult to believe she was a relative of the ugly little gnome Baluway.

In her own way, Amaris was content. She now had more time to devote to making the rustic house a
home and to becoming more a wife and less a business partner to her husband.

In trying to love Francis more, she discovered that it wasn’t that difficult. The outback had taken the vapid, inexperienced young man and forced him to overcome challenges, which gave him confidence.

Sitting across the dinner table from him one evening, she listened as he proudly described his effort to lay a boundary line for the paddock he was fencing.

“When it was dark, I had Baluway light a fire at one end of our paddock, and I lit one at the other. Then we started out with our lanterns and worked toward each other, mounding a cairn of stones as we went. As long as we kept the distant fire and the other’s lantern in line, we were pegging a straight boundary.”

“What a marvelous idea, Francis.” She put down her spoon and leaned forward, her chin in her palm. “How did you come up with that?”

He grinned. “I was forced to cross a creek downstream from where we should have been laying the line. The water made me think about the ocean. From there, I recalled ships at sea and how they signal at night.”

She touched his hand, sunburnt to a brown only slightly lighter than that of Ryku. “I am most fortunate to have you for a husband.”

And she meant it.

To add to her contentment, she received a letter, written over two months before, from Rose and William. They had decided to join her and Francis. With Dream Time as a base, her adoptive parents wanted to make treks into the wild Never-Never to convert the aborigines.

For several days, s
he stayed around the house, pacing the veranda, with Rogue dogging her endless steps. She had other duties that demanded her time, but she would stare off into the blinding sunlight for sight of a dust spiral, sometimes a signal of approaching visitors.

Or merely a whirlwind, a haunting memory of Sin.

Just as she began to worry that something might have happened to William and Rose, Baluway rode in with news he had spotted their dray coming up Bitter Creek Valley.

Like a whirling dervish, she began cooking and baking. Suddenly, the house that had seemed adequate for her and Francis looked woefully bleak. Like Celeste, Rose possessed that knack for arranging a vase of wild flowers or embroidering a colorful throw pillow to brighten the austere rectory house.

Rose’s cherished proverb “Cleanliness is next to godliness” spurred Amaris to scour the place spotless. The house hadn’t been that clean since the first weeks after it was built.

At last the dray rolled into the yard. Amaris was there waiting. Tears streamed down her face at the sight of her parents, looking much older under the duress of the six-week journey.

They climbed down from the dray in movements made stiff by long sitting. Amaris ran down the veranda steps and enveloped the two. “Mother, Father!”

She would always think of them so. They might not have been responsible for her birth, but they had parented her—and done so with hearts full of love.

“Stand back, Amaris,” William said. Tears glistened in his rheumy eyes. “Let me get a good look at you.”

Smiling, she stepped back.

“H’ain’t she looking grand, Willy!” Rose said, staring up adoringly at her daughter. “How strong and healthy you are, me luv.”

Her mother, she noted, was plumper, far from the image of William’s pet name for her, Elfin. “Come on inside. I’ve been expecting you for days now. I had begun to worry. Did you have any trouble with the aborigines?”

“No,” William said, assisting Rose up the veranda’s short flight of steps. “Not with the aborigines but with bushwhackers. Three of them were determined to be thieves and make off with our horses.”

“And leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere!” Rose added indignantly.

“But I convinced them that if they repented, they would be forgiven just as surely as Jesus forgave the thief on the cross.”

“They left the horses?” she asked, leading them inside. “Who would have believed—”

“Oh, our horses they be leaving alone,” Rose said dryly. “But the wicked men made off with the rectory’s donations for starting our mission out here.”

“The bushwhackers are getting bolder by the day. Sit down, and I’ll pour tea. I had our Ryku put a pot on as soon as I saw your dray’s dust.”

“Ryku?” William asked.

“Our cook. She’s aborigine. And as beautiful as any English debutante.”

Rose settled her plump body into the rocking chair she had given Amaris as a wedding present. William lodged his lanky frame on one of the hardwood chairs. He was almost completely bald now with only fringes of graying hair flecked with brown.

“Does one ever become accustomed to the emptiness, to going where no one has ever been?” he asked.

Laughing, Amaris handed each of her parents a cup and saucer. “That’s hardly the case. I’ll ride after stray sheep, through gullies and ravines as far as my horse Wind Runner will carry me, then climb down sheer cliffs and push through narrow passes overgrown with brush. I’ll be thinking I am walking where no human has ever tread. Then I’ll come upon a rusted matchbox or a druggist’s colored bottle.”

“Where is Francis?” he asked, just realizing her husband’s absence.

“He’s in the south paddock.” She took a seat opposite her parents, and Rogue curled up at her feet. “He should ride in by dusk.”

Rose took a sip of her tea. “Hmmmm. Your Ryku brews a tasty pot, me luv.” One veined hand stroked the scrolled arm of the rocking chair. “I have often imagined you rocking a wee one in this chair.”

She could feel herself blushing. It was as if she were a little girl again. “Not so soon, Mama. Francis and I haven’t even been married five years yet. There’s still so much to do here before I could ably care for a baby. I can cut back when stores become short. An infant couldn’t.”

William smiled indulgently. “If you wait for the perfect time, I can tell you now it never comes.”

She leaned over to scratch Rogue behind the ears.

She felt uncomfortable discussing childbearing. She had often wondered why she hadn’t conceived. She supposed she could be much worse off. The week before, Celeste had just lost her second child, a boy she had carried almost full term. Sin had buried it and built a cairn over the grave to keep out the dingoes.

“How are Celeste and Sin doing?” Rose asked, as if reading her daughter’s mind. “In one of your letters, you mentioned they were your closest neighbors.”

“Almost twenty kilometers separate our homesteads. Celeste isn’t doing that well, Mama. She has lost two children now who arrived before they were due. I am more concerned about her hea—”

She broke off as Baluway crashed through the door. Rose screamed and William sprang upright from his chair. “Fire!” the aborigine gasped. “Big fire! Wallabee Plains.”

“Oh my God!” Amaris exclaimed.

“Amaris!” William reproached, disappointment clouding his lined face.

She grabbed her hat and headed for the door. “Father, you haven’t seen a bush fire. That was a prayer I uttered, believe me.”

Baluway and Rogue followed at her heels as she raced for the stable. “Get the water cart!” she yelled over her shoulder to him.

She grabbed a dozen gunnysacks that had been stored for this purpose and rushed to the stables and the horse Sin had insisted on giving her for her help with Celeste.

Scarcely was Wind Runner saddled, than she was astride and riding into the yard. William and Rose stood on the veranda, watching Baluway harness Renegade to the wagon cart.

“Can we help?” her father called.

“Yes! Find all the pans and pots and tubs—anything that will hold water. Fill them from the creek. It’s just beyond that line of trees behind the house. Be ready to use them should the fire change directions and race this way. The ewes that are lambing—drive them from the lambing pen.”

That was all she could think of in the extremity of the moment. She spurred Wind Runner’s flanks. The black cloud layering the sky was clearly her destination, maybe fifteen kilometers distance.

The midafternoon sun was hot, but the very air grew hotter, heating her cheeks as she galloped into what amounted to an open furnace. Baluway’s water cart dropped farther behind her.

By the time she was close enough to see orange tongues of flame dancing across the plains, Wind Runner was blowing foam, and her face felt seared.

Sunlight was no longer visible. A score of kangaroos, fleeing the area, bounded past her. The crackling of the fire sounded paradoxically like a heavy downpour of rain. Only the nauseating odor of singed vegetation belied the illusion.

Human silhouettes sprinted across the orange-red backdrop. She kneed Wind Runner in their direction and passed two other water carts driven in from nearby stations.

At the blast of heat, her mount pranced nervously. Behind her, Renegade whinnied with fear. “You’re not ready to be put out to pasture yet, old boy,” she called to him.

“Over here!” one of the dozen figures shouted.

The identity of the person was unknowable because of the soot blackening his face. Then she identified him as the man called Johnson, the overseer from Brighton cattle station who had competed against Sin at the major’s January 26th celebration.

Dismounting, she yanked one of the gunnysacks from the roll strapped to the saddle. Close behind her, she heard Baluway’s wagon rolling to a halt. It took only a moment to tie Wind Runner to the wagon and dampen her sack from the water cart. Baluway had climbed down from the wagon seat and was doing the same. Together they raced toward Johnson and the others.

As they drew nearer the wall of flames, she felt as if her skin were raising in blisters. Ahead of her, patches of fire appeared to leap magically from grass clump to grass clump.

At once she started swinging the dampened sack. She worked methodically and mindlessly, beating back an advancing line of flame in one spot, then turning to another. Her eyes stung. Sweat beaded her skin only to evaporate instantly.

Every few minutes, she would return to her cart to redampen her gunnysack or grab for another if the old one was burned beyond use, then go back to the line of flames. They were burning a path that would eventually consume Dream Time.

Occasionally she looked up and glimpsed working alongside her friends, their faces as smudged and tired-looking as hers: Jimmy, Sykes, Thomas, Lemuel, Brantwell.

Then she’d focus once more on swinging the sack. Along with the others, she thrashed the flames until she was blacker than a chimney sweep. Everyone would rush in upon the fire for a few moments and then retreat, choked and breathless.

People were arriving in a continual stream to help fight the fire. Some she did not recognize but were most likely recently hired blokes from the surrounding stations. There was a mateship tie here. Laboring side by side were ex-convicts and native-born Australians. The distinctions between them held little significance in the bush. The people probably knew little and cared little about each other’s origins.

When the soles of Amaris’s boots began smoking, she retired to the water cart to douse them. Steam hissed up. She began laughing.

Suddenly, the energy that had been galvanized by the crisis fizzled. Weakness sapped her remaining energy, and she braced her hands on the rim of the wagon wheel.

From behind, other hands gripped her upper arms. “You all right, me luv?”

Her head swiveled, and she looked over her shoulder up into Sin’s smoke-smudged face. The flames’ light danced in his indigo eyes. The exigency of the moment ignited its own exhilaration in his powerful face. That exhilaration leaped like the wildfire to her, rejuvenating her once more. She grinned up into that lively gaze. “I am now.”

Smoke swirled around them. He continued to hold her. The moment seemed an eternity. Courage, the capacity to work hard and survive in a hostile and harsh environment, were qualities they could recognize in each other—and this recognition drew them together.

Sin lowered his head. His lips barely brushed hers.

What happened next, she had not anticipated: that total merging of her body and mind into a powerful energy force. The result was disorienting.

Dizzy, she clung to him. Their bodies pressed against each other, seeking to unify completely. At that first kiss he had bestowed on her years before, she had withheld herself.