Little Girl Lost (2 page)

The Harley was quite something. A classic American muscle machine. It had a custom paint job – black and red flames covering the petrol tank. The polished chrome of the raised handlebars gleamed in the light of the late afternoon sun. The big headlight would send a brilliant shaft of light down the outback roads at night, no doubt encouraging the rider to ride the big machine hard and fast. The powerful engine was astonishingly clean. The Harley owner clearly loved his hog and spent a lot of time working on it. Except for one thing. Max frowned as he tried to read the bike’s reggo. The plates were covered with dried mud. He could even see the marks where someone had used their fingers to press the wet mud over the plate, making it impossible to read. There was only one reason why someone would do that.

Max glanced towards the pub. As Coorah Creek’s police chief and the only law enforcement officer for three hundred kilometres in any direction, he should check out the guy who rode this bike. Most of the mineworkers drank at the town’s only other pub, the Mineside. They didn’t mix too much with the townsfolk. It wasn’t a strict rule, but it seemed to work. The Mineside was a little rougher. The men could relax there without the need to mind their language. The Coorah Creek Hotel was more for the long-term residents of the town. And for families. The Harley owner either didn’t know that or else he didn’t care.

Max resisted the urge to run his fingers along the shining paintwork of the hog. As a rule, Harley owners didn’t like people touching their machines. Max didn’t want to start anything with this guy, not yet at least. He walked up the stairs into the pub.

The fans above the long wooden bar were not turning. By Queensland standards it was positively cool for this time of year, but spring wouldn’t last long. It was getting hotter every day. There were a handful of people in the bar, but Max knew them all. He nodded to acknowledge their hellos, and stepped up to the bar.

‘Well, hello, Max. Nice evening, isn’t it? Not too warm for this time of the year. The long-term weather forecast says we’re in for a really hot summer. They say that as if it’s something special. Or some kind of surprise. But I ask you, when did we ever have anything but a really hot summer. OJ?’ Trish Warren, the owner of the pub and its chief barmaid, was in her mid-sixties. A short, grey-haired woman with shrewd eyes and a mind to match, she knew he never drank beer when he was in uniform.

‘Thanks, Trish.’

Max cast a quick glance through the doorway from the public bar to the lounge. It was empty. Turning back to the bar, he noticed a half-finished beer slowly dripping condensation onto the highly polished wood of Trish’s bar. A leather biker’s jacket hung over a nearby bar stool. A black and red full-face helmet sat on top of it.

Trish placed a glass of juice in front of Max, following his glance to the beer.

‘I see what’s going on here. You’re looking for the Harley rider?’

Max shrugged.

Trish grinned. Max knew that grin. It usually meant Trish was up to something. She nodded her head in the general direction of the toilets at the back of the pub.

Max picked up his juice. He would wait. He braced himself for a verbal downpour from Trish. The publican was a good woman. Some said she was the heart of this small town. But she talked like no one Max Delaney had ever met. He had no idea how her husband Syd had lived with it all these years.

But Trish said nothing. With a smirk twitching the corners of her mouth, she went back to polishing glasses.

Max’s instincts went on an even higher alert. When Trish wasn’t talking, something was up.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye. He slowly turned to look at the figure walking towards him from the direction of the toilets.

The Harley owner was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, but looked nothing like any biker Max had ever seen. His first thought was how did someone so small and frail manage a big bike like the Harley? She was tiny. She would barely reach Max’s chin. And she was thin. He could see the shape of the bones on her shoulders. Her breasts were small but shapely under the tight white fabric of her top. Her hair was a dark mahogany colour, caught into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back. It was slightly ruffled, no doubt from wearing a motorcycle helmet. Max just knew her eyes would be green. They couldn’t be any other colour. Not if there was any justice in this world.

She should have been beautiful, but she was a little too thin and something about the way she walked robbed her of her beauty. She kept her head down, her shoulders hunched as if she was trying not to be noticed. She knew he was watching her, and glanced in his direction. Her eyes were indeed green, and reminded him of a wild animal, poised to fight or to run. But there was something else in those eyes. Something that suggested she was stronger than she looked. Something that suggested she could be dangerous.

She slid back onto her stool and reached for her glass. Her fingers were long and thin and devoid of either rings or polish on the nails. They looked as fragile as a bird’s wing. She raised the beer and took a long drink.

As she moved, the low curved neck of her T-shirt flexed and Max caught a hint of colour above her right breast. She had a tattoo. He couldn’t see it clearly and had no idea what the image might be. Max wasn’t a fan of tattoos, but that hint of colour was nothing if not sexy.

Max turned his eyes back to his own glass and let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding. From the moment he’d seen the Harley, he’d been afraid it meant trouble in his town. He was right. This girl was trouble, but not the sort of trouble he’d expected.

Tia kept her gaze on her beer glass as she turned it slowly in her hands.

The problem with the Harley was that it attracted all sorts of attention. She’d stayed in the mine compound since her arrival two weeks ago to avoid notice. Just her luck. Her first visit to the town and she runs into a cop. She took another drink, knowing this would be her first and last beer. Ordering a second would simply guarantee that the cop would be breathalysing her the minute she swung her leg over the bike. That would be a joke. She seldom drank much, and certainly wasn’t stupid enough to step onto the Harley when she was drunk. Nor was she stupid enough to give a cop any chance to pull her over. She knew enough about cops to stay well away from them.

‘Can I get you another beer or something to eat? The food here is pretty good,’ the grey-haired barmaid asked.

Tia shook her head. She had planned to grab a burger, but she wasn’t going to stay here with the cop. She’d get something to eat later, back at the mine mess. She drained the last of her beer and stood up. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the bar in front of her, she slung her jacket over her shoulder and picked up her helmet. As she turned towards the door, she couldn’t resist casting a quick sideways glance at the cop. He was making no attempt to hide the fact that he was staring at her. Her defences rose. Tia had no illusions about her looks. Men found her attractive. On more than one occasion she had been forced to use her looks to get herself out of trouble. But things were different now. She wasn’t that same girl any more. She didn’t like to be stared at. And certainly not by a cop. She had good reason not to like cops.

She walked out of the bar. Standing beside her bike, she shrugged into the leather jacket. Her helmet still in her hands, she slung one leg over the Harley and looked back at the pub. The cop was standing in the doorway, watching her. He was tall and fit. A few years older than her. During the quick look they had shared in the bar, she’d decided he was quite handsome, with tanned skin and dark eyes. He wasn’t one of the fat pigs she had met in the past, but he was still a cop. And cops were the enemy.

Tia pulled the helmet over her head, feeling an unexpected relief when she knew he could no longer see her face. She slipped on her leather gloves and hit the Harley’s starter. The engine roared into life. She felt the bike vibrating beneath her, like some animal waiting to be let loose.

She couldn’t resist. She gunned the engine and spun the bike, sliding the rear wheels and sending a small shower of loose gravel flying in the general direction of the pub. Then she roared off down the street, a hair’s breadth over the limit. In her mirrors she saw the cop still standing in the doorway of the pub, watching her taillight fade into the darkness.

She smiled as the hog carried her back towards the mine.

Sarah Travers wished she was coming home under different circumstances. It wasn’t going to be a happy homecoming. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t told her parents she was arriving on this afternoon’s train. She had left her bags at the station and decided to walk into town. She wanted to take the time to remind herself of everything she had left behind more than three years ago.

The huge arc of blue sky was somehow different here to the huge arc of blue sky on the coast. It seemed a brighter blue. Maybe that was because it rained so seldom. The few trees that survived this far west were more grey than green. In recent years, the Creek had acquired a better water supply and there were some patches of green lawn in places. But still red and brown remained the predominant colours.

She kicked a rock with the toe of her brown leather boots and watched it bounce along the red dust at the side of the road. She had forgotten about the dust. It got everywhere! No matter how much a person cleaned or how often they washed their car, that red dust ruled supreme. She paused for a second to bend over and touch the dirt. When she looked at her hand, her fingertips were stained red.

Sarah gazed with new eyes at her old school. She hadn’t spent a lot of time there. The mine had come to the town when she was fourteen years old. The school had followed not long after. Before the mine and the arrival of the internet, it was school-of-the-air for her, learning her lessons at home via shortwave radio, because a simple storekeeper couldn’t afford to send his daughter to boarding school. Not that she wanted to go. As a child she’d had an unshakeable belief that the Creek would always be her home.

She walked past the row of dilapidated old wooden homes that used to be the aboriginal housing, before the mine bought the land and the people moved on to better homes or, in some cases, back to their traditional lands. The paint had faded away and the bare timber was bleached white by the sun. The corrugated iron roofs were red with rust, and the windows were either boarded up or open to the elements. They’d been deserted for years, but no one had seen fit to pull them down. Although, as she looked closely, she could see places where some of the timber had been removed. She wondered if that was entirely legal. And if it wasn’t, did anyone care? The houses were a lot shabbier than she remembered. In fact, the whole town seemed somehow smaller now.

It was about two kilometres from the railway station to the intersection at the centre of town. Sarah wasn’t a tall girl and her short steps were not hurried. If anything she was dragging her steps because of what faced her. But at last she saw the landmark pub that sat on the northern side of the road she was following. The Coorah Creek Hotel was one of the town’s original buildings. It was surprisingly elegant for such a small town. Two storeys, with a wide veranda top and bottom. The wrought iron on the top storey was rare and beautiful and the whole building had an aura of being well cared for. It had been there when the mine came, and Sarah guessed it would be there long after the mine closed – as one day it surely must.

As she drew closer to the corner, she could see past the pub to the town’s main street, and the few shops that serviced the town. Beyond the street, the land rose slightly to give a view of the newer houses that stretched to the north. The people who lived in those houses had been brought in by the mine. They worked there, or supported those who worked there. There were far more houses than she remembered. That part of the town, at least, had grown in her absence.

Three years wasn’t really such a long time, and she had come home. Twice, although both visits had been short. She’d meant to come more often, but somehow she was always too busy. She did feel a little bit guilty that she hadn’t been back last Christmas. She’d had a chance to spend the holidays in Sydney with a friend and then to watch the New Year fireworks on the bridge. That was too good an opportunity to miss. It didn’t matter if she missed one holiday. Coorah Creek was always going to be here waiting for her. Exactly the same as it had always been.

She stopped walking to look at the building on the other side of the road. Her parents’ store was the only general store in town. It had expanded with the town to provide essentials not just for the outlying properties, but also for the new residents. It wasn’t exactly a Target or Woolworths, but it served the town well. Like the pub, it looked well cared for and prosperous. It was painted the same pale yellow that it had always been. The same wide awning shaded the big glass windows and front door of the building. The iron roof rose to a low peak, and was partly shaded by a huge gum tree that grew near the corner. From this angle, she couldn’t see the house behind the store. But in her mind’s eye she could see it. She assumed it too had barely changed. Tears pricked her eyes and she fought back feelings of guilt. She really hadn’t planned to be away for so long, but neither had she planned to be back here today. Bad news had a way of changing plans.

Sarah’s steps quickened. She was eager to see her mother and father. Especially her father.

She stepped into the shade under the awning outside the shop windows, and hesitated for a heartbeat. Just long enough to ensure her emotions were under control. Then she stepped inside.

Gina Travers was serving someone at the front counter. She hadn’t changed. She was, like Sarah, quite small and thin. There was more grey in her hair than Sarah remembered, but the look on her face when she saw her daughter was exactly what Sarah expected.

‘Sarah!’ Gina dropped what she was doing and bustled out from behind the counter. She wrapped her arms around Sarah in a breathtakingly tight hug.

Sarah hugged her back, surprised to find she was almost about to cry.

‘Sorry it took so long, Mum,’ she said, her voice muffled against her mother’s shoulder. ‘But it’s good to be back now.’

‘And it’s good to have you back, honey.’ Her mother’s voice cracked with emotion.

Behind them, the customer, a middle-aged woman Sarah didn’t know, cleared her throat.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Gina wiped a hand over her suspiciously bright eyes. ‘It’s my daughter just arrived home after being away at college.’

The woman smiled absently.

‘I’d better get on,’ Gina said to Sarah. ‘Why don’t you go out back and see your dad. He’s in the lounge.’

‘Okay.’

Sarah turned to go.

‘Honey,’ her mother’s voice stopped her. ‘Your dad …’ The soft whisper trailed off to nothing.

Sarah nodded. She knew what to expect. She was prepared for this.

She opened the door almost hidden between two rows of shelves at the back of the shop and walked through the big storeroom, packed to the ceiling with brown cardboard boxes of everything from canned spaghetti to shoe laces and ice cube trays. Another door led out of the store itself, along a short covered walkway to the big timber house that Sarah still thought of as her home, despite the fact that she no longer really lived there. The kitchen door was, as always, unlocked. Sarah breathed in deeply as she entered and stood in the kitchen, surrounded by the sights and smells of her childhood. The place was exactly the same: the bright colour of the cabinets her father had painted, the sun streaming through the window onto the immaculately clean table, and the wonderful smell of home-cooked biscuits.

Sarah moved swiftly across the kitchen, through the open doorway into the lounge. She stopped when she saw her father. She thought she was prepared, but she wasn’t. Not for this. There was no way she could have been. Tears poured unchecked down her face.

Her father was asleep in a big reclining armchair. The chair was new, but the man in it looked old. Too old. Illness had stripped her father of his weight and his strength and his youth. His face was thin, and his hair had turned completely grey. His short-sleeved cotton shirt hung loosely on him and the hands lying so still on the armchair looked almost skeletal. For the first time in Sarah’s memory her father was not wearing his watch. He’d always run his days by the big silver watch that seemed permanently affixed to his left wrist. That watch told him when to open the store and when to close it. When his small daughter should be at her lessons. When the transport would arrive with supplies to restock his shelves. That bare wrist almost broke her heart.

She now understood why he’d missed her graduation last month. When her mother had come to the ceremony alone, Sarah had been both surprised and hurt. She’d always imagined both parents would be there. After all, they were the ones who had encouraged her to go to college in the first place. He mother had made excuses for Ken’s absence, saying he couldn’t get away from the shop. There was also mention of the flu. Gina had taken a million photographs to show him, but Sarah had sensed there was something wrong. That suspicion had prompted her to cut short a post-graduation holiday and come home instead. She was so glad she had.

A small sound near her feet dragged Sarah’s shocked eyes away from her father. A big ginger cat was rubbing himself enthusiastically against her legs.

‘Hi, Meggs,’ she whispered as she bent to pat him, her heart crying out against the unfairness that had seen the cat change not one whit, while her father had become an old man. Old and frail.

How sick was he?

In a heartbeat her grief was swamped by anger. She spun on her heel and walked back into the store. Her mother was still finishing up with her customer. Sarah waited impatiently until the front door had closed behind the woman, before turning on her mother.

‘What is it? Cancer?’

Her mother nodded. ‘Lymphoma.’

‘You didn’t tell me that. You just said he was sick. Why didn’t you tell me it was cancer?’

‘Honey, he asked me not to.’

‘But if I’d known I would have come home earlier.’

‘Don’t you see? We didn’t want you to. We wanted you to finish your exams first, with nothing to distract you.’

‘He’s my father!’ Sarah had to fight to keep from shouting. ‘Nothing is more important to me than that. I would happily have walked away from college.’

‘Yes. I know you would.’ Gina Travers took a deep breath and crossed her arms. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. You had to finish—’

‘But—’

‘For HIS sake!’ Gina overrode her daughter’s objections. ‘He has worked hard all his life to give you a better chance than he had. Than we had. There was no way I was going to let you disappoint him by walking away before you graduated.’

‘That’s not fair. How could you not tell me that he’s dying?’

‘Don’t say that!’ Gina’s face contorted with anger and her words were like a slap in the face for Sarah. ‘Don’t say that. Ever. Not to me. And not to him. He’s not dying. I won’t let him.’

Sarah was shocked by the outburst; she had so seldom seen her mother angry. Gina was shaking slightly and Sarah realised that her anger was stirred by fear. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her mother.

‘I’m sorry, Mum. I won’t say it again. I promise.’

Gina leaned against her daughter for a few seconds. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured softly. Then with an obvious effort of great will, she pulled herself upright and took a deep breath. ‘It’s good that you are here. Your father has to go to Toowoomba for chemotherapy every month. He gets very tired, so it will be better if I can go with him.’

‘You drive all that way?’

‘No. Chris, the mine manager, lets your dad go on the FIFO plane. It’s very kind of him.’

Sarah felt a moment of guilt. Other people had been more help to her parents than she had. Well, that was about to change. She looked closely at her mother, seeing for the first time the lines on her face, the shadows under her eyes. She had lost weight too. Gina had always been a slender woman. Now, like her husband, she looked frail.

‘Now that I’m here, Mum, do you want to take a break? I can look after the shop for you.’

Gina smiled and shook her head. ‘You’ve just arrived. Take some time for yourself. Spend some time with your father. There’ll be plenty of other days for you to mind the shop for me.’

Reluctantly, Sarah agreed. But she didn’t want to go back into the house. She needed a few minutes to herself to absorb all the terrible things she had learned. She left the shop by the rear door, turned left and walked to the water tank that sat behind the shop. In the wet season the huge tank collected enough water from the large shop roof to keep the family supplied throughout the dry months. The town had a proper water supply now, but the old-timers like the Travers family still used their rainwater tanks for drinking water. It had its own special taste that Sarah had never found anywhere else.

As a kid, Sarah had liked to climb the water tank and on to the roof of the shop. In one corner the shade from the tall gum tree made the iron roof cool enough to sit on. She’d spent long hours up there, staring up and down the long highway that passed through the Creek, waiting for her knight in shining armour to come along and rescue her. She smiled a small fond smile. Her younger self had even found a knight in the form of a handsome young truck driver who delivered supplies to the store on a weekly run. She’d changed since then. Three years in the city had expanded her horizons. The girl who had always believed her future was here in the Creek now had thoughts of travelling and exploring the world. Maybe even finding a real knight out there somewhere.

If ever she could use a knight, she thought, this was the time.

All the possibilities of her future were on hold now. She was needed here. And here she would stay.

Sarah turned and walked back into the house to sit by her father and wait for him to wake.