Outback Sunset, page 17
‘When the moon comes up, one of us has to drive back to Amaroo and tell Curtis,’ Nova, who’d automatically taken charge, decreed gloomily.
Why hadn’t she told Vanessa to follow her when she’d ridden off to warn Tony? Vanessa being lost out in the bush wasn’t going to show her in a good light. Those who lived at Amaroo had expectations of her, especially Curtis. Bloody Vanessa, she cursed her roundly and silently, because she knew she would receive everyone’s censure for Bren’s wife being lost. Damn it all to hell, this was something she didn’t need, now or ever.
‘That’ll take all night. Why not wait till morning? We might pick up her trail before we have to alarm everyone,’ Tony suggested.
‘What if we don’t?’ she threw back. ‘If Amaroo doesn’t know till half way through the morning there’ll be fewer daylight hours for the choppers to search. It’s better that they know tonight.’
‘It’s my fault, I suppose. I’m the fool who lost the uhf hand-held, racing to get away from the storm,’ Tony admitted. He grimaced as he rubbed his thigh, because the leg he’d broken a while ago ached after a full day in the saddle.
‘That was an accident, mate. We were all trying to outrun the storm. No one’s gonna point a finger at you for that.’ Warren tried to make Tony, who shared the stockman’s quarters with him, feel less guilty. ‘Could have been any one of us.’
‘Reckon Curtis and Bren mightn’t see it that way,’ Tony muttered, his craggy features glum.
An impatient Nova interrupted their debate. ‘That’s not important now. We have to concentrate on informing Amaroo, quickly! As I have the best idea as to which way Vanessa went, I’ll go back. Agreed?’ She looked at both men, one eyebrow raised, waiting for their reply. They both nodded in agreement.
As soon as Warren dished the stew out she tucked into the hot meal. She ate in silence, but all the while she worried about the development with Vanessa. The woman was capable — hadn’t she watched her grow and develop new skills since she had come to Amaroo — but being alone in the bush, unsure of what to do, would really test the Englishwoman’s fortitude.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hell’s bells, I don’t believe it. Stuart and his bloody boat — they’re out of hf range,’ Curtis told Nova as he sat at the desk in the office. He clicked the microphone off and threw the pencil he’d been doodling with onto the desk’s mahogany surface, frustration evident in his gesture. ‘Diane said she’s been trying to contact Stuart since last night because he didn’t call in as usual. She can’t raise them and this isn’t the first time he’s gone off the air. Some problem with the electronics equipment. Damned annoying.’
Nova had driven most of the night and arrived at Amaroo after sunrise to raise the alarm. She looked and was, exhausted. ‘Fran can keep trying to contact Bren. It’s more important that we get the choppers up and locate Vanessa quickly.’ She glanced at him, saw his anger, and her gaze skittered away again. ‘Should we ask Simon at Linford Downs to join the search?’
‘Good idea and time is of the essence, so they say,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll call Simon now and ask him. Reg can take the older Robinson, I’ll take the newer one.’ He pulled open a drawer and took out a map of the station’s perimeters. ‘Let’s go over this again. Where do you think she might have gone?’
Nova pointed to where they’d been herding the mob and where the dust storm had blown in. ‘I’m coming with you. If she isn’t found today …’ Nova began but then hesitated. She didn’t want to finish the sentence but she didn’t have to — they both knew. Vanessa could be injured, and if that were the case she might be in a bad way physically and mentally if she wasn’t found today.
Curtis stared, his glance raking from the top of Nova’s head down to her boots. ‘Like hell you are. You’re done in.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘You need several hours sleep, Nova, four at least.’
Nova’s shoulders slumped forward as she sought to plead. ‘But … ’
His words came out as a half growl. ‘No buts. The state you’re in, you’re no good to me or anyone else. Get some sleep. Later, you can relieve Fran and take over the hf.’ He saw tears in her eyes and his voice softened as he added, ‘You know I’m right.’ A muscular arm went around her shoulder and he gave her a brotherly hug. ‘Reg and I will find Vanessa and we’ll do it today.’
Nova watched him stride out of the homestead’s office, and when he was out of sight she collapsed into the desk’s chair and, overwrought, burst into tears. Curtis hadn’t laid any blame on her, Tony or Warren, but as she’d driven through the night, a sense of guilt regarding Vanessa’s disappearance had multiplied, not so much because Bren’s wife was unaccounted for, but for what Curtis would think of her. That he would be disappointed in her was something she couldn’t bear to think about. What she had done had been done with the best of intentions and in hindsight — a wonderful but useless attribute — she should have had Vanessa ride with her instead of directing her south. Vanessa wasn’t like the rest of them, not yet. She didn’t know the country as well as others at Amaroo, she lacked experience to survive with bush know-how!
Curtis, when he took the time to analyse what had happened would realise that and apportion some blame for this situation to her. Christ, she didn’t need him to think badly of her when she wanted him to fall in love with her. She didn’t need that at all.
Bren sat harnessed into the padded, rotating chair at the back of Stuart’s boat. They were in deep water, approximately forty kilometres off the coast and roughly level with the town of Derby though they couldn’t see it. Stuart’s sonar, his ‘fish finder’, had picked up a school of large fish which possibly included marlin, and they were cruising at a low speed in the middle of them waiting for a bite. He squinted as he stared at the deep blue ocean. The sun had been up for an hour, the swell was smooth, conditions perfect for the kind of fishing they planned to do. Stuart had said that all he had to do was hook one and play the fish till it tired, then haul it into the boat.
He grunted to himself. Stuart made it sound easy but he knew it wasn’t. They had gone deep-water fishing when he and Vanessa had been in Broome and he had loved the challenge of it. Real man stuff and very different to herding cattle. He should be feeling guilty for being here, enjoying himself, instead of being on the muster, but he didn’t. Sometimes a man needed time off, away from the tedium of doing the same chores year in, year out. That was something his uncle understood but he knew Curtis didn’t.
At times he envied Stuart’s kind of life. A successful businessman and recognised as such, he had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it; hence this toy — the twelve metre cruiser with its powerful twin engines, capable of taking the six-berther wherever he chose to direct it. Thinking of boats, and being on the water, made him recall the time he and Vanessa had taken her friend’s barge to Oxford. That had been his first experience on the water. It was different to what he was doing now, but, Christ, he had enjoyed it. He smiled as he released several more metres of line, trolling the lure. The best part had been being with Vanessa and them making love for the first time.
Vanessa. Where would he be without his clever wife? His grin widened as he thought about what she had achieved since she’d come to live at Amaroo. She was becoming quite the outback woman and relished the challenges that came with living in a rough, inhospitable land. Now she had her chopper licence — she’d passed the test — that would make her more independent. She could visit Lauren and her boys, get to know her sister-in-law better. His wife continued to surprise him with her ability to learn new skills, and she surprised Curtis too! He chuckled under his breath as he thought that. His brother was, grudgingly, amazed at how she’d settled in, even if he remained unwilling to admit that she was doing well.
The index finger of his right hand, lightly touching the line, felt it go taut then the tip of the rod bent downwards. Something had taken his bait and it was big. He braced his feet against the bar bolted to the deck, put there for that purpose, and gave his quarry some slack then he reeled in, a little at a time. Suddenly there was a splash and about forty metres southwest of the stern a fish jumped clear of the water — a blue marlin. It was a bloody beauty.
Stuart came to the stern and put his hand on Bren’s shoulder. ‘Don’t rush. It has more strength than you do. You have to tire it out, play it, reel it in a little at a time.’
‘Yeah, I hope I can do that before it tires me out.’
Stuart laughed. ‘By the way, the ship to shore’s still on the fritz. Bloody thing’s probably short-circuited.’
Bren threw him a glance. Stuart was a better than average handyman who could fix most mechanical problems. ‘Should we be worried?’
Stuart shrugged his shoulders. ‘No, before we left I told Diane where we were going and how long we’d be. She’ll be cranky that I didn’t call in last night, but she knows that sometimes boats get out of range. We’ll have another day here, then put what we catch in the boat’s freezer and head back. Okay?’
‘Mmm, Curtis will be pissed off. I’ll miss the muster.’
Stuart’s gaze hardened. ‘So what? He can handle things and you need some R and R. Surely he doesn’t begrudge you that? There’s a lot of pressure running a station the size of Amaroo.’
‘True,’ Bren was quick to agree. His uncle understood the pressures, much better than Vanessa and Curtis did. He tossed aside the thought of Curtis’s annoyance. Vanessa’s too. He’d make it up to them both by bringing back a stack of marlin steaks for Fran to do a seafood cook-up. The marlin surged out of the water again and flopped back down, creating a foamy splash. He forgot about Amaroo, forgot about Vanessa, and concentrated on landing his catch.
Shivering almost uncontrollably from the cold — it had seeped into her bones during the night — Vanessa saw the sun rise over a scrubby plain. Her expressive eyes bleak, she watched shadows under low bushes shrink away as the sun rose in a cloudless sky. Weatherwise it was another perfect day. However, as far as she was concerned matters were far from perfect! The night, even after the moon came up, had seemed interminable. The pain in her shoulder ranged from excruciating to almost but not quite bearable, and the foreignness of being outdoors with no camp fire, the chill as the temperature dropped dramatically, and the sound of a pack of dingoes howling in the distance, had heightened her sense of aloneness.
Things always appeared worse at night. It made her remember the night in Guy’s Hospital in London when doctors had tended to David. That had seemed to take an eternity. But with the sun up now and its warmth defrosting her bones, she felt more optimistic and hopeful that her ordeal would soon be over.
By now they, Nova, Warren and Tony, would have assumed she was lost and informed those at the homestead. And, she knew it wasn’t the first time Amaroo had had to mount a rescue. Bren had told her about one of Stuart’s scrapes. When in his teens, Stuart had had a monumental row with his father and had ridden off into the night, and remained missing for three days. A group of wandering Aborigines found him near Sandy Plains Paddock, the driest area on the property. Horseless, he had two broken ribs, was dehydrated and was going in and out of delirium. The rescue party found him at the Aborigines’ camp.
She disliked having anything in common with Stuart, but at the moment her situation was similar. She moistened her lips with her tongue but resisted the urge to reach for the water bottle. Right now though, she would kill for a glass of cold water. She was trying to take just an occasional sip to make the liquid last as long as possible.
Vanessa did her best to glean some comfort from Bren’s story about Stuart, that all had ended well, but as the day wore on and the temperature moved into the mid-thirties, her confidence crumbled. She glanced at Runaway who, like her, looked miserable. Her horse wasn’t even bothering to forage. She felt guilty about not sharing what water she had but Bren had been very insistent at pointing out that a person’s survival was more important in the outback than an animal’s. It made sense, but it didn’t make her feel any better, nor any less guilty.
By midday all the shade was gone around the boulders and every time she moved a blast of pain darted through her shoulder and down her spine, making her cry out. Not that anyone other than Runaway heard her cries. The horse would raise her head, give a whinny and snort, then become silent again.
Weakened by the injury, lack of food and liquid, Vanessa dozed, woke, moved into a more comfortable position then dozed again. The next time she woke her mouth and throat were so parched she couldn’t produce saliva, and her lips were beginning to crack. She should put some lipstick on: her lipstick with its small, attached mirror was the only piece of make-up she’d brought with her. Her right hand touched her cheek — it was hot and, increasingly, she found it hard to concentrate. Is this what it’s like to die from dehydration? The thought made the thread of fear deep within her that she would be found too late — she had kept it at bay during the night and for most of the morning — grow disproportionately. Of course she would be found, she reprimanded herself … soon.
Still, in spite of her attempts to gee herself up, her imagination drifted into overdrive. She had ridden off course so, would they assume she had fallen to her death over the escarpment like the exploring Frenchman, Guy La Salle, had done when he’d been prospecting? She had read an account about La Salle in a compilation of stories and facts, including a compact history of the famous Durack family, and legends and tales about those who came to the Kimberley to make their fortune.
What if they didn’t find her? Get a grip, she told herself, frowning furiously to reinforce the order.
Curtis, Reg and Nova knew her capabilities as well as her shortcomings. They knew she wasn’t equipped to survive alone in the bush, as they were. Bren … he would be worried sick too. Her earlier irritability towards him disappeared as she thought about her husband. So … he wasn’t perfect, neither was she! She’d been cross because he was with Stuart, someone she had little time for. And … she wanted him home because they were trying to make a baby and start a family. The frown left her forehead as she forced herself to contemplate how wonderful that would be; a little girl or boy, like Bren, to love and nurture and teach. She was looking forward to motherhood, very much.
After that she tried her standard pep talk routine. In the past it had helped when she was having difficulty adapting to a stage role. Vanessa, my girl, if you want to be a mother, first, you have to get out of this situation! And then she posed the question. If a chopper came along could the pilot see her in the scrub? Mmmm! A signal fire would be good, no, it would be excellent. Unfortunately, she had no means to make a fire — no matches and no Girl Guide expertise in that regard. Perhaps … something to reflect against the sun’s light!
Her gaze ran over the saddle, dissecting it inch by inch. Once the metal stirrups had been polished steel but they were now dull and coated with a veneer of surface rust. They’d never reflect the sun’s rays. Still,there had to be something she could use. The stinging sensation from her cracked lips helped Vanessa find the answer: her lipstick with the mirror. She rummaged through the up-ended contents from her saddlebag until she found it. She had bought it at Harrods before they’d married because she had been taken by the idea of a lipstick that conveniently had a mirror attached to the top that lifted off. She applied the lipstick then put the top with the mirror attachment into her right hand and rolled it around in her palm, studying it.
The mirror part was small, three centimetres wide by about six centimetres high, oval shaped with a gold metal edging. Experimenting, she positioned the mirror towards the sun and after some adjustment was rewarded by a ray of light reflecting onto a boulder about eight metres away. It would work!
Then she studied the sky, looking so hard that after a while her eye muscles hurt, as she prayed to see a speck that would become an aircraft. Nothing, not even a cloud or a bird flew by. Exhausted, hungry and with her thirst growing, she let a dejected sigh escape. She raised her knees, cradled her head on them with her good arm and, finally, gave way to tears.
Curtis blinked, and blinked again. Behind the sunglasses his eyeballs ached from peering out the chopper’s windows. He and Reg, and Simon from Linford Downs, were using the quadrant method of air search. They had been at it for hours, returning to Amaroo only to refuel and grab something to eat before returning to the sky. Hell’s bells, where was she? He was considering flying over the escarpment towards Frenchman’s Leap, though Nova had told Vanessa to go in the opposite direction. But, after several hours of searching, he knew one thing; his sister-in-law wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Fran and Nova still hadn’t made contact with Stuart’s boat. Damn his uncle and … damn Bren too. He should be here. He should always have been at Amaroo instead of running off to play sailor with Stuart. Sometimes his brother’s casual attitude to the property from which a small band of people derived a living, made him want to shake some sense into him. Clamping his anger down, he pushed the joystick forward then to the left and flew towards the escarpment.
Knowing they only had a few more hours of daylight left in which to search heightened Curtis’s sense of urgency. He sweated profusely inside the chopper’s, mostly glass, cabin and it reinforced in him how hot it was in the scrub. Reg and Simon had just reported in — stating they had found no sign of Vanessa but that the mob they’d been herding towards Spring Valley were straggling in that direction because the cattle could smell the limited water in Gumbledon Creek.
Because Vanessa should have been located by now, because Bren hadn’t been informed that she was missing, a knot of anxiety was tying up Curtis’s stomach muscles. He hated how his gut did that when he got tense. He was always uptight around Georgia but this feeling was different. Somehow, he felt responsible for Bren’s wife. Nothing had been said to the effect that he was but instinctively he knew Bren had left her in his care, and the sense of responsibility weighed heavily on him. No-one was to blame for what had occurred, nature and the Kimberley being what they were. Commonsense told him that but knowing in no way eased the growing, anxious feeling inside him. Where the hell was she?
