Читать книгу The Cattleman - Margaret Way - Страница 6

Mokhani Station

Northern Territory, Australia

1947

ALL THE WHILE THEY WERE riding, Moira felt a stab of anxiety as sharp as a knife beneath her breastbone. She tried to tell herself not to be afraid, but it did no good. A sense of foreboding weighed on her so oppressively, she slumped in the saddle, her hands trembling on the reins. If her companion noticed, Moira saw no sign. It was another hot, humid, thundery day on the verge of the Wet, or the Gunummeleng, as the station Aborigines called it. There were only two seasons in the Territory, she’d learned. The Wet and the Dry. The Wet, the time of the monsoon, extended from late November to March, the Dry lasted from April through October. It was mid-November now. She had arrived on Mokhani in early February of that year to teach the Bannerman twins, a boy and a girl aged seven. Nearly ten months of sharing her life with extraordinary people; the ten most life-changing months of her life. Ultimately, they had turned her from just out of adolescence into a woman. Her great fear was she had chosen a tragic path.

Nearing eighteen and not long out of her excellent convent school, she’d craved adventure. Mokhani had offered it. After years of hard study and obeying strict rules, she’d been ready for a liberating experience. It was understood that at some time she had to continue her tertiary education, but if her parents hadn’t exactly encouraged her to take a gap year, they’d put up no great objection when they’d seen how much she’d wanted it. As a much-loved only child, “the wonderful surprise” of her parents’ middle years, their only wish was for her to be happy. The family solicitor, a good friend of her father’s, had come up with the answer. His legal firm handled many Outback clients’ affairs. It just so happened, the Bannerman family, pastoral pioneers with huge cattle interests in the Northern Territory and Queensland’s Gulf country, wanted a governess for their children, someone of good family and proven academic ability, a young woman preferably, to better relate to the children.

She qualified on all counts. Her father was a well-respected family doctor. Her mother, an ex-nurse, helped out several days at his surgery. Moira had been a straight-A student, winning a scholarship to university. The Bannermans, for their part, were rich, powerful, influential. The present owner and heir to the Bannerman fortune was Steven Bannerman—ex-Squadron Leader Steven Bannerman, seconded to the Royal Air Force during the war, survivor of the Battle for Britain, who’d returned home a war hero. His wife, Cecily, was a niece of the South Australian governor. In short, the Bannermans were the sort of people to whom her parents felt no qualms about sending her.

The great irony was, they might have been signing her death warrant.

Moira lifted one hand, pressing it hard against her heart to stop it from bursting through her rib cage. If her companion addressed a stray comment to her, she heard nothing of it. There were too many demons clamouring inside her head. She knew she wasn’t very far away from a breakdown. In a sense, it was another version of the Aboriginal kurdaitcha man, the tribal sorcerer, pointing the bone. Yet nothing had been said to her. Her throbbing fears were virtually without proof, but like all victims, she had the inbuilt awareness there was threat ahead.

It was deliriously hot. That alone caused profound dislocation. Temperature nearing a hundred and rising. A thunderstorm was rolling in across the table-topped escarpment that from a distance always appeared a deep amethyst. The storm revealed itself as magnificent. Majestic in cloud volume, black and silver with jagged streaks of livid green and purple that intensified the colors of the vast empty landscape and made the great cushions of spinifex glow molten gold. Even she knew it was risky taking this long ride. If it poured rain, the track could become slippery and dangerous and they would have to walk the horses. But it wouldn’t be the first time a thunderstorm had blown over, for all the fabulous pyrotechnics.

Nearly everyone on the station, even the Aborigines, the custodians of this ancient land, were feeling the peculiar tension the extremes of weather created. Heat and humidity. The humidity alone left one gutted. The monsoon couldn’t come soon enough even if it brought in a cyclone. Not that she had ever lived through the destructive cyclones of the far north. Still she understood what the Territorians meant when they talked about going “troppo,” a state of mental disturbance blamed on extreme weather conditions.

Was that it? For one blessed moment, she felt a lightening of her fears. Was she going troppo? Were her fears imaginary rather than real? No one meant her any harm. It was all in her mind. Her companion appeared almost serene, hardly the demeanour of an avenger. The heat did dreadful things to people, especially those not born and bred to the rigours of the inland.

We’re white people living in the black man’s land.

Steven Bannerman had said that to her when she’d first arrived, looking down at her with a strange intensity, his handsome mouth curved in a rare smile. Steven Bannerman was not an easygoing man. Many attributed that to his traumatic experiences during the war. Steven Bannerman was the symbol of power and authority on the station, as daunting in some moods as a blazing fire.

Steven!

She’d been destined to fall in love with him. Her heart leaped at the sound of his name. It resonated in her head and through the caverns of her heart. If she never saw him again, his image would remain etched on her mind, his touch imprinted on her skin. It was truly extraordinary the bearing one person could have on another’s entire life.

She had felt it such an honor to work for a war hero. She had handled the high-spirited, mischievous little imps of twins who had seen off not one but two governesses remarkably well. Everyone said so. Particularly Mrs. Bannerman, Cecily, a benign goddess who, at the beginning, had sung her praises. Not that she had ever been invited to call the Missus, as the Aboriginal house girls called Mrs. Bannerman, by her Christian name. Steven, too, was only Steven when they were alone. At all other times, he was Mr. Bannerman.

A prince in his own kingdom; everything in the world to her. He had been since the first moment she’d looked up into his beautiful, far-seeing blue eyes—though it hadn’t been revealed to her then. But each week, each month that passed, they’d grown closer and closer, learning so much about each other. Nothing had happened until a short time ago when their feelings for each other had broken out in madness.

Fate had delivered her like a sacrificial lamb right into his arms.

She had gone from innocence to womanhood all in one sublime destructive day. She was certain in her heart neither had deliberately chosen it. It had just happened, like an act of God; a flood, a drought, an earthquake, a deadly bolt of lightning from the sky. Acts of God were merciless.

The voice inside her head started up again. She let it talk. It was the next best thing to a conscience.

You know what you have to do, Moira. You have to get out of here. Leave before tragedy overtakes you. Worse, overtakes Steven. A scandal that would be talked about all over the Outback, affecting everyone, even the children.

She couldn’t bear that. She had to make her decision. She had to put a thousand miles between herself and Steven. Steven had made his decision years ago before God and man. He had a wife and children. He would never leave them. Not that she’d dreamed for a single moment he would. His role had been drummed into him from childhood. He was the master of Mokhani Station. Outback royalty. She was nothing more serious than a passing affair.

Only, that wasn’t true. Both of them knew it wasn’t true. She had lain awake far into the night searching the corridors of her soul. There was a strong two-way connection between them, an instant bonding. Steven had told her she was his other half. His reward for what he had suffered during the war. They shared a dangerous kinship of body and spirit that opened the doors to heaven, but also to hell. Steven was passionately in love with her, as she was with him. Hadn’t he told her he didn’t know what love for a woman was until she’d come into his life? The admission hadn’t been merely an attempt to break down her defenses; it had been wrenched from deep down inside him, causing him agony. A war hero, yet he had stood before her with tears in his eyes. Tears she understood. She too was on a seesaw.

Love and guilt. Their love was so good, so pure, yet she knew it could be equated with shameful, illicit sex. Women of other cultures had been murdered for less. When it came to dire punishment, the women were always the victims. Men were allowed to go on exactly as before. Except for the Aborigines, who meted out punishments equally.

Whether he loved her or not, Steven’s marriage couldn’t be counted for nothing. It was his life. He had married Cecily in a whirlwind ceremony before he’d gone off to war. He’d told Cecily he had wanted to wait. They’d been living through such tumultuous times and he could very easily lose his life. But Cecily had become hysterical at the thought of not becoming his wife there and then. She’d wanted his children, and what was more, she had conceived on their brief honeymoon. Cecily was a cousin of his lifelong friend, Hugh Balfour. Hugh had introduced them, and then been best man at their wedding. The tragedy was that after the horror and brutality of war, Steven had come home a different man. So had Hugh, once so full of promise, now well on the way to self-destruction. “A full-blown alcoholic” Cecily scathingly labeled him. “Hugh can’t cut it as a civilian!” Cecily Bannerman, Moira had quickly learned, was extremely judgmental, like many who had lived only a life of ease and privilege.

But the tragedy hung over both families. She saw it clearly the first time Hugh had visited Mokhani after her arrival. Hugh idolized Steven. Steven in turn always welcomed his old friend, defending him even when Hugh’s own family had written him off. Hugh had been so charming to her, offering friendship, asking her all sorts of questions about herself and her family. He’d made every attempt to get to know her, he had even painted her. Many times. Until, strangely, Steven had put a stop to it. She couldn’t think about that now.

Moira plucked a long strand of her hair from her cheek. It glittered with drops of sweat. She had been so happy at first. Lost in the uniqueness of this exciting new world. This was real frontier country where nature in all its savage splendour dominated everything. A city girl, born and raised, she had grown to love this strange and violent place. It revealed itself to her every day, this paradise of the wilds. The space and the freedom! The absolute sense of grandeur. She loved the incredible landscape, saturated in Aboriginal myth and legend. The blood-red of the soil, the cobalt-blue of the sky. She looked up at it briefly. It started to spin above her.

They were heading up the escarpment, the track littered with rubble and orange rocks the size of a man’s fist. The promontory overlooked the most beautiful lagoon on the station, lily-edged Falling Waters. No crocodiles were thought to swim this far inland, though they had done so in the past. Nowadays it was argued that from numerous rock slides the neck of the canyon had become too narrow. Besides, it was a known drinking place for the great rainbow snake, owner of all water holes in the vast arid inland.

She could hear the falling of water now. It grew louder, sighing, hissing, splashing. From the track, the lagoon appeared like giant shards of glittering mirror lost in the thick grove of trees. White-trunked paperbarks and graceful red river gums adorned the water hole, the sun turning their gray-green leaves metallic.

She remembered the first time Steven had brought her to this magical place. The two of them alone. Her heart contracted at the memory, one she would cherish until the day she died: how with a tortured oath he had pulled her body close…how her lips had opened spontaneously under his…how his hand on her naked breast had made an indelible brand. She would remember the way he’d picked her up and laid her on the warm golden sand. She had given herself to him willingly, overtaken by a great tide of passion, her blood sizzling, as he played her virgin body, his hands so knowing, so masterly, in turn demanding and tender. One could surrender the world for such lovemaking. Hadn’t she? She had abandoned the tenets of her faith, honor, loyalty, cold reason. So many codes of conduct on the one hand. On the other?

Steven.

A world lost for love.

THEIR ARRIVAL ON THE PLATEAU, heralded by a miniature landslide of eroded earth and rocks, caused a huge congregation of waterfowl to rise from the glittering waters with a thunder of wings. They dismounted. Moira removed her wide-brimmed hat, shaking out her thick blond plait. Her body was soaked in sweat, not only from the heat and exertion. Dark forces were at play and she knew it. She had gone way beyond anxiety, moving toward acceptance. She followed her companion nearer the edge, acutely aware they were keeping their distance from one another as if a contagion were upon her.

The view from the top was sublime. There was nothing, nothing, like the vast burning landscape. The sacred land. It stretched away into infinity and beyond. She could see the length of the rocky, winding corridor of the gorge, the terraced walls glowing a rich, deep red with bands of black, rose-pink and ochre-yellow. The creek bed was little more than a chain of muddy water holes in the Dry, but the permanent lagoon, an extraordinary lime-green was very deep at the centre. There was an Aboriginal legend attached to it; the Aboriginals had a legend for everything. A beautiful young woman, called Narli, promised to a tribal elder, had drowned herself in the lagoon following the killing of her lover for having broken the tribal taboo. Narli’s spirit was said to haunt Falling Waters, luring young men to their deaths. There was danger in being young, beautiful and seductive, Moira reminded herself. Beauty inspired obsession. Obsession inspired violence.

Half fainting, she drew breath into her parched lungs. Her tongue was dry. It tasted of dust, making it difficult for her to swallow. She wondered what lay ahead, in part, knowing she had already surrendered. The air still quivered with fierce vibrations. Not by nature timid, she’d allowed herself to be brought low by shame and guilt. She had a sudden image of Steven and her deliriously locked together, his mouth over her, cutting off her ecstatic cries. In her defense it could be said she was incapable of withstanding him.

The waterfall tumbled a hundred feet or more to the pool below, sending up a sparkling mist of spray, as intoxicating as champagne. In the rains, she’d been told, the flow that today ran like a bolt of silver silk down the blackened granite turned into a spectacle of raw power, with a roar that could be heard from a great distance. At those times, the breadth of the falls widened dramatically as it thundered down the cliff face, tiered like an ancient ziggurat to drop countless tons of water into the lake. So augmented, the lagoon broke its banks, engulfing the floodplains with enormous sheets of water—which become huge swamps that were soon crocodile rich. People and cattle had to be moved to higher ground. Afterward, the earth responded with phenomenal abundance—lush green growth and an incredible profusion of wildflowers, native fruits and vegetables. She’d been so eager to witness that sight. Now she felt she never would.

There was no redeeming breeze. Nothing swayed. No petals of the wild hibiscus scattered. All was quiet save for the tumbling waters and the heavy thud, thud, thud of her heart. Even the birds that fed on the paperbarks and the flowering melaleuca trees—the honeyeaters, the gorgeous lorikeets and parrots—normally so restless, were strangely silent. Moira dared to look across at her companion, who could at that very moment be settling her fate. Despite all outward appearances of calm, violence simmered just below the surface. Violence generated by perhaps the most dangerous and deadly of sins.

Jealousy.

GOD HELP ME! MOIRA WAS BEYOND all thought of trying to escape. Escape to where? This land was hostile to those on the run. She hadn’t seen her parents in many months. The tears started to trickle down her cheeks as their dear, familiar faces swam into her mind. She loved them. Why had she never told them just how much? She should have stayed at home with them where she was safe. Instead, she had betrayed them. Betrayed herself. Betrayed Cecily, who had been kind to her in her fashion. She had inspired a devouring love that overwhelmed all else. In exchange, she had inherited consuming hate. She could feel that hate everywhere, even to the tips of her shaking fingers.

Moira lifted her unprotected face to the burning sun as if there were good reason to blind herself to what was coming. If she survived this, she would have to live with her sins for the rest of her life. It she didn’t…if she didn’t…

Hadn’t Sister Bartholomew, in what seemed another lifetime, said to her whenever she landed herself in trouble, “Moira, you have no one to blame but yourself!”

Slowly her companion turned away from the lip of the precipice, jaw set, grimacing into the sun. The distance between them dramatically narrowed. “I’ve been waiting for this, Moira,” came the chilling words.

What could she answer? Words died on her lips. There was no chance. None at all.

Moira’s knees buckled under her. She was tired. So tired. The matter had to be decided. She was guilty. She deserved what was coming to her. She sank to the ground, for one extraordinary second so disoriented she thought there was someone else besides her and her companion on the escarpment. If only she could turn around…