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CHAPTER TWELVE
JULIE CONCENTRATED ON the dusty road in front of her, making sure she followed the tire tracks of the other cars, keeping her wheels in the ruts and checking the caravan was traveling securely behind her. This was the first time she’d driven this particular track with a caravan attached, and it was taking all her skill to make sure she didn’t get bogged in the sandy soil on either side of the road.
Last year, she’d come out to the stock campsite with Skylar, helping ferry replenishments and other supplies—a generator to replace the broken one, and extra water because the tank had been low—but they had returned to the lodge the same day. Julie remembered a few times over her childhood coming out here when she’d come to stay with Steve during the school holidays. But that was all.
Even with the air-conditioning going full blast, a rivulet of sweat ran down between her breasts. It was physically hard work guiding the four-wheel-drive over the rutted ground. She glanced over at Aaron in the passenger seat. He looked totally cool, calm, and relaxed. Maybe she should’ve made him drive, instead. But no, she was enjoying this challenge. There was a creek crossing coming up soon that heralded the last stretch before they arrived at camp. She was the third vehicle in the cavalcade, followed by the Scanlons in their enormous semi-trailer in the rear. The family had everything in that truck, all the supplies they needed to live for months at a time. She hoped they’d be able to negotiate the creek crossing; it could get tricky if you didn’t know what you were doing. But then again, they were probably used to driving under all sorts of bad road conditions.
Almost on cue, Aaron asked, “Are we getting close?”
“Yes, about ten minutes away.” She almost bounced in her seat at the thought of getting to camp, the last three hours of hard driving forgotten. “I can’t wait till you see it,” she said. “It’s quite beautiful.”
“Really?” Aaron’s glance at the surrounding countryside was skeptical. They were traveling through dry, dusty, open woodland. Trees were sparse, and offered little shade, and the long grass was already turning brown and dead. Most people didn’t realize that the withered grass was what kept the cattle going through the long months of the dry season. It still held nutrition and even moisture, enough for the desert-hardened cattle, at least.
“Yes, really,” she replied, not letting his skepticism rattle her happy mood. “There’s a permanent water source out here. A billabong that hardly ever dries up, except in the deepest of droughts. It attracts so much bird life. We set the permanent camp there because of the water. It’s great.”
“Sounds nice,” Aaron said noncommittally. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet on the drive out. Which she hadn’t minded at the time, because she needed most of her focus for the road. She could feel the weight lifting from her shoulders with every mile they got farther away from the lodge. Getting away from the constant threat of her stalker. The letters, the phone calls, none of that could touch her out here. Aaron had seemed more cheerful as well, for the first half an hour, at least. But perhaps the weight of responsibility hadn’t lifted so much from his shoulders. He still had a job to do. Aaron had warned her there would be rules she needed to follow, precautions that needed to be taken; just because they were moving location didn’t mean she was suddenly safe. Her head understood the continued risks, but her heart wanted to soar up to the cloudless, blue sky.
They’d decided to keep Aaron’s true role under wraps. It was easier not to have to explain to everyone what was going on inside the family. Aaron had concocted a story that Julie wasn’t one-hundred-percent happy with, but as she couldn’t come up with anything else, she went along with it. Aaron was supposed to be her boyfriend, as well as the assistant cook. It gave him the excuse he needed to stay close by her side at all times, and a reason not to join the other ringers out on muster. Julie had argued that people might not believe their story, because as far as she was concerned, there would be no public displays of affection. He was to keep his distance and she would not, under any circumstances, be treating him like a boyfriend.
“Have you had much to do with cattle before?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the road.
“Nope. Only the sheep on Tony’s farm, I’m afraid,” he said with a shake of his head.
Julie had wondered if he’d continued his love of the land after he’d departed. Because he’d left without any explanation, and she had no idea where he’d ended up, she sometimes imagined him riding off into a faraway sunset somewhere, horse galloping swiftly beneath him as he pushed a last wayward sheep into a waiting yard. It seemed those fantasies had been completely wrong, and he’d forsaken country life for a job in the city. Which was a shame, because he was wasted in the city. He’d been such a skilled rider; had an empathy with the horses that made them want to please him. He’d been able to get even their grumpy old gelding, who’d managed to buck her off twice, to behave beautifully when he rode him. She’d loved to watch him ride. Would he still have that special ability? Or had his time in the city turned him soft, buried his talent beneath that professional exterior?
“Sheep are very different animals from cows,” she said, with a smile attempting to corral her wayward thoughts. Which was a bit of an understatement, especially when it came to these top-end cattle, who were left to roam wild for the whole year without ever seeing a human being. They were untamed and hard to handle, often contemptuous of these puny men trying to corral them.
“Hmm, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it,” he mused, then he shot her a sharp look. “But I won’t be dealing with the cattle, and neither will you,” he warned. “Remember, you promised to stay in camp. There will be no riding out and chasing cattle. I can’t protect you properly out there.”
Julie pouted at him. Spoil port. But she was determined not to lose her good mood. At least she was away from the lodge, would be sleeping under the stars, breathing the free air.
The vehicles in front slowed, they were at the creek crossing. Julie watched as first her father, and then Wazza, negotiated the rocky creek bed. They took it slowly and carefully because of the steep incline on the opposite side, with deep wheel ruts left by vehicles crossing when the track had been wet and muddy.
Aaron stared out the window. “Are you sure…?”
She smiled at him gaily. Of course, she could do this. Shifting into first gear, she let the vehicle roll forward slowly. Aaron grabbed at the handle above his head, and Julie suppressed a giggle. This was the first time she’d seen that steely façade of his crack. A small part of her liked that she made him nervous.
The four-wheel-drive bumped slowly down the embankment, and Julie negotiated her way over the flat river rocks on the bottom. Then she lined up the wheels and gave the diesel engine a little gas, so it growled as it climbed the steep side on the opposite bank, straining to pull the heavy load behind it. Please don’t let her get stuck. The last thing she needed was the indignity of Steve or Wazza having to help pull the car and caravan out. The wheels slipped as she went over a patch of gravel, but she eased the clutch just a little and let the torque and the car’s momentum carry her forward. A few more agonizing seconds later, they popped over the edge of the embankment and were out on level ground once more. Julie let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding.
“Impressive driving.” Aaron let go of the grab bar above his head and nodded slowly. “Remind me never to underestimate you,” he added, and her chest ballooned. Which was stupid, because she didn’t need compliments from Aaron Powell.
Julie slowed down and watched in her rear-view mirrors to make sure the Scanlon’s truck made it through. Their articulated truck had a long wheelbase, and there was a tricky moment when Julie wondered if they might get the rear end stuck on the far embankment as their front wheels climbed the near one. But Scanner was clearly an old hand and angled the semi sightly to the left, so that his tailgate just cleared the rocks at the bottom as he began his climb up the other side.
Julie signalled the vehicles in front to keep moving, and the convoy rolled on again. In the distance, a flock of birds took to the sky, and she could see a rising plume of dust, which meant some of the other ringers had already arrived and were setting up their tents and hopefully clearing the area around the camp of debris that’d built up since they were here last.
A tract of grassy plain opened up before them, and Julie pointed out the window to the left. “There’s the billabong,” she said. A shallow expanse of water stretched away toward a stand of trees on the far horizon. The grass around the edges remained green, with sedges and other tall, water plants growing around the fringes. Spindly eucalyptus trees gathered around the periphery in great clumps, all jostling so their roots could reach the permanent water source.
“This is a long-term stock camp,” she explained to Aaron, although he’d probably already heard it all before. She pointed to their right, at a bunch of taller trees in the distance, beneath which nestled a maze of steel yards, ready to be filled with wild cattle. “We always start our musters here. Depending on our stocking rates, we might move camp later on, out to a couple of mobile sites.”
Steve’s four-wheel-drive was already pulling into a spot of shade beneath the trees. Some of the figures straightened up from where they were setting up a stretch of canvas to stare at the newcomers. They’d arrived at the camp right at nine am, but they still had a big day ahead of them.
“Looks like those other roving ringers you mentioned are here already,” Aaron said, his astute eyes checking them all out, as if he could somehow tell from this distance if they posed Julie any harm. She wanted to remind him that Lance had already done background checks on them all, and as far as he was concerned, they’d passed with flying colors.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Some of them got here last night.” A large canvas tent was already set up over near the water tank they used to run their showers and get fresh water. The tank should still be full, as the last rains of the wet season had been less than a month ago. Folding chairs and a table gave the site an air of semi-permanence. Whoever owned that tent had claimed prime position.
There were five ringers meeting them here today, bringing the total crew to sixteen. Julie had met some of them last year, when she’d come out to camp with Skylar. There was Lee, the indigenous stockman, who barely said two words, but watched everything around him with his ageless eyes. Carrot—a redhead, of course—and Dave, who often travelled together and were the larrikins of the bunch. Then there were Bazza and Rosie, a husband-and-wife team, whom she’d met when they’d come back to the lodge to carry out more stock work on a short-term contract straight after the muster last year. She and Rosie had struck up a friendship, she liked the woman’s laconic manner and easy smile that split her freckled face whenever Julie told one of her jokes.
Steve was already out of his vehicle and waving wildly at Julie, directing her over to a dusty, flattened area where they could position the caravan. She drove around in a half-circle, watching her load through her side mirror until Steve held up his hand and she stopped.
