A Changing Land(81)
‘Are you up for it?’ Hamish asked.
McKenzie looked at the man who owned Wangallon. He thought Hamish Gordon was a respectable pastoralist. His own plans for promotion looked amateurish in comparison and he wondered if he had more to worry about than Jasperson’s inclinations. He took a bite of the steaming damper, the severe heat of it sticking to the roof of his mouth.
‘Well?’ Jasperson’s thin nose was pinched inwards.
The dough caught in McKenzie’s throat. His first sighting of Hamish Gordon occurred at the building of the bore drain. That day the man threatened to shoot anyone who didn’t toe the line. The dough slid uneasily down his gullet. ‘W-whatever y-you want, Mr Gordon. I-I’m your man.’
A crackle of leaves quieted them. Hamish pointed to the left, making a circling motion with his hand. Noiselessly they walked out into the darkness, edging away from the rim of the campfire, their rifles ready for action. They spent long minutes circumnavigating the camp, only to return empty-handed. The bush was noisy once one listened. The dull thud of kangaroos echoed through the timber, a creature squawked as if under attack, crickets chirped rhythmically.
‘Kangaroo?’ Jasperson suggested once they were sitting back within the halo of the fire.
Hamish hunkered down in the dirt, resting his head on his saddle. ‘You keep watch, McKenzie. The bush is busy tonight.’
‘Blacks?’ McKenzie propped his back against a tree. Jasperson shifted a heavy night log onto the fire and moved a little closer to it.
‘Maybe.’ Stars flickered through the trees. Hamish thought they resembled candles sputtering through a mottled cloth of darkening greens and browns. As he drifted towards sleep an image of the miles of flay country extending outwards from the heart of Wangallon came to him. Like a shapeshifter, it merged to form mountains and valleys, easing out over rocky crags and grassy verges to the sandy shoreline of a nation too young to know true hardship. This was not a land like Scotland, where war was waged by those such as the English intent on control. This was not a country where the yoke of suppression had existed for hundreds of years. Hamish’s eyes flicked open.
Sometimes he could recall the tangy scent of the Highlands, the slivering coldness of the loch. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to return. To walk the pebble-strewn shoreline on acreage he would never truly own. Hamish could conjure his mother, carrying water from the loch, pulping their scant supply of oats for the small cakes she made on the hearth. There was dirt on her smiling face, her coarse woollen skirt was torn and her hair greasy. She had died in the winter, sharing her deathbed with their lone cow; her two surviving sons and a husband worrying about taxes. They were small memories, indistinct, yet recently their importance had grown.
The corridor leading to her mother’s room was long and beige. There were photographs of the Queensland coast between each white doorway and at the end was a soft pink couch currently providing comfort to two young children, who, although having been left with books and soft toys, sat staring straight ahead. Sarah checked the numbers above each door, mentally counting down both the number of rooms left and the months that divided their last reunion. Leaving her luggage at the door, she knocked once before entering.
‘Sarah, it’s good to see you.’ Sarah glanced towards the hospital bed as her father bustled her in, sitting her in one of two comfy armchairs. He looked reasonably well, although tired. His bulky frame was only just beginning to stoop and he filled the room with the unmistakeable genetics of a Gordon male: tenacious, craggily handsome in the later stages of his life with an aura that made people stare on passing. Newspapers were scattered on the wide window ledge and table next to her mother’s bed. Sue Gordon sat upright, a cream bed jacket about her shoulders and a vacant stare boring into the blank wall opposite. Immediately Sarah questioned her presence. She could have waited at her father’s apartment or gone for a walk along the beach or invested in some retail therapy; although with everything occurring at the moment, shopping didn’t hold any interest for her.
‘She’s comfortable,’ her father stated. ‘Of course she doesn’t know where she is, or who I am.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sure the reading helps. You know, otherwise she just lies there, in silence.’
Sarah settled herself in the armchair. ‘You read aloud to her?’
‘Of course, mainly the news, although sometimes I skip to the entertainment page. She always did love the cinema when she lived in Sydney.’