Texas (25 page)

Susannah looked up from the book to check on the boys.

Ollie was sitting in the pool playing with his plastic duck and nearby Ned was hosing water over the trucks he'd lined up on the grass. The water sparkled in the sun and the light behind the boys was so bright that it seemed to white out the view beyond the fence. She blinked to clear the spots from her eyes so she could focus on the words, but they leapt around a bit until her eyes grew used to the page again.

Clint Messenger looked south and saw a blood-red moon
climbing into the sky. It was shining through a great haze of red
alkali dust. There was no wind. The dust was lifting from a
thousand plodding longhorn hooves eating up the last dry miles
between Texas and Jonesburg, Kansas. The Texans were coming
. Susannah put the book down. She realised why people read these stories when they worked on stations. The ringers who went into town to spend their cheques when the mustering season was over were not that different from the Texas cowboys, although they didn't shoot each other. Not that she'd heard

Texas anyway. She remembered the woman from the co-op saying you knew when the season was over because the pub and the tavern were full. In the story the young deputy was going to have to control the drunk and trigger-happy Texans and meanwhile he was neglecting his fiancée because he'd taken a liking to the other woman, Brooke. Susannah sighed. Of course he had. She really should put the book away. There were things to be done in the house. She remembered she didn't have to bake any bread today since John would be bringing some home from town. But she needed to sort out the clothes and clean the bathroom and check the meat supply and plan what they would be having for dinner. She wondered when Gerry was returning. He was another person she would have to feed. She picked up the book again.

Tall, hard-bitten men turned to stare as the man with the
badge strode up. It was three days since the first herd had arrived
but there had been no real trouble so far. A few scuffles, one or
two arrests for drunkenness and a few half-hearted insults between
Kansans and Texans. Clint had managed the Texans far better
than most had expected. He found them suspicious, pugnacious
and wild in drink, but not mean and vicious as he'd been led to
believe. They were spending their money on drink and gambling
at the Texas Palace Saloon.

Susannah looked up.

‘Where's Ned?' she asked Ollie.

And then she saw him on the veranda. The shade had moved so that part of the pool was in the sun. She stood up and told

Ollie to get out so that she could bring the pool back into the cooler part of the lawn.

‘Are you hungry?'

She picked up her book and they followed her into the kitchen. She gave them cordial and a biscuit each. Ned started crying when he dropped his on the floor.

‘You won't get another one if you don't stop.'

He looked at her blackly but was silent and she handed him another biscuit.

It wasn't until after lunch that she was able to pick up the book again. The boys were in their room resting. They were feeling the heat too. She'd done two loads of washing so she allowed herself the luxury of lying under the fan in the bedroom.

Things had come to a boil with the Texans. Full of whisky-bolstered
courage, they were looking for the gambler Race
Buchanan. Laura came to the jailhouse to find Clint. She
met Buchanan and asked him about Brooke.

‘We were lovers in the south, Laura, nothing more, nothing
less. I was content to continue the way we were, for I had no
illusions about eternal love and such nonsense. Brooke wanted
wedding bells and orange blossoms. So I left her. Decamped, I
heard Brooke was distraught. I didn't hear until much later that
she had also lost the child I didn't know she was carrying . . .' His
voice had grown softer and softer.

‘She must have loved you a lot to be hurt so deeply.'

‘There's no such thing. Or if there is, I've never encountered it.'

Laura felt challenged. ‘I love Clint.'

Texas
‘Need, want, desire perhaps. It's all selfish, Laura, it's a great sham.'

‘I'd rather die than feel the way you do.'

The shooting started. Susannah skipped over most of it now that she was nearing the end. The women joined in, placing themselves in the line of fire, to be near the men they loved. Susannah reached the part where Race Buchanan realised he loved Brooke. It had taken a woman to show him that life was about self-sacrifice, nobility and dedication to duty. Susannah couldn't read any more. She didn't even want to get to the end. Instead she ripped the book in half, tearing it into pieces easily. There wasn't much to it and she let the scraps of paper fall all over the bed. Lying back on her pillow, she watched the fan rotate above her head; round and round it went. Her mother had the same ideas about sacrifice and duty and at that moment she decided that everything she hated about her life was her mother's fault. She was not going to live her mother's story. She would create a new one for herself.

IV

It was about eight o'clock when Susannah heard the sound of a vehicle slowing for a gate. It was quite far away and even though it was most likely John, she turned off the light in the kitchen and waited in the darkness for it to arrive. She'd put the children to bed about half an hour ago and she was on her second can of beer. She wished they were full strength because they didn't seem to be doing anything to make her feel more cheerful. It was John's four-wheel drive and it stopped in front of the yard. The lights flicked off and she watched him get out of the car. For some reason she stayed where she was, listening to his footsteps on the veranda and the sound of his boots falling to the floor. The door squeaked open and his shape filled the doorway.

‘I'm here,' she said flatly.

‘Shit. What are you doing? Frightened the bloody daylights out of me. What's happened to the light?'

‘Nothing.'

The fluorescent tube flickered and she caught glimpses of him, hatless and uncertain. Eventually it became solid light and she saw that his eyes were red and he was unsteady on his feet.

‘Have you been drinking?' she asked.

He shot her a glance. ‘Looks like you're doing all right yourself.'

She brought the can up to her mouth and swallowed and then set it down again. ‘Why shouldn't I?'

He shrugged. ‘Never thought you were really into it.'

He pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘What's for dinner?'

‘I haven't cooked any.'

He nodded slightly as though it was nothing unusual. Then he leant forward on the table and rested his elbows, supporting his chin with one hand and holding his forehead with the other, as though the weight was too much to bear. He looked up at her. ‘Do you want to leave, is that it? You can if you want.'

Texas She was finding it hard to maintain the anger when he wasn't giving her anything to fuel it. She was angry with herself, and perhaps with her mother most of all, for creating the ideas that were suffocating them both. He looked small in the chair with his shoulders slumped forwards.

‘Where's your hat?'

‘Dunno, might have left it in the bar.'

‘What happened in town?'

He sighed. ‘There was a message at the co-op. Arne's on his way up.'

‘Does he know about the cattle?'

He shook his head slowly. ‘I'll have to tell him when he gets here.'

She realised they'd both been trapped. He was just as constrained by the idea of how he was supposed to behave as she was. He should be able to make mistakes and she should be able to move away from the kitchen.

‘You know it's only a job. Being on this place, out here.'

He frowned. ‘You're not making any sense.'

‘I was just thinking. It's different now. From the way people used to be in this country. It's not about being a bloody hero. We're just doing a job. And we can do it in another place if we have to.'

He sat up a bit. ‘Yeah,' he said quietly and his eyes looked away and then came back. ‘Yeah,' he said more firmly. ‘I suppose you're right.'

‘Just talk to me, like this.'

‘I can't do it on my own.'

‘I know.'

And her fingers reached across the table towards his, touching the tips. She noticed the creases around his eyes and thought that perhaps age would suit him.

By sundown

I

The bitumen road widened and where it began to curve away to the west, the vehicle slowed for the turnoff into town. Laura caught glimpses of rooftops between trees and flowering bougainvillea and everything was shaded from the sun in the east by two jagged-edged hills. John hadn't spoken for the entire journey but now he asked where they wanted to be dropped off. Texas answered but she didn't hear what he said. They passed square houses, pale green or grey, all mounted above the ground and in front of them were colourful gardens of frangipani and oleander, or there were yards of dirt with toys and broken bikes and cars that looked as though they wouldn't start again. After several turns through gravel streets the vehicle stopped near a house with a wide palm out the front. Texas lifted their gear from the back of the vehicle. Carrying her backpack, she followed him up a couple of steps and a woman greeted them at the door.

‘Look who's here,' she said to someone else in the room. She smiled at Laura, adding: ‘I'm Billie, his cousin.'

‘Hi, I'm Laura.'

‘You belong to that yeller fella, eh?' She laughed warmly.

‘Come inside and have a cup of tea.'

Laura followed. Billie continued: ‘See that lump over there, that's my husband, Wal.'

To Laura's left was a lounge room, and on a couch was the man Billie referred to. He looked up and nodded, a shiny-faced man with a stomach that rested on his lap. Texas went over and sat down beside him. A television was on without any sound. Billie was behind an island bench with shelves above it, filling the kettle with water at a sink against the wall.

‘Chuck all that stuff out the back,' she said, noticing their gear.

Laura sat at the table and Billie joined her with two mugs of tea. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her face was soft and round.

‘I saw Jimmy the other day,' she called over to Texas. ‘He said that fella out there, that one you been working for, he's no good.'

She paused. ‘And that old fella Irish. He's gone. There was a bit of a funeral for him. In town. That's right, eh Wal? Remember that old woman of his. Grace. Well there was a daughter that come up from Perth. Did you know he had a daughter?'

‘He had plenty of them,' said Wal, turning his head sideways towards the women at the table. ‘Remember, what was her name, Janey O'Brien, she was out of him. And they reckon there was a son too.'

‘I didn't think he had any children,' said Laura.

No one said anything. She felt her face heat up.

‘You been see your old mother?' asked Billie. She was looking at Texas but he didn't answer.

Laura sipped her tea and glanced around the room. There was a photo of some children on the shelf beside the television.

‘They're our kids, mine and Wal's. The girl, she won a prize last week for a story she wrote about her nanna.'

‘That's great,' said Laura. ‘Where are they now?'

‘At school, the little buggers. They go early when it gets hot.'

Texas stood up. Wal lifted himself out of the chair. He was a big man, as tall as Texas. ‘Just going into town,' he said.

Laura glanced quickly at Texas.

‘Stay there and finish your tea,' said Billie, adding, ‘They won't be long.'

Laura clasped her cup tightly. She met his eyes and they reassured her and it was the first time since the cattle smash that he looked like the person she knew.

‘Back soon eh,' he said, placing his hat on his head before he followed Wal out the door.

‘Where you from then?' asked Billie, her attention shifting back to Laura.

‘England, well London actually.'

‘You're a long way from home.'

‘Yes.'

She suddenly felt alone and missed the people who knew her, like her sister, even though they didn't always get along.

The feeling only happened when Texas wasn't around and she regretted not insisting that she go with him.

‘You finish that cup?'

Billie reached out for both their mugs and got up from the table and with one hand she hitched down the hem of her dress. ‘We'll close up all them blinds, keep out the heat. Might get rain soon. Bloody hot enough.'

They lowered heavy canvas over the windows and the dim light seemed to make it a little cooler.

‘Now I gotta be up at the school for a bit. To help out you know. You'll be all right here. They won't be long those fellas.

He's just getting the money for Wal. Make yourself comfortable over there.'

The front door closed and she went across to the couch that had black vinyl arms and a seat which was upholstered in a coarse green and yellow tartan. She spread out and it felt good to be motionless and to not have to hold her body up in the heat. Every now and then she heard the sound of a vehicle, and occasionally kids playing and dogs barking. On the television screen a woman silently held up the letter B. She remembered there was no television out on the station and thought of Susannah's children, growing up without it. She might have slept a little because she started when the front door opened.

She sat up quickly, and Texas stepped around the door, followed by Wal, carrying a carton of beer.

Texas ‘The old woman's gone out,' said Wal as he settled on the chair to the left of the couch.