26
The night was still, the only sound the cry of a distant dingo. The bright white stars and the moon in the cloudless sky above him were his only light source as the horse sauntered over the rocky desert terrain, navigating the low shrubs and bushes which grew close to the ground to protect themselves from the frequent sandstorms. The drover’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light and could pick out the shadows of the rugged earth around him and the dark blue veins in the cliffs. The night air carried the cool, fragrant scents of the earth recovering from the heat of the day, and the air was thick with the sounds of skittering animals and buzzing insects.
He tethered his horse to a rocky outcrop sticking up from the earth like a red stalagmite. He’d been hoping to make it to the Alice by nightfall, but there’d been a skirmish between the local Aboriginal tribe and the drovers earlier, so he’d bided his time until it was over. Pulling off one of his camel-skin water bottles, he took a bowl from his saddlebag, filled it and put it on the ground for the exhausted mare to drink from. Swigging back the last remains of the grog from his flask and rooting in the bag for what was left of his tucker, he lay out the rough blanket and sat down to eat. He’d be in Alice Springs by sunset tomorrow. After restocking his supplies, he’d go east and work the cattle until December. And after that . . .
He sighed. What was the point in planning a future that didn’t exist? Even though he did his best to live from day to day, his mind still insisted he look towards something. In reality, it was a void of his own making.
The drover settled down to sleep, hearing the hiss of a snake nearby and throwing a rock to scare it away. Even by his standards he was filthy; he could smell his own acrid sweat. The usual waterholes he normally used had been empty, the season unusually dry even for the Never Never.
He thought of her, as he did every night, then closed his eyes on the moon to sleep.
He was awoken by a strange shrieking from some distance away. After years in the Outback, he knew it was human, not animal. He struggled to place the familiar sound, then realised it was a baby’s cry. Another soul born into this rotten world, he thought before he closed his eyes and slept again.
He was up at dawn, eager to reach the Alice by nightfall, take a room in town and have his first decent wash since he’d left Darwin. Mounting his mare, he set off and saw the camel train on the skyline. Lit by the rising sun behind it, it appeared almost biblical. He caught them up in under an hour, where they had stopped to rest and eat. He knew one of the Afghan cameleers, who slapped him on the back and offered him a seat on his carpet and a plate of flatbreads. He ignored the mould on one corner and chewed the bread hungrily. Out of all the human life he encountered on his usual route through the Never Never, it was the cameleers he most enjoyed spending time with. The secret pioneers of the Outback, the cameleers were the unsung heroes, taking much-needed supplies across the red plains to the cattle stations sprinkled sparingly across the interior. Often they were educated men, speaking good English, but as he drank their water thirstily, he heard how their trade was in danger from the new railway line that would soon open between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. The plan was to continue it as far north as Darwin.
‘We are some of the last left. All the others have gone back home across the sea,’ said Moustafa listlessly.
‘I’m sure there will still be a place for you, Moustafa. The train line cannot reach the outlying villages.’
‘No, but the motor car can.’
The drover was just bidding them farewell when the strange shriek he’d heard last night started up again, coming from a basket tied to one side of a camel.
‘Is that a baby?’ he asked.
‘Yes. It was brought into the world five days ago. The mother died last night. We buried her well and good so the dingos wouldn’t get her,’ Moustafa added.
‘A black baby?’
‘From the colour of the skin, a half-caste, or maybe a quadroon. The girl hitched a ride with us two weeks ago. She said she was heading for the Hermannsburg mission,’ Moustafa recounted. ‘The others did not want to take her given her condition, but she was desperate, and I said yes. Now we have a motherless babe screaming day and night for its milk with none to give. Maybe it will die before we reach the Alice. It was small to begin with.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘If you wish.’
Moustafa stood up and led him over towards the screeching. He unhooked the basket and handed it to his friend.
Inside, all the drover could see were moving folds of material. Setting the basket onto the ground, he knelt next to it and removed the muslin cloths that covered the baby. The smell of faeces and urine hit him as he uncovered the rest of the tiny, skinny body, with its layer of smooth, butterscotch skin.
The baby kicked and squalled, its tiny fists punching the air fiercely. Even though he’d seen many things in his time in the Outback, this half-starved motherless child produced an emotion inside him he had not experienced for many years. He felt the sting of a tear in his eye. Wrapping the sheets of muslin around the baby so he did not touch its excretions for fear of disease, he lifted it out of the basket. As he did so, he heard something drop back inside.
‘It’s a boy,’ Moustafa commented as he stood well away because of the stench. ‘What life can he hope for even if he does survive?’
At the drover’s touch, the baby had ceased its caterwauling. It put a fist into its mouth, opened its eyes and gazed up at him quizzically. Drummond started at the sight of them. They were blue, the irises flecked with amber, but it wasn’t the unusual colour that held his attention, rather the shape and the expression in them. He’d seen those eyes before, but he couldn’t think where.
‘Did the mother name the baby before she died?’ he asked Moustafa.
‘No, she did not say much at all.’
‘Do you know where the father might be?’
‘She never said, and perhaps she didn’t wish to tell. You know how it is.’ Moustafa gave an elegant shrug.
The drover looked down at the baby, still sucking his fist, and something in him stirred again.
‘I could take him with me to the Alice, and then on to Hermannsburg.’
‘You could, but I think he is done for, my friend, and maybe it’s for the best.’
‘Or maybe I am his chance.’ The drover’s words were driven purely by instinct. ‘I’ll take him. If I leave him with you, he’ll certainly die like his mother.’
‘True, true.’ Moustafa answered solemnly, relief flooding his honest features.
‘Have you a little water to spare at least?’
‘I will go and find some,’ Moustafa agreed.
The baby had now closed its eyes, too exhausted to recommence its wailing. Its breathing was ragged, and as he held it to him, the drover knew that time was running out.
‘Here.’ Moustafa proffered a flask. ‘You are doing a good thing, my friend, and I bless you and the infant. Kha safer walare.’ He laid a gnarled hand on the baby’s sweaty forehead.
After carrying the basket back to his horse, the drover fashioned a sling out of the blanket he lay on at night and tied it around himself before lifting the baby into it. As he did so, he saw a dirty tin box lying beneath the muslin and tucked it into his saddlebag. Taking a little water from the flask, he dribbled it onto the baby’s lips and was relieved to see it sucking weakly at the fluid. Then he fastened the empty basket to the back of his saddle, mounted the horse, and set off at a gallop across the plain.
As he rode, the sun searing his skin, he wondered what on earth had possessed him to do such a thing. He’d probably arrive in the Alice and find a dead baby strapped to him. Yet, whatever it was, something drove him forward through the white-hot heat of the afternoon, knowing that if it stayed another night out in the desert, the tiny heart that lay against his would cease to beat.
At six o’clock that night, his valiant mare staggered into the dusty yard outside his usual lodgings. Still astride, the drover tentatively placed a hand on the baby’s chest and felt a reassuring if weak flutter beneath it. After dismounting and filling a bucket with water from the pump for the thirsty horse, he unstrapped the sling and placed the baby back in its basket, covering it loosely with the muslin.
‘I’ll be back out to give you some decent tucker later,’ he promised the mare before he stepped inside to be greeted with delight by Mrs Randall, the landlady.
‘Good to see ya back around these parts. The usual room?’
‘If it’s available, yes. How’s it going with you?’
‘Ya know how it is here, though it’ll be a lot better once the train is up and running. Anything I can get you, Mr D? The usual?’ She winked. ‘There’s a couple o’ new girls in town.’
‘Not tonight, it’s been a long journey here. I was wondering, do you by any chance have some milk?’
‘Milk?’ Mrs Randall looked surprised at his request. ‘Course we do. How many heads of cattle are there around these parts?’ she chuckled. ‘Not your usual tipple, Mr D.’
‘You’re right, maybe add a beaker of some good Scotch whisky to that order as well.’
‘I might have a bottle specially for you. Anything to eat?’
‘Whatever’s on the boil, Mrs R.’ He gave her a grin. ‘I’m dehydrated, so I’d like a salt cellar on the side.’
‘Righto.’ She handed him a key. ‘I’ll bring it all up to your room in a jiffy.’
‘Cheers, Mrs R.’
The drover picked up the basket and saddlebag and tramped up the rough wooden stairs. Entering the room, he closed the door and locked it firmly behind him. Placing the basket on the bed, he removed the muslin shroud from the baby’s face. Now, even though he placed his ear next to the tiny nose, he could hardly hear it breathe.
Grabbing the flask Moustafa had given him, he sprinkled the last drops of water onto the baby’s lips, but it did not respond.
‘Strewth! Don’t die on me now, baby! I’ll be done for murder,’ he entreated the tiny being. Placing the basket at the side of the bed, he paced the room, waiting for Mrs Randall to arrive. Eventually, out of frustration, and also because of the pungent smell inside the room, he ran back downstairs.
‘Nearly ready?’ he asked her.
‘I was just going to bring it up ta you,’ the woman said, placing the tray on the narrow reception desk.
He looked at its contents and realised the one thing he needed was missing. ‘You got that salt cellar for me, Mrs R?’
‘Sorry, I’ll go and get it.’ She returned with it in her sun-freckled hand. ‘It’s silver plated, got it as one of my wedding presents when I married Mr R. Make sure ya return it to me, or there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘You can count on me,’ he said, the contents of the tray wobbling as he picked it up. ‘I’ll be down later to take a wash.’
Re-entering his room, he took his shirt off, then unscrewed the silver top of the salt cellar and poured the contents into the fabric. Then he took the glass of milk and made a funnel with a page torn out of the Bible on the nightstand, and poured the milk into the empty salt cellar. Gathering up the baby, and breathing through his mouth to avoid the stink that came from it, he gently poked the tip of the salt cellar between the rosebud lips.
At first, there was no response, and his own heart beat rapidly enough for both of them. He removed the tiny silver teat, then dribbled a little milk from the holes in the top of the cellar onto his finger. Working on instinct alone, he smeared it round the baby’s lips. After an agonising few seconds, the lips moved. He then placed the tip of the salt cellar into the baby’s mouth again and sent up a prayer for the first time in seventeen years. A few seconds later, he felt a tiny exploratory tug on the makeshift bottle. There was an agonising pause and then a firmer tug as the baby began to suck.
The drover lifted his eyes to the ceiling above him. ‘Thank you.’
When the child had taken its fill, he poured water from the jug into the basin, stripped off the stinking muslin cloths and did his best to wash the encrusted muck from its body. Forming a makeshift napkin with two of his handkerchiefs, and praying there wouldn’t be another explosion, he wrapped the tiny backside as best he could. He hid the soiled muslin cloths in one of the bed sheets, and stuffed the stinking parcel into a drawer. He wrapped the other sheet around the baby, noticing the engorged stomach and emaciated legs that looked as if they belonged to a frog rather than a human being. The baby had fallen asleep, so he downed the now cold and congealing beef stew in a few gulps and washed it down with some hefty slugs of whisky. Then he left the room to feed his horse and scrub himself clean in the water barrel in the backyard.
Feeling refreshed, the drover ran back upstairs and saw the baby had not moved. Putting his ear to the tiny chest, he heard the flutter of a heartbeat and the sound of steady breathing. Climbing onto his own mattress, he remembered the tin he’d stored in his saddlebag.
The tin was encrusted in rust and red dirt as if it had long been buried. He prised it open to find a small leather box inside. Unfastening the clasp and lifting the lid, his breathing became ragged as his own heart missed a beat.
The Roseate Pearl . . . the pearl that had ended his brother’s life, yet saved his own.
‘How can it be . . . ?’ he murmured, his eyes drawn to its mesmeric beauty, as they’d been so many years before. What he could do with that cash . . . He knew its value – he had handed over the twenty thousand pounds himself.
Banished from Broome and unable to return to Kilgarra, his beloved cattle station, he travelled across the Never Never, picking up work where he found it. He kept himself to himself, trusting no one. He was a different person now, a human void with a heart that had turned to ice. And he had only himself – and perhaps the pearl – to blame. Yet, from the moment he’d seen this baby, something had thawed within him.
He snapped the box shut and placed it back in the tin before it hypnotised him again.
How was this child connected to the Roseate Pearl? Last time he had seen it, he had locked it away in Kitty’s writing desk. Camira had pleaded with him not to present it to her mistress and . . .
‘God’s oath!’
He knew now where he’d seen the baby’s eyes before. ‘Alkina . . .’
He stood up and went to study the sleeping infant once more. And for the first time in many years, acknowledged the existence of fate and destiny. He’d instinctively known that this baby with the cursed pearl secreted in its basket was connected to him.
‘Goodnight, little one. Tomorrow I will take you to Hermannsburg.’ He stroked the soft cheek, then went to lie back on his mattress. ‘And then I will journey to Broome to find out who you are to me.’
* * *
Pastor Albrecht looked up from his Bible at the sound of hooves clopping into the mission. Through the window, he watched the man draw to a halt, then climb off his horse and look around him, uncertain of where to go. Pastor Albrecht stood up and walked towards the door and out into the glaring sun.
‘Guten tag, or should I say good morning?’
‘I speak both languages,’ the man answered. Around the courtyard, a number of the pastor’s flock, clad in white, paused to look at the handsome man. Any stranger who came here was a welcome sight.
‘Back to your business,’ he directed them, and they returned to their work.
‘Is there somewhere we might talk, Pastor?’
‘Come in to my study.’ The pastor indicated the room behind him, as he heard a mewling cry emanate from the sling around the man’s chest. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, closing the door behind him, then snapping the shutters closed against prying eyes.
‘I will, once I have given you this.’
The man untied the sling from around him and laid its contents on the table. There, amongst the stinking cloths, was a tiny newborn baby boy, his lungs singing to the heavens for nourishment.
‘What have we here?’
‘His mother died some hours outside Alice Springs. The cameleers told me she was on her way to Hermannsburg. I offered to bring the baby here faster. I commandeered a salt cellar in my lodging house last night and it has taken some milk from that.’
‘How very inventive of you, sir.’
‘Perhaps the salt traces left inside helped too, because he seems stronger today.’
‘He is very small.’ Pastor Albrecht examined the baby, testing his limbs and his grip. ‘And weak from malnourishment.’
‘He has survived at least.’
‘And I commend you and bless you, sir. There are not many drovers about these parts who would do the same. I presume the mother was Aboriginal?’
‘I could not say, as she had died and been buried before I arrived. Although by chance, I might know who her family is.’
The pastor looked at the man suspiciously. ‘Are you this baby’s father, sir?’
‘No, not at all, but with the baby was something I recognised.’ He pulled the tin out of his pocket. ‘I will be travelling to Broome to confirm my suspicions.’
‘I see.’ Pastor Albrecht picked up the tin and cradled it in his hands. ‘Then you must let me know of your findings, but for now, if he lives, the child will have a home here at Hermannsburg.’
‘Please retain that tin for safekeeping until I return. And for your own sake, do not look inside.’
‘What do you take me for, sir?’ The pastor frowned. ‘I am a man of God. And trustworthy.’
‘Of course.’
The pastor watched the man dig in his pocket and produce some notes. ‘Here is a donation towards your mission and the feeding of the child.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll return as soon as I can.’
‘One last question, sir: did the mother name him?’
‘No.’
‘Then I shall call him “Francis”, for Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. From what you have told me, it was a camel who helped save his life.’ The pastor gave him a wry smile.
‘An apt name.’
‘And your name, sir?’ Pastor Albrecht asked.
‘They know me as Mr D around these parts. Goodbye, Pastor.’
The door slammed shut behind him. Pastor Albrecht went to the window and opened the shutters to watch the drover mount his horse and leave. Even though the man was obviously in full health and strength, there was something oddly vulnerable about him.
‘Another lost soul,’ he murmured as he regarded the baby on the table in front of him. The baby stared back, blinking his large blue eyes slowly. ‘You have survived a long journey, little one,’ he said as he picked up his ink pen, opened a ledger and scrawled the name Francis, and the date of his arrival on a fresh page. As an afterthought, he added, Mr D – drover, Alice Springs.
* * *
A month later, the drover tethered the horse on a patch of land half a mile or so from the house, and walked the rest of the way. It was a dark night, the stars hidden by swathes of clouds, and he was glad of it. Arriving at the front gate, he took off his boots and tucked them into the hedge. The house was in complete darkness, and only an occasional rustle came from the stables. He sighed, thinking that the best and worst times of his life had been spent under this roof – once tin, but now immaculately tiled. Seeing Fred asleep in his usual spot outside the stables, he walked across to the hut. Praying that she hadn’t locked it, he tried the handle and it opened easily. Closing the door behind him, he waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was there, one hand flung back behind her head. He walked closer to her, knowing that to startle her would alert the occupants of the neighbouring house.
He knelt down at the side of the bed and lit the candle on the nightstand so that she would recognise him immediately.
He shook her gently and she stirred.
‘Camira, it is I, Mister Drum. I have come back to see you. I really am here, but you mustn’t make a sound.’ He put a hand over her mouth, as she stared at him, fully awake now. ‘Please don’t scream.’
The terror in her eyes began to abate and she struggled to remove his hand from her mouth.
‘Promise?’
She nodded and he removed it, putting a finger to his lips instead. ‘We don’t want to wake up anyone else, do we?’
She shook her head mutely, then wriggled to sit upright.
‘What you doing here, Mister Drum? You-a dead for years!’ she hissed.
‘We both know that I was not, don’t we?’
‘So, why you-a come back now?’
‘Because I have something to tell you.’
‘That my daughter is dead?’ Camira’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I know already. My soul tellum me.’
‘Sadly your soul tells you right. I’m so very sorry, Camira. Was she . . . with child?’
‘Yessum.’ Camira hung her head. ‘You tellum no one. Baby now dead too.’
He now knew for certain that what he had surmised was true.
‘Well now, there is something you don’t know,’ he whispered.
‘What is dat?’
He placed a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Cat’s baby survived. You have a grandson.’
Then he told her the story of how he’d found the child and Camira’s eyes filled with wonder and astonishment.
‘Them Ancestors, they make-a clever plan. Where is he?’ Camira peered round the room as if the baby was there somewhere, hidden.
‘He was far too weak to make the journey here. I left him in good hands at Hermannsburg mission. And I must also tell you that the bad pearl was in his basket. Alkina must have found it and—’
‘No! Bad pearl is cursed. Don’t wantum near my grandson!’ Camira raised her voice and Drummond put a warning finger to his lips.
‘I swear that it is being kept in a safe place away from him until you decide what to do with it and the baby. I thought perhaps you might want to bring him here once he has recovered.’
‘He nottum come here,’ Camira said vehemently.
‘Why not? I thought at the very least, he would be a comfort to you.’
It was Camira’s turn to tell him what had happened.
‘So that baby is my nephew’s son? And therefore related to me by blood?’ Drummond said in astonishment.
‘Yessum. Our blood mix inside, so he belonga both of us,’ she said solemnly.
‘But most of all, Camira, to my nephew Charlie, now that his mother is with the Ancestors.’
‘No! Best for all Mister Charlie thinkum baby dead too.’
‘Why on earth would you of all people say that?’
‘You not bin round here for long time, Mister Drum. You not understand. Missus Kitty, she workum so hard, do everything for her son after you gone.’
Drummond raised an eyebrow.
‘She get sick, very sick,’ Camira continued. ‘An’ sad.’
‘Is she well now? Is she here?’ He turned his head towards the house.
‘She in Europe for holiday. She leavum Mister Charlie in charge. Even though he sad too ’bout my daughter, he young and gettum better soon. Maybe marry nice secretary woman. Best for him he nottum know, you see?’
‘And what about Kitty? She is a grandmother like you, Camira. Surely both she and Charlie have a right to know of the baby’s existence? And what of the baby himself? I for one could not just abandon my great-nephew to a mission.’
Camira scrambled out of bed. ‘I come-a with you. You take-a me to mission. Then I care for my grandson there.’
‘You would leave everything you have here? What about Kitty? I know how much she depends on you.’
Camira was already pulling out a hessian sack, obviously once used for vegetables by the smell of old cabbage. ‘I sortum my family, she sortum hers. It for best.’
‘I think you underestimate your mistress. After all, she brought you into her household against my brother’s wishes. She has a loving heart and she would wish to be included in this decision. And I’m certain she would welcome her grandson into her home.’
‘Yessum, but now she take rest and needum peace. Don’t wanta bring shame on her or Charlie, see? Best I go to grandson. Keep secret.’
Drummond realised then that Camira would do everything she could to protect the mistress who’d saved her and the boy she’d brought into the world. Even if it meant deserting them to do it. However, it was her decision to make, whether he agreed with it or not.
‘What about Fred? Surely you will tell him?’
‘He no good at keepin’ secrets, Mister Drum. Maybe one day.’ Camira looked at him expectantly, all her worldly goods now thrown into the hessian sack. ‘You takem me to grandson now, yes?’
Drummond nodded in resignation, and opened the door of the hut.