The Australians' Brides: The Runaway and the Cattleman

Jac joined him on the last word, screaming it, whooping it, as they came to the end of the ledge and hit the air, legs still working wildly, arms flung high but still joined. “Mythical!” The word echoed off the gorge walls, bouncing like a ball, and she heard it come back to them while they were in midflight. Their voices seemed to claim this whole place.

She whooped again.

Felt a surge of utter exhilaration.

Hit the water.

Callan still had her hand. They went down, down into the icy darkness and she kicked frantically to bring herself back up, just as he was doing. She broke the surface gasping and laughing. “Get me out of here! I know there’s a bunyip down there!”

“Wanna do it again?”

“Unnhh,” she whimpered. “Unnhh!”

Do I?

Could I?

“Yes!”

They jumped together four more times, whooping and yelling and laughing, until Lockie complained, “Dad, you’re scaring the yabbies! We haven’t caught a single one.”

“Try for them in that reach of water behind the rocks where it gets muddy,” he called back to his son. “Are we done, Jacinda?”

“I think so,” she said, breathless and starting to shiver.

The contrast between the cold water and the hot sun on the rocks felt wonderful with each jump and climb, but she’d had enough, and Carly must be getting hungry. They were cooking sausages and lamb chops for a midday barbecue, and Callan still had to light the fire. They swam back, side by side, no bunyips in sight, nothing nipping at her toes.

Walking through the shallows, she confessed, “I was so scared, Callan, you have no idea!”

“It’s a healthy kind of scared, though, isn’t it? You push the fear back with yelling, and then you feel great.”

“How would you know? You said you’d been doing it your whole life. You can’t ever have been scared here.”

“I haven’t been scared of here—of the water hole.”

“Or bunyips.”

“Or bunyips.” He paused. “But I’ve been here, scared.” Paused again. “I’ve come here a few times to try and yell it away, and it’s always worked.”

“Scared of what, then, if not the water hole?” She said it before she thought, shouldn’t have needed to ask.

“After Liz died.” His voice went quiet and his body went still, reluctant and stiff. “Scared of—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You don’t need to spell it out. I understand.”

He gave a short nod. “Yeah, there was nothing unique about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, but she didn’t show that he’d heard.

“I got given some, you know, brochures at the hospital in Port Augusta,” he said. “Information leaflets. About bereavement. And they had lists of things I might be feeling, and I was. Feeling those things. All of them. It’s stupid. I hated having my whole gutful of emotions put onto a bloody list. There were lists of things you could do about the emotions, too. Ways of getting help, ways to help get yourself through it.”

“But those lists didn’t have yelling and jumping into the water hole?”

“Nope.”

And that was good, Jac understood, so Callan had jumped into the water hole a lot.

She felt privileged, sincerely privileged, that he’d wanted to push her to do it, and very glad that she had. She was pretty sure he didn’t offer the same opportunity for terror and yelling to just anyone. She was very sure he was right to think that she needed it.

Bunyips were mythical.

And Kurt’s power games were a long way away.

“Got one! Got one! Got one!” Josh shrieked out.

About twenty seconds later, Carly screamed, “Mommy, I got one, too!”

“Let Lockie put it in the bucket for you, Carlz,” Callan warned her quickly. “It might nip you with its claw if you touch it. Lockie—?”

“I’m helping her, Dad, it’s okay.”

“Let’s get that fire going.”

He grabbed his towel and dried himself with the vigor of a dog shaking its wet coat, then dragged his T-shirt and jeans over his still-damp body, hauled on his sturdy riding boots and went to work unpacking backpacks and saddlebags, while Jac was slower to cover her damp swimsuit with her clothes. She couldn’t help watching Callan as she dressed.

There was a circle of big river stones in the shade near the creek bank. The remnants of charcoal within it, as well as the blackened sides of the stones themselves, told Jac that the circle was another detail to this place that Callan had known his whole life.

“Want to find some bark and sticks?” he said.

She gathered what he’d asked for, while he broke thicker wood into short lengths with a downward jerk of his foot. He had a fire going within minutes, with water heating in a tin pot that he called a billycan. Out here in the middle of the day, the light was so bright you could barely see the flames, but you could feel the heat and the water was soon steaming.

Jac checked on the yabby tally. The kids had twelve in their red plastic bucket, but the yield seemed to be slowing and interest had waned. “The bait meat’s losing its flavor,” Josh said.

“And yabbies aren’t stupid. They’re on to us,” Lockie decided. “Twelve’ll have to be enough.” He stood up, leaving the bucket behind, and wandered in the direction of the horses.

“They’re our appetizer,” Jac said, without thinking.

“We’re going to eat them?” Carly wailed. “We can’t eat them!”

They were kind of cute, in a large, shrimpy sort of way, Jac conceded, with blue and black and green markings that would turn red and pink when they were cooked. Too cute to eat?

“Nah, it’s okay. They won’t know it’s even happening,” Josh told Carly in a matter-of-fact voice.

“How come they won’t know?” she asked.

Over by the fire, Callan called out, “Lockie, can you grab the tea bags while you’re there?” Lockie was still with the horses, looking for something in a saddlebag.

“Dad drops them into the boiling water and they don’t even have time to feel it. If I was a yabby, I’d way, way rather be eaten by a human than anything else.”