across at Karli, and the child stared at him for a long moment and then tried to smile back.
‘You’re nice,’ she whispered. She nestled closer to Jenna. ‘He’s nicer than my daddy.’
‘Yeah, well, that’d be hard,’ Jenna said with some asperity, but she fondled the little girl’s curls and looked across at Riley.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If there’s really no choice…’
‘You know, we could always contact the flying doctor and ask them to collect you,’ he said, suddenly helpful. ‘We could say you were psychiatrically unhinged.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘It might work. They have a psychiatric service.’
‘You’re being very helpful!’
‘Well, I think I am,’ he told her, but his eyes were still resting on Karli with concern. He was making light of it for Karli’s sake, she realised. ‘I’ve let you drink my water and sit at my kitchen table and if you decide to take up my very generous offer of accommodation I’ll even let you share my baked beans. Then I’ll offer you both a spare bed and keep you fed and watered until the next train comes through.’ He hesitated. ‘You realise just how much danger you put yourselves in? This man you were with. Brian. Will he realise and send a search party?’
‘No,’ Jenna said flatly. ‘He won’t.’
‘You don’t want to contact the police?’
That was a thought. But…contact the police and say what? That they’d been conned? She could get a message to her father, but she wasn’t at all sure that her father wasn’t in cahoots with Brian. There was no guarantee that he’d help.
They were two like pieces of low-life. Her father and Jenna’s father.
And their mother was dead.
‘We’re on our own,’ she said, with what she hoped was an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘Just Karli and me. But if you could put us up we’d be very, very appreciative.’
‘As opposed to very, very dead if I threw you out into the heat.’
‘Like your cattle,’ she agreed bluntly. ‘Yes. We’ll try not to be any trouble.’
‘I can’t afford you to be any trouble,’ he told her. He pushed back his chair and rose. The decision had been made and he obviously needed to move on. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he told her. ‘I’m hot and filthy and exhausted and I’m having difficulty making my head work. I need to dip myself under cold water before I play host.’
Once more he smiled down at Karli. His smile was warm and strong and caring—but it didn’t include Jenna.
‘We’ll discuss food and beds when I’m clean,’ he told her. ‘But I’m carrying too much dust to be sociable. Don’t go away. Or if you do, make sure you fill a few water bottles first. It’s a good four days’ walk to my nearest neighbour and as far as I know no one’s ever walked it. No one would be mad enough to try.’
And he walked out of the kitchen and left Jenna to her confusion.
The first thing she needed to concentrate on was Karli. The little girl’s eyes were closing and her body was slumping.
Jenna thought again of Brian and her anger rose to almost overwhelm her.
Damn him, damn him, damn him, she muttered to herself. Damn them. Because suddenly it was a group. Jenna’s father. Her father. Her mother. And Riley was there too. All rolled up into one ball of fury.
Which was illogical, she told herself. Riley wasn’t to blame. He was stuck.
He had a lovely, gleaming aeroplane that could transport her to a comfortable hotel somewhere near an airport and…
And his cattle would die. She had no doubt he was telling the truth. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man who was working far harder than a man should. The way he’d left to have a shower seemed almost an act of desperation. It spoke of a man past the limits of exhaustion, trying to clear his head and see things straight.
No. She couldn’t blame him.
And the rest?
Her mother was dead.
She thought of Nicole, and tried to dredge up a feeling of sadness, but all she felt was bitterness. Bitterness at how she herself had been treated, but, worse, bitterness at what had happened to Karli.
Nicole was dead. Of course. It wasn’t the least surprising. What was surprising was that, leading the life she had, their mother had survived so long.
It’s all about surviving, she told herself drearily. That was what she had to do now. Survive.
Karli’s eyes were now completely closed. Jenna rose, carrying her with her. At almost six years old, Karli should be too big to lift, but the child was seriously underweight. She carried her across to the cracked window and gazed out into the fading light. The land was disappearing into the dusk, but she could still make out the horizon—long and endlessly flat.
There was nothing here. Where were these cattle Riley talked about? Figments of his imagination? What on earth was the man doing, working a useless, barren piece of land?
Surely he can’t make a living off this place, she thought, but then she thought of his aeroplane and her confusion grew. The plane was obviously expensive. How could this farm generate enough income to provide such a thing?
‘Well, at least he’s not a drug baron growing cash crops of opium,’ she told the sleeping Karli. ‘There’s hardly a lush crop of poppies in this backyard. If he’s making money from this place he must have found a market for bottled dust.’
She turned back to the kitchen. It was littered with crates and cardboard boxes, with everything covered in dust. There was a small gas stove and a kerosene fridge and little else. Ugh.
What of the rest of the house? She hadn’t been invited to look—but she couldn’t keep holding Karli for ever. She had to find somewhere she could lay her down.
The kitchen door led to a sitting room—of sorts. It held a few chairs and an old settee. In the corner was an ancient gramophone. But one of the window-panes was smashed, and dust was everywhere.
What next? There were two rooms leading off the sitting room. Jenna pushed the doors wide and reacted again with horror. These must be the bedrooms. Iron bedsteads stood as islands in the dust, with lumpy mattresses on sagging springs. Both rooms had broken windows, and once again they were thick with dust.
Surely Riley didn’t sleep here? Neither room looked as if it had seen a human for years. She retreated in haste, Karli growing heavier by the minute.
Riley must sleep somewhere. Where was he now?
She returned to the sitting room and stared out. Beyond the filthy windows was a veranda, and a door opened out to it. This must be the formal front door.
Did anyone ever come here?
She shoved the door open and walked outside, wary of broken floorboards, but there was no need for caution. In the lee of the house, the veranda was out of the wind and thus protected from the all-pervading dust.
In the fading light, Jenna could see a big bed at each end of the veranda, one made up with sheets and what looked like comfortable pillows. This, then, must be where Riley slept.
Riley’s bed or not, it was the most inviting place in the house. She laid Karli down with care, and watched as the little girl snuggled contentedly into the pillows. Karli had no cares to stop her sleeping. Jenna would take care of her.
Would she? Could she?
What had she got them both into?
This was such a mess, she thought ruefully. How had it happened? Jenna had taken such care to be independent, but Karli had been catapulted into