something he didn’t have. So… Priorities.
He unloaded the beer into the fridge, packing it in until the door barely shut.
‘That’s my housekeeping,’ he told himself and then he gave another rueful grin. Damn, wasn’t talking to himself the first sign of madness? Maybe he should get another dog.
Maybe he shouldn’t.
It was just after one o’clock. He had seven hours of daylight left. That was at least one more bore that could be mended.
What do they say about mad dogs and Englishmen? he demanded of himself, but he already knew the answer. Working in the midday sun might well lead to madness, but the bores were blocked and the survival of his cattle depended on him getting them unblocked. If he rested, maybe another thirty head of stock would be dead before nightfall.
‘Okay, mate,’ he told himself, looking at the beer with real longing. ‘That’ll wait. It has to. Get yourself back to work.’
As sunsets went this one was amazing. The sun was a ball of fire low on the horizon, and the blaze of light across the desert would, in normal circumstances, have taken Jenna’s breath away.
Not now. Karli was starting to stumble. The buildings had looked a mile or so away when she’d judged distance from the railway siding, but it’d ended up being closer to three or four miles. They’d abandoned their luggage back at the siding and were wearing only light pants, shirts and casual shoes, but even then it had been a long, hot walk. The sand was burning and their shoes were far too thin.
And now… The closer they grew to the buildings, the more Jenna’s heart sank.
The homestead looked abandoned. It consisted of ancient, unpainted weatherboards, and its rusty iron roof looked none too weatherproof. There were no fences or marked garden—just more red dust. All around the house were tumbledown sheds. The house itself looked intact, but only just. Broken windows and missing weatherboards told Jenna that no one had been at home here for a long time.
But it was no longer the house that interested Jenna. No matter how ramshackle it was, it could be a shelter until the next train came through. What she’d focussed on for the last half-mile was the water tank behind the house. It looked as if it might tumble down at any minute, but it still looked workable.
‘Please,’ she was whispering as she led Karli past the first of the shacks. ‘Please…’
And then she stopped dead.
Behind the house, at the end of a crude airstrip, was an aeroplane. Small. Expensive. New.
It wasn’t the sort of plane anyone in their right mind would abandon.
‘There must be someone here,’ Jenna told Karli, and she crouched in the dust and gave her little half-sister a hug. ‘Oh, well done. You’ve walked really bravely, and now we’re safe. Someone’s here.’
‘I need a drink,’ Karli said cautiously and Jenna collected herself. A drink.
She turned and stared at the house, willing someone to appear. No one did.
‘Let’s knock,’ she told Karli.
Who’d live in a dump like this?
She led her sister over to the house and she felt about as old as Karli was—and maybe even more scared.
She knocked.
No one answered.
They waited. Karli stood trustingly by Jenna’s side and Jenna’s sense of responsibility grew by the minute.
Come on. Answer.
Nothing. The only sound was the wind, blasting around the corners of the house.
‘Knock again,’ Karli whispered, and Jenna tried again, louder.
The door sagged inward.
A couple of loose sheets of roofing iron crashed down and down again in the wind.
Nothing.
‘I’m really thirsty,’ Karli told her, and Jenna’s grip on her hand tightened. This wasn’t London. Surely anyone who lived here would understand their need to break in. And…they didn’t need to break. The door was falling in anyway.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she whispered.
‘Why are we whispering?’ Karli asked.
‘Because it’s creepy. Hold my hand tight.’
‘You think there might be ghosts?’
‘If there are, I hope they can fly aeroplanes.’
Karli giggled. It was a great sound. There hadn’t been enough giggling in Karli’s short life, Jenna thought. There’d been none at all on the train with her father, and for the first time Jenna decided that maybe it hadn’t been such a disaster to get off.
If there was water. If the pilot of the aeroplane wasn’t an axe murderer.
Axe murderer? She was going nuts here. She didn’t have time to indulge in axe-murderer fantasies.
No one was going to answer the door.
She adjusted her grip on Karli’s hand to very, very tight. For Karli, Jenna told herself hastily. To reassure Karli. Not to reassure herself.
They tiptoed inside.
Through the back door the place looked much like the outside—as if it had been deserted for years. There was thick dust coating every surface. But…there were footprints in the dust. The prints looked as if they were made by a man’s boots, and they seemed relatively fresh.
Holding Karli’s hand as if it were infinitely important that she didn’t let go, Jenna led her across the bare wooden floorboards of the entrance porch. Their shoes left much smaller footprints beside the big ones.
The next door led to the kitchen.
Here there were definitely signs of life. There were boxes of canned food, a kerosene fridge, a lamp and a pile of newspapers strewn over a big wooden table. While Karli gazed around her with interest Jenna picked up the top newspaper. It was dated two days ago.
Someone was definitely using the house.
And—even better—there was a sink. Above the sink was a tap. Hardly daring to breathe, Jenna released Karli’s hand and twisted the tap. Out ran a stream of pure, clear water. She lowered her head and drank and nothing had ever tasted so good.
‘We’re fine, Karli,’ she said, a trifle unsteadily, and she lifted the little girl so that she, too, could drink. ‘We’re safe. There’s food and there’s drink. We can stay here for as long as we need.’
‘The hell you can.’
She twisted, still holding Karli to the tap. There was a man in the doorway.
For a moment there was absolute silence. Karli was still
