In the morning I drove the Land-Rover to where there was some wattle and snappy gums, built myself a fire and had coffee and a large breakfast. And after that, I went back and pegged the bloody Monster, using a pick to set the stakes and cut the trenches. It was hard, slow work in the sun, and it took me two days all on my own. And when I had finished setting up the intermediary pegs, I got my camera and photographed the datum post as proof that I had done it. Then I started back.
I didn’t go near the lira. I couldn’t face that place again on my own. I just headed back west, on a compass course for the Soaks, hoping to God I’d make it on the fuel I had left. And then the rain started. That was one thing I hadn’t expected. Rain. There was a day of broken cloud, the second I think after I had started back, and then about noon the next day it began. Showers at first, some of them quite heavy, but intermittent, so that I was able to keep going. It was like that all night. And then in the morning the clouds thickened, very low clouds and heavy rain, torrential at times, with lightning and thunder around midday.
The desert was suddenly changed, the sandhill troughs awash with water, the air damp and humid, difficult to breathe, and a cold wind blowing. I lay up all that day, and the next, the Land-Rover just below the crest of a sandhill. And then the clouds dispersed, the sky was blue again and the sun blazed down, and the desert took on a sheen of fresh green before my eyes. It was a sudden, extraordinary miracle of re-birth.
I was there altogether four days until the sand had sucked up all the flood water. And after that I was able to drive quite fast in places, the going surprisingly firm, almost like a blacktop road in the flats between the ridges.
My fuel carried me all the way to Lynn Peak, but when I got there I was suddenly too tired to go any further. They made up a bed for me and I stayed there two days, sleeping most of the time, too exhausted even to bother about shaving. They knew what had happened, but they had the sense not to talk about it. Kindness is a great healer and they couldn’t have been kinder, Maria fussing over me and Andie sitting beside my bed for long stretches during the day, not saying much, just sitting there so I wouldn’t be on my own. And the kids came and went, little Anna Maria, aged five, and Bruce, who was two years younger. They did more than anything to restore my sanity.
The third morning I got up. That was when Andie let me see the papers. Culpin’s body had been flown to Kalgoorlie and the inquest had been held there. Smithie and the helicopter pilot had given evidence. But it was Edith Culpin who told the court what lay behind the tragedy. ‘Kennie took after me. He was farming stock. He was always working for the future. He believed in it. My husband lived for the present. The two of them just didn’t suit.’ And there was a picture of her, dressed in black, neat as always, but stony faced. It was a sad picture that seemed to say everything.
Sometime soon there would be a trial and I would have to give evidence. I thought a lot about that, and about Edith Culpin — it was what I could say to her that worried me most. And there was Janet, too. Andie told me that when he had driven over to Jarra Jarra with the supplies she had burst into tears. She wants to see you, he said. But that, too, would have to wait.
I left that morning, driving north up the Highway, and with the creek bottoms bad after the floods, it was late afternoon before I reached Marble Bar. I drove straight to the Mines Department office and there I registered the claim to McIlroy’s Monster, the first I think that had ever been registered deep in the Gibson Desert. I could have stayed the night at the Ironclad. Instead, I drove up the valley of the Coongan River towards the Comet Mine and camped above Chinaman’s Pool, by the Jasper Bar that had given the gold-rush town its name. The river was running fast over the cream and ochre striped marble of the bar and the pool below it was peaceful in the still evening, the sand at the edge marked by the feet of countless birds.
I didn’t sleep that night. It was just after the shortest day, the moon past the full, and I sat there beside the pool, the sound of running water, the soothing stillness of the night giving me a sense of peace. It was still there when the moon set and dawn broke, a few kangaroos coming down to drink, a heron and other birds moving very close. And after breakfast I started out for Jarra Jarra, feeling more myself but still surprised to be driving the Land-Rover on my own down the familiar road.
I reached the homestead just before sunset. The paddock was all green with new grass, a mass of cattle grazing, and the ghost gums on the windbreaks had a fresh sheen that glimmered in the slanting sun. The camel Cleo was couched under the poinciana trees, just as she had been when I had first come to Jarra Jarra, and the bitch Yla came out barking, then seemed to recognize me, her tail revolving in sudden pleasure as I got stiffly down from behind the wheel. I walked slowly between the outbuildings and was halfway across the quartz-paved patio when Janet emerged from one of the French windows that opened on to the verandah. I stopped then, not knowing what to say or how to greet her, the Alsatian nuzzling at my hand.
She stood there for a moment, absolutely still, her face frozen as though she had seen a ghost. I remember she was wearing blue jeans tucked into mud-bespattered boots, a dark blue shirt, and her hair looked wild, a bright halo catching the light. And then she moved, her boots sounding hollow on the bare boards, and suddenly she was running towards me, her face, her eyes, her whole being alight with excitement. ‘Alec, the paddock. Have you seen it?’ She reached me, grasping me, her head buried against my chest. ‘It’s all green.’ She was laughing and crying at the same time and holding me very tight. ‘It’s like a new world. Everything fresh. Oh my God, it’s wonderful to see you.’
I felt peace then, real peace — as though I had come home at last. And that spark between us. I felt it again. But it wasn’t the same spark. It was there. But it was different now.
It was only later, over the evening meal, just the two of us there and the candles lit, that I began to talk. And when I had told her everything, I gave her the registered claim to Coondewanna. ‘That’s for you to keep. I don’t know whether it’s worth anything or not. But if it is …’
‘You already gave me the one thing I needed,’ she said. ‘Only I was — ‘ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. I should have written, come to see you. But I was too shocked by what had happened to Daddy, and there was so much to do here — I couldn’t seem to think straight.’
‘What did I give you?’ I asked.
‘Why, Golden Soak. The water from the lower levels. Just as you were driving off — remember? You told me to try Golden Soak for the water we needed. It saved over two thousand head. And now the rain.’ She was smiling, her freckled face looking almost beautiful, and her eyes, those blue eyes reminding me suddenly of her father, bright with hope.
That was when I explained to her what we would have to do about the Gibson claim, how Kennie’s hopes paralleled the dream her father had once had. But I didn’t tell her the other parallel, that Ed Garrety had also killed a man out there in the Gibson. She knows now, of course. But it was too soon to tell her then.
I fear we are still upsetting some of the more conventional folk around here, living together, waiting for my divorce to come through. And there is a child on the way, which makes it look worse, of course. During this period I have worked harder than I have ever worked before — new fences, a deep bore and reservoir down by Golden Soak, and the drilling on Coondewanna. We have proved the reef there, but in the meantime the price of antimony has slumped. So has the price of copper. The bottom has dropped out of the stock market and until there is some sign of recovery nothing can be done about the Monster.
But it has done something for us already. Les Freeman took a lease on the claim, and before the winter of 1970 was out Lone Minerals had completed a geophysical and two exploratory drill holes, confirming it as a major copper strike. As the price of the lease we got $20,000 in cash, which is what we have been living on for the last eighteen months. Most of it has gone now, in improvements and the purchase of stock. I doubt whether I shall ever be able to get the station back to what it was in the days of Janet’s grandfather. But at least we have made a start, and the future is bright. The price of antimony is still at rock bottom, but the American dollar crisis has raised the value of gold and I reckon Golden Soak is profitable at anything above $50 an ounce. And if copper recovers, too, then part of the deal with Lone Minerals is that we get a royalty of 5 per cent on the value of all ore extracted from the Monster. That’s a long way into the future, but whatever happens about the Monster, Jarra Jarra is now secure, the grass coming back and water in the dry. My son will inherit at least some of his grandfather’s dream … or if it is a girl, then pray God she grows up with the same qualities as her mother, the same love of this harsh demanding place where I have now put down my roots.