Yáo Mei-Ling drifted slowly awake from a deep, restful sleep to the sound of children laughing and a soft, scented breeze stirring the curtains of the open window. Inhaling the perfumed air, she heard something else … the soft, sleepy wordless hum of an old lullaby.
Turning her head, she saw the tall young black man who had grinned cheekily at Chong during their visit. He was sitting in an old rocking chair, head resting back and his eyes closed, and tucked into his chest was one of her children. His other hand lay on the sleeping form of her twin, comfortable and warm in the makeshift crib.
The young man was rocking very gently, and his humming was soothing and so peaceful that Mei-Ling would have been happy to slip back into sleep and dream painlessly and sweetly, where there was no danger or hurt and her children could live safe and sound and away from the evil thing that was their father.
She smiled to herself. For the first time in what seemed forever, she felt safe. She was still very sore and tired, but Mei-Ling was also hoping she would be allowed to get up and get dressed. She wasn't hungry for once, and she felt as though, given a little time, she would be well on the way to good health again. And she desperately wanted to get to know her children.
"Hey … you're awake!"
The humming had stopped and the young man was watching her with gentle brown eyes and a white smile.
Mei-Ling blinked, not knowing what to say.
"My name's Alec," he continued. "Or Hardison. Take your pick." Hardison glanced down at the child in his arms. "Your girl has a dose of the hiccups 'cause she ate too fast, so we're havin' a little quiet time to see if she'll settle. Your boy over here," Hardison rubbed his thumb over the little, snoozing lump in the drawer, "likes his zees. Fell asleep halfway through his lunch an' conked right out."
The child in his arms twitched and a loud 'Hic!' was heard. Hardison chuckled.
"Here. See if she'll settle for her momma."
And before Mei-Ling could utter a word, Hardison gently cradled the child in big hands and mindful of his injured shoulder, passed her over to her eager mother, who smiled her thanks.
Mei-Ling studied her daughter. She was tiny, it was true, and she ached to feed her, but Mei-Ling knew in her heart she couldn't. The deprivations she had suffered with Chong … the lack of care and decent food and attention had told on her young body. But both of her children were alive and well, thanks to the kindness and love of these people she didn't even know.
The little girl let out another soft 'hic!' and Mei-Ling laughed and instinctively popped the child over her shoulder and rubbed her back. It felt good to laugh, Mei-Ling thought. She hadn't laughed in nearly three years. It felt odd … unfamiliar.
Hardison painfully heaved himself out of the chair.
"I'll go tell Jo you're awake. You get to know your babes, okay? You need anything, you just yell."
Mei-Ling looked up at this kind, gentle young man.
"Thank you," she whispered, even as she nuzzled her daughter's tufty hair. "You do not have to go …" she added, a little fearful at being alone.
Hardison grinned, amused and understanding what she was feeling.
"Don' worry," he chided, "you'll be fine. An' you're not alone – you got your very own protector right there," he added, pointing under the low, wide table set firmly against the wall which carried Eliot's 'undie' drawer and its precious cargo.
Mei-Ling peered at the table, and was a little taken aback when she saw a pair of boot-black eyes and a moist nose set in a white, wiry face gazing back at her, eyebrows beetling as their owner stared at her.
"A … a dog?" she asked, a little confused. Dogs had never been a part of her life.
"That's Buster," Hardison replied. "The dumb mutt has been under there since the babies arrived. We kept shooin' him out, but it seems he's decided to make sure your babies are safe an' sound. I doubt anythin' bad will happen to them or you while he's around," he added, grinning.
Mei-Ling looked at the little terrier, and Buster's stubby tail wagged hesitantly. He lifted his head off his paws where he lay keeping guard, and gave the young woman an ingratiating grin, lips rising over white teeth, his eyes narrowed with pleasure.
Mei-Ling had to smile.
"Hello, and I thank you, little Yong,*" she said solemnly.
Buster sat up and panted happily, but he didn't leave his post. He glanced at Hardison but then his eyes returned to Mei-Ling and the child she held. He clawed gently at the bedclothes with a scruffy paw, telling her that he was there and ready to guard the vulnerable, squeaky tiny humans. He was a terrier, fierce and protective, and he had to uphold the honour of his tribe, Buster decided. He sneezed, knowing he had made his point, and slipping back under the table he returned to his duties.
Hardison shook his head.
"Damn dog … been hangin' about too much with Eliot …"
Jo bustled in at that moment, and was delighted to see Mei-Ling awake and looking much better.
"Well now, young lady, would you like to get up this morning? Maybe have a shower and have a bite to eat? The little ones will be fine, I promise!"
Mei-Ling felt strange. She had a choice.
"Yes … yes! I would like that!" she said before she could stop herself.
"Good!" Jo said and placed a small pile of clothes on the bottom of the bed. "They might be a bit big, but they'll do at a pinch."
Mei-Ling smiled, the joy shining from her face. She was free – she and her children were free. She took a deep breath and felt her daughter shift drowsily against her, and the scent of flowers overwhelmed her senses.
"Thank you … thank you so much!" she murmured, and nestled her cheek against the baby in her arms. "The flowers I can smell … are they roses?"
Hardison laid a big hand on they little boy's head as he snoozed in the makeshift crib while Jo nodded, pleased.
"Yes … roses. I love roses, and they grow so well here."
Mei-Ling watched Hardison, engrossed as he watched over the sleeping child.
"My mother … she loved roses." Her daughter smacked tiny lips, the hiccups having subsided. "She … she died … when I was a child."
Jo's face became full of compassion. This young woman was barely more than a child herself, and she was already a mother.
"I'm so sorry …" she murmured, and touched Mei-Ling's arm in sympathy, but the young mother smiled up at her.
"My daughter … I will call her Rose," she said suddenly. "For my mother," she added.
Hardison's dark eyes shone with delight and reached out his other hand and gently stroked Rose's cheek with his index finger.
"Well, lil' Rose … I think that's a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. You got a name for this handsome fella here yet?" he asked.
Mei-Ling shook her head.
"But I will. When he is awake … I … I will say hello to my son," she added, smiling. "They will have Australian names and … and … be free and safe … and I will be just Mei … because …" she straightened proudly, "I will be Australian too," she added.
"I think that's a bloody good idea!" declared Effie who stumped into the room with a pair of sand shoes for Mei.
And Jo, looking at this surprising young woman, couldn't be happier.
Eliot, sitting on his recliner and watching, as always, the perimeter of the homestead and beyond, was trying to finish his late breakfast. But he had to privately admit he was struggling. Hardison, Nate and Soapy had returned an hour previously, just as he finished helping Charlie haul the battered Ford ute away from the gate-post with one of the tractors and shunt it into the barn, where it was covered with a tarpaulin.
His side was on fire and his head ached, and he was very tired. He desperately needed to rest, but, Eliot knew, their time of quiet and respite was fast running out. Chong was on his way, he was sure. He calculated all of the options – it would have been this morning at the latest when Chong found out Mei-Ling was missing, and that was being optimistic. Eliot always worked with the worse-case scenario, and if the vicious young snakehead had found out about Mei-Ling's disappearance earlier, given the six-hour drive from Albany to Wapanjara, Chong and his thugs could appear at any moment.
Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to ease the headache thumping behind his eyes. Much as he enjoyed Effie's pancakes, he was just shoving them around his plate as Nate and Soapy discussed what Hardison had done. He wasn't really paying attention, and only made out the odd word that impinged on his consciousness … words such as 'stripped assets' and 'shell companies.' That and the constant babble of voices through the earbud he wore increased the pressure in his head. While his team knew to keep the chatter to a minimum, two small children prattling on to each other – plus Charlie telling them to keep the noise down – didn't help.
Gertie stalked the homestead burbling to herself, and Effie was busy making up more milk for the babies and muttering, as was her habit. Parker was arguing with anyone who would listen about why she should be allowed back up the water tower, and Eliot, tired to death of the racket, finally had had enough.
"Can it, Parker! You'd be too much of a target, okay? You're twenty feet off the ground on a damn' exposed metal tower!" he growled, his voice sharper than he intended.
I can take care of myself Eliot! Parker snapped back through the earbud, irritated.
"It means, Parker, there ain't no way I can stop you takin' a goddamn bullet from here if you're up there! So stay away from the friggin' tower!" Eliot snarled.
But Eliot – Parker insisted waspishly, not about to let it go.
Then Hardison chipped in, his voice soft and reconciliatory.
Hey, babe … how about a compromise? There's a bit of cover beside the chimney an' you can still see a-ways from there on the roof. Eliot? Howzat?
Eliot ran fingers through his unruly hair and winced as his head throbbed.
"Okay …" he sighed. " … okay. But you get down from there if I tell you, Parker. Y'hear me?"
He heard a disconsolate sigh.
S'pose … Parker answered glumly.
Eliot heard her grumble to herself for a moment, and then the earbud fell silent, as though everyone had realised their hitter wasn't in the mood for rebellion.
Weapons were posted about the house at each window, and everyone – including the children – knew their place. Eliot wasn't too sure that Lizzie and Kip quite understood how serious this was, but at least they would be safe – Parker had run them through their exit route a dozen times, and the little thief would also make sure Mei-Ling and the twins would be taken to shelter should the worst happen and Eliot was taken down.
Chong was one problem that, at least, was a little predictable. But Khenbish Hadan … she was the unknown quantity in the whole equation. Eliot guessed that she was now marching to the beat of her own drum, a beat of revenge and hatred, and she was completely unpredictable. The only hope he had was that she didn't side with Chong.
Letting out a wordless grunt of frustration, Eliot finally set his plate of pancakes on his little side table and flung his fork onto it. Levering himself to his feet, he suddenly swayed, disorientated, and he had to sit back down in his chair in a hurry before he went to his knees.
"Eliot?" Soapy said, worried, and Nate turned to look at the Oklahoman, alarmed by the concern in the old pastoralist's voice, but Eliot waved a hand dismissively.
"M'okay," he said, just a little too forcefully. "Just tired of starin' at nothin' is all," he added by way of some sort of explanation.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder, and he squinted up to see Effie standing beside him.
"Go rest, boy," she rumbled under her breath. "You're done in, and a watched pot never boils, you know that." Her muddy eyes were soft with compassion.
"Can't, Eff. Chong's comin' … and sooner rather than later. Besides, Mei-Ling and the babies are in my room, an' I don't feel like catchin' a couple of zees here on the recliner. If I did that I'd be as stiff as roadkill in fifteen minutes. I have to be able to move, Effie – I can't do my job otherwise," he added doggedly.
"My bed's made up, you daft young bludger. Go get ten minutes in my room, then. Missy'll be able to see anyone coming on the road from on the roof, so we'll waken you long before they get here. And I betcha we'll know soon enough if they come through the bush!" she grinned malevolently, thinking of Charlie and Parker's little 'surprises' they had left for interlopers.
Eliot, for once, couldn't make up his mind. He knew Charlie was lurking around the barn, shadowed by the three heelers, and Parker's sharp eyes watched from the roof. Soapy, no matter that he was nearly seventy, was a marksman of the highest standard, and not afraid to end a life if it kept his family safe. Jo and Sophie were inside, watchful and perfectly capable of defending themselves, and Hardison, despite being wounded, was rested and alert. Nate's mind was constantly gauging parameters and options, and he was also a mean and spirited fighter. Effie … well, Effie was more than able to look after herself and her people.
He decided he could spare ten minutes to lie down and ease his battered frame.
"Ten minutes, Effie. No more, okay?"
Effie sat down beside him and gazed into weary, slightly glazed blue eyes.
"No," she said as patiently as she could – which for Effie McPhee was a struggle. "You sleep for as long as you can, you daft lump. And if you're going to be arsey about it, remember we need you as fit as you can be, and right now you're just bloody useless. So go, you pillock – sleep."
Eliot scowled, but hesitated, trying hard to think of a reason why he should stay right where he was, but Sophie's voice suddenly came through the earbud, mildly exasperated.
Oh, for God's sake, Eliot! Just go to bloody bed, will you and stop being such a pain! She sighed, slightly annoyed.
Are you sick again? Lizzie piped up from the kitchen, a little alarmed.
Eliot's scowl deepened.
"No! I'm fine 'Lizbeth –"
Grandma Jo! Make Eliot go lie down! Lizzie demanded.
Eliot? Do as Lizzie says! Jo said sharply, making Eliot wince at the tone through the electronic earpiece.
El? You bein' a moron? Hardison joined in as he took little Rose in his arms and wandered through to the living room to let Mei get out of bed and have a hot shower.
"Dammit, Hardison!" Eliot began, "Will you people just leave me alone –"
Give it up, mate, Charlie piped up as he checked the fence line beyond Gertie's paddock. Eliot heard the big camel harrumph to herself as she followed Charlie and the dogs. You're bloomin' buggered and you know it. We're perfectly capable of looking out for ourselves, you know. Stop pissing about!
Eliot knew then he was at an impasse. With a sigh he slowly got to his feet and nodded, although the pain in his head made him flinch.
"Ten minutes." He said to Effie, and the old woman smirked. "Only ten minutes."
"Go sleep, son. We'll see you in a bit," Effie said.
Without replying and with the various echoes of smug satisfaction humming through his earbud from his entire family, Eliot made his way into the house, through the kitchen and into Effie's capacious bedroom.
Albany Mining Company was abuzz with activity.
Heavily armed men, over a dozen of them, were settling themselves into two open-backed trucks. Derry Ryan, followed by Chong Bun-Tsui, now dressed in boots and fatigues, headed to the cab of the foremost truck. Chong's face was set in anger and determination.
Ryan, peering through a Soapy-induced black eye, was trying to get some sort of plan out of Chong.
"We could go overland man, through the Wapanjara fence-line and take 'em from the west –" he insisted, his Ulster accent raw with annoyance.
"NO!" Chong growled. "We go by road – it takes longer, but we have to make it appear as though old man Munro killed his family and then himself. Tracks through the bush and damaged fences wouldn't look right. When we get there, you take the men and surround the place. I'll tell you what I want when we get there."
"What about the girl?" Ryan asked.
"I take her back, she has my son and then I dispose of her. I can get as many wet-nurses as I need," Chong snarled, still furious that the young woman had not only defied him but left him. Nobody left Chong Bun-Tsui, heir to the dragonhead of the Shumchun triads. Nobody.
Chong slid a well-used 9mm Glock into the shoulder holster under his left arm, and slipped a couple of spare clips into his pocket. At his belt was the gun's partner, a Glock survival knife, with its saw-edged back-blade sitting snug in its polymer sheath.
"And that cowboy …" he added, eyes narrowed with hatred, "that bastard is mine."
Ryan slid into the driver's seat and started the engine.
The small two-truck convoy was rolling out of the mining yard when Rickenbacker came stumbling out of the old homestead, the sweat of fear beading his forehead. He waved his arms frantically at the trucks, trying to stop them, but it was too late.
Rickenbacker slumped against the railings of the veranda and groaned, wiping a chubby hand over his perspiring face.
He had just now been trying to organise payments for supplies and was checking all of the legal – and not so legal – bank accounts. He had sat and stared at the first account he had opened, and his heart began to pound and his gut tightened in sheer terror.
"Oh god …" he whispered, and bringing up a new tab he had checked another. And then another. And then … "oh god," he repeated, and he began to babble. "Oh no-no-no-no … this … this can't be happening …"
Lurching desperately from his seat he had hoped to catch Chong before he left, but he was seconds too late.
Rickenbacker managed to stumble to a veranda seat and settle into it, and held his head in his hands, rocking backwards and forwards, keening quietly. For no matter what Chong did this day, he, Troy Rickenbacker, was a dead man.
Eliot realised that in all of the years he had known Effie McPhee, he had never seen her room.
Easing wearily through the heavy old door, he found himself in a big, welcoming, light-dappled room, with its own table and chairs and a huge old oak bed almost submerged beneath a deep, comfortable mattress and a mass of pillows and multi-coloured covers. It was obvious Effie liked her comfort.
Eliot smiled when he saw the three hot-water bottles awaiting him on the quilted comforter. Effie always knew when he needed their easing heat.
His smile widened into a knowing grin when he sat down on the bed and discovered a hefty cricket bat propped against the wall beside the pillows. An aboriginal nulla-nulla club hung above the bed, and when he slid his Ka-Bar knife from its sheath at his belt and went to place it beneath a pillow, he was somewhat disconcerted to find a razor-sharp Chinese cleaver already there. Effie obviously had no intention of being taken by surprise without some kind of weaponry to hand.
Lifting one of the hot-water bottles he held it against his side, the sharp heat easing the deep ache of the broken rib. It was bliss. But just as he was about to shift himself sideways and lie down, his eye was caught by something on the opposite wall.
There was a large chest of drawers and a big, over-stuffed chair with a footstool against the wall itself, but above it … Eliot's breath caught in his chest.
Photographs. Dozens and dozens of photographs, all pinned willy-nilly to a huge cork board and lit by a small lamp on the chest of drawers so that Effie could sit in her soft chair and read by its light.
Intrigued now, Eliot stood up, and still holding the hot-water bottle to his wounded side, he limped over to the wall to get a closer look.
It was the history of a life. Or rather, Effie's life with the people she loved. The photographs had a sort of wayward time-line about them, and the oldest – tucked against the corner of the room so that light from the window wouldn't fade them – were of Effie as a girl, with another girl beside her … probably a sister, if the similarity was a pointer. Both Effie and this other girl looked like mini-Effies, only less pudgy, more bright-eyed and dark-haired. And grinning like idiots, both of them.
Eliot's own eyes creased into a smile at the joy in the young faces.
Another photograph which caught his attention was of Soapy and Jo, in stark black-and-white, and they were both young and laughing and obviously desperately in love, if the looks on their faces were anything to go by. Soapy was in uniform, his long face looking like a cheerful bloodhound, and he was grinning at Jo with his arms wrapped around her. She gazed up at him from a mass of chestnut curls, and – oh, God, Eliot gasped … Jo was pregnant. But they had no children, Soapy had always maintained. The pain it must have given both of them every time he had said it must have cut them deeply, for Eliot knew now the child had not survived.
He wiped the unshed tear out of the corner of his eye with the back of his hand and moved on to the other pictures.
Time drove forward in monochrome and then colour, and there was Charlie as a little boy and as a teenager, working around Wapanjara and helping gather mobs of cattle or fixing one of Soapy's elderly tractors. Sometimes there was a girl with him, and Eliot's chest suddenly ached. Alice. Charlie's beautiful Alice.
And then, all of a sudden, Eliot found himself looking at his own face, scowling into Jo's camera as he marinated steaks for the crew for an impromptu barbecue not long after he arrived at Wapanjara. Eliot could see the fresh scars on his face and the shaggy hair, and there was a blur of camel behind him.
The next one he saw of himself – and Eliot was not a man who encouraged photographs to be taken of him, but he could never refuse Jo – made him chuckle ruefully. He would ask Effie if he could have a copy of this one to show to Parker.
He was lying on one of the fold-down beds in front of Jo's garden in mid-summer, bare-footed and wearing only cut-off jeans, sound asleep. His stock hat was tipped over his eyes, a white bandage bound his left thigh and his right shoulder and chest were also swathed in dressings. Tucked against his left side was a small, snoozing white pup, one leg taped with red crepe bandaging. Gertie was sitting at Eliot's head, her neck stretched alongside him, dozing in the sun as she shaded her friend. Eliot's right hand rested on her curly brow.
He remembered that day. He was healing up from the bullet wounds he had gained in Washington all those years ago. When Jo and Soapy had driven all the way to Darwin to pick him up from the military airfield and finding him only half-conscious and very sick, they had also found an abandoned, injured pup by the side of the road. So Eliot and Buster had healed together, fussed over by Gertie and yelled at by Jo and Effie.
More photographs tugged at memories … Charlie, Alice and Eliot, doing a stint as rodeo clowns at a charity campdraft and rodeo in Tennant Creek, goofing it up for the camera … then Charlie, holding a newborn Kip and looking completely terrified. There was Soapy, on horseback and in mid-gallop, whooping like a lunatic as he brought in a mob of cattle … and Jo, head thrown back in pure joy as something Eliot had said made her laugh.
And there, at the edge of the mass of photographs, were several new ones, obviously printed off in high-resolution, probably by Hardison.
There were Kip and Lizzie, arms around each other's shoulders, grinning toothily into the lens … Parker hanging upside down from the water tower, munching on an Anzac biscuit … Hardison grinning straight at the camera and feeding Gertie a gummy frog … and Nate and Sophie snoozing on the swing-chair on the veranda, wrapped in each other's arms.
New lives became new family, and Effie treasured them all.
Eliot sighed. He reached out and touched a picture of Alice, her dark eyes alive with joy as she held Kip as a toddler in the crook of her arm. He turned back to the bed, and gingerly stretched himself on the covers. The hot-water bottles helped the pain in his leg and side, and then his head began to clear a little as he took one last look at Effie's memory-wall before he drifted off to sleep, his family watching over him.
Khenbish Hadan was waiting.
She had seen the arrival of the pregnant young woman when she had returned to check on what was going on at Wapanjara, and she knew that Chong would come after his possession.
So that morning, Hadan finally tidied up her camp and packed away her belongings. She was stiff, and the remaining buckshot in her shoulder was very painful if she moved too quickly. But, she knew, she would bear it.
Saddling up Batu, she swung into the saddle and waited for the agony in her shoulder to subside before touching her heels to the big gelding's side. She was not in any hurry. Chong could do what he wanted, she thought. Her plans had changed because of her injuries, and she knew she could not take on all of the inhabitants of Wapanjara by herself, so Chong's hatred of these people would serve her well.
But if he touched Eliot Spencer, Hadan decided, she would kill the young snakehead. Because Eliot Spencer – and his sword – were hers.
To be continued …
* 'Yong' – A Chinese name meaning 'brave one'.
