Flight to Coorah Creek Page 26

  ‘It will be light soon,’ she said.

  ‘They have search planes standing by to go as soon as they can,’ Jack said, as he came up behind her. ‘My guess is that Jess is waiting until sunrise to turn on the transponder. Saving her battery until it can do her the most good.’

  ‘Do you think …?’ Ellen’s voice faltered. She couldn’t put the terrible thought into words.

  ‘I think they had to land somewhere. I think Jess is a really good pilot and more than capable of making a safe emergency landing out there. They will find them,’ Jack said firmly.

  His arms came around her. For a heart-stopping moment, she couldn’t breathe, and then she felt his strength and comfort. Without thinking about it, she leaned back into his solid warmth. It was like coming home. She felt so much of the past just wash away leaving her feeling … clean.

  For several long, silent minutes they stood like that. Then Ellen took a deep breath. There was something she should have told Jack a long time ago. This seemed a strange time to do it but, after their long fearful night, she felt closer to Jack than she ever had to anyone.

  ‘The policeman …’ Ellen said slowly. ‘When he was here earlier, I thought I saw something in the way he looked at me. As if he knew something about me.’ She felt Jack tense and knew she was right.

  ‘He’s had a bulletin from the east,’ Jack said calmly. ‘You’ve been reported missing. The kids, too. And there are claims you stole money when you left.’

  Ellen closed her eyes. The fear she thought she had left behind washed over her again. ‘I didn’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know that,’ Jack said with such certainty that she felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘I told the Sarge that too. He said he would hold off for a few weeks. But Ellen, you have to go back some time and face it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And there must be somebody you left behind who is worried about you. Who needs to know where you are. Who needs to know you and the kids are all right.’

  There was. ‘The kids would like to see their grandmother. I couldn’t tell her where I was going … in case …’

  Jack’s arms tightened around her. ‘There’s a custody issue too.’

  A small cry escaped Ellen. She felt her legs give way. If not for Jack, she would have collapsed to the ground. ‘No. No,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s all right,’ his voice was in her ear. ‘They won’t take the kids away from you. I saw what he did to you. When you arrived. I saw the bruises. No court would give him custody of the kids. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.’

  Ellen forced her way out of Jack’s embrace, but she didn’t turn to face him. He knew what she was. What her husband had done to her. Her humiliation was complete. Now he could never …

  ‘Ellen.’ Gentle hands on her shoulders turned her to face him. ‘Ellen, look at me.’

  Slowly she raised her eyes.

  ‘I will protect you. I’ll come with you. I’ll help you set everything right. Then, if it’s what you want, I’ll bring you home again. And, when you’re ready, if you’ll have me …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘You would want someone … who has … someone like me?’

  A fierce light glowed in Jack’s eyes. ‘Ellen, you were a victim in this. You did nothing wrong. You are just perfect – and how any man could ever hurt you …’

  Ellen thought she saw the glint of a tear in his eye as he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her.

  Ellen rested her head against Jack’s chest. She breathed in the essence of him. Finally she lifted her face to him. His kiss was soft and gentle and she welcomed it.

  After a few moments, he drew back and looked down at her.

  ‘I won’t break,’ she said, and this time when he kissed her, it was with longing and desire and Ellen felt her own passion rising in response. There was a joy and a pleasure in Jack’s touch that she had never felt before.

  The sharp peal of the telephone finally broke then apart. Jack hurried to answer it. He listened for a few moments then slowly set it back in its cradle.

  ‘The search planes are taking off,’ he said.

  The faintest glimmer of colour in the eastern sky heralded the coming of dawn. Sitting near the crest of the ridge, Adam took a deep breath of the crisp air. The leaking fuel had long since soaked into the dry earth, not even the fumes remained to mar the clear fresh smell of morning. As the fuel had dissipated, so too had some darkness deep inside him.

  Jess was by his side, her hand still in his. At one point during the night, as the temperature had dropped, she had collected a couple of blankets from the plane and draped them over their shoulders. On the other side of the ridge, Sister Luke was also covered with a blanket. But she would never see this dawn. Despite his grief at losing the woman who had been more of a mother to him than the woman who gave him life, Adam felt almost at peace.

  It was something he had not felt for as long as he could remember.

  The first golden rays of the sun peeped over the horizon. Almost immediately, the air began to warm. Adam shrugged off the blankets.

  ‘It wasn’t like he said,’ Jess said softly beside him. ‘I didn’t know the drugs were on the plane. I wasn’t a part of it.’

  ‘I know.’ As he said the words, he realised they were true. ‘You would never do something like that, Jess.’

  ‘No.’ She paused. ‘But people’s lives were destroyed by drugs I flew into the country. There must have been some hint of what was going on. Something I missed. Maybe if I had noticed something sooner …’

  ‘Don’t. You can’t take on another person’s guilt.’ Was he talking to her … or to himself?

  ‘After they raided the plane,’ Jess continued, ‘I was arrested along with Brian. I spent a few days in jail. My parents came to see me every day. I will never forget the courage they showed, walking into that jail, their heads held high. It almost broke my heart. I wanted Brian to pay for that more than for what he did to me.’

  ‘You are very lucky to be part of a family like that.’

  A few more minutes passed. The only sounds were the faint noises of the outback coming to life. The distant call of a crow. The soft rustle of a breeze in the scrubby undergrowth.

  ‘I was ten years old,’ Adam said. He was surprised to find his voice wasn’t shaking. ‘My parents were getting a divorce. My father didn’t want me. Or my mother for that matter. But he didn’t want to let us go either.’

  He waited for the familiar pain to begin. It was there, deep inside him, but this morning it seemed less sharp.

  ‘I sneaked away from school early. I hated school. Mostly because all the other kids seemed to have so much – and I had so little. I don’t just mean the money. They all seemed to have happy families. Brothers and sisters. Mothers and fathers. And kids can be very cruel to someone who is different.’

  He felt Jess squeeze his hand.

  ‘I was in the kitchen. I was thirsty. There wasn’t any milk or juice or anything. Even then, my mother wasn’t very good at … well, at being a mother. I was getting some water from the tap, when I heard him. He wasn’t even trying to get into the house. He didn’t want to steal anything … he just wanted to destroy. I ducked under the table, because I didn’t want him to see me. I heard sounds on the front veranda … and then I smelt it. The petrol.’

  Adam closed his eyes as the memories and the pain claimed him.

  ‘I watched a lot of TV as a kid. My mother didn’t care what I watched. I probably shouldn’t have watched a lot of those crime shows so young. But maybe it helped. I understood immediately what was happening. I came out from under the table and ran to the front door, but the handle was already too hot to touch. I burned my hand trying to open it, but I couldn’t.’

  Adam raised his hand and studied it. Those scars were gon
e, but too many others remained.

  ‘The house started to fill with smoke. Those old wooden houses burn so fast. I ran through the kitchen to the back door, but it was locked. I only had a key to the front door. I couldn’t get out. I tried to get through to my bedroom. I knew I could climb out of the window, but the flames and the heat were too much. I crawled back into the kitchen. I climbed up on the sink … smashed the window to get some air … It wasn’t a very nice neighbourhood where we lived and there were bars on the window… I was trapped.’

  Adam stared out at the first glow of the sun on the horizon, but the glow he saw flickered and moved as the flames ate their way towards him. He shivered, despite the fact that the temperature was already rising.

  ‘It gets a bit hazy after that. I think I dislocated my shoulder trying to force my way through the bars. The flames … my clothes were on fire when the fire brigade arrived. They saw me and broke down the door to get me out. They took me to hospital and handed me over to Sister Luke. For a while the doctors didn’t think I would live … and God knows there were times when I wanted to die. The pain … no one should have to live through pain like that. And certainly not a child. Sister Luke was my lifeline through all that. Without her …’

  He closed his eyes, blinking back tears as grief overwhelmed him. Grief for Sister Luke. Grief for the child he had been. When he opened his eyes again and looked at Jess, tears were streaming down her face too.

  ‘There’s one thing I never told her. I’ve never told anyone.’ He took a long slow breath and reached deep inside himself for the scar that only he felt. ‘He saw me. My father looked in the window. He was holding a lighter in his hand …’

  Beside him, he heard Jess gasp in horror. ‘He knew—’

  ‘Yes. He knew I was there when he set that fire. He looked right in my eyes, and then he dropped that lighter.’ Adam’s voice broke. For a few moments he struggled to control his emotion. ‘All my life I have lived with the knowledge that my father wanted to kill me.’

  ‘And you never told anyone?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have to give evidence at his trial. They said I was too young and too ill. There were other witnesses to what he’d done. So I never had to tell anyone that my father tried to kill me.’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t trying to …’ Jess’s voice trailed off as he shook his head.

  ‘He knew I was there. He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew what he was doing. For a long time, as a child, I wondered what was so wrong with me that my father wanted to kill me. My mother wasn’t exactly affectionate before the fire … afterwards, well, she just couldn’t cope. With my nightmares. With the scars. And the hospital bills. I grew up thinking I was unlovable.’

  ‘Sister Luke loved you, Adam.’

  ‘And I loved her. She looked after me. Through my initial recovery, and the skin grafts. And the therapy. But she couldn’t stop all the hurts. I eventually went back to school. If I thought the kids were cruel before it was nothing to how they were when they saw the scars. I still find it hard to believe the best in people. And years later – the women – they were either repulsed by me or wanted to sleep with me because I was some sort of freak show. I stopped believing … hoping that …’

  His voice trailed off and at last he turned to face Jess. The early morning light had painted a rosy glow on her face. He waited for her to speak. To tell him that he was wrong. That he could find love. With her.

  She didn’t say those words that he so wanted to hear. Tears rolled down her face as she slowly reached out to touch his chest. She began unfastening the buttons of his shirt. For a few seconds, a terrible fear gripped his heart. He grabbed her hand. She gently shook her head. Slowly he released her hand to continue its task. When his shirt was loose, Jess gently slipped it from his shoulders. In the bright early morning light, the scars on his upper arm and shoulder seemed angry and red, as they hadn’t for many years. Adam searched Jessica’s face, and saw no shock. No revulsion. No pity.

  He saw love.

  The barriers around his heart broke as Jess leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to his scarred flesh.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘They’ve spotted the plane,’ the policeman said abruptly, the moment Jack answered the phone.

  Jack felt relief surge through him. ‘Where?’

  ‘They were on the way back,’ Max Delaney explained. ‘They came down on some flat land on the south-east corner of Eight Mile Plains.’

  Jack glanced across at the large-scale map of the area that was fixed to the wall of the hangar. His eyes found the property the Sergeant had named. He tried to visualise what sort of a landing place Jess might have found there.

  ‘Have they made radio contact?’ he asked.

  ‘Briefly. Jess didn’t have much battery …’ When the sergeant paused, Jack knew the news wasn’t good.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Jess and the doc are fine. Sister Luke … she wasn’t hurt in the crash, but she had a heart attack. Adam couldn’t save her.’

  Jack nodded slowly, as he tried to take in the meaning of the words. Sister Luke was gone? She had been such an important part of their little community. So many people would miss her. The Aboriginal families she helped so much. All the patients at the hospital where she and Adam worked. Adam, he knew, would be inconsolable and no doubt would blame himself for failing her. Then there was Ellen.

  Jack was alone in the hangar. Ellen had gone to pick up Harry and Bethany from Trish at the pub. She had promised to return after she’d given the kids their breakfast and left them once again with Trish. He had suggested she try to get some sleep, but Ellen was having none of it. She had declared her intention to grab a shower and a change of clothes, and then return with coffee and breakfast for him. She wouldn’t let him continue the vigil alone.

  But the vigil was over now.

  ‘How are they getting back?’ Jack asked, his voice as heavy as his heart.

  ‘There’s a ground team going in from Eight Mile homestead. They don’t have a helicopter. It’ll take them at least a couple of hours to reach the plane. Then they’ll bring them back to Eight Mile where there is a good strip. The RFDS will meet them there and bring them home to the Creek.’

  The Royal Flying Doctor Service wasn’t technically needed if there was no one injured. But Jack understood that the RFDS would want to bring one of their own home.

  ‘As soon as we have an ETA, I’ll arrange for Mick Davis to meet the plane.’

  Mick ran Coorah Creek’s only funeral service.

  ‘Thanks,’ Jack said.

  ‘Go home. Get some sleep,’ the sergeant said. ‘We’ll need you back there when the plane arrives, but that won’t be for a good four or five hours yet.’

  Jack hung up the phone. He was deathly tired, but it wasn’t sleep he needed.

  He drove to the wooden house behind the hospital. The little blue car that Ellen and Jess shared was parked near the front gate. He pulled his ute in next to it and climbed the stairs as slowly as a man twice his age. The front door opened before he had even raised his hand to knock. Ellen stood there, looking fresh from the shower, her damp hair dripping water onto a clean cotton shirt.

  ‘Jack? There’s news?’

  ‘They found the plane.’

  The joy on her face faded quickly when he didn’t go on.

  ‘Please tell me they are all right …’ she said, her voice quaking with fear.

  ‘Jess and Adam are all right. But Sister Luke …’ his voice faltered as Ellen gave a little cry.

  ‘No. Not Sister Luke!’

  Jack stepped forward and caught Ellen in his arms as she started to sob. He lifted her gently and carried her back into the house. Without a moment’s thought, he carried her through to her bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. Then he lay beside her and gathered her into hi
s arms as she cried. She cried for a long time, and when the crying subsided, they talked about Sister Luke. Ellen hadn’t known her for long, but she still had stories of how Sister Luke had helped. Giving books to her children then bullying Jack into building a bookshelf. Jack listened as she told him little things that no one really noticed. Little things that meant so much to a single mum and her kids. Jack talked about Sister Luke, too. Of the times before Ellen came. Of working with Sister Luke and Adam. Of the times she had talked Adam into doing things he didn’t want to do. Of the many times Jack had helped her. Of the affection and respect he’d held for the tiny woman with such faith and energy.

  Jack’s voice grew faint and after a time Ellen slipped into an exhausted sleep.

  Jack lay on the bed; Ellen cradled in his arms, and watched her. She’d been awake all night, and now she slept deeply. Her face was so beautiful and so vulnerable. He could just look at her for hours. Jack also hadn’t slept the night before, but he vowed not to close his eyes for one moment. He would lie here and watch over Ellen. This day and every other day for just as long as she needed or wanted him. It was his last thought before sleep took him.

  Looking out of the window, Jess finally found what she had been searching for. A place where two roads met to form a giant Y. A place with a long thin ribbon of green to mark the creek. There was the now familiar pattern of houses and that rectangle of incongruous blue that was the pool in the school grounds. The open scar of the mine pit didn’t seem as ugly as the first time she had seen it. That mine was the lifeblood of the town. Of her town. Of her home. The first time she had seen this town, she’d been seated in the pilot’s seat and running away from her past as far and as fast as she could go. Now she was looking down at the town from the passenger seat in the RFDS plane, aching with grief but feeling an unaccustomed sense of homecoming.

  She glanced to her right. Adam was seated across the aisle from her, also staring out of the window at the town below. Behind him, a stretcher carried Sister Luke’s blanket-shrouded form. The search team had found them mid-morning. It had taken almost three hours to drive back to the homestead, where the plane was waiting for them. Greg Anderson, the pilot Jess had met at the Birdsville races, had come to take them home.