Her Outback Protector. Margaret Way

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СКАЧАТЬ armadas of exquisite multicoloured waterlilies; the western fringe of Kakadu, the North, East and West Alligator Rivers snaking through the jungle. That stupendous panorama, especially the endless vistas of waterlilies and the thundering waterfalls of the Wet were to him as much an enduring image of the Top End as were the crocodiles.

      They were into March now. The Wet, the Gunemeleng as the aboriginals called it, was all but over. Two cyclones had threatened the tropical North, one extremely dangerous. It had put Darwin, destroyed in Cyclone Tracy in 1974, on high alert. Mercifully cyclone Ingrid had taken herself off into the Timor Sea, but not before dumping torrential rain over the coast and the hinterland. That same deluge, more than they had seen in decades, had brought life-giving water to the Red Centre. The Finke, the oldest river on earth, ninety-nine per cent of the time dry, was now flowing bank to bank. These days it thrilled him to fly over it rejoicing in all the waterfalls that ran off the ochre coloured rock faces into serene green gullies.

      Born in tropical North Queensland not far from the mighty Daintree rain forest he had become used to the desert environment. It was very, very special. Maybe the girl would think so, too. After all she had been born on Moondai and spent enough years there to remember it.

      “Dan!” A voice boomed.

      A passenger off the Brisbane-Darwin flight, a big affable looking man, pushing sixty with keen blue eyes threw out an arm. It was Bill Morrissey, a well respected member of the Northern Territory Administration.

      “How are you, sir?” Respect and liking showed in Daniel’s face.

      They shook hands. “Hot and tired.” Morrissey wiped his forehead with a spotless white handkerchief. “What brings you into Darwin?”

      No harm in telling him. “I’m here to pick up Alexandra Kingston and deliver her to her family.”

      “Lordy!” Morrissey put a hand to his fast thinning hair as though to check it was still there. “Wouldn’t like to be that poor child! Not with those relatives. Rigby’s will would have totally alienated his son and grandson and let’s not forget the second wife, Elsa. I have to see it as an angry man’s last response. Rigby cut his family out of the main game even when it’s a fact of life dynasties die out without sons to take over. Daughters tend to walk off with some guy out of the family field.”

      “True,” Daniel acknowledged, having witnessed that scenario first-hand. “But in all fairness to Mr. Kingston, Lloyd and Berne aren’t cut out to be cattlemen. Maybe Mr. Kingston made demands on them they simply couldn’t cope with, but they have no taste for the job on their own admission.”

      “Well, they could never be carbon copies of him,” Morrissey replied. “A lot of rich families produce at least a couple of offspring who have no head for big business. Now the girl’s father, Trevor, was shaping up to be a chip off the old block. Tragedy he was killed. It happens in our way of life. You’re still going to be around, though, aren’t you, Dan? Can’t see how they could possibly do without you. You might be young, but you’re up there with the best.”

      Daniel heard the sincerity in the older man’s voice. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir. I’m committed to one year at least under the terms of Mr. Kingston’s will.”

      Morrissey clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Trust Rigby to ensure the transition would be smooth. With you at the helm, or guiding the girl into getting a professional manager they might be able to get by. How old are you now, son? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

      “Twenty-eight.” Sometimes it seemed to Daniel he had to be at least double that age, he had seen so much of life.

      “Do you have any idea how well regarded you are?”

      Daniel gave his very appealing, crooked grin. “If I am I’m very glad. I’ve worked hard.”

      “That you have!” Morrissey agreed, knowing the full story.

      “Rigby certainly thought so and we all know how demanding he was.”

      “He wasn’t loved, that’s for sure!” Daniel agreed wryly, “but I always found him fair enough and willing to listen. One of the things that made him so successful I guess. He never had a closed mind, even for a relative newcomer to the game like me. Besides I’ve learned to love the Territory. It’s my home now.”

      “And the Territory needs young men like you,” Morrissey said, comfortable with the mantle of mentor. “Young men of brains and vision. You’ve got both.” He thrust out his hand for a final shake. “Best go now. Can’t keep the chauffeur waiting. When you’re next in Darwin come and see me. When your twelve months are up I guarantee I’ll find you something to suit your talents.”

      “Might hold you to that, sir.” Daniel grinned.

      Morrissey began to move away, then paused, looking back.

      “By the way, Joel Moreland has expressed a desire to meet you. Not for the first time I might add. The Big Man’s heard about you. Now he wants to take a good look at you. You could be in luck, there, my boy. Moreland is a Territory icon. I’ll set it up for lunch. Just the three of us.”

      “That’s great!” Daniel was surprised and deeply flattered. It never hurt to have friends in high places he thought as he strode off. Joel Moreland was known in the Territory as the man with the Midas touch. Not one of his many ventures stretching back forty years and more had failed. Not that the man with the Midas touch hadn’t known his own tragedy. Moreland’s son and heir, Jared, had been killed in a freak accident at an Alice Springs rodeo well over twenty years before. Apparently he had put his own life on the line to save a cavorting teenager from a maddened bullock. The Grim Reaper no more spared the lives of those rolling in money than he did the poor.

      Well he knew all about being poor but strangely he’d never developed any lasting complexes about it. He was a fighter. He’d spent much of his childhood fighting for the honour of his pretty little mother and the good name some callous guy had stripped from her without looking back. People didn’t label the illegitimate bastards any more. It was politically incorrect. When he was a kid growing up in a small, redneck Queensland town, they didn’t give a fig about that.

      From very humble beginnings he had made something of himself. He’d had help. Everyone needs a little help. Even the strongest couldn’t do it on their own. A Channel Country cattleman called Harry Cunningham had given him and his mother that helping hand when they were so down on their luck he’d been filled with fear his vulnerable mother would resort to taking her own life. Harry Cunningham had been their saviour, the man behind his education.

      “You’ve got to have an education, Dan. You’re smart as they come, but education is everything. Get it. Then you can pay me back.”

      Well he had paid Harry back, reviving the fortunes of Harry’s run-down station only to have Harry’s daughter, his only child, sell the valuable property within a month. Some sons-in-law proved themselves to be eminently capable as substitute sons but as Bill Morrissey had pointed out this particular daughter had married a city slicker who had shied away violently from the prospect of taking on a cattle station. Far easier to take the money and run.

      It was Harry’s glowing recommendations that had come to the ears of his late employer, Rigby Kingston. That’s what had gained him a job on Moondai, rising to the rank of overseer. It was he Rigby Kingston had looked to. Not his remaining son, Lloyd, or Lloyd’s son, Bernard. It wasn’t often a man bypassed the males of his family to leave the bulk of his estate to a granddaughter, moreover one who had been banished. What СКАЧАТЬ