Red Sand Sunrise Read online

  The minutes ticked by. If Eve didn’t get here soon she’d miss it.

  Eve felt as though she’d never get there. She’d been told she was mad to drive 1500 kilometres for the funeral of a man she couldn’t remember. Eve didn’t think she was mad, but she’d let herself down by not coming while her father was alive.

  She’d blown it. She had always wanted to see the town her dad came from, meet the man who’d left when she was still in nappies, who she would only have recognised from the two photographs her mother kept for the girls. She hadn’t expected him to die before she got there.

  Eve couldn’t remember him, the man who’d fallen for their mother, stayed long enough for two daughters to be born and then left, but she’d always wondered at the sadness in her father’s eyes in the photos. It was the sadness of a choice gone wrong, her mother had said, and those eyes suggested life hadn’t been smooth for any of them, at least not until he’d chosen to return to the world he’d abandoned for their mother. Mum had certainly seemed happy being single in the final years of her life.

  Today Eve would finally meet the half-sister she’d never seen – though it would have been easier if Sienna had come too.

  Another car and caravan passed the other way. The straight road was ridiculously narrow so she was getting good at slowing and moving half off the strip and onto the red dust at the side whenever a car – or, heaven forbid, a gigantic road train – passed, then swinging her all-wheel drive back onto the strip again.

  Finally the ribbon of tar curved a little and a shimmer of white, sand or salt or maybe even water, winked in the morning light between two distant red sandhills. Eve glanced at her GPS hopefully.

  Not a lot of talking from Irish Sean, the GPS voice. He’d let her down on the conversational side; no forks in the road. But that mirage had to be a lake surrounded by the red sand the town was named after.

  Eve chewed her lip. She still had ten minutes until the funeral started, and there wasn’t long left to wonder what her half-sister, Callie, was like. She’d sounded upset but sensible on the phone, and in her mind Eve could still see Callie’s signature, the perfectly formed, girlish handwriting, added under her father’s on their birthday cards. So hopefully there wouldn’t be too much awkwardness between Eve and her father’s other family.

  Was Callie like her mother or their dad? Imagine if she was even a little like Eve herself?

  Eve snorted. Her mother had always said, ‘Eve is different.’ She guessed she believed her. And not just because she had no desire to be a doctor like her sister, and wasn’t obsessed with climbing to the top of her profession like their mother. Outside the birthing environment Sienna reckoned Eve’s favourite clothes designer was ‘Spur of the Moment’, and her life goal, ‘Whatever Comes’.

  But Eve just loved her job – seeing the wonder in a mother’s eyes when she’d achieved the incredible birth of her baby. She remained convinced women could do anything if someone believed in them.

  In her work she was the low-profile presence in purple scrubs at the back of the room, silent until needed, there to support women in harnessing their inner strength, and to keep them safe. Her job was to stay confident that the mother had the power of birth in her own hands – and Eve was confident of that.

  And maybe, just maybe, this half-sister of hers would see the value in what Eve did too. But she was sending her love anyway, even if they weren’t kindred souls. She just kind of hoped they were.

  A signpost offered a welcome, though no buildings appeared, then a small ruby-red sandhill, a slight rise, a few scrubby trees and . . . Eve sighed in relief. Was this the town?

  Except for Quilpie, the town she’d passed through hours before, Red Sand township looked more substantial than any place she’d seen since Charleville eight hours ago. From what she could observe as she drove past, there was one short main street of shopfronts, a few boarded-up establishments, and one pub – a long, low verandah-clad building in the middle of the main street. ‘The Imperial Hotel’, its sign read, and Eve wished she’d seen it when it was her dad’s.

  She spied the drunkenly askew sign to the cemetery, turned in through the peeling white gates and roared up a dusty track.

  One helicopter and three light planes were lined up in a paddock opposite the cemetery, and the crowd of dark-garbed people under scrubby trees gave the instruction she needed as she pulled in behind the hearse and glanced at her watch.

  She undid her seatbelt and sighed. Ten minutes late. Again.

  There was a ripple of movement behind the trees at the edge of the gravestones, and the gathered mourners parted to allow a tall purple-fringed woman in a crumpled orange dress to hurry through.

  Callie stepped forwards and lifted her hand until Eve saw her, changed direction and arrived in a little stumble of dust.

  Eve awkwardly held out her hand. She was certainly not what Callie had expected. Callie glanced at her mother, who was blinking at the streaks of violet in Eve’s hair, then took the proffered fingers and shook hands while her gaze lingered on her new sister’s face.

  As if driven by an unseen force, Callie’s other hand closed in as well. Somehow she knew her father would be smiling. She wasn’t sure what she felt, but it wasn’t coldness, and she noticed her mother squeeze her shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Eve.’ Sylvia Wilson held out her own hand, and to Callie’s surprise and probably everyone else’s, Eve stepped forward and hugged her.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  Sylvia smiled sadly. ‘And yours, my dear.’

  Eve blinked away tears. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t really know him.’

  Sylvia stroked the coloured fringe from Eve’s eyes. ‘Then your loss is greater than mine, dear.’

  The presbyterian minister coughed and the assembled mourners dragged their eyes away from the fascinating drama unfolding in front of them.

  *

  Twenty minutes later it was done. The boards were removed and Duncan Wilson was lowered into the ground.

  Callie felt her mother’s fingers slip out from under hers as she bent to throw the first sod.

  The red-earth wad landed with a horrid thunk on the lid of the coffin and scattered into marbles. Callie bit down hard on her lip as she bent down for her own contribution to ‘dust to dust’. She’d never thought about the words before and she didn’t like thinking about them now. Her hand stilled and she swallowed. Couldn’t do it. Eve didn’t throw a wad either.

  Then it was time to go, and the three women stood in awkward unity to say thank you to the mourners.

  Sergeant McCabe, new in town since Callie had left, was a tall tough-looking man in the blue shirt and dark trousers of the constabulary. He inclined his head and shook Sylvia’s hand.

  ‘My condolences. I’ll miss him.’ He patted Sylvia’s shoulder and nodded to Callie and Eve. ‘Your father was a larrikin – but the best kind.’

  ‘Your father was a good man. A character.’ Mrs Saul from the post office patted Callie’s arm as she moved past. She nodded at Eve. ‘He’d fix my roof any time the tin came loose and would never take anything for it.’

  ‘And he trained all five of my boys at pony camp.’ Mrs Saul’s daughter, Fran, sighed as she too patted Callie’s arm.

  ‘Don’t know who’ll organise our leg of the Desert Races this year.’ An old stockman shook his grizzled head as he ambled away, bow-legged, eager to put his disreputable hat back on his head where it belonged and secure his favourite bar stool at the pub.

  Callie stood beside her mother and intriguing new sister as people filed past, each with an anecdote about how her father had organised or comforted or rallied around their needs or misfortunes and, with a swell of bitterness in her throat, wished her husband could hear the accolades for a man he hadn’t understood.

  TWO

  Duncan Wilson’s wake was held at the Imperial Hotel. Eve followed Callie’s car to the pub as she mulled over her first impressions of the two women in Duncan’s life.
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br />   Funny how she’d assumed Callie would be tall and slim like her and Sienna, but Callie was like her mother. Sylvia was small and dark-haired, almost pixie-ish, with the kindest eyes Eve had ever seen, and Callie had her mother’s build and eyes in an elegant package.

  There had been none of the stand-offishness she’d expected to receive as the representative of Duncan’s other family. Maybe it was a good thing Sienna hadn’t come; if anyone could instantly get up people’s noses it was Sienna.

  Eve turned into the pub’s crowded red-dirt car park and pulled up in front of a post-and-rail fence that looked like it’d had one too many drinks itself. She could almost hear Sienna’s condescending comment: ‘Very rustic.’

  Well, Eve loved it. The building sat back a little from the red dusty edges of the tarred road, its most distinguishing feature the silver tin roof that hung over the encircling verandahs. A flagpole stood to the side, and Eve felt her eyes sting as she took in the Australian flag hanging limply at half-mast, forlorn in the hot, still air. She wondered how many times the father she couldn’t remember had run his fingers through the rope at the side of the flagpole.

  A couple of wooden steps led to the main doorway, which lay on the diagonal. It looked like someone had snipped off a corner of the pub just as they would a packet of frozen peas.

  The heat from the sun soaked into her hair as if someone had pointed a blow dryer at her head, and when she touched her crown she was astounded at the burn beneath her fingers. This place was insane.

  She looked down at the little clouds of red dust puffing up around her sandals as she hurried across to where she’d only just realised Callie was waiting.

  Callie’s face appeared serene, but the unobtrusive twisting of her fingers proclaimed her tension. Eve’s heart squeezed.

  ‘Sorry. I vagued out. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You see all the people you need to and we’ll catch up later.’

  Callie nodded and touched her hand. ‘Thank you. But come to find me or Mum if you feel lost.’ Her gaze rested briefly on Eve’s face as if she’d been going to say something else, but then she took a deep breath and turned to face the crowd within.

  Eve watched her go and spoke to her receding back. ‘Likewise.’

  Poor thing. Callie had looked so fragile that Eve wanted to gather her up and tell her she understood. She had the sudden thought that being strong through a death was pretty similar to being strong during a difficult birth, except there was no prize of a baby at the end. There was a lot of hard-to-control emotion and pain, and even though you didn’t think you could get through it, you just had to.

  Eve looked again at the entry to the pub. The hotel catered for overnight visitors in the ten air-conditioned rooms out the back, all of which apparently opened onto the wide verandahs. She’d booked one for herself online before she’d left Brisbane, and after the all-night drive, bed was starting to look enticing.

  Get bag later, she decided, drawing in a big breath and stepping into the dim and crowded room where the strong odour of beer swirled.

  A large blurry photo of Duncan Wilson had been hung crookedly above the long red cedar bar and Eve found her eyes drawn to it every time there was a lapse in the stream of people who introduced themselves to her.

  Her dad had been a handsome man.

  Sienna resembled him, especially around the eyes. Both Sienna and their dad had those thick, long lashes and eyes as blue as the sea he’d lived so far from. The only things the three of them shared were the long nose and the blond hair. Eve had her mother’s short, sparse lashes and hazel eyes, but at least she had her father’s height. More than she needed, really.

  The Duncan above the bar looked a heck of a lot happier than the man she had a picture of, but then, Eve had liked Callie’s mother instantly, so maybe that was it. She’d loved her own mother, though she gave up on seeking her approval, even when she’d nursed her in her last days, and Eve wasn’t sure she’d actually liked her. A funny way to be, when you thought about it.

  Someone pressed an icy glass of lemon squash into her hand, and she turned to see a smooth young player grinning at her.

  ‘You can tell a good pub by the genuinely welcoming atmosphere,’ he said. There was even an outback drawl. Eve suppressed a smile. He waited patiently for an answer as if used to women being flustered by his attention. ‘Don’t you think?’

  *

  Callie was trying to keep an eye on her new sister as well as deal with the scores of people who had travelled long distances to pay their respects to her dad. Her mum had the right idea, sitting down in the ladies’ lounge and letting people find her. Callie edged along the walls of the taproom towards the glass-paned door that led into the back rooms. Then she felt an imperious tap on her shoulder.

  Tall and thin, something like an avenging flagpole, Blanche McKay could strike fear into the heart of the toughest stockman, let alone a softie like Callie’s. Blanche had always made her nervous, but at least Callie was old enough now not to show it.

  Today the immaculately groomed matriarch of McKay Holdings was in respectful social mode; tomorrow she might be riding at a gallop along a boundary fence with a gun jammed in her saddle. Either way she was a force to be reckoned with.

  Blanche’s family owned Diamond Lake Station, the largest cattle station in the Diamantina, sitting 160 kilometres to the north of Red Sand, plus an enormous slice of Western Australia’s Kimberley country that included a part share in a diamond mine.

  Blanche looked down her magnificent nose at Callie, who was surprised to see real sympathy in her eyes. ‘You know we offer our condolences on your loss.’

  Callie wasn’t sure if it was the whole McKay family or the ‘royal we’ who offered the kindness. The unexpected glitter of unshed tears in the older woman’s eyes made her choke up again. She moistened her dry mouth and imagined those leaves blowing off her shoulders again. Eventually she could get the words out.

  ‘Thank you all for coming.’

  Blanche went on. ‘He was a very good man, despite his lapse.’

  Callie glanced uneasily over her shoulder and saw that Blanche’s youngest son, Henry, had distracted Eve.

  The older lady blinked and her eyes sharpened on Callie. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about. For the future.’

  Callie didn’t want to think about the future. Today was bad enough.

  ‘Did you know we suffered our own loss, last year? My darling Victoria died, not long after her baby was stillborn.’

  Callie gathered her scattered thoughts. ‘Yes. Of course. It was terrible. I’m so sorry for your loss. How are you all now? Mum said you were unwell with the grief.’ She couldn’t remember what her mum had said about Blanche managing her loss lately. ‘I haven’t spoken to Mum for a few weeks.’ Or her dad. And she never would again. Callie swallowed as her own sorrow welled.

  But Blanche was on a mission. Not unusual. All the McKays were larger than life, Callie thought distractedly, and she couldn’t imagine any of them doing something as mortal as dying without Blanche’s express permission.

  ‘You knew my step-niece Jennifer had married?’

  Callie nodded. Her mother had told her, but she’d read about the outback wedding of the year in the weekly magazines too.

  ‘Jenni and her husband lost their baby last month, three months before it was due. Complications from prematurity. Our first baby in the family since Victoria’s death.’

  Callie’s heart squeezed with remorse at her flippant thoughts in the face of further tragedy. She reached out to touch Blanche’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Callie knew only too well how the loss of a baby felt.

  Blanche’s eyes glittered again. ‘She’s been so kind to me since my Victoria went, that girl.’ She straightened her spine. ‘So I have decided to do something about medical coverage out here. For people like your father, and Victoria and Jenni, and all the young women.’

  She paused to add emphasis. ‘The company has pledged to fund
a proper medical centre here in Red Sand, for all medical emergencies. And I’d like to see good care offered close to home for pregnancies, if not for actual births.’

  Callie blinked. The town just wasn’t big enough to warrant that, was it? The 200 people who lived here, or even the 600 in the shire, didn’t need a doctor that often. She couldn’t see a clinic happening, no matter how much money Blanche pledged. And obstetricians didn’t stay in the outback to give antenatal care to just a few women. But this was Blanche and you didn’t say that.

  ‘That’s an admirable idea.’

  Blanche nodded. Of course it was. She’d thought of it. ‘I need your help to find me staff.’

  Callie didn’t know what to say. In fact, with the devastating loss of her father she didn’t want to think about babies who had died as well.

  Thankfully Lex, Blanche’s eldest son and the current managing director of McKay Holdings, appeared beside Callie and bent to speak in his mother’s ear. It was reassuring that someone could look down at Blanche, and Callie tried not to listen in.

  ‘You do realise you’re monopolising Callie at her father’s funeral, Mother. A discussion for later, perhaps?’ The words were quietly spoken, but there was no ‘perhaps’ in his tone.

  Lex towered, broad of shoulder, the sun-creased lines at the corners of his wide-set eyes deepening as he glanced sympathetically at Callie, but she still felt herself shrink. Lex was scary. Capable of riding the meanest stallion, or shearing as fast as any ringer, he could toss a nearly full-grown heifer with a heave of his arm. He wasn’t arrogant, just too overpowering for Callie’s world. She had to admit Lex was also the quiet achiever who juggled the station, the involvement with the mines, and the financial empire handed on by his father, but she’d never felt comfortable in his presence.

  His mother raised her brows at the interruption; there was a brief shoot-out between two pairs of pistol-grey eyes, and then Blanche smiled ruefully and nodded.