Caroline

THE HEAT HAZE SHIMMERED across the plains.
    She could see the house now - or what remained of it. Her pulse quickened with excitement. The trip had been facinating, each part of it. But this for her was the culminatin, the climax.
    The journey through the Gammon Ranges, mountains of stark grandeur where the earth strata had in some primaeval upsurge been thrown up until now the layers of rock were tilted to almost the vertical, had left her in a state of awe-inspired wonder. Then yesterday Lake Callabonna had equally stirred her with its evidence of the very real existence of great prehistoric creatures.
    She gazed across the never-ending plain. The vastness, the antiquity was overwhelming. There was a timelessness about the place - as if removed from the world.
    Her gaze came back to the house. There was an ethereal quality about the way the building appeared to float above the mirage, the huge illusory expanse of water.
    How remote it was. How much more remote over a hundred years ago, when this run had been selected. It had been taken up in 1866 and the house built in 1868 by William Bartlett. It was stated in records that three graves were to be found in the garden. His grave bore the latest date. This had been his home until his death.
    Further research in libraries and family sources had revealed his later years had been lonely and sad, he becoming almost a recluse after the tragic death of first his two-year-old son and then his adored wife. The deaths had occurred while he was away droving cattle from ‘Nockatunga’ in far south-west Queensland to ‘Bibbaringa’, the name he had given this property.
    As she gazed, the whole scene seemed to be moving. It would be so easy to get lost out here - to become confused. The heat waves, the shimmering glare and the gibber plain seemed to go on into infinity.
    Angela sighed. Picking up her bag again, she flung it over her shoulder. It was hot. She trudged on over the gibber stones.
    How far had Robert got up the creek? He was fired up all right with excitement and inspiration in his archaeological investigations. He had gone off before sun-up with his little pick and bag of goods. She smiled, remembering - and came back to thinking of her own research. It was hard walking. Had she been foolish to leave the four-wheel-drive back where they had made camp at the creek?
    But then if this trip was to be really worthwhile, if it was to provide the intimate understanding she needed, she wanted to get the full atmosphere of the old place; to enter into the events of long ago; to be as far as was possible part of the lives of these people, Caroline and William, whose home this had been; to experience something of their persons, their feelings, the events that had so shaped the course of their lives and left a legend of courage and daring. Of endurance. Of conquering isolation, the unknown. Of dreams and fulfilment. Of death and an enduring love.
    The throb of the vehicle’s motor- its very presence - would shatter that atmosphere, an atmosphere she was now experiencing.
    Of course, it would all have been very different when Willie first rode into the area with McDouall Stuart’s party. The land had been fertile then. It had won his love and awakened the burning desire to own it, to make it his own, to build his kingdom here.
    It was a fascinating, haunting story of how he had used his inheritance to buy this land; land beyond settlement - unknown, uncharted land- untried. He had risked his all and won - in land and assets, at least. The records had shown only facts- facts on which she wanted to build in order to fill in the human, the life elements.
    Angela pushed hard against the gate. It hung lopsidedly on one rusty hinge. The sand piled up behind it made it hard to open. It was a long time since it had been opened.
    She looked curiously at the old house. It was waiting. She had the distinct sensation that the house was waiting for her. It was supposed to be haunted. There were tales of encounters. Believe them or not, it did add colour to the venture.
    With an extra heave, the gate opened and she was able to squeeze through. She could see three headstones in the far corner of the yard, the remains of a wrought iron fence enclosing them. This garden was reported to have once been beautiful. The only remaining evidence was the yellow Banksia rose twining around the verandah posts, its hardy little flowers flaunting its brave spirit of survival in the devastated surroundings.
    She picked her way through the stones and piles of sand, past the saltbush to the little cemetery.
    After several minutes, she turned back to the house. Wide broken steps led up to the verandah. She mounted the steps hesitantly and approached the front door, feeling suddenly like an intruder. She grasped the large door knob. It turned, grating as the latch lifted.
    She opened the door and entered the house with rising curiosity and a strange sense of expectation. The spacious vestibule was wide and inviting. A feeling of welcome lingered, despite its derelict condition. The curve of the wide timber-framed archway facing her, presumably leading to a central hall, was gracious and lovely.
    The soft glow of cream, pink and salmon sandstone walls was mellow in the sunlight now filtering in through the half open front door.
    Peering round the corner, she saw that the hall continued to both the left and the right. This hall was not so wide as the entrance. That had been quite wide, the ceiling high in the style of the homes of the early settlement years. This hall being narrower gave the impression of being much higher. She looked up at the patterned ceiling with the circular fittings where each lamp had once hung. It must have been beautiful in its day.
    She moved down the passageway, carefully avoiding the broken floorboards, and looked into the rooms opening off either side. Hardly anything remained to bring to her imagination the people who had once lived and loved, laughed and died in this far-flung homestead, gracious in its day, but now pathetically in a state of dereliction and decay. French doors opened from these rooms onto the verandah. Some of these were still covered by shutters, making the rooms cool and shaded.
    She walked back out onto the verandah that encircled the house. Here the floor was in worse repair. A row of swallows’ nests, where fledgelings had been sheltered over many springs, was visible beside the stone wall, high up under the sloping roof.
    She looked out over the paddocks once so fertile, supporting thousands of head of cattle. The years had taken their toll. White settlement had not been kind. The land, cleared of too many trees, had been left with nothing to bind the soil. As the trees had gone, so had the herbage and grass coverings. They had been unable to withstand the hardfoot animals, the cattle and sheep moved in by settlers unused to the fragile balance of this strange new land. Then the scourge of rabbits had completed the devastation.
    This land that had nurtured the soft-footed animals- the ‘roos, wallabies, kangaroos and all their kind for thousands of years - had in the space of one hundred years been decimated by the onslaught of foreign animals and ignorance. The winds had brought the dust and sand from the desert. Now the land was barren, stony and desolate, the topsoil long since gone, the only sign of green on the top of the distant sand ridges - and the saltbush struggling to survive in the forbidding landscape.
    ‘How sad,’ she murmured. The gibber plain stretched away to a seemingly endless horizon, the sun picking up the red-purple glow of the stone.
    She turned to re-enter the vestibule. As she did so, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement. Or was it a trick of light in the long central hall? She moved quickly to the arched doorway and looked both ways. Nothing there. She went slowly down the hall. A board creaked behind her. She looked back, alert, her scalp rising. Again nothing.
    She turned into one of the rooms. The tiled fireplace with its ornate surround was dust-covered, the timber mantel cracked and sagging. She had the feeling she was not alone. She swung round involuntarily.
    Suddenly, she was conscious of a sound. In the heavy silence, her hearing alerted, her own breathing sounded distinctly. It had sounded like moaning. She listened again. There was no sound. Not even a bird. No stir of breeze. Nothing broke the silence. The thudding of her heart sounded in her ears. Every sense strained to capacity.
    Where had it come from? Or had she imagined it? There it was again. It seemed to come from across the hall. Yet again she doubted her own sensitivity. Had the desire to experience these people and long-gone events, the expectations, made her vulnerable to flights of her own imagination?
    Glancing hastily around the room, she took a few silent, hesitant steps towards the door and listened again. She paused a moment, gathering all her courage. Then she left the room quickly and crossed the hall.