Matilda's Last Waltz Read Free Page B

already.
    The heat was intense, even inside, and the red dust she’d swept from the floor was beginning to settle again. Her ankle-length cotton dress clung to her as sweat rolled down her back. She unfastened the sacking apron and folded it over the back of a chair. The aroma of rabbit stew came from the oven and several flies buzzed around the ceiling. The fly papers she’d stuck to the kerosene lamp were black with bodies, despite the shutters and screen doors Mum had fixed a couple of years ago.
    Dragging her hair from her sweaty face, she pinned it in an unruly coil on the top of her head. She hated her hair. There was too much of it and it wouldn’t be tamed. And to add insult to injury, it was a pale imitation of her mother’s Irish auburn.
    Matilda pushed her way through the screen door and stood on the verandah. The heat was a furnace blast, bouncing off the impacted earth of the front yard fire break and shimmering on the horizon. The pepper trees in the home paddock drooped in it and the weeping willows by the creek looked exhausted, their fronds dipping uselessly towards the runnel of green sludge that still remained. ‘Rain,’ she muttered. ‘We must have rain.’
    The three steps leading down to the hitching post and front yard needed mending and she made a mental note to get it done. The house itself could have done with a bit of paint, and Dad’s repair to the roof was already coming apart. But if she stood in the centre of the yard and half closed her eyes, she could see how Churinga would look if they had the money to do the repairs.
    The lines of the house weren’t grand, but the single-storey Queenslander was sturdily built on brick pilings, and sheltered on the south side by young pepper trees. The roof swooped down over the verandah which ran around three sides of the house and was finished off with ornate iron lattice work. A rugged stone chimney stood tall on the north wall, and the shutters and screens had been painted green.
    Underground springs kept the home pastures green. Close by several horses cropped contentedly, seemingly undisturbed by the clouds of flies swarming around their heads. The shearing shed and wool barn were quiet now the season was over, the wool on its way to market. The mob would be kept in the pastures nearest to water until the rains, but if the drought lasted much longer they would lose even more.
    As Matilda walked across the yard she whistled and from under the house came an answering yelp. A shaggy dark head appeared, followed by a wriggling body and wagging tail. ‘Come on, Blue. Here, boy.’
    She mussed his head and pulled his ragged ears. The Queensland Blue was almost seven and the best sheep herder in the business. Her father refused to let him in the house. He was a working dog like all the others, but so far as Matilda was concerned, she couldn’t have had a better friend.
    Blue trotted beside her as she passed the chicken runs and stock pens. The wood pile was stacked behind the storage shed and the clear, bell-like ring of an axe told her one of the black jackaroos was working hard to make it bigger.
    â€˜Hello, luv. Hot, ain’t it?’ Peg Riley mopped her scarlet face and grinned. ‘What I wouldn’t do for a long cold dip in the creek.’
    Matilda laughed. ‘You’re welcome, Peg. But there’s not much water in it, and what there is is green. Why don’t you drive up to the water hole under the mountain? The water’s cold up there.’
    The Sundowner shook her head. ‘Reckon I’ll give it a miss. Me and Bert gotta get to Windulla by tomorrow, and if he hangs about for too long, he’ll lose his wages on the two-up game goin’ on at the back of the bunkhouse.’
    Bert Riley worked hard and travelled in his wagon all over central Australia, but when it came to gambling he was a loser. Matilda felt sorry for Peg. Year after year she came to Churinga to work