somewhere out there
by
Unknown


Chapter 1

Mackenzie Conroy wasn't frightened-which was bloody stupid.  Even the
most seasoned Territory stock men have enough respect for the great
Never-Never to be frightened when the bull dust blew so thick there was
no way to to where the ground ended and the sky began.

But Mackenzie wasn't.  She was riding Bounder, a horse; she had broken
herself when Dilly Dan, the station horse; trainer, went east on
holiday. Bounder and she had an understanding.  She played along with
his little jokes, h abrupt halts in the middle of a comfortable gallop,
his penchant for jumping left when he was supposed to jump righ his
beatific brumby-smile just before he gave her arm c shoulder a friendly
nip.  But there were no big jokes wiq Bounder.  If she really needed
him, he was there.  They were mates.

And about now, she needed a mate.

There were willi-willies blowing.  She'd seen one swirliz on the
horizon before the dust had gotten so thick the horizon was a sweet
memory.  Theoretically, she had a speci; fondness for willi-willies.
Waluwara's Aboriginal population liked to say that she had been
fashioned from one.  Her hair was the red of the dust whirlwinds madly
cavorting and sucking up everything in their paths.  And from the time
she had come to live at Waluwara, an orphaned toddler suddenly thrust
into the care of a young, rough-hewn station boss and his men, she had
set Waluwara whirling with her questions and her antics.

So she understood and respected willi-willies.  She just didn't have
any real desire to be caught in the center of one.  Neither, from all
signs, did Bounder.

"We've been through this before," she reminded him with a pat on his
dust-smothered neck.  The dust should have flown in all directions, but
where could it go?  Dust to dust?  She didn't like that image.

"Let's keep moving.  I know we're not more than an hour's ride from a
boundary hut."

Beneath her she felt Bounder picking his way carefully across the
plain.  They were nowhere near a road, so there would be no help from
that quarter.  And even if they had been closer, the chances for help
would have been small at best.  The roads on this side of the run
hadn't been graded for months.  "Corrugated" was too good a word for
their condition.  Most of the station vehicles were in the same
lamentable state as the grader.  Driven along roads as rutted and worn
as the one closest to her, any of them would collapse into one more
heap of rusting scrap metal.

Besides, the boss, her uncle Clint Conroy, knew better than to send
help until it was clear by the number of days that passed without
hearing from her that she was in serious trouble.  He'd tried sending
help once when she was fifteen and camping alone in the hill country.
Absorbed in her adventure, she'd lost track of the days, and he'd lost
track of his faith in her.  After that they'd come to an understanding
that from that moment on she would take charge of herself, but if there
was ever any real sign that she couldn't, she would be packed off to
Adelaide or Darwin and a different kind of life.

Threat of that was enough to make her the most self-sufficient ringer
on the station.

Bounder plodded steadily through the storm.  Dust storms of this
magnitude were rare, but never entirely unexpected.  There were only
two seasons in Australia's Northern Tenitory , the Wet and the Dry.
With luck the Wet would arrive in another six weeks or so, in October,
although the best of the rains would come later.  But the previous year
there hadn't been any rain until January, and then it had been the
driest Wet Mackenzie could remember.  Waluwara's grasslands had turned
to straw and its water holes to mud flats under the sun's unrelieved
onslaught.  Inevitably a sizable portion of the station's cattle had
succumbed to thirst and starvation.

The dust particles flaying her skin through her shirt and moleskin
trousers were a result of last year's weather, too.  What vegetation
that was left on this part of the run couldn't hold the soil in place.
The saltbush and the wildflowers weren't dead.  If a good Wet came the
plains would bloom, the grass would thrive, and the creeks and billa
bongs would fill to quench even the driest cattle's thirst.

If a good Wet evaded them again, more than cattle would perish.  TIe
station would perish, too.

Mackenzie was good at pushing away trouble until she could deal with
it, so she pushed away that thought and concentrated on her own
immediate survival.  There was an old boundary rider's hut an hour's
ride away, but that was in good weather.  With the storm and the
miscalculations she was bound to make with all landmarks obscured, she
and Bounder probably wouldn't reach the hut for another two hours,
maybe three.

It was already late afternoon, although only 1>er watch could testify
to that.  Since the sun was blocked by the storm, the sky was nearly
dark.  In three hours there would be no light at all.  She had her
swag, and she had plenty of tucker.  But she really didn't want to make
camp in the middle of a dust storm.  A bit of shelter would be much
appreciated.

"Get on with it," she encouraged Bounder.  "If you move any slower,
you'll root and sprout leaves."

He moved even slower; then he stopped.

S1>e kicked and wished she'd worn spurs.  She had an old pair, highly
prized, that had been forged many years before from one pieoe of spring
steel by a blacksmith on the Wave Hill Station.  Sometimes she wore
them for good luck.  She bloody well needed them today.

"Get on with you Bounder!"

He dug his hooves deeper in the sand and humped his back in warning.

"Come on, mate.  I'm not asking you go flat chat.  Just keep moving."

He didn't.

She knew when to coax, and she knew when to listen.  Now she listened,
pulling her hat brim lower and her scarf higher over her nose so that
even less of her face was exposed She heard nothing but the restless
moaning of the wind.

The problem could be a mickey bull, one of the unbranded , clean-skin
bullocks that roamed the station in search of trouble.  No matter how
hard the men struggled to muster these mavericks, there were always
more, waiting to impregnate registered stock with their renegade genes,
waiting to gore any unsuspecting ringer.

She shut her eyes and listened with her other senses, the ones there
were no names for-not English names, anyway.  The Aborigines had names
for such things, melodic, fluid words she had learned as a child.  The
elders in the village south of the homestead would understand exactly
what she was doing.

At first nothing seemed unusual-if a raging outback dust storm could be
considered the norm.  Then she felt the source of Bounder's obstinacy.
The hair lifted on the back of her arms, and her throat grew even
drier.  " " Hullo out there!  " she shouted.

She tasted dust and heard no response.

"Where are you, exactly?  Do you need help?"

Bounder swayed uneasily under her, but his hooves dug deeper.

"Good on ya," she murmured to calm the horse.  "You were right.  I
wasn't paying attention."

SI>e was sure there was someone nearby.  It wasn't as simple as hearing
a cough or smelling an unwashed body.  Then she would have been able to
track the mysterious human immediately.  As it was, she had only
intuition to guide her.  She couldn't see more than four horse lengths
in any direction

She considered whether to give Bounder his head.  He might go
immediately to the source of their mutual con cero But if he sensed
danger he might also start off in the opposite direction.  She couldn't
be sure.

In the end, she dismounted, looping the reins over the branches of a
clump of scrub in case Bounder had plans of his own.  Since she had
intended to be gone for most of a week, she had a rifle, but she didn't
remove it from the saddle She wasn't unprotected.  Like all the station
stock men she had a knife tucked securely in a braided kangaroo hide
pouch on her similarly braided belt.  Her pouch was particularly
intricate, a small vanity for a woman whom vanity had almost completely
bypassed.  " " Hullo !  " she shouted again.  There was still no
answer.  She began to circle the horse, widening her path until Bounder
was lost in a haze of dust.  She wasn't worried.  She could still sense
his presence, and if she got too far away, she could penuade him to
snort or neigh just by giving a piercing whistle.

Three more shouts produced nothing.  Three ever widening circles
produoed nothing.

Then one glance through a sudden gap in the dust produced a distant
glimpse of a man facedown on the ground.

A man who was as naked as the day his mother had given birth to him.  "
" Bloody hell!  " Mackenzie thrust her hands in the pockets of her
moleskins and stared.  " Double bloody hell!  "

She didn't want to start forward.  She wasn't squeamish.  ; How could
she be and do the things a ringer did?  There was no part of an animal
she wasn't face-to-face familiar with.

Unfortunately, beef didn't arrive at the butcher shops because it had
been sweetly persuaded to lie down and die for the cause.

She had seen men and women die, too.  Sometimes the Flying Doctor
Service had been called for too late; sometimes death just stole over
the station's elderly like a longed for dream.  Once, out in the bush,
she had found two skeletons in a hillside cave, locked in each other's
arms as if death itself could not separate them.  But never had she
come across a body like this one.  A body so recently dead as not to
have been preyed on by dingoes or crows.

A body perhaps not dead at all?

Not yet.

That thought was the push she needed.  The dust had thickened again,
blown on a Johnny-One-Note gust of wind.  She headed for Bounder; then,
holding his reins, she started off in the direction where she knew the
body to be.

It took her longer to find it than she had expected.  Her skills were
honed, but the bull dust played a better game of poker than she did.
Fifteen minutes of bluffing went by, then twenty, before she caught
sight of the man again.  Still facedown.  Still not moving.

Still not dressed.

Leading Bounder, she reached the stranger's side.  Kneeling in the dust
beside him, she was struck with a rapid series of impressions.

First: there wasn't a suspicious mark on his body.  No blood, no bullet
holes.

Second: his skin must have been quite pale, because now he was badly
sunburned, despite being in the middle of a dust storm in an Australian
winter.

Last : he was one magnificent male creature.

She stripped off her leather gloves to feel for a pulse at the base of
his throat.  As she touched him, she forced herself to speak.

"I'm going to feel right silly asking this if you're dead , but can you
hear me?"

There was no response.  Not a groan, not a twitch.

She slid her fingers a millimeter, still searching for an elusive
heartbeat.  "Your skin feels warm, but then it should, considering the
burn you've got.  If you're alive, you'll be wishing you weren't
tomorrow: '

His skin was not only warm, it was smooth and supple.  If he was dead,
he was the most tactilely appealing corpse she could imagine.  Her
fingertips slid another millimeter.  " " You picked a right perfect
spot for doing a perish, stranger, but I wish you had picked somewhere
else.  "

Her fingertips were callused, not the best receptors to sensation, but
the next time they slid lower, she felt something move beneath them.  A
throb?  She held her breath and waited for another.  Minutes seemed to
go by before she felt it.  She pressed harder and moved again.  This
time his pulse was evident.  Irregular and frightening, but definitely
beating

"So you're not dead."  She sat back on her heels.  "Yet."

What did she do next?  She was in the middle of a dust storm, the
nearest shelter at least an hour's ride away.  And what could that
shelter provide except respite from the sun and the dust?  If she was
lucky there might be a cache of medical supplies, but that was
doubtful.  The boundary rider 's hut hadn't been used for anything more
than afternoon shade in years.  Where once it might have contained
emergency supplies and even a primitive telephone hooked up to the
homestead, now she would be lucky just to find it standing.

She rose and took her canteen from the saddle.  Then, once again
kneeling beside the man, she began the process of turning him over.

She was strong, but he was large, at least half again as heavy as she
was.  Dead weight was a fitting description, but with the knowledge
that it would be even more fitting if she didn't get some water into
him, she summoned one burst of strength and rolled him onto his back.

Impression layered impression.  He was sunburned topside , too, and
strangely enough, he was as burned on his arms and face-which should
have had a protective tan-as he was on his torso.  There were no
obvious wounds here, either.  But other things were perfectly
obvious.

He was truly a sight to behold, a man like no other she had ever seen.
He had dust-encrusted hair that was probably blond, a broad brow, high
cheekbones, a straight nose and perfectly chiseled lips.  His shoulders
were wide, his hips narrow, and his chest was frosted with golden hair.
His age was difficult to guess through the dust and the burn, but she
assigned him thirty years with a bit of give-and-take.

And-then there was the rest of him.

Her eyes strayed to the place any woman's would stray when presented
with a defenseless naked man.  She examined him with interest.  Raised
among men, she still had never seen one so thoroughly unclad.  Although
usually they treated her like one of them, the Waluwara stock men were
all quite respectful of her privacy when she camped with them.  And
even the greenest jackeroo discovered immediately that taking liberties
with the boss's niece was the surest way to get sent packing.
Consequently, Mackenzie's experience with men was both extensive and
sadly lacking.

With little to compare him to, her instincts still told her that this
man, dust and burn notwithstanding, had everything it took to please a
woman.  And possibly more.

He groaned.  She knelt and bent over him immediately, hoping to take
advantage of this small sign of consciousness " " Can you hear me?  "

He didn't answer, but she hadn't really expected him to.  She uncapped
her canteen and bent lower.  With one arm she cradled his head, while
with the other she drizzled drops of water on his parted lips.  At
first he didn't respond, but when the water droplets rolled inside his
mouth he swallowed convulsively.

Cheered, she increased the flow of water, and he swallowed again.

She had given him nearly two cups before she lowered his head to the
ground and sat back on her heels once more to consider what to do next.
She had water with her, and there was a bore not more than a kilometer
from the hut to secure more if it was needed.  Finding water, and
getting him to drink it, were not going to be difficult.  But there
were enough additional problems that she didn't feel much relief

She had to get him to shelter, and she had to get him medical help. And
she had to do it before the sun went

Somewhere Out There IS

j down, the temperature dropped and she completely lost her way.  And
before she could do any of those things, she had to figure out how to
move him.

From somewhere in the distance she heard the howl of a dingo.  She
wanted to echo his sentiments.  "Not having a party today, are we?  "
she muttered.

Bounder whinnied anxiously.  "What about you, mate?"  she asked the
horse to calm him.  " " Got any ideas?  "

Bounder edged closer.  If she had been in scrubbier country , there
would have been mulga or cottonwood to construct a stretcher of sorts
to drag behind the horse.  She'd ; seen enough American cowboy and
Indian movies to rig such a thing, and making do with nothing was the
name of the game in the outback.  But making do with nothing actually
required something.  In this case, a tree.  And there were none in
sight.

She considered trying to lift the man into her saddle and discarded it
immediately as impossible.  She would never get him to his feet.

Bounder edged closer and nuzzled her.  "No time for games."  She tried
to shove him away, although she wasn't really afraid he was going to
trample the stranger.  "No tricks," She said.  "Not now."

Tricks.  The word edged out all her other thoughts.  Tricks.

"Bounder."  She stood and rubbed the gelding's nose.

"Good on ya," she said soothingly.  "You want to be on your way, don't
you, mate?"

She remembered a clear autumn night five years ago when she had led
Bounder, docile as a lamb, to the front veranda of the homestead, where
the boss sat in a straight-back chair watching her with his unflinching
gaze.

"They said it couldn't be done," she had told him.

"I'm of a mind they were right," he had answered.

"So watch and learn something, doubting Thomas: '

She'd mounted Bounder as easily as she mounted any other truly broken
horse on the run and kicked him in the sides.

He had taken off like the wind.  She'd wheeled him in a large circle,
then gradually narrowed it until they were standing in front of the
boss once more.

"Kneel, Bounder," she'd said.  "Kneel."

And just as if he was performing in the circus, Bounder had gone down
on his front legs as she swept off her hat in a graceful arc and bowed
to her uncle.

Clint Conroy had faked a yawn, but his eyes had sparkled' So you
learned to break a bad brumby," he'd said.  " Any real ringer can do
it: '

And she had known that she had just been given his finest compliment.

Now she wondered if Bounder remembered that night, too.  The bow had
been purely for show.  Icing on the cake.  The boss had known it, she
had known it, and surely Bounder, with his brumby intelligence, had
known it, too.  But had that intelligence, in which she had such faith,
retained the trick?  The veranda performance had been years ago.  She
had asked Bounder to perform since then, but not for a year at least.

She patted him on the nose again, then fished in her tucker bag for a
wedge of dried apple.  She held it in front of himforjustamoment.
"Yours," she promised  "If you're a good mate."

He was a good mate.  After she moved him as close to the stranger as
she dared, she mounted him.  "Kneel, Bounder," she commanded.  "Kneel.
Let's give it a go!"

And Bounder knelt.

Chapter 2

The boundary rider's hut was corrugated iron and fiber , board, much
patched before it had been abandoned for lack of use.  Night had fallen
hard by the time Mackenzie stumbled through low sand hills toward the
entrance.  She had led ; Bounder the entire distance, tumbling to the
ground more than once in the gradually thickening storm.  But as much
the worse for wear as she was, she knew the stranger was the one who
deserved sympathy.  With Bounder's unflinching cooperation she had
strung the man across her saddle, head dangling from one side, feet
from the other.  The struggle to do so had not been one of her finest
moments, and not until Bounder had risen to his feet and the man
remained firmly across the saddle had she been certain her plan had
worked.

She had winced when she realized how the worn leather rubbed against
his sunburned skin, and winced for a longer moment when she noted where
the saddle and the most fascinating part of him collided.  But there
had been nothing to be done about either except pad and cover him as
best she could with a blanket and hope he didn't regain consciousness
on the horse.

He I>adn't.  once she thought she had heard a moan, but when she
reached his head and spoke to him, there had been no response.  She had
stopped repeatedly to wipe his face and squeeze water on his lips, but
there had been no flicker of life.  She knew he wasn't dead, but how
alive he was remained to be seen.

At what passed for a door to the hut she stopped and looped Bounder's
reins over a post.  With her light she did a cursory inspection of the
interior.  Snakes were always a concern, but her search turned up
nothing suspicious.

Nor did it turn up any bang-up news.  There was nothing in sight that
was going to make her job of caring for the man much easier.  There was
a bed, bush style, in the corner, which she hadn't remembered.  Some
enterprising rider had sunk four metal pipes deep into the ground and
added two side rails over which he had crisscrossed strips of green
hide As the hide had dried and tightened it I>ad made a firm foundation
for a bus hie swag.  She guessed the rider had been a peculiarly
fastidious man who didn't like snakes crawling under the coven to sleep
with him.  A man after her own heart.

There was a fireplace in one corner-or something a generous soul might
call a fireplace-with a cast iron Dutch oven beside it and a blackened
billy.  And there were a storage cabinet and a three-legged table in
the other.  The floor was slick and hard, made of sand stolen from a
termites' nest and sprinkled with water until it was glassy smooth.

Relatives of the white ants who had donated the floor had obviously
chewed through what wood there was in the walls until dust filtered
through a multitude of cracks.  Each time there was an especially good
gust of wind, the iron sheets flapped and clanged.

By no stretch of the imagination was this the homestead, but it was
better than a campsite, and with luck Mackenzie could keep it warm
enough to save the stranger from the misery of freezing, too.

Outside again, she commanded a fatigued Bounder to kneel.  She squatted
and braced herself under the stranger's shoulder, looping his arm
around her neck.  Then she leaned forward, pulling him with her.  Three
good steady pulls and he had been dragged from the horse to a blanket
she had spread beside them.  She rested before attempting the next part
of her task, dragging him, blanket and all, inside the hut.

With much tugging and cursing she got him far enough inside to shield
him from the worst of the storm.  She knelt beside him and turned him
to his back to give him more water, holding his head as she had before.
Was the reflex to swallow even weaker now?  She tried to remember if he
had swallowed with more enthusiasm before.  The water drizzled slowly
into his mouth until she was sure he would choke; then, gratefully, she
watched the muscles in his throat contract.

When he had drunk all he would, she left him while she cared for
Bounder.  She unsaddled, then hobbled, the horse in a ramshackle
paddock with a small lean-to at the side of the hut, a space with
little to offer except shelter.  But there was some dried up vegetation
for Bounder to feed on and a bucket that she half-filled with water
from her own supply.  She rewarded him with the remainder of her dried
apples and left him for the night.

Inside, she stared at the stranger as she stepped around him, debating
whether to try to get him on the bed or just to roll out her swag by
the fireplace.  The swag by the fire won.  She was too tired and
probably too weak to wrestle him onto the bed, and there was always the
possibility he might fall off during the night, anyway.

With practiced hands she unfastened the swag and spread it a
comfortable distance from the fireplace.  Since she'd planned to be
gone from the homestead for most of a week, she had brought extra
supplies.  Inside the canvas swag cover were a second blanket, insect
netting, several changes of clothing and personal items-one of which,
soap, was going to be greatly appreciated tomorrow.

The temperature was already dropping, and she knew her next priority
was to make a fire.  The man's sunburn would be a torment, even if the
room was toasty warm.  But the lower the temperature dropped, the worse
he would feel when-and if-he awoke.

There was a woodpile behind the hut.  She scanned it with her light
before she picked carefully through the scrub that would keep them warm
that night.  Inside again, she started the fire easily and with relief
watched smoke move reassuringly up the heap of stone and pipe that
served as a chimney Lighting the fire was taking a chance.  A random
spark could ignite what was left of the fiberboard walls, but there
were a dozen easy exits.  Any wall or portion thereof could be knocked
out with only a moment's effort.  Besides, she knew just how to make a
fire that wouldn't rage or smoke.  A bushman's fire.

Since the fire would attract moths or worse, she bung her netting over
the doorway before she began the task of moving the stranger toward the
fire.  By the time she had dragged him to the swag, every muscle in her
body felt deflated.  She was disgustingly female and helpless.  Never
mind that she had moved him, a feat many men wouldn't have contemplated
She had done it, but at a cost.  Trembling and weak kneed , she was
only glad that none of the station hands were there to witness her
collapse to the floor in exhaustion.

Lying beside the stranger, she considered her next duties.  She had
discovered him and gotten him to shelter.  She had given him enough
water to keep him alive, and she had started a fire to keep him warm.
There were still food and caring for his burns to attend to.

She tried to imagine rising to do either.  She was too exhausted to be
hungry herself.  She had to search her memory to calculate when she had
last eaten.  Twelve hours had passed, or maybe more.  She wasn't really
certain, and she was too tired to lift her wrist to check her watch. If
she had been alone she would have slept a little, then rummaged through
her tucker bag and eaten a chunk of damper and a handful of dried beef.
 There might even be raisins to round it out.  She couldn't remember.

But the stranger couldn't chew damper, that mainstay o: bush cooking.
Mackenzie made hers from self-rising flour, but even so, it grew hard
as a rock after a day or two in the dry air.  Good for the teeth,
maybe, but not good for a man who lacked the strength to chew.

He needed broth.  Thin, protein-laden broth like Edwina Wallace, the
homestead housekeeper, made when someone was sick.  Broth made from
beef and vegetables and fed to him drop by drop the way she had fed him
the water.

Mackenzie almost convinced herself that food wasn't important.
Debydration was the real problem in a case like this, wasn't it?  If
she could keep him filled with water, he had a chance at recovery. Soup
was.

Necessary.

She dragged herself upright again and went to the fireplace The Dutch
oven was dusty, but the last cook who had used it had been
conscientious enough to clean it and wipe it with fat to keep it from
rusting.  She used some of their precious water supply to give it a
cursory wash, then set the oven just inside the fireplace to warm.  In
the meantime she cleaned the billy, poured water inside it and strung
it over a horizontal rod across the fireplace to boil.

The stranger slept on-if his state could be called sleep as she dragged
herself back and forth across the hut.  When the coals had burned down,
she filled the oven half full of water and simmered a handful of salted
beef with a dash of dried onions and some wild greens she had picked in
a fit of fancy before the storm began.  The storage cabinet had yielded
a few nice surprises to top off her own supplies.  A tin of tomatoes
and another of beets went into the soup, too.  The stranger would get
the broth, and she would eat the solids.  It seemed an equitable
arrangement.

The concoction that emerged after some culling and mixing wouldn't have
won any culinary prizes, but it smelled passing fair.  She left it to
simmer a little longer while she contemplated the man lying on her
swag.  While her back had been turned to him, he had shifted positions.
The change was minimal, but definitely a change.  One of his arms lay
on the dirt floor.  His head was at a new, more crooked angle.  She was
glad he had moved.  Thoughts of spinal cord injuries and paralysis had
plagued her.  But what could she have done?  Left him to the dust and
the dingoes while she traveled to the homestead for a backboard and a
stretcher?

She poured a little hot water from the billy in the fireplace into the
billy she always carried with her and mixed it with coffee water until
it was a pleasant temperature.  Then she took a towel from her swag and
dunked half of it in the water to clean the stranger's face.

"You're giving me a scare," she murmured as she began to gently wash
his forehead.  "I don't want to lose you now.  I reckon I'll be miffed
if this has all been a waste of time."

The firelight cast a golden glow into a room that needed even more to
give it the appearance of comfort.  But the stranger's face was
illuminated clearly enough for her to see his eyelids twitch as she
spoke to him.

Encouraged, she continued.  "How long were you out there?"  She wrung
out the towel and started on his cheeks.  "A day?  Two?"  As she wiped,
she realized the stubble coming to life under her towel was the
equivalent of several days' growth of beard-maybe four, at most, if he
was one of those men who didn't have to shave often.

"Where in the bloody hell did you come from?"  she asked.

That question was the most interesting, the one she'd contemplated as
she'd stumbled through the dust storm.  She didn't know every stockman
in the Territory.  Distances were so vast and populations so small that
strangers could live on neighboring cattle runs and never see each
others' faces.

Additionally, there was a steady parade of men through the outback.
Station hands and stock men often came and went.  It was a lonely life,
and those who found it appealing were usually wanderers at heart.  They
changed locations like they changed horses, with a brief stab of
sentiment that was soon blotted out by their thint for something new.
The days when hundreds of swag men drovers and stock men went from
Brisbane to Perth working a season or two before they moved on were
nearly finished.  But there were remnants of those men left.

This man could be one of them.

Mackenzie studied the stranger's face.  He was utterly unfamiliar.  She
wrung the cloth again and started on his chin.  Even sunburned, slack
and unshaven, the face was magnificent, male and proud and strong.  She
had never seen him before, but there was something that tugged at her
when she looked at him.  Not just his good looks, not just his easily
studied anatomy, not just the things that any woman would be drawn to.
Something more.  Something that nibbled at the edges of her mind.

"What kind of man loses his clothes in the middle of a dust storm?  Are
you bats, maybe?  Did someone strip you and leave you out there to
die?"

His eyelids twitched again.  She realized she was holding a naked man
in her arms in a deserted hut two days' ride from what passed for
civilization.  Strangely, she hadn't yet thought about dressing him.
Nothing of hers would fit, of course, but there was a pile of rags in
the storage cabinet.  It was conceivable she could put an outfit
together out of it.

She tried to imagine ill-fitting clothes chafing his sunburn She tried
to imagine him coming to without any clothes.  One image was as bad as
the other.

"Can't think which you'd prefer," she said.  "But I'd prefer to do as
little as possible."  She washed his neck, feeling for his pulse as she
did.  It seemed stronger, although she couldn't imagine why.  Perhaps
from the water she'd given him, perhaps because the temperature was
cooler.

She lowered his head to the floor and gave his chest and arms a quick
wash, although the water was turning gritty and rust-colored.  There
was more of him that needed washing, too.  She peered at the juncture
of his thighs with interest.  Now wouldn't it be nice if the stranger
woke up while she was cleaning his privates?  Hard to explain, that.

And hard to explain if they were the only part of him she didn't clean.
Surely he'd notice if the rest of him was clean as fresh air and one
part of him an inch thick in bull dust.  Wouldn't she look the shy
young miss then?

She compromised and left him dust-covered from the waist down.

When it was obvious she had done all she could with his torso, she
gently blotted him dry with the other end of the towel and left him to
the flickering light of the fire.

The soup was bubbling merrily when she removed the top of the Dutch
oven with a stick.  She scooped out a cupful of brothqwith her tin cup
and set it to one side to cool.  Her mouth began to water, and she gave
in to the temptation to taste her creation.  Her eyes closed in bliss
after the fourth taste.  Edwina would have been proud.

"You're a lucky man," she said as she approached the stranger with his
dinner.  "I wouldn't share this with just anybody."

She propped his head on her lap in the position that was beginmng to
feel normal.  Had his eyelids flickered again?  She decided to keep
talking, although she felt ridiculous.  She took a spoonful of broth
and guided it to his lips.  Then, drop by drop, she let it dribble into
his mouth.

"My name's Mackemie Conroy," she said, "though everybody calls me Mac.
I don't make a habit of rescuing strangers, usually leave them for the
eagles to carry off, but you were a bit too fetching for that. Besides,
I hate to see a man buried slowly in dust.  Reckon it wouldn't be a
pretty sight if I ever rode that way again."

Spurred on as he swallowed, she continued.  "You're on Waluwara
Station, though maybe you know that already.  Afraid you're out where
the crows fly backward now.  It's not a big run, one of the smaller
around here, with some of the worst and the best land.  This is just
about desert country you wandered into.  Nothing much to see.  If you
were out for a holiday, you came to the wrong end of the run."

He was swallowing regularly, and his eyelids were flickering , as if
his unopened eyes were trying to follow sound.

"I.et's see, what else do you want to know?  More about me?  Nothing
much to tell there.  I'm twenty-four, and I've lived here most of my
life.  My uncle manages Waluwara.  Someone in our family has for almost
a hundred years.  The owner's a Brit, lives in Hong Kong now, though, a
man name of Sebastian St.  Carroll.  When his father was alive he used
to come out from London and see the place some Somewhere

Oict There 25 times to determine what was needed and how he could make
improvements.  But not old Sebastian.  He just takes whatever 's left
over at the end of the year, if anything is, and disposes of it.  The
place is falling apart around us.  "

She realized that the broth was half gone.  " " Good on ya " , she
said.  " You can still tuck into soup, can't you?  At this rate you'll
be able to walk back to the homestead under your own steam.  "

She fell silent as she fed him the remainder and wondered if she should
try for a second cup.  She decided against it.  Better to wait and be
sure he tolerated this cup, first.  From the looks of him, he wasn't
near to starving.

Unrepentant, her gaze flicked over him again.  No, he wasn't going to
starve, although there wasn't anything padding his frame that could be
called fat.  He was trim.  No beer belly on this bloke.  His body was
sheathed in muscle, not the kind city men got in gyms, but the kind
that came from living an active, outdoor life.

Except that if that were true, he would also be brown from the outback
sun, not burned to a crisp.

"You're an odd one, that you are.  But I reckon I don't have anything
to worry about from you.  Even if you're a raving loony, you won't have
the strength to do anything to me.  Besides, you'll need me to get you
back to civilization , if you can call the homestead anything like
civilization."

He grimaced in response to her voice and seemed to be trying to open
his eyes.  She held her breath and watched the struggle.  Then, as if
to save his strength for future battles, he relaxed into complete
unconsciousness once more.

"Well, perhaps it's better you stay down for a while," she said. "Maybe
you won't feel so crook when you finally come to.  I wouldn't want to
wake up either if I had a burn like yours: '

She eased him back to the swag, padding the ground beneath his head
with a wool jumper.  Then she covered him loosely with a blanket.

The rest of her chores loomed in front of her.  Eat.  Bank the fire for
the night.  Wash.  Make a bed for herself with what was left from her
swag.  Sleep.

Only the last was appealing.  She did the others in as cursory a
fashion as possible.  Tomorrow she would ride to the bore and get
enough water for a real wash.  But tonight she did her face, hands and
teeth and congratulated herself on being even that fastidious.  Then,
after one last peek at Bounder, she crawled onto the bushman's bed,
pulled a blanket around her and fell instantly asleep.

Lights, and colors.  Just out of reach.  Why?

You must concentrate all your energy.  See what happens If you do ? Ah,
you 've always been too impatient, little one.  You would go to
anything before yocc would make it come to you.  That is never wise.

Motion.  Sensation.  The sensation of air rushing past him, sensation
he had never experienced.

So what if the experience is new ?  If only the things we were certain
of were good, then nothing would be good, because we were created
knowing nothing, were we not?

Yearning, a terrible, terrible yea ming Reaching out.  For what?

Of all the children, you are the one who always demands more.  This is
good and bad.  You 'll never have everything yocc seek, beet en the
seeking yocc 'll have more than the others Yoa don't understand me? I'm
afraid, little one, that someday, someday yocc 'll understand too
well.

The stranger attempted to reach out, but nothing about him worked as it
should.  He cried out and nobody answered After his effort, warmth
seemed to merge with his very being.  Warmth?  Was that what this
sensation was called?  Sensation?  Was that the word for the fire
spreading throughout him?

He cried out again, and again no one answered.

Lights.  And colors.  Just out of reach.

Why?

Chapter3

Mackenzie awoke at dawn.  She had intended to be up through the night
checking on her guest, but the storm and the rescue had robbed all her
reservoirs of strength.  Trained to sleep with one ear cocked when she
was in the bush, she had slept, instead, like a person with no senses.
The hut could have burned down around her, the wind could have sent it
spinning to California, and she would never have awakened.

With the first light, however, she pried open her eyelids to get her
bearings.  If possible the hut looked worse than it had the night
before: dust and rust and welcoming gaps in the walls and roof for bush
flies and snakes.

"Well, we're not in San Diego."  She shut her eyes again.  "The devil's
own job: '

There was a sound from the floor.  She sat up.  Was the stranger awake,
too?  Or, Lord help her, was he dead and the sound nothing more than
her imagination?

"You awake, stranger?"  she asked.  Something, superstitions about
ghosts, perhaps, or maybe just good sense about the living, kept her
from leaping to his side.

She 1>card the noise again.  It was a rustling, nothing more.  She was
leaning over the side of the bed before she had time to think.  The
sound was familiar.  Curling and twisting along the hearth was the long
brown body of a mulga snake.  She had the feeling that the snake was
the squatter and she and the stranger were his unwelcome visitors-or
breakfast.

Without making a sound she reached for her rifle, gauging bow safely
she could shoot in an iron box without killing herself or the stranger.
The stranger was in the greater danger from a ricocheting bullet, since
he and the snake were at eye level.  But he was also in the most danger
from the snake, and the snake was dangerous, perhaps not as deadly as
the taipan, Australia's reigning champ, but dangerous enough to kill a
man in the bush if he couldn't get help quickly.

And this man couldn't.

She aimed and gauged where the bullet would go once it severed the
snake's head from its body.  The news wasn't good, and as the snake
slithered closer to the stranger, it didn't get better.  She moved,
silently, slowly, to improve her angle.  the snake moved, too.

Mackenzie aimed and asked herself if she were the stranger, would she
rather die quickly from a misfire or slowly from snake venom.  He had a
better chance with the bullet.  It might go straight through the snake,
then continue to plow through the iron wall behind it.  It might plow
into some forgiving part of his body.  Or it might plow into a vital
organ.  She considered the choices, and they weren't to her liking.

She raised the rifle and stared through the sight, waiting and praying
that the snake would move away, just far enough away to make the shot a
clean one.  qfore her narrowed eyes the stranger sat up.  Her aim
faltered.  The bloke had no timing, that was a cert.  Dead to the world
for the better part of a day and a night, and now he was sitting up
like it was time to boil the billy and have his morning tea.

"Stay right where you are," she said.

Both the man and the snake froze, as if Mackenzie had completely. taken
them by surprise.

"I'm going to shoot.  When I shout, duck and cover your head."

As if he hadn't heard her, the man leaned forward, stretching his hand
toward the mulga snake and completely blocking Mackenzie's line of
sight.  He began to croon.  The snake watched as he waved his arm
slowly back and forth.

Mackenzie jumped to the floor and skirted them both.  For a moment she
had a chance at a clear shot; then the stranger moved his arm again,
turning his back to her.  The snake didn't move at all.  " " Are you
trying to die?  " She continued her attempt to aim but knew how slim
her chances were of getting a shot off now.  Not until after the
stranger had been struck, that was.

The hut filled with a strange music.  She didn't understand the words
the stranger was crooning, and the notes were not from any scale she
had learned during two hateful years of piano lessons.  But the snake
seemed fascinated.  It rose as if to strike, but instead it began to
dance.  Slowly, back and forth, it became a drab brown ballerina
swaying to the stranger's music.

He moved his hand to the right; the snake moved right, too.  I. eft and
the snake gracefully followed.  The stranger stretched forward, and the
snake leaned to meet him.  As Mackenzie watched in horror, they met in
midair, brushing cheek to fang before they parted.

The music stopped, and the snake dropped, to the ground.  Then, almost
as if it hated to take its leave, it slowly coiled and stretched its
way across the floor and left by a gap near the fireplace.

Mackenzie didn't realize she had collapsed beside the stranger until he
turned to survey her.  Even in the state of near emergency, her gaze
flicked down.  He was still covered with the blanket to his waist.

"Did it strike?"  she asked.

He stared at her.  His expression was strained, his eyes wild.  "

" Strike?  "

"Are you hurt?  Did it sink its fangs into you?  Did it bloody well
give you the kiss of death?"

He continued to stare.  "

" Death from a kiss?  "

"Did the snake bite you?"  she asked, as if asking a child.  She
stretched out her hand, much as he had stretched his to the snake, and
touched his cheek.  He flinched, but his skin was unmarred except by
sunburn.  "I guess not," she said, when he didn't answer.  "You're a
right lucky bloke, you know."

" " Am I?  " His voice was taut, the deepest string on a bass fiddle
just before it snapped.

"Where're you from?  India?  A snake charmer, maybe?  That blooming
snake's related to a cobra, you know!  "

He didn't answer.  He just continued to stare.

"I know I'm not much to look at about now," she said.  "But the way
you're staring has me worried.  I'm not exactly a no-hoper, am I?"

" " No-hoper?  " " "Ugly.  Stupid."  " " Ugl "lord, you're the
no-hoper.  I reckon the sun boiled your brain yesterday."

For the first time since he had looked at her, his gaze flicked away.
He took in the hut.  Mackenzie was fascinated She had the most peculiar
feeling that in those few seconds he had learned everything about his
surroundings.

When he looked back at her, his expression was still strained and his
eyes were even wilder.  "Tell me about... yesterday."

She did.  In as few sentences as possible.  She wanted answers from
him.

"So that's how I found you," she concluded, "and that's where you were.
Now it's your turn.  Who are you, and what were you doing out there?"

"You say I was facedown... in a storm?"

"Dust storm."  She could see he couldn't comprehend what that meant.
"The ground meets the sky," she said.  "Blows from hell to heaven and
back again.  You were somewhere in between."

"

" And this place we're in?  "

"Waluwara.  A cattle station: She could see no glimmer of recognition
in his eyes.  " We raise cattle.  Cows, understand ?  We cart them off
to market, where they're ground up for your American hamburgers.  At
least, that's where most of them go.  " " "Ground up?"

"We kill them first, Yank: '

He didn't seem to like that idea.  "Yank?"

"Yeah.  You are a Yank, aren't you?  You're not from here, that's a
dead bird: '

"Not from Waluwara?"

"Not from Australia: "

"Australia?"

She was getting tired of the exchange.  He was absolutely breathtaking
to look at, but not much to talk to.  A little confusion was
understandable.  He had lost a day, maybe more, of his life.  But every
word she said seemed to be new to him.

"Australia is a continent, the only one that's a whole country by
itself.  Unless you just dropped out of the sky , then you arrived here
by plane or boat with a passport and a visa.  And you came from
somewhere.  America, I'm betting"

"Why do you think so?"

"Because of your accent."

He appeared to consider that.

"Not that it's like any I've heard, exactly," she added.

"No?"  "

" Haven't ever heard of a Yank who asked so many questions : '

He looked around the hut again.  "Have you ever heard of one who didn't
have any answers?"

"

" Never heard of that.  "

He rose, then seemed surprised that he'd done so.  Mackenzie 's eyes
widened.  He was standing in front of her, as naked as a newborn babe,
and he didn't even seem to notice As she stared, he hobbled slowly to
the doorway to gaze out past the insect netting.

One part of Mackenzie's brain worked fine; the other ground to a halt
when he stood.  On the ground, unconscious , he had been extraordinary,
a perfectly splendid example of what the human male could hope to
attain with a fevqc more centuries of good nutrition and skillful
blending of genes.

Standing, moving, he was all the things she had never realized she'd
wasted a thought on.  She felt like a baby with its first lolly.  She
wasn't really sure what to do with this prize, but she wasn't about to
give it back.

The working side of her brain noted the way he tested the ground with
the soles of his feet.  How his face contorted, in pain, or puzzlement,
at the sensation.  Without another thought she leaped to her feet and
grabbed his blanket.  Then she joined him at the door, averting her
gaze.  " " You forgot this!  "

"What?"

She thrust it closer to him.  "You're not wearing clothes."

The blanket remained in her hands for what seemed eternity Then she
felt it tugged from her.  After a decent interval she looked at him. He
had knotted it at his waist.  " " Better?  " he asked.  " " What do you
think?  "

"Apparently... I don't.  At least, not very well."

"I haven't even asked bow you feel."

He looked as if he found the question odd.  He didn't smile, and the
expression in his eyes, the look of a beast backed into a corner,
didn't change.  "How am I supposed to?"

"I can't answer that.  You're the only one who knows: '

His mouth twisted into a line "Then why don't I remember ?  "

As she watched, he seemed to grow pale beneath his burn.  She touched
his arm.  "Maybe you'd better sit awhile, until you're more
clearheaded."

"I don't like it when you touch me."

She jerked her hand away.  "Well, I'll try to remember that."

"I like the idea of it," he said.  "But when you do..."  He seemed to
be futilely searching for an explanation.

"Sit down on the bed."  She gestured to the blanket where she had
slept, careful not to touch him.  "Better yet, lie down."

"Something happens," he continued, as if she hadn't interrupted' It
strange, unpleasant..  "

"You don't 1>ave to go into blooming detail.  I'm not about to throw
myself at you!"

"

" Like something eating at me.  "

She stared, realizing what he was trying to tell her.  "Look, stranger,
that's called pain.  You were exposed to the sun for a while, most
likely.  You've got a bad sunburn.  Nothing that won't go away in a few
days.  But you'll be uncomfortable till then.  Especially when anything
or anybody touches you: '

"Pain."  He nodded, but with no apparent satisfaction.  " " I know that
word : '

"Apparently not well, you don't."

"Have you felt it, too?"

"Too right.  Every living person's felt pain.  I reckon getting born's
about as painful as it gets."

"You remember getting born?"

"Of course not.  Neither do you: '

Something almost like relief crossed his face.  "Good.  One thing I
don't have to try to bring back: '

She had the uncomfortable feeling that he was leading toward something
she didn't want to hear.  She watched him cross the room and take a
seat on the bed as she had suggested He did look pale.  And shaken.

"Don't collapse on me again," she warned.  "I really don't want to drag
you anywhere else.  Just take it easy until you're feeling a hundred
percent.  Then we can worry about giving you some exercise, like a trip
back to the homestead ."

He nodded.  As she watched he fingered the blanket, as if identifying
all its characteristics with his fingertips.  Why, she wondered, did
everything seem so new to him?

" " You never did say who you were and why you were out in the desert,
without provisions..  or clothes.  "

"I never said, because I don't know "

There it was.  The thing she had least wanted to hear.  "You don't
know, or you don't want to say?"

"Why wouldn't I want to say?"

"Why wouldn't you know?"  She started toward him, her arms folded
across her chest.  "I've heard of amnesia.  Even here in the back of
beyond we watch telly.  Had a satellite dish at the homestead until it
went crook.  But we still get videos.  I've seen stories about people
who can't remember who they are.  I've even met some.  But the ones
I've met remembererl They just didn't want to tell about it, because if
they did, they were afraid the law might remember, too."

"

" The law?  "

"What are you running from, bushranger?  Who are you running from?  You
reckon I haven't heard enough stories to make yours look silly?  You
think the Territory's overflowing with men who left steady jobs and
happy families to come out here and swat flies?  Some did, too right,
but there's lots of men with stories they don't want to tell.  Only
they don't pretend they can't remember!  You can tell me you don't want
to talk about who you are, but don't pretend you can't remember: '

"Then there's nothing to tell."

She stood beside him.  She didn't know why, but she wanted to hear him
admit the truth.  "If you're in trouble , maybe I can help.  My uncle
is the station boss.  He won't care where you've come from or what
you've done.  He gives a fresh chance to every man who asks.  But
you'll have to be fair with him.  If you're in trouble, you'll have to
tell him so he'll be looking out for you: '

"I am in trouble."

She relaxed a little.  "That's more like it."

He looked up from the blanket and narrowed his eyes as he stared at
her.  "I can't remember who I am.  If that's not trouble, I don't
remember what the word means."

She stared back and saw he was telling the truth, or doing a perfect
imitation.  Her eyes closed against her will, and she sank to the bed
beside him.  "Bloody hell."

"You mentionerl hell before.  I'm not sure it sounds like a place I
want to see."

"Lots of people would say you're there right now."

His voice grew even tighter.  " " I think I may have been somewhere
worse.  " " "Where?  "

He shrugged, then winced, as if the movement had reminded him of his
sunburn.

She abandoned questions about his past.  The present was difficult
enough.  "I don't have anything to really treat your burn with.  But
some cool water will help temporarily.  If you feel well enough, you
can bathe while I'm gone."

"While you're gone?"

"I'm going to ride out to the bore... " She saw a lack of comprehension
on his face.  "There's water under the ground if you bore deep enough
to find it.  That's what a bore is.  There's one not too far from here.
I want to get there and back before the wind starts to blow again: "
"Another storm?"

"Same one.  Just taking a smoko now, I'd bet."  "

" Smoko?  "

"Maybe you did drop out of the sky.  Smoko's a rest.  A break.  Time
for tea and a smoke."  She shook her head in frustration.  "Cigarette:
She pantomimed smoking for him.

"They're not good for you "

"Tell that to the men on this run."  She leaned over to search the
floor for her boots.  "I don't smoke.  Makes me crook."  She raised her
head, then shook it in frustration.

"Sick.  Crook is sick, Yank."

"Crook."  There was nothing relaxed or companionable about the smile
that twisted his face.  "Like the man lying facedown in a dust storm in
the middle of nowhere was crook?"

"Just like that: She pulled on her socks, then her elastic -sided
boots.  " Listen, I don't know what you and that snake were doing.  I
don't even care to know.  But we've got more snakes than people in
Australia, and not many of them should be played with.  Some will kill
you before you can scream for help.  Some take a little longer.  Some
get you one cell at a time.  See a snake and kill it: '

She looked around.  "There."  She pointed to a board standing against a
wall, perhaps to hold it up.  "Use that and beat any snake you see over
the head until it doesn't wiggle anymore.  Think you can do that?"

"No."  "

" Then hope you really are a snake charmer: '

He didn't respond.

"See that pot over there?"  She pointed to the fireplace.  "We call
that a billy.  There's water in it for washing, but first drink as much
as you can.  I'll leave you some bread we call it damper when we make
it out in the open.  And raisins.  If the damper's too hard for you to
chew, soak it first.  I'd boil the billy for tea, but I don't want to
take the time until I get back, and I don't want you fooling with the
fire. Reckon I'd like to find the hut standing."

She stood.  He still looked pale, and for a moment she reconsidered
Would he wander off while she was gone?  Or would she come back and
find him unconscious again?  Unfortunately, the matter was out of her
hands.  She didn't have enough water to last two people and a horse
another day.  She had to get to the bore.

"After you wash, look through the clothes in there."  She gestured to
the cabinet.  "There should be something you can wear until we get to
the homestead."

"

" How far is the..  homestead?  "

"Two days ride under good conditions.  But we can't leave until the
storm's over.  And it may blow another day or two."

"Then we'll be staying here?"

"We'll have to."

"Does the homestead look like this?"

" " No.  " She examined him for signs of disorientation and found none.
He was naked, sunburned and confused about his own identity.  But
discounting those problems, he seemed well enough.  Perhaps it really
was safe to leave him for a little while.  " I don't suppose you
remember a name, do you?  " " "Whose name?"  " " Your own, preferably.
"

He squinted, staring at nothing.  She could swear he was searching for
something, some hint, some promise within himself.  She held her breath
as he did.

"I don't remember any names.  Except Mackenzie."

"At least you recall the last half hour or so.  That's a start."  She
took the damper and raisins out of her bag and put them on her tin
plate.  Then she pulled out a cup to leave for him, too.  She took the
supplies to the storage cabinet and set them on top.  " " Just eat a
bit, see how you do, then eat a bit more.  Water 's more important than
food.  Don't forget to drink your fill before you use what's left to
wash.  " She considered him for one last moment before she turned away.
" And it's strictly bush dun ny out here, if you feel the urge.  " "
"Urge?  "

"To relieve yourself.  Just go out away from the hut.  Not far enough
to get lost," she added.  "Scoop out a hole.  Bush dun ny " " Bush dun
ny

"No worries while I'm gone.  We'll be right enough here until I can get
you to the homestead.  Just don't overdo.  Rest for the ride home."

Mackenzie gathered what she needed, breaking off a piece of damper for
breakfast to eat along the way.  She knew the stranger was watching
her.  He had a way of looking straight through everything in his line
of vision, which most people would find unnerving.  But she had been
raised by men who were as unflinching as the outback wind.  She figured
that this one was just trying to piece his world back together.

She stood and strode to the door.  "If you want my help, be here when I
get back.  If you're not here, I'm not going to look for you: '

"Tell me somewhere I could go."

3g Somewhere Occt There

She flashed him a comforting smile and waited for one in return.  When
it was clear he wouldn't, or couldn't, respond , she disappeared into
the daylight.

The stranger wasn't sure what was most confusing.  There were pressures
inside him, building in ways he didn't understand There was the pain..
yes, that was what the woman had called it, pain that seemed to define
him somehow He stopped where the pain began.

He held out his hand and examined it.  Then he touched himself as an
experiment.  The pain increased, but that was certainly where he ended.
Why did that seem strange to him?  The pain seemed to wrap him,
somehow, to set him apart from the air around him.  That much he had
figured out.

He undentood skin, only not quite this way.  And that was where the
confusion lay.  There was so much he didn't understand , the least of
which was his own identity.  He wasn't even sure he really understood "
" identity.  "

Panic filled him, but he succeeded in pushing it away.  He attempted to
take stock of what he did understand.  He was in a place called
Australia, and there was a smaller place there called Waluwara.  He was
in Waluwara, too.  And in this Waluwara was an even smaller place, a
structure of some sort, the most primitive of structures, if he were to
be exact.

In this structure were four poles with something incredibly foul strung
across them.  And he was sitting on it.

He grimaced and stepped to the floor, examining what Mackenzie had
called the bed.  He had an instant impression of an animal dying.  He
touched the hide strips and recognized them for what they were. Disgust
and dismay coursed through him.

Yocc are never to cause harm to another.  Yocc will have that desire,
sometimes.  We have not grown beyond that, little one.  But you must
never harm another living entity.

His dismay increased.  The voice was the same one he had heard in his
dreams.  Was it this thing that Mackenzie had called memory?  And if it
was, why didn't it relieve him?

Why did it cause a feeling of dread?  Of desperation?  Why, when he
heard the voice, did he want to reach for something that wasn't in the
hut?  Perhaps something that wasn't in Waluwara, or even Australia?

He roamed the room looking for more answers.  He had never been here
before.  Of this he was sure.  He was almost as sure that he had never
been anywhere like it.

The pressures inside him continued to build.  He stopped at the cabinet
and considered the food Mackenzie had left for him.  Food was familiar,
and he knew what to do with it.  He lifted the damper to his mouth and
bit off a piece.

Sensations exploded through every cell of his body.  Surely he had
never eaten anything this good before, or why, despite everything else,
would he suddenly want to weep with joy?  He chewed slowly, so the
mouthful would last as long as possible.  Reluctantly he bit off a
second piece, sure that it couldn't be as good as the first.  But it
was.  Every bit as good.  And as if to double his pleasure, the damper
seemed to subdue some of the pressure that had been building inside
him.

He finished the whole piece, slowly, blissfully.  When it was gone he
pressed his fingers to the plate to pick up every crumb.  Then he
started on the raisins and understood what bliss really was.

Some of the feeling inside him, the pressure, was gone now.  Another
sort remained.  He remembered Mackenzie's words about a bush dun ny He
moved to the door, dragging the blanket she had insisted he wrap around
him, and stood looking outside.

The sunlight caused his eyes pain.  Instinctively he raised his hand to
shade them.  The world he saw was a barren wasteland.  Nothing more
than tall ripples of earth disturbed the horizon for an unknown
distance.

Just as surely as he knew that he 1>ad never been inside the hut
before, he knew that he Itad never lived in this place before Never
even seen it, at least not until just before he had been found.
Something-this thing Mackenzie called a memory, perhaps?  pricked at
him. Soft swirls of earth rose and fell to the ground as gusts of wind
blew.  But he remembered how this world had looked when the wind hadn't
been so hesitant.  Hell meets heaven, Mackenzie had described it.  He
thought he understood now what she had meant.

He had walked through the dust-bearing wind, and he had dearned that it
was best to walk with it to his back.  But the walking had only taken
him in circles because the wind had blown in spinning gusts.

And he had fallen.

You won't always succeed, little one.  Sometimes yocc will fall, and
yocc'll have to raise yoccrself high to try again.  You're one of those
unfortunate who doesn't want to fall, beet one of the fortunate who
will raise himself higher each time he does.

He put his hands over his ears, but the voice was still audible inside
his head.  He couldn't stop the soft, gurgling syllables, softer and
more fluid than anything Mackenzie had said to him.  Yet he understood
these memory words as he had understood hers.

When the voice stopped he shut his eyes for a moment, trying to
recover.  When the voice didn't return he ventured outside.  The air
was warm against his skin, not a pleasant sensation.  He looked above
him at the sun and knew that today its rays were to be avoided.

Not terribly far from the hut he taught himself the meaning of a bush
dun ny and one more pressure was relieved.

Inside again, he poured water from the billy and drank his fill.  Then
he prepared to wash.  Without the blanket he examined himself.  His
body was both familiar and unfamiliar What he could see was not
unexpected.  But there was the feeling that there was more-or less-to
him than there had once been.

Illusion and reality?  Body and spirit?  Concepts flitted through his
head, only to be discarded.  Perhaps he was nothing more than a man
Without his memory, a man who would not be whole until he could
remember that crucial thing called his identity.

He dipped his fingers into the billy and found there was little water
left.  He touched himself and watched the water that had clung to his
fingers drizzle over his skin.  It left a cool, pleasant feeling
wherever it trailed.  And after it found a home and remained there for
a while, it turned to vapor and merged with the air.

The world he had awakened to was not one he knew.  The body he
inhabited was not entirely familiar.  But there were strange, maybe
even wonderful things here.  Food and water and the supremely pleasant
experience of satisfying bodily needs.

Calmer now, he thought of the woman.  Mackenzie.  He considered her for
a moment.  She was not familiar; yet she was.  Perhaps it was only that
he had known other women who had similar bodies or faces.  She called
him a stranger, but she didn't feel like a stranger to him.

Was she beautiful?  The word gave him pause.  He understood its
meaning, but not how to define it for himself.  He supposed that if
there were other women in Australia they would share characteristics
with this one.  Arms, legs, breasts, hips.

But she was more than a combination of body parts.  Perhaps other women
had hair the color of the sun now inching its way above the horizon,
hair a bright blaze of fire against pale, lightly freckled skin.  Eyes
the warm brown of the earth.  Lips that smiled easily.  Perhaps other
women had these, too, along with the soft curves of breast and hip and
a small waist cinched in the same hide that laced the bed.

He frowned at that.  Did she know where that hide came from?  If so,
there was something he didn't understand.  How could she endure it?
Just one more thing he didn't understand among many.

He envisioned Mackenzie, but not as she had last appeared to him.  She
was sitting astride an animal..  a horse, his vocabulary told him.  She
was riding toward the bore.  Her long hair escaped the.  braid-yes,
that was a name for woven hair-and flew behind her as she rode, flowing
against the wind like the horse's tail.  She sat on the horse's back as
easily as he had sat upon the bed.  She enjoyed the ride, found
pleasure in it.

The vision halted abruptly.  He wondered why he couldn't see her
anymore.  He had found pleasure in the picture.  She was pleasurable to
look at, perhaps even pleasurable to be near.  The pleasure seemed new
to him.

There are heights you won 't reach for aeons, experiences yocc won 't
know until you 've convinced yourself they don't exist.  Just when you
think there is little more that yocc can learn, you will learn how
little you really knew.

The gurgling voice-the memory-no longer disconrerted him as much.
Strangely, now he found a certain comfort in its cadences.  He wondered
what else would come to him.  And when.

In the meantime, he would see what he could discover without his
memory.  Perhaps, as the voice had reminded him, there was more to
learn than he had ever imagined.

He had a last, fleeting vision of Mackenzie.  Then he lay down on the
swag and covered himself.  In a moment, completely exhausted, he gave
himself to dreams.

Chapter 4

Mackenzie took longer to reach the bore than she had expected She
hadn't been on this end of the run for some time, and distances were
always farther than they seemed in desert country.  But even though she
had planned for that, the sun was too high when she finally sighted the
telltale clump of trees.

One of her reasons for venturing to this end of the station had been to
check the bores dotting the border, to see if they had been pugged up
with mud by thirsty stock or silted in by dust storms.  The job would
have been a simple one by air, but although Waluwara owned two
single-engine planes, both needed extensive-and expensive-repair. 
There was so little cash budgeted for such extravagance, it was
unlikely either would fly again.

Mackenzle cursed Sebastian St.  Carroll as she rode toward the bore.
Waluwara was foundering badly because St.  Carroll refused to commit
funds for upkeep.

There was only one reason Waluwara continued to exist, and that was
Clint Conroy.  Despite offers from prospering stations, offers of
salaries three times his present one and funds enough to run a station
properly, the boss had stayed on at Waluwara.  There had been a Conroy
managing Waluwara for one hundred years.  The St.  Carrolls and others
like them others with no roots in Australia s soil, had always
maintained control of Waluwara's leases, but the Conroys had lived
here, died here, poured their sweat and blood into the land and
alternately watched it prosper or shrivel.

There was another loyalty keeping Clint Conroy at

Waluwara.  There was an Aboriginal village on the station, one as old
as time, yet modernized and progressive by all standards.  Although a
large percentage of Territory land was owned outright by the
Aborigines, this tract was not.  Officially it was part of Waluwara,
although in every way that mattered it was part of the Dreamtime, part
of the distant past and future of the country.

Clint Conroy knew that if he left as station manager, the next manager
might not have the same feeling for the station 's native people that
he did.  Paternalism or worse might creep into a system that was now
based entirely on mutual respect.  The boss's feelings ran too deeply
to permit this.  His friendships were too strong, his esteem for the
village residents too great.

Clint Conroy would stay at Waluwara until drought and lack of funds
turned what had once been a thriving cattle station into a ruin.

At the trees, Mackenzie dismounted and left Bounder to drink and graze.
The bore was an old one, the first to have been tried on the property.
There had been hopes that an artesian basin would be found under the
earth here, but even though a steady supply of water had flowed from
this spot for decades, the water supply was a small one.

With the help of a windmill pump, water flowed into a large earth tank
facing north and south, as was customary to avoid the worst sunshine.
It was narrow and long, and bauhin ia trees had been planted along its
border to deter evaporation.  Encouraged by occasional overflow,
vegetation covered the ground surrounding it.

Mackenzie wished the stranger could have come with her to this spot.
The bore was a tiny oasis in country that badly needed one.  Cool and
green, it was a favorite resting place for birds; as she had
approached, a flock of pink galahs had taken to the skies in a show of
outback flash.

She wondered if the stranger had seen any birds in the States to rival
the galahs.  She wondered if she was right to even assume the United
States was his home.

What did she really know about the stranger?  Nothing.
Abso-bloody-lutely nothing.  He was handsome, gorgeously constructed,
and he could express himself well enough when he understood what he was
expected to say.  He had been found in a dust storm, but seemed to have
no knowledge of Australia or why he was there, and no memories of his
past.

And he could charm snakes.  She wondered if she had imagined the scene
with the mulga snake.  She had been distraught , worried about whether
to shoot or not, then, once having decided to, busy trying to take aim.
Had he really charmed the snake, mesmerized it with music and hand
movements, or had she just been too upset to see the obvious ?  Perhaps
the snake, its progress blocked, had simply chosen retreat.  If so, the
stranger wasn't a snake charmer.  He was simply bloody lucky.

But what did any of that add up to?  Snake charmer or not, the man said
he didn't even know his name.  She couldn't imagine forgetting hers. It
was entwined with her sense of self, as much a part of her as her hair
or her eyes.  How could he forget who he was?  Had he suffered a blow
to the head?  She'd made a cursory inspection for injuries as she'd
washed him last night.  She had felt no bumps, seen no bruises.  Had
the sun baked away his memories?  When he had recovered from the
physical strain of his ordeal, would his memory return?

She wondered if the memories would include a woman.  Doubtless, unless
he was one of those loners who chose to go beyond the black stump just
to avoid entanglements.  There were men like that at the station, men
who liked Waluwara precisely because it offered no refinements,
including contact with the world.  Here some of the old-time pleasures
could still be found, droving and taking to the bush for weeks at a
time, riding boundary fences and counting calves on horseback.

Raising cattle might be a job for computers, high tech communication
equipment and helicopters in this age, but not at Waluwara.  Perhaps
the stranger had heard just that.  Perhaps he had come to get away from
someone.  Perhaps even a woman.

What kind of woman would he prefer?

The question took her completely by surprise.  She began to fill her
iron water canteens while Bounder grazed.  What did it matter what kind
of woman the stranger preferred?  Once they arrived at the homestead,
she would probably never see him again.  He was only briefly passing
through her life.

But even if she saw him every day for the next ten years ,

what would it matter?  She lived her life by three sunple rules.  Stay
free.  Stay free.  And stay free.  As surely as a nun chose celibacy in
order to serve God, she, Mackenzie Conroy , had chosen it to serve her
own god.  Freedom.

Nothing and no one would ever tie her down.  She was the last of a
dying breed, a pioneer, an explorer.  She might be tenuously tied to a
tract of land called Waluwara.  She might be tied by respect and
affection to the people who lived on that tract.  But those ties only
allowed her the greatest freedom a man or woman could know.  The broad,
endless plains.  The thrill of oneness with a land that would never be
tamed.  The chance to live close to nature and far from civilization
Nothing and no one would ever interfere with her desire for those
things.  Living as she did was a need so basic that she would die if it
was ever taken from her.

When she had fastened the canteens to Bounder's saddle , she took down
her billy and filled it with water to wash.

She stripped to nothing and scrubbed every inch of herself with the
herbal soap that was one of her few feminine weaknesses.  Several
billyfuls later she had washed her hair , too.  Properly rinsed, it
fell below her shoulder blades, but even as she combed the tangles from
it, it dried to springy tendrils in the heat.

Asrayed in clean clothes, she washed the ones she had just removed and
laid them on the ground.  By the time she collected them in a few
minutes, she knew they would be dry.

The wind was building again.  She watched dust swirling in the
direction she had come from.  Bounder seemed to sense it, too, edging
closer to her in warning.

"I know, mate.  We'd better go back.  Looks like we're in for an
afternoon like yesterday's.  I just hope we don't find more strangers
to rescue."

She slathered all her exposed skin with sunscreen.  She had tried and
failed as an adolescent to get a real stockman's tan.  Now she
protected herself at all times, despite the stock men 's teasing that
she was afraid her skin would turn to leather and no man would ever
want her.  Massing her hair under her hat, she jammed it tight on her
head.  Then she finished her chores and mounted Bounder for the trip to
the hut.

The dust was growing thick by the time she arrived.  She had stopped to
cover herself with a parka in hopes of keeping her clothes cleaner, but
she still felt dirty when she dismounted The bath at the bore had been
nothing more than a small luxury.  She had known it wasn't going to do
her for long.

Inside the hut her eyes adjusted slowly to the relative shade.  Her
gaze passed around the room before she found the stranger asleep-she
hoped-on her swag near the fireplace " " Stranger?  "

There was no answer.  She imagined all sorts of things, the snake
returoing for another song, or a concussion she hadn't diagnosed,
before she called to him again.  " " Stranger?  "

He jerked himself upright and looked around.  She noted quickly, and
with some anger, that he still wasn't dressed.  His eyes were wild, but
he sat so still that she was reminded of a statue she had seen in a
Sydney museum as a young girl.  A naked Greek god of delectable
proportions.  She had been embarrassed for weeks and secretly, oh, so
secretly, thrilled.

He stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

She raised her hands to her hips.  "Bloody hell.  Don't tell me we're
starting all over again."

Some of his panic seemed to ease.  Gradually his pupils narrowed and
his fists unclenched.  Finally his shoulders drooped.  " " Hello,
Mackenzie.  "

She relaxed.  "Good on ya.  I was afraid you didn't remember me,
either."

He still seemed confused, though not quite as panicked.

"I must have fallen... asleep."

" " By the look of you, that's what I'd say, too.  Before you bathed
and dressed.  " She stressed the last word.

"I couldn't bathe.  I drank all the water."

"All of it?"  She felt a stab of remorse.  "I didn't get enough down
you yesterday, then.  I should have tried harder: '

"No.  I just liked the way it felt when I drank it."

She frowned.  He had such an odd way of expressing himself.  "And you
ate?"  " " It was..  delicious.  "

"Now I know for sure you're crook: She squatted and sat back on her
heels to rummage through the bags for more tucker.  " But since you
like the food so well, it's time for more.  Ever eaten salted beef? "

When he didn't answer she looked up.  "Well?"

" " Beef is..  cow.  " " "More likely bullock around here.  Any cow
worth her salt doesn't get cooked and salted.  She drops calves until
she's just about too old and tough for anything except-"

He waved aside the rest of her answer.  "Why do you eat animals?"  " "
Why not?  What would we do with them if we didn't?  "

He didn't answer.  " " Australian beef's some of the best in the world.
Not as " fat as the beef you Yanks raise.  Nothing much for it to get
fat on."  She found what she was looking for and held out a strip for
him.  "Here.  Take this and see what I mean, though t it won't hold up
to a steak fresh off the barbie."

"

" No.  " t She shrugged and bit off the end.  " Your loss.  "

"

" It was living once.  "

"That it was: She chewed thoughtfully.  " Reckon it was glad to have
had that experience, too.  Unless the Dry went too long and finding
water was a job.  But Waluwara s not a bad place to spend a beast's
life.  Our mob's pretty wild.  We don't muster them with helicopters
and frighten them half to death.  More than a bullock or two on the run
will never even see a human face.  If I were a cow, this would be the
place I'd want to spend my life.  Not on some fancy feedlot in q
ictoria.  " ,

"You like the animals."

"I do that: '

"Yet you eat them.  Wear their skin on your feet and at your waist.  "
"" They live and they die.  Just like we do.

"Nobody eats you, do they?"

He actually seemed to want to know.  It was another in a long series of
strange questions.  "The crows and the dingoes would fight over me if
they had the chance.  And why would I care?  I wouldn't be there to
watch."

He grew still, as if he were looking deeply inside himself again.  Then
he seemed to find a satisfying answer.  "I've never eaten meat."

"Afraid that's not entirely true.  I fed you broth last night made with
some of this beef."  She watched his expression change to-what? Horror?
Strong distaste?  "I won't do it again.  But I'm not sorry. You needed
something, and that was the best I had to offer: '

He looked away from her.  "I haven't thanked you for taking care of
me."

She shrugged.  "I've got the last of the damper here.  You can have
that for now.  I'm getting right low on supplies.  I'd go out and hunt
a roo-do you know what a roo is?"

He shook his head.

"A kangaroo.  I can make a stew that would set your mouth to
watering...: She paused.  " But I won't.  I'll bake us some more
damper.  And there's a tin or two of tomatoes left in the cabinet.
We'll boil the billy and have tomatoes and toast for tea.  "

He seemed to be getting ready to stand, perhaps to help.

She waved him down.  "Stranger, you're going to have to wash and dress.
This is a bit cozy even for me, and I've been raised by men.  You can't
stay in here like that."

Shqe turned her back to him and went to the cabinet to sort through the
rags she had seen there last night.  Then it had been too dark to tell
much.  Now she could see that the supply was mostly just that, rags to
use for chores.  But there was a pair of men's undershorts and another
pair of much patched denim jeans that might fit.  At the bottom of the
pile she found a large shirt of dubious origin with one button still in
place.  At least the clothes looked clean enough.

"These will do.  I'll bring water in, and you can pour enough for a
good scrub.  Then try these on, and if they don't fit, wear them
anyway."

She went outside for a canteen that she'd placed in the shade of the
hut.  She presented it to him with a bar of soap.  " " Rule of the
bushq Do the best you can with the least.  That water didn't fall from
the sky.  At least, not in this millennium : '

There was a natural dignity in his answer.  "I'll remember : '

She thought about the measured, careful way he had answered all her
questions and comments.  She wouldn't want to be in his situation, yet
he was handling it with a certain grace.  He wasn't happy; his eyes
still searched restlessly for answers.  But despite every reason to, he
hadn't given in to panic or temper.  She tried to push away her
admiration.  There was already entirely too much to admire about the
stranger.  ,

"I had an idea while I was riding back here.  you're not going to be
ready to ride to the homestead for a while, and the dust's still
blowing too hard, anyway.  We don't have much tucker, especially if
you're going to be finickity about eating meat.  What we need is a
fire.  If I can wait for a break in the storm and send up enough smoke,
maybe somebody will see it and come after us.  A regular rescue."

"

" Rescue?  "

"My uncle can borrow a plane or have somebody with a helicopter fly
over and pick us up.  We just have to let him know: She started toward
the door.  " I'll go out and see what I can find to make smoke with
before the dust gets any worse.  You bathe and dress.  I'll be back.
"

Since one glance showed that he appeared to be ready to follow her
orders, she faced the door.  "When I get back , we're going to give you
a name.  Reckon since I've seen every inch of you, stranger's hardly
true, is it?"

"You don't seem like a stranger."

She didn't know what to say to that.  Without turning, she waved before
stepping into the sunshine.

Mackenzie couldn't believe her luck.  Less than two kilometers from the
hut, on what had once been a fairly adequate road for the station
vehicles, she found the remains of a tire.  Farther down the road, but
not much, she found another

Both had obviously been discarded after a good shredding by the
corrugated roads, the very reason she was on horseback instead of in a
truck or Jeep.  Despite Bounder's reluctance to help her transport the
tires, she persuaded him, and they returned to the hut to find the
stranger dressed and standing in the doorway.

She reined Bounder to a halt in front of him.  "Well, I'm glad to see
you gave dressing a bash: '

Supremely male, he leaned against the doorway and folded his arms.
Something vital closed in her throat.

"Is that what I did?"  he asked.

She nodded, experimented with breathing and discovered she still
remembered how.  "You did a right good job of it, too: '

"You weren't sure I'd know how, were you?"

She tried to figure out why he was as attractive in clothes as he had
been out of them.  She decided it was because he was standing.  More
than that, there was a certain assurance to his stance, an "I belong in
this place" signal in the way he cocked his head and gripped the ground
with his feet.

"

" Are you feeling better?  "

"Since I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to feel , that's hard to
answer."

"You're not supposed to hurt.  I bet you still do.  Especially :.
dressed."

He did hurt, but the experience was becoming familiar.  "

" Bathing helped.  "

"I'm sorry I don't have a more permanent solution."

"Those belong on a car, don't they?"  He gestured to the tires.

She dismounted and began to untie them.  "More likely an ute, what you
Americans call a pickup truck.  They'll make a right smoky fire, though
we aren't going to like the smell.  I'll set it away from the hut, but
if the wind blows in our direction , we'll get the full effect
anyway."

He watched the way her body flowed and contracted as she stooped and
stood, bent and straightened.  He liked to watch her.  Her movements
were connected to responses in his own body.  He wasn't sure of much,
but that much he was sure of already.  "If the wind blows?"

"It doesn't always.  Sometimes it's so still here you can hear your own
heartbeat."

"

" I. et me help "

She waved him away.  "Don't need it."  She piled the tires on the
ground.  There was no hurry to get them into position The way the dust
was blowing, smoke wouldn't be any use to them now.  "Let's get out of
the worst of this and fix something to eat."

She made a stop for more wood for the fireplace, then followed him
inside.  "I'd make a fire outside, so as not to heat up the hut, but
with the wind and the dust, there's no point."

"Can you tell me the date?"

"Um... the eighteenth of August..  No, the nineteenth" SI>e shrugged.
"Maybeeven the twentieth."

"August.  Summer.  That explains the heat."

"It's not summer here.  You're in the southern hemisphere now.  It's
the end of winter."

"

" Winter.  "

"Did it snow where you came from?"

He tried to imagine snow.  He had a mental picture of the word.
Something cold and white, falling from the sky.  But he had no sense
that he had ever seen it fall or felt it melt against his skin.

"I don't know," he said.  "I don't know where I came from: '

Mackenzie dropped an armload of scrub into the fireplace and began to
arrange it to make a cooking fire.  "Maybe we ought to start somewhere
else.  Do you have any memories?  Anything at all?"

He wondered if telling her about the voice inside his head would make
it go away.  "I hear words in a different language A..."  He tried to
think of an appropriate name.  "A man speaking to me."

"

" A man?  A friend?  Relative?  "

He shrugged.  "It's as if he's giving me advice.  Only not me as I am
now: '

"Maybe you at some time in the past.  Maybe you're just remembering
something from your childhood : Mackenzie struck a match and watched
the fire catch.  " Does he call you anything?  "

"Yes."

She looked up.  He tried to form "little one" the way the voice in his
memory had, but the sound that emerged was nothing like it.  He shook
his head in frustration, and his stomach knotted.  "That's not right:
'

"I should hope not: She tried to imitate the sounds he had made.  She
sounded better when she was gargling Edwina 's favorite sore throat
remedy.

"Maybe you'd better just give me a name," he said.

She sat back on her heels and watched the fire.  "A different language,
huh?  I wonder what language it is.  When you sang to the mulga snake,
I didn't recognize a word you " said.  Maybe we should try names from
other countries.

"Hoping I'll recognize one?"

She turned her head to watch him.  "That would be nice , wouldn't it?
You're blond and blue-eyed, like a strapping Norwegian Viking.  How
about Eric?"  She waited for him to respond.  When he didn't, she went
on.  "Swen?  Hans?  Gunnar?  "

He shook his head.

"Olaf?"  She shrugged.  "That about does it for Scandinavia"

"It could be any of those."

"Well, there's German.  How about Claus?  Karl?  Ludwig ?  There are
probably a million more I can't think of right now.  Wilhelm?  No?"

She rose and went to start on the damper.  She removed a bag of flour
and took it to the fireplace.  SI>e cleaned the billy while she thought
of more names.  "Let's forget blond, blue eyed and foreign for a minute
and just do simple English names.  Matthew?  Mark?  Luke?  John?"

"

" Those sound familiar "

"You've read the Bible, I bet."  "

" that sounds familiar, too.  "

Using the billy as a bowl, she mixed flour and water until she had a
thick dough.  "Tom, Dick, Harry?  There are probably thousands of
names.  Millions: '

"Is Mackenzie an Australian name?"

"It was my grandmother's maiden name.  She was from Scotland.  But I
told you, everybody calls me Mac."

"I don't: '

An interesting sensation tingled through her.  No, the stranger didn't
call her Mac.  He thought of her as someone different.  Mackenzie.  For
some reason she liked that.  "Conroy, my last name, is Irish."

"What are some other Scotland names?"

"Scottish names?  Angus?  Leslie?  Malcolm?  The Irish ones are more
popular in Australia right now.  Sean, Brendan .  Kevin, Patrick."

"

" Patrick.  "

SI>e turned.  Something about the way he'd said the name made her think
they'd discovered something.  "Does that sound familiar?  "

He was staring into space.  She wondered what he saw when he did
that.

The name was familiar, but he had no idea why.  " " Yes and no," he
said at last.

"Well, that's better than anything else, isn't it?"

"It could be."

"Patrick.  Not as fitting as Swen or Eric, maybe, but not bad, really.
Shall we call you Patrick, then?  Just for now?"

"Patrick."  He tried to let his tongue make the decision.  " " Paddy,
for short?  " " " Patrick... is already too short."

"I'm sure there's a last name to go with it that doubles the

" length.  q, "

"

"I'll answer to Patrick.  He turned to face her.  But I was beginning
to like Stranger, at least the way you say it.  Strine-ger."  He
imitated her accent perfectly.

"You sound every bit as funny to me."

He didn't like the distance between them.  He had already found that
the closer he stood to her, the more familiar she seamed.  He narrowed
the space between them.  Tell me what you're doing.  "

She realized just how tall he was.  Squatting below him made her feel
at a distinct disadvantage.  "Damper can be just as simple as flour and
water, but this has leavening.  Not yeast, because that would take too
long, and I'm always on the move when I'm away from the I>omestead.  I
add water and mix it: She held the quart pot up for him to see.  "
"Then

I'll bake it when the oven gets hot.  See how I have it in the coals?
I'll add the damper when it's hot enough and stack coals on top.
Meantime we'll boil the other billy for tea.  "

He tried to remember if he had ever had tea.  He couldn't associate any
food with a characteristic taste.  That seemed strange, even to him.

"In cases where people forget... who they are..  : he began.

"If you're going to ask my opinion about amnesia, I don't I>ave one.
It's not every day it happens, you know.

You're the first bloke I've met who might really have it "

"

"Might?  "

"You could still be bluffing.  Like I said before, maybe you have some
secret you don't want me to know, so you're pretending to forget
everything.  Or maybe you just have kangaroos in your top paddock."

"Kangaroos?  Like the ones you were going to hunt?"

"You might be bats.  Crazy," she explained, when it was clear he still
didn't understand.  "But if you are, you're right n well-behaved about
it."

If he was crazy, it seemed a positive thing to be decent about it.  "Am
I? Good."

" " As for the other, like I said, I don't know anything about I
amnesia, except what I've seen on telly.  But it's probably like
anything.  Quite likely there are different kinds, de1 pending on how
you get it.  In stories, memory always comes , back at the worst times.
Like when the girl is going to marry her real love, She finds that's
she already married to a real bounder.  Or when the man's about to join
the police, he finds out he's a convict escaped from the lockup.  That
sort of thing.  "

Behind the offhand way she related her information, he sensed a certain
wariness.  "If there could be a question about whether I'm trustworthy,
why are you helping me?"

"I can take care of myself."  She set the damper aside and reached for
the extra billy.  "Try anything and you'll find out."

"I don't doubt you: '

"Don't you?  See?  Now we know you've got good sense."

He was confused.  "

" Why would I think anything else?  "

She filled the billy and considered the question.  "Because

I'm female, " she said at last.  " And there's not a man alive who
doesn't think he's better than I am because of it.

Not until I've proved otherwise.  "

"I must really have forgotten everything."

She stood.  She was a tall woman, but she was half a head shorter than
he was.  "When your memory comes back, look deep inside yourself.
You'll find heaps of prejudice."

He felt a surge of something he couldn't quite name.  Understanding ?
Tenderness?  "You're sure?"

"

" As sure as I am of my name.  "

"What if I don't?"

"Then we'll put you in a museum and charge admission"

He touched her cheek.  The movement seemed perfectly natural to him,
but obviously he'd startled her.  She flinched , but she didn't move
away.

He closed his eyes.  Yes, this was better.  He'd had the feeling that
he ought to be able to understand her thoughts.  Some of them had been
obvious to him, but most of them were a jumble.  Now, though, with his
skin touching hers, he could define both thought and feeling more
clearly.

"You haven't had an easy time of it," he said.  "You really have had to
prove yourself, and you've done a good job of it.  But you wish it had
been different.  You wish someone would understand your feelings and
give you what you need.  "

Suddenly the connection was broken.  He opened his eyes, surprised that
she had jerked away from him.  "Did I hurt you?"  he asked.

"Cheap theatrics!  With your snake charming and your mind reading, I'm
beginning to think you're from the bloody carnival !  "

He watched her.  As before, some of 1>er thoughts were still clear, but
he couldn't shake the feeling that he ought to understand more of them.
"" Theatrics?  "

"Pretending to know what I'm thinking.  Pretending to yammer with
snakes.  You're a fraud, a regular con man!"

"Don't you know what I'm thinking?"

"That's a blooming stupid question!"

Confusion and the resurgence of panic began to wash through him.  "Give
me a blooming stupid answer."

"No, I don't know what you're thinking!  I can guess from your
expression or the things you do, but I can't know for sure.  I couldn't
crawl up inside your head even if I wanted to!"

He tried to piece together what she was saying.  "

" Even if you wanted to?  "

"Why would I care what you think?  Why do you care what I think?
Thinking is private."

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to-"

"Not that you got it right, anyway!  The carnival probably sacked you
because you don't know what you're talking about."

He stared at her, blue eyes into warm earth brown.  "You're not telling
the truth.  Why?"

"I don't need anything from anybody.  Never have.  Never will.  And I
don't need a two-bob mind reader!"

She was denying what was obvious to him, but her spoken message was
louder than any thoughts he could read.  Now his confusion brimmed
over, followed closely by sadness that he'd hurt her.  "I'm sorry.  I
didn't mean to hurt you: '

"Hurt?  You didn't hurt me!  You made me mad."

"I don't see a difference."  "

" Then you've forgotten something basic!  "

He didn't think he'd forgotten this.  He thought that perhaps what he
had forgotten was that telling the truth, like reading minds, wasn't
always appreciated.  "Thanks for helping me remember," he said, hoping
that his words would make some of her pain go away.

She turned her back to him, and he noted that more of her thoughts were
shadowed now.  "You are a strange one, Patrick ," she said at last.

"No stranger than you are to me, Mackenzie."

"No more conversation.  We're both hungry.  I'll get the damper
cooking."

He moved away, sure that she wanted him to, although he was sorry to
break even that tenuous contact with her.

He wondered what else he would learn about Mackenzie in the next
days.

He wondered what else he would learn about himself.

Chapter 5

Mackenzie knew that the stranger-no..  Patrick-wasn't asleep.  He was
restless, and the canvas swag cover crackled as he turned from side to
side.

She was restless, too.  The day had lasted forever.  There had been
nothing to do in the little hut except cook, eat, cook and eat again.
The forced inactivity had reminded her of the rare illnesses of
childhood, when she had been forced to lie in bed and count cracks in
her ceiling.

She had kept conversation minimal by not initiating any herself.
Apparently Patrick had needed silence, too, and he had obliged her.
There had been no opportunity for a signal fire.  The dust had swirled
throughout the afternoon and evening.  The wind continued its keening
now, and even though it was dark outside, she could sense dust sifting
through the cracks in the wall.  Dust storms could go on for weeks. She
wasn't sure what she would do if this one continued that long.

"Can't you sleep, either?"  she asked, when Patrick turned over
again.

"Ivo."

"I'm used to activity.  I didn't do anything today to make me tired
."

"I don't know what I'm used to."

She admired the lack of self-pity in his voice.  He might -feel many
things, but he didn't feel sorry for himself.  " " Are you warm enough?
"she asked.  " " I could put more wood on the fire."

"Too warm."

"The sunburn."  Mackenzie could sympathize.  She sat up, glad for
something to do.

"I've got an idea that might help a bit."  She got up and went to the
storage cabinet.  In her inventory, she'd noted a tobacco tin filled
with soda, left over from some ringer's damper-making days.  She hadn't
needed it herself, but she hadn't thought of it as a remedy for
Patrick's sunburn until now.

She held up the tin for him to see.  "There's soda in here.  We can mix
this with water and spread it on the places that hurt worst.  It might
soothe the burn enough for you to get some sleep."

He was quiet for a moment.  "That's a primitive approach , isn't it?"

"In case you haven't made note of it, this is a primitive place."

"I'd like to try it, if you think it will help."

"What do you usually do for a sunburn?"  she asked.

Without much hope he asked himself the question, as he had
unsuccessfully asked himself others since awakening in the hut.  What
had he done for a sunburn?  What had he called himself?  Where had he
lived and what had he done there?  Why did everything seem so new, so
untried?  Why?

This time, without warning, the silence was broken.  A door cracked
open inside his mind, and suddenly he could hear a thousand voices
screaming a thousand answers.

Nausea filled him, and he felt as if he were falling through space, an
unwilling prisoner of the discordant symphony.  Pain like none he had
ever known filled his head.  He covered his ears, but the voices
screamed on.  For a moment he feared he would explode.  Then, with an
excruciating surge of willpower, he slammed the door shut again.  " "
Patrick?  " Mackenzie crossed the room and knelt beside him.  She
touched his face.  Despite the burn, he was icy cold.  " Are you all
right?  "

When he didn't answer, she framed his face with her hands and turned it
to examine him.  Rarely had she seen the kind of agony that star sd
back at her.  "What's wrong, Paddy?  " she asked.  " " Are you feeling
worse?  "

As she waited for an answer, his skin seemed to warm to her touch.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes, he took a deep breath.  She
could feel a shudder pass through him.

"Are you all right?"  she repeated.

"Shall we try the soda now?"  "

" Are you all right?  "

He didn't know what it meant to be all right.  He didn't know anything,
except that he couldn't face the voices again.  Not now, and maybe not
ever.  "Yes."

"Did you remember something?"

He paused, trying to imagine how he could communicate what had happened
to him.  There was no way.  "No."

Mackenzie was the last person in the world to push anyone into a
revelation.  A man or a woman had a right to his or her own thoughts
and feelings.  "Take off your shirt while I mix it."

She crossed the room and busied herself mixing water and soda in a cup
until she had the right consistency.  She kept her back turned to
Patrick so that he could have a bit of privacy.  She didn't know what
had happened to him, but she knew that, whatever it was, he needed time
to pull himself together.

More than ever she wished she could get him to the homestead.  So far
his recovery had been good.  But he had obviously undergone a huge
shock.  Heatstroke, serious sunburn, memory loss.  Any one of these
problems needed better care than she could give in a rudimentary hut in
the middle of a dust storm.  It was entirely possible that Patrick
could relapse.  What she had witnessed might even have been the start
of something worse to come.

"All set?"  she asked.  "

" Yes.  "

She turned and reminded herself that she had seen him this way from the
moment she had found him lying in swirls of dust.  Still, her mouth
went dry.  In the flickering firelight Patrick was undeniably gorgeous.
Broad shoulders, muscular chest, the proud, strong face of a Viking
warrior.  There was nothing about this man that was ordinary.

She heard herself volunteering to dab on the soda.  She heard him
accept.  There was no real reason she should be the one to do it.  He
could reach most places on his body.  Perhaps she had volunteered
because he still seemed shaken.

And perhaps the reason had been a more selfish one.

"This might hurt a bit," she warned, as she went to the closet for a
rag.  She chose a scrap of flannel and washed it at the fireplace
before approaching him with the cup.  " " I think it already hurts a
lot.  " " "You think?"

He didn't smile; in fact, she realized that he had never smiled at all.
"I'm beginning to have some sense of the relativity of pain."

"The relativity of pain."  She shook her head.  "You've such an odd way
of saying what you mean."

"So you've informed me."

"Well, I'm afraid when I'm finished with you, you'll have a better idea
of the relativity of pain: '

"You'll cause pain to lessen pain."  He appeared to consider that as
she settled herself on the bed behind him so that she could reach his
shoulders.  "How do I know if you've really helped the pain at all, or
if it's just that when you've finished causing it, I've am fooled into
feeling better?"

"You bloody well must teach a class in philosophy at university
somewhere.  That's who you are."

"If I carved people into sculptures for a living, you couldn't make it
sound any worse."

"I'm not much of one for education."  "

" Why not?  "

She wasn't about to tell him the real reason.  "Reckon I just wasn't
the right sort for it.  Get prepared.  I'm going to start on your
shoulders."

She touched him tentatively.  When he didn't jump, she began to swirl
the rag in circlesq q

"But you did well in classes, he said.

Instantly she jerked her hand away.  "I told you before, I don't like
anyone pretending to read my mind !  "

"So you did."  He stiffened.  This time when she touched him, he
winced, and as if she could feel it, she decreased the pressure against
his skin.  " " Did you do well in classes?  " he asked.  "
"Sometimes."

He tried to tell himself he couldn't know her answers before she gave
them.  Obviously there was something wrong with sensing her thoughts.
Obviously there was something wrong with him for wanting to.

"Relax," she said.  "I'm not going to hurt you any more than this: '

"How do you know I'm worried you'll hurt me?"

"It just makes sense."

"Then shouldn't it make sense to me that you'd be good in school?
You're intelligent."

"

" How would you know?  "

That confused him, and he searched hard for an answer.  "From things
you've said and done," he said.

"Oh: She still wasn't satisfied that he had just been adding up facts,
but she was ready to drop the subject.

She worked in silence, but her thoughts clamored for recognition.  One
part of her brain reminded her of all the stranger's quirks and
problems; the other part cherished every movement her hands made, every
pass over his skin every muscle that rippled under her fingers.  She
had washed him when he was unconscious, and even though he hadn't
responded, the experience had been tantalizing.  Now, as his flesh
reacted to everything she did, the experience was..  better.

She swirled the rag over the back of his neck.  In the firelight his
hair was outback sunshine, a pure, untainted gold.

The backs of her fingers brushed against the shortest hairs at his
nape, and they clung momentarily, as if begging her to stop and explore
that different sensory delight.  " " My uncle used to have an aviary, "
she said.  Her hand halted-in its path.  Why had she told him that?

"A place to keep birds: '

"At least your vocabulary hasn't suffered."

"

" What about the aviary?  ""

" Nothing "

"Something must have reminded you of it."

She couldn't fault him for figuring that out.  She sighed.  " " When I
was old enough to reach the latch on the cage, I opened it one day and
let all the birds go free.  "

"And your uncle was furious."

That, too, should have been apparent to almost anyone, whether they
knew Clint Conroy or not.  "Yes.  But he understood" " " Freedom is
important to both of you: '

She told herself he wasn't reading her mind.  Mind reading was
impossible.  "I suppose you can tell that from the way we live."

He supposed he could.  "Yes."  He felt her hands move across his skin
again.  Faster this time, as if she was determined to get the job
finished as quickly as possible.  He mourned for the slower pace.  He
suspected there was as much healing in her hands as in the solution on
the rag.  "Anything that threatens freedom frightens you: '

"Nothing frightens me."

He wasn't going to accuse her of lying.  Certainly she must know her
own failings better than anyone.  "But staying free is important," he
said.

"Nothing is going to take away my freedom."

"And that's why you've never shared yourself with a man: '

"That's it!"  Mackenzie jumped to her feet.  For a moment she'd been a
hairbreadth from shoving him across the room.  But she had realized,
just as she was about to try, how much a shove would hurt him.  "Finish
this up yourself!"

He closed his eyes.  He felt completely drained.  Why was qerything so
difficult?  "Apparently that's not what you were leading up to telling
me."

"

" You've got"

"A bloody nerve," be finished for her.  "I don't, Mackeqe Not really.
What I've got is a bloody lack of understanding of what I'm supposed to
say and what I'm not!"

She was a thoroughbred racing down the final stretch only to discover
that the crowds had gone home, the other horses had turned back to the
stables, and the finish line had washed away.  With a harsh sigh she
sat down again and started soothing a path down his spine.  "You're
guessing I'm such a no-hoper I've never had a man?"

"You think I'd answer that?  I haven't lost all my good sense."  q

"No answer will go worse for you: '

"I think there have been dozens of men who've wanted you: He paused to
see how that had affected her.  Encouraged by her silence and an
indescribable feeling that she was pleased, be went on.  " You're truly
lovely, even under the dust: '

"Who do you remember well enough to compare me to?"

A door was slammed and locked in his mind.  He could unlock it, peek
inside and see what women's faces emerged.  But nausea gripped him at
the thought.  The cacophony of voioes he had unleashed the last time
could have driven him mad.  Whatever answers lived behind that door, be
could not release them now.  Not now, and perhaps not ever.

But even without those doors unlocked, one face danced through his
mind.  For just a moment Patrick saw the image of a woman.  Her hair
was light and her eyes a new-leaf green.  She was willowy and graceful,
with a face that reflected every thought and feeling.  In that moment
he compared her to Mackenzie and knew that both were extraordinarily
beautiful.

"I've lost my memory, but not my ability to see what's in front of me,"
he said.

"A dinky-di bit of flattery, that."

"Flsttery?  That's like a lie, isn't it?"

"

" A friendly lie.  "

He sat quietly as she finished his back.  Without words between them,
he could simply enjoy the feel of what she was doing to him.  And what
she was doing was remarkable -His skin hurt, and even as she touched
it, the hurt continued.  But the feel of her hands against his flesh,
even with the rag intervening, was also a great comfort.

And more.  Her touch both cooled and warmed him.  The paradox was
baffling, yet his body was living proof it existed He didn't want the
pain to continue, but he wanted the movement of her hands to continue
forever.  " " I'm finished with your back.  Shall I do your chest?  Or
would you rather?  "

"I'd like you to: Something shifted between them, a subtle change in
the air.  He knew she needed an explanation of some sort.  He chose one
of the many that presented themselves.  " You can reach places I'd have
trouble with.  "

"Right-o."  Mackenzie got up to mix more solution; then she moved
around to kneel in front of him.  He sat cross legged , like a Hindu
guru, or was it a Buddhist monk?  Whichever, he seemed perfectly at
home, as if he could sit that way, utterly motionless, forever.

"Small consolation, I suppose," she said, "but the sunburn 's not as
bad as it was yesterday.  It's fading in spots."

He wondered how he would feel when it disappeared.  Would he still feel
each movement, perceive his boundaries in the same way?  "What will
happen when we get to your home?  " he asked.

"What do you want to happen?"  "

" I don't know.  "

"I should think you'd want your memory back, first thing."

"What if my memories aren't good ones?"  "

" Do you feel they might not be?  "

He considered.  He could feel the cloth, cool and provocative , moving
along his right shoulder.  He fixed his gaze on Mackenzie's face.  Her
lips were pursed, as if she was doing something that required great
precision.

He wanted to try her lips against his.  The thought came out of
nowhere, yet it seemed the most natural one in the world.

A kiss.  His lips against hers.  That was what the action was called.
He tried to imagine what it would feel like; he wondered if he knew.  "
" Patrick?  "

He remembered her question.  "I don't know," he said.  " " Are your
memories good or bad?  " " "Good, mostly."

"But there are bad ones, too?"

She listened carefully to his inflection.  Yes, he had asked a
question.  He wasn't pretending to know..  probably.  "I remember my
mother dying," she said.

Something twisted inside him.  He swallowed, but it wouldn't go away.
He felt a surge of such sorrow that he could hardly breathe.

"She was young, and she always smelled like violets.  I didn't know
that until later, you see.  Not until I smelled violets at a flower
stall in Sydney on a school outing.  Then I , realized."  Mackenzie
wondered why she was telling Patrick this.  It was the hut, she
supposed, and the damnable wailing wind.  It mimicked the sound of
mourning.  She could almost hear her own childish sobbing in each
ghostly shriek and moan.

"You were very sad when she died."

"Very."  She wet her rag again and stared past him at the wall, which
was buckling under the wind's assault.  "But then I came to Waluwara.
There's been nothing to be sad about here."

She wasn't telling the whole truth, but already Patrick had learned
enough not to point that out.  "My memories will be the same, I
suppose," he said.  "Sad ones.  Better ones."

"Since you're human, too, that's bound to be the way it is.

"Will this be a good or a bad memory for you?"

She brought her gaze, and her attention, to him.  "This?"

".I.his.  Our time here."

She frowned.  "I don't know.  It's not over yet, is it?"

"

" You are my first memory.  "

"Pardon?"

"My first memory.  I have no memories except of you: '

Try as she might, she could not lower her eyes.  His were blue, a
straight-up-to-the-heavens blue that threatened to suck her into
awareness, even into an eternity, that she wasn't ready for.  " " I
have other memories, " she said.

He bent his head forward.  Until the briefest moment before he kissed
her, she could still see his eyes.  Then they closed.  Hers closed,
too, and she felt his lips against hers.  the kiss was both a surprise
and a certainty.  She could not move away.  She was as trapped by him
as if he had wrapped her in bands of steel.  She couldn't breathe, she
couldn't think.  She could only yearn and, in her yearning, press her
lips harder against his.

She had been kissed before, but never had she felt this unity with a
man.  Somewhere between his lips and hers, she had lost a piece of
herself.

Unnerved, but unable to resist, she turned her head a little to savor
the sensation.  His lips parted, and she sighed against them.  His hand
settled on her hair, and his fingers wove through it to caress the back
of her neck.  His lips took up the same rhythm, pulsing in time to her
heartbeat until she was convinced he had somehow become a part of her
and knew her body as he knew his own.

He was the first to draw away.  She stared at him and found his eyes
were still every bit as depthless and un shadowed

She thought of a thousand important things to say and said none of
them.  "Well, you haven't forgotten everything" She moved away,
carefully placing the rag inside the cup before she held it out to him.
"I reckon you'd better finish this without me."

"I would have remembered that."

"You're trying to tell me a kiss was new to a man who looks like you?"
She laughed, only forcing it a little.

"For you, too."

"Sorry, but no: '

"Yes."

"You're a case, Patrick.  You'll have one go-in after another if you
insist on telling everybody what they're thinking : '

"Can you tell what I'm thinking?"

SI>e screened her mind of all intuition, but in the flash before she
did, she had an impression of confusion, of yearning as powerful as her
own had been, of desire for more of the same.

"No.  And I don't want to know."  She thrust the cup into his hand.
"I'm going to bed.  You want something to do, you can worry about the
wind.  Find out what it's thinking, why don't you?  Because if it
doesn't stop blowing soon, you'll have a raving loony on your hands."

"It will die down by tomorrow."

" " What?  " " "The wind.  It will get worse, then better.  By... dawn
it will almost be still outside."  " " How do you know?  "

He watched her settle herself in bed.  "You didn't?"

She stared at him.  For a moment something just short of fear shot
through her.  Who was this man?  A better question yet, why had she
been fated to find him?  He towered above her, part innocent child,
part Greek god or Viking warrior, part sideshow magician, part-a large
part-man.

"Go to sleep," she said at last.

He stared down at her.  He didn't want to sleep.  He wasn't sure what
he wanted, but it wasn't sleep.  "Thank you for helping me.  My sunburn
feels better."

"I'm getting out of here tomorrow!"  She turned over so she couldn't
see him anymore.

"Good night."

She didn't answer.  She stared at the iron flapping under the restless
fingers of the wind.  From the looks of it, despite her words, she
wouldn't be going anywhere tomorrow She shut her eyes and hoped that
Patrick was going to be proved right.  Then she changed her mind.  She
could put up with another day at the hut better than she could put up
with a new discovery about her guest.  Patrick was strange enough.  If
he could predict the future as well as read minds and charm snakes, he
would truly be a force io be reckoned with.

She thought about the kiss.  Just her bloody luck, he was already a
force to be reckoned with.

Since there was no longer any wind, the thick black smoke of
Mackenzie's signal fire billowed straight up to the sky.  Dawn had
arrived as calmly as Patrick had predicted.  The fire had already been
burning for two hours, fueled by the last of the scrub piled beside the
hut.

Mackenzie was glad she and Patrick had dragged the tires a good
distance away, because the smell of the burning rubber was hideous.  If
no one came to get them by early afternoon , she had already decided
that she and Patrick would start for the homestead and travel until
nightfall.  There was no guarantee that another dust storm wouldn't
catch them no guarantee except Patrick's personal assurance, which she
refused to accept-but the combination of the smell of the tires and the
prospect of another night in the hut was enough to make her reckless.
"" When the sun gets to that spot" she pointed to the sky "we'll start
back.  " " "Your horse is too tired and hungry to carry two."  Patrick
leaned over the side of the shelter where Bounder was hobbled and
watched him eat the tufts of dried grass that Mackenzie had found for
him.

Twice Mackenzie had warned Patrick to stay out of Bounder's reach.
Bounder was nobody's dear little pony.  But she wasn't going to waro
Patrick again.  Bounder would take care of that in his own time.

"He won't have to," she said.  "I'll walk and you'll ride.  You're
still weak, and well you should be."

"No."

"I won't argue.  That's what we'll do.  The trip back will be slow,
since we'll have to go from bore to bore.  It might take three, even
four days.  But there's always the chance someone will come looking for
me."

"

" A good chance?  "

She smiled ruefully.  "I stirred up rather a large fuss the last time
someone did.  They'll think twice before they set out.  Unless they see
the smoke, that is.  The Aborigines use smoke to send messages across
great distances.  If anyone sees this, they'll know it's a signal.  We
don't even need to use a code."

"Is there a code?"

"There's a whole language.  I know a little."  Actually, she knew a
lot.  But that wasn't something one bragged about.  It had been a gift
from her Aboriginal friends, just as teaching her to track had been a
gift, and helping her to look deeply inside herself to.  her own
instincts had been a gift, too.

"The Aborigines.  Australia's native people?"

"That's right.  They were here for maybe forty thousand years before
Europeans caugbt sight of the continent.  There's a village of several
hundred on the run, and most of our stock men and station hands belong
to the tribe."

"Then this is their land?"

"Technically?  No.  In the ways that matter?  Yes."

Bounder finished the grass and looked around for more.  Clearly
disgruntled, he started toward Patrick to see what he was offering.
Patrick held out his hand.

Mackenzie bit back her warning.  Patrick did as he pleased.  There was
no point in wasting her breath.

He crooned something to the horse, and Bounder'sean perked up.  The
horse stood still and listened.

"A blooming miracle," Mackenzie whispered.

Patrick curved his fingers toward the fence, and the horse followed the
motion.  In a moment he was standing in front of Patrick, and Patrick
was rubbing his nose.

"He's a beauty," he said.

"You know horses?"

"I have no idea."

Mackenzie waited for some sign that Bounder had tired of being
domesticated and was ready to assert himself.  It didn't come.  "You
know horses," she said.  "By rights, he should have nipped a finger or
two by now."

Patrick brushed flies away from the horse's eyes.  Bounder didn't
flinch.  "He was a wild horse before you tamed him?"

"

" How do you know that?  "

Patrick considered.  "Just under the surface he's full of spiritq '

"Oh."  Mackenzie relaxed a little.  It didn't take extrasensory
perception to see that.  "We call our wild horses brumbies You couldn't
guess how many there are out here in the bush.  They're descendants of
thoroughbreds, turned out to fend for themselves when the land was just
being settled.  Most pastoralists despise them.  They eat the food our
cattle need, pug up the water holes, unsettle the mobs: '

"What happens to them?"

"The lucky ones are left free or brought in for training."

He didn't ask what happened to the unlucky ones.  It was much too
clear.

"There's no money in it," Mackenzie said.  "But every year the Waluwara
stock men take a week or two to catch the most likely brumbies we can
find.  We train them and sell them for riding stock after a year.  It's
nothing more than sentiment.  Too much " Man From Snowy River.  " " " "
what's that?  "

"A poem about wild horses, wild places and times that are gone now: '

"You wish they weren't gone."

"The world is fair teeming with people and things they've invented to
make it a better place.  But in my mind, it's not a better place for
all that."

"Is this wild enough for you?"  Patrick gestured to the seemingly
endless plains surrounding them.

"I'd like to see new wild places."  Mackenzie didn't know what it was
about Patrick that made her expose so many of her secrets, but whatever
it was, she was exposing herself again.  And she continued.  "There's
challenge here, and I like that.  But there must be places like the
outback, places I haven't seen yet, that still need to be explored."

"

" Have you tried to find them?  "

"No.  I'm needed here.  But maybe someday I'll take a 1>oliday to
Africa or the Asian jungles."  She gestured to the plains as he had.
"Maybe I'll even get to see the Amazon rain forest before they cut down
all the trees and make it an outback, too."

Bounder came to attention under Patrick's stroking hand.  At the same
instant, Patrick came to attention, too.  "Do you hear that?"

Mackenzie listened.  With the luck she'd had so far, she was prepared
to hear the wind rising.  Instead there was something different in the
air, something just out of reach.  She held her breath.  There was no
sound, nothing more than a sense that the atmosphere was somehow
disturbed.  Then, from a great distance she heard the unmistakable hum
of an engine.

"Don't get in a flap," she warned.  "Small planes are right common out
here.  Someone might be flying over on his way to somewhere eLse.  "

Patrick didn't answer, and Mackenzie fell silent again.  The hum grew
louder until she knew it wasn't a light plane at all.  Now the sound
was unmistakable.

"It's a helicopter," she said.  "And there's no reason it would be
flying this way except to look for us!  "

She took off running, removing her hat as she did to wave it at the
still-empty sky.

Patrick watched her hair fall free, hair as brilliant as the rising
sun.  Her slender, womanly body almost leaped for joy.  He continued
stroking Bounder, but it was Mackenzie he watched, Mackenzie he wanted
to touch.

Their days at the hut alone together were finished.  Somewhere he had a
life to get back to.

He didn't want to leave.

The best things are always the most difficult.  You must give up the
things you understand and love in order to find greater happiness.
letting go is the first step toward possession

The voice from his memory troubled him.  The words troubled him more.
He wondered if he had ever wanted to possess anything in his past the
same way that, in this moment , he wanted to possess Mackenzie.  " "
Letting go is the first step toward possession, " he repeated out
loud.

He had no choice except to wait and see.

Chapter q

The evening sky was a deep, brilliant gold, with a subtle purple band
rising steadily from the horizon.  A small flock of sulphur crested
cockatoos descended with the darkness into a cluster of ghost gum trees
at the edge of the garden ringing the homestead.  Mackenzie sipped
bottled lemonade on the front veranda and watched the sunset, Waluwara
's most reliable form of entertainment.

When she heard footsteps on the porch, she knew immediately whom they
belonged to.  "I assume you'll want an explanation."

Clint Conroy took his place beside her.  He had already showered and
dressed for the evening meal, a ritual he always insisted on even when
he was alone.  He wore dark trousers and a plain white shirt.  His dark
hair was uncovered ; his hat, a battered, wide-brimmed felt like
Mackenzie 's own, had been left inside.

Mackenzie felt a moment of pride as she waited for his answer.  At
forty-three he was a good-looking man, tanned and fit, with a
stockman's permanent squint that only added to his attractions.
Australia's dry climate set well on its men, honing them to their basic
essence, just like life in the bush.

The boss's face stated clearly that here, inside this man, inside this
life, there was no room for pretension.

"I assume you have an explanation," he said.

She recounted the last days, trying to put as much information into as
few words as possible.  The boss would want to know all the subtleties,
but later, and only if they were necessary.  She didn't tell him about
the snake, or about what, at the time, had seemed like remarkable gifts
in a man who couldn't remember his own name.  Here, back in
civilization -or this beloved version of it-she had come to doubt her
own perceptions.  Nothing Patrick had said or done in their days
together couldn't be explained.  She had been too sensitive, concerned
for his health and their mutual situation.

"We left Bounder to come in by himself.  I hope he does," she
finished.

"You had a bit of luck.  If Harry hadn't seen the smoke you'd be
camping out again tonight."

"I wouldn't have minded, but the stranger needed to see a doctor "

"Harry said your signal was easily visible."

"Harry taught me to light signal fires."

"There's not enough money in this station to pay him for what he
does."

Harry David was the boss stockman, an Aborigine who was as at home on a
horse as he was in the house in the village that he shared with his
parents, wiie and four children.  He and Clint had grown up together,
attended the station school together, fought, laughed and gotten drunk
together They were as alike as they were different, mates who had saved
each other's lives so many times that neither bothered to keep count.

"I would have gotten the stranger back here if I'd had to," Mackenzie
said.  "But this was easier."

"It would have been easier if Harry hadn't had to beg for a chopper."

Mackenzie heard the bitterness in her uncle's voice.  She understood it
only too well.  Waluwara needed its own heliSomewherecopter, as well as
planes that worked.  "I'd have settled for a road and an ute with four
good tires."

"I haven't seen the man yet."

Clint had been out on the other end of the run when she and Patrick had
landed at the station airstrip.  She was surprised he had returned so
soon.  "I wasn't expecting you home tonight," she said.  "What brought
you back?"

"You'd been out in the storm too long: '

She digested that but declined to make a fuss.  This once it was nice
to have had someone worried about her.

As they talked, the sky deepened to a darker gold.  Mackenzie looked
out over the garden, nearly dormant now, but not brown, because Edwina
kept it just wet enough to save it during the worst of the Dry.  "I
didn't mention the most important thing about our guest."

"That is?"

"He doesn't remember anything.  Not even his own name."

Clint took out tobacco and papers to roll a cigarette.  Tradition died
hard at Waluwara.  He smoked a while before he answered.  " " Is he
lying?  "

"I don't know.  I don't think so."

"But you found no evidence of injuries?"

"Not a bloody one."

Clint cleared his throat.  Mackenzie knew she'd been chastised for her
language.  "What sort of bloke is he?"  that was hardest of all to
explain.  Mackenzie cleared her throat, too.  "A bit odd," she said at
last.

"Odd?"

"Nioe enough, mind you.  But, well ... strange.  Odd.  He's forgotten
so many things.  He remembers words, but not always what to say in a
conversation."  She stopped when it became clear she wasn't making
sense.

"I should think if his memory's gone, that would account for it."

"

" Maybe.  "

"Harry called the Flying Doctor Service?"

"He did.  They said they'd have someone out today if it was an
emergency, but it looked to me as if Patrick needed good food and rest
more than he needed a doctor.  Edwina looked him over and thought the
same."

"

" Patrick?  "

"The name seemed a bit familiar to him.  It was better than calling him
Stranger."

"

" Mud, better.  "

Mackenzie turned at the sound of Patrick's voice.  TIe man stepping
onto the veranda was hardly the battered, burned creature she had
rescued from dust, sun and debydration He had showered and shaved.
Edwina, a serene, capable woman who took everything in her stride, had
found clothes for him much like the ones her uncle wore.  The white
shirt emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the sunburn that was,
even now, beginning to darken to a tan.  The khaki trousers fit snugly
against his narrow Iqips and thighs and traced the muscular length of
his legs.  Her gaze lingered too long.  When She looked up, she saw
that her uncle was aware of her interest.  " " Patrick, " she said.  "
" I was just telling my uncle about you: '

Clint turned to greet their guest.  His eyes betrayed nothing , but
Mackenzie knew that his impression of Patrick would be formed in a
matter of seconds.  He extended his hand and Patrick shook it.  "Clint
Conroy," he said.

Patrick nodded.  "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Mac was just telling me a little about your ordeal."

"I'm afraid there's only a little to tell.  It begins when she found
me."

"

" So she says: '

Patrick joined them at the railing.  After the helicopter ride he
hadn't had more than a glimpse of the homestead before the housekeeper
had hustled him to a room, given him a quick once-over and insisted he
get into bed after his shower.  He hadn't even been allowed out for a
meal.  the same woman had brought food to him on a tray.

The house was white, one long, sprawling story set several feet above
the ground on stone pillars.  The veranda railing and the fence
surrounding the garden were graceful, almost fanciful sweeps of iron
smothered in places by thick vines.

His mind sorted through an array of words until he came to the correct
one.  "Oasis."  He looked at Mackenzie and wasn't sure if he had found
the word for her or for the house and surrounding gardens.  She was
wearing a dress the same color as the leaves of the silver trees at the
garden's edge, but her arms and legs were bare.  She had clipped her
hair back from her face with gold barrettes, and surrounded by that
wild blazing cloud, her features were perfectly framed, dainty and
elfin and..  worried.

"When I saw the house from the air," he said, "I thought it was a
mirage."

"This time of year it seems so," Clint said.  "But when the Wet comes
and the creeks and billa bongs fill, everything for miles is lush and
green."

"So wet you'll wish it were dry again," Mackenzie said.  Immediately
she wondered about her words.  She had sounded as if she expected the
stranger to stay until the Wet came.  The truth was that he would
probably be leaving as soon as the doctor had seen him.

"You're not Australian, so you might not understand our seasons," Clint
said.

"I'm not Australian.  You're sure?"  "

" Too right.  "

"I think he's a Yank," Mackenzie said.

"Likely," Clint agreed.  "Do you want to find out?"  he asked Patrick.
"Or would you rather we not give it a bash?"

For a moment Patrick thought of the voices that screamed behind a
locked door in his mind.  Inside him somewhere were all the answers he
needed.  But he wasn't sure he could survive learning them.

He didn't know how to communicate that to Mackenzie and her uncle.
Perhaps the best thing was to let them help him.  If he discovered one
answer at a time, perhaps he would learn enough to tame the voices
until all the answers had been set free.

"What do you know about memory loss?"  he asked Clint.  "I don't know
... or remember anything: '

"Little, I'm afraid.  I know it can come from an injury to the brain.
Or sometimes the mind just forgets what it finds too painful to
remember."

" " I think someone left Patrick to die, " Mackenzie said.  " " He had
no food, no water, no clothes"

"No clothes?"  Clint turned his gaze to his niece.  "

" No..  trousers?  "

"Not a stitch."

Clint turned back to Patrick.  Patrick's eyes gleamed a little
brighter, and he shrugged.  "Not my choice, I'm sure."

"Well."

" " Why would anyone leave him in that state unless they wanted him to
die?  " Mackenzie asked.

"Perhaps he had provisions.  Perhaps he got lost, left his horse or his
car.  He was dehydrated, delirious with thirst and suffering from the
heat, perhaps he tore off his... clothes."

"We flew right over the area where I'd found him " , Mackenzie said.
"There was nothing there."

"Can you tell Harry where he was?"  "

" Of course.  "

"Then I'll send him out with another man tomorrow to see what they can
find."

"They won't find anything.  The storm will have covered all tracks."

There was a noise behind them, the sound of a woman clearing her
throat.  "Dinner's on the table."

Patrick watched the look the housekeeper, Edwina, exchanged with
Mackenzie's uncle.  She was in her thirties , small, with golden brown
hair and skin the soft brown of a mourning dove's breast.  There was an
elegance in the way she carried herself, royalty garbed in a blue
housedress and starched white apron.

He understood much from the look that passed between them.  More, he
guessed, than anyone was supposed to understand There was love in that
look, love, repression, yearning.  He could have discovered more, but
he'd learned from his encounters with Mackenzie that this was already
too much.  He looked away and forced himself to think of something
else.  " " Patrick doesn' teat meat, " Mackenzie told her uncle.  "
That's one thing we discovered.  "

"There'll be plenty he can eat," Edwina said.  "I've never starved a
guest."

"I apologize for the extra trouble," Patrick said.  "And I want to
thank you for finding me these."  He pointed to his shoes, canvas
sneakers that had once been someone's tennis shoes in the days when
there had been a usable court behind the homestead.

"You won't wear leather, either?"  Mackenzie asked.  "You woke up in
the wrong sort of place, Paddy.  You should have found your way to the
next run.  They raise canvas there.  Thousands of acres of it.  It's a
show to watch them harvest shoes and belts.  Tents, too."

She was rewarded with a smile that almost snatched the oxygen from her
lungs.  He could smile.  Yes, he could.  "I haven't forgotten
everything," he said.  "Not quite."

She smiled, too, a response to his that she could not have denied in a
million years.  "I'm glad to see it."

She turned to share her smile with her uncle and saw he was not amused.
He offered her his arm.  It was a courtly gesture, pure gentleman
squatter asserting his position as lord of the countryside.  She took
it rather than make a fuss.  The boss's message was clear.  Until
further notice, anything as intimate as smiling with Patrick was
prohibited.

The dining room was long and wide, with sheer curtains that garbed the
tall open windows and billowed enticingly with every puff of breeze.
Mackenzie chose not to notice the walls that needed paint, the
carefully patched linen tablecloth , the chips in the Wedgwood china
that had been her grandmother's most prized possession.  The graciously
appointed dining room and the formal evening meal might be a strange
tradition in a place where drought, death and poverty lurked at the
doorstep, but it was a tradition her uncle had fought hard to preserve.
She would do no less.

She sat at her uncle's right and Patrick at his left.  The conversation
was polite as the meal was served.  Edwina had obviously gone out of
her way to prepare a special dinner.

In addition to the ever-present beef, there were more vegetables than
usual, some fresh from the kitchen garden that was faithfully tended by
Edwina's brother, Ned.  There was also a loaf of her homemade bread and
Waluwara's own butter to go with it.

Mackenzie watched Patrick eat.  He made no attempt to disguise his
pleasure.  She suspected that his opinion about her own cooking skills
had just undergone an adjustment.

"Patrick eats like someone who's never tasted food before , " Mackenzie
said.  " " I think I could have served him saltbush and sand at the hut
and he would have tucked right into it.

"Nothing like a little starvation to make a man appreciate simple
things."  Clint squinted at their guest.  "How do you feel?  "

"How can a man know how he feels if he can't remember how he used to
feel?"  Mackenzie asked.

Clint turned his steely-eyed gaze to her.  She smiled.  "

" Sorry.  "

"I feel fine," Patrick said.  "Hungry, I suppose.  When I eat I feel
even better."

Clint looked down at his plate.  Mackenzie could almost see his
thoughts.  "He'll take a bit of getting used to," she said.  " " You
're taking a bit of getting used to, " Clint told her.

"Sorry.  It's just I've gotten adjusted to the situation.  You
haven't."

She expected her uncle to launch into more questions, questions Patrick
wouldn't be able to answer.  Instead he began a report about what was
happening on the section of the station he had just come back from.
They discussed the conditions he had seen, and what to do about them,
as they ate the meal.  Patrick seemed to listen attentively as he
finished seconds, then thirds.

"Save room for dessert," Mackenzie warned him.  "You won't want to miss
it."

"It couldn't be better than this: " "Better than boiled carrots?  I
think so."

"We've a number of Yanks in the outback," Clint said, leaning back in
his chair to sip tea while Edwina cleared the table.  His eyes followed
her as he spoke.  " " Most of them are connected with your military.
You have bases here.  Did you know that?  "

"Bases?"  Patrick considered.  "No."

" " A man might want to leave the service.  Might even want to sell
secrets he'd learned there.  "

"If I have any secrets for sale, they're secret to me, too."

"Patrick, a spy?"  Mackenzie said.  "What?  Do you think he was taking
a shortcut to Beijing and got lost on the way?"

Her uncle's expression was answer enough.

Dessert was custard served with tiny peaches Edwina had picked and
preserved herself.

Mackenzie watched Patrick eat-when she was sure she wasn't being
observed.  There was something almost mesmerizing in the expression on
his face.  Despite his situation , the simplest things obviously gave
him pleasure.  She thought of the kiss they had shared last night.  She
had avoided thinking of it all day, but now the memory asserted
itself.

She was young and in some ways, perhaps, untried.  But she was far from
foolish.  Last night she had been powerless to deny her attraction to
this man, this stranger who didn't even have a real name.  The
attraction was still there, and denying it wouldn't make it disappear.
Like all the other aspects of her life, she was going to have to face
it squarely and decide what to do about it.

Except this time, like no other, she suspected a simple decision wasn't
going to suffice.  Not quite.

Her uncle cougbed, and for a moment she thought she'd been caught in
the act of staring.  Color rose to her cheeks, a unique and thoroughly
unpleasant experience.  Her uncle coughed again, and she faced him.

He wasn't trying to get her attention.  He coughed again, and his hands
went to his throat.  His face had turned a dark red.  He was choking.

Mackenzie leaped to her feet and positioned herself behinri him.
Circling him with her arms, she covered one of her hands with the other
and shoved her fists against his diaphragm Once, twice.

He continued to choke.

"Get Edwina!"  she shouted to Patrick.

She didn't look up to see if he responded.  She held her breath and
used all her strength to try unsuccessfully again.  The chair was in
the way.  She was afraid she wasn't applying enough pressure to his
diaphragm because of it.  Now Clint's skin seemed to be turning blue.
"" Stand up, Uncle Clint, " she demanded.  " " Now !  "

The words were hardly out of her mouth before she had been tossed
against the wall.  Patrick jerked her uncle from the chair and, with
one arm across Clint's midriff and another at the side of his head,
began to pummel and twist him simultaneously.

"What are you doing?"  Momentarily dazed from the force of Patrick's
shove, she shook her head.  Then she started unsteadily toward them.

Clint's body jerked, and something flew across the room.  He gasped
once, twice, before he began to breathe normally again.

"What in the bloody hell did you do to him?"  Mackenzie demanded.

Patrick seemed as stunned as she was.  "He couldn't breathe."

"Of course he couldn't breathe!  Do you think he turns red and blue for
entertainment?  What did you do?"

"He saved... my life," Clint answered.

Still shaken, Mackenzie ducked her head to search the floor for the
culprit.  She took longer than she needed, waiting until she was under
better control before she spoke.  "A peach pit."  She didn't look at
either of the men as she disposed of it.

"It was lodged in his throat," Patrick said.

"I had that part figured out, thank you," she said.

Clint sat down and reached unsteadily for his cup.  He played with the
handle but didn't lift the cup to his mouth.

"For a minute there... I thought I'd be pushing up daisies during the
Wet this year."

Mackenzie took her place again, too, and with the residue of manners
still left to her, signaled for Patrick to do the same.  "That wasn't
the right sort of maneuver," she said.  "Do you know what you did?"

Patrick looked directly at her.  He didn't smile.  "Yes.  I got him
breathing again."

Mackenzie knew more than her share of first aid, and nothing Patrick
had done could be found in any book she had ever read.  But what did
that matter?  She had the grace to feel ashamed of her own behavior.

"Well, I couldn't get him breathing," she said.  "I'm sorry.  You're
right.  Whatever you did, thank you for doing it."

Neither Clint nor Patrick uttered another word for the rest of the
meal, and Mackenzie couldn't think of anything to break the silence.
When it was time to leave the table, she rose and the men stood, too.

"You have everything you need for the night?"  she asked Patrick.  " "
Yes, thank you.  "

She wanted to say more, but what could she say?  Patrick had revealed
another new and, in its own way, odd part of himself.  In the
revelation, he had saved the life of the human being she loved most in
the world.  " " Edwina gave you some ointment for your sunburn?  " she
asked, knowing that the housekeeper had.

"Yes.  I'll take care of using it."  "

" Right-o.  "

"Have a smoke with me out on the veranda?"  Clint asked Patrick.

"No.  But I'll keep you company."

Mackenzie watched the two men exit.  She was glad not to be asked to
join in this male ritual.  The puzzle of Patrick the Stranger was too
complicated to be solved that night.  With a certain amount of
gratitude she gave the problem over to her uncle.

"Out here in the bush we have a name for a man who saves another's
life."

"

" Friend?  "

"Mate."  Clint rolled and lit his cigarette.  Moments later he blew
spirals of smoke into the inky black of the outback night.  "You might
not understand it, since you're not from here."

"

" Maybe not .  "

"This country isn't like yours.  When a man wanted to settle new land
in America, he packed up his family, or just himself, and headed off
into the wilderness.  He could be fair certain there'd be game for food
and plenty of water, trees to build a cabin.  There were a million
problems he might have, but the basic things were his for the
taking."

Patrick gazed out into the darkness and thought he understood' But not
here.  "

Clint shook his head.  He smoked awhile before he continued' You have
your myths, we have ours.  You Yanks think of yourselves as rugged
individualists because you could make it alone if you wanted.  We knew
we couldn't make it alone out here, right from the start.  So we have
mates, partners, you might say.  We depend on each other for our lives.
A mate does something for you, you do something for him .  "

"You don't have to do anything for me."

"I'd almost decided to, anyway, before you had to start me breathing
again."  Clint turned enough to look at Patrick' You welcome here until
you want to leave.  There'll be something on the run for you to work
at, if you stay.  "

"You don't know anything about me."

Clint turned back to the night.  "I know all about you."  "

"For the most part you're telling the truth about your memory.  You
don't remember much, and what you do remember confuses you, so most
likely you try to deny it.  I think your memory will come back
eventually.  You need time and quiet to rediscover who you are.  I can
give you both.  You're not afraid, even though you don't understand
what's happened to you.  You're a man of courage, also a man with
certain talents, if your demonstration at dinner was any clue."

"

" I surprise myself.  "

Clint gave a dry chuckle.  "I don't know what you are or were running
from, Patrick, but you can rest here before you have to run again: '

"Thank you: '

"There's only one thing: "

"Mackenzie?  "

Clint nodded, not surprised that Patrick had guessed.  " " Has she told
you anything about herself?  " " "Not much."

"She came here when she was four, after her mother died.  She's only
been away from the station a few times since.  She finished secondary
school in Adelaide and did another year in Sydney.  I thought she
needed to experience city life, but school was an agony, and she hated
the city."

"School was an agony?"

"Bored her no end.  And she hated being penned up after having all
this."  He gestured into the darkness.  "Do you find that hard to
understand?"

"I don't know."

" " This is no place for her, but the city is no place for her, either.
You've heard of the man without a country?  " He looked at Patrick.  "
I suppose if you have, you don't remember Anyway, Mac is a woman
without a place.  She needs young people and challenge she won't find
here.  But she needs more challenge than she found in Adelaide or

Sydney.  So it comes down to a young woman who's looking for something,
only she doesn't know what.  "

"And you're afraid I might take advantage of that?"

"How do I know-how do you know-there's not a wife and three little
Patricks waiting for you somewhere across the oceans?  Or right here in
Oz, for that matter "

Patrick knew there was more to Clint's concerns than that.  But he had
also learned to keep such knowledge to himself.  "And if there
isn't?"

"We won't know that for a while.  Perhaps never."

"

" You would be sad to lose her.  "

"I would be sad to lose her to the wrong man."  Clint carefully
extinguished his cigarette butt before he dropped it into the bushes. "
" I lost her mother, my sister, that way.  " " Mackenzie's father?  " "
"Was a ruddy bastard.  He got Mary Kate pregnant, then left her to have
the baby by herself.  She was too proud to ask for my help.  So she
disappeared without telling anyone why.  I never saw her again.  I
didn't even know about Mac until one day she was standing at my front
door with a social worker."

Patrick heard anger.  More important, he heard a warning He and Clint
might be mates, and Clint might be willing to do what he could for
Patrick in return for saving his life.  But there were limits to his
hospitality, and one of them was named Mackenzie.

"When does a girl become a woman in Australia?"  Patrick asked.

"That's a strange question."

"Is it?"

"She becomes a woman when she grows up: '

"And how do you measure that?  Years?  Biology?"

"Both " Clint faced him.  "Why?"

"Maybe I've forgotten everything, and maybe I haven't.  Tell me if I'm
wrong.  Isn't Mackenzie a woman now?"

Clint's gaze didn't flicker.  He stared into Patrick's eyes and noted
the way they seemed to beckon him toward some higher understanding.  He
felt both unsettled and moved by what he saw.  "God help you if you
hurt her, he said at last.

"Because it will take God and an army of angels to stand between us if
you do."

"

" Why would I hurt her?  "

"Because you're a man, and sometimes it's easier to hurt a woman than
not to."

Patrick stayed on the veranda after Clint had gone inside The lush
darkness was broken only by lights in the men's quarters to the side of
the homestead, the silence only by a distant dog's intermittent
barking.  Patrick noticed neither.  Clint's parting words were still as
loud and mysterious to him as the voice he sometimes heard in his
memory

Chapter 7

cc

Even if you've ridden before, you've probably never used a saddle like
this one.  " Mackenzie held up a saddle for Patrick to admire before
she slung it over the blanket she had already settled on the back of
Gimme, a fat, gentle mare who owed her easy life to the children in the
village, who used her as their mount when they were learning to ride. "
"This is an Australian stock saddle, different from your Western
saddle.  No horn."  She smacked the front of the saddle.  "This Johnny
strap's just for mounting.  Don't try to hang on to it when you're
riding, or you'll probably fall off."

"Maybe I'll fall off anyway."

She heard good spirits and not a trace of fear.  If Patrick was still
tormented by his personal demons, he was learning not to show it.  "The
doctor will have my head if you do.  I doubt he'd approve of anything
as strenuous as riding yet."

"

" He told me to do anything I felt up to.  "

Mackenzie fastened the saddle in place.  The doctor had flown in
yesterday afternoon to examine Patrick.  He'd had nothing but positive
words about Patrick's physical state.  Extraordinary, he'd called it.
Other than the residue of sunburn and exposure, there had been no trace
of anything wrong with him.

Except that Patrick still didn't know who he was.

"He told you to rest," Mackenzie said.

"And not to worry about anything.  How can I worry if I'm riding around
the station with you?"

Patrick didn't look like a man who was worried.  He looked, in fact,
just like one of the station hands.  Garbed in a blue plaid shirt,
white moleskins and a jaunty, wide brimmed hat, he could have passed
for an experienced stockman.  Only the traditional braided leather
hatband and belt were missing.  At least he seemed resigned to sitting
in a leather saddle.

"Well, it feels right peculiar to be teaching you to ride, when for all
we know you might be a blooming Olympics champ: Mackenzie stepped to
one side and gestured for Patrick to mount.  " I'll hold her while you
get on, then I can adjust your stirrups.  "

Patrick swung himself up with little effort.  The experience didn't
seem familiar, but he'd seen enough people on horseback yesterday,
while he'd waited for the doctor, to have an idea what was expected of
him. He took the reins and held the horse steady as Mackenzie adjusted
the stirrup leathers.

"You sit well," she said.  "Maybe you have done this before" She
stepped back and cocked her head.  "How does that feel?"

He didn't know how it was supposed to feel.  But he could tell that the
horse accepted him on her back.  She was resigned to this ordeal,
weary, even, of teaching.  riders the fundamentals.  But she was
willing, particularly if he didn't make any unreasonable demands.  He
leaned over her neck and tried to croon to her in the language of his
dreams.  AI though the words that emerged were frustratingly incorrect
, she seemed to appreciate the effort.  Her ears flipped forward as if
in thanks.

He sat up straight again.  "We're ready."  He met Mackenzie 's eyes;
they were wary.

"Lean over a horse's neck like that and you're just asking to be
thrown.  She doesn't know what you're doing.  She just feels your
weight shifting: " "She understood."  -"Are you going to let me teach
you, or are you going to try to teach me?  "

"Why don't we just see how I do?  Then we'll know who should teach
who."

She would have been incensed if the words had come from anyone but
Patrick.  But there had been no attempt to put her in her place; he had
been perfectly serious.  She muttered under her breath as she went to
get her mount.  From behind her she heard Patrick crooning to Gimme
again, but she resisted the impulse to look over her shoulder.  Patrick
would have to learn by himself, and if he ended up on the ground
because of it, then so be it.

Sunfisher was a black gelding the boss bad about decided to sell south
for pet food.  His thoroughbred ancestry had never been in question.
What was in question was his ability to accept his place.  In stock men
slang, a sun fisher was a bucking horse who could leave the ground in
one direction and land heading the opposite way.  That nasty habit was
the least of Sunfisher's problems.  He was high-spirited and contrary,
determined not to earn his keep.  There was no spot for a horse like
him on a station that had to get not only a good day's work but a day
and a half from every living occupant, just to survive.

Mackenzie had been the only thing to stand between Clint Conroy and
Sunfisher's trip south.  She had fallen for him on sight and worked
with Dilly Dan from that day forward to make him into a useful mount.
But neither she nor Dilly Dan, one of the best horse breakers in the
Territory, had made the necessary adjustments in Sunfisher's
behavior.

She saddled him now with a wary eye.  He was known for docility until
the instant he knew his rider's attention had wavered.  Then he was
hell on the hoof, a bucking, twisting demon who could send the best
riders on the stat: on soaring through the air in a matter of seconds.
She had taken her own spills off his back, and once, while she had been
saddling him, he had dropped to the ground and tried to roll on her.

Today he stood still, plotting, she supposed, what mischief he would
work when she was settled on his back.  For just a moment she
considered taking out a different horse, but Sunfisher's days were
numbered unless his behavior improved.  It was up to her to see that
that happened, and quickly.

In the saddle, she turned him toward Gimme.  Patrick still sat
comfortably on her back, and the mare looked perfectly content.
Mackenzie coached Sunfisher closer, but not too close.  "We'll have to
stay a distance apart," she warned Patrick.  "Sunfisher's known for his
bad manners.  It would be just like him to kick Gimme or nip her if he
gets the chance."

"I can see that: '

"Then you're a horseman for certain."  She fought Sunfisher for control
of the reins and won, but the battle lines had been drawn.  "Shall we
move on?"

"I'm looking forward to it."

Mackenzie started off.  Patrick rode beside her, but not close enough
to provoke Sunfisher.

"I don't even know what to tell you," she said.  "Maybe you're a
station owner or a station owner's son yourself."

"With an American accent?"

"Maybe you're from Texas."

"Well, start with the differences between here and Texas."

"Everything we have here is bigger than your ranches.  Much bigger.
Only the profit's smaller."

"

" That doesn't sound fair: '

"Waluwara's nearly as big as your Rhode Island."  Mackenzie gestured to
the buildings beside the homestead.  "And there are towns in Australia
that are smaller than the homestead.  We have to provide everything for
ourselves.  Can't jump in the car and go for milk or bread.  That's the
store."  She pointed to a small unpretentious building.

"There's a little of everything in there.  Too little.  Edwina and I go
to Brisbane once a year and buy all our supplies."

"What's that structure between the store and the homestead ?  "

"The cool house.  That's spinifex packed between the walls.  We keep it
wet, and as the water evaporates, it cools the inside so it's fifteen,
maybe even twenty degrees cooler inside than out.  That's all the first
settlers had to keep meat cool with.  So that's why salted beef was so
popular.  Every stockman had his own recipe for brine."

She continued the tour as they ambled on.  Patrick listened to the
information, but he heard more, much more.  She was fiercely proud of
the station and the life her ancestors had carved from nothing.  But
she was frustrated, and more.  The "more" was hard to detect.  He
didn't have a word for it.  He would understand more clearly if he
could touch her, but he remembered how upset she had been when she
accused him of reading her mind.  He was learning to respond only to
words spoken out loud.  He had even experienced some success filtering
out the other messages that seemed so clear but were obviously not
meant to be heard.

They passed the remainder of the buildings, stock men q , P uarters, an
offioe, a men s dining room and continued ast stockyards built of steel
tubes, the most modern structure in sight.

"We're trying to upgrade the cattle," Mackenzie said.  "We've got
Brahman bulls and a few Santa Gertrudis.  Someday the whole mob will
show their influence."  She glanced at Patrick.  They hadn't come far,
but she was determined that he not overdo this first ride.

He looked as at ease in the saddle as if he had been in it since
birth.

"Maybe you really are from Texas," she said.

"A carrot ranch, maybe."

She couldn't help herself.  She grinned.  He smiled, and the sunshine
suddenly seemed brighter.

Sunfisher took advantage of Mackenzie's one moment off guard to crab
walk in Gimme's direction, make a sharp turo and snap a quick kick at
the mare's flank with his hind hooves.  Mackenzie jerked the reins and
gouged his side with her heel, but not before the damage was done.
Gimme, like a child who has been unfairly teased on the school
playground , charged the gelding to teach him some manners.

The next seconds passed so quickly that afterward Mackenzie had only a
ragged impression of them.  Gimme's ears flat against her head, teeth
bared in a hideous grin.  Patrick low against the horse's neck, his
reins forgotten.  Sunfisher twisting and twirling beneath her.  Gimme
moving closer.  Then, sunshine, the trilling of a butcher-bird in the
blood wood trees just ahead of them, and two completely docile horses
waiting for the ride to continue.

"Are you all right?  Mackenzie asked.

"

" Fine.  "

"I thought you were a goner for certain.  Sunfisher would have liked
nothing better than to trample you into the dust if you'd fallen."

"Gimme was just pointing out that she wasn't going to take any
abuse."

"You dropped your reins."

"

" I can control her better with my hands and voice.  "

She noticed that his hands were still pressed along the mare's neck.
"She's trained to obey certain signals."

Patrick straightened.  "And she knows to obey certain others."

Mackenzie could hardly argue, since whatever Patrick had done had been
a success.  "Sunfisher's going to end up in a pet food sack."

Patrick looked pained.  "He's not a bad animal.  He just doesn't want
to be here."

"

" Here?  "

"

"In captivity."

"Are you trying to tell me you read animal minds, too?"

He looked beyond her, to endless stretches of earth fanning out into a
sea of brown grasses.  "So do you.  He moves a certain way and you know
what he's about to do."

"I don't pretend to know his motivation."

"You know it.  You're fond of him because he's like you.  He doesn't
want to be fettered.  He wants freedom, a chance to determine his own
destiny."

"Bloody hell, Patrick.  He's a horse!"

He turned his gaze to her.  He seemed to be looking into the distance
again, as if searching her eyes for something as elusive as the
horizon.  "Don't try to tell me you don't understand what I'm saying.
You understand more than you pretend to."

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"You have fine instincts, but they make you uncomfortable" " " Oh, so
Sunfisher's mind isn't the only one you're reading today.  "

He didn't smile.  "Is the ride over?"

She took off her hat and waved it, to brush away flies and gain control
of her temper.  "It doesn't have to be.  It's up to you."

"I'd like to go a little farther."

A little farther was an hour's ride across dry creek beds and along
dirt tracks that only seldom saw wheels.  Mackenzie pointed out
paddocks, seemingly limitless areas that had been fenced and set aside
for controlled grazing.  She named birds for him, a rogue kookaburra
laughing from a cluster of trees at the edge of the paddock, a pair of
wedge tail eagles circling overhead.

There were more birds as they neared a large water hole, hooded
parrots, rosellas and the ever-present galahs.  There were cattle
scattered across the landscape in docile, heat drugged clusters.  And
there were trees here.  eucalyptus.  blood wood and a variety of scrub
nestled beside an underground spring that seeped along the grasslands
to form a wide, shallow pond.

"This will turn dry soon, if the Wet is too late coming.  I've been
here when it's nearly desert."  Mackenzie dismounted at the water's
edge to let Sunfisher drink his fill.  She watched Patrick dismount as
if he had done it a million times.

She showed him how to hobble Gimme, demonstrating on Sunfisher.  He
spoke to the horse as he did.  She knew an apology when she heard it,
no matter what the language.

She took her supplies off Gimme's saddle and gave the mare a friendly
slap on the rump.  "I brought sandwiches and fruit.  And we can boil
the billy."

"Why did you hit her?"

"I didn't hurt her.  It's a signal.  Now she knows she's free to wander
and graze a little while we rest."

His eyes smiled as surely as his lips didn't.  " " You're sure she
understands?  "

"Of coune she does.  look at her "

This time his lips smiled, but she pretended to ignore the meaning
behind it.  Yes, she understood and communicated with horses, too.  So
what of it?

She busied herself finding sticks for a small fire.  In a few minutes
the billy was heating.  When she turned to see what Patrick was doing,
she discovered that 1>e had taken the extra blanket from her saddle and
spread it on the lush grass at the water's edge.  As she watched, he
unpacked the tucker bag.

She had only meant to stop for a short rest, but it looked as if
Patrick was planning something more elaborate.  She couldn't fault him;
she was certain he was tired.  And trousers , saddle and horse rubbing
against his sunburned legs couldn't be pleasant.

She took off her hat and sailed it to the blanket's edge, following
closely behind.  Flopping on her back, staring through the leaves of a
gum tree, she could see only slices of the sky.  The sun wasn't yet
overhead, but the view through the leaves was a clear, brilliant
blue.

"I'd give nearly anything to see a cloud," she said.  "Can you tell me
what it's like to live where it rains regularly?  Or do you remember?
"

He let his mind drift, careful at the same time not to open the door
that led to a thousand voices.  He thought of rain.  Clear, cool rain
and the sound of something..  Thunder.  He let himself peer through the
shimmering silver curtain of water to see trees, majestic and
green-leafed, swaying in the storm.  There was a woman swaying there,
too, her hair like moonlight, her slender body twirling in the
raindrops.

"It's different," he said.

gg Somewhere Oat There

She waited for more, but he was silent, tight-lipped and pensive.
"Well, at least we know you weren't a poet or a journalist," she said
at last.

"I thought I was a mind reader or a philosophy professor " " " Did you
remember rain?  "

"I think so: He put a sandwich on a plate and set it beside her.

"But that's good, isn't it?"

"I don't know what's good or bad: '

"Score one more for the philosophy professor: Reluctantly she sat up. "
The doctor told the boss your memory will come back on its own, perhaps
a bit at a time, perhaps all at once.  In his view, there's nothing to
be done about speeding up the process.  So I guess I shouldn't keep
asking you to try.  " " "You're curious about me."

"

" I imagine you 're curious about you: '

He took a bite of his sandwich, and the taste exploded through him.  He
still couldn't imagine forgetting something as pleasing, as powerful,
as taste.  Yet every bite seemed new to him.

"I'm curious about you," he said.  "You've told me just a little.  How
about telling me more?  "

Without answering, she went to check on the water.  She was uneasy
about the way he was watching her as she bent over the billy to add
loose tea and a gum leaf she had picked for extra flavor.  She wasn't
quite certain why he was interested in her, and that uncertainty
troubled her.

When she returned with the billy, she poured them each a cup before she
spoke.  "There's nothing to tell, really.  I never knew the man who
fathered me, never even knew who he was.  I told you that I only
remember a little about my mother.  I have snaps of her that belonged
to Uncle Clint.  She had red hair, too, but a lighter, copper color.
Her eyes were green.  I don't really look like her: '

"Where did you live while she was alive?"

"Near Adelaide.  She worked as a housekeeper on a small sheep property
in the hills.  It belonged to an old man and his sister.  I remember I
had my own pet lamb, but I don't remember much else.  Then one morning
my mother couldn't get out of bed.  I went to find the old man, but by
the time he got her to hospital, Mother was too ill to respond.  They
said she died of pneumonia.  Now I wonder if she died of heartbreak."

"" Heartbreak?  "

"She was a quiet woman, even with me.  I don't remember that she had
any friends.  She kept to herself.  I think she was ashamed, or perhaps
she just mourned the man who'd left her with a baby she hadn't counted
on: " "How fragile... we are."

"Yes, aren't we?  Flimsy, delicate wildflowers to be flattened by the
first gust of wind.  Except that not all of us are quite that willing
to go down."  "it's hard to imagine she would have been, either, if she
grew up here."

"I know.  Waluwara nearly always kills you or puts starch in your
spine.  Anyway, the old man and the South Australian authorities traced
my mother's family, and I was brought here.  They let me bring my lamb,
and by the time that bugger died, he was the toughest old piece of
mutton ever to run through Waluwara's paddocks.  I got tough, too.  The
men here raised me, and later Edwina and a governess or two did what
they could to soften that.  Most of the time Edwina helped me with my
lessons when Uncle Clint wasn't here to do it.  I had classes over
two-way radio and with the Aborigine children until I was too old. Then
I went to school down south, and finally took one year in Sydney."

"And you disliked school."

"I told you that part."

"Because you were bored."

She didn't answer.

"Because school was too easy?"

She laughed, with no humor.  "If you remember school , your memory
probably goes like this.  The teacher gives you a paper with fifty
questions on it.  If you're a good student , you sit there and quietly
answer all fifty.  If you're a smart student, you realize after five
that you know how to answer them all, and don't need to practice on the
other forty-five.  But if you don't answer them, you become a bad
student."

"And you were a bad student?"

"I tried not to be.  I liked the books I was given to read to keep me
quiet.  I'd read them in a few hours, but then I'd be scolded for
continuing on without the good students, who might be taking three or
four weeks to read and study the same book."

"What did you do about it?"

She finished her sandwich before she spoke.  "I came back to Waluwara.
I was allowed to read what I wanted here, as swiftly as I chose."

"And you've read a lot?"

"

" You can give our library a go while you're here.  "

"

"A library?"

"Uncle Clint is a reader, too.  Books are his only weakness"

"Knowlerlge can't be a weakness."

She stretched out and turned on her stomach to see him better.
"Nothing's quite that simple.  There are things we'd all be better off
not knowing: '

He joined her in stretching out.  She watched him unfold his legs and
turn to his side.  The sun glinted off his golden hair.  "What would I
be better off not knowing?"  he asked.  " " Well, considering how
little you know now, that's a fair cow to answer "

He smiled.  She smiled back, lazy and content and something
else-something she wasn't certain she wanted to name.  "Answer it
anyway," he said.  "You must have had something in mind: '

"Well, the universe is full of secrets.  We don't know why we're here.
We can't even make a guess.  And every time we do guess, we start in
bashing somebody else because we're so certain we have the only good
answer: '

"I think you were talking about something more personal : "

"Do you?  "

He touched her hair.  One moment his hand had been at his side, the
next it was stroking a long red curl as if it sudSomewhere demy had a
mind of its own.  He understood enough about this woman to know that
his touch wouldn't be appreciated , yet his impulse had been stronger
than his knowledge

He pulled his hand away when he realized what he'd done.  "I think I
understand what you were just saying: '

She didn't move, but she wasn't smiling now.  She was watchful.  "

" Oh?  "

"I knew I shouldn't touch you, but I did, anyway.  And knowing you
didn't like it took some of the pleasure away.  I would have been
happier not knowing either of those things."

She released a long breath.  "Maybe, but maybe you need to know a
little more.  I'm not like most of the women you've met."

She waved her hand in frustration when he started to interrupt'I know
you don't remember any women, but you can be sure there are some.  And
when you remember them, you'll realize what I'm saying is true.  Most
women want to find a mate, someone they can settle down with, make a
home with, have children with.  Most men want the same, only it's
better hidden.  But I don't want that, Patrick.  I want my freedom.  I
want to be out here, in the sun and the wind, not behind a stove or a
desk.  " " " Touching your hair leads to all that?  "

She knew he was teasing her.  She smiled again, but reluctantly' Don
you remember what touching a woman's hair can lead to?  " " " No.  Tell
me."

She wasn't quite so certain he was teasing now.  "Making love," she
said matter-of-factly.

"Making."  He tilted his head in thought.  "You mean creating?  Taking
the barest fragment of an idea and molding something new from it.  Is
that right?"

" " Bloody hell, Patrick.  " " "Then love.  That's the closest bond two
people can have , a feeling so strong that when it's shared, it changes
everything around it.  Isn't it?"  He touched her hair again, this time
less tentatively.  "So if I touch your hair this way,

eventually you and I will create the most perfect bond that people can
establish.  How can that be wrong.  ,

"I hope your memory comes back soon.

He twined the curl around his fingers, and she thought of a fish being
reeled in for the kill.  "This making love," he said.  "Isn't it a
pleasure?"

Her eyes were fixed on his, and they didn't waver.  "So they say."

"Then why would you resist?"

"Because I don't want that perfect bond, or whatever it was you called
it.  I don't want to have to consider someone else.  Not because I'm
selfish.  Because I'm not.  I don't want to hurt anyone.  And I would
hurt a man if I couldn't be what he wanted."

"What if the man only wanted you to be what you are?"

"A ringer?  A station hand?  A woman who smells like horses and cattle,
whose hands are as tough as the saddle she sits in every day?  I don't
know any men like that.  Even the men I work with-who should
understand, mind you-want to go home to someone soft and giving: '

"Then you're afraid that making love would turn you into something you
don't want to be?"

" " No.  I'm more afraid it wouldn't.  I might try to be those , y
things for a man, but in the end I could on!  be me.  " " "Hungry for
adventure, yearning for fresdom.  " yes.

She was glad he understood.  There aren't many places left where a man
or a woman can have those things.

"I think there's adventure everywhere."  He leaned closer and his hand
dived deeper into her hair.  "And in every moment" " " What about
freedom?  "

"Freedom grows inside you: '

"The philosophy professor again?"

"I don't think so.  A man.  Just a man."  He watched her eyelids slowly
close.  He touched her forehead with his lips, savoring the warmth and
resilience of her skin.  His body was flooded with sensation so intense
that for a moment he thought it was pain.

It was pleasure.  He kissed her eyelids, and his hand tightened in her
hair.  If he had ever known this joy, he would not have forgotten it.
Touching Mackenzie was a gift so monumental that, for a moment, he
could only be grateful

"Mackenzie."  His voice was hoarse to his own ears.  He kissed her
cheek, the side of her nose and, finally, her lips.  They were soft and
giving, the things she had said that a man wanted from a woman.  He
wanted them, and he kissed her harder to test their softness.  He could
feel the warmth of her breath mingle with his own to ignite the
pressures building inside him.  She hadn't touched him anywhere, but he
could almost feel her hands on his body, in places covered with
clothing, places where sensation seemed to pool and heat.

She murmured something, neither an invitation nor a protest, but she
turned to her side, and he pulled her closer.  She was still inches
from him, but he could feel the soft contours of her body as if they
were melting into the planes of his.  Her lips parted, and so did his.
His tongue touched hers and found a new taste that shot wild, dark
excitement through him.

He had forgotten this pleasure, but he 1>adn't forgotten how to seek
more.  He touched her neck with his fingertips as he kissed her,
stroking the smooth expanse of skin again and again before he moved to
her shoulder.  Her arm lifted to pull him closer, and he discovered the
softness of her breast.

"No."  The arm that had pulled him closer pushed against his chest.
"That's enough."  Mackenzie sat up.

He was breathing hard.  "I don't think so."

"it's enough for me.  Too much: She ran her fingers through her hair
and told herself 1>er hands weren't trembling' Find your memory with
someone else, why don't you?  I've a life here, and I don't want it
changed."

"How much adventure and freedom can there be at Waluwara if anything
new frightens you?  "

She knelt and began to gather up what was left of their meal.  "There
was nothing new about being kissed, Pat rick.  Don't flatter yourself
into believing you're the first man who's gotten that far."

"I'm not: '

She glanced at him.  He looked too shaken and too pleased by it to suit
her.  "I've kissed other men."

"

" I know: '

"What do you mean you know?"  "

" What do you want me to mean?  "

She closed her eyes.  "Wipe that look of utter satisfaction off your
face, will you?"

"I'm not utterly satisfied: He touched her cheek, and her eyes opened
reluctantly.  " Neither are you: '

She wanted to deny it, but it seemed useless.  Her gaze dropped to his
lips, and she remembered exactly how they had felt.

"We'd better get back."  She forced her gaze from him and found Gimme a
short distance away.  Sunfisher was nowhere in sight.  " " , , ,

She looked around and couldn't spot him.  That s odd.

She got to her feet and shaded her eyes with her hand.  " " Sunfisher's
gone.  "

"No."  Patrick stood, too.  "There."

She looked in the direction he was pointing and saw the horse, a too
distant blot against the horizon.  "The hobble broke!  I didn't check
the hide well enough.  Bloody hell, we'll never get him back now!  "

"Do you want him back?"

"I'm not of a mood to walk to the homestead!"

Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him.  "Do you want him
back?  Do you want him to have a chance out here on his own?  Or do you
want to keep trying to train him?"

"He's half brumby, half broke.  He won't have a chance out here as dry
as it is.  He'll stay away from the water holes near the homestead and
won't know how to find the others" " " He might.  "

She swallowed something like a lump in her throat.

"Damn him, anyway!  Maybe he'll survive a while, but he'll be one of
the first they catch at the next muster, if he lives that long.  Off
he'll be shipped.  I had a chance with him, and I ruined it with my own
carelessness."

"You're not going to try to catch him?"  "

" It would be useless .  "

He could feel her sorrow, just as earlier he had felt her passion.  He
put his arm around her shoulder, but she pulled away.  "Gimme can carry
us both, but we'd better start now before the worst heat," she said.

"I'll get Sunfisher for you: '

She stared at him as if he had lost his mind.  "What are you talking
about?"

He started forward.  "I'll get him: '

"You get within calling dqstance and he'll take off like a rocket.  He
can jump these fences, even if the cattle can't: '

He didn't pause.  "But I won't be making anything worse if I try."

She considered going after him.  Despite outward appearances , Patrick
was not completely recovered.  She was certain the ride had tired him,
even if he wasn't aware of it.  Distanoes were deceptive in open
country, and Sunfisher was farther away than he appeared.

She didn't go.  A part of her wanted to see Patrick fail.  He , was so
certain he understood everything, even if he couldn t remember his own
name.  He was certain of himself, certain of her, certain of a horse no
one had been able to properly break.  She wanted him to be proven
wrong.

About the horse, or about her?  She couldn't push the question away, as
unpleasant as it was.

The cattle grazing in the area lifted their heads as Patrick drew
nearer to Sunfisher.  She hadn't warned him about them.  Waluwara
cattle were a wild lot.  Even those in this relatively civilized
paddock could be startled with the wave of a hat or a shout.  She
wished she could warn him now, but running forward to do it or shouting
would surely cause the exact trouble she wanted him to avoid.

She stood still instead and watched him draw closer to Sunfisher.
Patrick moved with a peculiar grace, a stealthy, purposeful gait that
covered the distance in less time than she had expected.  As she
watched, Sunfisher caught his scent and lifted his head to peer at the
man, enemy on foot, closing the distance between them.

She saw Patrick extend his hand as he moved closer.  The breeze carried
words, but she was too far away to understand them.  Sunfisher bunched
his magnificent body as if ready to charge, but Patrick drew closer,
and the horse stood without moving.

"Bloody hell," she whispered.

Patrick stopped just yards from the horse's head.  He didn't attempt to
cover the final distance.  He held out his hand.  She knew he must be
talking, crooning, perhaps, as he had done to the snake, but the breeze
no longer canied any sound.  The cattle stood as still as the horse,
watching, waiting.

Sunfisher tossed his head.  His whinny pierced the air between them.
She waited for him to rear up, to charge Patrick or gallop toward the
horizon.

He dId neither.  As she watched, he moved slowly toward the man, the
stranger, the enemy, the untried horseman, and nuzzled his hand.

She wanted to weep.

Chapter S

cc

There's blokes who got a way with 'orses, and blokes who ain't: Dilly
Dan leaned on the fence at the side of the ring the station used for
breaking horses and peered at the duo inside.

"You're saying he's one of those who does?"  Clint Conroy watched
Patrick swing himself onto Sunfisher's bare back.  The horse stood as
calmly as if he had been rigorously trained for show.

"I'm saying it's time for me to move east.  My daughter's been after me
for a year now.  She's got me a little place on the coast in
Queensland.  Look out and see the seabirds, I can, every morning when I
wake up: '

Mackenzie, standing on Dilly Dan's right, protested, but the old man
shook his head.  "It's time I go, little girl.  The

Wet's coming, and every day I wake up and dread it.  I want to look
forward to the days that are left me.  "

"Dan's right," Clint said.

Patrick guided Sunfisher to the fence.  The horse walked willingly
toward them.

"You got Injun blood, son?"  Dilly Dan asked.

Patrick leaned over Sunfisher's neck.  "Could be."

"qNe're civilized 'ere.  We use saddles and bridles in Oz: '

"Sunfisher and I have an understanding."

Dilly Dan laughed, a croaking, wheezing snort that Mackenzie had heard
every day of her Waluwara life.

"Does he have an understanding with anyone else?"  Mackenzie asked.
Patrick shifted his weight to face her.  He looked both comfortable and
thoroughly alert, ready to take on the world or only this one
sharp-tongued woman.

"Or is he a one-rider mount?"  she continued.  "He won't be much good
here, if that's the case."

"Well, why don't you ride him and see?"  Patrick asked.  He slid off
Sunfisher's back.  The horse stood placidly beside him.

Mackenzie knew a dare when she heard one.  She slipped between timbers
in the fence and approached the horse with her hand extended.  He
lifted his head a little to view her, then returned to his docile
stance.

"Want a boost up?"

She considered.  She wasn't as tall as Patrick, but she could wriggle
and hump her way up on the horse's back if he stood perfectly still. Or
she could, with intelligence and grace, accept Patrick's help.  She had
just enough vanity to go for the latter.  "I'll take a boost: '

He bent over and cupped his hands.  She presented him with her foot,
and in a moment, with the help of his powerful thrust, she was sitting
squarely on Sunfisher's back.

"Now what?"  she asked.  "Do I have to speak his language ?  "

"It would help.  But since you refuse..  : He favored her with a brief,
cocky smile.  " Just squeeze him hard with your knees when you want him
to stop.  Guide him with your hands on his neck.  "

Reluctant to take any more advire or to spend any more time admiring
that smile, she urged the horse forward.  In a moment they were
cantering smoothly around the ring.  Without a saddle she felt as if
she were floating.  Harry and another Aborigine stockman, Johnny,
stopped to watch, and she waved as she passed them.  When she was tired
of the spectacle, she spoke softly to Sunfisher and gripped him harder
with her knees.  For a moment she doubted he would stop at such a
meager command, but he slowed and finally stopped in front of Patrick
once again.

"What do you think?"  Patrick asked her.

She didn't have a chance to answer.  Dilly Dan did it for her.  "I
think it's a blooming miracle, that's what I think.  And I think you've
pinched me blooming job " " " Pinched?  "

The old man took off his hat, a hopelessly battered model that had only
rarely been off his head.  His face was the same beat-up brown as the
hat, but now it was even more wrinkled with a smile.  "Nabbed it, you
did.  I'm not needed on the run anymore.  I'll pack me things and 'cad
for Cairns tomorrow.  You're the new 'orse breaker.  That is, if it's
right with the boss 'ere."

"You really think he can do it?"  Clint asked.

"Never seen a bloke that was better with 'orses, 'oept when I looked in
me mirror.  Never will again: '

Mackenzie patted Sunfisher's neck, but her eyes were on Patrick.  In
the three weeks since their first ride together, he had steadily become
a part of the station.  After his success catching Sunfisher, Mackenzie
had suggested that he work with Dilly Dan.  Patrick was never going to
be any help with the cattle.  With his distaste for eating meat and
using animal products, he certainly wasn't going to be a stockman.

But he was a top horse breaker.  In two weeks he had learned everything
Dilly Dan could teach him.  In another, he had begun to teach the old
man.

"The job's yours, if you want it," Clint said.

Mackenzie couldn't let the offer go unchallenged.  "And what if he
remembers who he is tomorrow and takes off for a reunion with his wife
and kids in Chicago or Dallas?"

Clint gave her a long look, as if assessing why she would object. "Then
we'll find someone else.  And be glad he was here as long as he was. 
But it's time for Dan to move on.  He's ready for a holiday."

"Putting me out to pasture," Dilly Dan said.  "And I'm right glad of
it."

Il0 Somewhere Out There

Mackenzie shrugged, but she didn't feel nonchalant about this new
development.  At no point had she really believed that Patrick was
going to stay at Waluwara.  Now, at least temporarily, he would be paid
to do just that.  She was torn between pleasure that he was staying and
unhappiness that his departure was going to be delayed.  She had no
doubts he would leave as soon as he regained his memory, and the longer
he stayed, the more complicated her feelings became

The two stock men joined them.  Harry smiled at Patrick; the two men
had already become friends.  Clint explained what had transpired, and
the stock men shook hands with Dilly Dan and wished him well.

Dilly Dan and the boss went toward the office to get the bookkeeper to
settle all debts, and Johnny went to check on the generator.  Mackenzie
slipped through the fence to stand beside the men.

"It won't be the same without Dilly Dan," She said.

"Thought you were always ready for change," Harry said.

"Not that kind.  I'll miss him.  Won't you?"

"I miss him, I'll go walkabout to Cairns for a holiday."

"You hate cities."

" " I like Dilly Dan .  " Harry turned to Patrick.  " " You going to
come meet my family today?"

"I'm looking forward to it."

"You're going to the village?"  Mackenzie asked.  " " Want to come?  "
Harry asked her.  " "Tiny been asking for you."

"Has she?"  Mackenzie considered.  Tiny was Harry's middle daughter, a
ten-year-old darling with Harry's incredible smile.  "Shall I saddle
Gimme and take Tiny for a ride?"

"She has lessons."  He smiled at Mackenzie's frown.  "Okay, but then
you help with her reading."

"Done."  She turned to Patrick.  "Mind if I come?"

"Mind?"  He lifted a brow.  The rest of his answer was clear.  She felt
both welcomed and, somehow, threatened.

She pushed away what surely amounted to adolescent jitters She had
spent as little time as possible with Patrick in the past weeks, but
she could not avoid him any longer.  "Harry, you're taking the ute?"
she asked.

He nodded.

"Why don't you take Patrick with you?  I'll follow on horseback."

"We'll see you there."

She watched the two men stroll off together.  She doubted that Patrick
understood what an honor it was to have been invited to meet Harry's
family.  Harry was an important man in the village, just as he was on
the station at large.  He was friendly to everyone, but he was also a
man of great dignity and pride.  He did not extend true friendship to
all.

She caught Gimme and Bounder, who had found his way back to the
homestead after a week in the open, and was saddling them when she saw
her uncle approaching.  His expression was a study in contrasts.  Since
it was rarely possible to discern his feelings with a glance, she knew
that something important had happened.

"I just got a cable," he confirmed.

"Bad news?"

"I suppose that depends."  "

" Who was it from?  "

"St.  Carroll.  He's coming in two weeks.  He wants to get here before
the Wet."

"

" Bloody hell.  "

Clint's gaze flicked to her.  He didn't smile.  " " You have a better
response?  " she asked.

"He's bringing a team of geologists.  He's had news they found a
manganese deposit over at Silver Tree.  He hopes they'll find one here,
too, since the terrain's similar."

"Any drilling they do should be for another bore."

"There's more."

"What?"

"He's considering putting the station up for sale."

She hardly knew what to say.  "But the St.  Carrolls have always owned
Waluwara."

"He can't maintain his leases if he doesn't make improvements , and I
doubt he has the money for those.  He's a gambling man, and I think
he's gambled away most of his inheritance.  Either he can sell shares
in the station, or he can sell it outright.  He has no love for the
life here and no loyalty to family traditions.  What he knows about
cattle would fit on his thumbnail."

Clint rolled a cigarette and lit it.  "I've known his thoughts on this
for six months: '

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I hoped 1>e would sell."

"But another owner might be worse."

"Another owner might be me."  Clint smoked for a while and let his
words sink in before he continued.  "I've money saved ."

" " I know.  But enough?  " " "My parents made good investments, and so
did theirs.  I took a few chances with what they'd saved and won.  I
couldn't manage buying the run on my own, but there are others who
would invest if I asked.  I'd be the majority stockholder."

"Waluwara would belong to you: Mackenzie hugged herself.  " " But that
would be wonderful !  "

"If he finds ore, he won't sell.  If he doesn't, and he spends all the
money necessary to look for it, he won't have enough money to keep it
"

"So everything depends on whether he's successful or not?  "

"If he is, he'll take the ore, get the money and not spend a dime more
than he has to on the station.  He'll let it go to rack and ruin: '

"He already has."

"Rack, maybe.  We're still a step away from ruin."

"What can we do to keep him from finding ore?"

Clint finished his cigarette before he looked at her.  His face said it
all.

"Nothing?"  She stared at him.  "You're not going to do anything?  "

"You're suggesting I do something dishonest?"

"I'm suggesting you give it a good think!"

"I raised you better than that."

Her eyes didn't waver.  "You raised me to put Waluwara first.  That's
what you've always done.  How moral is it to let Sebastian St.  Carroll
strip this land of everything without putting anything back into it?
What will that do to the people in the village, or the people here at
the homestead whose lives are this place?"

"I reckon I'll put you in charge then, Mac.  You find a way to stop
them.  Sabotage their equipment.  Arrange accidents and injuries.  Lie
to them."

She looked away, toward the homestead with its peeling paint and
rusting iron roof.  "Bloody hell."

"That's what you want, isn't it?"

"You didn't get to be the boss here for nothing, did you?"

"We don't have to make this a picnic for them, but we'll do nothing to
interfere."

"Can I say a few prayers?"  "

" Will the Big Boss recognize your voice?  "

"Maybe I'll ask Harry to intercede for me.  He's on speaking terms."

"It can't hurt."

Clint turned to walk away, but Mackenzie stopped him with a hand on his
arm.  She wanted to reassure him, but she couldn't think of anything
that would help.  "She'll be right," she said at last, falling back on
slang.  "No worries"

He covered her hand in a rare display of affection before he started
toward the homestead.

Waluwara village consisted of small, simple block homes interspersed
with huge, lacy-leafed pepper trees surrounding a complex of larger
one-story buildings that housed the village school, clinic and
administration offices.

The clash of one people of StonqAge weapons and Ne wAge respect for
their environment with another people of advanoed technology and a
primitive understanding of the land hsd resulted, after centuries of
discord and blood shed, in a society that was still struggling to find
common ground.

The traditions that had so long sustained the Aborigines had been
irrevocably altered with European migration to Australia.  Land that
had once been theirs to roam and revere was claimed now by others.
Entire tribes had been exterminated , including every Aborigine in
Tasmania.

The result had been a rift in the social fabric of a people. Alcoholism
and other forms of intoxication were serious problems. Education and
employment were often interrupted by the habits of a migratory people
given little incentive to change their ways. Balancing past injustices
with present realities was a topic of great debate among all segments
of Australian society.

The debate still raged in the Northern Territory, with extremists on
every side.  The debate was not raging at Waluwara Harry David and
Clint Conroy, two men with one sensibility, had pledged to work
together to find a solution.

The village was part of it.  Technically the land was still pastoral
leasehold land, but an arrangement had been formed to allow the
residents full administration and usage Although the village proper was
small, the surrounding area, hundreds of square kilometers, was
considered tribal land, too.  Compared to the squalid living conditions
on some Territory stations, Waluwara Village was a model of what could
be accomplished.

There were still problems; they were inevitable.  But there was mutual
respect between cultures, and a belief that compromises could be
found.

As Mackenzie rode into the village, one of those compromises was
evident.  One of the schoolteachers, a young man who had recently come
from Perth to spend the year, was finishing up the school day by taking
nature lessons from his students.  The children were teaching him their
names for the vegetation and insect life surrounding the school.  There
was a policy here that the children's own talents and knowledge be
respected and that their rhythms be considered in planning the school
day.  Balance was the watchword.  At Waluwara no child was expected to
sit quiSomewhere

etly morning and afternoon memorizing facts about a world far removed
from his or her own experience.

A little girl with soft dark curls tugged at the teacher's shirt and
pointed toward Mackenzie.  Mackenzie waited in silence as he nodded his
permission.  Then she dismounted and opened her arms as Tiny ran toward
her.

The village children were exuberantly affectionate.  The life here was
good, their parents indulgent.  Tiny wrapped her arms around
Mackenzie's waist and gossiped with her in the tribal dialect.
Mackenzie smoothed Tiny's hair and gossiped, too.

Dismqssed for the day, the other children in the class came to welcome
her.  She lifted one to her shoulders, village-style, and, leading the
horses, started toward Harry's I>ouse.  The children peeled off one by
one until only Tiny and Len, the little boy Mackenzie carried, were
left.  Then Len wriggled down to go find his mother, and Mackenzie and
Tiny were left alone.  " " Is school still going well?  " Mackenzie
asked in English

"Fine.  I like geography."

"How about addition and subtraction?"

"I like multiplication best."

"Good on ya."  "

" Did you bring me a book?  "

"I did.  You can read some of it out loud to me before I leave."

Tiny ran on ahead of Mackenzie and the horses as they neared her house.
Mackenzie fastened the reins before tapping on the door frame.  As
always, the door stood open in welcome.  y' , g

Lula, Till s mother greeted her and, arm around Mackenzie's waist,
ushered her inside.  Tiny's baby brother , who had an appropriately
dignified name but was known to all as Brother, sat on his mother's
opposite hip as naturally as if he were rooted there.

The house was simply furnished.  Much of the village life was lived
outdoors, and it wasn't unusual for the family to sleep under the stars
when the sky was clear.  The sky, the earth and the stars were friends,
not hostile enemies to be walled away.

Patrick and Harry were sitting at a small table drinking steaming tea.
The two men couldn't have been more different in appearance, but they
shared an indefinable essence.  Seeing them together this way made it
clearer to Mackenzie why they had already become friends.

She chatted with Lula and the men while Tiny changed into jeans.  Harry
was about to take Patrick on a village tour.  When Tiny joined them
again, both men stood.  Brother held out his arms, but to Patrick, not
to his father.

"May I?"  Patrick asked Lula.

Lula set the baby in his arms.  Brother cuddled against him as if they
had been long acquainted.  Patrick touched the baby's hair, then his
nose.  " " You look like you've never held a littley before, " Mackemie
said.

"I haven't."

She wondered if he was making a guess, or if he had remembered
something.  "Well, you look happy you're finally having the chance."

Patrick swayed, almost as if he was experimenting.  When Brother
laughed, Patrick swayed again.  Then he laughed, too.

The sound went straight through Mackenzie, and her breath caught in her
throat.  Patrick's laughter seemed to crystallize all the miracles, the
rare and splendid things of the world.  If he had laughed before, it
hadn't been like this , spontaneous and thoroughly delighted.  Whatever
demons tormented him, they were forgotten for this brief moment.

"May I take him with us?"  Patrick asked.

"Don't make Patrick give up his new toy," Mackenzie advised Lula.
"Besides, it will give you a proper rest."

Patrick turned to her, and his eyes still showed residues of delight.
She smiled at him, helpless to do anything else.

"Why don't you have one of these, Mackenzie?"  he asked.

"Apparently you've forgotten it takes a mother and a father to produce
a Brother."

"No.  I haven't forgotten."

She could almost swear he was volunteering.  She turned away so he
wouldn't see the quick flash of desire that surged through her.  "Tiny,
are you ready?"

"Can I ride Bounder?"

"Do you really think you can handle him?"

Tiny nodded.

"Harry?"  Mackenzie asked for permission.

"I think she can do it.  She fall off, she pick herself back up
again."

"Let's give it a go," Mackenzie said.  She didn't spare Patrick another
look, afraid of what she might see.

As she and Tiny rode through the village, two dogs followed at the
horses' heels.  They were cattle dogs, blue heelers trained to work
beside the stock men when mustering or yarding a mob.  Clint and Harry
prided themselves on Waluwara's contribution to blue heeler lines.
These two specimens were fat and lazy, long past the age when the sight
of a bullock sent them into a frenzy of activity.  They trotted
dutifully along beside Gimme as if pretending they were still useful.

"A regular pair of frauds," Mackenzie said.  "Looking for a handout, I
reckon."

"You've brought something for them?"

Mackenzie had, as always, and she smiled her answer to Tiny.  "You can
give them each a treat when we stop."

"

" Where are we going?  "

"I thought we'd ride up to Two Rock Hill."  "

" Right-o: '

They chatted as they covered nearly a kilometer.  Harry had two other
daughters, one thirteen, who was away at school in Alice Springs,
another several years younger than Tiny.  But it was Tiny who, as a
baby, had attached herself to Mackenzie and claimed her as a friend.
They had always had a special bond, much the kind of bond that Clint
and Harry shared.  They were as united by their differences as by the
things they had in common.

"When I'm a woman," Tiny said, "I'm going to have my own station and
raise horses."

"Are you?  I thought you were going to live in the city and write
books."

"I'll do both."  "

" At the same time?  "

"Different times.  Same life."

Mackenzie laughed.  "Don't ever let anything or anyone stop you "

She could hear the dogs wheezing with exhaustion beside her.  The sun
was still high, and the air as dry as desert sand.  Tiny had a stoic
tolerance for discomfort, but Mackenzie knew better than to test her
limits.  "Let's stop over there and have some water," she said,
pointing to a thicket of twisted mulga trees.  "You can give the dogs
their treats so they can head back home."

They guided the horses toward the thicket, where shade spread its
gnarled fingers along the rock-strewn ground.

Tiny pulled Bounder to a stop before they reached the shade, but
Mackenzie didn't notice.  "I'll get the water, you "

Her next words were drowned in a spasm of barking.  The dogs streaked
past her, as if reliving their days in the sun.  From nowhere-or so it
seemed-a mickey bull, one of the station's deadly rogues, came charging
through the thicket to rid itself of this new irritation.  Gimme, famed
for complacence , rose to the occasion and leaped out of the way.
Bounder leaped, too, a whirlwind of heels and tail, but Tiny, without
the benefit of Mackenzie's years in the saddle , wasn't skilled enough
to ride out the storm.  " " Tiny !  " Mackenzie succeeded in
positioning Gimme between the little girl, who had fallen to the
ground, and the bull, who had turned for another go at them.  She
whistled sharply to the dogs and charged toward the bull.  The dogs,
who in retirement hadn't lost their instincts, covered the ground just
ahead of her.

The bull charged, too.  Mackenzie would have given everything for her
whip.  Her chances of turning him weren't good, but there were no other
options.  There hadn't been time to get Tiny on her horse.  She could
only hope that the

' little girl would catch Bounder and get away while she diverted the
bull.

She whistled and screeched, grabbing her hat to wave in the bull's face
when he drew near enough.  The waving hat was just enough of a menace
to turn him.  He wheeled as she passed him and started toward her once
more.  Mackenzie had a split second to search for Tiny.  The little
girl lay exactly where she had fallen.

"Get up, Tiny!"  she screamed.

There was nothing else she could do, not even watch to see if Tiny
obeyed.  She charged the bull again, screaming and whistling in turns.
The dogs charged, too, staying what seemed like only inches from the
animal's heels.

At the last second the bull wheeled left.  This time be lumbered away,
his dignity greatly wounded.  The dogs followed , one on each side, as
if they had plotted their tactics for many hours.  A cloud of dust
followed them into the distance.

Mackenzie dismounted and ran toward the little girl, who still hadn't
moved.  "Tiny!"  She slid to a stop at the child's side and fell to her
knees.

Tiny didn't even moan.  Her eyelids weren't closed, and she stared into
space, at something Mackenzie couldn't see.

Mackenzie was gripped by horror.  "

" No !  " She felt for

Tiny's pulse, but her hands trembled so violently she couldn't find it.
" " Tiny, wake up !  "

Tiny didn't move.  Her expressive dark eyes were blank.

Mackenzie stood and looked wildly around.  She couldn't ride off and
leave the child alone, but she couldn't move her, either.  She had to
get help.  If anything could be done, it had to be done right away.
Gimme stood quietly by, as if she understood that she might be needed.
Mackenzie grabbed her rifle and loaded it.  She aimed over the thicket
of trees, shot and reloaded until she had sent a clear distress signal.
"" Come on!  " she shouted.  " "Somebody, come on!  "

There was no response.  Not even the birds that dwelled in that harshly
beautiful place gave an answering call.

* * *

"Are there horses nearby?"  Patrick asked.

Harry stopped in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of his tour of
the village.  " " Not far.  "

"I've got to find Mackenzie."

Harry frowned.  He looked at Patrick, then just beyond him, as if
putting together what he had seen in Patrick's eyes.  "We can get them
now."

He took Brother from Patrick's arms and unceremoniously

I>anded him to a woman standing nearby.  Then he started off at a trot,
and Patrick fell in beside him.  Neither man said another word until
they had left the village proper behind.  At the ramshackle paddock
that housed half a dozen station horses, Harry crawled through the
fence with Patrick right behind him.

"There's tack there."  Harry pointed to a small shed at the paddock's
edge and started in that direction.

Instead of following, Patrick gave a shrill whistle and started toward
a white mare whose ears had perked up at the sound.  When he reached
her side he grabbed the mare's mane and hoisted himself onto her back
before she had a chance to consider his actions.  He leaned over her
neck and crooned in her ear.  She danced beneath him, distrustful at
first of this human who rode without a saddle.  Then, as he crooned,
she gathered her body and sprang toward the fence.

Patrick rode low on the mare's neck, encouraging her to move faster. He
had a flash of Harry's surprised face, then nothing more as the mare
sailed over the wooden railing.  Patrick gripped with his knees and sat
forward even farther

Outside the paddock he guided the horse by instinct, bypassing the
village, although he knew that was the way Mackenzie and Tiny had gone.
He had a crystalline vision of where Mackenzie was and the best way to
get there.  He didn't have time to question where the vision had come
from, or why he had been entrusted with it.  He only knew that he
couldn't ignore it.

The mare ran faster, as if she had been given a vision, too.  Patrick
scanned the horizon, although he knew he wasn't close enough to find
what he sought.  To his left, in the distance , he saw dust stirring
and the silhouette of an animal, one of the station's cattle, against
the horizon.  He picked up the sound of dogs barking, carried on the
clear afternoon air.

The sound of the dogs faded, and suddenly the air was split with
gunfire somewhere in front of him.  He urged the mare on as the gunfire
resounded again and again.  He closed his eyes and saw Mackenzie
standing by a small grove of trees, stunted, arthritic trees that grew
where water didn't flow.  He saw her raise her rifle and pull the
trigger.  And on the ground at her feet..

"No!"  He opened his eyes and scanned the horizon again.  The gunfire
sounded once more, closer, but still not close enough.  Helplessly he
rode the mare harder.

The gifts you have now are infinitely precious.  But, like all of us,
yocc are already bored by what you can do.  Perhaps someday those gifts
will be denied you.  Then, by losing what you had, yocc will discover
more.

He found no comfort in the voice or the philosophy.  For a moment his
conoentration faltered.  The vision of Mackenzie and Tiny faded, and
all he could see was endless bleak land, broken only by low hills
and..

A thicket of mulga trees.  "

" Mackenzie!  "

Even from a distance he could see her turn.  She raised her hand to her
mouth as if to stifle a sob.  He crooned to the mare, winded now, but
still gamely carrying him toward his goal.  The distance grew shorter,
and the mare slowed.  At the thicket he slid off her back and went
right to Tiny's side.

"A bull came out of the thicket, one of the wild ones,"

Mackenzie said.  "He scared Bounder, but he got out of the way.  Tiny
fell off.  She... she... I don't know if she's breathing!  I can't find
a pulse.  She hasn't moved or moaned.  Don't move her, Patrick: '

122 Somewhere Occt There Somewhere Occt There 123 He knelt beside the
child and lifted her wrist.  He began to q The sun seemed to go behind
a cloud, but the sky was murmur to her as he laid his head on her
chest.  Her skin was cloudless.  There was no sound, not even
hoofbeats, al warm from the sun.  though Mackenzie could see Harry
riding like the wind toMackenzie knelt at Tiny's other side.  "Will you
stay here ward them.  The air was filled with a powerful pungent with
her and let me ride for help?"  sweetness that choked her lungs.  She
drew in breath after "No.  Stay here."  breath of it as she sobbed for
Tiny.  He touched Tiny's neck, as Mackenzie had done.  ; "Mac?"  The
little girl sat up slowly.  She looked around.  "Is she...?"  She
couldn't bear to say the word.  One q "You never cry," she said, almost
as if she wasn't sure this moment Tiny had been chattering about her
plans for the was the same woman she had just been conversing with.
future, the next she was lying motionless.  " " I closed her eyes.
Mackenzie threw her arms around her before she even They were open. She
wasn't .  looking at anything.  She can't realized she could move
again.  "My God, Tiny, are you all be.."  right?  " she asked.  He
heard the sob in Mackenzie's voice.  He shut his eyes, " All right?  "
Tiny pushed Mackenzie away.  She pointed but the sob seemed to grow
louder.  Her sorrow entwined q to her father.  " Why is he here?  "
with his own.  " Shh.  " he said.  " Be silent.  " " That's a good
question, mate," Harry said, dismount She bit I>er lip and twisted her
fingers together.  Patrick q ing and coming to Patrick's side.  " Why
am I here?  " was completely motionless.  Then, with his eyes still
closed, Mackenzie started to explain, then stopped abruptly.  She he
put his hands on each side of Tiny's head.  He began to looked at
Patrick for the first time since Tiny had sat up.  He murmur again. The
words flowed through him until there didn't meet her eyes.  was a river
of words.  He felt the little girl resist them, but he q " Tiny got the
wind knocked out of her," she said at last, murmured still. turning to
Harry.  " "A mickey bull el>arged her, and she fell " " Patrick?  "
Mackenzie watched in horror as Patrick be- off Bounder.  " gan to move
Tiny's head from side to side.  " No, Patrick.  If "What kind of ringer
you going to be, Tiny?"  Harry she's injured her spine. " chided.  "
Can't you ride better than that?  " When he didn't respond she tried to
grab his hands, but The little girl hung her head, but her eyes
sparkled.  She she was overwhelmed with such a feeling of inertia that
she had seen the worry on her father's face.  " I fell good," she could
not force herself to move or speak again.  The world said.  " Real
good.  " seemed to stop spinning.  There sesmed to be nothing in it "
She did," Mackenzie said.  except one man and one child and a woman who
was a mil" And you heard her fall?  " Harry asked Patrick.  " All lion
miles away from them.  that way you heard her fall?  " She heard
murmuring and watched as Patrick moved his q Patrick turned to him. The
two men stared at each other hands to Tiny's neck, then to her
shoulders.  The murmur- for a long moment.  Harry nodded before he
turned to his ing grew louder.  She recognized the words, but somehow
daughter.  " You feel good enough to ride back with me?  " could not
fathom their meaning.  Patrick's hands moved to " Can I?  " Tiny made
it clear she thought this was a speTilly 's chest, then beneath her to
her back.  He straightened cial honor.  her contorted body as he
murmured louder.  " "We'll go back now.  I'll catch Gimme for you.  No
more Mackenzie felt tears drain down her el>eeks, but she Bounder."
couldn't even lift her hands to wipe them away.  Mackenzie listened as
Tiny, who was standing now, chat "Tiny," Patrick whispered.  "When
you're ready."  tered away.  Harry went for Gimme, who, after the
crisis,

had moved off in search of afternoon tea.  Mackenzie touched the little
girl s curls, felt the warmth of her cheeks, but she still couldn't
convince herself that Tiny was there, alive and unharmed.

Finally she stood motionless beside Patrick and watched Tiny and her
father mount and start toward the village.  Only when they were spots
on the horizon did she turn to him.

"She was dead," she said.  "

" Obviously not.  "

"Who are you?"

"I wish I knew."

She saw strain on his face, beneath his deep blue eyes and around his
mouth.  He looked older somehow, as if the encounter with Tiny had aged
him.

"I'm afraid of you," she said.  She stepped away as she said the words,
although she hadn't intended to.  "I'm afraid of you!"  She could feel
hysteria setting in, but she was as powerless to control it as she had
been powerless to move when he healed Tiny.  "I want you to go.  I
don't care what my uncle says.  I want you to go!  " " " I know you do.
" Patrick stared into the distance.  " "You were speaking her language!
" She covered her cheeks as she finally realized what she had heard. 
"You were speaking her dialect.  There are probably less than three
hundred people on this earth who speak it!  "

"Obviously I'm one of them."

"How?"  The questions tumbled one after another in her head.  There was
no order of importance.  They clustered around one central question.
"Who are you!  "

"I'm a paradox," he said.  "An enigma.  A man with no memories, no
home, no people."

"I tried to reach her, to grab your hands, and I couldn't move."

"Time passed swiftly.  Only seconds elapsed before she came around.  It
seemed slower to you."

"Don't treat me like an infant!"  Nothing was holding her back now. She
covered the space she had put between them and grabbed his hands. "I
thought you were going to hurt her.  But you brought her back to life
with these!  "

"since that's not possible, she couldn't have been dead."

She heard the utter lack of expression in his voice.  Something twisted
inside her.  "You know more than you're telling , don't you? Are you a
devil?  An angel?  Are you going to destroy us or help us, Patrick?" 
She dropped his hands and slammed hers against his chest. "Then strike
me down , damn you, but I'm telling you to leave us! There's no place
for angels or devils at Waluwara.  We're barely hanging on to our own !
 "

He grasped her hands and covered them with his.  Her breath was a sob
in her throat, and her eyes were wild and tear-filled.

He gazed into her eyes and saw her fears, fears as boundless as his
own.  He tried to calm her, to calm himself.  "I'm a man.  I've never
been an angel or a devil, and I'm not a god.  What I am ... I don't
know.  But I know what I'm not: '

"You saved Tiny's life."

"I seem to have healing powers."

"What other powers do you have?  You came before you could have heard
the shots.  How did you know I needeq you?"

"I don't know."  He lifted her hands to his face, rubbing them against
one cheek.  He needed the feel of her, even though she was stiff
against him.  "I often know where you are and what you're doing."

Her eyes widened.  "

" You follow me?  "

"In my mind: His hands grasped hers tighter.  " Sometimes

I have glimpses of others.  You..  you I see clearly.  "

"No more!  "

"I can block my thoughts of you.  Is that what you really want?"

"

" I want you to go !  "

"No, you don't."  He pulled her closer.  There was nothing gentle about
his touch.  At that moment he yearned for her with a need that was
completely new to him.  "You don't want me to ignore you or forget you.
And you don't want me to go.  You know I won't bring trouble here.
Whatever I am, whoever I am, I'm not evil

She struggled against him.  "You read minds, commune with animals, have
visions.  You heal children, maybe even bring them back to life!  You
speak a language you couldn't even have heard before!  " " " All those
things must have explanations.  " " "None of which you believe!  "

"And how do you know what I believe?"  He dropped her hands and circled
her waist so that she was fully against him.  He drew sustenance from
the feel of her, the only sustenance he was capable of finding.  "Do
you read my mind, too?  You could, you know, if you chose to."

"

" Never!  "

"You're lying.  You know what I'm thinking now."

She knew only too well.  Her eyes closed as his head dipped down to
hers.  When he took her lips with his, she knew only too well what he
wanted from them and from her.  She struggled, but there was no
strength in it.  The struggle was within herself.

"I'm afraid of you," she whispered when he kissed her cheek, her chin,
the pulse at the base of her throat.

"You're afraid of us both," he said.  "So am I."

"

" I want you to go.  "

"

" I have to stay."

She didn't ask how he knew.  She didn't ask why.  The fight drained out
of her.  She felt his hands, hungry against her skin.  She felt his
lips, aching for hers.  And she knew that he had imprisoned her with
his need for what she could give him.

He could not leave, and she could not make him go.  Whoever he was, he
would remain at Waluwara until his drama had been played out.  And she,
despite all her fears and misgivings, could do nothing but play her
part, too.

Chapter 9

q q I don't know whether to hope you're right or wrong: Mackenzie stood
with arms folded, gazing toward a group of men who were about to sink a
bore on the northeastern end of the run.

"Will it be such a personal victory for you if I've made a mistake?"
Patrick asked.  He touched her chin, forcing her to turn.

When she didn't-and couldn't-answer, he shook his head and moved closer
to the site to watch the men begin.

Mackenzie didn't call him back, but his question nagged at her.

Patrick seemed to be able to read minds, heal injuries and envision the
future.  Now Patrick claimed to be able to find water under the
earth.

Having been made aware of the urgent need for a new water supply on
this edge of the run where thirsty cattle were dying, Patrick had
ridden out with Harry one day the previous week to view the terrain. He
had agreed that Clint's chosen location for a bore would eventually be
successful, but only at great cost.  Then he had pointed to a distant
spot no one had considered and promised that water would be

128 Somewhere Octt There closer to the surface there.  So much closer
that the station's share of the drilling could actually be found in the
budget.

Harry had convinced Clint that Patrick's choice was worth a try.  With
financial assistance from the Water Resources

Branch of the Northern Territory government, drilling had been
scheduled.

Now, two weeks after Tiny's fall, Mackenzie wondered if this would be
another example of Patrick's baffling powers or a defeat that would
firmly anchor him to his humanity.  The station needed this new water
supply.  She didn't really want the bore to be a failure.  But neither
did she want Patrick to be a success.  " " They're about to commence
drilling.  Are you going to stay and watch?  " Clint asked, taking
Patrick's place beside her.

"I don't think so.  I promised Edwina I'd help her get the guest rooms
ready for St.  Carroll and his crew tonight."

"

" Afraid Patrick was wrong?  "

She couldn't admit her ambivalence.  She had not talked about Patrick's
gifts with her uncle.  What was there to say?  Taken case by case, day
by day, each incident could be explained She believed in intuition. She
had known people from the village, old men and women, who were so
attuned to the land and its rhythms that they could predict the future
They could foresee weather changes, droughts, floods.

She had known healers, people who had a special ability, a special
touch with the ill.  She had known men like Dilly Dan, who seemed able
to tell what an animal was thinking.

And although she had never known a dowser, she had heard of men who
traveled the outback with crooked sticks or metal rods and claimed they
could find water.  Her uncle had never used one, but she had heard that
the boss at nearby Silver Tree had been using a dowser to find water
when the manganese deposit had been discovered there.

So what could she say?  That she believed Patrick conversed with snakes
and brought back the dead?  Which of them would look crazy then?

"Nothing to say?"  Clint asked.

"I'm surprised you trusted him," Mackenzie said.  "You've no proof
I>e's doing more than guessing."

"I reckon it's a good guess.  I know the terrain.  There's as much
chance of finding water there as there is anywhere."

"You never used a dowser before."

"I never had one living right at the station I've taken Patrick's
measure.  A guess is a guess, a mistake, just that.  But whether he's
right or not, I know he won't cheat me."

Mackenzie's gaze followed Patrick.  He was talking to the men.  As she
watched, he removed his hat and swept his hair off his forehead.  In
that brief moment the sun glinted in the golden strands and his
attractions were even more potent.

She felt the impact of that attraction deep inside her, just as she
always did.  She avoided being alone with Patrick now, avoided it so
well that they hadn't had a truly private conversation since Tiny's
fall.  But every time she saw him , whether at close range or from a
distance, she felt a stronger pull.

"I might trust him," Clint said, "but that doesn't mean you should: '

She felt just as she had as a child when Clint had caught her leaving a
paddock gate unlatched.  She turned to him and saw the only father she
had ever known.  She saw concern on his face and something more
abstract.  She searched for what it was before she spoke.

"You're bothered I'm grown up now, aren't you?"

He didn't answer.  A muscle jumped in his jaw, but for once she didn't
heed the warning.

"You're afraid I'll leave."

"Not true.  You're free to go any time.  There's no real life here for
you: '

"Then what is it?"  She touched his arm.  "You've raised me to have a
level head.  I'm as much like you as a woman can be.  Why don't you
trust me to make my own decisions about Patrick?  "

He didn't look at her.  "You haven't had the experience."

"If I haven't, it's because you made certain every man who crossed
Waluwara's borders knew better than to give me any experience.  "

"Did you want to be fair game for every swagman who came along?  Do you
think the blokes who wander this country are the kind who would do the
right thing by you?"

"Some are, and some aren't.  But it's my job, not yours, to tell the
difference."

"Are you saying you've learned?  If you are, you might ask yourself why
you've chosen a man who may have a past that will haunt you: '

She wasn't going to deny her attraction to Patrick any more than she
was going to explain that She had no intention of doing anything about
it.  The issue here was something broader.

"It's my mother, isn't it?"  she asked.  "You're afraid I'll turo out
just like her, get myself preggie and disappear.  Well, no worries,
boss.  I won't die and saddle you with another little Mackenzie."

He faced her.  The expression in his eyes could have set fire to the
brush at their feet.  " " Have I ever indicated that I felt saddled
with you?  "

"We're talking around the point.  I know you love me, and you loved my
mother.  But I'm not my mother "

He searched her eyes, and little by little his expression softened.
"No," he said, "you're not.  She had the benefit of a mother to raise
her.  You were raised by men who didn't know the first thing about
taking care of a child."

"Don't you think you did a fair job of it?"

He ignored the question.  "There are things you don't know "

"Then maybe it's time you told me."

He seemed to be considering.

"Do I remind you of her?"  she asked.

He started to reach for her, then dropped his hand.  "You don't look
like her.  But there are other ways you resemble her.  Your mother was
the laughter and sunshine at the homestead when she was growing up,
just as you've been.  She was cherished and petted, but never spoiled.
There wasn't a person who knew her who wouldn't have done anything she
asked, but, of course, she was never the kind who did."

He looked over Mackenzie's shoulder to the horizon.  "When she was
nineteen, the son of a station manager over near the Roper River asked
her to marry him.  They met at a race meeting.  He would come courting
her in his plane, and the two of them would giggle and tease each other
like children.  We all thought they were a match, that they could be
happy together, but Mary Kate wasn't quite ready to say yes: " "You
never told me any of this.  Was he my father?  "

"I wish to God he had been."  He looked at Mackenzie.  "Your
grandmother and grandfather thought Mary Kate needed a holiday,
somewhere new she could go to think things over.  So they sent her to
stay with friends on a sheep station in New South Wales.  The friends
had a daugbter Mary Kate's age, and the two girls got along so well
they spent a week together in Sydney, too.  We thought she'd had a fine
time, but when Mary Kate came home, she wasn't the same.  The laughter
was gone, the chatter was gone.  She was an echo of what she'd been."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"One day after she came home we woke up and Mary Kate was gone forever.
We never saw her again.  We looked everywhere, had professionals
investigate.  The friends she had stayed with hadn't a clue as to what
might have happened to her while she was with them.  Your grandmother
died a year later, from heartbreak.  Your grandfather followed in six
months.  Then one day you appeared, and the mystery was solved."

"

" Not entirely.  "

"No.  But apparently sometime in the weeks she was in New South Wales
she met a man.  I still have no idea who, but it's just as well.  I
would have killed your father if I'd learned who he was."

SI>e struggled to suppress a shudder.  "The mother I remember never
laughed and rarely spoke."

"None of that would have happened if I had been more careful."

She stared at him.  "Don't you think it was my mother who should have
been careful?"

"She was young, but I was younger.  At the time I wondered if it was
right to send her to stay with strangers.  I should have done more to
stop it."

"Right-o.  You should have found her a convent for her holiday."

"Don't make light of this.  We were all at fault for putting her in
danger!  "

"Danger?  Look around you, boss!  The Territory is what danger looks
like.  Every day at Waluwara is a dance with death.  But I'm certain
you didn't wrap my mother in cotton wool when she lived on the run, and
you couldn't wrap her in cotton wool when she left it.  She made the
mistake, not you, but if you ask me, her only mistake was skipping out
on the people who loved her.  I wasn't a mistake, no matter what the
circumstances of my birth.  The real mistake was her shame!  "

She watched him inhale, a long, deep breath that he let out so slowly
it was almost imperceptible.  He was a master at controlling his
feelings, but she knew he was struggling now.

"I am not my mother," she said.  "I am me, Mackenzie Conroy.  I'm going
to make mistakes.  Big ones.  And they'll be my mistakes, thank you.
But I'll never be ashamed of myself, the way Mary Kate was.  And you
will never be ashamed of yourself again: '

"What gives you the right to talk to me this way?"

She started to answer, then she shook her head instead.  "If you don't
know the answer to that, we're really in a bad trot here."

He turned away from her.  Mackenzie let him; she understood his need to
retreat.

"Is Patrick going to be one of those mistakes?"  he asked.

"I can't tell the future."  She looked in the direction of the man who
seemed to be able to do just that.  He was squatting on the ground
beside the men who'd been hired to drill.  They were all dressed alike
in the outback uniform of wide brimmed hats, moleskins or jeans and
cotton shirts.  But Patrick stood out.  He always stood out, no matter
where he was or whom he was with.

"But if Patrick is a mistake," she said, "he'll be my mistake , not
yours."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

"No worries, boss: Mackenzie started toward the ute that she planned to
take back to the homestead.  " He won't be given that choice.  "

As she drove away, her uncle was standing exactly where she'd left him.
But she guessed that despite his parting words to her, he had moved a
mile during their conversation.

She just wasn't sure where she was moving.  Or why.

There was nothing drier than the Northern Territory just before the
Wet.  Although the sun was going down, the air still sucked all the
moisture from human tissues until blinking and swallowing were
torments.  Mackenzie thought it fitting that Sebastian St.  Carroll had
chosen this season for his first visit to the station his family had
owned for generations She was glad he would see what life was really
like for the people who labored so hard to produce the money he threw
away on worthless ventures.

The station's Holden, the most presentable vehicle on the run, pulled
up in front of the homestead with one passenger and Clint.  Her uncle
had driven to the airstrip to bring back the guests' luggage.
Someone-Mackenzie would have laid a wager that the passenger was St.
Carroll-had felt too important to walk from the airstrip.  But the
other visitors had apparently chosen to stroll the short distance to
stretch their legs.

As she waited, Mackenzie ignored the urge to straighten her skirt.  In
deference to her uncle she had put on a stylish turquoise dress, and
she even wore her grandmother's pearls.  But she wasn't going to preen
for the worthless peacock who was stepping out of the car alongside her
uncle.  Sebastian St.  Carroll wasn't worthy of the effort it took to
line up a seam.

She looked over to the men beside her on the veranda, key station
employees, who were also waiting to meet St.  Carroll Jack, the
bookkeeper, was there, along with Lawton, the business manager.  Dr.
Al, the resident veterinarian, had come, too, and so had Patrick,
despite spending a rougb day at the bore site.  Missing were Harry and
another stockman, Reg, who managed the yards.  Both of them had
cheerfully declined the invitation to supper in order to go home to the
village and their own families for a more enjoyable meal.

Any one of the station employees was worth two of St.  Carroll, but the
men waited calmly, wearing their natural dignity along with their best
city clothes.  Mackenzie caught Patrick's eye.  She guessed that her
uncle bad invited him solely because he made an impressive addition to
the other station employees.  Despite his lack of memory, there was no
subject on which he couldn't converse intelligently.  Even his
questions were a cut above the ordinary.  If the rest of the men were
diamonds in the rough, Patrick was eight perfectly -faceted carats.

Although be didn't smile, she sensed that Patrick understood her
turmoil over Sebastian St.  Carroll.  She narrowed her eyes, and he
shrugged.  She could have sworn he was telling her to behave herself.

There was no time to consider whether such a thing was possible.  Her
uncle's passenger stepped up to the veranda, and She extended her hand
as Clint introduced him.  She wasn't surprised to find she would have
won her wager.

"Welcome to Waluwara, Mr.  St.  Carroll."

Sebastian St.  Canon was tall, dark-haired, darkqyed and surprisingly
good-looking, with a thin, aristocratic face and a toothy smile.
Mackenzie had expected a face like a bandicoot

"A pleasure, Miss Conroy."  St.  Carroll took her hand and held it in
his for a moment.  "It's quite a treat to find someone like you in this
place."

She had been prepared not to like this man, this inconsiderate death
adder who was draining Waluwara dry, but now such intense feelings of
ill will filled her that, for an instant , she was tempted to jerk her
hand from his.  Unfortunately , too much rode on this, too much to let
childish feelings get the better of her.

He passed on, and the others arrived from the airstrip.  She murmured
proper greetings to the team of geologists,

engineers and metallurgists, along with the pilot St.  Carroll had
engaged to fly them in.  She counted five men, two more than Edwina had
been told to expect.  She supposed a man like Sebastian St.  Carroll
had no particular interest in making life easier for the people who
served him.

She watched as her uncle introduced the guests to the men from the
station.  All had been invited for a formal sit-down supper, an event
that was probably going to curl St: Carroll 's noble toes.  The gentry
and the peasants at the same table together, Australian-style.  She
could hardly wait.

St.  Carroll left the group of men immediately after perfunctory
introductions and returned to her.  "Miss Conroy, may I have the
pleasure of escorting you inside?"

She smiled, the only blast of cod air in the hot spring evening.  " "
Are you certain you wouldn't prefer a rest before we have drinks?  We
can hold supper as long as necessary: '

"I slept in the plane.  I'll wash up quickly and be back to join you in
a jiffy."

She could hardly wait.  Leaving the station employees behind on the
veranda for a smoke, everyone else started inside Mackenzie rested her
hand on St.  Carroll's arm and let lqim lead the way into the house
that technically belonged to him, although he had never set foot inside
it before.

In the hallway she introduced him to Edwina, who took over, ushering
him to the best guest suite.  Mackenzie took the other visitors to the
opposite wing and installed them there.  Luckily she and Edwina,
anticipating the possibility of extra guests, had prepared additional
guest rooms.

In the parlor she read the expression on her uncle's face.  She felt
chastised.  "I'm trying," she said.

"Don't try too hard."

She realized she had misinterpreted his concern.  "What does that mean?
" " " It means that bloke is a bit of a lady-killer.  "

She laughed without humor.  "That bloke is a bit of a jerk."

"Stay out of his way, or he could make things complicated for you: '

She didn't protest Clint's interference.  This time the conversation
was not about uncle protecting niece.  Clint knew she wouldn't be
flattered by Sebastian St.  Carroll's attentions This was station
manager protecting station.  Macke_nzie knew the difference.

"The only place I want to be is as far from him as possible , " she
said.

"That might not be far enough

"I'll handle him.  And I'll do it tactfully."

"If it comes to a choice between tact and strength, use the latter "
Clint turned at the sound of footsteps.

"The place is a bit run-down, wouldn't you say?"  Sebastian asked.  He
ran his finger over the trim around the doorway.  " " Still, one can't
expect the same standards here as in London or Hong Kong, can one?  "

"One certainly can't," Mackenzie said.  She paused just long enough to
get hold of her temper.  "But one can expect a tall, strong drink that
will make even our Territory standards seem good enough by the end of
the evening.  What may I get you?"

"

" Scotch.  Straight up.  "

"Right-o."  She was glad her uncle had had the foresight to have the
empty liquor cabinet stocked.  She had no tolerance for alcohol
whatsoever, and Clint rarely drank.  But now their mission for the next
weeks was to make St.  Carroll as tolerable as possible.  If it took
strong spirits to do so, the price was a small one.

The men came in from the veranda to join them; then St.  Carroll's
consultants and pilot filtered in.  For a little while she played
publican and measured out drinks like a professional

The last man she had to serve was Patrick.  Tonight he was dressed in
dark slacks, white shirt and a striped tie.  His sunburn had long ago
turned to tan, and the sun had bleached his hair a brighter gold.  He
was a beacon against the dark good looks of St.  Carroll, and her
defenses withered at the sight of him.  "Holding up all right?"  he
asked.

She didn't ask how he knew what she was feeling.  She sighed and pushed
a drink toward him.  "Fine, thanks."

"I'm scoring you: "

"Scoring me?q q

"One point for sarcasm.  Two if it passes over St.  Carroll 's head.
Three if St.  Carroll actually believes you're trying to be
friendly."

"I don't know what you're talking about: '

He lifted a brow.  "Don't you?"

She smiled.  "Go away "

He raised the glass to his lips and took a sip.  His entire face showed
his shock.  "What in the bloody hell is this?"

She hooted her delight, forgetting for a moment where she was and why.
"Whiskey on the rocks.  Irish whiskey, to match your name.  Don't you
like it?"

"Men drink this to feel good?"  He held the glass away as if to see the
contents better.  "There's a word for someone who doesn't drink, isn't
there?"

"Wowser.  Patrick, if you're a wowser, don't pass the word around the
station.  You won't have a mate in sight."

He took another sip.  "I'm supposed to get light-headed and lose my
inhibitions?"

"Do you have any inhibitions?"

He took another sip.  "I suppose we'll find out: '

"Lord help us: Mackenzie was enjoying herself, but the moment passed
when she saw that St.  Carroll was bearing down on them.  Her good
spirits ebbed as he drew closer and died by the time he was standing in
front of her.  " Do you need another, Mr.  St.  Carroll?  "

"Please.  Call me Sebastian.  We're practically friends already "

That thought flushed ice water through her veins.  "Do you need
another, Sebastian?"

"And may I call you Mackenzie?"

"No.  Call me Mac, like everyone else."

"You're too much woman for a name like that: '

She wasn't sure if she gritted her teeth or smiled; the two had been
closely related for the past hour.  "Still, it's my name.  The one I
answer to," she said.  She made him another drink whether he wanted it
or not and held it out to him.

"I can't remember what Clint told me you do here," Sebastian said,
turning to Patrick.

"I train the horses."

"And he sees to them when they're not being ridden," q Mackenzie
said.

"You're not an Aussie, are you?"

Patrick sipped his drink before he answered.  He found he was
developing a taste for Irish whiskey, although the feeling that the
room was growing steadily brighter was disconcerting'I suppose I am.
Not by birth.  By inclination.  "

"I can't fathom anyone with an inclination like that."  Sebastian
smiled at Mackenzie.  "Not that there aren't some perfectly lovely
specimens of the breed about."

"The breed, " she said, "thanks you for being too, too kind."

"Of course, I haven't seen enough of the country to make any sort of
judgment have I?  Only this."

"You should be here in the midst of the Wet," Mackenzie said.  "I'm
sure you'd appreciate Waluwara the way it is now."

"Why do you stay?"  Sebastian asked.  "You first, Patrick You're from
the States, correct?  Why stay here when you could work somewhere more
congenial?"

Patrick held out his glass for a refill.  Mackenzie raised a brow, but
obliged him.  "If there's a more congenial place," he said, "I can't
remember seeing it."

Mackenzie laughed.  She wasn't going to explain his comment to
Sebastian.  "I stay here because it's home," she said.  " " And because
there's a freedom and a peace that you can't find in cities.  "

"Apparently no one has shown you city life the way it can be."

"And apparently no one has shown you station life the way it really is.
We're so pleased you've come to remedy that."  She could almost hear
Patrick adding points in his head.  But she smiled gamely on.

Edwina entered the room and sought out Clint.  Mackenzie watched them
quietly converse.  Edwina was one of the few people Clint treated with
complete deference.  In the ears that she had run his home, Edwina had
rounded off the edges of his harsh, uncompromising life so that when he
was at the homestead he experienced the small graces of civilization.
Mackenzie suspected, from the way her uncle _ qted Edwina, that in his
own way, Clint was grateful to her for that.

When Edwina left, Clint announced that the evening meal was ready to be
served.  Sebastian held out his arm to

Mackenzie.  There was something about his manufactured charm that set
her teeth on edge, something even more complex than a dislike that had
been born before she ever set eyes on him.  She rested her fingertips
on his arm and wished him a million miles away.

At the boss's instructions, Edwina had outdone herself.

With the help of two young women from the village, she started the meal
with a rich cream of vegetable soup garnished with the parsley she
lovingly nurtured in a small herb garden.  Everyone but Sebastian
vigorously tucked into it.

Sebastian pushed his bowl away as if the sight offended him and asked
for another glass of wine.  "You'll have to pardon me," he said, "but I
really can't abide anything with so much fat in it.  The Orientals have
influenced me that way,

I suppose.  I'm afraid I require fresh vegetables and seafood A little
chicken now and then.  Nothing fancy, you understand: '

"It's a fair cow, isn't it," Mackenzie said pleasantly, "that none of
those things are available this far into the center of the continent
this time of year."

"We do keep a few chooks for eggs," Clint said.  "But

I'm afraid you'd lose a tooth on one if we caught and cooked it.
They're range hens, as tough as leather.  Even the dingoes don't favor
them.  "

Sebastian's eyes narrowed to slits.  "Well, it seems I'll have to
survive on this wonderful wine while I'm here.  Australian , is it?"

"From the Barossa Valley," Clint said.  He answered questions that
Sebastian put to him about Australia's wine country as everyone
finished the soup.  Sebastian started on his third glass.

After the first course Edwina served a salad of crisp, tinned
vegetables that she had prepared with a sweet and sour dressing.
Sebastian deigned to eat most of his.

Mackenzie watched Sebastian finish his fourth glass of wine and Patrick
his second.  Both men seemed perfectly steady, but there was a telltale
flush creeping up their respective cheeks.  A lock of Patrick's hair
had fallen across his forehead, and his eyes were suspiciously
bright.

Disaster struck when Sebastian waved away the prime rib one of the
village women tried to set in front of him.  As he did, he knocked over
his water glass.  "See what you've done," he said, shaking his finger
at the girl.  When she disappeared , unperturbed, into the kitchen, he
cocked a brow at Clint.  "I'm surprised you let these people serve you,
Conroy."

Mackenzie saw the familiar muscle jump in her uncle's jaw, but it was
Patrick, growing more flushed by the moment , who responded.  "Pardon
me, St.  Carroll, but I'm fairly new here.  Why wouldn't Mr.  Conroy
ask Grace and Sarah to help with the dinner?"

There was a long silence.  Clearly Sebastian thought that Patrick had
overstepped his bounds.  "Surely you would understand," he said at
last.  "You Americans aren't without prejudices."

"Interesting.  So it is prejudice we're talking about."

Mackenzie put her fork down.  Patrick's tone had been perfectly
pleasant, but the air was so charged that for a moment she felt as if
she were yards from a mulga thicket once again, kneeling beside Tiny's
motionless body.

"You misunderstand.  I have no prejudices," Sebastian said.  "I just
know what I see.  These people are still children They have to be
civilized before they can be expected to make good servants."

"Is serving you the reason they should be... civilized?"

"Surely you don't think they should be accountants or physicians?  From
the boomerang to the stethoscope is quite a leap, hey what?"

"These are people who rarely needed physicians before the Europeans
came to this continent and infected them with killer diseases, hunted
and maimed them, gave them alcohol and tobacco and poor food habits:
'

"Rather like what you Americans did to your Indians."

"I hope you'll view the Aboriginal people here with an oqn mind," Clint
said to Sebastian, obviously trying to steer the conversation away from
Patrick.  "Their customs and habits may be different from ours, but in
the important ways, they are no less advanced."

"In many ways," Patrick said, "they're more."

"You're an outspoken chap, aren't you?"  Sebastian asked Patrick.
"Someday you'll have to tell me about your background.  Surely someone
with such strong opimons must be well educated.  Certainly too educated
to train horses: '

"Animals have no guile, no ulterior motives, no bigotry.  In some ways
I find them easier to understand and admire than people."

Clint deftly turned the conversation to information on the last muster,
to the price per kilo for beef on the hoof, to whether the introduction
of Brahman blood into the herds was truly going to be the saving grace
for Territory cattlemen Mackenzie let the conversation flow around her.
She looked at Patrick and found he was looking at her.  His eyes
weren't quite focused.

What on earth were you trying to do?  she asked him, without saying a
word out loud.

Sebastian St.  Carroll is a worthless example of humanity , he
answered.

For a moment she was sure the table conversation had halted abruptly.
Humiliated, she pulled her gaze from Patrick 's to see how his words
had affected everyone, particularly the subject himself.

But there was no response.  The conversation was progressing as if
nothing had occurred.

And indeed, it hadn't.  Horrified, Mackenzie realized that Patrick's
words had sounded in her mind alone.

Patrick leaned over the railing of the paddock where the horses to be
used the next morning were kept.  His head spun in the most peculiar
way.  He was experimenting with the phenomenon, widening and narrowing
his eyes to see if more or less light would affect it.  The horses
gliding languidly through the moon-silvered night were indistinct forms
whose every movement throbbed inside his eyes and at the base of his
skull.  The connection was remarkable.

"I thought I might find you here."

He knew the speaker was Mackenzie, but for the life of him, he couldn't
determine exactly where in the darkness she was.  "I wanted some fresh
air," he said.  The words took time to say.  A surprising amount.

"No wonder."  She appeared out of nowhere to stand beside him.

"Shh... Don't spook the horses."

"Why not?  Where could they go?"

"I don't want to watch them run."

She laughed.  The sound sent lightning bolts through his eye sockets.

"Pain doesn't stop at the skin," he said, hurt that she didn't seem to
understand.

"A new revelation?  How about another one?  Blokes who drink too much
get themselves in this state on a regular basis"

"Not possible."  He found that "possible" was hard to say.  Almost
impossible.  "Not..."

"Paddy, you're sloshed.  It's plain to see that you just can't hold
your grog.  Neither can I, by the way, which is why I don't drink. It's
a source of great chagrin, but there it is.  I'm a whacking boot after
one schooner.  You're almost as bad."

" " A boot?  " He had to turn and look at her, even though all
instincts told him it was a bad idea.  He could feel his eyes focus,
and the experience wasn't pleasant.  " Am I a boot?  "

She smiled.  It was truly a joy to see him at less than his best.  Just
a little downtrodden, he was more appealing than ever.  "Not
exactly."

"St.  Carroll is a boot."

"At least that."  "

" He wants you.  "

She was growing more enchanted with the conversation.  "How can you
tell?"

"He looked at you like he wanted you served on his dinner plate."

"Did he?  I didn't notice.  I was too busy watching you try to run all
over him."

He stood straighter and tried to speak with dignity.  "I would advise
giving him a wide breath."

"Berth.  The word's berth."

He opened his mouth to respond and watched her frown after he did.  He
tried again, and her frown deepened.

"How many languages do you speak?"  she asked.  "I swear that one
sounds like German."

His brain-he could just conjure up the image of what was supposed to be
inside his head-seemed to be turning to liquid.  He wondered if it
would ooze out of his ears.

"Well, I came prepared," she said, when he didn't-or couldn't-find the
right language to answer.  "I thought I might find you in this state.
Here."  She lifted a vacuum bottle to the railing and tugged off the
cup that was capping it.  Then she filled it with hot coffee.  "This is
supposed to help: '

He watched his hand reach for it.  After a successful landing, he
watched the same hand weave through the air toward his mouth.  He
managed most of the cup.  " " There's more, " she said.  " " I should
stay here with you until you drink it all "

He was torn between gratitude and regret.  His stomach tossed and
trembled as the coffee found its destination.  His quiet groan was in a
universal language.

"I brought you something else, too, though I know this isn't the best
time to give a gift: Mackenzie set the bottle on the ground and reached
inside her jacket pocket.  " I'm tired of watching you hike up your
pants.  I know you won't wear leather.  I plaited you a belt out of
jute.  It's a vegetable product, what they use to make rope-"

"I know what it is."

"Right-o.  Here."  She shoved it in his direction without looking him
in the eye.

He didn't know whether the gift or the coffee was clearing his head,
but he felt a little steadier as he set down his cup and took the belt
from her hand.  It was beautifully made, wide and tightly plaited in a
herringbone pattern that q'esembled her own leather belt.  She had
fastened the jute to a heavy brass buckle fashioned to look like a
horseshoe.  " " You made this for me?  "

"No one else would want it.  It's not nearly as flash as a leather
one."

He stroked the length of the belt with his fingertips and tried to
remember if anyone had ever given him a present.  "I don't know what to
say."

"No wonies.  I just got tired of wondering when your trousers were
going to fall down."  She clamped her lips together as she realized
what she'd said.

He looked up, laughter in his eyes.  He smiled a cockeyed , not quite
controlled smile.  "Won't this take all the suspense out of your life?
"

"I can live without it."  She looked at the stars, because she knew if
she kept looking at him, she was going to laugh.  "You know, you were
almighty rude to St.  Canon tonight : '

"Was I?  I hardly remember: '

"Poor bloke.  Now he's going to feel like he doesn't belong here."  " q
q,

He doesn't.  Patrick fingered the belt as he tilted his head to look at
the stars, too.  "What do you sea up there, Mackenzie?  Are you looking
for something special?"

" " I remember looking up at the stars with my mother beside me.  It's
one of the few things I really remember about her.  After she died and
I came here, I used to sneak outside at night to see the sky.  My uncle
would find me wherever I went and carry me back to bed, but I always
felt safer falling asleep if I could see the Southern Cross first.  I
think it was my mother's favorite constellation.  " She pointed.  " Do
you know it?  "

"It's been pointed out to me."

"Did you know that the desert Aborigines say it's the footmark of the
wedge-tailed eagle, Waluwara?"

"That's where the station name comes from?"

She glanced at him.  He was squinting toward the sky, looking very
serious now.  She wasn't sure which Patrick was the most appealing, the
one who lacked inhibitions or the one who was trying so hard to level
his tilting world.

She looked back at the stars.  "Yes, it is.  Those two-" she pointed
above her " " Alpha and Beta Centauri, are the eagle's throwing stick,
and the coal sack, right there, is his nest.  "

"The stars are moving," he said.

"Your head is probably still spinning.  Drink some more coffee."

"I come outside every night to see the stars, too.  I can't sleep until
I do."

She tried not to feel the emotional tug of his words.  " " You're
probably from a city, and seeing stars so clearly is a new experience.
"

"I'm beginning to believe I'm not from anywhere."

"That's not possible."

"I don't belong here any more than St.  Canon does."

"That's not true."  But even as she said the words, she knew she was
lying.  He didn't belong here, and, more frightening still, she
couldn't imagine a place where he could belong.

"Our minds touched tonight."

She didn't look at him.  "That's whiskey and wine talking : '

He mimicked her voice perfectly.  "Not possible.  Not true.  The
alcohol's talking: He looked at her.  " Mackenzie, you know you're just
delaying the inevitable.  " " "Nothing's inevitable."

He reached for her and almost judged the distance correctly His hand
brushed her breast instead of her shoulder.  He heard her indrawn
breath.  He couldn't seem to remember how to make his hand move again.
Even fully clothed she was so soft.  He wanted to caress her softness
forever.  " " Don't, " she said.

"You can say that out loud and say something entirely different inside
your head."

"Every man likes to pretend a woman's saying yes when she's saying no:
She lifted her hand to push his away, but it had moved to her shoulder.
He pulled her closer.

"No, it's something all humans do.  Men, too.  Right now my own mind is
saying no and my body is saying yes."

"Tell your body to forget it: " it's not listening.  " He touched her
cheek.  " What am I thinking?  "

"You're preparing a defense of the religious views of Martin Buber "

"I'm thinking that a man who doesn't know who he is has no right to
complicate the life of a woman who knows exactly who she is."

Her eyelids drifted shut.  "That's sound thinking."

"But while I'm thinking that, my body insists I do this.  " He
continued stroking her cheek as he leaned forward.  Her lips were warm
and surprisingly giving.  He heard the chorus of yes and no inside her
and knew that he was not alone in his ambivalence.

His world spun, but in a way he was growing used to.  Not from liquor
he couldn't tolerate, not from uncertainty, but from his feelings for
the woman he held.  He held her tighter, and the world spun faster.

"I'm beginning to think that the place I belong is with you," he
whispered.

She put her hands against his chest, but she couldn't make herself push
him away.  Because increasingly, despite her protests, despite weeks of
avoiding him, the place where she felt at home was in his arms.

He kissed her again, and She sighed against his lips.  She tasted
coffee and passion and all the promise she had denied herself.  He
touched her breast again, and she could only repeat her sigh.  Her
world spun, too, and for the first time she knew the indescribable joy
of being anchored safely in her lover's embrace.

"What am I going to do about you?"  she whispered when he unzipped her
dress to csress the bare skin of her back.

"You can't do anything.  No more than I can do anything about you."

"You mean we're powerless?"

His hands glided over her skin, and the feel of her flesh was more
pleasing to him than any beautiful thing he had seen in the world.  His
voice shook with emotion.  "The q power is ours together.  And that's
where the problems and the possibilities... lie."

"One of those possibilities is tragedy.  For both of us."

"qen I hold you like this, I can't believe in tragedy."  He q felt her
bend beneath his hands; he felt her body flow agaqst him as if it had
been made to fill all the empty spaces in his life.  He kissed her
again, and the only possibility he could believe in was that, one day
soon, they would be one.

He let her go at last.  She moved away, but she gazed into his eyes for
a long moment.  She knew, once again, what he was thinking.  He watched
as she Iturried back to the homestead through moonlight and the soft
glow of stars a million light-years away.

Chapter 10

cc

I should think any cow foolish enough to wander into this desert
deserved to die.  " Sebastian lounged against the four-wheel-drive
Toyota that had brought him out to the bore site and watched the men
struggle with the unwieldy drilling equipment.  There had been one
technical problem after the other since early morning.  The team
sinking the bore had not begun to reach the level they had hoped to
attain that day.  " I can't say this seems a good use of station funds.
"

Mackenzie thought of a thousand relevant points to make.
Diplomatically, she made none of them.

"Why are they looking for water here?"  he asked, when she didn't
respond.

"It's a good prospect."  She pointed into the distance.  "There was a
water hole there until several months ago, a large one.  That's why we
never had a bore in the area.  But the hole went dry, and now there's
no water for miles."

"I should think you would have done better drilling right where the
water used to be.  Why didn't you?"

"We were advised this would be a better site."  She purposely refrained
from telling him whose advice they were following.

There was a whoosh and a screech.  Then a steady, irritating chug.  The
equipment was working again.  Mackenzie hoped it would inhibit
conversation.

Clint joined them.  "Well, they've got it going again," he shouted.

"How long will it take, do you suppose?"  Sebastian asked.

"There's no way of telling.  I've seen them find water in a , " day,
and I ve seen them take weeks.

"Weeks?  Can the station really afford weeks?

"The station can't afford to go without water.  Not unless we're no
longer raising cattle."

Sebastian shrugged.  "I rather hope to raise manganese."

" " And what would you do with the rest of the property?  " Mackenzie
asked.  " Build a camp for tourists who want a taste of dust and flies?
Give it back to the roos and the din If

Sebastian heard her scorn, he didn't acknowledge it.  He laughed.  "Ah,
Mackenzie, you're so protective of this..  this desert.  I know that
about you already: '

She looked away from him to signal her disinterest in his response.
"Anybody could tell I love Waluwara.  I'd have to love it to live
here."

She didn't look at her uncle.  She had been rude, and Clint had been
there to witness it.  But the truth was that even half a day in
Sebastian's presence had taught her that he would never take anything
she said seriously, anyway.  Sebastian had his own agenda.  He would
not be swayed by logic, pleas or sarcasm.  Like her uncle, she was an
excellent qudge of character, and Sebastian was a man who had little.

"Shall we continue the tour?"  Sebastian asked Clint.

Mackenzie knew that Sebastian's pilot was waiting to fly Sebastian and
his consultants over a good portion of the run that afternoon.  She and
her uncle had to get through the rest of the morning with Sebastian.
Then they would receive a well-deserved break.

I50 Somewhere Out There

"Someone else is coming."  Clint shaded his eyes.

Mackenzie shaded hers, but all she could see were plumes of dust
stretching toward the cloudless sky.  "One of the station vehicles?"

"One of the minutes.  Looks like Patrick.  Drives like Patrick ," Clint
said.

She laughed a little.  If Patrick had ever known how to drive, he had
not known how to maneuver the rough tracks of an outback station. Harry
had taught-or reminded him how to brake and steer.  But no one could
teach a way to make this kind of driving tolerable, particularly with a
hangover.  "He'll smash the crown of his hat on the cab roof the way
he's jolting up and down: '

She watched him pull to a stop and get out.  He walked like a man with
a massive headache-and not just from the ride.  As she'd guessed, he
took off his hat and punched it back into shape as he approached.  She
noticed that the belt she had made for him was proudly displayed.

"No horses to train this morning?"  Sebastian asked in greeting.

Patrick frowned, as if processing sound and thought were harder than
usual.  "I came to watch the men find water "

"You think they'll find it today?"  Clint asked.

Patrick turned to Mackenzie.  She smiled at the gingerly way he moved
his head.  "That's my guess."

"So you're a gambling man," Sebastian said.  "

" No.  "

"Then why does it matter if they find it today or next week?  "

"I didn't say it mattered.  I said I was here to watch."

Sebastian snorted.  "Do you know something the rest of us don't?"

Patrick faced him, steeling himself to ignore the pain in every
movement he made.  His gaze traveled over Sebastian 's face.  It was a
face he had seen in disturbing dreams last night, a face that showed a
complete lack of human virtue.  He wondered if Sebastian's vices were
as apparent to everyone else.

"I do know something," he said, staring into Sebastian's dark, oddly
opaque eyes.  "I know they're going to find water "

"So I was correct last night.  You must have a good education Was
geology your field?"

"Nothing so narrow " Patrick dismissed Sebastian with a flick of his
hand and turned to Mackenzie.  "Are you going to stay, too?  "

"I can't."  She wanted to.  A day in the full sun with Patrick sounded
like paradise compared to seeing the sights with Sebastian and her
uncle.  But Sebastian had requested her presence on the morning tour,
and she was not about to antagonize him-if it wasn't absolutely
required.

"Then I'll see you later " Patrick smiled at her, an intimate ,
forgive-me-for-last-night smile that should have surprised her.  But
she guessed what he was doing.  He was staking his claim in front of
Sebastian.  Now she had only to learn if it was a real claim or one to
discourage Sebastian from preying on her.

"Yes, later," she said.

Patrick joined the men at the bore, and she watched as they gestured to
him, communicating as best they could over the noise of the
machinery.

"Let's go," Clint said.

The three observers were in the Toyota bouncing down the track when
they heard shouting.  Clint slammed on the brakes, and they all turned
simultaneously.

At the drilling site, all the men were whooping and dancing under the
iridescent plumes of a glorious waterspout.

"I haven't seen a gusher like that one but twice in my lifetime."  On
the homestead veranda, Clint thrust his hands in his pockets and stared
at another extraordinary sunset.  He looked like a man savoring
victory.

"The water will last a good while," Patrick said.

"Do you think so?"

"Y

"Tell me, how did you know that site would be so successful ?"

Patrick considered the question.  How had he known?  He was still
confused by what was so obvious to him and so difficult for others to
see.  He was coming to terms with his heightened abilities, but only
gradually.  "I wish I could tell you."

"Then you don't know?"

"Perhaps I've been trained.  I sensed that was a good site."  That
wasn't a lie.  He just didn't add that he bad seen the water under the
earth as clearly as if it had been a mighty river rushing above ground.
"" Do you still have no memory of who you are?  "

Patrick watched Clint's gaze swerve toward the woman emerging from the
garden at the side of the house.  Edwina Wallaoe had a graceful,
thoroughly feminine walk.  With her arms piled high with oddly shaped
branches to make a centerpiece for the table, she was the picture of
womanbood.  As if he didn't realize-or care-that he was being observed,
Clint watched her until she disappeared inside.

"Well?"  Clint asked, after Edwina was out of sight.  "No memories? "

"Sometimes I see glimpses of my past.  Fragments, not bing more.  And
sometimes I hear... advice."

"You know, I sent out word all over the Tenitory that you'd been found
and how.  Not because it would change my mind about you, but for your
sake.  I thought perhaps someone might know who you were, particularly
because of your abilities with horses."

"And there's been no response?"

"No one knows anything.  the police have checked all their records, and
no one has reported anyone of your description missing in all of
Australia."

"I'll remember eventually."

"You may not."  Clint leaned against the railing so he could see
Patrick's face.  "The doctor said that sometimes , in cases like this,
memory never returns."

"A life forgotten."  Patrick thought of the slivers of memory that had
returned to him.  In the jigsaw puzzle of his life, they added up to
less than one piece.

"How will you feel if you never remember?"

"How will I feel if I do?"  He turned at a noise behind him and saw
Mackenzie approaching with a tray of iced qnks.  The light from the
setting sun turned her eyes to gold and colored her cheeks a warmer
hue. He wanted to touch her skin, to renew his acquaintance with its
texture.  ""Where's our guest?"  she asked, offering a drink to both
the men.

Clint took his.  "Consulting with his team now that they've had a look
at the property.  They've taken over the offi.  "

"I don't suppose we could lock and torch it with Sebastian inside?  "

Clint didn't even flinch.  " " You mean his aristocratic charm hasn't
swept you off your feet?  "

"I'd like to sweep him off his feet and dump him in the rubbish heap:
SI>e set down the tray and took her own drink without quite looking at
Patrick.  " The station's buzzing with news about the bore.  With that
much water, are we going to build drains to carry it a distance?  "

"Not if St.  Canon holds onto the station.  There won't be money to
build them with.  And the way he's talking, he won't be running cattle,
anyway."

"You don't think he's serious?"

"He's serious to a point," Clint said.  "He has to run cattle to keep
his leases, but he'll run only the minimal amount.  He would have to
put too much into the station now to get any sort of real return.  And
he thinks there are better ways to spend his money: '

Patrick couldn't stop looking at Mackenzie.  She was wearing yellow
tonight, a vibrant, sunny hue that made her hair glow a brighter red.
When he looked at her, he experienced sight deep inside himself, in
places that had nothing to do with vision.  Technically he understood
the connection , but nothing could explain the power and beauty of the
experience.

"St.  Carroll is a man with no concern, no feeling for anyone else," he
said, without taking his eyes off her.  "He's incapable of feeling.
He'll harm anything and anyone who stands in his way.  In his short
life he's robbed and murdered.  He has more at stake here than he's let
on.  If he doesn't find what he's looking for, be'll be ruined
financially That can make a ruthless man forget any remnants of a moral
code."  Clint stared at him.  Mackenzie forgot to avoid his eyes and
stared, too.

"How do you know these things?"  Clint asked.  "What proof do you
have?"

Mackenzie put her hand on her uncle's arm, but she didn't take her eyes
off Patrick.  "He's just guessing, aren't you, Paddy?  We all sense
what kind of man we're dealing with here.  Patrick's just carrying it
one step further by making guesses about Sebastian's past."

" " Accusing a man of murder and stealing is further than a step.  How
do you know these things?  " Clint repeated.

Patrick couldn't answer.  Once again he had stepped over the boundary
between what was readily apparent to anyone and what was only apparent
to him.  He still had much to learn, and he didn't even know why.

Mackenzie was torn watching him.  She wanted to reassure both men.  She
wanted to explain Patrick's gifts, but how could she explain what she
didn't understand herself?  " " I think Patrick is just putting our own
fears into words, " she said.  " Sebastian is more than irritating.
He's so slick, he hardly seems human.  A man like that could do almost
anything, couldn't he?  Kill..  steal.  "

"Is that what you were saying?"  Clint asked Patrick.

"When I look at St.  Carroll," he said quietly, "I see evil: '

"Are you usually right about people?  Or do you make mistakes?"

"I don't think I make mistakes."

"You can read the virtues and sins of others, but you can't remember
your own history?"

"I think that's called a paradox."

"I think it's called gall."

"That, too."  Patrick pulled his gaze from Mackenzie to face Clint.
"But don't be so irritated by my arrogance that you discount what I'm
saying: " " Meaning?  " Clint asked.

"Watch out for St.  Carroll.  You're a good judge of your fellow man.
But you believe there's good in everyone, so you give everyone the
benefit of the doubt.  There is no good in Sebastian St.  Carroll.

"I gave you the benefit of the doubt.  "

"And I thank you for it.

The two men continued to look at each other.  Mackenzie could almost
feel them measuring each other's will.  Then Patrick set down his
drink.  "I have to check the horses once more before nightfall: '

Clint gave a curt nod.  Mackenzie was silent until Patrick was out of
sight.  "don't judge him too harshly, she said.  " He's under a strain.
It's difficult not knowing who he-"

"He's right about St.  Carroll: Clint stared into the encroaching
darkness, stared after Patrick as if he could still see him.  " Rumors
reach even this far into the continent, but I don't know how they
rqacbed Patrick.  I'd like to.  "

"Rumors?"

"St.  Carroll was arrested last year in Hong Kong on suspicion of
murder.  A business associate of his disappeared.  Apparently St.
Carroll was the last pen on known to see him alive.  They found the
man's body in the harbor two weeks later with a bullet in his chest
similar to one found in an antique revolver in St.  Carroll's
possession.  The murder bullet vanished from the forensics lab where it
was undergoing testing.  The case against St.  Carroll vanished with
it: '

"Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Because he wasn't convicted.  And because I didn't want you to know
what kind of man held Waluwara's future in his hands: '

She shivered, although the sun hadn't been down long enough to lower
the temperature significantly.  "What is

Sebastian capable of doing if he doesn't find what he wants here?  "

Clint smiled a bitter smile.  "You might ask Patrick.  I really don't
know: '

Mackenzie watched Sebastian finish his third after-dinner drink.  He
liked cognac, in large quantities, and the only sign that he felt it
was a slight flush on his cheeks and a more casual posture.

Despite her personal feelings about him, she could appreciate the man's
dark good looks, particularly when he q was less than polished
perfection.  She imagined that the path of his adolescence and young
adulthood had been strewn with women who hadn't seen beyond his dark
eyes and easy smile to the man who was utterly devoid of redeeming
qualities.

She looked at the garden, where her uncle was having a conversation
with Harry.  She was glad Clint had stayed in sight.  She didn't want
to be alone with Sebastian.  " " So tell me what you do for
entertainment, " Sebastian said.  " What does one do without
restaurants and the theater ?  "

"One copes."  Mackenzie forced a smile and tried to imagine Sebastian
pointing a revolver at a business associate 's chest.  The image was
crystal clear.  She found it so riveting that she missed his next
comment.

"I said, how do you cope?"  he repeated.  "Even the television doesn't
work here."

With effort she pulled herself back to the conversation.  " " I read
and listen to music.  I have friends all over the country, and we stay
in touch by mail.  I was educated by

School of the Air for a time, along with other station children We're
all grown up, but we still correspond.  How many school chums can say
as much?  "

"Such a bleak existence."

"You seem compelled to point that out over and over again."

"Someone should point it out to you.  You probably don't know anything
different."

"On the contrary," she said, keeping her voice calm, "I know quite a
bit.  But I fancy this life more than any other

I 've seen.  "

"There are things I could show you: '

"I'm sure."

"You're a lovely woman.  I'm surprised this dreadful climate hasn't
ruined your complexion."  Before she could re Out

There 157 he touched her cheek.  "Still soft and fresh.  But what q1
you look like in ten years, or even five?"  q'Like a woman who s lived
the life she chose for her " She stepped away so he couldn't touch her
again.  " If you care to entertain yourself tonight, Sebastian, I'll be
qppy to show you our video library.  We have no telly reoeption , but
we have some wonderful films and a room full of books: '

"Actually, I was thinking about a walk down to the pond: '

"Billabong," she corrected.

"Right-o.  Waltzing Matilda and all that: '

"All..  that: She searched the shadows for her uncle, but he was no
longer in sight.  She suspected he had gone off with Harry to see about
something.  Harry wouldn't have qterrupted unless there had been some
crisis or other.

"Well, it is a beautiful night for a stroll.  I think you 11 enjoy
yourself."

"You'll come, of course."

He was taunting her; it was as blatant as the unctuous smile on his
face.  She could refuse to go and brand herself a coward, or she could
go and fight off his advances.  She wasn't afraid of him, although
there was reason to be, but she was afraid of what he could do to
Waluwara's future.  Was Sebastian a man who would sacrifice his own
best interests to revenge a slight?  She didn't know, but she didn't
want to take that chance.

"I'll come," she said, "but I won't stay long.  Patrick will be looking
for me."

"That's right, isn't it?  He said he would see you tonight.

I gather he's your gentleman friend?  "

"Patrick's my friend."

"Well, I hope I'll be your friend, too."

She was glad Patrick was the mind reader, not Sebastian.

"You might want to fetch something warm to put on.  The temperature's
dropping: '

"I'll be fine."

She couldn't think of any other delaying tactics; she was wearing a
light jacket over her dress.  Again she scanned the shadows for Clint,
but there was no one there.  Even the stock dogs, who sometimes hung
around the homestead in the evening, had gone elsewhere.

"Well, let's be off."  She started down the steps, but not soon enough
to stop Sebastian from offering his arm.

"We wouldn't want you to trip."

She managed a smile.  " " I know every inch of ground.  I'm not likely
to stumble.  " " " I might ."

As she took his arm she felt the trap closing around her.  She
experienced an uncomfortable affinity with all the women throughout
history who had been forced into situations like this one.

"The stars here are beautiful.  I'll give you that," he said.

"How kind."

"You don't like me, do you, Mackenzie?"

She supposed he was the type of man who would find a woman's dislike of
him enchanting.  She didn't want to give " , ,. him that pleasure.  I
don't know you, Sebastian.

"We can remedy that."

"Let's.  Tell me all about your life."  She hoped that would keep him
busy for the rest of their walk.

"It's rather a boring story, really.  Eton.  Cambridge.  Wealthy
upper-class family.  Enough money to do anything I wanted, whenever I
wanted to do it: He shrugged.  " Then, when my parents tired of
supporting me, I moved to Hong Kong to make my own fortune.  "

"And were you successful?"  she asked, knowing the answer

"I've made and lost several."

"

" I imagine the making was more fun than the losing.  "

"Oh, I never lost because of anything I did.  I'm ashamed to say I was
taken advantage of.  Part of growing up, I suppose"

The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees.  She forced herself not
to withdraw her hand.  There had been such an undertone of malevolence
behind Sebastian's cultured accent.  "Well, perhaps you'll make
another," she said.

ps they neared the heart-shaped billabong that had been q reason for
building the homestead on this section of qpqqrty, he filled in a few
more unimportant details of his life.  It was a lovely spot, one of
Mackenzie s favorites on the station, a shining stretch of water
surrounded by tall, sturdy q qrees and wattle that was just beginning
to flaunt its golden blossoms.  She heard the staccato call of a
large-tailed qghtjar in one of the trees as they approached, then a
flurry of wings as it flew away.  ""there's a pretty little glen,"
Sebastian said.

"The variety of land on this station is unusual.  We've qything from
hills to true desert country.  And we're close ev enough to the
Victoria and its tributaries to have the advantage of" She stopped as
she felt Sebastian s arm snake along her shoulder.  She tried to move
away, but he followed her.

"I thought you might be chilled," he said.

"A bit soon in our acquaintance for that, don't you think?"  She kept
her tone light.

"Don't tell me you didn't suspect I might want a tad more than a walk
in the moonlight?"

"It's a fair cow, isn't it, when a woman can't even trust a good
English gentleman to behave himself?"  She still kept her voice ligbt;
it took as much effort as wrestling a five hundred -pound heifer to the
ground.

"I should think you'd be pleased, Mackenzie.  Generations ago my
ancestors were at court while yours were on their way to Sydney in
chains, but here you and I are, absolutely equal.  It's a great day,
don't you think?"

"With your gift for blarney, I half believe your ancestors were digging
potatoes in County Cork: She moved away , and this time he let her.

"Did your uncle tell you I was considering putting the station up for
sale if we don't find ore?"  he asked.

It was hard to ignore the message behind such a sudden shift of topics,
but Mackenzie pretended to.  "He mentioned some such.  I'm sure that
would be hard for you with all the St.  Carroll history tied up in this
place."

"Don't be absurd.  It won't be hard at all.  I despise Waluwara and my
family, as well.  I'd like nothing better than to set departed St.
Carrolls rolling in their graves.  You'd like it if I sold, wouldn't
you?  You and your uncle both."

She walked to a wattle shrub and began to gather branches to take back
with her.  It was something to do with her hands other than strangle
him.  "It's not up to me to like or dislike what you do, Sebastian. I'm
sure you'll do what you think you have to: '

"I can refuse all offers, you know: '

She didn't look at him.  "Of course.  That's your legal right."

"Particularly those from people I don't like."

"Really?  I didn't know it was necessary to like the people you planned
to take money from."

"And if I keep the station, there might always be the need for a good
housecleaning, don't you think?  Nothing like a change of leadership to
shake everything up and get it moving again: '

Her skin crawled.  She knew that Sebastian was baiting as well as
threatening her.  He wanted to see how far he could push her as he
pointed out her alternatives.  She could yield her body-she supposed
those were the stakes they were playing for-or her uncle could lose
either his job or his chance to buy Waluwara.  The situation was so
hopelessly melodramatic she half expected him to threaten to tie her to
the nearest railroad track-except that it was hundreds of kilometers
away.

She could only think of one possible response.  " " A good
housecleaning is called for," she said evenly.  " "I wish you'd do it.
Uncle Clint has had offers at bigger, more productive stations.  But
he's so loyal, he needs a sharp kick to get him moving.  That would be
just the one."

"" Where would you go?  "

"With him, wherever that might be.  There's a lot of country to explore
back of beyond."

"I've observed you for more than a day now.  Neither you nor Clint
would go without a fight.  But you don't have to fight, you know: '

"Don't we?"  She faced him, the wattle a shield in front of her.  " Who
don't I have to fight, or fight off?"

"I'm going to be here several weeks.  I'm a reasonable man: " "How
reassuring."

"Must I go on?"

She was shaking.  From anger, not fear.  "I should think you'd be
ashamed to," she said.  "This is the twentieth century , not the
eighteenth.  I am not in chains, and you are not at court.  We are
equal, as any other British or Australian citizen would be happy to
explain to you.  And as your equal I choose not to become your whore in
exchange for some dubious favors you're willing to grant me."

"You have a way with words: '

"I also have a way with my fists.  And if I scream, I can bring half a
dozen men running, men who would bury you six feet under "

He cocked his head, as if assessing how best to get around this sticky
stubborn streak of hers.  "Wouldn't you find screaming a humiliation?
Besides, how much support would you get if you did?  Remember, the men
on this run depend on me for their livelihood."

"The men on this run depend on me for friendship.  That's more
important out here."

He moved closer, this time assessing her determination.  He smiled,
obviously hoping to disarm her.  "You're making more of this than I
intended.  I'm not an animal.  I just want a little female attention
while I'm here."

She threw up her arms to fend him off, waving the wattle branches in
his face.  "You just want a little-"

"Trouble?"  Patrick stepped out from behind one of the gum trees.  "Is
it trouble you're wanting, St.  Carroll?  Because you've managed to
find it: '

Mackenzie was astonished by the fury in Patrick's voice.  In the worst
of times he had repressed his emotions, leaving her to guess at them.
Now there was no need to guess.  "It's

"Don't be absurd.  It won't be hard at all.  I despise Waluwara and my
family, as well.  I'd like nothing better than to set departed St.
Carrolls rolling in their graves.  You'd like it if I sold, wouldn't
you?  You and your uncle both."

She walked to a wattle shrub and began to gather branches to take back
with her.  It was something to do with her hands other than strangle
him.  "it's not up to me to like or dislike what you do, Sebastian. I'm
sure you'll do what you think you have to."

"I can refuse all offers, you know."

She didn't look at him.  "Of course.  That's your legal right."

"

" Particularly those from people I don't like.  "

"Really?  I didn't know it was necessary to like the people you planned
to take money from."

"And if I keep the station, there might always be the need for a good
housecleaning, don't you think?  Nothing like a change of leadership to
shake everything up and get it moving again: '

Her skin crawled.  She knew that Sebastian was baiting as well as
threatening her.  He wanted to see how far he could push her as he
pointed out her alternatives.  She could yield her body-she supposed
those were the stakes they were playing for-or her uncle could lose
either his job or his chance to buy Waluwara.  The situation was so
hopelessly melodramatic she half expected him to threaten to tie her to
the nearest railroad track-except that it was I>undreds of kilometers
away.

She could only think of one possible response.

"A good housecleaning is called for," she said evenly.  "I wish you'd
do it.  Uncle Clint has had offers at bigger, more productive stations.
But he's so loyal, he needs a sharp kick to get him moving.  That would
be just the one."

"Where would you go?"

"With him, wherever that might be.  There's a lot of country to explore
back of beyond."

q'I've observed you for more than a day now.  Neither you nor Clint
would go without a fight.  But you don't have to fight, you know: '

"Don't we?"  She faoed him, the wattle a shield in front of her.  " Who
don't I have to fight, or fight off?"

"I'm going to be here several weeks.  I'm a reasonable man: '

"How reassuring."

"Must I go on?"

She was shaking.  From anger, not fear.  "I should think you'd be
ashamed to," she said.  "This is the twentieth century , not the
eighteenth.  I am not in chains, and you are not at court.  We are
equal, as any other British or Australian citizen would be happy to
explain to you.  And as your equal I choose not to become your whore in
exchange for some dubious favors you're willing to grant me."

"You have a way with words."

"I also have a way with my fists.  And if I scream, I can bring half a
dozen men running, men who would bury you six feet under."

He cocked his head, as if assessing how best to get around this sticky
stubborn streak of hers.  "Wouldn't you find screaming a humiliation?
Besides, how much support would you get if you did?  Remember, the men
on this run depend on me for their livelihood."

"The men on this run depend on me for friendship.  That's more
important out here."

He moved closer, this time assessing I>er determination.  He smiled,
obviously hoping to disarm her.  "You're making more of this than I
intended.  I'm not an animal.  I just want a little female attention
while I'm here."

She threw up her arms to fend him off, waving the wattle branches in
his face.  "You just want a little-"

"Trouble?"  Patrick stepped out from behind one of the gum trees.  "Is
it trouble you're wanting, St.  Carroll?  Because you've managed to
find it."

Mackenzie was astonished by the fury in Patrick's voice.  In the worst
of times he had repressed his emotions, leaving her to guess at them.
Now there was no need to guess.  "It's all right, Paddy.  Sebastian and
I were just setting the ground rules."

"Do you know the ground rules, Paddy, old man?"  Sebastian asked
lazily.  "You should, you know.  After all, I expect my employees to
keep informed."

"Bloody hell, Sebastian!"  Mackenzie exploded.  "You're a selfish,
arrogant bastard who thinks the sun shines out of his own ear!  You can
take your blooming jobs and shove them in the same blooming spot!  "

He laughed, a pleasant, mellow laugh that still gave Mackenzie chills.
"I admire spirit in a woman."

"And I admire integrity in a man!"  She swept past him.  "Don't waste
your time defending my honor, Paddy.  Sebastian doesn't understand the
concept."  She didn't look behind her to see if either or both men were
following.  She started toward the house, and nothing was going to
stand in her way.

Patrick stepped in front of Sebastian when he started after

Mackenzie.  "Don't plan to go anywhere, St.  Carroll."

"What sort of man would let her walk back in the dark alone?"

"She's safer with the snakes and the dingoes than she is

" with you.  "

Sebastian's attempt at lazy charm disappeared.  Out of my way, horse
trainer.  You have nothing to say about where

I go and what I do.  Or whom I do it with.  Not if you want to stay on
here.  "

"I know you, St.  Carroll.  Unfortunately, your type exists all over
the universe.  You prey on anyone who's weaker and drag down anyone
who's stronger.  You're a threat in every conceivable way to people
like Clint and Mackenzie and the others here.  You're a threat to
anyone except those exactly like you: " " How about you, horse trainer?
" Before Patrick could respond, Sebastian's fist shot out at lightning
speed and sank into Patrick's belly.  Caught off guard, Patrick doubled
over, and Sebastian slammed his forearm against the side of Patrick's
head.

Sebastian straightened as Patrick reeled toward one of the wattle
shrubs and fell against it.  "Where's that trouble you were so certain
I'd found?  Here's a bit of a bonus, since you won't be picking up your
pay this week.  Don't make threats you're not man enough to keep!  "

Sebastian backed away several feet; then, as if he no longer believed
Patrick to be a threat, he turned and started up the path in the
direction Mackenzie had taken.

Sebastian had gone three steps before he found himself stretched out on
the ground.  He rolled, or tried to, but Patrick , who was sitting on
his back, anchored Sebastian's arm at a painful angle.

"I never make threats," Patrick said.  "It goes against all my
instincts."  He twisted Sebastian's arm farther when Sebastian tried to
pull free.  "So here's a bit of a bonus for you.  Don't harm anyone on
this station while you're here.  Take all your festering hatred and
your barely leashed violence and turn them on yourself, where they
belong.  Watch and listen and learn, St.  Carroll.  Because if you
don't, you'll have me to reckon with."

When Sebastian stopped struggling Patrick stood.  But he had learned
what he needed to know about Sebastian.  He watched him carefully, and
when Sebastian sprang, he was ready.  He stepped to one side, planting
one foot against Sebastian 's thigh as he fell past him.  Patrick
snapped his leg forward, and Sebastian went sprawling into the
wattles.

"Watch, listen and learn," Patrick repeated.

Sebastian recovered and sprang again, but this time he anticipated
Patrick's kick and dodged it successfully while executing one of his
own.  Patrick countered it as easily as if it had come from a bush
fly.

"You watched," Patrick said, dodging as Sebastian spun around for
another kick.  "But you didn't listen, and you didn't learn.  Can you
learn, St.  Carroll?  Or is it already too late?"  He brushed off
Sebastian's punch, then grabbed his wrist and flung him past his hip
into the wattles again.

Sebastian stood, brushing himself off.  "You've trained " , he said.

"Have I?"

164 Somewhere Oiqt There q,nqhere Out There 165 " " But not enough !  "
Sebastian rushed him, spun and snapped a kick in midair.  Patrick
wasn't there to receive it.  Disoriented, Sebastian spun again and
found Patrick beside the wattle.  - " Not enougb?  " Patrick asked.  "
Are you sure?  "

Sebastian shrieked his rage, a warrior's ferocious cry, and rushed
Patrick again.  Once again, Patrick was not where he had been by the
time Sebastian reached the place.  The third time Patrick was exactly
where he was supposed to be, and Patrick was ready for him.

"You watched and listened," he said, holding his hands, palms out, in
front of his body.  "But you didn't learn."

Sebastian stopped in midair.  He couldn't move; he couldn't breathe.
Time seemed to stop, and he was powerless to make it start once more.

"learn," Patrick said.  "Or die young: He turned his hands inward and
stepped aside.  Sebastian fell at his feet in a boneless heap.

Sebastian lay still.  Breath filtered into his body.  Blood warmed his
limbs.  Even the ground under his face smelled like life.  "I'm not
dead," he whispered.

"Consider that a gift."

"Who are you?"

"Someone who knows you, St.  Carroll.  I know every thought you have,
every sick and twisted fantasy.  Try any of them, touch anyone here,
and I'll feed those fantasies to you one by one until you choke on
them."

"Who are you?"  Sebastian repeated.

"Someone who never should have touched you: Patrick stepped away from
him.

Sebastian took the opportunity to sit up, then stand.  He moved slowly
away from Patrick.  He experimented with shaking his head and flexing
his fingers.  "Where did you learn to fight like that?  What sensei
taught you how to hypnotize an opponent that way?"

Patrick shook his head in disgust.

"I want to know!"  Sebastian said.

"And whatever you want, you get?"  "

" Whatever I want, I buy !  "

"You don't have enough money to buy anything I pos No one does."

"I'm sorry I attacked you that way.  I didn't understand " " " I. hat I
was more powerful than you?  No, of course you didn't.  You would never
attack someone who had a chance against you.  You haven't learned a
thing.  Get out of my sight: '

"Who are you?"

"A horse trainer."

"You're not."

"That's right.  I forgot.  You fired me."

"No.  Of course you're not fired."

"And the others?  Mackenzie?  Clint?  You'll leave them alone now?"

"Yes.  I'll leave them alone."

Patrick stared at him, then he shook his head.  "There's nothing of me
you can have, St.  Carroll."

"We'll see."  Sebastian sidled away, watching to be sure that Patrick
didn't follow him.

"Go back to the house and sleep this off," Patrick said.  "I won't
follow you: '

Sebastian turned and increased the length of his stride.  In a moment
he was out of sight.

The night was perfectly still; even the boo book owl that had called
restlessly from a tree after Patrick's arrival was silent.  Patrick
stared at the reflection of the moon in the still waters of the
billabong until the silver sheen became a face.

The powers yocc 've been given, little one, must never be used to cause
another harm.  This is a sacred trust you must never disavow.  If you
are ever tempted to misuse them, even for what you believe to be good,
you will be haunted by your faikcre.  That will beyourpccnishment, one
with oat end.

Patrick sank to his knees and covered his ears with his hands.  The
voice grew quieter, then fell silent, but the face he had seen in the
billabong danced across his eyelids.

The face became a door.  He reached for the doorknob, aware of what he
would find behind it.  A thousand voices would scream his past at him,
and he might not be able to hear even one.  The voices would scream,
and he would go mad-or, kinder, perhaps, die quickly.  But death or
insanity had to be better than not knowing who or what he was.

His hand rested on the knob.  Who was he?  What was he?  The door swung
open in his hand, and the voices shrieked all the answers he would ever
need to know.  The sound, the terrible cacophony of memories, both
overwhelmed and deafened him.  The agony was worse than anything
Sebastian

St.  Carroll could ever have inflicted.  The door slammed shut, and he
didn't know, or care, how it had happened.  It shut, and he was still
alive, still only a shadow of the being he had once been.

He uttered a sound, then another, until the sounds strung together in
the outpouring of a musical language.  But the face was gone, and the
door faded away.

He was left with silence and a moon gone behind a cloud.  He had never
felt more alone.

Chapter 11

cc q

VqV hat happened?  " Clint stepped out of the garden as Mackenzie
passed.  He took her arm.  " "Our guest happened !  "

In the near darkness Clint squinted, examining her from head to toe.  "
" Did he hurt you?  "

"No.  He didn't even touch me.  Patrick arrived before he could do
anything more than make half a dozen threats."

"You'll pack and go off to visit a friend tomorrow.  I won't have you
here while St.  Carroll's on the property."

"No.  I'm not going to run from anyone.  But I won't take chances and
be caught alone with him again.  Not after tonight I wouldn't be
surprised if he's everything Patrick said , and worse.  He has no
conscience."

"A section of fence in the western paddock was trampled I went with
Harry to see what should be done for the night."

"Don't apologize."  She smiled wryly.  "I should have known better than
to take a walk with Sebastian.  But I was trying to keep the peace. Now
I'm afraid he's about to declare war."

"Let him try.  The worst he can do is terminate my employment"

"That's not the worst.  He can make life impossible for the people who
have no home but this one."

" " Just be careful you don't mention that to him.  St.  Carroll 's a
man who preys on weakness.  "

"I've learned that."  She lowered her voice.  "Here he comes."
Mackenzie turned.  Her hearing had always been particularly acute.  Now
she heard Sebastian's footsteps well before her uncle did.  She stared
in the direction of the sound and watched him materialize just where
the veranda light lapped at the garden shadows.

She fully expected Sebastian to pretend he didn't see them.  With the
boss at her side and a full quotient of station hands within call,
Sebastian wasn't at I>is best.  He was much more the kind of man who
liked to corner his prey when it was alone and vulnerable.

He surprised her by walking toward them, skirting the shadow's edges.
The muscles in her throat tightened; her fists clenched.  With
confrontation only footsteps away, she knew Sebastian was going to
inform her uncle that his services were no longer necessary.  " " I've
come to apologize, " he said, standing several lengths away.

It was too dark to see more than an outline of his face.  Mackenzie
could read nothing of his expression.  "Have you?"

"I don't know what possessed me.  I must have had one too many glasses
of cognac.  Powerful stuff, I'm afraid.  I hope you'll forgive me for
being such a boot."

She nodded curtly.  He glanced at Clint.  "I don't know if Mackenzie
told you, but I'm afraid I made improper advances"

"I expect you to leave Mackenzie alone while you're here."

"Of course.  My sincerest apologies."

He turned away to go inside, but in the second before his back was
toward them, Mackenzie caught full sight of his face.  He had a bruise
across one cheek.  The other was scratched, as if by branches.  She
started to comment, then caught herself.  "Sebastian , where's
Patrick?"

"I don't know.  He was still at the pond when I started back."  He
faced them again, and she saw that her quick impression had been
correct.  "He's an interesting chap.  Do you mind if I ask where he
comes from?  What exactly do you know about him?"

"He's from the States.  I'm not exactly sure where," Clint said curtly.
"All I need to know is that he's the best horse trainer in the
Territory."

"Oh?"

"If all my men had his instincts, we'd triple our output overnight."

"So you would say he has a special instinct with animals ?  A special
touch, perhaps?"

"

" That would sum it up.  "

"And he was responsible for finding the site for the bore?  The
enormously successful bore?"

"Patrick seems to have a bit of luck in whatever he does " , Mackenzie
said.  She tried to resist the next, but her selfcontrol was flagging.
"I understand he's quite lucky with his fists, too.  When he has to
be."

Sebastian attempted a smile; the result could have withered an oasis.
"It seems he's a man of many talents."

"

" Which he puts to good use"

"Have a rest now," Clint said, interrupting smoothly.  "We'll have to
rise early to get a good start on the surveying : '

"Yes."  This time, when Sebastian turned, he continued up to the
veranda and closed the front door behind him.

"Sebastian and Patrick fought," Mackenzie said, when he was gone.  " "
Obviously.  "

"I'd say Sebastian lost."  "

" Obviously.  "

"Patrick isn't a violent man."

" " Any man's violent if the stakes are high enough.  It sets us apart
from the angels.  "

"I've got to find him."

"Do you?"

"How dare he fight for me!"  "

" High stakes.  "

She didn't respond.  She started through the garden.  It didn't even
occur to her that Clint hadn't tried to dissuade her.

Patrick didn't know how long he had been at the billabong It could have
been minutes; it could have been hours.  The moon had drifted behind
the clouds when he heard Mackenzie's footsteps.  He knew it was her.
Although she wasn't yet within sight, he could see determination on her
face, feel her concern and anger.  He was still so emotionally chilled
that he felt none of the anticipation he always experienced when he
knew she was near.  " " Patrick," she called.

For a moment he considered not answering.  "

" Are you out here?  "

"Over here."  He stood, brushing grass and dirt from the knees of his
jeans.

Illuminated by starlight, she appeared on the path near the water's
edge.  "Are you all right?  I just saw Sebastian."

"I'm fine."  He took a deep breath to be sure he really was.
Sebastian's first punch had been a tenible shock.  If he had ever
experienced pain like that, the memory was buried inside him again,
along with a billion others.

"Are you certain?"

"I'm fine."  And he was.  No damage had been done.  He suspected he
wouldn't even have a bruise to show for that agonizing moment-or the
ones that had followed.

"What right do you have fighting over me like that?"

"

" None.  " He turned away from her.

She was caught off guard.  On the walk to the billabong she had
prepared herself for an argument, whipped herself into righteous fury.
Patrick had no cause to protect her.  If her encounter with Sebastian
had come down to a physical

$truggle, she might not have won, but she wouldn't have lost, either.
And if she 1>ad needed help, it had been her right to ask for it, to
scream for it, if necessary.  Instead, without her consent, Patrick had
taken matters into his own hands.

"Well, that's the bloody truth."  She folded her arms.  "I don't need
help fighting my own battles."

"He's nothing like he appears.  He's highly trained in the martial
arts.  As deadly as that snake you wanted me to kill: '

Some of the starch went out of her.  She moved closer.  "Are you really
all right, then?"

He wasn't all right.  He didn't know if he would ever be all right
again.  He saw faces in silver shifting moonlight, heard words in a
language unlike any he'd encountered here.  He opened doors in his mind
and could not endure the answers that were waiting for him.  But worse,
so much worse, he knew, without undentanding how, that he had breached
his own moral code.  In his anger at Sebastian St.  Carroll I>e had
used powers St.  Carroll didn't, couldn't, have.  He had flaunted those
powers to prove his superiority.  And by flaunting them, he had opened
himself up to St.  Carroll's evil maneuvers.

When he didn't answer, Mackenzie moved closer.  "Let me look at you:
'

"He didn't hurt me."

She put her hands on his shoulders and cocked her head to examine his
face.  "I don't see any bruising."  She ran her fingers up his neck to
his cheeks.  "Do you hurt anywhere ?  "

He hurt everywhere, in places deep inside him that had no names.  He
wanted to tell her not to touch him, that he was not worth touching,
but her fingers against his skin absorbed his pain, and he wasn't
strong enough to deny himself that healing.

Mackenzie knew she should step away, although nothing except her hands
moved.  Patrick's eyes closed, but he stood perfectly still under her
caressing fingertips.  His skin was warm, resilient and smooth.
Touching him was addictive, a pleasure more than a search for
injuries.

She knew she should go.  Clearly he hadn't been hurt badly enough to
need medical attention.  If he had bruises or cuts that she couldn't
see, they would probably heal without intelvention.  But she couldn't
force herself to leave him.  He was suffering, perhaps not physically,
but in other, more powerful ways.

"You hurt him," she said.  "I saw his face.  He'll be bruised for a
week.  If he's deadly, then you must be deadlier"

He stiffened, and she felt his pain as surely as if it were stabbing
her own heart.  "You didn't know that about yourself, did you?"  she
said.  "And it frightens you."

"

" Not frightens .  "

"No?  What then?"  She rested her palms against his cheeks.

He opened his eyes.  "You'd better go: '

"Are you horrified that you can be violent, too?"

He covered her hands with his, but he didn't have the strength to push
them away.  "All of us have that capacity."

"But you thought you were better than the rest of us , didn't you?  You
thought you were in perfect control of your instincts."

"My instincts control me."

She looked deep into his eyes and saw that he wasn't talking about
violence alone.  Passion flared there, and need.  He needed her in a
way he had never needed anyone.  He needed her passion to flame with
his, to extinguish the pain, the terrors, the anguish.  And he despised
himself for it.

"If your instincts controlled you completely," she said softly, "we
would be on the ground right now, our clothes torn off, making love."

He made a sound low in his throat that could have been a denial or an
affirmation.  It was more vital than either, a plea for her to walk
away, or perhaps a plea for her to stay.

She rose on tiptoe.  He had fought for her, and now he denied himself
what he wanted most.  She wanted neither protection nor denial, yet
both were a measure of the man.  She swayed closer, and for that moment
they were only heartbeats apart.  Then be pulled her closer, groaning a
futile protest, and touched her lips with his.

She was sucked into a whirlpool of sensation.  She could feel his
desperation, his ambivalence, his desire, as her own desire swirled
hotly through her.  Her thoughts were a wild jumble, flashes of places
she had never seen, kaleidoscopes of feelings and instincts and
memories just out of reach.  She could feel herself and everything she
knew herself to be spinning uncontrollably.  She clutched him,
terrified and aroused simultaneously.  She wanted him gone, and she
wanted him inside her so their merger was complete.  But if she truly
wanted the first, she couldn't make herself ask for it.

He clasped her harder.  His tongue sought hers; his hips cradled hers;
his hands roamed restlessly.  He kissed her and absorbed a lifetime of
feelings: sorrow and joy and a strong yearning for more than life could
provide her.  He murmured his understanding against her lips.  He knew
what it was like to want more.  At that moment he wanted more than he
had ever thought possible.

"Patrick, what's happening?"  She gripped his shirt as if he could save
her from drowning in the tumultuous sea of their emotions.

He didn't know.  He had no memory of this, not even the vaguest
recollection that this wedding of body and spirit by passion was a
possibility.  If he had ever kissed another woman, that moment was
gone.  But he knew, instinctively, that if he had ever shared this
glory with one, he would remember it still, even if he never remembered
anything else.

"Run away, Mackenzie."  He tried to start her on her journey, but his
hands held her closer; they could not push.

"Where would I go that you couldn't follow?"

"If you go, I won't follow."

His eyes were dark with desire.  She saw a million questions veiled
behind need and yearning.  She shook her head slowly.  "I don't want to
go."

"Neither of us understands this."

"It's as old as forever."  She dug her fingers into his hair and let it
spill over her fingertips.

"And we aren't."  He had given her a chance, although not much of one.
His hands had never left her body; the power of his will had never
faltered.  He wanted her, and he had only a fragment of self-control.

"I'm not sure about you: She didn't smile.  She wasn't sure who or what
he was.  He could be as old as forever or as young as the dawn of the
day she had found him.  She only knew he was good, a man who struggled
with all the forces inside himself.  A man struggling now.

He bent his head to hers, and the struggle was over.  He wanted her;
she wanted him.  Fear took wings, and with it, self-denial.  She tasted
like freedom, like all the good things that waited for both of them. He
wove his hands through her hair and tasted her cheeks, her lips, the
wildly fluttering pulse at the base of her throat.  He heard her
responsive moan and saw it in colors no artist had ever painted.

The air was cool, but the earth was still warm.  They sank to the
cushion of grass beside the water.  He lay with one leg over hers to
feel the slender lines of her body against his own.  He pillowed her
head on his arm and drew her closer.

"I've wanted you forever," he said, kissing her cheeks , her forehead.
"I've wanted you for eternity, but I didn't know it!"

She had wanted him, too.  All the times she had put barriers between
herself and others, she had been waiting for

Patrick.  She hadn't dreamed foolish, maidenly dreams of a knight in
shining armor.  She had repressed all her feelings and told herself
that loving a man would chain her spirit.

Iv'ow she knew that she had lied.  She had never felt freer, never
truly known that the universe stretching before her was hers to
conquer.

She kissed him and felt both his yearning and hesitation.

She touched her lips to his chin, the corner of his mouth, the
roughened texture of one cheek.  "If you want me now , show me," she
said.  "For a different reason, I don't have any memory of this,
either."

"

" Two beginners, then.  "

"Onq.  qeginner and one... rusty pro?"

" q'in'qhere Out There 175

He kissed her hair.  When he kissed her, wherever he kissed her, he
felt no release, only a stronger desire.  "An assumption: '

"Worth a bet, I think: qqWe,ll see."

"qWill we?  How will I know if I've won?"

He brushed her lips with his, once, twice, three times.  Her
expression-a touch of shyness, a touch of wonder changed to something
more elemental.  At the fourth time she lay back, taking him with her.
She clasped him to her as he kissed her again.  She could feel the
warmth and weight of his body pressed against hers.  Every inch of him
caressed her.

She felt his hand skim her neck and pause at her shoulder His
fingertips began a slow, sensuous massage, at first through her jacket,
then under it to the bare skin at the neckline of her dress.  His touch
was electric.  It pulsed through her like a current, sending small
shock waves along her spine.

She moaned against his lips, not sure what she was asking for.  She
only knew she wanted, needed, more.

More was his hand between them, skillfully unfastening the buttons at
the front of her dress.  More was his hand against her bra, then
against the bare skin of her breast.

More was his fingers, his long magical fingers, touching her in places
she had denied him before.

She felt no shame and no caution.  She moaned again as he slipped her
dress down her arms.  His lips traced the delicate line of her
collarbone as his hands explored her.  In one fleeting moment she
thought of her mother and understood for the first time how Mary Kate
had given herself to a stranger, then mourned his absence for the rest
of her brief life.  "Mackenzie."

She heard Patrick whisper her name.  The sound sent a fierce wave of
pleasure through her.  It was her name he said at this moment.  Her
name, not the name of another from deep inside his memory.

"Only you," he said, as if he had read her thoughts.

"Only you," she said.  And she knew, somehow, that it would always be
only him.  Only Patrick, no matter what happened in the future or where
he went when his memory returned.  Her hands were trembling, but she
found the buttons on his shirt and made short work of them.  With his
help her dress fell to her waist, and she felt the shocking impact of
his skin against hers.  She wound her fingers in his hair and pulled
his mouth hungrily to hers.

He fed her hunger and his own.  Her soft breasts flattened against his
chest as if her body had been made to lie against his.  Touching her
was like absorbing in one moment all the wondrous things he knew of the
world.  Like early morning rays of sunshine against bare arms,
sparkling diamond drops of water, the chirruping song of a magpie, the
velvet coat of a newborn colt.

He felt himself falling through space with her, through dark,
star-dazzled skies into undiscovered realms.  He held her tighter in
prayerful gratitude and shut his eyes.

Colors filtered from three bright spots in a hazy maccve sky.  Forms,
beings, of such iridescent beaaty that they pierced the haze like the
sccns above them, stood in a wide, silent circle.  Two beings emerged
and started slowly toward each other.

Mackenzie felt a change in Patrick.  He started and stiffened , as if
she had hurt him.  She murmured against his lips.

She used her fingertips to massage away his sudden tension She didn't
want him to have any doubts about what was happening between them.  She
didn't want him to worry about her.  "This is right," she murmured.
"It's right!"

He wrapped his arms around her and held her closer.  The resulting kiss
went on and on, a passionate question, then a promise.  She could feel
the heat of his arousal through their clothes.  Boldly, her hands
traveled there, slipping between their bodies to explore this new
promise.

He didn't close his eyes.  But this time the vision came without it.

The forms glided closer and closer to one another.  Yards apart, they
stopped.  A third form, one of older, more advanced knowledge, broke
from the circle and started toward them.  Those gathered around began a
rippling, melodious chant.  The master-he had always been called
muster-glided, floated, moved across the ground as smoothly as if he
were an ark sailing through the water When he reached the two figccres
he began to speak.

Patrick gave a small cry and broke from Mackenzie, but he could not
leave her.  He fell to his back on the ground beside her.  Confused,
she sat up.  Her hand stroked his cheek.  She could feel his doubts,
his questions.  She thought she understood them.

"You won't hurt me," she whispered.  "You couldn't."

She saw his gaze flick to her breasts, pearly white in the moon's
reflection.  He tried to turn away; she knew he tried, but he couldn't.
SI>e smiled a little.  Her hands trembled as she pushed her dress
lower; then, as he watched, she knelt and let the dress fall lower
still.

"Mackenzie."  His voice was agonized.

"You won't hurt me," she repeated.  "I know you won't: '

He couldn't answer.  She settled herself against him, naked now except
for a scrap of lace that stretched from hip to hip.

Memories and feelings whirled in his head.  The woman beside him was
everything a man could ever hope for.  Her body was the lush wellspring
of femininity.  His body called out to her, agonized, tormented beyond
his endurance.  He wanted her, wanted to sink inside her and unite them
in a way that had nothing to do with centuries of civilized thought and
everything to do with primal urges that connected them to the earth
itself.

He groaned as she slipped his shirt over his shoulders.  He sensed the
sweetness of her touch, the untutored yearnings that compelled her to
take the lead.  He sensed the wholeness of her giving, the faith that
slut away her own questions

The sweetness, the fumbling, trembling glide of her 1>ands across his
chest, the faith that had brought her to him, dissolved the power of
his memories.  He was overwhelmed with emotion, swollen with it until
he thought his body could not contain it.  He felt his blood running
hot inside him, and the part of him that yearned for solace, for burial
and renewal inside her, was heating along with it.

He felt the snap on his jeans give way and the cool flow oq her hands
over that place.  He released a groan, because he thought he would die
if he didn't release this unbearable tension.

"Make love to me, Paddy," she whispered.

He heard the command, the plea, the hesitance.  He knew she needed his
reassurance.  She was giving herself, and he was giving little in
return.  He couldn't explain what he didn't understand, but neither
could he bear for her to be hurt.

Nor could he bear the exquisite, unrelieved agony of her hands stroking
him.

He groaned and knew that this time it would do no good.  She arched
against him, and he turned her to the grass once more.  Impatiently he
kicked away his jeans and briefs.  He could feel her melting against
him.  Their bodies were merging ; their spirits were merging before I>e
could even part her legs to make them one.  He felt a hosanna
resounding through him.  Nothing in his life had ever been this right.
Nothing had ever been this foreordained.

He slipped his arms beneath her and stared into her eyes.

The master held out his hands.  Each of the two figures accepted one.
As the three beings touched, there was a rainbow of exotic,
indescribable color that soared through the air Then the master linked
the hands of the two beings and turned away from them.  Each person in
the circle turned away, too, and the two beings were left alone, in the
center.  There was another explosion of light, of rainbow colors.  The
chanting grew louder..

"No!"  Patrick sat up and rested his head in his hands.  "God, no!"

For a moment Mackenzie didn't know what had happened She was so
immersed in her feelings that she couldn't believe he had separated
himself from her.

"I can't!  My God, Mackenzie, I can't."

She sat up.  She had never been more aware of her nakedness She was
naked in every way, and in the darkness, she could find nothing to
cover herself.  "What is it?"  she asked.

He heard her fears and the beginnings of shame.  He couldn't tell her
what he'd heard, what he'd seen.  He was a madman.  He saw beings who
weren't there, heard voices in his I>cad.

"Ijustcan't!"

"Was it something... Is it..."  She couldn't go on.  The voice she
heard was scarcely her own.  There was no confidence in it, nothing but
a pulling, whining plea.  Tears sprang to her eyes.  "I'm sorry if it's
not what you expected," she said woodenly.

"That's not it!"

"Then what is it?"  She began to feel around on the ground.  Her hands
were unsteady, and her eyes were filling with tears.  She cursed her
own weakness, would, she supposed , curse it forever now.

He couldn't answer.  A worse thought than his own insanity gripped him.
He was not insane.  And it was so much worse not to be insane. Because
if he wasn't insane, then there was another, infinitely more
frightening explanation.

He wasn't human.

He drew a deep, agonized breath.  He moved away from her, convinced he
would somehow hurt her by his presence alone.  He was still on fire
from their lovemaking, and perhaps that was proof of his humanity.  But
if it was evidence, it was the only evidence.

He saw colors that didn't exist, saw beings who weren't there.  Saw
ceremonies..  What kind of ceremony had it been?

He knew the answer as quickly as he'd asked the question It had been a
mating ceremony, brought to his consciousness because he had almost
mated with Mackenzie.  It had been a mating ceremony.  His?  His ?  Who
was he?  What was 1>e?  And was he somehow, on another world, or in
another dimension of time, mated with another being?

Could he hurt the woman he loved here, in this place, in this time? The
woman who, in every way, was the other half of his heart?

"You've remembered something, haven't you?"  she asked.  She had
successfully pushed away the trembling, the tears.  Now anger filled
her.  "Answer me, Patrick, damn it.

Do you know who you are?  "

"No."

"I see."  She found her dress and pulled it over her head.  She wanted
nothing more than to cover herself.  All of herself

"I have no right to... make love to you.  I could hurt you!"

"Yes.  You're perishing good at that."  "

" Mackenzie.  "

Something inside her knotted and unknotted at the pain in his voice,
but she steeled herself against it.

"I don't want a man who doesn't trust me," she said.

"I'm glad you put a stop to this."  "

" Trust you?  "

"That's what this is about, stranger.  You don't think I'm woman enough
to take whatever it is you're afraid you'll dish out.  You fought
Sebastian for me, now you've fought yourself.  You don't want a
partner; you want somebody to take care of."

He tried to read her feelings, to understand the struggles inside her,
but she was successfully blocking them.  He reached out to touch her,
to make a link with her that she couldn't sever, but she slapped away
his hand.

"Stay out of my mind.  Stay out of my life," she said.  She stood,
found her shoes and slipped them on.  "You're not better than
Sebastian, Patrick.  At least he's honest about what he wants when he
goes after it."

There was the tiniest break in her voice, the tiniest break in her
defenses.  For a moment Patrick was overwhelmed by her sorrow, her
anger, her sense of betrayal.

He reeled under the blow, shutting his eyes against her pain.  When he
opened them, he was alone.

Chapter 12

Sebastian had such finely honed instincts that it took him less than
half a day to find the right man to tell him about Patrick.  Jack, the
bookkeeper, was a bearded, spindly misanthrope who had come to Waluwara
because there were fewer humans per square mile than there were
cattle-and there were blessedly few of those, too.  He kept to himself
so completely that even in a place where almost everyone craved
solitude, Jack was considered a loner.

Because of his natural inclination for the solitary life, and because
he worked exclusively with figures, Jack tolerated his fellow employees
but had no personal loyalties.  And even though he preferred isolation,
he was still, by virtue of his position, privy to a quantity of
information about the others who lived on the station.

No, he told Sebastian-without once looking up from his work-he didn't
know any more about Patrick than anyone else did.  Seemed to him that
Patrick was just another bloke who'd made a muck of his life.  No, he
didn't have a clue where Patrick had come from, other than the heart of
a dust storm.  But no one knew that, did they?  After all, a man who
couldn't remember his own name wasn't likely to l82 Somewhere Out There
remember anything as complex as where he'd been born.  Yeah, that was
true, fair dinkum.  The poor bloke didn't even have a last name.  For
accounting's sake, they were calling him Smith, to keep things tidy.

"Smith."  Sebastian stood on the steps of the station office and peered
out over the small settlement that was the last gasp of the St. Carroll
financial empire.  once there had been property holdings throughout the
world, coffee plantations in Kenya and tea in Sri Lanka, miles of
fertile rice lands in India and Thailand, wheat fields in Iowa rippling
as far as the eye could see.  His family had been fanners at heart, he
supposed, serfs raised up by luck and cunning into positions of power. 
They had never dared venture beyond what they knew best, land and its
natural bounty.  They had never had a different vision.

He had been the one with a different vision.

Now there was only Waluwara to show for the St.  Carrolls careful
harvesting of the earth they had never purged from their blood.
Waluwara, whose parched, barren soil sailed miles each day in spirals
of dust.  Waluwara, which he could no longer hope to maintain, even if
that had been his wish.

There were footsteps behind him.  He didn't look to see who had joined
him.  He smelled tobacco and spearmint and knew that Brent Caswell, the
spokesman for the consultants from Perth, was beside him.

"You're going to have to decide, St.  Carroll.  We've given you our
best estimates on where we might find ore.  Your time and resources are
limited.  And the Wet is coming."

Sebastian didn't turn his head.  He inclined it, aristocrat to lackey.
"I believe I hired you, Caswell.  Since when do you give the
ultimatums?"

"Since the deposit for our services is about to run out.,

"You'll get your money."

"We will, or we won't stay on.  We agreed to come for two weeks.  Our
equipment arrives tomorrow.  When it does you'll need to tell us where
you want us to move it.  Northq south, east, west, it makes no
difference to us.  But if we don't start soon, what money you've
already spent will be wasted."

This time Sebastian turned.  Caswell was a short man, big boned and
muscular, with a rib cage wide enough to house an emu.  He had come
highly recommended, but Sebastian had disliked him on sight.  Caswell
was a fair man, basically an honest one.  And he had taken Sebastian's
measure immediately.

"I'll tell you tonight," Sebastian said.

Caswell narrowed his eyes.  "We'll have the rest of our money before we
touch a drill bit to the ground."

"

" That wasn't our arrangement.  "

"That's our arrangement now.  No money, our equipment goes back to
Perth, and we go with it: '

Sebastian calculated what cash he had left.  It would cover the
agreed-upon two weeks, but when it was gone, there would be just enough
to get him back to Hong Kong.  Whether he would go with his tail
between his legs or sipping

Dom Perignon depended on this man and his crew.  He smiled his
toothiest smile.  "So be it.  You'll have the remainder of your funds
tonight."

Caswell didn't smile back.  "We won't stay longer than we agreed upon
."

"Not even if you're on the trail of a rich deposit?"

"I don't like you, St.  Carroll.  I'll do the job I said I would, but I
won't work even an extra minute."

"You have so much business you can turn down offers of employment?"

"I'm a free man.  I can turn down anything... or anyone who doesn't
suit my fancy."  This time Caswell smiled, just before he disappeared
into the office.

"Smith."  Sebastian stared at the horizon, shimmering like a lake in
the noonday heat.  Smith, a man who could find clear, flowing water
under the ground.  A man who could hypnotize an opponent with the twist
of his hands.  A man with a special affinity for animals, such an
unusual affinity that even in this wasteland filled with horsemen, he
stood alone.

"Patrick Smith, alias St.  Patrick my deliverer."  Sebastian smiled
again, but this time the smile was for his benefit alone.

The colt was a roan, with a glowing red coat that reminded

Patrick of Mackenzie's hair.  He watched the colt's mother nudge it to
its wobbly little legs.  Then he watched it find its own version of
life support and begin to nurse greedily.

"I reckon it's always a miracle."

Patrick looked up to see the boss standing in the barn doorway.  He had
been so totally absorbed in the drama of birth that he hadn't heard
Clint arrive.

"Where's Dr.  Al?"  Clint strolled to Patrick's side and peered over
the stall door.  " " Busy on the other side of the run, I think.  He
went off with Harry this morning.  Nobody guessed the mare's time had
come.  " " "No problems?  "

There had been problems, major ones.  Patrick had taken care of them
himself.  But he didn't elaborate now.  How could he explain that he
could heal animals as well as people ?  He didn't understand his own
gifts.  He couldn't expect understanding from others.

"A few.  But everything's fine now."

"His bloodlines are faultless.  Raise him right and he'll win for us at
a race meeting or two.  If we're here to race him."

Patrick sifted through all the other man's doubts and fears, along with
his powerful yearnings.  "What are the chances St.  Carroll will find
manganese?"

"I don't know."

Patrick searched his mind for an answer to his own question , but
Waluwara's future was veiled to him.  " " If he finds a large deposit,
"Clint said, " " it will be the end of this place."

"And if he doesn't?"  "

" It will be the beginning of me.  "

Patrick imagined both possibilities.  "Yes, it would be.  If you
stayed, your children and their children would qgrow qurageous and
strong here, just like Mackenzie has.

"I have no children."  qqMrs.  Wallace is still young enough to give
you several.  "

Clint frowned, raking Patrick with an expression other men had come to
fear.  " " You're taking a fair bit on yourself there, aren't you?  "

"Am I?"  Patrick shrugged.  "She loves you.  You love her.  You've
denied yourself that love since her husband died because you're a hard
man who's afraid of anything gentle or soft: '

"You don't know anything about it."

"Her people are from the village, aren't they?"

Clint hesitated, as if he had no intention of answering.  Then he said
gruffly, "Her mother."

"And her father was white?"

"What of it?"

"She has the gifts of both.  The strengths of both.  But she believes
you don't want her because her blood is mixed."

Pain settled over Clint's features.  "How do you know all this?"

"My eyes are open."

Clint gripped the stall door.  "Too bloody open, mate."

Memories of the past evening had haunted Patrick all day.  "Believe me,
I wish they weren't."

"Turn that extraordinary vision on yourself, Patrick, and what do you
see?  "

What could he say?  That he saw a man who was different from everyone
around him?  That he saw a man who seemed human enough but who had
abilities far outstripping those of his fellow men?  That his memories
were of beings formed from light, of disembodied voices offering advice
he couldn't seem to follow?  And that now his memories included a woman
so beautiful, so stirring, that he would never be able to forget the
look on her face when he had refused the precious gift she had offered
him?

"I think there are things inside me I'm afraid to see," he answered.

"I think there are things inside you that would frighten even the most
courageous man."

Patrick looked up.  Clint's gaze had softened.  There was understanding
there, an understanding Patrick had never qreally hoped to find in
anyone.  " " Things that will take you away from Mackenzie, " Clint
added.

"I don't want to hurt her "

"As you've pointed out to me, we don't always know what will hurt those
we love.  Not until it's accomplished."

Patrick considered that piece of wisdom after Clint had gone.  The
little roan colt still suckled noisily at its mother's teats.  He saw
Mackenzie in the colt's shining red coat, in its exuberant, jerky
grace, in its enthusiastic joy in a life it hardly knew.

He was afraid that from now until the end of his existence , he was
doomed to see Mackenzie Conroy in everything

Sebastian watched the man on the horse.  He had witnessed equestrian
events from Ascot to Churchill Downs, but he couldn't remember ever
seeing anyone more in tune with his mount.  There were moments, as he
watched Patrick , when he wasn't sure where the man ended and the horse
began.  Together they were fluid motion, seamless grace.  All without a
saddle or reins.

He swung himself over the side of the riding ring and perched on the
top rail.  When Patrick completed putting the horse through its paces,
he guided her toward Sebastian.  " " What are you doing here?  " he
asked with no preamble.

"Watching you.  Watching my horse.  That is my horse isn't it?"

"No.  This horse is the personal property of Reg, one of the stock
men

"Why are you training her, then?"

"Don't worry.  I'm not wasting your time or money.  I've finished my
own jobs for the afternoon."

"Don't jump to conclusions.  I just like to keep abreast of what's
going on.  That's a beautiful animal.  I'm sorry she's not mine."

Patrick heard the false cheer.  His expression didn't change.  He
waited for Sebastian to say what he had really come to say.

"Do you have a moment?  I could come back later: '

Patrick slid off the horse's back and gave her a slap on the rump.  She
moved off to see if there was anything to graze on at the opposite side
of the ring.

"Let's walk," Sebastian suggested.  "When I stand still the damned
flies settle all over me."  He led the way, heading toward an open
field.

Patrick knew that Sebastian hadn't come to apologize or to fire him.
But he wasn't sure what his motive might be.  Sebastian St.  Carroll
was a man of many talents.  Now that he had an inkling of some of
Patrick's gifts, Sebastian was using his own to shelter his thoughts.

"I found out a bit about you today."

Patrick had no intention of wasting time.  " " There's only a bit to
find out: '

"Is it true you don't know who you are?"

"I'm Patrick Smith, Waluwara horse trainer."

"And before that?"

"As far as I know, there was no before that."  "

" No memories at all?  "

"What exactly do you want, St.  Carroll?  I told you last night that
you could never possess anything that belonged to me."

"So you said: '

They continued to walk.  The sun was low in the sky, and there was a
gray haze surrounding it, almost as if rain clouds were struggling to
form.

"I heard one of the stock men say that the Wet will come early this
year."  Sebastian found shade in a clump of eucalyptus at the field's
edge and leaned against one of the trees for a better look at his
companion.  "Do you think so?"

"I don't know."

lgg Somewhere Out There

"It won't be possible to look for ore if it does, you know.  The tracks
will bog, equipment could be lost.  Possibly even lives."

"

" Then you really should get busy.  "

"My thoughts exactly."  Sebastian stripped off a piece of iron-gray
bark.  The wood beneath was smooth and silvery.  He wondered if the
tree had been waiting expectantly for this opportunity to transform
itself into a thing of beauty.  Waiting like the land, the vile,
scrub-ridden miles of Waluwara , which harbored bountiful treasure.

"But I have a problem," he continued.  "

" Only one?  "

Sebastian threaded the bark between his fingers.  "I had hoped that the
team I brought with me could tell me exactly where to look.  It is that
easy sometimes, I'm told."

"

" And you like things to be easy "

"Don't we all?  But, of course, things rarely are.  And this time
they're not.  There are many potential sites.  The team has recommended
six.  My job is to select the one I want to gamble on."

"A task you should be well suited for."

"What does that mean?"

"You're a gambling man by nature."

"One whose luck hasn't been good of late, I'm afraid."

"And that's why you murdered Walter Chinn at his home in Kowloon last
year.  Because your luck had run out, and he was going to make sure you
were never lucky again: '

Sebastian turned pale.  "Who are you?"

"I told you last night, I know every thought you have, every sick and
twisted fantasy that's ever crossed your mind , St.  Carroll ."

"Then you know why I'm here."

He did know.  Now.  Sebastian had become good at protecting himself,
but not good enough.  There had been a moment's lapse in that
protection, when Patrick had accused him of murder.  It had been plenty
of time for Patrick to see into his mind.

"You're here to find out if I'll help you choose a site " , Patrick
said.

q Somewhere Out There 189 qqI qlieve in your abilities.  "

"Do you think I'm flattered?  That I care what you believe in?  I told
you last night that nothing about me was for sale."

"Obviously, then, you're sure you have something I'd want: '

"It doesn't matter if I do or don't."

"But you see, Patrick, it matters to me.  If you really can read my
mind, you know I'm about to lose everything I have.  I will lose
everything if I don't find manganese.  I believe you can help me find
it.  You believe the same."

Sebastian pushed himself away from the tree.  The bark in his hands
fell to the ground unnotioed.  "Can you see minerals under the earth?
Can you see deposits just waiting to be mined the way you see water?  I
think you can.  I think you have extraordinary powers.  I've seen them
before.  Perhaps none exactly like yours, but powers that convince me
the world isn't exactly the place most poor fools believe it to

,

"What kind of powers?"

"Men whose souls can travel from place to place while their bodies
never move.  Men who can find disease and injury simply by running
their hands over a chest, an arm.  Men so powerful they have only to
look an opponent in the eye to send him screaming into the night.  I've
seen these things in Hong Kong.  The Orientals have knowledge that
Westerners will never understand."

"And you've studied some of their techniques."

"There is only so much they will teach a foreigner."

Patrick heard the things that Sebastian left unsaid.  There was only so
much that even the most evil sensei would teach a man like Sebastian.
There were moral precepts that even corrupt men felt compelled to
follow.

"So you believe in more than the eye can see," Patrick said.  "Yet
you're not frightened by the possibility that powers like the ones
you've described could be used against you?"

"No.  I have my own powers.  In this case, they reside in my hold on
the pastoral leases here.  There's nothing you can do to change that. I
hold the cards, and I'll lay them out for you, if you're interested."

"You don't have to."  Patrick knew that Sebastian was purposely
allowing his thoughts to be read now.  He saw the other man's plan as
surely as if he had spoken.  If Patrick helped Sebastian find
manganese, Sebastian would not oust Clint from his position at
Waluwara.  The village and its people would remain untouched.  Clint
could continue to manage the station, perhaps even with a more
bountiful budget, if the find was good enough.

Although this went against Sebastian's greediest instincts , it did
have some benefits for him.  If the property was maintained, he would
be in no danger of the Territory stepping in to strip him of his
leases.  He could continue to mine the land until every trace of
valuable minerals had disappeared

"But if you don't find ore for me," Sebastian said, "I'll sell the
land, and it won't be to Clint Conroy.  I'll sell it to the owner of
Silver Tree, Matthew Fraser.  We've already disCUSSed it ."

"Even if the price is lower?"

"Of course not, but it won't be.  I've checked into Conroy 's finances.
He'll offer low.  He'll have to.  He doesn't know that there's someone
with considerably more assets who might want the property, too: '

"Someone who would surely keep Clint on as manager."

"No.  Fraser would want his son to manage the property.  Seems the lad
is a tad bit spoiled.  His father wants him toughened up, and quickly.
He thinks Waluwara is just the place to be certain that happens.  And
he has no use for your precious village, by the way.  Of course, he
can't throw the Aborigines off the land, but he can make conditions
less than pleasant for them."

"I can see why you sought him out.  Birds of a feather."

"Yes.  I visited with Fraser in Darwin, before coming here.  He and I
hit it off immediately."

" " So, you think you have me in a trap.  " " "You're loyal to the
people here because they saved your life.  It pours out of you like
sweat in the afternoon sun.  But qmewhere Out There 191 I can bait the
trap even more effectively, Patrick.  I can make it truly worth your
while to help me."

"Can you?"

"I will give you thirty percent of the profit if you sucaeed in
locating ore for me.  And after that, the sky's the limit: '

"I sincerely doubt it: '

Sebastian frowned.  "

" Pardon me?  "

Patrick shook his head.  "What's the rest of the offer, St. Carroll?"

"Partners.  We'll use the profits from this strike to locate other
mines on other properties.  Opals, gold, diamonds."  He shrugged, as if
he couldn't bear to continue such a pleasurable train of thought. "With
your... special talents , and my experience and position, we'll be able
to make billions.  And if I'm making billions, there would be nothing
to stop me from making this station a model for the Territory. No
expense would be too great.  Everyone here would benefit."

There would be nothing to keep him from making the station a model
except his powerful greed.  Patrick touched Sebastian's arm.
Immediately his stomach knotted in revulsion' You forget, St.  Carroll.
I know you well.  What would keep me from ending up like Walter Chinn?
"

"Would I harm the man who was responsible for my own good fortune?"

Patrick dropped his hand.  "I'll consider it."

"Consider it quickly.  My window of opportunity is limited"

"If I helped you, I'd make one demand."

"Consider it done."

"You'll leave Mackenzie alone while you're here."

"That's a decision I'd already made."

Patrick knew Sebastian was lying.  Despite his smooth manners and false
cheer, he was seething internally.  He held Patrick and Mackenzie
responsible for his humiliation of the night before, and at the first
opportunity he would punish them both.  The feelings were buried so
deeply under his present problems that Sebastian had yet to form them
in his mind.

But Patrick knew.

"I don't suppose you'd give me a demonstration of your -abilities,
would you?"  Sebastian asked.  "After all, I have a lot pinned on your
decision."  " " A demonstration?  " " " Something to show me that you
can find more than water under the ground."

Patrick stared at him.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Sebastian said, backing toward the
tree.

Patrick's gaze flicked past him, settling on a faint depression just
beyond the shade of the largest gum.  "Dig there, " he said.

Sebastian followed his gaze.  He backed toward the spot, as if afraid
that Patrick might attack him.  He stopped and pointed with his toe.
"Here?"

Patrick pointed several feet to his left.  "

" Here?  "

Patrick nodded.

Sebastian squatted, still facing Patrick.  Slowly he began to scoop
away the dirt.  "How deep?  Should I get a shovel?"

"

" Just dig.  "

Sebastian began to sweat.  Patrick absorbed the other man's distaste
for getting dirty, his skepticism, even his fear that Patrick was
making a fool of him.  Then Sebastian's fingertips struck something
hard.  He began to scoop faster' There something I>ere.  " " " I
know."

Sebastian struggled to uncover the object.  It wasn't a rock, at least
he didn't think so.  It was smooth and possibly hollow, the color of
the dirt it had been buried under.  He dug around it and discovered it
was larger than he'd thought.  Finally, after a battle that left him
soaked with his own sweat and dirtier than he had ever been in his
life, he dislodged the object.  Only then did he realize what he had
uncovered.  He dropped it back into the now substantial hole, as if it
were radioactive.

"Acow skull," Patrick acknowledggd.  "The poor beast died of thirst on
this spot during a drought almost thirty years ago."

Sebastian got to his feet, wiping his hands on his pants.  He wiped
them for a long time without looking up.  When he did, his eyes were
carefully blank.  "You'll let me know your decision by suppertime?  We
can fly over the sites tomorrow morning."

"I'll let you know."  Patrick followed Sebastian with his eyes as the
other man turned and started toward the homestead Patrick hoped that
when Matthew Fraser learned that Waluwara could not be his, he would
find another station that would make a man of his son.  There were too
'many Sebastian St.  Carrolls already.  The world did not need
another

Somewhere Oret There 195 q'Would you like to come in?  "

She changed her mind; she did not want to confront Patrick on his own
turf.  " " No.  "

Patrick opened the door.  He devoured her with his eyes he hadn't seen
her since their encounter by the billabong.

She wasn't dressed for work yet.  She was wearing a filmy blouse of
patterned turquoise and shorts that showed eve inch of her long legs.
Obviously she had thrown on the first clothes she'd found.

Are you all right " ?"  he asked.  He put his hand on her shoulder, but
she squirmed away.  " " Keep your hands to yourself.  " " "You're
angry."

"Bloody hell, the man's a mind reader!"  Disdain shone from her eyes;
her mouth was a grim line

Chapter 13 He was confused.  Her feelings were a jumble he should have
been able to sort.  But his own feelings made that impossible He was so
filled with yearning, with an ache in The early moroing sunshine was
already warm on Mac- th enough.  and a need to hold her, that nothing
else could seep kenzie's bare head, but she hardly noticed.  The
parched air "I didn't mean to hurt you," he said.  was still and so
quiet she could almost hear the trees grow.  "Do you think I'm angry
about the other night?"  She

The stock men had risen and departed while it was still dark, qmed her
back to him and stared at nothing.  "I don't care taking their dogs and
horses.  The station hands qers bade about that," she lied.  "I don't
need your affection.  I reckon inside or in places far from the
homestead.  As s e I learned a thing or two about men at the billabong
that I toward the men's quarters, Mackenzie felt the eerie silence down
to her bones.  It only made her walk faster.  won't soon forget."  p p
"You're furious."

The quarters were simple almost primitive in arc hitec- She whirled.
"It's what I've learned since that night that ture: four whitewashed
walls, a rusting metal roof and a veranda that served as a place to
smoke or watch the world makes me furiousq, stranger: '

pass by.  The married men lived elsewhere.  The men who " " Stranger,
is it.  "

shared these walls divided up the space according to their q'You're
helping St.  Carroll find ore!  I heard it from Edown whims.  Only
rarely had she been inside.  Edwina.  She heard the two of you talking
last night.  " " I knew she was nearby.  "

She was going inside today.  "Then apparently you don't care who knows,
because

On the veranda she pounded her fist against the door.  The , door
shook; the quarters shook.  She shook with anger.  she, at least, has
some loyalty.  She told me what she d heard,

There were footsteps inside.  She knew whose they were then she went to
tell my uncle.  "

"I hope it gave them something to talk about: before a figure appeared
in the doorwayh no preliminaries.  " What's that supposed to mean?  "

"I want to speak to you, she said when He didn't elaborate.  " I am
helping Sebastian.  " " "Right now.

"Why?  With all your sensitivity to what other people are feeling,
haven't you figured out that we don't want Sebastian to be
successful?"

"" I know.  "

"You know, yet you're planning to help him anyway?  Why?  Is he
offering you money?"

"Yes.  A lot."

Her eyes widened.  He could see heq had caught her off balance. Despite
her anger, she hadn't really expected to discover he was taking a
bribe.

"And that's the reason?"  she asked.

"What do you think?"

"I think you're scum!"

He put his hands on her arms.  When qshe tried to un away, he tightened
his grip.  "No, you don't.

"Don't I?  And why not?  Is there a better word for a man who sells out
his mates?"

"No one's been sold out: '

She kicked at his leg, but he held her away easily.  "What y ?  " do
you call it, then " " "I call it working for the man who pays my
salary.

"You wouldn't have a salary if it weren't for my uncle."

" " And your uncle wouldn't have a salary if it weren't for Sebastian
St.  Carroll.  This is his station, and I'm his employee How can I
refuse to do what he asks

"How can you refuse not to!  Mackenzie was successful in wriggling out
of his grip.  She put her hands on her hips.  " "Nothing good will come
out of Sebastian finding manganese Not for us, anyway.  You'll be
richer, though, won't you , y " Is that what you think?  "

She struggled to geL herself under control.  She was conscious enough
of her own emotions to realize that part of her fury came from the fact
that in twenty-four hours he had twice rejected her.  She had given
herself to him, and he had said no, thank you.  Now he was saying the
same to her loyalty and trust.

"Is that what you think?"  he asked again.  He moved closer.

$omewhere Out There 197 qqWhat else can I think?  " she asked.  " Are
you doing it to lead him in the wrong direction?  Are you promising to
find ore just so you can keep him away from the most promising spots "
" , ]qng if I'm planning to

He moved closer still.  you're as cheat and lie?  "

She had thought she knew Patrick well enough never to Suspect him of
either.  But now, with her belief to herself in shreds, she wasn't sure
if she knew anything about him at all, "That's what I'm asking."

"I'll find Sebastian his manganese."

"Don't: '

He heard the plea stirred in with the anger.  He couldn't reply.  There
was something sharp inside him, cutting away pieces of his heart.  , ,
"qDon't, Patrick.  I am begging you.

"I have to do what I think is right."

"Right for whom?"  When he didn't answer, the sadness , the plea in her
eyes hardened.  "I guess I can answer that myself."

"Thank hard before you do."

"I don't have to think hard.  I can see the answer.  Maybe you have
some distorted sense of loyalty to Sebastian because he employs you,
but that could have been dealt with easily enough by just quitting your
job.  Since you didn't, I can only assume the offer he made you was too
good to pass up, even for the sake of every living soul on this
station."

"Mackenzie..."  Against his own best judgment, he stepped closer.

"Don't!"

He reached out to her, but she turned away.  "I thought I knew you,"
she said, choking on the words.  "I thought I could feel what you feel.
I'd never had that experience with anyone: '

"Mackenzie."  His hands hovered above her.  He didn't know if he could
bear to plumb the depths of her sorrow.

"But I was wrong.  I don't know you any more than you know yourself.
You're not the man I believed in.  You're not the man I tried to give
myself to.  That man doesn't exist."

"You're right about that."  As gently as he could, he rested his hands
on her shoulders.

She stiffened.  "Now I think I understand how my mother felt when my
father left her to fend for herself.  He wasn't the man he appeared to
be, either.  Mary Kate and I have that in common: '

"You don't know that he left her."

She jerked away from his touch.

"Maybe your mother just didn't have the courage to stand beside him, to
go with him," Patrick went on.  "Maybe she left him: '

"Then we have that in common, too.  Because I'm leaving now, and I'm
not looking back.  Best of luck to you, stranger.  Find your manganese.
Take your blood money and run with it.  Maybe it will buy you memories.
 You'll never make any of your own worth savoring."

The sun was already warmer as Mackenzie hurried toward the homestead.
It dried her tears before they could streak her cheeks.

The plane was a single-engine Cessna just large enough to seat six.
Patrick felt it climbing toward the sky as the earth fell away beneath
him.  He shut his eyes against the sheer exhilaration flooding through
him.  This was nothing like the choppy helicopter ride he had taken
with Mackenzie when he had still been disoriented and anxious.

This, he knew.  This, he had experienced.  Many times.  So many times
that it was as if he had once lived in the air, dwelled there and felt
this glorious sensation as often as he felt breath expanding his
lungs.

"Are you a white-knuckle flier?"  Sebastian asked from the seat beside
him.

Patrick reluctantly opened his eyes.  "No."

"Have you flown in a small plane before?  Oh, I'm sorry, of course, you
wouldn't know that, would you?"

Patrick didn't answer.  He had agreed to help Sebastian find ore, but
he hadn't agreed to subject himself to the other man's inquisition.

"We'll be flying over the first potential site in a few min " Sebastian
said.  "I've told the pilot to fly as low as he minutes qan qwithout
putting us in danger.  Will that be sufficient for your needs?"

"We'll have to see."

"I had a little chat with Mackenzie this morning."  He smiled a little
as Patrick's expression changed.  "Nothing for you to be concerned
about.  Her uncle was there.  I'm living up to my promise."

Patrick turned away to gaze out the window.

Sebastian continued as if he hadn't noticed.  "It seems she knew you
were coming with us this morning.  She's furious , of course.  Not that
she said as much.  She's reining in her emotions, but she's easy to
read.  I suppose I have a few of your talents myself."

Patrick watched the landscape glide beneath them.  Here there were
clumps of scrub, there a cow or two.  He could see a fence stretching
into forever, the distant sapphire gleam of a tributary of the
Victoria, a shed much like the one in which he and Mackenzie had waited
out the dust storm.

His eyes closed again.  Immediately he could see stars and dark velvet
skies, a vessel winging through space in exploration , a crew of beings
as radiant as the ones he had seen when he had been wrapped in
Mackenzie's arms.

"I suppose she feels that you've turned against her," Sebastian
continued.  "She does so want her uncle to buy Waluwara.  I shouldn't
want to be the one to explain your motives for helping me."

Patrick opened his eyes.  Perspiration dampened his skin.  His breath
came and went in small gasps.  He forced himself to calm.  Sebastian
was right about one thing; he was good at sensing feelings.  Patrick
did not want his own sensed now.

Below him, the land flowed into tomorrow.  He saw a track, nothing more
than a faint scar on the earth's surface A lone kangaroo bounded across
it, and far to the west a flock of emus, startled by the plane's
engine, ran through the brush as if making for a distant rendezvous.

Sebastian seemed unaware of his struggle.  "Clint, of course, had
nothing to say.  I don't trust him, you know.  He's not a man who can
be bought.  I've never understood why he stayed on here when other,
better opportunities presented themselves.  I wonder if he knows that
if it weren't for him and his excellent management, I would have lost
this property years ago."

Patrick stared at the earth sliding from his view.  And then he was
staring at green trees and fields, verdant, emerald green surrounded by
water so blue it seemed like a piece of the sky.  He was not in the
plane, but in a more complex vessel, and although his eyes were still
open, and the Australian countryside unfolded beneath him, it was
another vision he saw.  " " Lindsey," he whispered.  " " Pardon me? "

Patrick shut his eyes, and the vision grew as sharp as reality An
island in a lake.  A woman as different from Mackenzie as moonlight to
sunshine.

She danced along his consciousness now.  He reached for her, but only
light arced through the air.  Then the light was flesh.  He was flesh.
But not quite.  " " Stefan, " he whispered.

"Patrick," Sebastian said, "what'swrong?  If you'renot going to be any
good to me, for God's sake, say so now.  I'll tell the pilot to turn
back."

Patrick sifted through a hundred separate languages and a million
different realities to find the answer.  "No."

There was a door in his mind, a door he had held shut with every ounce
of strength.  Now it swung slowly open.  It was a heavy door guarding
all the secrets of his existence, a door with a thousand screaming
voices behind it.  But now the voices no longer screamed in unison.  He
heard one voice, the voice of a man.  Stefan's voice.

This race of yours Are they all like yocc?

His own.  Are you ready to find out ?

Lindsey's sobs.  An unspoken protest.

Then his own voice again.  Close yoccr eyes.  Clear your mind.

He opened his eyes, but his vision swam.

He heard Sebastian's voice as if from a great distance.  "I say,
Patrick, are you sure you're not ill?  You're as white as a sheet ! "

The door swung wider.  Patrick looked down at his legs, touched his
thigh, then his arm, with his fingertips.  He was flesh, as was the man
beside him.

But he hadn't always been so.

He heard another voice, the one that all along had been too powerful to
be barricaded from him.

The trcqth is there in every moment we live, every place we visit,
every vision we see.  But it's only there if we're ready to take it as
our own.  If we aren't ready, little one, the moment is like any other,
the place just a place, and the vision passes before oar eyes
ccnnoticed.  Only when we are ready to pluck the truth and hold it to
our hearts, does it become anything more than a dream.

Now he voiced his undentanding and thanks to the master who had once
spoken those words in the language of his people, a language that came
as fluidly to his lips as water flowing to the sea.

The door closed softly, but he knew that now he could open it any time.
He felt blood pumping through his body, and his vision cleared.  He
turned his head and saw the man beside him nod in satisfaction as his
color returned.  He heard the soft roar of the plane's engine and the
terse con venation of the consultants seated in front of him.  The air
inside the cabin was growing warmer.  Obviously they were approaching
the spot Sebastian had mentioned, dipping lower so that he could have a
closer look.

"What was that language you were just speaking?"  Sebastian asked.
"It's certainly not like anything I've ever heard."

Patrick turned to the window.  The answer was clear to him.  So much
was clear.  "the language of truth," he said.

Mackenzie paused in the doorway before stepping out to the veranda. She
heard voices, the voices of two people who were hidden in the lavender
shadows of twilight.  Voices near the place where vines as old as she
was twined along an iron grille to slade the veranda from noontime
sun.

"Edwina, how could you think I cared that your mother was from the
village?  Aren't I part of the village, too?  Wasn't I made a member of
the tribe along with Harry when I was a young man?"

Mackenzie recognized her uncle's voice, just as she recognized the
musical tones of the woman with him.  "If you're truly one with my
people, Clint," Edwina said, "then you must know how difficult it is to
walk in both worlds."

"I've never come to you because I didn't believe you could want me."

Mackenzie heard a gasp.  "

" Not want you?  " Edwina asked.

"I'm not an easy man."

"I've never asked for anything to be easy: '

There was a sudden hush.  Mackenzie backed away, letting the door fall
silently shut.

Her world spun on its axis.  She had lived almost all her years in this
house.  She had never guessed that in the eight years since the death
of Edwina Wallace's husband, Edwina and her uncle Clint had fallen in
love.

Her heart seemed to constrict.  She could hardly breathe.  She was
filled with joy for the two of them and such sorrow for herself and her
own shattered hopes that she could hardly contain it.

Had she sounded like Edwina at the billabong with Patrick ?  Expectant?
Exultant?  So sure of her own feminine powers that she had known she
could conquer any and all barriers that stood between them?  For that
moment, had she ignored all the problems that were to come, scorned
them because she believed so fiercely in what was right, what was q
inevitable, that problems seemed a mere blink of the eye?

She heard a scuffling on the porch, four feet trying to learn to walk
as two.  She drew a deep breath and backed into the hallway so that
when the front door opened, it looked like she was just coming out of
the parlor.

"I was just going out to get some fresh air," she said.

"You were just trying not to disturb us," her uncle said dryly.

She smiled, pushing down her own pain so as not to intrude on their
joy.  "I'm sorry.  I wasn't trying to spy."

"Edwina's agreed to become my wife," Clint said.

Mackenzie smiled at the other woman, the woman who had given her the
only taste of mothering that she could reqy rqnember.  "Thank you,"
Mackenzle told her.  "It will be a right bear of a job, but there's
nobody any better to take it on: '

She stood on the veranda after the hugs were over and Clint and Edwina
had left to go to the village to tell Harry and Edwina's family.  The
twilight shadows deepened into night.  For hours she stood quietly and
watched the stars emerge, one by one, until the sky was a resplendent
canopy Just before midnight one star blazsd across the sky, then burned
away, followed minutes later by another.

The third falling star seemed to trail fire in its wake, lighting the
sky with visions of glory.  She could no longer face the mythic beauty
of the night, the stars with their message of hope and endurance, the
meteors with their brilliantly memorable finales.

She turned and went inside to spend the rest of a sleepless night
alone.

Sunfisher pawed at the ground, restless and uncharacteristically
skittish.  Patrick patted his neck.  The horse was afraid, as well he
should be, but he trusted Patrick, and he knew that Patrick would
protect him from harm.

Since finding his way to this spot, Patrick had counted two falling
stars.  He knew he could sit this way forever, communing with the sky
above him.  He also knew that communion was not why he had been called
to this place.

Music filled his mind, notes from instruments unlike any he had heard
on earth, tones and clusters of tones that evoked immediate pleasurable
responses inside him.  Music filled his ears, and Sunfisher's ears shot
forward in response The horse danced under Patrick, but not in fear,
more as if he danced to the music his rider heard.

Patrick looked above him.  Another star appeared in the sky, blazing
toward them so suddenly that he didn't have time to react.  Sunfisher
grew still, but his body tensed as if he wanted to run.

Patrick soothed him with words the horse seemed to understand The star
drew nearer, the music louder, and the sky was suddenly filled with
eerie, pastel light.

The star came gently to earth two hundred yards away.

Patrick slid off Sunfisher's back.  He patted the horse's sides and
spoke to him.  Sunfisher moved off, but only a short distance.

Patrick started toward the spacecraft.  One hundred yards from it, he
began to run.

An opening appeared in the side.  He threw up his arms and let himself
be drawn through it.  Inside, he was surrounded by the language he knew
best, surrounded by beings of light.  He was cocooned by them, wrapped
in their joy at his coming, wrapped in their musical apologies. Wrapped
in their love.

The beings parted, circling him, but not too closely.  One stood alone.
Patrick bowed his head.  His very human eyes filled with tears.  " "
Master, " he said.

"You've forgotten.  I'm called Captain here," the being said.  " "
Captain, then.  "

The being stepped forward.  His form was nearly human, but his body
glowed with an unearthly brilliance.  "You are well?  "

"Yes, I am."

"Do you know how you came here tonight?"

"

" Yes.  You sent for me, called for me.  I heard you: '

"We've searched for you.  This place was not where we expected to find
you: '

"How long have you known where I was?"

"A little while.  How long have you known who you were?  "

"A very little while."

"Do you know exactly what happened to you?"

"

" Not everything.  "

The captain brought his arms together in a circle.  "Are you ready to
know?  "

"Y

"We were on a mission of exploration and diplomacy.  We come here from
time to time, to see if the people of this world are ready for our
knowledge.  They aren't."

"I've seen that for myself."

"We had problems with the ship, so we landed on the other side of the
planet, on a small island, Kelley's Island."

Patrick remembered.  "In Lake Erie."

"A woman saw us land, and we brought her on board.  But she was harmed
by the experience, and so we sent you to watch over her."

"Lindsey," he said.  "And I called myself... Alden."

"Alden Fitzpatrick," the captain said.

Patrick smiled at the irony.  "Well, a part of that stayed with me, at
least."

"Lindsey was dying, despite everything you did to save her.  You're a
healer.  Do you know that?"

"

"To save her, you merged momentarily with her husband , Stefan.  It had
never been tried in quite that way with a human.  You shared your
knowledge with Stefan so that he, with his greater understanding of
human physiology, could try to find a cure for her."

The vision of that moment was suddenly clear to Patrick He remembered
the terrible responsibility, the fear that he would do more harm than
good, the agony of bonding with another who was different than himself.
Then..

"I have no memories of what happened next," he said.

"Stefan survived.  Lindsey is recovering now: '

Patrick bowed his head.  Joy filled him.  "Then it was worth whatever
came afterward for me."

"Afterward you tried to reach us, but in the merging, you had changed.
You became like Stefan, just as he became like you."  The captain
stepped forward and touched Patrick.  Patrick gasped.  The sensation
was one of heat pulsating through him.  "You are human now," the
captain said.  "No longer only in human form.  Human."

"For how long?"

The captain didn't answer.  "Do you understand why you were drawn to
this place, this small dot on the planet?"

Patrick looked deep inside himself, but no answer emerged.  "I was
trying to reach you.  I remember falling through space.  I remember a
great, searing heat that destroyed my clothes and burned my skin. That
s all I remember Were you here?  Were you calling me

"I've never before been to this part of this continent."

"Then I don't know."

" " You may never know.  " The captain turned away.  " "What have you
told the people you've met?  What do they believe about you?  "

"That I have no memory.  That I'm a man with certain talents, which I
can use to make their lives better if I choose to."

"

" Have you healed anyone?  "

Patrick gazed from face to beloved face.  "Yes."

" " Have you used your powers to make changes that will affect the
course of life on this planet?  "

"I don't know."

The captain turned.  " " Because if you have, you must make amends
before you come with us.  "

"Can I come with you in this form?"  "Will you make amends?  Can
you?"

"Amends?"  He thought of the things he had yet to do.

"You have no right to change life here to suit your own vision."

Patrick closed his eyes.  "I have things I must do before I leave."

"Must you?"

" " Please!  " ) " You were always the child who was certain he knew
what was best for everyone.  "

"So I've heard you tell me in the past weeks.  Over and ) over in my
head."  He opened his eyes.  "Please, trust me to : know what is best
this time."

"You were always the child who made that plea."

"I can't leave yet: q'I feel a great stirring inside you at the
thought."  q'My business here is unfinished.  "

Z'he captain turned.  The two, different in form but still much alike,
gazed at each other.

"I understand what that means, and how it will eat at you forever if
you disappear from this place now.  But I can't let you go back unless
you promise you will return to the ship when you've finis bed

Patrick thought of Mackenzie.  He would return to the ship and leave
her light-years behind.  And when he did, he would never be allowed to
return to her.  She would be dead to him, an eternity away from his
side.  He would never ain feel her soft skin against his, never again
see the bright blonde of her hair, never sink into her femimne depths
to lose himself in her arms.  q'That's the only way it can be," the
captain said.  " Go and promise to return to us quickly, or come with
us now. "

"I promise I'll return.  Just as soon as I've completed my stay here:
'

The captain put his hands on Patrick's should en Patrick felt the beat
radiate through him.

"Then go, little one," the captain said.  "And hear my voice in your
thoughts no more.  What you do now, you musl do from the very depth of
your own soul."

"I haven't been " little one' for a long, long time, Mas "

The captain nodded.  "Nor have I been your master.  Son of my dearest
boyhood friend, child of my heart, you are your own master now: '

Chapter 14

The Wet came early, not with wildly howling fronts that marched on the
homestead like conquering armies, but with a gentle soaking rain that
coaxed wildflowers from their underground hiding places and turned the
grass green overnight The dry river and creek beds, nothing more than
depressions in the earth, did not fill; the Victoria, miles from the
homestead, did not overflow her banks.  The station tracks did not wash
out completely, and the stock men were not forced to rescue or shoot
cattle bogged down in mud or marooned on islands.  But the rain was a
reminder that those things were to come.  And soon.

From a short distance Patrick watched Sebastian pace back and forth on
the far east end of the station as stock men , station hands and
consultants alike struggled to move another piece of equipment into
place so that the drilling for manganese could begin.  There had been a
three-day delay in the arrival of the equipment, then a similar delay
in getting the equipment to the spot that Patrick had selected.  The
rain hadn't made the track impassable, only nearly so.  If the track
had been properly graded after the last Wet, as it should have been,
the rain would only have slowed them down a little.  As it was,
Sebastian was experiencing firsthand the consequences of allowing the
station's equipment to deteriorate.  There would not be time or money
to try another site if this one was a failure.

"You're sure this is the best place?"  Sebastian slowed his pacing long
enough to toss the question at Patrick.

Patrick heard shouts and knew the time to drill was at hand.  "You'll
find manganese here.  Lots of it."

"Caswell says it's never that certain."

"You're welcome to trust Caswell, if you prefer."

"You know I'll be ruined if this doesn't produce, don't you?  The
damnable rain has cut our time short."

"I know you think you'll be ruined."

"What does that mean?"  When Patrick didn't answer , Sebastian began to
pace again.  "If I find you've cheated me..  " " " You'll what?  "

"You'll live to regret it."

"A somewhat better fate than Walter Chinn's."

"He threatened me!"  Sebastian stopped and faced Patrick again.  "He
was going to take away everything I'd worked to build."

"

" And so you killed him?  "

Sebastian looked away.  "I didn't mean to."

"No?"

Sebastian stared into the distance, as if he was reliving that night.
"I was there to make peace.  Walter had always admired my gun
collection, particularly a nineteenth century six-shooter, a Colt
Whitneyville-Walker, to be precise Walter was a great fan of the
American West.  I presented it to him, hoping a gesture of goodwill
would keep him silent until I could straighten out some business
matters He accepted the Colt, thanked me, practiced loading it, then
told me he was going to expose me anyway.  When I discovered he'd been
playing me for a fool, I lost my temper and we began to fight.  I
lunged at him and grabbed the gun to hit him with the butt.  It
discharged in my hand: '

Patrick's expression didn't change.  "Why are you telling me now? Isn't
it to your advantage to make me think the worst of you?"

"You knew the truth already, didn't you?"

"I know that when Cbinn died by your hand, you felt only fear that
you'd be discovered."

"Then you're not infallible."

"No?"

"I never meant to kill him."

For the first time Patrick felt the other man's regret, a thin ray of
light piercing the roiling darkness inside Sebastian.  "I've misjudged
you," he said, "though not by much."

"You don't know what it's like to be me."

"For that, I'm thankful."  Patrick dismissed Sebastian with a curt nod
and started toward the drilling site.

"There had better be manganese here," Sebastian shouted after him.

Patrick strode on.  Now he bad seen the totality of the other man's
soul.  Next to that thin ray of regret had been a full measure of
cowardice.  Sebastian had not meant to kill Walter Chinn, largely
because Sebastian had been terrified of discovery.  He was a man ruled
by greed, but that greed was balanced by a dread that his freedom might
someday be taken from him.  It was that dread that kept him from being
truly dangerous.

For the first time Patrick was sure that no one at Waluwara had
anything to fear from Sebastian St.  Carroll.

"Is your uncle here?"  Sebastian stood in the doorway of the homestead
parlor as if he were really seeing it for the first time.

Mackenzie thrust her hands in the pockets of her moleskins and stepped
aside.  "We expected you day before yesterday"

Sebastian pushed past her.  "We got bogged down coming back.  Of
course, you must have assumed we would."

"I didn't assume anything of the sort.  Even my dislike for you doesn't
give me control of the heavens.  You took your own chances when you
decided to go for a treasure hunt this time of year."

"I'm here to see your uncle."

"He's in his study.  I'll get him.  Would you like to wait here?"

"I'll wait.  I won't like it.  There's nothing to like on this whole
bloody continent."

Mackenzie felt a thrill run through her at his words.

"Nothing?  What about a manganese deposit on the eastern end of the
run?"

Sebastian didn't answer.  She searched his face and found her own
answers.  "I'll get the boss."

"Do that."

She found her uncle gazing out the study window at the men, muddy and
obviously exhausted, coming back from Sebastian's treasure hunt.  He
didn't turn when she came in.  "I suppose he wants to see me."

"I'm not sure the news is what we were expecting."

This time he turned.  "No?"

"I'd like a favor."  "

" What?  "

"May I come with you to hear what he has to say?"

Clint studied her before he rose.  "If he'll allow it."  "

" Thanks "

In the parlor, Sebastian was fingering half of a carved emu eggshell, a
particularly fine example of bush craftsmanship presented to Clint
before Dilly Dan took his leave.

"I'm sure you're tired," Clint said, wasting no time on greetings.
"Would you prefer we talk after you've had a bit of a rest?  "

"Do you still want the station?"

Clint paused.  "At the right price," he said at last.  He sounded
neither eager nor reluctant.  Mackenzie struggled to control her own
feelings.

"I've offered it to Matthew Fraser, too."

"Surely his resources are greater than mine."

"But his desire to own Waluwara isn't as great."  Sebastian gripped the
eggshell with his considerable strength.

air had been as dry as sun-bleached bones.  Fear gripped qr,
irrational, primitive fear.  Patrick had come to her on a storm, and he
would leave on one, too.  She didn't know why or how, but the feeling
was as solid as the ground under her feet.

Perhaps he would convince Sebastian to take him to Darwin, or use part
of the money Sebastian had paid him to find his own way there.  Perhaps
he had remembered who he was, and he would be returning to his previous
life.  Perhaps he would just walk into the desert again and disappear
as he had appeared.  But however he took his leave, he would be going.
She knew this in every fiber of her being.

"Bloody hell."  She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and stared out
over the station.  Patrick would be leaving, but wasn't it for the
best?  Once he was gone she could returo to the life she had always
known.  She didn't need him or the endlessly complicated twists and
turns he had brought with him.  She didn't need to offer herself again
to a man who didn't want her, and she didn't need the upheaval of
emotion that came every time she thought about him.

He had refused her love, taken money to help Sebastian find manganese..
healed a seriously injured child, discovered much-needed water, saved
her uncle's life.  She looked toward the riding ring and in her mind
saw him with Sunfisher , although the ring was empty.  She saw him with
Brother on his shoulders, with the mulga snake, with the new roan colt
that followed him like a pet dog whenever he was near.  There was no
darkness in this man.  No greed, no temptation to hurt any living
thing.  That temptation had been hers.

She shut her eyes and saw Patrick's face the night he had refused to
make love to her.  He had been tormented, and in her humiliation she
had been unable to accept that torment for what it was.  He had not
wanted to hurt her, but he had believed that by making love to her, he
would hurt her more than by refusing.

And the manganese.  Somehow-she still couldn't comprehend the scope of
his powers-he had done exactly what Sebastian had asked of him, and by
doing so, he had as much as presented Waluwara to her uncle.  She
couldn't beqieve his powers were so great that he had known all along
how the search would end, but neither could she now believe that he had
acted from greed.  What signs had she ever witnessed that he was
anything but a man driven by the highest morals?

A shout in the distance forced her to open her eyes.  Harry and Reg
were riding toward the homestead.  She took the steps two at a time and
started in their direction.  "

"Harry!"  she called when she was near enough.  Have you seen Patrick?
"

"Not since he got back an hour or more ago.  He was on his way to the
men's quarters."

She waved her thanks and started in that direction.  At the quarters
the narrow veranda had an occupant," but it was Jack the bookkeeper,
not the man she sought.  Have you seen Patrick?"  she asked from the
ground below.  " " Uh-huh.  "

She pushed down her annoyance.  "Mind telling me where and when?  "

"Here.  Took off about half an hour ago," Jack said , scratching his
bearded chin.

She started a goodbye, then thought better of it.  "Is anyone
inside?"

He shook his head.

"Would you mind if I looked around for a moment?"

Jack shrugged.  He lived by himself in a two-room house beyond the
homestead.  Mackenzie knew she could have asked his permission to burn
the quarters down and she would have received the same wordless
reply.

Inside she scanned the large sleeping area for Patrick's cot.  She
found it against the far wall.  It was unmistakably Patrick's,
impeccably made and Spartan.  The few items of clothing he had
purchased from the station store were neatly folded on a carefully made
bed, along with half a dozen books he had borrowed from the homestead
library.  She fingered the knobs of the small dresser beside it, then
pulled one of the drawers open.  It was empty except for a few
toiletries , and so were the others.

She tried to picture all Patrick's worldly goods.  With the exception
of the clothes he was wearing, he had taken nothing with him.  But
obviously, quite obviously, he was leaving these few items for anyone
who could use them.  She rejected all the other explanations.  She
didn't believe 1>e had just finished his laundry and forgotten to put
it away.  She didn't believe he was preparing to move to a different
part of the quarters, a different building on the homestead.  Patrick
had gone away, and he didn't expect to return.

"Which direction did Patrick go?"  she asked when she was on the
veranda again.

Jack shrugged.

"Don't act the angora with me, you old billy goat.  You can point as
easily as you can shrug."

He looked aggrieved.  Then he tilted his head to the left.

"I hope your neck locks in that position."  She leaped to the ground
and started toward the paddock where the horses were kept.  Before she
was out of shouting range she whirled.  "Was he on horseback?"

His voice just barely carried the necessary distance.  "He was."

"One word more than necessary," she muttered.  "A blooming world's
record."

She caught and saddled Bounder, then left him at the gate while she
went for her swag and a water bag.  She didn't know how long she might
be gone.  Perhaps only an hour, perhaps longer, if she was caught in
the storm.  She was fastening her provisions to the saddle when she saw
the parade from the homestead begin.  The consultants were first,
heading toward the airstrip by foot.  Then as Harry brought the Holden
to the front, Sebastian emerged and had a few final words with her
uncle on the veranda before he climbed into the car.

She watched the car disappear around the back of the homestead and take
Sebastian St.  Carroll out of sight.  In the distance she could hear
the hum of an airplane engine.  She was in the saddle when the hum grew
louder.  She shaded her as and watched the plane appear and climb
toward the clouds.

Sebastian St.  Carroll was out of their lives.

She steered Bounder toward the house, where her uncle waited on the
veranda.  "Is he going to sell it to you?"  she asked.

Edwina came out to join him.  Clint put his arm around her shoulders.
"He's having the papers drawn up in Darwin "

She saw his happiness; she saw his worry.  Despite the station's
run-down condition, it would still cost every penny her uncle had saved
and borrowed to buy it.  And then some.  It would be a long time before
there would be any money to make the necessary improvements.  And only
then if luck was with him and everyone worked twice as hard as they had
before.

But sometimes miracles happened.

She thought of Patrick.  "I'll be leaving for a bit," she said.  " "
Where are you going?  "

"Seeking treasure."  She gazed at the two on the veranda , obviously so
content in each other.  In the past weeks everything had changed.
Waluwara would never be the same place again.

And that was good.

She smiled.  "You've found yours.  I still have to look for mine."

"I hope your luck's in," Edwina said.

"I think I'll have to make my own: She turned Bounder toward the west
and started away from the house.

Parallel to the edge of the garden she turned and looked at them once
more.  Neither her uncle nor Edwina had moved.  They were framed by
vines just beginning to turn green, while above them silver-edged
clouds gathered for another shower.  The homestead suddenly looked
particularly dear.  Had she ever really appreciated all she had been
given here, or all that she had learned?

"I love you both," she shouted.

Her uncle lifted his hand in farewell.  Tears sprang to her eyes,
although she didn't really understand why.  Then she nudged Bounder's
sides, and he leaped forward.

In a few minutes the homestead was no longer in sight.

Chapter 15

His business here was finished.  Patrick watched the sun sink behind
the thick horizon clouds in a haze of iridescent light.  Earlier in the
afternoon he had watched Sebastian's plane vanish behind clouds, too.
Only rarely in his lifetime had he paid attention to endings.  Beings
of his race lived for millenia, and his own life had always stretched
without end before him.

Now endings seemed a thing to contemplate at length.

Beneath him, Sunfisher whinnied softly.  With the sun's disappearance
had come the first soft drops of rain.  The rainfall wasn't unpleasant.
It splashed against his skin and dampened his shirt, but he knew that
as night fell, it would grow colder.  He slipped off the horse and
reached for the cape-shouldered stock men raincoat he had rolled and
brought with him.  He had saddled Sunfisher for the ride because the
horse would be going home alone.  When Sunfisher arrived at the station
without a rider, someone would unsaddle him.  And that person would
find Patrick's letter to Mackenzie and Clint.

Another ending would be completed.

After he pulled on the coat, he didn't mount immediately He listened,
sending out tendrils of his mind to the far reaches of the run.  He
listened, but the two beings he longed most to hear weren't within his
reach.  He had not been able to feel Mackenzie's presence or visualize
her form since he had ridden out of sight of the homestead.  And his
captain, somewhere out in space, was beyond his grasp, too.

Where was Mackenzie, and why couldn't his mind touch hers?  Panic
welled inside him, a feeling as foreign as his body had been to him at
the beginning.  He had left the homestead without a word, but he had
believed he was taking at least a part of Mackenzie with him.  Now he
knew that wasn't true.  She was as dead to him as she would have been
to anyone with only a human's capabilities.  How did humans tolerate
this separation from the ones they loved?  How was he going to tolerate
it?

The captain was another matter.  The captain would come when the time
was right, and when that time arrived, he would signal where he was to
land.  The meeting would be out here somewhere on Waluwara's vast
acreage.  Patrick knew that he was near enough to the ship's eventual
destination to make that journey a short one.  Now he had only to wait.
Wait and wonder what the future held for him.

As the rain began to fall harder, Sunfisher whinnied again.  Patrick
had expected to contact his ship before this.  Now he gave some thought
to where to wait.  Had the weather been dry, he would have found a
stretch of grass to lie on.  His all-too-human form needed sleep.  He'd
had little since his confrontation with Mackenzie.  Her words, her loss
of faith in him, had rung through his head in the hours when others
slept, just as once the captain's voice had rung through his
memories.

The rain made sleeping outside impossible, and he was miles from the
homestead.  But off to the south there was a shelter of some sort.  He
concentrated, using his powers to scan it, and found it was uninhabited
now.  It was larger than the hut that Mackenzie had taken him to after
she'd found him.  I. larger and in better condition, but still only a
hut.  The stock men sometimes used it when they were out on this end

of the run, and not too many years before, one of the men had taken his
new bride there to live for a year until she had pqsuaded him to seek
greener pasturesqq

"There s a place for you there, too, Patrick told Sunfqer , stroking
his neck in encouragement.  Then he mounted and turned the horse's
head.

There might be a place at the hut for both of them.  But as he rode
toward it, Patrick wondered if there would ever really be a place for
him anywhere again.

Rain bounced off the oiled cloth of Mackenzie's stock men 's coat and
the wide brim of her hat.  There were still thin shards of sunlight
shooting into the clouds from a sun that had nearly set, but soon it
would be too dark to continue her search.

She had trailed Patrick to this spot by following Sunfisher 's
distinctive hoofprints.  One, the right foreleg, had a small dent at
the bend of the shoe.  Now the rain was washing away the best evidence
she had, and by morning Patrick could be far from the homestead and
impossible to trace.

"I wish I could ask you for help," she murmured, patting

Bounder's neck.  "

" Patrick would know what to say.  "

Bounder whinnied, almost as if in sympathy.

She dismounted and searched the ground.  The rain splashed against her
neck as she bent to investigate.  There __were men in the village who
were such astute trackers that one leaf, one nearly invisible smudge in
the sand, could preach volumes to them about what had happened in that
place.  When she had been young, she had showed a talent for tracking
herself.  A village elder, Harry's father, had taught her some of his
secrets-a remarkable gift to give a white girl child.  Now she used
that gift to find the last fading hoofprints.

Through the haze of rain she could see the sky was deepening into dusk.
She scanned the horizon with binoculars for a figure on horseback, as
she had since she had left the homestead.  But Patrick had gotten just
enough of a start to elude her.

Would he travel in the dark or the rain?  If she knew where he was
going, or why, the question might have been easier to answer.  As it
was, she knew so little that she could only guess.  He wasn't familiar
with the vast expanses of the station, and surely by now he had heard
all the horror stories about men dying for lack of water during the Dry
or drowning in madly rushing rivers during the Wet.  An intelligent man
would be cautious.

No, he wouldn't keep traveling.  He would stop for the night.  Suddenly
Mackenzie was so certain of his choice that she forcerl herself to
pause and consider it again.  The same certainty filled her.  He would
stop, but not in the open.  He probably wouldn't be prepared to camp in
the rain.  He would seek shelter.

She searched her mind for potential havens.  The station was dotted
with huts, and there were several ramshackle cottages that had once
housed men, and sometimes families , to watch over vast expanses of the
property.  She reviewed all the possibilities and settled on a hut
about a kilometer to the west.  It was a bit south of where she stood
now, not on a continuous line with the trail she had been following.
But it made more sense than any other destination In a quarter of an
hour, with some hard riding, she would be able to see it.

She gave Bounder his head and let him cover the distance at his own
rough trot.  Almost as if he sensed company ahead, he broke into a
smooth canter as they neared the place where she knew she would have
her first view.  At the top of a low hill she looked into the distance
and saw smoke curling toward the darkening sky.

She had found Patrick.  What else she had found remained to be seen.

The rain fell harder as she rested for a moment.  Then, at a touch of
her heels, Bounder descended the hill.

One moment Patrick's mind and heart were empty of everything that
mattered, the next he was filled with Mac Out qzie,s image.  He dropped
another piece of wood on the the he had started, then stood to waitqfor
her on the porch.

Z;ightning split the sky, but he didn't need its fierce glow q see
Mackenzie's approach.  He saw it in his mind, felt her hope, her
trepidation, her half-formed desire to turn back.  ghe had come because
she d had no choice.  But now choices were occurring to her.  Now, when
she had almost found exactly what she'd sought.

When Bounder reached the porch, Patrick stepped into the rain.  She sat
tall and unflinching in the saddle, despite the water sluicing from her
hat to run in streams down her coat.

"I didn't know you were coming.  Not until you were almost here," he
said.

She held the reins tightly, as if she was afraid that Bounder-or
she-might bolt.  "I thought you knew everything about me."

"

" Come inside.  "

She sat still, contemplating the invitation.  Then she swung her leg
over the saddle and dismounted.

"I'll put Bounder in the back with Sunfisher," he said.  "Go on
inside."

"I'll see to my own horse."

"I'll see to him: He took the reins from her hand before she could
protest and led Bounder behind the hut.

Mackenzie stood in the rain for a moment before she stepped up to the
porch.  One moment water was running across every surface of her
clothes and body, the next the same rain was striking the iron roof
above her head and sliding in streams down the corrugated rows to
deepen a ditch circling the hut.

The memory of the smoke that had guided her here forced her inside. She
was shivering now.  The air had cooled quickly, and despite her coat
she was wet.  Before she removed it and went to stand by the fireplace,
she looked around the two rooms and remembered that a painfully shy
young woman had once lived here with her husband.  There were still
feminine touches blooming against the corrugated walls, dried
wildflowers in an amber bottle, a 1988

224 225

Somewhere Out There here Out There calendar sporting a dust-streaked
photograph of a rain- q. qqStop answering my questions with questions!
" bow.  There was a straw carpet on the glassy-smooth dirt ; ge smiled,
and the sadness in it made her throat close.  floor, and recent
visitors had swept the place clean-per;," I'm afraid I take after a
friend of mine.  A man named haps in deference to the woman's memory.
fan Daniels.  "

"There's a shelter for the horses behind us.  Bounder and q'I accused
you of accepting a bribe, Patrick.  I have to Sunfisher just fit."
Patrick came in as he spoke and put his q;qow if I'm wrong: coat on top
of hers.  q'You know you're wrong.  You've known it all along.  "

Mackenzie held her hands out to the fire and found they She lowered her
gaze.  She had known it.  She had never weren't quite steady.  "Nice
place you have here."  q":'qy believed that Patrick was capable of such
greed.  But

"How did you know where I'd be?"  nather had she been courageous enough
to believe the best

"I didn't.  I made a calculated guess."  But even as she said of him.
It had been easier to suffer the rejection of a scounthe words, she
knew that something more than guesswork drel than a saint.  had drawn
her to him.  "Yes," she said softly.  "I've known.  Bloody hell, I've

"Why did you come?"  he asked.  known all along, haven't I?  " " "Why
did you leave?  " q " "

He offered me a share of what we found.

He moved closer.  "It was time for me to go."

"pnd you could have found anything for him, anything

"Time now that you've done all you could for everyone you wanted."
concerned?  " " "

I found exactly what he asked me to.  "

"

" Have I done all I could?  "

She looked up and tried to smile, but she couldn't.  "Why

Mackenzie rubbed her hands together.  She didn't look at didn't you
tell me?  Why didn't you spend a few minutes with him.  "How much did
Sebastian pay you, Patrick?"  me to help me see the truth?  "

"You find that an important question?"

"Because if you had seen it, Sebastian would have, too.

"Yes."  Your anger was a smokescreen to hide the truth behind.  If

"Has he gone, then?"  you hadn't been concerned that I was helping
Sebastian, he

"He's gone.  He sold the station to my uncle."  would have been
suspicious.  He was so accomplished at ly "That's as it should being he
recognized any kind of deceit that was presented to

"You're not surprised?"  Mackenzie asked.  "Was that the him: way you
had planned for it to happen?"

"Except yours, apparently."

"I'm not God.  No more than any other man.  I can't cause " Yes.  "
anything to happen."

"But that wasn't your only reason, was it?"

She faced him.  The flames were warm against her back, He shrugged. but
she scarcely felt them.  "Then you deny that you pur- " You wanted me
to be angry at you.  You thought I'd find posely found a grade of
manganese that Sebastian wouldn't your departure easier to cope with if
I was angry.  Maybe you see fit to mine?  You had no idea that it was
of such poor even thought it would help you avoid a row.  You could cut
grade when you identified the deposit?  " and run without a goodbye."

He didn't answer.  He was ashamed of himself.  Until that moment he
hadn't

"What did he pay you?"  she repeated.  "Tell me what he completely
understood his own motivation.  He hadn't paid you: wanted to
understand it.  Apparently he was even more hu " What do you think he
paid me?  " q man than he had thought.  " It almost worked.  "

"But it didn't.  Because here I am, standing right in front of you.  So
say goodbye to me, Paddy.  Tell me why you're leaving and say goodbye.
You owe me that much for saving _ your life."

He couldn't speak.  He was so torn by emotion that he couldn't find
words to explain himself.  There were tears in

Mackenzie's eye5, though he doubted she knew it.  Tears and something
unspeakably beautiful shimmering behind them.

Her words demanded that he tell her goodbye, but her eye5 told him
something different.  She didn't want him to leave.

She never wanted him to leave.  "

" Say it, Paddy !  "

He knew that a lie would be kind.  He could invent a past that called
to him, a past and a situation that she couldn't interfere with.  He
could tell her of his imaginary family, of the wife whom he pretended
to remember and the children who counted on him for support and love.
He could make up a story, implausible though it might be, that
explained why he had been facedown in the de5 crt dying of exposure
when she had found him.

But he couldn't lie to her.  And he couldn't tell her the truth.

"I have to leave," he said, turning away from the brilliance of her
tear-filled eyes.  " " I can't tell you why.  Don't ask me to.  "

"You have to?  You have no choice?  With all your special abilitie5,
you have no say in this?"

"I'm nothing.  And I have ... people I must answer to, just like all of
us: '

"Then you've remembered who you are?"  "

" I can't tell you anything else.  "

She moved closer to him.  She wanted to make him look at her.  "Don't
tell me you're powerle5s!  I've seen you in action, remember?  No one
is pulling your strings.  You want to leave.  Something... someone is
tugging at you: q She touched his arm.  Reluctantly he turned.  She was
so close.  Too close.  By her standards he was powerful beyond
imagining, but at that moment he felt no power.  He only felt himself
drawn closer to her.  The power was hers.

here Out There 227 '"" I don't want to leave you," he said.  He saw his
words ed in her eyes.  He gave a harsh sigh and framed her with his
hands.  " I don't want to leave you!  But I don't have a choice: qqWhy
not?  Who are you?  " She covered his hands with her own.  " Why won't
you tell me?  It can't be worse than not qtuowing the truth.  It can't
be!  "

"Mackenzie."  He uttered endearments in his first lan ;q, pulling her
close and holding her to him.  The sounds flowed over her like the
rain, but unlike the rain they warmed He warmed her.  ghe lifted her
head and looked into his eyes.  "I love you " q she said softly. 
"Bloody hell, I love you, Patrick.  And whqever you are, I'll love you
still.  It doesn't matter.  Just don't leave me.  Don't go away and
leave me here without you: '

He kissed her.  He told himself not to.  He told himself that he was
changing her world for all time, interfering in a life with which he
could have no contact after tonight.  But he

told himself these things as he kissed her.  Because no matter what his
thoughts, he couldn't force himself to stop.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close.  She tasted
his desire and his anguish, felt them in every cell of her body.  "Are
you married?"  she whispered.  q'Tell me you're not married.  " q'I'm
not: He breathed the words against her cheek.  The q ceremony he had
remembered had not been his own.  He lived alone; he had always
preferred his freedom.  Never had he even been tempted to take a mate.
Now he knew why.

His temptation had dwelled on another planet, in another system, in
another kind of physical reality.  His temp ;tqtion, his mate, was here
in his arms.

"I don't know what I would have done if you'd said yes!  " "q_She
kissed him again, slanting her lips over his first one way, then
another.  She stroked him with the palms of her hands qneaded his flesh
with her fingertips, rubbed her thighs qqst his as she kissed him
harder.  :: He groaned, a man reduced by his own physical urges to al
or angel-he wasn't sure which.  He only knew that this time he wouldn't
have the control or strength to refuse her unless he left her now.

"We can't."  He tried to pull away and found it was impossible He was
as trapped by his desire as if he was caged.

"We are."  She was triumphant, woman conquering man, woman reshaping
the world to her own wishes.  She sensed his reluctance, but more, so
much more, she sensed his need and his passion.  Whatever stood between
them wasn't as important as what united them.  He wanted her.
Desperately And that was enough.

The bed in the corner of the room was covered by a quilt.  She wondered
if it had been the stockman's marriage bed, and if, before leaving the
hut, his wife, in a fit of sentimentality , had not been able to bear
to expose it to the elements She led Patrick to it now, bore him there
on the tide of their passion.

She was innocent, untutored, but in some strange way, he was more so.
He held on to every touch, every kiss, every moment, savoring it in
wonder.  She unbuttoned his shirt , and he pressed her hands against
his chest.  He unbuttoned hers and explored each softly padded curve
and angle.

"I love you," she whispered again.  She lowererl herself to the bed and
held out her arms.  He shut his eyes as if trying to deny himself even
the sight of her, but at her touch, he opened them again.

"I love you," he said.  "I always will: '

She saw the torture in his eyes.  "Please, don't worry now," she
whispered.  "Whatever it is, I'll help you: '

He answered her in the language she didn't understand but the words
soothed her.  When he lay down beside her, she took him in her arms
again and tried to kiss away his fears.  His hair was like sunlight
against her fingers; his skin pulsed with life.  She wondered how she
could have denied herself a man for so long and answered in the same
thought that if he hadn't appeared, she might have denied herself
forever.

He murmured to her again as his lips found the speeding rhythm of her
heart.  He savored the herbal fragrance of her hair, the warm cream
flavor of her skin.  He wanted to abOut b her inside him, yet the fact
that they were two separate 'es fascinated him.  He explored with more
fervor, reqqing the scrap of cloth that bound her breasts so that he
qqd experience them in their totality.

When she moaned, he knew he was pleasing her.  He could ; q q plqsure
emanating in shock waves throughout him.  It increased his own pleasure
tenfold.  Perhaps he could not " sqorb her, but he could know what she
knew, feel what she felt.

He wondered if she could do the same.  He wanted to q know, had to
know.  He couldn't bear that the pleasure, the q,munication, might only
be one-sided.  "Mackenzie," he wqpered, "do you know what you're doing
to me?"

Her answer pleased him.  She arched against him as he took the tip of
one breast between his lips.  He could feel parts of himself becoming
as hot and turgid as the breast he suckled.  He slid his hands under
the waistband of her moleskins, then around to unsnap them.  Her
response was to unsnap his.

He could not absorb her, but he could experience her.  He could tell
her, without words, thought to thought, exactly what he wanted.

Exhilaration filled him.  He murmured the chant of the mating ceremony.
He remembered every word, and he slid tbewords along her skin, filled
her pores with them, buried them in her hair.  q_ She gave a small cry
when he had undressed her and they were flesh to flesh with nothing
between them.  She was immersed in sensation, so filled with Patrick,
his touch, his kisses, the totality of him, that she felt as if she was
in a dream.  Her fears were gone; her doubts had vanished, too.

She was sure that no one had ever experienced this pleasure , that no
one could ever understand-even if she could find a way to explain-that
this joy could exist in the world.

Her legs were strong from hours, days, years spent on horseback.  She
used them now to bring him closer.  She wanted nothing between their
spirits; she cursed the flesh that was giving her pleasure, because it
separated them when ; stqe yearned for them to be one.  She could feel
the heat of his arousal as well as her own, more secret heat.  There
would be an explosion when they merged; she knew it deep inside her,
There would be an explosion, and the world would change forever.

She wanted the world to change.  She could not bear for it to stay the
same.  She wanted it to change while she was wrapped around this man,
and when they emerged together , she wanted it to create a place for
them, a place far from doubts and fears and the mysterious things that
were driving Patrick away from her.

She opened her eyes and looked into his.  She saw he was waiting for
her, for some small sign that she was ready for the earth to stop
spinning in quite the same way.

"Yes," she said.  "Oh, yes, Patrick.  No matter what happens next.
Yes."

His eyes closed, but she knew he could still see her.  She lifted her
hips to his and felt him sliding inside her.  All the barriers between
them fell away.  All the doubts, the fears, their very flesh.  She was
transported to another world, another reality.

She was transported to the stan and the heavens, through the universe,
into infinity, in Patrick's arms.

Chapter 16

There was the faint, pleasant tang of wood smoke, the percussive splash
of rain beating on metal and the taste of Patrick's kisses on her lips.
Mackenzie absorbed it all without opening her eyes.  Her body ached,
but the pain was nearly as delicious as the lovemaking had been.  She
could almost feel Patrick's hands against her skin stroking her , just
as he had stroked her as she'd fallen asleep.  q q was a man of many
special abilities.  Now she had been privy to one more.

She turned to her side.  A trace of shyness delayed the moment when she
would open her eyes.  She was shameless, s true wanton who'd had little
on her mind except satisfying her animal instincts.

She smiled lazily at the thought.

She and Patrick were destined to be together now, for better or for
worse.  Their union had been both earthbound lust and a heavenly merger
of their spirits.  She wasn't experienced -witness the ache in places
that would soon grow eqcustomed to Patrick's explosive sensuality-but
she knew that what had happened between them was as powerful as life
itself.

She opened her eyes.  Patrick was nowhere in sight.

She sat up and looked around the room.  The fire had almost died away;
she had been asleep longer than she'd thought.

No one moved through the two silent rooms.

She swung her legs over the bed, panic welling inside her.  "Patrick?"
His name resounded against corrugated iron.  There was no other sound.
"Patrick?"

She stood and found her clothes.  His were gone.  Perhaps he was only
outside, tending to the horses.  But even as she scrambled for some
explanation other than the obvious, horrifying one, she knew she was
just wasting time.

She pulled on her pants and shirt, barely registering that they had
been on the floor long enough to dry.  "Patrick , damn it, where are
you?"

She heard a whinny be bind the hut.  One whinny, from one horse.  She
searched the room for her coat and hat before she saw them neatly
folded on a table beside the door.  She had pulled on the coat and was
fumbling with the double row of snaps when she saw a piece of paper on
the table

She refused to pick it up.  She saw her name at the top, but she
glanced away, to avoid it.  "Patrick!"

Outside the rain was falling harder.  Sebastian had left the station
just in time.  This was no harbinger of things to come.  This was the
long-awaited Wet, early, but no less dramatic than it had ever been.
The drought had ended.

She ran to the back of the hut and found one horse, sheltered , but
white-eyed from the steady ping of rain against metal.

"Bounder."  She threw her arms around his neck.  As if he understood
her misery, he stood still for her caresses.  "Where did they go,
Bounder?"

The horse nuzzled her in sympathy.

Out from under the shelter she scanned the horizon, but what moonlight
there might have been was hidden under clouds and sheets of rain.
Patrick and Sunfisher had disapqred into everywhere and anywhere.

She had no choice now but to go inside and read Patrick 's letter.  It
was the only clue left her.  There was no light to find tracks, even if
the rain didn't wash them away minutes after they were made.

She didn't remove her coat.  She let it drip on the floor as she lifted
the letter and took it to read beside what was left of the fire.

There were only a few sentences.  Patrick couldn't tell her why, but he
had no choice except to leave her.  He loved her; 1qe always would.  If
there had been a way, any way, he could have stayed, he would have. But
staying was impossible.

And under those words, penned in a bold, flowing script, was a map of
the station, Waluwara in painstaking miniature , with circles marking
half a dozen spots where rich, high-grade deposits of manganese could
be found.

And one diamond mine.

Diamonds.  She knew that diamonds had been found in the Kimberleys of
Westero Australia in the 1970s, making Australia the largest diamond
producer in the world.  Though most of what was mined wasn't gemstone
quality, the find produced diamonds for industrial use, millions of
carats a year.  There had been talk of potential diamond deposits in
the Northern Territory.  Talk.

Diamonds.

In her hands she held all the solutions to Waluwara's financial
problems.  With the help of other investors, her uncle could choose
carefully what to mine and when.  He could prevent an unbridled rape of
the land and take just enough from it to insure that Waluwara
flourished.  Now there would be money to make all improvements, from
refurbishing equipment to buying better breeding stock and constructing
sturdy paddocks to ensure that a controlled breeding program was
successful.

But Patrick wouldn't be there to witness any of it.

She folded the letter with its skillfully drawn map and tuckq it deep
inside her shirt.

Outside again, she stood on the nanow porch and gazed at the sky.  The
storm was a constant.  Wishing was not going to make it disappear.
Trying to follow Patrick to stop him from leaving was foolhardy.  She
had no light, no tracks.  She had nothing but a horse with a steadfast
heart and her own instincts.

She rested her face in her hands.  She had never felt more alone or
helpless.  She possessed nothing that would help her find Patrick.  No
inkling of where he might be heading, no information about his past to
help her make calculated guesses.  She knew he was a special man, a man
with powers unlike any she had seen.  Perhaps he even had the ability
to disappear into thin air.  Hadn't he come from thin air?

She remembered the day she had found him.  She had been riding Bounder
that day, too, and she had almost passed him by.  But Bounder had been
stubborn.  And when she had used her instincts in conjunction with the
horse s, she had been guided to Patrick's side.

Could she do it again?  Was she kidding herself?  Was she so steeped in
the mystery of Patrick's powers that she fancied she had some of her
own?

But she had found Patrick that first day.  The dust storm had swirled
around her like the rain was swirling now.  The sky had been dark, not
as dark as it was at this moment, but her vision had been curtailed.
She had found him because she had allowed herself to believe she could.
She had been determined to discover the source of Bounder's nervousness
and the shivers creeping along her own spine.

Was she less determined now?

She gathered together the few things that Patrick had unpacked from her
saddle.  Her swag, her water bag.  Outside under Bounder's shelter, she
found his saddle and hoisted it up on his back, taking care to fasten
it properly before she added the burden of her few belongings.  In a
few minutes she was in the saddle, ready to depart.

One thought very nearly stopped her.  Was Patrick's leaving a kindness?
Was he protecting her from something so terrible that she was better
off not knowing what it was?  The sudden dampness of her palms had
nothing to do with the storm.  She felt herself poised on the bank of a
rushing river.  She might battle to cross it, use every last ounce of
energy to reach the other side, only to find that the other side was
the outskirts of hell.

In her mind she saw Patrick's face.  It would stay with her always;
everything about him would stay with her always.  If the other side of
the river was hell, then hell was where Patrick was.  Nothing, not
hell, not a terrifying revelation about who or what he was, could keep
her from his side.

She nudged Bounder, and willingly, he started into the storm.

The rain wouldn't keep the ship from landing, although it would slow
its progress.  In comparison to the storms Patrick had seen on other
planets in other galaxies, this one was mild.  There were no cascades
of fire, no bursts of noxious gases, no plagues of insects or
purple-eyed predator birds.

There was only rain, soft and wet against his flesh.  His flesh.
Patrick reined Sunfisher to a stop and looked out over the landing
site, where he had been instructed through telepathy to wait.  His
flesh tingled with memories, tactile memories burned into a living
substance that his own people had abandoned millenia ago.  What a
mistake it had been to ascend to a state where flesh was unnecessary
and everything that went with it became unnecessary, too.

There were pleasures in his world, knowledge and warm friendship and
love of family.  As a boy he had been thrilled to learn all the
philosophy, customs and vast stores of information that his people had
collected throughout eternity The master had been his teacher, even
though he was a teacher of teachers and hadn't needed even to speak to
one small boy.  But Patrick's parents had left him while he was still
young to take a short voyage through space, and when they had never
returned, the master had taken over his education Later he had taken
Patrick on space voyages, too, until Patrick was as accomplished as any
of his people at navigation.

All these things had been pleasures.  But none of them compared to what
he had experienced with Mackenzie.  He would go back to his own race
now, perhaps even find a way to return to his original form.  He would
be bathed in the love of those he had always known, continue his
intellectual and physical journey through the universe.  And all the
time, even in years to come, when surely Mackenzie would be dead here
on earth, he would think of her and yearn for her.  No, not yearo.  The
word was too weak.

He uttered another, one from his own language.  It meant to suffer the
darkest torment, to long so desperately for something that everything
else in life became immaterial.  To waste away.  To stop growing.
Finally, unfulfilled, to die.

But he could not stay here.  He had a human body, but he was more. Even
here, almost as far from civilization as man could live on this planet,
he had used his very alien powers to change this tiny corner of the
world.  He had not been able to resist temptation.  He had used his
abilities to thwart St.  Carroll.  He had used them to better life for
the people of Waluwara.  And worst of all, he had succumbed to
temptation in the form of one human woman whom he never should have
touched, never should have fallen in love with.

He was not strong enough to live here.  He would change anything and
everything with which he came in contact.  And in changing the small
things, the seemingly inconsequential ones, he would change human
history and the hope that this planet would continue to evolve in its
own best way.

He felt Sunfisher move restlessly beneath him.  He would miss the
horse.  He had ridden other, far less appealing creatures, but he had
never felt one with their flesh, because he had never understood flesh
in quite the same way.  Still, Sunfisher would be fine.  He would
return to the station to be cared for by other stock men Intelligent
and alert, he would be in demand as a mount, and he would live out his
days in relative comfort.  Soon he would even forget the human sitting
on his back now, the human who had been able to establish a primitive
communication with him.

Mackenzie wouldn't forget.  She would long for Patrick as he would long
for her.  She would not marry, not bear children .  unless they had
created a child together tonight.

Had he repeated the sin of Mackenzie's father?  Had he left her to
swell with his baby, to raise it without his participation ?  Somehow
he knew that if that was the case, she would not repeat the mistakes of
her mother.  She would raise the child at Waluwara, teach it everything
she knew, shelter it, love it, give it the best inside her.  She would
be devastated by the loss of the child's father, but she would love the
child just as fiercely.

There were no stars in the heavens tonight.  The rain fell harder, and
the clouds only seemed to thicken.  But behind one cloud Patrick saw a
faint glimmer of light.  It was not a star.  He felt its identity deep
inside him.

His hands tightened on the reins.  For a moment his 1>uman flesh
rebelled.  He yearned to turo Sunfisher toward the homestead, toward
the two-room hut where Mackenzie lay dreaming of him.

The light grew brighter.  Sunfisher danced beneath him.  Patrick drew
the reins tighter.  Then he dropped them and bowed his head.

He uttered the word that expressed the longing he would feel from that
moment forward.

It mimicked the sound of tears.

At first Mackenzie hadn' tbeen able to decide what direction to take.
She had sat at the top of a low h l, holding Bounder still to keep him
from bolting.  There had been lightning far in the distance, just the
occasional flash followed by the low rumble of thunder.  But the
worsening weather had made the horse nervous-or at least somettsing
had.  She had reined him tight and freed all her senses to make the
decision for her.

Then, without understanding why, she had chosen the route that seemed
to lead into the heart of the storm.  With Bounder steadier beneath
her, she had ridden into it.

Nearly an hour had passed.  She was so numb with cold that the rain was
no longer a torment.  She had no clues that she was heading in the
right direction.  She knew where she was, and where she was going.  She
knew that there was a dry streambed not too far in the distance, and
that it might be filling with water even as she rode toward it.  If it
was, and she crossed, she might not be able to return for days, even
weeks.

She wanted to shout for Patrick, but she knew how foolish that would
be.  He wouldn't answer, even if he heard her.  He would ride faster,
harder, farther.  Even now she struggled to block him from her mind.
She sensed that there were things she could do to keep him from
discovering that she was trailing him.  That sensation, that knowledge,
was new and wholly untried, but she struggled to follow her instincts
in this, too, just as she struggled to follow the course she had
chosen.

She was nothing but instinct now.  She wondered if making love to
Patrick had somehow taught her what she needed to know to find him.  Or
had their lovemaking only opened her up to a wealth of feelings and
instincts that she had covered up all her life?  Whatever the answer,
she knew she had to trust herself now.  q

SI>e urged Bounder on.  In another half hour they neared the stream.
She dismounted and walked to the edge.  There was so little light that
at first she couldn't make out the state of it; then, as she tugged her
hat over her face to shield her eyes from rain, she got her answer.
Water was filling the wide bed.  There was nearly a foot covering the
bottom, and it appeared to be rising fast.  She and Bounder could
cross, but if the rain continued, and it likely would, the stream could
rise and become a rushing torrent.  Then it would separate her from the
homestead.

Now it separated her from Patrick.

"Come on, Bounder: She stepped into the stream and felt the water rush
over the tops of her elastic-sided boots.

The bottom was already spongy, and each step was more difficult than
the last.  She tucked the reins under her arm, and Bounder followed
reluctantly.

The water rose higher as they approached the center of the qqeam.  A
large branch rushed past her, catching her with the tip of a spidery
limb that almost knocked her off balance Bounder, frightened by the
object, reared up and jerked her backward off her feet.  She recovered,
soothed him and started once again for the other side.  They were
almost to the opposite bank when she heard the pitiful bawling of a
calf.

Intuitively she knew what had probably happened.  The mother cow had
gone to the streambed to drink, perhaps before the water began to flow
so rapidly.  Her calf had followed and ventured too far.  Then, when
the calf tried to cqimb out, its feet had bogged in the mud.  The
harder it had struggled, the more it had bogged.  Now it was just a
matter of time before the pitiful small body would be covered with
water.

She had to let it die.  She was probably far behind Patrick as it was.
If she didn't keep searching now, she would never find him.

The calf bawled louder, its terror readily apparent.  From somewhere
farther up the bank she heard its mother reply.

Unconsciously Mackenzie's hand rested on her belly.  Her qead bent, and
she gazed at her hand.

She could be carrying Patrick's child.  She hadn't thought of it until
that moment.  They hadn't used any form of birth control; she hadn't
even considered it.  She could be pregnant with Patrick's child!

The calf bawled again, its mother answered, and Macqe could hear the
cow's distress.  She was an animal, but lqr feelings were strong.  Her
instincts told her to do what qhe could to save her offspring.  She
might even die in an atqempt to lead the calf to safety.  Mackenzie had
seen it be ': fore.  If necessary the cow would die for her calf just
as Mackenzie would die to save the child inside her.  Bloody hell," she
whispered fiercely.  She grabbed Bounder's reins with both hands and
led him safely across.

Then, still leading him, she went in search of mother and child.

More than half an hour passed before she and Bounder were on their way
again.  The calf and its mother had been reunited and shooed toward
higher ground.  Mackenzie was covered with mud that even the hard rain
couldn't entirely wash away, and she was physically exhausted from
wrestling with the stream and the calf.  q

She dug her heels into Bounder s sides, but he had little to give her
in the way of speed.  He had borne much of the burden of pulling the
calf from the streambed, and he was exhausted, too.

An impending sense of loss filled her as she rode into the storm again.
Her instinct was blurred by fatigue.  Waluwara was thousands of square
kilometers.  What had made her think she could choose the right
direction?  And even if the general direction was correct, missing
Patrick by half a kilometer was the same as missing him by a hundred.

She was not going to find him.  She reimed Bounder to a halt to try to
clear her mind and find the trail that had seemed so right to her
before.  But all she could feel was fear.

Patrick would soon be gone.  She knew it as surely as she knew her own
name.  Soon it would be too late to find him.  He would disappear
forever, and she, like her mother, would be left to mourn the absence
of the man she loved.

But she was not Mary Kate.  She would not give up without a fight.  She
had only the dimmest vision of where to go, but she would follow it.
She would follow it until there was no vision at all, until the moment
when she was certain

Patrick was gone for good.

"Come on, Bounder."  She kicked him again.  He moved a little faster.
She leaned forward to encourage him, and he moved faster still.  In the
distance, in line with her path, the clouds parted to reveal a glow.
For a moment she thought the storm was abating and the glow was the
hidden moon.

Then she realized it was too bright.

She kicked Bounder again, apologizing silently for asking so much of
him on the treacherous, spongy earth.  He gave her more, as if he, too,
realized the importance of speed.

She had no idea what the light might be, but every part of her knew it
had something to do with Patrick.  She guessed it was a plane, perhaps
some sort of vessel from one of the controversial outback military
bases.  Her mind sorted through explanations, each more impossible than
the one before.  Patrick had been part of a military experiment in
extrasensory perception.  Patrick was a spy from another country,
perhaps one who had been left for dead.

The light grew brighter, then began a descent.  Fear filled her, and
beneath her Bounder slowed, then, despite all her efforts, came to a
halt.  He reared, almost unseating her.  As he did, he gave a terrified
scream.

Slle succeeded in calming him enough to dismount.  He was no good to
her now.  His ears were flat against his head , and his eyes were wild.
As soon as she was on the ground again, he reared once more.

The light seemed to be approaching earth almost half a kilometer away.
Half a kilometer, and whatever the light was, she knew it had to do
with Patrick.  In an instant she weighed her options.  Bounder would
not be penuaded to go on without a fight, and she had no time to fight.
She had to get to the light, whatever it was.  She had to find Patrick
now.

She began to run.  Behind her she heard the sharp clack of horseshoes
against stone and knew that Bounder was on his way back to the
homestead.  She had no time to worry about what that meant for her. She
ran on, stumbling once in the darkness, then, almost at her
destination, again.  Pain shot through her leg the second time, but she
ran anyway, although now each step was a torment.

The light sank closer toward the earth.  She ran, stumbling again and
again as her leg gave way beneath her.  She was so tired that for a
moment, as the light seemed to touch ground, she thought she was
floating.  She wanted to close her eyes, to rest for a moment, but a
voice inside her demqded that she not give in.

She slowed to a hobble, because now she was dragging her leg behind
her, but she moved as fast as she was' able " " Patrick.  " Her voice
was nothing but a rasp.  Patrick!  "

She looked up and saw that the light was a glorious display of colors
pulsing through the air to lap at the ground just meters away.  She
could barely breathe, not just from exhaustion, but from the
magnificence of the spectacle.  She had concentrated so hard on
reaching this place that she had shut her mind to everything else.  Now
she heard music, an array of sounds unlike any she had ever heard
before.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she dragged herself on.  She knew she had
to reach the light, that if she didn't, couldn't, she would never see
Patrick again.  Her leg gave way beneath her, and this time she
couldn't stand.  She dragged herself across the ground, clawing her way
toward the light, which seemed to be receding now.

"Patrick!"  She clawed onward, lifting herself on her good leg to
propel herself forward.  Tean streamed down her cheeks.

Her fingertips touched the light's edge.  She could see the rainbow
hues dance along her nails.  She rose again and propelled herself
forward once more.  Now her hands were bathed in color, then her
wrists.

"Mackenzie!"  She heard Patrick's voice from far away.  She shouted to
him, but the sound seemed to catch in her throat.

She felt herself being lifted, and suddenly she was in his arms.  The
torment in her leg disappeared as if she had never been injured.

"You weren't supposed to see this!"  He held her tighter , as if his
mere human strength could save her from what was to come.

"What is it?"  She could barely whisper the words.  "

" You know what it is: '

She did know, but I>er mind refused to move one step farther.  "But why
are you here?  Why do they want you?"

"I'm one of them."  He held her tighter and felt her jerk at his words.
"I'm one of them, and they've come to take me back: " "But you're human
!  " " " That, too.  "

The music grew louder.  She slipped her arms around his waist and
locked them.  "Patrick, don't go.  I don't care what you are, who you
are!  Stay with me!  " " " I can't stay.  "

The music seemed to slip inside her, and even though her eyes were
shut, the colon seemed to slip inside her, too.  She held on tighter
and pushed the music and colors away.  She knew, without knowing how,
that she had to resist.

"You'll go to sleep," he said softly, "and when you wake up, this won't
even be a dream.  You'll forget what you saw: '

"I'll never forget!"  She opened her eyes.  "I won't forget !  Not any
more than you'll forget me!  Can you promise that a little magic will
change everything?  That I'll forget I loved a man from another..  "

"Dimension?  Planet?"  He kissed her, because there was nothing left to
say.  He felt the warmth of her lips, the terror in the way she
clutched him.  He had a sudden, perfect vision of how she had looked
and felt when she was naked against him.

He shut his eyes and felt the ship land.  Then he loosened his grip on
her and tried to push her away.  "You'll forget you saw this."

"Then what shall I tell our child?  That his father disappeared one
night, and that I don't remember anything more?  "

"There may not be a child."

She grabbed his hand and set it against her belly.  She knew the truth
now, had known it since crossing the stream.  " " Feel your son come to
life under your hand!  "

His throat closed.  He couldn't breathe or swallow.  He felt the
stirring of life inside her just as surely as she did.  She j would
have his baby.  His son.  He would leave more than a

244 Somewhere Out There Somewhere Oict There 245

legacy of so now in this desolate, savagely beautiful place.  He would
leave part of himself.

He heard the soft purr that meant he would soon be drawn into the
vessel.  He tried to move away from her, but he could not.  She locked
her arms around his waist again.  "You'll have to use force to make me
leave you," she said.

The pun became a roar.  He clutched her against him.  In that moment he
knew he could not use force.  He couldn't even give her a gentle push.
He did not want to leave her or their child.  There were no universal
laws that were more important than protecting her.  " " Hold on !  "

She felt herself being lifted in his arms.  The ground disappeared
beneath her feet.  They were drawn through the air together in a
pathway bathed in light and pastel, welcoming colors.  Terror filled
her, but she held on to him, because she knew that if she loosened her
grip, she would never see him again.

When she opened her eyes she was inside a room like none she had ever
seen.  The walls were shimmering, iridescent light.  Patrick was still
holding tightly to her.  She felt him steel himself, as if for
battle.

Then a being like none she had ever seen appeared in front of her.  She
gasped, but not in terror.

"You were always the child who did what he thought was best, " said a
voice, emanating from the being in front of her.

"And now I am a man who does what he knows is right," Patrick said in
his own language.  "I cannot, will not leave her!"

As Mackenzie watched, stunned, the being transformed until its
substance, little more than radiant light, became flesh.  The being,
now in the form of a man, moved toward her.

He was silver-haired, but his face was unlined, and his eyes were the
brown of Waluwara's earth.  "l'you have unusual courage," he said in
English.  "How many humans would have faced the odds that you did to
come here?"

"I'm not leaving: Mackenzie felt herself being drawn toward the man.
She grasped for Patrick's hand.  " Don't try to make me leave.  "

The captain held out his hand, but he didn't touch her or motion her
closer.  "You won't be asked to leave.  You have always been welcome
here."

She stared at him.  "Always?  What does that mean?  Do you think I knew
about you before this?"

"Didn't you?"

She felt Patrick's fingers thread through hers.  They gave her courage.
"" No.  " " " Look deep inside yourself.  To the nights as a child when
you gazed into the heavens and wondered what was beyond the nearest
star."

"Now I reckon I'm standing inside the nearest star."

"You're standing on a threshold, daughter "

She felt Patrick's fingers tighten spasmodically.  "Why do you call me
daughter?  "

"You're much like your mother, Mackenzie.  But you have more spirit:
'

She stared at him.

"I was on a mission here.  I wasn't supposed to encounter anyone, but
Mary Kate was riding by herself one night far from this place, out
enjoying the stars.  And we met by accident"

She remembered her uncle's story.  "In New South Wales," she said
wonderingly.  "When she was visiting friends."

"SI>e was beautiful," the captain said.  He dropped his hand to his
side.  "Sweet, kind, and when we joined together , we broke almost
every law of the universe.  I wanted to break them all.  I wanted her
to come with me, to transform and become as I truly was.  She would
not.  She was earthbound in a way that you aren't, daughter.  You are
truly a child of two worlds.  She was a child of one.  She chose to
stay behind and give birth to you, although she shielded your existence
from me. For a human, she had great strength ."

Mackenzie's universe spun again.  She stared at the being , her father.
The father she had never known; the man who was not a man-who had
destroyed her mother's life.

"She died for love of you," she whispered.  "You killed her with your
love!  "

"She would not come.  I could not stay.  When laws are broken, tragedy
is the aftermath.  I have mourned her and will mourn her every day for
the rest of my existence."

Tears filled her eyes.  She held tighter to Patrick's hand.  "You
didn't know about me?"

"Not until... Patrick... disappeared.  He was drawn to this place by
your spirit.  The two of you were destined to meet.  Like you, he is
almost human now, but for different reasons."

She turned to Patrick.  "But your powers.  I have no powers to equal
yours: '

"You have all his powers," the captain said.  "You have only begun to
use them."

The truth whirled in her head.  She had found Patrick in one storm and
traced him to this place in another.  She had read his thoughts and
shielded hers from his when she needed to.  She had show great aptitude
for tracking and for all the station chores that necessitated a special
instinct with animals.  Her capacity to absorb knowledge had so
outdistanced that of her classmates that school had never been anything
but a waste of time.

"I discovered your existence at the same time I found Patrick," the
captain said.  "My daughter.  The child I never knew I'd had."

She was afraid to let go of Patrick's hand, afraid to embrace the man
standing before her.  She felt Patrick's arm slip around her waist.

"I am not my mother," she said.  "I will transform.  I'll turn myself
into a bloody kangaroo if that'swhat it takes to stay with Patrick. But
I'm not leaving him.  I don't care about your universal laws.  I didn't
vote for them."

the captain smiled.  " " I can easily understand why the two of you
were attracted to each other.  "

"I won't leave Mackenzie," Patrick said.  He felt 1>er flesh against
his, flesh like his, and knew that he spoke the truth.  Everything that
had ever existed for him in the past slid away.  Only the moments that
were left to them were important now.  "I choose to die here with her,
if that's what must be."

Mackenzie faced the man she had risked everything for.  She saw love
shining in his eyes, love exactly like that in her heart.

"You can't stay here," the captain said.  "And you can't come with us:
" "Dying seems a poor third choice," Mackenz:e said.  She could not
pull her gaze from Patrick's.  She felt completely calm now.  Whatever
happened, they would be together.

"When our race transformed and abandoned the flesh, we lost something
very important.  It's an error that you two and others like you, will
correct for us," the captain said.

"Others like us?"  Patrick asked.

TIe re are others like you.  Others who, for one reason or another, are
human and not human.  And there is a colony" he uttered a long,
melodious name in the language that Mackenzie could not understand
"that is beginning far from here.  You may go there and be settlers
with the others.  You can build a new world, add your own unique
signature to the universe.  "

"Be a pioneer?  An explorer?"  Mackenzie asked.  She thought of the
dreams she had always had.  Even the outback had been too tame.

"You are uniquely suited, daughter."

She turned to her father then.  She saw his yearning to hold her.  With
a sob, she went into his arms.  A lifetime of questions and anger
dissolved as he held her.  When he gave her back to Patrick, her tears
had finally dried.

She looked into the eyes of the man who would be her mate for millenia.
"" Am I robbing you of your life?  Of what you could have had if I
hadn't come after you?  " " "You are giving me life " He unsnapped her
raincoat and touched her belly, warm even through her trousers.  He
felt the movements of his son and the other children they would create
together.  He felt generations created by them, from them, children
with Mackenzie's courage and intelligence.  Children of the universe.
"You are my life."

She kissed him, aware that her father still watched.  Patrick 's lips,
the warmth of his fingers against her, were all the promises she
needed.  "I want to go," she said fiercely.  "It's all I'll ever want:
'

His voioe was just as fierce.  "And I want to go, too: '

"Will we ever be able to come back?"  Mackenzie asked.  "Will I ever
see Waluwara again?"

"I don't know."

She turned to her father.  "Will we?"

"As you humans say, stranger things have happened."

"The map: Mackenzie reached inside her blouse and drew it out.  " Uncle
Clint..  " " " I think there are some things I would rather not
witness" Her father touched her shoulder.  She felt the warmth radiate
through her.  Then he was gone.

"Patrick?"  She turned to him, still afraid of what she might see.

He kissed away her fears, her questions, I>er apologies.  He told her,
without words, what she meant to him.  She felt his warmth, his hunger,
his proud humanity and the core of him that wasn't human at all.

And when he was finished, she was at peace.

Waluwara was lush and green, and finally, after weeks of rain, the
Territory was between storms.  The garden that Mackenzie had always
loved so well was heavy with blooms.  At sunset Edwina and Clint stood
on the homestead veranda gazing out at the land that would nurture them
and, God willing, their children, for the rest of their days.  "I know
she's gone forever," Clint said.  "There's no sign of her anywhere.  Or
Patrick, either.  " "Wherever she is, she's safe, Edwina said.  I feel
it.  " Her horse came back.  She didn't: Edwina put 1>er hand on his
arm.  "But Patrick's horse didn't returo."  Clint stared at the
horizon.  A small dot marred the view.  A cow escaped from a nearby
paddock, perhaps, or a brumby straying too close to civilization.  The
dot grew steadily larger.  He watched it, without taking his eyes off
it once.  When he saw that the dot was Sunfisher , he stepped off the
veranda and went to unsaddle the horse himself.  There was little
enough there to tell a story.  A saddle, wlqich was out of character
for Patrick, and a tired horse who stood quietly under Clint's
stroking.  Clint reached for an unusual waterproof pouch tied to the
saddle's Johnny strap.  The map he found and the few scrawled sentences
at its top were the story's ending.  "What is it?"  Edwina asked,
coming out to join him.  "Mackenzie's gone," he said.  "She's safe, and
she's with Patrick.  She says she's happy and that... she loves us and
hopes she'll be able to see us again one day."  - "That's all?"  He
folded the map and slipped it inside his shirt.  "There's more.  Come
inside.  I'll show you the re,t."

"Do you think she's really all right?"  He turned and gazed into the
distance.  The sky was quickly growing dark.  Some instinct told him
that no matter how hard I>e searched the horizon, he would never find
her there.  "Clint?"  "Yes.  I think she's all right," he said.  He
turned his eyes to the heavens and gazed at the gathering clouds,
wishing that he could see beyond them.  A

strange tranquility descended over him as a lone star appeared between
clouds.  It shone more brightly than it had a right to, a beacon in a
twilight sky.

He could not tear his eyes away, not until the star was finally
smothered by clouds.  Then he looked at Edwina.  "Mackenzie's all
right.  Wherever she is: '

He put his arms around Edwina's waist and held her tightly against his
chest.  The sky was black and the rain was beginning to fall again
when, hand in hand, they went inside together.