Bella's Run Read online

  About the Book

  Bella threw her hat into the air. ‘We’ve lived one of our dreams, Patty. Our outback road trip is done. Now we’re free and ready for our next adventure. God, I love life!’

  Bella Vermaelon and her best friend Patty are two fun-loving country girls bonded in a sisterhood no blood tie could ever beat.

  Now they are coming to the end of a road trip which has taken them from their family farms in the rugged Victorian high country to the red dust of the Queensland outback. For almost a year they have mustered on cattle stations, cooked for weary stockmen, played hard at rodeos and danced through life like a pair of wild tumbleweeds. And with the arrival of Patty’s brother Will and Bella’s cousin Macca, it seems love is on the horizon too . . . Then a devastating tragedy strikes, and Bella’s world is changed for ever.

  So she runs – from the only life she has ever known. But can she really turn her back on the man she loves? Or on the land that runs deep in her blood?

  Both funny and heart-wrenching, Bella’s Run is a rip-roaring debut bursting with love for life on the land.

  ‘An outback story of life, friendships and undeniable love. A great read’

  SARA STORER

  In loving memory of the three women who have helped shape my life:

  my mother, Ellen Osborn (1939–98),

  who always encouraged me to throw my hat into the ring;

  my grandmother, Margareta Osborn (1910–2006),

  our refuge and safe harbour;

  my aunt, Elizabeth Shepard (1941–2011),

  for showing me what guts and determination are all about;

  and

  for my dearly loved father, John Osborn,

  who believes in me.

  Contents

  Part One: Ainsley Station Outback Central Queensland

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part Two: Eight years later

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  More at Random House Australia

  Prologue

  Every ounce of the thirty-tonne semi-trailer bore down on the ute, caught like a startled rabbit in the fog lights of the B-Double.

  On impact the ute disintegrated, the shriek of tearing metal, breaking glass and screeching air brakes shattering the peace of the surrounding valley. One sound cut through the rest, reverberating across the wide, open paddocks sprawled beyond the mist.

  The piercing screams of the dying.

  Filled to the brim with grain, the semi rested against the broken boundary fence, its driver slumped over the steering wheel. His shocked gaze took in the devastation ahead of him.

  On the far side of the bitumen road lay two bodies. The first, splayed at an unnatural angle, and unrecognisable as either man or woman, did not move from the white line on which it lay.

  The other, some 5 yards on, was female. Her chest moved spasmodically underneath a shirt patterned with splashes of brilliant red. The woman’s denim jeans were already black with blood, and only one of her feet was visible, clad in a brown leather elastic-sided riding boot, surprisingly intact.

  White-gold, curly hair lay tangled across her blood-smeared face, which minutes before had been wreathed in smiles of happiness, laughter and love.

  PART ONE

  Ainsley Station

  Outback Central Queensland

  Chapter 1

  Sunlight shone through the glistening soap bubbles in the sink, turning the suds a rainbow of colours. They were far too pretty to be found in spartan stockmen’s quarters on a remote and rugged cattle station in Central Queensland.

  Peering through the grimy aluminium window, Isabella Vermaelon sighed at the glorious scene outside. It was so hard to stay in this dreary 1970s Formica kitchen cooking. She wanted to be out there in the sun, galloping across the open plains with the stockmen or mustering cattle hidden in the Brigalow and Blackbutt scrub.

  The stock camp had been short of a ringer this morning, and someone would’ve loaned Bella a spare plant horse. After all, she could ride and muster stock. The only thing she couldn’t get a grip on, here on Ainsley Station, was lacing rather than buckling a damned girth. Her best mate Patty, on the other hand, was a natural, so she was the one now out mustering cattle for the feedlot, the breeze riffling through her auburn hair and sunlight streaming onto her tanned face.

  She was right where Bella wanted to be, ducking and weaving her horse across this remote landscape with its miles and miles of red soil scattered with stands of yapunyah trees and sally wattle bowing and twisting under a sweltering sun. Bella could almost smell the earthy stench of hot cattle, the eucalyptus scent of the scrub; feel the flying insects dive-bombing her face.

  ‘Can you thread this up for me?’

  Bella jumped, startled by a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced stockman who was peering around the kitchen door. Wearing tiny half-moon spectacles, he looked fifty rather than twenty-eight.

  ‘Jeez, Rodney! Didn’t anyone teach you to knock? You scared the crap out of me.’

  Rodney ignored her, focusing instead on what he held in his big hands. ‘I can’t see the damned eye in this needle for looking at it.’

  Bella moved to the door and glanced over Rodney’s shoulder into the stockmen’s dining room. A torn chambray work shirt lay on the table, sporting a rip that looked terminal. ‘Do you really want to have a go at mending that? There’s a bin in the corner.’

  ‘Nope, it’ll be right. Just use those pretty green eyes of yours to thread this needle, ay.’

  Bella’s eyes were blue. A brilliant lapis-blue actually. And her halo of long, white-gold curls, a legacy from her mother, made the colour of her eyes stand out like the sun appearing on a foggy day. She smiled to herself as she took the needle, threaded it and shooed Rodney out the door. Bloody Queensland blokes were as stubborn as the men back home in Victoria.

  Bella heaved a sigh and returned to what she was supposed to be doing.

  Trying to make a sixteen-egg pavlova using one Mixmaster probably wasn’t the cleverest thing she had ever done. Then again, browning eight kilos of beef mince using two small frypans was pretty silly too; but the frypans were all she’d been able to find, and they were making the cooking of her mother’s famous spaghetti bolognaise excruciating.

  She had missed her family dreadfully this past year, especially her mother. They’d all been supportive when she had taken twelve months’ leave from her job at the Department of Agriculture and convinced Patty to put her nursing career on hold to head off on this road trip. After drinking and partying their first few weeks up the Kidman Way and over the border into Queens
land, they’d scored a couple of jobs on Johanna Downs, a small cattle station by Queensland standards, owned by an elderly couple, Stan and Betty Johnson. There, under the tutelage of Stan and his old stockman, Harry Bailey, they’d learned all about being a ringer – mustering cattle day after day, working horses, helping with fencing, fixing windmills and pumps. They’d loved every minute of it.

  Unfortunately, after only six months the Johnsons had sold their property to the owners of neighbouring Ainsley Station, which had absorbed the smaller place. Stan had negotiated for them to be taken on by the new owners, but there had been only one ringer’s position and Bella had lucked out. So now her regular job on Ainsley was to mow the acres of lawns, and care for the island gardens scattered around the buildings on the cattle property.

  But not a cook. Never a cook.

  This whole kitchen job stank of her boss, Siobhan Davidson’s petty mindedness. The station manager’s wife had taken a dislike to Bella soon after they arrived. Patty reckoned Siobhan had Bella pegged as trouble, which was weird since Patty usually held that title. What sort of trouble Bella had no idea, but if she’d known she would definitely have caused it. She couldn’t stand people stomping on her for no good reason.

  This weekend, Siobhan had worked it so Bella was the relief cook, which meant she exchanged her Akubra hat, sunshine and mower for an oven, Mixmaster and an apron with pink tits on it. Jimbo, the usual cook, had a lot to answer for in his choice of kitchen attire. What was Siobhan – who was supposed to relieve her own staff – doing?

  Shopping, that’s what.

  All in all, life on Ainsley sucked for Bella. The question was, what to do about it. Maybe it was time to ditch this job and head down south, back home to the blue-grey mountains of Victoria. Or find another joint like Johanna Downs. A station on which she could ride a horse, muster cattle – be a jillaroo again. A place where she didn’t have to cook.

  Cursing, Bella stomped into the cool room to hunt up some more ingredients. A door on the far insulated wall was suddenly reefed open and a voice bellowed from the butchering space beyond. ‘Come out, you little brats. I know you’re hiding in there somewhere!’ Knackers Anderson, Ainsley Station’s head stockman, shoved aside a hanging beef carcass and walked into the cool room, coming face to face with Bella.

  ‘Only me here, Knackers.’ Bella blushed, her gaze straying to his groin. She wished the man wouldn’t wear his beige cowboy jeans so tight. They gave a whole new meaning to a snug fit. Bella forced her eyes back up to his florid face. He was breathing hard and fast, and she could hear the air whistling through the holes in his teeth.

  ‘Those kids of mine have disappeared. Supposed to be loading the sausage skins but they’ve pissed off.’

  A rumble on the roof caused both Knackers and Bella to look skywards. The rumble turned into skittering, the sounds of sliding bums and scrabbling feet on burning corrugated iron, raucous laughter then a thud and a yell came from outside the butcher-room door.

  The boys had landed.

  ‘There they are, the little bastards.’ Knackers smacked the beef carcass aside and stormed out. A steer’s tail swung haphazardly catching Bella across the nose and mouth. She spluttered and snorted. The coarse hairs tasted vile. The stink of cow shit was rank.

  Bloody Knackers. The man caused mayhem wherever he went. The stumpy, barrel-chested head stockman was outgoing and loud. His wife Wendy, a big woman who worked in the office at the feedlot, was quiet. Limp. Like the marrow had been sucked from her bones, her muscles sapped by the harsh outback surroundings in which she lived.

  The Andersons’ marriage was a mystery to Bella. There were no obvious signs of love between the couple. Not a peck on the cheek, a cuddle or a caring hand. Last week Wendy had told an incredulous Bella that in all their fifteen years of marriage, Knackers had never taken her and their sons home to see her family in New South Wales.

  ‘But why don’t you just go?’ Bella had asked. ‘Pack up the kids and head down to Parkes on your own.’ Biting her tongue, she stopped. Two days in the car with those four little ferals would be enough to get anyone committed to an asylum. ‘On second thoughts, leave the kids with Knackers and go by yourself.’

  ‘I haven’t been past Rockhampton since we married. Don’t think I could manage going to Parkes on my own. I’ve lost me confidence, you know, with the kids and all.’

  Bella was dumbfounded. Kids did that to you? How could you lose your confidence that much? Rockhampton was only a few hours away, and a woman had to have a life. After all, that’s what she and Patty were doing – they’d loaded Patty’s ute and set off on this adventure up north for a year, just for something to do! Two thousand kilometres and eight months later, here they were.

  ‘Hells Bells! Where are you?’ called a light-hearted female voice.

  Bella turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  Patricia O’Hara swung from the sink grinning, a glass of water in hand. Her toffee- coloured eyes peered at Bella through multiple layers of dirt. ‘I’m bloody starving. Is there anything to eat, chef?’

  ‘I’ll give you bloody starving. Siobhan can stick her kitchen right where it fits. Look at that glorious day out there. You can cook next time. I’m going mustering!’ Bella stopped and studied her mate. ‘What on earth happened to your hair?’ Dried mud hung in clumps from Patty’s head like badly made Christmas decorations.

  Patty tried to run her fingers through her short hair and failed. ‘Came off my horse. Bloody thing bucked me into the river when a weaner went straight under its belly. Boys thought it was a hell of a joke. Me wallowing in mud, the weaner sticking its head out from under the horse’s tail looking for a hairy escape.’ Patty grinned and deep-set dimples, one on either side of her mouth, winked. She went to jump up onto the kitchen bench, and Bella caught her grimace of pain.

  ‘Are you okay? Did you hurt anything?’

  ‘Nah, just my pride. And a few bruises.’ Patty smiled as she stretched out sideways to drag a cake tin along the bench, but to Bella, her mate’s usual rude aura of earthy vitality seemed slightly dented.

  Patty tugged impatiently at the stubborn lid of the cake tin. ‘At least you can cook. I’d be crap ’cause I’d burn everything. Is there anything to eat in here, cookie?’

  Patty was still winding her up, so things couldn’t be too crook. But then again Bella knew her best mate couldn’t help herself. Being a relentless tease was one of the reasons why Patty was so much fun to hang out with. Many times over the years Bella had wished she could be like Patty, the life of every party, reeling in the boys with all the dexterity of a fly fisherman. Bella gave a rueful smile. Wishes were for dreamers. And Bella really didn’t do too badly with the boys, just by being herself.

  Having finally prised the stubborn lid off the cake tin, Patty pulled out a chocolate lamington and set about demolishing it. Her dirty face relaxed into soft lines and she let out a gentle sigh of contentment as she chewed.

  Finishing her last mouthful, Patty reached back into the tin to grab the remaining cake. ‘Maybe Siobhan hates you for talking those feedlot boys into moving your mulch with the front-end loader the other week.’

  ‘I had to get the job done!’ Bella was indignant. So what if she’d wiggled her arse, undone a few press studs on her well-stacked shirt and sweet-talked the boys into helping her? ‘The loader got the job done a hell of a lot quicker than the damned shovel Siobhan wanted me to use.’

  Unfortunately, she’d mistimed her little plan. The feedlot manager, Jack McLaverty, decided to do a snap site inspection and found the two blokes and a loader missing; a loader that was supposed to be pushing up piles of grain for the feedlot. Twenty tonnes of machinery wasn’t hard to find. The tongue-lashing Bella got from Siobhan later in the afternoon hadn’t been pleasant. Siobhan took great delight in ticking her off and Bella had walked right into her manipulative hands.

  ‘No. Taking off with the loader just added to it. She hated me before that. I just don’t know
why.’

  She leaned forward and snatched the lamington from Patty’s hand, leaving her friend blinking in dismay. Bella sank her teeth into the cake, allowing her tastebuds to savour the comforting chocolate. She sighed with pleasure. Siobhan’s doughy, spiteful face disappeared and visions of her family farm at Narree flitted into her mind – the delicious aromas of her mother’s kitchen, her father’s tawny port, the smell of the mountains heavy with rain.

  Bella looked sideways at Patty, who was staring hard at her, considering. ‘What?’ she asked smiling, thinking she was about to get a razz for snatching the lamington.

  Patty didn’t say anything, just dragged over a fruit basket and grabbed an apple. Looking at it in disgust, she took a bite before moving her eyes back to her friend. ‘Bella,’ she said with her mouth full, ‘you really should take a look in the mirror. I reckon it’s not what you’ve done to Ms Davidson that’s the problem.’

  Bella blushed. Patty turned her attention back to eating her apple, while sneaking out a hand to crank up the Mixmaster to maximum speed. She grinned wickedly at Bella as blobs of egg white were flung from the mixing bowl, sailing up to hang off the ceiling. Bella swore at her friend as she lunged to turn down the beaters. Now she’d have to clean that mess up too, damn it.

  Swinging around, Patty aimed her apple at the garbage bin, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Hells Bells.’ The core hit the back of the bin like a basketball on a backboard before dropping down. Patty grunted in satisfaction. ‘After all, the worst thing she can do is sack us.’

  She sounded almost cheerful about it, which surprised Bella. She’d thought her mate was happy here on Ainsley, but the look on Patty’s freckled face suggested otherwise. The toffee-brown O’Hara eyes seemed to lose focus for a minute, seeing something far removed from this austere kitchen in the remote Queensland outback, which led Bella to wonder if maybe she wasn’t the only one filled with a quiet longing for home.