Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) by Sandra Dengler Page B

business opportunity, nor probably is Kathleen Corcoran the last good possession ye’ll lose. I see more anger in yer future and more hard-heartedness. But nowhere in yer future do I see any happiness coming from all this.” She dipped her head, because carrying a loaded tray makes a curtsey next to impossible. “G’night, Mr. Sloan.”

Chapter Seven
    Unanswered Questions
    Samantha plopped a dollop of sugar into her tea and crossed the kitchen to the woodbox. Luncheon was completed and dinner was not yet close enough to demand her energies. She sat down carefully on the blanket folded across the stove wood, lest the wood beneath shift and send her sprawling, and stretched her legs out full length. Her feet were tired. Her legs were tired. Her arms were tired. Her shoulders were tired. Her brain was very, very weary.
    The walking. So much walking. She thought about Ireland, dear old Ireland, so far away. By contrast, Erin was such a small country, and pinched together. Houses were tight, compact, stacked story on story. Town house shouldered against town house, and shops waited close at hand. Here the house sprawled casually out across its acres (it seemed) of floor space, and kept itself hundreds of feet aloof from its own outbuildings. The nearest neighbor lay at least half a mile distant.
    But it was more than the walking. Domestic work back in Cork drained her at times. And certainly Mr. Sloan maintained the accouterments of civilization as best he could. Yet somehow work here was infinitely more taxing. There was a pervasive wildness to the land, and that wildness had to be dealt with constantly.
    For one thing, Samantha was becoming a crackerjack wood-splitter, for the aboriginal lad assigned the job was more often than not nowhere around. Splitting this hardwood took skill and muscle. Samantha was developing the skill, but the work part wore her out. So did keeping this dense wood burning. No glowing peat fire, no gentle coal heat.
    She was getting pretty good at cutting up dead animals, too, for there were no butcher shops at all. She could dress out a sheep in no time flat now, right down to sawing through the bones. She had even served cassowary once, for that had been the only meat available. Just once. A tougher and less palatable bird she had never tasted.
    But it was more than that. Strange noises and alien calls put her on edge day and night. The rain forest brought unrecognized jungle creatures to her very doorstep. The forest crept in close, always closer, always trying to reclaim its lost ground, challenging axe and machete and cane knife.
    That’s it! she thought. Much of this constant weariness is surely nothing more than unfamiliarity with this new land. When I become better attuned to the forest and the sea, I will undoubtedly feel more relaxed and less wary, as Mr. Sloan and Doobie and the others have become. She left her teacup at the sink on her way out.
    She walked up the path toward the stable. It had been trimmed and cleared just recently—chopped leaves and branches still littered the ground—but already the forest was reaching out with new growth to close the wound. She passed Fat Dog and the horses all dozing in the midday heat, and continued back the trail along the creek.
    The dark green and the boggy ground and the tall bars of the strangler figs were as she had remembered them. Her shoes got soaked, and they squished where the path was marshy.
    She arrived eventually at that infamous pool. Did antediluvian monsters still lurk in the flat dark water, posing a threat to life and limb? Perhaps the beaters and the hunters had not killed them all.
    Silence. Peace. Samantha tried to picture Kathleen walking along this shore, disturbing the buzzy flies. With her mob cap a bright white spot in a dark world, she takes shoes in hand and wades out into the water—tepid water, so inviting. Suddenly, from out of nowhere … Mr. Sloan said Kathleen struggled. Screaming, flailing, she tries to