Re-entering his room, he took his shirt off, then unscrewed the silver top of the salt cellar and poured the contents into the fabric. Then he took the glass of milk and made a funnel with a page torn out of the Bible on the nightstand, and poured the milk into the empty salt cellar. Gathering up the baby, and breathing through his mouth to avoid the stink that came from it, he gently poked the tip of the salt cellar between the rosebud lips.
At first, there was no response, and his own heart beat rapidly enough for both of them. He removed the tiny silver teat, then dribbled a little milk from the holes in the top of the cellar onto his finger. Working on instinct alone, he smeared it round the baby’s lips. After an agonising few seconds, the lips moved. He then placed the tip of the salt cellar into the baby’s mouth again and sent up a prayer for the first time in seventeen years. A few seconds later, he felt a tiny exploratory tug on the makeshift bottle. There was an agonising pause and then a firmer tug as the baby began to suck.
The drover lifted his eyes to the ceiling above him. ‘Thank you.’
When the child had taken its fill, he poured water from the jug into the basin, stripped off the stinking muslin cloths and did his best to wash the encrusted muck from its body. Forming a makeshift napkin with two of his handkerchiefs, and praying there wouldn’t be another explosion, he wrapped the tiny backside as best he could. He hid the soiled muslin cloths in one of the bed sheets, and stuffed the stinking parcel into a drawer. He wrapped the other sheet around the baby, noticing the engorged stomach and emaciated legs that looked as if they belonged to a frog rather than a human being. The baby had fallen asleep, so he downed the now cold and congealing beef stew in a few gulps and washed it down with some hefty slugs of whisky. Then he left the room to feed his horse and scrub himself clean in the water barrel in the backyard.
Feeling refreshed, the drover ran back upstairs and saw the baby had not moved. Putting his ear to the tiny chest, he heard the flutter of a heartbeat and the sound of steady breathing. Climbing onto his own mattress, he remembered the tin he’d stored in his saddlebag.
The tin was encrusted in rust and red dirt as if it had long been buried. He prised it open to find a small leather box inside. Unfastening the clasp and lifting the lid, his breathing became ragged as his own heart missed a beat.
The Roseate Pearl . . . the pearl that had ended his brother’s life, yet saved his own.
‘How can it be . . . ?’ he murmured, his eyes drawn to its mesmeric beauty, as they’d been so many years before. What he could do with that cash . . . He knew its value – he had handed over the twenty thousand pounds himself.
Banished from Broome and unable to return to Kilgarra, his beloved cattle station, he travelled across the Never Never, picking up work where he found it. He kept himself to himself, trusting no one. He was a different person now, a human void with a heart that had turned to ice. And he had only himself – and perhaps the pearl – to blame. Yet, from the moment he’d seen this baby, something had thawed within him.
He snapped the box shut and placed it back in the tin before it hypnotised him again.
How was this child connected to the Roseate Pearl? Last time he had seen it, he had locked it away in Kitty’s writing desk. Camira had pleaded with him not to present it to her mistress and . . .
‘God’s oath!’
He knew now where he’d seen the baby’s eyes before. ‘Alkina . . .’
He stood up and went to study the sleeping infant once more. And for the first time in many years, acknowledged the existence of fate and destiny. He’d instinctively known that this baby with the cursed pearl secreted in its basket was connected to him.
‘Goodnight, little one. Tomorrow I will take you to Hermannsburg.’ He stroked the soft cheek, then went to lie back on his mattress. ‘And then I will journey to Broome to find out who you are to me.’
*
Pastor Albrecht looked up from his Bible at the sound of hooves clopping into the mission. Through the window, he watched the man draw to a halt, then climb off his horse and look around him, uncertain of where to go. Pastor Albrecht stood up and walked towards the door and out into the glaring sun.
‘Guten tag, or should I say good morning?’
‘I speak both languages,’ the man answered. Around the courtyard, a number of the pastor’s flock, clad in white, paused to look at the handsome man. Any stranger who came here was a welcome sight.
‘Back to your business,’ he directed them, and they returned to their work.
‘Is there somewhere we might talk, Pastor?’
‘Come in to my study.’ The pastor indicated the room behind him, as he heard a mewling cry emanate from the sling around the man’s chest. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, closing the door behind him, then snapping the shutters closed against prying eyes.
‘I will, once I have given you this.’
The man untied the sling from around him and laid its contents on the table. There, amongst the stinking cloths, was a tiny newborn baby boy, his lungs singing to the heavens for nourishment.
‘What have we here?’
‘His mother died some hours outside Alice Springs. The cameleers told me she was on her way to Hermannsburg. I offered to bring the baby here faster. I commandeered a salt cellar in my lodging house last night and it has taken some milk from that.’
‘How very inventive of you, sir.’
‘Perhaps the salt traces left inside helped too, because he seems stronger today.’
‘He is very small.’ Pastor Albrecht examined the baby, testing his limbs and his grip. ‘And weak from malnourishment.’
‘He has survived at least.’
‘And I commend you and bless you, sir. There are not many drovers about these parts who would do the same. I presume the mother was Aboriginal?’
‘I could not say, as she had died and been buried before I arrived. Although by chance, I might know who her family is.’
The pastor looked at the man suspiciously. ‘Are you this baby’s father, sir?’
‘No, not at all, but with the baby was something I recognised.’ He pulled the tin out of his pocket. ‘I will be travelling to Broome to confirm my suspicions.’
‘I see.’ Pastor Albrecht picked up the tin and cradled it in his hands. ‘Then you must let me know of your findings, but for now, if he lives, the child will have a home here at Hermannsburg.’
‘Please retain that tin for safekeeping until I return. And for your own sake, do not look inside.’
‘What do you take me for, sir?’ The pastor frowned. ‘I am a man of God. And trustworthy.’
‘Of course.’
The pastor watched the man dig in his pocket and produce some notes. ‘Here is a donation towards your mission and the feeding of the child.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll return as soon as I can.’
‘One last question, sir: did the mother name him?’
‘No.’
‘Then I shall call him “Francis”, for Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. From what you have told me, it was a camel who helped save his life.’ The pastor gave him a wry smile.
‘An apt name.’
‘And your name, sir?’ Pastor Albrecht asked.