The Outback, Australia, August 1989
Night had collapsed upon them. The respite cool of darkness followed the heat of the trail of Jerry’s first day in the Bush. The stars opened like glittering diamonds to be mined, there to behold, but never to be touched. He yearned to be with his love, Christina, she not knowing that Jessie was in his mind. He had sucked from the nipple of the black widow, and the sweet addiction of its nectar left him wanting for more.
The campfire dwindled. Jerry sat alone and sipped from the metal trail cup, and then flung the remaining coffee grounds at the flames. He could not shake the naked images of Jessie from his mind that clashed with his aching heart. Torn, he didn’t have the courage to send Christina another letter. That was how they agreed to communicate during her absence. He would write with the pen she had given him, and she would paste the letters in her journal next to her last correspondence, a diary of their togetherness while on opposite sides of the world.
He was troubled. The two were like night and day, opposites of the heart—lust and love. Jessie was sensual. Christina was soulful. He’d just met the girl. He’d spent months with Christina who drew from his heart a love he’d never experienced. Jessie had stoked his sex. Her sultry voluptuousness had opened a gate that he did not know how to close, or even if he wanted to. She’ll know I betrayed her if I write. She’ll notice the change. Damn! I love her! He lowered his face into his hands, then abruptly stood and kicked the dirt, sending a dust cloud over the fire. She took me. I had no choice. She fed on my emotions. The denial of his desire lasted but a brief moment. It was so, so good, her playfulness like it was a game to her. I’ll show you who is bull, her purring voice echoed in his torment.
He sat down on the log and watched the flames dance. Torn between two lovers, one he loved and the other he craved.
“Mind if I join?”
He jerked in the direction of the voice, dulcet and smoky, his eyes unable to see in the darkness until she stepped into the dim light of the fire.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.” She wasn’t wearing the wide-brimmed hat, and it took him a moment to make her sudden appearance, wavy hair pulled back in a braid, shirttails hanging, and webbed sandals on her feet.
“Ah, just thinkin’. Didn’t know anyone else was still up.”
“That ride didn’t tire ya? Some of my toughest ringers were down for the count an hour ago. Can’t say that the whisky didn’t hurry it along, though.” She pulled a silver box from her hip pocket and flipped it open and pulled a cigarette out with her lips. “You looked tough out there,” she said with it dangling as she struck a light. “Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself on the drive and after, I just had to soak my bum in the hot spring. It’s a couple clicks west.” She messed with her hair as the cigarette smoldered from her lips. “My name’s Kelsey. My father owns the mob.” She shook her head to loosen her hair. “Like you, I come from a long line of graziers. He’s too old to make the drive. But Saltbush was seventy before he retired his saddle. He’d been a drover all his life.” Kelsey stoked the fire and tossed on a log, sending up a pouf of sparks. “My father handed me the reins to the station after my brother left. But without Saltbush—” She tugged on her smoke and blew a cloud over his head as she looked at Jerry. “Soul searchin’. That right?”
He stood and looked at the woman, her hair a billowy apricot red, the flickering flames reflecting from her eyes. “My name’s Jerry, a Kansas cowpoke.” He grinned and felt a bit embarrassed by his offhand comment about leather and lace, knowing now that she was the heiress to this beef dynasty.
“I ride like the best o’ them, but need my bath before bed.”
Jerry nodded to the four-walled white tent set off from where the men slept. “And quite the palace.”
“She learnt to ride while drovin’ on the plains,” she said with a twang. Banjo’s a favorite of ours.
“Ours too, that and a fiddle make the hoedown.” He chuckled.
She laughed at his naivety.
“Banjo is an Ozzie Bush poet. Wrote “Man from Snowy River,” hence the quote of the drover,” she said with a sophistication that defied her mature tomboy appearance. “And ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ our unofficial national anthem. Surely a Yank knows this,
“Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
‘Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?’ ”
Jerry was swept up by her jolliness as she sang the verse to him as if she had known him as a kid. She was a bit older—although he could not quite tell, the flames playing tricks on his eyes with flickers and shadows—maybe in her thirties, he thought. Regardless, he was happy to meet someone who took his mind off the weight of his heart’s dilemma.
“Mind if I sit with ya?”
“Sure, sure, plenty of room on this log.” They looked at each other. He felt uneasy and sat down.
“So, what’s a handsome young bloke like you doing in Oz?” She sat down just a hand’s width between them.
“I could be the tin man looking for his heart or the scarecrow lacking a brain or the lion—”
Kelsey burst out laughing. “That’s a first. Oz, like Ozzie, like welcome to Australia, Jerry.” He let out a belly laugh that calmed his jitters.
“Or I could be the first American to walk away from the dream to make a lot of money. I’m more confused now than after the lightning bolt hit me.”
“So, you’re a bloody survivor.”
“Makes ya reflect on life, love—”
“And laughter.” She chuckled then slapped her knee. “That’s what I’d be doin’. Bloody oath! “I’d be laughin’ that God saved me.” She flipped the butt in the fire and pulled a silver flask from her other hip pocket and unscrewed the lid. “Keep talkin’. It’s great therapy.” She took a swig and handed it to Jerry.
“Well, you wouldn’t understand the rest. Fell in love with a girl whose first love is Jesus.” He tilted his head back and took a draw and then sprayed it over the fire and began hacking.
“Roll it over your tongue and let it seep down.”
He took a sip and did as she said, and then another so that she wouldn’t think he was a tenderfoot. He handed the flask back to her and wiped his lips with his sleeve. The shot warmed his face. He stared at the fire now ablaze. The flames danced and flickered apparitions of the porcelain breasts and the spidery tattoo. He closed his eyes and held the image.
“Nice boots. I like the inlay of the cross.”
He jolted at the suggestion. Sheesh! The friggin’ boots! All he could see in his mind was her straddling his hips wearing his kickass boots.
He opened his eyes looking down. “Yeah. Bull ridin’ boots.” He shook his head. “Ya, don’t want to know.”
“So you came Down Under thinkin’ that if you looked at things upside down, you’d see her differently, huh?” She chuckled, and lungs rumbled and then lit another cigarette.
“Sheesh! Am I an open book? Or is it because all women know what’s on a guy’s heart.”
“Well, let me tell ya, we’re a different breed, a different class, more than you can handle, more than a piece of ass.”
“That about sums it up for me. Okay, end of story.”
“You’re a piece of work. Tell me about the lightning. We have some doozies out here on the plain—hard to find cover. You ridin’ when it hit?” She blew a cloud over flames licking upwards and warming the air.
“Sheesh! I totally forgot about the wildfire, rescuing my dad and the herd. Oh my God, no wonder I let her have me.”
“Whoa, dude, your blowin’ so much smoke I can’t even see. How old you say you are? Didn’t, huh. Twenty-something? Well, I’ve got double on ya, for sure. Been married once—ain’t doin’ that again. Bloody bludger. But you, life is just beginnin’. So, you were sayin’ some sheila had her way with ya? I hope it was good if it came to that.”
Good? Good feeling, good time? Good for my soul? Don’t understand the feeling of good right now. “Well, it was my first in a long time.”
“You’re kiddin’ me. A buck like you would o’ been in demand with us chickie babes.”
“Yeah, leather and lace.” He gave her a grin. “Well, this chickie babe I met on the beach was wearin’ an eye-chasin’ bikini. It was my last night, and after a long summer of ranchin,’ well, I needed to blow off some steam and kick back. Ya know? So, I invited her over for dinner. Had a couple glasses of wine, and with her comin’ on to me, I got aroused. The next thing I knew the room was spinnin’ and she was straddlin’ and buckin’ like she was ridin’ a bull.”
“Okay, step me back a scene or two. You’re in love . . . but not with the bull rider?”
“Yep.”
“And this girl you’re in love with is the one who you met after the—So, what’s with this lightning? Sheesh—I kinda like that word—sheesh! You got too much goin’ on, jackaroo.”
“Yeah, I do. Well, a lightning bolt hit me while crossin’ a street on campus. I guess I got lucky,” he said sheepishly, denying any greater purpose for his salvation.
“What happened next?”
“Met Christina.”
“And this sheila’s the love of your life?”
“Yeah.”
“And where is Christina in all of this ridin’ bull drama, back in Kansas?”
“Africa.”
“Africa? For God’s sake, you makin’ this up?”
“Not at all. It’s all true.”
“Okay, so she’s saving the world in Africa, right?”
“Yeah, a Mother Teresa of sorts.” He chuckled. He saw that his life since spring was a circus hardly believable in his mind, let alone anyone else’s.
“Then how does this other sheila bust into your life if you’re in love with Mother Teresa?”
“Sheesh, do you see how this gets complicated? Jessie just showed up.”
“Jezzie.”
“No, Jessie.”
“No, Jezzie.”
“We sheilas refer to her as a Jezzie, one who conquers with manipulation. Sometimes love is all about the quids.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t see it because you’re still in fantasyland having sex with Jezzie.”
“No, Wonder Woman.”
“I’ll bet. I suppose she was wearing boots when she rode you hard.”
“You betcha. I’m wearin’ ’em now.”
“Sheesh, Mother of God, and with the cross on the tips. You need some help, jackaroo.”
“No doubt.”
“Reckon we have another swill before bed? Nothing better than Timboon.” She kicked back a swig and handed it to him.
“Here’s to Doc Kelsey, my first shrink.”
“To Oz!”
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Excerpt from PURSUIT – A Matter of Choice, a novel by Jeff Cambridge.
Author of transformational fiction—
Realistic characters in real life drama that tell a story of growth in wisdom and understanding that changes their outlook on life, where achievements are no longer about self or competing. Instead, life is about completing their purpose and planting a legacy of redeeming value.
To read the scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A Novel – Prologue”
Located in the May Blog Archive. Click on the episodes and enjoy.
This episode is pre-published. The book will be available Spring 2018.
Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Check one of the reaction boxes below, write a comment, or email me at lightbycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the story a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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One mistake changes the course of three lives…
Jessie – chasing the dark side of destiny
The daughter of an alcoholic father in prison for manslaughter and a mother who has abandoned her for her latest boyfriend, Jessie has but one objective in life – to find the big ticket out of her miserable childhood.
Christina – striving to bring comfort and light
The daughter of a nurse who served in the Army medical corps, she follows in her mother’s footsteps, pursuing her passion to care for the disadvantaged. A ballerina – a thousand eyes behold her, the dance flowing seamlessly.
Jerry – living in the grey of his circumstances
The son of a sixth-generation Kansas rancher, his desire is to make it rich – to find the American Dream. A cowboy with a tender heart and crystal blue eyes, he finds love in unforeseen places.
An allegory of destiny and choices,
of wasted dreams,
of paths that lead to nowhere…
of trials, we face every day.
PURSUIT
Where will the chosen path lead?
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Copyright 2018 © Jeff Cambridge
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