"Richards, Emilie - Somewhere Out There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Richards Emilie)

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