Free Hearts of Gold by Janet Woods

again, and gazed back at her, wondering if she’d choose Hercules over him.
    The young couple who’d bought the horse along with the claim gazed awkwardly at one another. ‘I’d better carry your trunk to the train for you,’ the man said eventually, and picked it up.
    Sarette looked from one to the other, then said to the woman, ‘You’ll look after him, won’t you? And you won’t forget to sing hymns to him?’
    ‘Of course. You’d better hurry else you’ll miss the train. Your man looks right annoyed at being kept waiting.’
    John kept the frown on his face and tried not to grin when Sarry glared at him and said, ‘He isn’t my man. I hate him.’
    She gave Hercules a last hug and ran for the train when the whistle blew. Taking the seat opposite him she folded her arms over her chest and looked fierce as the train lurched forward and began to gather speed.
    After a while he winked at her.
    As John knew she would, she decided to forgive him.
    ‘What’s Fremantle like?’ she said.

Five
June 1897
Fremantle, Western Australia
    The train journey had been uncomfortable, but when it was over Sarette would have been the first to admit to John’s wisdom of selling Hercules, for completing the three hundred and fifty mile journey by horse and wagon would have been even more uncomfortable.
    John had slept. When he woke she gave him something to eat, for she’d made a loaf of bread the night before, hollowed out the middle and had filled it with sliced bacon covered in pickles. To go with it were eggs pickled in vinegar that she’d brought from Benstead’s store, and to wash it down, some water.
    After the rain the countryside was pretty, carpeted as it was with multicoloured wildflowers. But she knew the land would soon go back to its dry, scrubby self and the unforgiving sun would evaporate the moisture and bake the earth’s skin to a crust.
    The first sight of the ocean was unexpected because she couldn’t remember seeing it before. So blue and so large it was, reaching to the horizon where it joined an even bluer sky, and on it a ship with sails fatly puffed with wind, and another with chimney stacks blowing smoke. Yet despite that, the air was wondrously clear and fresh without the wind-blown dust from the goldfields to spoil it.
    ‘Look at all the water,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a marvel it is.’
    John smiled at that. ‘You’ll be sailing on it for several weeks.’
    She laughed at that, for she thought he must be teasing. Nothing could be that big.
    When they reached Fremantle John booked them rooms in a hotel that seemed to be in the thick of things. There was a public bar underneath and as the evening progressed the patrons became rowdier and rowdier. But they’d eaten a good dinner earlier, and she was tired, and the roomy bed with its soft mattress was both a novelty and inviting, since she’d never slept in a real bed before.
    But Sarette found it hard to get to sleep, and she tossed and turned in its softness before she felt weary enough to give in to the novelty of it. She was worried about John Kern. He looked tired, and now and again he pressed a hand against his stomach.
    The next morning she asked him, ‘Are you ill, Mr John?’
    ‘It’s nothing, just something I ate that disagreed with me. Those pickles, I expect.’
    ‘Promise me that you’ll stop drinking rot-gut whisky and go and see a doctor.’
    ‘Stop nagging girl. You’re not my wife.’
    ‘If I was your wife I’d make you do what you were told. If you don’t see a doctor I’ll find one and bring him to see you.’
    ‘All right, I promise I’ll see a doctor,’ he’d grumbled.
    He honoured his promise.
    She was just readying herself for a walk around town when he arrived back, a wide smile on his face. ‘The doctor said it’s nothing serious. You were right about the rot-gut though.’
    She couldn’t help but give a smug smile at that, but it was wiped from her face when he chuckled and added, ‘He prescribed