Free The mountain that went to the sea by Lucy Walker Page B

began tidying paper sheets lying loose on the counter top.
     
    `Bennett . . . Yes, that's right,' she went on, not looking up but watching her hands at work. 'You must be the daughter of Frances. Frances's mother was the first Andrew Ashenden's fifth child. But she was his first daughter ..
    Jeckie made a faint moaning sound. 'Oh, please . . . not here too ! Does everybody have to relate everything and -everybody back to Andrew?'
    `Andrew the First, that was,' Mrs Stringer went on in a flat, expressionless voice. 'He was the first surveyor —after the explorer Gregory—to map this part of Australia. From here the plateau eventually runs eastward into the Gibson Desert, you know. So he could hardly have gone any further, could he? He was given the Mallibee acreage as a reward. Isn't that so, Jason?'
    Jason bent down to rub the dog's ears.
    `That is so,' he said with mock seriousness. 'Mrs Stringer is invariably right in a matter of local history, Jeckie.'
    `You seem to know all about it, too,' Jeckie said doubtfully. She didn't know whether these two people — and the dog — were having a small joke at her expense.
    'Of course I do,' Jason said quietly. 'People round here wouldn't let me forget. Take Mrs Stringer, for instance — '
    Jeckie was still curious to know why Jason had claimed her, Jeckie, as a cousin, but she didn't like to interrupt Mrs Stringer.
    `Why shouldn't we know all about the first Andrew?' that lady was saying drily. She shifted her attention from the neatly stacked papers to the business of dusting the shelves behind her with a giant-sized turkey-feather duster. `You're the Shire President, Jason. So you've a right to know — being related too. Through your mother, of course.'
    `You're the Justice of the Peace, too, Jason,' Jeckie said, poking the 'cousin riddle' temporarily to the back of her mind. 'Warden of the Wardens' Court, and owner of the petrol station and this store — '
    `The ground upon which the store stands,' Jason corrected her, mischief in his smile.
    `The ground on which the store stands,' Jeckie amended. `And — well, what else is there? Barton had a whole list of things you are in this district.'
    `Barton?' Jason raised his eyebrows. `I'm flattered he
     
    shows such an interest. I thought nobody from Mallibee ever mentioned my name. Penalty rate, I understand, is expulsion from the firm.'
    Jeckie sat on a sack of sugar standing by the near wall.
    `Does everyone right across the tableland from the coast to the Gibson Desert always talk in conundrums?' she asked. She looked from Jason's wryly smiling face to Mrs Stringer's straight back and quite unsmiling expression.
    'Well, what you don't know is best not learned,' Mrs Stringer remarked with a touch of acid. 'Best you go and see if Barton's ready to start up again, miss. He's an impatient one — I know that.'
    'Yes, thank you. I think I'd better do just that. Goodbye, Mrs Stringer. Goodbye — '
    'Jason — as a name — will find me anywhere, Jeckie. Most people have heard of me.'
    Now was clearly not the moment to ask for more about the 'cousin' relationship. It could be embarrassing.
    'Thank you. Then it's goodbye . . . Jason,' Jeckie said, her blue eyes very blue, as she tried to reflect absolute composure while she hoisted herself upright from the sugar bag, then turned to go outside again. Jason, she thought, was not so much regretting her going as being busy watching her feet. Maybe he was standing by to catch a shoe should she chance to kick one off.
    Actually, she very nearly did just that . . . as a way of scoring one up on him — just for fun.
    'Barton,' Jeckie said when they were aboard the re-plugged Rover and a mile out across the spinifex plain from the store, 'Why is everyone in our family against Jason? He said we are related — in a very distant way. Something about being cousins —'
    'We don't recognize him as a member of the family,' Barton said bluntly. 'He let us down. For money, of course.'
    Jeckie's