Outback Heritage by K'Anne Meinel

Author:K'Anne Meinel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: series, Romance
Publisher: Shadoe Publishing, LLC
Published: 2019-08-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They headed out the next day. Fabiola led the way, followed by Carmen and Mel and several pack horses. Only two of the vaqueros accompanied them to guard the Senora. It had taken Mel several tries before Alinta understood that she was to stay in the house with all the supplies. She had been curious about the place, never having been in one of these structures, but she took the job of protecting Mel’s things seriously.

Fabiola explained they had split the paddocks into sections to keep track of them, and a stockman oversaw each section, sometimes helped by an assistant, called a jackaroo here in Australia.

Mel and Carmen looked about avidly as Fabiola explained and pointed with her short whip to different features of the landscape.

“My father wanted to enclose all the paddocks, but he was too ambitious, and it never got done. Your uncle enclosed the paddocks to the south before his death, but we ran out of money before we could do more, and those are now gone with the fires.”

“This is a lot of land to enclose,” Carmen commented.

“It is, but it won’t graze as many sheep as it would in, say England. Do they have sheep in America?” she asked, directing her question to both Carmen and Mel.

“Oh, yes, and as it’s a new land it too has its problems enclosing large areas to keep the animals contained.”

Mel smiled. Carmen was using big words again, and she could tell that Fabiola was a little intimidated, even if she didn’t let it show. Fabiola was all bravado on social items but was brilliant when it came to the land and the stock. Mel knew she could learn a lot from Fabiola. Mel and Carmen were both still trying to figure the brother out. He seemed to allow his sister to take the lead. Still, he had stayed behind, ostensibly to supervise at the home paddock while his sister was gone.

She showed them a little valley, which was a bit greener than their own valley where the first flock was located. The dogs didn’t bark as they rode into the valley; they were trained not to bark. Instead, they started moving about restlessly to tell the stockman that something or someone was nearby. He looked up and waved when he saw them, curious about the other people with Fabiola.

“John Neighbors, this is Uncle Jude’s niece. She’s come here all the way from America,” she told him, and he nodded. “My cousin, Mrs. Carmen Pearson.”

“Aye, we’ve been waiting on you for a while now,” he said with a decided Irish brogue.

“Waiting on me?” Carmen asked.

“News that you weren’t going to sell was all over our station. There is little to talk about here,” Fabiola explained. “Anything of news about the family or the station owners is news to everyone here.”

Carmen nodded, understanding. It had been that way with her people back in the valley since everyone knew everyone and many were distantly related besides. Everyone could count someone related to another person through marriage or kinship.

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