Kate would always look out for Jack, and sometimes she would bring him something special from the hotel kitchen. Sometimes she would laugh and tell him that he was too big for a normal wife to have to feed and look after, and he’d need to marry a girl who had experience in cooking big quantities of food, a girl who had maybe worked in the kitchen of a hotel for instance. Jack would laugh and ask where she thought a bloke would find such a girl, then she’d yell, and try to slap his ears.

Working on the roads, meant Jack had time to think, and much of that thinking was about Kate and how he would have to prove himself to her father and show how dependable he was, and how he knew a lot more things than Mr O’Malley probably thought he did, and how he wanted one day to have his very own farm and a vehicle repair business and breed top quality working horses.

Jack knew a lot about horses. At the camp, a new horse was always put under his care for the first few weeks after its arrival. He’d get to know the horse, and quietly introduce it to the other horses and to it’s work responsibilities. He had a reputation for gentlying the more difficult young horses sent to work on the road, and the other men always came to him for help with their animals if something wasn’t working out.

Although it seldom happened, when the horses were being put into harness in the early dawn and sometimes standing “too close together, one horse might lash out with one or both of its back feet or swing its neck and head around with ears back and showing a mouth full of teeth to its neighbour or its handler. Sometimes it would be a deliberate response to what it saw as a provocation by another horse who it didn’t get on with and who it thought was getting too close. Other times it could be because its handler was tightening a piece of harness too much or too quickly. Or maybe he had pinched the horses tummy flesh while double-checking the tightness of the girth strap. Jack was always close-by and ready to give assistance, giving a new worker advice about his horses temperament or settle a bad tempered horse should the need occur.

Jack was very confident about his future but for some reason, he had this feeling down deep that Kate’s father did not like him and no matter what, would make their courtship as difficult as possible. These feelings fell away whenever he was with Kate. Being with the one you love drives away a man’s worst fears.

It was late May and almost[…]”“It was late May and almost two months since Kate’s seventeenth birthday. Jack went to Lorne earlier that week to pick up extra oats and chaff for the horses and other bits and pieces. Winter had arrived early, and the animals needed a bit more tucker each morning and night to keep them warm and working along the windy coastal cliff faces.

The town was quiet as Jack drove to the store and none of the lads came out as they often did when he pulled up. It was cold and windy, and he couldn’t blame them for not coming out. When he went into the store, the people working there, most of whom he knew, looked at him sort of funny if they looked at him at all. A couple nodded then quickly looked away. It felt strangely as though they did not know him. When Jack went to the counter with his list of stores, no one came to serve him. Usually, at least one would say hello or yell out to ask how much road had been dug that week as they walked over to serve him. 

After a few minutes, Mrs. Johannson appeared and did something she had never done before. She came around from behind the counter and stood in front of Jack and looked directly into his face. Then she reached out and took hold of his hand and in a slow firm voice said,

“Jack, there is something I have to tell you.”

Jack felt confused. This sort of thing had never happened when he’d come to the store before. Mrs Johansson was dead quiet for a moment then she said,`

“Jack, the O’Malley’s have gone. They left in the middle of the night three days ago, and nobody knows where they went. People are saying that Darcy O’Malley had gotten heavily into debt, gambling and in desperation, took the family, and shot through. Kate’s gone Jack. I’m so sorry.”