The River Charm Read Online Free PDF Page B

that?’ asked Emily, frowning. ‘Did you hear a strange noise?’
    Charlotte dropped her sketchbook and came over, her ears straining. The sound came again – a soft, plaintive whimper.
    â€˜Is it a baby crying?’ replied Charlotte, looking around.
    â€˜What would a baby be doing all the way up here?’ asked Emily. ‘Unless it is an Aboriginal baby.’
    Charlotte shook her head.
    â€˜The Aborigines never come up here because of the grave mound,’ replied Charlotte.
    On the side of Gingenbullen Mountain, the local Aboriginal clan had constructed a large conical grave hill about twelve metres high where, until recently, they had buried their dead. The gravesite was guarded by trees, with each trunk intricately carved with the symbols of weapons – spears, shields and boomerangs. While the local people no longer buried their dead here, they still scrupulously avoided the resting place of their ancestors.
    â€˜Perhaps it’s an injured animal then,’ suggested Emily.
    The girls searched the long grass. The cries seemed very close.
    â€˜Look there,’ Charlotte pointed under a large blue gum. ‘It’s a native bear and her baby.’
    A grey female koala lay still on her side. The joey clung pathetically to its mother, its breathing low and shallow, its furry ears flickering. Charlotte squatted by the two animals, her heart thumping in her chest. Is the mother alive or dead? What has happened to them?
    Samson approached and sniffed the animals.
    â€˜No, Samson,’ ordered Charlotte. ‘Sit and stay.’ Samson obeyed, looking up longingly.
    Emily crouched and clutched Charlotte’s arm.
    â€˜It might be better not to look,’ warned Charlotte. ‘I think the mother is dead.’
    She stood up and took off her fitted, dark-blue riding jacket, which she wore over a white shirt. Making soothing noises, she carefully wrapped the jacket snugly around the joey. Charlotte cuddled the shivering body to her chest then examined the mother. A bloody wound through the head was the obvious cause of death.
    â€˜What happened?’ Emily asked, her voice shaking.
    â€˜I think she’s been shot,’ replied Charlotte.
    â€˜Who would shoot an innocent creature and just leave it to die?’ demanded Emily.
    â€˜Probably one of the convict shepherds,’ guessed Charlotte. ‘I don’t know, but I think we should take the baby home and show Mamma.’
    Emily nodded and packed away their sketchbooks and pencils into the saddlebag. Taking a sheet of fallen paperbark, she placed it over the dead koala and laid her bouquet of wildflowers on the makeshift grave.
    â€˜I wish we could bury her properly,’ Emily said wistfully, before turning away to mount Clarie.
    Using the fallen log as a mounting block, Charlotte clambered up into the side-saddle, still nursing the koala joey. ‘I’ll ask Mamma to send up one of the convicts to do it. Otherwise, the native dogs will find her. It is a miracle that they hadn’t found her and the baby already.’
    Charlotte clicked her tongue, holding the reins with her free hand, and the mare walked on. The girls rode slowly back down the steep, rough track so as not to frighten the koala. At the base of the mountain was a gate leading from the wild scrub into the smaller fenced home paddocks, where cattle and horses grazed. Emily’s horse stood obediently while she leant down to open and then close the gate from the saddle.
    Close to the rear of the house was an orchard planted in long, straight rows with a vast variety of fruit trees – quince, apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry and lemon. A huge poultry yard was bustling with the clucking and scratching of chickens, geese and ducks. A flamboyant turquoise peacock paraded his tail feathers for his drab, grey mate.
    The back of the house was the working side of the estate – a collection of stone and