Under The Harvest Moon

Gary Blinco

Description

A shadowy form moved in a crouch along the creek bank, a stout club upraised and silhouetted against the sparkling surface of the stream. It approached the forms of the man and the woman as they lay quietly on the rug in the moonlight near the water's edge. The woman's head rested on the man's chest as he lay on his back, as if in a deep sleep. The blows from the club came quickly and viciously, crushing the flesh and bone of the man's head and face, and then the blows fell about the woman's head. She did not stir as her head exploded like a ripe melon. She fell sideways away from the man under the force of the attack, her matted hair gleaming wetly in the moonlight.
The stillness of the night was broken by the eerie sounds of the bush; the lazy honking of the wild ducks, the croaking of the frogs and the mopokes, and the laboured breathing of the attacker.
The figure tossed the club into the creek before splashing into the water and swimming strongly to the far side. Then it left the stream and moved briskly along the opposite bank, heading north towards the bush track that passed by Brinkley's cottage ...
In this his third novel, Gary Blinco paints a graphic picture of coun- try life as family conflict, romance and murder unfold on the Darling Downs in a time of challenge and change during the first bulk wheat harvest in 1957. This book provides an entertaining read and works on three levels: as history, romance and mystery, all in a competent way.

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456600310
• Langue: English

Extrait

Under the Harvest Moon
 
A NOVEL By
 
GARY BLINCO
 
Copyright 2010 Author,
All rights reserved.
 
Published for the Internet by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0031-0
 
No part of t h is book m ay be reproduced in any form by photocop y ing or by any electronic or m echanical m eans, i n cluding i n for m ation storage or retrieval s y ste m s, without per m iss i on in writing from both t h e cop y right owner and t h e publisher of t h is book.
 
This novel is a work of fiction; t h e characters and events described are t h e products of t h e author’s i m agi n ation. Any rese m b lance to past events, or real people, eit h er li v ing or dead, is purely coincidental.
 
 

 
First published in 2003 by Poseidon Books htt p ://www.pose i donbooks.com An i m pri n t of Zeus Publications P.O. Box 2554,
B u rleigh M DC Qld. 4220
A u stralia
 
©Gary Bli n co 2003
 

Under the Harvest Moon
 
Drunk with the harvest moon, Our hearts are not our own; As nature’s creatures swoon, I walk with you alone.
 
Pale gum tips etched in silver, Shimmer upon the bough, We stroll beside the river, Through yesterdays and now.
 
Under the harvest moon, We dream of future years; But morning comes too soon, Renewing pain and tears. We shed our precious lives, And failed visions bloom; Where secret passion thrives, Under the harvest moon.
 
The long wet purple shadows, Engulf the silent stream, And all our little sorrows, Recede behind a dream.
 
Soft hues of grey and white, Deny the unreal day. The deepness of the night; Holds future pains at bay.
 
Under the harvest moon, We dream of future years; But morning comes too soon, Renewing pain and tears. We shed our precious lives, And failed visions bloom; Where secret passion thrives, Under the harvest moon.
 
Pale fields of stubble sprawl, Against the darkened sky; And nature’s ravaged call; Comes as a plaintive cry. Land raped without regret, Speaks out with one accord; But blind hearts soon forget. Man ekes his own reward.
 
Under the harvest moon, We dream of future years; But morning comes too soon, Renewing pain and tears. We shed our precious lives, And failed visions bloom; Where secret passion thrives, Under the harvest moon.
 
Deep night as shadows creep, And weave a dark cocoon, That lulls the world to sleep; Under the harvest moon.
 
But dawn must come at last, Night’s veils are drawn away; We turn and leave the past, For the wonder of today.
 
Under the harvest moon, We dream of future years; But morning comes too soon, Renewing pain and tears. We shed our precious lives, And failed visions bloom; Where secret passion thrives, Under the harvest moon.
 
DEDICATION
 
This book is dedicated to those salt-of-the-earth souls on the Darling Downs who shaped m y beginnings — I hope y ou see y ourselves so m ewhere in this book.
 
Acknowledgments
 
My thanks to Mary Weaver for editing the m anuscript and providing her usual frank and con s tructive feedback during the writing of this book.
 
CHAPTER ONE
 
The rising sun shared the heavens with a pale full m oon that still hung low in the western sky as dawn clai m ed the land, and, for a short interlude, the world hung uncertainly between night and da y . Lennie S y m ons drove slowly along the narrow country lane in his battered old ex-ar m y jeep, taking frequent backward glances to ensure that the driver of the harvester was still following his lead.
 
It had been a dry night. The usual heavy dew had not appeared to m o isten the crop and delay the harvest, and Lennie knew the plant would be able to co mm ence working as soon as they reached the paddock of ripe wheat. Lennie was a fourth generation S y m ons, a descendent of a proud fa m ily of pioneers who had carved thriving sheep and cattle far m s from the once raw bushland on the Darling Downs in south-east Queensland.
 
The clan now focused on grain growing, the y ounger generation having decided that cereal crops provided a higher return for less effort. They had endured so m e setbacks from poor seasons, due to droughts or floods, but now the y ears of land clearing and struggle were being rewarded. The harvest of 1957 was well under wa y , and it looked like being a record crop, the first really successful season since the change from livestock to grain.
 
Lennie had been sent to university to study agriculture, and his father was disappointed at the ti m e when he switched courses after six m onths, finally m ajoring in literature and fine arts. But the disappoint m ent was short lived when, after graduation, Lennie returned to the farm and displa y ed a talent for lateral thinking and plann i ng. He now worked on the huge property as an ad m inistrator, stud y ing and coordinating crop rotation techniques, and plann i ng a genetically sound breeding program for the far m ’s re m aining cattle and sheep.
 
His acade m ic m u sings and m eticulous s y ste m s did not sit too well with his four brothers. They felt that Lennie was the favoured and anointed son a nd that he had been given opportunities that were denied them in the early da y s. But they could not deny the soundness of his m ethods. The results showed in the success of the far m , and this record y ear would validate his s y ste m s conclusivel y . When the pressures of the planting season or the harvest were relaxed, Lennie liked to paint and write. His brothers did not regard this as real work, and it fuelled the ani m osity that festered in their hearts.
 
Despite the constancy of his responsibilities and the resent m ent of his brothers, Lennie loved the bush and the rough far m ing life. Perhaps this was because his artist ’ s e y es saw beauty and feeling in the land that the others m issed. He did not just see the land as a raw resource from which to m ake m one y . Rather, he saw the beauty and agelessness of the land, and he was deter m ined to conserve as m u ch of the natural bush as he could. He tried to keep so m e sensible controls over the clearing process as the m ove from cattle and sheep raising to grain cropping advanced.
 
Many of the far m ers tore down the scrub with reckless abandon, but Lennie had insisted on a controlled and well- planned program as the land was being cleared for crops. As a result, the property was covered in a patchwork of cultivation paddocks, regularly punctuated with belts of natural ti m ber, all interconnected from the low hills down to the various watercourses that drained the far m . Lennie advocated a balanced approach with a long-term plan and fortunately his father supported his views. If his brothers had their wa y , the land would be devoid of all trees except for a few lines of gu m s along the public roads which were protected from their bulldozers.
 
Of course Lennie had not lived through the desperately hard y ears of pioneering, droughts, floods and econo m ic depression that had plagued his forebears, and his ro m antic ideals had never been tested like those of his father and older brothers. But still there was a special bond between Lennie and this land and it seized him now as he took in the s m ells of the bush. The scent of the wildflowers along the lane and the creek bank m ingled with the m u sty aro m a of the ripe grain that rippled in long furrows as a light wind raced across the field, m o aning in the trees and dancing through the crops. The little breeze carried strange sweet m arine s m ells up from the nearby creek, s m ells of fish and water birds and deca y ing vegetation along the water ’ s edge. He had known these special scents all his life. He associated them with the solitude of the bush and the quiet rural life he loved.
 
Lennie absent- m indedly led the m odern harvesting m achine along the rough surface of the lane that tunnelled under the gu m s to a broad paddock that rested along the banks of the Grasstree Creek. As he reached the paddock the s m ell of diesel fu m es and grease from the m achines suddenly overpowered the other bush scents and brought him back to the job at hand. He cli m bed out of the jeep and opened a wide wire gate, and then he stood aside as the m achine entered the wheatfield. Lennie walked to the side of the tractor and signalled to the driver.
 
The m an drew the m achine to a halt and throttled back the diesel engine. ‘Get stuck into it Alan,’ Lennie called above the noise of the idling m o tor. ‘You can unload the grain down the other side near the lane; y ou have plenty of e m pty bags on the tray there. So m eone will be along to relieve y ou about five this afternoon. A bloke na m ed Noel Brinkley will turn up to sew the bags when y ou get a few off. He lives in that cottage y ou can see down at the end of the paddock across the lane.’
 
The driver nodded and looked at the cottage through the m o rning haze as Lennie returned to the jeep and cli m bed ni m b ly into the driver ’ s seat. He gazed back at the harvester until the m achine went to work, then he drove slowly back along the lane as dawn broke over the countr y side, flooding the field with shafts of light that filtered through the branches of the tall trees. The sun was now above the treetops like a red orb on the horizon, the ra y s pierced through the haze, painting the landscape a rusty hue.
 
Birds stirred in the trees as t h e m achinery crept through the paddock of ripe wheat, harvesting the crop and noisily interrupting the silence of the bush. Alan Hale stared at the twisting spiral of the pick-up tray through the cloud of dust that rose around the harvester. The whirring cutters burrowed through the thick rows of crop, severing the pale ste m s and dispatching the swollen heads to the winding auger. The straw m oved across the tray and disappeared into the bowels of the m achine to be stripped of the grain.
 
A neat line of barren trash fed from the rear of the harvester, m arking its