Noah seems to have taken the roaring fire from his outburst and doused it with with ice. As I ring the door bell, I worm my hand into his big one. I see the deep inhalation he takes, making his shoulder's rise before his hand closes on mine. I marvel at how it's warm when he looks so cold.
He's been careful not to look at me since I told him my plan of attack, I'm pretty certain he's scared to believe not only that he may have a chance not to go to jail but that people are willing to help him.
Nathan, Chops, Dad and I went to help out at Henry's a year ago, after Henry's wife died of breast cancer; his only son couldn't cope and offed himself in the paddock leaving Henry to find him half eaten and everything as well leaving the whole place to Henry to run. Good on ya' son... not. I want to call him selfish prick but I can't, not when I know what the real meaning of overwhelmed is. Still it was a shithouse thing to do, Dad blame's it on the government, we don't really go around advertising we need help. Farmers are the backbone Dad says, the government should think of us, we shouldn't have to beg.
The station two over got someone sent to them once, the owner, Rod, shot at him. He was not land, he had no idea of what the hell anything to do with anything was about it. Rod said he would have been better off ringing the call centre for Telstra for advice.
It's weird, just like me now with the pain, we think we can get through it ourselves. That rain will come or something and make everything better. And most of the time it does. Joy obliterates the crap and somehow strengthens us to do it all over again. The cycle goes on and on, because it gets old for other people hearing about it it's still life for us.
Henry's place isn't near our the size of ours, so we only needed to stay for a few weeks to get most everything sorted. Heaps of locals came and helped out when they could. Wives made enough food for Henry to live for years without worry, and that's damn big because some of these farmers live on nothing themselves to get their livestock through droughts. And this one is a whoopa.
One of those locals though, was this quiet guy, Henry said he was fighting with the banks for his farm. Things are pretty bad at the moment with some of the loans, the company everyone was dealing with handed the contracts over to the banks and the banks changed things overnight, so some farms have gone up for sale when the owners didn't want them to. Really cheap as well. I mean really cheap, so cheap that the owners would still be paying millions off after the sale. Dad and Angus have gone over our loan with a fine tooth comb. Angus was ranting about it for ages. I'm glad they didn't leave the maths bit to me.
This guy originally wasn't was from up our way, he'd only bought into the farm about four years ago, anyway a 'new' bank approved owner rocked up and everyone got wind of it and went out there to back him up. He was shocked that everyone turned up to have his back. But that's what we do, we look after our own. And that's what Noah is going to learn.
The door opens to reveal Jill in her I love Corgi pj's, looking as excited as a kelpie pup in the sheep yard for the first time with actual sheep. Her eyes are bright and she's smiling ear to ear, she is practically bouncing on her toes like she's been glued on to an out of control pogo stick. I grin at her enthusiasm.
Noah's hand tenses around mine, I can tell he was wondering if he should dash his small ray of hope right now. Jill's mouth opens and closes a few times before she manages to get some words out. "Avalon, and Noah? Come in, come in," I go to move through but she yanks me to her bosom and hug me, I hug her back with a giggle as the support from her arms around my sides gives me surprising relief. I want to sigh again as I think of maybe pulling out Amber's bandages at home and trying those on myself.
