Brumby's Run

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Sam looked from the lovely herd to Drew’s expectant face, and then back to the herd. She imagined the horses grazing in the paddocks of Brumby’s Run. She imagined Jarrang’s excitement when he laid eyes on those pretty mares. She drew a huge breath and nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Terry Mitchell looked hopeful. ‘We have a deal then? Good on yer. You’ll never find a finer string at the price. Just promise me they’ll get a good home.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sam reassured him. ‘Will you take a cheque?’ She was half-afraid that Mary’s reputation had preceded her. But Terry just nodded and smiled expansively. She wrote out the cheque, then took possession of the sheaf of transfer papers and service certificates. Sam signed her name as Samantha Carmichael. But Terry didn’t bat an eyelid, and continued to happily call her Charlie.

  One of the friendly ponies laid its head on Terry’s arm. He hugged its neck, burying his face in its bushy mane. Was this tough-looking man crying? ‘You be good then, Topsy.’ He turned to go, his face crumpled and red.

  ‘Wait,’ said Sam. She could see how much these horses meant to the man. ‘You can’t leave yet. Not before I know a bit about each of them.’ She dug around in her bag for a pen and a notepad.

  A grin cracked Terry’s face. ‘Well, you’ve met Topsy, and that,’ he said, pointing to the matching skewbald pony, ‘is his mate Turvy.’ For half an hour, Sam listened to Terry chat about his horses, talking about them like they were his best friends. ‘Those cream mares, they’re wild-caught brumbies. Quietest, most well-mannered horses you could find. And see that liver chestnut by the trough? That’s Flicka. She’s due in the middle of March. It’s her first foal, so she’ll bear extra watching. And Jet,’ he called to the black mare, who disengaged herself from the others and walked straight to him. ‘Jet here,’ he said, stroking her cheek, ‘Jet loves to be at the front of the ride. She’ll jog and fuss otherwise, so you may as well let her have her own way.’

  Sam carefully recorded all that he told her. When he was finally ready to leave, he shook Sam’s hand, an expression of immense gratitude on his face. ‘You treat ’em right and they’ll do the same to you. I reckon they couldn’t be in safer hands.’ The old man hobbled from the yard without a backwards glance.

  ‘That was a good thing you did,’ said Drew.

  ‘It was practical, that’s all,’ said Sam. ‘How else would I know that Ruby only stands for the farrier if she gets liquorice?’ Drew’s laugh lit up his handsome face, and Sam’s misgivings fell away. Everything would be okay. She and Drew would work it out, and make he trail-riding operation a success. His enthusiasm for the deal was infectious. ‘Come on,’ he said, giving Topsy a final scratch behind the ears. ‘The auction’s about to start.’

  A stand was set up in front of the campdrafting ring where the feature sale was to be held. The sign above it read National Brumby Association. Sam browsed the posters and other paraphernalia on display. ‘There’s a brumby studbook?’ she asked the round woman behind the trestle-table counter. ‘I had no idea.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Established in 2007 to promote the Australian Heritage Brumby as a recognised breed.’ She introduced herself as Margot and handed Sam a brochure. The Australian Brumby Horse Register, read Sam, brings to owners the formalisation of the Brumby as a unique breed. It will help to preserve the bloodlines and the heritage of this unique animal, which has developed through natural selection in the wild for more than a century.

  ‘Do you have a particular interest in brumbies?’ asked Margot. ‘Or perhaps you own one?’

  Sam considered the question. Two months ago, she barely knew what a brumby was. She knew nothing of the world of wild horses. But now? She’d spent the month working with over forty of them. She supposed that counted as a special interest. Did she own one? When she thought about it, she actually owned more than one. There was Tambo. Technically Charlie’s, but as good as hers. And Jarrang? She smiled to herself. Could anybody really own Jarrang? Then there were Terry Mitchell’s creamy brumby mares. Her creamy brumby mares now. She even had the transfer papers in the name of Samantha Carmichael to prove it. After what had happened with Pharaoh, that was a very reassuring thing. And what about Phoenix? Sam had decided some time ago that, sooner or later, the golden colt would be hers. And then there was that graceful grey from Jarrang’s mob – she wanted her too. ‘Yes,’ she answered at last. ‘Yes to both questions.’

  ‘You’ll want to join then,’ said Margot, handing her a membership form. ‘And register your horse.’ A registration form landed in her hand. Sam must have looked unsure, for Margot went into a promotional spiel worthy of the finest infomercial host. ‘The National Brumby Association welcomes all authentic brumbies to the register, and welcomes anyone interested in preserving our brumby heritage to become a member. All horses that can be verified as coming from a wild herd are eligible. Progeny from authenticated brumbies can also join, and there’s an appendix register for part-bred brumbies.’ She paused for breath. ‘If your brumby isn’t registered, please consider joining.’

  What could she say to that? Apart from, ‘Can I have some more registration forms please?’ Margot beamed. The loudspeaker announced the sale was about to begin. ‘Come and see me afterwards if you’ve got any questions,’ said Margot. Sam thanked her and went to find Drew.

  Drew and Sam sat on one of the giant hay bales surrounding the campdrafting arena. The auctioneer knocked down the last of Bushy’s horses to a local family, and the pretty yearling pranced from the ring. There’d been a surprisingly strong demand for the ground-broken young brumbies, even from interstate. Sam would miss working with them, and was very glad Bushy had held Phoenix over. There was no way she could have afforded to buy the colt now, not after paying for the Mitchell string.

  ‘Want a beer?’ asked Drew.

  Sam nodded. He jumped down and wandered off towards the bar. The loudspeaker crackled back to life: ‘Next we offer a yarding of ten wild brumbies, captured three weeks ago straight off Maroong Mountain.’ It was Jarrang’s mob. She looked around for Drew. He wouldn’t want to miss this.

  Sam felt the weight of somebody scaling the bale behind her, then two hands covered her eyes. She yelped. ‘Drew, so help me …!’ But it wasn’t Drew. It was Spike.

  ‘Disappointed?’ he asked, flashing a winning smile.

  ‘Annoyed is more like it,’ Sam said. ‘Now shush. I want to see what happens.’ The elegant grey mare trotted into the ring. No – it was more like she floated in. Sam had seen that graceful gait before. She racked her brain to think where it had been. The national dressage championships, Sydney Equestrian Centre, Horsley Park. A charismatic dappled stallion, the first Andalusian she’d ever seen in the flesh, performing the passage – a high-school movement consisting of an elevated and extremely powerful trot. How was it that this brumby mare, straight off the mountain, moved with the same degree of collection and impulsion as had that exotic stallion from Spain? It was just like she was dancing on air. An appreciative murmur rose from the crowd, and the bidding commenced.

  Ryan, the young welfare officer from the Brumby Coalition, made a bid. Sam did sums in her head for the umpteenth time. She couldn’t possibly afford to buy again today. No matter. If the mare fell to Ryan, she could be in charge of its basic education anyway. Plenty of time to save up, for the mare and for Phoenix as well. Now a rough-looking man to her left raised the bid. Sam peered around Spike, looking for Drew. Her shoulder inadvertently pressed against the bull rider’s, and he responded with a subtle pressure of his own. Sam moved away a fraction.

  Ryan raised the offer and the other bidder followed suit. A stray kelpie suddenly slipped between the rails and darted for the mare’s heels. She exploded in a frenzy of bucking, hurling herself skywards with stiffened legs, spinning like a whirling dervish. The crowd cheered as she turned on the red dog and pursued him from the ring with flattened ears and bared teeth.

  ‘Wayne won’t let her go now,’ said Spike, leaning close.r />
  ‘Who’s Wayne?’ she asked.

  Spike pointed at the rough man to her left. ‘Wayne Clarke from Clarke and Sons. Rodeo contractors. That mare? She’s got a mean buck.’

  Sam’s heart fell. Ryan had to buy her. The magnificent mare had to stay at the racecourse, safe with Bushy, safe with her. She couldn’t go to some rodeo. Drew would help. Sam stood up and looked over the crowd milling below the stand. She spotted Drew wending his way back with drinks in hand. Sam waved both arms in the air, managed to get his attention. But all he did was smile and wave in reply. Sam jumped up and down, screamed his name. People nearby glared in her direction but Sam didn’t care.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Couldn’t he hear the auctioneer’s voice over the loudspeaker? ‘Wayne Clarke can see the potential in this young brumby as a bucking horse. He normally gets what he wants, and he wants this grey brumby. Do I hear a raise?’ Sam already knew the answer; knew that Ryan was on a tight budget and couldn’t compete with the cashed-up contractor.

  The penny must have dropped with Drew. Too late, he came sprinting towards the stand. A brief scattering of applause, and the mare was knocked down to Wayne Clarke.

  Sam sank back down onto the bench and buried her head in her hands.

  ‘Not to worry, Princess,’ said Spike. ‘A good bucking animal’s worth its weight in gold to those guys. I’ve seen horses get a lot worse treatment in show-jumping rings. And don’t even get me started on jumps races.’ He moved sideways to let Drew through, then moved back before Drew was properly past, jostling him.

  Drew shoved him back, his face darkening. ‘Don’t tell me Wayne got his hands on that grey?’ He handed Sam the beer. She took the can and nodded dumbly.

  ‘I tried to tell her the horse’ll be okay …’ Spike started.

  ‘Shut up, Spike.’ Drew took Sam’s hand, tugged her from her seat and out of the stand.

  ‘Sorry, Sam. But that bloke really rubs me the wrong way.’ Drew took a swig of beer. ‘And I’m sorry about that mare.’ He took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘I should have been here, should have bid on her myself. They usually leave the best horses til last. But for once, even though it kills me to admit it, I have to agree with Spike. Those rodeo blokes do the right thing by their stock.’

  Sam couldn’t agree. To her, rodeos were blatant exhibitions of animal abuse that had no more place in a civilised society than cock-fighting or bear-baiting. It made her sick to the stomach, thinking of that lovely filly being forced to buck, a strap cinched tight around her sensitive flanks. And to think that she’d been involved in the filly’s capture, that she was responsible for delivering her from a life of freedom to one of torment.

  The auctioneer announced the next entry. The bay brumby with the inquisitive dun foal trotted into the ring. Sam turned to watch. Thank God Ryan was back in full swing. Bushy stood beside him as he bid against a thin man in a baseball cap. After the mother and foal were knocked down to him, Ryan spotted Sam by the rails and he and Bushy came over to say hello. Another horse entered the arena, an older roan mare this time. ‘You’d better get back over there,’ said Sam. ‘The next brumby’s out.’

  Ryan made a show of turning his pants pockets inside out. ‘I’m done for the day,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame I lost the grey filly. What a beauty.’

  ‘Drew says she’ll be okay,’ said Sam doubtfully. ‘So does Spike.’ She was trying to convince herself as much as Ryan.

  Bushy looked grave. ‘Normally I’d agree with them fellas,’ he said. ‘But there’s something about that horse.’ He shook his head. ‘I reckon rodeo will turn that one bad.’ Nobody spoke for a bit, depressed by Bushy’s gloomy prediction.

  ‘On a brighter note,’ said Ryan, ‘you guys will have six new ones to work with on Monday.’

  ‘Only six?’ asked Sam. ‘What will happen to the rest?’ She pointed to the roan brumby, standing alert and uncertain in the middle of the arena. ‘What will happen to her?’

  ‘We can’t save them all,’ said Ryan, and he turned away.

  His words gave her a chill. When the sale was over, Sam returned to Margot at the stall.

  ‘What got you into this brumby thing?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I suppose the original inspiration was an author, Elyne Mitchell. Like so many other girls of my generation, I was raised on the Silver Brumby books. When my husband and I bought our first brumbies, the meat truck pulled up behind us. They took the ones that we didn’t take. I was horrified by that.’

  Sam looked over at the chain-smoking man with the baseball cap who had just bought the nervous roan mare, and an awful realisation hit her. Mr Baseball Cap was the knackery man.

  Chapter Twenty

  It had only taken a week of working alongside Sam each day to completely destroy Drew’s resolve. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and his body had a mind of its own. At times his longing for her had been so powerful that it felt like an illness. They’d spent their days testing out the new horses, extending the yards, fixing up the sheds and disposing of truckloads of rubbish. The old place had never looked so good. Sam was always tantalisingly near: standing at the opposite end of a saw plank or a two-man post-hole digger. Having a crack at hoof trimming, bent down right in front of him while he steadied the head of a fractious horse. She was a fast learner, a quick thinker and never shirked a task, however difficult or unpleasant. The more he got to know her, the more he’d grown to love her. To hell with guarding his heart. It was time to take a risk.

  On Saturday he’d taken Sam on a ride, right to the rim of the range. To gaze out from Ramshead Lookout was like being suspended in space. It had felt good, sharing that dramatic view with her. To the south, the ridges were clothed with virgin forest as far as the eye could see. To the west, a jagged wall of granite cliffs rose like battlements. To the north, a silver streamer hung down the cliff. It broke into rainbows of spray on the rocks below, filling a chain of deep reflective pools. A primeval scene. They could have been the last people on earth. ‘Stay with me,’ he’d said. ‘Stay with me tonight at Dead Man’s Hut.’ His invitation had echoed around the range. Sam had studied his face for the longest time. He’d dreaded seeing reticence or refusal in her eyes. When she’d finally smiled and nodded her assent, he’d wanted to sing.

  Dusk was falling fast by the time they reached Dead Man’s Hut. Drew couldn’t ever remember being so happy. He sat on the ground before the camp-fire, propped against his saddle, Sam’s back between his knees. ‘So what do you think of the Mitchell string now?’ He lightly combed her silky hair between work-roughened fingers. ‘Will they do?’

  ‘They’ll more than do,’ she said. ‘And that ride we took today? Seriously, it’s stunning, absolutely magical. People will beat a path to our door for an experience like that.’ Drew leaned forward, gently turned her head and kissed her, a proper kiss this time, a deeply sexual kiss. She could not have mistaken its meaning, and still her response was warm and eager, a consent not only with her lips, but with her entire body. Easy now. Don’t push it.

  The two creamy brumby mares nickered in their yard. Drew tore himself away from the kiss and jumped to his feet. ‘Relax,’ said Sam. ‘Jarrang’s safe back home at Brumby’s Run. He won’t be stealing any mares away from you tonight.’

  That was true. The brumbies were gone from Maroong Mountain, for now at least, though it wouldn’t take long for a new mob to claim Jarrang’s deserted territory. Drew wandered over to the yards, where the mares stood with high heads and pricked ears, transfixed by some invisible presence in the gloom. An uncertain moon rose behind the peak. It hesitated for a few moments then, throwing caution to the high winds, launched its round orb sky-wards. Its soft light lit the night and gilded the cream mares in polished silver. A snowy owl, silhouetted on a twisted branch, hooted gently as Drew peered into the dark. The white limbs of trees gleamed pale against the sky, and the black ground was striped and patterned with moon shadow.

  Drew loved night-time in the mountai
ns. Life seemed less complicated, reduced to its essentials, stripped bare of daytime cares. Its sheer simplicity sometimes scared him.

  The deep-throated lowing of cattle echoed through the ghost gums. So that’s what had disturbed the mares. Most likely Kilmarnock cattle, part of the trial grazing deal his father had wangled with his government mates. Although there were, he knew, wild bands of scrubbers roaming the range, elusive as phantoms. They bore no brands, endured no whips or dogs. They grew old and died in the shadow of Maroong Mountain, instead of in the shadow of the slaughterhouse. Drew’s grandfather had believed that bad luck would befall any man who tried to muster in the scrubber herd. Even Drew’s practical father had not dared to test the theory. So they had remained for generations, as free and untamed as Balleroo itself.

  Drew threw the mares a few extra biscuits of hay then hurried back to the warmth of the fire, to the warmth of Sam. Drew’s body thrummed in anticipation, his every nerve ending alive. He wanted so very much to sleep with Sam, to hold her all night in his arms, to make love to her. He imagined her sweet, soft body cradled naked beside him, and desire welled up in a physical way. But he wanted something else much, much more. He wanted to know who she really was, and how she came to be here with him on this star-studded night, on this magic mountain.

  ‘I’m shivering,’ she said on his return. ‘Let’s light a fire in the hut.’