The Snow Pony

by Alison Lester

  One of the boys in her class, Danny Connelly, started calling her Slim, as in Slim Dusty, and soon all his mates were doing it, too. When Dusty passed them in the corridor they’d all start to sing The Pub with No Beer, then howl with laughter as she walked away. When she looked at her reflection straight on, her scar didn’t seem too bad, but she knew that from the side it was drastic, slicing through her dark features like a lightning bolt. Everybody talked about it. Some girls came straight out and asked what had happened, others whispered together, then stopped when she walked into the room. One girl, Shannon, even called her Scarface. Dusty started to wear her hair loose, so she could let it fall over that side of her face. She decided that the only way to survive school was to treat it as a chore. Rita drove her into Banjo to catch the bus in the morning, and after she kissed her mother goodbye it was ‘survival mode’ until she got off the bus in the afternoon. She read for the hour it took to get to Bankstown, then went to the school library, read again, went to her locker, went to class, then read all the way home again. Sometimes the ‘good’ girls from her class asked her to have lunch with them, but most days she sat by herself and read. She was powering through books.

  Dusty wasn’t the only loner at the school. From behind her hair, she watched kids hanging around the edges of groups, trying to be part of a gang, but Dusty would rather have died than done that. There was another girl, Jade, who always seemed to be on her own, but she was a year ahead of Dusty, and she was hardly ever at school anyway. ‘Her mother’s a hippy, she’s so trippy,’ Dusty heard Danny Connelly snigger once as Jade walked past.

  Dusty and Sally wrote to each other every week, and it seemed that as Dusty’s life got worse, Sally’s got better. Dusty tried not to feel jealous when she read about shopping and sport and midnight feasts, but it felt as if Sally were moving into a different world. Dusty lived for the weekends, when she, Rita and Stewie would head off to a show.

  The Snow Pony was jumping better all the time, although she didn’t win every event. Dusty learnt to lose, learnt to accept that sometimes things just didn’t go right. She still rode Rita’s learners in the novice events, so by the end of the day she was exhausted. Stewie had started to ride Tarzan in the novelty events – the bending race, the flag and barrel – and the first time he won a ribbon his smile went from ear to ear. Jack never came with them to the shows, he was busy cutting lucerne and getting things ready for when the cows came home. There was no feed for them at The Willows because the paddocks were bare, so he was trying to buy hay as well, but the drought was so widespread that the price was astronomical. He was getting grumpier and grumpier. He was always snapping at Stewie, and it seemed to Dusty that he hardly spoke to her.

  ‘I reckon he feels like a failure,’ she whispered to Stewie one night as they lay in bed listening to him arguing with Rita about what to do. ‘He’s always been the man, the boss, and now he’s relying on me, his kid, for money.’

  School was so awful that Dusty tried to stay home as often as she could, and when it was time to bring the cows and calves down from The Plains it was a joy to take a week off. They sat around the kitchen table and planned the trip. The four of them were going. Dusty remembered the funny times they’d had together on the road in the past and hoped this trip would be as good.

  ‘I wonder if the pinto, Hillbilly, will still be there,’ she said to Rita. ‘I wonder if the Snow Pony will remember him.’

  Rita looked at Jack and then at Dusty. ‘You’re not taking the Snow Pony.’

  Dusty started to argue, but Rita cut her off.

  ‘This isn’t open to discussion, Dusty. Your father and I have decided. It’s only a year since she came down, and we think it would be asking for trouble to take her back up. You wouldn’t want to lose her.’

  Dusty looked at her parents and she could see that they were serious. And it would be terrible if her beautiful mare ran off with the brumbies. Life would be unbearable without the Snow Pony.

  ‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll take Spook, then.’ But one day, she thought to herself, one day I’ll ride the Snow Pony on the high plains.

  The show season stopped soon after they brought the cows and calves down from The Plains, and then Dusty was flat out helping with the cattle. The calves were weaned, and the day they were separated from their mothers the bellowing and bawling from the yards was deafening. She and Jack worked in the yards together, drafting the cows and calves, deciding which ones to cull, picking out some promising heifers to add to the herd. As Rita predicted, the calf sales brought them little reward. Nobody had any feed, so the demand for store cattle was low, and their cheque was only two-thirds what it had been the year before. It was a pathetic income for a year’s work.

  After the sales, winter crept in, as though the gloom had affected the weather. Now, going to school was even worse for Dusty; getting on the bus in the dark, coming home in the dark. The Snow Pony stood in her paddock for days at a time without being ridden. It was cold and it was dark, but it still didn’t rain. Sally still wrote every week and even though Dusty felt envious, it was great to be able to be part of her life through the mail. Sally had come home for Easter and brought a friend with her: Meena, whose parents lived in Hong Kong. Dusty went and stayed for a couple of nights and it was good fun, but it was different. She guessed it would always be different for her and Sally from now on.

  Spring came, and as soon as the snow had melted from The Plains they drove the cows and calves up there, anxious to get them away from the dirt patch that The Willows had become. Hillbilly was there again, and he whinnied to the horses like an old friend.

  The last term of school finally finished and Dusty couldn’t get away fast enough. Sally came home for Christmas, but then went to stay with a friend at the beach, and Dusty was on her own again with the Snow Pony. In January the shows started and the Snow Pony began the season on a high, winning two C grade competitions in a row and forcing herself up to B grade.

  Dusty sat four rows up in the grandstand at the Bankstown showgrounds. She was leaning against the wall, still wearing her jodhpurs and boots and a white shirt with green horse slobber on it. It was a year since she’d won her first C grade here at the Bankstown Show, a year since she’d cut her face. Today she’d won her first B grade competition and yet another rider had asked her about buying the Snow Pony. He didn’t seem to think she meant it when she said the mare was not for sale. He thought she was trying to get a better price, and kept talking and talking. Finally she’d had to walk away. With her cap pulled low over her eyes, she looked as though she was watching the main arena but she couldn’t have named one event happening there. All her attention was on the purple tent beside the grandstand, Jeannie’s Crystals and Candles. When she had walked past the stall earlier, a tall skinny woman in purple velvet and blonde dreadlocks had given her a huge smile. Dusty smiled back shyly and suddenly the woman was in front of her, cupping her shoulders gently and peering above her head. Dusty patted her hair – maybe Stewie had stuck something on her head – but the woman laughed. ‘You have the most beautiful aura!’ She stepped back, and Dusty pushed past her, blushing scarlet. She glimpsed a girl her age behind the candles and crystals, and she was wincing with embarrassment, too. It was that girl from school, Jade, the other lonely one. Dusty caught her eye, and the girl shrugged slightly and pulled a funny face, as if to say, ‘Mothers – what can you do?’ Dusty grinned.

  As Dusty headed for the grandstand she heard, ‘Mu-um! How could you?’, but Jeannie was already talking to her next customer. ‘Heeey! I love that fragrance you’re wearing. Crystals? Sure we’ve got a great range. Jade will show you. I’m just going to put some music on.’

  Dusty listened to Jade explaining the crystals. ‘This one? Yes, you’d hang it in a window so it would catch the light. It makes beautiful rainbows.’

  ‘It’s got incredible positive energy,’ the mother was talking again, ‘especially for Virgos.’ The customer murmured something Dusty couldn’
t hear. ‘Well, it’s good for Leos, too. If you let the morning light come through it, your days will be …’

  The CD began to play, and Ben Harper drowned out her voice. Dusty knew him because Milo had all his CDs. She wondered if it would be fun to have a mum like Jeannie, even if she was a bit embarrassing. Everything Rita did was to do with horses and cattle, there was no room for crazy clothes, and there was nowhere to wear them anyway. Her mum’s idea of dressing up was a new pair of moleskins and an ironed shirt. She was definitely not a groovy mum.

  A group of other kids from school bounced past the grandstand, half-dancing as they picked up the rhythms of the music. They were as colourful and noisy as a flock of parrots, and laden down with stuff from the sideshows: crazy hats, over-size glasses, fairy floss, plastic windmills and show bags.

  ‘Hey, Dusty!’ They stopped and looked up at her as though she was a sideshow herself. ‘Wotcha doing up there? Why’re ya wearing a tie, ya dag?’ Shannon nudged the others, and laughed.

  Dusty shrugged. ‘I’ve been riding, showjumping. You have to wear a tie.’

  ‘Far out.’ Danny Connelly peered up at her over his sunglasses. ‘That’s as bad as school uniform. I have enough of that during the week, man!’ He exploded into laughter, and Dusty felt like punching him on the nose.

  ‘So, did you win?’ He was still there, hands on his hips, grinning at her.

  ‘Yeah, I did actually.’ I won two hundred and fifty dollars, you smarty, thought Dusty, but I’m not going to tell you that. Let them think she was a dork. They had no idea about showjumping – how difficult, fast and exciting it was.

  ‘Cool. Oh well, catch ya.’ As they walked on, Shannon said something Dusty couldn’t hear, and the group howled with laughter.

  It was times like this that she missed Sally the most. She didn’t even want these stupid kids as friends, she just wanted them to want her. But she was getting used to being on her own.

  They stopped in front of the purple tent and Dusty could hear the girls going on in that gooey way that made her want to vomit. ‘Ooooh! How beautiful is this? Ooooh! I looove that colour! Ooooh! That really suits you!’ Jeannie was playing up to them, whirling, swirling, showing them dresses, candles, crystals and shawls, but Jade was standing to one side, tidying the jewellery cabinet, and the kids ignored her.

  Dusty was going home with money in her pocket – two hundred and fifty dollars that would go straight into the farm bank account. She would have loved to go into the purple tent and spend some of it on jewellery and groovy Indian clothes, but she was too shy. She always felt like such a hick in her riding clothes. And besides, her family depended on that money. She stayed in the grandstand for a while, watching the crowds drift past, listening to Jade’s mother rave on, then wandered back to the truck and her solitary showjumping life.

  8

  Tough times in Banjo

  That summer, when Dusty turned fourteen, was the driest for years. The creek slowed to a trickle, the dams were nearly empty and the hills around the house crouched like thirsty animals, holding the folds of the valley in their giant paws. Battered old red gums dotted the slopes, and ugly patches of red earth showed through the tawny cover where cattle had chewed the dry grass to nothing. The only green on the farm was the ribbon of willows that lined the road and the paddock of lucerne growing on the irrigated land beside the creek. Fortunately for the Rileys, their cattle were up on the high plains. All that remained on the farm were Dusty’s house cow, Spot, the horses and a mob of scrawny sheep that had provided their meat for two years now. Killers, these sheep were called, and Dusty hated them. Sometimes, when her mum put tea on the table and it was chops again, Dusty wanted to throw them out the window and scream.

  There used to be a school bus that ran from Banjo out to their farm, but so many families had moved away from the valley that the education department closed the service down. You had to have at least twelve kids to get a bus run. That’s how it was: services closed down because there weren’t enough people to justify them, and then more people moved away because the services had closed down. The bank and the telephone depot had gone last year, the medical centre opened only once a fortnight, and if three more kids left the school, that would be shut down too. Banjo was turning into a ghost town.

  Rita got wild when she read about the booming times in the city. ‘We’ve been forgotten!’ She shook the paper angrily. ‘It’s all happening in Melbourne: casinos, car races, festivals. This government doesn’t give a damn about country people. You read about drought relief, but all we get is freight assistance. We have to pay for everything the animals eat.’

  It wouldn’t be so bad, thought Dusty, if her dad would cheer up. If everyone in the family was happy and healthy, her Mum used to say, you could put up with anything. ‘It’s not as though there’s a war on. Nobody’s chasing us with guns. It’s just a drought. I wouldn’t care if we had to live in a caravan. As long as it was near the beach. Ha ha ha.’

  Dusty remembered this conversation as a turning point, as the time she realised that her father had changed, because instead of laughing at Rita and chatting back with something like, ‘Oh yeah, I can just see you in a caravan. Where would you keep the piano?’, he had pushed back his chair and flung it at the pantry door. It was so unexpected that Dusty and Rita just sat there with their mouths open, staring like stunned mullets at the chair bouncing off the wall like some weird chrome-and-vinyl weapon.

  ‘This is my land!’ His face was only a few inches from Rita’s. ‘I can’t walk away from everything Dad and Grand-pa put into this place. You shit me with your hippy talk. We’re staying here!’

  His face was white and furious. He brought his arm back and for a terrible moment Dusty thought he was going to hit her mum, but he swept the sugar bowl off the table and stormed out the back door, banging it so hard the house shook. Sugar was still sprinkling on to the floor as they listened to his ute revving angrily down the drive and banging over the bridge, and the scream of tyres as it turned on to the road. The sugar crystals still fell, like a sprinkling waterfall, strangely delicate, thought Dusty, when the emotion and action that caused them to fall was so ugly and violent. She dared to look at her mother and saw her face was crumpled with hurt. Their eyes met and Rita’s filled with tears.

  At night, Jack sat on the couch and flicked through TV channels with the remote control. He never finished a program, just watched it until an ad came on, then flicked to the next channel. Just as you got interested in something, he’d cut it off. He had turned the lounge room into the most uncomfortable place in the house.

  In the old days, they’d only watched TV if something special was on. There were always too many other things to do. Sometimes Jack used to plait headstalls, sometimes he played the guitar, and sometimes he read aloud. The four of them would laze together on the old leather couches as the firelight flickered over them and talk for hours. Now no one sat in the lounge room with Jack. He had it to himself – the couch, the TV, the remote control – all to himself.

  It had turned into a sad house, Dusty thought. Rita didn’t stand up to him any more. In the old days she had always let him have it if she thought he deserved it, but now she bit her tongue, even when he was picking on Stew. It was as though the tension in the house had increased about four hundred times, and the tiniest disturbance could send their lives twanging in all sorts of broken directions.

  The Snow Pony had become Dusty’s best friend, the one she told her secrets to. Sometimes when they rode out over the bare hills, she would stop and look up at the mountains, ears pricked, as though she was listening for a call. Dusty hated to think that she’d taken her horse away from a place she loved so dearly, and now she was unhappy herself it was as though they shared a common sadness.

  Sally came home for the last week of the holidays and insisted that Dusty come to stay with her. ‘You have to come. If you don’t, I’ll come to a show with you, and we both know what a bad idea that would be, don’t we?�
�

  Dusty laughed, Sally could always get her going.

  ‘Please,’ Sally pleaded. ‘We haven’t been together, just us, for ages. Mum and Milo want to see you, too.’

  Dusty stayed at Sally’s for five week days, so she wouldn’t miss a show, and hardly stopped laughing. It was just like the old times, when she and Sally could have a ball doing absolutely nothing. They had such a good time that when Sally went back to boarding school, part of Dusty wished she was going with her. The other part of her realised she couldn’t bear to be away from home while her father was acting like a madman. She couldn’t abandon Stewie and her mum. She needed to be there to make sure things didn’t go horribly wrong. Sometimes, when she read stories in the paper about families self-destructing, with guns, or exhaust fumes piped into cars, it seemed as if her own family was just a whisker away from that. If she were in Melbourne, she’d worry about them all the time.

  9

  The Gelantipy cows

  Dusty stepped off the Bankstown bus and walked past Christanis’ milk bar, studying the footpath as though it held the secrets of the universe, determined not to let her eyes veer right to the trays of lollies in the window. She was starving. Before things got so bad, when she was still at Banjo Primary, she and Stew and the other kids used to race each other from school to the milk bar steps. An icy pole, a packet of chicken chips, a licorice strap – there were always a few coins in your pocket, or Mrs Christani would put it on their account.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jack used to joke. ‘Ze Count will pay for it.’