He flashed her that winsome smile of his that worked nearly every time, on everybody else at least.
‘Glad you’re coming out with us today Aurora. Be really good to have you along. Anything that I can do for you, or if you are worried about anything, you let me know.’
‘Thanks Keith. I think Callan has it all under control.’
Callan meanwhile hadn’t acknowledged Keith’s appearance. He’d made a good job of pretending that he was too busy to notice whilst listening to the exchange. He didn’t have a lot of respect for Keith and his treatment of women. He tended to go through them the same way your average person went through a box of tissues, discarding them one after the other. After glimpsing that latent vulnerability in Aurora the other day, he didn’t want Keith to take advantage of that and he had noticed that Keith had been hanging around Aurora a lot in the evenings. He knew it was absolutely none of his business, but all the same, he didn’t want to see her bruised and discarded. Now that Aurora had mentioned his name, he had no choice but to acknowledge the younger man’s presence. He popped his head up from the other side of Sox.
‘Hey Keith.’
Callan saw Keith falter for just a second.
‘Hi Cal.’
Keith turned his attention back to Aurora.
‘Looks like it’s all under control, so I’ll be off. Offer stands though, if throughout the day you need anything at all just holler.’
He swaggered off towards his own horse that was tied to a nearby rail and made a show of inspecting the girth and the buckles on the bridle. Aurora breathed a sigh of relief, she didn’t want to be rude to him or cause trouble at somebody else’s house, but she was uncomfortable around him and she wished like mad that he would just leave her alone. He had seemed to be hovering around her a fair bit in the afternoons and evenings. She would have to try to find a way to let him know in no uncertain terms that he was wasting his time. She followed his progress back to his horse, wondering about the best way to do that.
Callan looked up and watched her watching Keith as he walked away and hoped like mad that she wasn’t going to set herself up for heartbreak. He had just finished getting Sox ready when Theresa wandered over. She stopped beside him and threw her arm around his waist.
‘Hey Cal. Hi Aurora.’
He looped an arm around her shoulder, squeezed briefly and planted a kiss on the side of her head. Theresa flashed him one of her million dollar smiles that showed off her flawless, white teeth and then turned the same 100 watt smile on Aurora.
‘You looking forward to heading out with us today?’
Aurora couldn’t detect any nastiness or cattiness in her question. She seemed genuine. Aurora couldn’t help but wonder whether the possessive arm around Callan was for her benefit or not. Theresa had nothing to fear from Aurora and she wished that she could tell her that, without it sounding presumptuous on her part. She hated to think that she was in any way harming Theresa’s relationship with Callan. There was nothing between him and Aurora, and seriously, if she had to compare the two of them, Theresa would win hands down in every area. She was beautiful and very talented on a horse. She was pretty much everything that a man like Callan could want in a partner. In replying, she sought to allay any concerns that the other woman may have.
‘I am looking forward to it, although I’m sure that I won’t be walking very well tomorrow. I’m still sore from the last couple of days and they’ve only been short runs compared to a whole day.’
Theresa gave a small tinkling laugh, which reminded Aurora in a good way of Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell.
‘You’ll get used to it. You’d be surprised how quickly the body adapts to a new exercise program.’
She stepped a little away from Callan, pulling her arm away and gently slapping him on the thigh as she did, still full of smiles.
‘I’ll see you both out there.’
Aurora watched her retreating figure. Theresa seemed to be a genuinely lovely person and she was so damned tiny and curvy. It just plain sucked to not have one of those dainty little figures. She brought her attention back to see Callan regarding her with knowing eyes. He was used to women looking at Theresa with that wishful look on their face. Although he didn’t get their fascination with figures and looks, Theresa seemed to produce the same reaction wherever she went. Aurora flicked her eyes to the horse to avoid his gaze. He took her cue and handed the reins over to her.
‘Come out in the open, hop on and he’s all yours.’
She led Sox out under the tree and climbed into the saddle, waiting while the others finished what they were doing. As she sat there she watched Rough and Tumble. They were both tied up near the water tanks in the shade. They were straining on the ends of the chains, eager to be over with the people and to be a part of all the fuss. She felt sorry for the poor little guys, but it was probably smarter for them to be out of the road of the horses hooves, not to mention the fact that the tiny, yappy bundles would probably spook a couple of the more highly strung horses.
She heard somebody approaching on horseback and they stopped alongside her. She brought her eyes round from the puppies to find it was Keith who had come up beside her. Crap. He hadn’t had time to say anything to her when Callan and Theresa rode past. Even though his Australian Stockhorse stallion, Alpheus, had only arrived back the day before, Callan had saddled him up to ride out with for the day. He yelled out to all and sundry without looking back over his shoulder.
‘Righto everybody. Let’s go.’
As Callan spoke Theresa’s mare swung her head around to nip at Alpheus who took exception to it and angled a kick back at the mare, which fortunately didn’t connect. Both Theresa and Cal were busily trying to get the two difficult horses to co-operate and all eyes were on Alpheus who had his head down, prancing on the spot. Aurora took the opportunity to move without having to speak to Keith. Heather and Con came along behind her and she heard Keith and Con poking fun at each other.
Eventually everybody joined in and the group headed for a paddock out past where she and Callan had ridden the day before. When they came in sight of the gate, Matt broke away at a gallop. Aurora was impressed by the fact that he manoeuvred the horse in such a way that he opened the gate without having to dismount. He repeated the process to close and fasten the gate once they had all moved through and the group progressed to one of the back corners of the paddock. Callan rode over to Rick and Trudy, spoke with them for a bit and then rode over to Aurora.
‘Aurora, we’re going to put you in the centre of the group. Rick and Kate are going to ride on one side of you and Trudy and Harriet are going to go on the other. The rest of us will fan out to make a long line. Once we start to move along and get a bit of a group of cattle moving, there is going to be the odd beast that is going to break away, or try to break away. Sox is going to want to chase them because that is what he is trained to do. Don’t let him. Be watchful of what he is doing. It sounds stupid, but if you keep an eye on what his ears are doing, that will be a pretty good indication of what is going on in his head. If he makes a move to follow a beast, pull him back. He’s obedient, so if you don’t let him go, he won’t.’
He took a good look at her.
‘You all good?’
Aurora took a deep breath and nodded. She was hoping she didn’t fall off again. She would be mortified for that to happen in front of all of these experienced riders. Callan flicked her a quick smile and small nod as he spoke.
‘Ok. Let’s do it.’
With that, Callan rode off to take his place and the whole group spread out and slowly moved along. There were cattle in dribs and drabs all over the place. Aurora watched as their heads came up and in their startled state they frantically dashed a little one way in an attempt to not be hemmed in, only to try the other way. Once they realised that they weren’t going anywhere they settled down and joined the rest, the steadily growing group moving along together.
Aurora had been looking in one direction when out o
f the corner of her eye she saw movement. She turned just in time to see both Callan and Theresa break away at a gallop from the group chasing down a beast. The pair were fantastic to watch. Theresa’s mare, Milo, quickly sensed a change in the beast’s direction and itself changed direction in the blink of an eye to head it off, repeating the process each time the steer looked as though it was going to take off in another direction. The horse sensed and blocked repeatedly, cutting it off. She and horse worked as an amazing team. Callan and Alpheus had stayed wide of Theresa and Milo in case the steer managed to get around them, but were nonetheless cutting back and forth following the steer’s direction. It gave him the chance to head it off if it got through. Alpheus looked as though he was itching to get into the action. As it was, it wasn’t necessary. Theresa and Milo got the steer back in with the rest being pushed along by the line of horses.
A little later, young Kate headed off an escape attempt. Aurora couldn’t help but admire that sort of skill in a child. She guessed though that if you grew up surrounded by all this and it was part of your everyday life, then it wouldn’t be so daunting. For her part, she had quite a pleasant job, walking along in the middle of them all. It gave her a good vantage point to watch what the others were doing. Before they had all set out from the side of the paddock, Callan had rode over to Keith and spoken with him for a minute or so. Aurora didn’t know what had been said, she couldn’t possibly overhear as she was too far away and their backs had been to her. Keith had taken his position right at the front of the column. She didn’t know if that was intentional or not, but she was incredibly grateful that Keith wasn’t near her. It would have been a long day had she found herself subjected to his comments for the duration. As it was, he couldn’t be further away and whatever the reason that he ended up there, it worked quite fine for her.
The river wound itself through the side fence and across the paddock. By lunchtime the riders had made it to the river. They stopped briefly for a bite to eat. Aurora had once read a character in a novel say that nothing tasted quite as good as corned beef sandwiches that had been in the saddle bag for a few hours. She really hoped that was true as she dropped herself down under one of the weeping tea trees. Trudy and Rick came and sat beside her, the girls not quite settling for very long anywhere. Aurora was amazed that the herd of cattle hadn’t bolted the minute the horses had stopped pushing them along. She had been wondering what they were going to do with them when they stopped for lunch. The cattle had spread out a bit and were busy grazing but none had taken off so far.
Keith had looked like he was making his way over join Aurora, Trudy and Rick, but Trudy had nudged Rick, who had gone out to intercept Keith and the two to them had gone over to one side to discuss something. From where they were sitting Aurora could see Heather, Con, Callan and Theresa spread out under one of the other trees. There was an easiness about the foursome that Aurora envied. Since the end of her disastrous marriage she had always been that little bit on guard with everybody and the sort of carefree relaxation that she could see in the others was not something that she was herself even capable of.
Aurora watched Theresa turn around and push Cal sideways until he hit the ground. She was laughing really hard as she did it. Cal pushed himself up and grabbed her hat, tossing it into the branches of the tree. Trudy noticed Aurora watching the others.
‘Cal and Theresa have known each other since they were around 6 years old, if not even earlier. Her parents owned a station out here back then, but sold it and moved to Mackay when she would have been around twelve. They had to make a decision about her secondary schooling and rather than send her to boarding school, as usually happens, they all moved. Theresa’s mother’s parents were living at Mackay at the time and needed a bit more looking after due to age. So the decision was made to move, which killed two birds with one stone.’
Aurora didn’t take her eyes off the others as she replied.
‘That explains why she is so good on a horse. And why she seems so at home out here.’
Trudy could hear the wistfulness in Aurora’s voice and tried to put things in perspective.
‘She could ride almost before she could walk. She was also an only child so her parents had every opportunity to pour all their energy into her. They spent a lot of time with her. She was lucky in that respect. ‘
With that last comment Aurora rose to her feet, a strange look on her face. She looked straight at Trudy.
‘She was lucky. Some kids miss out on parental love completely.’
Aurora walked off towards where Sox was tethered. She buried her face against his neck, her arm hooked around his neck. Trudy stared after her, wondering what had brought about the sudden change. There seemed to be more to this woman than met the eye. She wanted to make sure that she hadn’t inadvertently offended Aurora, but the time to tackle that subject wasn’t now. She would get her alone later.
Rick came back and gave Trudy a hand up. He raised his eyebrows in the direction of Aurora. Trudy gently shook her head. Rick nodded slightly to indicate that he understood and the pair made their way over to where their own horses were. This movement started the whole group moving. When Trudy looked back over in Aurora’s direction she noticed that Keith was already mounted and had ridden over to speak with Aurora. Aurora smiled at something Keith said and then swung herself into the saddle.
Trudy noticed Callan watching the interplay between Keith and Aurora but couldn’t read anything from his face. Theresa on the other hand was visibly taking note of Cal and what was going on, and touched his arm before saying something to him. There was obviously something happening behind the scenes but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was. Her best bet would probably be to quiz Theresa, but that was another thing that would have to wait until later. Trudy took her place beside Aurora, flashing her a smile which Aurora returned and they moved off.
Now that it was all over, Aurora couldn’t believe how quickly the afternoon had passed. They had moved the cattle along the river to a shallow spot and pushed them across so that they could gather them from the remaining half of the paddock before coming out the second gate and taking them home. As the afternoon had progressed, each time a beast broke away, Aurora had remained amazed at the agility and intelligence of the horses and riders. She had understood that the horses had been trained to do this, but she had still been astounded at their ability to anticipate, and the speed with which they had reacted.
She could only imagine that if she had even tried anything like that she would be over the side again on her ear. That really wouldn’t be a good look. Another steer had tried to break away not far from her at one point and she had needed to keep a tight rein on Sox who had been on his toes and ready to go before she had even processed what was happening. She had felt lucky that the horse was obedient and had not given way to instinct and had instead remained where he was.
One incident had scared the life out of her. A steer had broken out near where Matt was riding and he had gone after it flat out. Next thing she knew the horse had appeared to stumble. It had gone down and Matt had gone down with it. When the horse had rolled over the top of him Aurora had really panicked. He had to be badly injured. To her mind it just wasn’t possible to walk away from having over half a tonne of animal crush you. When the horse had stumbled Gerry had taken off to recover the beast and the whole column of people had stopped moving. At the same time, Rick had flung himself off his horse, throwing his reins to Kate and raced over to where Matt was lying on the ground and the horse was getting to its feet. Callan had ridden over, quickly slipped out of the saddle and grabbed the reins of Matt’s horse.
All that Aurora had been able to see was Rick crouched beside the figure on the ground. She had experienced a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had wondered what they did with seriously injured people out here. That would be one of the downfalls of living so far away from any of the major centres. She had unconsciously held her breath, anxiously awaiting the outcom
e.
At that stage, all eyes had been on Matt, and Aurora’s had opened in disbelief when she had seen Matt push himself up into a sitting position. Rick had laughed and had clapped him on the shoulder before they both got to their feet. Callan had handed him back the reins to his horse and Matt had swung himself back into the saddle. Aurora hadn’t been able to believe her eyes. Not only had he not been killed or paralysed but he had got back in the saddle and had moved back to his place. She had noticed that her mouth was hanging open in disbelief and had quickly shut it. Gran had always joked that an open mouth was a fly trap, but that was especially true out here. Flies got in absolutely everything. It had occurred to her that maybe that was where Gran had found the saying. Everybody had started moving again when Rick was ready and the rest of the day was incident free.
It had been late afternoon when they had steered the mob that they had collected through the second gateway to the paddock and towards the yards at the homestead. This time it had been Gerry who did the honours with the gate and he had also done it mounted. Aurora had been relieved that it wasn’t some incredible skill on Matt’s part. She hadn’t wanted to have a reason to respect him. His physical appearance and demeanour made her incredibly uneasy. As much as she had enjoyed the day, the yards had been a sight for sore eyes and the closer they got to them, the more her spirits had lifted.
When they had dealt with the cattle and then in turn dealt with the horses, daylight was just about gone. The group had filed into the courtyard area and randomly flopped in chairs, stretching legs out in front and opening drinks. Not being a drinker, Aurora had grabbed herself a Coke and a chair. She was absolutely parched and being able to fully stretch her legs again seemed like a luxury. She had found herself tired, sore, sunburnt but overall really glad that she had gone out with them.
Bilgarra Springs Page 10