‘Dad?’ Rosie yelled after him, then winced at the impossibility of it all. He hadn’t even said anything. He’d left without speaking to her. Panic at feeling so alone and so unwanted swamped Rosie. She couldn’t bring herself to go inside to face her ranting mother, nor could she face Jim.
‘Oh, God,’ she muttered. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’
Out in the yards, Rosie roughly bridled Oakwood, threw a saddle on him and opened the gate. Jumping on him, she booted him to a gallop and rode off into the mist.
Bleary-eyed from sleep, Jim came to stand shivering on the cobblestones in his bare feet. He peered out into the darkness of the cold night.
Oakwood stumbled a little in the mist and slowed to a trot, holding his nose close to the ground, smelling his way, snorting and peering into the darkness. Low limbs of messmates scratched Rosie’s face and left red welts on her cheeks but she barely felt them. Thoughts rushed through her head so fast that her temples pounded and a pain stretched across her forehead. She rode on into the night. The track suddenly took a dive down a hill and Rosie leant back in the saddle as Oakwood’s haunches bunched under him. He half-skidded, half-loped down the embankment, Rosie’s body jarring at each step. She wasn’t sure where they were going, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care if she got lost for days out here in the tangled scrub that flanked the river. Anything to get her away from her crazy family and the huge old homestead filled with gloomy portraits of people who were no longer her relatives.
At the base of the bank, Oakwood picked his way through a tunnel of thick ti-tree that was barely more than a wallaby track. Rosie’s feet were often yanked from the stirrups as they hooked on slim trunks. The ti-tree scratched her arms and left the sensation that she had spiderwebs draped over her skin and spiders crawling down the back of her neck.
At last, drawing clear of the scrub, she felt as if she’d just travelled through the magic wardrobe and emerged in Narnia. The mist peeled back to reveal a sheltered clearing. A hazy moon shone chilly light down onto a serene grassy river bank. Large white gum trees reflected the moon’s light and the low silvery river slid silently by. A frightened bird took flight, bashing its way blindly through branches and startling Rosie, but not her horse. She slid down from him and looped his reins over a fallen log. Then she sat in the wet grass and began to cry. Her tears were silvery and silent, like the river. She hugged her knees to her chest and shivered in her damp jeans and T-shirt. Her teeth began to chatter. She wiped hot tears across her cold, bloody cheeks and began to rock back and forth.
After a time, the shaking became uncontrollable. Rosie knew it was from shock as well as cold. She put her arms around Oakwood’s solid neck and warmed her face under his long mane. She put her hands under the heat of his saddle blanket and cried more tears onto his neck. She felt like she could die here. She wished the river would rise up and wash her away forever.
Then she heard a rustling in the ti-tree and her heart leapt in fear. A black shape emerged. At first Rosie thought it was a wild dog. But the black shape’s tail was wagging and soon Diesel was whining and licking her hands in delight.
‘You followed me!’ she said to Diesel. ‘But how did you get out of your kennel?’
Diesel barked at her excitedly and then ran back into the bush. A few moments later, Jim emerged from the ti-tree on his bay mare. He could see Rosie’s white T-shirt in the moonlight and make out the gleam of the stirrups and the bit on her horse.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked angrily.
Jim rode right up to her. Oakwood whickered gently as he stretched out his nose to greet Jim’s mare.
‘I didn’t find you. The animals led me to you. They’re far smarter than me.’
‘Go away,’ she said, turning from him, ashamed. He slid from his horse and put his hands on her bare arms.
‘Oh, but you’re freezing! Here, let me.’
He opened up his big oilskin coat and folded it around her, pulling her close to him. He looked down at her face and gently smudged the grime and blood from her cheeks.
‘You’ve cut yourself.’
‘I know. It stings.’ Rosie dabbed at her cuts with her fingertips. She felt awkward standing like a pathetic girl in Jim Mahony’s arms. She didn’t want to be weak and pathetic. He tipped her face up towards his. ‘What’s upset you like this?’
She shook her head, not knowing where to start.
‘Dad’s just left Mum.’
‘Oh.’ Jim pulled her to him.
‘Only it gets worse. I’m not really a Highgrove-Jones at all. I just found out Mum had a shag with some shearer. And he’s my real father,’ she said, bursting into tears again.
‘Shush,’ Jim soothed, cupping her head in his hands as she rested her cheek on his broad warm chest. ‘I’ve got you now.’
Rosie looked up at him and then suddenly he was kissing her. She felt the passion run through her. His lips were so warm. She tilted her head and began to kiss him back. Wanting him more than anything. Desire tightened in her chest as she kissed and kissed Jim Mahony, the Irishman, there by the river. She could taste him and taste her own blood from a cut lip. The pleasure and pain was excruciating. She wanted to lie down now with him in the long grass and pull him into her. She invited his hands to slide across her back and up under her damp T-shirt. His huge hands, rough and warm, slid over her smooth cold skin. She felt his body pressed against hers. Then Jim pulled away.
He looked at her face and stroked her hair behind her ears. Desire glimmered in his blue eyes.
‘Ah, Rosie,’ he sighed in the most gentle Irish lilt, ‘you’re so beautiful, like a siren. A water spirit. Like you’ve come up from the river to tempt me. Where are you leading me, girl?’
His voice was husky with emotion. Rosie wasn’t used to gentleness, she had only known Sam’s rough, non-communicative ways. But here, with Jim, the very sound of his voice and the emotion in it made her melt.
Jim took Rosie by the hand and made her sit down on a log, then sat close to her. All the while he looked into her eyes and stroked her hair from her face. She ran her fingers through his soft fair hair and over his square jaw that, by morning, would be smudged with a rusty-brown stubble. She took in his full lips and smiling eyes.
They sat by the shimmering river, looking into each other’s eyes, until the mist rolled in again and a huge black cloud slid over the moon. It was like the curtain had just fallen on the most romantic scene in Rosie’s life. She giggled when Jim’s face blacked out to nothing.
‘Holy shite, it’s dark,’ she said, mimicking his accent. The fine mist became heavier and soon it drifted down in soaking sheets of icy rain.
‘Come on!’ Jim laughed, taking her hand. ‘Let’s get out of here! We’re going to get soaked.’
Riding towards home in the darkness, Rosie breathed in the beauty of the night around her, despite the freezing cold and the rain that trickled down the back of her neck.
‘Jim?’ she said as she ducked beneath another branch.
‘Mmm?’
‘Do you reckon it was a night like this when Jack Gleeson got his kelpie pup?’
‘If it was, I hope he was wearing more appropriate clothing than you,’ Jim said. ‘At least you’ve got your headlights on so we can see the way.’
‘My what?’
Jim grinned, and Rosie realised that in the dim light he was eyeing her nipples, clearly visible beneath her clinging wet T-shirt. Rosie pulled Jim’s coat tighter across her body and reined Oakwood in beside him to punch him lightly on the arm.
Chapter 19
GLENELG RIVER, CIRCA 1870
Jack Gleeson pulled on his coat and put another log on the fire in his hut. The evening had gone so slowly. He didn’t know how many times he’d flipped open the leather case of his pocket watch. But now it was time to leave. He carried the lamp outside. The light created an eerie sheen in the mist but failed to penetrate the thick white veil. Jack saddled Bailey, gathered up Cooley’s lead rope an
d swung on to the mare’s back.
‘Stay,’ he said to Idle, but the dog clearly had no intention of moving from his warm dry spot on the horse blankets beneath the lean-to.
Jack took the stiff cold reins and the lead rope in one hand, and with the other pulled his collar about his neck against the chill. He urged the mare on past the sheep that were contentedly chewing their cud in the yards. He could hear Bobby, hobbled nearby, tearing up clumps of grass. Jack ducked his head to avoid branches that emerged from nowhere. Bailey was careful not to scrape her rider’s knees on the gnarled trunks of river gums as she picked her way along the track. Her ears darted about, alert to the sounds of wild dogs in the scrub and possums rustling in the trees. As he rode, Jack thought back to his encounter in the Glenelg Hotel and the events which had led to this midnight ride.
After months in the shepherd’s hut, Jack was given three days off to do with as he pleased. He’d spent a morning with the blacksmith in Casterton, getting Cooley fitted with some shoes. Cooley was now broken to saddle and Jack was pleased by the way the colt moved beneath him. Good bloodlines coursed through the colt’s veins and people would stop Jack in the street to ask about Cooley’s breeding.
In the blacksmith’s, Jack had run his hand along Cooley’s neck to calm him as the farrier went from anvil to hoof, fitting the shoe, shaping it with rhythmic tings of his hammer.
‘I’ve got myself a good horse, but it’s a dog I’m after now. A good slut to breed from,’ Jack told the farrier.
‘Ah, there are plenty of dogs about,’ he replied as he ran the rasp over Cooley’s hoof and sent white slivers much like coconut on to the dirt floor.
‘But there’s this one. Just the one that I want. She has the brightest brown eyes and is marked with black and tan. But George Robertson refuses to sell her to me.’
The farrier set down Cooley’s hoof and began to laugh so that his belly shook.
‘Anyone would think you were a man struck down with an obsession for a woman.’ He placed some gleaming nails between his bearded lips and took up a shoe. As he tacked the shoe onto Cooley’s neat little hoof, he spoke through thin lips that still clamped the nails between them. ‘Pups are like women, there are plenty out there!’
‘That may be, but I know this is the best pup for me. She is the one!’
‘How do you know she’s such a good dog?’ the farrier asked as he clinched down the nails. ‘Plenty of men have been wrong about women in the past, and I’m certain the same applies for collie sluts. Sounds like you need to find yourself a few lady friends while you’re about in town. That would set your mind straight!’
Jack had replied only with a smile.
‘Suit yourself. If it’s dogs you prefer!’ laughed the farrier.
He was running his rasp over the last hoof when George Robertson’s nephew drove up in his buggy, his team of greys prancing like circus horses in their harness. Entering the gloom of the workshop, young George stopped in his tracks.
‘By God! What a colt!’ he exclaimed. He stepped forward, seeming to ignore Jack and the farrier. He ran his hands over Cooley’s shoulder. ‘A mighty specimen! Surprised he doesn’t have wings … he looks as if he’d fly like the wind.’
‘Aye. That he does,’ said the farrier, setting down the last tidy hoof, now glinting with horseshoe and nails. ‘He has hooves as sound as granite rock. This here’s his owner, Jack Gleeson. He’s brung the colt along and taught him well.’
George Robertson-Patterson turned to survey its owner. Jack knew the man’s thoughts. He was wondering how such a horse could belong to a shabby-looking stockman.
‘Tell me he’s for sale,’ George Robertson-Patterson said. ‘Ask your price!’
‘That he is not,’ said Jack curtly, annoyed by the haughtiness of the stiff-backed man before him. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve business to attend to in town.’
He promptly thanked the blacksmith, paid him his earnings and led Cooley away. The sound of the newly shod hooves sliced into the gravel. Mounting Bailey, Jack took up Cooley’s lead rope and rode away in search of Tom Cawker and his grooms for company for the rest of the day.
By seven that night, Jack and the grooms were well-oiled in the hotel, singing and slinging back ale. A hush fell over the bar when George Robertson-Patterson strode in, in his coat-tails. He walked straight to the bar and ordered two whiskies, handing one to Jack.
‘Word has it you’ve got your eye on a particular pup bred by my uncle at Warrock,’ he said.
The blacksmith was clearly a man who liked to talk, Jack thought. He took in the shine on George Robertson-Patterson’s slick black hair and the thin-lipped smile that spread across his pale face.
‘That’s right. Two weeks back your uncle refused my offer to buy a pup. The little black and tan slut.’
‘Well, I’m certain my uncle told you he wants to keep all the breeding bitches in our family, so as to regain some of the expenses in sailing them out here. And he’s hanging on tightly to the bloodlines.’
‘Understandable,’ said Jack, disappointed.
‘Yes. However,’ said George, pausing to sip on his whisky, ‘he did give me the little bitch as a gift. On the condition I never sell her.’
Jealousy, fuelled with the rush of rough whisky, flared within Jack. How could this man, who would rarely work a dog, be given such a prize? Ignoring the flash of anger on Jack’s face, George went on in his clipped educated voice.
‘I promised my uncle I would not sell her. And on that score, I intend to honour my word. But what would you say, Mr Gleeson, to a swap? A swap is certainly not a sale, is it?’
‘A swap?’
‘Yes, Mr Gleeson. Your colt for my pup.’
Jack looked into George’s eyes. Was the man drunk? How could he suggest exchanging a fine colt like Cooley for a pup … no matter how good her breeding? Jack flung back the whisky.
‘Not on,’ he said immediately, imagining old Albert shifting in his grave beneath the pear tree. A dog for a colt! An unlikely deal.
George was unrattled by the flat refusal.
‘Just think, man! Think of the training I could provide for that colt. You’ll never get him race-fit out on the runs, doing the work you do. He’s likely to get staked on a sapling and his days will end before they’ve begun.’
‘But what if he doesn’t? What if I do bring him on for racing and he runs home enough to be a champion? Should I give up all the service fees you are sure to gain?’
‘Come now, Mr Gleeson. How could you stand a fine horse like that at stud when you are on the road? He’ll only be used over rank, poorly bred mares if he lives his life with you. Whereas I can give him the best start in racing, and in later life as a sire.’
Jack knew George was right. Cooley was too good a horse to have his hocks knocked and damaged on fallen logs, and hooves bruised on flinty ground in the pursuit of wild cattle. He belonged in a fine stable, with his own groom and a belly full of chaff, not struggling, rib-thin, on native pastures.
‘Besides,’ continued George, ‘you’ll make a better go of it taking on a Sutherland bitch to breed from. You can sell the pups for good money to station hands and graziers alike. There are some good trials starting up in the north and they now pay handsomely for trial bloodlines. You can’t get a better pedigree.’
Jack sat, considering. His heart hankered for the bitch. He wasn’t sure why, he just had to have her.
‘Buy me another drink, Mr Robertson-Patterson, and you may have yourself a deal,’ he said at last.
‘My uncle will string me up by my tackle if he finds out,’ said Robertson-Patterson. ‘We must complete this deal in secret … at night.’
‘Fine,’ said Jack, his eyes glimmering with excitement.
‘Do you know the shallow crossing place on the Glenelg River between Dunrobin and Warrock?’
‘I do,’ said Jack.
‘I’ll meet you there at midnight in five nights’ time … on Thursday … I’m certain m
y uncle is departing for Melbourne that day.’
Now, close to midnight, as he led Cooley towards the river, Jack felt the sadness of saying goodbye to the colt. Should he turn and head back to the hut with both horses? Forget the deal?
He could just make out the shadow where the ground dropped away to the Glenelg River’s dusty bank. Bailey shook her head and her bit jangled in the night. She slid down the river bank and cautiously snorted at the water before placing her front hooves at its lapping edges. She stretched out her neck once to pull some length in the reins, then again, to put her head down to drink. Cooley came to drink beside his mother. He was nervous and wouldn’t put his hooves in the water, as if something sinister was sure to clench his fine legs in its jaws and drag him thrashing to his watery death.
‘Oh, go on with you!’ said Jack, stroking Cooley’s wither from where he sat. ‘You big sook!’
He sat listening to the long slurps and rhythmic swallows of the horses and the tinkling of the water that fell from their soft muzzles onto the river stones. Though it was dead still on the ground, when Jack looked up through the branches he could see the mist in the higher reaches of the sky, blowing past the glowing whiteness of the moon. The landscape was grey, silvery-grey, with shadows as black as hell. High above him, the mist cleared enough for a sliver of moonlight to drop onto the surface on the river. It illuminated the water that trickled over the rocks on the crossing, and in the shadows of the deeper pools it danced on ripples.
Bailey and Cooley heard the horse approaching before Jack saw it. Cooley shied and pulled back on the rope, while Bailey jumped back in fright. A gloomy, shadowy shape of horse and man emerged from the river mist, as if walking on the water’s surface. Jack’s horses snorted nervously as he held tight to the reins and the lead rope.
The Stockmen Page 14