by Karen Wood
‘I better be going, Red,’ said Luke. ‘Don’t wanna miss my ride.’ He turned slowly to the horse and ran the back of his hand over its shoulder, which was flat and triangular with no spare flesh.
The horse lifted its head and snorted. It nipped cheekily at Luke’s face and sprang away from him, cantering on four legs, instantly free of pain. Luke watched it run for a bit and then disappear into a grove of trees.
He ran back to the ute, and jumped into the front seat just as it began to roll onto the highway.
‘He had a bit of glass in his foot,’ said Luke, slamming the door and reaching for his belt. ‘Reckon he’s off one of the stations? He’s in pretty bad nick.’
‘That’s no station horse,’ said Bob, flicking on the indicator and pulling out onto the road. He put on his sunglasses, turned the stereo up and stared straight ahead, accelerating towards the next town and into a burning sunset.
Luke stared at him. He could see a frown above the man’s sunnies. ‘What’s wrong?’
Bob took a while to answer him. ‘Nothin’.’
‘It was in pain. I couldn’t just leave it.’
Bob shrugged. ‘Just never seen a brumby trust a human like that before.’
‘It was probably a station horse.’
Bob shook his head. ‘Nup.’
Bob drove without talking and Luke ate his steak sandwiches, wondering how long he would be able to afford to eat so well. He needed money. He needed a job.
His phone suddenly began trumpeting the arrival of a text message. He reached between his knees and pulled it out of his pack. It was from Lawson. Lawson hardly ever texted; his fingers were too big. Luke felt a sharp sting in his chest.
Telling me to rack off and don’t come back.
He flipped the phone shut and sat there staring out the window at the big flat fields rolling past. The sun was setting down low and a pale haze of pink and gold glowed above the horizon. The phone was in his hand with the message that would cut him off from his family for good. He gritted his teeth and opened it again.
The phone beeped at him, out of charge. He quickly thumbed around for the read button, but the screen faded before his eyes.
‘I hate that!’ Luke smacked the phone hard against the dashboard. ‘What sort of phone have you got?’ he asked Bob, hoping he might be able to switch batteries.
Bob looked at him blankly.
Luke hurled the comatose phone out the window.
Bob raised an eyebrow and drove on, whistling quietly to his CD.
They kept driving, through the night and into the next day. Bob pulled over every now and then for a power-kip, and then drove on. As the second day slipped into night, a mass of lights appeared in front of them. Directly ahead were two tall smoke stacks, lit up like a big cruise ship.
‘Welcome to the Isa,’ Bob announced wearily.
‘What is that thing?’ asked Luke.
‘A mine,’ said Bob. ‘This country is full of minerals: copper, lead, silver, zinc.’ He pulled away from a set of traffic lights, drove until they were on the other side of the city limits and then pulled over. ‘Stop and have a kip, ay. I’m beat.’ He rolled out his swag in the back of the ute and left Luke to stretch out across the bench seat in the front.
Luke didn’t know or care what time of night it was or where the hell they’d ended up. He just needed to lie down. He kicked his boots off and let the waft of stinky socks curl around the inside of the cabin. He pulled the moonstone out from under his shirt.
It’s supposed to give you beautiful dreams.
It didn’t work. The night passed unevenly, in lurches and dragging lulls. He tossed restlessly about inside the cabin, occasionally drifting off and being woken again by the roar and rattle of a truck barrelling along the highway. In the moments that he lay awake, he thought of Lawson, standing in the stable doorway, his hard, impassive voice.
You wanna be a Blake, you gotta earn the name.
When he drifted off, he was haunted by Bob’s music.
The hammer’s coming down.
Faceless soldiers, dark shapes, footfalls hammering against his skull.
Then he would wake again and think of Jess, her carefree laughter and the touch of her hand on his arm, and it would soothe him. He held the moonstone again and begged it for sleep. Eventually it worked.
Until Bob yanked the car door open, pulling the arm rest out from under his head. ‘Morning.’
Luke groaned. ‘I’m wrecked,’ he mumbled. His body was wet with sweat and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuck together with glue. The inside of the cabin was stuffy and airless. Outside was dry and hot, with not a breath of wind.
‘Get some stuff in town and get out of here, ay?’ said Bob, climbing in and starting the engine. He had already had a splash with water and wet his hair down.
‘Is there a river around here?’ asked Luke, ungluing his mouth to speak and scratching at his head.
‘Yeah, just up the road,’ said Bob, sticking the ute into gear and accelerating back towards town. ‘Get some shopping first.’
9
AFTER ANOTHER WHOLE DAY of driving, bumping along a narrow track of cracked brown earth, Bob took a sudden left-hand turn. Within seconds, Luke was staring at a lush oasis. The track dipped down onto a low causeway, crossed by a crystal-clear stream with tall paperbark trees, strappy pandanus and fan palms lining its banks. The sound of rushing water and twittering birds offered a sanctuary from the blistering heat. Beyond the causeway, tucked in behind a bend in the river, was a twin-cab ute. A blue plume of smoke wafted lazily nearby.
‘Stop here, ay?’ said Bob, killing the engine. He stepped out of the car and pushed up his sunglasses, then cupped his hands over his mouth and called, ‘Hey!’
On the opposite bank, a man’s voice came back. ‘Hey! Over ’ere.’
Bob kicked off his thongs and began rolling up his jeans. ‘Coming?’ he said to Luke.
Luke didn’t bother rolling his up. It was so hot he welcomed the idea of cold wet jeans. He followed Bob in and waded through the knee-deep water. It was cool and slow-moving. The concrete causeway was green with moss and slippery under his feet. ‘What river’s this?’
‘The Rubicon, boy,’ said Bob. ‘You’re crossing the Rubicon.’
A man with wild, springy black hair and an untrimmed beard, wearing just an old pair of footy shorts, waded through the water. ‘The turtles are comin’ down the river,’ he called out, holding his hands out to the size of a football. ‘Saw two of ’em. Big fat ones.’
‘How big?’ chuckled Bob.
‘They were huge, brother, big dinosaur ones. Tex saw ’em.’ He called over his shoulder, ‘Didn’t you, Tex?’
Luke heard a confused mumbling as someone came sloshing around the bend.
‘Them turtles, Tex,’ the man reiterated. ‘Huge, weren’t they?’
An older man with long skinny black legs and silvery hair waded towards them. In his hand, he clasped a small turtle by the neck. Its shell was barely larger than the man’s fist. ‘Oh yeah, they were huge.’ He held the turtle up and grinned. ‘This one’s just a little baby one. Mum and Dad got away.’
‘You’re not gonna eat that poor thing?’ said Bob.
Tex looked at it and pursed his lips. ‘Bit scrawny, ay.’ He flipped it back into the river.
‘You stop at the shop?’ asked the wild-haired one.
‘Yeah,’ drawled Bob. ‘Just got the usual roadside crap.’
Luke stepped out from behind Bob. ‘Oh yeah, and I brought a young fulla too. This is Luke.’
Luke felt two pairs of shrewd eyes run over him. The mood changed immediately.
The man with the springy hair stepped up onto the bank. He was big, with heavy features, but his movements were smooth and liquid, almost like a cat’s.
‘Tyson,’ he said, shaking Luke’s hand, first in the way Luke was accustomed to and then urban-style, rotating his palm to take Luke’s thumb in a fist-like hold. His grip was strong but cordial, and his
skin felt smooth, almost papery.
‘Tyson,’ Luke nodded.
The man called Tex was slower to come over. He held out a long, sinewy arm and offered a hand full of bumpy knuckles. ‘Tex,’ he said, in a voice that went with his posture: easy, gentle and welcoming. He seemed senior to the other two men, and not just because of his age; he moved and spoke with authority. ‘How are ya, Luke?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, good,’ answered Luke. And he meant it. Something about the place was indescribably peaceful and he felt lucky to be standing there. He had no idea how long he was going to be around or what he would be doing with himself, but he didn’t care. The place seemed special, ancient and untouched, as though a dinosaur could come clumping through the trees at any moment. If he had to be homeless, this was a heck of a nice place to do it.
The men began talking among themselves, with words and names that Luke didn’t know. They spoke quickly, in voices too accented for him to understand. Luke stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do with himself. He picked up the word yarramin, which he knew meant ‘horse’, and wondered if they were talking about him.
Tyson squatted next to the fire as he talked, feeding the small pile of coals. He waved a finger at the ground, indicating that Luke should sit down, and he did as was suggested. Bob plonked a bag of groceries on the ground and sat next to him. Luke turned to him. ‘What did you just say to them?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Bob.
‘Just then, you were talking about me. What did you say?’
‘I told them you were good with horses, wanted to come and see some wild brumbies.’
He had said more than that, Luke was sure, but he was okay with that as a general introduction.
Tyson pulled out a can of food from Bob’s shopping bag. ‘Baked beans? What, am I a vegetarian now?’
‘For breakfast,’ said Bob. ‘Thought you fullas were getting some wild meat. Didn’t know all you could catch was a puny little turtle.’
Tyson ignored him and kept rummaging. ‘Hmm, yams.’ He poked them into the coals with a stick. ‘So you’re a bit of a fighter, ay, Luke?’ he said.
Luke ran a thumb over his lip. ‘Guess I must be.’
‘And you’re looking for brumbies, ay?’
‘I wouldn’t mind gentling one,’ said Luke. ‘A real one, out in the wild, not in a yard. I reckon taming a brumby would be really cool.’
‘You won’t have any trouble finding them around here,’ said Tyson.
‘Like horses, hey?’ asked Tex, joining them.
‘Yeah,’ said Luke. ‘Horses go way back in my family. I lost my first one, but my second family are riders too. My brother reckons the horses up here have got really hard feet. He’s a farrier.’
Tyson began rummaging through the bag again. ‘No sauce?’
‘What, you think it’s Christmas or something?’ said Bob. ‘Anyway, that stuff’s full of sugar.’
‘Last time you go to the shop,’ Tyson grumbled back. He pulled a packet out of the bag. ‘Noodles,’ he grunted with contempt. ‘Bring a can opener, or a pot?’
Bob groaned in annoyance.
Tyson stuffed everything back in the plastic bag. ‘I’m not eating any of that crap,’ he grumbled. He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Gonna have to do some serious fishing.’
‘So you ride them horses too?’ asked Tex from the other side of the fire.
‘Yep,’ Luke answered. ‘I’ve been doing a few camp–drafts.’
The other men didn’t pursue the conversation. They began talking quietly in their own language again. They seemed to be disagreeing about something. As Luke sat on the outer, the image of Lawson standing over him with blood on his lip came flashing into his memory, and it made him feel sick that he’d hit him.
‘Me and Lawson had a bit of a falling out,’ he blurted for no particular reason. ‘I wish I could take him a brumby home. He’d love it.’ He paused and then said quietly, ‘Make it up to him.’
The campsite was quiet for a while longer until Tyson spoke. ‘That’s good thinking, Luke.’
Luke felt a surprising wave of relief at the approval in Tyson’s voice.
Tex picked up a stick and began scraping at a mound of coals, revealing a lump wrapped in foil, sitting in a shallow hole. A waft of cooked meat hit Luke in the nose.
‘Is that kangaroo?’ he asked.
Tyson and Bob both laughed.
‘I got us a big barra,’ said Tyson. He turned to Bob. ‘You wanna teach this poor kid to fish while he’s here, bro.’
The fish was like nothing Luke had ever tasted before; juicy white slabs of meat, infused with a smoky flavour from the coals and drizzled with bush limes that Tex had collected at a property on his way to the river. The yams were good too: fluffy and sweet on the inside, charcoal on the outside, which was okay if he dusted the gritty bits off.
As he talked to the men that night, Luke found out that Tex did the mail run every Saturday, out to all the stations in the lower Gulf. After his deliveries he often stayed to fish in the river. Tyson was some sort of advisor to the government, something to do with education, and that got him travelling around too. This wasn’t their country. They were all from further down south, but the fishing was better up here.
Later, Tex and Tyson rolled out swags and fell asleep by the fire. Luke unrolled his blanket and threw it around his shoulders. As he watched the flames lap at a large chunk of log, he turned to Bob. ‘How come Tex was asking me about the horses like that?’
‘Ah yeah, that,’ said Bob, seemingly mesmerised by the fire. ‘Tex is wary about people with horse dreaming.’
‘Horse dreaming?’
‘Yeah, you got big horse dream kicking around inside you, boy,’ said Bob. ‘The way you walk with ’em like that—’ He shook his head. ‘—it’s not normal. Tex’s worried about purri purri – black magic.’
‘Purri purri? I thought you fellas were good horsemen too. Harry reckoned Aboriginal stockmen were the best around,’ said Luke. ‘Like you.’
‘Yeah, there are big traditions around Aboriginal stockmen, but also big fear of horses, mostly with the older fellas, a lot of lore about them carrying devils in their bellies, being sorcerers or demons, spirits in disguise. Old clever fellas run with ’em, do terrible things.’
Bob went quiet for a moment. His face, lit by the glow of the fire, was still. ‘It goes back to first contact, back to the massacres. The stories were told to keep the kids away from bad places.’
Luke stared into the fire. It made him feel uncomfortable, sitting there imagining what his ancestors might have done to Bob’s.
‘My people have a lot of sad stories, Luke. Tex’ll be all right once he works out you’re not playing with magic.’ Bob got up and stretched his legs.
Luke lay back with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders and gazed up at the stars. Locusts hovered in the light over the fire and he could hear cane toads crashing about in the shrubs and grasses around him. The trees were tall and scrawny without much cover.
He tried to close his eyes and sleep but his brain kept replaying the fight with Lawson, bringing a surge of shame each time, taking him back to a place that Harry had once pulled him out of.
After lying there for half an eternity, trying to deflect the sadness with thoughts of wild brumbies, he decided to get up and go for a wander. He walked out beyond the river into a paddock. The moon was rising, full and beautiful, turning the soft darkness of the land into tangles of black and silver. Although unsure of the ground beneath him, Luke set off at a slow jog, aiming for a small range of hills.
He ran down a little gully and over a stream. On the other side, the long grass swished as he brushed through it. He settled into a steady rhythm and as he began to pant he felt better, so he pushed it out a bit harder, blowing heavier and heavier with every mile he chewed up. It took longer than he expected to get to the line of hills. It seemed that the more he ran towards them, the further away they got, as though they were lea
ding him on a chase. A fence loomed. He grabbed a post and vaulted over to the next paddock.
There, he saw silhouettes of horses, heads raised, ears alert, ready to flee. Luke slowed to a walk, then stopped and bent over with his hands on his knees, waiting for his breath to slow. A couple of mares ushered their foals away. The other horses resumed grazing.
Luke quietly approached what looked like an old quarter horse and ran his hand down its shoulder. He felt the broken pelt of a hot brand on its shoulder and wondered what sort of life the horse had had. Had it mustered cattle or been a campdrafting star? Been an old schoolmaster for the kids? He was a gentle old soul, this one. Luke ran his hands over the horse’s neck, put his face against it, breathed in its scent, and felt the tension ease from his body.
The salty smell of horse sweat brought back images of home: of Legs and all the horses; Harry, limping down the stable aisle and sneaking a fag when he thought no one else was around; the warm sunny days spent training horses, sweeping out feedrooms and unloading trucks of lucerne. He remembered all the laughter and knocking about with Tom, hanging out at the mares’ paddock with Jess, watching the foals play.
That life never belonged to me, anyway.
The old quarter horse put his head down to graze. Luke took a handful of mane and slipped up onto his back. It was broad and as comfy as a couch. He lay along it with his chest over the horse’s wither, hung an arm either side of his shoulders and clasped his feet together over the rump. The old horse snorted softly and kept grazing. Luke closed his eyes and let his head empty completely, until only the in and out of his breath ran gently through his conscience, interspersed with the slow pull and munch of the horse grazing. The past and the future ceased to exist. He was in the here and now, filled with peace and comfort.
But as he lay there, the beat of the horse’s heart became gradually louder. It began to pound and hammer like a drum. The music from Bob’s car, the same voice, boomed into his head.
The hammer’s coming down / The hammer’s coming down / Who’s gonna buy my soul?
A horse screamed in the distance but it was muted, muffled by rocky hills and scrubs. There was something strange about it. Luke thought briefly about getting up and searching for it, but his body was heavy, so heavy. He lay along the horse’s back, motionless except for the slow rise and fall of his breath. The screaming stopped and he drifted away again.