Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  While Sal and I were working the girls were having a ball. Ellie had put up several stinkers, but one shrill whistle from me and she stopped. She was always very obedient. Millie did whatever Ellie decided upon. A family of emus came poking around about lunchtime and Ellie retreated to me with furious barking. I was hoping the emus might stay around as they fascinate me, but the presence of the dogs was not to their liking and they stayed only a few minutes.

  In the shadow of the gums in a slight northerly breeze it was hard not to fall asleep following lunch. There was still too much to do. The next job was to unload the hay, the water and fencing materials. I intended to load the horses again, before dark, and they needed more room.

  About mid-afternoon we took the four-wheel drive back out to the road and went down to the old bore with some diesel. It started with no problems and on the way back I walked down to the corner of the paddock and strained up the fence. All we needed now were horses for Richard, Nick and Tommy. I felt too embarrassed to telephone Gil and ask him to lend us horses again. I decided to just turn up at Claravale in the truck, which didn’t make it any better, but when I feel self-conscious about becoming a bloody nuisance around the place I prefer to talk directly.

  Back at the camp we boiled the billy and went for a short walk. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and to be all set up, ready to start was a good feeling. Once the mustering was over Sal and I would have to just drift along on our own with Yarramin and Circus. The herd had become quite small now. There would be bad days, but I felt we would cope. Malameen, who was still being cared for by Brooke in Mitchell, was a handy horse on the stock route and I planned to pick him up after the mustering.

  When we got back the emu family had made itself at home in the kitchen. They didn’t eat much, but they’d knocked the card table over with all the plates and pots. It only took a few minutes to straighten up and I rather liked the feeling that we weren’t alone.

  I fed the horses again and watered them. Being tied up by a tree all day was a bit miserable for them, but I intended to build a night yard. There wasn’t enough daylight left to get it up before dark, so I put it aside for tomorrow.

  Yarramin had never been shod and never been sore. The Warrumbungle horses have extraordinarily tough feet. Yarramin was the third horse I had purchased from a farm up in the high crags and not one had worn a shoe. Circus, however, had to have two front shoes tacked on. I had lost the art of shoeing years ago and with a gammy leg thrown in, I didn’t have to look for another job before camp fire time.

  Our routine that evening was no different to any other. I loved to have a fire blazing before sunset and the red wine on the table. The horses I had reloaded onto the truck. The float was in two partitions and each partition became a stable. They usually sleep standing, but they had enough room to drop onto their bellies if they wanted to. Leaving them out was too risky. If something frightened them they would pull away and bolt. Tomorrow I would have to think about a makeshift yard, but for the moment I was going to relax. Sal had bought a couple of fold-up camp chairs in Roma. We were both sick of looking for suitable stumps, all of which offered dubious comfort.

  ‘What were your happiest memories?’ Sal asked as she sat beside me.

  I looked at her, not catching on for a moment. I must have seemed far away. I was worrying again about asking Gil for the horses. It wasn’t fair to expect other people to provide assistance. I should have been offering to buy the horses.

  ‘There aren’t many,’ I replied frankly when I realised Sal was referring to Mum. ‘It was a typical marriage of the orange and the green, with me in the middle in the early days. We belonged with the green, but Mum mostly had her way.’

  ‘Did you ever take her to the mountains?’

  ‘We drove right to the foot of the Tonduron once,’ I said, feeling brighter with the memory of it. ‘She loved it. She was excited and she said she understood my love of the mountains. It was music to my ears, I remember.’

  ‘Your father ever go?’

  ‘Once in a picnic party. He hated it. He loved sport and it was sad he never had a son who shared that love. I can’t sit down long enough. It’s not that I dislike cricket, tennis and football.’

  We chatted into the dark and the wine bottle was half gone before we gave any thought to dinner. It was going to be very easy. Boiled rice and lamb stew from a tin. I’d had it often enough and with some spices it was very tasty. We had got to the coffee stage when our peace was interrupted. South of the gorge, in the direction of the burnt homestead we heard a vehicle. The direction of the sound bothered me, for no one lived out there anymore. As the sound grew I realised it was a small engine for these parts, the petrol engine of a car. Whoever it was they were coming through and I was pleased I had parked the four-wheel drive under a shady bottle tree, some thirty metres from the track. The truck I had in a ditch on the edge of the track. The tailboard rested on a mound of silt, washed up by the last flood.

  My first reaction was one of irritation. I didn’t feel like camp visitors, who invariably stayed, drank bottles of beer and had a meal. I knew Sal felt the same. Then the vehicle stopped and there was silence. We waited by the fire, expecting to see someone coming with a torch. No one came and I thought of the rifle back in the four-wheel drive. The sight of it would alarm Sal. The last thing I wanted was for her to be frightened.

  ‘Why has no one come?’ she asked anxiously.

  I couldn’t answer that.

  ‘Whoever they are they mean no harm,’ I said as casually as possible. ‘If they did they wouldn’t come here in a car and alert us.’

  Minutes later the engine fired up again. We saw the headlights catch the trees high up on the mountain. The driver was turning around. The foot went down again and the vehicle left under heavy throttle.

  The presence of someone else out in the rangelands altered the whole camp atmosphere. I put the billy back on. I didn’t need more coffee, but I had no intention of going to bed just yet. Sal had begun to wash the plates and pots when the vehicle came back. This time it didn’t stop. With the engine roaring, the driver turned in the same spot. The lights flashed high again and I caught a glimpse of the dust. If you were camped on the edge of Mitchell you wouldn’t take much notice, but here it was plain spooky.

  ‘Someone camped out there on the piss. Take no notice.’

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Sal said nervously. ‘I want you to come too.’

  ‘I’ve made more coffee. I won’t be long.’ I wanted to get the rifle without Sal knowing.

  I waited a few minutes and then got the rifle and a packet of stinger bullets. The magazine and breech were dry. I hadn’t fired or serviced it for some months. Sal had some sesame oil on the table and with my handkerchief I lubricated the whole mechanism. It was a small magazine, holding only six bullets. I pushed the magazine back and leaned the rifle against a small log I’d collected for firewood. The packet of bullets I put in my trouser pocket.

  I soon forgot about the rifle and pondered over the days ahead. The boys could only come for a few days. Richard was in his final year of law and shouldn’t have had his study time disturbed. It was tough on them too when they hadn’t ridden for weeks. Then it looked like Sal and I might be away for weeks, perhaps months, and most of the time beyond contact. I was chewing these matters over when the vehicle returned. This time it kept coming. The headlights came over a low ridge and lit up the cliff, just above the camp. The tyres squealed on a bend and in the lights I could see the dust rising. For a dreadful moment I thought the driver couldn’t possibly take the final bend before the crossing and that the vehicle would broadside towards the tents. But in a cloud of dust, which swirled across the camp, the driver was through. So bad was the dust I only caught a vague glimpse of the vehicle. It appeared to be an old model sedan. It was low and I heard the thump of hard dirt and the tearing sound of sucker growth as the car roared out of the gorge.

  ‘Could you see who it was?’ Sal called anxiously from t
he tent.

  ‘Too much dust. Have no idea.’

  ‘He’s stopped,’ Sal called again, alarmed.

  ‘The track takes a swing to the east. The sound’s not carrying through the gorge.’

  ‘No, it’s stopped.’

  Sal had better hearing than me. With only a very slight breeze we should have heard that engine for two or three minutes. One night west of Camooweal I heard a vehicle heading into the Territory for fully twenty minutes. I threw the last bit of coffee out and headed for the tent with the rifle.

  ‘It’s definitely stopped,’ Sal repeated.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Quietly I thought she was right. I had been through this sort of thing before and lying in the tent, rifle tucked beside me, was the best way to handle it.

  I left my clothes on and my glasses as well. The night seemed unusually quiet. A dingo howled and was answered by another, and when I strained to listen I could hear the leaves stir in a slight breeze. Sal felt warm beside me, but her breathing was a little quick and I think she lay there listening too. I drifted into a light sleep and woke feeling cold. There was another blanket to pull up and this time I knew Sal was asleep. The moon was up and shadows of tree branches cast patterns over the ground. A persistent owl had moved on and the leaves too were still. I lay back again, relaxed now and gently put my arm around her.

  I woke to vigorous shaking and I heard the last of the rocks fall.

  ‘Someone’s up there,’ Sal gasped. Her hand was over my wrist and it was so tight I knew she was truly scared. The float rattled and banged as the horses jumped from their sleep into the wooden panels.

  ‘Wallabies,’ I said. ‘A game trail cuts across just above the cliff. I noticed it yesterday.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said in a strained whisper. ‘The noises I heard weren’t wallabies.’

  ‘The nights out here are often full of strange sounds. You get used to it.’

  Sal remained sitting, her hand still locked over my wrist.

  ‘Relax,’ I whispered. ‘If I had investigated every strange night noise I’ve heard in the past nine months …’

  I didn’t finish. It began high and I heard the boulders snap the trunks of small trees and as they gathered momentum the crash against lower boulders filled the gorge with a rumbling sound, not unlike thunder. In a matter of seconds the whole side of the mountain seemed to be falling apart, but it was an illusion of sound caused by the confined space of the gorge. Loose stone joined the tumble and a rock avalanche plummeted to the floor of the creek where the track crossed.

  Sal’s half scream rose from a depth of fear that most live their entire life without ever experiencing. I felt the adrenaline surge through my body and with it the instinct for survival. Sal was peering through the gap in the tent flaps and I pulled her back.

  ‘Get your boots on.’

  I had as much trouble as Sal finding my boots in the tent. You can’t run barefoot in country under scattered galvanised burr. I had a terrible feeling we were meant to leave the tent, that it was all part of some terrible plan.

  The rifle in one hand, I grasped Sal’s wrist with my free hand and we ran to the trunk of the nearest tree, which was a gum. I pushed her to the ground behind me and cocked the rifle. The moon was brighter than before. The night was still again and the skyline trees were like a painting on the canvas of the moon. It was romantic and beautiful and I wondered how such a thought could flash through my mind.

  ‘Let’s go to the truck,’ a little voice said.

  ‘No. Wait.’ I probably hissed at Sal, poor thing. When we ran from the tent I’d half expected a shot. The ground to the truck was too open.

  I worked my eyes along the upper slope on an imagined grid basis. I was halfway down when I saw the dark form move. I heard the tiny snap of a twig. When I aimed I eased the barrel slightly to the left and fired. The bullet whined off the rocks like an angry insect. Strangely there was no echo. I let two more go in quick succession and shrank to the base of the trunk. Sal pressed hard against me. If he or they intended to shoot, now was their opportunity. In the dark, even under moonlight, the tiny flame discharged from a gun barrel is easy to spot.

  There was no return fire. It seemed like a ploy to frighten us, force us to leave.

  ‘I can see you,’ I shouted. ‘Move and I’ll shoot your balls off.’

  The only reaction was the horses snorting and blowing.

  I swung the rifle up again and fired another three shots, careful to place the bullets away from the last sign of movement. Much of the slope was quite dark where the moonlight couldn’t penetrate through the clinging shrubs and stunted trees. Whoever it was could easily have left without me spotting them.

  I loaded up again, thankful I had kept the box of bullets in my pocket. Nothing moved. We waited.

  ‘We can go to the truck now,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t work it out. If Frankie and Ike were up there drunk, having their idea of fun, I’m sure they would have yelled out abuse or threats.’

  ‘No animal could start that,’ Sal murmured, still gripping my arm.

  ‘Falling boulders make a dreadful noise. It mightn’t be as bad as it sounded.’

  The lower gorge was in shadow where the track crossed the creek. In the gloom I couldn’t see any sign of the boulders that had fallen.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe it was a big buck wallaroo. Perhaps our camp had blocked his usual route to the sweeter country and he went over the top.’

  Sal was angry. ‘I know you mean well, but don’t patronise me. You know bloody well that wasn’t a wallaroo.’

  Towards dawn we both slept a little. The fear of another attack was overshadowed by the cold. Most of our clothes were in the tent. We spread a couple of oilskins over us and I found an old dogs’ blanket half under the seat which I folded and put against the window for a headrest. Sal dozed with her head on my knees.

  I didn’t leave the truck until it was fully light. The horses were strangely still. They do that when they have had a fright. It’s something passed through the genes over thousands of years. When they were the prey of large carnivores, which at one time roamed Eurasia, they learnt that sudden flight followed by total stillness was the key to survival.

  The first thing that struck me was the boulders. Three of them, the size of large garbage bins, lay on the track. There was no way past them. The ground either side, right up to the cliff face, was covered in boulders and logs. With a crowbar and Richard’s strength, maybe a passage could be cleared. But for now we were trapped.

  Before emerging from the cover of the truck I carefully examined the cliffs where the dark mass met the blue of the sky. I couldn’t see anyone, but didn’t expect to. In fact no comfort could be gained by looking around. Our best eyes and ears were the dogs and I knew where they’d be. I walked over towards the four-wheel drive and Ellie’s black head appeared from underneath. She let go a volley of deep barks and if I hadn’t known her I might have stopped. She was very disturbed and when she saw it was me she raced over and put her head in my lap. Millie remained silent and only left the cover of the four-wheel drive when I got closer. I gave both of them a long pat and their little world changed instantly. Soon they were on the smell-and-sniffing run, tails cocked and wagging.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said to Sal, when I walked back to the truck. ‘I’ll light a fire.’

  Sal left the truck and walked over to her bush kitchen. Nothing had been disturbed. Some of the smaller rocks lay close to the table. She had an oilskin, not on but pulled tightly around her. Her hair hung across her face. She looked frozen and miserable and it was not all from the cold.

  I made the fire as cheerful as possible with a few bits of dry box, put the billies on and then unloaded the horses. I took them to the same trees they’d been tied at yesterday on a halter and fed them hay. They were nervous and looking everywhere and ate the hay with great mouthfuls. It reminded me of young foals sucking feverishly when slightly upset a
bout the appearance of an intruder.

  ‘We can’t stop Richie coming here,’ Sal said in a tone close to tears. She was sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees. ‘We must stop Nick and Tommy.’

  ‘We’ll ride to Claravale. There’ll be a gap in the range somewhere.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait until Richie arrives?’

  ‘Tomorrow won’t be any safer. The boulders were levered to fall on the road and trap the vehicles.’

  ‘Be awful for Richie to arrive, see this, and we’re not here.’

  ‘We can stop Richard if we make the station by three o’clock. If there’s a vehicle to spare we can meet him on the road. None of us should have another night here. We’ll set up camp on the main road.’

  ‘We can ring the police too.’

  ‘They’ll tell us to leave. They told me to get the hell out of the place months ago.’

  One billy boiled and Sal made the tea. ‘Like some toast?’ she asked, as I turned to go over to the four-wheel drive. ‘I wish you’d stay near me.’

  ‘I want to get the shotgun.’

  ‘You have the rifle.’

  ‘They can see it on the front of a saddle. We need something they can’t see.’ I didn’t wait. I got the gun and searched through my tools for the hacksaw. When I found it I brought both over to the fire and Sal passed me a mug of tea.

  ‘You’re going to shorten the barrel!’ she exclaimed. I could see that she was still very frightened.