She felt very close to her mother on the headland. In the blue-and-silver tin, in a box, safe in the cave, was a photograph of her cradling baby Joyce and smiling stiffly for the camera. Joycie knew her smile wouldn’t really have been like that. It was just the way a photograph made you feel: all shy to be looked at so hard. She had such a tender face, with soft olive skin and crinkly black hair.
Another photograph was of her brother Mick, and her father, both on horses, squinting into the sun. They sat easily, with their feet forward, stockwhips looped over their shoulders, ready for anything. Joycie’s heart always skipped a beat when she thought of them. It was a terrible thing she had done. She promised herself she’d go back, explain to them, ease their pain. But it was always too hard. She’d tell herself they were tough, they were men; her father had kept going when their mum had died, hadn’t he? But it nagged at her. Nagged like the pain that had been poking at her for nearly two years now.
When it first happened, she thought she’d eaten too many rock oysters. The next time, the native cherries were to blame. But the last pain had brought her to her knees when it hit, and put her into a dead sweat. For the first time she thought she really might have to go back. When she came to live at the valley, all those years ago, her biggest fear had been that Joe would get seriously sick; sick in a way that she couldn’t fix with tea-tree oil or a cool cloth. But he never had. He was always well. And now her body was letting her down. Joe couldn’t care for her if she got really sick. He was only eight. He was too little to be on his own.
When she thought like this, she would take out her mother’s shell necklace from the tin. The necklace came from Seal Island, her father had told her, beyond the headland. It was made from hundreds of tiny shells, each a luminous green, and shone as though it had an energy of its own. Even in the faded sepia portrait of her mother it seemed to glow at her throat. It was Joycie’s most treasured thing.
Joycie and Joe rose with the sun and went to bed at nightfall. As Joe grew older they had more and more fun together, spearing fish in the shallow lake, body surfing out at the ocean beach, laughing at the old echidna who trundled into their valley. He was always so intent on finding ants that he’d come right up to them if they lay very still in his path. Once Joycie grabbed him with her jumper, so his spikes didn’t stick in, and they turned him over and pulled the ticks off his furry tummy. His fur was like brown velvet, so soft you could hardly feel it, and he was as shy as a timid child, covering his face with his little clawed hands.
Their valley was filled with birds. They had no fear of Joycie and Joe, and flitted and perched all around them: wrens, parrots, warblers, and their favourite, the grey thrush. The only time they would dart for cover was when the shadow of a hawk or eagle crossed the valley floor. Joe could mimic all their songs, and knew their nests and where they built them. He and Joycie collected feathers and jammed them into cracks around the cave. Joe would lie in bed at night and watch them quivering in the draft from the fire.
Joycie showed Joe piles of mussel shells left by the people who’d lived on the headland for thousands of years. ‘You know those dingoes we hear sometimes at night?’ she asked. ‘That howling? Well, their ancestors would have belonged to those people. They would have been the women’s dogs. When the people were driven away, the dogs became wild.’
Joe liked to think of people living on the headland, just like him and Joycie.
They fished mainly on the rugged eastern coast of the headland, where they were less likely to be seen. Not that there was anyone much to see them. They sometimes saw cattle on the flats behind the ocean beach, and occasionally boats came ashore for water from their little creek. Joycie collected dingo droppings and scattered them through the swordgrass there, to put the fishermen’s dogs off the scent.
Once they were nearly discovered by a group of men and women who came so silently through the sand dunes that Joycie and Joe had to race into the scrub like the wind, leaving their oysters unshelled on the beach. The people camped at Middle Spring for a week, walking every day to different places collecting flowers and taking photographs.
One day Joe crept into their camp while they were out exploring and did some investigating of his own. He reached into the tiny tents and gasped at the softness of their sleeping bags. He searched through the food, gorging himself on chocolate and spitting out the bitter coffee he tasted. As he left, he brushed away his footprints with a branch, and his visit would have stayed a secret but for the beautiful red knife that fell out of his shirt as Joycie tucked him into bed that night. She had told him not to touch any of their things, to stay away, and she felt sick when she saw the Swiss Army knife. She smacked him, the only time she ever did, and told him terrible stories about what the people would do to little boys they found snooping in their camp. Then she took the knife and rushed out into the night, leaving him sobbing and confused at the way she’d turned on him.
But when he woke the next morning, she was laughing. ‘I crept up to their camp and they were talking about the knife. See, you naughty boy, they already missed it. You can’t take people’s things. I sat and waited until they went to bed and then I tossed the knife, a big high toss, and it landed right in the middle of all the tents. I was about to leave when, suddenly, out of one tent pops a head, staring at the knife lying there in the firelight. He must of heard it land. The man crawled out and picked up the knife and he scratched his head. He just kept scratching his head!’
Joe kept his distance after that, but he could see they were gentle people. They seemed to care about this place of his and the animals and plants that lived in it, and he really couldn’t believe the stories Joycie told.
It was the same with the drovers. When they brought the cattle down, or came to muster, Joycie tried to keep him in the valley, and told him what bad people they were. But as he grew older, Joe could see this wasn’t true.
In fact, Joycie knew who the drovers were. It would be the Frasers. She used to muck around with Dave Fraser when she was a kid. But she wasn’t going to tell Joe that. Dave was probably just like the rest now.
Joe was used to the cattle—they were around all winter—and they were fun to chase, if Joycie didn’t see. But the horses, Joe loved the horses—their manes, their swishing tails, and the gentle nickering that greeted him when he crept up to pat them in the night. The last time the drovers came, Joe defied Joycie and shadowed the cattle and horses for two days until they left. He wasn’t game to let himself be seen, but at night he lay in the dark like a hungry dog, devouring the scraps of stories and songs that drifted from the campfire. He went back to the valley determined to make Joycie see that she was wrong, that these people would not hurt him, but she was so distraught, so crazy with worry that he couldn’t begin to explain. When she finally calmed down, she held him fiercely and wept into his hair. ‘I thought you’d gone. I thought they’d taken you.’ Her voice was thick against his neck. ‘You think they look like nice people but I know. I’ve been in the town. Never, never let anyone see you. They’ll take you away. They killed your dad. Even Pops couldn’t save him.’
Joe sighed and hugged her close. It wasn’t Joycie looking after him any more. It was him looking after Joycie.
That night they sat on the whale rock that jutted into the sea at Whiting Beach. Joycie hummed a tune but Joe didn’t join in. His mind was racing. Joycie’s fear made him wary, and he was bound to stay and care for her, but the lights across the bay were drawing him like a moth to a flame.
The stars were still bright in the night sky. Biddy sat on her pony at the garden fence, waiting impatiently to begin the ride down to the headland. She had never been up so early, let alone in the saddle at this hour. The biting wind was waking her, but the porridge she’d eaten for breakfast, and her woolly gloves and beanie and new oilskin coat, kept her snug and warm.
Bella wasn’t used to being saddled so early. She stamped and jiggled, her silver man
e glinting in the light from the house.
‘I wish you were coming,’ Biddy called to her grand-father.
He looked so old and skinny waving from the back porch, with Tigger weaving around his legs. She hoped he’d be okay. Still, they’d only be gone for a night. They’d be back with the cattle by Thursday evening.
‘An old bloke like me would only get in your way. My word, you’re a flash-looking outfit. Do your oilskin up. It’ll be freezing out on the beach.’
‘Righto, let’s get a move on.’ Biddy’s dad tightened a final strap on Blue, the packhorse, then swung into his saddle. His old stockhorse, Gordon, stood quietly. He was a great horse, willing and intelligent. Once, years ago, Dad had ridden him into a marshy place, looking for cattle, and nearly got bogged, but Gordon had escaped by testing the ground with his hoof, one step at a time, until he was sure it would hold his weight.
‘We’ll see you pretty late tomorrow. Don’t forget to leave the gate open into the yard paddock—’
‘Of course I’ll leave the gate open!’ Grandpa had never got used to his son telling him what to do. ‘Don’t you forget to look in behind Mount Smoky. There’s always a few stragglers in there. And look out for the quicksand!’
‘Yeah, we will. Bye, Dad.’
‘Look after yourself, Dad,’ called Biddy’s mum as she gathered her reins. ‘Take care.’
They turned their horses and rode away in the early morning dark, with the packhorse and dogs trotting behind. Biddy kept twisting in her saddle and calling back to the figure in the doorway, ‘Bye, Grandpa. Look after Tigger for me. Bye, Grandpa. Love you,’ until they crested the low hill beyond the stockyards, and the house was blocked from view.
They were three tiny figures riding over the plain. The headland was a vague shape to the south, and to the east the water of the bay lay flat and grey. Biddy and her parents were riding west to the shallow inlet behind their farm. They would follow the bridle path over the cliffs to the surf beach, which was the only way of getting to the headland. There was no road, and the mudflats on the bay were impassable.
Biddy thought there couldn’t be a better feeling than riding off into unknown country, on a good horse, with who knows what adventure ahead. It was like being an explorer, or an outlaw. She wished she had a revolver. It would be great to take potshots at rabbits as you galloped along.
The sky was just light enough for the horses to pick their way along the track. They trotted, fresh and skittish at first, then settled into a steady rhythm. The saddlebags on the packhorse bounced in time to the hoofbeats.
By the time they got through the scrub and out onto the cliff tops, the sky in the east was blazing pink and orange. ‘Hey, Mum!’ yelled Biddy. ‘Pink sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning! Means it’s going to rain.’
She held on tight and tried not to look down. They only used this path when the tide was in, as it was now. It was too narrow to drive cattle along; they’d push past each other and fall down the cliff. Biddy looked at the water surging below her, and shivered. When they came back with the cattle the tide would be out and they’d ride on the sand.
The path wound over the last cliff, then dropped steeply to the surf beach. Biddy leaned back, and Bella slid down the sandy slope on her hindquarters. Ah! It felt good to be back on flat ground.
Far out to sea the sunlight sparkled on the water like sequins. Sullen clouds hung over the peaks of the headland. The beach was long, endless. It ran for miles, then disappeared into the sea-mist. The dunes towered on one side and the surf pounded in on the other. A freezing wind whipped straight up from Antarctica, blasting sand and rain into their faces. The high tide forced them to ride along the base of the dunes, in soft sand littered with driftwood and seaweed thrown up by the violent waves. Biddy skittered about on her pony, looking for treasures. She peered closely at any bottles, in case there was a message inside.
Once, in the old days, Grandpa had found a crate of bananas. Bananas were a luxury back then, he told Biddy, so they’d had a big feed of them, and packed the rest in their saddlebags. They hadn’t gone much further down the beach when they found another box, about the same size as the first. More bananas, they thought, and whipped the lid off—only to find a dead body inside. Some poor soul had been buried at sea, and washed ashore. Grandpa said he never ate bananas after that, but Biddy was sure she’d seen him.
Her parents rode together in an easy silence, their horses striding out, heads down into the wind and squalling rain. Sooty oyster-catchers and sandpipers darted along the waterline, and crying seagulls, chased by the dogs, wheeled overhead.
It took all morning to ride along the beach, and it was a relief to get out of the howling wind and into the shelter of the bush when they reached Brandy Creek. The rain had stopped and they laid their oilskin coats out on the mossy bank and had lunch. Biddy was tired already, but she wouldn’t dare let her parents know that. A thin bit of sun crept through the cloud, and the small fire her mother made to boil the billy warmed her. Corned beef sandwiches, hot sweet black tea in a chipped enamel mug, and a slab of fruitcake filled her up. She’d never drink black tea at home, but it seemed just the thing here in the bush. The three of them snuggled together like a family of lions and snoozed until Mum’s dog, Top, woke them, trying to get into the food bag.
‘Get out of it, you mongrel of a thing,’ growled Biddy. ‘That’s our food.’
‘Hey, Bid,’ her mother teased, ‘imagine if he ate all our food and we had to live on witchetty grubs until we got home!’
‘Like the Biddy I’m named after. She lived out here and survived on what she could find. Grandpa told me.’
They rode through the lightly timbered gullies that afternoon, calling to the cattle and putting out little piles of salt for them. These cattle had been bred up in the high country and were used to coming out of the bush to get the salt they craved so much.
Biddy was the salt girl. She waited on Bella in a clearing, with the heavy bag of salt on the pommel of her saddle. She called to the cattle, ‘Saaalt! Saaalt!’ over and over.
Slowly the steers trickled down the gullies and ridges. They were wary at first, because they hadn’t seen a horse and rider for months, but they soon settled to lick the salt from the ground. Biddy rode around the edge of the mob, keeping the cattle together and soothing them with her voice.
Her parents had taken the dogs and headed in opposite directions to search some of the remote places that they knew the cattle loved. Mum took Top, because he wouldn’t work for Dad, and Dad took Nugget, because he wouldn’t work for Mum. Neither of the dogs worked for Biddy, which made her really mad. It was as if they didn’t think she knew how things should be done. She could whistle and yell until she was blue in the face and they’d just give her a sly doggy smile and keep on doing what they were doing.
Biddy hoped her parents wouldn’t take too long to get back with the other cattle. The mob was a bit jumpy. The steers kept looking at old Blue, the packhorse, who was tethered beside a thick mass of paperbarks and swordgrass. It was as if they thought he had two heads and was going to attack them. Biddy couldn’t see what was so scary about Blue. He was just standing there, half asleep, resting one back leg. But the cattle continued to snort and stare at him.
Finally, way off in the distance, she heard stockwhips cracking and dogs barking. Good, either Mum or Dad would be back soon, and then if the cattle stampeded it wouldn’t be her fault. Soon Lorna appeared through the scrub, pushing a ragged group of steers towards them. The cattle bellowed out to each other. As the mobs mingled together, Biddy told her mother about the cattle spooking at Blue.
‘They wouldn’t be spooking at him,’ she answered, crossing one leg over the pommel of her saddle and giving her horse, Dusky, a pat. ‘Phew! It’s hard work getting cattle out of those gullies. The scrub is so thick you wouldn’t know what was in there. But I love this mar
e. She’ll barge her way through anything.’
‘If they’re not spooking at him,’ said Biddy, ‘what are they afraid of?’
‘It must be something in that bush behind him, I guess.’
‘Then why isn’t Blue spooking at it too?’ Biddy persisted.
‘Mmmn,’ Mum thought for a while. ‘Perhaps it’s something he’s not afraid of.’
Dad came into the clearing soon after with more cattle. His horse, Gordon, dripping with sweat, had foam on his neck where the reins had rubbed, and his nostrils flared red. He reminded Biddy of Grandpa’s bronze horse, all wet and shining.
Some of the bullocks were huge, with long curved horns. They stared, wild-eyed, and made half charges at the horses before huddling together in the centre of the mob.
‘The old man was right!’ Dad called to them. ‘These eight crazy ones were around the back of Mount Smoky. They’ve been there for two years by the look of their horns. Watch it, Biddy. If they come near you, get out of the way.’
‘Yes, Bid, they could really hurt you,’ said Mum. ‘But they’ll be worth a fortune if we can get them to market. Well done, Dave.’
It took the rest of the afternoon to drive the cattle back to the holding yards. The yards had been built a long time ago, by felling trees to form a barricade. Over the years drovers had added more and more branches to make a tangle of wood that even the wildest bullock couldn’t get through.
Mum counted the mob into the yard. ‘One hundred and seventy-five,’ she told Biddy and Dad as they tied up the sliprails. ‘Counting that extra eight you got, there’s still thirty-three to find. Tomorrow morning we’ll go back to some of the places we left salt and see what we can pick up. We’ve done well, team.’
Biddy couldn’t move. She sat on a patch of the softest, bright green moss, pushing it down with her fingers and watching it spring up again. A smooth granite boulder supported her back, and her woolly clothes and oilskin coat still kept her warm. Only her feet were cold, frozen in boots that had got wet early and never dried out. A yellow-breasted robin flitted down from the tea-tree, through the last rays of sun that made the wattles glow. It was a golden world.
The Quicksand Pony Page 3