Bella's Run

by Margareta Osborn

  It had taken some time before he was able to face the world again, before he was up to venturing beyond the Tindarra Valley’s eucalypt walls. He spent time with Maggie, a lot of time in fact, just talking through the grief. She helped him shave his head and sent him home with hearty meals on a plate. And then after many long chats, some of which included old Wes, who always had some new piece of advice to dredge from his bushman’s well, he was finally ready to get back on with life. And one morning he decided, he needed to see Bella. To beg for her forgiveness, and to explain why she should give him a second chance.

  But he fucked that up too, and he came home from Melbourne alone. Maggie took one look at his face and didn’t ask why. He never went back to Melbourne. Bella obviously hated him for how he’d treated her. And he couldn’t blame her. He hated himself.

  A year later he did the second most stupid thing he’d done in his life: he married Prudence Vincent-Prowse.

  Will watched as the Mercedes disappeared within a cloud of dust, before he stirred himself to move. Slightly favouring right leg over left, he slowly loped towards the sixteen-hand ebony horse tethered to a tree sapling nearby. Swishing its tail against the clouds of tiny black bush flies hovering over its rounded rump, Wizard patiently shifted his weight from one hoof to the next.

  Will unbuckled the reins from the piece of baling twine he’d tied to the small tree, and then undid the knot connecting the twine to the sapling. Wizard had a habit of pulling back; better to break the twine than the leather reins. Stowing the piece of light twine in his jeans pocket, he walked his big horse around a bit. Stopping, he clinched up the loosened girth on his stock saddle a few notches, before finally swinging his long body over and into the seat. Glancing lingeringly once more towards the direction the black Merc had taken, he neck-reined Wizard around and steadfastly headed the opposite way.

  Chapter 25

  ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride,’ said the celebrant, looking expectantly at the couple standing before him.

  The day had dawned sunny with a promise of bright blue skies for the wedding of the year at the Ben Bullen Hills Station. Never had the area of Burrindal seen anything of this ilk. Trinity had spared no expense, figuring he was only going to do it once, so he wanted to do it well.

  As Bella had rolled out from her bed inside the newly renovated Ben Bullen Hills Station house, she knew from the brilliance of the day that God was on this young couple’s side. Out to the north, row after row of dusty blue mountains with eucalypts snugged to their sides rolled into one another as far as the eye could see. Mountains descended into the depths of a valley where the mighty Cullen River flowed.

  As she sat on her horse in the natural grassy amphitheatre where the wedding was taking place, Bella wondered how anyone could not believe in God – the magnificent visage of nature taking the place of an altar in this outdoor church.

  Everyone had gathered in a sloped opening on the side of a hill, where Trinity had rough-sawn stringy-bark logs and placed them in half-circle rows for guests to sit on. Thick bush slid down both sides of the open space and everyone faced out towards the distant rolling mountains as they witnessed this true bush wedding.

  Bella looked down at her close friend’s face. Caroline’s eyes shone as brightly as the afternoon sun as she gazed up at her ruggedly handsome new husband. Francine would’ve loved to have seen this wedding; loved to have seen Caroline looking so happy and beautiful in her layers of pearl chiffon.

  The strapless design of Bella’s raspberry-pink bustier allowed the slight breeze blowing up the mountain to tickle her neck. As the sun beat down she was sure it was the only thing keeping her from toppling in a faint from her perch atop her mare, Aprillia.

  That and the burning eyes boring into her side belonging to William O’Hara who sat mounted on his own horse only metres away. She still couldn’t believe she was so attuned to that man. She silently recited the name of her fiancé: Warren. Warren, Warren, Warren!

  Will cut a dashing figure on his ebony horse. His black suit was topped with a new black Bronco broad-brimmed hat, to match that worn by the groom.

  He and Bella had spoken for the first time that morning, down at the stockyards while she was feeding and watering Aprillia. He was mucking around with his own horse.

  ‘Morning, Will,’ she called, trying to keep her voice level.

  ‘Isabella. Didn’t think we’d ever see you around these parts again.’

  ‘Well, you were wrong. Here I am!’ her voice squeaked. Shit.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Will. An uncomfortable silence followed. ‘I heard you were engaged to some city bloke. He coming?’

  Bella opened her mouth to reply, and then stopped. She was shocked to realise that she hoped Warren wouldn’t make it to the wedding. ‘Not sure. He’s very busy.’ She ducked under Aprillia’s neck and took hold of the water bucket; as she walked towards the tap she realised Will was doing the same.

  ‘Nice horse,’ said Bella, throwing a hand out to pat the gelding.

  ‘Yeah. Wizard’s a good fella. Had him since he was a baby.’ Bella watched as Will gently fondled the horse’s mane, his tanned fingers moving in a caress across smooth black hair. Wizard blew softly into his master’s shoulder. Obviously a match made in heaven.

  Bella’s mobile erupted into a sharp ring. She snatched it from her pocket, turning her back on Will.

  ‘Bella! Where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for two days! Why has your phone been switched off?’

  She’d been deliberately turning him off on the mobile. She was so flaming angry with him. Still. ‘Warren, when I’ve got something to say I’ll talk to you – and not before.’ Bella pressed the off button and stuck the phone back into her pocket.

  ‘You got trouble?’ A deep voice rumbled near her other ear.

  She jumped and landed a little away to the right, tripping on a burgan shrub as she went. She came crashing down, all limbs and angles, her body buried among the prickly fronds of scrubby bush.

  Will looked down at her, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Well, at least you’re still jumpy. That’s a start.’

  ‘I’m not jumpy!’ Bella tried to fight her way out of the bush, her bare arms flailing in the air.

  Will grabbed hold of both arms in an iron grip and yanked her out of the shrub, causing her to overbalance again and fall towards his warm, hard chest. They both went perfectly still. The early-morning bush activity seemed to halt, the world seemed to pause.

  Inhaling, she breathed in the warmth of flannelette, Pears soap, Lynx Africa deodorant, wood smoke and the earthy scent of horse and eucalyptus. She could feel the strength of Will’s hands as they came up to steady her. His touch incited her body into a rush of heat so strong she wasn’t exactly sure where she was being held.

  Why didn’t she feel like this with Warren? Turned on at a slightest touch while at the same time safe, warm and protected? It was such a foreign feeling, this one of security. Bella looked up to catch a glimpse of the man doing this to her, only to find herself unceremoniously thrust away.

  ‘I’d best get going,’ mumbled Will as he quickly turned, leaving Bella standing staring at his back as he walked away.

  Damn the man!

  Now, sitting watching the wedding proceedings, she had a perfect excuse to check him out more closely, to see what seven years and marriage to Prudence Vincent-Prowse had done to him. At first glance it didn’t look like much, maybe just a few extra lines etched into his face. But when he dismounted to hand Trinity the wedding rings, Bella could see his frame was leaner and somehow harder, tougher like a piece of Number 8 wire that was extremely difficult to bend to your will. His warm molasses gaze was now a brittle toffee.

  He had the unconscious confidence of a man who was sure of his place on the earth, but there was a slight flaw, an imperceptible limp favouring his right leg over his left. Only someone who knew him – or had known him – well would have been able to tel
l, so well did he disguise it.

  Bella remembered Maggie telling her over the phone about Will’s fall from a grain silo a few years ago; a shattered left femur refusing to heal properly, back when he’d been married to Prowsy.

  Bella’s stomach did an involuntary twist and she felt sick at the thought of Will and Prue together. Maggie had told her of the union two years after she’d left for Melbourne. Bella had gently replaced the phone’s receiver then spent the day curled on the couch in her pyjamas and fluffy dressing gown in tears, shattered by the news.

  She had thought that the bright lights of Melbourne had snuffed the flame of yearning she had once carried for Will; that the man who had briefly become an intimate part of those hell-raising, boot-stomping years of her life could be tossed aside without a care. But Prowsy, of all people? She couldn’t fathom that one. Then again, Prowsy had always been good at reeling in the fellas, saving her bitchy side for any competition.

  They had divorced three years later. Apparently Prowsy had run off with a property developer from some toffy horse-breeding place in New South Wales.

  ‘She took our Will to the cleaners. He’s had to mortgage the farm to pay her out. She reckons she helped him get to where he is. Pah!’ snorted Maggie. ‘I’ve never heard such rot! How can a flower-arranging class help you build the finest herd of Herefords this valley has ever seen? She nearly sent him broke buying all that “country” decorator stuff in those flash magazines!’

  A canine yawn drew Bella’s attention to the dog sitting at her horse’s hooves. Bindi, Trin’s border collie, had flopped to the ground near Bella’s right stirrup, a raspberry-pink bow slung around her shaggy neck. She was clearly bored with proceedings; proceedings, Bella suddenly realised, that had finished while she was off in another world.

  The crowd was surging forward to congratulate the radiant bride and groom, milling around the logs that had been their seats. Bella felt a chuckle welling in her throat as she glimpsed Dymphna, Wes’s daughter and Trin’s mother, tottering on two- inch heels, as she tried to cope with knee-high pointed wallaby grass seeds, snagging at her fine denier stockings. You’d think she’d have worn something more appropriate having spent her childhood in the bush.

  From her viewpoint on Aprillia’s back, Bella could see numerous amateur photographers urging the bridal couple to kiss. The pair were more than happy to oblige, and as Trinity’s head bent to claim Caro as his prize, Bella felt Will’s eyes alight upon her face.

  Glancing sideways, she was caught by the intensity of his gaze. Different expressions were flitting across his face: pensiveness, resentment and hurt, duelling with fatalistic, resigned attraction. Raw longing glimpsed then shuttered away.

  Bella’s guts clenched as she absorbed it all.

  She hurriedly turned back to the bride and groom.

  A roar was sent up from the crowd as the groom kissed his bride, almost drowning out the mournful bay of a hound whispered on a slip of wind sliding up the valley.

  Bindi rose to paws growling, her hackles up, her teeth bared towards the bush out to Bella’s left. Aprillia pricked her ears, flicking them restlessly back and forth. Bella gathered the loose reins to keep the horse in check, sweeping her hand up and down the mare’s neck. Bella noticed Will doing the same, his unsettled horse backing away from the bridal scene in front of them.

  Then, all hell broke loose.

  A kangaroo bounded from the scrub out to the left of the open clearing where the wedding had taken place. Like a racehorse released from a barrier in the Melbourne Cup, the roo flew across the open natural amphitheatre, blindly aiming for the crowd of milling people. Baying hounds could be heard again, louder now, on the slither of breeze, and that was enough.

  Aprillia bolted.

  Bella felt a sudden whiplash to her head, neck and shoulders. She tried pulling back hard on the reins but the horse had taken the bit between its teeth and was running out of sheer fear. Then she knew nothing except grabbing for mane, saddle and reins, anything to keep her on top of the horse. In her peripheral vision she saw Trinity grab Caroline and thrust her sideways, protecting his wife with his solid body as Aprillia slammed into the crowd.

  People ran in all directions screaming.

  Bella saw Dymphna fall onto her backside, legs flailing in the air, shrieking as her corsets and petticoats were thrust on display. Then they were through the people and all Bella could see in front of her was massive stringy-bark trees, under-storied by thick burgan and dogwood bush.

  She clung precariously to the side-saddle, lying as low as she could along the horse’s neck to avoid being struck by the overhead branches that would be the biggest danger once she hit the scrub.

  She had no control.

  There was nothing to turn the horse into to force her to stop, not a fence or yard for kilometres either way. There was nothing she could do except hang on.

  The last voice she thought she heard was Will’s. ‘Bella!’

  Aprillia crashed into the bush, following a path only the mare could see, and as the baying of hounds resonated clearly through the air again, a terrified Bella wondered just how long she could stay on.

  Chapter 26

  The ride seemed to go on for hours. Sticks cracked and snapped underfoot, branches slapped at her body and the saddle, creating divots in both skin and leather. Bella lost count of how many tree limbs she dodged.

  Time came to mean nothing. Much of her life flew through her mind; snapshot images flicking past, gone as quickly as they came, almost matching the beat of Aprillia’s legs crashing through the scrub.

  As the mare ploughed on through the bush, eating away at the ground with her pounding hooves, Bella fleetingly wondered if anyone was coming after her. The horse seemed to be keeping to wild brumby tracks that wound through the trees. Hopefully someone would find them. She just needed to watch out for the low-hanging branches, and maybe – just maybe – she’d be able to ride this one out.

  Aprillia’s gait finally slowed to a plodding walk. A few more steps and then she stopped. Sides heaving, legs shuddering, the mare tossed her head into the air, spraying Bella with foam from her frothing muzzle. Then she dropped her head to the ground in a droop that betrayed her exhaustion.

  Bella flung herself sideways from the saddle, her own shaking legs collapsing under the sudden weight. She dropped her head into her hands and fell backwards into the thick native grass.

  Tears came easily now the danger was past. As she flicked away small branches and leaves that clung to her clothes and hair, her body convulsed into sobs.

  She closed her eyes and lay inert, and allowed the hot sun to kiss her face and body, and calm her rapidly beating heart.

  Will pushed his gelding hard, striving to follow the trail Aprillia had left on her flight through the bush. Damn the hunters and their hounds near Ben Bullen Hills on today of all bloody days.

  He was pretty sure where Aprillia was headed, that was if she kept to the brumby trails laid out before him. His heart was in his mouth and he knew he was pushing his horse too hard, but he couldn’t help the fear that hammered through his body, coursing adrenaline through his veins.

  Bugger and blast the bloody girl. Why couldn’t she have stayed where she was, in the city, well out of harm’s way . . . out of his way.

  He knew it wasn’t really Bella’s fault. It rarely was. Trouble just followed that girl and it always had, especially where he was concerned. And at the moment his main concern, his greatest fear, was finding a pink-covered bundle, motionless on the ground.

  An image of Bella at the wedding flashed before his eyes: all tousled blonde ringlets, voluptuous curves and those amazing blue eyes. Eight years and a lifetime later, Will had been shocked to see those stunning eyes were shadowed by hurt, clouded with frustration and filled with vulnerability as she gazed at Trin and Caro. He had wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss it all away.

  A branch came from nowhere and clouted him across the jaw. The pain was like a do
using of cold water. ‘Bloody hell!’

  To him Isabella Vermaelon was a temptress on legs, and he was sick of years of temptation studded with bouts of torment and pain. He’d loved her. He’d lost her, and it was his own goddamned fault. Now she was engaged to some rich tosser from Melbourne and he couldn’t do anything about it.

  Although by the sound of the phone call that morning, all was not well with wanker Warren. Maybe Will stood a chance, even after all this time? He remembered her stumbling into his arms in the stockyard; the feel of her body was so familiar.

  Prue of course had been a terrible mistake. She had simply been in the right place at the wrong time, and Will was the first to admit it. She seemed to think she could make him forget Bella. Make him love her instead. But she couldn’t and he didn’t. He’d apologised when she threw it in his face the day she’d left.

  ‘You don’t love me, you arsehole, so why the fuck did you marry me?’

  ‘I have no idea why I married you, Prue,’ he’d said as he’d heaved her suitcases into the car, wishing to hell she’d just get in it and drive out of his life. Forever.

  ‘You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? I’m not having three in my bed anymore. At least Leyton loves me for me!’

  Will had his own thoughts on why Leyton Fowler wanted Prudence and they didn’t include love. More like a fashionable accessory on his arm at race-days.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I guess I was on the rebound when we got together. But you can’t say I’ve treated you badly. You got your Paspaley pearls, had the race-days, the housekeeper, the pedicures and manicures, for fuck’s sake! What more did you want?’