Brumby Mountain

by Karen Wood

  ‘Someone’s life savings,’ said Mrs Arnold, mesmerised, ‘and I bet those are wedding rings.’

  ‘D’you mind?’ Jess knelt beside Luke and picked up the rings. They were plain and flat and made from gold, one smaller than the other. She held them in her hand and wondered about their origins.

  And then she saw a small, tarnished white box, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. On the lid, written in old-fashioned typewriter font, it read:

  AIF Military Medal

  Awarded to Pte. Gordon Robertson

  For his gallantry and devotion during

  the taking of Beersheba

  31st October 1917

  ‘Oh wow, a war medal,’ said Jess, carefully pulling the lid off the box. Inside, resting on tissue paper, was a round silver medal, not much larger than a twenty-cent piece. Jess picked it up and turned it carefully around in her hand. A king’s head was on the front, and on the back the words FOR BRAVERY IN THE FIELD were inscribed. It hung on a short striped ribbon.

  ‘Where’s Beersheba?’ asked Luke, leaning over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s in Israel,’ said Mrs Arnold. ‘It’s where the Light Horse charged and helped the Allies win the First World War.’

  ‘That explains this, then,’ said Luke, scratching around in the tin and bringing out a small pewter object. ‘It’s a badge!’ He held it in his open hand. Above a number 12 stood a proud kangaroo. Beneath that were the letters ALH and written on a scroll were the words, VIRTUTIS FORTUNA COMES.

  ‘Fortune favours the brave,’ said Steve, looking over Luke’s shoulder. ‘The motto of the Twelfth Light Horse Regiment. They’re legendary around these parts – tablelands boys, many of them were, on tablelands horses.’

  He pointed up to the mountains. ‘Remember I told you those brumbies you’re so fond of are all direct descendants of the Walers, the horses that carried our boys into battle.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jess.

  ‘It’s well documented,’ said Steve. ‘The station folk bred them for the remount trade during the war. They would run ‘em wild in the bush, release good stallions, then muster them up and let the boys buck ‘em out.’ He laughed. ‘Legend has it there were rodeos going on all over these mountains. The bush boys stuck to the saddles like glue and one after the other the horses were broken in and led away to the Light Horse training camps at Armidale.’

  Jess read the date on the small box again. ‘In October, same as the brumby massacre.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Steve in a grim voice. ‘Eighty-three years later, almost to the day. Instead of celebrating those horses, they slaughtered their descendants. Bloody shameful, if you ask me.’

  ‘Disgraceful,’ agreed Jess. She imagined all those wild brumbies being run out of the bush, broken in, put on ships and taken to a foreign land where they were ridden into a storm of bullets.

  ‘Not one of them came home,’ said Steve. ‘Too costly for the government. The soldiers had to shoot them.’

  ‘So, these ones, the ones in the mountains now . . . ’

  ‘When the Twelfth Regiment disbanded, switched to vehicles, they released a lot of the cavalry horses back into the mountains. The wild horses around here are their descendants. Or they were, before the government decided to shoot them all.’

  ‘So, who was Private Gordon Robertson and why are all his treasures stuffed in the wall of this house?’ wondered Jess.

  ‘That was my grandparents’ name,’ said Luke. ‘My mother’s maiden name.’

  Everyone stared at Luke.

  ‘It was,’ he said. ‘My grandfather’s name was Frank Robertson. He was my mother’s dad.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Steve. ‘That was Matty’s name, before she married Jack.’

  Luke kept carefully unfolding the papers. They cracked and split at the creases as he spread them out, one by one on top of each other. Some were forms, typed with clunky bold font, filled out with fancy handwritten calligraphy and sealed with wax stamps. They had signatures scrawled on them with ink that seeped into the thick paper and left bleed marks.

  Luke opened several papers that were folded together. ‘Receipts,’ he said. ‘Made out to a Laura Robertson. Hey, looks like Granny Robertson was a horse dealer!’

  He held one of the documents out in front of him. ‘“Paid to Laura Robertson, the sum of one hundred and ninety-two pounds, for the purchase of twelve Walers.” ’ He flipped through the others. ‘And here’s one for twenty-three Walers, another one for six . . . ’

  ‘She’d have been selling them for the remount trade too,’ said Steve. ‘Told you! It was good money.’

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘A birth certificate,’ said Mrs Arnold, rummaging through a different pile of papers. ‘Granny Robertson had a kid, Frank, born in 1932, so she must have been your great-grandmother.’ She lifted the certificate and looked underneath it. ‘And another one, an Elizabeth Jane. Oh, here’s little Lizzie’s death certificate. She died as an infant.’

  ‘Why would all this be stuffed inside the wall of the house?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Maybe they hid their worldly goods and went on the road looking for work,’ said Mrs Arnold. ‘They were tough times back then. They were the Depression years.’

  Luke unfolded more paper and squinted to read the faded print. He fingered the paper.

  ‘New South Wales Department of Lands . . . This Indenture made by the . . . I can’t read that bit . . . on the . . . must be the date . . . Year of the Reign of our Sovereign, Defender of the Faith and in the year of our Lord God . . . Geez, they go on with some waffle,’ he said, casting the document aside and reaching for another.

  Jess picked it up and scanned it. Most of it was so faded that she couldn’t read it, and the language was obscure, but she could make out words like towns, lands, tenements and hereby granted . . . ‘Is this some sort of thing about owning land?’ she asked. ‘It also says something about the Shire of New England . . . “Granted by the Crown in recognition of service . . . ” ’

  ‘A land grant,’ said Steve, peering over her shoulder. ‘Twenty square miles, most of them were, none of them fenced, neither.’

  Before anyone could answer, Mrs Arnold, who had been squinting carefully at another document, erupted. ‘Certificate of marriage! Gordon Robertson and Laura Margaret Mathews,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Holy horse dealers, old Granny Robertson’s maiden name was Mathews! These documents belong to the original settlers.’

  Everyone crowded around Mrs Arnold, grabbing at her and trying to get a better look at the piece of paper. She held it in the air. ‘Righto, righto, no need to mug me!’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said an indignant Luke. ‘I think I should get first look.’

  The others backed off and Luke held his hand out to Mrs Arnold. She handed it to him. ‘Gentle, it’s a bit crumbly.’

  Luke carefully opened it out in his palms. ‘Gordon Robertson and Laura Margaret Mathews,’ he said in a voice filled with wonder.

  ‘Kwor,’ Grace breathed. ‘You know what that means . . . ’

  Jess’s skin began to prickle. Luke looked stupefied.

  Everyone’s eyes danced as the possibility percolated through their imaginations. If they were right, Luke was a descendant of the Mathews family, the original settlers of this valley. The owners of Brumby Mountain. And since no one else had come forward to claim the land, Luke might be the last one left.

  ‘I think we better get all that stuff to a solicitor,’ said Lawson. He grinned and smacked Luke wholeheartedly on the back. ‘Time to lodge a claim, bro!’

  ‘Reckon?’ said Luke.

  ‘It’s as much yours as anyone else’s,’ said Mrs Arnold. She threw her car keys to Lawson. ‘Go now. Let’s get this sorted, once and for all.’

  28

  WHILE LAWSON AND LUKE raced to Armidale with the new-found documents, Jess helped finish stacking the timber onto a pile, ready to burn. She worked with a mixture of feelings. She was excited for Luke and a
bout all the hope that was coming for the brumbies on the mountain. But she didn’t dare acknowledge what it might mean for her.

  The afternoon dragged on into long hours of anxiety, sweat and decaying timber. The harder she worked, the more she could focus on her aching limbs instead of the possibility that she might lose Luke for good.

  The sun was sinking behind the mountain by the time the fourbie rattled back along the dirt road and rolled in through the gate. Luke emerged from the car looking victorious.

  Jess wiped her grimy hands on an old torn rag and walked slowly to the car. ‘What did the solicitor say?’

  ‘I only spoke to him quickly. I’ve got a real appointment on Monday. But he said it’s worth a shot. He’s going to go through all the papers and if they’re good I can lodge the claim.’ Luke grabbed Jess in a huge bear hug and swung her around. ‘It’ll be a brumby sanctuary, Jessy!’

  She squeezed him back. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Well . . . ’ Luke caught his breath suddenly and put her back down, as though common sense had caught up with him. ‘We won’t know for ages. These things take years, decades even. But the claim is lodged – well, it will be on Monday. We have enough material to interrupt the sale of the place. They can’t auction it off while we keep the process going.’

  ‘Let’s release the mares,’ said Grace, bouncing up behind them.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Shara.

  And as though it had heard them talking, a horse called from the outer rims of the property. It was a long, enquiring whinny.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ laughed Grace. ‘They want us to hurry up!’

  ‘Let’s do it before it gets dark,’ said Jess.

  ‘Brumbies can probably see in the dark anyway,’ said Grace. ‘These girls would know the mountains like the backs of their hooves!’

  They all walked to the river. Lawson swung himself into the driver’s seat and drove the truck closer to the river crossing.

  ‘Hey, you’ve branded them,’ said Jess, as the mares came out quietly, clomping down the tailgate one cautious hoof at a time. On each horse’s shoulder was a fresh scab: a capital M inside a larger capital C. ‘Whose brand is that?’

  ‘Mine,’ said Luke, smiling. ‘MC, for Matty’s Creek. Lawson helped me make it. I’m going to register it, too.’

  There was no pause at the bottom of the ramp, only acceleration, and Jess felt her anxiety ease, replaced by warm satisfaction at the sight of the horses’ pricked ears and instantly brighter eyes. The lead mare, the bay, walked to the river crossing, lifted her nose and whinnied. The second mare, the creamy one, nickered, and from the densely treed hills came answering cries.

  ‘I can’t believe how much calmer they are now that they’re home,’ Jess said. ‘It’s as if they just know all their troubles are over.’ She noticed an amused smile lurking beneath Lawson’s deadpan face. ‘What?’

  He snorted and looked away.

  ‘What?’ she demanded again.

  Lawson smirked. ‘One of the reasons they’re calmer is that Biyanga gave them a quick going-away present before they left Coachwood Crossing.’

  Jess gasped. How could she not have noticed? Luke’s jaw also dropped.

  ‘I had to bring them into the yards to brand them anyway.’ Lawson gave one of his uproarious laughs and slapped Luke on the back. ‘Think of it as a housewarming pressie. We’ll come back in a few years and do some trapping.’

  The mares broke into a canter, and splashed through the river with their tails high.

  By the time Lawson had stopped laughing, the brumbies were gone. The whinnying stopped and Jess imagined the reassuring nuzzling and nickering that would be going on in the gully beyond. She imagined the tiny seeds the mares carried inside them; the genes of the great campdraft sire, Biyanga. What better blood to replace the lost stallions and to mix with the spirits of Saladin? There would be some awesome horses roaming the mountain in future years.

  ‘Are you ready to light this up, Luke?’ Lawson called over his shoulder as he walked towards the pile. ‘It’s your place. You do the honours!’ He tossed over a box of matches.

  ‘You bet.’ Luke snatched them out of the air and walked to the enormous stack of timber. ‘This place could do with a good smoking. Get all the ghosts out of here.’

  ‘I reckon,’ agreed Jess.

  Luke struck a match and dropped it on the kero-soaked timber at the bottom of the stack. It ignited with an air-sucking woof, and quickly lapped up through the beams and rails and half-rotten fenceposts, sheets of plywood and sacks of rubbish. Within minutes it was burning brightly, with twisting flames reaching upwards and sending glowing sparks whirling high into the night.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a housewarming,’ said Lawson.

  ‘Yep,’ said Luke, stepping back and holding an arm up to shield his face from the intense glare. ‘That there is a warm house.’

  As the flames fed on the rubble, things fizzed and popped and snapped. Pieces collapsed, and tiny grey flakes wafted around in the glowing orange light. Thick black smoke billowed into the dimming sky.

  ‘That is filthy dirty smoke,’ noted Jess.

  ‘It is,’ said Luke. ‘It’ll get cleaner as all the paint and rubbish goes and it gets back to plain wood.’

  ‘Wood that was probably cut from these hillsides.’

  Luke nodded. ‘Ashes to ashes.’

  Corey and Tom were already rolling out their swags, and Filth and Fang bounded all over them, much to the boys’ annoyance. They yelled at the big dirty dogs to get off. Mrs Arnold was in her favourite fold-out chair with a glass of port in hand and Lawson sat on a log nearby, looking up at the flames. He reached behind him and pulled a banjo onto his lap.

  Jess took her swag from the truck, rolled it out under a tree and lay on her belly with her chin in her hands. Above the crackle of the fire she could hear the frogs in the river. Luke, she noticed, set up his swag next to Tom and Corey.

  Luke was strangely remote from her all night. He was polite, too formal, his conversation was awkward and she could tell he was intentionally hanging with the boys, keeping the chiacking going on longer than was comfortable for anyone. She watched the way he moved, with quick, sharp motions, always underlined with nervous energy.

  As Jess lay on her swag, watching the flames dissolve his past into his future, she felt the pieces click together with a sudden, painful snap.

  Tomorrow, this river-flat property would be cleansed of the bruised and troubled brumby spirits – and the heartbroken human ones, too. Tomorrow, she would leave this beautiful place and go back to Coachwood Crossing.

  Tonight, though, there was nothing but the sounds of buzzing insects, a crackling fire and a possum searching for fruits in the fig tree overhead. There was the banjo playing and Grace and Rosie singing ridiculous improvised versions of corny love songs. She would enjoy the here and now.

  29

  JESS WOKE, some time deep in the night, with Luke’s hand brushing the hair off her face. She could feel the breath from his nose, cool and soft on her skin. She shifted her chin and kissed him without bothering to open her eyes.

  ‘Let’s go for a night ride,’ she heard him say softly.

  She opened her eyes and found his, only centimetres away. But his smile was somehow forced. He didn’t kiss her.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even. She pushed her blanket off, pulled on her jeans and a jumper and followed him to the river crossing, where Rambo nibbled at the grass along its edges. He raised his head and nickered.

  Luke put an arm around the old horse’s neck and held out a hand to leg Jess up. She eased herself on and felt Luke leap up behind her. As they rode into the mountain, she felt as though she was riding to a funeral and she steeled herself for the news that was to come.

  Rambo took them deep into the mountain, up across hillsides and down into gorges so rugged and dark that Jess could barely see her hand in front of her. They rode surrounded by wispy shapes in shades
and layers and mysterious patches of blackness until the mountain became completely black. All Jess could feel was the swaying motion of the horse beneath her and Luke’s body, swinging in time. The terrain was so rugged that at times she couldn’t tell if they were travelling uphill or downhill. She could hear squeaks and wind and rustling all around her, Rambo’s hooves brushing through grasses, and Luke breathing.

  The whole time they were riding, Luke didn’t speak. And the further they travelled, the worse Jess imagined the news would be.

  ‘Where is he taking us?’ Jess finally whispered. She grabbed hold of a chunk of mane as she felt Rambo’s shoulders drop down beneath her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Luke answered, as they rose again and Rambo’s hooves scrambled in front of Jess.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  Luke unzipped his jacket and wrapped it around her. She felt his chin rest on her shoulder. His hair warmed the side of her face.

  They rode aimlessly through the trees and the shrubs for the entire night, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she felt it would be her last ride with Luke, Jess would have turned back hours earlier. But she didn’t want it to end. Every moment that was offered to her in this achingly beautiful place, with him, she would take. They rode through bitter cold and she felt the contrast between the sharp ice of her feet and the warmth of Luke’s body wrapped around hers.

  Through the gullies around her, Jess could hear water gurgling, thousands of tiny trickles, running down tree trunks and dripping from strings of bark, seeping between rocks, cutting little pathways to the creek. And as they rode, the sound grew louder, larger, until it culminated in a waterfall, gushing and plunging over granite cliffs.

  Rambo plodded steadily downhill and walked straight into the falls. Suddenly, dramatically, the sounds changed to long, hollow echoes. The air was cool and moist and smelled of horses. Jess realised they were riding through a dark tunnel inside the mountain. Water seeped through the rocks and plipped into puddles beneath. Rambo’s steady clopping over the moist earth floor sounded like a slow drumbeats. Luke’s arms tightened around her.