by Janet Gover
He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until the fear went away. Until she stopped shaking. He wanted to tell her that it was all right. That she would find her way back, and he would help her. But he didn’t. He quietly and slowly stepped away from the doorway and walked back to the gelding. He swung himself back into the saddle. He’d never let Carrie know he’d seen her like that. She would hate that he knew.
He would hide that knowledge. But he would find a way to help her regain what she had lost. To become again what she had once been. Powerful and strong. So beautiful. Whole.
Maybe in saving the brumbies, he could save both Carrie and himself.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Here’s to our success!’ Justin held the beer can high, his face glowing in the firelight.
Quinn raised her can in salute, as did Dan and Carrie.
The four of them had gathered at the camp for this first night of their project. Justin and Carrie had arrived just after dusk, as Quinn and Dan were returning from their swim in the billabong.
It hadn’t taken the four of them long to have the camp in order. Hoping not to spook the brumbies too much, they had set up right at the mouth of the gorge, placing the camp a short distance behind the area that would become their stockyard and brumby trap. Quinn was an old hand at setting up a bush camp, and she carried a host of useful things in the back of her Hummer. Dan’s military background was showing too, as he quickly found firewood and lit the fire. Carrie was in charge of food and Justin had pulled camp chairs from the back of his ute.
Following Trish’s instruction’s, Carrie was now busy cooking steaks on a bed of glowing coals, while a billy hung above the flames bubbling away as their potatoes boiled. Quinn had her laptop open on her knees, loading that day’s photos from her camera.
‘We can take that back to my place when we go to work the horses tomorrow,’ Justin offered. ‘I can plug it in and recharge it for you.’
‘Thanks for the offer,’ Quinn said. ‘But I have solar batteries in the Hummer. I can use those to recharge.’
Justin looked impressed.
‘Foods ready,’ Carrie called. She dished out steak and potatoes onto four metal plates and handed them around.
‘Damn!’ Justin said. ‘We forgot the tomato sauce.’
‘No, we didn’t.’ Quinn reached into their box of supplies and extracted the required red bottle. ‘And when I say we didn’t, I meant Trish didn’t.’
The laugh they shared was full of affection for the woman who some people considered the heart of Coorah Creek.
Quinn took another drink from the beer can, still ice-cold thanks to her solar powered cooler. ‘Dan,’ she said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s Tyangi mean?’
‘It’s an aboriginal word,’ Dan replied. ‘Tyangi is a Dreamtime character. Part of the creation myth.’
‘Tell us.’
‘Well, apparently Tyangi was a man who fell in love with a beautiful woman from another tribe. But she was in love with someone else, and spurned his advances. So Tyangi waited until one day he saw her walking alone across the open plain. He kidnapped her and took her away from her tribe and the man she loved.’
‘Not a nice man, then,’ Justin interjected as he reached for another can of beer.
‘No. Not really,’ Dan agreed. ‘Anyway, the woman was afraid and alone and she cried. Her tears formed a river.’
‘Coorah Creek?’ Quinn asked. She was fascinated by the story, and also captivated by Dan’s voice and the firelight on his face. His respect for the aboriginal people and their culture was evident as he spoke. She liked that.
‘Yes. Her lover, meanwhile, had gathered the men from his tribe and they came to get her back. Tyangi was killed in the fight and his spirit rose into the sky, to pay for his crime by shining a light onto the land for all eternity.’
Simultaneously all four of them raised their eyes to the sky above. Despite the light from their fire, the stars were clearly visible, scattered across the sky and shining like diamonds.
‘I wonder which one he is,’ Carrie said softly.
Silence settled over the camp as they finished their meal and began to clean up. Soon the work was done. The four of them settled again around the campfire, this time holding enamel mugs of coffee as the temperature began to drop.
‘Quinn, are you planning a book of brumby photos?’ Justin asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I came out here with no particular project in mind. I just wanted to get out of the city for a while. Then I saw the brumbies – and Dan with that gun. I guess I’m a sucker for a cause.’
‘It does seem so unfair,’ Carrie agreed. ‘It’s not their fault. They’re just trying to survive like all the other animals.’
‘We have to take some responsibility,’ Justin pointed out. ‘We brought them here. We let them escape. And it’s not just that they damage the habitat. It’s not good for them either. They become inbred. In a drought, they suffer terribly because they are not adapted to this sort of country.’
‘I don’t want to shoot them,’ Dan said slowly. ‘But there is a very real threat that the parks service will step in. In other places they have used aerial culling.’
Quinn shuddered. The thought of shooting wild horses from the air was just too terrible.
‘If it comes to that, maybe we could talk Jess into helping,’ Justin suggested with a teasing grin. ‘Use her plane to drive the shooters away. Our very own dogfight. Or brumby fight.’
His words lightened the mood a little, but a sombreness had come over them, each wrapped in their own thoughts.
‘I guess we should hit the sack fairly early,’ Justin finally said. ‘We’ll be up at sunrise and there’s a lot to do.’
The inside of Quinn’s tent was neat and comfortable. It needed to be. She spent a lot of time living there. Some of her assignments involved staying in first class hotels, but this was where she felt most at home. Where she felt like herself. Where she felt free. She didn’t bother turning on a light. She simply slipped into her sleeping bag. She was as comfortable on her air mattress as in any bed. She settled herself and closed her eyes, listening to the night sound as she prepared for sleep.
But sleep didn’t come.
After a while she gave up and unzipped her sleeping bag. She reached for her portable gas light and the bag with her knitting. As quietly as she could, she slipped out of her tent and moved away from the others. She found a corner where she hoped her light wouldn’t disturb anyone and turned it up full. That was more than enough light to knit by. She pulled out her wool and needles. This jacket was nearly finished. By the time the brumbies were safe, she’d be able to give it to Jack and Ellen and start the next. There wasn’t a lot more wool in the Hummer, but that was all right. She’d be heading back east soon, and there were plenty of places there to buy yarn.
She took a twist of wool around her little finger and started knitting.
Carrie heard Quinn leaving her tent. So she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. She closed her eyes again and willed her mind to blankness. It didn’t work. The events of the day were spinning through her head. The smell and feel of the horses. Her fear of the stallion. Her relief when she realised Justin hadn’t seen her failure.
She tossed in her camp bed, her movement restricted by her sleeping bag. She felt as if she were caged and reached for the zipper. Once she was free of that confinement, she stood up without thinking and unzipped her tent, the cool fresh night air calling her. The first thing she saw was the glow of Quinn’s light among the rocks a short distance away.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said as she stepped into the light.
‘Of course not,’ Quinn said. ‘Pull up a rock.’
Carrie settled onto a smooth sandstone boulder. As she did, a slight breeze carried a sound from the campsite. Someone was snoring quietly.
‘Sounds like someone is getting a good night’s sleep,’ Carrie said.
‘They’ll need
it,’ Quinn replied, her fingers never ceasing in their rhythmic movement. ‘There’s a lot of hard work ahead of them. Ahead of us all.’
‘I didn’t know you were a knitter.’
Quinn hesitated and took a deep breath. Carrie sensed she had struck a nerve.
‘It gives me something to do at night,’ Quinn said in an offhand tone. ‘And it’s something that travels easily.’
‘That’s a very pretty jacket. It looks difficult.’
‘Not really.’
Something in Quinn’s tone told Carrie the subject was now closed. She bit back any more questions, but her curiosity was aroused. Quinn was such a strong and competent woman. Travelling alone. Taking those wonderful photos for her books. Carrie had looked her up online and been very impressed that someone who was successful to the point of being almost famous was becoming involved in their little town.
Yet there was something more here. She could sense it. Something that was connected to the pretty little baby jacket Quinn was knitting. Something responsible for the underlying sadness in her voice and her reluctance to talk.
Carrie realised she wasn’t the only one with secrets. Quinn also had a past with painful moments she had to deal with. For some reason that gave Carrie comfort. If a woman as strong as Quinn was struggling with her past, Carrie’s own struggle wasn’t so shameful. She lifted her feet onto the rock and wrapped her hands around her knees.
‘Do you really think we can do this?’ she asked, thinking as much about her own battle as she was about the brumbies.
Quinn’s voice was determined. ‘Yes. I know we can.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘We need to be certain this doesn’t leave any sort of permanent impact on the park,’ Dan said as he wiped the sweat from his eyes.
Justin grunted with effort as he thrust his fencing bar into the hole at his feet. Driven by muscle and two metres of heavy steel, the tapered end bit deep into the red earth. Justin used his weight to swing the bar back, causing the dry ground to crack and break. Nodding with satisfaction, he raised the digging tool from the hole. He let the tip touch the ground, and rested the bar against his shoulder.
‘Does a hole count?’ he asked, his dry lips moving in a weary smile.
Quinn’s hands ached for her camera. Instead, she was holding a shovel.
‘Isn’t there an easier way to do this?’ she asked.
It was hard to tell which of the four of them was sweating the most. Dan and Justin were digging post holes for the fence across the gorge. Carrie and Quinn were following behind them, upending the wooden fence posts into the holes, shovelling the dirt back in and tamping it in place. Carrie insisted that all the dirt should go back in the hole – despite the fact that a large wooden post seemed to fill most of the space. She wouldn’t let them move on to the next until that goal had been achieved. Carrie seemed to know what she was doing. Quinn had surreptitiously leaned against one of the posts, testing it. It had not moved a millimetre.
For her part, Quinn was simply unskilled labour. Holding tools, carrying and fetching as she was instructed. Despite all the time she’d spent photographing rural and remote places, she’d never built a stock fence before.
‘Well, there are portable stockyards,’ Carrie answered Quinn’s question. She put down her shovel and reached for the canvas water bag hanging in the shade of a nearby bush.
‘So why aren’t we using those?’ Quinn asked. ‘That sounds a lot easier.’
‘We are dealing with brumbies,’ Justin said, moving to take the bag from Carrie. He raised it above his head and directed the stream of cool clear water into his mouth.
‘So?’ Quinn didn’t understand.
‘Domesticated horses understand and respect fences,’ Carrie told her. ‘As long as it looks solid, they won’t test it.’
‘But a wild horse—’
‘Might just try to run straight through it. Portable yards might not be strong enough,’ Justin finished for her. ‘And there is one other small factor.’
‘Which is?’
‘We don’t have any.’
‘Ah. I could see that would be an issue.’
Quinn took the water bag and tried to emulate Justin’s feat of directing the cool stream straight into her mouth. She almost succeeded. A thin trickle of water dribbled down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Dan was beside her now, reaching for the water bag. Like the rest of them, he was wearing a sweat stained hat to protect him from the sun, and as little clothing as modesty allowed. On him, it looked pretty good.
They’d been working since early morning. The plan was to build a substantial fence across the narrowest part of the gorge. Something with wooden posts and rails, high and strong enough to block the herd of galloping brumbies. Where the sides of the gorge sloped steeply, but not quite steeply enough, Justin had decided that an easier fence of wire and metal posts would be enough to hold the horses. A second fence had to be built near the mouth of the gorge – to form the fourth side of their makeshift stockyard. This fence needed a wide gate that could be quickly closed after the brumbies had run through. It was hard, back-breaking work. And hot. But sharing made it seem easier. A sort of camaraderie was fast developing between the four of them as they divided the work according to their strengths.
Dan lifted his hat from his head and wiped his arms across his sweat streaked face. He squinted up at the sun.
‘We’ve got some time left,’ he said, and placed his hat back where it belonged. He and Justin turned back to the hole they were digging, the last needed for the rear fence. Quinn caught Carrie’s eye. She nodded in understanding and Quinn headed back to the campsite.
Quinn was an experienced camper. Despite her reservations about pitching camp in a dry creek bed, she had accepted Dan’s argument that millennia had passed since this gorge last ran with any real amount of water. She paused beside her tent and reached inside the flap. Her camera bag was where she had left it, in easy reach. She opened it and removed her camera. She checked the battery levels. When she had a moment, she would have to set up her solar panels to recharge both the camera batteries and her laptop. At least she didn’t have to worry about her phone. Out here there was no signal, so she had turned it off.
Moving up the side of the rocky slope, she took a couple of quick shots of the work unfolding below her. Still searching for the right angle for the best shot, she focussed on Dan. His muscles were clearly outlined as he swung a pick into the solid earth. He kept up the strong rhythmic movements for a few minutes and then paused, lifting his head to look up at the intensely blue sky. The strong lines of his face were silhouetted against the sky. His tanned skin glistening slightly with the sweat of labour.
Quinn’s camera clicked. And again. She felt two kinds of emotion. She had just taken a couple of great shots. Portrait photographers longed for shots like that. But there was some other emotion there as well, emotion arising from Dan, not the photographs.
The harsh crack of metal on metal rang through the gully. Quinn jumped, but that was nothing to Dan’s reaction. With movements almost too fast to follow, he spun and dropped into a crouch. In a second, the pick turned from a tool to a weapon. With her zoom lens, Quinn could see his face. There was a wildness there. And threat. Suddenly Dan looked like a dangerous man.
Quinn frowned as the loud metallic crack sounded again. Dan was looking carefully about, and suddenly his whole posture softened. Quinn followed his glance to the other side of the gully where Justin and Carrie were working on the metal fence posts. As she watched, Justin lifted a cylindrical post driver over his head, slamming it down again with enormous force and a loud crack.
When she looked back, Dan was back on the job, driving the pick into the baked earth with great strength. Quinn knew that the others hadn’t seen what she had.
But what exactly had she just seen? And for the second time? Dan had reacted in a similar way back at the billabong when they were swimming. She hadn’t given it much
thought then. She’d been too disappointed that Dan had stepped away from her, when every fibre of her being had longed for him to kiss her.
Quinn had never been a war photographer, but she had travelled to a few disaster zones. She had seen the faces of people in shock in the immediate aftermath of a cyclone or fire. Dan’s face had looked a bit like that, but overlaid with a readiness to fight. How long was it, she wondered, since Dan had left the army? She wondered where he had served. The scars on his body suggested he’d been wounded in action. That probably meant Iraq or Afghanistan. What could have happened to him there to leave such a terrible scar on his psyche?
Dan slammed the pick into the earth with all the forces he could muster. He tugged the end free and swung it again. Sweat was pouring down his face, but he barely noticed. Again and again he swung the pick, before dropping it to begin shovelling the shattered earth from the rapidly growing hole.
Hard physical labour made it a little easier. When the sweat was in his eyes, he couldn’t see the little girl’s face. When his heart was pounding with effort, he couldn’t hear her screams. At least, that’s what he told himself. It didn’t always work.
Behind him, the sharp crack of metal on metal snapped back at him from the walls of the gorge. With difficulty he ignored it and kept on digging. He hoped the others hadn’t seen his reaction a few minutes ago. They were civilians. They could never understand. Hell, nobody did. The army doctors thought they did. But they weren’t there. They didn’t see or hear that little girl. How could they possibly understand?
‘Hey, Dan. I think that’ll do.’
Dan stopped in mid-swing. He looked at Justin and then down at the hole at his feet. It was a very deep hole.
‘It’s the last one. I wanted to be sure,’ Dan said, stepping back. He laid down his shovel and he and Justin quickly heaved the fence post into place. It stood at a drunken angle against the side of the whole.
‘Have you two got this one?’ Justin asked, squinting up at the sun. ‘Carrie and I need to get underway if we’re going to get back to my place with enough daylight to do what has to be done.’