The Wild One

by Janet Gover

  There was a little scepticism in their eyes, but they believed him. They probably didn’t want strangers muscling in on their project either. He tried hard to fight the frustration he was feeling. All they needed was time. Just a little more time. Time to teach Dan to ride. Time for Carrie to overcome her fears.

  She had been very quiet during their conversation, sitting on a camp chair and sipping strong coffee from a tin mug. How he wished Dan and Quinn hadn’t come back. If he and Carrie had been alone just a little longer …

  He was reading too much into a kiss on the cheek. He knew that. And maybe he was also reading too much into Carrie’s short ride on Finbarr. Both were such tiny steps. He had no reason to feel as if the world was spinning onto a new and much better axis …

  ‘Justin? Mate! Are you with us?’ Dan’s voice brought him back to the present.

  ‘He was just thinking about what he’s going to do with that stallion when he gets him home,’ Quinn said with a grin.

  Quinn had one thing right. That’s what he should have been thinking about. Recovering his father’s heritage. Making the Fraser Stud what it had once been. That was the important thing. He had brumbies to catch and if that wasn’t going to be hard enough, he then had to figure out what to do with them. He shouldn’t be daydreaming about Carrie – no matter how strongly he was drawn to her.

  ‘Right, let’s figure this out.’ Justin picked up a stick and began to draw a map in the red dust. ‘Here’s the billabong. The brumbies enter the gorge here – this is the line of the gorge. And we are here.’

  He gazed at the few lines in the dust. In his head, he could see it all.

  ‘We need someone there to block their retreat.’ He drew a cross in the dust. ‘And we need someone here at the yard, to get that gate closed once the horses are through it.’

  Dan nodded as if the plan made sense to him. ‘And we’ll need someone here,’ he suggested. ‘The sides of the gorge are pretty shallow. They could easily veer away there.’

  Justin agreed. ‘We need someone on horseback driving them forward.’ He was thinking out loud. ‘If we had one person on horseback blocking their retreat – that person could run them forward. The second rider could be here … blocking this gap. That’s got to be you, Dan. Hopefully once they see you, they’ll just turn down the gorge and keep running. If they try to escape – make as much movement and noise as you can to turn them back.’

  ‘All right,’ Dan said in a voice that betrayed his lack of confidence. ‘I’ll do my best. But my best may not be good enough.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Carrie’s voice was barely audible.

  Justin’s heart almost stopped beating as a wave of emotions rocked him. Shock and gratitude. Fear that Carrie might push herself too far. But most of all, an intense admiration for her courage.

  A surprised silence fell on the group as all eyes turned to Carrie and Justin realised that they all knew. For some reason he’d imagined that he was the only one who had seen Carrie’s fear. That was stupid of course. In just a few days working and planning together, the others must have seen what he’d seen. How hard it must be for Carrie to be out there like that. And now …

  ‘Carrie – are you sure?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Carrie’s lovely face was still, hiding whatever emotions were raging inside her. That in itself told him so much.

  Justin wanted to say no. He wanted to give her more time. If something happened because she wasn’t ready, she might never ride again. She might never find her way back to the amazing woman she had once been. To the woman she should be. He couldn’t bear the thought of that happening. But if he didn’t support her now … didn’t believe in her … he might damage her fragile confidence.

  He was between a rock and a hard place. He needed her to save the brumbies – to capture the stallion and reclaim his heritage. But if it came to a choice – Carrie’s future or his own past – which would he choose?

  He looked across at Carrie. Her head was bowed and she was staring into her coffee cup. Her hair, falling forward, blocked her face and eyes from the startled looks of her friends. When at last she looked up, her eyes found his, and he had his answer. She was not the rider she had once been, but she was still the most amazing woman he had ever met. Her courage was astounding. He would not let himself doubt her. She deserved better.

  ‘In that case,’ the words came out a little roughly past the lump in Justin’s throat, ‘Dan, you will be stationed on foot here, at the billabong. Let them drink. The stallion will be the last to go down to the water. We need him to be with the mares, not up on the slope. Once he’s there, right in the middle of the herd, I want you to use that rifle – but use it to get them running in the right direction. Then I’ll come down the gap, blocking their retreat. I’ll take up position behind them to keep them moving. Carrie – you’ll be on the right side of the gorge at this weak point. I’ll stay to the left – ready to move if they veer that way.’

  ‘What about me?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘I know you want to take photos.’

  ‘I do. But I want to help as well. Catching those horses is the most important thing.’

  ‘Good,’ Justin said. ‘You’ll be based here at the camp. Near the fence. Make sure they can’t see you. You’ll see them coming. In fact, you’ll probably hear them before you see them. You might even be able to get some shots. Carrie and I will be behind them, but we’ll pull back here, so they’re not too panicked to stop when they reach the back fence. Your job is to run forward as soon as they are through and shut the gate.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘As soon as they see the fence blocking them, they will turn and try to come back. The gate has to be shut by then. Carrie and I then come up pretty fast once they’re through the gate. The gate is a weak point. We need to be there to strengthen it.’

  Silence fell on their little group. All eyes were looking down at a few squiggles in the dirt. A few squiggles that represented a lot of hopes and dreams.

  ‘We can do this,’ Justin said. He looked across at Carrie. As he did, she raised her head and their eyes met. The fear was still there, bravely quashed, but there was a spark of hope too. ‘We really can,’ he said again.

  What had she been thinking?

  Carrie sat beside Justin as he drove homewards. Justin had talked her out of remaining at the gorge campsite. Her hands were clasped firmly in her lap. It was the only way to stop them shaking. The fear was back. The terrible, crippling fear. But this time it was a hundred times worse. It wasn’t just the horses she was afraid of. It wasn’t just the thought of falling beneath those pounding hooves again. It was more than just the remembered agony of her injuries. Or the humiliation of trying to return to her racing stables. She wasn’t even afraid of the pity she might see in other people’s eyes.

  She was so afraid she would fail Justin.

  Capturing that stallion was so important to him. So much of the future – the horses he would breed; the financial recovery of his property; reclaiming his father’s legacy – all rested on the success of the brumby run. They’d worked so hard to put this plan together. It had just one flaw. One weak point. Her.

  She was fooling herself to think she could do it. She couldn’t. She had to back out now – before it was too late. She had to give Justin a chance to find someone else.

  ‘Justin, you need to get some more help,’ she said quietly as they drove through the gates of his home. ‘I can’t do this.’

  Justin touched the brakes and the car came to a halt. He turned the engine off and turned to face her. He slowly reached out to place his hand over hers where they lay in her lap. Could he feel them shaking?

  ‘Carrie, if you don’t want to do this, I understand. I would never want you to do something you didn’t want to. But don’t say you can’t do it. Because you can.’

  ‘It’s been so long,’ Carrie said, blinking back the tears, ‘and I am so afraid. Last time I rode – I mean really rode – the horse d
ied. That beautiful animal is dead because of me.’

  ‘No. Never say that. What happened that day was an accident. It was not your fault. I’ve seen you ride, remember? You were amazing. You are still amazing. You belong on the back of a horse, racing at full tilt. You need to get that back.’

  ‘But what if I let you down. What if the brumbies get away? What if you lose that stallion?’ It was a cry from the deepest part of her wounded heart.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘You won’t let me down. Do you have any idea how thrilled I was to see you up on Finbarr today?’

  The intensity of his gaze could have been overwhelming. But it wasn’t. Because she saw something in his eyes that she had never thought to see.

  ‘If I lose that stallion, Carrie, I’ll survive. We can try again another time to catch him. If not, well, I’ll just work a bit harder to rebuild the Fraser name. Yes, it’s important to me … but it’s not as important as that step you took today. I would gladly lose every single one of those brumbies, if it meant you had found yourself again.’

  Carrie could hardly breathe. The emotion in his voice reached deep inside her and curled around her heart.

  When she leaned forward to kiss him, it wasn’t on the cheek.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After Carrie and Justin left, the world seemed to go very quiet and still. There was nothing for Quinn and Dan to do. Nothing at all.

  Quinn sat beside the fire pit in the camp, idly wondering if she should think about cooking some dinner for herself and Dan. But it was too early for that. Her thoughts flew to the bundle of knitting inside her tent. But for once she didn’t go to fetch it. That wasn’t the answer to the restlessness she was feeling.

  Dan had gone down to the yard, to check that the stock horses had water. Quinn decided to follow him.

  ‘At least this chap is now spared the job of carrying me around tomorrow,’ Dan said as she approached. He was patting Finbarr’s neck as the gelding dozed in the shade.

  ‘You would have done fine,’ Quinn said. ‘I was surprised Carrie stepped forward like that, but really glad she feels up to riding again.’

  Dan didn’t reply, and Quinn could see his mind was a long way away. She guessed he was thinking about the next afternoon. The brumbies tended to head for the waterhole quite late in the day. That’s when the action would start. She wondered if he had been like this – thoughtful and still – before his war-time missions.

  ‘Are you heading back to the ranger station again tonight?’ Quinn asked at last.

  ‘No. I thought I might stay here. If I go back there might be more e-mails. I think I’d like to avoid them.’

  ‘You’re going AWOL?’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything. I left a notice at the ranger station for park visitors. If there’s some sort of emergency, I have a radio in the Land Rover. The police in Coorah Creek or anyone at the station can get me on that.’

  Quinn glanced up at the sky. The sun was low, but there was still quite a bit of daylight left. It was still hot, but not unbearably so. The tension she felt had other causes.

  ‘I don’t know if we should go swimming tonight,’ she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. ‘We might make the brumbies nervous if they see or smell us.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about going swimming,’ Dan said. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you. A place I’d like to take you. We should make it by sunset.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Bring your camera.’

  Dan drove. They didn’t talk much, but the silence wasn’t strained in any way. Dan liked that Quinn could just sit there watching the landscape roll past the open window, enjoying the beauty as he did. After a while, he turned off the road onto a track that was little more than two wheel ruts in the dust. The wheels of his vehicle fitted them perfectly because he was the one who’d made them. The overhanging trees scraped against the sides and roof of the Land Rover with a high pitched squeal that always made him hunch his shoulders as he thought of the damaged paintwork. He grinned when beside him Quinn also grimaced at the sound. He had to take it more slowly now, as the track became more difficult. They began to climb quite steeply, the engine roaring as he dropped down to the lowest gear. At last, even the four-wheel-drive could go no further.

  ‘We have to walk from here,’ Dan said as he turned off the engine. ‘It’s not far.’

  Quinn slung her camera bag over her shoulder and followed him. It took just a few minutes. At the top of a barely visible path, a huge red sandstone boulder blocked their way. Dan swung himself easily onto the top and reached down to pull Quinn up beside him. Then he stepped to one side and was rewarded with an astonished gasp as Quinn took in the view.

  They were standing on a huge flat chunk of sandstone at the top of an escarpment. Just a few meters in front of them, the escarpment dropped away to a flat plain that seemed to go on forever. Standing alone in the middle of the vast plain was a huge red sandstone outcrop. It was about two kilometres from the place where they stood. Its sides were steep and clean, as if cut by a giant’s knife. The monolith was much smaller than Uluru, but with its sharp sides and jagged edges, it was more spectacular. The rock was a deep rust-red, but even as Dan watched, the rock began to change colour as the setting sun caught it. The red began to grow ever darker and change to violet. Each time he blinked, the stone seemed to change colour. This instant it was the colour of an amethyst. A few seconds later, the blue of a lorikeet’s feathers.

  Standing beside him, Quinn raised the camera to her eyes and began to take photographs. He moved away and crouched on his haunches. It was partly to give her room to work. And partly because he liked to watch her. She was so intent on what she was doing, he probably no longer existed for her. How he loved and envied that passion of hers. A passion to create something beautiful. Not to destroy.

  This was a very special place to him and he was so glad to share it with Quinn, who clearly found in it the same magic he did. This was the place he came when the nightmares became too bad. The local aboriginal people believed there were healing spirits living in or around the sandstone monolith. Perhaps they were right. When he came here, he felt as if he were being healed. Never more than this evening, with Quinn by his side.

  As the last traces of sunlight vanished from the western sky, Quinn lowered her camera. She tuned towards him. Her eyes shining.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Thank you for sharing that with me.’

  ‘There’s more,’ he said, reaching for the swag had had brought with him from the jeep. He unrolled a blanket and motioned for Quinn to sit beside him. Dan touched her shoulder, and gently drew her back, until they were lying side by side staring up at the darkening sky.

  It was as if someone was scattering diamonds onto velvet above them. A handful here. Another group there until the sky was glowing with an ethereal beauty. And at its zenith the five bright jewels of the Southern Cross.

  How Dan had missed that constellation during his time serving overseas. Iraq was an ancient country, and when he could close his eyes to the tragedy around him, he found it incredibly beautiful. The stars were as bright as those that shone above him and Quinn now. But the Southern Cross was not visible from the northern hemisphere. Those were the stars that called him home. Or they had been. Something else was calling him home now too. He moved his arm slightly, and touched the cool soft strength of Quinn’s fingers.

  He had never told anyone the full story of what happened that day. Not his superior officers. Not the doctors. Not even his family. He had vowed never to tell anyone because they would not understand. He had vowed never to tell Quinn, because he didn’t want to drive her away be revealing that dark core of his soul. But as they lay there in the place he loved most in the world, he realised that Quinn was the only person he could tell the whole truth to.

  ‘I was in Fallujah.’

  He felt Quinn’s breath catch beside hi
m. Now the words were begun, he could no more stop them that he could have stopped what happened that day.

  ‘I was assigned to an American unit. They needed a sniper. The target was the leader of an insurgent group responsible for at least a dozen US deaths. Even more of his own people. We had intel that he’d be attending a family gathering. A wedding. We took up station on a nearby rooftop. My job was to take him out as he left the family compound.

  ‘It was late afternoon when he left. His car was waiting outside the gate. There was just one chance – a gap of about two meters he had to cross to get to the car. It was a long shot. A hard shot in failing light. I was on that roof because I was good enough to take it.’

  The smell of spicy food cooking nearby.

  The feel of sweat running down his back.

  The tension is an almost tangible thing as they wait.

  At last the door opens. His finger is already on the trigger. All it will take is the slightest pressure.

  A little girl’s face. Laughing as she looks up at the man holding her.

  ‘When the target walked through that gate, he was carrying a child. His own, maybe. Someone else’s. I never found out. She must have been about eight years old. I hesitated.’

  ‘It’s not a clean shot, sir. The child …’

  ‘Take the shot. Damn you. Take it!’

  ‘But … the child …’

  ‘That’s an order, soldier take the shot!’

  ‘I was ordered to take the shot anyway. A direct order. A soldier never disobeys a direct order. I had to do it. I’d been trained to do it.’

  His finger tightens on the trigger. He can do this.

  He is the best marksman in the unit. He can make the shot without hitting the girl.

  He is the only one who can.

  He blinks once and takes aim.

  ‘I could have taken out the target without hurting the girl, but I … it was wrong. I don’t know if she was his daughter, but she clearly loved him. She had her arms around his neck and was laughing. A daughter’s last memory of her father should not be one of blood and pain and violence. I did something a soldier should never do. I disobeyed the order. I refused to take the shot.’