Moonstone Promise (10 page)

Bob interjected something in his own language from the sidelines, causing the other two men to snigger.

‘What?' Luke demanded.

Tex flicked open the knife again and looked down at Luke's crotch with a wicked glint in his eye. ‘Bob says we should initiate you properly.'

Luke gasped and grabbed his crotch. ‘Umm, somebody already beat you to it,' he said, feeling grateful to his parents for the first time in his life.

The men disintegrated into peals of laughter.

That night Luke wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and curled up next to the fire to sleep. The night sky was thick with clouds, bringing a darkness over the river crossing that felt strangely claustrophobic and unnatural. Beyond the glowing coals he could hear the sounds of the river – the
plip
of a fish as it jumped at an insect, water running over tree roots – but he couldn't see it. The darkness built walls around him, making him toss about restlessly.

He ran a hand over the scar on his arm and the gentle pain somehow brought order to his mind.

Rules, there's got to be rules, a code.

He pulled the moonstone out from under his shirt and glanced down at it. It took on new colours from the glow of the fire, as though the flames had leapt into it and come to life. He moved it around slowly in his hand, watching the colours flash and change. It was beautiful, alive and sparkling, like Jess.

He laughed quietly to himself as he thought of her clambering around on the back of Legsy, hanging off the side and laughing like an idiot, waving madly across the valley.
‘Dad's slashing the paddock, look!'

He wished he could climb to the top of a nearby mountain, look out across the country and find her. If he could, he would wave madly and yell, ‘Hi, Jessy!'

But he couldn't. He had crossed the point of no return, crossed the Rubicon, like Bob had said. Perhaps one day he would run into her again, at a campdraft, or an ag show.

Then he laughed at himself. What campdrafts? The horses were never his. They were gone.

11

IT WAS BARELY MORNING.
The air was still and the sky was beginning to change colour to the east, silhouetting the low hills. The distant scream of a horse rang in his ears, unsettling him.

He rose, stretched, and headed out towards the grassland, away from the river. Out in the open savannah he stood and gazed at the billions of stars, glittering against the fading blue velvet. He could clearly see the Saucepan and the Seven Sisters. Between them was another constellation that looked a bit like a man. The rest, the smaller ones, were being pulled back into the cosmos to wait for another night.

Luke began to walk. The exercise felt good and before long he was jogging, the steady thump of his feet matching the beat from his dreams, lifting his arms above the long grass as he swished through. By the time he got to the foot of the hills he was drenched with sweat and gasping for breath.

He made his way upward and the country around him changed again, from dry, golden grass to grey-green mounds of needle-tipped spinifex with occasional shrubs and small trees. His boots crunched over the stones.

A terrible scream made him stop in his tracks. It was real this time. No dream or ghost, not a nightmare; somewhere, there was a very real and very distressed horse. There was another sound, like a branch being shaken but more . . . metallic. It jangled erratically and then was silent.

Luke stopped and listened: nothing but twittering birds, whirring insects and the sound of his own lungs, panting.

He began walking again, stepping carefully around the spinifex.

There was a throaty, wheezing noise and then another rustling for a few seconds. Luke stopped. An exhausted groan, more rustling and a thud.

He knew the sound. It was a horse, fighting against wire. But where? Out here? Tyson had said there were brumbies. He looked around. The country was rough, a sea of jagged red rocks, no matter which way he looked. A dry, hot wind blew.

Then he saw it: a makeshift yard. A trap.

It was barely visible behind stunted shrubs and scrawny trees and it was only because the horizontal branches of the gate were out of place that he even spotted it. Barbed wire gleamed silvery new in the sunlight. It ran about four feet high and looped around some saplings. Hand-sawn tree branches had been wired up to form an arrow-shaped gate, designed to let something in but not out.

Luke walked closer, homing his sights in on the scene. There was another explosion of movement and he saw the bony curve of a horse's back rise above the spinifex and wire. It thrashed wildly and then disappeared with another groan and a thud.

His first instinct was to run and help it, untangle it. He wanted to hold it still and calm it so it didn't hurt itself any more. But it was a wild animal, it would be terrified of him.

He stopped and squatted low, making himself invisible. There was a rustling sound beside him and he turned to see a shape disappear behind a clump of rocks. A dingo, perhaps? He crept forwards on his hands and knees for some way to get a good look at the horse. Like an insect caught in a huge spiderweb, a mare lay on its side, her head and two front legs tangled in wire.

It was a sickening sight. A whole ear hung by a flap of skin off the side of the animal's head and one eye was a mass of dried blood. Her two front legs were stripped of flesh, down to the bone. There were flies all over her. She must have been stuck there for days.

Luke felt for the pocketknife in his back pocket. It had a tiny pair of pliers, but they were laughably small. No way would they cut through barbed wire. He felt sick when he realised that there was only one way he could help her.

I can't.

There was a tiny sound, a bleating, not far off. A goat or a lamb? He spun around, and again caught a glimpse of red disappearing behind some low shrubs. His heart sank as he realised it must be a foal. It was small too, and probably wouldn't survive without its mother. Dingoes would get it.

He pulled his T-shirt off and bunched it up. With his other hand he flicked open his knife. He hesitated for just a moment longer, then approached the mare.

I have to.

He ran the last couple of steps and threw himself on her neck, holding her down with his knee while he threw the T-shirt over her eyes. She struggled wildly and the barbed wire around her head slashed across Luke's hand. He tried to ignore the pain. Once he had her eyes covered and sat on her neck, she lay quiet, but her breath still blew in terrified snorts from her nostrils.

She struggled only briefly when he cut the jugular, but the sound was terrible, gurgling and choking. Had he cut something wrong? – the windpipe? ‘Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' he sobbed.

As her struggles slowed, Luke brought his shoulder up to his face and wiped away the sweat and tears.

He looked around for the foal and spotted the flick of its tail fifty metres or so away. Its pale orange coat blended perfectly into the landscape, making it hard to believe that the brumbies didn't really belong there, that they were a feral pest that people trapped and killed.

The foal trotted a few steps and stopped again, nickering anxiously.

‘Yeah, sucks big time, doesn't it,' he said to it. ‘Same thing happened to me.'

He got up and wiped his hands across the back of his jeans without thinking, then looked down and saw his bloodsoaked shirt over the face of the mare. He stooped down and picked it up. His jeans were also soaked in blood. It was everywhere – gallons of the stuff, oozing over the ground like warm syrup. The flies were all over it. He looked at the lifeless lump, still coiled in wire, and curled his lip. What a lousy thing to do to an animal.

‘Now who's gonna look after you?' he said to the foal, which still paced about on the perimeters, nickering.

He walked to the hand-sawn gate and pulled at it. He kicked at it and twisted it until it lay in a mangled heap. Not that he needed to; the sight and smell of the dead mare would be enough to deter any other horses.

Luke heard the foal nickering again, and turned to see it trotting into the distance. He felt a wave of sadness as he watched it disappear, alone, into the harsh ragged country. ‘I thought you were just a dream, Rusty.'

Bob recoiled in disgust when he saw Luke and realised what was making the flies stick to him.

‘I need water,' was all Luke could whisper, pushing past him and heading for the river.

‘What's all that blood on you?' Tyson demanded, grabbing Luke by the arm and swinging him around to face him.

‘It's from a horse,' Luke explained as the three men crowded around.

Tyson seemed to relax a little, but Tex's face went as still as stone and he began to back away, speaking in his own tongue, with words like
dirty yarramin
and
purri
purri
.

‘I found a horse stuck in a wire trap,' Luke said. ‘I had to cut its throat.'

‘Let the boy go,' said Bob to Tyson. ‘He needs a drink.'

Tyson relaxed his grip and Luke staggered to the river. He threw himself into the water fully clothed and drank big gulps of water. He scrubbed at his arms and his hands, washing the blood off.

‘Are there any crocs around here?' he asked Bob, who squatted on the riverbank watching him with a concerned look on his face. There had been big floods up this way last season and he'd heard stories about saltwater crocodiles being washed upriver onto the stations.

Bob shrugged. ‘Freshies, maybe.'

Luke looked at the blood, staining the water around him.

I eat asparagus – nothing can kill me . . .

Tyson came along with his fishing line. ‘Hey, Luke, get back over near those tree roots and burley up a barra for me,' he laughed.

Luke peeled his clothes off and chucked them on the bank. ‘Swap ya,' he called back, and dived under the water. He ran his hands over his head and rubbed his legs, getting every last trace of the blood off.

When he pulled himself out of the river, Bob threw him an old pair of shorts. Tyson already had his jeans tied to the roots of a big old paperbark tree, floating over the top of the water. ‘Gunna get me a biggun,' sang Tyson, casting out.

‘That's if you don't scare them all away first,' hissed Bob.

Luke grabbed his boots and began scrubbing at them. He thought of the small red foal, bleating for its mother.

I used to do that. Never brings 'em back.

He went over to the fire to get some food. Tex immediately walked away.

Purri purri.

‘He reckons I'm cursed,' said Luke.

Bob raised his eyebrows. ‘If you'da seen yourself a minute ago, you'd probably reckon the same thing!'

‘It had its whole front end wrapped in barbed wire. What was I s'posed to do?'

‘There's a gun in the back of the ute,' said Bob.

‘Oh.'

Tex walked back out from the shrubs and passed Luke a box of dry crackers. ‘You ever sleep at night, boy?'

‘Not much,' said Luke.