Moonstone Promise (19 page)

Tyson grinned. ‘I was hoping you'd say that.'

He showed the boys how to bleed, gut and scale the fish, and then they built the fire up until they had plenty of hot ashes.

‘So where've you been?' Luke asked Bob as they mounded the coals up over the fish.

Bob and Tyson looked at each other with sheepish grins.

‘Helping the coppers. They've been asking after you,' said Bob.

‘Been driving around all day, looking for you,' said Tyson.

‘Yeah, everywhere: Burketown, Normanton, Karumba,' chuckled Bob. ‘It was a lovely drive.'

The two men began giggling like a pair of schoolgirls. ‘Them coppers gave us nice pub meals for helping 'em, too. Too bad we couldn't find you, ay.'

‘Not till the end of the day, anyway,' said Tyson. ‘We told the coppers you wouldn't be at the draft, but they wouldn't listen. More we told 'em not to, the more they wanted to go there. Didn't you see us in the back of the cop car? The grey nurse was goin' off her rocker.'

‘That was some fancy riding you did, kid,' said Bob to Toby. ‘Jumping over the big fence like that and rescuing Luke.'

Toby smiled shyly. ‘I won the kids' draft, too. I got a trophy.'

‘I'm not surprised,' said Tyson. ‘Where'd you learn to ride like that?'

‘We told your dad where you'd be,' Bob said. ‘He's just taking the horses home, then he's gonna meet us down here.'

The huge barramundi fed all of them, plus the dogs. Pete joined them just as Luke and Toby pulled it out of the coals. ‘Look what we caught, Dad!' Toby yelled to him. ‘Come and look. Me and Dingo Luke pulled it in! He's heaps better at fishing than you, Dad!'

Pete roughed his son's hair good-naturedly. ‘That's cos he's got more eyes than me, boy!'

They sat cross-legged in the glow of the fire, shadows cast over their faces, laughing and swapping stories as they recalled the day's adventures, eating juicy chunks of the huge fish steaming in the crumpled silver foil.

Pete told Luke that he had tried to collect the winnings, but the secretary wouldn't hand them over. He had paid the contractor for the brumbies with his own money. The man thought Luke had skipped out on him and sold them to Pete for a fifty. Luke was overjoyed – although now that he ‘owned' them, he knew he'd spend the entire night agonising over what to do with them. ‘I promise I'll pay you back,' he told Pete.

As they ran out of stories and settled to watching the fire in contented silence, Tyson moved over and sat by Luke. ‘So, what are you gonna do now, Luke? You gonna live up here on the river your whole life?'

‘Or are you gonna go back home and give Lawson a chance?' put in Bob.

Luke took a while to answer. He needed to know something first. Looking directly at Bob, he asked, ‘Did he send you after me? When you found me at the truckstop that morning, did Lawson send you?'

Bob paused before answering. ‘Course he did,' he said softly.

And with those few small words, Luke felt an immense pulling in his gut, like nothing he'd ever felt before: for his people, for his river, for the huge coachwood trees and the grassy flats that snaked alongside them, linking all the properties and people together like a long green highway. Lawson, Annie, the smell of fresh pine shavings in the stables. It was where Luke belonged and he suddenly ached for it.

He wanted to run his hands up Legsy's neck and scratch him between the ears. He wanted to eat Sunday breakfasts on the verandah. He wanted to rumble with Tom. And he wanted an apprenticeship, a job. He knew more than anything that he wanted to be a farrier.

That's what he needed, he realised: a good job, a good horse, and a good strong mob. He'd worked it out. He remembered Harry: what he wouldn't give to hear his rusty old voice and his boots shuffling down the stable aisle.

And he thought of Jess. He wasn't going to wait until he just ran into her at some horse event. They had something worth sharing. Something that connected them.

The way you have with these horses. You've got dream
there, you and this Jess girl.

Somehow, he knew, she was a part of the equation.

Early the next morning, Toby and Tyson went looking for turtles. They came back with three long-necks and buried them on their backs in the hot coals and ash. Half an hour later, Tyson pulled off the breastplates and scooped out the meat. Luke tried some. It was unusual, and not at all like chicken as he had been told.

‘I want to go and get those brumbies,' Luke said, as he sat next to Bob.

‘What are you gonna do with a mob of wild horses?' asked Bob.

‘I just want to let them go. Otherwise they'll go to the knackery. I can't just leave them there.'

‘They'll only be rounded back up. Word is there'll be another big cull soon. Their numbers are getting too big again.'

‘A cull?'

‘They'll be heli-mustered, transported for days, train, then truck. They'll be killed for human consumption. Closest abattoir licenced for human-consumption horses is Caboolture – days away. They don't travel well, the wild ones. Better off letting 'em go to the local knackery, I reckon.'

Luke's heart sank. ‘Yeah, you're right,' he admitted. ‘What am I gonna do with a mob of wild horses? I don't even know if I have a home to go to.'

‘You better go find out, ay,' suggested Bob.

23

‘
LAWSON
.'

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

‘It's Luke.'

‘Where are you?'

‘Up in the Gulf.'

‘What do you want?'

Luke was tempted to slam the phone straight back down into the receiver, but he sucked it up. ‘I want a job.'

There was silence again. Luke tried to imagine Lawson's face.

‘Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have rung.' Luke pulled the phone from his ear and had it halfway to the cradle when he heard Lawson speak. ‘Wait.'

The phone made muffled noises as Lawson covered the receiver. He spoke to someone else and excused himself. Then his voice became clear again. ‘What?'

‘A job,' said Luke. ‘I want a job.'

He heard Lawson exhale into the phone.

Further down the road, Sister Suzie's white four-wheel drive turned in to the hospital grounds. Toby popped out from behind some bushes and pointed urgently at the vehicle.

Luke nodded at him. He kept his head down and tried to look inconspicuous. Pete's football jersey was good camouflage. They were all football-mad around here – didn't seem to matter what team or code.

‘What sort of job you after?' asked Lawson, sounding cautious.

‘I want to be a farrier.'

Again, Lawson didn't answer.

There was a noisy clatter as a handful of stones hit the glass wall of the phone booth. Luke looked up just in time to see a cop walking to his car. It figured that the only phone booth in town had to be right outside the police station.

‘Sorry about . . . you know, hitting you,' said Luke. ‘I was out of line.'

‘Yeah, I didn't expect that from you,' said Lawson.

‘I didn't expect it either. I was out of control.'

‘I was so determined not to fight with Ryan and then you bloody hit me.'

This wasn't going to be a quick kiss-and-make-up, Luke could tell. ‘Sorry,' he repeated.

‘That was my father's funeral,' said Lawson, sounding angry, ‘his wake.'

Luke's face burned with shame. ‘I'm sorry.' It sounded woefully inadequate, but he didn't know what else to say.

‘Yeah, whatever,' Lawson sniffed.

‘So . . .'

‘What?'

‘So, can I have a job?'

‘Come back and we'll talk about it.'

Luke tightened his jaw . . . Lawson's offer was equally an invitation back home and an attempt to boss him around. But he wasn't a foster kid anymore and he needed to get that through to Lawson. He had said sorry and he meant it, but he wasn't going to let Lawson tell him what to do – not unless he was paying to. ‘If I come back, it'll be on my own terms.'

‘Don't come back then,' said Lawson. ‘You ring me asking for a job, and then tell me you want to state your own terms?'

‘I don't want to state the terms of the job, I . . .'

‘You're not family. I don't owe you anything, kid.'

Lawson's words stung. It was a blunt reminder. Luke wasn't a Blake, and never would be. He was wasting his time. He felt suddenly angry, frustrated.

‘You've got no parents now either, Lawson.' It was a low blow but Luke didn't care. ‘Annie and Ryan, they're not Blakes either. You're just like me now, some mongrel-bred part of the mix.' He slammed down the phone, getting in before Lawson could.

Then he stood in the phone booth fighting the urge to smash his fist through the glass. He could have yelled until he was hoarse. He'd done it again. Blown everything.

Outside the booth, he heard tyres on gravel, rolling slowly. Cops. They were sussing him out. Luke slouched into himself and sank to the ground with his hands over his head.

From over the road, Pete called loudly. ‘Hey, anyone know where the hospital is?'

The cop outside the booth answered. ‘It's just over there, same place as always.'

‘Where's that?'

‘Right there. Up the road.'

‘Oh, sorry, officer. Can't see. Got my eyes all cut up and I can't see nothin'.'

‘Through the gate there.'

‘You couldn't help me, could you? Don't want to get hit by a car.'

The phone booth door slid open and a small hand pulled gently at Luke's arm. ‘Come on, Dingo Luke,' whispered Toby. ‘We gotta go, cops everywhere.'

They hopped through backyards until they could make a break for the creek. Then they ran until they found Bob in his ute, waiting for them a couple of kays out of town.