Moonstone Promise (6 page)

Most of the people had gone home, except for a few at the far end of the arena. He heard Ryan's voice among them as he walked through the feedroom and out the door into the courtyard. He crawled through his bedroom window, and paused to listen before he opened the door and walked three steps up the hall and into the bathroom.

He stared at his bruised face in the mirror. There was dried blood around the corner of his mouth, and he had mud caked in his hair. He turned on the tap and squeezed his head into the sink, scratching at the clump of mud and rubbing the blood off his lip. He towelled off his hair and stared back at the boy in the mirror, stringy and lean with lumpy ribs.

He searched through the cupboard and found a small pair of hair-trimming clippers. Holding his fringe off his forehead, he began to cut with long, slow strokes, letting the thick clumps of hair fall down onto his feet.

Back in his room, he towelled off and got dressed. In the old Queen Anne dresser, he searched for his pocketknife, wallet, some matches, an aluminium water bottle, and a spare shirt. He found a scrap of paper and wrote a quick note.

Annie. I'll be in touch, Luke.

There was so much more he wanted to say to her, so many reasons to say
thanks
and
sorry
. But he couldn't begin to put it into words. For the moment, he hoped she would understand and not be hurt.

Luke didn't know where he would go, exactly. But he did know that he wasn't going to hang around and be assessed and re-homed like a lost dog. The only true family he had was horses, and he was going to find them, find some brumbies. Brumbies were wild and free and owned by no one.

He could go south, down to the Snowies; he knew there were plenty down there. Lawson's first horse, Dusty, had been a brumby foal from down that way, and he reckoned it was the toughest and most honest horse he had ever owned. Its feet were like iron, he said, and never needed shoeing, even for rocky ground. Brumbies had bred by natural selection in some of the toughest country in Australia.

But that cold mountain country didn't call to Luke the way outback Queensland did. Queensland had brumbies too, plenty of them. Lawson reckoned he'd seen thousands of them, roaming free in big mobs in and out of the stations. He said the station owners heli-mustered them sometimes – many of them never recovered from the long hot gallop and died days later, but the ones that did made good honest horses.

Luke threw his things into a backpack and as he went to close the dresser drawer, he saw a photo of his mother. He held the photo to his face for a moment, then placed it carefully back in the drawer. Shoving the wallet into his back pocket, he stuffed a small blanket into the pack, slung it over his shoulders and slid open the sash window.

Jess was in the mares' paddock, a curled-up figure sitting against a fence post in the dark.

‘How come you're not at the wake?' Luke asked, letting himself through the gate.

She didn't answer him.

He sat down next to her and although she didn't speak, he could feel her, the warmth that flowed out of her. She was loved, loveable. She came from a different world to him. ‘Sorry,' he whispered.

But still Jess didn't answer him. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking. He could tell she was crying and he wanted to hug her, soothe her, the way he did with young horses.

Luke sat watching the black outline of a mare in the paddock, and felt suddenly exhausted. He could have lain down right there and fallen asleep under the shattered glass of the stars, with no need to talk.

Instead, he put his arms around his knees and stared up into the sky, wondering how he could have stuffed up so much in such a short time. A cloud floated away from the big silvery moon, and as though someone had pulled a cloth from over a lamp, light ran over him.

‘What did you do to your face?' asked Jess suddenly.

Luke's hand flew to his cheek. It was puffy and his lip was swollen, but he was surprised that she could see it in the dark. Curse the moon. ‘Umm . . .'

He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, so he sat there in silence, feeling a wave of shame wash over him.

‘Something's really wrong, isn't it? What happened? Did someone get drunk and hit you?'

‘No.'

‘Who did that to you?'

‘I did it to myself.'

And with that, the questions stopped. She must have realised it was something bad.

‘I'm taking off for a bit.'

‘Where?' she asked. Her voice got squeaky. ‘Where are you going? Are you coming back?'

He shrugged. ‘Dunno.'

‘Luke?'

‘I don't know, Jessy.' It was all he could say. He wanted to sit there and pour it all out, offload it, but he didn't even know where to begin. ‘I don't know what to tell you.'

‘Tell me what's happened.'

‘I'm not going to let them send me to another foster home.'

‘What do you mean? This is your home. Harry's . . .'

Her voice faded to momentary silence as reality hit home. ‘Oh, Luke . . .'

He stood up and arranged his pack on his shoulders. ‘Just wanted to say bye.'

‘Luke, no. Lawson wouldn't let that happen.'

Oh, yes he would. Now he would. I've stuffed up
everything.

Jess's eyes ran over his face. ‘Oh my God, did Lawson do that to you?'

‘I told you, I did it to myself. I hit him first.'

There was a stunned silence.

‘I've got to go, Jessy. I just wanted to come and say goodbye.'

She stood up and faced him. ‘Shouldn't you sleep it off and decide in the morning, when you're not so upset?'

‘Sleep?' He couldn't help laughing. ‘I'm not good at sleeping.'

‘I don't want you to go.'

Luke started walking. He felt a tremendous pulling in his gut. He had to get out of there before she convinced him to stay.

‘Luke!'

He spun around. ‘
What?
'

She untied something from around her neck and held it out to him. ‘Take my moonstone.' She shrugged. ‘They're supposed to give you beautiful dreams. So Mum reckons, anyway. Never know, might help you sleep better.'

It was a pale oval-shaped stone, hung on a thin leather strap. He moved it around in his fingers and felt its smoothness.

‘Promise me you'll come back,' she whispered.

He could hear the tears in her words, but he didn't answer. How could he promise her that?

‘Luke?'

‘I'll see you again, Jess,' he said. ‘Promise.'

7

LUKE WALKED QUICKLY
,
cutting through the river flats and across private paddocks, trying not to think of Jess. He wanted to get to the highway before sun-up. Hunger pulled at his belly and he realised he'd barely eaten the previous day.

The sun was just beginning to show on the horizon as he made it onto the highway, and walked another kilometre or so to the truck stop. There, he bought a roadmap of Queensland, two burgers with the lot and a drink.

He sat down, unwrapped a burger and flipped the roadmap open while he crammed as much as he could into his gob.

Townsville . . . Paluma . . .

He'd heard about brumby-culling in a place called Paluma. Paluma: he'd googled it once and seen nothing but rugged dark-green mountains.

There had been a lot of slaughtering going on up that way, too, thousands of brumbies shot from a helicopter. Looking at the terrain, Luke reckoned there'd have to be plenty still hiding. He ran his finger in a circle around the town as he bit into the second burger.

A friendly but solemn voice spoke behind him. ‘That country full of
yarramin
.'

It was a voice Luke had heard before, somewhere. He looked around in surprise. A man with a dark face, neatly trimmed beard and short curly hair was staring over his shoulder at the map. He wore an orange checked shirt with short sleeves, tucked into baggy jeans that were held up with a rodeo buckle. On his head was a big black hat, beaten out of shape and scarred by harsh weather, dirt and diesel. It was the kind of hat that could tell stories of station life.

Luke realised that he had met the man before, at campdrafts. He was Lawson's mate, and often worked the yards. ‘Bob, isn't it?'

‘Luke,' the man nodded. He reached out a large, calloused hand to shake. ‘Met you at Longwood, a while back. You rode the stallion at the funeral yesterday.'

‘Yeah, that's right,' said Luke cautiously.

Bob motioned towards the seat opposite. ‘Mind?'

Luke gathered up his discarded burger wrappers from the table to clear a space.

Bob cast solemn eyes over Luke's swollen face. ‘Been givin' cheek, ay,' he said, more as a statement than a question.

Luke nodded.

‘And now you're taking off,' Bob concluded, pulling the cap off his water bottle and chugging it down.

Luke bit into the burger and flipped over a page in the roadmap without answering.

Bob placed the water bottle in front of him on the table and held it in both hands, turning it slowly around, as though waiting for Luke to look up and answer him.

Luke could feel his eyes on him. He turned another page.

I'm not going back.

Bob drank from the bottle again, emptying it this time. He placed it carefully back on the table and wiped his beard with his sleeve. ‘I'm headed to the Gulf: plenty
yarramin
up that way too. You want a lift, you better make up your mind quick.' He screwed the cap back on the bottle and stood up. ‘Blue HQ out the front. Just gotta fuel up, then I'm off.'

Luke watched Bob walk to a bin and toss the empty bottle into it before walking out the door. He stepped into a metallic blue ute and began backing it out of the parking space.

Luke quickly gathered his maps and shoved them into his pack as he scraped his chair back. The ute pulled up at a bowser, and Bob got out and began to fill the tank.

Luke reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out a fifty. He held it out to Bob, who glanced at it and shook his head. ‘Put that away.'

When they were on the highway, Bob put a CD into the stereo and turned it up loud enough to rule out any chance of talking, which suited Luke fine. He looked at the cover sitting on the centre console. There was a picture of some haunted-looking dude on the front.

The sun streamed in through the front window and he wished he'd bought a cheap pair of sunnies at the truck stop. The music was twangy country, similar to the stuff Lawson always played.

They've put my soul up for sale / Now there's darkness
on my trail.

Luke put his head back, closed his eyes and breathed in the manky odours that seeped from the upholstery of the seats: the different people, dogs, old buckets, greasy chains, burger wrappers and leather saddles.

The CD played enough times for Luke to start to sing along to the lyrics in his head, and then they faded as sleep closed over him.

It was late afternoon when a bump in the road banged his head against the window. He woke with a jerk and realised he'd been dribbling. The same voice was still singing.

I keep on running / like a river full of pain / it keeps
pulling me / dragging on my chain.

He felt something dig into his hip and pulled the moonstone out of his pocket. It was milky and shiny, with faint colours reflecting off it. He untangled the leather strap, pulled it over his head and tucked the stone safely under his shirt, then fell asleep again.