Moonstone Promise (7 page)

When he woke it was evening and the same voice was still singing.

They're watching me now / The cockies on the rail / The
hammer's coming down / My soul is up for sale.

Bob sang along loudly as he pulled over into a truck stop, rolled up next to a petrol bowser and wrenched on the handbrake.

Luke got out and stretched his legs. A warm gust of air hit him in the face, bringing with it familiar sounds and smells of the night: mulga trees and red earth, dry air, mixed with petrol and oil, tyres on a distant freeway, screeching bats and country music floating out of overhead speakers.

He went into the roadhouse and ordered two steak sandwiches. While he was waiting for them to cook, he wandered over to the small grocery section.

The first thing he noticed was some bundles of fresh asparagus. Jess's family had an organic farm where they grew asparagus and other small crops; she used to bring bunches of it over to Harry's place on the weekends. She reckoned it made you live forever. When Jess had found out Harry had lung cancer, she'd started bringing it around by the boxful, convinced it would save his life – packed with vitamin C, it was. Harry always sneaked the asparagus onto Luke's plate while she wasn't looking, which he didn't mind as long as it wasn't all soggy.

Luke took two bunches lest he end up a wheezing old man attached to oxygen bottles. Then he grabbed a budget box of muesli bars and a net bag of apples.

Outside, Bob was already getting back into the ute.

‘Where are we going?' asked Luke, climbing in and pulling the seatbelt over his lap. He pulled out an asparagus spear and chewed on it, then began to unwrap his sandwiches.

‘Mount Isa first, then I've gotta catch up with some brothers up in the Gulf,' said Bob, ‘then a station out there's got some work for me.' He screwed up his nose. ‘What's that green stuff?'

‘Asparagus. So I'll live forever.' He held them out to Bob. ‘Want one?'

Bob eyed the green spears suspiciously. ‘I don't wanna live forever.'

Luke shrugged. ‘What's in the Gulf?'

‘Big river full of fish,' said Bob, leaning in front of Luke and opening the glovebox. He placed in it something lumpy, wrapped in foil. ‘You like fishing?'

‘What was that?'

‘Bait,' said Bob, starting the engine.

‘Never been fishing.'

‘You haven't lived!'

8

AN EXPLOSIVE BANG
came from the back of the car and it swerved violently to one side. Bob swore loudly as he fought with the steering wheel.

‘Blowout,' he said, guiding the ute to the edge of the road. Each time he touched the brake, the ute pulled heavily into the middle of the highway. Bob let it roll to a stop, pulled on the handbrake and opened the door. He got out and cursed again when he saw the damage.

Luke walked around to the driver's side. The back tyre was in shreds. ‘Got a spare?'

‘Yeah,' said Bob, unclipping the big tarp off the back and throwing it aside.

‘Need a hand?'

‘Nah, won't take long.'

‘I'm gonna see a man about a dog,' said Luke, looking for a good clump of bushes in the scrub along the side of the road. He spotted some small trees in the distance and began wading through scratchy golden grass and small prickly shrubs.

He hadn't gone far when there was a sudden burst of activity right in front of him. A small red horse sprang out of the grass and Luke jumped back in surprise. The horse slowed to an agonised hobble on three legs. It was terribly thin and scrambled along with its head lowered, ears flicking around and nostrils flared.

‘Hey, you poor fella,' said Luke. ‘What have you done to yourself?'

He stood quietly, not wanting to force the horse on further, and looked it over for brands. There were none.

‘You got a home to go to?' he asked softly, squatting and making himself smaller. He folded his arms across his chest. The horse seemed to relax a little and, encouraged, Luke turned his eyes away from it. ‘I'm not gonna hurt you.'

The horse closed its eyes and screwed up its nose, clearly in pain. Luke tried to see its hoof but it was obscured by grass. He kept his eyes focused well ahead of the horse and crept closer, talking softly. It shuffled a couple more steps forward. Luke raised himself up and got a better look at its leg. He couldn't see any swelling. It must be in the hoof.

Luke took note of where the horse stood and then turned his back on it, stepping slowly and carefully backwards, closer to the animal. He listened for any movements but heard none until he was close enough to hear it breathing: short, raspy, suspicious breaths. But it didn't move away from him.

He slowly crouched down and knelt on one knee. He felt a warm puff of grassy breath on his neck and smiled. ‘Hey, fella.'

Rubbery lips nibbled at his hair.

Luke turned his head and saw a coppery nose from the corner of his eye. He extended the back of his hand and touched the horse's leg.

The horse stiffened but stood quiet. Luke rubbed the back of his hand up and down the hard bony part of its leg, then down to the hoof. It was held above the ground, trembling. Something sharp was wedged into the sole of its foot.

‘Geez, this is no place to be getting a puncture wound, Red,' he said to the horse. ‘You want some help getting that out?'

Luke reached into his back pocket for his knife and flicked it open. ‘You're gonna have to stand still for me,' he said, sliding the blade down the side of the glass chunk, into the horny white sole. The hoof itself was in good condition, perfectly shaped with a thick wall and no signs of bruising, despite the rough country.

‘If I can get that glass out and it hasn't gone down to the bone, I reckon that foot might heal okay.'

He dug carefully around the glass and flicked it out onto the stones. Fresh red blood trickled out of the wound.

‘That's not a good sign, Red, but you've got pretty tough feet and there's no heat in your leg, so who knows, you might just heal.' He stood up slowly and saw Bob back at the ute, watching him. Luke grinned.

Bob scowled in response and lowered himself into the ute.

‘I better be going, Red,' said Luke. ‘Don't wanna miss my ride.' He turned slowly to the horse and ran the back of his hand over its shoulder, which was flat and triangular with no spare flesh.

The horse lifted its head and snorted. It nipped cheekily at Luke's face and sprang away from him, cantering on four legs, instantly free of pain. Luke watched it run for a bit and then disappear into a grove of trees.

He ran back to the ute, and jumped into the front seat just as it began to roll onto the highway.

‘He had a bit of glass in his foot,' said Luke, slamming the door and reaching for his belt. ‘Reckon he's off one of the stations? He's in pretty bad nick.'

‘That's no station horse,' said Bob, flicking on the indicator and pulling out onto the road. He put on his sunglasses, turned the stereo up and stared straight ahead, accelerating towards the next town and into a burning sunset.

Luke stared at him. He could see a frown above the man's sunnies. ‘What's wrong?'

Bob took a while to answer him. ‘Nothin'.'

‘It was in pain. I couldn't just leave it.'

Bob shrugged. ‘Just never seen a brumby trust a human like that before.'

‘It was probably a station horse.'

Bob shook his head. ‘Nup.'

Bob drove without talking and Luke ate his steak sandwiches, wondering how long he would be able to afford to eat so well. He needed money. He needed a job.

His phone suddenly began trumpeting the arrival of a text message. He reached between his knees and pulled it out of his pack. It was from Lawson. Lawson hardly ever texted; his fingers were too big. Luke felt a sharp sting in his chest.

Telling me to rack off and don't come back.

He flipped the phone shut and sat there staring out the window at the big flat fields rolling past. The sun was setting down low and a pale haze of pink and gold glowed above the horizon. The phone was in his hand with the message that would cut him off from his family for good. He gritted his teeth and opened it again.

The phone beeped at him, out of charge. He quickly thumbed around for the read button, but the screen faded before his eyes.

‘I hate that!' Luke smacked the phone hard against the dashboard. ‘What sort of phone have you got?' he asked Bob, hoping he might be able to switch batteries.

Bob looked at him blankly.

Luke hurled the comatose phone out the window.

Bob raised an eyebrow and drove on, whistling quietly to his CD.

They kept driving, through the night and into the next day. Bob pulled over every now and then for a power-kip, and then drove on. As the second day slipped into night, a mass of lights appeared in front of them. Directly ahead were two tall smoke stacks, lit up like a big cruise ship.

‘Welcome to the Isa,' Bob announced wearily.

‘What is that thing?' asked Luke.

‘A mine,' said Bob. ‘This country is full of minerals: copper, lead, silver, zinc.' He pulled away from a set of traffic lights, drove until they were on the other side of the city limits and then pulled over. ‘Stop and have a kip, ay. I'm beat.' He rolled out his swag in the back of the ute and left Luke to stretch out across the bench seat in the front.

Luke didn't know or care what time of night it was or where the hell they'd ended up. He just needed to lie down. He kicked his boots off and let the waft of stinky socks curl around the inside of the cabin. He pulled the moonstone out from under his shirt.

It's supposed to give you beautiful dreams.

It didn't work. The night passed unevenly, in lurches and dragging lulls. He tossed restlessly about inside the cabin, occasionally drifting off and being woken again by the roar and rattle of a truck barrelling along the highway. In the moments that he lay awake, he thought of Lawson, standing in the stable doorway, his hard, impassive voice.

You wanna be a Blake, you gotta earn the name.

When he drifted off, he was haunted by Bob's music.

The hammer's coming down.

Faceless soldiers, dark shapes, footfalls hammering against his skull.

Then he would wake again and think of Jess, her carefree laughter and the touch of her hand on his arm, and it would soothe him. He held the moonstone again and begged it for sleep. Eventually it worked.

Until Bob yanked the car door open, pulling the arm rest out from under his head. ‘Morning.'

Luke groaned. ‘I'm wrecked,' he mumbled. His body was wet with sweat and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuck together with glue. The inside of the cabin was stuffy and airless. Outside was dry and hot, with not a breath of wind.

‘Get some stuff in town and get out of here, ay?' said Bob, climbing in and starting the engine. He had already had a splash with water and wet his hair down.

‘Is there a river around here?' asked Luke, ungluing his mouth to speak and scratching at his head.

‘Yeah, just up the road,' said Bob, sticking the ute into gear and accelerating back towards town. ‘Get some shopping first.'

9

AFTER ANOTHER WHOLE DAY
of driving, bumping along a narrow track of cracked brown earth, Bob took a sudden left-hand turn. Within seconds, Luke was staring at a lush oasis. The track dipped down onto a low causeway, crossed by a crystal-clear stream with tall paperbark trees, strappy pandanus and fan palms lining its banks. The sound of rushing water and twittering birds offered a sanctuary from the blistering heat. Beyond the causeway, tucked in behind a bend in the river, was a twin-cab ute. A blue plume of smoke wafted lazily nearby.

‘Stop here, ay?' said Bob, killing the engine. He stepped out of the car and pushed up his sunglasses, then cupped his hands over his mouth and called, ‘Hey!'