Opal Dreaming (18 page)

‘Next to a water trough, out on the stock route,' said Jess slowly. ‘Hey, that guy didn't leave his name or number, did he?'

‘Somewhere . . .' The man looked thoughtful and then fumbled around for a bit. He found a receipt book under a pile of papers and began leafing through it.

Jess saw the name
David
on the receipt before the salesman did. Dave's surname was Rawlins. She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate. ‘Can I have his details,' she squeaked, ‘please?'

A look of uncertainty crossed the man's face.

Jess put her hand firmly on his book, holding it open on Dave's receipt. ‘Either that or I'll have to ring the police,' she said, hoping all the tales she'd heard about opals and money-laundering were true. ‘I think the man is a horse thief.'

The tales must have been true. ‘There shouldn't be any need for the police,' the man said quickly, and scrawled the details on a piece of paper. He pushed it towards her, looking tense.

‘Can I buy this one?' Jess pulled out her wallet, still with the cash for Opal inside, and prayed it wouldn't be too expensive. She reeled at the irony. ‘I've been saving up to buy an Opal.'

'Maybe you should just take it and get going,' said the man, handing it to her and closing his receipt book. He began bundling the trays and loose stones back into the display cabinet.

Jess bolted out the door with the opals in one hand and the address in the other, nearly flying into the path of an oncoming Winnebago. She skidded to a halt and darted across the car park to the front doors of the mini-mart.

‘
MRS ARNOLD!
' she screamed at the top of her lungs.

‘What?' said Mrs Arnold from one of the checkouts. She continued to load groceries onto the conveyor belt. ‘No need to yell, I'm right here.'

‘Mrs Arnold!' Jess panted. ‘I found him. I found the ringers!' She waved the paper at her and hopped from one foot to another.

Back in the servo, Jess paced anxiously back and forth while Mrs Arnold tried to reach Lawson on his satellite phone. ‘Stan!' she finally shouted into the phone.

Mrs Arnold squinted at the paper and read the address repeatedly, eventually spelling each word letter by letter, then using phonetic code when her husband still couldn't hear her.

‘Yowah!' she yelled into the phone. ‘Yankee, Oscar, Whisky, Alpha . . . No, Yankee, as in Y, as in
WHY don't
you ever wear your hearing aid?
'

She finally emerged from the phone booth looking exhausted. ‘Useless satellite,' she said in an annoyed tone. ‘Didn't help that he's as deaf as a post.'

‘What did he say?' asked Jess. ‘Was Lawson there? What did Lawson say?'

‘He's off on the motorbike. Stan's going to go and find him.' She shook her head. ‘Course, he didn't have a pen. He's used his finger to write the address on the bonnet of the ute, in the dust. Hopefully it'll still be there after driving around for the next few hours, in even more dust, trying to find Lawson.'

‘Wish we had another sat phone – we could text it to him.'

‘You can do it on the internet. There's a website you can use,' said Mrs Arnold.

‘Where there are tourists, there are usually internet cafes!' said Jess.

There were two computers at the far end of the dining area in the servo. Jess bought an hour's internet time and booted up the computer. Out of pure habit, she logged into her Yahoo account, then tried googling for satellite phone companies.

‘What type of phone does he have?' Jess asked Mrs Arnold. ‘There are different brands.'

Mrs Arnold pulled a
stuffed-if-I-know
face.

Jess scanned through phone blogs, Facebook pages and FAQ pages on satellite phones. ‘It could be anything,' she groaned. ‘I'm so dumb at this. We need tech support!'

Just then a small orange pop-up appeared at the bottom of her Yahoo home screen.
Elliot is online.

‘Elliot!' cried Jess, clicking on the pop-up and bringing up the messenger.

HI ELLIOT! IT'S JESS.

hi jessica. how are the cows?

CATTLE ARE GREAT. DO U KNOW HOW TO SEND

TEXT MESSAGES TO A SATELLITE PHONE?

is it iridium pvd?

Jess and Mrs Arnold exchanged more
stuffed-if-I-know
glances.

WOTZ THAT?

Personal voice and data delivery – 66 leo

satellites – very cool.

CAN U HELP US GET A MESSAGE TO LAWSON'S

PHONE?

Sure. He's on my fixed rst.

DOES THAT MEAN YOU HAVE HIS NUMBER?

Affirmative

‘He is such a geek!' Jess took the receipt from Mrs Arnold and began typing Dave's address.

Is grace there with you?

NO, SHE'S RIDING

can u say hello to her from elliot?

Jess and Mrs Arnold exchanged further
stuffed-if-I-know
glances, followed by
surely-not
looks and
how-sweet
gestures.

‘Maybe Grace is on his fixed RST too,' Jess chuckled.

‘Better not be,' Mrs Arnold growled.

CAN U TEXT THAT NAME AND ADDRESS TO

LAWSON'S SAT PHONE?

i already have

THANKS ELLIOT, UR THE BEST.

The afternoon was the longest of Jess's life. Even the thrill of making a nutritious, vitamin-C-packed lunch with crunchy raw vegetables from the mini-mart didn't help it go any faster. After feeding the riders and helping them to swap horses, she drove with Mrs Arnold to the night camp and spent hours scrubbing green slime out of the water troughs and refilling them for the cattle at the designated bore. She rolled out miles of electric tape with Bob and helped count the cattle. Shara, Grace and Rosie came in to where they were settling for the night, leading their horses, looking totally exhilarated.

‘You should see Lindy's dogs work,' Grace enthused. ‘One just jumped up and bit this cow on the neck when it wouldn't move; it was awesome! I'm gonna get Dad to buy me a smithy when we get home.'

‘I broke my gel tips,' Rosie moaned, leading Slinger past and studying her fingernails. ‘I knew I should've got acrylic.'

Grace screwed up her face. ‘Who's going to see your fingernails out here?'

‘I am,' Rosie retorted. ‘Just because you have no concept of self-presentation, or personal hygiene.'

Grace blew a raspberry at her and walked away, whistling to Lindy's dogs.

As Jess helped them with their horses, she told them about the opal she had found. Soon they were all sitting around the campfire, waiting, waiting, for the men to arrive. As eight o' clock gave away to nine, both Mrs Arnold and Jess started getting nervous. They speculated about all sorts of possible confrontations that may have taken place.

‘Maybe we shouldn't have given the address to Lawson,' said Jess. ‘He was too angry. We should have rung the police.'

‘Lawson can handle himself,' said Mrs Arnold, not sounding entirely convinced of that.

‘Luke shouldn't have gone. He already had a blowup with Dave,' Jess fretted. ‘He'll get in another fight.' Then she thought of Lawson and Ryan. ‘This is just really bad. They're all going to kill each other. Maybe we should drive back into town and try to get hold of Elliot again, see if he's heard from Lawson.'

Mrs Arnold shook her head. Then Jess saw her eyebrows lower into a curious frown as though she was remembering something. ‘Elliot said to say hello to you, Grace,' she said, in a tone that suggested her daughter explain.

‘Did he?' said Grace, looking suddenly busy and distracted. ‘Why?'

Her mother maintained her stare. Grace picked up her saddle and bridle and walked to the back of the trailer. ‘Do you know if we have any anti-gall girths? That horse was a bit ticklish this morning.'

Mrs Arnold glanced suspiciously at Jess, who answered with another
don't-ask-me
shrug.

Just as Jess thought she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer, they heard the ute rumbling along the dirt track, and the unmistakeable sound of a float's towball bouncing on the coupling, a horse's hooves clanging about in the back. Headlights waved across the open grassy plains.

Everyone jumped up.

‘They're back!' cried Jess. ‘They've got a float – they've got Marnie!'

The ute stopped and Jess raced to the front door of the float and wrenched it open. She shone a torch inside and a set of soft, long-lashed eyes peered at her. ‘Marnie!' Jess shone the torch all over her, looking for any signs of damage. The mare was sweaty but otherwise looked fine.

The girls crowded around as Lawson emerged from the driver's side with a wide grin on his face. ‘Where's Jessica?' he demanded.

Jess was shoved to the front of the crowd and before she knew it, Lawson was swinging her around in a big happy bear-hug, so that she could hardly breathe.

‘Told you opals were good-luck stones,' she laughed.

‘You're a good girl, Jessica,' he said, hoisting her high into the air. ‘I don't know how I'm gonna repay you.'

‘Just give me my filly back,' Jess said, smiling down at him.

Lawson dropped her like a bag of rocks.

23

BY THE NEXT MORNING,
all of Lawson's gratitude to Jess seemed to have vanished.

Ryan, on the other hand, seemed to have totally redeemed himself. Marnie had been found on a remote Yowah property, the discovery of which now seemed to be taken for granted. Jess had spent the evening listening to tales of how Ryan had heroically wrestled Dave to the ground, while Luke and Lawson rang the cops, caught Marnie and loaded her onto a horse float to get her out of there. Both Dave and Clarkey had been charged with live-stock theft and Ryan had come home with a big black eye, which the men all seemed to view as a badge of honour.

‘Looks as if we're all back to
girl
status,' said Jess, as she helped Shara fill water buckets for the horses. ‘The boys get first choice of all the horses today. Lawson hasn't even included me as a rider.'

‘He's just being a control freak,' said Shara. ‘He can't hand over the reins to anyone.'

‘Except Lindy,' said Jess, looking over at Lawson and Lindy, who stood chummily flipping through a clipboard full of paperwork together.

‘What
is
her secret?' Shara wondered out loud.

‘They're
together
,' said Jess. ‘I saw them smooching.'

Shara pulled a face. ‘Lawson? Gross me out.'

‘Hey, that's it,' said Jess, almost to herself, as a realisation dawned on her. ‘The way to get through to Lawson . . .
is via Lindy!
' She smiled a self-appreciating smile, picked up the two full buckets and headed for the horses. ‘I'm a genius!'

‘That doesn't leave a horse for Jess. Without Dave and Clarkey we need her too,' Jess heard Lindy say as she carried the buckets, sloshing with water, through the campsite.

‘Just swap her over with one of the other kids after lunch,' said Lawson.

‘Bit much for one horse, to ride two shifts,' said Lindy.

Jess's brain quickly clicked into gear. She knew exactly which horse she could ride, and she knew exactly how to make it happen. She hurriedly took the buckets to the horses and then raced back to the camp.

‘I'll ride Wal, Lindy.'

Lawson looked up.

‘Umm, if that's okay with Lawson,' she added quickly. Best let him think he had as much control over the decision as possible.

‘What, with no saddle or bridle, just a piece of string around her neck?' said Lawson. ‘That won't be much chop if any cattle break out.'

‘I can put a saddle on her if you like,' said Jess, addressing Lawson and then switching her focus to Lindy. ‘Might take a little bit to get her used to it, but not too long – twenty minutes max,' she said, brimming over with confidence. She had been tightening ropes around Wally's belly for months. The filly wasn't going to care about a girth. And she wouldn't care about Jess sitting on her – that had been going on for months too. Jess could steer without a bridle. And stop as well. She couldn't see a problem.

Lawson interrupted. ‘You're very clever getting Walkabout . . .
started
, Jessica,' he said. ‘But putting her on cattle is another thing altogether. If you need to gallop—'

Jess turned to Lindy again. ‘None of these cows are going to run, are they? They're old-age pensioners.'

‘Not all of them,' said Lindy cautiously.

‘Excuse me, this is
my
horse,' said Lawson, sounding irritated, and bringing the conversation back his own way.

Jess stared at him defiantly. ‘Gonna break another one of your promises?'

Lawson ignored the comment and glared back at her. ‘You don't have a helmet.'

Luke walked up behind him and threw a black helmet to Jess in a classic netball toss. Lawson shot daggers at Luke, who gave him a charming smile in return.