Bilgarra Springs (12 page)

The river wound itself through the side fence and across the paddock. By lunchtime the riders had made it to the river. They stopped briefly for a bite to eat. Aurora had once read a character in a novel say that nothing tasted quite as good as corned beef sandwiches that had been in the saddle bag for a few hours. She really hoped that was true as she dropped herself down under one of the weeping tea trees. Trudy and Rick came and sat beside her, the girls not quite settling for very long anywhere. Aurora was amazed that the herd of cattle hadn’t bolted the minute the horses had stopped pushing them along. She had been wondering what they were going to do with them when they stopped for lunch. The cattle had spread out a bit and were busy grazing but none had taken off so far.

Keith had looked like he was making his way over join Aurora, Trudy and Rick, but Trudy had nudged Rick, who had gone out to intercept Keith and the two to them had gone over to one side to discuss something. From where they were sitting Aurora could see Heather, Con, Callan and Theresa spread out under one of the other trees. There was an easiness about the foursome that Aurora envied. Since the end of her disastrous marriage she had always been that little bit on guard with everybody and the sort of carefree relaxation that she could see in the others was not something that she was herself even capable of.

Aurora watched Theresa turn around and push Cal sideways until he hit the ground. She was laughing really hard as she did it. Cal pushed himself up and grabbed her hat, tossing it into the branches of the tree. Trudy noticed Aurora watching the others.

‘Cal and Theresa have known each other since they were around 6 years old, if not even earlier. Her parents owned a station out here back then, but sold it and moved to Mackay when she would have been around twelve. They had to make a decision about her secondary schooling and rather than send her to boarding school, as usually happens, they all moved. Theresa’s mother’s parents were living at Mackay at the time and needed a bit more looking after due to age. So the decision was made to move, which killed two birds with one stone.’

Aurora didn’t take her eyes off the others as she replied.

‘That explains why she is so good on a horse. And why she seems so at home out here.’

Trudy could hear the wistfulness in Aurora’s voice and tried to put things in perspective.

‘She could ride almost before she could walk. She was also an only child so her parents had every opportunity to pour all their energy into her. They spent a lot of time with her. She was lucky in that respect. ‘

With that last comment Aurora rose to her feet, a strange look on her face. She looked straight at Trudy.

‘She was lucky. Some kids miss out on parental love completely.’

Aurora walked off towards where Sox was tethered. She buried her face against his neck, her arm hooked around his neck. Trudy stared after her, wondering what had brought about the sudden change. There seemed to be more to this woman than met the eye. She wanted to make sure that she hadn’t inadvertently offended Aurora, but the time to tackle that subject wasn’t now. She would get her alone later.

Rick came back and gave Trudy a hand up. He raised his eyebrows in the direction of Aurora. Trudy gently shook her head. Rick nodded slightly to indicate that he understood and the pair made their way over to where their own horses were. This movement started the whole group moving. When Trudy looked back over in Aurora’s direction she noticed that Keith was already mounted and had ridden over to speak with Aurora. Aurora smiled at something Keith said and then swung herself into the saddle.

Trudy noticed Callan watching the interplay between Keith and Aurora but couldn’t read anything from his face. Theresa on the other hand was visibly taking note of Cal and what was going on, and touched his arm before saying something to him. There was obviously something happening behind the scenes but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was. Her best bet would probably be to quiz Theresa, but that was another thing that would have to wait until later. Trudy took her place beside Aurora, flashing her a smile which Aurora returned and they moved off.
Now that it was all over, Aurora couldn’t believe how quickly the afternoon had passed. They had moved the cattle along the river to a shallow spot and pushed them across so that they could gather them from the remaining half of the paddock before coming out the second gate and taking them home. As the afternoon had progressed, each time a beast broke away, Aurora had remained amazed at the agility and intelligence of the horses and riders. She had understood that the horses had been trained to do this, but she had still been astounded at their ability to anticipate, and the speed with which they had reacted.

She could only imagine that if she had even tried anything like that she would be over the side again on her ear. That really wouldn’t be a good look. Another steer had tried to break away not far from her at one point and she had needed to keep a tight rein on Sox who had been on his toes and ready to go before she had even processed what was happening. She had felt lucky that the horse was obedient and had not given way to instinct and had instead remained where he was.

One incident had scared the life out of her. A steer had broken out near where Matt was riding and he had gone after it flat out. Next thing she knew the horse had appeared to stumble. It had gone down and Matt had gone down with it. When the horse had rolled over the top of him Aurora had really panicked. He had to be badly injured. To her mind it just wasn’t possible to walk away from having over half a tonne of animal crush you. When the horse had stumbled Gerry had taken off to recover the beast and the whole column of people had stopped moving. At the same time, Rick had flung himself off his horse, throwing his reins to Kate and raced over to where Matt was lying on the ground and the horse was getting to its feet. Callan had ridden over, quickly slipped out of the saddle and grabbed the reins of Matt’s horse.

All that Aurora had been able to see was Rick crouched beside the figure on the ground. She had experienced a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had wondered what they did with seriously injured people out here. That would be one of the downfalls of living so far away from any of the major centres. She had unconsciously held her breath, anxiously awaiting the outcome.

At that stage, all eyes had been on Matt, and Aurora’s had opened in disbelief when she had seen Matt push himself up into a sitting position. Rick had laughed and had clapped him on the shoulder before they both got to their feet. Callan had handed him back the reins to his horse and Matt had swung himself back into the saddle. Aurora hadn’t been able to believe her eyes. Not only had he not been killed or paralysed but he had got back in the saddle and had moved back to his place. She had noticed that her mouth was hanging open in disbelief and had quickly shut it. Gran had always joked that an open mouth was a fly trap, but that was especially true out here. Flies got in absolutely everything. It had occurred to her that maybe that was where Gran had found the saying. Everybody had started moving again when Rick was ready and the rest of the day was incident free.

It had been late afternoon when they had steered the mob that they had collected through the second gateway to the paddock and towards the yards at the homestead. This time it had been Gerry who did the honours with the gate and he had also done it mounted. Aurora had been relieved that it wasn’t some incredible skill on Matt’s part. She hadn’t wanted to have a reason to respect him. His physical appearance and demeanour made her incredibly uneasy. As much as she had enjoyed the day, the yards had been a sight for sore eyes and the closer they got to them, the more her spirits had lifted.

When they had dealt with the cattle and then in turn dealt with the horses, daylight was just about gone. The group had filed into the courtyard area and randomly flopped in chairs, stretching legs out in front and opening drinks. Not being a drinker, Aurora had grabbed herself a Coke and a chair. She was absolutely parched and being able to fully stretch her legs again seemed like a luxury. She had found herself tired, sore, sunburnt but overall really glad that she had gone out with them.

Mustering on motorbike, or by helicopter, may be quicker, but it lacked the rush that came from the sights and smells of mustering on horseback. There was something about it that she couldn’t put her finger on, but the cattle, the dust, the flies and the horses all added up to a unique experience that gave her some sort of buzz. If she took nothing else away from her time here, that experience would be something worth having.

Now though, she thought that she would never be more grateful to see food and a shower. She was so hungry it felt like her stomach was hitting her backbone. As for dusty, she felt just plain grotty. Dust was everywhere, all over her skin, in her eyes, ears and all through her hair. She couldn’t decide what she wanted to do more, stay seated here in a stretched position, or go wash the grit off. She desperately wanted to shower, but having to move took more energy than she thought she had, not to mention having to use legs that didn’t want to move.

Rough and Tumble were furiously racing around trying to get as much attention as they could. Aurora let her hand hang and scratched one of the two of them on the head. When they were together she could tell them apart as Rough was slightly smaller than Tumble, but apart she had no idea. The puppy enjoyed the scratch on the head, but relatively quickly left in search of more vigorous affection. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trudy shoo both Kate and Harriet off in the direction of the bathroom. She decided that it would be really hard to come in from a day’s riding like that and then have the added responsibility of having to organise and look after children. Trudy was certainly a lot tougher than the shy woman that Aurora had first thought her to be.

Aurora allowed herself the fantasy that maybe if she just sat there for a little longer, someone would wave a magic wand and she would be clean, fed and tucked up in bed. She certainly didn’t want to move a whole stack. Rick came over and paused beside her.

‘You did well today. For someone who was scared of horses and couldn’t ride two days ago, your effort today was remarkable. Well done.’

He patted her arm briefly twice before moving off to grab a beer from Trevor. Aurora certainly felt that her effort today was a good one, but it felt really nice to have that confirmed by somebody else. What she was having trouble with was the fact that she appeared to be the only one who was really, really worn out. Callan, Theresa, Heather and Con were in her line of sight and they all appeared just fine. She would hazard a guess that they could probably ride for another whole day and still not be exhausted like she was. It made her feel even worse, flopped as she was in the chair.

She pushed herself up out of the chair, inwardly groaning as she did so. She was going to be so sore in the morning. Dinner looked like it was still going to be a little while away, so the shower looked like her best bet. She encountered Fiona half way down the hallway as she was going to retrieve some clothes. Fiona smiled at her as warmly:

‘They tell me you did a great job today. Good on you. There’s a lot of Isabella’s fire in you.’

Aurora just smiled. Since she had been reading the journal she had discovered Gran’s fire for herself. It was nice to be able to draw that parallel. She had been so worried about coming out here in case she proved to be a colossal failure that the praise from two of them made it all more than worthwhile. Fiona squeezed her arm.

‘You look absolutely beat. Go have a shower and by then dinner should be ready.’ Fiona chuckled before she continued, ‘I will even excuse you from washing up duty...I’m a bit worried that I would find you face down in the sink!’

With a final chuckle Fiona moved off towards the kitchen. Aurora smiled. She couldn’t help but like Fiona. She had a very strong personality but it was not a domineering one, rather it overflowed with love for all around her. Aurora was pleased that she had been sent here. In one respect it was like being part of a big family and that was something that she had never experienced. She’d also learnt a valuable lesson sometimes succeeding meant having to muster up the courage to overcome your fears.

nine

N
ear
M
isses

If Aurora had thought that she had been sore on Tuesday and Wednesday after the small riding jaunts, it was absolutely nothing compared to the tightness on the inside of her legs, from her groin to her ankles, and the sore bum that she had this morning. She had woken herself up every time that she had tried to move during the night. She really was sore. Her muscles screamed as she sat up and shuffled over until her legs were over the edge of the bed. Even sitting on the bed hurt her backside, she had no idea how she was going to get on with anything harder.

Her leg muscles protested even more violently as she stood up and made her way over to the chest of drawers to retrieve some clothes. She felt like one of those little old ladies that you see shuffling along. She would never have thought that sitting on a horse would cause such pain. To be honest, at the moment it felt like the horse had sat on her. She sighed. It was going to be a really long day.

Aurora half-shuffled and half-limped out into the hall way and made her way down to the bathrooms. Trudy, who Aurora noted didn’t appear to be in any pain at all and was moving freely, chuckled as she spotted her coming through the kitchen.

‘I thought that you might be a little bit sore today.’

The chuckle grew heartier when Aurora flashed her a rueful look. She figured that she had best get used to it as it was bound to be the first in a day full of smart ass comments.

Five minutes later Aurora was slightly disappointed to discover that the warmth of the shower hadn’t worked any magic on her sore muscles as she had hoped that it would and she had felt like a contortionist trying to get into her jeans without moving the aching muscles too much. As much as she loved riding, she was glad that they weren’t going out again today and hoped that putting the cattle that they had brought in yesterday through the crush and sorting them out wasn’t going to require any effort that caused too much pain. She made her way gingerly back to her room, put her pyjamas back and headed down to the kitchen to give Fiona and Trudy a hand, thinking that maybe movement would loosen things up a bit, but by the time that she reached the end of the hallway she was more inclined to think that maybe it wouldn’t.

She found Trudy alone in the kitchen and set to helping organise everything for breakfast. She was putting the first of the toast on when Trudy swung around to face her, an unusual look on her face.

‘Aurora, I didn’t get a chance to say this to you at the time, but since we’re here on our own, I didn’t mean to upset you in any way or cause offence yesterday when we were discussing Theresa’s childhood. I just want to be sure that you know that I wouldn’t intentionally upset you.’

The genuine nature of the statement was plainly clear from the earnest expression on Trudy’s face. Aurora looked her straight in the eye.

‘It’s fine Trudy. You just hit a button that you weren’t aware existed. My parents were killed when I was seven and I was raised by my grandparents. Don’t get me wrong I had a fantastic life but it isn’t the same and most of the time it doesn’t worry me in the slightest but occasionally, the loss of them will hit me out of the blue.’

Once said, she returned her attention to the toaster and what she was doing. Trudy didn’t say anymore just squeezed Aurora’s shoulder as she made her way past to turn the steak and sausages in the frying pan. Aurora was really glad that Trudy hadn’t pushed the matter any further. She was intensely private and while she liked these people a lot she still wasn’t at the stage where she wanted to open up too much. She hoped that Trudy wasn’t disappointed that she hadn’t elaborated any further. She had been called cold and hard in the past by people who simply didn’t understand her desire to keep her life to herself.

Trudy was glad that she’d had the opportunity to broach the subject with Aurora. She hadn’t managed to speak with Theresa yet to find out what was going on with Cal, and she probably wouldn’t be able to now that Theresa was gone for the day, but at least she had ticked one conversation off her mental list. Trudy and Aurora worked in companionable silence for the best part of ten minutes until Fiona returned with Kate and Harriet, Rough and Tumble and a bucket half full of eggs. The puppies had stopped in the doorway their tongues hanging out, ears pricked and eyes everywhere, fully aware that they weren’t permitted inside but wanting to be part of the action nonetheless.

Fiona’s face split in a grin from ear to ear when she spotted Aurora.

‘How have you pulled up this morning?

Aurora laughed.

‘I am moving...barely. But I guess that is better than not moving at all.’

Fiona patted her on the shoulder.

‘We’ve all been there love. The first full day in the saddle is always the worst.’

Fiona moved through the kitchen heading towards the hallway. She spoke over her shoulder as she went.

‘Your grandmother hobbled around for two days after she went mustering.’

Aurora was stunned into silence. Except for the first day, Fiona had only made the single mention about Isabella and the fire that both Aurora and Isabella shared, so for her to mention her grandmother was something out of the ordinary.

Aurora hadn’t read the journal for the last couple of days but she decided that she would make an effort to have a decent read of it tonight. She had read about Gran learning to ride, but she hadn’t hit the part where Gran had gone mustering. It sounded like it should be quite entertaining. She would definitely have to make some time tonight.

She turned her attention to helping Trudy get everything outside and ready before the group descended on the tables. As it turned out, they had only just finished placing everything when the others started to drift in to breakfast in ones and twos. In the space of a few minutes where there had been peace and quiet there was now noise and movement.

Aurora joined in. The group moved quickly through breakfast, their attention focused on getting out into the yards and dealing with the cattle. A large proportion had been sold and a double-decker semi was due to arrive mid-afternoon to load them on and have them transported out. As they all moved to get up and clear the table, Trudy tapped Aurora lightly on the forearm.

‘Why don’t you leave the girls and I to clean up and you head out with the others. You are likely to see more out there than you will in here with us and I don’t think that we have another lot that we have sold going while you are here.’

Trudy paused before she continued, unable to read Aurora’s face or body language.

‘If you are interested that is...’

Aurora was grateful for her thoughtfulness and threw her a large smile.

‘If you don’t mind that would be great. I listened to what the others had to say over breakfast and I am more than a bit curious.’

‘No, course I don’t mind. Wouldn’t have suggested it if I did. You go out with them. We will clean up and then the girls have some school work to catch up on that they didn’t get to yesterday.’

Trudy took the plates out of Aurora’s hand and made shooing motions with her free hand.

‘Go on. Off you go.’

Aurora started to chuckle.

‘If I start moving now I should arrive out there sometime before midday.’

Aurora’s muscles had seized a little whilst she had been sitting. Trudy laughed at her joke and moved to the table to stack a few more plates on the pile.

‘We’ve all had to suffer through it. You should be right as rain tomorrow.’

The look that Trudy threw Aurora’s way though was more doubtful and didn’t fill her with confidence. She grabbed her hat, gave Trudy her very best ‘what are you not telling me look’ and made her way slowly out to the yards.

Callan spotted her first and came over, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Hi there Hop-a-long.’

Aurora didn’t take offence at his joke, knowing that she was going to be the brunt of many more during the course of the day. She smiled in reply and mockingly rolled her eyes at Callan, causing him to chuckle.

‘Guess I’m not the first today then.’

Aurora pursed her lips in mock annoyance.

‘Nope.’

Callan was always quick with a laugh and this situation was no different.

‘Hate to break it to you but I don’t think I will be the last, either.’

Aurora lifted one eyebrow with that remark and chuckled herself before replying.

‘Of that I am certain.’

Callan shrugged.

‘We’ve all been there and we’ve all copped the same ribbing.’

Aurora had the feeling that she was going to hear that quite a bit throughout the course of the day.

‘So I’ve heard.’

Cal flashed her a smile full of understanding, his eyes crinkling in the corners with amusement.

‘What can I say? We’ve all had our turn.’

He, at least, was enjoying her discomfort. Aurora couldn’t share the sentiment though.

‘I’m sure I will find it a whole stack funnier in the morning.’

Callan chuckled.

‘You’ll be heaps better by this afternoon. You will feel it though if you stop moving for a while.’

Aurora rolled her eyes this time.

‘Great. How ironic is that. It hurts to move, but you tell me that it is going to hurt more if I stop. There’s logic in there somewhere.’

Cal very much had a look on his face that told her that he was right, but he didn’t push the point. Instead he changed the subject.

‘We’re going to put the cattle that we brought in yesterday through the yards. Some are staying and some are being collected this afternoon to go to the abattoir. Do you want to sit on the rails and watch or do you want to get stuck into it?’

Aurora answered without hesitation.

‘I’d love to help. Just don’t ask me to run anywhere or we could have a problem.’

Callan laughed heartily at her reply.

‘No worries. We’re a pair of hands down today with Theresa gone, so any help you can give would be appreciated. How about we put you on the gates for the run for the crush. You can let them in one end a few at a time and at the other end you can let one through and close the crush gates to immobilise its head. There is an automatic reader for the NLIS tags, and scales under their feet which will automatically record their weight. The number for each beast and its current weight will be sent to the database on the laptop that we now have hooked up to the NLIS reader and scales. The cattle industry has well and truly come into the new century with this technology. It was labour intensive before without it. Think you can handle it?’

Aurora certainly hoped so as he had just made it sound so simple. She nodded. He acknowledged her assent with a nod of his own.

‘I won’t be far away from you anyway, so if you have any problems just yell out.’

He handed her a branch that looked like it had not long been torn from the trees along the edge of the yards.

‘You may need this. If any of them won’t move forward whack them on the rump with this. The movement, noise and slight impact should do the trick. I only use the jigger if I have to.’

With that he swung himself through the rails and went over to the yard to where Rick, Matt, Mike, Keith and Gerry were standing. She could see Heather and Con on horseback in the biggest of the yards. The horses jogged her memory and she realised that she had forgotten to ask about Theresa. Never mind, no doubt she would find out soon enough.

She had been standing in one place for a few minutes, branch in hand, starting to feel very uncomfortably like a child who wants to play grown up and feeling very much out of place. She noticed the group of men break up and then Callan was through the rails and back over. She had one eye on him and one on Heather and Con who had started moving the cattle about. Cal showed her how the gates slid at both ends and warned her to be careful of getting too close to the sides as the cattle could, and would, kick through them.