Brumby Mountain (14 page)

‘Lucky we brought it back, then,' said Grace.

‘Huh?'

Jess and Grace filled him in on their journey with Min Min. The runners finally emerged, staggering through the doors of the pub. Mrs Arnold was visible through the window, slumped over the bar table.

They sat, grinning, as they watched the runners stagger to their truck and look, puzzled, into the back of the crate as they registered that the horse was gone.

The runners scratched their heads at the dogs locked in the back, then finally got into the truck. They pulled out onto the road without switching their headlights on. Within seconds, Barker's police car lit up in a pretty show of blue and red flashing lights as he pulled them over. Jess, Grace and Luke watched gleefully as the men were put in the back of the wagon with their dogs and driven away.

‘This is better than watching the footy,' laughed Grace. She jumped down out of the tree.

Luke slipped down after her and held his arms up for Jess. She fell into them and couldn't help stealing a kiss on the way down.

‘Brumbies one, runners nil!' said Grace, skipping happily back towards the pub.

16

JESS WOKE
the next morning to the sound of Mrs Arnold snoring. Sunlight bled through the tiny slit in the curtains, and she could hear staff bustling around the kitchen as they prepared pub lunches.

‘What time is it?' Jess rolled over and looked at her watch.
‘Eleven o'clock!'
She sat up and the bed swung beneath her like a hammock. ‘We'll have to leave soon. Mum and Dad are expecting me home tonight!'

Luke was back at his property, and Mrs Arnold . . . Jess immediately began doing sums in her head. If she could get Mrs Arnold conscious within an hour, the seven-hour drive might get her home before dark . . . if she really pushed it. ‘Hell!'

Jess glanced across the room at a lump of purple chenille with a maroon beanie and messy black curls at one end, steel-capped boots hanging out the other. The bedspread rose and fell with each snore.

‘I've got no hope,' said Jess.

She caught her image in the mirror over the small dresser. Her chin was red with stubble rash. She felt Luke's lips over hers again, closed her eyes and melted into the memory of her back pressing against the flooded gum, his breath on her skin. She couldn't remember ever finding it so hard to tear herself away from a cold, wet paddock in the middle of the night. But the rain had come down more heavily and soon they had been forced inside.

Luke had laughed at her chattering teeth and led her to the warmth of the pub fire. Kitty had locked up the bar and left them there, declaring them family and telling them to leave via the kitchen door when they felt like it.

‘Family,' Kitty had called Luke. ‘A local.' And although her heart warmed to see him so embraced by a community of people, Jess also felt a nagging fear, which she tried to ignore. Coachwood Crossing had been his home, but now he had an entire community in another state, hours away.

From the purple chenille came a low moan.
‘Carrrnnn the mighty maroons . . . '

‘Oh God, you're still drunk,' said Grace, appearing in the doorway.

‘Wasn't my fault,' murmured Mrs Arnold. ‘It was for a noble cause. Oh Lordy, my head.' An arm flopped down the side of the saggy bed, then there was no further movement. She began snoring again.

‘Very noble,' said Grace, looking down her nose at her mother.

‘I told my parents I'd be back for dinner,' said Jess, hurriedly stuffing her things into her bag. She had to get home. Any more misadventures would jeopardise the entire brumby arrangement with her parents.

As she spoke, Luke appeared in the doorway, breathless. ‘There are more brumby-runners up in the hills, heaps of them. I just overheard in the dunnies. There's a big run on today.'

Jess's heart missed a beat. ‘What?'

‘We've got to stop them,' Luke panted.

‘How?' said Jess, reaching for her jeans and pulling them on over her boxers. ‘I have to be back in Coachwood Crossing by the end of the day.'

Luke glanced around the room. His gaze settled on Mrs Arnold. ‘Ask Mrs Arnold. Wake her up.'

‘
You
wake her up,' said Grace.

Luke went momentarily silent. ‘She wouldn't be able to drive you home anyway, the state she's in.'

‘I thought
you
were going to drive me home,' said Jess.

He groaned. ‘Won't your parents give you one more day?'

‘No way, school tomorrow. Luke, I promised them.
You
promised them.'

‘There are people running brumbies up on the mountain right now. What do you want to do? It's your call.' He looked anxious, one foot out the door. She could see him silently praying for the answer he wanted.

Jess grabbed her jacket. ‘Okay. Let's go. We'll sort the rest out later.'

Luke instantly vanished from the doorway. Grace scrawled a note for her comatose mother as Jess ran after him.

Jess dived into the back of the ute, grabbed the roll bar and felt the car lurch into gear. Grace tumbled in beside her. Luke sent the car fishtailing over the gravelly road and they hurtled towards Matty's Creek.

17

GRACE AND JESS
leapt from the back of the ute, bridles in hand, before it even came to a stop. They had the horses' rugs unbuckled in seconds. Luke jumped the fence, carrying the saddles.

‘Double with me,' Jess said to Grace, pulling Dodger's girth tight and slapping the fender down. She hoisted herself into the saddle and Grace vaulted on behind. Jess kicked Dodger through the opened gate and Luke cantered on Legsy behind them.

They splashed through the river and opened the horses into a full gallop across the hillside, wads of mud flying up from the thundering hooves.

‘Which way do we go?' yelled Grace as they neared the top of the hill.

‘I don't know,' called Luke. ‘Let's start at the same spot as yesterday, go from there.'

Jess guided Dodger up the steep, narrow trail and he bounded over the ruts and rocks, puffing heavily. ‘Good boy, Dodge,' she encouraged, clicking him up.

At the top of the hill, she let him walk.

‘I can hear them,' said Luke, pulling a jig-jogging Legsy up beside her. ‘Listen, the brumbies are going nuts.'

Dodger pranced nervously and flicked his ears. Jess picked up the faint drumming sound too. She ran a soothing hand over her horse's neck. ‘How can we stop them?'

There was a sudden ear-piercing scream and a pounding of hooves.

‘A stallion!' yelled Grace. ‘Really close!' She twisted to look behind her. ‘It's Rambo!' she said joyously.

The big black horse came charging through a wall of bushes, whinnying and tossing his head. He pranced on the spot and for a moment Jess could see wildness raging inside him. She saw a glimpse of what he had been in his youth, an animal with a proud crest and high-stepping knees. His tail swished angrily back and forth, and with a shake of his mane he was off, cantering in another direction, disappearing into a field of granite boulders.

They guided the horses carefully down into a gully littered with rotting logs, travelling as quickly as safety would allow. Dodger pulled at the reins and Jess had trouble holding him steady.

Rambo's shape flickered through the bush, disappearing behind massive granite boulders and then reappearing across the gully. He backtracked every now and then, sighted them, and then charged off again.

‘We can't lose him,' said Luke, overtaking Jess and pushing Legsy into a canter. But Jess held Dodger at a jog.

Around them, the sound of drumming hooves grew louder and echoed off the rocks and through the canyons and valleys, shaking the branches of the beech trees and sending their leaves spiralling to the trails below. Jess heard a whip crack.

‘We should stop,' said Grace in a frightened voice. ‘He's leading us into the chase. It's too dangerous.'

Jess was about to agree when she heard a heartbreaking sound. A foal screaming.

Ahead, Luke yelled
‘Jessy!'
The anguish in his tone made her push on even faster. Dodger scrambled to a ridge-top and the sight before Jess nearly tore her to pieces. ‘Min Min!'

Slung between two trees, like a huge spider web, was a net. Snared in that net, like helpless prey, was a distraught creamy foal. Beside it, Rambo pawed at the ground and shook his head. ‘Min Min!' Jess yelled.

‘There are more,' said Luke, pointing to two other nets strung nearby. ‘They're gonna run the whole mob through here!'

‘What can we do?' she said desperately.

Luke threw her a pocket knife. ‘You cut her out. I'll head off the chase.'

Jess slipped off Dodger. ‘You go too,' she said breathlessly to Grace. ‘We can't let them through here.' But she paused before letting go of the reins. ‘Take care of my boy.'

Grace nodded solemnly before leapfrogging into the saddle and reining Dodger away at a steady lope.

Jess set to work on the net, the sound of the chase all around her. Rambo ran his soft muzzle over the neck of the distressed foal, nickering gently. Min Min lay motionless, but her eyes rolled and her cries still came, each one tearing at Jess's heart and filling her with urgency. She worked quietly and quickly, sawing at the nylon strings tangled around the foal's entire body. Her struggling had only entangled her further. Jess hacked and sawed, pulled and stretched, until finally she tugged the last shred of net away from the filly's back legs.

For a split second, Jess, Min Min and Rambo were collectively motionless. Then Rambo turned and trotted away. The filly leapt to her feet and scooted after him with her tail jammed hard between her legs.

Another whip crack spurred Jess to the next net, tied high between the trunks of two trees. She could cut just one side, she thought quickly, cut it from the top and peel it back, clear the way for the brumbies. With the knife in her teeth, she took hold of the net and pushed her boots into the lower holes, pulling herself up.

From the top, as she cut through the holding rope, she spied the runners, their fleeting shapes moving through the bush. Horses flashed in and out of sight. Then they disappeared into the forest, calling to each other with the excitement and adrenaline of the chase.

The galloping brumbies sent a current of terror ringing through the mountain. They pounded through the grey gums and stringybarks, getting closer. The hooves of the chasing horses clattered over rocks.

Jess sawed desperately at the ropes. She had to hurry. She heard Luke's voice, yelling. As she looked up, she felt the last shred of rope give. Then everything went blurry around her, her vision replaced by shock and disorientation, a falling sensation. A fraction of a second later she felt the impact of her shoulder crashing against stone, and her head thudding onto the ground.

Around her the forest floor still rumbled with the rolling hoofbeats of the brumbies. They faded as she drifted away, into unconsciousness.

18

JESS WOKE
to a broad, cushiony muzzle pushing into the small of her back. There was a quiet rumble, and then she felt the hard bone of horse's nose nudging her.

She opened her eyes and groaned at the nauseating dullness that filled her head. As her vision sharpened she saw a heavily feathered hoof scraping at the ground in front of her. Above her, Rambo looked impatient.

She closed her eyes again and winced as she tried to move her arm. It worked, she realised with relief, but it hurt.

Rambo turned and walked away.

‘Wait,' she croaked, trying to pull herself up.

The big horse clomped away, his rump swinging from side to side.

Jess stood, nursing her arm. All around, the forest looked the same. She was in some kind of deep gully, with shrubs so thick she couldn't see beyond a couple of metres. The sky was overcast and she couldn't tell east from west, north from south.

‘Don't leave me,' she called to Rambo, but his pace only quickened.

'Rambo, wait!'

When she caught up with him he stopped and bent his neck around in an arc, placing his head low. She stood to the side of him, put both arms over his neck and let him toss her up. His round back was as broad as a couch under her aching legs. Relieved, she curled her fingers around his mane. Rambo wheeled away at a trot. She didn't know where he was taking her, but he seemed to be in a hurry.

Rambo's shoulders dropped suddenly and Jess grabbed at his mane as he plunged into a steeply carved creek bed. Rocks clacked against each other as the big horse found his footing. Jess pushed away the spiky wattle leaves and leaned along his neck, pressing her face into his mane and moving her arms forward to feel the steady thrust of his shoulders.

Beyond the creek, there was movement in the bush. Rambo's chest rumbled quietly. Soon they were joined by a small brown mare and a matching foal. Other mares, some pregnant, some with young ones, dropped down into the creek bed, pushing a break along the hidden route. No foal cried and no mare whinnied. Barely a branch or twig snapped or a stone turned beneath their hooves. There was just a soft swishing of moving branches, and the steady billowing of the brumbies breathing.