Brumby Mountain (16 page)

‘Yeah, I know.'

Rambo lifted his head and the foal started anxiously rubbing up against his mother again.

Luke rode out of the trees with Kitty and Steve alongside. Something about the way they sat in their saddles told Jess they'd been triumphant.

‘Barker's got the truck driver and his sidekick in handcuffs,' Luke said as he pulled Legsy to a stop. ‘The riders got away, though. They rode like maniacs.'

‘You did the right thing pulling up. Not worth wrecking your good horse,' said Mrs Arnold. ‘They'll keep.'

They gathered by Mrs Arnold's car as Barker's white fourbie rolled up the hillside and onto the grassy flat. As it went past, Jess could see the two men in the back, with their hands cuffed. They weren't the runners they had met the day before.

‘What, is there some sort of national brumby-running convention on up here or something?' Mrs Arnold stared in through the car window. ‘How many of you grubs are there?'

The men snarled and said nothing.

Barker winked and kept driving. Mrs Arnold began slowly clapping as they drove off. Grace joined her and together they cheered and waved to the brumby-runners as they were escorted off the mountain.

‘I hope that's the last we see of them,' said Luke.

‘Scum,' muttered Jess, as they disappeared from sight.

20

LUKE RODE OVER TO
Jess and leaned down. ‘Ride home with me?'

‘Sure,' said Jess, picking up Dodger's reins. She grinned. This was an exceptionally beautiful place for a ride.

‘I want to come too,' said Grace. ‘Give us a leg up, will you?'

‘Dodger might be a bit tired,' said Jess, giving her a meaningful look.

‘Oh.' Grace rolled her eyes and reached for the car door. ‘See you back at the pub then, I s'pose.'

‘We'll come down through Matty's Creek,' said Luke. ‘Be back before dark.'

‘Be careful,' said Mrs Arnold. ‘Those other riders are still out here somewhere.'

‘They'll be long gone,' said Luke. ‘They headed in the other direction, back through the state forest.'

Mrs Arnold pulled a rolled-up oilskin from the car. ‘Take my Driza-Bone. You might need it.'

Jess followed Luke back over the crest of the mountain, where the wind howled remorselessly. She pressed the studs of the Driza-Bone together, fastening it around her, and enjoyed the way the wind made the skin on her face burn. She looked out over the endless waves of gorges and ridge-tops, and felt her chest fill with something wonderful.

Dark clouds rolled over the mountains and the cold began to seep through the oilskin. ‘It's going to snow again,' she said, excitedly.

‘Or bucket with rain,' said Luke. He pushed Legsy into a trot.

As they rode into the open woodlands, the wind shook the raindrops from the leathery leaves and ribbon bark flapped around enormous white tree trunks. Branches creaked and splintered above them. Moss hung from the trees like old grey beards.

They went deeper into gorges where creeks cut invisible channels beneath carpets of ferns and tangled sticks. It was slow going, and all the while the wind followed them, like whispering voices carrying ancient secrets.

In front of them a wombat trundled along a narrow trail, then disappeared into its burrow. Further ahead, kangaroos grazed in pockets of wetlands and bush birds twittered in the flowering heath.

They pushed through tangled vine thickets and made their way deeper into the gully. She-oaks swished above the beaches of gravel beside the creek bed and Jess heard the soft
clik-clik
of cockatoos breaking the cones, husking the seeds and letting the caffs fall to the ground beneath them.

‘Look, there's an old track,' said Luke. There was a narrow parting in the trees, and grass grew knee-high between them.

‘It goes the wrong way,' said Jess.

‘Let's follow it anyway.'

Fat drops of rain splatted onto Jess's oilskin. ‘I think we should just get to Matty's Creek.'

‘Come on, let's just have a quick look.' Luke pushed Legsy into a slow canter and Jess reluctantly let Dodger follow.

The track became wider but the grass was still thick as they cantered along it. A little further on, the track stopped at a wide, grassy flat. At the edge of the flat was a small hut. It was made from stone and slabs of wood and old scraps of corrugated iron. It was little more than a box with a chimney.

‘Oh, wow!' said Luke, dismounting and tying Legsy to a tree. Jess tethered Dodger and followed Luke into the hut.

It was tiny inside, barely big enough for a rolled-out swag, and there wasn't even a window, but it was dry, and the rain was starting to pelt down. Jess pulled off the Driza-Bone and tossed it in a wet pile on the floor. The stone fireplace had a steel rod through it and an old pot hung in the hearth. Next to it was a bundle of dry wood.

‘Let's make billy tea!' said Luke, like an excited kid. He began fiddling with the pot, opening the lid and peering inside. ‘I'll ride back to the river and get some water!'

‘We don't have any teabags.'

Luke snorted. ‘We can use gum leaves!'

Jess grimaced. ‘I'm not drinking that.' Then she noticed a collection of small rusty tins sitting on one of the horizontal beams. Most were empty, but one had some fossilised brown stuff caked in the bottom of it. ‘Reckon it's coffee?' she asked, handing it to Luke.

He sniffed it. ‘Might be.'

Jess picked up another tin. It was enamelled blue, and through the flakes of rust she could just make out a picture of a bird on it. She twisted the top off. Inside was a crackly paper package. ‘Tealeaves!' She carefully pulled the package out, prised it open and pressed the crunchy small leaves between her fingers. ‘Or something illegal . . .'

Luke peered inside it. ‘It's tea, you ninny.'

‘No cups.'

‘We'll use the empty tins.' Luke took the pot and headed back out into the rain. He straddled Legsy and cantered out of sight.

Jess sat in the doorway of the hut with her feet on the step. The eave was just wide enough to keep the rain off her. She hugged herself, thinking how good a hot drink would be, and looked across the grassy flat.

A small dark head popped up above the grass. And another. Wallabies with beautiful chocolate-brown faces nibbled at the grasses, the rain rolling off their thick fur. The sight of them made Jess relax. Wallabies were always the first to flee if there was danger. The brumby-runners must be long gone.

As though testing her theory, the wallabies suddenly lifted their heads and pricked their ears. Jess peered out along the track and saw Luke approaching on Legsy, the reins in one hand, the pot in the other.

Luke got a fire roaring within minutes, feeding it with big, seasoned logs until the heat of it nearly forced Jess out the door again. He scraped the hot coals into a mound and sat the billy on top. In barely a minute it was bubbling. Luke wrapped his shirt around the handle and poured the boiling water over the tealeaves.

They sat side by side in the doorway, looking out over the grassy flat, sipping on the hot tea.

‘This tastes really bad,' said Jess.

Luke picked up the package and read the small print on the back of it. ‘It's probably more than fifty years old.' He laughed. ‘And it has mouse droppings in it.'

Jess spat hers out but she couldn't help laughing. When she looked up, the breath was knocked from her lungs. ‘Look!' she breathed.

A horse, red like ochre, walked onto the grassy flat in the pouring rain. With his scarred, knobbly legs and grey chin, he looked as old and weathered as the granite tors that rose all around him. He let out a long whinny, then walked in circles with his nose high, neighing and calling. Then he stood, silent, with his rump to the wind, and waited.

‘Over there,' Luke whispered.

From between two boulders a small coloured mare, with rope burns on her neck and patches of hair missing from her tail, walked slowly, painfully, onto the flat. A foal walked quietly beside her.

The rain beat down on the roof of the hut so hard that it blurred all other sound, but Jess imagined the soft nickering and gentle snorts as the two old horses reunited, ran their noses reassuringly over each other's necks and flanks and pressed their bodies together.

With the small foal gambolling alongside, they walked to the trees and disappeared back into the forest.

Jess ran the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘That was so beautiful.'

Luke looked at her with shining eyes. ‘That was the horse Mum told me about, Stormy-girl. I'm sure of it.'

21

THE RUNNERS WERE TAKEN
to Armidale police station, but Jess, Luke, Grace and Mrs Arnold gave their statements in the pool room at the pub, just as Barker had said. Jess dismissed her ride to the secret valley with Rambo as a dream, a brief period of unconsciousness, as it might well have been.

The place, so exquisitely special, must be kept secret.

Barker rang Jess's parents and the phone was passed around to nearly everyone in the pub before Caroline was swayed from the idea of driving down to retrieve her daughter. Jess could stay one more night, under lock and key with Mrs Arnold, and under the secondary supervision of the local cop.

By late that night they had all made statements and they settled in for a hot meal. Jess tucked in to her roast dinner feeling she could eat half a cow. Beef and roast veg swimming in gravy had never tasted so good.

It turned into an all-night bragging session. Grace launched into a livewire account of galloping over cliff–tops, her stories not unlike an iconic Australian poem, until she noticed Jess's deep frown.

‘I told you to be careful with Dodger,' Jess said.

‘Well, I was,' said Grace, toning it down. ‘I was in perfect control the whole time! Where did you get to, anyway?'

Jess didn't have to answer as Barker and Luke started talking about the dogs.

‘Should have called that black dog of yours Satan,' said Barker. ‘Make a good guard dog.'

‘Yes, well, he is a Mount Isa Runner,' said Grace.

Luke coughed uncomfortably. ‘Err, actually, he's a Mount Isa Shepherd.'

‘Thought he was a Mount Isa
Sniffer
,' said Barker, looking up from his lasagne.

‘All of the above,' said Luke airily. ‘Different states call 'em by different names. The breed is only just getting established so there's been some confusion over what to call them. Mostly because they're such a versatile breed, they can do it all, really.'

‘Right,' said Barker, sounding very sceptical.

Jess told them about Stormy-girl reuniting with her stallion down on the grassy flat and Grace whined with disappointment at not having been there.

‘It'll be hard to prosecute those blokes,' Barker commented when talk returned to the runners.

‘Why?' asked Jess. ‘It's totally illegal to chase or harass wild horses.'

‘Only in national parks. Technically, they were on private land,' said Barker. ‘In the eyes of the law, brumbies are pests, like feral pigs or feral goats.'

‘But they're not hurting anyone!' said Jess.

‘They run over the boundaries into the national parks. There are no fences up there to keep them out. The parks have every right to be concerned about them. They spend a lot of money and resources trying to control brumby numbers. It makes it a lot harder for them when more keep arriving from neighbouring land.'

‘So, who
does
own all that land up there?' Jess asked.

‘According to the records, the Mathews family,' said Barker. ‘They were the original settlers of this area. But when the cattle leases ran out, their station wasn't big enough to be viable. There's still an old hut up there but no one looks after it.' He shrugged. ‘The land is about to be seized by the state, and the sooner the better if you ask me. It's become a lawless frontier. Someone needs to manage it properly.'

‘But if we could find a descendant, an owner, the brumbies could stay?'

Barker looked at her with a sympathetic face. ‘Even if you did find the owner, what are the chances that they'd want to deal with a load of feral horses? They might want to get rid of them too.'

Jess slept restlessly in the bunkhouse that night. When her back could no longer handle the sagging bed, she dragged the mattress onto the floor and lay quietly with her thoughts. The secret place Luke's mother had spoken about – was it the place that Rambo had taken her to?

Matheson. The name was so similar to Mathews. Could it be possible that they were related? But surely the whole town would know if Luke's family traced back to the original settlers. Was the name Matty's Creek a tribute to Luke's mother, or just a shortened version of Mathews' Creek, like the Matty's Flat Hotel? All these M names – it got to be confusing. These thoughts kept her awake until the morning sunlight began peeking through the slit in the bunkhouse curtains. Jess slipped into her clothes and slunk out the door.