Race Girl (5 page)

Her father shook his head, then cast his eyes down towards the dirt, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief from his back pocket.

‘Maybe head up to the house, Tull,' Bucko said from behind them. ‘It's been a big few days.'

Tully gritted her teeth, but she couldn't contain the anger and the pain erupting inside her. ‘It's because of
them
, isn't it, Bucko?' she cried, pointing towards the farm across the valley. ‘They've done this to us, haven't they?'

Bucko's jaw hardened and he turned away, patting her father on the back and walking him back to the stable.

‘Gah—
far
out!' Tully said, turning for the house. Steam could have been rising from her shoulders, she was raging so hard inside.
Why does life have to play so unfair?
she thought, facing the mountains and raising her eyes to the far-reaching blue sky.
Why do the
goddamn
Westons have to be our neighbours and have it in for us? We're trying the best we can!

Why
did Mum have to be stolen from us?!
Why
can't Dad seem to face anything?
Why
does Pearce Weston have to be so mean and – worst of all -
why
does the only guy I've
ever
been interested in have to be the only boy that's off limits?!

GAHHHHH!!!!

Bucko left her father in the office with Grace, before crossing back across the yard. ‘What can I
do
, Bucko?' Tully asked, tears of desperation prickling at her eyes, feeling as if the ground shifting beneath her feet.

Bucko steadied her by the arm. ‘You're already doing too much for someone your age, Tull,' he said. ‘But, uh. . . nah, don't worry about it.'

‘What?' Tully said. ‘Let me help,
please!'

Bucko sighed, pulled his cap down low on his head. ‘Mr. Geortzen keeps ringing up,' he said, leaning in close. ‘Apparently, the cows are still getting out, and eating his garden and terrorising his bloody llamas—'

‘So the back fence could use a check—'
perfect distraction—
‘Done.' Tully forced a quick smile, before turning for the paddocks. ‘Thank you, Bucko.'

She yelled goodbye to her father and Grace, then checked the time on her phone, realising she'd be cutting it fine to make the bus. She jogged over to Greg and Frangi's paddock to say goodbye for the day and remind them to behave themselves. The intense heat and the flies had been driving them a bit mental recently and she'd noticed them playing a lot in their water trough, even finding sticks to fight over like yearlings. After a quick cuddle and a quiet word, Tully hurried up to the house to get ready for school. She took the steps of the front verandah two at a time and let the screen door bang shut, her mind already freewheeling towards tomorrow morning's activity, roosting up the mountain on her dirt bike.

4

Roost

Tully breathed the dawn in like heaven. It rose crisp and clean over the mountains, stretching out into the vast blue sky. Soft hues of dusty pink and apricot creeping over the tree line, dancing with the streaky white clouds. She paused to listen to the deafening buzz of cicadas, shaking the thirsty, brittle eucalypts in the grey morning's light.

The morning feed started well before sunrise. Tully finished helping out, then stopped to drop some apple pieces into Greg and Frangipani's buckets and spread some grain out for the chooks and rooster, who were pecking around the stables as usual hoping for their morning meal. She gave her horses a pat, kisses on their noses and a scratch behind their ears, then ducked into Greg's stall to check his legs, worried that their sneaky ride earlier in the week might have strained him. Thankfully he seemed okay, with just the few old lumps and scars from his short-lived career on the track – no new heat or swelling. The battle-scarred bay was thrilled to see her as always, nuzzling her gently, gazing at her lovingly with his smart, handsome brown eyes, tossing his chiselled head impatiently.

‘You want to go out again, do ya, mate?' Tully chuckled, ruffling his forelock before smoothing it out again. ‘Maybe soon,' she whispered, then reached up to kiss him on his small white star, grinning when he kissed her back with a sloppy lick to the cheek. She wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick final cuddle – Tully didn't want her dad or Bucko spotting her in Greg's stall and getting suspicious. Still, she stayed to listen to the horses eating. That rhythmic sound of their teeth grinding oats brought Tully so much comfort, a feeling that everything was going to be all right.

She checked their feed buckets to make sure they'd finished their chaff and special supplements – which never really was a problem for either of these two, as they ate like piggies. She slipped Frangi's halter on first, the cheeky little boy nipping at her back pocket, then grinning up at her from under his big fluffy grey forelock. Greg was next, then she led the boys down the row of rotting and drooping turnout paddocks and put them out for the day in one of the better ones, at some distance from Rosie, who was on heat. Greg squealed and bucked, tearing off for a trot and a roll. Frangi strutted on his stumpy legs along the fence, lifting his head high to get his nose over the top rail and whinnying to Rosie, who flicked her tail and didn't raise her head from nuzzling around in the dirt.

Tully checked the horses' water suppliers were working, then took the halters and lead ropes back to the stables and hung them up outside the feed room, rounding out her morning chores by heading back to the stalls to pick the few droppings of manure out of the shavings, loading them into a wheelbarrow. Once she'd finished mucking out her own horses' stalls and any of the ones Grace had run out of time to do, Tully wheeled the now-full barrow down to the cut off barrels at the end of the stable that would be loaded onto the ute and spread out in the back paddock. She paused at Diva and Gally's empty stalls before finishing up, quietly cursing the Westons for stealing them away.

Tully brushed the shavings and dirt off her arms as she loped across to the machinery shed, calling Bear over to his 44 gallon drum, where he had a long drink from his water bowl before laying down obediently, all the while watching her with his glistening eyes. ‘Atta boy,' Tully said, smiling back at him as she headed into the shed to dig out her motorbike helmet and fire up the TTR-125. She checked that the tank was full of fuel, pulled the choke out. The sturdy little bike started on the button and she threaded her helmet strap through the loops, pulling it tight. Her usual Blundstone boots were fine for riding and she'd brought her track riding goggles to protect her eyes and her gloves to cover the cut on her palm, which twinged with pain beneath its Band-Aid.

She stomped on the gear lever to put the bike into first gear, released the clutch slowly and gave it a bit of throttle to get going up the hill, the bike effortlessly revving high enough to shift up into second.

Tully beamed in her helmet, her heart speeding with adrenaline and a sense of freedom as she rode up the internal road, past the turnout paddocks and the stables, then the mare and foal paddock that her grandfather and mother had used for their breeding program. It was empty now and growing weeds after Gerald had shut their program down when they lost their best mare to colic, just after they'd lost her mum.

Tully clicked up into third, past the paddocks used for their few retired racehorses, who trotted over to say hello. The land was so dry it was past being brown, bled down to the grey shade of the earth, dotted with rust-coloured burnt patches where the sun had scorched the remains of the dead grass. Even the lantana was dying from lack of moisture. Their few remaining head of cattle were having to go further up into the bush to find food. Soon they'd have to get a round bale in to feed them or start selling off, which in the cattle's current condition would almost certainly cost Avalon money.
Tully had heard stories of farmers from even drier parts of the state shooting their stock, before turning their guns on themselves. The thought made her shiver, thinking of her own father . . .
surely it's gotta rain soon!

Tully glanced down the hill to the far corner of their property, where in previous wet seasons a creek had run from the mountains, through the valley, over a causeway and into the Westons' land. She remembered skipping rocks across the creek as a child when her mother had taken her down there with the horses. She hadn't seen it running since the devastating floods fours years before, but she still hoped like hell this summer would bring some decent rain.

At the gate for the back paddock, Tully's arms shook with the effort of unhooking the loop of barbed wire. She pushed her bike through, then strained again to do the tight gate back up behind her. A few Hereford heifers got up from lying on their bony sides, spooked and ran off back down towards the homestead. A big grey kangaroo stood just inside the tree line, watching her. Tully watched him back for a few moments, before starting up the Yamaha – a sound he turned an ear towards, but which didn't cause him to bound away.

Up across the last of the cleared land, past their top dam and a square patch fenced off from the animals lay the Athens family graveyard, where headstones for Tully's mother, grandfather, grandmother and great-great grandmother stood, sunken into the land.

Tully stopped the bike, resting it on its side-stand near the gate to the graveyard, before climbing in through the bottom gap in the wire. She pulled the frangipanis she'd picked earlier from her back pocket and laid them on each of the graves, stopping to study the inscription on her mother's headstone. Tully was relieved to see that the sun hadn't weathered it beyond recognition, as it had to many of the others:

Dahlia Anne Athens, a splendid horsewoman, an exceptional jockey. Loving wife and mother. Taken too young, forever with the angels . . . watching over her loved ones.

Tully dropped a kiss on her mother's grave, ran a hand over the cold black stone. ‘Wish you were coming riding with me, Mum,' she whispered, her heart stinging with the familiar ache of loneliness.

She made sure to check the wire around the graveyard before heading back to her bike, firing it up and roosting off into the deep bush of the surrounding mountain range.

Along the track now, and Tully was engulfed in green. She breathed in the mind-clearing scent from the eucalypts, enjoying the sound of whip birds echoing like an orchestra through the bush. Let her eyes drift up to the rays of light breaking in through the canopy of leaves. She smiled at the towering, resilient gums, budding with new fluorescent leaves despite the lack of nourishment. Shifted up into fourth gear, roosting along the four-wheel-drive track, her eyes darting from the track in front of her to the barbed wire fence running up the steepest country above and to her right.

Tully twisted the throttle hard coming out of a tight corner, spraying rocks out behind the sturdy four-stroke bike. She grinned, for a moment insanely happy, really getting into the rhythm of riding, and taking off up the hill to where their fence-line and boundary drifted parallel to the track to run the length of the top ridge.

She shrieked when she came up fast on a fat python, long enough to stretch all the way across the trail. Swerved left, lifting her feet up off the pegs like she was in the jockeying position. The snake raised its head, just as she snuck between it and the sheer cliff on the outside edge of the trail. Tully grinned at the racing of her heart – the adrenaline, the excitement, twisting the throttle harder up the next rise. The heat of the impending summer didn't exist when she was racing along on the bike, the wind whipping at her skin, making her feel alive, just like riding Greg.
It's been too long since I was up here . . .

Tully was about to hang right to follow their fence-line to the end of the top ridge, when she heard another bike approaching fast from the opposite side of the mountain.
Who…?
She pulled off the track at the first opportunity, veering along a little-used forest road, ducking her head to avoid the sharp branches of lantana growing across the trail. She rode straight at the bright light at the end of the road – her heart thumping after what had been such a euphoric ride.
It'd be just my luck to run into cranky old Mr. Geortzen!
she thought, turning the throttle harder. He was one of the local ‘eccentrics' who despised the horse racing industry, smelled like BO and loved to rant about his ‘superior' animals, the llamas, which, according to him, Tully's family were ‘crazy' for not getting into.