Bilgarra Springs (11 page)

She could now better understand Gran’s comments about being incredibly sore but nonetheless wanting to do it all over again. She momentarily thought about pulling the journal out to read a bit more but she couldn’t gather the strength to get out of bed to get it. She really was tired and she had that little child excitement about riding again in the morning. The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner the morning would come. When she and Fiona had been letting the horses out three days ago she hadn’t wanted anything to do with them. Now she was itching to get back on tomorrow. Just as she drifted off, she couldn’t help but wonder what other new experiences this place had in store for her.

eight

M
ustering

Aurora and Callan had taken the horses out the morning before. He had insisted that she do a bit of work in the yards first, to get back into the swing of things, before they ventured out into the open. Aurora’s leg muscles had been incredibly tight and sore when she woke. She had visibly flinched when she had lowered her backside into the saddle. Callan had noticed and had told her the more she did it the less it would hurt. That had been cold comfort at the time.

They had gone out from the yards to the river, which wasn’t too far away and followed the river along for an hour or so. After the first time that she’d lost her hat, she‘d been more careful with overhanging branches. The best bit had been not falling off again. Theresa had met them on their way back. She had been out checking one of the interior fences and had taken a horse rather than the Cruiser. The three of them had wandered along until they reached the house. Theresa had requested Callan’s help with one of the heifers in the house paddock, and after leading Aurora to the wash down bays and explaining what had to be done, the two of them had taken off.

Today, everybody except Arthur and Fiona were going out mustering. Arthur maintained that the two of them were ‘too bloody old to be gallivanting around on horseback.’ After breakfast, the place became a hive of activity: voices shouting directions, people moving about, horses tied up all about the place and a general hum. Kate and Harriet were saddled up and sitting on their horses, waiting. Aurora was walking past and stopped to have a good look at them. She smiled broadly.

‘Don’t you pair look all grown up.’

Kate as the older and more dominant child was the one to respond. Her face a study in seriousness as only children can achieve.

‘We’ve gone mustering heaps of times. We’re Daddy’s special helpers.’

Aurora couldn’t think of much to say to that, so settled on the classic reply.

‘Well done.’

She then moved away, unsettled about the fact that the two young girls were more experienced at this than her. She hated being the baby of the group. She went around the back where she found Callan saddling Sox for her. He flashed her one of his drop-dead grins. Just as he looked up, Keith came round the side of the building, walked up to Aurora and placed his hand on her shoulder. Her first reaction was to shrug the hand off. She had a very large personal space and he had just very much stepped over the boundary. Instead, as she was going to have to be in constant contact with him for the next three weeks, in an attempt to be pleasant, even though it was the last thing she wanted, she turned around and greeted him warmly.

‘Keith.’

He flashed her that winsome smile of his that worked nearly every time, on everybody else at least.

‘Glad you’re coming out with us today Aurora. Be really good to have you along. Anything that I can do for you, or if you are worried about anything, you let me know.’

‘Thanks Keith. I think Callan has it all under control.’

Callan meanwhile hadn’t acknowledged Keith’s appearance. He’d made a good job of pretending that he was too busy to notice whilst listening to the exchange. He didn’t have a lot of respect for Keith and his treatment of women. He tended to go through them the same way your average person went through a box of tissues, discarding them one after the other. After glimpsing that latent vulnerability in Aurora the other day, he didn’t want Keith to take advantage of that and he had noticed that Keith had been hanging around Aurora a lot in the evenings. He knew it was absolutely none of his business, but all the same, he didn’t want to see her bruised and discarded. Now that Aurora had mentioned his name, he had no choice but to acknowledge the younger man’s presence. He popped his head up from the other side of Sox.

‘Hey Keith.’

Callan saw Keith falter for just a second.

‘Hi Cal.’

Keith turned his attention back to Aurora.

‘Looks like it’s all under control, so I’ll be off. Offer stands though, if throughout the day you need anything at all just holler.’

He swaggered off towards his own horse that was tied to a nearby rail and made a show of inspecting the girth and the buckles on the bridle. Aurora breathed a sigh of relief, she didn’t want to be rude to him or cause trouble at somebody else’s house, but she was uncomfortable around him and she wished like mad that he would just leave her alone. He had seemed to be hovering around her a fair bit in the afternoons and evenings. She would have to try to find a way to let him know in no uncertain terms that he was wasting his time. She followed his progress back to his horse, wondering about the best way to do that.

Callan looked up and watched her watching Keith as he walked away and hoped like mad that she wasn’t going to set herself up for heartbreak. He had just finished getting Sox ready when Theresa wandered over. She stopped beside him and threw her arm around his waist.

‘Hey Cal. Hi Aurora.’

He looped an arm around her shoulder, squeezed briefly and planted a kiss on the side of her head. Theresa flashed him one of her million dollar smiles that showed off her flawless, white teeth and then turned the same 100 watt smile on Aurora.

‘You looking forward to heading out with us today?’

Aurora couldn’t detect any nastiness or cattiness in her question. She seemed genuine. Aurora couldn’t help but wonder whether the possessive arm around Callan was for her benefit or not. Theresa had nothing to fear from Aurora and she wished that she could tell her that, without it sounding presumptuous on her part. She hated to think that she was in any way harming Theresa’s relationship with Callan. There was nothing between him and Aurora, and seriously, if she had to compare the two of them, Theresa would win hands down in every area. She was beautiful and very talented on a horse. She was pretty much everything that a man like Callan could want in a partner. In replying, she sought to allay any concerns that the other woman may have.

‘I am looking forward to it, although I’m sure that I won’t be walking very well tomorrow. I’m still sore from the last couple of days and they’ve only been short runs compared to a whole day.’

Theresa gave a small tinkling laugh, which reminded Aurora in a good way of Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell.

‘You’ll get used to it. You’d be surprised how quickly the body adapts to a new exercise program.’

She stepped a little away from Callan, pulling her arm away and gently slapping him on the thigh as she did, still full of smiles.

‘I’ll see you both out there.’

Aurora watched her retreating figure. Theresa seemed to be a genuinely lovely person and she was so damned tiny and curvy. It just plain sucked to not have one of those dainty little figures. She brought her attention back to see Callan regarding her with knowing eyes. He was used to women looking at Theresa with that wishful look on their face. Although he didn’t get their fascination with figures and looks, Theresa seemed to produce the same reaction wherever she went. Aurora flicked her eyes to the horse to avoid his gaze. He took her cue and handed the reins over to her.

‘Come out in the open, hop on and he’s all yours.’

She led Sox out under the tree and climbed into the saddle, waiting while the others finished what they were doing. As she sat there she watched Rough and Tumble. They were both tied up near the water tanks in the shade. They were straining on the ends of the chains, eager to be over with the people and to be a part of all the fuss. She felt sorry for the poor little guys, but it was probably smarter for them to be out of the road of the horses hooves, not to mention the fact that the tiny, yappy bundles would probably spook a couple of the more highly strung horses.

She heard somebody approaching on horseback and they stopped alongside her. She brought her eyes round from the puppies to find it was Keith who had come up beside her. Crap. He hadn’t had time to say anything to her when Callan and Theresa rode past. Even though his Australian Stockhorse stallion, Alpheus, had only arrived back the day before, Callan had saddled him up to ride out with for the day. He yelled out to all and sundry without looking back over his shoulder.

‘Righto everybody. Let’s go.’

As Callan spoke Theresa’s mare swung her head around to nip at Alpheus who took exception to it and angled a kick back at the mare, which fortunately didn’t connect. Both Theresa and Cal were busily trying to get the two difficult horses to co-operate and all eyes were on Alpheus who had his head down, prancing on the spot. Aurora took the opportunity to move without having to speak to Keith. Heather and Con came along behind her and she heard Keith and Con poking fun at each other.

Eventually everybody joined in and the group headed for a paddock out past where she and Callan had ridden the day before. When they came in sight of the gate, Matt broke away at a gallop. Aurora was impressed by the fact that he manoeuvred the horse in such a way that he opened the gate without having to dismount. He repeated the process to close and fasten the gate once they had all moved through and the group progressed to one of the back corners of the paddock. Callan rode over to Rick and Trudy, spoke with them for a bit and then rode over to Aurora.

‘Aurora, we’re going to put you in the centre of the group. Rick and Kate are going to ride on one side of you and Trudy and Harriet are going to go on the other. The rest of us will fan out to make a long line. Once we start to move along and get a bit of a group of cattle moving, there is going to be the odd beast that is going to break away, or try to break away. Sox is going to want to chase them because that is what he is trained to do. Don’t let him. Be watchful of what he is doing. It sounds stupid, but if you keep an eye on what his ears are doing, that will be a pretty good indication of what is going on in his head. If he makes a move to follow a beast, pull him back. He’s obedient, so if you don’t let him go, he won’t.’

He took a good look at her.

‘You all good?’

Aurora took a deep breath and nodded. She was hoping she didn’t fall off again. She would be mortified for that to happen in front of all of these experienced riders. Callan flicked her a quick smile and small nod as he spoke.

‘Ok. Let’s do it.’

With that, Callan rode off to take his place and the whole group spread out and slowly moved along. There were cattle in dribs and drabs all over the place. Aurora watched as their heads came up and in their startled state they frantically dashed a little one way in an attempt to not be hemmed in, only to try the other way. Once they realised that they weren’t going anywhere they settled down and joined the rest, the steadily growing group moving along together.

Aurora had been looking in one direction when out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. She turned just in time to see both Callan and Theresa break away at a gallop from the group chasing down a beast. The pair were fantastic to watch. Theresa’s mare, Milo, quickly sensed a change in the beast’s direction and itself changed direction in the blink of an eye to head it off, repeating the process each time the steer looked as though it was going to take off in another direction. The horse sensed and blocked repeatedly, cutting it off. She and horse worked as an amazing team. Callan and Alpheus had stayed wide of Theresa and Milo in case the steer managed to get around them, but were nonetheless cutting back and forth following the steer’s direction. It gave him the chance to head it off if it got through. Alpheus looked as though he was itching to get into the action. As it was, it wasn’t necessary. Theresa and Milo got the steer back in with the rest being pushed along by the line of horses.

A little later, young Kate headed off an escape attempt. Aurora couldn’t help but admire that sort of skill in a child. She guessed though that if you grew up surrounded by all this and it was part of your everyday life, then it wouldn’t be so daunting. For her part, she had quite a pleasant job, walking along in the middle of them all. It gave her a good vantage point to watch what the others were doing. Before they had all set out from the side of the paddock, Callan had rode over to Keith and spoken with him for a minute or so. Aurora didn’t know what had been said, she couldn’t possibly overhear as she was too far away and their backs had been to her. Keith had taken his position right at the front of the column. She didn’t know if that was intentional or not, but she was incredibly grateful that Keith wasn’t near her. It would have been a long day had she found herself subjected to his comments for the duration. As it was, he couldn’t be further away and whatever the reason that he ended up there, it worked quite fine for her.