Brumby Mountain (22 page)

The whole time they were riding, Luke didn't speak. And the further they travelled, the worse Jess imagined the news would be.

‘Where is he taking us?' Jess finally whispered. She grabbed hold of a chunk of mane as she felt Rambo's shoulders drop down beneath her.

‘I don't know,' Luke answered, as they rose again and Rambo's hooves scrambled in front of Jess.

‘I'm cold.'

Luke unzipped his jacket and wrapped it around her. She felt his chin rest on her shoulder. His hair warmed the side of her face.

They rode aimlessly through the trees and the shrubs for the entire night, and if it wasn't for the fact that she felt it would be her last ride with Luke, Jess would have turned back hours earlier. But she didn't want it to end. Every moment that was offered to her in this achingly beautiful place, with him, she would take. They rode through bitter cold and she felt the contrast between the sharp ice of her feet and the warmth of Luke's body wrapped around hers.

Through the gullies around her, Jess could hear water gurgling, thousands of tiny trickles, running down tree trunks and dripping from strings of bark, seeping between rocks, cutting little pathways to the creek. And as they rode, the sound grew louder, larger, until it culminated in a waterfall, gushing and plunging over granite cliffs.

Rambo plodded steadily downhill and walked straight into the falls. Suddenly, dramatically, the sounds changed to long, hollow echoes. The air was cool and moist and smelled of horses. Jess realised they were riding through a dark tunnel inside the mountain. Water seeped through the rocks and plipped into puddles beneath. Rambo's steady clopping over the moist earth floor sounded like a slow drumbeats. Luke's arms tightened around her.

When Jess could hardly bear the creepiness of it any longer, she saw light, a tiny glow, steadily increasing. Daybreak. The light grew steadily as they rode closer; a corridor of greys and soft pre-dawn blues before them.

They emerged onto a rock platform and Jess caught her breath at the scene before her. Mist and cloud hovered around and over the mountains. Below, as though at the bottom of a deep, wide well, were horses, dozens of them, grazing alongside each other. Surrounding them in all directions were perfectly vertical cliffs, immense granite columns. At first glance, it seemed there was no way in and no way out.

The horses were spread over the wide grassy hollow, a mix of creamy colours: buckskins, palominos, chestnuts and a few bays. Some were shorter, some taller, but they were all cut from the same stuff. Jess spotted Stormy-girl, the old coloured mare, and her stallion grazing together on the edge of the mob. There was more than one creamy colt and many younger foals.

They sat silently watching the smoke from a distant fire seep in with the early-morning fog. And as the sun rose, big and fiery and beautiful, it vaporised the clouds. A great golden eagle soaring on the wings of the wind hovered overhead, and Jess imagined Sapphire's spirit free again, inextinguishable, being carried back to his home and his family.

‘Sapphire's home,' she muttered to herself. Then she turned to Luke. ‘You're both home.'

‘It's not my home,' he said quietly. ‘It's theirs.' He looked out over the brumbies, and his eyes were sharp and bright. ‘I'd never live here.'

‘Really?'

‘Everything's too cold,' he said, and this time his voice had laughter on the edges of it. ‘The rivers are freezing. And I have to put my shoes on all the time.'

‘That would suck.'

Luke grinned down at her, his wild bushy hair whipping around his face. ‘This place will wait, Jessy. My place is with you.'

It came to her, in a sudden start, that he was coming home. There was a bond between him and this mountain. But she realised now he could leave it and still carry it with him, this small piece of the world with its gullies and ridges and trundling wombats, its tall messy ribbon gums and grasses that waved and floated in the icy mountain winds. The birds that twittered in the swampy heath and the roos that bounded over the fences. And the creamy blue-eyed brumbies that ran with Saladin's spirit (and Biyanga's now, too!), and the locals that gathered around the pub fire at night, sharing stories and warm schooners of port.

The place gave Luke an identity and at any time he could look inside himself and reaffirm who he was, find the mountains and the rivers and the wild horses that drank from its edges. He was the son of Matilda and Jack and a son of Mathews' Flat.

But he had already been there a lifetime, she realised. If not in body, then in spirit. His life, his story, was etched into the place. He didn't need to live here to know he belonged.

Jess cast her eyes across the mountain and let herself drift for a moment in its never-ending beauty. Then, dawdling a little, she gathered a lump of Rambo's mane and legged him back down the brumby trail.

Acknowledgements

SPECIAL THANKS
to my beautiful girls, Annabelle and Ruby, for being so good and patient while Mum's been locked away working, to Anthony for your endless love and support, and to my mum for looking after my little wildies so I could write.

Thanks to Katherine Waddington of the Australian Brumby Alliance for your encouragement, stories, photos, experiences and knowledge about wild horses; to Kath Massey of the Hunter Valley Brumby Association, and to Christine O'Rourke from Guy Fawkes Heritage Horse Association for showing me your beautiful Guy Fawkes horses.

Not nearly enough credit is given to editors, designers, marketing teams and publishing pros in the success of a book. It takes so many more people than just a lone author. So, to the entire team at Allen & Unwin, whose skills and talent have made my books come to life, my heartfelt thanks. And another extra-special thanks to my publisher, Sarah Brenan, and my editor, Hilary Reynolds; I learn so much more every time I work with you.

About the Author

KAREN WOOD
has been involved with horses for most of her life. Her most special horse is a little chestnut stockhorse called Reo (who does share some common ancestry with Saladin, via Radium). Karen is married with two children and lives on the Central Coast, New South Wales.

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