Diamond Spirit (22 page)

‘Oh, all
right
!’ said Shara. ‘I’d better go before he blows a gasket,’ she said to Jess.

‘When you get Rocko hosed off, come over to our truck. You absolutely
have
to meet my new friends,’ said Jess.

‘Who’s the boy?’ grinned Shara.

‘Hey?’

‘The redhead.’

‘What redhead?’

‘The one that can’t take his eyes off you, der.’

‘What are you on about?’

Shara just shrugged and gave her a knowing look.

Jess changed the subject. ‘You have to meet Gracie!’ She grinned and said in a teasing voice. ‘She’s my
new
bestie!’

‘Oh, is she now?’ laughed Shara as she rode away. She looked back over her shoulder and called out, ‘But is she your
best
bestie?’

‘Will that person on foot please leave the arena immediately,’ called the announcer again. He was beginning to sound cranky. ‘There are cattle loose in the arena!’

Jess saw a huge red bull clambering over the rails with half a dozen stockmen waving and shouting at it. It rolled over the top of the fence, landed on its side in the arena with an ungraceful thud, and then scrambled to its feet.

‘Holy . . .’ Jess began running to a fence as the bull spotted her. It lowered its head and charged.

‘Someone get the gate!’ a person yelled, too late.

The bull trotted through the open gateway, and into the show arena. Jess hauled herself onto the rail and watched it canter blindly through bunting and tents as several stockmen gave chase. People scattered and horses shied.

In the centre arena, Katrina Pettilow stood in the winners’ line waiting for her Best in Show trophy. As the judge approached with the gleaming golden cup and a satin sash, Katrina leaned across and held out her arms, smiling proudly.

Chelpie snorted and began to shift about. Then, like a stack of dominos, the line-up of horses scattered in all directions as a bull and twenty stockmen came galloping towards them. Katrina clung to Chelpie’s pure white neck while the pony bolted from the arena. The judge dropped the trophy and ran, leaving it to be trampled by the bull and its chasers.

27

AS SHE ROLLED UP
swags and packed away buckets and saddles, Jess saw a big golden cut-out trophy sitting on the fold-out table in the back of the truck. She smiled and looked out the window, searching for Harry. She saw Ryan drive into the grounds. On the back of his ute, a rotund figure on four legs balanced precariously, snorting and grunting noisily. Biyanga heard the commotion, and let out a shrill whinny from where he was tethered at the truck.

‘Grunter!’ Jess called out in delight. ‘Grace! Rosie! Grunter’s here!’

Grunter stomped around noisily, freaking out several horses when he paraded past as though he were on a Mardi Gras float. He was huge. In three months he’d doubled in size.

Harry came limping out from between two trucks. ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered,’ he chuckled.

Ryan leaned out the window of the vehicle. ‘He turned up in Mum’s veggie patch yesterday. She said if I didn’t get him out of there, she’d put him in the freezer.’

‘We can’t let that happen,’ grinned Harry, as he pulled down the back of the ute.

Jess watched as Harry led the pig over to Biyanga. The two buddies grunted and snuffled each other for a few minutes before Grunter found his way to the feedbin. She smiled and continued to pack up her gear.

From the corner of her eye she saw Lawson. He glared at Ryan and then turned his back to talk to a man in a big black hat. Jess recognised him as the man in the camp who had asked her about the min min lights. They began walking towards her.

She kept packing, pretending she didn’t see them.

‘Hey, Jess,’ said Lawson.

‘Hi Lawson.’ She nodded at the stockman. ‘Hello.’

‘Bob,’ he said, holding out a hand to shake.

She wiped her hand on her jeans and shook it as she had seen her father do when he met other men. ‘Hi, I’m Jess.’

‘Lawson reckons you might sell that gelding for the right price,’ said Bob. ‘He says you’ve got your eye on a good filly back home. My boy needs a good horse to learn drafting on and I don’t reckon he’d get any better than old Dodger.’

Jess stared at Lawson in surprise. ‘But don’t you want to buy Walkabout?’

‘Bob’s a mate of mine, Jess. He’s got a nine-year-old son who’s a pretty handy young rider and helps work the cattle around the yards at home. Dodger would have to work the yards and then draft on weekends.’ Lawson gave her a nod. ‘He’d get a pretty comfortable retirement when the kid outgrows him too.’

‘I couldn’t sell him for less than two thousand dollars,’ said Jess in a dismissive tone. No one in their right mind would pay that much money for Dodger. She ran her eyes over her horse: a twenty-two-year-old station-bred gelding with a remarkably ugly head and a badly busted-up foot. He lifted his tail, did a large poo and ripped at his hay with an already over-full mouth.

‘Sounds like a fair price,’ said the stockman. ‘I see a lotta horses go through them yards, and there’s not many as good as Dodger. I’ve watched him for years, ay.’

Jess was astounded. It was too easy. Two thousand dollars was enough to buy Walkabout. It was the whole reason she had come to the draft. All she had to do was say yes.

This guy was actually going to give her two thousand dollars. She could have Walkabout.

But it meant losing Dodger . . .

‘Can I have some time to think about it?’

‘Sure. You tell Lawson when you make up your mind. No hurry,’ said Bob. ‘He’s a top little horse, that one, and we’d give him a good home.’ He turned to Lawson. ‘Thanks for the intro, mate. Catch up later, hey?’

Jess watched him walk away and then stared at Dodger again. He had become so special to her. He was no longer her cousin’s horse. He was her horse; her buddy, who she had come to know and trust.

You’re worth two million to me, Dodgey.

‘What’s the matter? Can’t part with the old fella?’ Lawson put his hands in his pockets and stared at her. ‘Come over here. I want to talk to you.’ He walked over to the truck, sat on the tailgate and patted the floor next to him. ‘Bob’s right about that horse. His type is real hard to come by. He’s honest, experienced and tough as old boots. You’ve still got a lot of days ahead of you on that horse, Jess.’

‘But what about Wally? I’d have more days with her.’ Jess was arguing with herself as much as Lawson.

Lawson rubbed his chin and was quiet for a moment.

‘You want her for yourself,’ she said.

Lawson nodded. ‘Yep.’ He nodded again. ‘Yep, I do. I’ll admit that.’ He turned to her. ‘But you do too, from what I’ve heard.’

Jess was silent.

‘Hey?’ He pushed her for an answer.

‘You’re going to think I’m really stupid, but Walkabout was born on the same day as my first horse died. Diamond died under a coachwood tree and Walkabout was born under a coachwood tree. I sort of feel Walkabout was
meant
for me. It’s spooky.’

Lawson laughed. ‘Did the old man spin you that yarn about ancestral spirits?’

‘Yeah, he did. Why? Do you think it’s crap?’ She tried to gauge his thoughts.

‘No, not at all. But you’ve twisted it all around, Jess. I know you’re just trying to make sense of things, but totems aren’t about reincarnation. They’re about story and kin. They’re about how people place themselves in the world. It’s serious business. You shouldn’t go messing with it like that.’

Jess sighed and stared at her shoes.

‘Jess, at some time, everybody loses their first horse. Every rider in the country has memories of their first horse, even world champions. They’re special. They’re the ones that are the hardest of all to let go.’

‘You ought to know.’

‘Yeah, old Dusty.’ He picked a piece of hay off the floor he was sitting on and played around with it thoughtfully. ‘Dad caught a brumby mare down in the Snowy Mountains. She was the first brumby he ever caught. She was a feral old thing, wild as. I called her Frosty because she was white as snow.’

Jess laughed. ‘She wasn’t
truly
white, was she?’

‘Stuffed if I know.’ He chuckled. ‘She was just a feral brumby. But I wanted her so bad. The old man said she was too old to break in and train. So he let me have her first foal.’

‘Dusty,’ said Jess.

‘Yep. I thought he was the most handsome horse I’d ever seen when I was a kid. I had him for nearly twenty years. He always had something wild and untamed about him. He was his own person, if you know what I mean. He could really work. He’d muster all day without a drink and all he’d want in return was a loose rein and a feed at the end of the day. He’d chase cattle till he dropped.’ Lawson made small circles in the dust of the tailgate with the piece of straw. ‘Wasn’t much chop at campdrafts though; he’d get too jumpy.’ His voice trailed off and his tone changed. His eyes wandered over to the stables where Ryan talked with Harry.

‘It’s bad when you lose them, isn’t it?’

‘Yep,’ said Lawson.

‘I blamed my best friend for killing Diamond. I was really bad to her.’

‘Yeah, I heard the two of you screeching like a pair of galahs down on the river flats that day.’ He looked at her and winced. ‘Sorry about your face.’

‘It really hurt, you know.’

‘Yeah, I bet it did.’

‘It didn’t hurt as much as losing my best friend, though.’

Lawson glanced at Ryan and his jaw set hard. ‘He has
never
been a friend, if that’s what you’re getting at.’ Then he snorted. ‘At least he’s sober today.’

‘Reckon you’ll ever forgive him?’

‘No,’ said Lawson in a hard voice. Then he changed the subject. ‘So what’s your decision? You gonna sell
your
old brumby?’

Jess was still torn. ‘Tell me why you want Walkabout.’

‘She’s my once-in-a-lifetime horse, Jess. I know you have a really close connection with her but I reckon she’s meant for big things. Every rider at some stage in his life comes across a special horse. Like Dad has Biyanga. She is meant for me, Jess, I know it.’

Jess stared at him. If only she could believe him . . .

‘Why were you so cruel to her?’

Lawson looked at her puzzled. ‘Hey?’

‘Down in the mares’ paddock that day. You threw her to the ground and gave her rope burns. You and another guy. I saw you.’

Lawson went quiet and ran his tongue along his lips as he thought. ‘Oh yeah, that,’ he said, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. ‘She had an infection in her navel. We were putting iodine on it.’

Oh yeah, that?

Jess just stared at him, incredulous that he could be so indifferent.

He stared back. ‘What?’

‘You hurt her and you scared her.’

‘Jess, foals get really sick with infected navels. She would have died if we hadn’t treated it.’

‘You still didn’t have to rope her. She would have let me put it on without even a halter.’

‘Yeah, well, how was I to know you were some sort of filly whisperer?’ he said, shaking his head with a faint smile. ‘I had the owner there and it was he who roped her, I might point out. He was livid that the filly’s cord hadn’t been cleaned. Usually the old man puts iodine on as soon as they’re born, but she went missing for a few days, he reckons.’

‘But you helped him. I saw you.’

‘Well, if you reckon you can handle her without ropes and do a better job, you can break her in when she’s ready. How’s that for a deal?’

‘I’ve never taught a horse to be ridden before.’

‘Then the filly can be your first. I’ll show you how.’

Jess just looked at him.

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Lawson. ‘You’re the filly whisperer. You probably want to show me.’ He laughed.

‘So, what about Marnie?’

Lawson groaned as though remembering something unpleasant. ‘She’s probably knocked up after that rendezvous with Muscles last night. I’ll have to get a vet out to her to give her a needle before it’s too late. I don’t want some mongrel-bred foal from that rogue stallion added to my feed bill.’

Jess ran her hands through her hair and sighed. ‘Why does life have to be so complicated?’

‘Why don’t you take some time to think about it,’ said Lawson. ‘I’ll give you my number. If you really are willing to sell that old stockhorse, then give me a ring. I’ll back off and let you buy Walkabout.’

‘And if I can’t sell him?’

‘The filly’s mine.’

28

JESS SAT UNDER
the trees in the mares’ paddock. Walkabout snuffled her head and breathed puffy kisses over her cheeks. She smiled. ‘You’re so cute, Wally.’

‘Hey, Jess.’

She spun around. Luke had a halter in his hand.

‘You’ve come to get her, haven’t you?’

He nodded.

Jess looked to the ground.

Luke slipped through the fence and sat down next to her. ‘You’ll still be able to see her all the time, and break her in one day.’

‘I feel like I’ve let her down.’

‘Nah, you haven’t. You don’t have to own her to have that bond with her. Connecting with a horse isn’t about owning it.’

‘Reckon?’

‘You already proved it.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t afford to buy Legsy either, but he’ll always be
my
mate. Harry’ll never have the same bond with him that I do.’

‘Can’t you save up for Legsy? All those ribbons and prizes you win. You’d have a much better chance than me.’ Luke and Legs had won the working stockhorse class at the draft and knocked off half the open riders. Jess was only just beginning to realise what a good rider he was.

‘Every time I win a class on him, his value goes up.’ Luke laughed at the irony. ‘I get to ride him. That’s good enough for me.’

‘At least you don’t have to worry about Lawson buying him,’ she said.

‘No, he’ll just inherit him.’

Jess laughed. ‘He’d have to kill Harry off first.’

Luke looked down and picked at some grass. ‘Harry’s got lung cancer, Jess.’

Jess was stunned. ‘Hey?’

‘Lawson will get Legs. One day.’

‘Harry’s got
cancer
?’

‘It’s not real bad,’ said Luke. ‘Harry’ll fight it. He’ll be around for ages yet.’

‘It’s still terrible.’