Foal's Bread (25 page)

‘Okay, Ral, you hold her again and Lainey, I want you to help sneak the hobbles on the hinds. This one's as cunning as all else and it was offside hoof Mr Ackerman attempted.'

Nimble, fearless, Lainey got under the horse. She was still under there, struggling to get the buckle drawn on the newly repaired hobbles, when she heard the telltale sounds of her mother beginning to lose patience.

‘Hold her up short, Ralda,' Noah said as the horse began to shift nervously.

Lainey got the buckle fastened and was out quick smart from under the horse.

‘Come here, ya little mongrel,' her mother yelled when the piebald wouldn't lift its next leg and began to stir up. ‘Ooh, you're a poppy-eyed bastard when you choose.'

‘Wee up. Wee. Wee,' Aunty Ralda said.

‘I'll give ya wee, ya flamin spoilt mongrel.'

And now, when the mare really began to muck up, came some words that Lainey had never heard even Aunty Mil or Mad use.

‘Come on, come on.' Ralda tried stroking the horse's neck. ‘Easy, Noh.'

‘Shut up, Ralda. Get a hold of its ear.'

Lainey watched the mare hopping in the hobbles on three legs. She watched her mother's temper bust and, like red air, now the anger filled everyone up. It was like breathing particles of fire. She saw the horse preparing for what was to come. The red air rising. Her mother twisted up one of the horse's ears so tight it was a wonder it didn't come off in her hand. As if the anger had whooshed itself into Lainey's own face, a nosebleed came on with a jerk. Only George, snuggled into a fork of the farm's tree, was safe.

‘Hold onto her,' shouted her mother. ‘You're useless, you are, Ral.' Noah took the lead rope and, letting go the ear, began kicking the horse in the guts. For a moment Lainey looked somewhere else. The thumps and thuds landing on the horse sounded so violent, like all the heads in hell banging together when the fires had gone out.

When her mother was angry, Lainey felt life itself on One Tree Farm trying to cease. Leaves stopped moving in the easterly drifting over from Bitter Ground Creek; birds didn't come near. Even the pair of crows pecking at the bits of dead wallaby for the dogs at the back of the shed flew off.

Two of the work dogs, the curly back and a bushy tail, both with eyes more than half human, cringed back in their water-tank kennels as if in anticipation of a flogging with their chains. When her mother bellowed at animals, trees or tools, Lainey always became quieter. Secretly she believed that her mother's anger could even bend shoeing nails, no hammer or anvil required. When she looked over to the jacaranda, it was to see George cowering there in the purple shadows.

And then somehow, Lainey missed the exact moment, the hobbles snapped and the horse had broken loose of Ralda and was making away. It went at a wild gallop, headed for the old wreck of a fence that had once been part of a bull yard.

‘Elaine! Get after him,' yelled Ralda.

‘Lainey! Lainey!' Noah called.

Lainey grabbed up her dress, hoping to catch the bleed from her nose. The frightened rump of the horse, its tail out like a flag, was picking up speed. Then up and over the fence the horse was going, taking it at the highest point when there was no need.

At the recognition of this first firm evidence of the horse's ability to clear a big fence, her mother's mood changed from anger to excitement. ‘Lainey, did you see that jump in her? Little demon's got a leap! Oh, for heaven's sake, not another nosebleed. Lord!'

‘Quick, put her head between her legs,' said Ralda.

But Noah already had Lainey's arm and quickly, gushing the water into the trough, pushed her daughter under the flow. ‘Good cold water from spring's what'll fix it,' Lainey heard. Her mother's hand was on her head, holding it under. The water wasn't so cold really but the afternoon was getting later because as she came up out of the trough she heard, from very far away, Lenny Cousins calling in his milking cows, calling ‘Tolley! Tolley!' like his heart was breaking. That was how he always brought in his cows: calling his old leader girl, that never had a different name even when it died or got sold and replaced.

‘Now!' Noah seized her up and Lainey felt like a piece of fruit in the bucket in the apple race at picnic day.

‘Tolley! Toooollllley!'

‘Now go and fetch our little villain back. You'll have to run your friggin fastest to get her.'

‘Noh!' Ralda shook her head, still shocked by her sister-in-law's mouth even after ten years.

‘Did you see, Lainey? The way she picked back feet up? A neat little jumper. That double whirl of hair on her face? I've seen that only once before, on a horse called Rin Tin
—
and what a one he was.'

So that Lainey was suddenly wild with hope too, and though the horse was pelting down past the bails to the ledge of land above the watermelon paddock, and though the blood was still coming through her nose into the back of her throat, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Not blood spilt or kept in. Nor Beryl McCliver's fingernail marks turning brown on her face. No, nothing mattered. Rin Tin! she exclaimed inside her head. Radiant Boy, she thought, what jumped seven foot eleven, out of a bog, when her father rode for Sister McIlvaney, before she'd even been a twinkle in her father's blue eyes.

When her dad was home, his balance back, what wouldn't be possible? Once war's over. And, oh, the days were so long and smelt of beetles and flowers. And if she had to catch that runaway then someone else would have to do hens and poddies. And depending how far the black and white horse went she'd get to miss milking too.

As the sun of the afternoon slanted out, she felt herself go bright and yellow just like that corner of flowers Ralda had put in behind the cucumbers. Automatically, she tucked the hem of her dress up into her bloomers.

‘Lainey!' And her mother's voice was like the rope coming down at the picnic races. So she ran. Spitting blood, she tore away. Knowing Aunty Ralda and her mother were watching, she got ready to do a jump herself: heading for the rail where it stood just on three foot nine, knowing the height exactly because she'd measured it, hadn't she just, after her mother had popped that horse of Albanian timber man over it this time last week.

‘She's a horse herself! She's a hurdler!' said Noah as Lainey, aware of her dress narrowly missing snarling up her big toe, heard the cheers growing fainter behind her. The blood in her nose was exactly like that bleeder at last year's Oakey Flat sports day. Blood and all, it had streaked home. Enough winnings for her father to buy them all a pie each on the way back to One Tree.

Running on this day, Lainey knew nothing of either the avulsion coming or her father going. She was just running now; running with her strong brown knees and odd-shaped feet. There was air in her ears and blood all over the place and just for a laugh she jumped a water trough too and then a thistle, its purple flower nearly red in the summer light. Wild, legs-all-over-the-place jumping, and the helter-skelter paddock like a show ring where just for a moment all the rules had flown out through that big blue window called the sky.

Watching her daughter disappearing, Noah felt herself filling with the strange love that sometimes seemed set to tear her apart. Lainey could run! She could jump! Oh, she had a turn of speed. She was as strong as a small horse, and when Noah had carried her, had kicked inside like one too.

‘Come on then, George. Time to let you off too, hey?' she said, unclipping the lead. Even the bantam hens looked pretty, pecking up the trail of Lainey's nosebleed in the dust underneath the fallen jacaranda blossoms.

‘Don't worry,' said Ralda. ‘Lainey'll get that little varmint back in no time.'

‘You don't help, Ralda,' Noah said. ‘You shouldn't smooch up to a horse like that. Only confuses them more. We'll get other front on tomorrow with Lainey, and the hinds. You and George can stay well away.'

‘Well,' said Ralda, ‘if there's one thing I remember is that Rol never lost his temper with a horse. Dad and Dunc, they were a different kettle of fish. But even when he was smaller than George, Gentle might've been Rol's middle name. Exact opposite of you. You're worse even than Dad was and that's saying something.'

They could both feel the drumming of runaway hooves coming up through their legs.

‘I'm not gunna fight with you, Ral,' Noah said, her temper over. She was bending to pick up the shoeing gear. Taking off the leather apron and collecting up spilt nails. ‘Too much to be done. Send George over to bails and I'll see how he's shaping up for milking, since Uncle Owe doesn't look like he's going to show.'

With the sun going down behind the ridge top, Lainey was riding eggboat man's piebald home. The air was like syrup, so warm, and she could smell something, yes, sausages, surely sausages. Good old Aunty Ral must've cooked up the last of those Hertzel's ones for tea.

‘Smell that?' she said to the horse. Oh, the smell of meat and mashed potatoes in the beetley air. Cicadas were going crazy in the last light left and then suddenly stopped all their noise.

As soon as she'd caught the horse, way over near the boundary to Cousinses' farm, she'd hopped on and, bareback and all, knew it was going to be well behaved for her. The horse had lowered its head and sort of sighed, then just picked its own wise way home.

‘My father,' she told the horse, ‘held the high-jump record once for the whole of the country. Balance like no one could believe.' The horse's ears flicked back and forth then straight ahead as Lainey headed it through a short cut involving crackle-pod weeds up to her hanging feet. ‘And once, my mum and dad jumped a pair of hunters clean over a long-backed Shetland pony what belonged to Hirrips, and as he was landing, Dad snatched the hat fair off Mr Hirrip's head. Yep. That's fair dinkum true.'

Here was a horse she could really talk to about anything, she thought, even that f-word her mother had shouted. ‘That fucken lightning but.' The word was terrible and wonderful and made her tingle like her own little shock was running off her tongue.

Still, it was only a matter of days before her father would come home cured. For so long the talk in Main House had been of the specialist, how could he fail for her father? No chance.

The hopes she revealed to the horse grew wilder and wilder. It was as if promises were coming up into her through the contact her bare legs were making with the short summer coat. ‘You're a special one, you are.' She leant forward to stroke the horse down the neck. ‘Even if you have got the Queensland itch something shocking.'

She guided the horse along past the watermelon paddock fenced all wobbly. She could smell the bone dust coming up through the young vines. Over the little paddock hung a nearly new moon and three evening stars. Flaggy Creek whirled around rocks in a way that made the water sound deeper in the darkness falling.

When she reached the top of the hill the lamps were on in Main House but their own little hut had become invisible in the darkness.

‘Mashy peas,' said a voice. Her mother appeared, her face softened by the light of the kero lamp.

‘Mum.' The horse's heart was heaving from the gallop up the hill.

‘You ridin her?'

‘She's been so good. Just in headstall and all.'

‘Well apparently, according to Mr Ackerman, the mare can buck. When it wants. But didn't, eh?'

The girl shook her head.

‘That crazy streak. That made her jump bull fence at highest point. That's what really makes a champion, you know. Just like my dad's first horse, Ironpot.

‘Reckon when they're back from Sydney we'll do all we can to get your Nin to buy him off eggboat man. Got her a bit hot but you have, Laine. Won't do that itch any good. Have to walk her round.'

Lainey felt waves of hunger. ‘Well she'd galloped all the way to the Cousinses' fence.'

‘Don't worry, I'll walk her. Your aunty's made you your favourite gravy too.'