The Burial (18 page)

There was no way out for any of the horses. The branches were piled high and sharpened at the ends. Jumping would mean breaking their neck or their legs in the tangle of sticks. She couldn't bear to see Houdini in there, scraping around wild and fighting with the others. Keeping her head down, she let herself in through the thatched gate. Houdini saw her, made a path to her, and then they walked a lap of the yard to calm the chaos of the others. When she neared the gate again, Jessie opened it quickly and together they slipped out.

There was a wooden box near the holding yard with leather straps for hinges and when she opened it up she found what she needed—brushes, bridles, ropes and leads. While Houdini pushed his nose into her neck she chose a brush. And then she led him to the shade of a tree, away from the holding yard and the brimming discontent of the other horses, and she brushed him down.

Under his coat patches of skin had been torn and healed rough and other patches were covered with burrs. His mane was dreaded into cocoons and within them were live colonies of insects. She clipped them out and brushed him down and he stood as still and content as she had ever seen him.

She was about to swing herself up onto him to ride him through the bush when the boy appeared and behind him Bill and an older boy she took to be Joe.

And it was Joe who said,
Well, what have we here? Who's this who has found us and now rides our horses?
He was smiling, though, and his eyes were kind and bright.

This is Houdini, my horse, and I am relieved to find him. I had to leave him to his own devices or we would not have made it up the mountain, him or me.

How do we know it is your horse?
said Bill, who looked more suspicious of Jessie. In the light of the clearing Jessie saw that Bill was dark skinned—Aboriginal, she guessed.

Well, he let me lead him out of that ruckus and brush him down and soon you will see me ride him.

The boy was turning stones over with the toe of his boot and Joe and Bill looked so serious standing there.

We'll need to consult with the others
, said Joe,
about if you can stay
.

I had not thought of it
, said Jessie.
The boy and I discovered each other and we have been good company but now that you are here and I have my horse, it may be best to leave.

We'll talk on it with the others
, said Joe. Jessie nodded without speaking then Joe added:
You see, you are the first to have found us and the boy tells me you can rustle. As you may have guessed it, that is what we do, and though we're not recruiting it seems that you've travelled a long way—it's a long way up, we know. It seems that it is some kind of coincidence that you have found us, though we do not yet know where that coincidence might lead to. But give us the day to talk it over and we'll make a decision about what we should do.

Jessie nodded again and swung up onto Houdini's back and rode him slowly out of the clearing. The boy came running after her. He'd wrapped up half a fresh damper in a bit of cloth.

This is for your lunch,
he said.
But come back before dark.

I'll be back
, she said. And she winked at him and turned Houdini again towards the scrub. When she looked back, the boy was still standing there, watching.

For so long, she had wanted to be in the mountains. She had thought only of escape. She had dreamt of her freedom and now she had it she did not know what to do with it. She led Houdini along a ravine and then she sat by it, as if the ravine itself would speak up and offer her counsel.

She ate the damper the boy had given her then she lay down on her back and watched the clouds passing over. There were forms racing cloud to cloud and she could see creatures in those forms and creatures becoming other creatures, each thing changing and nothing ever visible for long. And it was all set against the pristine sky and it was all moved along by the wind.

Houdini tore at the grass with his teeth and the sound of it was music to her ears. She lay there with Houdini beside her until the clouds became like wool, all spindling over.

She thought of the boy. He reminded her of Bandy Arrow. Yet she knew that no matter how much time she spent around the fire with him, it was not a story she would share.

It had been more than ten years since she had last seen Bandy Arrow, and the last time she had seen him was the fall. It remained so clear to her, the sounds and textures of it, and she wondered how that memory, after all these years, could still carry such feeling.

The night of his fall, she was standing on the balustrade, urging him forward. On the tightrope he was as light as a feather and his balance was perfect, and yet he was afraid of heights. She had climbed the ladder with him, as she did every night, and every night she said to him,
Bandy, don't look down
. There was no safety net at Mingling Bros Circus and that was what set the circus apart—the danger was real. From the balustrade, she would concentrate on his feet and will him safely, step by step, across the rope. Mirkus called the two of them ‘The Winning Combination'; with Jessie's help, Bandy had performed the stunt successfully every night for a year. But this night, for some reason, he looked down.

To her eyes, his feet were not the first things to slip. It was his body which leant away from the rope and he fell sideways and then down. He landed feet first. There were screams from the crowd and then gasps of awe as some of them thought for a moment they were witnessing something miraculous, a freak performer. But when he hit the ground he kept on travelling, his spine on a vertical path downwards, his legs redirected. The incompatible destinations were measured at his knees and like a hinge without a spring he collapsed.

She had rushed down the ladder and to his side along with Mirkus, the ringmaster. And she had cried as she held Bandy's head and turned it to the side while he vomited out the shock he was in.

It's nobody's fault
, said Mirkus.
Sometimes we just fall
.

He called for a stretcher and Bandy Arrow was loaded onto it and carried away. Jessie went to follow but Maximus said,
We must keep performing, that's all we can do.

And so she did.

And when the show was over and the crowd shuffled out, she returned to the place where he had landed. There were strokes in the dust where his fingers had made trails and his limbs fanned out.

She traced his imprint on the ground. That was it. She knew she would not see Bandy Arrow again.

When she woke it was almost dark. Houdini was standing, a towering creature, nudging her arm with his nose. She sat upright. She felt odd—as if some great fissure had finally opened up, and all of the convolutions of herself were meeting at the surface, like so many coincidences at once. And somewhere in it all was her own distinct nature.

Sitting by the ravine she felt her past was not behind her or beneath her, it was everywhere at once, living through her, and the boy and Joe and Bill were just like those she had known before and here on the mountain was something like a second chance, a chance to love well, and she did not yet know its limits.

When she returned to the camp the gang were all sitting around the fire. She could see the boy and Joe and Bill and another three with them. Joe stood up and welcomed her and she sat down and they all smiled at her and she could smell sweet things roasting on the fire.

Joe remained standing.
The boy says you are a rustler. We know that you are brave enough to take on the mountains and walk through a yard of wild horses and lead your own horse out. And you know we have a gang and we aren't recruiting, we are solid as we are. But now that you are here we believe there is some fate in it. You have seen that we bring in wild horses and some of them are branded and we sell them, and we sell cattle in the same way. And we prefer to live here, as we are, for now. We are safe from all that would harm us. But there may be a day when we have to move on and each of us will do that as they please. One day we may build a house of our own and all of us live in it together. And there may be a time when we don't have to do things that are illegal. But that day has not yet come, and until it does we'll keep on because we have all run from something one by one. Just as you have found us we have all found each other, like magnets attracting. And now we are happy that you are among us. And not to offend you, miss, but we guess you are older than us—old enough to sell our stock at the sale yards.

Joe sat down and everything fell to silence. He was a natural leader and he spoke with sincerity. Joe looked to Bill and their eyes met and both were brightened by the flame. Jessie took in the other faces around the fire, all of them young and shining, and they were all looking at her quietly, waiting for her to respond.

Joe, all of you, riding horses and stealing cattle is what I do, and I know I do it well. And it is my good fortune that I have found you. I have been in these mountains alone for too long and, without knowing it, it is your company that I have craved. I am happy to represent you. I would like to be counted as one of you.

THE NEXT DAY Jessie was up before the rest of them making a fire and tea. The air was damp that morning and the wood was slow to light and the camp looked as though it was deposited not on a mountain but on a cloud. She sat cross-legged on the ground, feeding the fire with kindling and blowing on it to bring it to life.

Slowly the rest of them emerged from their caves. One by one they sauntered through the fog, their collars up and their shirttails out, their hair twisting in cowlicks around their foreheads and their crowns. Never in all of her life had Jessie seen more elegant or perfect creatures. They moved in towards the fire, quiet with the sleep that still hung about them. She ladled sweet tea into tin mugs and she took pleasure in watching them roll their faces over the steam.

The boy ran off and brought back a bag of oranges. He handed one to each of them and they all became animated, biting off the skin with their teeth and throwing the skin into the fire and laughing as the juice dripped down their chins. The air carried the companionable smells of tea and oranges and soon it was all mixed with the smell of oats cooking.

Jessie noticed Jo was drawing shapes and lines on the ground with a twig and she asked him,
Are you planning something?

And one of them, Zef, added,
Is it almost time?

In a week or so the moon will be new
, said Joe.
Yes. It will soon be time to head back down to Phantom Ridge and bring in the cattle.

There's still a week's work in the ropes and preparing,
said Bill.
And we'll need everybody's hands if we are to get down there by the new moon as Joe plans.

As they ate breakfast Joe explained the heist to Jessie.

Miss, we've been planning this six months and our thinking is that we will do but one big haul in a year and it will be enough for us to live well and buy all the supplies we need and it will give a healthy cut to all of us. There are five of us who can drive it, not including the boy, and now with you there are six and by our count there is almost a hundred head of cattle to move in the night. Soon the sky will be at its darkest and that is the best time for vanishing things, you know. The rope you will see will be like one giant lasso, only we will not throw it like that. We will herd the cattle together and we will keep the rope low around them and then we will move them. We will all have a hand in it. And of course there is risk, there always is, of stampede, but watch and see if the dark moon doesn't dull those beasts completely.

As Joe set out the plan and continued to make marks on the ground, Jessie's heart raced inside her. It was so long since she had been droving. Fitz had put an end to it when he discovered she was pregnant when she was too large to hide it from him. Under Fitz's rule, droving and duffing was her only experience of freedom, however fleeting.

And when you move them, how will you get them to sale?
she asked.

Wait till you see it, miss
, said Joe.
Inside this mountain is a miracle. There's a whole system of caves and tunnels that run from the north side to the south, and over time we have tracked and mapped our way through them and out the other side. We'll have to get them to the sale yards in under two days, before the owner finds his cattle gone and before he can send warning. But in that time we can get them there if we move them day and night. We will stop only to rebrand them. Zef here has a calligrapher's hand and he has drawn us up a certificate, a note from the owner if you like, though it looks like a letter from the prime minister himself. ‘I hereby declare this is my cattle and I give these drovers full licence to sell them on my behalf.'And if you could tuck your hair up, miss, we have a few smothers that you can wear. If you don't mind me saying, you are handsome and could pass easily for a gentleman. And between us we could represent the owner well.

It took all of them to spread out the ropes and when they were done the ropes looked like pale vines stretching through the camp. There were seven ropes in all and six joins that needed to be woven together. The gang took their places on the ground and set about weaving; Jessie watched on as the boy unplaited two ends of rope and then, with practised hands, began to weave them together. She watched intently the pattern of his interlacing fingers and then she asked him to slow down so she could learn the pattern herself, to relieve him. The boy then demonstrated the sequence by counting. It was elaborate to her eyes.

Why don't you tie them together?
she asked, as she could begin to gauge just how long it would take to join them all.

A knot just wears down the rope, miss
, said the boy.
And a weave is much stronger than a knot, you know—and after you and Joe and the others bring in the cattle we have other plans for this rope, miss, and it should remain a surprise to you but you will soon see that there should be no knots in it at all.