Avalon Expandable Heart: The Wild Heart Series

by Shantelle McKinnon

  “Woooooooooo,” everyone cheers at D’s first task for Sam, except, of course, Sam and me. Sam, because he’s copped an eyeful of my big baby and me? Because I know old Frankie.

  “We do it now,” Nat stands up, he turns to Sam and jerks him to his feet. I hear him whisper. “He’s off a fair way, you’ll make it. Whatever you do. Don’t. Look. Back. Don’t trip and keep running.”

  We all follow him to the paddock gate, D, striding next to Chops, appears pale now and almost like she’s going to vomit. Another one to have maybe let words fall out on their own accord. Jaime and Wade have their cameras out, Pop is biting his lip and turns to me with eyes that pretty much blare, ‘If he gets too, close get in there’. I would but… first things first.

  “Hey Sam,” I say to his naked butt, “can I take a pic of your penii to send to Mum?”

  REpopulating couNtry areas one click at a time

  Avalon

  Sam whips around, his hand covering himself like underneath those hands lives and breathes a true national treasure. Or a vampire. “I don’t want to be responsible for your mum becoming a nympho cougar,” he drawls, making it sound very believable and similar consequences have occurred on a regular basis. “This,” he glances down proudly, “would --’

  “-- crack the screen,” Pop finishes off for him dryly.

  “With its beauty and power,” Sam glowers at him, one hand moving to his hip.

  “A million pieces,” Pop crosses his arms. Pop deals with a lot of the younger ones that come through the farm, he reckons being with younger people (pretty much everyone on the farm, Jordie retorted once, he just bestowed on him the look he was giving Sammie Bear right now) slows down your ageing. My eyes slide from him to Harry and Flea, both, when I think back, have changed dramatically since I met them. Flea, especially, as he’s not in a chair or hunched over. And Harry because he’s actually grinning and teasing Sam.

  Sam pops both hands on hips and I turn away, not wanting that image branded forever in my mind.

  My phone beeps, thank God. Noah. A grin creases my face. Took his time replying.

  Sorry, I just spat protein shake all over my car! Is this an immediate situation you are in or just a thought?

  My turn to chuckle, imagining him reading my text and spitting out his mouthful; milk dripping over his car and abs. Somehow I get a little lost in that vision so when I flick my eyes up from my phone, that feeling drains away very quickly. Nathan is now posing Sam against the barb wire fence, grabbing his arms like he is a mannequin. “Wait,” Sam slaps at him. “Is my hair okay?”

  Nathan pops his own hat off and tilts it just so on Sam’s head. He leans back with his hands positioned like a frame he is looking through. “The light is wrong,” he grumbles under his breath, stepping forward and manhandling Sam into a new position before repeating the whole thing again.

  I raise an eyebrow at Tina, wondering what happened in the last few seconds, minutes? How long was I picturing the white liquid drip dribbling lazily over Noah’s muscled torso? Great advertisement for dairy farmers. My mouth is parched. She shakes her head at me, and I try not to let a guilty look cascade over my face. “We are now suddenly on a photo shoot for Wild Countrymen magazine,” she shrugs. “The nude section, which is the hardest to get into and win. You guys are so hard to keep up with. It’s like being in a tornado.”

  I can actually empathise with that sentiment right now, I think as I chuckle lowly.

  “So, Sam,” I start. “Seems like in the last three seconds you have found some truly amazing things out about yourself and Nathan. For you, revving up my mum to… what was it? Nympho cougar status? Which is clearly not enough, you feel the whole country is more an appropriate audience to experience your thrill package. Nat, you should probably move it with a stick if he’s anything like his bestie,” Nat moves back to survey Sam and then picks up a stick whacking it against his leg while he tilts his head. Sam’s eyes follow the stick’s movement with stark horror.

  “And Nat,” I continue, watching my brother, “who knew you harboured a real passion and talent for nude male model positioning, you are going to be a hit back home when I let that out of the bag” I wink at Pop. “Definitely from Nan’s side, I’d say.”

  Nat whips around, “I am really gifted at this, I can literally see the rampant repopulation of country areas caused by this understated but amazing eye I have, but this is not for your little innocent peepers. There’s to be no acquaintance with this risqué region for you,” he quickly thrusts a hand over my eyes, then calls to Pop to take the photos, ... close up ones too... for mum and the magazine. Pop grumbles at first but then starts to direct Sam into more poses.

  “I like the whole populating country areas thing,” he muses as he clicks. “Put your smolder on, Sammie,” Pop encourages. “Like you want one more heifer in your herd. A real special one.”

  Flea and Harry laugh. Nathan’s hand slips slightly as he vibrates with amusement. I think Sam’s loving the fact that he’s in the limelight, not Seth.

  “Jump over the fence and lean on it,” Lucy instructs.

  “Put a piece of grass in your mouth,” Wade chimes in. “Like you’re farmer smooth.”

  “Farmer smooth?” Nathan repeats in a suave voice.

  “Move back to that large tussock over there,” Flea’s voice sounds. I laugh knowing what that means.

  “Awesome,” Tina sighs.

  “Get him in the trough,” Harry sounds thoughtful. “That would look the goods!” I hear the splash of water and some expletives about better cleaning jobs. Hey! I did that one earlier. “Put an arm and leg over it.”

  “That looks sooooo good,” Lucy breathes out. She whispers to someone, “Sam is a hunk!”

  “The light is really glowing on that patch of grass back there,” Nat says over the top of me. “Lie there, women love butts. With that bit of radiance highlighting those hills, Sammie, you’ll get the votes!”

  D chokes.

  I’m missing everything, so I try to pry Nathan’s large hand from my eyes, he doesn’t move, so I bite the finger that is lazily draped above my mouth. He tickles me on my okay side, and I squeal, he knows I hate it there. I don’t love being tickled by Nat or Dad, they hurt at the same time they make me laugh.

  We both stop dead, knowing what we have done. Nat’s hand drops from my eyes and we both stare up the paddock as Pop breathes... “Run, Sammie boy. Run!” Sam looks up from his pose in the sunset lit patch of grass quizzically. Frank’s huge head swings in my direction as my squeal reaches his ears

  “You want me to run at you or away?” Sam asks stretching as he gets to his knees, obviously having totally forgotten he is... modelling... in Frank’s actual paddock. “Slowly? Like in slow motion?” Frank’s eyes take in the fact that there is a being between him and me. If I ever want to kill someone on the sly, it is what I will do, put someone between Frank and me and scream.

  “We mean run like hell if you want to live, Zoolander,” Nat flicks his hand at him.

  “Shit,” D swears as Sam’s whole body pales as the realisation hits him. “I didn’t mean...”

  Chops rubs her back with a large hand. “He’ll make it.”

  “Run, Sam,” I rush forward to the fence wishing I could shove him. “Get to that gate there, that’s enough. Task one will be done!” Sam turns and squeals like a four-year-old girl getting a rainbow dyed pony ride.

  Frank is on the move; I can see the excitement enter his body. He loves to chase, loves to plough, loves to be full of his power. I think that’s why we get on so well. Crushing is his favourite thing to do going by the odd pig we’ve found in the paddock.

  “Shit!” Jaime cries, “He’s a machine.” And he is, when bulls start to gallop they eat up the ground with pure momentum.

  “D, you are an evil girl!” Wade pats her on the shoulder in awe.

  Chops growls. Nat and I pull our eyes from Sam and turn forgetting everything else. I’ve never heard Chops snarl like that befo
re. D has her hands covering her face, but I see tears leak from under them.

  “Nat,” Pop warns, making us return our attention to the naked fleeing figure.

  “Sam, run normally!” I yell, exasperated that he has his arms and hands flailing in the air like an orangutan on a treadmill.

  Nathan picks me up gently and places me over the fence, just in case the sprinting like mad figure doesn’t make it. I don’t move for a few seconds, watching Sam... it’s very funny. His legs and bum are white as snow and bits of dirt are flying from under his feet. I am stoked I’m a girl, those things looking mighty annoying when running, worse than big boobs.

  “Aaaaaaavvvvvaaaaalllllooooonnnnn,” he cries as he bolts towards the gate, which must seem as close as Tassie to him at the moment. Alby and Mangles shoot past and follow him, thinking he’s playing. One darts in front of him and he almost trips as he does the funniest long-legged windmill run, face down run trying to right himself. “F’en dogs!” We hear him screech. “Piss off!”

  “Get the bull,” he tries after another second, probably hearing Frank’s hoofbeats denting the ground.

  My phone beeps. “What did she say?” Nat enquires like the whole paddock scenario isn’t happening. Like it’s the remote Voldemort being hunted down, not his first male model prepped for repopulation or even his number one fan being hurtled after by a ton of flesh.

  “Pop!” I whirl. “You sent the close up of Sam’s pizzle to Noah!”

  UMM, so there are a few things I’m hoping here...

  1. I’m hoping that blood maybe splattered on your hands making them so slippery the camera slipped from the aim you had totally focused on his face

  or

  2. That you are in league with one hell of a mortician,

  because if that guy’s not dead.... he’s about to be.

  Nathan’s laugh shuts down quickly to a half-pained gulp as Pop snakes a pointed elbow into his side. I think Nat dramatises it a bit as I have swung a stirrup at him when I was raging and he didn’t even flinch. Pop should consider putting spurs on his elbows if he ever wants to mean business!

  “Well,” Pop says with a shrug. “You better choose Sam’s death quickly. I tend to lean toward Noah’s vengeance as Frank’s might cause these young ladies to feel faint and ultimately become vegans. A way worse outcome.”

  “Oh,” I blink, swiftly returning to the scene behind me. Frank was closing in, Sam had hundreds of metres head start but... “Aaavvvalllooooonnnn!” he screams again, this time with more urgency than I thought possible from the last time. There’s no way I can run that fast. No way I can make it. Frank’s pounding hooves might make it difficult to hear me yell.

  A soft footfall sounds beside me, and a nuzzle pushes at my side then lips my shirt before fully grabbing at it. Not Amber, I know already. I turn and gape at Flea who looks rather sheepish as he backs out of the gate. “Amber was happy annoying Outlaw, so...” he scratches at his nose with a nervous trill of a laugh tacked on to the end.

  “So Cherokee,” I breathe out, letting him off the hook. “Looks like both me and Sam will be eating our adrenalin for dessert.” Nathan jumps the fence and does this bend over squat thing. I step up his back and he rises slowly allowing me to step my leg easily on to the horse saving my side from any tension bearing movements. I pat Nathan on the head as Cherokee starts to move his feet around.

  “Thanks for the neck rope,” I huff to Flea indicating the pink bailing twine around Cherokee’s neck, he starts to prance in earnest. “You guys are sadists.”

  D shudders, Nat doesn’t miss it. “Man up, kid and live with the call!”

  She looks even more stricken, his grin not even softening the scene in the slightest. She moves into Chops and I tilt my head at this development. Chops mumbles something into her ear, I catch my name. She nods, but her lower lip still trembles.

  “Ava- fucking- lon!” Sam screams. “Do somethiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!”

  Maybe I’ve watched Frank too many times chase things down for it to hold my attention. I suddenly feel like my mum would be utterly disturbed by this, the fact that me, a teenage girl, is more into watching remote Voldemorts being hunted down by my killer best friend than naked guys.

  “Film this,” I throw Nat my phone vowing to talk to D after this, Cherokee whirls on the spot.

  “HI HO, SILVER!” I cry suddenly and he rears up, oooh love horses that get into my character scenarios. And then we are off. At breakneck speed.

  Although there’s a small wad of apprehension about this choice of a horse because he doesn’t have brakes that are anything near consistent yet, I love it. The feel of the wind as it whips my hair back behind us. I hope we make it before the fence looms too close because I’ll either be catapulted right over it, go through it with Cherokee or find out whether this pony can jump. Boy, can he go, Amber is fast, but this horse is built for the short burst and flies over the ground toward the hurtling Frank like a heat-seeking missile.

  As we are getting filmed, I figure it should be a close a call as possible for Sam again, it will be way more exciting that way. He still goes on about the bull that day when we were tipping, it’s his most requested story. We gain on Frank, who, in turn, is gaining on Sam, when I get close I will attempt to get on to Frank. I’ve done this countless times between Amber and Frank, no matter what he is doing will check himself and slow down, so I don’t get hurt. Nothing must threaten the health of the reading masseuse, is his live by it motto. Nat made me test this once when we had a Voldemort on the run. Frank stopped. I trust him.

  Unfortunately, Cherokee has no idea what the hell I’m trying to do. He keeps swerving and running out from the pressure my leg is giving.

  Sam yells out “Nooooo!” when he catches a glimpse of us coming at the totally wrong angle, bloody hell what I’d do for a bridle right now. “Not the crazy one!”

  I start singing to Cherokee and his ears flicker, why I chose ‘Do the locomotion,’ is beyond me. I try to leg the freight train over as we level up with Frank. It’s like a triangle at the moment Frank and Cherokee are the two sides and Sam is the point. Not one of the same angle triangles but the ones that they always ask ‘what is this triangle called’ in test questions, the weird ones. The triangle is getting so small now that I can hear Sam heaving in painful breaths. Frank’s eyes roll as they take in Cherokee and he dismisses him as something beneath him or not dangerous. I push the horse until we are racing side by side with Frank. Cherokee is very courageous; I sense him wanting desperately to dart away from under me and away from Frank, but he stays true and tries his hardest. “Good boy,” I praise him enthusiastically.

  “I’m not looking but tell Mum my brother would never have made it this far!” Sam cries between gulps, his arms pumping hard. His back and legs are bright red from the sprint

  “That’s your dying wish?” I laugh as I lean forward and curl my hand into Franks’ hair the best I can. “To tell your mum that you bet that your brother couldn’t outrun a bull, naked, for this long?”

  “Yes!” Sam grunts savagely.

  “And they say I’ve got family issues,” I muse, I don’t have to yell it because we are literally only tens of metres from the fast failing Sam. Hauling myself from Cherokee to Frank’s back without aggravating my side, well attempting to, because Cherokee takes my legs upward movement as a cue to veer away to safety, so I end up falling over the side of him. D screams in the distance, my ribs start to thud dully through the medication. I’m pretty impressed actually, given my legs are trying to run along the ground to get some perchance to jump up. I could actually have a chance to help to dig up the graves. I really want to.

  Frank immediately slows and I cajole and cuddle him, telling him how amazing he is at running people down as I get myself righted on his back. I sigh a breath of relief as Sam grabs the gate a few metres before us.

  He hikes himself over the gate so fast he catches a foot and falls into a heap, crawling hands that were grasping on to the wire f
ly back with his body as Frank’s head hits into the wire mesh, not anywhere near full strength, just a show. He decides it’s not enough though, so he hooks deadly horns in and rattles the whole fence line, telling Sam that he is so very lucky his bare butt isn’t smeared over the whole paddock or being used as a hula hoop trophy on his horns. Sam flings a finger to point at me, his chest inflating and deflating like its being operated by a jackhammer, “You were telling him he’s good at running people down? What kind of praise is that?”

  Franks cocks his head. “Be careful, Sammie,” I smile evilly knowing how Frank gets at that type of accusatory tone. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Frank is the best bull in the world!” I smooch on him rubbing his ears, talking in a babying voice.

  “Holy shit!” Sam thumps his head down on the ground. “He’s the goddamn worst!” Sam pants to the sky before turning eyes our way again.

  Frank drops his head to Sam’s level and just stares... his tail starts swinging slowly, a sure sign he is going to get through that gate one way or another. I slide down and grab Frank’s face to cuddle it, picking little flecks of dust from his eyelashes.

  “It’s going to happen every time, isn’t it? You’re going to leave it to the last second, pretty much give me a heart attack?” He sighs rubbing dirt off his legs. “I only agreed to this because I knew you’d step in... but instead I looked back and you were on your bloody phone!! Fricken teenage girls!”

  I bite my lip.

  “What?” He deadpans.

  “I got distracted,” I hedge.

  “By?” He suddenly looks smug. “My pictures?”

  “Please, I grew up on a Station with only brothers,” I roll my eyes. “I was actually distracted by Pop accidentally sending one of the pictures of your... thingy.... to Noah!” I answer dryly.

  Sam goes pale.

  I wait, totally absorbed in gushing over Frank and liking the satisfaction of Sammie being shut up.