Brumby's Run

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Enough with the talk. Wasn’t he ever going to kiss her again? On an impulse Sam laid her hand on his chest, feeling the firm muscles beneath. She slipped her fingers between a button, felt the warmth of his skin, the beat of his heart. He fixed her with his eyes intense with desire, and one by one undid her own buttons, big fingers fumbling a little. She smiled encouragement, the blood rushing in her ears. He leant in close, landing a flurry of whispery little kisses, all around her face and neck. Now his tongue was in her ear, his hands running over her bra, the swell of her breasts, pausing on a hardening nipple, stroking her sensitive belly. Sam’s legs went weak, and her skin burned beneath his touch. A delicious feeling swelled deep between her thighs, a sensation of exquisite sweetness. She sighed as his hands encircled her waist.

  With a loud whoosh, the storm sent a whipping surge of wind through the kitchen, extinguishing every candle. The sudden darkness was complete. So was the silence. ‘Come to bed,’ whispered Drew, taking hold of her hand. She quivered with the anticipation of his touch in the dark.

  But as Drew urged Sam to her feet, the dull throb of a motor sounded in the distance. Gradually the noise grew louder and louder. A car was coming, its headlights visible now through the window, brightening the room enough for Sam to find the torch in the cutlery drawer. She hurriedly buttoned up her shirt as Bess launched herself out the back door baying like the Hound of the Baskervilles, with Drew hot on her heels. Sam checked the time on her phone. Ten to twelve. Friends of Charlie’s, maybe, come to ring in the new year? Should she hide? Too late. She heard a heavy thud outside, and shrank back from a shadowy male form that loomed in the door. Not Drew. Taller and fair-haired, but with the same thin-hipped, broad-shouldered silhouette.

  Torchlight lit the man’s face, making it ghostly, like a Halloween mask. Sam shivered in spite of the warm night air, fumbling for matches. She lit a candle while the stranger watched. He looked puzzlingly familiar. Had she seen him in town, perhaps? Sam felt sure she’d have remembered a face so striking.

  There was a mathematical formula for beauty, or so she’d read. The golden mean. The divine proportion. Something about the distance between mouth and nose, the width of the lips, the height of the cheek. In this man’s handsome face, the formula was made flesh. His blue eyes held her own with a disturbing intensity, supremely confident, a little arrogant, like those of a young lion. Currajong certainly knew how to grow good-looking men.

  ‘Chaz,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’

  She had it. The poster cowboy. Drew pushed in past him. ‘Hey, man,’ said the cowboy, extending his hands with palms upheld. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘What was an accident?’ asked Sam.

  ‘The bastard tripped me.’ In the faint candlelight she could see that mud caked the front of Drew’s body and smudged his nose.

  The cowboy surveyed the candle-filled kitchen with the manner of a man who’d been drinking, but was not yet drunk. ‘Very romantic.’ He flicked the useless light switch and clicked his tongue. ‘Or did your mum just not pay the bill?’

  Drew shouldered the stranger. ‘Get out, Spike.’

  ‘I’d say that’s Charlie’s call, wouldn’t you?’ He had the kind of eyes that ran up and down a woman’s body like a searchlight. Drew waited, looking expectantly at Sam – waiting for her to back him up.

  Yes,’ she said at last. There was a simmering tension between the two men that she couldn’t read. ‘Would you go, please?’

  Spike pricked up his ears. ‘Since when did you start bunging on a voice, Chaz?’ He came closer, examining her with curious eyes. It was like a physical touch. She felt vulnerable, exposed, but deliciously so. It was no use, she couldn’t fool him.

  ‘You’ve confused me for my sister,’ she said, hearing her voice falter. ‘I’m Samantha. Charlie is away.’ Now for the disbelief, the doubt, the astonishment. Comprehension was the last thing she expected, but there it was, plain on his face.

  ‘My mistake.’ He spoke in a low, modulated tone, at times a half-drawl. No two ways about it, Spike’s voice was very sexy – and it wasn’t just his voice.

  ‘Completely understandable,’ she said. ‘Charlie and I are identical twins.’

  Spike shot Drew a look. ‘Man, what a beautiful dream.’ Drew sprang forward, and Sam instinctively moved between the two men.

  ‘You’re not going to kick me out, are you, Samantha?’ Spike checked his phone. ‘Not at five minutes to midnight, in the rain, on fucking New Year’s Eve?’ He took off his hat and put it on the table, as if it might anchor him in the room.

  ‘That’s exactly what she’s going to do,’ said Drew. He rammed the hat back onto Spike’s head and gave him a helpful push. ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Spike. ‘No need to shove.’ He removed his hat, inspected its shape, and replaced it with a flourish. ‘If you want, Samantha, I’ll come over tomorrow, set that generator up for you. No point just having it sit there for clumsy folk to trip over, now is it?’

  ‘Will you just fuck off?’ snarled Drew. Bess growled in low agreement.

  ‘Drew?’ said Sam in puzzlement.

  Spike gave Sam a dazzling smile. ‘Do me and yourself a favour, will you, sweetness? Dump this clown.’

  Then he was gone. The headlights retreated down the hill, and the tiny kitchen was theirs once again. But the mood was spoiled, the air heavy with Drew’s anger.

  ‘You don’t like him?’ asked Sam.

  Drew shook his head. ‘Spike’s a jerk.’ He arched his back, hands clasped on his head. ‘You told him your name. Why him?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘He already knew I wasn’t Charlie.’ She checked the time. Five past. ‘Happy New Year.’

  ‘Happy New Year.’ A single candle flickered on the table. Sam tried her best to suppress a yawn, suddenly overcome with fatigue.

  ‘You’re tired,’ said Drew. He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘See you first thing in the morning, then.’

  She nodded, crushed. If only Spike hadn’t arrived. Now everything was somehow changed.

  He whistled Bess and the pair disappeared out the door, braving the storm.

  Sam swapped the half-full bucket beneath the leak for an empty one. The anticlimax was almost unbearable What had she done wrong?

  She tipped the water into the sink and washed up the few dishes, mind still too busy for sleep. She wiped down the benches, covered the remainder of the cheese platter with cling wrap and put it on ice in the esky. Lightning lit up the sky, the trees outside the window. It lit up Tambo’s dark form in the yard above the house.

  For the first time since being at Brumby’s Run, Sam was lonely. She picked up the candle and headed for the bedroom, replaying every detail of the evening over and over in her mind. She thought of Drew, and then of Spike – of the overt hostility between them. What was it, she wondered, that they weren’t telling her? It was only in the wee small hours, as she finally drifted off to sleep, that she remembered she hadn’t rung Charlie.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charlie scoffed the rubbery scrambled eggs, the tough toast, the cold tea. In the process of tearing the top from a tiny container of long-life orange juice, she managed to tip the lot down her front. Not a very auspicious start to the new year. She swore, and dabbed at the spill with the scrap of paper napkin provided. Being no bigger than a postage stamp, it wasn’t much use. She wiped the stain with the sheet instead. What she wouldn’t do for a real breakfast right now. Charlie’s head sank back onto her pillow, her eyes closed, and she let her imagination take flight. Fried eggs on slabs of thick white toast, smothered in butter. Rashers of juicy bacon. Tomato halves, grilled until their skins turned black. Pan-fried field mushrooms.

  The ringing phone jolted her back to reality. Charlie snatched it up. ‘Sam?’ she said. ‘At last! It seems like ages since we’ve talked.’

  ‘Not so long,’ said Sam. There was a defensive note to her sister’s voice. ‘Happy New Year. I did try to call last night. Cou
ldn’t get through, though.’

  Charlie didn’t challenge the remark. Mobile-phone reception was unreliable in Currajong, but it still sounded like an excuse. The possibility that she was being lied to unsettled her, even if it was only a little white lie. Sam was supposed to be her window on the world back home. Yet in the last eight days they’d hardly spoken.

  ‘Happy New Year to you too,’ said Charlie. ‘How’s things? How’s Tambo?’

  ‘Tambo’s fine,’ said Sam. ‘I’m riding him up to Dead Man’s Hut today to help Drew run in some brumbies. A wild stallion stole one of Bill’s mares.’

  Charlie shut her eyes and held the phone away from her head. She could still hear the small, indistinct prattle of Sam’s voice, but thankfully could no longer make out the words. They would conjure up far too clear an image of all she was missing. Charlie took a deep breath and returned the phone to her ear, before Sam realised she’d been away.

  ‘… decide what to do with them once we get Chiquita back. What do you think?’

  ‘So, you’re yarding the Maroong Mountain mob?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘I suppose they’re the ones.’

  ‘Big buckskin stallion? Cocky as all hell?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘It sounds like him.’

  ‘That’s Jarrang,’ said Charlie. ‘I love that horse. You let him go, Sam.’

  ‘Drew might have other ideas. His father doesn’t want us to release them.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck what Bill wants,’ said Charlie, her voice rising. ‘Just let him go, along with a couple of mares for company. Otherwise, he’ll keep on stealing station horses.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Sam. ‘More importantly, how are you doing?’

  ‘I’m getting out next week. Moving into the apartment with Mum.’ Professor Sung had told them the night before. Apparently her recovery was progressing perfectly. Charlie was sceptical by nature, but it was true that her appetite had returned with a vengeance, and she was feeling stronger every day. ‘Your stem cells really pack a punch, Sam.’

  ‘That’s fantastic! How long before …’ Charlie heard a man’s voice in the background. ‘Sorry,’ said Sam. ‘Got to go. Drew’s here. Call you tonight and let you know how we went.’

  Charlie’s mouth went dry. No, Sam couldn’t go yet. Their phone call had just started. ‘Remember what I told you,’ said Charlie, quickly. ‘Look after Jarrang. We’re friends.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ said Sam, and then she was gone. Charlie hurled the phone to the floor. What she wouldn’t give to be at home right now, joining the hunt for Bill’s lost mare, galloping the wild slopes of the Balleroo Range. Silent tears flooded her face. She used the sheet to mop them away, then extracted the set of painted pagan prayer beads from her drawer. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she worked to clear her mind of envy and longing, like her mother had taught her, then repeated the familiar chant.

  My blood, my bone, my body,

  Is healing now, healing now.

  The goddess force is in me.

  She heals me now, heals me now.

  Strength of day, strength of night,

  Give me strength, beyond my sight.

  The prayer’s comforting words worked, as they always did, to soothe away the anxiety, unravel the taut threads of her nerves. Get well. That’s what she needed to do now. Get well and return to Brumby’s Run. Get well and reclaim her life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A flock of crimson rosellas exploded from the trees into a sky of perfect blue. Clancy pawed the ground as Drew swung into the saddle. ‘Wear that riding helmet or you’re not coming,’ he said over his shoulder. Sam had taken to wearing Charlie’s lucky hat recently.

  ‘Won’t the others think it’s a bit strange?’

  ‘Who cares what they think? Put it on or stay here.’

  Sam looked like she was about to argue. Then she apparently thought better of it, threw Tambo’s reins over the fence and ran back for the helmet.

  Drew wasn’t quite sure how to act around Sam today. There had really been something between them last night – hell, they were about five metres and thirty seconds away from consummating that something. If only Spike hadn’t shown up. Talk about deja vu hitting Drew over the head with a mallet. It might be with a different girl, but it was very close to the bone. Sam and Charlie, Charlie and Sam – it was all too weird to be falling in love with Charlie’s twin, especially when Sam wouldn’t tell him what was really going on. And look at what happened when Drew fell in love with Charlie herself – not exactly a ringing endorsement for either girl. He pushed his feelings to the back of his mind and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Once they got going, he’d be right.

  Sam came back with her helmet. There was a noticeable tremble in her legs as she mounted and Tambo had broken out into a sweat. The horse sensed Sam’s excitement, sidling sideways and playing with the bit. Although still early, the day was already uncomfortably warm. A shimmering haze rose above the purple peaks of the range, adding a silvery surrealism to the scene.

  Since meeting Sam, Drew had tried to observe the world around him with fresh eyes. He paid attention now. He paid attention to the sound of the creek on its way down the mountain, to the subtle fragrance of the bush, to the pictures in the clouds. What would a stranger make of this view? He guessed they’d be pretty impressed. But most of all, he paid attention to Sam. Her laugh, her frown, her childlike wonder in the world. He loved just watching her ride. The way her hips swayed in time with her horse. The way her arms reached down occasionally to hug Tambo’s neck. He imagined those arms wrapped around him instead. Her very presence heightened his senses, making life infinitely more exciting.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Drew. Sam had Charlie’s stockwhip on the saddle. ‘You know how to use that thing?’

  ‘No.’ Sam adjusted her stirrups. ‘Charlie said to let the brumby stallion go.’

  ‘Did she now?’ Drew grinned. ‘That’s cause her and Jarrang, they’re old mates. Charlie raised him from a baby, after he got separated from his mother during a storm. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. I early-weaned one of our foals and lent her the brood mare, hoping it might adopt the little colt. Nothing doing. Instead it tried to kick his head in. So Charlie milked that damn mare like a dairy cow, morning and night for months, and bottle-raised him.’ Drew slapped a fly off his thigh with his hat. ‘That little colt was a good sort. I said she should geld him and keep him for herself. But Charlie hasn’t got a practical bone in her body. Said he wouldn’t be happy in captivity.’ Drew didn’t put the rest of his thought into words; didn’t say that Jarrang would be a lot happier in Charlie’s paddock than in the knacker’s yard. If the federal government had its way, a knacker’s yard was where all the park brumbies would end up.

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Drew. ‘If we run in Jarrang, you can have him. Let him go, if you want, or keep him for when Charlie comes home.’ Sam nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘We’ve got some horses to catch.’

  They cantered up the hill, past the dam, heading for the northern boundary of Brumby’s Run. Drew had constructed 200-metre-long wings – ring-lock wire fencing, disguised with hessian chaff bags – to funnel the brumbies into the yards at Dead Man’s Hut. He was pleased with the job. It helped that Chiquita was no wild horse. Since Christmas he’d left the big yard open and generously supplied with salt-licks, water and hay. Hoof prints and vanishing feed told Drew she’d led the mob inside more than once. They’d be less wary now. Still, if he missed them the first time, they’d be on to him. You only got one chance with brumbies.

  When they reached the old stock route, they saw five riders approaching at a spanking trot, stock-whips slung by their sides. Two eager blue cattle dogs trotted behind. Drew reined Clancy in and waited.

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Sam.

  ‘That’s Tom Ward, our head stockman. Bushmen don’t come any better than T
om. The other four are contract brumby runners.’

  ‘Why’s that one got a rifle?’ asked Sam. Drew thought back to his own disastrous experience running brumbies the previous year, and prayed she wouldn’t wind up just as disillusioned.

  ‘If a horse breaks a leg, we’ll have to shoot it,’ he said honestly. ‘It’s the kindest thing.’ Sam stared in open astonishment and his stomach lurched with doubt. There was fear and apprehension in her large eyes now, and he was the one who’d put it there. Drew suddenly wished he hadn’t brought her along.

  ‘G’day Tom,’ said Drew, as the lead rider reached them. Tom pulled up his horse and leaned his elbow on the pommel of the saddle while he rolled a smoke. A crashing sound in the scrub provoked the two heelers into a mad flurry of barking. A small mob of black baldies, tails held high, broke from a stand of tea-tree and lumbered into the bush. Tom silenced the dogs with a word and stared at Drew. They were Kelly cattle. He must have missed them when he mustered the herd home to Brumby’s Run. Their presence would not go unreported.

  ‘Those brumbies aren’t too far away,’ said Tom. ‘Spotted them yesterday, in the clearing below Waratah Spring. Me and the boys will circle around, try to get in above them.’ He nodded towards Sam. ‘You and the girl hold down the flank. We’ll make plenty of noise for you.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Drew. Tom and the others veered left off the track, heading uphill through the trees, while Drew and Sam rode on to the hut. The brumbies had been there, and recently. Hay was trampled all about and there were fresh droppings. So far, so good. The hessian fence hadn’t spooked them.

  Drew led Sam to a position fifty metres along the northern wing. ‘Tambo knows what to do. Just stay put and stand your ground.’ He pulled the stockwhip from her saddle and offered it. Sam took the coiled lash, holding it as cautiously as she might a snake. ‘You’ll hear the horses coming a mile off. Don’t let them past.’ Sam nodded, face flushed, either with excitement or fear. ‘You okay?’ He put his hand on her arm.