The Snow Pony

by Alison Lester

  Thinking of her mother’s funny ways made her feel less alone. She started to walk back to the track, staying among the trees in case the truck returned. The snow gums huddled together like twisted human figures. They were gnarled and striped, with crinkles in their silver bark like the creases in her elbows. Her hands were hurting with cold, so she pulled the sleeves of her jumper through her jacket cuffs and wrapped them around her fingers like mittens. Stringer bounded along beside her with his funny loping stride, smiling as though this was the best adventure he could have hoped for. When they reached the track, Jade started to run. She needed to warm up, and she needed to get as far as she could before it got completely dark. It was very dim already. She settled into a steady jog.

  As she ran, she tried to work out how far it was back to the hut. She had left her watch at home, so her estimates were all guesses, but she thought it had taken about half an hour to get from the hut up to the plains. Even though it had felt as though the truck was flying, they had probably been doing only about thirty kilometres an hour. Jade remembered looking down at the speedo during a really fast bit, and the needle was wavering around forty. That made it about fifteen kilometres away. ‘Lucky I’m good at maths, hey, dog,’ she called to Stringer.

  She had run that far before, with Dad, when she went to stay with him in the last holidays, and it had taken them just under one and a half hours. ‘That was uphill a long way, though, dog.’ Stringer turned back to her with his head on one side and a puzzled expression on his face. ‘This is downhill all the way. Easy peasy for runners like us.’

  She ran on, watching the ground carefully as the light dimmed. She couldn’t afford to fall or sprain her ankle. She was depending on her legs to save her life. She laughed aloud at that thought – it was so dramatic, but it was true. She strode out on the flat stretches, jumping puddles and skirting muddy bits, and powered up the inclines, but on the steep descents she ran with little bitty steps – ‘old geezer steps’ Dad used to call them – to make sure she didn’t slip.

  It was lucky after all that she’d worn her runners. Horse had told her off on the first day for her light footwear. ‘You need boots like these,’ he’d pointed to his own big clodhoppers. ‘This is tough country we’re going to.’ Jade snorted to herself, remembering the conversation. Horse could have worn ballet slippers on the trip because he’d never been more than about ten steps away from the truck.

  ‘He’s a big bag of wind,’ she said to Stringer, loping beside her. He grinned his whiskery grin, as if to say, ‘Yes, Jade, of course, whatever you say. You’re wonderful, Jade, you’re the very best.’

  She stopped running after a little while, because the bare strip between her top and her jeans was hurting with the cold. She wished she’d listened to her nanna, who was always telling her to tuck her shirt in. ‘You’ll get a chill in your kidneys, young lady.’ Nan was so keen on singlets and spencers that she wore them under her bra, and she thought anyone with a bare midriff was just asking for trouble. Jade pulled her top down and her jeans up, but they came apart as soon as she moved. She patted her hands over her jacket. If she had some safety pins she could pin them together. ‘Ah ha!’ She felt her woollen scarf. She didn’t need that around her neck, now that her jacket was done up. She wound the scarf carefully around her waist, zipping her jeans over it and pulling her jacket down. Her hands were stinging with the cold, so she pulled her jumper cuffs over them and set off again.

  The bush around her was silent. Jade hadn’t seen a bird or animal since she started running. Once, she heard footsteps behind her and thought she was being chased, and then the bush felt dark and dangerous. She panicked for a moment, and ran like the wind, but when the footsteps behind her got faster, too, she realised it was the sound of her own steps.

  It was very dark now and she could only see where she was going by following the sky above the track, where it glowed slightly paler than the trees. The moon was out there somewhere, behind the banks of cloud. Her eyes felt as big as golf balls, straining to see in the gloom. Something landed on her face, something very cold, then another and another. Suddenly it was snowing, thick heavy snow, falling out of the sky in swirling eddies. It was as though someone was shaking a giant sieve of icing sugar on the land. Jade smiled to think of God jiggling Nan’s sifter to and fro over the high plains. She looked down at Stringer to tell him her funny thought and realised that the snow had in fact been heaven-sent. She could see him clearly against the snow, his dark grey coat standing out like …

  ‘Like dog’s balls!’ Jade said to him. ‘You’re sticking out like dog’s balls, Stringer.’ Now she had something to follow. ‘Go on, boy!’ She urged him ahead with a wave of her arm. ‘Take me to the hut!’

  He ran ahead and Jade could see him easily, her hairy guide, loping through the snow like a shadow.

  18

  Out of the night

  Dusty wriggled her toes inside their warm woollen socks and leant back in her favourite chair. Years ago, an anonymous visitor had carved it with a chainsaw from a single snow gum stump, tilting the seat slightly backwards and leaving a long leaning section of trunk intact for the back. Like the bunks and table, years of use had given the wood a sleek patina. It felt wonderful to be warm and dry.

  A line of boots sat in front of the fire – Dad’s, Stewie’s and hers – drying out for tomorrow. Stewie was asleep with firelight flickering over his face. Dusty could hear the horses stamping in their stalls on the other side of the wall. She loved living like this, everyone in together.

  ‘Come and see this, Dusty.’ Jack was standing in front of the window, peering through the smoky panes of glass. ‘It’s been snowing and we didn’t even know. Look. The wind’s died right away and the snow is just falling out of the sky.’

  They huddled together at the tiny view for a moment, then went outside and stood shivering under the verandah. Swirls of fat white flakes floated silently down around them, and the ground in front of the hut had transformed into a thick white carpet.

  Dusty jumped up and down with excitement. It was as though magic had happened. ‘Oh, Dad, isn’t it beautiful! Snow, lovely snow.’

  Jack pulled a face. ‘You mightn’t think it’s so lovely tomorrow. If it keeps it up at this rate, we’ll be snowed in by morning.’ He opened the door to the hut and the light from within turned the flakes into dancing pieces of gold. ‘Come inside. It’s too cold for anyone out here.’

  Dusty pulled her beanie low over her ears and wriggled down into her sleeping-bag, snug as a bug in a rug. She was very tired, and sleep was creeping up on her like a warm summer tide, when Digger barked so loudly that she snapped wide awake. It was a terrified bark, a there’s-something-out-there bark: ‘Woo woo woo.’ Spike joined in, yapping hysterically.

  Jack jumped down from the top bunk.

  ‘What is it, Dad? Have they come back?’ Dusty had goose bumps on her arms.

  ‘I don’t know. There’s something there, though.’

  The dogs kept barking, their chains rattling the sides of the kennels as they paced to and fro.

  ‘I wish we’d brought the gun.’ Dusty’s voice sounded as wobbly as she felt.

  ‘Stay there. Stay in bed.’ Jack patted her lightly on the shoulder, peered out the window and walked towards the door.

  Dusty looked across at Stewie, who was sleeping through the din. ‘Don’t go out there, Dad,’ she hissed at him, but he picked up the poker from the fireplace and stepped outside.

  Dusty wanted to rush to the window, but she felt paralysed with fear. The barking changed pitch abruptly – the fear was gone – and Dusty thought at first that the dogs had taken heart because Jack was outside. But then she realised that they could see what was out there and it didn’t frighten them. Spike whined excitedly and Digger growled softly.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Jack’s voice, muffled through the wall, was disbelieving. ‘Here, boy! Here, pup.’

  Dusty jumped out of bed. The door swung open before she reache
d it.

  ‘Come and look at this, Dusty.’

  The dog had snow caught in his bushy eyebrows and he was so tall that Dusty thought for a moment he was a deer.

  ‘It’s the girl’s dog, the one she was holding.’ Her mind raced. ‘D’you think he fell off the truck? Maybe he ran away.’

  The dog spread his legs and shook the snow off his back, then went to run back into the night. Dusty grabbed his collar, and he struggled and whined, staring towards the track. She followed his eyes, and through the falling snow saw a figure staggering across the clearing. It was the girl. It was Jade. Before they could step out to meet her she was under the verandah, hunched over, hands on her knees, gasping air into her lungs in huge sucking breaths.

  ‘Come inside, quick.’ Jack touched her elbow. ‘You’ll freeze in no time out here.’

  Dusty stepped back to let Jade past. Her face was bright red, and her shiny jacket with its pointy hood made her look like a spacewoman.

  Jack put his leg in front of the dog to stop him coming into the hut, but when he saw the girl’s face drop he changed his mind. The dog slipped through the doorway like a shadow and sat neatly on one side of the fire as if to say, ‘I’ll be no trouble, no trouble at all.’

  Dusty pulled a blanket off the top bunk and wrapped it around Jade’s shoulders.

  ‘Thanks.’ Her breathing was less ragged. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming back here,’ she held her hands out to the fire, ‘but they … they attacked me. Travis was flaked out, and I think Neville was gunna kill me. I jumped out the truck window, up on that big plain.’ Her voice broke into sobs as she spoke, and Dusty could only just understand what she was saying.

  Jack was kneeling at the hearth, putting another log on the fire. ‘Don’t tell me they’re coming back here.’ His voice was impatient, and Dusty patted Jade’s shoulder, to make up for her father’s bad manners.

  ‘No. They kept going. They were heading for the road. The sign said it was ten kilometres.’

  Jack spun around. ‘You were up there? Up at the top plain? But that’s a good sixteen ks. You’d have never made it by now.’

  ‘I ran.’

  Dusty and Jack looked at her in disbelief.

  ‘I know how to run. My dad taught me.’

  Jack smiled at her for the first time. ‘And he taught you well. That’s a mighty long way on a good day, but to do it at night in a blizzard is something else.’ He put his hand out. ‘What’s your name, young lady?’

  ‘It’s Jade, Dad. I told you, I know her from school.’ Dusty looked sideways at Jade and tried a joke. ‘We’re the lonely girls.’

  Jack looked at her strangely. He didn’t know what a rotten time she had at school.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Dad.’

  Jade smiled at her though, she knew what the lonely club was.

  Stewie was still sound asleep in his bunk; he hadn’t heard a thing. Jack told the girls about the time when he and Rita had taken a noisy party of friends to see their sleeping baby son, and even that ruckus hadn’t woken him up. Jade was beginning to shiver in her wet clothes, so Jack found an assortment of spare clothes for her in their bags.

  ‘I’ll go to bed so you can get changed. Make sure you take all your stuff off, because even the inside layers will be wet. And you should probably share Dusty’s bunk, Jade, so you get a bit of her body heat. You could feel really cold after that big effort.’ He kissed Dusty and patted Jade on the back. ‘Goodnight, girls.’

  Jade and Dusty sat in front of the fire together, sipping the hot chocolates Jack had made before he got back into bed. Jade felt as dry as a chip in her borrowed clothes.

  ‘Do you mind sharing a bed with me?’ Dusty did feel a bit strange about it, but she couldn’t say so.

  ‘No, it’ll be fine.’ Jade coughed nervously. ‘Um, actually I do feel a bit weird about it because I stink.’

  Dusty started to say she didn’t mind, but Jade cut her off.

  ‘I do. I haven’t had a wash since Sunday night and I think it’s Wednesday now. That’s three days.’ She held a hank of hair under her nose and sniffed. ‘My hair stinks of smoke, too, from the campfire and their cigarettes.’

  ‘I’ve got just the thing for you.’ Dusty stood on her stool, reached up to the rafters and juggled down a big tin tub. ‘Mum used to bath us in this when we were little.’ She rapped her knuckles against the tin – bong, bong. ‘She and I still use it when we’re feeling really grotty.’

  Jade hesitated and glanced at the bunks. ‘What if your dad gets up, or your brother?’

  Dusty pulled the faded tartan blanket off Jade’s shoulders and pegged it to the clothesline hanging across the room. ‘For you, Mees Jade, we ’ave the special privacy curtain.’ She laughed. ‘And I’ll look the other way. Come on, there’s two billies here with hot water in them.’

  Jade squeezed warm water from the towelling washcloth so that it ran over her face and down her chest. It felt good to be clean, and the heat from the fire warmed her front. She picked up the soap to lather her arms and it shot out of her hand like a frog. Dusty handed it back and couldn’t help noticing the bruises on Jade’s arms and three ugly welts running diagonally across her ribs.

  Jade saw her looking. ‘I fell over a fair bit on the way here. That’s how I got these.’ She held up her elbows. ‘But these,’ she touched her wrists and peered at her ribs, ‘these are from Neville.’ She pressed the washcloth against her face as she remembered the fight. ‘But I got him. I reckon I kicked him in the nose, didn’t I, dog?’

  Stringer lay with his head on his paws. He opened one eye and nodded his head slightly. The girls laughed out loud at him and then sat together in silence, each lost in their thoughts.

  Dusty was thinking how different Jade was from her. She couldn’t imagine herself fighting a grown man, or running sixteen kilometres. She remembered that day at the Bankstown Show, when she had seen Jade selling her mother’s candles and envied her wild clothes and easy manner. She blushed as she remember her arrogant assumption that Jade would be soft and impractical, not a tough farm girl like her.

  ‘You’re a hero, Jade. I can’t imagine doing what you’ve just done.’

  Jade laughed. ‘I can’t imagine it either. I’ve always been a little nobody. Sometimes I feel like a shadow at home, there’s always so much going on. Mum’s always got to do just one more thing before she can get to me, always has one more phone call to make. Trav hardly talks to me. And Dad, well Dad’s so far away that sometimes I forget what he looks like.’

  Jade thought how angry her mother was going to be when she found out what had happened. It would be the end of Horse, and she would have the police after Neville. She’d want to kill Travis. The image of her brother’s body in the back of the truck flashed into her mind. ‘I hope he’s all right.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Travis. My brother. He was the drunk one. The unconscious drunk one. God, I hate what grog does to people.’

  Dusty nodded, ‘Me, too.’

  Jade looked up and Dusty caught her expression of disbelief. ‘I know. I know what grog does to people,’ she said softly, aware of her father in his bunk on the other side of the blanket. ‘We’ve had a bad time because of it.’

  Jade raised her eyebrows in surprise. It was hard to believe this perfect family was flawed. ‘Hey, pass me the towel, will you?’

  Dusty pressed it to her cheek before handing it to Jade. It was warm from hanging beside the fire.

  ‘Where are your mum and dad?’ Dusty asked, and Jade told her their complicated family situation.

  ‘Trav rang Mum from Banjo on Monday afternoon and we left the phone off the hook so she’d think it was engaged if she rang. She thinks I’ve been at school all week.’

  Dusty tried to imagine doing something so wilful, but she couldn’t. Everything she did involved her parents. ‘Won’t she worry when she can’t get through on the phone?’

  Jade shook her head. ‘She never worries. She always think
s things are going to be all right. I worry more than her.’ She rubbed her head with the towel. ‘I’m really worried about Travis. Horse is just plain stupid, but that Neville is a mean bastard.’ She peered at Dusty’s watch. ‘They should be off the high plains by now, back in civilisation. When Trav gets home and wakes up he’s going to have a mighty hangover, but then he’s going to want to know where I am, and he’s going to ring Mum and she’ll ring the police … oh boy, what a mess.’

  Jade lay on her side, eyes closed, and waited for sleep to come. She could feel Dusty’s body behind her, settled in the same shape. ‘Pretend we’re riding a bike,’ she’d said. ‘That’s what Mum says when we share a bed.’ Jade wondered what Jeannie was doing tonight in the city, so far from the high plains, but she was too tired to concentrate. Her thoughts flicked from one thing to another, disturbing flashes from the long day. Just before she fell asleep she remembered Jack’s smile when she said, ‘My dad taught me to run.’ It was like saying, ‘I’m special. Someone cares for me. I can do something really well.’ It made her feel good.

  19

  Snowed in

  Jade felt sore all over when she woke up. The dad, Jack, and the little brother were moving around the hut, speaking in murmurs, putting more wood on the fire, rustling through plastic bags, and getting food from the cupboard. She hoped they’d be going home today. She just wanted to be in her own house, with Jeannie, and maybe ring up Dad, not stuck with this family she didn’t know. She could imagine how snobby the dad would be to Jeannie. As she listened to their movements, Jade realised there were no noises coming from outside the hut. The outside world was silent. Stringer whined and she heard the door groan open.

  ‘Holy hell! Look at this, Stew.’ The door swung shut and their voices were muffled, but she could still hear the excitement. There must be a lot of snow out there, she thought.