The Snow Pony

by Alison Lester

  ‘Whooaa!’ She screamed at the Snow Pony, jerking the reins viciously. ‘Listen to me, you crazy horse. Whooaa!’

  The mare faltered, and Dusty thought she had her under control, that she was listening to her … but suddenly the stallion was there, ears flattened, his head low, weaving like a snake about to strike, rushing at the Snow Pony, trying to drive her to his mares.

  Dusty threw her arms in the air and shouted at him in her deepest voice. ‘Yaarrrr! Get out of it!’ The stallion swerved away for an instant and when he saw Captain he raced at him like a dervish, yellow teeth bared, his dark mane whipping through the white. Captain turned to kick at him but he was too slow. The stallion raked his teeth viciously across the big horse’s rump, then kept attacking him, trying to drive him away. Captain was much bigger, but the intensity and aggression of the stallion overwhelmed him.

  ‘Stand still!’ Dusty screamed at the Snow Pony, and this time she listened and stood. Dusty bunched the reins up short in one hand and reached back for her stockwhip, tied to the strap of her saddlebag. Her fingers were too clumsy in the sodden glove, so she cursed and pulled it off with her teeth, then fiddled with the baling-twine knot, sobbing as she watched Captain being mauled by the stallion. It was like seeing a fat schoolboy being beaten up by a karate expert. Suddenly the whip came free. She gripped the handle fiercely, swung the whip above her head and rode the Snow Pony at the stallion, yelling like a banshee. The crack of the whip rang around the cliffs like a gunshot, and stopped him in his tracks. He wheeled away from Captain and raced back to his mares. They were already running.

  Dusty chased them, cracking the whip, screaming, driving them towards the river. The first mare propped at the edge, but the stallion rushed at her and she leapt in. Then the other brumbies were in the river, too, swimming for the other side. Dusty let the whip trail in the snow and stood in the stirrups to watch them. She didn’t want to panic the foals, but they swam strongly beside their mothers then scrambled, bedraggled and steaming, out on to the snowy bank on the other side. The stallion stood defiantly on the near bank, and for a moment Dusty thought he was going to come after Snow again, but when she cracked the whip he turned and plunged into the dark water.

  Dusty kept cracking the whip until the brumbies disappeared around the first bend in the track leading away from the river. Go, she thought, go a long way away so we won’t run into you again. She heard the muffled drumming of their hooves for a little while, and then the only noise was the rushing of the river. She flicked the tail of the whip towards her, to loop it up to the handle, and realised her hands were shaking uncontrollably and her chest felt as though every bit of air had been squeezed out of it. As she struggled to breathe, the Snow Pony turned away from the river and whinnied softly, like a normal horse.

  Jade was limping across the clearing, leading Captain. She held something up in her hand and waved it like a prize. ‘I’ve got your glove, Dusty! I’ve got your glove!’

  Suddenly Dusty’s lungs began to work. She laughed hysterically, then she was crying at the same time. She slid down from the Snow Pony’s back and stumbled to Jade and they clung to each other as their cries and laughter echoed around the giant pine.

  They tethered the horses under the tree and used their plastic bag of kindling to make a campfire. Jade filled the quart pot from the river to boil water for tea and Dusty stood on a log to examine Captain’s rump.

  ‘I can’t believe this.’ She ran her hands gently over his big round bottom. ‘I thought he’d have great chunks of flesh ripped out of him, but the skin isn’t even broken. He’s got big stripes of teeth marks where the hair’s missing, but he’s in much better shape than I expected.’ She climbed down from the log and leant against his flanks. ‘Poor old boy, getting beaten up by a bushranger.’ She turned to Jade. ‘He was wild, wasn’t he? A real wild horse. And he had to be Snow’s father.’

  ‘Do you think she knew he was her father? And did he know the Snow Pony was his daughter?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Dusty pulled the cheese and biscuits out of the saddlebag. ‘I don’t think horses see it that way. Snow wanted to go with them, that’s for sure. It was like sitting on an unbroken horse. She was switched off, not listening to me at all. I think he just wanted her for his mob, and he didn’t want Captain. He was a bastard but he was beautiful, wasn’t he?’

  Jade shook her head as she hung tea bags in the cups. Dusty had horses in her blood. She must have, to admire that terrifying stallion.

  They swept the snow off a log and sat on it side by side, sipping scalding black tea and watching the river race by. Dusty started to giggle and Jade nudged her.

  ‘What? What are you laughing at?’

  Dusty giggled again. ‘You,’ she wheezed, ‘you holding the glove up, like you’d done something fantastic. After we both nearly got killed, you came out with that! “Oh I say, Dusty!”’ She put on a toffy voice. ‘“Oh, Dusty! I’ve found your glove!”’ She cupped her hands around the enamel mug then suddenly put it on the ground. ‘I just remembered!’ She felt in her pockets. ‘I’ve got a Tim Tam for each of us.’ They sucked hot tea through the biscuits and made ‘Mmm mmn’ sounds as the biscuit dissolved and the chocolate melted in their mouths.

  ‘I wish we could summon a genie, like in that ad on TV.’

  ‘Yeah. We could get him to magic a bridge over the river.’

  Jade stood up and studied the racing water. ‘Where’s that rock your dad was talking about?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Dusty stepped beside her. ‘We can’t see it, and he said not to cross the river if we couldn’t see the rock.’ Her voice was flat, and Jade felt just as disappointed. They had come too far to turn back now, and the thought of riding on that skinny trail above the river made her feel sick.

  ‘I don’t think I can ride back,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘You don’t have to.’ Dusty scooped some snow into a ball and threw it at the river. ‘We’re not going back. We’re crossing the river.’

  ‘But your dad said …’

  Dusty remembered him, lying on the bunk, giving her instructions, trying to control everything, as always. ‘Well, he’s not here.’ She flicked the dregs of her tea into the fire. ‘He’s not here and we have to decide. I know the rock’s not showing, but I think the crossing’s changed. Even the foals didn’t have any trouble getting across.’ She pointed at the end of the log they’d been sitting on. ‘That’s been cut with a chainsaw, see. You can get in here in a four-wheel-drive from the other side. People come down here all the time in summer and maybe they’ve built up the crossing. Dad hasn’t been here for ages.’ She checked her watch. ‘No, we’re crossing that river. Captain probably won’t even have to swim.’

  Dusty made Jade take off her oilskin coat. ‘They’re a bit hard to swim in if you fall off,’ she explained, as she rolled the coats into a tight bundle. ‘I’ll carry the coats, and you just hang on.’ She showed Jade how to tuck her feet up to keep them out of the water and undid the buckle on her reins. ‘Just in case he goes down. You don’t want to get tangled up.’ She caught the anxious expression on Jade’s face. ‘It’s not going to happen. We’re just taking precautions. Really, Captain’s so tall you shouldn’t even get wet.’

  24

  Smokey Plain

  Jade tried to breathe normally as she watched Dusty ride into the racing black water, tried not to squeeze with her legs, tried to stay calm. Dusty held the coats and saddlebags up high in one hand. She looks like some medieval warrior woman, thought Jade, riding home triumphant, holding the head of her enemy aloft. Captain sidestepped along the bank, unwilling to enter the cold water, but as the Snow Pony moved further away, he leapt in, as Dusty had said he would, and Jade was ready for the jump. Dusty turned in the saddle and screamed above the roar of the river. ‘Well done! Just let him follow.’

  The current rushed around Captain’s legs and the combination of the water moving and the horse moving made Jade feel giddy, as though she was car sic
k. She focused on Dusty’s back again and saw that she was half kneeling in the saddle, trying to keep her legs out of the water. The Snow Pony’s rump dipped suddenly and her movement changed and Jade realised that she was swimming, swinging slightly sideways with the water’s flow. She gasped as the freezing water hit her own ankles, so cold it hurt. Captain wasn’t swimming, but the water was high up his sides. His hooves slipped on the rocks of the riverbed and he lurched after the Snow Pony like a drunk.

  The Snow Pony’s action changed again, back to a walk, and suddenly she was rising out of the river, water streaming off her flanks, charging through the shallows and up the bank on the other side. Captain thundered up beside her and Dusty dumped the coats and saddlebags on to the snow and stuck her thumb up at Jade, grinning.

  ‘We did it!’ She rubbed her arm. ‘Oh, that killed my arm and my trousers are soaked, but how good was that? We’re nearly there, Jade. Here, hop off and we’ll get our coats on.’

  The horses were steaming, water dripping off their bellies. Dusty strapped the bags back on to the saddles and wriggled into her coat, teeth already chattering with cold. They took turns to do up each other’s coats, their frozen fingers fumbling with the press-studs, then pulled their gloves on. Dusty buckled up Captain’s reins, legged Jade into the saddle, and swung on to the Snow Pony.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘It’s about fifteen kilometres to Smokey Plain, it’s a good track, and I’m freezing. If we trot we’ll warm up, and we should be there in a couple of hours. Just hang on!’

  She turned away from the river and the Snow Pony broke straight into a gallop, fizzing with energy after being in the freezing water. Captain went with her and they raced up the hill, side by side, snow flying behind them like smoke. Jade hung on for grim death until she heard Dusty shouting at her. She looked sideways and Dusty was grinning, and singing, so she joined in with the Teddy Bears’ Picnic. Then she relaxed and let her body go with the movement of the horse.

  After that first gallop up from the river the horses began to blow, so Dusty eased the Snow Pony back to a trot. ‘I’ll show you how to rise to the trot,’ she called to Jade. ‘You’re bouncing around like a bag of spuds.’

  Jade grabbed the front of the saddle. This was much harder than cantering.

  ‘Okay, good. Hang on to that so you can balance. Now try to stand up in the stirrups … that’s right. Just for a little while. Again. Do you feel like he’s pushing you back up each time?’

  Jade tried to copy the way Dusty rose up and down in time with the Snow Pony’s gait.

  The snowy white road curved through the bush, misted by the light rain that had started to fall. The brumbies’ tracks had turned on to a side track ages ago, leaving the snow ahead of the riders undisturbed. The ground under the horses’ hooves was solid and even, and they trotted in a steady rhythm. Now that Jade had the hang of rising to the trot they bowled along, and the exertion of rising had chased the cold out of her body. Her feet were still freezing, and Dusty’s were, too.

  ‘We must be getting close.’ Dusty looked up at the darkening sky and checked her watch again. ‘We’ve been going for an hour and a half.’ They had been climbing steadily and now the snow was getting deeper. As they rounded the bend, the bush opened on to a wide plain that stretched up to the heavily timbered sky line. At first Dusty thought it was a trick of the light, a reflection of the sunset in the trees, but when she looked again it was still there. A light in a window.

  ‘We’re here, Jade!’ she whooped. ‘We made it! That’s the pub, up there in the trees.’

  The hotel faced away from the plain, towards the road. As they drew closer Dusty could see lights burning inside and smoke rising from the chimney. She suddenly felt embarrassed to be racing across the plain. Somehow it felt too dramatic, contrived. ‘Whooaa.’ She slowed the Snow Pony to a walk and Captain fell in beside her. They crossed the last stretch of the plain calmly, heads dipped forward against the rain, pushing through the snow like two old drovers riding home from a muster.

  ‘There’s someone there, anyway. I’ve been thinking how awful it would be to get here and find it closed.’

  As Dusty spoke she felt tears welling in her eyes and saw that Jade was starting to cry, too. She cursed, and Jade looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I don’t want to cry. Don’t cry. We can’t have done everything we’ve done and then arrive here snivelling.’

  Jade didn’t care if the whole world saw her crying, but Dusty’s pride dried up her tears. ‘You are so like your old man.’ She smiled at Dusty. ‘Come on, sister. Let’s raise the alarm.’

  As they passed the back window of the pub they could see figures at the bar gaping at them in disbelief, frozen in the golden indoor light. The carpark beside the ramshackle old building was full of cars.

  ‘Why are so many people here?’ Dusty thought aloud. ‘Whooaa!!’

  The Snow Pony leapt like a scalded cat as they came to the front of the pub. There were more cars, four-wheel-drives, lights, crackling radios, people huddled together. The horses baulked at the commotion, and it seemed to Dusty that she and Jade sat watching the scene for ages before anyone noticed them. And then it was someone who’d seen them ride past the bar.

  A big red-faced man in a yellow slicker burst out the front door of the pub, looking wildly around for them, the lights bouncing off his glasses.

  ‘Where did you blokes spring from?’

  The horses jumped back as he hurried towards them, slipping on the icy road. Suddenly everyone was staring at them. Dusty rode the Snow Pony forward into the light and the man gaped.

  ‘You’re not blokes,’ he said, as though they’d been trying to trick him. ‘You’re a couple of girls.’ He peered at Jade, further from the light as Captain hung back. ‘You’re the missing girl!’

  Suddenly they were surrounded by people, all asking questions. The Snow Pony started to dance and shy and a short man in a uniform stepped forward and shushed the others with a raise of his hand. He was a policeman, Dusty realised, and some of the cars were police four-wheel-drives, too. ‘Are you Jade Bennet?’

  Jade nodded. Then the doors of the hotel flung open and a screaming swirl of purple clothes and flying blonde dreadlocks flew down the steps.

  ‘Jadey!’ The crowd parted to let her through and she looked like a bedraggled orchid amongst the dark figures in the rain. Captain snorted in surprise as she raced up to him. ‘Look at you up there.’ She was crying and smiling at the same time, and her mascara was all over her face. ‘Come here, love.’ She reached up and Jade leant into her arms and let herself be lifted down from the horse.

  Dusty watched them hugging and realised how tired and cold and alone she felt. As she thought about her mum she felt a hand on her leg and looked down – into a sea of friendly, familiar faces.

  ‘Hi, Barney, Mr Jackson …’ Her voice trailed off and she could feel her throat choking with emotion. ‘Don’t cry,’ she said to herself. ‘Don’t cry.’

  25

  Sleeping in

  Dusty could hear her mother’s voice – the lilt, up and down, that made it so distinctive – talking softly, as she did around a young horse. She opened her eyes and looked past the pink blanket to the cracked lino floor, blue with red roses. ‘Where are we?’

  Rita turned to her with a creak of the bed springs. ‘The Smokey Plain pub, sweetie. I came as soon as they rang and we stayed here last night. You two were too exhausted to go anywhere except bed.’

  Dusty propped on one elbow and looked around the room, bleary-eyed. She felt as worn out as an old dead tree. Jade was asleep in the other bed and her mum, still in all her purple, was cross-legged on the end of the bed. Rita pulled Dusty towards her and cradled her head in her lap.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ She ran her fingers up the back of Dusty’s neck, the way she’d always loved. ‘Many sore spots?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Dusty grunted, snuggling into her mother, loving her smell. Suddenly she remembered: ‘Dad! Ha
ve they got him? What time is it?’

  ‘Calm down, everything’s all right. You don’t have to do any more.’ Rita patted Dusty’s back, rubbing against the tension. ‘The chopper pilot radioed in about an hour ago, to say he had them on board and was heading for Melbourne. The medico said Jack was okay, but he’d really broken his ribs, not just cracked them. “Flailed” I think was the term he used, and he needed a big hospital.’

  ‘Stewie will be enjoying the ride.’ Dusty smiled, then remembered the dogs. ‘What about Drover and the dogs?’

  ‘There was about twenty fellas wanting to go.’ Jeannie’s voice was husky. ‘He must be a popular guy.’

  Dusty’s eyes met Rita’s as she nodded. ‘Yes, he is. Charlie Bell went in the end. He knows the country on this side better than anyone. He should get out this afternoon with the animals. They’ll be wet, that’s for sure. It hasn’t stopped pouring all night and the forecast is for rain and more rain. It might even be the end of the drought.’

  Jeannie gently pulled the blankets away from Jade’s face as she started to stir. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting our new dog – the deerhound,’ she said to Rita. ‘I had to promise Jadey last night that we’d keep him.’

  Rita laughed. ‘He sounds like a funny one.’

  ‘He’s beautiful.’ Jade croaked without opening her eyes. ‘He saved my life.’

  Jeannie draped her lanky frame over Jade. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you, Jadey.’ Jade didn’t say anything, she was too tired for games. Jeannie waited, then realised she wasn’t going to play. ‘Dad’s coming home. Home for good. He should be here tomorrow.’

  Jade sat bolt upright. ‘To live with us?’

  ‘No, baby.’ Jeannie shook her head. ‘I can’t make it a fairy story for you. But he’s going to live in Bankstown, and work at his old job.’ She flicked her dreadlocks and stretched her arms towards the ceiling, pulling up her tie-dye top as she did, so the tattoo around her belly button was plain to see. Dusty glanced at Rita, watching for her reaction, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘No, we’ve had a big talk, your father and I. If this isn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what is. You and Trav need two parents. You need more love and care than you’ve been getting.’