by Karen Wood
Zoe heard a sharp whistle. Across the flats, by the pump shed on the edge of the river, Mike waved both arms over his head. His friend Josh Miller stood alongside him. Her dad stopped the car on the edge of the road. ‘What’s up?’ he yelled.
‘Pump went under,’ Mike yelled back. ‘I think it’s stuffed. Can’t get water up to the hill paddocks.’
‘I can’t let the stock down here to drink, with no fences,’ her dad called.
Mike held both hands up in a helpless gesture.
Her dad groaned and yanked the doorhandle open. He turned back to her. ‘Take the car back up to the house. Can you drive with that arm?’
She nodded. ‘I feel fine. I want to help.’
‘You’d help by taking it easy. The last thing I need is to have to drive you back down to Sydney. Just feed the dogs and take care of the lambs and you’ll be doing me a huge favour.’
He paused. ‘Actually, you could walk to the cattle yards and see if there’s any water left in that old rainwater tank. If there is, let it out into the troughs. Call up whatever cattle you can, but don’t go chasing them, you hear me? They’ll come in on their own.’
Zoe nodded quickly.
‘Do not do anything else, got it?’
‘Promise.’ She couldn’t wait to get back onto the farm, remember it all.
He nodded and then squelched off across the paddock.
Zoe shifted across the bench seat of the old Holden and took hold of the column shift, relieved that she had been dismissed. She could barely remember the water tank, but she was sure that as soon as she saw it, everything would fall into place.
3
Zoe turned up the driveway of Hillanaroo; twenty square kilometres of granite country that she called home. A small cottage stood well back from the road, half-hidden behind the trees. She brought the car to the back gate of the main house and switched off the engine. A dozen lambs huddled together in the yard opposite, bleating loudly. At the door to the big shed, Queenie whined and wriggled. Zoe walked over and ran a hand along her rough black fur, rubbing the little tan spots over her eyebrows. ‘Hey, Queenie. Miss me?’
There was a howl from just inside the shed and Zoe walked in to find a black-and-tan kelpie woofing and jumping at his chain.
‘Frankeeee!’ she said playfully.
The dog went nuts. She unclipped his chain and ran her good hand all over his back while he squirmed and whimpered. Instinctively she clicked her fingers in the air and he leapt off the ground in one big vertical bound, higher than her head, as if he was on springs.
Memories of his gravity-defying prowess came flooding back to her. He’d won the dog high jump at the local working-dog muster and the Ag show. Also at the local school fete. But he had only come second at the recent bush festival, she recalled. She wondered who had beaten him.
Frankie disappeared in a blur of legs out into the yard, running in crazy circles. Queenie went straight to the quad bike, looked at it and whined.
‘Wanna go for a ride?’ Zoe asked. Dad had told her to walk, but no way would Queenie make it all the way to the cattle yards without some help. She went outside and let off the other dogs, Bert, Toby and Race; like Frankie, they were all out of Queenie. All had her black triangle-shaped head and funny spots for eyebrows, all were excellent working dogs. They scampered after Frankie.
She took her arm out of its sling and flexed her fingers a few times. Then, with her arms cradled protectively around Queenie, Zoe turned the bike on, backed it out of the shed and set off towards the back paddocks.
She passed the empty horse paddock. Where was Blackjack? They must have turned him out into the hill paddocks while she was in hospital. Oh well. She wasn’t allowed to ride for six weeks anyway. As Zoe puttered across the paddocks she savoured the chilly afternoon air on her face, lifting her hair.
‘Let’s get to that tank,’ she said to Queenie’s ear.
The larger steers were in the paddock with the smaller weaners and it was chaos as they gathered and fought at the empty water troughs. Several cows stood back and watched on with calves at foot.
She left them alone as instructed, banged her knuckles up the side of the corrugated-iron tank, and was relieved to find it full. There would be enough water for all the stock to get a good drink. Now they wouldn’t have any reason to wander down into the creek and get bogged before Dad could fix the fences to keep them off.
As the trough filled, she took a moment to just stand and stare. A lone tree cast shade over the yards. Everything looked normal. Her accident had happened just near here, she’d been told. She had come off her horse. She sighed with frustration, wishing she could remember it.
A gunshot rang out from down by the river and Zoe started. Dad must be shooting sheep. The short, sharp sound made her feel strangely unsettled and she paused, wondering why.
Zoe took it slowly coming back. The sunset reflected off the lagoons that still covered the lower river paddocks. Long-legged birds were silhouetted against the water, currawongs carolled raucously in the trees and the evening air began to vibrate with the sound of cicadas.
Back at the house she fastened the dogs back onto their chains.
She fed the lambs in the dark, giving buckets of powdered milk to the older ones and bottle-feeding three new young ones with her special formula of cow’s milk, an egg and castor oil. She locked them in the shed for the night with some hay, and brought the bottles in to the laundry to sterilise them. As she worked she thought about the odd feeling she’d had at the water point. How creepy that place suddenly was.
Mike and Dad were still out working when she got back to the house. Something brewed in the slow cooker. It smelled great. She went straight to the laundry, stripped off her mud-caked clothes and took a shower. After drying off, she slipped into clean clothes, feeling deliciously warm and clean.
She lugged her duffle bag down the hall, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and barely recognised who she was. Her T-shirt was an old one which she had long outgrown and it clung a little too tightly to her torso. Mike’s trackpants were too big for her and hung loosely on her hips, revealing a large, colourful bruise.
Despite the dire wardrobe, she was pleased with what she saw. Her wet brown hair tumbled over her shoulders in layers and thank god she was growing some boobs at last. She leaned in closer and lightly touched the graze on the side of her face. Again, she tried to remember how she had managed such a spectacular face plant, but came up blank. She sighed; perhaps she would never remember.
She continued down the hall, only to realise with alarm that she couldn’t remember which room was her own. There were three doors – all closed. She tried the door at the end of the hall to the right. As soon as it opened, she knew it was wrong. Dad’s room contained nothing but a bed, because Mum had taken all the nice furniture. Dad slept in here and then got out. That was it.
She closed the door and tried the next. Wrong again. Mike’s room smelled of boy sweat. There were dirty clothes everywhere, a pushbike leaning against the unmade bed and a desk crammed full of the gadgets and spare electronic parts that he collected. She closed the door.
‘Last time lucky,’ she mumbled as she opened the third door and was relieved when a familiar sight greeted her. The bed was half-made. There was a small pile of clothes in one corner and some clutter on her dresser; messy, but not nearly as wild as Mike’s room. She dumped her bag and opened the window to let in some fresh air.
Outside, Mike and Dad were walking up the driveway. By the ease of their stride, she guessed the pump was now fixed. Josh must have gone home.
She sat at her desk, pulled open her laptop and waited impatiently for it to boot up. Three happy faces appeared, all grinning teeth, arms interlocked over each other’s shoulders: Caitlin, Zoe and Scotty, after trying their hand at cattle-sorting at the local Ag show. What a fun day that had been.
She squinted, trying to remember if the others had visited her in hospital, but
came up blank. Had they? She sighed. Maybe they had and she just couldn’t remember.
She shrugged it off and hit the Facebook button. It took her straight to her news feed.
Scotty had tagged a photo of her, in a bikini, jumping off the second rock ledge at Bellbird Falls into the waterhole. She was pulling a crazy face for the camera. Another shot was taken at the local sheep races, with her nominated sheep, Mint Sauce. She and Caitlin had strapped a teddy bear to the animal’s back for a jockey. She laughed out loud, remembering the way the bear had flapped about when Minty jumped over the hurdles.
There was another one of her and Caitlin in the wild-goat race at the last bushman’s festival, sitting in billycarts that were strapped to the back of some feral goats with huge curly horns. Caitlin was being catapulted into the air and Zoe was in the lead and hanging on for grim death. That was crazy.
She kept scrolling through the wall photos – all pictures that other people had tagged her in. Another of her dancing on the back of a ute in a very short skirt. When was that taken? Some shed party. One of her on Blackjack, one of her on a trail-bike in mid-air, another of her riding a potty calf at the local rodeo.
Geez, had she always been such a show-off?
Zoe kept scanning. Her Facebook page filled in so many gaps. It was like walking along Memory Lane with a barrowload of hot bitumen, filling in potholes.
It appeared she was a show-off – always doing something outrageous, jumping the highest jump, taking on dares. Jumping off rock ledges and swinging out of trees. Being stupid. Craving attention.
She squinted as the effort of restocking all that information brought a dull ache to her head again. She squeezed her temples between her fingers and closed her eyes for a moment. Coming back to her home screen, there were get-well messages. Heaps of them. Nice to know she had lots of friends. Hundreds of them, in fact. She looked at her friends list: 648. How had she managed to accumulate that many? There were people from school, primary school, and from every bush festival she had ever been to. And then there were the friends-of-friends and the friends-of-friends-of-friends. And of course the people she vaguely recognised, but couldn’t quite place. She shook her head. Facebook: the ultimate popularity contest.
She looked for something from Scotty – nothing. He didn’t spend much time on computers.
And then his photo popped up before her eyes and her heart stopped. He was drinking from a can of soft drink and looking out from under a mudplattered felt hat. His wispy blonde hair brushed around the edges of his face, and his eyes radiated confidence and certainty. Scotty never talked a lot. Some people found him aloof. But she liked the way he calmly took everything in. He was smart. And he made her melt.
She reached out and touched the screen and for some reason, tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Scotty,’ she whispered. ‘What happened?’ She could really use a hug from him right now.
Zoe tapped out a quick text message to him.
I’m home. Can’t wait to see you.
Then she kept clicking. She’d taken several of him in the whipcrack event at the bush festival. He’d won it easily, with two whips in each hand, freestyling. He was amazing. There was another one of him leaning against his dad’s cattle truck.
Caitlin had taken photos of Zoe handling Frankie in the dog high jump. She got a great head-on shot of him clambering over the top rail, his sinewy shoulders straining as he pulled himself over.
She remembered that weekend well. She’d had an argument with her dad about going.
‘Caitlin’s dad has to work back. They’re not going to the festival till late tonight.’
Zoe spoke to her dad’s backside, as he was leaning forward over the bonnet of the farm ute, looking into its innards. She held her freshly rolled swag, and was itching to go.
‘So now you want to travel with your boyfriend?’ Her dad stretched down further into the gizzards of the car.
‘Yes,’ she clarified. ‘With his dad. He’s donating stock.’
She had originally planned to travel there with Caity’s family but they weren’t leaving until late. Meanwhile Scotty would be there partying without her. She wanted to party too.
‘Where are you sleeping?’
‘In Caitlin’s horse truck,’ she answered quickly. ‘She’s taking Peppy for the barrel-racing.
Her dad pulled himself out from under the bonnet and turned to her, resting a greasy hand with a spanner in it on the radiator cap. His mouth pursed into a thin line.
He didn’t like the skirt, she could tell. It was short – too short for his taste. But Scotty liked it. Last time she wore it he had followed her around like a hungry potty lamb all weekend.
‘Go and put some clothes on and I’ll think about it,’ said Dad.
‘What’s wrong with these ones?’ Zoe looked down and hastily did up one more shirt button to placate him. She tugged at the hem of her skirt, dragging it closer to her knees.
‘You’ll freeze. Put some jeans on.’
‘I’ve got a jumper in my bag. I’ll be fine.’
‘Put some proper clothes on or you’re not going.’ He turned and disappeared back into the guts of the car.
Zoe slumped. There was no point arguing. Her dad would leap on any excuse to stop her from going off for the weekend.
Ten minutes later, she stood before him in her tightest black jeans, tucked into cowgirl boots. Her hands were stuffed into the pockets of an ultra-short hooded jacket. ‘Better?’ Her voice was tinged with surliness.
‘Marginally. You got money?’
‘Yes. Mum gave me some last weekend.’
‘How many dogs you taking?’
‘Just Frankie.’
‘What time’s that boy picking you up?’
She’d been going out with Scotty for five months and Dad still called him ‘that boy’.
‘I’m meeting Scotty at the servo at six,’ she answered coolly. ‘They’re fuelling up there before we leave.’
‘So, he’s going to leave you waiting on a street corner in the dark?’ said her dad. ‘Great boyfriend.’
‘No. I’ll wait inside. There’s a lounge in there. Besides, I’ll have Frankie with me.’
‘A truckers’ lounge.’ He snorted. ‘And you were planning to wear that skirt in there.’ He turned to the house. ‘MIKE!’ he bellowed. Then he turned back to her. ‘Your brother can drive you there. He’s going with a couple of friends.’
Zoe dropped her shoulders and groaned. She hated the way he always made Mike his little deputy.
‘Or you’re not going,’ snapped her father.
‘Okay, okay.’ At least she’d get there before midnight.
4
Dad and Mike sat opposite each other in the kitchen eating stew in comfortable silence. Neither of them noticed her when she entered the room.
‘That Josh kid is handy on motors,’ muttered her dad.
‘Takes after his old man,’ said Mike.
‘Diesel mechanic.’ Dad nodded approvingly and kept eating.
Zoe watched them with a strange sense of being on the outside and looking in. Perhaps it was the break she’d had from them in hospital that made her notice things about them suddenly – the way they spoke without looking at each other, the way the kitchen table was littered with all their stuff: old newspapers, mugs and other detritus.
After a while Mike looked up. ‘How’s the head, Fred?’
‘All right,’ she answered.
‘Mighta knocked some sense into you.’ He grinned at her through a forkful of mashed potato.
‘How come you were in so late?’ asked her father.
She shrugged. ‘Just took a while. The cattle are all mixed up; steers and weaners and cows, all running together. They’re fighting.’
He looked at Mike. ‘We’ll have to muster tomorrow and sort them all out.’
‘Where’s Blackjack?’ Zoe asked, hoping he hadn’t been let out into the back paddocks. She’d have a hell of a time catching him if he was. ‘I�
��ll help muster.’
‘No you won’t,’ he said.
‘I feel fine.’
‘Mike and I will do it,’ he said dismissively. He continued eating as though the conversation was over.
‘The sooner I get back to normal the better. I don’t need six weeks off.’
Her dad rested his fork on the side of his bowl and inhaled deeply. He began folding a napkin into neat squares. Zoe stood, weight resting evenly across both feet, jaw tight. She could feel another argument coming on.
‘I don’t want you mustering any more,’ he finally answered. ‘You’re to knuckle down and do your schoolwork. If you stay here with me, you can keep things going in and around the house, while Mike and I run the farm. Those are my rules. Otherwise you can go and live at your mum’s.’
Zoe reeled. There was something she was clearly missing. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘What part don’t you understand?’ he asked.
‘All of it. That’s a bit drastic, don’t you think?’
‘No.’
Zoe stared at him, incredulous. ‘I have to do the woman’s work?’ She nearly laughed out loud. ‘Since when does Hillanaroo operate like that?’
The question hung heavily in the air. Her father made no attempt to answer it.
‘Dad?’
‘I don’t want you mustering, especially while you’re not well,’ he repeated. ‘And you’re not to see that Scott kid any more either.’
This time she did laugh out loud. ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Why are you always so hard on Scotty? What did he ever do to you?’
‘I don’t trust him, that’s all. He never looked after you, or pulled you into line – he’s trouble.’
‘He’s fun.’
‘He’s a fool!’ yelled her dad. Zoe stepped back, shocked at the force of it. ‘Where the hell was he when my cattle were jumping the bloody fence? Where the hell was he when you were busted up in hospital?’
‘He came to see me,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did he?’
