Jumping Fences

by Karen Wood

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘That was so stupid.’ She stepped up onto the rocks and reached for her towel.

  Zoe pushed herself away from Scotty, arced her body and rolled back into the water in a backwards somersault. When she came up, Scotty was halfway to the rock ledge. She stroked over and joined them.

  ‘Err, Caity.’

  ‘What?’ Caitlin huffed.

  ‘You got a bikini malfunction going on there, matey.’

  Caitlin looked down and snatched at her bikini top. ‘Oops. Sorry!’

  ‘Oh, don’t apologise,’ Scotty joked. Then he changed the subject. ‘Hey, Simpson’s old man hung a new rope off the tree, look.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Zoe. An ancient angophora tree clung to the side of the cliff by its roots. It was a huge tree with one long, perfectly horizontal limb growing straight out over the waterhole. A thick marine rope hung from the end of the limb with several knots tied near the bottom.

  ‘Dare you to take it all the way to the second ledge and swing off,’ said Zoe, knowing full well neither of them would.

  ‘Not me – that’s crazy,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Dare you,’ said Scotty.

  Zoe immediately stood up. ‘Watch this.’

  7

  Zoe had barely finished the phone call to her dad when there was a bang on the back door. She opened it and found Josh, holding a tangle of wires and electrical gadgetry. He grinned. ‘Fred about?’

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, looking at the jumble in his hands.

  ‘Kill switch out of the old tractor at home. I rewired it for Fred’s tractor,’ he said, eyeing it appreciatively. ‘Should work, I reckon. Just gotta fit a cable between the toggle switch and the mounting location on the chassis, crimp on some wire loom connectors and then connect the wire to the chassis and the lug on the switch . . .’

  She had no idea what he was talking about. ‘You’re a bit of a nerd, aren’t you?’ she said, interrupting him.

  He looked up. ‘Geek actually. There’s a difference.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Nerds are socially inept.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Geeks are highly intelligent, convivial and often strikingly good-looking.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ she said dryly. ‘Anyway, Fred’s up at the stables.’ She closed the door on him and went to help Jen in the kitchen.

  ‘Toasted sambos do you tonight?’ asked Jen. ‘I’ve got some leftovers to put in them.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘How was your dad?’

  ‘He’s been drinking.’

  Jen sighed. ‘He’s so stressed. These floods on top of everything have really done him in.’

  There were voices at the back door and Fred and Josh walked into the kitchen.

  ‘I asked Josh to stay for tea,’ said Fred.

  ‘What did you think of the new calves, Josh?’ asked Jen, bustling about with more plates and cutlery.

  ‘They’re cute,’ he answered.

  Zoe looked at him sideways. What sort of a bloke called calves cute? Big, well-muscled, healthy maybe, but cute? She couldn’t think of any seventeen-year-old boy that ever used that word.

  They continued discussing the recent floods. Josh’s dad had lost stock too and it seemed the entire district was repairing fences. The local hardware store had run out of wire.

  Zoe listened as they talked. Guilt weighed heavily on her as she thought about her dad. He would have gone to his room by now. It’s where he always went after he drank. The light would stay on all night and he would come out next morning as though nothing had happened.

  When they’d finished eating, Josh stood up and cleared the table. ‘I’ll do the dishes,’ he offered, stacking the plates with the knives and forks hanging out all over the place. His large hands curled around them and lifted them in one messy heap.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Zoe, gathering up the glasses.

  ‘So, you and Jen get those cows moved okay?’ he asked as he ran the water in the sink.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  For some reason her brain was focusing on the teatowel sticking out of his back pocket, and the muscle tone of his arms swishing the water in the sink. ‘How ‘bout you guys? You brought a lot of rabbits home.’

  ‘Yeah, Wispy and Spider are working really well.’

  She pictured his dogs sprinting across the paddock. A sudden searing pain scorched across the front of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself against the kitchen bench. Whoa!

  ‘I just had the one dog but Fred told me the best way to teach her was to work her with another good dog, so I . . .’ He glanced over his shoulder.

  Zoe stared up at him blankly. Her breath caught, and a trickle of sweat ran down one cheek.

  Josh’s eyes flicked from her face to the glass in her hands, back to her face. ‘You okay?’

  His face fogged over and disappeared.

  ‘Are you okay, Zoe? What happened?’

  Oh god, not this. Not now. She willed her eyes to open. Whose voice was that?

  ‘Zoe?’ Josh put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay. Just breathe.’ His voice was nice – all husky and gentle.

  Zoe moved her mouth but no sound came out.

  ‘You still with me, Zoe?’

  His voice. She remembered it. ‘You were there,’ she rasped. Her brain was whirling. She sat down on a kitchen chair, only to fog out again.

  Someone is carrying me. My arms and legs hang limp, I can’t move them. His voice swirls around in the dust and I barely catch his words. ‘. . . leave you here . . . get help. You’ll be . . . safe . . . don’t . . .’

  He puts me down.

  ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘Shhh . . . safe here . . . don’t . . .’

  Her eyes snapped open. It was Josh. He was the one carrying her and saying her name. At the accident.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Jen appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Zoe had a bit of a turn,’ said Josh.

  ‘I did not,’ said Zoe indignantly. ‘I just . . . felt a bit dizzy, that’s all.’ She picked up an ice-cream container filled with chook scraps. ‘I’m fine now.’

  Jen looked her up and down with suspicion.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated. But a mini-tornado was ripping through her brain. No one had seen her accident – that’s what she’d been told. But Josh was there. Why would he hide that fact? Something really weird was going on. Did he know anything else – like where Dad’s bullocks had got to?

  He ran his hands through his hair now, looking decidedly uncomfortable. He knew something all right. As soon as she got him alone, she was going to confront him.

  ‘You need to go back to the doctor,’ said Jen. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll make an appointment and let your father know.’

  ‘Don’t tell Dad,’ Zoe moaned. ‘I’ve made him worry enough already. He’ll freak. Please, Jen.’

  ‘He’s a parent. It’s his job to freak,’ she answered sharply. ‘I’m ringing him now.’ She turned and walked into the lounge room.

  ‘It’s really not a good time!’ She let out an exasperated sigh. Oh, this would be it, the last straw, she would be off to her mum’s by morning. And then she noticed Josh still staring at her.

  ‘You were there,’ she hissed at him. ‘Your dog, the white one, it was there.’ Then she paused because that’s all she remembered. What came next was still a mystery. ‘What else happened?’

  ‘She found you,’ said Josh, in a cautious tone. ‘Do you remember what happened?’

  ‘If I remembered what happened, would I be standing here, asking you what happened?’

  Josh ran his hand through his hair again. ‘I was out rabbit-hunting and I saw your dad’s cattle bolting. But I heard a whip, which I assumed was Scott’s, so I thought you guys had it under control. Half an hour later, Wispy started whining and running back and forth to tell me she’d found something and she led me to you. You were delirious and babbling.’

  ‘Wh
ere was Scotty?’ Wouldn’t he have been the one that found her; rescued her? ‘And Caitlin?’

  ‘Errr . . .’ Josh ran his hands around the back of his neck. ‘They weren’t around.’

  Zoe frowned. That didn’t make sense. ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Where were they?’

  A scornful look crossed Josh’s face, as if he wanted to say something. But he just threw his hands up. ‘I don’t know!’

  Zoe folded her arms and regarded him intensely. He was SO hiding something. ‘What else happened?’ she pushed.

  ‘You seriously don’t remember?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You kind of woke up and . . .’ He was blushing. ‘And you got a bit friendly and you um, kind of, um, kissed me and then. . .’ He trailed off and turned back to the sink.

  Zoe went blank. She didn’t. She wouldn’t have. Would she? She pulled a face. ‘I kissed you?’ she clarified.

  Josh nodded. His tanned face split with a smile. ‘It was a hell of a kiss too.’

  Zoe’s mind tuned out again.

  I’m being kissed. I’m hurting everywhere, but I’m so enjoying this kiss. ‘Don’t leave me here,’ I whisper, not wanting it to stop.

  She HAD kissed him! Kissed Josh Miller, electro-mechanical brainiac – how was that even possible?

  Zoe dropped the chook bin, splattering food scraps all over the floor. She bent on one knee and hurriedly scraped up the mess. ‘More like you kissed me,’ she said angrily. She couldn’t believe it. She had been semi-conscious and this creep had taken advantage of her.

  ‘Look, it’s okay, you were out of it; you probably didn’t know what you were doing. But . . .’

  ‘You’re damn right I didn’t know what I was doing!’ Zoe cut him off. She scraped up the last of the food scraps and stood up to face him. ‘Well, I guess you’re keen to get home,’ she snapped. ‘Uncle Fred will probably give you a lift.’

  He gave her a tortured kind of look. ‘I’m keen, but not for home,’ he answered.

  His answer shocked her. She’d just nearly collapsed and here he was hitting on her! Again!

  ‘If I ever kissed you,’ she snapped, ‘it would have only been because I thought you were Scotty!’ She headed for the door. ‘I’m taking the chook scraps out.’

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘No time like the present.’ Somehow she knew he would follow her.

  ‘I’ll come too. Check on my dogs.’

  At the back door, she pulled on her shoes. Then, outside in the crisp cold night, Zoe spun around and faced Josh. ‘Just so you know. I am with Scotty, okay? Don’t try anything on me, you . . . you . . .’

  Josh’s mouth opened to speak but then closed again, as if he had wanted to say something but thought better of it. ‘Zoe, I . . .’

  She took a step backwards. He was way too close and it was just adding to her confusion. ‘And what happened to my dad’s cattle while all this was going on, while you were trying to distract me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Then his face changed dramatically. ‘Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?’ he said, his voice suddenly hard.

  At that moment, Fred walked out the back door and pulled his boots on. ‘I’ll give you a lift home, Josh.’

  Josh didn’t take his eyes off her. ‘Have you heard from him?’

  That was a weird question. ‘Scotty? Yes, of course I have!’

  Had she? Had she not? She really didn’t know. If she had, it was a long time ago, when she was out of it, in hospital.

  Josh gave a strange, bewildered kind of shrug and swung himself into Fred’s ute. He whistled to his dogs. In seconds, the two flying rats landed in the back.

  Zoe stood watching the car roll out of the driveway. As if on cue, her phone trumpeted through a new message. She flipped it open and found a text from Scotty.

  Where are you?

  I’m staying at Jen’s. See you at school tomorrow?

  So you’re still talking to me?

  She stared at his text, puzzled, then at Uncle Fred’s headlights as they disappeared around a bend. There was something very weird going on.

  She couldn’t help thinking about Dad’s cattle that had gone missing. Could they have just jumped the fence, hidden on the finishing country and then drowned in floodwaters? Suddenly she doubted that. It wasn’t the first mob to just mysteriously vanish. But his cattle were branded and tagged – all of them – so they should have been picked up through any abattoirs.

  Surely they couldn’t have been stolen.

  As she lay in bed that night she traced over anything she could remember about the day of her accident. But she could only remember so far, before the whole thing just became a big blur again.

  ‘Hey, Caity. Dad wants me to bring some bullocks down from the leasehold tomorrow,’ she said into the phone. ‘Wanna come for the muster?’

  It was getting dry up in the lease and there was a tonne of feed in the creek paddocks despite the lack of rain. Her dad wanted the bullocks brought in to finish off before the sales in a couple of months. Zoe had been stoked when he asked her to do the job.

  Caitlin took a while to answer. ‘Yeah, okay.’

  It was always tricky bringing cattle down from the leasehold because it was so big and hilly and the more feral stock often wandered into the steeper back country. The Black Angus merged into the leafy shadows, making it a challenge to find them. Then there were always steep hills to gallop down once you got them out. Dad or Mike usually held the mob with motorbikes while Zoe rode in and flushed out small groups that were hiding. But tomorrow Scotty and Caitlin would do that. It would be fun.

  Days later, Zoe rode out of the home paddock and up into the lease with Caitlin and Scotty. They found the cattle grazing along stretches of native pasture running between stands of eucalypt forest.

  Scotty immediately pulled his whip from his shoulder and began whirling it over his head.

  ‘Hey, Scotty! Hold it!’ hissed Zoe, but too late.

  He snapped the whip down with a tremendous crack, sending the cattle scurrying into the trees and making Blackjack fidget nervously. ‘Just letting them know we’re here,’ Scotty grinned.

  Zoe glared at him as she pulled Blackjack into line. ‘Can you please not do that unless I ask you to?’ She called back Frankie, who had raced after the cattle to round them up.

  ‘Okay, okay, I was just playing! Let’s get behind them.’ He pushed his horse into a canter and before Zoe could protest he rode through the middle of them. Zoe could hardly believe it. What had got into him?

  She cantered after him. ‘Slow down. You’re scattering them everywhere,’ she yelled. ‘Pull up, Scotty!’

  He ground his horse to a halt and wheeled it about. ‘Hurry up, then.’

  Zoe scowled, but soon softened when he walked his horse over to her and leaned in for a kiss.

  Appeased, Zoe rode on. ‘We need to go quietly, get behind them and then push them back towards home,’ she said, looking pointedly back at Scotty. ‘And then we’ll be walking them back. Don’t go stirring them up! We need to work together.’

  ‘No fancy riding,’ said Caitlin, quoting a famous Australian poem. ‘Go at ’em from the jump!’

  ‘We’re not brumby-running, Caity,’ Zoe muttered under her breath. Then she raised her voice. ‘Once we get behind them, two of us can hold the mob while one of us goes in and flushes the others out of the scrub.’

  ‘And let me guess, you’ll go do the mustering while we get to hold the mob,’ said Caitlin.

  Zoe flinched, but opted for diplomacy. ‘You can go flush them out if you want. Scotty and I will hold the mob.’

  They rode in silence after that. When they reached the big concrete water trough at the far western fence, they turned back and began gathering the cattle as they found them along the way, driving them down into the valley and towards home. She took up a spot behind the mob as they plodded through a steep gully with a creek crossing. She kept her mouth shut when Caity went in too har
d on the cattle and unsettled them, quietly going about herding and calming them again.

  ‘Want me to go and slow her down a bit?’ asked Scotty, as Caitlin cantered back into the bush.

  ‘That would be good, thanks.’

  Zoe ended up holding the cattle in the grassy valley on her own, with only Frankie to help. The crooning and bellowing got louder and louder as the main mob gathered, and she began to work Jacky and Frankie harder as she cantered wide around the edge of them to keep them bunched. Damn Caitlin, this would have been much easier with another rider leading them out front.

  By midday, it was hot and Jacky blew heavily. She had to kick him to keep him moving. But the muster was going well. They would soon be off the lease and once she got the cattle back onto her dad’s property, inside some fences, there’d be time for a break.

  ‘We’ll have to count them through the gate as we take them off the lease,’ she yelled out to Caitlin. ‘Can you help me hold them? They’re getting thirsty and I don’t want them to run back for water.’

  ‘I just saw another small group,’ said Caitlin, ignoring her and riding away. ‘I’ll help you when I get back.’

  Zoe swore under her breath. What was up with Caity today? She looked around for Scott. Surely he would come and help her. She was holding more than a hundred head on her own, they were getting thirsty and restless, and Jacky was exhausted. Where was Scotty?

  8

  The sound of horses whinnying for their breakfast woke Zoe.

  Jen knocked at her door. ‘You’ve got school today. Do you feel well enough to go?’

  Zoe answered without opening her eyes. ‘Yeah.’ She wanted to see Scotty and Caitlin. It felt like a lifetime since she’d been with them. She needed to fill more potholes in her memory.

  ‘Did you bring your school gear with you, your uniform?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll ring Mike and ask him to bring it for me. I’ll get it off him at school.’

  ‘I booked a doctor’s appointment for you in the afternoon,’ said Jen. ‘It’s at the outpatients clinic at the hospital. Can you get yourself there, or should I ring your dad?’