by Sacchi Green
Luce inhaled and held it for the beat of three. “Pretty much,” she said. “I’ve never been any good at confrontation.”
“Hey!” Eileen had poked her in the arm, hard.
“Hey what?” Eileen laughed and hit her harder.
“Why are you hitting me?” Luce asked, and stood up. Eileen followed, took the joint, drew in a long drag, considered her, and slapped Luce’s face with her left hand. Bongo was wide awake and concerned, but he too seemed confused about what he should do.
“Wrong response.” Another slap. Harder, enough to sting. Luce turned to walk away, but Eileen seized her by the shoulders and shook her. “C’mon, what should you say when someone hauls off and smacks you?” Or stabs you?
“Stop hitting me,” Luce said after Eileen gave her another gentler slap and handed her back the joint.
“You win a prize,” Eileen whispered. She pulled Luce to her. The kiss moved from gentle to urgent, to an entwining of tongues and muffled moans. By the end they were back on the grass, Luce sprawled on top of Eileen.
“Good prize,” Luce said. “And I get it. Dumb Philosophy 101, but I get it. It may even make a little sense.”
The rising moon shone through the glass, casting a blue-green glow on the room and over the sleeping loft where the two naked women lay sweaty and entwined. Eileen had kept her word, and Luce had screamed her name so loudly that the pastured cattle had probably heard. Bongo certainly had, and barked to be let in the house. Eileen had teeth marks on her shoulder and scratches on her freckled back. Both of their faces were wet with one another’s juices. They kissed, rested, arose, and showered together, and began again—with moderation to the previous desperate urgency.
Even by the inadequate light of the moon and two candles Luce could see that Eileen’s scars now stood out as scarlet lines against her pale skin. Her own flesh was dark from the outdoors and sunbathing. Janice hated tan lines. How could she love someone that shallow? Still love her?
“You are going to have to go back.” Eileen was the first to recover. “I know that. You have bits of her all through you.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But you will.”
“Yes.” But only because I met you and now I would be ashamed to admit lacking the courage to do it. Demand love on my terms. Luce drew a finger down Eileen’s arm, shoulder to fingertips.
“What happened to him?” Luce asked, staring up at the slanting ceiling. “You’re here. You survived, so…”
“I took the knife away and I killed him. I’m not the tiniest bit sorry about it,” Eileen said. “I made the decision that I wanted to live.” Her voice was even and inflectionless; all of the warmth had gone out of it. After a while they slept.
“I wish I could stay here,” Luce said, swallowing a spoonful of buttered oatmeal. Through the windows she could see Eleanor Roosevelt in the crystalline early morning light, standing by the paddock fence, staring toward the house.
“I wish you could too,” Eileen said. “But I’m not your honey bun, sugar plum right now, though I kinda wish I was. However things work out I want you to come back. Bring her with you. Maybe I can help straighten her out.”
“I’ll bring her—if things go that way,” Luce said. “But I think I’ll have to be the one to do the straightening. Otherwise I might be back without her.”
“You’d be welcome,” Eileen said.
And the last kiss was the best yet.
As Eileen had told her, there wasn’t any cell phone reception until she got within a couple of miles of Mazurton. There she pulled over to the side of the road and punched in the familiar number. Janice answered and they talked. And cried. Afterward Luce carefully turned the truck and trailer around, and she and Bongo and Eleanor Roosevelt headed back north. Toward Wyoming.
CULLY’S RUN
Cheyenne Blue
April 2007 - Bogong High Plains, Victoria, Australia
“You shouldn’t be here!”
She was beak-nosed and quivering, lean and tight-strung as fencing wire. Underneath her fleece beanie, her eyes were fierce.
“No?” Lou continued squatting at the small fire, enamel mug of coffee in her hand. “Who says?” By her side, Kelsey growled a stern warning.
The woman stalked a farther pace into the clearing amid the snowgums. “The National Park Service. The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association. The Victorian State Government.”
“The government!” Lou hooted. “Don’t see no stuffed politicians here.”
Swinging her small pack from her shoulders, the woman leveled a glare at Lou. “And I say it!”
Eyes crinkling in amusement, Lou took another draught of coffee. The liquid steamed in the crisp air. “Now I’m really worried. You and whose army is going to move me on?”
“Listen,” the woman hissed. “You know bloody well this is the Alpine National Park. And cattle have been banned for the last two years. You must take your horse, put out your fire, and drive your herd out the way you came in.”
“Herd? You’re too kind.” Lou glanced over to where Daisy and her calf grazed placidly. “And, I’ll be another three days if I go out the way I came in. If I keep going, I’ll be in Dargo tomorrow.”
“You’re destroying the ecosystem. Their hooves cause erosion; they encourage imbalance with their selective eating. And they’re banned! As they should be.” She jammed her hands on her hips and glared. The setting sun lit her curly hair to a golden corona, silhouetting her wiry figure, swathed in Gore-Tex and fleece.
Not pretty, thought Lou, idly, but interesting. But right now, a whinging greenie that was rattling her peace.
“You’re disturbing my ecosystem,” she said pointedly. “I was quite happy, bothering no one, until you came along. Shouldn’t you get back to your pretty marked path before dark? Wouldn’t want you bushed on the high plains. Rescue attempts are a pain in the arse, not to mention a waste of public funds.”
“I left the trail because I saw your marks. Hoofprints and cattle tracks. And a dog. The last two of which are banned in—”
“National Parks. Yes, I know. I heard you the first time.” She unfurled, rising to her feet in one smooth movement. “I’ve had enough of you. I suggest you fuck off back to your renovated Victorian terrace in some poncey Melbourne suburb and renew your subscription to G Magazine. Then I suggest you meet your equally annoying friends—no doubt a bunch of overpaid lawyers and marketing gurus who bond over lattes and congratulate each other for being strong independent women—and you can relate how I single-handedly destroyed the whole high plains ecosystem, before you write a letter to The Age about state-funded child care and the quality of organic custard apples in the Prahran Market, and forget about me. And believe me, it can’t happen soon enough as far as I’m concerned.”
Lou turned her back and stalked over to where Ruby grazed placidly. Running her hand down the bay’s shoulder, she took steady deep breaths. Her gaze passed over Ruby’s neck and centered on the snowgums edging the clearing, their mottled bark and clean-edged limbs silver in the gloaming. She took a lungful of crisp mountain air and focused on the boulders and tufts of hummocky grass.
“Look, I’m sorry.”
Christ, that woman moved quieter than a tiger snake.
“I didn’t mean to be so confrontational.”
“You’ve got ‘confrontational’ down to an art form.” Lou stayed with her hands on her horse’s neck, feeling the shift of muscle underneath the burgeoning winter coat.
“It’s just that this area is different. Special. Australia’s got so little snow country that it needs to be preserved.”
“Preserved. Pickled like an onion. Made into an exhibit to be admired. No.” Lou turned and faced the other woman. “That’s where you’re wrong. This is living, breathing landscape, not a museum piece. And that’s where I come in. I’m not merely borrowing this land to walk upon it over Melbourne Cup weekend; I’m part of it, my history is here, in the high country. The mountain creeks run thr
ough my dreams. My horse’s hooves tread the dirt, and yes, my cattle roam the high plains. Or they did, until your lot interfered.”
“Your family are mountain cattlemen?”
Lou nodded and her blunt fingernails dug deeper into Ruby’s mane.
“We’ve held Cully’s Run since 1860, when my great, great, great grandfather came over from Ireland and took over the run. He got a few cattle here and there—rustled some, if the tales are true—until he had a decent mob. And every spring, he’d drove them up Insolvency Spur, just him and his brother who was soft in the head, and their dogs. He lost a few over the side of the trail, and he lost his brother when the ground went from under his horse and he was thrown down a cliff. But he kept going, and he built his run up. My family still holds it.
“And until the stickybeaks got involved, we kept that life. At the start of summer, we drove our cattle up through Dargo to the high plains and let them roam, growing sleek and fat, and every autumn we’d muster them up, take them back down to lower pasture. And in the meantime, we’d check on them, mend fences, maintain the timber huts that the bushwalkers now use and the hoons burn down most summers. We’d mend tanks, dig culverts, fix washouts in the roads—the roads that now carry city people in their four-wheel drives up for a weekend of adventure. We know this land, better than you can ever imagine. Don’t you try to tell me about this place. It’s my land.”
The other woman was silent. In the half-light her thin face was thoughtful. “So why are you here now?”
“I can’t give it up. The government has banned the cattlemen from the plains; so what! I’m not going to be ordered around by some drongo in a suit. So every spring and autumn, I drive a couple of cattle up the old pathways. I don’t let them roam free; I just take them along the old tracks from Dargo up to the high plains and back again. We’re not harming anyone, and you’re not going to stop me. So, now that you’ve made your point and I’ve listened, I suggest you turn on your GPS unit and get your pretty butt back on the trail and down to your camp. The light’s going and I’d hate to have to call out Bush Search and Rescue.”
“I’m not camping. I’ve booked a room at the Dargo pub.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’ll never find your way in the dark. I suggest you git on down the track as far as you can and make camp before it’s completely dark.”
“Didn’t you listen? I said, I’m not camping. Look.” She rummaged through the small pack, bringing out muesli bars, fruit, bottles of water and energy drink, gloves, and an extra fleece. “No tent. No sleeping bag.”
“So what are you going to do? Dig out your satellite phone to call for rescue and dob me in at the same time?”
The other woman advanced. Close up, she was smaller, scrawny even. Her brown hair curled over her shoulders, contained by the fleece beanie. Her eyes were blue, and her skin had a weather-beaten look, prematurely aged by the harsh Aussie sun.
“Cattlemen’s code.”
“What?”
“Don’t you people have a code, whereby you help each other out? Not just cattlemen; no one leaves anyone else stuck in the bush. I’ll stop here with you tonight. May I share your tent?”
“What tent? I don’t see any tent, do you, Kelsey?” Lou addressed the dog. “Me and Kel here, we share my swag.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated the canvas sausage on the far side of the small fire. The self-contained bedroll was sturdy, with a waterproof cover and merely a hood to keep the rain off the occupant. While it was roomy for one, two would be more than cozy.
“Oh.”
Lou studied her lazily while she deliberated. Really, it would be no hardship to share her swag with this woman. She had a surprisingly wide, sensual mouth, and compressed energy—the sort that often indicated an enthusiastic bed partner. Lou could imagine her sinewy legs tangled with her own, could imagine her coffee-breath kiss.
The other woman swung back and stuck out a hand. “If we’re sharing a swag, at least we should know each other’s name. I’m Derrie.”
“Lou.”
Derrie’s grip was firm and sure. “Thanks.”
“No worries. Just try and keep your mouth shut.” Lou walked back to the small fire and picked up her cold coffee, throwing dregs onto the ground. “Want a coffee? It’s instant, not a skinny mochachino soy milk latte or whatever the hell you normally drink, but it’s hot.”
“You’re the one who told me to keep my mouth shut.” Derrie picked up the blackened billy lying by the fire and filled it from the waterskin. “Why don’t you keep your own obnoxious opinions to yourself? You don’t know me at all, but you’re judging me by how you perceive I like my coffee.”
Lou stared into the fire, watching the eucalyptus wood, heart-red and glowing. It cracked, the oil within exploding like a whip-crack in the evening. “You’re right; you didn’t deserve that.”
“I’m not blameless.” Derrie smiled, and her angular face gained an appeal, the warmth suddenly apparent. “Shall we call a truce?”
The billy boiled over in an explosion of steam. Lou picked it off the fire with a forked stick. “Truce. Over coffee. Hope you like it unsweetened and black.”
“I do.”
“Lucky for you!” She held out the mug. “Only got the one. We’ll have to share. Pull up a log and sit.”
For a few minutes they were silent, passing the mug back and forth between them. Lou fancied it was warm from more than the coffee. The darkness fell like a blanket in the abrupt way it did on the high plains. The cockatoos wheeled back to roost, and a kookaburra cackled maniacally and then fell silent. Lou threw a handful of gum leaves onto the fire, watching as they flared into flame, their fresh scent filling the air. Standing, she went to check on Ruby hobbled nearby, and to make sure that she could see the dim shapes of Daisy and her calf in the darkness. Kelsey pattered at her heels. Away from the fire, the air was sharp and clean. She stood, listening to the night sounds of the bush: The squawk of a bird; the rhythmic thump of a ’roo disturbed by her scent. The snuffle and blunder of something solid in the undergrowth, a wombat maybe.
Returning to the fire, she stood in the shadows outside the glow watching her uninvited guest. Derrie hunkered on a log, cradling the coffee, her face thoughtful as she stared into the fire. No, not attractive, not her usual sort of woman, but she had a raw appeal, an energy, a leashed passion. And they would share her swag. Lou’s stomach fluttered gently in anticipation. “You might have to sleep outside tonight, Kel,” she murmured. “No room for three.”
Back at the fire, she busied herself with the cooking. She turned the spuds in the ashes, and heaped more coals on the top of the Dutch oven already buried in the embers.
“I can contribute some energy bars and chocolate,” Derrie said.
“Chocolate could be good. Lucky I have enough food here. I did an extra spud as Kel likes them.”
“Poor Kel will miss out.” Derrie ruffled the dog’s fur.
They ate in silence, sharing the same enamel dish and fork, their backs against a log as they took it in turns to scoop up the beef stew. When the leftovers had cooled, Lou gave them to Kel, wiping the billy and plates with a handful of grass.
Accepting a piece of chocolate from Derrie, she tilted her face upwards. The swath of stars burned bright in the indigo sky, a ribbon of light grazing the tops of the snowgums, lighting the clearing with its cold glow. The Southern Cross hung low in the sky.
Derrie stirred, rising from her log and stretching. “I’m turning in.”
Lou nodded, unwilling to leave the brilliant night, even for the promise of a warm body aligned with hers. Instead, she stretched out on her back, arms over her head. The coldness of the ground seeped into her body, but she didn’t move. Underneath the sky, her favorite time. Overhead, the sky blazed with the weight of the stars. So many stars, so many million pulsating points of light. Lou lay dreaming, gazing through half-closed eyes, until it felt as if the Earth fell away, leaving her suspended in the glowing universe.
It was an hour before she rose and paced over to where the swag humped down on the far side of the fire. She tamped down the fire, made a last check on Ruby, and sent Kel out around the cattle. Kel would alert her if anything was amiss. Shucking her clothes, she rolled them into a ball, and leaving her boots under the hood, she stooped and listened. Derrie’s breathing was slow and steady, but Lou sensed she wasn’t asleep—her breathing was too careful, too even. There was a tension in the air, an anticipation. What was Derrie wearing in bed? With a thrum of anticipation, she pushed the rolled-up clothes down in the swag, so that they’d be warm and dry for the morning. Carefully, she slid in alongside Derrie. It wasn’t easy; the bedroll was narrow, designed for one, and her feet and legs brushed warm flesh.
Derrie was lying on her back. Lou turned on her side, facing the other woman. Kel pattered back, sliding under the swag’s hood, her panting breath on Lou’s face as she tried to slide in.
“Outside, Kel,” Lou said, in a low voice.
With a sigh, the blue heeler settled, nose to tail.
Lou propped her head on her hand, studying Derrie. Her features were softened by pools of shadow, her hawk nose and angular cheeks smoothed by the overlay of starlight. Her eyes were open. Lou hesitated; she knew what she wanted, sensed it wouldn’t be unwelcome—two strangers thrown into proximity. What more natural than they share their bodies along with the swag? But she didn’t want it to be an obligation, rent for the night’s accommodation.
Her hand moved over, seeking Derrie, coming to rest on her flat stomach. No T-shirt. That was a good start, but her muscles were drum tight and quivering. Lou slid her hand down, around to Derrie’s hip. A thin band of elastic interrupted the flow of fingers over skin. She touched it, slipping beneath, feeling thin skin over sharp bone.
“What are you doing?” Derrie’s voice cracked into the night like a whip.
Lou went for broke. “Seducing you.”
