The Golden Stranger

by Karen Wood

  Shara looked at the scene around the old dairy. The people in blue suits carried a large tarpaulin to cover the dead brumby’s body. ‘Poor thing.’

  ‘What a waste of a beautiful horse,’ said John.

  ‘What will happen to the rest of the brumbies?’

  ‘The RSPCA will contact some rescue groups and see if anyone can take them.’

  Shara nodded, wishing she could take all of them, but they were so wild and freaked out, way beyond anything she could handle. ‘God, I hope they don’t get Goldie,’ she thought out loud.

  The lines deepened over John’s brow and Shara saw a hardness in his eyes. ‘No way am I going to let that happen.’

  17

  LOUISE WAS QUIET as she drove towards home, looking deeply troubled. Shara was glad that her mother had seen the work of the Connemans with her own eyes this time – she’d been horrified. Shara wondered what was going through her mind. Finally Louise spoke.

  ‘You know, part of me is really proud of you, Shara.’

  ‘Really?’ That was not what Shara had expected to hear. So far her parents had made her feel like a complete and utter piece of crap.

  ‘To stand up for things that you believe in takes a lot of courage, especially if others around you don’t feel the same way.’

  Shara frowned. She didn’t feel courageous. She just felt stupid and confused.

  ‘Your father and I went in a few protest marches when we were at uni.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Shara looked at her mum’s hands on the steering wheel. Her nails were manicured and she wore tasteful gold jewellery. Shara could hardly imagine her waving a placard around and chanting slogans.

  ‘Student politics mostly, nothing too radical,’ her mother continued. ‘But it was easy to just join in a march when there were lots of other people alongside. What you did was really risky. I’d never have been brave enough to do something like that.’

  So her mum was calling her a hero now. The day was getting more and more bewildering.

  ‘What I didn’t like was you putting your safety at risk. That was foolish.’

  Shara nodded. ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

  ‘You caused other people to get hurt.’

  Okay, that bit she understood. She was back to being a complete and utter piece of crap.

  Louise turned onto Coachwood Road and headed towards home.

  Shara stared out the window and willed the road to go quickly. She just wanted to go home and hide in her room for the rest of the holidays. She wanted to go back to Canningdale College and not to have to think about all this.

  ‘Don Bigwood wants me to take you down to the police station to make a statement.’

  Shara groaned. ‘Not another one!’

  The Coachwood Crossing police station was a small timber building on stilts next to the railway station. It had a front desk, one small office behind a glass window and a tearoom off to the side.

  Shara felt messy-minded and unclear as she tried to make sense of the afternoon’s events. Outside, people were gathering and she could hear heated and excitable voices, Mrs Arnold’s among them. Again, she was amazed at how quickly news spread through Coachwood Crossing, this time about the sick and dead brumbies.

  Thank God Dad isn’t home from out west yet. This would have really sent him over the edge.

  The thought had barely formed in her head when the murmur of the crowd rose and the door of the police station burst open. Her father, red-eyed and bleary, walked straight to her. ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  Shara hadn’t seen him since he had put Rocko and Goldie on the float and she could barely look him in the eyes. She turned away without replying.

  ‘Did you do anything to further provoke those Connemans? Because if you did . . .’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Barry,’ said Sergeant Bigwood. ‘The kid’s done nothing wrong. We found some neglected animals on a remote property. We think they belong to the Conneman brothers.’

  ‘Don, what are they doing back in town?’ Barry’s voice rose. ‘I don’t like them lurking around and stalking my daughter like this. What is going on?’

  ‘Well, they wanted that colt back. But since then we’ve found this mob of wild brumbies, which complicates things.’ Don went on to explain the afternoon’s events. ‘We’re waiting for Hendra tests to see if the death of one of the horses was preventable or not.’

  ‘Preventable or not?’ Shara mumbled from her chair in the corner. ‘You only have to look at the state the other horses were in to know it wasn’t being cared for properly.’ She muttered ‘Hendra virus,’ under her breath, adding a raspberry.

  ‘Those brumbies were caught in the wild,’ said Don Bigwood. ‘The Connemans say they rescued them and were actually trying to get them back into good health for an upcoming rodeo.’

  ‘Oh, puh-leease!’ Shara snorted with disbelief. ‘You don’t honestly believe that, do you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe,’ said the sergeant sternly. ‘What matters is the truth. Facts.’

  ‘That brumby is dead. Doesn’t get any more factual than that.’

  ‘Yes, and we need to determine the cause of death before we go jumping to conclusions. There are a whole lot of people who are not happy about what’s happened, I know. But everyone needs to just calm down and go about things rationally and legally.’

  Barry gave Shara a tight-lipped glare.

  ‘What?’ demanded Shara. ‘How is a dairy full of sick and dead horses my fault? Those disgusting people should be run out of town. They should be hunted down and held accountable . . .’

  ‘That’s precisely what shouldn’t be done, Shara,’ said her father, his voice rising. ‘That’s exactly the type of thing I spoke to you about. That’s a lynch-mob mentality, and completely against the law.’

  ‘Well, some of the laws should be changed!’

  ‘You can get change without breaking the law!’

  ‘Well, how?’ yelled Shara. ‘The law hasn’t been too good so far, has it? Everyone seems to know the Connemans are crooks, they treat their animals terribly, but they’re still doing it, aren’t they? Those horrible people are probably going to get Goldie back and the law is actually protecting them! Don’t—’

  ‘Hey, hey, heyyy!’ yelled Sergeant Bigwood over the top of her, trying to calm them both down. ‘I think you’re both making a bit of sense,’ he said. ‘And if you’d put your heads together, you might find a solution to this whole problem. Blood samples have been taken and the cause of death will determine any cruelty charges.’ He looked pointedly at Shara. ‘If there are any cruelty charges to be made.’

  Shara shut her mouth and looked out the window.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Sergeant Bigwood continued in a quieter voice, ‘it seems that stunt you pulled at the Coach–wood Show has had some effect. A lot of people in this town support you and are angry about the Connemans’ treatment of wild horses. Why don’t you hold some sort of protest ride or something? It might put pressure on show societies to lift their game and stop using these guys as contractors.’ He shrugged. ‘The Kympania rodeo is on next weekend.’

  Barry stood there, an intense look on his face. He breathed in. He breathed out. He looked to the ceiling. He looked to the door. He looked at Shara. ‘Doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually.’

  ‘Yeah, except I don’t have a horse to ride,’ said Shara.

  Barry gave Shara a long, scrutinising look. For the briefest of seconds, she saw his face soften, before it hardened again. ‘Borrow one.’

  Sergeant Bigwood continued. ‘You would need a written application to get a permit, but I can help you organise all that. Oh, and you’d need to contact the council as well.’

  Shara sat, mouth tight.

  ‘And you can organise it from somewhere else,’ said Sergeant Bigwood. ‘I’ve got a station to run here.’

  As they walked out the door, Shara looked at her father. His hair stuck up in a tufty crown around his bal
d patch and he looked exhausted, too tired to fight. So she plucked up the courage to ask about Rocko. ‘Have they let him onto the station yet?’

  ‘He’s still in the house paddock,’ said Barry. ‘I want to see you put things right before we talk about him again.’

  Shara knew by the look on his face and from past experience that he meant it. But his words offered her a faint glimmer of hope that she might see Rocko again. She forced herself to shut up, but she couldn’t stop a fresh wave of tears running down her cheeks at the thought of him. She missed him dreadfully. She turned away and desperately tried to pull herself together. She would make things right. She had to.

  That night Shara booted up her laptop and found about ten emails from Jess. Each one had a different version of CONTACT ME!!! in the subject bar. No sooner had she logged in than an instant message came up.

  Sharsy, what happened? I haven’t been allowed to ring you. My email’s going nuts with all the rumours – is it true???

  What have you heard?

  Shara flopped onto her bed and curled up with her computer. Her body was exhausted but her mind was spinning like a flywheel. She gave Jess a run-down of her day: told her about Goldie, the Connemans trying to claim him back, about the dairy and the dead horse, the brumbies, the trip to the police station. Jess fired questions at her like a machine gun.

  Did your dad spew? Do you reckon it’s really Hendra? OMG that’s so scary!

  Jess I need your help. I want to run a protest ride about cruelty to brumbies. The rodeo is on at Kympania this weekend and there’s a wild horse race on. I want the protest ride to go past there.

  Jess quickly latched onto the idea. Rosie and Grace came online and joined them in the chat, and before long they were all tossing ideas around. Rosie suggested possible meeting points:

  We could start at the pony-club grounds and assemble people there.

  Jess thought of all the different clubs and horse organisations they could invite:

  We could look up different animal welfare people too – there are lots of brumby groups!

  And then Grace had an epiphany.

  Hey, Kympania is near the mountains. We could do a mountain ride – a brumby ride – how excellent would that be!!! We could run a sausage sizzle afterwards!

  A brumby ride – perfect. Grace was a genius. They would ride past the Kympania rodeo, up through the mountains for a picnic lunch and then finish by riding back through the main street of Kympania. They decided to meet the following evening at the pony club with as many people as they could muster to discuss the finer details.

  18

  BARRY JANGLED HIS KEYS and opened the door of the little timber clubhouse, flicking on the lights as he stepped into the doorway. Shara stepped in behind him. A waft of cool air and old cooking smells mixed with seasoned timber greeted them.

  Barry walked straight to the hot water urn and lifted the lid. ‘How do I get this thing to work?’

  ‘Let the expert have a look,’ Shara said. She flicked the switch at the power point and turned the knob at the front of the urn. ‘There you go: it’ll take about fifteen minutes.’

  Vehicles began to fill the pony club grounds one by one. It had taken only a few text messages and tweets for the word to spread like lightning. Cars, utes, old trucks and four-wheel drives lined up in rows. Doors slammed and voices called hello.

  Barry did blokey farm talk with John Duggin and Lawson Blake. They were soon joined by Ian Hoskins. Tom and Rosie arrived in Tom’s sleek black ute, and Grace and Elliot turned up squeezed onto Elliot’s tiny motorbike with their knees around their ears. Anita from the animal shelter came with a group of colleagues and before long they were joined by Lurlene Spencer, who wore violent red lipstick like war paint. Shara wasn’t surprised to see her chatting with Judy Arnold as if they were old friends.

  Pony club members turned up by the dozens, keen to help out any horses in trouble. Other locals leaned against fence posts and tucked their hands in their pockets as they talked. They had all seen or at least heard about the protest against the wild horse race at this year’s show, and were beginning to admit they had loved it. They knew about the dead brumby at the dairy, and the colt at the vet surgery, although Anna Paget grumbled that Goldie should stay there permanently.

  ‘Okay, let’s get this meeting going,’ Barry called out over the crowd. ‘Can everyone come and sit down?’ The crowd shuffled around, finding seats and standing room. Barry sat at the front bench and was flanked by Shara, Jess, Rosie, Grace and Sergeant Bigwood.

  As the noise level settled to a low mumble, the sergeant stood and addressed the crowd.

  ‘As you may have heard, some very sick horses were found by the RSPCA yesterday. Now, rather than forming a lynch mob, Barry and these girls have come up with a plan to hold a protest ride this weekend. The Conneman brothers will be supplying brumbies for the wild horse race at Kympania and that will be our starting point. This is a legal way to go about raising concerns for brumby safety, especially in wild horse races.’

  Barry stood up next to Sergeant Bigwood. ‘We appreciate everyone being here, but if anyone feels they can’t work with us without causing trouble, they may as well leave now. This is going to be a peaceful ride.’

  There were murmurs. Several people turned and stared at Judy Arnold, who stood tight-lipped and frowning, her hands clenched in her pockets. ‘What?’ she growled.

  Barry continued. ‘Right, now let’s organise this ride.’ He turned to Shara. ‘Are you taking notes?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Shara, pen in hand.

  Sergeant Bigwood gave the crowd a run-down of what they needed to do about the applications and permits in order to ride through town. Then Barry began to delegate jobs. Shara wrote furiously, making lists of people to contact and recruit. They would ring every pony club secretary in the district and ask them to contact their members. The RSPCA, the local campdrafting club and adult riding club members would all be notified. There would be an advertisement in Friday’s paper as well.

  Elliot offered to set up a Facebook page, and Rosie was placed in charge of arranging parking at the Kympania Pony Club and fresh water for the horses. Jess was made publicity officer, responsible for contacting the media. Grace would organise the sausage sizzle and Tom volunteered to help draw up a petition to present to the mayor.

  A clipboard was passed around for people to record their names and phone numbers so they could be contacted to help. The details were endless, but Shara remained sharp and alert, writing furiously, not missing anything. Her mind raced and her excitement grew.

  ‘I can’t believe how much support we’re getting,’ she said to her father on the way home.

  ‘Yeah, you can tell not much ever happens in this town. It’s like a re-run of the fete,’ said Barry.

  ‘You don’t think it’s because they believe in us?’

  ‘That too – a bit of both, I reckon. Most decent people don’t like to see animals suffer, but they don’t often get up and do much about it.’ Barry went quiet for a moment and then he glanced at his daughter. ‘That prank of yours was wrong, but not as wrong as what the Connemans did to Corey, or to those brumbies.’

  Shara was silent for a while, soaking up the relief she felt that her dad was coming around.

  ‘Thanks for helping me with the brumby ride.’

  ‘Well, I’ve always said parenting is not about punishing but about teaching your kid to do the right thing. You’ve still got a big job ahead of you to put things right.’

  She nodded and thought of Corey. She had a big job ahead to put things right with him, too.

  19

  THE DOOR TO THE Duggins’ sprawling Queenslander home was wide open and Shara could hear a telly. She stood outside on the verandah and knocked. ‘Hello?’

  Corey’s voice echoed down the hallway from an inner room. ‘Yeah?’

  She kicked off her boots and crept along the floorboards in her socks, following the voice. ‘Corey?’

&nbs
p; ‘In here.’

  Shara peered through an open bedroom door at Corey, who sat cross-legged in jeans on a bed, a remote in his hand, staring at a small television. She quickly withdrew when she registered that he had no shirt on.

  ‘It’s Shara,’ she said, hovering at the doorway. No one else seemed to be home.

  The telly volume lowered. ‘Come in.’

  His arms and head were halfway through an old T-shirt when she entered. When they popped out, she saw that the side of his face was heavily bruised. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she smiled.

  ‘Got the crap smacked out of me,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘Told you those Connemans were bad news.’ He didn’t seem happy. At all.

  Shara stood there, with her bag hooked over her shoulder, wondering if she should sit down. He didn’t invite her to. ‘I’m so sorry, Corey,’ she said, switching tone.

  He didn’t answer but stared back at the television. She took the swivel chair by a desk strewn with old videos and DVDs, and put her bag on the floor.

  It was a while before Corey spoke again. ‘I can’t even remember what happened.’

  ‘Can you remember being at the roping finals?’

  He shifted his eyes to hers. ‘Some of it.’

  ‘Do you remember plucking the mare?’

  He frowned with concentration, then snorted suddenly. ‘You fell off the side of the truck.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You fall off everything.’

  ‘Except my horse.’ She shrugged.

  Then his frown returned. ‘I remember that lanky vermin Conneman getting hold of you. He was hurting you.’

  ‘He would have hurt me more if you hadn’t fought him off.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I hope I got him good,’ Corey said, looking at the bandage over his broken knuckles and then putting it up to his swollen cheek. ‘He got me a ripper!’