For a moment she wondered longingly if her cousin’s preoccupation was because of something that Crag had said to her ... But no, not with an answer such as he had given her last night. Again she heard that: Impulse ... you must see it ... see how it’s bringing chaos to the heart.’
‘Crag.’ Rena’s cool voice cut into Pippa’s pain. ‘Crag, when are you taking me down to the horse-break?
‘Now, if you like.’ He stopped to light his pipe.
‘In a frock?’
‘What did you expect to wear?’
‘Jodhpurs at least,’ she flung.
He took the pipe out of his mouth and looked seriously at her. ‘What for, Rena? There’ll be no riding down there.’
‘Oh, Crag, don’t be an old fuddy, I know as much about horses as you.’
‘Southern Highland horses,’ he agreed, ‘but these are vastly different, Rena.’
‘Oh, I know they’ve run wild,’ she said impatiently, ‘but I’ve handled horses that have been in the field all the year.’
‘These have been in the scrub, Rena, all their lives. Most of them have never seen a man, never felt a rein.’
‘I can look after myself.’ She tossed her head.
‘Perhaps, but you’re not doing it down there.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
Quite obviously she was irritated, on edge. Pippa sensed, though she did not comprehend, Rena’s urgent need to expend herself—to escape from something that was enclosing her. Puzzled, Pippa glanced up to see how Crag was reacting.
He was reacting calmly ... but intentionally. ‘Yes, we will see,’ he nodded firmly. After a moment he offered equably, ‘I’ll get a pony up for you this afternoon.’
‘Not a pony, Crag.’ Rena’s voice was shrill. ‘What do you think I am, a week-end rider? I want a horse. I want that stallion I’ve been hearing about.’
‘No one is going to try him any more. You know now, from going into Minta, what happened to Bobby.’
‘Bobby’s hands might not have been right. I have excellent hands for a strong-willed horse. Dom ... I mean I’ve often been told so.’
‘I imagine you have been, Rena, but this is not just a strong-willed horse, this is a wrong ’un. What I should do in these circumstances is very obvious, but what I’m going to do, being a fool I suppose, is take that feller right back to where he belongs.’
‘To the scrub?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s a terrible waste of a horse like that. He’s a handsome thing.’
Sharply Crag said, ‘Have you seen him, then?’
‘Oh, yes, I had a quick look after breakfast.’ She smiled at him, but Crag did not smile back.
‘I’m not pleased with you, Rena,’ he stated. ‘The horse is unpredictable.’
‘But then,’ she came in, ‘so are most things.’
‘Rena, I’m not joking.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘You’re not to go down to the horse-break unless I say and unless I’m with you.’ He waited. ‘Understand?’
‘Very well.’ She capitulated so completely and so unexpectedly that Pippa looked at her in surprise.
‘Very well, darling,’ she said again, and she leaned up and touched his cheek.
Uncomfortable at the closeness that Rena deliberately had established between herself and Crag, both physically as she stood in front of him and in the endearment she used, Pippa murmured an excuse and hurried ahead.
Through the bathroom window she could see Rena and Crag walking up together, Rena now being demure and submissive as she kept close to Crag’s side. What is she doing, Pippa thought wretchedly, and why is she doing it? I still don’t believe she really loves, or has ever loved, Crag, so why is she going on like this?—But she didn’t ask herself how Crag felt, for she already knew; she had heard. She had heard—impulse ... see it this way ... chaos to the heart.’
The meal was an ordeal. Trying to appear normal. Trying to join the conversation. Trying even to eat. That last was very important, for several times Crag’s keen eyes estimated her inroads on her laden plate, and he looked stern. Just how did he consider her, she wondered bleakly, simply as another child to be told what to do?
She heard the men at the table ... there was a full complement for the meal, for there was to be a strenuous afternoon programme and they were stoking up ... discussing the stallion again. Snowy had had an experience once like this and he suggested gelding the wild one, if it could be achieved, because often it availed a character change, and that feller certainly needed one, but Crag said no, the horse would go free, he was to be left alone, not touched. He was taboo.
He nodded this gravely to Rena, and she nodded docilely back.
And perhaps ... Pippa was think this later ... her cousin really meant that agreement, perhaps if what subsequently happened that afternoon had not happened, Rena would have rested on her laurels, for laurels they must be, thought Pippa bitterly, hearing once more those words of Crag’s to Rena last night.
But, the meal over and the men gone, and following Rena to hear more fully from her Glen Burt’s report on Davy, the report she had interrupted before because she had been unable to listen any longer, the station telephone suddenly pealed, and Mrs. Cassidy came into the hall and picked it up.
From the moment it rang there was something electric in the air. Pippa could not have put a finger on it ... only a finger on Rena, who suddenly stood very still and looked white and strained. Her cousin could not possibly know, as she herself could not know, the identity of the caller, but she stood there and she knew. Pippa could tell she knew.
Cassy listened for a while, then said, ‘Yes, I’ll write that down.’ Then she put the phone back.
‘Rena, I want to discuss Davy and what Glen Burt told you,’ Pippa began.
‘Why didn’t she read the message out?’ Rena said stonily.
‘It wasn’t for us. It would be for Crag. Rena—’
‘Why did she have to be so secretive?’
‘She wasn’t being secretive, it just wasn’t our business. Rena—’
But Rena turned impatiently on her. ‘I told you what he said,’ she cried irritably. ‘Now I’m going down to that horse.’
‘Crag told you not to.’
‘I know. Pippa, I know. But I have to do something. Can’t you see that?’
‘No.’ Pippa looked back at her. Then she cried, ‘Rena ... Rena!’
For Rena was running out of the room and down the steps. She still had on her frock, so at least she would not try anything foolish, but, remembering Crag’s injunction not even to be near the horse, Pippa went after her.
Halfway there, she turned back cautiously to check up on Davy, for she knew that Crag would want him ... as she did, too ... well away from the break. But she glimpsed her brother through the office window sitting at the desk with Rupie, probably checking the station accounts again, another job he had quaintly taken upon himself. She also saw that the piccaninnies were playing safely in the gully, so all, away from the break, was well.
When she got down to the enclosure, it seemed at first that it was deserted, then she noted that the recently broken mares and stallions were cropping quietly in one corral, the ones yet to be dealt with in another pen. But there was no sign of the bay stallion. She would have turned away, thinking that Rena had come and then gone in the belief that Crag already had done what he had said he would do, release the wrong one.
Then she heard the small noise from the barn that adjoined the inner enclosure. She went towards it, keeping well outside the fence, climbed the few rungs and peered in. It was dark after the sunlight, and for a while Pippa could not focus. Then she outlined the shape of two stalls. In one of them, crouched as far as she could from the intervening half-way wall, was Rena, and she was staring with fear ... Rena afraid! ... at the horse on the other side. It was the wild one. Evidently the men had got a rope over him and manoeuvred him inside.
He seemed quiet enough,
but he was looking back at Rena, and even from where she watched Pippa could see the fiery red in his eyes, the red in his flaring nostrils. She could see that Rena could not move.
‘I’ll get help,’ she said softly but clearly. Rena dared not answer back.
Pippa climbed quietly down and ran swiftly up to the homestead. As she raced she remembered sickeningly that Crag and all the men had gone out.
She was standing on the lower step of the verandah, wondering whether to summon Rupie, wondering what she could do, when she saw the private mail and hire waggon bumping along the station flat. It was not mail day, but never had the mail-man ... and the man sitting beside him ... been more welcome. Pippa was unaware that she was crying with relief.
Mrs. Cassidy had come out by now to greet the visitor, and she said, not noticing Pippa’s anxiety, ‘That was fast, if you like. A message to say you’re coming and you’re here!’
‘The F.D. was going out to Crossroads, so I took my passenger that far. I brought him the rest.’ The driver pocketed the fee the passenger handed him and said, ‘Thanks, Mr. Hardy.’
Hardy. Domrey Hardy. Dom. For a moment Pippa heard again the phone call that had electrified Rena, she saw Rena’s strained face. It had been Dom ... and Rena had known. She had sensed, in the way people do sense when they are close, that—But Rena and Dom—close?
It didn’t matter now, though, only a girl in danger mattered. She was running to the overseer, shouting his name, shouting incoherent things, yet they must not have been entirely incoherent, for Domrey Hardy began running with her. Running down to the break.
When they reached it, he pushed Pippa back firmly, then he mounted the fence. He peered in.
‘Rena,’ he said at last very quietly, ‘it’s me. It’s Dom.’
Rena did not reply.
‘The horse is no good,’ he said next. ‘The moment you turn it’s going to knock down that wall, then strike. You know that, don’t you? The only thing is for me to divert it as you scramble out. Do you follow me?’
It was several minutes before Rena spoke, then she said without any sign of the panic she must be undergoing, ‘Since when have you told me about horses, Hardy?’
‘Rena, don’t be a damn fool.’
‘I’ve ridden worse ones than these,’ came the reply.
‘Well, you’re not riding this one now. Do as I say. When I divert the stallion, you—’
‘I won’t.’
‘Then you won’t come out alive.’
‘Would that worry you?’ Her voice came clear and contemptuous.
‘It would be two deaths, and you must know it. Without you I ... Rena, I’m moving in now. Are you ready?’
‘I’m stopping here.’
‘Then the only thing for me to do is handle the horse myself.’
‘You think you’re capable?’ Rena jeered.
‘Oh, Dom, don’t listen,’ Pippa said urgently, for she had seen the man stiffen. She put out her hand to stop him, but he brushed it, though without anger, aside.
He said bitterly, seeing the danger, ‘If it has to be this way ...’ and he moved over the fence towards the stallion’s stall.
What happened then happened so fast and so terrifyingly that Pippa felt it was like the frenzied flicking of a movie camera suddenly gone crazy.
Hardly had Dom moved forward than the stallion came at him like a hurricane, teeth bared, ears flattened, hooves raised high. As Rena screamed, Dom fell down and rolled over, rolled just in front of where the hooves struck, rolled again and again only a fraction of an inch from each cruel strike.
Now he was on his feet and jumping for the snubbing post, but it was clear that the stallion would get him before that.
Pippa stood sick and useless, seeing it all in those unrelated flicks again ... and then she heard the welcome swing of a rope, the scared mares in the next enclosure whinnying and galloping wildly round the fence, then the rope descending and pulling the stallion up.
It would not hold him for long, though ... the haltering rope had not succeeded in doing that ... so Crag, for it was Crag, wasted no time. He yelled for Pippa to stand clear, then he opened the gate and let the stallion out. One moment the horse was there, the next it was gone. Pippa did not watch where, she had turned to Dom Hardy and Rena.
Dom was lying unconscious on the floor of the stall, and Rena ... Rena was kneeling by his side ... lifting his head on to her lap. She was crying, ‘Dom! Dom! Oh, darling!’
The tears were streaming down her cheeks.
CHAPTER NINE
The Flying Doctor had come and gone. He had examined Dom and reported no need for Air Ambulance to take him into Minta Base, not even a need to bring out a nurse. There was no concussion, no breaks or strains. By some miracle, or by some remarkable adroitness, Dom had missed those savagely flailing hooves. All he was suffering was a reaction from the horrifying minutes that had nearly cost him his life.
After they had taken Dom up to the homestead on an improvised stretcher, Rena by his side and holding his hand, then eased him into a bed, Pippa and Crag had stood on the other side of the bed to Rena, and in silence the three had waited ... had watched the grey face.
But slowly the colour had begun to creep back, and by the time the F.D. flew in, Dom was breathing normally again. Yet when his eyes had looked up, Pippa had known that it was only Rena whom he saw, and when the F.D. said it was safe for the patient to be left so long as someone remained at hand to attend him if needed, there was no question who the attendant must be.
Pippa went out behind the two men and watched them as Crag nodded the doctor into the jeep then got behind the wheel. As the pair drove across the strip to where the doctor’s Auster waited, she thought again of that anxiety in Rena’s voice when she had knelt beside Dom ... then Rena coming up from the break by Dom’s side, Dom’s hand tenderly in hers. Later, Dom’s eyes as consciousness had returned, those eager eyes only aware of Rena.
What had happened once between those two? What would happen now? Most of all, when it did, what of Crag?
She stood on the verandah a long time just staring into distance. Where was the wrong one now? she wondered. She hoped the stallion had regained his old haunts, for somehow she could feel no anger against him, and she was glad that Crag had set him free.
Mrs. Cassidy came out with tea, and must have been thinking of the horse, too, for she said, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t pass his meanness on to any of next year’s foals, or if he does that they’re not caught in the round-up. Those sort are always dangerous.’
‘Next year’s foals?’
‘It’s spring,’ reminded Mrs. Cassidy, and in spring ...’ She smiled at Pippa. When they had finished she took up the emptied cups and went back to the kitchen. But Pippa stopped on the verandah.
Spring. It couldn’t be. It mustn’t be! She looked around her in alarm, searching for it. There was nothing to proclaim it, not like it had been proclaimed in the springs she had known in England. She remembered Aunt Helen’s garden ... snowdrops, narcissi, blunt buds on trees burgeoning into miracles of petals, honey bees laden with sweet largesse. That was spring, not this barrenness, and yet, she recalled indignantly from Crag: ‘It’s the most spring in all the world.’
How could he have cheated them like this, even for the love of a small boy for whom he had taken a fancy? A small boy, she thought dully, who was now only an ‘impulse’, an impulse that, on Rena’s arrival, had brought ‘chaos to the heart’.
No, there was no spring here.
Yet ... ‘September is the first of spring,’ Davy had sung, and if Cass was right about the season, then this was that spring she had left England for. It was Davy’s final spring. She had borrowed Australian spring for him, but she could never borrow again, there would be no second chance. Ten months, Doctor Harries had said. So this—this nothingness was all that Davy would have.
She could not see the scene before her for angry tears, but one thing she must see, and that was a calendar. R
unning down the steps, she crossed to the book-keeper’s office. There at least she should find the date.
Once more Davy was helping Rupie to check the accounts, he took these self-appointed jobs very seriously. He did not look up as she came in. She crossed to a wall almanac, where it was another self-appointed job of her small brother’s to cancel each spent day. As she stood there she heard the Auster leaving, and knew that Crag would be waiting out there in the field, his wide hat tilted over his eyes against the glare, watching for the F.D. to hide himself in that vast inverted blue bowl. She came back to the calendar and saw that the last cancelling was August the thirty-first. If she had harboured any disbelief the piles of accounts on the desk would have been witness to the end of the month. So it was the first of spring.
She turned desperately away, but Rupie called, ‘Did you want anything, Mrs. Crag?’
What would he say, she thought dully, if I answered that I want time, I must have more time for Davy, can you bring some time out of your stock cupboard, Rupie, the way you brought out Crag’s old school manuals?
‘I see you haven’t cancelled Crag’s thousand candles,’ tut-tutted Davy busily, checking a long list, still unaware of his sister. ‘Did you speak to him about his mistake?’
‘Yes, but he said it wasn’t a mistake. He said he wanted a thousand candles and there seemed no other way.’ Rupie scratched his head in bewilderment, whereupon Davy did the same.
‘Perhaps it’s for a party,’ suggested Davy.
‘Some party!’
‘Some party,’ copied Davy. ‘Now, what about all this rice?’ He looked disapprovingly at the list, no doubt seeing many rice puddings, which he disliked. Instinctive laughter bubbled up in Pippa ... but at once it died down again. Time, she was thinking painfully, is running out.
She turned away.
She did not know she was running herself until she ran into Crag. He had come back from the field, but the jeep was still on the drive, and when they collided, he wheeled her swiftly to the waggon, and the next moment they were bumping down to the gate.
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