Opal Dreaming

by Karen Wood

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Ryan, and the hopeful chatter that filled the camp instantly fell away to uneasy silence.

  Lawson took a while to answer; when he did, his tone was cold and unwelcoming. ‘I think you’ve already done enough.’

  ‘I want to help get the mare back. I want to find Dave and Clarkey.’ Ryan looked at Lawson earnestly. ‘I want to make things right.’

  The camp remained silent as a thick slick of tension ran between the two men. The fire snapped and popped and the generator hummed, but no one spoke.

  ‘You’ve got an awful lot of stuff to make right, Ryan,’ Lawson said eventually.

  ‘So let me help you. I know some of the places they go, some of the people they associate with.’

  Lawson was still cold and quiet.

  ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lawson. I came out here to reconcile with you. I thought these guys were okay. I was wrong.’

  When Lawson replied, he was surprisingly controlled. ‘You got to be more careful about who you spend your time with.’

  Ryan looked straight at him. ‘Then let me spend time with you.’

  22

  JESS SCRUBBED THE LAST of the morning breakfast dishes after eating half a pig, nearly an entire loaf of bread and a mountain of scrambled eggs. Upsetting the cook on a droving run, she had discovered, was a foolhardy thing to do on Lawson’s part. Mrs Arnold had locked the entire food supply in a large metal box, stored it under her cot and slept on it all night, refusing to yield to the hungry demands of her fellow campers. By morning Lawson had lost all popularity and the entire camp milled around anxiously waiting for breakfast.

  As she watched Shara, Rosie and Grace ride out, Jess wondered how long it would take to get scurvy without a morsel of fresh food. She could hear the cattle crooning loudly as they bustled around, waiting to get out and graze for the day.

  ‘You got the rough end of the pineapple today, Jess,’ said Mrs Arnold, bundling up her cooking gear and packing it into the trailer.

  ‘At least a pineapple would have a bit of vitamin C,’ Jess murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t mind,’ said Jess. ‘I really want to ring the station and see how Opal is. I was going to ask Lawson if I could borrow his phone, but he wasn’t really in the mood last night.’

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you,’ said Mrs Arnold from inside the trailer. ‘He rang the station about her.’

  Jess rushed to the doorway. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Lawson was pretty vague. He just said she was the same, or something like that. Like you say, he wasn’t really in the mood for talking. Nor was I for that matter. Sorry I can’t tell you any more than that, love.’

  Jess’s heart lifted a little. At least Opal was still alive. Maybe she was even getting a bit better. She imagined the filly, gleaming in the sunlight, trotting about with the other brumby foals. She set about packing with renewed energy, keen to find a phone as soon as possible and hear every detail of Opal’s health, firsthand.

  Lawson helped Luke and Ryan load a motorbike onto the back of the ute and tie it down with ropes. Then he jumped in the driver’s seat. Bob disappeared into the passenger side of the ute, while Luke and Ryan jumped on the back and stood holding the roll bar.

  ‘I hope they find Marnie,’ said Jess, as she watched them take off down the road, leaving a trail of dust behind them.

  ‘Don’t fancy their chances,’ said Mrs Arnold.

  Without the other girls, it took a good hour to pack up after everyone. Mrs Arnold made Jess sort out the unholy mess the girls had made in the back of the gooseneck, and to Jess’s dismay, this produced a whole new load of dirty washing.

  ‘We can find a laundromat in town while no one else is looking,’ said Mrs Arnold, winking at her.

  Jess shook sand and horse hair out of Grace’s sleeping bag and rolled it and the others up. She swept out the peak of the trailer and shoved any clean clothes she could find into duffle bags. She bagged up rubbish, rearranged saddles and folded up chairs and camping tables. With the men having taken the ute, they needed to find even more space to pack the swags, horse rugs and all manner of other gear. Finally, when they could barely squeeze in another item, Jess and Mrs Arnold lifted the tailgate of the trailer and latched it closed.

  An hour’s bumpy drive over the dirt track and another hour up the highway, Mrs Arnold pulled into a large highway truckstop. It had the usual franchised burger joints, souvenir shops and food halls catering for busloads of tourists. Mrs Arnold found a spot towards the back of the huge car park and pulled on the brake. ‘Should be able to get supplies here,’ she said.

  Jess sat in the passenger seat, hunched over her mobile. She waited impatiently as it struggled and failed to find a network. ‘Useless thing,’ she said, tossing it back into her bag. She hopped out and stretched. ‘I’m going to look for a landline.’

  ‘Try the servo. I’m going to the mini-mart.’

  Jess wandered into the cool, air-conditioned servo. It was enormous, set up with several individual shopfronts offering everything a bored and weary traveller could wish for. A newsagent presented racks of books and newspapers before shelves of trinkets, stationery and souvenirs. There were about four different food bars with glass-fronted bain-maries, some with greasy processed food, others with gourmet burgers wrapped in paper and stacked in neat rows.

  Jess scanned the various food menus for anything vaguely tempting, wrinkled her nose and decided to get something fresh from the mini-mart. She searched across what seemed like acres of tables and chairs for a public phone, but before she located one, another shopfront caught her eye.

  GENUINE QLD OPALS

  FINE OPAL JEWELLERY

  AND LOOSE STONES

  Jess wandered over and peered at the glistening gems through the polished glass. They were all so different. There was a small cluster of whitish stones, shaped and polished to look almost like a clutch of tiny eggs. Another opal was cut to a diamond shape with mostly blues and yellows. She moved her head from side to side and watched the different play of colours in the changing angle of light. Then she noticed another, which was black with streaks of fiery red.

  ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ A well-groomed man in a shirt and tie smiled charmingly at her, his hands behind his back.

  ‘I love opals,’ said Jess.

  ‘Come in and have a look.’

  Jess knew he was spruiking and she inwardly berated herself for playing straight into his sales pitch. ‘I actually have to make a phone call,’ she said, wanting to escape.

  ‘You can use our phone, if you like,’ he said. ‘Come on in.’

  ‘Okay, just quickly,’ she said, following him into the shop.

  The man walked behind a counter. ‘We have lots of different styles,’ he said. ‘Black opals . . . white opals . . . boulder opals . . .’ He began pulling out velvet-covered trays of necklaces and bracelets.

  Jess was about to ask him about the promised phone call, when another cabinet caught her attention. ‘I find those ones more interesting,’ she said, pointing at a shelf of loose and roughly cut stones on flat sheets of old cardboard in a purposely rustic display.

  The man whipped the other trays away and began pulling out individual stones. He picked through various clumps, streaked with blues, whites and greens. ‘The play on this one is quite beautiful,’ he said, turning it around in the light.

  It was beautiful, but a different piece of rock caught Jess’s attention: a jagged grey layer of stone around a solid opal centre, not unlike the one she had found near the trough. ‘What about that one?’ she said, pointing at it through the glass.

  ‘Ah yes, the Yowah nuts,’ said the man, pulling the entire tray out. ‘A man brought those in only yesterday. Getting harder to find these days.’

  There were only a few pieces, five in total, but the one Jess had already seen nearly made her heart stop. She patted her top jacket pocket. ‘Where is it?’ she mumbled to herself. Then
she found what she was searching for in the front of her jeans. She pulled it out and opened her fist, revealing an almost identical piece of stone.

  She took the piece from the tray and pressed its cut surface against that of the opal she had found by the trough. The halves fused together so perfectly that barely a crack showed where the stone had been split. Jess stared at the man with an open mouth. ‘How weird is that?’

  The man’s forehead wrinkled into deep furrows. ‘Snap,’ he said. ‘How bizarre!’

  ‘Where did your piece come from?’

  ‘Yowah – it’s the only place in the world where opals form like that,’ said the salesman. ‘Where’d you find yours?’

  ‘Next to a water trough, out on the stock route,’ said Jess slowly. ‘Hey, that guy didn’t leave his name or number, did he?’

  ‘Somewhere . . .’ The man looked thoughtful and then fumbled around for a bit. He found a receipt book under a pile of papers and began leafing through it.

  Jess saw the name David on the receipt before the salesman did. Dave’s surname was Rawlins. She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate. ‘Can I have his details,’ she squeaked, ‘please?’

  A look of uncertainty crossed the man’s face.

  Jess put her hand firmly on his book, holding it open on Dave’s receipt. ‘Either that or I’ll have to ring the police,’ she said, hoping all the tales she’d heard about opals and money-laundering were true. ‘I think the man is a horse thief.’

  The tales must have been true. ‘There shouldn’t be any need for the police,’ the man said quickly, and scrawled the details on a piece of paper. He pushed it towards her, looking tense.

  ‘Can I buy this one?’ Jess pulled out her wallet, still with the cash for Opal inside, and prayed it wouldn’t be too expensive. She reeled at the irony. ‘I’ve been saving up to buy an Opal.’

  ’Maybe you should just take it and get going,’ said the man, handing it to her and closing his receipt book. He began bundling the trays and loose stones back into the display cabinet.

  Jess bolted out the door with the opals in one hand and the address in the other, nearly flying into the path of an oncoming Winnebago. She skidded to a halt and darted across the car park to the front doors of the mini-mart.

  ‘MRS ARNOLD!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  ‘What?’ said Mrs Arnold from one of the checkouts. She continued to load groceries onto the conveyor belt. ‘No need to yell, I’m right here.’

  ‘Mrs Arnold!’ Jess panted. ‘I found him. I found the ringers!’ She waved the paper at her and hopped from one foot to another.

  Back in the servo, Jess paced anxiously back and forth while Mrs Arnold tried to reach Lawson on his satellite phone. ‘Stan!’ she finally shouted into the phone.

  Mrs Arnold squinted at the paper and read the address repeatedly, eventually spelling each word letter by letter, then using phonetic code when her husband still couldn’t hear her.

  ‘Yowah!’ she yelled into the phone. ‘Yankee, Oscar, Whisky, Alpha . . . No, Yankee, as in Y, as in WHY don’t you ever wear your hearing aid?’

  She finally emerged from the phone booth looking exhausted. ‘Useless satellite,’ she said in an annoyed tone. ‘Didn’t help that he’s as deaf as a post.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Jess. ‘Was Lawson there? What did Lawson say?’

  ‘He’s off on the motorbike. Stan’s going to go and find him.’ She shook her head. ‘Course, he didn’t have a pen. He’s used his finger to write the address on the bonnet of the ute, in the dust. Hopefully it’ll still be there after driving around for the next few hours, in even more dust, trying to find Lawson.’

  ‘Wish we had another sat phone – we could text it to him.’

  ‘You can do it on the internet. There’s a website you can use,’ said Mrs Arnold.

  ‘Where there are tourists, there are usually internet cafes!’ said Jess.

  There were two computers at the far end of the dining area in the servo. Jess bought an hour’s internet time and booted up the computer. Out of pure habit, she logged into her Yahoo account, then tried googling for satellite phone companies.

  ‘What type of phone does he have?’ Jess asked Mrs Arnold. ‘There are different brands.’

  Mrs Arnold pulled a stuffed-if-I-know face.

  Jess scanned through phone blogs, Facebook pages and FAQ pages on satellite phones. ‘It could be anything,’ she groaned. ‘I’m so dumb at this. We need tech support!’

  Just then a small orange pop-up appeared at the bottom of her Yahoo home screen. Elliot is online.

  ‘Elliot!’ cried Jess, clicking on the pop-up and bringing up the messenger.

  HI ELLIOT! IT’S JESS.

  hi jessica. how are the cows?

  CATTLE ARE GREAT. DO U KNOW HOW TO SEND

  TEXT MESSAGES TO A SATELLITE PHONE?

  is it iridium pvd?

  Jess and Mrs Arnold exchanged more stuffed-if-I-know glances.

  WOTZ THAT?

  Personal voice and data delivery – 66 leo

  satellites – very cool.

  CAN U HELP US GET A MESSAGE TO LAWSON’S

  PHONE?

  Sure. He’s on my fixed rst.

  DOES THAT MEAN YOU HAVE HIS NUMBER?

  Affirmative

  ‘He is such a geek!’ Jess took the receipt from Mrs Arnold and began typing Dave’s address.

  Is grace there with you?

  NO, SHE’S RIDING

  can u say hello to her from elliot?

  Jess and Mrs Arnold exchanged further stuffed-if-I-know glances, followed by surely-not looks and how-sweet gestures.

  ‘Maybe Grace is on his fixed RST too,’ Jess chuckled.

  ‘Better not be,’ Mrs Arnold growled.

  CAN U TEXT THAT NAME AND ADDRESS TO

  LAWSON’S SAT PHONE?

  i already have

  THANKS ELLIOT, UR THE BEST.

  The afternoon was the longest of Jess’s life. Even the thrill of making a nutritious, vitamin-C-packed lunch with crunchy raw vegetables from the mini-mart didn’t help it go any faster. After feeding the riders and helping them to swap horses, she drove with Mrs Arnold to the night camp and spent hours scrubbing green slime out of the water troughs and refilling them for the cattle at the designated bore. She rolled out miles of electric tape with Bob and helped count the cattle. Shara, Grace and Rosie came in to where they were settling for the night, leading their horses, looking totally exhilarated.

  ‘You should see Lindy’s dogs work,’ Grace enthused. ‘One just jumped up and bit this cow on the neck when it wouldn’t move; it was awesome! I’m gonna get Dad to buy me a smithy when we get home.’

  ‘I broke my gel tips,’ Rosie moaned, leading Slinger past and studying her fingernails. ‘I knew I should’ve got acrylic.’

  Grace screwed up her face. ‘Who’s going to see your fingernails out here?’

  ‘I am,’ Rosie retorted. ‘Just because you have no concept of self-presentation, or personal hygiene.’

  Grace blew a raspberry at her and walked away, whistling to Lindy’s dogs.

  As Jess helped them with their horses, she told them about the opal she had found. Soon they were all sitting around the campfire, waiting, waiting, for the men to arrive. As eight o’ clock gave away to nine, both Mrs Arnold and Jess started getting nervous. They speculated about all sorts of possible confrontations that may have taken place.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have given the address to Lawson,’ said Jess. ‘He was too angry. We should have rung the police.’

  ‘Lawson can handle himself,’ said Mrs Arnold, not sounding entirely convinced of that.

  ‘Luke shouldn’t have gone. He already had a blowup with Dave,’ Jess fretted. ‘He’ll get in another fight.’ Then she thought of Lawson and Ryan. ‘This is just really bad. They’re all going to kill each other. Maybe we should drive back into town and try to get hold of Elliot again, see if he’s heard from Lawson.’

 
Mrs Arnold shook her head. Then Jess saw her eyebrows lower into a curious frown as though she was remembering something. ‘Elliot said to say hello to you, Grace,’ she said, in a tone that suggested her daughter explain.

  ‘Did he?’ said Grace, looking suddenly busy and distracted. ‘Why?’

  Her mother maintained her stare. Grace picked up her saddle and bridle and walked to the back of the trailer. ‘Do you know if we have any anti-gall girths? That horse was a bit ticklish this morning.’

  Mrs Arnold glanced suspiciously at Jess, who answered with another don’t-ask-me shrug.

  Just as Jess thought she couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer, they heard the ute rumbling along the dirt track, and the unmistakeable sound of a float’s towball bouncing on the coupling, a horse’s hooves clanging about in the back. Headlights waved across the open grassy plains.

  Everyone jumped up.

  ‘They’re back!’ cried Jess. ‘They’ve got a float – they’ve got Marnie!’

  The ute stopped and Jess raced to the front door of the float and wrenched it open. She shone a torch inside and a set of soft, long-lashed eyes peered at her. ‘Marnie!’ Jess shone the torch all over her, looking for any signs of damage. The mare was sweaty but otherwise looked fine.

  The girls crowded around as Lawson emerged from the driver’s side with a wide grin on his face. ‘Where’s Jessica?’ he demanded.

  Jess was shoved to the front of the crowd and before she knew it, Lawson was swinging her around in a big happy bear-hug, so that she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Told you opals were good-luck stones,’ she laughed.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Jessica,’ he said, hoisting her high into the air. ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna repay you.’

  ‘Just give me my filly back,’ Jess said, smiling down at him.

  Lawson dropped her like a bag of rocks.

  23

  BY THE NEXT MORNING, all of Lawson’s gratitude to Jess seemed to have vanished.

  Ryan, on the other hand, seemed to have totally redeemed himself. Marnie had been found on a remote Yowah property, the discovery of which now seemed to be taken for granted. Jess had spent the evening listening to tales of how Ryan had heroically wrestled Dave to the ground, while Luke and Lawson rang the cops, caught Marnie and loaded her onto a horse float to get her out of there. Both Dave and Clarkey had been charged with live-stock theft and Ryan had come home with a big black eye, which the men all seemed to view as a badge of honour.