Under the Flame Tree

by Karen Wood

  ‘Hey!’ she complained.

  Jamie led her down the steps. He didn’t let go until they were under the crowded awning of a large galvanised shed. They squeezed between tables and chairs and groups of people, drinks in hand. They found half a table with only two chairs occupied by an elderly couple, who gestured for them to take the spare seats. Jamie went to a fast food trailer to get a drink. Natalie plonked her bag on a seat next to Kirra and let out a long sigh of relief.

  ‘Will someone please tell me what that was all about?’ Kirra demanded. ‘Who was that girl, and what did I ever do to her?’

  ‘You’re mad getting involved with that Daniel guy,’ said Jamie, returning with a Coke and sitting down next to her. ‘I know we’re not . . . you know. That’s fine. But be careful. I don’t want to see you hurt. No one does.’

  ‘Why am I going to be hurt?’ she asked.

  ‘That guy who was in front of you, in the blue shirt,’ said Jamie. ‘He’s from Blackbrae Station. He’s Jarred Young – the guy Daniel had the fight with.’

  ‘You boys are worse than girls when it comes to politics,’ she said. ‘What was it over, anyway?’

  Jamie looked up. Jarred and his friends had entered the area.

  ‘Let’s just go home,’ said Natalie, picking up her bag and standing.

  Jamie stood too, leaving his half-finished Coke on the table.

  ‘But we haven’t even seen the bull ride!’ said Kirra.

  He jangled the keys in his pocket. ‘Maybe next year.’

  Jamie drove in silence for half an hour or so. His car was a dinged-up twin-cab ute with P plates tied front and back with baling twine. Inside, it was knee-deep with fast food wrappers. The engine spluttered valiantly along the quiet road. Kirra sank into the torn vinyl seat and closed her eyes. ‘You never told me what happened,’ she said.

  Jamie turned the radio down. ‘Daniel was driving home from a rodeo with his little sister in the back.’

  ‘Sam?’ Kirra said.

  ‘Sammy, he used to call her. She was only six or seven years old.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Daniel ran off the road and crashed. His little sister was in a coma for weeks.’

  Kirra exhaled slowly. ‘Whoa.’

  ‘Daniel said he was run off the road by another car. He blamed Jarred Young. But there were no skid marks. No evidence. Jarred had plenty of witnesses to say he was still at the rodeo when the accident happened. So Daniel went to juvy for dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm.’

  That explained the fight. ‘So how come he still gets to drive?’ asked Kirra.

  ‘Because he lives in a rural area. He can only drive to work or to his case officer,’ said Jamie. ‘Some people say Daniel was drinking alcohol, but I don’t know what the truth is. He was only sixteen, only just got his licence. There were no other people there, no witnesses. The cops left it too late to breathalyse him.’

  They continued driving in silence. Kirra stared out the window, wondering what the truth was. Was Daniel the kind of guy to drive drunk with his little sister in the car? She didn’t know him enough to tell. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to. This was intense – too intense for her. She didn’t want to get tangled up between two feuding mobs of station hands.

  When they arrived back at Moorinja, the porch light was on at the main house and the staff buildings were all dark and empty. Everyone was still at the rodeo. Except Daniel. His ute was parked out the front of his dark, silent cottage.

  ‘Thanks, Jamie.’ Kirra gave him a peck on the cheek.

  He grinned. ‘Take care, chick. I’m going back to Scrubby.’

  Nat leaned between the two front seats and landed another peck on Jamie. ‘Thanks from me too.’

  ‘It’s my lucky night!’ he said.

  ‘For the record,’ Nat told him, ‘I think Kirra’s taste in boys has really headed south.’ She got out of the car and made her way to the main house. ‘At least you didn’t have to go in the Best Butt competition,’ she said to Kirra. ‘Come on, you can make me a hot chocolate instead.’

  Once inside, they found the kitchen cupboards void of any cocoa. ‘No Milo either?’ Nat asked.

  ‘Mum hasn’t been shopping,’ said Kirra, staring forlornly into the depths of an empty canister.

  Nat flopped on the couch and turned on the telly. She flicked through the channels. After scrolling through three times and failing to find anything interesting to watch, she turned it off. ‘I’m going to bed. This night is just not meant to be.’

  ‘I’m going to sit up a while,’ said Kirra. ‘You know how to make yourself at home.’

  After staring at the walls for what seemed like hours, Kirra decided to go shoot some pool in the staff room. It always helped her to think.

  No one would be there. Everyone from Moorinja was at the festival. Except Daniel.

  Kirra made her way to the staffroom and switched on the lights. The tables were wiped clean and all the chairs were upside down on top to make way for the floors to be swept. She walked through the small door and went into the pool room, flicked on the overhead lamp and took a pool cue with her good hand.

  10

  Kirra barely heard the clack of the balls as she hit them. Her mind tumbled. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine being responsible for hurting anyone in her family like that. It was too awful. Had it been a genuine accident, or had Daniel been drinking like everyone said?

  Was Daniel just a lowlife who went around joyriding with his kid sister and hitting people when he had no evidence they’d done anything wrong? Somehow she couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Hello, you,’ said a soft voice.

  Kirra looked up and saw Nancy in the doorway in her dressing-gown. ‘I wondered who was hitting balls around at this hour of the night.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were home,’ said Kirra. ‘Didn’t you go to the rodeo?’

  Nancy smiled and took a seat by the wall. ‘Tom went. I’ve got a cold.’

  Kirra noticed her nose was red and her eyes looked tired.

  ‘What keeps you up?’ Nancy asked.

  Kirra tapped the end of the stick against her boot. ‘The new guy,’ she confessed.

  ‘How was the festival?’

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘Thought it might be.’ Nancy gave Kirra a kindly smile. ‘Daniel’s a decent kid, Kirra. He’s caught up in a big mess that’s not his fault.’

  ‘That’s what you say,’ Kirra answered, wishing she could believe it. ‘Others say differently.’

  ‘Tom was talking to him the night it happened. They were talking about Daniel coming here to work. He wasn’t interested in school, but he was a top hand with the horses, been round them all his life. Daniel left early to get Sam home to bed while his brothers stayed behind at the rodeo. No way had he been drinking.’

  Nancy’s version of the story tore Kirra’s heart to pieces. ‘But surely they would have asked people who were at the rodeo if they’d seen him drinking?’

  Nancy’s face was grim. ‘They did. Someone testified in court that he had been secretly drinking alcohol out the back.’

  ‘So he was guilty?’

  Nancy’s face tightened. ‘It was a girl who he had been involved with, an old workmate. The court believed her. So did Daniel’s family.’

  ‘But you don’t?’

  Nancy shook her head. She shuffled over to Kirra and gave her a hug. ‘You’re a smart girl. You’ll work out what to do.’

  Kirra hit some balls around for a while longer, processing everything. It wasn’t long before she put down her cue and flicked out the lights. She half-ran, half-limped across the yard.

  His light was on. She was barely at the front steps when the door of the cottage opened.

  Daniel, in jeans, bare feet and a threadbare black singlet stood holding back the flyscreen. His smile, genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness, sent an unexpected rush of warmth through her. She wanted to hug him, te
ll him she believed in him.

  ‘You owe me a game of cards,’ she blurted out instead.

  He stepped back and motioned for her to come in.

  The cottage hadn’t changed much since she had last been inside, except the timber floors had been swept. The low coffee table was littered with magazines, pens and other clutter. She walked in and tested the couch: still lumpy.

  When she looked up, he was smiling, shyness gone. His eyes ran over her bandaged arm. ‘How about a game of snap?’

  She laughed. ‘If that’s the only way you can beat me. But I warn you, I play to win.’

  ‘So do I.’ He sat on a wooden chair opposite her, snatched the deck off the coffee table and began to deal, the smile still pulling at his cheeks.

  She winced as she sat, feeling the bruised muscle on her thigh stretch.

  ‘Need some ice?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nah.’ But it was starting to throb.

  ‘Have you even looked at it?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He stood, disappeared through a door for a moment and came back with a pair of shorts. ‘Wanna borrow these? Check out the damage?’

  He pointed to the bathroom and she conceded, limping over and sliding the door closed. She felt queasy as she peeled the leg of her jeans down. The bruise covered half her thigh and was a rainbow of colours. No wonder it hurt. She slipped on the shorts and hobbled back out to the couch to show Daniel.

  He winced when he saw it. ‘That is purple.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You should keep icing it.’ He got up and went to the freezer, pulled out some frozen meat and handed it to her. ‘Steak,’ he said. ‘It’s all I have.’

  ‘Is it T-bone? I’m a steak snob.’

  ‘Rib eye fillet,’ he said. ‘Nothing but the best. Nance gave it to me.’

  ‘Prime Moorinja Charbray, huh? The heat in this leg should barbecue it nicely.’ She took it from him with her good hand and held it tentatively against her thigh, grimacing as the cold seeped into her bruise. ‘What is with that, anyway?’ she asked. ‘The way she dotes on you.’

  ‘It’s not like they have a shortage of beef around here,’ he said, making light of it. He sat down next to her.

  ‘Or bacon and eggs?’

  He shrugged and picked up his hand of cards. ‘Okay, maybe she likes me. Ready for snap?’

  She gave him a look and held up her bandaged arm. The other hand held the steak on her leg. ‘You did that on purpose.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rendered me armless.’

  He smirked. ‘Told you I play to win.’ He took her bandaged paw and inspected it, rolling it over carefully and touching the skin where it poked out of the bandage. She looked to his face and felt her cheeks prickle when her eyes met his. ‘Where are you from, Daniel?’

  His face suddenly hardened and his whole mood changed. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I want to know you better.’

  He gave her hand back and fixed her with an exhausted gaze. Suddenly his face was stony and hard, his eyes like two black holes in his head, drawing in darkness and pain.

  ‘Where’s your family?’ she pressed.

  ‘I don’t see my family any more. I think you already know why.’

  ‘I’ve heard everyone’s version of your story but yours,’ she said. ‘Tell me and I’ll believe you.’

  His face was washed with uncertainty.

  ‘Please?’

  Daniel rolled onto one hip and reached into his back pocket. He took out a battered wallet, flipped it open and pulled out a dog-eared photo. A kid in jeans, boots and a little cowboy hat was clinging on, riding a frolicking calf.

  ‘Sam,’ he said, as though the name hurt his throat on its way out. He averted his eyes as he passed Kirra the photo. ‘Just before the accident.’

  ‘I thought Sam was your sister.’ The kid in the photo looked like a boy.

  ‘She’s a real tomboy.’

  ‘I thought she was only seven.’

  ‘She’s nearly eight.’

  ‘And she’s riding potty calves? Already? Your parents let her do that?’ Her own dad had made her wait until she was ten.

  ‘My family know their way around cattle. Sammy’s a wild thing,’ he said. ‘She loves rodeo. We went to one every weekend and she’d ride around on my shoulders. I couldn’t put her down or she’d crawl into the first pen of bulls she found.’

  Kirra looked at the photo again. ‘I reckon I would like her.’

  He brought his eyes to the photo. ‘I never, ever, would have done anything to hurt her.’

  ‘Is she okay now?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s back at school. So my case worker says. I haven’t talked to anyone in my family for six months.’ His voice was hollow, but he sank deeper into the couch, as though he was relieved somehow. ‘Please don’t ask me any more.’

  There was a long, awkward pause while Kirra contemplated what he’d already told her. ‘How come I never met you before?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been doing rodeo for years.’

  ‘Maybe you just don’t recognise me now.’ It came out more as a question. He slipped the photo back into his wallet.

  She squinted as she looked at him. Something about the shape of his eyes and the turn of his mouth was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. He stared back, questioningly, somehow searching for something in her face, though what, she couldn’t tell. Did he want her to recognise him?

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he finally said and picked up the deck of cards. He began dealing them one by one, back and forth, into two loose piles.

  ‘I don’t want to play cards,’ said Kirra.

  He kept dealing, back and forth, as though he was angry or frustrated or something.

  For some reason, the image of him lying in the horse trough flashed through her mind. He’d looked . . . not happy, exactly, but real, able to be himself. ‘Wanna go for a swim?’ she said. ‘I know a good spot.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, putting the steak back on its plate and taking him by the arm. Daniel barely budged. It was like trying to pull a calf: the couch kept hold of him and wouldn’t let go. She put one foot on the edge and pulled even harder with her good arm, grunting theatrically.

  ‘Do you promise to stop asking questions?’

  ‘No,’ she replied and pulled even harder. This time she got him to his feet.

  11

  You have a thing about water tanks,’ said Daniel. He had changed into shorts and boots and stood with his hands on his hips, neck craning upwards.

  The concrete tank sat on top of a small hill overlooking the homestead, holding twenty thousand litres of bore water, which, as Kirra knew from years of swimming in it, would be crystal clear and cool. A pipe ladder ran up the side of it and curled over into its belly. She threw her towel over the fence, slipped her boots off and began climbing the ladder in shorts and a bikini top. ‘Help me move the lid,’ she said, looking down at him.

  Daniel pulled his shirt and boots off, climbed up after her and stood on the rung next to her. His bare shoulders pressed against hers as he stepped onto the highest rung and peered over the top of the tank. Most of its roof was concrete, except for a large wooden cover. ‘It’s probably full of dead possums,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not,’ she scoffed, and started shoving at the cover. ‘Nothing gets through this lid, trust me!’

  Daniel helped and together they slid it across. A faint mossy smell lifted from the still water inside.

  ‘The ladder goes all the way to the bottom,’ she said, stepping onto the highest rung and leaning in. The water broke around her arm as she dipped it in and swirled it back and forth. The level was a foot or so from the top of the tank. She cupped some water in her hand and listened to the trickling sound echo through the tank as she let it dribble back onto the surface. She lifted her leg over and climbed in.

  The silky coolness ran up her legs and over her waist as she let
herself down into the water, snatching the air from her lungs. She gasped as it rushed over her shoulders and washed around her neck. She floated away from the ladder, water rippling over her shoulders as she glided through the blackness.

  Daniel chose the faster option to get in. A half-shocked laugh escaped him as the water gushed up and over him. He resurfaced, shaking his head and laughing again. ‘Freezing,’ he gasped as the water lapped noisily at the inner walls.

  His head bobbed until he was treading water in front of her, his arms fanning back and forth.

  Kirra reached a hand out to the side of the tank and peered over. Darkness filled every corner of the station. A solitary star floated low in a thick purple sky. Forks of lightning flickered noiselessly on the horizon. At the homestead, a pale yellow glow bled from one of the windows of the main house. The rest was velvety shadows.

  Daniel joined her, hooking his elbows over the edge of the tank and staring into the darkness that made a curtain around them, leaving nothing to focus on but each other. All she could see were the shadowy contours of his face. All she could hear was his breath, amplified by the acoustics of the tank – a rhythmic swaying in and out of life. His edges had smoothed off and she felt like she was with the real Daniel again, the same Daniel who had ridden across the station with her, at ease with himself and his surroundings.

  ‘So, who taught you to break in horses?’ she asked.

  ‘This guy I knew,’ he answered, vague as ever.

  ‘Not your dad?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Uncle?’

  She heard him exhale with annoyance. He traced a finger over the wet skin of her arm and formed the letters, NO.

  She grinned. ‘Cousin?’

  His fingers traced higher up her arm in swirls of tickling letters, nope.

  ‘Must have been someone pretty handy with horses,’ she said coolly, trying to ignore the crazy sparks shooting about inside her.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to ask any more questions,’ he said, without removing his fingers from the top of her shoulder. They swirled in small circles over her skin, leaving trails of goosebumps. ‘Tell me about you. Why’d you quit school?’

  ‘I didn’t quit,’ she said. ‘I made a career choice. Boss Carney said that if I can prove myself on the station for the rest of the year, he’d put me through ag college and pay my fees while I work part-time.’