by Karen Wood
‘Time to go,’ said one of the officers.
She watched him climb into the police car. Her dad talked to him before the car door was closed. She didn’t hear what he said. Whatever it was, Daniel didn’t respond.
Kirra walked away, feeling numb. She heard the engine start and the tyres roll over gravel and fade. But she couldn’t watch.
‘Back to work,’ she heard her dad saying by the smoko table.
Kirra worked through the rest of the afternoon in a daze, going through the motions of feeding up and sweeping out the shed. A sense of shock fell over the entire station and even the bellowing cattle seemed quieter, their crooning lower and somehow sad. She lost time standing in a yard with Iceman, slowly running her hand along the soft underside of his neck, while he closed his eyes and enjoyed the attention. She put her cheek against his smooth pelt and drew calm from his quiet strength.
Another police officer came later that afternoon, cold and businesslike, and took statements from Kirra, Natalie and Nancy about the previous night. Kirra told the officer about Daniel’s reluctance to go to the festival and how he had pulled her from the jumping castle wreckage. He had left straight away because he didn’t want to cause trouble. He had taken Jarred’s punch without hitting back. Didn’t the bruises on his face prove that?
‘What will happen to him?’ Kirra asked, as the officer tucked her handwritten statement into a file.
‘That will be up to his case officers,’ said the woman.
‘Will he go to jail?’
‘It’s not looking good for him.’
15
On Monday morning most of the workers set off to Scrubby Creek to muster cattle. Jet had been to pick up Nat. It was quiet with them gone and Kirra was left with nothing to focus on but her feelings, which were magnified, vivid and raw against the simmering background noise of the station: cicadas, toads and wind-brushed grass.
She set her mind on work. She had six horses to train now that Daniel was gone. She decided to lead them out off Iceman. The gelding was going well and it would do him good to learn how to pony some young horses. And he was her buddy. She could use his company right now.
If she spent twenty minutes on each horse and worked without a break, she would get through them all before sunset. Then she’d be worn out and would sleep well, instead of tossing and turning all night wondering what Daniel was doing in the local lockup.
Well, that was the plan, anyway. It seemed every single horse gave her trouble that day, even Iceman.
Kirra cursed loudly as she went sailing through the air and hit the dirt. The impact knocked the wind from her and she lay there gasping for air. The wily black gelding snorted and galloped to the other side of the yard with his reins dangling between his front feet. The stirrups flapped against the saddle, spooking him further. It was the first time he had ever ditched her.
She spat the dirt from her teeth and pulled herself from the ground, doubling over and wheezing ungracefully with her hands on her knees. When her breath returned, she called him a string of colourful names and spat some more. She brushed off her jeans and tried to catch him. But Iceman spun on his hindquarters and rushed to the other side of the yard.
‘Haven’t you straightened that horse out yet?’
Kirra spun around to see the boss leaning on the rails of the yards. Excellent. Just what she needed. ‘He’s all right after he warms up a bit,’ she said.
Tom remained unimpressed. ‘For you, maybe, but I need horses that the ringers can ride. He’s no good to me behaving like that.’
He walked away, leaving Kirra brushing herself off in the yard. She’d seen the boss sell off rank horses before, and she didn’t like to think of where a horse like Iceman might end up.
In the yard, the gelding lifted his nose and rolled his eyes down to her. Kirra knew better than to chase him while she felt so angry. She stormed to the harness shed, slammed the door behind her and sat on a molasses drum with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Thankfully, no one else was around to witness her screw-up of a day.
The shed was large and a breeze whispered through the open window, touching the leather and sweat and earthen floor, mixing it all into secrets and carrying them out across the station. It was a good place to sit and reflect, to let the sounds and smells soothe the tumultuous waves that crashed through her insides.
She looked up at the old wooden beam behind one of the saddle racks at the quote she loved.
Love all, trust a few, but always paddle your own canoe . . . Ted 2/4/63
Ted, whoever he was, was right. She should paddle her own canoe. But an excruciating wave of sadness washed over her. Kirra had never missed anyone so much in her life. Even her dad, when she first got sent to boarding school.
The door of the harness shed pulled open and he appeared in the doorway. He walked over and touched her arm with the back of his hand, like he did with the horses.
‘Why did they take him away?’ she asked. ‘What did he do? I don’t get it. The Blackbrae boys came here, looking for him. He didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘He broke his release agreement when he went to the festival. You didn’t tell me you saw him there.’
Kirra’s heart sank when she realised what she’d done. ‘I didn’t know he wasn’t allowed there.’ Would she have told the police if she had known? Would she have lied for him? Would he want her to lie for him?
‘He wasn’t allowed off either of the two properties. He can only drive his car for work and he wasn’t allowed at any events where they serve alcohol.’
So he had broken his agreement to come and see her. Kirra didn’t know whether to feel guilty, flattered or angry. What a dumb risk to take. She decided on being depressed.
Jim jerked his head in the direction of the yard.
She took a deep breath and stood. ‘Right,’ she said, pulling herself together, ‘back to work.’
Her dad nodded quietly as she walked past him and out the door. That was all she ever needed to get back on track again: his calm direction.
Iceman eyed her shrewdly as she climbed back through the rails. ‘Steady, boy,’ she mumbled and caught him easily. She gathered her reins and stuck her foot in the stirrup. ‘Let’s start again.’
She finished up late that evening. At the main house, Nance had put a large plate of roast beef and veggies aside for her. Kirra toyed with it for a while, then joined the other staff for a game of billiards. She teamed up with Liz against Pete and Paul.
‘I heard they took Daniel to Brisbane,’ Liz said, as she sank the black ball.
‘Is he going back to juvy?’ Kirra steeled herself for the answer.
‘No idea.’ Liz shrugged. ‘Told you he was trouble.’
Kirra dropped her cue and stalked out before she said something to Liz that couldn’t be unsaid.
As she curled into her bed, thoughts of Daniel hit her heart like tiny darts. His voice whispering across her neck, his half smile pulling at the corner of his mouth and reaching his eyes, the way he merged into the land around him like osmosis. Questions piled up inside her mind until she thought she might go crazy. Who was he really? Where did he come from and why was he so cagey about his background? Was he telling the truth?
But what did it matter anyway? He was gone, probably for a long time. She rolled onto her side and hugged her pillow. A tear slid down her face as a cool breeze floated in through the window, leaving a chilled trail on her cheek.
Kirra woke the next morning to the sound of four hundred cows bellowing for their babies. An equal number of calves bawled back. Soon their hay would be topped up and they would settle again.
She dressed, made a cup of tea, and sculled it as she made for the front door. She pulled on her boots and jammed a hat on her head before crunching across the murkily lit yard. Birds twittered and the dogs barked and argued on their chains. The cacophony of bellowing cattle made the entire property seem restless.
Kirra ran her hands up and down her
arms to warm them. Winter was coming. She passed the flame tree on her way to the horse shed. Its branches were bare now and its entire canopy lay composting under and around the smoko table. Today, it looked almost dead. But she knew there was life in the old tree: new flowers like coals burned deep and unquenchable beneath the silvery bark.
Kirra brought in half-a-dozen horses and saddled them for the stockmen. Then she set to work on her breakers, handling them on the ground first and then saddling them. Daniel’s grey colt went so well under saddle, she decided to ride him out on the property and put him alongside some of the older horses at the yards.
The bellowing got louder as she neared them. From the road she could see a great heaving mass of cattle in the pens. Men worked over the rails, and a front-end loader moved large round bales of hay. Several horses were tied to the fences and cars were parked nearby. A rangy brown horse cantered towards her. It stopped abruptly metres away.
‘Hi, Jamie.’
He held his reins tight as his horse shuffled about. ‘Hey.’
She searched his face. What did he want?
He looked troubled.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘You’re angry with me.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You are.’
Kirra rolled her eyes. This was all she needed. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jamie. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You’re right, none of this has anything to do with you.’
He nodded, still holding on to his restless horse. After a thoughtful silence he spoke. ‘So, we’re good?’
‘Of course we are.’ Kirra managed a smile. The grey started to shift about as well, feeding off the jitters coming from Jamie’s horse.
He smiled back, looking relieved, and Kirra marvelled at how uncomplicated he was. One smile: that’s all it took and everything was sweet again. ‘I need to get this guy moving,’ she said. ‘It’s my first ride on him.’
‘Come over to the yards,’ he said, turning his horse.
‘Are you sure that’s okay?’ asked Kirra. ‘This guy’s fresh broke. I don’t want to get in the way.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he grinned. ‘You can give us a hand.’
‘Not sure how useful we’ll be.’
Alongside a race full of pushing and shoving cattle, her dad stood with a clipboard looking at an electronic tag reader that was hooked onto the fence. ‘You could help push them back out into the paddock,’ he called out to her.
She nodded.
Kirra rode the grey alongside the gate and reached for the latch. The young horse pranced about the first few times she asked it to move its hindquarters, but quickly came to understand what was being asked of it. Daniel had done an amazing job with it – but there was not much point dwelling on that. Kirra swung the gate open as another small group of heifers ran towards her.
As she stood waiting for the next group to be gathered, she watched Jamie working the crush. He laughed with Pete and Paul while he worked. Everything he did, he did with a smile. He was the nicest guy she had ever met, so easy to be around.
He caught her staring at him and gave her a wink.
At lunchtime, Nancy drove out to the yards in the small ute and carried trays of sandwiches over to an open-sided shed for lunch. Jamie sat beside Kirra, took off his hat and rubbed a hand through his sweaty hair.
‘So, how’s the French backpacker going?’ she asked, taking the bottle of water he handed to her.
He shrugged. ‘She went back to France.’
‘You keep in touch?’
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Heard from Daniel?’
‘Liz said they’ve taken him to Brisbane.’ She looked down and kicked her boot through the dirt. ‘He doesn’t deserve this. It’s all wrong.’
‘You can do better, I reckon.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ she said.
‘You’re cut up about him, aren’t you?’
She nodded. He put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. It felt familiar and comforting. She rolled her head onto his shoulder and closed her eyes and exhaled. ‘Thanks, buddy.’ She emphasised the buddy and felt his shoulder slump slightly.
She worked the yards on foot that afternoon. By the end of the day they had the cattle tagged, weighed and sorted. It was tiring, being on her feet all day. And it was dirty. She was slapped all over with sloppy green tails and shoved about by clumsy cattle. The bruise on her leg ached and her hand throbbed. She tried to keep her mind empty, stay focused on the job.
As Pete loaded more round bales into the feeders and the weaners were left for the night to settle into their new herds, she closed the gate for the final time, let the young grey out with the cattle and set off back to the homestead on foot. It was good to be alone to sort out her head. And her heart. To feel the emptiness numbing her insides and try to fill it with something – thoughts, sounds, smells, anything.
She heard a motorbike buzzing. Jamie rode up behind her. ‘Jump on!’
‘I don’t mind walking,’ she said. ‘You go on.’
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said, over the drone of the bike engine, which he revved gently while it idled. ‘Get on.’
She swung a leg over, taking hold of his waist and holding tight while he hit the throttle. Jamie always rode like a lunatic. The front wheel lifted off the ground and the bike’s motor screamed noisily. Jamie gave it more revs and lurched off. Kirra squealed as they bumped over the paddock.
‘Hold on,’ Jamie yelled as he pointed it towards a small hillock. The bike sailed into the air and Kirra took the weight off her seat and onto her feet, letting the impact of landing shoot through her ankles and knees.
‘You’re crazy!’ she screamed.
‘Safer than riding a steer,’ he yelled back. Jamie gave the bike more throttle. He turned it and began heading away from the homestead, bumping over the cowpats towards a line of trees that ran along the creek. As soon as he turned, Kirra knew where he was taking her.
He parked the bike under the willows near a cut-out bank. It was the spot where Jamie had kissed her. It was only six months ago, but felt like years. ‘What did you bring me here for?’ she asked, as he hit the kill switch and the quiet hit her like a deafening roar.
‘I only want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Don’t freak out.’
‘About what?’
‘About him.’
She bristled. ‘What about him?’
‘You know he has a girlfriend?’
Kirra’s heart skipped a beat. Her brain momentarily jumbled all its wires. ‘An ex-girlfriend, don’t you mean?’ Nancy had mentioned her. She was the one who stood up in court and testified against him. Surely she had to be an ex . . . Or was there another one?
Jamie shrugged. ‘Ex or whatever. They’re still all tangled up.’
‘He never mentioned her,’ said Kirra, feeling a wave of anger and humiliation wash over her. Wow. Daniel had sunk to a new low. So what was it that he and Kirra had shared? A week or so of working together. A brawl between station hands. A couple of bruises. Some stitches. And a kiss. Why was Jamie telling her this now?
‘She’s coming over this afternoon,’ he said, answering the question before she could ask it. ‘I overheard Nancy on the phone. I’m only telling you because I didn’t want you to go back and run into her and not know who she was.’
‘What’s she coming here for?’
‘She’s picking up some of his stuff or something.’
Whoa. Okay. Just picking up some stuff didn’t mean anything, did it? Kirra ran her hands through her hair, trying to straighten out her tangled thoughts.
‘Didn’t his girlfriend testify against him or something?’
Jamie held his hands in the air. ‘I have no idea. Don’t get angry at me again. I just wanted to warn you.’
‘You always look out for me,’ she said quietly.
Jamie nodded without looking up. Kirra ran her eyes over him. His jeans were slightly baggy and splattered with mud. His shirt
, rolled up at the sleeves, revealed freckled, muscled forearms. Working arms. He was all rugged and sweet. But he wasn’t . . .
Or was he?
‘You know I still like you,’ he said.
‘That’s because I’m the only girl around for a million miles,’ she said, trying to throw him off. ‘Except for the backpackers in town.’
‘No, it’s not.’
She squirmed. This was getting uncomfortable. Something heavy hung in the air, like an unanswered question, like unkissed lips.
Maybe she should give him a quick kiss and get it over with. But if she did that she would be trapped. Committed. She needed to think more first. Only twenty-four hours ago, she had been kissing Daniel. Thinking he was a free, available albeit a bit messed-up, gorgeous, fun boy. How wrong could a person be?
By the time Jamie dropped her back at the homestead, she was there. Climbing out of a farm ute with her long, straight hair and cowgirl hat. The girl from the Dirt and Dust Festival. Lisa.
Several things clicked into place. Others completely broke apart.
If that was Daniel’s girlfriend, why had she been sitting in the stands at the festival with his archenemy, Jarred Young, as if they’d known each other all their lives?
16
Lisa was hot in the coldest sense of the word. She was everything Kirra was not. Low-cut, skin-tight jeans were strapped to her waist with a belt-load of bling. Her T-shirt, as tight as her jeans, hovered above her tiny brown belly button.
Every male on the property ground into slow motion as she hooked an oversized patent-leather handbag over her shoulder and walked through the dust across the main yard. Kirra squinted to check she was seeing right . . . yep, those boots had high heels.
It was as though an alien had landed. Girls who wore heels walked with a different gait from girls who wore work boots. Lisa was like no species ever seen before at Moorinja Station. She walked with purpose, placing one foot precisely in front of the other and swinging her hips.
