The Wild One

by Janet Gover

  ‘I know,’ she said. While the mine brought jobs and money into the town, Coorah Creek was not rich. Nor were the properties that surrounded it. They got by, but there wasn’t a lot left over. ‘I didn’t expect you to.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t, but Trish did.’

  ‘I’m sure she meant well.’

  ‘She always does.’ Paul smiled. ‘I can’t pay you, but do take the time off if you like. If I need you, I’ll get a message to you.’

  Carrie wanted to say no. She wanted to say that she would keep working, not join the mission to rescue the brumbies. It wasn’t about the money. As a successful jockey, she had saved enough to get by. But working in the store was safe. It allowed her to stay at a distance from the horses she once loved. Allowed her to stay at a distance from her fears. And then there was Justin. If she stayed away, she wouldn’t let him down. She had seen the admiration on his face when he talked about her riding. She didn’t want to see that replaced with pity and disgust.

  ‘If you’re sure you are okay with that,’ she said.

  ‘I am. Now, I’ve got two swing gates here for you. Let’s get those tied on.’

  It didn’t take long, and then she was ready to go.

  ‘I do need the truck back today,’ Paul said. ‘After you’ve delivered the feed, can you come back?’

  ‘Sure.’ Returning the truck would give her an excuse to leave. She could drive her own car back … if she decided to go back.

  ‘Great. Well, you’re set. Good luck.’

  Paul stepped back and Carrie opened the truck door. She set one foot on the step and lifted herself up. Standing there, she turned back to her boss.

  ‘Thanks, Paul.’

  ‘Go on. Get going. I need that truck back,’ he replied gruffly as he walked away.

  Carrie slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  An hour later, as she was driving the long straight road towards the park, she saw another truck in her rear-view mirror. Unlike the one she drove, this one was modern and looked very well kept. It caught her easily, but rather than pass, it fell into place behind her. It was then she noticed there were actually two trucks. The colour scheme of one instantly identified it as a Goongalla Mine truck. The second was smaller and painted the distinctive bright yellow of the Rural Fire Brigade. It looked to have a water tank on its flat bed.

  ‘We got ourselves a convoy,’ she said in a shockingly bad American accent to the wide open spaces beyond her windscreen. Her own joke made her smile, and with her heart lifting, she hummed a few bars of the song as she led the small convoy through the gates of the park.

  As she approached the ranger station she saw no sign of Dan’s car and kept going, heading down the dirt track that led to the gorge. Three vehicles were already there ahead of her.

  ‘Hi,’ Quinn called as Carrie stepped down from the cab of her truck.

  ‘Hi.’ She looked around for Justin and Dan and spotted them a bit further down the gorge. They had obviously heard the vehicles and were heading their way.

  The trucks had pulled up close by. Jack descended from the cab of the fire brigade tanker and Chris Powell from the mining company truck, which was loaded with timber and tools.

  ‘Where do you want this?’ Chris asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Quinn said. Her camera hung around her neck. She walked a few steps away and snapped a couple of shots of the trucks.

  ‘That hardly seems worth photographing,’ Carrie said.

  ‘Maybe. But you never know. I want to make sure I don’t miss anything.’

  ‘Hey!’ Justin called as he approached. ‘Carrie. Good to see you.’

  ‘Hi,’ she replied.

  ‘Now that we’ve got our horse team here,’ Dan said. ‘We can get down to the details.’

  Carrie flinched. She wasn’t part of any ‘horse’ team.

  Dan crouched and picked up a small stick. He swept a hand over a patch of ground to smooth the dust, and began to draw a rough map.

  ‘We are here,’ he said. ‘The billabong is a couple of miles away. The ridge lines runs like so.’

  ‘That’ll help us keep the herd heading in the right direction,’ Justin said.

  ‘So, you’re happy with building the yard here?’ Jack asked, looking at Justin.

  ‘I think so. If we fence across the gully here,’ he added another line to the dirt map. ‘And here – then we can use the side of the gully as natural barriers.’

  ‘We need to make sure there’s no permanent damage to the park,’ Dan added.

  The others murmured their assent.

  ‘Then let’s get these trucks unloaded.’ Dan rose to his feet.

  While the men started unloading the timber from the mine truck, Carrie began unloading the hay bales. Despite her small size, she had been hefting hay for most of her life, and could balance the heavy bales on her shoulder with ease.

  Quinn spent a few minutes snapping photographs, then returned to a sheltered place in the shadow of the ridge, where she was setting up a substantial camp. She had already erected two tents and built a fire pit.

  Carrie was just finishing her load when Justin appeared at her side.

  ‘I was wondering if I could ask you a favour.’

  ‘Sure.’ Carrie wiped the sweat from her brow.

  ‘Well, I was wondering …’ Justin hesitated.

  Carrie realised that he was embarrassed. That rocked her a little. If anyone had cause to be embarrassed it was her. She was the one who was here under false pretences.

  ‘I’ll be spending a lot of time here,’ Justin continued, avoiding her eyes. ‘But there is still a lot I have to do back at my place. Horses to be fed. Exercised. There hasn’t been enough money for a jackaroo or stockman for a while and I’m on my own. I’d have more time here if maybe you’d be willing to help me out there. When you can.’

  He finally met her gaze. She saw more than his discomfort there. She saw need. And hope and something she really wasn’t quite sure what it was – but maybe there was a hint of a reflection in her own face as she realised that she wanted Justin to like her. To think well of her.

  ‘I need to be home for a few hours each day,’ Justin explained. ‘I thought we could head back in the late afternoon and feed and exercise in the evening then stay the night and repeat the process next morning early before we come back here. That way we could spend every second night in the camp.’ He smiled. ‘And to sweeten the deal, you’d get a hot shower every second day.’

  She returned his smile. ‘Of course,’ she said, and was rewarded with a look of pleasure that spread slowly over his face.

  ‘That’s great. Thanks. I’m really looking forward to it. And it will be great having you ride my horses. Perhaps I can include that in my sales brochure – Carrie Bryant trained.’

  Carrie knew he was joking of course, but the look of admiration on his face was real. It was a long time since anyone had looked at her like that. She felt such a fraud.

  A yell from Dan sent Justin heading back to help the others. Watching his back recede, Carrie found her hands starting to shake.

  What had she done? Agreeing to Justin’s request just so she could see approval on his face? He’d soon find out the truth, and when he did, that approval would be quickly replaced by contempt.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The little bay filly had her sire’s crooked white blaze running down her nose. She stretched her neck and blew a long slow stream of air out of her nostrils. The young kangaroo flicked its ears back and forth, and then stretched out its front paw. The joey touched the foal’s nose. A brief, gentle touch. The filly gave a tiny squeal and shook her head. The joey bounced a few feet away and looked back over its shoulder. For an instant the filly looked set to turn and run, but she didn’t. She squealed again, pawing at the ground as she would when playing with another of her own kind.

  From her position on the rocky ridge, Quinn kept her finger on the shutter release button of her camera, hearing the shu
tter click again and again. She knew she was witnessing something quite rare and very precious. The experts might argue that feral horses destroy a park. They might argue that the native wildlife could not co-exist with imported animals. But sometimes, experts were wrong. Quinn didn’t doubt the need to find a better home for the horses, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but wonder what the experts would say if they could witness these two joyful young animals at play.

  The filly took a couple of tentative steps forward, and reached out to sniff the tip of the joey’s tail. The little kangaroo spun to face the brumby, and the two eyed each other in a classic stand-off.

  Quinn kept shooting, knowing that one of these images might be something quite extraordinary.

  ‘I guess no one told them they can’t live together.’

  She almost jumped at the soft, deep voice so close behind her. But the gentleness and wonder in his tone told her that Dan was enjoying this moment as much as she.

  ‘I didn’t hear you coming,’ she whispered as he lowered himself beside her on her rocky seat.

  He shrugged and she realised his stealthy approach probably owed much to his military training.

  On a patch of short green grass beside the billabong, the filly was joined by another foal about the same age. This was too much for the joey, which bounded away to dive in a neat somersault into his mother’s pouch.

  Quinn laughed. ‘They look so cute when they do that. I never get tired of seeing it.’

  ‘I guess you spend a lot of time in the bush?’

  ‘I do,’ Quinn said. She lowered her camera and rested it in her lap. She had taken the best shots she was likely to get today, but she kept it close. Just in case.

  ‘So, where do you actually live?’ Dan asked.

  ‘In my Humvee.’

  ‘I gathered that. It’s very well equipped for camping. Did you do all that?’

  ‘No. I bought it off another photographer. He built it.’

  ‘It suits you. But what about when you are not on location. Where’s home?’

  Quinn took a deep breath. She’d had this conversation many times in the past. She usually didn’t care too much if the listener thought her strange. This time was different. She wanted Dan to understand the choices she had made – as best anyone could.

  ‘I don’t have any other home. I live in my Humvee. I have some things in storage, but pretty much everything I own, or need, is there.’

  ‘But you must have a house or a flat. A base of some sort. Somewhere for the mail to be delivered.’ Dan sounded confused. ‘Everyone does.’

  Quinn shook her head. ‘My business mail goes to my agent or my accountant. If I have to give an address, I use them, or occasionally my parents. But why should I pay rent or a mortgage on four walls that I don’t want.’

  ‘When you put it like that …’

  ‘When I’m working, which is most of the time, I live in the Hummer – camping or staying at a hotel. Between jobs, I sometimes stay with my parents. But that’s never for very long.’

  ‘I guess that makes sense.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘Walls don’t define a home,’ Quinn said.

  ‘I don’t know many women – many people really – who would agree with you. Most women seem to want the sort of stability that comes with four walls.’

  Except it doesn’t, Quinn wanted to say. Four walls guarantee nothing. ‘I’m not most women,’ she said instead.

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘And I would never want to give this up.’ Quinn nodded down towards the bottom of the gorge where a couple of horses had waded into the billabong, pawing playfully at its sparkling surface. In the several days since they had been disturbed by humans, the wild horses had allowed their guard to drop. They were once more relaxed and at home in the gorge. As Quinn and Dan watched, one of the mares folded at the knees and lowered herself into the watering hole. She tossed her head and snorted, enjoying the cool caress of the water, before lurching back to her feet. She walked out of the billabong and shook herself, much as a wet dog does.

  Dan chuckled. It was a deep throaty sound that Quinn guessed he made far too infrequently. ‘I wouldn’t mind doing the same thing myself.’

  She knew exactly how he felt. ‘We worked hard today. But I guess we’ll be working even harder tomorrow when we start building the fences.’

  ‘We’re going to have to work hard. We haven’t got a lot of time.’

  Quinn lifted her eyes from the animals below them and looked at Dan. He had left the campsite when the trucks were emptied of their loads, following Jack and the others back to the ranger station for a short time to check on things there. Something in his demeanour made her ask, ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘No. Not really. Just another e-mail from the department. Wanting to know where things stood with regard to removing the brumbies from the park.’

  ‘Wanting to know how many you had killed,’ she said with a bitter taste in her mouth.

  ‘Probably. I replied that I was making progress, but left it deliberately vague.’

  ‘You said there was a deadline for getting the horses out.’

  ‘Yes. The Minister is heading out here on his election campaign. He wants to be able to announce that the parks are cleared. Which is ironic when you consider he’s not coming anywhere near Tyangi.’

  ‘I never really liked politicians,’ Quinn declared.

  ‘Me neither.’ They shared an understanding smile. ‘We’ve got a few days leeway now. They won’t contact me again until after the weekend.’

  ‘It’s the weekend?’ Quinn raised her eyebrows, genuinely surprised.

  This time, Dan laughed. It was a soft warm sound, like the feel of suede or the taste of fine whiskey in front of a roaring fire.

  ‘It’s easy to lose track of time out here,’ he said.

  As if prompted by his words, the sun began to dip below the crest of the ridge, shooting pink and yellow flares into the darkening blue of the sky. The horses lifted their heads. In a sudden flurry of movement, the mares made way for the stallion as he trotted away from their watering hole. He tossed his head and gave a little buck, before easing into a long slow canter.

  ‘I don’t know anything about horses,’ Dan said. ‘But he’s beautiful to watch.’

  Quinn agreed. She raised the camera to her eye again and snapped a couple of quick shots, knowing as she did that the light was all wrong. But it gave her a few moments to think. About Dan. About the promise of cool refreshing water. And their lack of swimming costumes.

  She finally lowered the camera and turned to face Dan. He looked pensive. A little sad. She supposed that was not unexpected given the circumstances. But she wanted to see him smile.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I am ready for that swim now. What do you think?’

  Without waiting for his answer she picked up her gear and began to make her way between the boulders and down the ridge towards the inviting dark blue water of the billabong.

  Dan stood for a few seconds watching her go. How he admired the energy in her step. The joy she seemed to take from every moment of the day. This from a person who had no home.

  Slowly he began to follow her down the slope.

  He had never before met someone who deliberately chose to be without a permanent home. In the service, many of his comrades had no permanent residence. The single servicemen moved from base to base, living out of their duffle bags. But for them the army was their home. Quinn didn’t have that. She had nothing. Nothing but freedom. That didn’t sound a bad thing at all.

  Quinn had reached the edge of the water. As Dan watched, she carefully laid her camera to one side and with easy, unconscious movements, began to remove her clothes. She used her many-pocketed jacket to protect her camera, and then slid out of her hiking boots. He thick hiking socks were dropped inside the boots, and she began to unbuckle the belt of her jeans.

  Dan lowered his eyes. Quinn was totally unselfconscious. Far less than h
e was. He lifted his eyes again. Quinn was wading into the water, clad only in her underwear and tank top. Even at a distance she was lovely, her body as slender and strong and perfect as the wild animals they had watched earlier. When she was waist deep, she raised her hands and shallow dived into the water. She swam halfway across the billabong with strong, sure strokes. Then she turned to float on her back, her arms outstretched like a starfish as she gazed up at the darkening sky.

  Dan smiled at that.

  He had to do something. He couldn’t just stand here and watch her. He had to either join her or leave.

  His first thought was to turn away. To head back to the camp – or better still, the ranger station. Where he could be alone. Safe with his memories and the faces that haunted him. Then he shook his head. Just this once he was not going to let his demons control him.

  Before he could think better of his decision, he stepped away from the safety of the rocks and headed for the water’s edge. He was even quicker than Quinn to shed his clothing. The boxers he wore were not all that dissimilar to swimming trucks. The self-consciousness he felt as he slid into the water had nothing to do with his attire.

  He dipped under the water, feeling the stress and sweat of the day wash away. As Quinn had, he began swimming with long slow powerful strokes that carried him swiftly across the billabong. At the far end, the water lapped at the base of a red sandstone cliff. He drew close to the cliff and began to tread water in this, the deepest part of the waterhole. He turned to find Quinn doing the same close behind him. They both turned and swam back the way they had come, until Dan knew his feet could once more easily touch the bottom. He stood up and shook the water from his hair. Tiny water droplets sprayed from him, sparkling in the fading glow of the sunset as they fell back into the water. They fell onto Quinn’s damp, velvet skin as she emerged from the water beside him.

  ‘That feels wonderful,’ she said, flicking her hair back from her face. The wet tendrils clung to her neck, sending a trail of water trickling over the tanned skin of her shoulders and arms. Dan watched the water run over her skin, wishing he could follow that same trail with his hands. Or his lips. With a start he realised what was happening to him, and quickly raised his eyes again, to find Quinn meeting his gaze.