Diamond Spirit

by Karen Wood

  ‘Well, you don’t need to bring the horse with you. Get her out of here now.’

  ‘Her stable is filthy,’ said Katrina, ignoring him. ‘She’s a true white. We’ve paid all this money and . . .’

  Biyanga let out another short cry and lunged at the door with his teeth bared. Chelpie squealed and rushed towards him, ears back.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Harry. ‘I said, get her out! ’

  Then he turned to Jess and looked anxiously into her face. ‘You all right, kid?’ he asked. When she nodded, he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I thought you were gonna pass out on me for a minute there.’

  Jess managed a smile and said, ‘I’ll be okay.’

  Harry guided her to the stable door. ‘Hang on a minute.’

  In the aisle there was a clatter of hooves on concrete. Katrina pulled on Chelpie’s lead rope, but the mare was too strong for her. The rope slid straight through her hands and she fell over backwards, narrowly missing a fresh pile of poo.

  Grace came out of nowhere and made a dash for the mare’s rope. She pulled Chelpie to one side, flicked the tail of the rope at her flank, making her turn away from the stallion, and led her out of the stables.

  ‘Give me back my horse,’ Katrina yelled angrily after Grace. She clambered to her feet and accosted Harry. ‘I was coming to speak to you about my horse’s welfare. Her stable—’

  Harry interrupted her. ‘Her stable is cleaned every morning, Katrina. If you had any concern for your horse’s welfare, you’d let her out into the paddock for the day so the poor thing could have a pick of grass.’

  Katrina’s face went tight and pointy. ‘I’ve told you before – she gets too wild when she’s out in a paddock. She gets through fences and tries to escape to the river. She needs to be stabled. That’s what we’re paying you for.’

  Harry stared at her with disbelief and lowered his voice to a slow growl. ‘Now you listen to me, kid. This is my property and I make the rules – mostly for the safety of my guests. If you can’t obey those rules, then I suggest you find somewhere else to keep your pure white pony.’ He stood up and walked back towards Biyanga’s stable.

  Katrina marched back down the aisle. She snatched Chelpie’s lead rope from Grace and tugged. ‘Come on, Chelpie.’

  Grace pulled a face at Katrina’s back. ‘Poo-magnet!’ Then she walked back to Biyanga’s stable. ‘Are you all right, Jess?’

  Jessica opened the stable door, leaning on it to keep her balance as she swung it back and bolted it shut. ‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ she said flatly. Her whole head throbbed. ‘I might go and sit down for a bit.’ She felt angry at herself for being such a sook. She didn’t want to see the foals anymore. She just wanted to go home.

  Every time she went go near a horse these days, she was a total disaster. What was she thinking, coming over here with a bunch of people she didn’t know?

  She pulled out her phone and switched it back on.

  Mum, can u pick me up?

  Before Jess could switch it off again, the phone rumbled in her hand.

  She glared at it for a moment, then pressed the view button.

  Shara: yes, but I can explain, pleeease, we have to talk!!

  Jess’s first instinct was to smash the phone on the concrete floor. Instead, she sank to the ground and sobbed.

  9

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, Jess rolled over in bed and stared at the clock. It was six o’clock. She’d had a weird dream that three bright lights were chasing her through a paddock, calling her name.

  The sound of hooves clattered beneath her window.

  Shara?

  Since yesterday’s text message, Jess had blocked her – from her phone, from email, from Facebook, and any other possible place she could think of.

  If she thinks I’m going to talk to her, she’s wrong.

  She pulled herself up onto her knees and peeked out through the curtains. At the bottom of the verandah steps, Grace sat on a brown horse, looking like a turtle with her neck craned forward and an overstuffed pack on her back. Jess tossed off her doona and shuffled to the front door, squinting in the sunlight.

  Grace motioned for her to come outside. ‘Your hair has gone crazy,’ she noted as Jess reached the bottom step.

  ‘Well, I’m still half asleep,’ Jess grumbled. ‘Do you always get up this early?’

  ‘Harry’s registering the foals today,’ Grace replied.

  ‘I guess that’s a yes.’

  ‘He lets Rosie and me help to name them. And we found that mare that went missing down on the river flats. She had her foal and it’s an Appaloosa!’ she said excitedly.

  ‘What mare that went missing?’

  Grace lowered her voice and said in a dramatic voice, ‘The foal looks a bit like Diamond!’

  Jess immediately woke up. ‘Wait for me.’ She ran back up the stairs and rummaged through the knee-deep squalor that was her bedroom. ‘Joddies, joddies, where are my joddies?’

  Hastily dressed, she crept into her parents’ room and whispered to her snoring father. ‘Dad!’

  ‘What is it, honey?’ asked Caroline from the other side of the bed.

  ‘Can I go with Grace Arnold to look at the foals again? There’s one that looks like Diamond!’

  ‘At this hour of the morning?’ said Caroline.

  Craig opened his eyes. ‘Where exactly are you going?’

  ‘To Harry’s place, to look at the foals. I went there yesterday, remember? There’s a new one that looks like Diamond.’

  Craig sat up. ‘Who’s Harry?’

  ‘He’s Grace and Rose’s uncle.’

  ‘Harry who? What’s his last name?’

  Caroline saved her. ‘They’re nice girls, Craig. We know them from pony club. Go on, Jess. But have some breakfast before you go.’

  Jess flew out the door before her father could object.

  When they arrived at Harry’s, Rosie, Tom and Luke were sitting on bales of hay on the back of a ute. Rosie waved enthusiastically. ‘Hurry up,’ she called. ‘We’re about to go!’

  Jess dumped her bike and ran to the ute. She climbed up next to Rosie, slipped on a loose biscuit of hay and somehow landed in Luke’s lap. ‘Oh, sorry!’

  Luke grinned but said nothing while she tried to climb off him.

  Harry hobbled down from the house with a clipboard and pen. He saw Jess clambering off Luke and gave her a wink.

  What? I wasn’t . . . I was just . . . I was not!

  She climbed over Rosie and found a spot on top of a hay bale. It didn’t feel overly secure, but it was as far away as possible from the boys.

  ‘That’s one way to introduce yourself, I s’pose,’ said Harry as he reached for the driver’s side door, and before Jess could protest, he said, ‘Righto, who wants to come down the paddock and help me register this season’s foals? We’ve got to get a record of all their markings and colour and so on and so forth. Details, details, endless details . . .’ His voice trailed off into a mutter as he lowered himself into the front seat.

  Grace ran out from the stables. ‘Wait for me!’

  ‘You give that horse some water?’ Harry asked as he leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. Grace nodded as she jumped in. The ute roared to life, and soon they were bumping their way down a long laneway with fences and horses on either side.

  At the end, the mares cantered up to the gate, eager for some hay. The foals followed on awkward, jerky legs, frolicking and bucking. Harry drove around the paddock in a big circle and the mares flocked around as the girls tossed out hay in biscuits. As the horses settled into feeding, Harry pulled on the brake and got out his clipboard.

  Luke grabbed some tools from the back and without a word, headed towards a leaky water trough. Tom jumped over the side of the ute and followed.

  Harry shuffled through his papers. ‘Let’s start with Elly’s foal,’ he said. He hobbled towards a brown mare. She nickered softly to him as he ran a hand over her shoulder, checking her brands and marki
ng them down in his notes. ‘What’ve you got for us this year, Elly?’ He turned to the girls. ‘Is that foal gonna be bay or black, Rosie?’

  ‘Black for sure, Harry. Look around its eyes!’ said Rosie. Sure enough, its brown foal fluff was beginning to shed, revealing glossy black circles around its eyes.

  ‘Sure it’s not buckskin?’

  Rosie tossed a piece of hay at him.

  ‘Okay, if you say so. Black it is!’ he chuckled, writing it down in his notes. ‘Geez, what day was it born? I think this one was born last Saturday, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a colt, Harry. Let’s call him Biggles,’ said Grace.

  ‘No, it has to be an Aboriginal name like Biyanga,’ said Rosie.

  ‘What does Biyanga mean?’ asked Jess.

  ‘It’s an Aboriginal word meaning “father”,’ explained Harry. ‘When Biyanga was born he presented backwards, and an Aboriginal stockman helped me to turn him.’ He shook his head. ‘Bloody amazing horseman, he was. He saved the foal and the mare so I asked him if he’d name the foal. He said the colt would grow up to be a great sire, so he called him Biyanga.’

  Rosie grinned at Jess. ‘Good name, isn’t it?’

  ‘I reckon,’ said Jess.

  ‘Let’s call this one Billabong!’ Rosie suggested.

  ‘Billabong: I like that,’ said Harry, writing it down. ‘We could call him Billy for short.’

  They went from mare to mare, recording their brands, colour and markings, and thinking up worthy names for the foals. They called a chestnut colt Boomerang, a black colt Corroboree, and black filly Coolamon.

  As they went about naming and recording details, the foals stayed close to their mothers, nuzzling udders for milk or just taking shade in their shadows. From beneath a chestnut mare, Jess could see a small muzzle snuffling for its mother’s teat. Its little round chin was covered in long wiry hairs.

  She bent down on one knee so that she could get a closer look. As another mare brushed past its rump, the foal scrambled beneath its mother, and popped out in front of Jess with a confused expression. It looked straight into Jess’s eyes and paused, cocking its head to one side.

  Jess held her gaze. ‘Beautiful girl,’ she whispered.

  Then the filly trotted unsteadily around to face its mother again, displaying a white snowcap marking over the rump of its chestnut body.

  Jess felt a rush of joy. For that brief moment, while the little animal stared into her eyes, all the fractured and broken pieces of her soul came back together, making her feel complete. She was connected to something again. Somehow this filly was a part of her. It was bizarre.

  ‘She’s a little Appaloosa,’ said Rosie. ‘Her colour was a complete surprise to her owners. They thought the mare was just a solid colour, but if you look, she’s got a few speckles here and there. Harry reckons she’s an Appaloosa too, but she just has minimal markings.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Jess name this one?’ suggested Harry. ‘There’s something special about her, don’t you think?’

  ‘Won’t her owner want to name her?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Nah, he just wants her registered.’

  Jess thought about it. There was indeed something very special about her. ‘How about Walkabout?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s been walkabout all right,’ laughed Harry. ‘She gave us a real run-around down on the river flats. We couldn’t find her for days.’

  ‘That’s a perfect name, Jess,’ said Rosie. ‘We can call her Wally for short.’

  ‘Walkabout it is,’ Harry said, writing it down. Then he scratched his chin and said thoughtfully, ‘She’s an old soul, that one.’

  ‘What day was she born?’ asked Jess.

  Harry thought about it and said, ‘Last Tuesday, probably . . . no, last Wednesday. That’s right. The mare went missing after the Wednesday feed delivery.’

  Jessica’s heart skipped a beat. That was the day Diamond had died. She couldn’t help feeling that there was some weird link between Diamond and the little filly, something Jess couldn’t quite put her finger on, the way she made her feel, the familiarity with which she looked at her. It was haunting.

  ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Harry.

  ‘It’s like she knows me or something,’ said Jess.

  ‘She’s the pick of the bunch, I reckon,’ he said. ‘Shame I don’t own her.’

  Behind Harry, Jess saw Grace crawling on her hands and knees among the herd, gaining the curiosity of one of the more inquisitive foals. She sat cross-legged, letting the foal come up and sniff her head, while she stayed perfectly still.

  Rosie shook her head. ‘She’s gonna get herself killed one day.’

  While Grace and Rosie decided on their favourite foals and tried to get close enough for pats, and the boys patched up some holes in the fence, Jess couldn’t take her eyes off the chestnut Appaloosa filly.

  She walked home that afternoon feeling alive for the first time in days. A million thoughts rolled around in her brain, all leading back to the filly. That funny little look she gave her before she displayed her rump. Jess wanted to go back and see her again. She really wanted to tell Shara about her.

  Jess reached for her phone, then realised she hadn’t brought it – and anyway, she wasn’t talking to Shara. She could just miss out!

  10

  BIYANGA WANDERED CASUALLY into the stable with Grunter frolicking about his legs. It was the following weekend and Jess had woken early, unable to sleep again, thinking about Walkabout. As soon as the sun peered over the horizon, she’d slipped into a pair of jodhpurs and headed for Harry’s place. She emptied some grain into the stallion’s feedbin and stuffed his haynet full. From the stables on top of the hill she could see across Harry’s whole property.

  Shara would love this.

  The mares and foals were scattered about their paddock, some grazing and some sleeping. Others groomed their foals and urged them to stay close. Jess could see the snowcap rump of Walkabout poking out from beneath the chestnut mare, while her front end was busy suckling. The filly gave an impatient stamp as she nuzzled and pushed at the udder, bringing down the milk.

  Grace appeared at the door. ‘Harry said I could have a ride on the colts today!’

  ‘Hi, Grace! Wow, you lucky thing,’ Jess said in awe.

  ‘I also brought a couple of new horses that Dad got at the sales. Harry’s going to have a look at them. You can have a ride on them, if you want. The bay one looks like a real goer!’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Jess. She wasn’t sure about riding any new horses.

  ‘You usually ride with Shara Wilson, don’t you? She still your bestie?’

  ‘We just used to ride pairs in the mounted games,’ said Jess, fingering the lifeless phone in her pocket. ‘We don’t talk much anymore.’ She changed the subject. ‘Where’s Rosie?’

  ‘She’s still in bed. She is so lazy in the mornings. I always have to feed her horses or they starve waiting for her.’

  ‘Early mornings can be good sometimes,’ said Jess. ‘It’s like having the whole world to yourself for a little while.’

  ‘Me too!’ said Grace. ‘I love them. Hey, you and I should be besties!’

  Jess laughed. ‘Sure!’

  Harry limped down from the house and opened the door of the ute. ‘Who’s coming to feed up?’ he called out, as the engine roared to life.

  Jessica jumped up onto the hay bales in the back. ‘Come on, Bestie!’ she said to Grace, giving her a hand up.

  Soon they were bumping down the laneway, tossing out biscuits of hay to waiting horses.

  When they parked in the centre of the mare’s paddock, Walkabout trotted into the open with her neck arched and her tail high in the air. She gave a loud, assertive snort, as though she owned the world. Then she bounced into a gallop, rushing over to her friends, pigrooting all the way. As she reached the other foals, she slid to a halt, then spun on one heel and galloped off in another direction, urging them to follow.

&nb
sp; ‘Did you see that?’ Harry whistled. ‘What a poser!’ He leaned against the side of the ute, watching the foals.

  Jess laughed as she carried some hay out into the paddock for the mares. Like the sound of a horse munching or the smell of their sweat, watching foals at play was just one of those wonderful, wonderful things in life.

  The filly wheeled around to the left and then galloped straight towards Jess. When Walkabout was nearly on top of her, she skidded to a halt and gave a big cheeky snort. She was so close Jess could feel the spray from her nostrils. The filly looked Jess dead in the eye, and for a split second nothing but the two of them existed. Then she let out a whinny, turned and galloped away again.

  Dumbstruck, Jess stood there with the hay still in her arms. The smile on her face stretched to the tips of her ears and she turned to Grace. ‘Did you see that, Grace?’ she asked excitedly. ‘She came right up to me!’

  Grace and Harry had both seen it and they laughed out loud.

  ‘Cheeky little blighter,’ said Harry.

  Jess felt warm all over. It was as though rays of light were glowing through her whole body.

  They left the horses to enjoy their breakfast and, as they bounced their way back up the laneway, Jess asked Grace for her mobile number. She pulled her own phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, ready to punch in the new number.

  Grace looked a bit awkward. ‘Um, I don’t have one.’

  Jess stalled, surprised. It hadn’t occurred to her that some people might not spend their lives attached to a mobile.

  ‘Oh, okay.’ She put hers back in her pocket.

  Back at the stables, the smell of frying bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms wafted from the house.

  ‘Smells like Annie’s got breakfast ready,’ said Harry as he climbed out of the ute and rubbed his belly. He looked at Jess. ‘She was a cook out on the stations when I first met her. Fell in love with her cooking as much as the woman herself.’ He started walking towards the house. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Come on, Bestie,’ said Grace. ‘It’s Sunday-morning tradition to eat breakfast on the verandah!’