Dark Horse (14 page)

‘How I feel about you, what I feel for you, is the reason this whole thing has gone to shit. If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be like this.’

‘If you start talking and telling me things now, I don’t know, Heath, it might . . .’ she stopped, remembering that wasn’t his name, ‘. . . it’s not going to help,’ she finished.

‘Do you want to know my real name?’

‘No. Not now. It might make you feel like a stranger.’

He nodded as though he already knew this. ‘If it’s any consolation, Heath is a nickname I got at school. Heathy.’ He winced and attempted a smile.

She wiped at the dust that had settled and clogged in her nostrils, she coughed the same dry air from her throat. ‘Use the shirt I’ve brought you to cover your face and stop you breathing in this dust. Wet it and breathe through that.’

‘Sarah?’

She couldn’t look at him.

‘The lies they were . . . words, over the top of all the things I really wanted to say.’

‘Okay.’

‘You won’t look at me?’

‘I will when I get back.’

‘Do this for me – come back, and I swear to you, I will be there for you. How much debt do you need to clear? You need land for Tansy? Forty acres, a stable?’ He extended his hand towards her. ‘Let’s shake on it.’

‘Put your hand away. Don’t do that.’

‘But you’re not going to come back.’

‘I will.’

‘They’re not going to let you if they see you.’

‘I won’t let them see me.’

G
usts of air were like a tailwind, pushing Sarah forward in the saddle, urging Tansy on into a faster canter. They covered ground at this speed while they could, the steepest part of the track lay ahead, and so did the sections of washed-away land – Sarah was surprised by the good condition of the road. Channels that had formed in the gravel were shallow. Gutters either side of the track had done their job and taken the water away; they were scoured out and deep. She warned herself against becoming complacent.

The ride, Tansy’s speed, her surefootedness and her level of energy and pace – these things she pushed to the forefront of her thinking. She did a quick mental check of her own body’s soundness: she was hydrated and not too tired, despite a sleepless night. She was wearing jeans, had changed into a dry shirt. The gravel, the wet scrape and gritty compression of it beneath Tansy’s hooves, the forward motion, the grunt of air from Tansy’s nostrils, the ground ahead, the logistics of the ride filled Sarah’s thoughts.

A steep bank on one side of the track had given way and tumbled down, blocking the road. Small trees and bushes were amongst the earth and rock. Sarah had to turn around and go back fifty metres to where the bank was intact and not as steep. She rode Tansy up the slope, kicking her on and plunging into the bush above the road. The ground was uneven. There were trunks to swerve. Saplings whipped against Sarah’s legs and leaves brushed her shoulders and face. She ducked below the branches.

As soon as she could she steered Tansy down onto the track again. The road for the next few kilometres was bordered by an overhang of gum trees; the ground was littered with small branches and some bigger ones, sticks and twigs, there was no time to pick through them; they ran the gauntlet.

Wind gusted with increased strength and grey clouds bunched and bundled. It wasn’t cold, an across-continent breeze, thick with humidity, blew from the north. Tansy’s coat was shiny with sweat. She maintained her pace and knew what to do, knew her job. Sarah didn’t have to spur her on. The road was steep and each step sent a jarring impact up through Tansy’s forelegs, but nothing slowed her down. They came to the car-sized washout, and traversed it the same way they had seven days ago, just at double the pace and without a backwards glance. The road got worse from there. The lower they rode the greater the catchment area above it, and, therefore, more water and more damage done. They had to leave the road again and ride in the bush beside it.

Some sections of wilderness were so steep they went down sidewards, sliding. Tansy baulked at one or two places and had to steel her nerves before tipping over the edge of the spur, her rump lowering to ground level, Sarah clinging tight in the saddle. They took the pinches one at a time, doggedly, with Sarah leaning all the way back on her horse,
Man From Snowy River
style, minus the cracking whip and kamikaze speed.

Tansy stumbled, more than once Sarah almost fell; they were right on the edge of their limitations. But Sarah had reached the state where nothing troubled her – near vertical ascents, obstacles and mossy logs, holes in the ground, a jagged boulder concealed under ferns, they were things to process, that was all. Tansy lurched and Sarah was whipped forward onto her horse’s neck, she clung to her horse’s mane while regaining her balance. Her fingers gripped horsehair, her legs squeezed either side of the mare, her tummy tightened, her neck and back strained against the momentum for a couple of heartbeats, until she was back in the saddle and able to move in unison with her horse again.

They returned to the track after what felt like an hour of slow bush descent. The sun had moved higher in the sky. Gusts of wind were stronger. Hopefully their time riding in the wilderness hadn’t been as long as it felt.

All the gravel on the track had been washed away and was dumped in piles by the sides of the road. The track resembled a dry creek bed. They cantered down the centre of it, jumped washed-up branches, leapt over ditches, the skyline began to grow familiar, views that Sarah was more accustomed to. The bush was becoming imposing, mountain ash rising up, the understorey shrinking to a low layer of green. A lyrebird flew in front of them. Smaller birds foraged in the mounds of washed-up leaves and topsoil. Muscle pain and joint pain became another thing to process. Turning around and climbing back up the mountain would complete the workout. Those muscles and joints not affected now would be on the return trip, and for some parts of her body, it would be a double dose of strain.

A few kilometres to go before they reached the fork in the road, Sarah changed her way of thinking, she let Tansy take them the last few turns and straights, and Sarah stretched her mind forward, to the plateau, to his car. She imagined riding up to it, she visualised the vehicle (a kitted-up four-wheel-drive). She speculated, and asked herself the question –
what if? What if there were drugs? What if there was evidence of something more?
Her imagined response to all these things was similar – she hung back a moment, before going ahead anyway, getting the jack and riding up the mountain again.

The fork in the road lay up ahead. Tansy was slowing for it. She was grunting with each step, flecks of foam crowded in the corners of her mouth and spittle had flown back to streak her shoulders and catch in her mane. They cantered to the fork and took the plateau route, a level one-kilometre track they were able to thunder along at top speed. Sawn-off stumps from the last felled forest giants dotted the plateau. The ground between the stumps was boggy, the grass was bent and the bracken was rich-green and standing tall, thriving in the open, wet conditions. Across the twenty-acre clearing, the pile of pale logs was luminous in the midday light. Sarah cantered towards them. As she did, she looked for an opening in the bush below, straining for a glimpse down to the creek. Without having heard anything herself, Sarah sensed that Tansy had detected sounds of human activity. Her horse was moving with revived ease, as though she believed the ordeal were close to being over.

A rutted two-wheel track ran the length of the plateau. They rode along it. It was the same track Heath would have used in his vehicle. Sarah’s heart skipped a beat when the tailgate of his car came into view. She stopped Tansy a couple of metres back from it.

Sarah dismounted and tied Tansy to one of the logs. His vehicle was a black dual cab Hilux ute, fitted with all the extras – bullbar, tow bar, winch, sidebars, multiple radio antennae. Its rear wheels were bogged down to the axle. He’d extended the winch rope and attached it to a stump in front of the car – ready to crank it out. Something had stopped him, the sound of the headwater coming perhaps, or the deluge of rain, and he’d realised the futility of freeing the car, but left it set up ready to be winched out when conditions allowed.

Sarah took the keys from her pocket. It was the kind of car Heath would climb from. A vehicle that could go off-road but looked just as good on-road. With this tangible thing of his in front of her, Heath was made real. The vehicle was everything he said he was, and everything he appeared to be. Sarah’s chest rose and fell as she caught her breath. Away from the stiff breeze, she was becoming sweaty beneath her clothes and her face was glowing hot.

A vision flashed before Sarah’s eyes – that of a man lying dead on the far side of the car, face down on the ground, shot from behind. It was such a lucid image, and so detailed – a bullet wound in his neck, a leak of blood on a pale nape, a dark saturation of blood on his chequered collar – that Sarah halted and jerked in fright as though the scene was there before her. She blinked the picture away, and peered around the side of the car. The long grass was undisturbed. There was no dead body.

Sarah remained spooked by her vision though. Her uncertainty was opening up a strongbox of fear and letting all the dark thoughts out. If she wasn’t careful, this flood of doubt would take over and she’d lose perspective.

Sarah opened the tailgate. The bottom of the tray had been fitted out with large, long galvanised steel sliding drawers. Normally the drawers could be locked, but inside the key slot was the tip of the broken key. She slid out the first drawer. It contained camping gear, packed neatly, cooking utensils, a small, single-burner gas stove, a folding chair. She opened the second drawer – three rifles and a shotgun, hunting knives in scabbards, butchering knives, ammunition. Sarah closed the drawer on the stash of killing things. She reopened the drawer with the camping gear and found the jack. It was in a red cotton bag, like he’d said. The handle was in with it. She put the jack in her backpack and went around to the passenger side door, unlocked the car.

In the passenger’s foot well was a pair of boltcutters. On the seat was a large grey weatherproof box. The cab dash was crowded with radios, scanners and electrical equipment. The interior of the car was mostly neat, smelling of cold leather trim and chilled plastic. The two front seats had black sheepskin covers. There was an open sports bag filled with wrapped Christmas presents on the backseat, a pair of thongs beside it and a six-pack of beer on the floor. Curious about what was in the weatherproof box, Sarah took out the container and put it on the grass. It had a sticker on it:
Property of Parks Victoria 13 19 63

Sarah unclipped the heavy latches and opened the lid. Inside were several similar-sized objects wrapped in protective cloth. She crouched in the grass and unwrapped one of the bundles. It was a trail cam, a camera that trappers and hunters attached to trees and used throughout the ranges to take pictures of animal movements. The cameras detected motion in the bush. When an animal walked past, it set the shutter off, taking a series of pictures. It was larger than a normal camera, boxier, weatherproof and sturdy. This one had a small display screen on the back. Beneath the screen was a name and serial code:
Area C 05 (Mill Gully) Property of Parks Victoria, contact: B. Heatherton 0427 944 405

Sarah pressed the power button.

The device had been positioned to take images of what looked to Sarah to be a deer wallow. The first few pictures had captured a doe at night, slim neck and face, eyes gleaming, pale ghostly body. There were a series of daytime photographs of birds flashing through and pictures that seemed to contain no animals at all, swaying branches triggering the shots perhaps. Then there were murky images taken right on dark of a stag. At first it was standing on the edge of the wallow, and then it was walking through the centre of it; the quality of the images was poor, but Sarah was able to make out a scar on the stag’s neck. It was the animal that had been with her on the bridge. A smile touched the corners of Sarah’s mouth. She rewrapped the camera and put it away. Closing the lid on the box, though, something occurred to her. She remembered seeing a bundled item like another camera in the back of the ute. She returned to the rear of the vehicle and opened the camping gear drawer. There was a wrapped camera stashed behind the folded camp chair. It had been bound roughly compared to the others.

Sarah unwound the cloth. On this camera the serial code read –
Area C 03 (plateau) Property of Parks Victoria, contact B. Heatherton
.

She pressed the power button. The first shots were of nothing – trees blurring in the wind, a series of night shots with nothing visible in them. Then it was day, morning, the images were brighter, the recorded time 9:43 a.m. In these shots there was a woman. She was leaning against a tree, casually chewing her nails. She had on shorts and sneakers, a T-shirt, across her chest was a picture of a barbell and
The Fitness Club
written above it. It was hard to tell the woman’s age because of the grainy quality of the pictures, but she didn’t look particularly young or old – an attractive, fit-looking woman. Her hair was tied back. Her shorts were very short. Her legs were long, her feet crossed at the ankles. There was a stack of shots of her standing there, unaware of the camera, waiting, looking bored. Then she noticed the camera. The sequence of pictures showed her walking towards it, leaning in and looking right into the lens, disappearing as she looked at the back of the camera perhaps. And then she reappeared, smiling for the next few shots. Her face blurred due to quick movements. She was blonde. All the pictures following that were of her playing up to the camera, posing, spinning around and slapping her backside, grinning over her shoulder, baring her breasts, pushing them together, poking her tongue out. In the last few photos her lips were close to the lens and she was indicating
Shh
, with her finger to her mouth, a wedding ring was visible on her hand. Then she was gone. The images following it were of birds flashing through the now vacated area of bush. The date stamp read 24 December.

Sarah stood at the back of the car, thinking. She rewrapped the camera, but instead of returning it to where she’d found it, she closed the drawer and took the camera with her to the front of the car. She sat it on the dash. Sarah climbed into the vehicle and reached through to the Christmas gifts.

The tags of those presents at the top of the bag read, in his handwriting –
Mum, love Brody. Dad, love Brody. Jamie, love Brodes, Mia, love Uncle Brodes.
Sarah opened up the glove box. A grubby and crinkled animal registration renewal notice was addressed to:
Brody Heatherton, PO Box 204, Royden.
Further down the notice were printed particulars of the registered animal –
Dog, Age 12, Bloodhound
. The bill was unpaid and overdue.

A tattered student ID was the final proof that Heath was Brody Heatherton. He was much younger in the photo, dressed in a white school shirt, tie and maroon high school blazer, longer hair and a contented close-mouthed smile. The sort of boy Sarah would have been pleasant to but ultimately kept her distance from at school. A privileged kid who wouldn’t have needed or wanted for anything, least of all the attention of a girl – he would have got that in spades.

On the surface, Brody’s life seemed orderly and shiny, the clean interior of his car, the bag of presents, the neatly placed belongings, but beyond that were those stashed trail cam pictures, the panicked nature of the snapped-off key in the lock, those things were anything but organised and spotless.