Moonstone Promise (15 page)

She lectured him all the way. ‘Teenagers lurking about with no purpose in life, getting into trouble . . .'

Luke sat miserably in the front seat, groaning and clutching his arm every time she barrelled through a large pothole without slowing. He was thankful that the hospital was only three streets away.

Hours later, Luke sat in a tall vinyl chair in the waiting room. His arm was set in plaster and resting snugly in a sling. The fracture wasn't complicated, so he didn't have to bother with any of the alphabet Sister Suzie had threatened him with.

TMU stood for tele-medicine unit, he had discovered. It was all done over the internet with a webcam and a big screen. The doctors in Brisbane had looked at his arm and his X-rays and then told the staff that it just needed plaster.

A man with skinny legs and big boots sat opposite Luke. His skin was dark but he also looked slightly Asian. He had dirt and horse hair on his jeans and he held a filthy black hat on his lap. His leg jiggled nervously and his eyes darted about the room.

‘Don't know if there's a campdraft on around here, do you?' Luke asked him.

‘Yeah, yeah,' the man said, his face lighting up. ‘A few kays outta town. At the showgrounds.'

‘You riding in it?'

‘Yeah. That's if me eyes are still working.' He pointed to his face. ‘Gettin' cataracts cut out. You goin'?'

Luke nodded. ‘Yeah, might have a ride on a mate's horse. They put many cattle through up here?'

‘Few hundred,' the man said.

‘They bring 'em in off the stations, do they?'

‘Yeah, muster up the scrubbers and the cleanskins, rough cattle, ay,' the man grinned.

‘They heli-muster?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Horses too?'

‘A few for the wild horse race – there's rodeo events too, bronc riding an' that.'

Behind the man, out the window, Luke saw a small black horse wander onto the grounds of the hospital and begin picking at the green grass around the sprinklers. ‘Who owns all these horses?' he asked. ‘Do they just wander around the town?'

‘Nobody owns 'em. We just live alongside 'em,' said the man. ‘Till the grey nurse threatens to round 'em all up and shoot 'em – then
everybody
owns 'em.'

‘Grey nurse?'

The man snorted. ‘It's not for the colour of her uniform, ay.' He stood up, his hat in his hand and looked out the window. ‘Look, there she goes!' He shook his head.

Outside, the horse trotted around the hospital gardens. Sister Suzie chased it, flapping her arms.

‘They any good for riding?' asked Luke.

‘Bit skinny. Kids sometimes muck around with 'em.' Then the man crinkled his eyebrows and looked thoughtful. ‘If they got fed right they'd probably be okay. There's probably some real good blood running through some of them horses. Out on the stations the brumby stallions sometimes smash the fences to get in with the mares. Or the fences go down in the wet season when there's big floods. The wild horses and the stockhorses get mixed up. Usually the domestic horses come back. But some of 'em are happy to stay out in the bush with the brumbies.'

He looked out the window and started chuckling again. ‘That horse has called his brothers in.'

Luke peered out the window. Two more horses had wandered into the yard and Sister Suzie was chasing all three of them with a mop.

18

LUKE FOUND AN
external door in what looked like a huge laundry and discreetly discharged himself from the hospital, before anyone could confront him with his medical background, his history with welfare departments and his current state of homelessness.

He located the showgrounds on the outskirts of the settlement, right where the man had told him they'd be. There were stock trucks rolling up already and most of the yards were filled with big grey Brahmans. Several horses were tethered under trees with their saddles on. But he couldn't see any wild horses. He wandered through the yards, the rails of which looked as though they'd been roughly cut from the branches of nearby box gums.

There were some sponsorship banners around the inside of the arena, a large Aboriginal flag, and a shelter at the end built from more local timber and roofed with leafy branches. There were murals with circled dot paintings and dreaming stories painted on a small block building that looked like some sort of canteen. Luke wondered what stories they told.

At the other end of the arena were rodeo chutes, and a big judge's stand with speakers hanging off the sides.

Luke sat under a tree and looked down at his bare legs, his boots with no socks, and what was left of his shirt.

He looked like a complete derelict. How was he going to ride like this? Even up here they must have dress codes.

And then he thought he saw them. A small white truck rumbled past with several horses banging about in a stock crate on the back.

Luke got up and walked after it, trying to catch a glimpse of the horses. They were all ears and noses, peering through the rails of the crate, snorting and whinnying. From the racket, it sounded as though they were loose.

But when a man appeared and let them out, one had a saddle on its back and Luke recognised none of the others.

He walked back to his tree and sat in the heat, swishing flies off himself. More trucks rolled in. He kept an eye out for Bob, but hours later Bob still hadn't appeared.

Some kids began galloping their horses around in a field opposite, wearing nothing but shorts, toes curled over their stirrup irons. Their bare backs gleamed in the sun.

More cattle trucks rolled into the showgrounds, day slipped into night and still there was no Bob. Several people camped in their trucks and horse floats or settled down under the trees to sleep in swags.

Luke took another of the pills Sister Suzie had given him for the pain and it made him warm, happy and drowsy. He had no blanket or swag, but curled up on his side under the tree and let his eyes close and his mind slow down into stillness.

He woke the next morning to something scratchy rasping over his cheek. A cold, wet bit of rubber snuffled in his ear.

‘Oh, yuck, get off me!'

Two pups were licking him. He pulled himself into a sitting position and wiped their slobber off with the back of his good hand.

One pup was yellowy-brown with black points. The other was black all over. Both had coarse fur, bony shoulders and round bellies. They stank.

‘They been eating sheep guts,' said a boy standing nearby. He pointed away from the showgrounds to a stand of trees. ‘They found a dead sheep over there.'

‘Get away from me,' Luke growled at the pups. His wrist throbbed under the plaster and his head hurt.

Both pups jumped on his lap. The yellow one immediately piddled and the black one pulled at his sling, ripping at it with sharp teeth.

‘Hey!' yelled Luke. ‘You dirty little bugger!' He shoved the incontinent one off his knee and grabbed the toothy one by the scruff of the neck. ‘Let go of my sling!'

When it clung on, he pulled his shirt off and scrunched it around its body, together with the sling. Then he flung the whole bundle away.

The black pup rolled around in delight, snarling and yapping at the shirt, its feet waving in the air. Then it pulled at the shirt with its teeth, ripping and growling, until it lay in tatters. Meanwhile, the yellow one slunk a metre away and vomited.

‘Take the shirt off my back, why don't you,' said Luke indignantly. He stood up and looked at the patch of piddle that had soaked into his shorts. ‘Who owns these dogs?'

A young boy trotted past on a grey horse and burst out laughing. ‘Them pups, they pissed all over him!' he called to his friends. ‘They're puking everywhere!'

Within minutes, Luke was surrounded by children on their horses. ‘Orrr, dis
gust
ing!' they yelled. ‘Pworrr!'

Luke swiped at a pup with his boot. ‘Where's the closest hose?' he demanded.

‘Over there, at the yards. Don't put dog spew in the trough!' the kids sang, galloping off on their horses.

Luke walked after them to the yards, the two pups scampering around his feet. He quickly located the hose and began washing off his pants. ‘Trying to take my pants off me too, you little ferals?' he said, squirting the pups in their faces. They yapped and bit at the water gleefully.

‘Who owns them?' Luke asked the kids.

‘Looks like you do, now,' one of the boys laughed.

‘They want to be yours!' said another.

‘Not likely,' grumbled Luke. He held the hose over his head and gave his body a quick squirt. ‘Get out of it,' he hissed at the pups, lifting his boot sideways at them.

‘What you gonna call them, eh, dingo boy?' said the boy on the grey.

‘Hydatids and Halitosis,' said Luke flatly. ‘Filth and Fang.' As he walked back to the tree, the yellow pup followed closely behind, its big tail wagging happily. Fang darted back and forth snarling at Luke's ankles. Luke stooped, picked up the pup by the scruff of the neck and gave him a good shake. ‘If you wanna hang around, you'll have to learn some manners,' he said, looking the pup in the eye. ‘Keep those teeth to yourself.'

Fang whimpered, lifted a lip and snarled back.

‘What was that?' bellowed Luke.

Fang closed his mouth and wagged his tail sheepishly. Luke tossed him back on the ground. He sat against the tree and both pubs finally settled down and lay quietly at his feet. But Luke couldn't relax. His wrist throbbed and he was starving.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small bottle of painkillers. He wrestled it opened and threw one down his throat. Then he pulled out his wallet and teased out his last fifty with his teeth. ‘When's someone gonna start cooking some burgers around here?' he asked the pups.

A semitrailer loaded with livestock rolled into the grounds and Luke saw the unmistakeable pointy ears of horses among the bedlam. He got up and followed the truck, then waited anxiously as it lined up the loading ramp and reversed in.

Stockmen hung off the sides of the crate, poking at the cattle with sticks and shooing them out the back door. In the middle of it all, Luke was horrified to see a small brown horse shoot out the gate and down the slippery race. She was panting heavily and nearly bursting with foal.

‘Get those horses into another yard,' a stockman yelled. ‘That one's gonna foal soon. She needs a drink.'

‘Separate those colts and mares,' yelled another.

Luke was relieved to see the stockmen separate the horses from the cattle and put them in separate yards as they unloaded. He ran and jumped up on the rails. Rusty bumped against the brown mare, snapping his gums and bleating in his little goat voice. An old lead was dangling from his neck. There were rope burns around his throat, as though someone had had a go at handling him.

In the next yard, several adult horses bustled around nervously, bunching together at one end of the yard. Chocky pinned his ears back and snorted. The old red stallion was nowhere to be seen.