The Golden Stranger (4 page)

She pegged out the last couple of shirts and then joined Corey at the yards, where she was surprised to find he'd already put a halter on Rocko. Her horse didn't usually let anyone else near him.

She took the lead rope. ‘We'll have to put him in crossties and hobble him. He doesn't like needles.'

Corey pulled a shot out of his top pocket and uncapped it while Shara clipped a rope to either side of Rocko's halter and began buckling the restraints to his feet. ‘Please be good, Rocko.'

Her horse pressed his ears back and flew at her with his teeth bared, till the chain pulled him up short. He began rearing. ‘Just get it done fast,' she said to Corey.

‘Hop out of the way.' Corey came in quickly to jab the needle into Rocko's neck. He pushed the plunger and pulled it out, all in less than half a second. Rocko threw his head in the air and lunged at him. ‘Charming,' Corey said, as he jumped back out of the horse's reach and recapped the empty syringe.

‘Sorry,' said Shara. ‘He doesn't mean it.'

‘So, I took your advice and read the paper this morning.'

‘Did you?'

‘Was that you and your mates?'

‘What?'

‘Who pulled the animal welfare stunt?'

Shara pulled a face at him. ‘No way!'

‘Even though you thought today's paper might be worth a read?'

Shara bent down and unbuckled the hobbles around Rocko's feet, avoiding his eyes. ‘Nup.'

‘The contractors have surrendered the brumbies.'

Shara looked up at him. ‘Are you for real?'

Corey smiled down at her and his face seemed genuine and kind. ‘Yeah. I just heard about it from Dad.'

‘That's fantastic! They'll be saved.' She couldn't hide her delight.

‘Thought I'd stop in and give you the goss. Just in case, you know, you might know anyone who was involved in it. Which you . . . don't?'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘It's not a good event, that wild horse race. It gives rodeo a bad name.'

Shara looked into Corey's hazel-brown eyes and wondered why he was telling her this. Did he agree with what she had done or was he trying to get enough information to pin it on her? Best keep her mouth shut, she decided. He was still connected to a lot of other rodeo people who did not share the same views, and word spread quickly in horsey circles. She watched him run a hand over Rocko's back. Her horse certainly seemed to trust him, though, and that was very unusual.

‘You doing the Nanango draft next weekend?' she asked, buckling the hobbles back together and changing the subject.

‘Yep. You?'

‘Don't know yet. Dad's car is at the mechanic's. Not sure if it'll be fixed by then.'

‘I've got a spare spot on the float.' Corey looked out over the paddocks where the cattle grazed, then gave her a wink. ‘We can train on your cattle this week.'

She smiled back. Now he was getting cheeky. ‘Those ones are all pregnant. Dad would spew.'

‘Doesn't he have to draft out some weaners or something?' ‘He did that last week.'

‘Bummer. Come to the draft anyway.'

‘What about all the other girls I see you with?'

He rolled his eyes. ‘It's not easy being a demigod.'

‘Might be a bit too squeezy on that horse float.'

‘Come with me anyway,' said Corey. ‘Just as a friend.'

Shara shook her head. Corey might seem nice enough, but he was still a rodeo boy who roped calves and rode bucking broncos. He didn't fit with her crowd of friends. ‘I'll make my own way there.'

As Corey's Hilux rolled out of the driveway, Grace and Jess rode in.

‘What's
he
doing here?' asked Jess, after giving Corey a perfunctory wave. ‘You didn't tell him anything, did you?'

‘No.'

‘Did he ask?'

‘Sort of. I just brushed it off,' Shara said reassuringly.

‘He's already pummelled Elliot for information,' said Grace, slipping off her horse and tying it to the hitching rail.

‘Did Elliot tell?'

‘No,' said Grace. ‘But he reckons Corey really hammered him.'

‘Typical rodeo thug,' said Jess dismissively. ‘Hey, did you see the picture in the
Coachwood Chronicle
?' She jumped off Dodger and pulled a folded piece of newspaper from her pocket. ‘We're famous!'

‘Infamous, you mean,' said Shara. ‘I nearly choked on my breakfast when Dad opened the paper this morning.'

‘Our mum loved it,' said Rosie.

‘She would have done the spray-painting herself,' said Grace, ‘but the Connemans already have a restraining order against her. Just about every stock contractor in the country does. I think she thumped one of them once.'

Shara laughed. She could just imagine Mrs Arnold, with her mad black curly hair and fiery tongue, hammering the head of a scrawny cowboy. If only her own parents were that cool.

‘I drove past the show this morning with Mum and the red semitrailer was gone. They'd packed all the yards and signs away,' said Jess.

‘Corey told me they surrendered the brumbies,' said Shara excitedly. ‘They'll be re-homed instead of being turned into pet food.'

‘Oh! That's fantastic,' said Grace. ‘Wow! We saved some brumbies! That's so freaking good!'

‘Corey's okay, I reckon,' said Shara.

‘No, he's
not
,' said Jess. ‘He strings along about ten girlfriends at once, and he rides broncos. Don't let him charm you, Shara. He's a cowboy schmuck!'

‘I'm not letting him charm me! I just said he's okay. He's not as bad as you think.'

Jess pulled a face. ‘
Anyway
, those dodgy Conneman brothers probably won't be coming back to Coachwood Crossing again. Saddle up, Sharsy. Let's ride.'

Shara skipped to the shed to get her saddle, her friends following. The tin door was flapping open, and she hooked it back against the wall, puzzled. ‘It's not like Dad to leave the door open.'

She headed into the shed, and stopped in her tracks. Inside, the two wooden racks that held her saddles and rugs stood empty. Around her feet lay a mess of leather and canvas.

Hex leapt about and sniffed urgently, darting from one bundle to the next. He investigated an old chaff bag that lay emptied on the floor. Then he trotted the length of the workbench, inspecting the boxes of nails and screws and David's tools that lay strewn beneath.

‘What happened to the shed?' asked Jess.

‘It's been ransacked,' answered Shara.

She bent down and picked up her pride and joy, the trophy saddle she'd won at the Longwood campdraft finals. ‘Oh no! It's all scratched.' She replaced it carefully on the rack. ‘Who would go through all my stuff like that?'

4

SERGEANT BIGWOOD
came over that afternoon and took a statement from Shara, but said as nothing had been stolen there was little he could do. ‘Just local kids up to no good,' he had concluded, and Shara's dad had agreed.

Shara wasn't convinced. She lay awake that night, fretting. Who would have done such a horrible thing? Did someone have a grudge against her? She tried to think about something else. School. Biology. She loved biology. It was full of all sorts of stuff that she could relate to horses, such as reproductive systems and genetics. She had learned, for instance, that if she put a cremello stallion over a bay mare, she could get a buckskin foal. She got an A+ for that assignment.

As she drifted towards sleep, a strange ruckus, like steel on steel, started outside. Shara lifted her head from the pillow and held her breath, listening. There it was again. But why weren't the dogs barking?

Shara jumped out of bed and ran to her parents' room. Barry met her in the hallway.

‘Did you hear that, Dad?'

‘It sounded like the shed door,' he said. ‘You stay in the house and I'll check it out.'

‘Let the dogs off,' she whispered. ‘They'll sort it out.'

‘No, I want to catch this troublemaker in the act.' Her father marched off, pulled on his boots and grabbed a baseball bat from behind the front door.

‘Be careful, Dad!'

‘I'll be fine. It's probably just some kid. Don't turn any lights on for a bit.' He stopped and turned to her. ‘Stay here,' he ordered. Then he slipped out the door and disappeared into the front yard.

Shara's mum joined her at the lounge-room window, drawing a robe tightly around herself and tying the belt. Together, they squinted into the darkness.

Within seconds, Barry was back. ‘Call the police, Louise. I reckon there's more than one of them in there, not just kids by the noise.'

‘What did you hear? What are they doing?'

‘Not sure, but they're making a hell of a racket. Don't seem to care who hears them.'

Shara frowned, puzzled. Why were the dogs so quiet?

‘The police are on their way,' said Louise from behind them. ‘I think you should just wait and let them handle it, Barry. There's no point you getting hurt.'

‘Fine by me,' he agreed.

For ten minutes there was no sound from the shed but an occasional jingle of saddlery. Then blue flashing lights lit the surrounding paddocks and a car tore up the gravel road towards the house. Hex and Petunia went berserk. From the shed came an explosion of metal and concrete. The shed door slammed.

Barry ran across the yard to greet the police car. ‘They just took off!'

Don Bigwood leapt from the car and followed Barry into the darkness, gripping a torch. Voices yelled and twigs snapped. Streaks of light waved about in the bushes. Louise snapped on the verandah lights.

The men were back at the house within five minutes. Barry held his palms in the air, panting. ‘They were like ninjas.'

Don Bigwood shrugged. ‘Disappeared into thin air.'

Hex whined from his kennel. ‘Shut up, you useless dog,' Shara growled at him.

Again, she found the shed in a mess. One of the saddles had been knocked to the floor and the chaff bag had been gone through again. This time, however, the door to the feedroom was also ajar. Oats and barley carpeted the floor.

‘Looks more like an animal has broken in to get at the feed,' said the sergeant. ‘One of your cows, maybe.'

‘But we shut the doors with two barrel bolts,' said Shara. ‘No animal could open that.' She looked around her. ‘There are no droppings. A cow would leave poo everywhere.' She began to pick up her stuff, frowning.

After the sergeant left, Barry re-bolted the doors. He made sure the windows were closed and secured them with timber rods. ‘Let's just hope they've found what they're looking for and will leave us alone from now on.'

Shara brought her saddles back to the house, just to be on the safe side. Before she turned off her bedside lamp for the second time that night, she thumbed a quick message to Jess.

Shed broken into again, meet @ bakery early.

The next morning Shara sat in the main street outside the bakery, inhaling the delicious aroma of hot bread. Hex and Petunia panted lazily at her feet. She looked at her watch: six-thirty. Maybe Jess wasn't working today. She had already earned enough to pay for her new filly, Opal. Maybe she could no longer cope with selling stodgy white carbohydrates and had cut back on shifts. Shara pulled her phone from her bag and thumbed another message:

Where r u???

She decided to go in and buy a lime-green doughnut while she was waiting. At this hour of the morning, they'd be hot from the fryer. She could scoff it before Jess arrived to lecture her about the evils of artificial colourings and high GI.

A bell ding-a-linged as Shara pulled open the flyscreen door and stepped into the yeasty warmth of the bakery. She smiled hello to Jess's boss, who was busily bundling up two large bags of bread for a customer. ‘Hi, Chan. Jess working today?'

‘She should be here any minute,' answered Chan. As she spoke, the man she'd been serving tucked a bag under each arm and came away from the counter. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a lean face that seemed somehow familiar. Nudging the door open with his elbow, he squeezed out. There was a high-pitched yelp from outside.