WHEN JESS ARRIVED HOME, Caroline had fifty conniptions. She buried Jess’s swollen face under a packet of frozen broad beans and raced her off to the closest hospital. After several hours in the waiting room among vomiting, bleeding and groaning people, Jess was sent home with a fresh icepack and some painkillers and told to rest for a week.
Craig hit the roof. First he rang Shara’s mum, ranting about Shara being so irresponsible. Then he stormed down to the police station to have Lawson Blake arrested.
The next day the police paid a visit to Lawson, who came up with some half-baked story about his cattle – the same story that he phoned Craig with afterwards, smarmily apologising and inviting him over to ‘discuss it’.
Now, two days later, her parents seemed to think Jess was having some sort of breakdown because of Diamond. Her father was making appointments with school counsellors and psychologists, while Caroline insisted she needed a spiritual healer. Jess was refusing point-blank to go and see any of them. With only a week left until the summer holidays, she told her parents she would be fine so long as she had that week off school.
Buzz rumble.
Shara: we need to talk
Jess flipped her phone shut.
‘I hope she gets into that stupid school,’ she grumbled to herself. ‘I hope I never have to talk to her again! For at least a month!’
Jess would be only too happy to lock herself in her bedroom and never come out again, but her parents were adamant that she keep up with her chores, and for some perverse reason that included looking after Dodger. Some stupid ‘getting back on the horse’ way of thinking – obviously thought up by someone who had never ridden a horse, let alone fallen off one, and definitely had never been headbutted by a total psycho like Dodger.
But her protests only earned her a karmic forgiveness lecture from Caroline. ‘You must cultivate love, darling; fight evil with goodness. Don’t destroy yourself with anger.’
The lecture made Jess feel even crankier. In the end she gave up protesting, choosing instead to storm to her room and count her miseries. She couldn’t believe they’d listened to that Lawson Blake. They needed to wake up and smell the gunpowder.
In the afternoon, at her father’s insistence, she set about fixing the fence that Dodger had broken. Hateful creature!
She pulled some pliers from her back pocket and twisted the wire back to keep it off the ground. That horse just had no respect for fences. He had no respect for anything.
Two horses walked down the road towards her. She recognised their riders: Rosie and Grace Arnold from Valley View Pony Club. The two sisters had the same tawny-blonde hair, olive skin and brown eyes. She had seen them at gymkhanas many times but had never actually spoken to them. In Coachwood Crossing, everyone knew everyone. Or at least, everyone knew everything about everyone.
Jess knew that the Arnolds had a stud farm and bred Australian stockhorses. Rosie was the elder sister and she always rode a chestnut horse called Buster. Grace was younger and never rode the same horse twice. Their stud farm, Jess imagined, must be huge.
Rosie sat neatly in the saddle with her heels down and her back straight. A short riding crop sat at a perfect angle across her thigh and a tidy plait poked out below her helmet. Buster’s saddlecloth was clean, blue and matched his shin boots.
Grace wore jeans that looked like they had been worn for days. She held her reins in one hand and kicked her gangly-legged grey horse up into the uneven trot typical of a freshly started mount.
As the sisters approached, it became obvious they were going to stop and say hello. Jess considered fleeing but realised she had left her run too late.
Oh, great, I look like the elephant man.
‘Hi.’ She looked away, trying to hide her face.
‘Hello,’ said Rosie, bringing her horse to a halt. Both girls loosened their reins and allowed their horses to stretch their necks and pick at the grass. ‘Horse go through the fence?’
Jess fiddled needlessly in her pocket. ‘A rather large goat, actually. Probably wanted to pick at the lucerne trees.’
‘You’re Jess, aren’t you? You go to Coachwood Pony Club.’
‘Yep.’ Jess couldn’t justify fiddling in her pocket any longer and looked up. ‘Rosie and Grace, right?’
‘Kwor! What happened to your eye?’ Grace gawked shamelessly.
‘Yes, I’m Rosie and this is my sister, Grace. Sorry about her.’
Grace barged on, ignoring Rosie. ‘So what happened?’
‘A horse reared up in my face.’
‘Did you fall off?’
‘No.’
Grace looked approving.
‘We were really sorry to hear about Diamond,’ said Rosie.
‘Yeah, that sounded terrible,’ said Grace. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we heard about it.’
‘We used to love watching her jump at gymkhanas. She could jump so high for such a small horse,’ said Rosie. ‘We used to run over and watch when your name was called.’
‘And you guys were amazing at mounted games,’ Grace chipped in. ‘How do you do all that vaulting on and off?’
‘Grace is your secret admirer,’ said Rosie.
‘As if!’ Grace snorted and then changed the subject. ‘So, are you going to get another horse?’
Jess shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
Buzz, rumble.
Jess ignored it.
‘You’re so nosy, Grace,’ said Rosie.
‘What?’ said Grace. ‘It’s just a question.’
Rosie looked at Jess. ‘You’re so lucky you don’t have to put up with a little sister.’
‘Umm.’ Jess wasn’t sure what to say. ‘So, what did you hear about Diamond’s accident? Who told you about it?’
‘Tegan Broadhead reckons she was stuck in the cattle grid for hours and there was blood everywhere and her legs were nearly ripped right—’ ‘Grace!’ Rosie hissed.
Grace quickly changed tack. ‘But I wouldn’t believe anything Tegan says. She’s a real troublemaker.’
Jess steeled herself. She had to know the details. ‘Was Tegan there? Did she say how Diamond got out of her paddock in the first place?’
The two sisters went quiet.
‘What?’ Jess pressed. ‘You know something. What happened?’
‘No, really,’ said Rosie, ‘that’s all we heard. They said that she was found lying in the cattle grid and she was badly injured. Was that your phone before?’
‘It was Shara Wilson’s horse that hunted her through the cattle grid. Tell her about that,’ said Grace.
‘What?’ Jess was stunned. ‘Rocko?’
Katrina’s words echoed in her ears.
Why don’t we just toss it out onto the river flats and let other people’s horses chase it through a cattle grid?
Rosie turned to her sister and spoke with gritted teeth. ‘Grace! Tegan was just making trouble when she said that. Don’t go spreading stuff around when it’s probably not true.’
‘But Tegan said she saw it,’ said Grace. ‘So did Katrina.’
‘They saw it? What? Were they there when it happened?’ Jess pressed urgently for more.
Buzz rumble.
She flipped her phone open impatiently.
Shara: meet me down at drover’s yards, jess,
pleeease!!!
Jess’s mind raced back to the accident.
Where was Rocko? I didn’t see him. Where was he?
She stared at the screen of her phone. Surely it couldn’t be true.
Jess looked up at Rosie. ‘Were Tegan and Katrina there when it happened?’
‘They were passing on gossip, that’s all,’ said Rosie. ‘I don’t know for sure if they were there or not. But I do know that I wouldn’t trust anything they had to say. They’re trouble, those two – nasty trouble.’
Jess tried to untangle her thoughts. She didn’t know what to believe. Five days ago her life had made perfect sense. Now it was all jumbled. She just couldn’t believe that Shara would keep something like that from her. She wouldn’t just leave Diamond lying in a cattle grid. Jess opened her phone, brought Shara’s message back up and punched in a direct question.
did rocko chase diamond thru that grid?
She snapped her phone shut and stared back up at Rosie and Grace. ‘I’d better get back to fixing this fence,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘I’ll see you around.’
‘You can tighten that wire up with a stick. Want me to show you?’ said Rosie, slipping off her horse and picking a stick up off the ground, which she began to twist around the wire. ‘This is an old bushie’s trick that Harry taught me.’
‘Who’s Harry?’
Jess watched Rosie turn the stick like a tap. The strand of wire began twisting around and around itself, pulling tighter and tighter.
‘He’s our uncle,’ said Rosie.
‘Yeah, that’s where we’re going now,’ said Grace, ‘if we ever get there.’
‘He breeds stockhorses. We’re just on our way to see his foals. He has eight of them.’ Rosie stood back and viewed the fence with a satisfied look on her face. ‘Hey, why don’t you come with us? Come and see the foals.’
‘Yeah,’ said Grace. ‘They are sooo cute.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t have a horse to ride.’
‘You could walk,’ shrugged Rosie. ‘If you get tired, you can jump on the back of Buster.’ She gave her horse a slap on the rump. ‘He’s real comfy!’
Jess’s head was still reeling with images of Rocko chasing Diamond. ‘Hey?’
Rosie patted Buster’s rump again.
‘I look like a freak,’ said Jess.
‘Don’t worry about it. The foals won’t care,’ said Rosie.
‘Maybe next week.’
‘Nup,’ said Rosie. ‘You gotta see them when they’re newborn. They won’t be the same in a week. They won’t be all funny and wobbly.’
‘Just jump on Buster,’ said Grace. ‘He won’t hurt you. He’s built for comfort, not speed – that’s what Dad reckons!’ She began making pig noises.
‘Shut up, Grace,’ grumbled Rosie.
‘Well, I’m kinda grounded too.’ Jess could hear herself making excuses. That last one wasn’t even true. But she hadn’t planned on having a good day today. She had planned on being miserable. Right now she was downright angry.
‘Okay, but we better get going, because we told Harry we’d be there before lunch,’ said Rosie, putting her foot in the stirrup and climbing back on her horse.
‘Wait. I just . . .’
She just what? What was her problem? Was she seriously planning to miss out on eight newborn foals?
‘Hang on. I’ll get my bike.’ Jess switched her phone off and shoved it back in her pocket. She could think about Shara later.