Chapter Sixteen

‘We need to be certain this doesn’t leave any sort of permanent impact on the park,’ Dan said as he wiped the sweat from his eyes.

Justin grunted with effort as he thrust his fencing bar into the hole at his feet. Driven by muscle and two metres of heavy steel, the tapered end bit deep into the red earth. Justin used his weight to swing the bar back, causing the dry ground to crack and break. Nodding with satisfaction, he raised the digging tool from the hole. He let the tip touch the ground, and rested the bar against his shoulder.

‘Does a hole count?’ he asked, his dry lips moving in a weary smile.

Quinn’s hands ached for her camera. Instead, she was holding a shovel.

‘Isn’t there an easier way to do this?’ she asked.

It was hard to tell which of the four of them was sweating the most. Dan and Justin were digging post holes for the fence across the gorge. Carrie and Quinn were following behind them, upending the wooden fence posts into the holes, shovelling the dirt back in and tamping it in place. Carrie insisted that all the dirt should go back in the hole – despite the fact that a large wooden post seemed to fill most of the space. She wouldn’t let them move on to the next until that goal had been achieved. Carrie seemed to know what she was doing. Quinn had surreptitiously leaned against one of the posts, testing it. It had not moved a millimetre.

For her part, Quinn was simply unskilled labour. Holding tools, carrying and fetching as she was instructed. Despite all the time she’d spent photographing rural and remote places, she’d never built a stock fence before.

‘Well, there are portable stockyards,’ Carrie answered Quinn’s question. She put down her shovel and reached for the canvas water bag hanging in the shade of a nearby bush.

‘So why aren’t we using those?’ Quinn asked. ‘That sounds a lot easier.’

‘We are dealing with brumbies,’ Justin said, moving to take the bag from Carrie. He raised it above his head and directed the stream of cool clear water into his mouth.

‘So?’ Quinn didn’t understand.

‘Domesticated horses understand and respect fences,’ Carrie told her. ‘As long as it looks solid, they won’t test it.’

‘But a wild horse—’

‘Might just try to run straight through it. Portable yards might not be strong enough,’ Justin finished for her. ‘And there is one other small factor.’

‘Which is?’

‘We don’t have any.’

‘Ah. I could see that would be an issue.’

Quinn took the water bag and tried to emulate Justin’s feat of directing the cool stream straight into her mouth. She almost succeeded. A thin trickle of water dribbled down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Dan was beside her now, reaching for the water bag. Like the rest of them, he was wearing a sweat stained hat to protect him from the sun, and as little clothing as modesty allowed. On him, it looked pretty good.

They’d been working since early morning. The plan was to build a substantial fence across the narrowest part of the gorge. Something with wooden posts and rails, high and strong enough to block the herd of galloping brumbies. Where the sides of the gorge sloped steeply, but not quite steeply enough, Justin had decided that an easier fence of wire and metal posts would be enough to hold the horses. A second fence had to be built near the mouth of the gorge – to form the fourth side of their makeshift stockyard. This fence needed a wide gate that could be quickly closed after the brumbies had run through. It was hard, back-breaking work. And hot. But sharing made it seem easier. A sort of camaraderie was fast developing between the four of them as they divided the work according to their strengths.

Dan lifted his hat from his head and wiped his arms across his sweat streaked face. He squinted up at the sun.

‘We’ve got some time left,’ he said, and placed his hat back where it belonged. He and Justin turned back to the hole they were digging, the last needed for the rear fence. Quinn caught Carrie’s eye. She nodded in understanding and Quinn headed back to the campsite.

Quinn was an experienced camper. Despite her reservations about pitching camp in a dry creek bed, she had accepted Dan’s argument that millennia had passed since this gorge last ran with any real amount of water. She paused beside her tent and reached inside the flap. Her camera bag was where she had left it, in easy reach. She opened it and removed her camera. She checked the battery levels. When she had a moment, she would have to set up her solar panels to recharge both the camera batteries and her laptop. At least she didn’t have to worry about her phone. Out here there was no signal, so she had turned it off.

Moving up the side of the rocky slope, she took a couple of quick shots of the work unfolding below her. Still searching for the right angle for the best shot, she focussed on Dan. His muscles were clearly outlined as he swung a pick into the solid earth. He kept up the strong rhythmic movements for a few minutes and then paused, lifting his head to look up at the intensely blue sky. The strong lines of his face were silhouetted against the sky. His tanned skin glistening slightly with the sweat of labour.

Quinn’s camera clicked. And again. She felt two kinds of emotion. She had just taken a couple of great shots. Portrait photographers longed for shots like that. But there was some other emotion there as well, emotion arising from Dan, not the photographs.

The harsh crack of metal on metal rang through the gully. Quinn jumped, but that was nothing to Dan’s reaction. With movements almost too fast to follow, he spun and dropped into a crouch. In a second, the pick turned from a tool to a weapon. With her zoom lens, Quinn could see his face. There was a wildness there. And threat. Suddenly Dan looked like a dangerous man.

Quinn frowned as the loud metallic crack sounded again. Dan was looking carefully about, and suddenly his whole posture softened. Quinn followed his glance to the other side of the gully where Justin and Carrie were working on the metal fence posts. As she watched, Justin lifted a cylindrical post driver over his head, slamming it down again with enormous force and a loud crack.

When she looked back, Dan was back on the job, driving the pick into the baked earth with great strength. Quinn knew that the others hadn’t seen what she had.

But what exactly had she just seen? And for the second time? Dan had reacted in a similar way back at the billabong when they were swimming. She hadn’t given it much thought then. She’d been too disappointed that Dan had stepped away from her, when every fibre of her being had longed for him to kiss her.

Quinn had never been a war photographer, but she had travelled to a few disaster zones. She had seen the faces of people in shock in the immediate aftermath of a cyclone or fire. Dan’s face had looked a bit like that, but overlaid with a readiness to fight. How long was it, she wondered, since Dan had left the army? She wondered where he had served. The scars on his body suggested he’d been wounded in action. That probably meant Iraq or Afghanistan. What could have happened to him there to leave such a terrible scar on his psyche?

Dan slammed the pick into the earth with all the forces he could muster. He tugged the end free and swung it again. Sweat was pouring down his face, but he barely noticed. Again and again he swung the pick, before dropping it to begin shovelling the shattered earth from the rapidly growing hole.

Hard physical labour made it a little easier. When the sweat was in his eyes, he couldn’t see the little girl’s face. When his heart was pounding with effort, he couldn’t hear her screams. At least, that’s what he told himself. It didn’t always work.

Behind him, the sharp crack of metal on metal snapped back at him from the walls of the gorge. With difficulty he ignored it and kept on digging. He hoped the others hadn’t seen his reaction a few minutes ago. They were civilians. They could never understand. Hell, nobody did. The army doctors thought they did. But they weren’t there. They didn’t see or hear that little girl. How could they possibly understand?

‘Hey, Dan. I think that’ll do.’

Dan stopped in mid-swing. He looked at Justin and then down at the hole at his feet. It was a very deep hole.

‘It’s the last one. I wanted to be sure,’ Dan said, stepping back. He laid down his shovel and he and Justin quickly heaved the fence post into place. It stood at a drunken angle against the side of the whole.

‘Have you two got this one?’ Justin asked, squinting up at the sun. ‘Carrie and I need to get underway if we’re going to get back to my place with enough daylight to do what has to be done.’

‘Sure, we’ve got it,’ Quinn said joining them. ‘I’m an expert at this. So, Dan, if you’re not sure, I can tell you exactly what to do.’

She was smiling as she said it. She was so obviously enjoying herself. Dan was amazed. Not many women he had ever met would have taken it upon themselves to organise a rescue mission for a herd of wild bush horses. Even fewer would have been prepared to get their hands dirty doing it. And Quinn was probably the only one who would look so good when she was that dirty and sweaty.

‘Okay. We’re off.’ Justin started to walk away, Carrie a step or two behind him.

‘See you two tomorrow,’ Quinn called after them.

‘Shall we get this done?’ Dan asked as he picked up the shovel.

Quinn took hold of the post and pushed it until it was in a proper vertical position. Dan shovelled the soil he had so recently removed back around the base of the post. When Quinn was certain the post wasn’t going to tilt, she picked up the fencing bar and reversed it in her hands. Then she began using the flattened end to tamp down the loose soil. They soon fell into a smooth rhythm. Dan shovelling and Quinn tamping. Dan was very conscious of Quinn’s heavy breathing as she worked every bit as hard as him. Then it was done. They both stepped back to admire their handiwork.

The line of posts stretched across the gorge – perfectly straight. At least as far as the unaided eye could tell.

‘Now all we need are some rails, and we’ll be halfway there,’ Dan said.

‘Then there’s just the small matter of catching the horses,’ Quinn said, wiping the sweat from her face.

‘Hey, that’s up to Justin and Carrie,’ Dan countered.

‘I have a feeling it’s not going to work quite like that.’

Taking the tools with them, they headed back towards their campsite, collecting the canvas water bag on the way. They quickly divested themselves of their tools, and both took long draughts of the cool water.

‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ Quinn said easily. ‘But I wouldn’t mind washing off some of this sweat and dirt.’

‘Do you want to go back to the ranger station? There’s a shower there.’

‘Not really. I was thinking we could use the billabong. Like yesterday. Then, if you’re lucky, I might fix you some of the food that Trish sent.’

Images of the previous evening flashed through his mind. Quinn stripping off for her swim. The water on her silky skin. The unwanted feelings that she aroused in him.

He should say no.

‘That’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’