Next morning, the rain was gone, the water soaked up by the thirsty ground, leaving little trace of the storm during the night.
‘Come on, Sam!’ cried George, bursting into his room when it was still dark. ‘Let’s get going – it’ll be too hot to ride far soon!’
Sam had not slept at all well. The strangeness of his dream had kept him awake through the night. He rolled out of bed, got dressed, and followed the sound of voices to the kitchen, where Tess and Darcy were already packing some lunch.
‘Hey, you’re slow today. I thought you’d be out catching the horses by now,’ said Darcy as he put apples and oranges into a backpack. ‘Are you going to ride Saxon?’
Sam shook cornflakes into a bowl and splashed some milk over them. He really didn’t feel very hungry.
‘Yeah, I guess so. Mum hasn’t ridden him for a while and he needs a good walk, she said. Who do you want to ride?’
Darcy shrugged. ‘Gidget’s getting a bit small for me. I’d rather ride something with a bit more pace, like Saxon.’
Tess rolled her eyes at her brother.
‘Gee, Darce, you think you’re such an ace rider. You know you couldn’t ride Saxon in a fit! And Aunty Sarah’d never let you anyway.’
‘Shut up, Tess! I could so ride him if I had the chance. I’m as good a rider as Sam. I just don’t get to do it as often. Anyway, I didn’t mean I wanted to ride Saxon today. Sam’s taking him. I could ride Toby. Or Sabre.’ Darcy looked at Sam, who frowned at his cereal bowl.
‘You could take Sabre. He’s a bit harder to hold than Gidget, so you’ll have to watch him. We’re not going to be doing any racing though – it’s too hot, and it’ll knock the horses around. Dad said we can go so long as we rest up in the middle of the day, and take the saddles off them at the lake.’
George came back into the kitchen with Old Jock the Fencer, and grinned broadly at the others.
‘We caught all the horses already, so hurry up, you mob – the day’s nearly over! Mum and Dad have already gone out checking the bores, and you’re still mucking around here like a lot of old grannies.’
Jock poured himself a cup of tea, and sat next to Sam at the table.
‘Now you keep an eye on these young ’uns, Sam, me lad. Yer mum ’n dad won’t be real pleased if you don’t all come back in one piece. They said they’d be back by dark, so make sure yer home before ’em, or we’ll all be in hot water.’
Jock helped with the saddling up, and they were gone before the sun had risen more than a finger width above the horizon. It was only about ten kilometres out to the lake, an easy walk while it was still fairly cool. Sam led the way on Saxon, his mother’s big brown stallion, stretching out an easy swinging pace that the other horses followed. Darcy was riding Sabre, but eyed Sam jealously, unable to keep from feeling bitter about everyone regarding him as a lesser rider than his cousin. Tess was beside Sam on Shona, a quiet chestnut mare with a white nose and a sweet nature, while George brought up the rear on Gidget, a step up for him from little fat Polly. George liked horses well enough, but he really thought that motor vehicles were the only way to travel. ‘At least with cars you’ve got proper brakes and steering,’ he would argue. ‘The brakes and steering on a horse don’t always work like they’re supposed to.’
Sam was tired. He slumped a little in the saddle as he settled into the rhythm of the stallion’s gait, and thought over the strange dream of the previous night. It must have been a combination of the stories Vincent had told them the other night, and not enough sleep, and a good deal of feeling guilty about the cave in the first place, he decided. They shouldn’t have been up there, and they’d be in heaps of trouble if anyone found out. But he had to go back to the cave; it was something he felt both compelled and afraid to do.
They walked along at a steady pace, chatting idly, enjoying the early morning coolness and the freshness of the air after the night’s rain. Corellas and cockatoos screeched from the trees above them, interspersed with raucous kookaburras and softly cooing doves. Time was stretching out like a long rubber band. Sam felt as if he had been rolling along on his horse for centuries, as if he was walking back into history, and he wasn’t surprised when the old black man stepped out from behind a tree as he rounded the next bend, holding out his hand with the coloured stone in it. As Sam leant over to take the stone from him, the old man grabbed his arm and jerked him hard –
‘Whoah, Sam! Are you okay? You looked like you were falling off!’
Tess’s face swam into view as Sam blinked and shook his head. He was seated on Saxon still, Tess had hold of his arm, and the old man was nowhere to be seen. A black and white bird flew into the branches of a nearby tree.
‘Jeez, I must’ve dozed off. I’m pretty tired – didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.’
Tess frowned at him and leaned towards him. ‘You’re not getting sick, are you? You look a bit pale. Do you want to go home?’
‘No way! I’m fine. I just got a bit sleepy, that’s all. Come on, let’s go.’
He nudged Saxon into a walk again, and shook his head. Why did he keep dreaming about this old man and the stone? It was all really strange.
Tess looked at him doubtfully, but rode along beside him. George and Darcy had overtaken them and were a few hundred metres further ahead. They ambled along for another hour or so, then angled off the road onto a track that wound through bushes and trees until it abruptly crested a hill and the lake was below them, a slab of silver glass in a green frame. A gate barred their way.
‘Where’s all the buffalo?’ asked Darcy as George opened the gate to let them ride through. ‘Aren’t they usually hanging around this lake?’
‘We fenced it off a couple of months ago. Dad said they were muddying it up too much, so now we pump the water into a trough outside the fence. He said that way the wildlife and the birds can still get a drink.’ George made a face. ‘Stinkin’ Jerry next door said we were just wasting money, that the buffalo were more important than a bunch of wallabies and parrots. Reckons he could show us how to run a buffalo station properly. I’d like to show him something one day …’ and he kicked the gatepost.
At the lake they unsaddled the sweating horses and let them drink, and then tethered them in the shade. George and Darcy lit a fire, and they boiled a billy to make some tea. They sat in the shade for a while, talking and eating and drinking tea from pannikins.
‘Let’s walk around the lake,’ said Tess. ‘I haven’t been here for so long, I’d forgotten how pretty it is.’ She stood up, picking up her hat, and Darcy and George joined her.
‘Come on, Sam!’
‘Nah, I’m going to have a sleep. I’m stuffed.’
And Sam pulled his hat over his face and lay back in the shade on the grass. The others wandered off, and Sam listened to their voices receding as he faded off to sleep.
‘Sam! Sam, wake up!’
Sam was jerked from a deep and dreamless sleep by Tess shaking him.
‘Where’s Darcy?’
‘Darcy? He went off with you guys, didn’t he?’ Sam struggled to sit up, rubbing his face and blinking at her.
‘That was ages ago,’ said George. ‘He didn’t want to go all the way round the lake with us. Didn’t he come back here?’
Sam got to his feet. ‘I’ve been asleep since you left.’ He stared around at the bush, the lake, their backpacks on the ground, the horses in the shade of the trees …
‘Oh no …’
‘What? Can you see something?’ Tess tried to see what he was looking at.
‘Saxon’s missing too!’ Sam was worried now. ‘Darcy must’ve taken him for a ride while I was asleep! Stupid idiot – he’ll get himself killed!’
They saddled up the other horses while Sam scouted around and found a set of fresh hoof prints leading away from them. They followed a rough track through the trees, winding and twisting for a couple of kilometres. It took them ages to follow the hoof prints, picking their way slowly and carefully, making sure they didn’t miss anything.
‘Oh no!’ said Sam, pulling his horse up and bending down to look at the ground. ‘He’s not walking anymore. Saxon’s started to gallop …’
At last they came upon Saxon standing quietly under a tree. Nearby, looking ashamed and defiant at the same time, was Darcy. He was huddled on the ground nursing his arm, and had a cut on his head which was bleeding profusely down the side of his face.
‘Darcy!’ Tess jumped off her horse and hurried over to her brother. ‘Are you all right? How could you be so stupid! You could have been killed, you idiot! Let me look at your head.’ She parted his hair and inspected the damage. ‘It’s not a deep cut but it might need stitching. We’ll have to get you home now.’
Sam and George helped him to his feet. ‘Ow!’ cried Darcy. ‘My arm really hurts!’
‘Great! Broken arm as well. You’re a star, Darce. We’ll probably never be allowed out on our own again after this. What happened?’ Tess was really angry.
Darcy tried to look defiant, but his voice came out as a squeak. ‘Well, Sam wouldn’t have let me ride Saxon if I’d asked him …’
‘I told you, he’s really fussy about who gets on him.’ Sam was inspecting Saxon, and satisfied himself that the stallion was unharmed. ‘It’s not me who wouldn’t let you ride him, it’s Saxon.’
‘Come on, let’s go home. We’ll probably be grounded for a hundred years now,’ predicted George gloomily. ‘Good on you, Darce.’
It seemed to take forever to walk back to the lake, pack up their things and make their way home. They walked the horses slowly so as not to jar Darcy’s arm too much, stopping several times to give him a drink of water, and arrived home just after dark. Mac and Sarah were home already, so all hell, as they had expected, broke loose. Sarah drove Darcy into Darwin to the hospital straight away. Sam and Tess went with her, while George elected to stay at home with Mac.
They arrived in town late that night, and after getting Darcy’s arm seen to at the hospital, they stayed at the Munros’ house in Fannie Bay. If the empty house and his broken arm made Darcy miss his parents, he was too ashamed of himself to mention it. The next morning was Saturday. Sarah had to take Darcy back to the hospital, so Sam and Tess decided to go to the markets. As they walked along the streets to the Parap village centre, Tess remembered something.
‘Hey – we found some funny stuff at the lake yesterday. I guess I forgot to tell you in all the rush. After Darcy left us, George and I kept walking and we came across this pile of dead birds.’
‘Dead birds? Why were they dead?’
‘We couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like they’d been shot or anything; there was no blood. Just these little bodies all heaped together near the lake. Still pretty fresh – I mean, nothing had been eating them yet, so they couldn’t have been dead for too long.’
‘What kind of birds were they?’
‘A bit of everything, really – a few peaceful doves, some bronzewings, some finches, a couple of parrots. I think there were about fifteen or twenty altogether. There was one of those banded fruit doves, too.’
Sam looked at Tess. Something prickled at the back of his mind. ‘That’s funny … What would kill that many birds in one spot?’
‘That’s not all we found,’ Tess went on. ‘Further round the lake we saw all these tyre tracks, and a campsite, where someone had a fire. Some beer cans too. And we found a big sinker. George picked it up. He said you’d found one like it down at the Pocket a few weeks ago?’
‘Yeah, I did. Dad thought it was a fishing sinker, but he wasn’t too worried about it. Hah – maybe some tourists were trying to catch a fish in the lake. Or it could have been those pig shooters that Old Vincent was talking about.’
‘I suppose so. Still, I wonder what could have killed those birds?’
They walked on in silence till they reached the markets. The humid air was heavy with spicy fragrances and the crowded stalls bright with colourful vegetables and fruits. Sam ordered stuffed chicken wings, and a steaming bowl of seafood laksa while Tess lined up for a vegetarian Laotian pancake. Balancing a tofu curry and a pawpaw salad as well, she joined Sam at a wooden table under a shady rain-tree.
‘I wonder where Charles is?’ said Sam when they’d finished eating. ‘I can’t see his plant stall around …’
Tess scanned the busy stalls and shook her head. ‘Let’s ask the guy who was next to him the other week.’
They wandered over to where a man was chopping green coconuts with an extremely large machete.
‘The bonsai bloke? Ah, he’s the mystery man,’ laughed the coconut chopper. ‘Never know when he’ll turn up next. Always out bush – don’t know how he stays in business! Some people have it easy, not like the rest of us who have a job during the week as well. He could be here next Saturday, if you want to try then, but I can’t promise you anything. Want to buy a coconut drink?’
They had a last look around the markets, bought a mango smoothie each and headed back to Tess’s house.
‘That sleazy little bloke who knocked Aunty Sarah’s crystal into the gutter isn’t here either, so I suppose that’s a plus,’ noted Tess as they left.
On the way home they took a different route, and found themselves walking past Charles’s house.
‘Why don’t we go in and say hello?’ suggested Tess. ‘Ask him why he’s not at the markets.’
‘Maybe his van fell off another cliff,’ muttered Sam.
Charles wasn’t home. In fact the house looked completely deserted. But as they were leaving the verandah, Sam grabbed Tess’s arm. ‘Look! There’s some of those same sinkers we’ve found out at the station!’
On a table near the doorway, amongst some bonsais and earthenware pots, was a small wooden box containing about a dozen large steel shapes.
‘But sinkers must be a dime a dozen. Everyone who goes fishing must have them.’
‘No,’ Sam was adamant. ‘Dad said they were unusual – much bigger than normal ones. Doesn’t it seem a bit of a coincidence that the same sinkers are here too, if they’re so unusual? I don’t know about Charles, he seems suss to me. He really sat up and listened when he heard the name of our place. And remember how weird he was about the birds, how he corrected George about the “branded” fruit dove, and then said he’d never heard of it? Nah, he’s up to something.’
‘Sam, I think you’re getting a bit carried away. He most likely heard of Brumby Plains somewhere else. And I think he just made a mistake with the bird name. Why should that make him some kind of criminal anyway? He seemed like a nice harmless man. A bit on the nutty side, maybe, but I really don’t think there’s anything sinister about him.’
They arrived back at the station to find George bursting to tell them some news. ‘While you were in town, Stinkin’ Jerry came over. He was complaining to Dad that the fence was down again between him and us past the Pocket, and practically accused Dad of mustering his paddock there!’
Sam swore. ‘Like Dad really needs something else to worry about right now. As if he’d ever do anything like that!’
‘Sounds much more like something Stinkin’ Jerry would do,’ put in Darcy, but everyone ignored him. He was still unpopular, as they’d all been grounded for the next few days so that Darcy’s arm would have a chance to mend.
‘Jeez, anyone’d think we broke his arm for him,’ said George when he heard. ‘Can I break his other one? Then I might feel better about having to stay home!’
Tess asked George, ‘So what’s Uncle Mac going to do about it?’
‘Nothing. We went down there later on and had a look, but there weren’t any buffalo tracks. Dad thinks it’s probably some pig shooters. Stinkin’ Jerry’s just trying to cause trouble. He knows we haven’t mustered for a month or more, anyway. He had that dopey looking Nigel with him too, and you’ll never guess who else – that sleazy guy from the markets, the one who bumped into you, Sam!’
‘How come he knows the O’Dearns?’ said Tess.
‘They know all kinds of sleazy people,’ said Sam disgustedly.
‘There was one good thing though,’ George said, brightening up considerably. ‘They brought one of their pig dogs with them, that ugly brindle thing with half an ear missing? He jumped out of their ute and growled at Dad, and Zac flew into him and gave him a flogging! Now he’s got two half-ears!’
That night Mac and Sarah looked very unhappy and didn’t eat much before excusing themselves from the dinner table and going into the office. Even Old Jock wasn’t himself. He watched Mac and Sarah leave the table, and muttered, ‘Flamin’ mongrel banks. Never trust a bank, I always say. They lend yez just enough rope for a good hangin’, and then they sell tickets to it.’
Sam looked at him. ‘What’s the story with Stinkin’ Jerry? George said he came over on Saturday.’
‘That lousy cur reckons we took the fence down to muster his paddock! As if we’d be wantin’ his stinkin’ buffalo, with their bones pokin’ through their hides. Anyway, any fool could see there was only a few tyre tracks going through, no buffalo. Someone’s bin nosin’ around down there, but blowed if I know who.’ With that Jock got up from the table and went out, muttering to himself about lowlanders and cattle thieves.
George grinned at Sam and said, ‘Sounds like there’ll be a replay of the Highland battles again tonight, laddie!’ Jock was famous for getting drunk when there was a problem, and confusing the Campbells and MacDonalds with the O’Dearns and the McAllisters.
‘Have you told Uncle Mac about the dead birds and the camp at the lake, Sam?’ Tess asked.
‘No,’ replied Sam with a sigh. ‘I think he’s got too much on his plate right now. It’s probably only pig shooters anyway.’
With that they cleared the table and did the dishes, while making snide remarks about people with broken arms who conveniently got out of work.