LUKE STAGGERED TO the river, sank to his knees and scooped handfuls of water over his head and face, washing off the blood. His lip was swollen and his cheek felt puffy, but the swelling would go down in a couple of days. He knew that Lawson could have done much better if he’d wanted to; the fact that he’d held back was all the more insulting. But it wasn’t the punch that stung the most.
You wanna be a Blake, you gotta earn the name.
The river churned in time with the churning in Luke’s gut. He splashed more water over the back of his neck and let it run down his spine, then some more over his face and eyes, so he couldn’t tell if he was crying or not.
‘Luke.’ It was Jess.
‘Not now, Jessy,’ he choked out. He didn’t want her seeing him like this. He didn’t want anyone seeing him like this: exposed, stripped bare of everything, his family, his dignity. He didn’t even have a shirt on.
She was still standing there. He could feel her staring at him. ‘Get away from me!’ he yelled.
There was silence, and then he heard her walk away. He wanted to call out to her to come back. God, he didn’t mean to say that to her. But he couldn’t. If he tried to speak he knew nothing would come out but big sobs.
Maybe Lawson was right. He wasn’t a Blake. He didn’t belong around here at all.
He ran his hands into the coarse river sand and squeezed its coolness through his fingers. It felt good, comforting. He ran his hands in deeper, up to his elbows, and then began digging until he lay with his entire body encased in the watery river sand, and the familiar comfort of the Coachwood River.
Luke didn’t know what time of night it was when he eventually hosed the sand off himself in the horse wash before heading back to the stables. He knew what he had to do.
Most of the people had gone home, except for a few at the far end of the arena. He heard Ryan’s voice among them as he walked through the feedroom and out the door into the courtyard. He crawled through his bedroom window, and paused to listen before he opened the door and walked three steps up the hall and into the bathroom.
He stared at his bruised face in the mirror. There was dried blood around the corner of his mouth, and he had mud caked in his hair. He turned on the tap and squeezed his head into the sink, scratching at the clump of mud and rubbing the blood off his lip. He towelled off his hair and stared back at the boy in the mirror, stringy and lean with lumpy ribs.
He searched through the cupboard and found a small pair of hair-trimming clippers. Holding his fringe off his forehead, he began to cut with long, slow strokes, letting the thick clumps of hair fall down onto his feet.
Back in his room, he towelled off and got dressed. In the old Queen Anne dresser, he searched for his pocketknife, wallet, some matches, an aluminium water bottle, and a spare shirt. He found a scrap of paper and wrote a quick note.
Annie. I’ll be in touch, Luke.
There was so much more he wanted to say to her, so many reasons to say thanks and sorry. But he couldn’t begin to put it into words. For the moment, he hoped she would understand and not be hurt.
Luke didn’t know where he would go, exactly. But he did know that he wasn’t going to hang around and be assessed and re-homed like a lost dog. The only true family he had was horses, and he was going to find them, find some brumbies. Brumbies were wild and free and owned by no one.
He could go south, down to the Snowies; he knew there were plenty down there. Lawson’s first horse, Dusty, had been a brumby foal from down that way, and he reckoned it was the toughest and most honest horse he had ever owned. Its feet were like iron, he said, and never needed shoeing, even for rocky ground. Brumbies had bred by natural selection in some of the toughest country in Australia.
But that cold mountain country didn’t call to Luke the way outback Queensland did. Queensland had brumbies too, plenty of them. Lawson reckoned he’d seen thousands of them, roaming free in big mobs in and out of the stations. He said the station owners heli-mustered them sometimes – many of them never recovered from the long hot gallop and died days later, but the ones that did made good honest horses.
Luke threw his things into a backpack and as he went to close the dresser drawer, he saw a photo of his mother. He held the photo to his face for a moment, then placed it carefully back in the drawer. Shoving the wallet into his back pocket, he stuffed a small blanket into the pack, slung it over his shoulders and slid open the sash window.
Jess was in the mares’ paddock, a curled-up figure sitting against a fence post in the dark.
‘How come you’re not at the wake?’ Luke asked, letting himself through the gate.
She didn’t answer him.
He sat down next to her and although she didn’t speak, he could feel her, the warmth that flowed out of her. She was loved, loveable. She came from a different world to him. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
But still Jess didn’t answer him. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking. He could tell she was crying and he wanted to hug her, soothe her, the way he did with young horses.
Luke sat watching the black outline of a mare in the paddock, and felt suddenly exhausted. He could have lain down right there and fallen asleep under the shattered glass of the stars, with no need to talk.
Instead, he put his arms around his knees and stared up into the sky, wondering how he could have stuffed up so much in such a short time. A cloud floated away from the big silvery moon, and as though someone had pulled a cloth from over a lamp, light ran over him.
‘What did you do to your face?’ asked Jess suddenly.
Luke’s hand flew to his cheek. It was puffy and his lip was swollen, but he was surprised that she could see it in the dark. Curse the moon. ‘Umm . . .’
He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, so he sat there in silence, feeling a wave of shame wash over him.
‘Something’s really wrong, isn’t it? What happened? Did someone get drunk and hit you?’
‘No.’
‘Who did that to you?’
‘I did it to myself.’
And with that, the questions stopped. She must have realised it was something bad.
‘I’m taking off for a bit.’
‘Where?’ she asked. Her voice got squeaky. ‘Where are you going? Are you coming back?’
He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘Luke?’
‘I don’t know, Jessy.’ It was all he could say. He wanted to sit there and pour it all out, offload it, but he didn’t even know where to begin. ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’
‘Tell me what’s happened.’
‘I’m not going to let them send me to another foster home.’
‘What do you mean? This is your home. Harry’s . . .’
Her voice faded to momentary silence as reality hit home. ‘Oh, Luke . . .’
He stood up and arranged his pack on his shoulders. ‘Just wanted to say bye.’
‘Luke, no. Lawson wouldn’t let that happen.’
Oh, yes he would. Now he would. I’ve stuffed up everything.
Jess’s eyes ran over his face. ‘Oh my God, did Lawson do that to you?’
‘I told you, I did it to myself. I hit him first.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘I’ve got to go, Jessy. I just wanted to come and say goodbye.’
She stood up and faced him. ‘Shouldn’t you sleep it off and decide in the morning, when you’re not so upset?’
‘Sleep?’ He couldn’t help laughing. ‘I’m not good at sleeping.’
‘I don’t want you to go.’
Luke started walking. He felt a tremendous pulling in his gut. He had to get out of there before she convinced him to stay.
‘Luke!’
He spun around. ‘What?’
She untied something from around her neck and held it out to him. ‘Take my moonstone.’ She shrugged. ‘They’re supposed to give you beautiful dreams. So Mum reckons, anyway. Never know, might help you sleep better.’
It was a pale oval-shaped stone, hung on a thin leather strap. He moved it around in his fingers and felt its smoothness.
‘Promise me you’ll come back,’ she whispered.
He could hear the tears in her words, but he didn’t answer. How could he promise her that?
‘Luke?’
‘I’ll see you again, Jess,’ he said. ‘Promise.’