LUKE RAN TO catch up with Tyson, who was setting a fast pace. ‘Why did you call me a furry boy?’
‘That’ll come,’ said Tyson in a voice that told him to be patient. He walked with his hands in his pockets. ‘Now, tell me more about these horses, Luke. What’s going on with you and these horses?’
Luke talked. The words came tumbling out as he told Tyson about the photos of his parents, about the horse-gentling program and what Harry had taught him, about Legs, his favourite colt, and about the calmness horses gave him. He talked of Jess and her filly, the min min lights and how they disappeared into the belly of the mare.
Tyson stopped walking and looked him dead in the eye. ‘Okay, Luke, so you’re not just pony club here.’
‘I’ve never been to pony club,’ said Luke.
‘Not just stockman, either,’ Tyson continued. ‘The way you have with these horses. You’ve got dream there, you and this Jess girl. You’re stepping into things you got no idea about.’
‘Dream? Why, because of the min min lights?’ Luke put his hands in the air, totally confused. ‘Why don’t you like horses?’
Tyson screwed up his face. ‘It just sounds like purri purri to me.’
‘You think I’m cursed too?’ Luke would have laughed if Tyson hadn’t looked so deadly serious. He screwed up his nose. ‘They’re just horses!’
Tyson shook his head. ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you? You got that big horse dream kicking around inside you, and you got no idea what to do with it. You don’t know who you are or where you’re from.’
‘You’re right, I don’t,’ Luke said flatly.
‘That dream you got inside you, that could be your old ones, trying to claim you.’
‘Old ones?’
‘Yeah, like your ancestors.’
‘I’m not Aboriginal,’ said Luke. ‘I don’t have ancestors in the land who look after me.’
‘You don’t need to be Aboriginal. If you can find that connection with the land, you can link back to your own ancestors, find your own way. Way back in iron-age Britain, there were tribes of horsemen. They were warriors, Luke. They had red hair, just like you, and they fought the Romans. Their totem was horse and wolf.’
‘My hair’s not red.’
Tyson rolled his eyes. ‘What, is it strawberry-blonde, then? You a pretty boy or something?’
‘It’s just brown . . . kinda reddish-brown.’
‘Chestnut, like a horse, whatever,’ said Tyson. ‘Come, walk with me, I’ll show you some things.’
Luke folded his arms across his chest and stood his ground.
‘What?’ asked Tyson.
‘We’re not going to find British ancestors in Australia.’
‘Maybe we won’t. Maybe we will. Maybe we’ll find a connection that runs right through to the navel of the world at Uluru, and from there to England.’
Luke unfolded his arms and followed Tyson reluctantly. Iron-age warriors. This ought to be good.
‘Now, this thing I’m showing you, it’s not sorcery – none of that dirty stuff. This is just how people connect.’ Tyson gestured for Luke to come up beside him. ‘Look how you’re walking! Do you even know where you’re putting your feet?’
Luke looked down at his feet, as he picked his way over the rough ground. They were lily-white and stinging from all the sticks and brambles and stones.
Tyson stopped again. ‘Put your feet on the ground.’ He put his hands on Luke’s shoulders and repositioned him. ‘You have four places in your body that hold power,’ he explained, ‘and your feet are one of them. You gotta get those shoes off and feel that dirt.’
‘They are off.’
‘Then plant your feet, really plant them.’
Luke wriggled his toes. The ground felt hot and dry and uneven.
‘Now, clap your hands a few times.’
Luke gave a few half-hearted claps, not sure whether to hold his hands in front of him or up in the air. He felt a bit stupid.
Tyson rolled his eyes again. ‘Give it a bit more grunt.’
Luke clapped again, harder this time, in front of his belly.
‘Bit harder,’ said Tyson, still not satisfied.
Luke anchored his feet to the ground and brought his hands crashing together.
‘Now, where do you feel that in your body – what part goes tight?’
Luke put a hand below his navel and looked questioningly at Tyson.
‘Yeah, right there, behind and underneath your belly button,’ said Tyson. ‘That place is where you keep your big power, and you’ll need it to get your feet going.’
‘Big power? Bring it on.’
‘Rub your hands together,’ instructed Tyson, rubbing his own together to demonstrate. ‘Now rub them across your belly, feel it go warmer, tighter.’ He leaned over and pushed his own fingers into Luke’s stomach. ‘Now, bring your fingertips together. Real slow. Stop just before they touch.’
Luke anchored his feet again the way Tyson had showed him and tried to feel the belly power. He brought his fingertips together.
Nothing happened.
Tyson’s voice was low and careful. ‘Watch close. Keep watching. See something there?’
Luke rubbed his hands together, breathed, anchored his feet and stared at the tiny gap between his fingertips.
‘Like smoke or electricity?’ Tyson prompted.
A tiny current trickled through the gap, shot down through Luke’s legs and earthed at his feet, startling him.
‘Keep your feet planted,’ Tyson said. ‘Let all that bad stuff go down into that dirt. Feel it go deep and give it all to the land.’
Luke closed his eyes and felt suddenly exhausted. He imagined the poison from old wounds that had never quite healed running down the trunk of his body, into the ground, taking with it his grief and his anger. He stood there, letting it drain away.
‘Now you find that the land gives back,’ said Tyson quietly. ‘Feel the way it feeds power back into you, big, long, deep power. It makes your belly power stronger, like recharging a battery.’ His voice was soothing, like a gentle breeze. ‘That’s your old people looking after you.’
Luke opened his eyes and tilted his head. ‘This is crazy,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any old people. I don’t have family.’
‘Yes, you do, Luke, or you wouldn’t be standing here. You just gotta find ’em,’ said Tyson. ‘You gotta let ’em find you. They’re right here, in the land. You connect deep enough, you’ll find ’em.’ He walked around Luke. ‘Now I’m going to hit you, but don’t let go of your belly power, your feet or the land.’
Luke focused on connecting his feet to the earth again.
Tyson sank his fist into Luke’s belly. Hard. Harder than Luke expected.
Luke took in the shock of it and sent it shooting through his feet and into the ground. He heard a roaring sound in his ears as he did so, and he wondered if it was the breath being knocked from his lungs or the angry cries of iron-age warriors, somewhere in his subconscious.
Still steady on his feet, he looked up at Tyson, unsure of what had just happened.
‘There! That should have knocked you down.’ Tyson sounded pleased with him. ‘Now, think you can walk and still stay connected to the land this way? Try it.’
Luke walked off, staring at his feet as though trying a new pair of shoes.
‘Light but solid,’ said Tyson. ‘Yeah, you’re really walking on the land now.’ He gave Luke a rough shove on the shoulder. ‘See! You got your male power back to its house, in your belly, and reconnected it with its family there in the earth!’
Luke walked through a few more shoves and punches. Before long he began to feel exhausted. It took a lot of concentration.
‘You’re all over this,’ laughed Tyson, belting him again. And then again, apparently just for the heck of it.
‘Yeah, righto,’ said Luke, raising an arm to protect himself.
Tyson laughed, a deep booming laugh that echoed into the distant skies and filled the world with joy. He walked alongside Luke, his crazy hair springing in all directions.
Luke couldn’t stop a small laugh escaping. ‘Nut-job,’ he mumbled.
As he walked, he imagined tribes of horsemen, warriors, with red hair, lending him their strength and for the first time in weeks, he felt connected to something, something that no one could ever take away.
Tyson grinned at him. ‘All right?’
Luke nodded. ‘Yeah.’
He was full of something, something he couldn’t explain. His past, his present and his future were fusing together. And it felt okay. It felt good.
‘We’re all one thing, boy, and when we break off – no good!’
That night, Luke feasted on black bream that Tex and Bob had pulled from the river. They showed him how to scale and gut the fish, and how to get the coals to glow just right before digging a shallow hole and using it as an oven, with the coals shovelled back on top. They roasted the fish whole and ate them with the leftover yams, seasoned with a day’s worth of hunger.
Later, Luke sat with his blanket wrapped around him, staring into the fire. He fingered the moonstone around his neck and thought of Jess. He wished she was there to talk to.
She would love it out here.
He thought of ancestors and spirits and horses and strangely, of metal: of steel and roaring furnaces; the heavy clanking of a blacksmith’s hammer over an anvil. And then he slept.