Clare scaled the stockyard rails and scrambled onto Fleur’s broad back. It was the first time she’d been in the saddle since childhood and she was a little unsure. Fleur seemed impossibly tall. ‘Give it some time, Clare Bear,’ her grandfather told her, rubbing the mare’s cheek. ‘You were always a terrific little rider. Gutsy as well. It’ll come back to you.’ She leaned down, stroked Fleur’s broad neck. Tom strapped on a saddlebag, then hopped around on one leg trying to mount Goliath, who refused to stand by the fence. He was a mountain of a horse, rich bay in colour, with a wide blaze, magnificent feather and four tall white socks. It looked like Tom was trying to mount an elephant.
Grandad disappeared into the cart shed and emerged with an old wooden mounting frame. Tom scaled its steps and was finally aboard. He sat his horse with the easy grace of a man at home in the saddle. Straight back. Strong thighs. Steady fingers, firm on the reins, but soft on the mouth, the embodiment of good hands. Goliath pranced sideways, muscles rippling beneath his satin skin, ears pricked and head held high. Tom’s expression was one of calm control and Clare saw him in a whole new light. Man and horse moved with the grandeur and grace of a medieval knight and his charger. Grandad opened the gates, a look of tremendous pride on his face, and they moved off down the drive. Clare was tentative at first. It was a long way to the ground and she wasn’t exactly sure what her mare wanted to do or how to read her signals. But while she was busy thinking things through, her body was responding all by itself. Call it muscle memory, call it intuition: she didn’t know, but once she got used to it, sitting on the Percheron mare’s broad back seemed as comfortable and familiar as sitting in an armchair.
They reached the Sunshine gates, which were closed, of course. They were always closed these days. Clare gave Tom a rueful smile. ‘Someone’s going to have to get off.’
‘Maybe not.’ Tom maneuvered his giant horse parallel to the gates. It was obvious the pair spoke the same language. In a few moments he’d swung the catch and, barely shifting in his seat, hauled the gate open.
Goliath arched his neck and Tom waved them through. ‘Very gallant,’ Clare whispered to Fleur, with a smile.
Tom expertly closed the gate. They headed out onto the road and turned right. The horses walked abreast to start with, but the stallion’s long legs and impatience soon saw him forge ahead. Clare urged Fleur into a timid trot to catch up. Late afternoon sunshine fell in dappled patterns across the road. Goliath shied at the shadows, but Tom easily kept his seat. Thank goodness Fleur had more sense.
‘I love riding this horse,’ said Tom, turning in the saddle and parking his right palm on the stallion’s round rump. ‘I absolutely love it. It’s like floating on a couch in the clouds.’ Clare nodded agreement. Fleur’s gait was also slow, smooth and easy, yet there was something thrilling about sitting astride this magnificent mare. Clare was riding tall, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun.
The road rose before them in a gentle incline. ‘Let’s trot,’ said Tom.
Clare shortened her reins a little, and pressed her heels to Fleur’s side. Goliath began calmly enough, but soon he was pulling and tossing his great head.
‘Can we canter?’ asked Tom.
Clare took a deep breath. ‘Go ahead.’ The stallion took off, and Fleur followed suit. Clare gave an involuntary scream. Exhilarating and scary, to thunder down the road on these great horses, manes and tails streaming, plate-sized hooves pounding, striking sparks from the road like fire from flint stones. A pure, physical adrenaline rush, the likes of which she couldn’t remember. Really good sex perhaps, or an important, improbable victory in court. Fleur put on a sudden burst of speed, almost leaving her behind. She gasped and laughed and tried to find her rhythm . . . there it was. Grandad said it would come back, and he was right. The knowledge was latent not lost, how to meld with her horse and read its mood.
Tom wheeled Goliath about. The mighty stallion half-reared in a shaft of sunshine and the sight took Clare’s breath away. Even Fleur looked impressed. She nickered and pranced, sidling up to Goliath against Clare’s instructions. The horses touched noses. Fleur squealed and pawed the ground while Clare laughed and tugged at the reins. ‘Where are we going anyway?’ she asked, breathless.
‘It’s a surprise,’ said Tom, and he swept away. Clare and her mare followed like they were drawn on a string. Tom turned into the gate leading to the mysterious earthworks where Jack had got into trouble that morning. The horses plodded across the soft ground. Clare dared not look into the pit. She half-expected to see Jack there, his clothes dirty and his face streaked with tears. Real tears. He’d learned to cry at Currawong.
‘What is this place?’
‘Pyramid’s building a new waste water pond,’ said Tom. ‘Quimby Downs already has thirteen coal seam gas wells.’ Quimby Downs. Where had she heard that name before? ‘Harry was gutted when Pete left.’ That was it. Grandad’s friend. The one who’d raised six kids and lost his wife. The one who said he’d been driven out by the gas wells.
‘So nobody lives here any more?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Pete still runs a few head of Brangus breeders out here. Harry and I keep an eye on them for him, but he doesn’t take the cattle side of things too seriously any more. The wells give him a guaranteed annual income.’
Fleur ducked her head to snack on a patch of fresh grass. Clare gave her mare a loose rein. ‘That would be one good thing at least, if the wells come to Currawong,’ she said. ‘Grandad won’t have to work so hard any more. He can sit around and listen to the cricket, or go on a holiday while the money just rolls in.’
Tom did not look convinced. He moved his stallion up close to Fleur. ‘Do you know why Pete moved out?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Come on,’ said Tom, heading up the hill. ‘I want to show you something.’
Tom dismounted his horse in one sure, swift movement, then helped Clare down. His hands encircled her waist as she slipped from Fleur’s back. It was a shock to feel them, rougher than expected, in firm control of her descent. Clare’s heartbeat quickened. She landed a little awkwardly, and stumbled into the mare’s warm neck. For a fleeting moment she was sure she felt Tom’s hard body pressed against her, his breath on her neck. But when she turned around, he was leading Goliath into a large stockyard, its rails overgrown with willow jasmine. The stallion tore eagerly at the long grass, while Tom unbuckled his girth and hauled the mighty saddle from his back.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Clare.
Tom unstrapped the saddlebag and took out a bottle of champagne and a huge punnet of strawberries. He held them up to her, eyebrows raised. Clare laughed and tugged Fleur across to the yard. Soon the horses were both unsaddled and grazing contentedly.
‘This is such a lovely place,’ said Clare. The timber homestead’s pretty portico led to a wide verandah. A profusion of purple flowering bougainvillea almost obscured the decorative white balustrade. Above the front door, a stunning fanlight of etched, coloured glass depicted a sunrise. ‘How could Pete bear to leave?’
‘How, indeed?’ said Tom. ‘Pete built this house of pit-sawn timber. He felled the cedar and blackwood himself, up in the Bunya Mountains. See there?’ Tom pointed to the roof. ‘You can still see original hand-cut shingles beneath the corrugated iron.’ Clare murmured her admiration. ‘Wait until you look inside. It’s a real showpiece.’
Clare didn’t doubt it. ‘The house is truly beautiful,’ she said. ‘I want to live here myself.’ Fantasies of her and Tom came to mind, sitting out on the porch at twilight, sipping wine and watching Jack play.
‘You might think differently after you see this.’ Tom led her along the side of the house. A vegetable plot, rampant with weeds, stood across the path to her left. They stopped beside an outside tap, with a simple garden hose attached.
Clare looked around. What was it she was supposed to see? ‘It wouldn’t take much to clear out those weeds and start growing vegetables again,’ she said. ‘Is that what you mean?’
Tom shook his head. He retrieved the end of the hose from under a yellow daisy bush and turned on the tap. The faint waft of chemicals replaced the fragrance of Bougainvillea on the breeze. Tom took a cigarette lighter from his pocket. He gripped the garden hose and held it at arm’s length. Then, holding the lighter beneath the arc of water escaping from the nozzle, he flicked it on. Clare couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A tongue of fire flashed from the end of the hose. It erupted like dragon’s breath right before her eyes. The impossible flame, liquid and sinuous, licked along the water arc, transforming it into a burning bow. ‘No way,’ she said. The unnatural spectre flared steadily in the late-afternoon sunshine. It was more than a minute later when Clare told Tom to turn it off.
‘How is that even possible?’ asked Clare.
‘The bore’s contaminated with natural gas, mainly methane. Two years ago, Pyramid fracked half the wells on Quimby Downs.’
‘Fracked?’ asked Clare.
‘Hydraulic fracturing. It’s used to speed up the flow of coal seam gas from underground. They pump a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into the gas-bearing formation below the water table, fracturing the strata. It causes little earthquakes that open up pathways for gas to flow out of the rock and into a well . . . or a bore.’
‘But I went to Pyramid’s office in Dalby,’ said Clare, still overwhelmed by what she’d seen. ‘They insisted that less than four percent of their wells had been fracked.’
‘That may be true,’ said Tom. ‘Who knows? But Pete’s wells were.’
‘They said it was safe.’ Clare cringed. How foolish and naïve she must sound.
‘For Christ’s sake, Clare. They’re drilling straight through the aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin. They’re injecting millions of litres of water and hundreds of tons of chemicals each time. They say these sites are sealed, but the pressure’s staggering. There’ve been cases where fracking has split concrete bore casings and even sheared right through them. Who knows where the fucking gas and chemicals go?’ He kicked the tap, frustration evident in his rigid shoulders and clenched jaw.
Clare put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
Tom shook his head, as if to chase away the anger. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. ‘Have that picnic.’
Late afternoon was drifting into evening. They sat in Quimby’s lovely old dining room, eating strawberries and drinking warm champagne. Clare took in the pressed metal ceilings, the carved fireplace surround, the intricate shutters gracing wide casement windows. There was no air of decay; it was more like the homestead was waiting, waiting for its family to come home. Clare ran admiring fingers across the table’s polished surface, making a wavy line in the dust. ‘Handmade,’ said Tom. ‘Like just about everything else at Quimby. The top’s carved from a single slab of Hoop pine. You’d never get a tree that size these days.’ Clare topped up her glass. ‘Let’s go sit on the comfy chairs.’
Tom nodded and they moved to the lounge room, sitting side by side on the couch. ‘Tell me what happened here,’ she said.
Tom poured himself the last of the wine. ‘Not long after the wells arrived, Pete noticed an odd taste to the water. When he filled the sink to wash dishes it fizzed like Alka-Seltzer and smelled funny. He didn’t want to drink it, of course, so he complained to Pyramid. The company came and confirmed the contamination, and then, you know what they did? Installed methane alarms in and outside of his house – a red light warning him not to go inside.’
‘Shit, Tom, you mean there’s gas in the house?’
‘The alarms have never gone off,’ said Tom. ‘The house is safe enough. I checked the meters when we came in.’
‘They’re still here?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘If the alarms weren’t here, we wouldn’t be here either.’
‘Pete could sue.’
‘No, he can’t. Pyramid gave him a bucket of money and had him sign a confidentiality clause. They trucked clean water to Quimby Downs and monitored the alarms. According to the terms of their agreement, that amounts to making good the damage. Fact is, there’s no way to fix this. When it rains here, gas bubbles up through the puddles. And yet when Pete left, they said it was his choice.’
‘So this beautiful old homestead just goes to waste?’ asked Clare.
He nodded.
‘Tom, that’s terrible.’
He pulled her across to his lap. Clare relaxed against his body, feeling his energy pulse through her. The hairs stood up on the nape of her neck, as Tom kissed her there. His teeth grazed her skin, and she trembled. This felt downright dangerous.
As she sank back into his chest, a loud, imperious neigh sounded from outside. Tom pushed her aside, with a quick apology, and headed for the door.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she heard him say.
Clare followed and looked past him. ‘Oh my lord. Are they doing what I think they’re doing?’
‘Yep,’ said Tom. ‘They sure are.’
‘Shouldn’t we stop them?’
‘If you want to get in the middle of that,’ said Tom with a grin, ‘you’re a braver person than me.’