Rain Dance Read online

  Also by Karen Wood

  Jumping Fences

  The Diamond Spirit series

  Diamond Spirit

  Moonstone Promise

  Opal Dreaming

  Golden Stranger

  Brumby Mountain

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is entirely coincidental.

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Karen Wood 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web:  www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 640 5

  eISBN 978 1 74343 874 9

  Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes

  Cover images: Getty Images/Andrew Rich, iStockphotos and Shutterstock

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  For Anthony, Annabelle and Ruby

  1

  Holly waited in the back seat of the truck, taking deep breaths. This was it. They were really leaving. Everything her family owned was going with them: chairs, tables, beds, suitcases, boxes of food and a guitar. Marley the dog sat between her legs, alternating between wagging his tail and whining nervously. She ran a soothing hand over his black-and-white face.

  The house had a bi-fold sign stabbed into the front paddock with FOR SALE BY PUBLIC TRUSTEE in bold red letters. As if her family wasn’t humiliated enough. A SOLD poster had been slapped over the top. Tomorrow a new family would be moving into the home that her mother and father had built. That she had lived in all her life.

  She took one last look at the little timber house with its steep roof and mismatched windows that let morning sunlight flood into their kitchen. She could see the crystal chandelier that sent light dancing in tiny rainbows all over the ceiling and walls.

  She stared at the small paddock by the house. There would be no more beach rides with Jenny. Gidget and Rocket’s feed bins lay upturned now, empty.

  ‘Will there be a trampoline at our new house?’ asked Eva, wriggling in her seat.

  ‘I don’t think so, honey,’ said Mum. ‘But there will be plenty of other things to do,’ she added, in a breezy, unconvincing voice. ‘Mr Armstrong will be there to welcome us. There will be cows and calves.’

  Yeah, lovely big-eyed calves that would be slaughtered and turned into hamburgers, thought Holly.

  She noticed that Mum kept her head turned so as not to see the doors of the animal enclosures flapping open. The local wildlife organisation had come to collect the possum and the two joeys she had been hand-raising.

  ‘Who is this Mr Armstrong, anyway?’ Jake asked.

  ‘He’s your father’s new boss,’ said Mum.

  ‘I hope he’s more scrupulous than the last one,’ said Brandon, as he jumped in next to Holly and slammed the door closed. He ran his hands through his shaggy, sun-bleached hair.

  ‘The job is only a twelve-week contract, so it doesn’t matter much,’ said Mum.

  ‘And then I’m coming straight back,’ Brandon said in a determined voice. At nineteen and not long out of school, he had wanted to move into a beach house with some friends, but he hadn’t been able to find a job. Dad had talked him into working on the building project instead.

  Holly groaned inwardly. Why did they have to leave Blue Gum Flats and move to the sticks? Surely her dad could find work on the coast. Gunnedah was an entire universe away. She’d googled it and found it was in the middle of nowhere. ‘How far out of town is it again?’

  ‘About an hour,’ said her mum.

  Mum had arranged for the rest of them to do home-schooling – as if they wouldn’t already be isolated enough. But at least Holly wouldn’t be thrown into a new school with a pack of students she didn’t know.

  ‘Will there be any internet?’ she asked. ‘I’ll need it to study.’ And to keep in touch with the civilised world, i.e., Facebook.

  ‘Of course there will be,’ said Mum. ‘We won’t be living in a tent.’

  ‘Will we be allowed to round the cows up?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Your dad’s a builder, not a stockman. There’ll be other workers to manage the livestock.’

  ‘So, what’s the house like?’

  ‘It’s a caretaker’s cottage. Apparently it’s a bit rough, but we’ll fix it up.’ She looked away.

  ‘We’ll be slumming it, in other words,’ said Brandon.

  ‘We will be caretakers on a beautiful property,’ said Mum. ‘How many people can say that?’

  ‘How many people want to say that?’ grumbled Brandon. He elbowed Holly in the ribs as he clipped his seatbelt in.

  ‘You’re not making this any easier, Brandon,’ said Dad, jumping in and slamming his door closed. He looked exhausted, with three days’ growth on his chin and deeply sunken eyes. ‘It’s only a short-term contract, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Then what?’ he demanded.

  Dad shrugged. ‘Then we’ll put our faith in the universe and see where life takes us.’ With a turn of his wrist he started the truck’s engine.

  ‘It’s gonna be great,’ said Jake. ‘I hope we can help with the mustering and cattle work.’ He started singing and air-punching. ‘I wanna be a cowboy!’ He pointed to Holly with gun-shaped fingers. ‘And you can be my cowgirl!’

  Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Would you act your age?’ Even though he was nearly eighteen, sometimes Jake was so puerile. ‘And don’t call me a cowgirl.’ She couldn’t think of anything more insulting.

  ‘Ready to roll,’ said Dad, wrestling with the gearstick. His eyes flicked to the rear-vision mirror. ‘Everyone buckled up?’

  ‘Yes,’ they all chorused. Marley barked.

  Holly twisted in her seat and peered out of the back window past the mountain of furniture, watching her childhood home slowly recede. This was it. They were leaving. She choked back tears. She would not cry. She was choosing to get through this without self-pity. The truck rolled around a bend in the tree-lined road and suddenly home was gone.

  2

  Kaydon looked out the window as the bus slowed through the tiny town of Carroll, the last stop before Gunnedah. Nearly home. A purple sky swirled over silvery grasses, and in paddock after paddock, mobs of cattle lay on their sides.

  ‘Might rain,’ he said to Dan, who sat next to him, stooping over a game on his iPhone. His long skinny fingers madly pressed at the screen. At his feet was a mess of empty junk-food wrappers and soft-drink cans.

  ‘Huh?’ Dan didn’t look up from his game.

  ‘The cattle are lying down,’ Kaydon said. ‘That means it’s gonna rain.’

  He looked at the sparse clumps of grass, hoping the cattle had got it right. A bit of rain might make his father more bearable to be around over the next two weeks. Last holidays he’d been a stress-head; he’d even talked ab
out selling off parts of the farm.

  Further along were golden fields of canola and clouds of dust billowing as a tractor tilled orange-brown soil. As the bus turned towards Gunnedah and followed the railway line into town, a massive coal train lumbered in the other direction with hopper after hopper stacked full of coal rolling endlessly past.

  The bus stopped outside the pub. Dan glanced out the window and laughed. ‘Hey, check out the poster, Kaydo!’

  Kaydon caught sight of a poster stickytaped to the pub window.

  ANNUAL EASTER BALL

  BUY TICKETS HERE!

  HELP RAISE FUNDS FOR DROUGHT RELIEF

  There was a photo of himself looking like a proper twit, his brown-blond hair slicked neatly to the side, wearing a tuxedo, dancing with Angel Whitley. Kaydon winced. ‘Good one, Mum.’ It had been a disastrous night. Angel was allergic to him, or to the horse hair on his clothes anyway. ‘I look like an idiot,’ he complained.

  ‘The chicks dig it,’ said Dan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dancing,’ said Dan. ‘Mum reckons girls love a guy that can dance.’

  ‘I don’t see you taking lessons.’

  Marg Kennerley, the local policewoman, stepped onto the bus. Kaydon cringed as she waved and made a beeline for him. ‘It’s going to be huge,’ she said excitedly.

  ‘Please let her be talking about the canola harvest,’ he muttered to Dan

  ‘Unlikely,’ said his friend.

  Kaydon forced a smile as Marg took a seat directly across the aisle.

  ‘Your mum’s sold nearly three hundred tickets,’ she said. ‘We’re donating a year’s supply of bread to one household as a silent auction prize. Nearly every shop in town has donated something. They’ve been selling tickets in Tamworth and all the way up to Barraba. It’s going to be the biggest country ball this district has seen for a long time.’

  As the bus continued through the main street of Gunnedah, Kaydon saw the posters plastered on every shop window. Marg kept chatting until the next stop, then stood and stepped into the aisle. ‘See you on the night,’ she said.

  ‘So, you got your balaclava?’ asked Dan, once she had stepped off the bus.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Kaydon rolled his eyes. Dan had been on about robbing the local produce store for weeks. He had some dodgy mate who worked there.

  ‘Why not?’ said Dan. ‘I could sell some of the spoils, give the money to Mum.’

  Dan made it sound like a noble deed, but Kaydon knew Mrs Tremonti would be heartbroken if she found out where it came from, and Mr Tremonti would roll in his grave.

  ‘Come on, Dan. We get busted and we’re expelled from Bentleigh,’ said Kaydon. ‘You’d blow your scholarship.’

  ‘Only if we got caught.’

  ‘Find someone else.’

  ‘Can I use one of your old man’s trucks?’

  Kaydon laughed in shock. ‘You are, hands down, the loosest guy I’ve ever known.’

  Dan gave him a charming smile which, with his close-cropped hair, made his ears look even bigger than they were. Kaydon shook his head. ‘No way.’

  Dan gave a defeated sigh, but Kaydon noticed the way his face hardened slightly. He got back to his game.

  The next twenty minutes they didn’t speak. Although Dan said nothing, Kaydon could hear the resentment in his silence. Lucky you – you don’t have to worry where the next dollar’s coming from. Kaydon wished for the hundredth time that he could pass on some of the easiness of his life to Dan.

  ‘How’s your mum doing?’ he asked.

  Dan shrugged. ‘Crap. Livvy’s gone to work in the mines, said she’d send some money, but she’s hell lonely.’

  ‘Who’s looking after your place?’

  ‘Me.’

  The bus pulled over on a deserted stretch of highway. Kaydon stood and lugged his duffle bag out into the aisle. ‘I’ll catch up with Mum and Dad for a day and then I’ll come over and give you a hand.’

  Dan gave him a nod. ‘Thanks, mate. Mum’d appreciate that.’

  The door hissed open and Kaydon stepped out into what felt like a fan-forced oven. Hot wind tore at his shirt and mockingly pulled his hat from his head, sending it flying into a nearby paddock.

  He squeezed through the fence to retrieve it, and ran across the powdery dry earth. As he stooped to pick up the hat he took a handful of soil, digging with his fingertips. He crumbled it and watched it run off the palm of his hand in a shower of dust.

  He stood at the junction where the road met a dirt track. Beside him was a collection of mailboxes: an old wood-heater, an oilcan, a milk drum and a few traditional letterboxes, all perched atop wooden posts or rusty star pickets. Beyond them, parched land stretched for miles, ending in a set of low, grey-green hills.

  That’s where home was; a long walk if no one picked him up. He could either wait – sooner or later, someone would come and get him – or start walking the five Ks to the house.

  He hitched his duffle bag over his shoulder and set off on foot. The wind stopped, and for a moment it was so quiet that every footstep crunching over the dry ground, every fly and every tiny bird seemed amplified. Then it picked up again and swept through the neighbour’s fields, bringing the scent of dry earth and a low, rumbling sound.

  He looked to the west and cursed under his breath. A wide, low cloud of brown rolled towards him. Dust storm. Kaydon knew without having to look that there was nowhere to shelter. He dropped his bag and rummaged around for a shirt to tie around his face. He stuffed his hat inside the bag and slung it over his shoulder, then broke into a run.

  The roar of the wind grew louder and his clothes began to whip about his body like old rags. The brown engulfed him, whirled through his hair, filled his ears, stung his eyes.

  A car horn. Kaydon squinted through the dust. Headlights. His father pushed the rear door of the fourbie open. The wind snatched it from Kaydon’s hand and flung it open so hard it nearly snapped at the hinges.

  ‘Get in,’ his dad yelled over the roar.

  ‘Thought you’d forgotten me,’ Kaydon said as he threw his bag over the seat and climbed in after it. Dust billowed into the vehicle. With an effort he pulled the door shut, using both hands.

  ‘We were in town when we heard the dust was coming, tried to get to you before it hit.’

  Kaydon leaned into the front and kissed his mum on the cheek. ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Sorry you got stuck in that,’ Bron said.

  ‘There goes a few hundred tonnes of topsoil,’ his father said, gesturing at the landscape. The headlights shone weakly through the swirling brown fog. ‘No one’s been able to plant summer crops, too bloody dry.’

  ‘Brett reckons his old man is gonna plant chickpeas and sorghum in between wheat crops,’ said Kaydon. ‘It improves the soil structure. He reckons they won’t need to fallow any more.’

  Pat Armstrong grunted. ‘That’s if they can get anyone to drive the machinery. Everyone’s working in the mines these days. Better money than farming in a drought.’

  ‘Kaydon, I saved you a couple of tickets to the Easter Ball,’ said his mother, changing the subject. ‘I thought you might like to ask someone along.’

  ‘I saw your posters in town,’ he said in an accusing tone.

  ‘We’re supporting the Pay for Hay campaign this year,’ she said cheerfully, ‘to help the farmers in Queensland. The drought’s bad up there, worse than here.’

  Kaydon had heard of it. People bought bales of hay or litres of diesel and donated them to farmers who were affected by drought. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Just put on a tux and look gorgeous.’ She twisted around and winked at him. ‘And bring a nice girl.’

  ‘I don’t know any.’ That I’d want to take, anyway, he thought.

  ‘Want me to find you one?’

  Kaydon shrugged. He had been dragged along to his mother’s charity dinners for most of his life, usually with Mum while Dad worked.

  ‘Your father’s coming too,’
said his mum. She sounded like a shy schoolgirl. Kaydon raised his eyebrows and wondered how she had talked him into that.

  ‘Listen to these idiot greenies on the radio,’ said Pat, ending their conversation abruptly. His voice became gravelly with contempt. ‘Do-good bloody hippies. We’re in the middle of a drought and they want to just ban live exports.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to see any of our cattle mistreated in overseas abattoirs,’ said Bron. ‘I’ve seen some horrific footage on the news.’

  ‘What’ll they do with all the cattle that were meant to go on those ships? They’ll send them south and flood the markets down here. Prices will go through the bloody floor.’

  Outside, Kaydon noticed, the dust was beginning to thin, and as visibility improved, his dad sped up a little. The road dipped into a dry creekbed lined with golden poplar trees. His dad slowed and hung his head out the window looking at the pebbles. ‘Hard to imagine I used to catch turtles in here when I was a kid,’ he said.

  They drove past the cattle yards and finally headed towards the homestead.

  3

  The truck lurched to a stop, snapping Holly out of sleep. She winced as she pulled her head off Jake’s shoulder and straightened her neck. ‘Where are we?’ she mumbled, peering through the dust-smeared windscreen.

  ‘Gunnedah,’ said Jake. ‘Supermodel capital of Australia. You might get a modelling contract here, Holls.’ He started singing again in a high-pitched voice. ‘I shake my little tush on the catwalk . . .’

  ‘This town has produced the sum total of one supermodel,’ said Brandon, unclipping his seatbelt.

  ‘Two actually,’ Jake corrected. ‘Miranda Kerr and Erica Packer.’

  Brandon opened the door and let a wash of air billow into the cabin. ‘You slept through a huge dust storm, Holly.’

  ‘Is that why all the windows are closed?’ The cabin of the truck was like a sauna. Her body was sticky with sweat and she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Yeah, we couldn’t even put the fan on,’ said Brandon. His hair was damp with sweat. ‘I can’t believe you slept through it.’

  ‘Could one of you take Marley for a wee?’ Mum got out and Holly noticed her stop and brace herself on the side of the truck. ‘I have to go and make a phone call.’