Under the Flame Tree Page 5

  The colt was from the boss’s favourite mare and so he stood on the sidelines, watching. Through it all, Kirra noticed a familiarity between Daniel and Boss Carney that was neither close nor comfortable. But there was a link there somehow. The boss knew Daniel’s family. Maybe this was a favour to them, taking Daniel on while he was fresh out of juvy. Giving him a fresh start.

  By the end of the day, there was nothing the vet could do to save the foal and Boss Carney put a bullet through his tiny forehead, ending its suffering. Although Kirra had seen many animals suffer and die on the station she never got used to it. It always left her feeling low.

  On Thursday, Daniel rode one of his horses, the small grey colt, for the first time. The colt moved freely and without resistance from the first step as he walked around the pen. It was beautiful to watch. Resistance, her father had taught her, always killed the beauty in a horse’s movement. This animal had none, walking calmly, maintaining his pace without rushing or slowing, at peace with what was happening. Kirra couldn’t take her eyes off him. Daniel pushed the colt into a trot and then a canter with the same result. His skills were honed and effortless. He rode like someone who had been born on a horse, had spent all day every day with them.

  By Friday a buzz was building around the place in anticipation of the upcoming Dirt and Dust Festival. Pete was entering the bog snorkelling, and his workmates had been giving him fervent support from the edges of the creek as he practised no-arm swimming with a snorkel during lunchbreaks. Old Jack kept the ringers entertained with lunges and squats in his baggy jeans in preparation for the Best Butt comp until Kirra feared he might snap something.

  Still Daniel worked alone, sullen and despondent.

  Kirra joined him by the steel rails of the yard and took his hand. He gave her a sharp look, but let her guide his hand. She curled his fingers into his palm, guided his index finger over the dust and wrote friends? along the rail.

  He gathered up a coil of rope he’d been using, slung it over his shoulder and walked off.

  ‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘If that’s how it’s going to be.’

  8

  Kirra lay on her bed fuming while Natalie scolded her on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, who cares if he won’t talk to you?’ she said. ‘Pull yourself together, girl.’

  ‘But I have to work with him.’

  ‘It’s festival time, and I don’t want you snivelling over some boy all night,’ Natalie continued.

  ‘I’m not snivelling over him.’

  ‘Yes, you are. He’s all you’ve talked about all week. All the Scrubby Creek crew will be at Dirt and Dust. Get your spurs on and cowgirl up!’

  Kirra sighed. Maybe that’s what she needed. To get off this isolated property. To remind herself that there were more than twelve humans in the universe. A lot of her friends would be at the festival. ‘Can you swing by and pick me up?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Natalie.

  Natalie’s brother Jet’s four-wheel drive rolled into Moorinja as the sun was getting low. Kirra wore her favourite paisley shirt, jeans, bling belt and a touch of lippy. As she walked to the car, she noticed Daniel’s porch lights were on and all the windows were open. Her whole world ground to a halt. What did that mean? He wanted to be friends? Surely not.

  Suddenly everything got complicated again. Should she go over there and invite him along? Should she stay right away from him? A thousand questions played in her head while she stood with one hand on the doorhandle of Jet’s car.

  She was over-thinking this. Daniel was probably just sick of living with his windows shut. It was a pleasant night, after all. Maybe he wanted a cool breeze through the house. Maybe he’d opened the shutters because he thought she’d already gone out.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe not.

  There was only one way to find out.

  ‘I’m just going to stick my head in and say goodbye to Daniel,’ she said as Natalie rolled down the window and gave her a hurry-up. ‘Back in a minny.’

  Her friend shot her a disapproving look.

  ‘He’s not an axe murderer, Natalie,’ Kirra snapped.

  ‘Close enough.’

  Kirra ignored her and ran to Daniel’s front door. Her boots made a clunking sound on the front steps. She knocked on the open door and peered inside.

  Daniel sat on the floor with his back to the couch. His long legs were stretched out and his feet were bare. He wore a threadbare singlet. A thick book sat open in his lap. He looked up and seemed surprised, startled even, to see her. In his face, she saw as many questions as she had. What was she doing here?

  She didn’t even know herself. This was a mistake. She turned to go.

  ‘Kirra.’ He scrambled off the floor.

  She spun around.

  He stood in the doorway of the lounge room, mostly a silhouette. They paused and drank each other in. Shadows cast over his face, hiding his eyes. But she could feel them, running all over her. All he had to do was say the word and she would dump her bag and stay with him. Play cards, whatever. She waited. Why wasn’t he speaking?

  ‘Just stay safe,’ he finally said.

  ‘You can come if you want. The pro bull ride is on tonight.’

  ‘You like rodeo?’

  She nodded. ‘I ride steers sometimes, just at the local rodeos and stuff.’

  ‘You ride steers?’

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

  He whistled and scratched the back of his neck.

  ‘Sure you don’t want to come?’

  He shook his head.

  She walked up to him, reached up on her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. It was clean-shaven and smelled unbelievable. Kissing it seemed so weird and girlfriendy. But she wanted him to know that she liked him, in whatever way, it didn’t matter. He was okay as far as she was concerned, whatever he had done in the past.

  As she turned to leave he spoke again. ‘I was thinking more on the road.’ His voice sounded almost ghostly. ‘Lots of drunken idiots around after festivals and rodeos.’

  She gave him the same cheeky salute he had given her at Scrubby Creek. ‘Yes, boss.’

  As she turned to leave she felt a sharp sting across the top of her leg. She spun around. He’d tea-towelled her!

  ‘Ride hard,’ he said, the corners of his eyes pulling into a smile.

  ‘Or go home,’ she replied, finishing the well-known rodeo saying. Then she hitched up her bag and sauntered out the door, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

  The town of Julia Creek had become a virtual tent city; mounds of tents filling the parks and empty spaces made the place look like a refugee camp. The main street was jazzed up for the festival triathlon with flags waving and sponsorship signs everywhere.

  Jet drove through the west end of town and into the front gates of Dirt and Dust Central, stopping to pay a fluoro-vested woman. He chatted to the gate lady for so long that Kirra and Natalie got out and made their way through the food stalls and towards the bull-riding arena.

  The sun dipped closer to the horizon and the halogen lights blared overhead. Clouds of bugs swarmed around the lights, so thick they cast shadows over the arena. Kirra waved them off her face as she walked through the kids’ rides and merchandise stalls. They had barely passed a rickety merry-go-round when Natalie spied the jumping castle: a giant inflated cube with a freaky-looking clown head grimacing on top. As the castle rocked and jerked with the people jumping inside, the clown’s face distorted into a series of creepy smiles.

  ‘Ugh, what is it about clowns?’ said Kirra. ‘They’re so . . . unnatural.’

  Nat grabbed Kirra’s hand. ‘Let’s go on it!’ She hopped about, pulling her shoes off.

  ‘I think I watched a horror movie with a clown in it once,’ said Kirra, allowing herself to be dragged along.

  Nat ditched her shoes and clambered onto the base. She bounced into the throng of jumping, leaping and somersaulting people. ‘Come on!’ she yelled to Kirra. ‘T
here’s a slide!’

  The jumping castle was full of bugs that crunched under Kirra’s socks as she bounce-walked over the mounds of vinyl-clad air bags, her knees snapping up and down as she went. Powdery dust seeped through her socks. A generator hummed beneath the squeals and laughter of the people around her. She followed Nat up a set of puffy steps, her hands slipping on the fine silt that coated everything. It was a huge slide and it seemed to take forever to get to the top.

  Once they reached it, neither girl hesitated. Kirra grabbed Nat’s hand and together they dived onto the slide, slipping and tumbling. Kirra’s shirt rode up around her ribs and her hip scraped over the dusty vinyl the whole way down, searing her skin as she went. She collapsed into a mix of laughter and squeals of pain at the bottom. ‘Damn, I got carpet burn.’ She pulled her shirt up to inspect an angry red patch of raw flesh on her hip, closed her eyes and pulled a face.

  ‘You okay?’ Nat pulled herself up and held out a hand to help Kirra.

  Kirra had only half got her legs under her to stand when four adolescent boys, yelling and screaming, hurtled down the slide like an avalanche, smashing into her so hard it knocked the wind out of her lungs. Nat screamed.

  Everything went black as an elbow hit the side of Kirra’s head and a knee crashed into her upper leg. The force of it was so great her grip tore from Nat’s, and she landed on the hard ground under a tumble of sweaty body parts, twisting her wrist in the process. Kirra was bruised further as the boys scrambled around apologising and trying to get off her.

  She felt two strong hands slip under her arms and lift her off the ground. In a daze she tried to find the ground with her feet. When she put some weight on her legs a searing pain shot through her thigh. ‘Yowsa.’ She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

  The hands under her arms held her steady. Some kind stranger.

  Angry words filtered into her ears – in a familiar voice. She spun around. ‘Daniel?’

  ‘You all right?’ he demanded more than asked. He shot a glare at the kids who had skittled her.

  ‘Geez, sorry,’ said a boy in a purple striped shirt to Kirra. ‘I thought you’d hear us coming and get off.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Kirra, stepping away from Daniel’s grasp and trying to take weight on her leg without wincing.

  After more apologies and excuses, the boys pulled their boots on and disappeared into the throng of people. Kirra couldn’t help noticing the wary way in which they had all looked at Daniel. Did they know him? Where were they off to in such a hurry?

  Kirra turned to him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, unable to hide her delight. He wore a pale shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, and his sun-beaten black hat. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘Probably shouldn’t have,’ he said, shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I was planning on lying low, but now those guys will tell everyone I’m here.’ He stared after them and Kirra noticed the way the muscles on his forearms bunched as he clenched his fists inside his pockets.

  He smiled and then rested his deep-set eyes on Kirra. It was the kind of smile that sucked her into a sweet haze and completely undid her. For a moment she forgot where she was, where she was from, even her own name. She had to stop herself from reaching up and touching his face. Damn, why did he have to have so much extra baggage? She mentally shook herself. He was trouble with a capital T.

  Daniel adjusted his hat. ‘I better go before those guys make trouble.’ He leaned down and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  The corner of his mouth pulled into one of those half smiles again and then he was gone before Kirra could think of anything else to say, strolling out of the grounds, hands in pockets. She stood there in an afterglow, his kiss still lingering on her cheek.

  ‘Earth calling Kirra!’ Nat waved a palm in front of her face.

  Kirra sucked in a lungful of air. Had she forgotten to breathe too?

  ‘People are staring at you,’ said Nat.

  Kirra noticed several people watching her, then gawking after Daniel, murmuring and nudging each other. ‘What is their problem?’

  ‘Let’s get something to eat,’ said Nat. She paused and quickly ran an eye over Kirra. ‘You’re okay, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for asking,’ Kirra said dryly, as she took a step and winced. Natalie had witnessed many of her tumbles riding steers. She was used to seeing Kirra busted up.

  ‘Wanna stop in at the first aid tent first?’

  Kirra nodded. ‘Ice would be good.’

  At the first aid tent, Kirra recognised Macey, the volunteer ambo from the rodeo circuit.

  ‘That arm needs strapping,’ she said to Kirra after gently turning her wrist about. ‘You’ve sprained it.’

  Kirra knew better than to argue. She sat patiently while her arm was bandaged and placed neatly in a sling. The whole time her thoughts tumbled. She ached to know what those guys were saying about Daniel. She racked her brains, wondering who might tell her something more about him. Old Jack was fairly tight-lipped; Pete and Paul would tell her a whole bunch of untrue gossip. The right person to ask would be Daniel himself. Like her dad said. But she resolved to wait until he decided to tell her. She would play it cool until then.

  ‘You’re done,’ said Macey, snapping her back to the moment. ‘See you next time.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Nat. ‘We’re going to miss the bull ride!’

  9

  The bull ride was in full swing as Natalie climbed the stairs to the top of the grandstand. Kirra followed. On the way up she waved hello to Jamie and his Scrubby Creek mates. They waved back and kept talking among themselves.

  ‘Rene!’ Kirra called out. He was last year’s local junior steer-riding champion. He gave her a brief smile and waved but didn’t shift over to offer a seat, instead turning back to the people he was sitting with.

  The only spare seats were at the top of the grandstand, behind a mob of teenagers wearing large hats, rodeo belt buckles and dirty jeans. Accompanying them was a girl about the same age as Kirra. Long, straight blonde hair fell over her shoulders and she wore a white cowgirl hat. She gave Kirra a scrutinising stare.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ Kirra muttered under her breath as she squeezed along the row behind the girl. She took a seat and scanned the crowd. Most people she knew or recognised. Usually everyone buzzed with warm welcomes on festival night. Tonight everyone seemed so serious. Maybe they hadn’t warmed up yet.

  ‘They don’t want to be seen talking to Daniel’s girlfriend,’ Natalie answered.

  ‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

  Nat gave her a disbelieving scoff. ‘What was that kiss all about, then?’

  The long-haired girl in front of her turned and stared at her again.

  ‘What?’ Kirra snapped at her.

  The girl looked away without answering.

  Kirra turned back to Nat. ‘That doesn’t make him my boyfriend,’ she snorted. ‘He’s only been around for a week and now the entire district thinks we’re together.’

  ‘Well, you did say he was hot.’

  ‘The ringers around here are more gossipy than the girls at school. Don’t they have anything better to talk about?’

  ‘And he obviously likes you too,’ Nat continued.

  ‘Can we stop talking about this, please?’

  Nat shrugged. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Why does everyone hate him so much, anyway?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk about him any more,’ said Nat.

  Nat was right. She didn’t. Kirra took a seat and fumbled for a bottle of water in her bag with her good arm. In the arena, a palomino mare cantered around brandishing a PBR flag. ‘Hey, that’s a Moorinja mare,’ she said, glad to find something else to talk about. ‘She was one of the first horses I ever broke in.’ The mare had been a holiday project, nice and quiet, perfect for a first breaker. Kirra had been thirteen. Her dad had helped her
work with it every day. ‘Buttercup, we called her.’

  ‘I remember her,’ said Natalie. ‘Real pretty horse. Shame you named her after a dairy cow.’

  One of the guys in front of them turned and stared. Kirra vaguely recognised him, probably from steer riding. He was from one of the nearby stations, though she couldn’t recall which, and was small in stature with a spotty complexion. Why did everyone keep staring at her? Kirra gave him a brief smile. Then he leaned in and muttered something into the next boy’s ear, who in turn whispered into the girl’s ear. She turned and stared at Kirra again.

  ‘What? Why do you guys keep staring at me?’

  ‘Let’s sit somewhere else,’ said Nat, standing and trying to shift past Kirra.

  ‘There is nowhere else,’ Kirra said, refusing to budge.

  ‘Trust me, Kirra,’ said Nat, taking her by the arm, ’we need to move.’

  ‘Yeah, find somewhere else,’ said the girl in front of her, without looking back.

  Kirra resisted a sudden urge to flick her in the back of the head with her finger. ‘What is your problem?’

  ‘Kirra,’ Natalie hissed urgently. ‘Come on.’

  Further below, Jamie stood up and waved her down as if it was urgent.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Kirra said loudly. ‘This place is rank tonight.’

  The girl rose and turned to her. ‘My problem is you, sweetheart.’

  Another guy spun around. ‘Why don’t you go back to your boyfriend at Moorinja and tell him he should still be behind bars?’

  Kirra glared at him. ‘Do I know you?’

  Suddenly the other boys were on their feet and Jamie was on his way up the steps.

  ‘Hi, Lisa,’ he called out. The girl turned to face him. Did Jamie know this girl? How?

  ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ Jamie said to the boys beside her, raising both hands in peace. He walked straight past them, took Kirra by her good arm and yanked her forcefully out of her seat.