The Quicksand Pony (4 page)

The stars were still bright in the night sky. Biddy sat on her pony at the garden fence, waiting impatiently to begin the ride down to the headland. She had never been up so early, let alone in the saddle at this hour. The biting wind was waking her, but the porridge she'd eaten for breakfast, and her woolly gloves and beanie and new oilskin coat, kept her snug and warm.

Bella wasn't used to being saddled so early. She stamped and jiggled, her silver mane glinting in the light from the house.

‘I wish you were coming,' Biddy called to her grand-father.

He looked so old and skinny waving from the back porch, with Tigger weaving around his legs. She hoped he'd be okay. Still, they'd only be gone for a night. They'd be back with the cattle by Thursday evening.

‘An old bloke like me would only get in your way. My word, you're a flash-looking outfit. Do your oilskin up. It'll be freezing out on the beach.'

‘Righto, let's get a move on.' Biddy's dad tightened a final strap on Blue, the packhorse, then swung into his saddle. His old stockhorse, Gordon, stood quietly. He was a great horse, willing and intelligent. Once, years ago, Dad had ridden him into a marshy place, looking for cattle, and nearly got bogged, but Gordon had escaped by testing the ground with his hoof, one step at a time, until he was sure it would hold his weight.

‘We'll see you pretty late tomorrow. Don't forget to leave the gate open into the yard paddock—'

‘Of course I'll leave the gate open!' Grandpa had never got used to his son telling him what to do. ‘Don't
you
forget to look in behind Mount Smoky. There's always a few stragglers in there. And look out for the quicksand!'

‘Yeah, we will. Bye, Dad.'

‘Look after yourself, Dad,' called Biddy's mum as she gathered her reins. ‘Take care.'

They turned their horses and rode away in the early morning dark, with the packhorse and dogs trotting behind. Biddy kept twisting in her saddle and calling back to the figure in the doorway, ‘Bye, Grandpa. Look after Tigger for me. Bye, Grandpa. Love you,' until they crested the low hill beyond the stockyards, and the house was blocked from view.

They were three tiny figures riding over the plain. The headland was a vague shape to the south, and to the east the water of the bay lay flat and grey. Biddy and her parents were riding west to the shallow inlet behind their farm. They would follow the bridle path over the cliffs to the surf beach, which was the only way of getting to the headland. There was no road, and the mudflats on the bay were impassable.

Biddy thought there couldn't be a better feeling than riding off into unknown country, on a good horse, with who knows what adventure ahead. It was like being an explorer, or an outlaw. She wished she had a revolver. It would be great to take potshots at rabbits as you galloped along.

The sky was just light enough for the horses to pick their way along the track. They trotted, fresh and skittish at first, then settled into a steady rhythm. The saddlebags on the packhorse bounced in time to the hoofbeats.

By the time they got through the scrub and out onto the cliff tops, the sky in the east was blazing pink and orange. ‘Hey, Mum!' yelled Biddy. ‘Pink sky in the morning, shepherd's warning! Means it's going to rain.'

She held on tight and tried not to look down. They only used this path when the tide was in, as it was now. It was too narrow to drive cattle along; they'd push past each other and fall down the cliff. Biddy looked at the water surging below her, and shivered. When they came back with the cattle the tide would be out and they'd ride on the sand.

The path wound over the last cliff, then dropped steeply to the surf beach. Biddy leaned back, and Bella slid down the sandy slope on her hindquarters. Ah! It felt good to be back on flat ground.

Far out to sea the sunlight sparkled on the water like sequins. Sullen clouds hung over the peaks of the headland. The beach was long, endless. It ran for miles, then disappeared into the sea-mist. The dunes towered on one side and the surf pounded in on the other. A freezing wind whipped straight up from Antarctica, blasting sand and rain into their faces. The high tide forced them to ride along the base of the dunes, in soft sand littered with driftwood and seaweed thrown up by the violent waves. Biddy skittered about on her pony, looking for treasures. She peered closely at any bottles, in case there was a message inside.

Once, in the old days, Grandpa had found a crate of bananas. Bananas were a luxury back then, he told Biddy, so they'd had a big feed of them, and packed the rest in their saddlebags. They hadn't gone much further down the beach when they found another box, about the same size as the first. More bananas, they thought, and whipped the lid off—only to find a dead body inside. Some poor soul had been buried at sea, and washed ashore. Grandpa said he never ate bananas after that, but Biddy was sure she'd seen him.

Her parents rode together in an easy silence, their horses striding out, heads down into the wind and squalling rain. Sooty oyster-catchers and sandpipers darted along the waterline, and crying seagulls, chased by the dogs, wheeled overhead.

It took all morning to ride along the beach, and it was a relief to get out of the howling wind and into the shelter of the bush when they reached Brandy Creek. The rain had stopped and they laid their oilskin coats out on the mossy bank and had lunch. Biddy was tired already, but she wouldn't dare let her parents know that. A thin bit of sun crept through the cloud, and the small fire her mother made to boil the billy warmed her. Corned beef sandwiches, hot sweet black tea in a chipped enamel mug, and a slab of fruitcake filled her up. She'd never drink black tea at home, but it seemed just the thing here in the bush. The three of them snuggled together like a family of lions and snoozed until Mum's dog, Top, woke them, trying to get into the food bag.

‘Get out of it, you mongrel of a thing,' growled Biddy. ‘That's our food.'

‘Hey, Bid,' her mother teased, ‘imagine if he ate all our food and we had to live on witchetty grubs until we got home!'

‘Like the Biddy I'm named after. She lived out here and survived on what she could find. Grandpa told me.'

They rode through the lightly timbered gullies that afternoon, calling to the cattle and putting out little piles of salt for them. These cattle had been bred up in the high country and were used to coming out of the bush to get the salt they craved so much.

Biddy was the salt girl. She waited on Bella in a clearing, with the heavy bag of salt on the pommel of her saddle. She called to the cattle, ‘Saaalt! Saaalt!' over and over.

Slowly the steers trickled down the gullies and ridges. They were wary at first, because they hadn't seen a horse and rider for months, but they soon settled to lick the salt from the ground. Biddy rode around the edge of the mob, keeping the cattle together and soothing them with her voice.

Her parents had taken the dogs and headed in opposite directions to search some of the remote places that they knew the cattle loved. Mum took Top, because he wouldn't work for Dad, and Dad took Nugget, because he wouldn't work for Mum. Neither of the dogs worked for Biddy, which made her really mad. It was as if they didn't think she knew how things should be done. She could whistle and yell until she was blue in the face and they'd just give her a sly doggy smile and keep on doing what they were doing.

Biddy hoped her parents wouldn't take too long to get back with the other cattle. The mob was a bit jumpy. The steers kept looking at old Blue, the packhorse, who was tethered beside a thick mass of paperbarks and swordgrass. It was as if they thought he had two heads and was going to attack them. Biddy couldn't see what was so scary about Blue. He was just standing there, half asleep, resting one back leg. But the cattle continued to snort and stare at him.

Finally, way off in the distance, she heard stockwhips cracking and dogs barking. Good, either Mum or Dad would be back soon, and then if the cattle stampeded it wouldn't be her fault. Soon Lorna appeared through the scrub, pushing a ragged group of steers towards them. The cattle bellowed out to each other. As the mobs mingled together, Biddy told her mother about the cattle spooking at Blue.

‘They wouldn't be spooking at him,' she answered, crossing one leg over the pommel of her saddle and giving her horse, Dusky, a pat. ‘Phew! It's hard work getting cattle out of those gullies. The scrub is so thick you wouldn't know what was in there. But I love this mare. She'll barge her way through anything.'

‘If they're not spooking at him,' said Biddy, ‘what are they afraid of?'

‘It must be something in that bush behind him, I guess.'

‘Then why isn't Blue spooking at it too?' Biddy persisted.

‘Mmmn,' Mum thought for a while. ‘Perhaps it's something he's not afraid of.'

Dad came into the clearing soon after with more cattle. His horse, Gordon, dripping with sweat, had foam on his neck where the reins had rubbed, and his nostrils flared red. He reminded Biddy of Grandpa's bronze horse, all wet and shining.

Some of the bullocks were huge, with long curved horns. They stared, wild-eyed, and made half charges at the horses before huddling together in the centre of the mob.

‘The old man was right!' Dad called to them. ‘These eight crazy ones were around the back of Mount Smoky. They've been there for two years by the look of their horns. Watch it, Biddy. If they come near you, get out of the way.'

‘Yes, Bid, they could really hurt you,' said Mum. ‘But they'll be worth a fortune if we can get them to market. Well done, Dave.'

It took the rest of the afternoon to drive the cattle back to the holding yards. The yards had been built a long time ago, by felling trees to form a barricade. Over the years drovers had added more and more branches to make a tangle of wood that even the wildest bullock couldn't get through.

Mum counted the mob into the yard. ‘One hundred and seventy-five,' she told Biddy and Dad as they tied up the sliprails. ‘Counting that extra eight you got, there's still thirty-three to find. Tomorrow morning we'll go back to some of the places we left salt and see what we can pick up. We've done well, team.'

Biddy couldn't move. She sat on a patch of the softest, bright green moss, pushing it down with her fingers and watching it spring up again. A smooth granite boulder supported her back, and her woolly clothes and oilskin coat still kept her warm. Only her feet were cold, frozen in boots that had got wet early and never dried out. A yellow-breasted robin flitted down from the tea-tree, through the last rays of sun that made the wattles glow. It was a golden world.

Long shadows ran across to where her parents were rubbing down the horses. She had started to groom Bella, but was so impatient and bad tempered with fatigue that her mother sent her to sit and rest. Dad would start a fire soon, and after tea they'd roll out their swags and sleep beside it. Even the wild cattle had settled in the yard, and the dogs slept, bone weary, beside the packhorse. They knew where their dinner was.

‘You thieving mongrel! That rotten dog's stolen our bacon!' Biddy woke to her father's angry shouts, and she felt cheesed-off too. She'd been really looking forward to eggs and bacon for breakfast. She didn't think Top could have stolen anything, though. He'd been in her swag all night, but she wasn't going to tell her mother that. Lorna would be very grumpy to know a flea-bag dog had slept in Biddy's swag. She gave a kick to dislodge him, and hauled on his collar. ‘Sorry, mate, you're in trouble. Better you than me, though. Thanks for being such a good foot-warmer.'

Even without the bacon, it was a good breakfast. Biddy toasted the bread on a long twisted-wire fork, and her father fried up eggs in the pan.

Mum came back from saddling the horses. ‘Yoohoo! This smells good enough to eat! Oh, you
are
eating it.'

‘Very funny, Mum. Yours is there next to the fire,' said Biddy. ‘How are the horses this morning?'

‘Good, mmmnn, good. I like the way you've plaited their manes. Very fancy. Did Irene teach you that?'

Biddy screwed up her nose. ‘What plaits? I haven't been plaiting them. Ask Dad. I just got up.'