Dark Horse (18 page)

F
or a few veiled moments Sarah was on her sofa at home. The desiccated taste in her mouth was familiar. The dry haze of too many tablets, she knew it well, sticky skin, oily scalp, burning eyes, stiff limbs, even the smell of sick, that was not unusual either. She was on her side. Her lounge room sofa was narrow and soft. The curtains were drawn and the lamp beside the TV was on. It was windy outside. Tansy would be unsettled – she didn’t like the wind.

Reality started to pour into Sarah’s head, the truth came quicker as she opened her eyes, and she was filled with dread in an instant. She struggled into a sitting position. She’d been lying on the cushioned bench seat at the table. The van door was shut. Brody was gone.

Sarah rose unsteadily to her feet. She stepped over her vomit. It was fresh. She hadn’t been out too long. Through the tinted glass of the window above the sink she could make out the restless shape of Tansy down in her yard. She could see the empty chairs in front of the potbelly. Sarah carefully wound out the small window, giving her a clearer outlook. She rubbed her eyes back into focus, squinted and concentrated. It was dusk. Tansy was pacing in her stable. Brody was in the stable with her. He was holding Tansy’s bridle. Sarah pressed her fingers to her face. She roughly massaged the skin, rubbing animation back in, kneading away the lethargic feeling.

She had a bullet, she remembered.

Sarah felt in her pocket.
Yes
.

No slouch when it came to keeping possession of her weapon, Brody had taken the gun from under the mattress. Returning to the kitchen sink window, Sarah saw her gun was leaning against the back wall of the shed, near the entrance to the stable.

Brody was having trouble catching Tansy. The mare whinnied for him to leave her alone. He hobbled after her. Tansy ran into the outside yard. Sarah heard Brody curse her horse.

That got the blood pumping faster in Sarah’s veins.

If she opened the van door, he’d see her, so it came down to Sarah climbing out the window she’d climbed in when first arriving. She must have slimmed down. Her hips weren’t a squeeze this time. Sarah lost her balance, slipped, and hit the dirt floor, face first, then shoulder, body following, hands lifting last of all. Doltish reaction time, the same way a drunk would hit the deck. Blustering wind and Tansy’s annoyed snickering covered the sound of Sarah’s fall. The drugs stopped Sarah from feeling the pain of the hard landing. She stood in the narrow space, waiting out the head spins and a wave of nausea.

‘Tansy . . .’ she heard Brody growl.

Like that was going to help him catch her.

Sarah’s creeping skills were poor. Her hand ran along the corrugations of the tin to help her keep her balance. She was bent forward. Her head bobbed down. Tansy saw her. Brody saw her, and he also saw his chance – he used the reins like a lasso and looped them around Tansy’s neck while the horse was distracted by Sarah’s strange approach.

Sarah ran, uncoordinated, for the gun. It was only the length of one shed bay away. It seemed like a long-distance effort. Brody watched her, choosing to keep hold of Tansy now that he had her.

‘Sarah,’ he barked.

He sounded like her father.

Sarah picked up the weapon. She steadied herself again.

‘It’s not loaded,’ he reminded her.

Leaning her shoulders against the shed wall, Sarah took the bullet from her pocket and showed it to him.

‘Jesus Christ.’

He sounded fed-up more than anything.

She loaded it, fumbling, about as skilful as a five-year-old.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing. Put it down.’

She lifted the gun, aimed at him.

‘They will see you and blow your head off! They could be out there right now. Put it down!’

‘I told you not to touch her.’

‘What? Sarah? I’m looking after her remember. I’m catching her to tether her. So she’s safe. I’m helping you.’

‘By drugging me?’

‘No – I was trying to keep
you
safe.’ He stood as close to Tansy as he could, as a way of protection. The reins were tight around her neck. Tansy was tossing her head, shuffling back fearfully, and he was moving with her, leaning against her, sticking close and letting her pull him wherever she went. ‘Sarah, if they saw you at my car, they’re going to think you’re armed. And now you are. Put it down. You’re confused.’

‘I’m not confused!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t say that to me.’ She stepped away from the wall and walked into the yard with the rifle raised and pointed at him. ‘
You’re
confused – I told you not to touch my horse.’

He backed up with Tansy. ‘For Christ’s sake, you don’t know what you’re saying —’

‘I know all right. You’re a liar. You’re a cheat. Those pictures —’

‘The pictures are nothing. This is about
you
.’

‘Cheating is nothing?’

‘Put the gun down.’

‘You think cheating is nothing?’

‘They
will
shoot you.’

‘Take everything and then take my horse?’ Sarah sobbed.

‘What have I taken? What are you saying? Sarah, I’m not your hus —’

‘Don’t,’ she threatened, tears increasing the blur of the drugs, emotion tightening her chest to the point of constricting her breaths. ‘I know who you are. I know
what
you are.’ She walked closer. ‘You’re a liar and a cheat.’

‘Please,’ he said, with pity in his pinched expression, ‘you’ve got to stop. I think a part of you knows you’ve got to stop. I’m going to help you.’

‘
Sorry
,’ she said with emphasis on the irony of the apology, ‘but she’s not yours to take.’ She aimed the gun at his leg, the one furthest from Tansy.

Brody released the reins and slapped Tansy on the rump, making her lunge towards Sarah. Sarah stumbled back, the gun slipped from her grip.

A blistering crack filled the mountaintop. Tansy jolted to a stop. The upper muscle in her left leg twitched and quivered. For a few elastic seconds that was all there was. Wind dropped away. Balmy summer night air moved around them. Tansy’s black coat showed nothing. The impact of the bullet, the sting, the pain, the confusion, it showed in the mare’s eyes. An acrid smell lifting from the dropped gun told Sarah it was her weapon that had discharged. Tansy didn’t understand. The pain in the top of her leg increased. The hit was not superficial. It was deep, right inside her. It was invasive, lasting, scarring pain.

‘Tansy . . .’

She recoiled from Sarah. Tansy ran to the far corner of the outside yard and kicked out at the railing. Her hooves skidded in the grass as she bolted around the yard. Her fear only heightened the longer the pain remained, and it worsened. A scream emanated from the mare.

‘No . . .’

Tansy tried to jump the high fence. Her size and strength were terrible as she attempted to clear the rail and failed. She landed on her back in the yard, her muscled legs in the air, her belly round and exposed, her strong neck twisting.

‘Tansy!’

She scrambled to her feet, charged past Sarah, into the stable, misjudged her step, or was too full of pain and fear to control her gait, she careened into the shed wall. She hit head-on, buckled the corrugations, staggered and fell onto the dirt. There was a flash of red in the air and on Tansy’s nose, and a smear of blood on the tin. She got to her feet, swayed. The gash above her nostril was deep and open. There was a dark patch of blood at the top of her leg, a line of it running down to her hoof. Sarah tried to get closer but Tansy was frightened of Sarah now.

‘No, no, baby . . . it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.’

Tansy didn’t see the open stable door; she ran at and crashed through the wooden fence, knocking over the bags of mortar and concrete, the bags tearing and spilling dust. She tripped and stumbled through the planks and open bags. Sarah ducked beneath the outside rail and ran to try and cut her horse off. Tansy careened around Sarah, her wounded leg giving out on every second step, making her stagger. She stumbled across the firm section of land.

Sarah followed, bellowing her refusal of what was happening. ‘No! No!’

Tansy disappeared into the bush. Halfway across the bridging piece of land Sarah slowed her steps. Her eyes were wide and dry. ‘No . . .’

Appearing out from the border of bush, were the men with their weapons raised, a co-ordinated team of them, their helmets on. A helicopter hum drifted in behind them.

The men converged at the end of the firm land. To get to the bush, to her horse, Sarah would have to run right through them. They weren’t going to let her. They bunched into a trained and tactical advance. Their pack-like approach stopped Sarah. Her legs halted beneath her.

Brody was standing in the yard, hands open at hip height, empty palms displayed. ‘We’re both unarmed,’ he shouted.

The men kept their guns aimed at Sarah. They ran closer.

Lifting her arms in surrender was automatic. Sarah’s tears were automatic too. Fast, sudden sadness – something to do with the air, the same air everyone else breathed, the setting sun, one moon too, the unerring and absolute, those infallible things that offered nothing and yet seemed the only things that could be relied upon.

‘Kneel!’ the men approaching screamed. ‘Get down on your knees.’

Sarah knelt with her hands open and resting together on the top of her head. She looked behind her at Brody.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ he called to her.

The man from down at the fork – his gait was wider than the others’ – had pulled ahead of the rest. ‘Do not move!’ he was bellowing, again and again. He ran up to her, pulled her forward, face down into the grass, his kneecap dug into the bruising on her lower back.

W
henever they could the prosecution showed the footage of Sarah shooting her husband. They played it again before resting their case. The recording was in black and white, taken at the stables where Dean had been housing Tansy. It showed the concrete area outside the main doors to Alice Joyce Stables, the name stencilled on each side of the barn-style doors. A security light illuminated the scene; it glowed dimly above the doors. A sensor light came on and flooded the area in bright light. Sarah walked into view. She was wearing a cap and carrying her rifle, her face was obscured by the hat. She walked up and opened the door. Her clothes were the same ones that she’d been wearing early Christmas morning. Her hair was in a ponytail. She disappeared into the stable. Headlights bleached the scene for a moment. The front section of a car came into view. Dean’s car, a four-wheel-drive Nissan Patrol. It pulled up close to the doors. Sarah walked out, back into view. The car driver’s side door opened. The headlights switched off. Dean got out. He was dressed in a chequered shirt with jeans, boots. His hair and beard were dark. He looked uncannily like Brody had when up the mountain – a short beard, a lean, muscular shape. He stood by his car and slapped the bonnet. There was no sound to accompany the footage. He was shouting. Sarah walked up to him, weapon in hand, muzzle pointed down at her feet. From beneath the cap, she began shouting too. Dean seemed unafraid. He leaned closer and shouted in her face. They argued a moment. He pushed her. Sarah stumbled back. She regained her footing and pointed the weapon at him. He shook his head and spun away, face raised to the heavens: a disbelieving shake of his head, while taking his phone from his pocket.

The footage didn’t show the shot, or make clear where he’d been shot (in the back of his neck), all it showed was Sarah bracing with the recoil of the weapon, him dropping the phone and sinking like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He concertinaed down on himself, out of sight of the camera, behind his vehicle. Sarah lowered the gun. She stood, motionless, then wiped something from her lower face. She turned and went into the stable.

A minute later she was leading Tansy out. The mare was wide-eyed and skittish. Sarah had hold of the gun; it was pointing down beside her leg. She led Tansy past the open car door, guided the horse over Dean’s dead body, and led the mare away into the darkness.

Throughout the trial Sarah got to know the many and varied glances that her barrister and solicitor exchanged. The two of them, both women, could converse without a word. They didn’t have to slip each other notes. Sarah was sitting in the dock behind them. She sensed that the corrective officer sitting beside her, also a woman, found the legal team’s eyeballing compelling too. Brody’s arrival in the courtroom caused Sarah’s barrister and solicitor to slide one another their smuggest glances yet. The women contorted their smirks into prim expressions and lifted their heads in unison, pretending to coolly watch Brody, while inside they were grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats. They settled more convincingly into their air of casualness.

He walked to the witness stand. His limp remained, very slight, almost gone. Beneath his bootleg jeans there was the bulkiness of a brace, not enough to detract from his overall appearance – he was wearing a white shirt, untucked, jeans and brown leather boots, his skin was tanned and his hair was trimmed and very dark, he was cleanly shaven. The judge peered over her glasses at him. Two young jurors, a guy, gay, and a girl, couldn’t help themselves – they shot approving looks to one another. It helped too that the media in the public gallery came to life, a purr lifted from them, notepads were opened, pens clicked. Up until that point all they’d had was Jamie Heatherton as a taster and a tease, an inkling of the elusive Brody. When things had dragged – one ‘Your Honour’ too many had put the gallery to sleep – the media scrum had eyeballed Jamie, jotted notes about him, drawn pictures of him, the handsome brother of the handsome survivor.

Jamie sat in the same seat every day, down at the end of the public gallery, closest to the jury, a place where Sarah could see him without having to move in her seat. Usually he came alone. Beside him today was his wife, Kirsty, blonde and blue-eyed, dressed as though she’d come straight from a shift at the gym, or stepped straight from those trail cam pictures. Her arm was linked tightly in Jamie’s. She watched Brody enter the courtroom.

Directly behind Sarah were her parents. She couldn’t see them unless she turned around. In her mind’s eye she could picture them. Her mother had gotten thin. Her face twice as lined as it had been. It had turned a perpetual ashen colour. Either disgrace stooped her shoulders and kept her eyes downcast, or it was Sarah’s father sapping all her energy.

Brody sat in the witness box and looked at his brother. Sarah could see he was fighting the urge to glance her way. The courtroom was big. There weren’t many seats spare, not today, not with Brody taking the stand. It was a modern, plain, brightly lit and open room. He was centre stage. The bailiff administered the oath. Brody was nervous, his voice higher than normal. Sarah’s barrister stood.

Sarah looked away. Brody wasn’t going to be able to keep his gaze from her for too much longer, and she wasn’t ready to face him yet. He would have watched the footage of her at the stables. He would have formed his own opinions. In his own way he would have judged her. She straightened the hem of her skirt over her knees and picked non-existent lint from the fabric, brushed her hands over her lap. Maybe they would have to do it like this – one look each at a time, taking it in turns. Like the sex had been, one always in control.

His gaze was heavy on her – Sarah sensed it now – over her hair, down over her shoulders, lingering on her features, enhanced with carefully applied make-up, not too smoky, not too dewy, no red lips, no frosted colours, subtly accentuated eyes and lips and cheekbones, groomed to perfection eyebrows, nothing for the jury to pick fault with. She sensed he looked away, so as not to seem too engrossed, but he was compelled to look back to her again.

Since Devil Mountain, she’d pored over every one of his pictures in the papers, leaned close to her solicitor’s computer screen and watched news clips of him avoiding media. All he would have seen of her were old photos from before the mountain, the wedding shot of her and Dean the media loved to splash about, and the grainy footage from the creek (that YouTube clip of her calling across Spinners Creek, almost 600,000 views last time she’d checked, the crane driver would be pleased). But here, now, was the first time they had seen each other in the flesh.

Her heart had begun to thud. He still had this effect on her. It was as though a part of her could leave her body and be with him over in the witness box. She was aware of his skin, his hair, his lips, the contours in his face, the weight of his body, the sound of him breathing, she could smell him, taste him.

‘Mr Heatherton, throughout the trial we have been made aware of the facts of your rescue and that you were trapped on the mountain with my client, we know my client saved your life. What I —’

The Crown Prosecutor interrupted. ‘Your Honour, it is not a fact that the defendant saved Mr Heatherton’s life. We have heard evidence contrary to that. The defendant put Mr Heatherton’s life at risk by redirecting the helicopter and holding up the rescue mission.’

‘Refrain, please, from saying the defendant saved Mr Heatherton’s life.’

‘I think, Your Honour, if I may continue, Mr Heatherton’s own personal account of his time trapped on the mountain will make clear whether or not my client aided him in this way. He is surely the best person to qualify what did happen.’

Sarah glanced at Brody. He, too, was glancing at her. Sarah maintained her mild expression. She’d been advised by her solicitor to never deviate from a clement face. Sarah had been made to practise it in front of a mirror. She wasn’t to smile, or frown, or yawn, or cry, she should try very hard not to sneeze or cough, or sniff, or scratch her face, or rub her lips or fix her hair, or fiddle. Brody looked away. Sarah rubbed her lips. She swallowed, sniffed, and touched the tip of her nose. She sat still a moment, thoughts racing, then she smoothed down her hair.

After reining in her small loss of control, her eyes fixed on her lap, Sarah looked up again. Brody had lowered his head and clasped his hands on his lap like she had. He looked up. They deflected gazes.

‘I cut the chain because my keys were locked in the ranger’s office over the Christmas break,’ Brody said.

‘Why did you go up the mountain on Christmas Day?’

‘I’d been working up there the day before and I’d left some gear there. I heard about the rain coming and knew Spinners Creek would flood. If I didn’t get the gear then I’d be unable to get it for weeks.’

‘Work equipment important enough to cut through the chain and race a storm on Christmas Day?’

‘Yes. It was expensive gear. I’d not long had the job. I was worried if I didn’t retrieve it I might lose the position.’

‘What is your job, Mr Heatherton?’

‘I monitor the deer population in the ranges.’

‘You conserve the native flora and fauna by minimising the effects of an introduced species,’ Sarah’s barrister said.

‘Yes.’

‘What happened then?’

‘As I drove up, I heard on the police scanner – I had it on so that I could get updates on the storm – that there’d been a shooting in Lauriston. It was being reported that a woman had shot a man, and she had stolen a horse and that she was armed.’

‘Mr Heatherton, you knew of the shooting before reaching the hut and discovering my client there?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And on arriving at the camping ground in those extreme weather conditions that day, after being helped from a bog by my client, it was then you entered the shed and, seeing the horse tethered, you realised my client might be the person the police were talking about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it the horse alone that aroused your suspicions?’

‘And Sarah had been beaten.’

‘Objection. Your Honour. The witness has no way of knowing how the defendant’s injuries were sustained.’

‘Mr Heatherton,’ the judge said, ‘please stick to the facts and avoid telling us those things you imagined to be true.’

‘She had bruising.’ Brody touched his chin and mouth. ‘It looked like she’d been beaten.’

‘Was there anything else about the defendant that alerted you?’

‘Her demeanour.’ Brody paused before adding, ‘I could see she was unstable.’

‘Your Honour!’

‘Mr Heatherton.’ The judge removed her glasses. She dropped them down onto the documents in front of her and leaned back in her chair. ‘You are not here to give us your opinion.’ She shot a censuring look towards the bar. ‘Your role as a witness should have been explained to you.’

‘Your Honour, I apologise,’ Sarah’s barrister said. ‘Mr Heatherton, please tell us the specific actions and behaviour of my client that night.’

‘She was . . .’ Brody scratched his forehead, glanced toward his brother, ‘scattered, asking odd questions, behaving strangely.’

‘Did you tell my client how you came to be trapped?’

‘No,’ he said in a clearer voice. ‘I panicked when I realised who she was. I didn’t tell her much at all. I kept thinking I’d get out of there as soon as I could. I’d go back down to my car and wait to be rescued.’

‘Why didn’t you leave?’

‘I tried. When she was asleep I got as far as the bush. I rang triple zero. I told them she was there and that I believed she was the woman involved in the shooting. They confirmed it was her, using her first name and a description of her and Tansy, her horse. It started raining badly again. My knee was coming and going. My phone battery went flat. The only option was to stay.’

‘When you returned to the shed and to the caravan, did you tell my client about your call to the police?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘It wasn’t my place to tell her. The police didn’t want me to go back to the camping ground at all – they warned me she was possibly armed, they told me about the security footage. But I had nowhere else to go.’

‘What was she doing, Mr Heatherton, when you returned to the shed?’

‘When I got back she was . . . wandering around, she believed the shed had been overrun with insects.’

‘Had it been?’

‘There were some about.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sarah seemed to think they were everywhere.’

‘What do you mean by everywhere?’

Brody looked to the ceiling and roamed his hand across in front of him. ‘Everywhere – floor, walls, everywhere. It was like, she seemed to think, that we were being invaded.’

‘Invaded by insects?’

‘Yes.’

‘In reality, were there . . . ten insects that you could see? How many?’

‘I didn’t count. I couldn’t say the exact amount.’

‘Not an insect invasion though.’

‘No.’

‘Mr Heatherton,’ Sarah’s barrister said, ‘is it true that one of the reasons you didn’t tell my client about the call is because you didn’t want to add to her obvious unbalanced state of mind?’

‘That’s right.’

The bailiff stepped forward suddenly and announced it was time to break for lunch.