“Why is she here?”
“I don’t know! Am I her keeper?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Oh, fuck!”
And then suddenly out of a neighboring house, a window flying open and a man’s grating voice: “Keep it down! It’s two fucking o’clock in the morning! Bloody fucking hell! People work during the day!”
They kept it down. Real down, like mute.
“She lives here, okay? She lives in this town,” Kai said quietly, through his teeth, looking at the ground. “You knew she lived here. What does that have to do with me?”
“Yeah, okay. Was tonight the first time you saw her since Jindabyne?”
“What? No. There’s only one bar in town. Clearly I’ve seen her, I come with Billy, she comes with her friends.”
“Then why didn’t you say hello to her? Why didn’t you smile and say, Hi, Cleo.”
“I. Don’t. Know. What. You’re. Talking. About.” Kai rubbed his face. “Why would I say anything to her? I didn’t say anything to the thirty other people in the bar either.”
“Yeah, okay, Kai.” Was that a lie? Was that the truth? Was it a lie that sounded like the truth? Was it the truth that sounded like a lie?
Not five minutes later, Billy-O’s busted pick-up truck pulled up. “Oh God,” he said, jumping out—or falling out?—springing over the short rusty fence, jingling his keys. “You been waiting long? Sorry.” He shook Kai’s hand, nodded to Larissa. He was obviously intoxicated.
“So why’d you lock all the fucking doors, man?” Kai said. “You always leave the back open for me.”
“I didn’t know you were—I forgot. Sorry, dude.”
They stepped inside the tiny bungalow with torn musty furniture. Larissa didn’t know why Billy would be locking anything. There was nothing to steal. Kai had been right: there was no place for Larissa here. There was barely room for Billy-O, with all the clothes on the floor and over chairs, the open containers of old food, the bags of chips, the cans of beer. “Sorry for the slight
dis
-array,” Billy-O said. “I’m saving up to buy a new couch.” As if those two sentences were in any way related. “Don’t worry, Larissa”—he burped—”I got a bed for you two. I’ll be fine right here.” He plopped down on the couch and started to roll a joint. “So what are you two up to? She gonna come with you? You gonna go out into the Mungo, Larissa? Ever been in the bush, darling?” He clucked his tongue as he lit up. “It gets hellishly hot out there. I know. I nearly died today. Don’t forget to bring a hat. You have a hat, don’t you? Kai, I still don’t know how you think an unsuspecting tourist
is going to spend six hours out there in the saddle. I think the business is going to go belly up in two days.” Billy tutted. “Well, Larissa can be our guinea pig. If she can do it, I say fine. Otherwise, I think you should limit the trail rides to an hour or two. The city folks ain’t gonna last. They’re not you and me, bro.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Kai, shaking his head at the proffered joint. Since there was no place for Larissa to sit, she didn’t, meandering awkwardly through the mess trying to find a place to perch. As she walked by the phone, a red number was blinking. She looked closer. The number said 7. As in
7 messages
. She picked up the cordless receiver and studied the buttons. CID, one of them said. She pressed it. Sure enough, the caller ID numbers popped up, one by one. Carefully replacing the phone on the cradle, she straightened up to hear Kai and a slurring Billy-O arguing whether it was possible to get all the way from the stables to the holy grail of the National Park, the Great Wall of China lunette dunes, on horses. Billy-O was skeptical. He was also drunk, so he couldn’t win.
“You think the pampered crowds will remain on the horse in the godless heat? I don’t know what you’re thinking, dude,” Billy-O said. “I’m telling you, we should just do the safari ride and forget about the horses. The birds are still here,” Billy mused as he smoked the whole joint alone. “The cockatoos, the finches, also the kangaroos and jackrabbits. The ladies can take pictures, snap, snap. Them Americans
love
the kangaroos. The culling season hasn’t started yet, so not too much blood in the sand.” He chuckled.
“The horses is what’s going to draw the Internet tourist in, Bill,” Kai said. “Trust me. Because you’ve got too much competition in the vehicle tour area. Here, you’re offering something new.”
Larissa stepped away into the alcove kitchen. Kai kept telling her it was Billy-O’s idea to do the trail rides. Sure didn’t
sound like it from
that
little snippet of dialogue. Looking for water, she opened the fridge. There was something awful and spoiled in it. It smelled like a dead snake. All she wanted was a cold drink. Billy-O called to her to drink from the warm tap. “Tomorrow we’ll get you some bottled H
2
O for the ride. Make sure you two bring enough of it,” he said.
Larissa walked back to the living room, and studied the two men sitting side by side, Billy-O, small, unassuming, tired, drunk and slightly drugged, saying, “Why are you in such a hurry to go tomorrow? I’m committed to Kelvin for the mustering run. I already got paid for it, so I can’t say no. If you wait a day, we’ll go together the day after tomorrow.” And sober Kai, laser-eyed on Billy-O, replying, “You have to submit the proposed courses to the tourism board tomorrow so they can post them online, remember?” And Larissa, perspiring, thirsty, exhausted inside and out, the prickles, the needles of jaundiced malign piercing her through a million pores in her skin, listening to Kai now and hearing him loud and clear
then
, his steady excited voice in her memory. It wasn’t even the past, it was the just-lived-through present! This morning he told her that Billy-O had called him from the bush and asked him for this favor. Yet Billy-O sat in his own house smoking and talking about the trails as if he’d forgotten the hastily arranged details—like asking for the favor in the first place.
Billy slapped Kai on the shoulder, glassy eyed, fuzzy-balled, unsteady even while sitting. Larissa continued to stand in the alcove between the kitchen and the living room.
“Bill, what time does the gas station open?” Kai asked.
“Eight.”
“Eight? You sure?”
“This is something I know very well. I run out of juice a
lot
.”
“Anywhere to get some gas now?”
“It’s two in the morning,” Billy said. “Who the hell is going to be up at this hour?”
“All right.” Kai stood up. “Come on. Give me a ride to the troopie. I need to get our shit out of there.”
“I’m in no condition to drive, dude,” said Billy-O falling back on the couch. “I’m in no condition to go anywhere…” His eyes were already rolling back.
“A great brumble culling you’re gonna have tomorrow.” Kai sighed. “Just give me the keys.” He turned to Larissa. “I’ll be back in a half-hour, okay?”
She waited for him until four in the morning. Billy was unconscious in a sitting position on the couch. The place was revolting. She couldn’t go and lie down in someone else’s bed. She perched in the corner of the sofa away from his stoned frame, and mindlessly stared at the dark, tilted to the side.
“Billy,” she kept whispering, “Tell me what’s going on. Tell me, what’s happening. Billy, can you hear me…?”
At one point she thought she heard Billy-O whisper back,
Go, Larissa, leave tonight, don’t stay…
But when she sat up to look at him, his eyes were closed.
She woke up to Kai shaking her shoulder. “Get up. We have to go. It’s already seven in the morning.”
As Larissa suspected, Billy-O did not want to go. Bleary-eyed herself, she stretched out her sore body and stared up at Kai, still in yesterday’s clothes. “What time is it?”
“Time to go.”
“You said you’d be back in a half-hour.” She struggled up. Billy was slumped on the other end of the couch.
“I was back. You were asleep. I tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t wake for nothing.” Kai made a disgusted face. “Plus Bill hadn’t changed his sheets, and I didn’t know where the clean ones were. I didn’t want you to sleep on that.”
“So you left me sitting up on the couch?”
“Better that than those sheets.”
But for some reason he didn’t look like he’d slept on those
sheets either. She wanted to ask him if he got their things, if she should shower, if they would eat somewhere, get coffee. But she didn’t have the energy to ask. She didn’t have the energy to ask him anything.
8
Demon Ride
T
hey didn’t leave the stables until nine in the morning. Billy-O became worried it was going to get too hot for them, that it was too late; they should stay an extra day and go out tomorrow. Kai said no. The route plan had to be in by the deadline, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to submit it for approval until the next tourist season. Larissa agreed. To stay one more day in Pooncarie was unthinkable.
What surprised her was Billy’s stable. To think that a man kept his own accommodation like a trash dump, yet the housing for his horses like the Ritz-Carlton, was paradoxical. Yet his stables were spotless, the horses clean, the hay in bins, the fresh water sparkling in metal buckets, the paddock fence strong and fixed. It all looked painted and repaired and very well tended. Billy loved his horses and it showed.
“So where are these famous white mares?” asked Larissa, looking through the stalls.
Billy-O showed her. “What do you think?” he asked. “You think two horses are worth a whole Ducati?”
Larissa didn’t know the answer to that question, though the large pale animals were very beautiful. But then so was the flame-orange bike. Kai hurried them from the stalls.
“When you return, just leave the horses in the paddock, they’ll be fine,” Billy-O said to Kai. “Don’t forget to feed them tonight when you come back. One bucket each, chaff and grain. You can give them carrots. And don’t forget to refill the water. It evaporates in the heat.”
“Don’t worry, man. I know what to do. I’ve been doing it for three months. I’ll take care of it.”
Leaning to Larissa, Billy said in a quiet voice, “Oh, he loves to go out on the horses, but taking care of the horses, not so much.” He saddled and bridled two tamed Walers, one gray and light for Larissa, a brick-brown medium for Kai.
“No white horses for us?” she said with a smile.
“No,” Billy-O said. “Kai says they’re for the tourists only—”
“We gotta go, Billy. Hurry up,” Kai cut in.
“These are better,” Billy told her. “They’re both mixed breeds. Since they bred in the wild, I have no idea of the pedigree. I call yours light, Larissa, because it’s quick on its feet, not too heavy, but you see, it’s still a big animal.” Affectionately he patted Larissa’s horse’s nose as he adjusted the bit and the bridle. “They’re both excellent trail horses. Yours is especially docile. She is a seven-year-old mare. I can put six-year-olds on her. Right, Shiloh? Right, baby?” He kissed the horse, and then helped Larissa into the saddle. “You okay? Now, think about what you want to bring with you, what you want to leave behind. Because that jacket you’re wearing, you’ll get too hot in it after thirty minutes.”
“I get hot, I’ll take it off.”
Billy shook his head. “Whatever you wear out there is what you keep on, because you can’t take your hands off the reins for a second. You let go of the reins, you lose control of your horse.”
Larissa thought that was sound advice. She took off her jean jacket, and was left in a sheer white blouse.
“How’s Kai going to write things down about the trail if he can’t let go of the reins?”
“Don’t worry about me, Larissa,” Kai said. “I hold the reins with one hand, I write with the other. But let’s wrap this up. We really gotta get moving.” He sounded impatient from atop his chestnut Waler named Hal.
“She can’t go yet, man, she doesn’t know how to handle her horse. Sheesh.” Billy-O looked up at Larissa. “Now listen. You hold the reins in your left hand, you hold on to the horn with your right.”
“Why can’t I hold the reins in each hand?”
“You can try. But what are you going to use to steady yourself? Okay. Now listen. When you want to go left you pull the reins left and kick her with your right foot, when you want to go right, you pull right and kick left. When you want to stop, you pull up on the reins and yell ‘Whoa.’ When you’re in trouble, you yell ‘Yihah.’ Got it?”
“Got it. Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It’s not too bad. You’re sitting on a nine-hundred-pound animal, though. Respect that.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Billy-O.”
“No prob. Kai, man, don’t forget to put the maps back when you return.”
“Will do. Ready?”
“You got everything? Hold on to the saddle, Larissa.”
“We got everything.”
Billy was still patting the skirt on Larissa’s horse. “Water?”
“Yes.”
“For you and the horse?”
“Yes.”
“Pen and notepad to mark the trail?”
“Yes,” Kai called out.
“First-aid kit?”
“No.”
“Oh, dude.” Billy-O shook his head in reproach. “That’s just wrong.”
“Ours is not filled up.”
“Well, you’re not supposed to take yours. You’re supposed to take the one that comes with the horse.” Disappearing into the stable for a moment, Billy came back with a leather medical pouch. “Trust me when I tell you, it’s your insurance. The one time in my life I went out without it, my horse spooked, I fell off and got caught in the stirrup. The horse dragged my sorry ass upside down half a mile across the central Australian plain.” Taking off his hat, he showed Larissa a six-inch horseshoe scar on top of his head.
Larissa paled. “For heaven’s sake. How did the medical kit help you with
that
?”
“It didn’t.” Billy-O laughed. “But the fall only happened because I didn’t have the kit. Every other mishap I’ve had since has been mild by comparison. Because now I always bring it.”
“All right, Mr. Superstitious,” said Kai, tying the small kit to the rigging ring in front of him. “Does it actually have anything in it, or is it just a talisman placebo?”
“It’s got some shit. A Band-Aid. Some aspirin, Super-glue for the big stuff, like my head, and an anti-venom syringe for the really nasty motherfuckers out there.” He grinned. “Pardon my French.”