Red Dirt Heart 04 - Red Dirt Heart 4 (6 page)

The hardest part.

Charlie had stopped walking. He stood with his back to me, his head down, holding the reins to my horse. I had carried his saddle and the rifle, and when I got to him, I lifted the saddle up onto my saddle on Texas, reholstered the rifle and pulled Charlie against me.

I held him as he cried, and I cried right along with him. Shelby wasn’t just a horse to Charlie. She was his best friend. He’d spend hours with her in the desert, talkin’ to her about whatever was on his mind. For years before I arrived at Sutton Station, the only living creature he’d admitted his fears to was her. When he’d fought with his dad, it was Shelby he ran to, it was Shelby who took him away.

And he’d just watched her die.

We stood there, surrounded by endless horizons of flat red dirt and saltbush, with Charlie holdin’ on to me so, so tight, until he ran out of tears.

I wiped his cheeks with my thumbs and kissed his closed eyes, and without a word spoken between us, I took Texas’s reins in one hand, Charlie’s hand in my other, and we walked the ten miles home.

We didn’t have to tell George what happened. He saw us walkin’ in, two men on foot and just one horse. He saw Shelby’s saddle on top of Texas, and he saw the look on Charlie’s face. With a sad nod, he took Texas’s reins from me and led him into the stables, and Charlie and I walked to the house.

Ma was on the veranda, having seen us come in. She held the door open and Charlie stopped in front of her for just a second. His head was down, but he never spoke. She put her hand to his cheek and he walked inside. Ma gave me a teary smile, and I followed Charlie to the bathroom.

He leaned over the basin and scrubbed his face with cold water. When he shut the faucet off, avoiding his reflection in the mirror, he held onto the edge of the basin and kept his head down.

I rubbed his back. “Charlie, tell me what you need me to do.”

He shook his head, but stood upright and turned to face me. He looked devastated. “Don’t feel like talkin’ much right now,” he said. “Might just go and lay down if that’s okay?”

He sidestepped me and walked out. I started to follow him, but when he got to our room, he closed the door behind him. What could I say? He needed space and time, and I needed to talk. I’d just shot his horse, for fuck’s sake. I’d been the one to put a gun to her head to stop her suffering, and I was hurting too.

Before I’d moved, before I’d even tried to think about what to do and just when I thought the old shut-everybody-out Charlie was back, the bedroom door opened. Charlie was teary eyed again, and he stood to the side in a silent come-in gesture. “Please.”

I’d no sooner got through the door than he had his arms around me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shut you out.” Then he pulled back and put his hand to my cheek. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes filled with fresh tears. “I didn’t even ask. I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

I nodded. “I’m okay. I had to do it, though, Charlie. She was in pain.”

He nodded and took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry you were the one who had to do that. But I’m grateful you did. I don’t think I could have…”

I brushed a tear from his face. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“She was…” He tried to speak but couldn’t form the words.

“I know,” I said, pulling him against me. “She was more than just a horse to you.”

He nodded into my neck and started to cry. “She was.”

“I know, babe. I know.”

When he eventually pulled away from me, I sat him on the bed and took off his boots. Then I undid his belt and slid his shirt over his head. I pulled back the covers and patted the bed, and when he’d laid down, I toed out of my boots and got into bed. He held on to me and I wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could.

There wasn’t anything sexual about it. But it was warm and intimate, it was emotional and heartbreaking and soothing. But Charlie eventually cried himself to sleep.

A little while later, when he was deep-sleeping, I kissed the side of his head and got out of bed. It was dinnertime, not that I was overly hungry. When I walked into the dining room, it was quiet and all eyes were on me. “Charlie won’t be eating with us tonight,” I told them. “I’ll take something in to him later.”

Trudy took Gracie out of the highchair and sat her on her knee. “Trav, what happened?”

“Snakebite,” I said, confirming what they’d most likely already guessed. “We were just riding along, Charlie was talkin’ about the next Beef Farmers meeting and Shelby reared up.”

George nodded. “She’s always been so scared of snakes.”

I nodded in return. “Yeah, she has. It was a snake that spooked her when she threw me off. But Charlie stayed on her. The snake was kinda coiled up underneath her by then, and it was all reared up too.”

“Brown snake?”

“Think so. But very long.”

“King Brown,” Billy said. “Mulga snake. She wouldn’t have lasted long.”

I shook my head this time. “No. Charlie got her backward and took off a couple hundred yards. He got down off her and her nose was already bleeding. Then she started to foam at the mouth…”

Everyone kinda looked down at their plates.

“He tried to hold her up,” I said quietly. “Just about broke my heart to watch.”

“Oh man,” Bacon whispered, more to himself than to anyone else.

Trudy hugged little Gracie. “Is Charlie okay?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head. “He’s gonna need a day or two, I think. He’s pretty upset.”

“We can take the tractor out tomorrow and dig a hole,” George said quietly. “Bury her properly.”

“I think he’d like that. Just so you know when you get out there, I couldn’t watch her suffer. Charlie had his .22 so I…” I looked at little Gracie. “Well, I couldn’t watch her suffer.”

George gave me a nod. “You did the right thing.”

I knew I did. It just didn’t feel like it. “Yeah.”

Later that night, after I’d checked on a still-sleepin’ Charlie, I was giving Nugget a cuddle on the sofa—although he was fussing because I wasn’t Charlie—and Ma was sitting in her favourite chair. “How you doing, love?” she asked me.

“I’m okay. Just worried about Charlie, that’s all.”

“He loved that horse,” she said.

“He really did. He spent his hours out there in the desert with her. Did you know he talked to her the whole time? The whole time they were out there, he’d talk to her. Reckons she got him to see reason a lot of the times,” I said with a smile. “She was his best friend, Ma. In those years he had no one to talk to, he’d talk to her.”

And when I thought I might have upset her saying Charlie had no one to talk to, she nodded. “Not just that, Trav. His father gave him that horse.”

Oh man. I hadn’t even thought of that.

She smiled sadly. “It was about the best thing he ever did for Charlie.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

“Ma,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You should have seen him out there, when she was fallin’ over and dyin’… Well, I ain’t seen anything sadder than that.” I blinked back tears and took a deep breath and watched Nugget burrow himself into the cushions on the lounge for a while.

I couldn’t look at Ma, because if she was cryin’, then I’d start, and quite frankly I’d seen enough tears for one day.

“He’ll be okay,” Ma said. “He’ll just need some time.”

I nodded, still not looking at her. “I might go take a shower and get into bed.”

“Of course.” As I got to the door, her voice stopped me. “Travis?”

I risked looking at her. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were shiny. “He’s gonna need you,” she said.

I looked to the floor and nodded. “He already has me.”

“And I thank God for that,” she said softly. “I can’t imagine him facing this day if he didn’t have you.”

Life goes on.

Charlie went straight back to work the next day. He was up before me and made himself busy all day. I figured keeping busy was the best thing for him, though he was quiet, kept to himself mostly and everyone gave him the space he needed.

But he needed the opposite of space too. He needed space for head-clearin’, but he needed to know he wasn’t alone. Grief was a weird paradox of wanting to be alone but needing someone near. He pulled me in for a soul-fixin’ hug when we met in the bathroom washin’ up before lunch.

I kissed his forehead, then his lips. “You wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head. “One day. Just not today.”

That was fine. I had come to understand that time according to Charlie Sutton was a relative thing. He’d talk when he was ready. “Okay.”

But he didn’t talk of her. Not really. But as the days after Shelby’s death became weeks, he was almost back to his old self.

But a part of him wasn’t.

He’d work hard and laugh with the others around the dinner table, but there was still an air of sadness to him. Some days, like now, I’d catch him staring into nothing, distracted by memories that brought tears to his eyes.

He was sitting at his office desk, papers and financial reports strewn in front of him, but his mind was somewhere else. “Hey,” I whispered.

He shook his head as though to clear it and sat up in his chair. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Well, there’s maybe something…”

“Spill it, Trav.”

“Well, next weekend is when Nara graduates high school, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re going into the Alice for the ceremony, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I thought it’d be nice if we went.”

“I think so too,” I agreed. “And I was thinkin’ maybe we could stay the weekend.”

“Oh. Okay, if you want.”

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “There’s a horse sale on that weekend too, and I thought maybe—”

“No.”

Well, that was short.

“Okay,” I said with a smile. “It’s okay. It was just a suggestion.”

Charlie sighed. “I know, and thanks. But no.” He shook his head.

I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t think he was ready but wondered where his thoughts were on the matter. Now I knew. “That’s fine. We can still stay the weekend, yeah?” I asked. “Go to the movies, out for dinner. Buy some more Nutella…”

He finally smiled. “Sounds good.”

“Oh. George said the fuel tanker was getting here early. He wanted me to tell you.”

“Okay, thanks.” He looked at his desk calendar and turned it around to face me. “Actually, Trav, that weekend won’t work. I’ve got this weekend free, but I’m pretty booked up for about a month after that with meetings. We could go during the week, I guess. If the others don’t mind.”

“I’ll let you work it out,” I told him. I could see his calendar was pretty full. “It doesn’t matter much to me.”

“I want to take you away for a few days,” he said defensively, like I didn’t think he did.

“I know you do.” I stood up and walked to the door. “Oh, and Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“Book the motel with the double shower.”

* * * *

The room was kinda small. I wasn’t expecting an auditorium or anything, but it was about the size of two classrooms put together. I guess it wasn’t no grand affair, there was banners or streamers. It was very different to high school graduations back home.

In all fairness, the kids who were graduating today didn’t strictly attend school. Hell, Nara did her certificate online and only went into a classroom once for her exams. Now she sat in the front row with some other people ranging in ages who were getting their high school diplomas. Most of the other seats were taken up by family and friends, and we filed into a row at the back.

Me, Charlie, Ma and Billy.

I don’t know which of them was smiling the biggest.

The director of the community college, a thin man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair and glasses and a hideous purple tie, started proceedings.

All the while, Charlie smiled proudly, excited even. And when Nara’s name was called, Charlie, Ma and Billy all stood up and clapped the loudest. I stood up as well, clapping and cheering with the others, as Nara stood and walked gracefully over to collect her certificate. She wore a new outfit—a skirt no less—and her shiny hair was pulled back in a high ponytail. She looked like a different girl than the scared and disowned one who turned up two years ago at the station. I guessed in a lot of ways, she
was
a different girl.

Even under her dark complexion, we could see the blush on her cheeks. She tried to give us the stink-eye, but her smile belied her glare.

When the ceremony was over, Nara walked over to us, smiling but with her head down. I think she was embarrassed at the fuss we made.

Ma hugged her first. “Oh, my sweet girl,” she said. “You hold your head up high.”

“I couldn’t have done this without you,” Nara said to Ma.

Charlie gave Nara a one-arm side-on hug. “Ma got me through school too,” he said. “She’s kind of awesome like that.”

Ma blushed at the compliment, but she lifted her chin proudly. “Well, I know which one of you was easier. And Charlie, it wasn’t you.”

I laughed at that, and Charlie made a face at me. Billy put his arm around his cousin and made her show him her newly acquired school certificate, and the five of us walked out into the courtyard for morning tea.

As we stood around in the late fall sunlight, drinking bad coffee and eating homemade lemon squares, Nara took Billy off to show him something just before the man with the gaudy purple tie who led the award ceremony, the director of the community college, introduced himself.

“Peter Wellington,” he said, extending his hand to Charlie.

Charlie did the introductions to our little motley crew, and Peter tilted his head questioningly. Charlie explained, “We run a station out of town, so we all came in today to see Nara graduate.”

“Ah, yes,” Peter said, as though it rang some far-off bell. “Lovely.” He sipped his coffee, and my initial impression of this man being an academic idiot was proved wrong when he went on to talk about younger kids having vocation for life on the land if they weren’t afraid of hard work. “It’s difficult to see the lustre a life on the streets might have for youth today. Makes you wonder what they leave behind if sleeping under a bridge is a welcome reprieve.”

Ma nodded. “True. Though we were fortunate to have Nara arrive on our doorstep when Billy”—Ma pointed over to where Nara and Billy were looking at something in the garden—“pulled her out of what could have been a harmful situation. And she’s been shining ever since.”

Peter hummed thoughtfully. “She’s lucky.”

“She is,” Charlie agreed. “But she’s no freeloader. She works hard. Nara has earned a place at our table and it’s hers for as long as she wants it. She’s much a part of Sutton Station as anyone of us.”

I smiled at him; his words warmed my chest. “Very true.”

Peter sighed, as though yes, it was a happy story for Nara, but the enormity of so many other kids who weren’t so lucky was a heavy burden.

“Do you run programs for kids here?” I asked.

“Yes, we do,” he said, brightening immediately. It was clear he loved his job, and I felt bad for dismissing him earlier, despite the poor taste in neckwear. “We run programs, like the one Nara completed, to see not just kids but anyone, get their high school certificate. We run art programs, including street art and traditional Aboriginal art classes. We run computer programs, English classes, typing classes, mechanical classes, skills workshops for things like cash handling and customer service, so they might be able to get a job at a supermarket or a fast food chain. Something. Anything.” The college director sighed. “Sorry. I get a bit carried away.”

Charlie smiled at him. “Don’t apologise for passion.”

Peter looked embarrassed and hid his smile as he sipped his coffee cup. “Well, Nara is very fortunate. It’s a shame other kids aren’t so lucky. Not everyone is willing to take a chance on them.”

Charlie made that hum sound that was a tell sign he did not agree. “The problem isn’t the people not taking a chance,” Charlie said. “If you ask me, the problem is the kid not seeing they’re worth it. When Nara first came out home, she was scared as hell, wouldn’t look at anyone, she’d been walked all over and ignored most of her life. Now she runs the kitchen, along with Ma, and she’s like a live-in nanny as well. But it’s not just the jobs she does, it’s
how
she does ’em. She holds her head high and takes no shit from anyone.” Charlie cringed. “Excuse the language.”

Peter laughed, obviously not minding at all, but he was called away and we made our goodbyes and left not long after that.

We treated Nara and Ma to a special lunch and when our plates were empty, I asked Nara, “Where to now? Your choice.”

Her eyes went wide. “Somewhere else?”

“Yep.” I nodded. “High school graduate gets to choose. Movies, shopping…”

“Home.”

We all looked at her. “You wanna go straight home?” Billy asked.

Nara nodded. “I have too much to do at home than to be wasting time here. I told Trudy I’d have Gracie this afternoon, and someone’s gotta feed you lot.”

My shoulders shook with quiet laughter, and Charlie beamed proudly. “A girl after my own heart. Home it is.”

* * * *

Charlie had been quiet through dinner, and it wasn’t until later when we were alone in bed that we had the privacy for me to ask him what was on his mind.

“Will you tell me?”

His eyes sparked in the silver light of the room, his fingers touched the side of my face. “Tell you what?”

“Whatever is going on in that ever-thinking mind of yours.”

Charlie rolled onto his back and sighed at the ceiling. “Just something that Peter guy said.”

“The director of the college? With the really bad tie.”

Charlie smiled at that. “Yes.”

I waited for him to continue.

“He said something about the kids he sees,” he said softly, his smile now gone.

“I liked what you said about them,” I told him. “How it’s not the people helping who don’t see the kids are worth it, but the kids themselves.” I kissed him softly. “I think Greg was right. I think you should consider politics…”

“I want to help them.”

I blinked in surprise. “Okay.”

He rolled on his side to face me. His eyes were bright, even in the darkened room. “Trav, I want to give those kids a chance. I don’t know what good it will do ’em, but…” He shrugged. “I could have been one them kids, Trav. If I didn’t have this place, I
would have
been one of them. My dad kicked me out, well, he sent me away, but those kids didn’t get that option. I’d have been on the streets too. But I was lucky. I had this place, a home, business, all in one. So I was thinking maybe we could look at running some kinda program for kids. Just a week or two at a time, once or twice a year, especially now we’re not doing the overseas exchange this year. But we could teach ’em how to work, ya know? Riding horses, fixin’ fences, taggin’ cattle, diggin’ fence posts—anything that might get ’em a job. Or even if it just gives ’em something to look forward to. Hell, even if it’s just a warm place to sleep.”

I smiled at him and probably got a little emotional as well. I put my hand to his face. “You’re something special, you know that, Charlie? I think it’s a great idea.”

He smiled shyly and kissed the palm of my hand. “It seems right, doesn’t it? That I do something to help them?”

“I know what seems right,” I said suggestively, rolling onto my front and lifting my ass. “And that’s you doing something to help me.”

Charlie snorted, but he slid over me and was soon trailing kisses down the length of my spine, not stopping at the crest of my ass. Not stopping once.

* * * *

The next morning as soon as the clock struck nine, Charlie was on the phone. He asked for Peter Wellington by name, a surname I didn’t remember, a testament to Charlie’s business acumen, and a testament to the lack of mine.

I stood in his office doorway to listen, holding Nugget like the sack of potatoes he was becoming: my forearm across his chest, his hind legs hanging free but his weight against my body. At least he couldn’t bite me when I held him like this. Charlie smiled at me, but the phone must have clicked in his ear. He brightened and spoke to the man who answered, “Hi, it’s Charlie Sutton. I spoke to you yesterday at the graduation day. We talked about kids not having a fair go. Do you remember?

“Well, it got me thinking,” he went on to say. “And I have a proposition for you.”