The Quicksand Pony (6 page)

Later, Biddy tried to remember what happened, but there was no warning, no deep sand, no bog. It was just bang—straight in. One minute Bella was bowling along on firm sand, and the next she had stopped. The sudden halt flung Biddy over the pony's head.

At first she thought Bella had fallen, so she staggered to her feet and urged the pony to do the same. ‘Come on, Bella! Come on, girl! Get up!' It was only when she felt the sand sucking at her legs that she realised what had happened.

‘Mum!' she screamed. ‘Mum! Help me! Bella's bogged! She's in quicksand!' Bella struggled and sank even deeper, past her shoulders. ‘Oh please, God, I'll do anything. Please don't let her sink! Come
on
, Bella! Get out!'

Biddy dragged on the reins. Bella grunted with effort and heaved desperately, but couldn't budge. The bridle pulled over the pony's slippery ears and came away in Biddy's hands, sending her sprawling into the bog. She lay there, sandy, wet and sobbing, as her mother rode up and dismounted on the firm sand.

‘Come on, Bid. Get up. We'll see if Blue can pull her out.' She looped a rope around the chest of the old pack- horse and threw the end to Biddy. ‘Tie this under her surcingle—where it goes across the top of your saddle. If you lie flat on the sand you won't sink so much.'

Biddy wriggled across to Bella. The pony had stopped struggling but it made Biddy sob to see her looking so pathetic. Her beautiful mane was plastered into a brown lump and her terrified eyes were messed and dirty with sand. At least she wasn't sinking any more.

‘Don't worry, girl,' Biddy soothed. ‘You'll be right.'

The rope was heavy and stiff, and her hands just wouldn't stop shaking. She pulled off her gloves and flung them away. ‘I hope this strap will hold, Mum. Okay, you pull and I'll push.'

Lorna turned Blue towards the shore and he leaned into the rope around his chest. He dug his hooves in the sand and heaved with all his might . . . Suddenly he plunged forward—but without Bella. Only the broken surcingle dragged on the end of the rope.

‘It's not working, Mum!' Biddy screamed. ‘It's broken! She hasn't shifted!'

Lorna backed up Blue again. She tried to undo the rope from the surcingle, but the knot had pulled tight and hard. She cursed under her breath. She didn't want Biddy to see how desperate she felt. ‘I'll have to cut it off, Bid. Hang on a minute.'

She freed the rope with her knife and threw it back. ‘We'll try again. This time thread it under your saddle, under the pommel.'

Biddy tied it. She felt so slow, so clumsy. She pushed against Bella's side, but with no strength. She couldn't get any purchase in the slop. ‘Come on, Blue, this time. Pull!'

Blue dug his hooves in again and heaved against the rope. He groaned and Bella shifted slightly, but then—again—Blue lurched forward without her. This time the whole saddle dragged on the end of the rope.

‘Biddy, darling, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to leave her.'

‘What?'
Biddy struggled out of the quicksand to where her mother was stowing the rope in the pack-saddle. ‘You can't leave her! When the tide comes in she'll drown!' Biddy screamed. ‘I'll go and get Dad. He'll get her out.' Tears were streaming down her face. She started to run.

‘No, Biddy.' Lorna gathered her bedraggled daughter in her arms. ‘Stop fighting me. Dad can't come back here. He's got to hold the lead. But even if he did come back, he couldn't do anything. There's nowhere to tie a rope on to now. We can't put a rope around her neck. She'd choke. And her tail's under the sand. Besides, we've got to get these cattle off the beach or we could lose them . . . ' Her voice trailed off.

‘You were going to say “too”, weren't you? Lose them
too
,' Biddy accused her mother. ‘You think she'll
drown
if we leave her. We can't do it.' She stuck out her chin. ‘I'll stay.'

‘Darling, you can
not
stay.' Lorna pulled dry clothes out of the saddlebag. ‘Here, put these on. You are a ten-year-old girl and I can't leave you here alone. Come on, I'll help you out of all that wet stuff, and tell you about Taffy. You know the story. He didn't drown. He came home.'

It was like undressing a doll. Biddy was so stunned and cold that she just stared dumbly at Bella and listened to the story as her mother peeled off the sodden, sandy clothes.

‘Taffy was a buckskin horse that Grandpa had when Dad was about your age. He was enormous; wide as well as tall. Your grandma used to say you could eat dinner off his back. I think he might have had one blue eye, but I'm not sure. I only know the story as your dad has told me. He was so quiet and kind that sometimes, just for fun, Dad and Grandma and Grandpa would all ride him together.'

‘Triple-dinking,' Biddy said in a flat voice.

‘What?'

‘Triple-dinking. Like double-dinking, but with three.'

‘Oh, yeah.' Lorna was relieved that Biddy was listening, was at least interested in the story. ‘Anyway, one day Grandpa was bringing cattle home along the beach. Your dad wasn't with him. He was still too little to go. A man called Steve Begg was helping, riding Taffy, and just like you they got stuck in the quicksand. They had to leave him, just like we're leaving Bella, and Steve rode the packhorse home, just like you're going to ride Blue.

‘Well, they got home very late, and your dad and grandmother were terribly upset to hear that Taffy was bogged. They really loved that horse. They sat in the kitchen weeping and remembering what a good horse he had been, but not mentioning the tide creeping in around Taffy, all alone there on the beach. But Grandpa told them not to give up hope. Perhaps, he said, perhaps when the tide comes in, the sand will loosen its hold, will get more watery, and he'll be able to haul himself out and come home.

‘That cheered them a bit, but they were a sad lot going to bed that night, and your dad even said a prayer for Taffy. And in the morning, sure enough, there was Taffy, standing at the garden gate. He'd struggled out, and come home the fifteen miles by himself, in the dark.' She gave Biddy a hug, and pulled a dry beanie onto her head. ‘And that's what Bella will do, too.'

Biddy couldn't bear to look at Bella as she climbed onto Blue and made herself a seat between the saddlebags.

‘Off you go, Bid. Go up along the side of the mob and tell Dad what's happened.' Lorna's voice had a catch in it. ‘And stay up there with him. I'll bring the tail along.'

The quicker Biddy gets away from Bella the better, she thought. It was awful leaving her, half buried. She had stopped struggling now, and lay exhausted, her eyes dull, breathing in sighs. Despite the story of Taffy, Lorna knew there was a good chance Bella would drown.

Biddy booted Blue into a canter, and they splashed along the beach with the saddlebags thudding up and down. Bella whinnied desperately as they rode away, but when Biddy looked back her eyes were too blurred with tears to see anything more than a grey shape on the sand. Nearing her father she reined Blue in and wiped her eyes to look back again, but the sea-mist had swallowed the pony, and her cries grew fainter and fainter until they were lost in the crash of surf and keening bird calls.

Grandpa rocked Biddy gently with one arm and held a cup of hot chocolate to her lips with the other. The fire lit their faces, both stained with tears, as she told him what had happened.

That evening he had waited and waited. He knew she would be bursting with things to tell him. But as the night wore on it was clear some disaster must have befallen them. When finally the barking dogs told him the drovers had returned, he went out with the lantern and brought Biddy inside while her parents put away the horses and cattle.

Her face was grim. She wasn't sobbing, but the tears would not stop rolling down her face, so he wrapped her in a blanket and sat with her in front of the fire. Tigger landed lightly on her lap but she pushed him away.

‘I've killed her. It's my fault. You told me to look out for the quicksand and I didn't, and now Bella will drown.'

‘Hey, girl,' Grandpa patted her hair. ‘Don't be so hard on yourself. You're not the first to go into the quicksand, and you won't be the last. She still might come home. Did Mum tell you about Taffy?'

Biddy nodded. ‘She'll be so frightened. I just wish I hadn't ridden out after those steers, so it didn't happen. Maybe if I'd been wider awake—'

Grandpa sighed. ‘What's done is done. There's no turning back the clock. There's plenty of things I'd like to be able to do again, but that's not life. Come on, hop into bed and go to sleep. Your pony will more than likely be here when you wake up in the morning.'

Tigger jumped onto the bed and this time she let him stay, purring and pedalling into the blankets. Mum had brought her a hot water bottle when she came to say goodnight, and she held it against her stomach. The warmth seeped through her, but it didn't get to that cold patch in her heart. Losing Bella, losing Bella . . .

The wind was blowing from the east again. She could hear it groaning in the trees. It would be whipping the sand along the beach. She imagined the pony struggling as the cold waves beat against her, then pushed the picture from her mind.

A shadow fell across the floor as her father came to sit on the side of the bed. ‘Goodnight, mate,' he kissed her hair gently. ‘You did well. Really. You were a big help. And don't punish yourself. She'll be here in the morning. Wait on, I'll get something to cheer you up.'

He walked out into the passage and returned with Grandpa's bronze horse and set it on Biddy's chest of drawers. ‘There. Look at him as you go off to sleep. That's what Bella will do. Goodnight, sweetheart.'

Biddy lay in bed, exhausted but not sleepy. Her body felt as if it was made of stone. She could hear snatches of conversation from the kitchen. Their voices were subdued, dull. Even the eight big bullocks, safely home and worth so much, weren't enough to change the mood.

‘They've been lying to me,' Biddy said to Tigger. ‘They don't really think she'll come home.'

Just then Grandpa turned on the light in his room and it shone across the passage and lit the bronze horse. He galloped up the beach in a blaze of light.

Something was dragging Biddy out of a long tunnel. She was so tired, dead tired, but something was insisting that she wake up. And then she remembered. Bella. She opened her eyes. The sun hadn't come up yet, but it was light enough to see.

She flew out of bed, dumping Tigger onto the floor, raced down the passage and out the back door, and there at the garden gate was . . . nothing. Maybe the pony was at the shed, or the yards. She ran, hobbling on the gravel track in her bare feet, not feeling the freezing wind, calling, calling, ‘Bella! Bellaaaa!'

She looked behind the shed, the cypress trees, the chook house. Last year she had found Bella in the chook house, eating pellets, and Dad had joked that she might start laying eggs. She kept picturing the white pony, bedraggled and exhausted, but she was not there. Bella had not come home.

She walked back down the track to the house, not crying silent tears now but howling in despair. She slammed the back door and burst into her parents' bedroom. ‘Bella hasn't come home! She's not here! I  knew I should have stayed with her!' She kicked the wardrobe door. ‘You knew she wouldn't be able to get out, didn't you? You told me bullshit so I'd come home, but you knew. I hate you both. All you care about are your cattle!'

She stayed in her room all morning, cursing and sobbing. She could hear her parents moving about the house and talking in the kitchen with Grandpa, but they left her alone.

At lunch time her father came in. Biddy looked up from the bed, her eyes red and swollen. ‘I'm sorry, Dad. Sorry for saying that this morning.'

He stroked her hot head. ‘Don't worry, mate. Listen, Bid, the tide will be out again now and your mother and I are going to drive back down the beach and have a look, just in case she managed to get free. Do you want to come? I'll understand if you don't.'

‘Do you think there's still some hope?' Biddy's teary face showed a glimmer of excitement.

‘No, I don't, to be straight with you. Not now. But I want to know for sure.' Her father always told the plain truth. ‘I suppose we're looking for her body. That's why I said you might not want to come.'

‘No, I'll come!' Biddy started to get dressed. Any chance was better than none.

The utility rolled smoothly along the beach. Normally Biddy stood up in the back, looking for shells, but she had no heart for it, even when her father stopped to collect a paper nautilus perched delicately on the sand. She wondered if she would feel like this for the rest of her life, as if nothing mattered.

‘We should be there soon.' Dad patted her knee. ‘That big piece of driftwood was just after you caught up with me.' Biddy strained her eyes now, even though she was afraid of what she might see. In her mind there was a body half buried in the sand, or perhaps being buffeted around by the waves, but as they got closer there was nothing. No sign of a pony.

‘It was right here, Dave,' Lorna's voice was sharp. ‘See the sandbar. That's where she was. Stop and we'll have a look around.'

They stepped onto the sand and Biddy stared at the ocean. Was she out there, drowned and then swept away?

‘Biddy! Lorna! Come up here!' Dad was standing high on the beach, where all the driftwood and seaweed washed up. They ran to him, labouring through the heavy sand.

‘Look! Tracks!'

Biddy had to look at the sand for what seemed ages before the marks started to make any sense. She gasped aloud as she understood. There, coming out of the high tide mark, were Bella's hoofprints, but beside them were two other sets of tracks!

Footprints, small human footprints, and the paw marks of a dog.

‘Well, I'll be blowed . . . ' began Biddy's father.

‘Mum,' whispered Biddy, ‘my horse has been rescued by fairies.'

‘Are you sure it was a footprint? A human footprint?' asked Grandpa, going over the story yet again as they ate dinner. ‘There's no one out there. Just the ranger down at the station, and he hasn't got any kids. And old Dan. Are you sure it wasn't a . . . '

‘I
saw
the tracks, Dad. We all saw them. We followed them up into the dunes until they petered out in that shaly country.' Biddy's father was poring over a map of the headland as he spoke. ‘It's going to be hard looking for them. It's a mass of little gullies and paperbark swamps.'

‘Who could be with her, though?' mused Lorna. ‘Who could be that small and be out there?'

Biddy had hardly spoken since they found the tracks on the beach. All the way back in the ute she had sat between her parents, buzzing with the thought: Bella's alive, Bella's alive! Now she looked up from her plate, still beaming, and shocked her family. ‘I know who's rescued Bella. I bet it's Joycie's baby.'