The Quicksand Pony (7 page)

Joe never went back to the secret valley, to his home. He found himself at Middle Spring the morning after Joycie died and he stayed there a long time. He played with the dingo pup, fished in the lake, built a rough shelter, walked to the ranger's for supplies, and . . . waited for something to happen. He couldn't just walk up to the ranger, or in to town, and say, ‘I'm Joe.' What if Joycie was right? Maybe it was dangerous.

He missed Jozz most at night, and he imagined how the valley would be without them. The little birds would be missing their scraps. The rabbits would have eaten all the silverbeet, without him there to fix the fence. He looked up at the moon. It would be so quiet. He and Joycie used to lie on the valley floor and watch the sugar gliders flying across the moon. They'd be flying tonight.

Without the pup, Joe would have died of loneliness. He called him Devil, after the Phantom's dog. The pup was a beautiful golden colour, paler at his throat, gangly and playful. He was learning to hunt already, patting fallen leaves with his paw to flush out lizards, then chasing them frantically through the long summer grass. He snuggled beside Joe at night, and sometimes woke him by gently brushing his whiskers on his face. He brought all his catches back to share—even though Joe didn't fancy mangled lizard. He expected Joe to share his food, too. If Joe didn't offer him some, even just a tiny piece, Devil would look at him, head tilted, as if to say, ‘Well, have you forgotten your manners? What about me?' He didn't bark or whine, but his eyes and facial expressions always told Joe exactly what he thought.

One of his favourite games was to sneak up and steal some little thing, then race around like a lunatic while Joe tried to catch him. One night, as Joe dozed before the fire, Devil pulled his slippers off, then stood on the other side of the fire, grinning. He was dainty, clever, and very funny.

Later that summer, Joe moved to the estuary behind the Red Bluff. The fish and oysters were easy to get there and the nights were warm enough to sleep without shelter. Every evening a straggle of pelicans flew in from the ocean. They looked like ships floating down through the coloured sky. It made Joe laugh to see them land, their webbed feet splayed out, splashing, then settling gently onto the water.

When the weather got colder, and the days shorter, Joe and Devil travelled through the paperbark forests looking for a new home. No one ever came into this part of the headland. The scrub was as thick and tangled as an old piece of fishing net. The tunnelled tracks that twisted through it were made by wombats and wallabies, and Joe had to bend double to pass along them. No bullock, horse or drover had ever been there.

He found a perfect spot, a gully deep in the marshes. Slightly higher than the surrounding wetland, like Joycie's valley, it caught all the northern sun. It was encircled by a sea of swordgrass so ancient that it had matted together, then grown up through itself. Joe had to clamber over the bottom layer, almost as tall as himself, and push through the thick secondary growth that towered above him. He hated going through it. The leaves cut his clothes and hands, and he knew it was full of snakes—tiger snakes probably—and they were the one thing on the headland that he was truly afraid of.

He built a wonderful thatched house there. Sheer granite boulders made two sides of it, and one of the rocks even had a trickle of water feeding into a natural basin at its base. Joycie would have thought that was pretty flash, having running water in the house. He jammed paperbark branches between the rocks, and wove swordgrass and smaller sticks through the branches. Then he dragged up mud from the swamp on a sheet of bark and pushed handfuls of it between the sticks and branches. When it dried, not a whisper of wind could get in. For the roof he laid more branches on top of the walls, then tied swordgrass and bark over the branches. The roof tilted slightly so the rain ran off and not many drops came through. He hung a bag in the doorway, weighing the bottom down with stones so that it wouldn't flap in the wind, and that was it. He had made his home.

There was just enough room inside for his bed, a table, and a small fireplace for the coming winter. He found a kerosene tin washed up on the beach and cut the front of it open to take small pieces of wood. It made the hut very warm, but the smoke nearly smothered him. The next time he walked to the store for supplies, he took an old bit of spouting from behind the ranger's hut and made a crooked chimney to carry the smoke away.

His bed was made of thick paperbark poles sitting on rocks with branches and grass on top of the poles. The big patchwork rabbit-skin rug Joycie sewed when he was little went doubled on top, and it was heaven to climb into at night. It still smelt of Joycie. When the house was finished he spent days slashing and burning a path so he didn't have to climb through the swordgrass all the time.

Devil was always beside Joe. Some nights they heard dingoes howling in the distance, and Devil would pace about the camp, but he never responded. He had become an excellent hunter, so they had meat to roast nearly every day. He didn't stalk his prey, but he was always on the lookout, and when he spotted something he was after it like a flash. Joe loved the sudden burst of speed he could put on, and if the rabbit or wallaby got away, Devil bounced on all fours to try and spot it. He looked so funny, flying up into the air, looking around everywhere. He carried his catch back to camp in his powerful jaws, presenting it to Joe like a gift.

But with every day Joe grew more and more curious about the other world. He read and re-read his battered books and comics. Without Joycie telling him all the time about the wickedness of men, the fear began to fade and curiosity took over. He wasn't scared any more, only wary. Joycie had talked of Mick and her dad with such love that he knew they'd welcome him.

The ranger didn't interest him. Joycie and he had shadowed the man and laughed at his ways so often that he seemed ridiculous. The people Joe was really interested in were the musterers, the drovers. In the autumn, when they brought the cattle to the headland again, he followed their every move. He listened to their conversations, patted their beautiful horses as they grazed at night, and imagined walking up to their campfire.

He made friends with the dogs, but his own dog, his dingo, vanished while the drovers were there. Even if he had felt brave enough to talk to them, he couldn't just leave Devil. He stole an oilskin coat. As he took it, he could hear Joycie telling him not to, but he had to have it. Winter was on its way, and his clothes were very thin. Besides, he heard the woman, Lorna, saying that it was a spare one, that it was Biddy's. He knew that name. Joycie had told him the story of old Biddy, and shown him the cave she had sheltered in, but that was a long time ago. This must be a different Biddy.

Winter seemed to last forever. Every day was cold, and when the sun did shine it was too feeble to warm anything. The rain never let up. Joe lived in the oilskin coat. The nights seemed endless, and when dawn finally came, often he couldn't be bothered getting up. Everything was hard. Hunting was hard, cooking was hard, having a wash was hard. Going to the store, which was always such an adventure with Joycie, was now simply a necessity. Sometimes he lingered in the building and imagined not having to leave, just staying beside the warm stove.

He walked out to the surf beach on the first warm day. He thought he might have a swim to try and shake off the tiredness that lay on him. He and Joycie used to have such a good time out here. The purple flags were flowering. It must be his birthday. He didn't really care—Devil couldn't sing Happy Birthday, or make the food that Joycie made. He climbed wearily to the top of the dunes to look over the beach.

There were horse tracks on the sand! Four sets of tracks!

He looked down the beach, straining his eyes to pick up something through the sea-mist. Nothing. They must have passed by early this morning.

‘Look, Devil! They're back!' He felt better straight away. ‘Come on, let's follow them.' He began to run in the direction the horses had gone, skipping along the seaweed the way Joycie always made him, leaving no tracks. The dingo followed for a few paces, then turned back. He howled from the top of the dunes, and Joe stopped. ‘I'm not staying just because you don't want to go,' he muttered half to himself. ‘I'll see you at home.' He laughed as he hurried along the beach. Devil looked just like Joycie used to when he did something she didn't want him to.

Joe peered down through the banksia leaves at the cattle standing in the clearing.

‘Saaalt! Saalt!' The voice came from just below him. He nearly fell out of the tree. ‘Come on! Saalt! Salt! Saaalt!' The noise was deafening. It was so loud after months of solitude. The cattle milled towards the call, and a horse and rider moved into his view. It was just a kid! A girl. A bit bigger than him, but not much. And the horse was a little one, too. Just his size. A beautiful little white horse with a long shining mane. Like the Phantom's horse, Hero.

The kid started to call again, and leaned down to tip small piles of salt onto the ground. Two golden plaits poked from under her beanie. They shone, even shinier than the horse's mane. Joe felt his own hair, long and matted, and not smelling that good either, he noticed. Joycie would be cross if she knew how dirty he'd got.

The cattle moved away from the tree to lick at the piles of salt, and Joe slid down the trunk and slipped into the scrub. He wriggled through the tea-tree and swordgrass until he was beside the packhorse.

‘Hey, boy. How you doing?' Blue whinnied in recognition as Joe rested his head against the old horse's neck. He loved the feel of horses. They were so big and warm, so gentle. They smelt good. He felt under the flap on the pack-saddle. Oats, rope, pans, no, that wasn't what he was looking for. He felt in another pocket. Yes! His hand closed around a small, flat slab. Chocolate!

Joe stayed beside the old horse all afternoon, sucking on the chocolate bar, and watching the girl. He really liked the look of her and her little horse. It would be good to just step out of the bush and talk.

When Lorna drove her mob of steers into the clearing, his heart gave a little skip. He was pleased to see her, even if she didn't know he existed. He listened greedily to their conversation. So this was Biddy! And Lorna was her mum. He nearly burst trying to hold in his giggles when they started talking about Blue, and what was spooking the cattle.

He shadowed the cattle back to the holding yards, moving through the bush like a whisper. Top and Nugget came to him when the mob was moving quietly, wagging their tails and licking his hands. They were old friends. A whistle came and they raced away. Joe could hear them barking and the drovers shouting. ‘Here! Push up! That's enough. Come here. Come here!' He ran ahead and climbed the stony ridge that overlooked the holding yards, so he was very close to the cattle and riders as they passed below.

‘They look guilty. Don't you think, Biddy? Those two dogs have been up to no good.' Lorna reached over to Biddy and patted her back. ‘They've been nicking off ever since we left the flat. I wonder . . . '

Biddy didn't answer. She looked tired, worn out. He knew that feeling. Sometimes when Joycie had taken him on a long day's hunting, he'd felt like that at the end of the day. Sometimes mums didn't realise how tired you got.