‘Not here. Walk with me, Nathan.’
She took his arm, her grip firm, as she propped the painting against the house and slipped the envelope into her apron pocket.
In the midday light, Liz’s shadow had shrunk to a tight dark spot beneath her feet as they crossed the yard. They walked towards the gum tree and stood under the gentle sway of its branches. At their feet, the graves lay side by side.
Nathan could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he looked at the ground. Old dirt next to freshly turned earth. He had so many questions, he couldn’t find just one to ask.
‘I’d gone out riding,’ Liz said, finally. ‘After Sophie hurt her arm, and told us all that her horse threw her. We couldn’t have that happening. Not with her wanting to do gymkhana. So I wanted to take her horse out myself.’
Nathan suddenly didn’t want to hear. But he closed his eyes and made himself listen as she spoke. On the day Cameron would fail to come home, Liz told him, she had done what she did every day. She saddled up. It was a habit she’d formed during her marriage. On a horse, she was taller and faster and for a few hours at least, no-one could touch her.
That day, she was on Sophie’s horse. It needed the exercise while Sophie’s arm healed. Liz had ridden for longer than usual, feeling for any problems with the animal. The riding seemed fine, and the horse was responding well. Liz thought about Sophie’s arm and rode on, trying harder now to sense the faults. She’d already gone further than she meant to when the thought first crept in, slick and dark.
‘There was nothing wrong with that horse,’ Liz said, the shadows of the eucalyptus leaves playing across her features. ‘I couldn’t work it out. It didn’t make any sense.’
Nathan thought of Ilse’s car sitting neglected in the garage. That hadn’t made any sense either, until it had.
‘So I just kept riding,’ Liz went on.
She had pushed ahead, growing more uneasy with every step. Sophie had been pale and shaking as she had clutched her injured arm, Liz remembered. She had cried, and said she was scared. But she’d wanted to jump back on her horse the minute she was allowed. They’d all praised her for being so brave. Sophie had barely responded to that.
The feeling in the pit of Liz’s stomach had already started to take on a familiar shape when she saw the man standing by the stockman’s grave. She slowed the horse. Her eyesight wasn’t as good these days, and for a long minute, under the blinding sun, the man looked very much like someone else.
Liz had stopped to watch, then walked the horse closer. She recognised the four-wheel drive nearby and breathed out. Of course it wasn’t the man she’d first thought, there was no possible way it could have been. It was her son, Cameron.
‘What was he doing?’ Nathan asked. He’d opened his eyes and was staring at the ground.
‘He was digging.’
Cameron had had a shovel in his hand, and was slicing it into the soft soil. Liz rode up, taking her time. Cameron had not been right lately, and even now he dug with a restless energy that set her teeth on edge. Liz dismounted and hooked the reins around the wing mirror of his car.
Cameron had straightened then, wielding the spade in both hands. The metal glinted in the sun and she was reminded, once again, of a different man. Something about the look in his eyes. He wasn’t pleased to see her.
Can I get some water for the horse?She walked to the rear of his vehicle, where he kept his supplies.
Cameron had waved a hand, his attention already back to the soft ground at his feet, as Liz found a bucket and filled it with water. She looked over as the horse drank.
What are you doing?
He bent down.Checking something.
Checking what?
Why my bloody wife’s been dragging my kids out here.
Liz hesitated.I thought you were going to the repeater tower?
I am.
Bub’ll be waiting.
I’m doing this first.
Cameron ploughed the spade into the sand once more, then stopped. He made a noise in the back of his throat.
‘He’d found something.’ Liz’s voice was hard to hear.
The noise Cameron made was not quite one of triumph; the undertone was too hollow for that. Liz suddenly wished she had ridden in the other direction that morning. The horse had finished drinking, she saw with relief. She put the empty bucket back in the rear and turned in time to see Cameron stoop and dig his hands through the sand. When he stood up, he was holding a plastic envelope, opaque with red dust.
