Brumby Mountain by Karen Wood Read Free Book Online Page A

horse under auction, yelling and nodding and placing their bids. The auctioneer called ‘All done’ and moved quickly to the next horse.
    And then Jess spotted them. Unlike the resigned-looking domestic horses, the brumbies were freaking out. Their nostrils flared as they sniffed warily at new and dangerous smells and they huddled closely together for safety, tense and on edge.
    â€˜There they are!’ said Luke, heading towards them.
    Three horses, unmistakeably wild, whinnied nervously: a brown mare, a skittish brown foal and a deep golden palomino stallion. He was tall with one rolling blue eye and one brown one, beneath a matted forelock. He had the same broad shoulders and back as Sapphire, and Jess could instantly tell that they were related. This one, though, had the sweat marks of a saddle, and missing skin around his neck.
    â€˜He’s so much like Sapphire,’ said Jess. ‘He has to be from the same country, from the same bloodlines.’
    â€˜Look at his back leg,’ said Luke.
    Jess ran her eyes over his hindquarters and down to where a flap of skin hung from the horse’s lower leg, like an old sock.
    â€˜Looks like he’s been stretched,’ said Luke.
    â€˜He’s been what ?’
    â€˜They rope the horse’s hind leg, stretch it back and tie it to a tree. Then they get on and off him. If he moves, he falls over. And if he struggles too much, well . . .’ He gestured to the horse’s hind leg.
    â€˜Contractor brumby-catchers wouldn’t bother doing that. Someone’s doing this for sport.’ Jess turned to Luke. ‘Don’t the authorities stop this sort of thing?’
    â€˜They’ll say it happened in transport,’ said Luke. ‘Wild horses hurt themselves in trucks all the time. It’s hard to police.’
    The bidding for the brumbies didn’t take long. Only one person raised a hand and Jess guessed he was from the knackery. The animals’ lives were traded in for a mere fifty bucks. There was some hand-slapping, a nod, and the auctioneers moved on.
    Luke had walked away. Jess found him by the carpark, sitting on a patch of grass with his elbows on his knees, tapping a stick on his boot. ‘You okay?’ she asked.
    He nodded.
    â€˜We couldn’t take them home, there’s no room. We couldn’t . . . ’
    He gestured for her to stop. ‘It’s okay. They’re better off, especially the stallion.’
    â€˜The foal . . . ’
    â€˜They were a job lot.’
    They sat there in silence, listening to the auctioneer in the distance. Suddenly Luke was on his feet, striding towards a small brick building with Office written above the door.
    â€˜Where are you going?’
    â€˜Gonna find out where they came from.’ He disappeared into the building.
    Jess didn’t follow. Beyond Luke an unmarked truck with a dirty olive-green crate on the back pulled in and Jess watched as several horses were loaded onto the back. Once full, the truck made its way through the carpark and towards the exit gates. Through the gap between the lower horizontal panels, one ice-blue eye stared at her as the truck rolled past. It was the sort of look that would haunt a person in their dreams.
    Luke emerged from the office moments later. ‘All they know is that they’re from New South Wales. They wouldn’t tell me any more.’
    â€˜At least we know we’re headed in the right direction,’ said Jess.
    Luke was already marching to the car, keys jingling in his hand. They rejoined the highway and headed for the tablelands.
    They drove through the city limits and on into the afternoon, with the sun streaming through the window and country music twanging in the cabin. As they travelled up the steep sides of a valley, the road became pitted and potholed and the going slow. The HQ struggled to pull the two horses up the hills and the brakes smoked as it rolled down the other