The Road to Winter by Mark Smith Read Free Book Online

get away. There was an old shack up at the far end ofthe Pennyroyal Valley, so we headed for there. We did pretty well, living off the land mostly, but it didn’t last. Ramage’s men hunted us down. We tried to run, but it was useless.
    ‘Ramage had this big compound at his feedstore in Longley. High fences, barbed wire along the top. Big gates. Him and his men rounded up all the kids they could find in the district, boys and girls. Most were Sileys, but not all. Some were just kids whose parents had died. There were about fifteen of us. We slept in the hay, with empty chaff bags thrown over us for warmth.’
    Her eyes are sharp again, cutting right through me. She swallows hard and continues.
    ‘Ramage hired us out to farmers. We did whatever shitty jobs they wanted done. It was dangerous, especially for the girls. I never let Kas out of my sight. She’s only fifteen. I protected her as much as I could. I did some things I’m not proud of.’
    She looks at the tabletop, her hair falling over her face again. I wonder if she is going to cry, and all I can think of is how Dad used to be with Mum when she was angry. He’d tell her a joke. Try to get her to smile. I don’t think a joke’s going to work with Rose.
    ‘You want a cup of tea?’ I ask. It sounds all wrong, though, like I haven’t been listening to her, or been taking her seriously.
    But she surprises me with a laugh and says, ‘Thanks,’ and the tension drains from the room.
    But I haven’t thought it through. ‘Shit, I haven’t got any tea,’ I confess, and that makes her really laugh.
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says as I sit back down. Thenshe seems to size me up again.
    ‘Five days ago,’ she goes on, ‘Kas and I escaped. There was a man, Ken Butler, an old friend of Stan’s and a farmer from down near Nelson. He had a big white beard and used to stay with us when the yearling sales were on. He turned up at the feedstore one day and told Ramage he needed two labourers, and that he had food and whisky to trade. He paid more for us than he should’ve and told Ramage he’d have us back by morning.
    ‘Ken took us across the road to the old hotel. He said he would help us get away from Longley, said we should travel south. There was no guarantee we’d be safe there, but the further away we got from Ramage, the better.
    ‘Kas and I hid in a woodshed behind the hotel until it was dark. It had been cloudy all day, but like a miracle the sky cleared and I could make out the Southern Cross and the Pointers—pointing us south.’
    Rose hasn’t look at me once during her story. It’s like she’s reading off the tabletop, her one good hand moving up and down the wood grain, a fingernail pushing into the gap where the boards are joined. She has big hands. The one that’s not hidden in the bandage is scabbed all over and her nails are chipped. When she turns it over there are calluses rising up on every joint. Farm girl’s hands.
    I’m listening to her, but I’m still missing something. I don’t know anything about Kas.
    ‘She’s my little sister,’ Rose explains. ‘She always had it tougher than me. She was born with a birthmark on her face,a big red mark that covers one cheek and runs down onto her neck. She could have been embarrassed about it, but it just made her fierce.
    ‘She rode the horses. That was her thing. I was an okay rider, but she was way better. She could talk to them, make them understand her. We used to joke about her being the horse whisperer.’
    There’s something softer about Rose when she talks about Kas. She narrows her eyes a little, like she can see the shape of her sister but can’t quite make out her features.
    ‘After we left Ken, we walked for three days without seeing anyone,’ she continues. ‘At the end of the third day, we reached a place called Swan’s Marsh.’
    I nod. ‘I know it. On the other side of the main range. We used to play football there sometimes. Did you see anyone