pulled his knees tight against Wallace’s flanks and tugged on the reins to the left. Like magic the horse followed his instructions. He leant back on the galloping animal, entwined his fingers through the horse’s mane and pulled hard. It wouldn’t do any good if he galloped straight past them like one of those new fangled automobiles he’d seen in a catalogue.
‘You damn recalcitrant,’ he yelled, copying his father. Wallace slowed to a trot.
The moon, having risen to a point above the tree line, illuminated the country in a veil of white as the three riders walked their horses through box and ironbark trees. The horses moved easily through the light-flooded grasses, barely pausing in their strides as the trees grew thicker. A belt of belah indicated they had reached country subject to flooding and soon the traveller’s moon shadows were lost among the close-knitted trees as they weaved through and around the woody plants. Hamish rode ahead of Mungo and one other stockman, Harry. He ducked beneath a low branch and caught his face and hat in a mess of sticky web, a large bush spider scrambling away in fright. He wiped the tacky threads on his thigh.
At midnight, with the moon suspended directly overhead, Hamish halted. Boxer, unusually reticent about joining Hamish on this escapade, had passed on his trail suggestions to his son Mungo, and the boy now turned from the agreed route mapped out days ago.
‘Are you sure you know where you’re going?’ Hamish asked with a low growl as their steady pace led them through coolibah and brigalow timbers. One of the horses whinnied. There was the sound of equine teeth mouthing at a bit. Every noise seemed to be magnified by the night’s stillness as twigs and leaf litter crunched and the soil became sandier in composition.
Mungo coughed, masking the noise with a cupped hand. Hamish sensed trouble brewing and wondered at Mungo’s ability, having been unable to prevent Luke’s spearing by the renegade warrior down south. A quiver settled unpleasantly in his stomach and he turned his neck from left to right. They were not the only ones travelling stealthily under guidance of the moon. Having worn the cloak of the hunted, one never forgot the feeling. At a small clearing they waited silently, their carbine rifles loaded and aiming in the direction Mungo pointed.
The noise of the unknown intruder carried through the air for some minutes; the steady clop clop and the crackle of leaf litter growing louder. The horses in the clearing shifted uneasily. Hamish reined in his mount, drew his rifle tightly to his shoulder and touched his finger to the trigger as Mungo held up his forefinger to signal one rider approaching. The moon shone down upon them like an encircling spotlight, making the timber look dark and forbidding as they backed their horses towards the shadows.
A lone figure entered the clearing. Hamish drew his forefinger down on the trigger as Mungo raised his hand. It was Angus.
‘Damn it, boy. What are you doing? Do you want to get yourself killed?’ Hamish rode forward, intent on chasing the boy away, but Angus was whispering to Mungo and giving practised gestures with his hands.
‘What is it?’ Hamish drew his horse close.
Mungo held up his hand, pointed to his right, indicated a circling motion. Hamish nodded and doubled back in the direction they’d come, Harry and Angus following. Dismounting, Mungo examined the soft imprints they left in the sand and then very carefully flicked dirt across both their entrance to and exit from the clearing. Any reasonable tracker would easily decipher Mungo’s camouflage attempts however the buying of time was a valuable commodity.
‘Well?’ Hamish was waiting near a large coolibah tree, his rifle in his hands. They were close to the edge of the river where the force of previous floods had eroded the bank to a steep-sided drop. Angus stood to one side, his young eyes wide with anticipation. Harry looked wary.
‘Someone track us, Boss,’ Harry stated.
‘Crawford,’ Hamish hissed. He’d not expected the fool of an Englishman to guess at his plan. It was impossible to warn Jasperson.
Hamish looked at his son sitting astride Wallace. ‘You must leave,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You were a young fool to follow.’
Mungo shook his head. ‘The boy is safer with us. Besides his horse is fast and he knows how to find his way back to the crick and help if trouble finds us.’