“Got it. Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It’s not too bad. You’re sitting on a nine-hundred-pound animal, though. Respect that.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Billy-O.”
“No prob. Kai, man, don’t forget to put the maps back when you return.”
“Will do. Ready?”
“You got everything? Hold on to the saddle, Larissa.”
“We got everything.”
Billy was still patting the skirt on Larissa’s horse. “Water?”
“Yes.”
“For you and the horse?”
“Yes.”
“Pen and notepad to mark the trail?”
“Yes,” Kai called out.
“First-aid kit?”
“No.”
“Oh, dude.” Billy-O shook his head in reproach. “That’s just wrong.”
“Ours is not filled up.”
“Well, you’re not supposed to take yours. You’re supposed to take the one that comes with the horse.” Disappearing into the stable for a moment, Billy came back with a leather medical pouch. “Trust me when I tell you, it’s your insurance. The one time in my life I went out without it, my horse spooked, I fell off and got caught in the stirrup. The horse dragged my sorry ass upside down half a mile across the central Australian plain.” Taking off his hat, he showed Larissa a six-inch horseshoe scar on top of his head.
Larissa paled. “For heaven’s sake. How did the medical kit help you with that?”
“It didn’t.” Billy-O laughed. “But the fall only happened because I didn’t have the kit. Every other mishap I’ve had since has been mild by comparison. Because now I always bring it.”
“All right, Mr. Superstitious,” said Kai, tying the small kit to the rigging ring in front of him. “Does it actually have anything in it, or is it just a talisman placebo?”
“It’s got some shit. A Band-Aid. Some aspirin, Super-glue for the big stuff, like my head, and an anti-venom syringe for the really nasty motherfuckers out there.” He grinned. “Pardon my French.”
“Right. Now, can we go?”
“Kai, do you have your phone?” Larissa asked.
“I do, but it’s out of power,” he replied. “I forgot to put it on the charger yesterday.”
“Don’t worry, Larissa,” Billy said cheerfully, “there’s no signal where you’re going even if you did have a full charge.” He patted the neck of Larissa’s pale horse. “All right, you. Be good for the missus. And remember, however long you spend heading out, it’ll take you that plus another half-hour to get back.”
“Billy! I know.” Kai sounded exasperated. “I’ve been out fifty times. I know the drill. We just need to time the ride for breaks, for mileage, and for scenic view points. I’m on it.”
“I’m just saying. Come back before the heat in mid-afternoon. You have a compass?”
“Don’t need one. I know where I’m going. Come on, Larissa.”
Billy’s hand reluctantly left the horse’s neck. “Larissa, be careful,” he said. “I told Kai he had to bring back the horses, but I said nothing about the riders.” He grinned. “Seriously, though, always hold the reins, okay, when you drive the horse.”
“Don’t worry, Billy.” Squeezing the reins with one hand, Larissa leaned down and patted the little man on his plaid-shirted shoulder. She was changing her mind about Billy-O. He was a decent dude.
“Don’t forget to gently cue her,” he went on. “Not rough, okay? Shiloh needs the mildest instruction. Do you know how to use the anti-venom syringe?”
“Bill, for fuck’s sake!” exclaimed Kai. “We’re not getting off the horses. There and back in four hours, stop clucking like a mother hen!”
“Billy,” Larissa smiled, “forget about your mustering run. Just saddle up and come with us. Will that make you feel better?”
“Love to, but can’t. I need to go to my own execution. Kelvin is about to kill me for being three hours late. Don’t take your hats off, you’ll get heat stroke.” He tipped his own hat to Larissa. Kai was already clopping ahead. Billy gave Shiloh a nudge in the quarters, and Larissa’s horse rocked from side to side as it lurched forward.
Being on a horse when you’re tired is terrible. The legs have to do so much to control the horse and to carry you slightly upward to protect you from the horse’s constant rocking bounce. Larissa’s right palm that dug tightly into the horn was sore, the left arm, slightly outstretched holding the reins was sore. After an hour of driving the horse through the dusty plain, Larissa was done. Kai was in front of her, marking the trail. All she saw was his back in a Jim Morrison “Riders on the Storm” T-shirt, almost as though they were on his Ducati, except they were on horses, separated by ten feet of desert. He kept stopping, writing things down in the trail journal, moving on. He rarely glanced back to check on her. The cypress and the mallee were sparse and far away. The blue-bush grasses were near, boulders, pebbles, uneven terrain, sand, stone, clay, blistering sun, not a cloud in the sky.
“I thought you told me Pooncarie was a river port town?” said Larissa.
“I did,” he said. “It was.”
“Was? Like, what? Forty thousand years ago when the Aborigines ruled the wetlands? And you know, in Jersey, the dinosaurs once roamed the earth. I don’t say, yeah, Summit is a prehistoric Jurassic town.”
“You could say it. I wouldn’t care.”
“It’s misleading is all.” Because this is what Larissa was going to waste her precious breath on. Kai’s ability for dissembling.
Every once in a while when she reached down to grab the water flask, the leaning over made her feel as if she were losing her balance, so she put up with unquenched thirst to continue sitting steady and straight in the saddle. Shiloh scared her. Sure the animal walked meekly now, but Larissa suspected that had nothing to do with her, and if suddenly the Waler decided to bolt, to careen from side to side, or to kick back on its hind hocks with a loud neigh, there would be nothing she could do. Pulling her wide-brim Stylemaster over her face and wrapping the reins around her wrist, Larissa held on to the horn as tightly as she could. She wasn’t driving the horse. The horse was driving her. They were riders on two of the four horses in the Book of Revelation. What did the colors of the Apocalypse mean? She had studied the lines for a Great Swamp Revue soliloquy at the same time Evelyn was studying Job. How handy. Kai’s red horse was what? War? And there went out another horse that was red, and power was given to him…to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And what of her own pale horse? Larissa didn’t want to think about it for a second further. Was that the Hippos Thanatos?…And I beheld, and lo, a pale horse…and Hades followed with him.
Ridiculous. Look at Kai, take an example from him, how relaxed he was. Clearly three months in the bush made him comfortable in the saddle. He wore his riding boots, his big Akubra to keep out the sunshine. And there was some fierce sunshine.
But it felt as though she were three years on the horse. Her legs were so sore.
“What time is it?” she called to him.
“Eleven.”
Only eleven! “You want to stop soon?”
“Not yet. Stop drinking so much. Then you won’t need to stop. And hold on to your horse.” Kai glanced back. “Don’t tie up your wrist in the reins,” he said. “If something happens…”
“What can happen?”
“A million things, Larissa. The horse can see a snake. They get startled by snakes and make sudden jostled moves. You heard Billy-O. If you fall off the horse and your wrists are tangled in the leather, Shiloh will drag you for a mile before she stops galloping. So do yourself a favor, okay, and don’t wrap the reins around your wrists.”
The side-to-side motion of the horse’s hind quarters worried Larissa needlessly. She felt like an uncooked egg on top of a car that was about to race down an unpaved road. “What kind of snakes are around here?”
“King Brown everywhere
in Australia, including here,” Kai replied. “But it just so happens that in this part of Mungo, there is a small narrow habitat for the very uncommon inland taipan. The only location for it for hundreds of miles, by the way. Isn’t that amazing?”
When they first got to Australia, both she and Kai had been fascinated by the plethora of dangerous, poisonous, extreme wildlife abundant in the country. That passed. But Larissa remembered well the inland taipan, cousin to the western taipan, the most venomous snake in the world.
“We’re not getting off the horses, so quit worrying.”
But this was the thing. Larissa was worried. She needed to get off the horse to rest her limbs. She was getting hotter and increasingly achy. Her legs in the constantly extended position kept hurting without relief. Much like her heart was hurting, and it wasn’t even in the saddle. She hated it here, hated everything about this place. She would rather live a thousand lives in Che’s broken-down shanty than spend another day in this burnt-out wilderness.
She kicked her horse awkwardly to speed up a little to sidle up next to Kai so they could ride neck in neck. They did. Silently.
After a while he said, “We’ll turn around soon. I really want to get to the Great Wall of China dunes. What a treat that would be for the tourists.”
“It wouldn’t be a treat,” she said. “It’d be torture. Like it is for me.”
“That much’s obvious,” he retorted instantly.
“I hate it here. I want to leave as soon as we get back.”
“You can leave any time you want,” Kai said. “You could always leave any time you wanted. I don’t know why you didn’t.”
“I like your friend Billy very much,” Larissa said, ignoring him, not responding to him. “I was wrong about him. He’s a good guy.”
Kai didn’t say anything for a few minutes. They stretched out the mute moments in a timespace continuum around them. Clomp, clop, heat, silence. They were both looking ahead at the desert, not at each other.
“Larissa,” Kai said. “I’m not going back to Jindabyne.”
“What?”
“I’m not. I don’t want to. I want to make a new life here.”
“Here where?” she gasped. “In Billy’s house?
“No…in my own house. There’s a little place I found, near the stables. I want to stay. Run the trail ride business.”
“You want to run the trail ride business, do you?” Larissa squeezed the reins into her fist. Had the horn not been made of durable leather, it would’ve burst under the stress of her clenched hand. “Tell me, was this trail ride business really Billy’s idea—or was it yours?”
“It was mine,” he admitted.
She glared at him, judging him for his lies. “And hocking your bike for Billy-O, was that a lie, too?”
He paused. “I didn’t pawn it. I sold my bike. Sold it to pay for those two unbelievable mares.”
Larissa was speechless.
“I cannot believe you sold your bike!” she said at last.
“I love the horses, what can I say?”
“Like you liked New Jersey, liked your Ducati, liked Jindabyne? Not too long ago, you were telling me how much you loved it all.”
“I did like all those things,” he said with a nod. “But I hadn’t seen this.”
“This is hideous!”
“To you it’s hideous. To me it’s transcendental.”
“Oh my God.” Letting go of the horn, Larissa wiped her face, perspiring in running-down beads. “Is that why you were dragging your feet, torturing me in Crackenback?”
“Yes. I was done with Jindabyne and didn’t know how to tell you.” Kai had put the paper and pen away, and was holding the reins, not looking at her.
“And when you see the next thing, what happens? Whaling perhaps? Farming? Coral-gathering? Crocodile-hunting? What are we going to do then?”
“When I can’t stay here anymore, I will go,” Kai said. “Larissa, I’m looking for new frontiers, for remote settings, can’t you see? I am seeking refuge in nature in my quest for beauty. I don’t need money. I never needed it. I’m longing for unattainable fulfillment.”
“Unattainable is right,” she blurted out. “But what about me? I hate it here. Does that mean anything to you? That I’m going to be miserable?” And then things sprung into her head she didn’t want to think about. The answering machine he said wasn’t there. The caller ID. The cell phone service he told her didn’t exist. The letters to her he never wrote. The sending her away to the Philippines. Oh no. Did he…?
“We were on a wonderful adventure,” Kai said quietly. “We had a grand life. But I really believe it’s time for the next chapter.”
“What are you saying?” She could barely speak. It was hot, and her mouth went dry. She hadn’t had a drink in so long. The hand that held the reins was shaking, and the horse started behaving erratically. It didn’t know what Larissa wanted it to do. It would slow down, then go faster, turn its head, move its quarters in an odd way. Larissa’s hands were not cooperating. She couldn’t hold the horse steady.
“I need to move on,” Kai said. “That’s the truth.”
“Move on from what?” Her voice fell into a hoarse whisper. “As in…move on from me?” She said that disbelieving, as if she made up the craziest thing she could think of, knowing it would be instantly rejected.
But he didn’t reply, pulling up his horse to walk at her pace, shifting Hal from foot to foot, clomp to clop in the pebbled dirt, staring at the ground. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to look into her face.
“What?” she whispered. “Was nothing real?”
“Why are you deliberately misunderstanding?” Now Kai stopped his horse. She belatedly realized it was because Shiloh had stopped, because Larissa had accidentally pulled up the reins in her distress. Kai turned Hal around and moved to stand close to Shiloh, muzzle to tail, tail to muzzle. Holding the reins, Kai put his fist to his heart. He and Larissa stared at each other. “What we had was real, was beautiful,” he said intensely. “We had a profound everything. I loved you with all my heart, Larissa,” Kai said. “But it’s over. It’s time to move on. Tell me you don’t feel it, too? Come on!” he exclaimed. “We don’t have anything near what we once had, and we haven’t had it for a good few years. We’ve been running down down down, and now”—he clucked his tongue with a c’est la vie—”we’re at the end of the road. Before you left for Manila we’d become so mundane. What do you want for breakfast, pass the paper, what do you want to do in the afternoon. Yadi-ya-da. We’d been domesticated, like Hal, like Shiloh. Think of the feral animals we used to be.” He shook his head, raising his brim. “Don’t you want that back? With someone else? Because it isn’t me, baking in the kitchen, unloading groceries. I don’t want a routine with you. I walked about with you. I toured with you. I sailed the high seas with you and rode my bike with you, I shared my bed with you and loved you in more ways than I thought possible. We’ve been there. Done that. There’s nothing left for us to do but move on.”
Larissa couldn’t speak, couldn’t get her words out. Dropping the reins she put her face in her hands and started to cry. Her good horse, despite the slack reins did not pull away, but continued to stand calmly next to her red partner.
“Larissa, what are you doing?” They were close enough that Kai, reaching over, tried to pull her hands away from her face. She yanked her arms from him, nearly losing her balance. Panting, crying, she grabbed on to the horn.
“I don’t know if this is acting,” he said. “Are you putting me on? Why are you crying? Don’t tell me you didn’t see this.”
“I knew we had problems, but everyone has problems. We were together, we were committed. I thought we were in love! I thought the whole point wasn’t to bail, but to live together…”
“Problems!” He laughed lightly. “We didn’t have problems…”
“Why did you bring me all the way out here!” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me this back in Jindaby
ne?”
“I tried to tell you! I told you in every single way but with my words.”
“You tried to tell me?” She was gasping. “How did you try to tell me? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to have a scene, like this one! And I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted you to see the truth of what I’m saying to you now, to come to the blatantly obvious conclusion, to save some self-respect. What’s the point of getting all histrionic about it? I hate scenes.”
“Is that why you sent me to the Philippines?”
“I sent you to the Philippines to give us a much-needed break, to clear our heads, to clear our hearts. I honestly thought that perhaps you would see by my lack of engagement where the wind was blowing.” Kai tilted his head in frustration. “I thought you would see the writing on the wall and not come back.”
“You thought I wouldn’t come back?”
“I was hoping,” he admitted sincerely. “It would’ve been so much easier than this.”
“Writing on the wall?” Larissa shouted. The rudderless horse trembled. “Why didn’t you just write me yourself? Clearly I wasn’t getting your obvious truths—why didn’t you write me and tell me not to come back?”
“I should’ve. I made a mistake. But Bart, Bianca, Billy, they all told me for sure you’d never come back…”
“They all knew?” Larissa couldn’t breathe. She bent over the horn and the saddle, she dropped her head into the horse’s mane. She couldn’t sit up, felt like she was falling down. “Is that why you didn’t come to pick me up at the airport? You thought I wouldn’t show up?”
With an apologetic shrug, Kai nodded. “When Billy-O called to tell me you were waiting for me at the airport, I admit I was pretty shocked.” He half smiled. “Made pretty good time to Sydney, all things considered.”
Larissa was going to keel over and faint. Kai’s casual expression in the face of her uncontrolled grief was too much for her.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she groaned. “I know it would’ve been hard, but your deception, your lies, my paranoia, my desire to trust you, this is what people do, they trust each other—why didn’t you just tell me? You saw I wasn’t getting it; all right, I was dense, dumb, I was an idiot, I thought we would work it out, considering how much we gave up to be together.” Wildly she pressed her fingers into her eyes, wishing for blindness. “I didn’t think it was going to be over because you didn’t want to be domesticated!”