Du Rose Sons

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Hana didn’t find Logan or Phoenix in the busy hotel and her travels took her down to the stable yard behind the main building. The deaf stable manager, Jack supervised the farrier as he tried to trim the feet of one of the nastiest brood mares. Rawhiti, the stable lad, attempted to occupy her as she fought to take lumps out of the farrier’s bent backside. Jack was in his nineties, bent over and wizened by age but he missed nothing. Hana closed the gate after her and walked towards them, feeling an odd sensation as her child kicked out at her bladder. Please stop, she implored the child in her belly. I need to tell your daddy about you before you start doing somersaults and making it any more obvious!

The thought of confessing to Logan and his subsequent anger at her subterfuge was enough to make Hana come over all hot and bothered despite the chill in the air. She flapped at her face and hung back, not wanting to disturb the men at their unpredictable work. Jack had a good hold on the huge white mare in his care. Nothing would ever get past him. But Rawhiti was not so sure of himself. A young man in his twenties, he loved horses and sought Jack’s vast ninety year experience with an insatiable hunger, but he struggled with the deaf-man’s communication style and so missed the significant and hastily grunted warning.

Rawhiti’s temperamental brood mare decided she’d had enough of being messed around with. The expensive Appaloosa reared up on her back legs and aimed a well-placed kick at Rawhiti’s upturned face with a neatly trimmed front hoof. He ducked and the lead rope ran painfully through his fingers, removing skin with each rutted edge that passed through. The farrier went sprawling face first on the cobbled surface and the mare was loose. Stamping and snorting, her eyes wide in fury and her nostrils splayed open like velvet blow holes, she made a beeline for Hana and the closed gate.

The pregnant woman stood frozen in place as the tonnage of horseflesh bore down on her, the mare hardly breaking stride as she transitioned into a smooth canter. Terrified, Hana closed her eyes and held her breath, powerless against the oncoming collision and the surety that she would come off worse. The clatter of hooves came closer across the wide yard, seeming to double in intensity and noise. It was a snapshot in time, just seconds of her life, but Hana had no time to react. The sound of skidding hooves on the slippery surface was followed by a breath of warm air and then the sense of a huge, sweating body close to Hana’s face. She smelled paddock grass and hay, horseflesh and...Sacha.

Her eyes snapped open to find Logan’s mare in front of her. Sacha was side on, her ears bent so far back into her head that she could have been born without any. She snaked her neck viciously at the Appaloosa and snorted quick, angry threats. The Appaloosa backed away, her moment spoiled and allowed herself to be caught by the embarrassed Rawhiti. Hana lay her forehead against Sacha’s neck and let out a moan of relief. “Thank you, Sacha!” She pushed her face into the dappled furry coat and tried to catch her breath. Her legs seemed wobbly and pathetic.

The mare turned a kinder face on her master’s loved one and snuffed at her hand affectionately. Hana put her shaking fingers up to the mare’s withers and seized a reassuring chunk of mane in her fingers, steadying herself against the surge of shock that claimed her body as adrenaline fought for exit.

“Are you all right, Mrs Du Rose?” Rawhiti’s voice sounded shaken as he called from the other side of the mare. Hana nodded, realising he couldn’t see her.

“Just give me a minute,” she answered. “I’m just a bit shaken.”

She felt Sacha’s body shudder and pulled her face away from the comforting fur, seeing the mare snake her neck angrily at Rawhiti’s approach, baring her teeth and threatening. “Stop it now, Sacha,” she said with a waver in her voice. “I’m really fine.” Hana moved to the mare’s head and stroked her forelock lovingly, kissing her on the pure white, regal forehead. Sacha rubbed her poll against Hana’s shoulder and snuffed in her ear, snorting when Hana giggled. Hana placed her hand on the horse’s halter and led her back to the farrier, who dusted the front of his leather apron with quick movements.

“No way!” he commented, throwing his tools into his bag and making a clanging din in his haste. “Now I know why you lot do your own smithying. Your stock’s out of control!” He rushed from the stable yard still wearing his leather tool belt and hopped over the gate to the hotel without opening it.

Jack looked at Rawhiti and Hana caught sight of a flicker of victory in his smirk.

“I’m so sorry, Miss,” the younger man began and Hana shook her head in confusion.

“Why is it your fault?”

“I met that guy in the township and he said he could do a reduced rate on the shoeing. I thought we could give him a go. Jack’s...” He turned his face away to stop the old man lip-reading. “Jack’s looking a bit infirm sometimes and I know he finds it hard to bend for long with his back. That guy was going to teach me how to trim properly.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Jack?” Hana asked, perplexed.

Rawhiti shrugged and it contained all Hana needed to know. The men weren’t getting on. Jack turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched in irritation. He hadn’t needed to read the young man’s lips to understand what he had just said.

“Get Logan to teach you,” Hana said quietly. “He can show you how to shoe as well.” Then she set off quickly after the old man, following him into the messy office in the far stable.

Jack pulled a half-full bottle of whiskey from the top drawer of an old green filing cabinet, waving it in Hana’s direction as he set two dirty mugs down on the paper saturated desk. She shook her head and signed clearly twice, ‘not for me,’ but he ignored her and poured her one anyway. He took a long slug of the nectar and smacked his lips loudly before signing words about the young upstart in the stable yard, which Hana pretended not to understand.

“He’s just young,” she mouthed, urging him to have patience. The old man sighed and shook his head, while Hana sat and pretended to drink the whiskey. Even the taste of it against the rim of the mug made nausea rear its ugly head. Jack eyed her with amusement until, to Hana’s horror he pointed directly at her stomach.

‘How long?’ he signed.

Hana’s heart sank and she rolled her eyes, laying the whiskey laden mug on the paperwork with trembling fingers. She shrugged and put a finger to her lips, imploring him with her eyes to say nothing. He made a zipping motion with his finger and thumb and beamed at her. She gave him a grateful thumbs up, but still looked immensely discomfited.

Hunting around in the desk-mess, Jack retrieved a stained refill pad and pen. He scribbled something on it and then pushed it across towards Hana. She noticed his large fingers bore no signs of blood or graze and it occurred to her that he had deliberately sent Sacha to head off the other mare.

‘What’s wrong?’ the words on the page asked in cursive, old-fashioned script.

‘Just stuff,’ she replied. ‘Mainly Du Rose family stuff.’

He read it and c****d his head on one side like an eagle, the tufty hair growing from his useless ears making the effect more real.

‘What family stuff?’

Jack’s family had been with the Du Roses for centuries. He was in his early nineties although nobody was entirely sure of his age. Jack taught Phoenix Du Rose to read and write English, although Hana often wondered how they managed without the spoken word. There was no doubt he had kept an extremely watchful eye over the young Logan Du Rose and showed him everything about horses he could possibly teach, much to the jealousy of the other Du Rose children. He and Logan communicated in an odd way, few words or signs; just a knowing borne of hours spent together.

Still weighed down by the knowledge contained in the diary, Hana wrote a question on the paper. With hindsight, it was foolish and she never should have done it. But often the best lessons are learned from mighty mistakes.

‘What happened to Caroline Marsh’s father? The blond drover.’

Jack’s tanned face paled to a sickening hue. His countenance became hard and angry, his brown eyes flashing in his head with a fury that Hana had never seen in him. Her brow knitted and she remained fixed in place in the uncomfortable chair. Jack leaned over and snatched the pen violently from her hand. He wrote so hard on the pad that the sharp point of the pen went through several pages. Then he flung the pad back so hard, it missed the edge of the desk and landed at Hana’s feet. She picked it up gingerly, a tremor reigniting in her fingers.

‘Stay out of things you don’t understand.’

Hana dropped the pad onto the desk as though it was contaminated. She stood up to leave, eyeing the old man with trepidation and jumping as he lurched across the desk and seized the incriminating pad. To her horror he threw the whole thing onto the fireplace, pen as well. With a hiss and a roar, the objects were devoured by the orange guards flickering in their lair. Hana backed out of the office with her heart beating a tattoo in her chest.

She hurried back to the house with the words of the diaries running uncontrollably around her brain. The blond drover hadn’t just disappeared. Phoenix was right. They killed him. The Du Roses killed him.