they turned to walk off.
“Peter, really! Cut the girls some slack!” scolded Aunty Elinor. “They’ve just escaped from boarding school, you know.”
“What did they go and dress up like that for? They knew the horses had to be stabled when they got here.” Uncle Peter was unimpressed. “This is not a hotel – everyone has to pitch in.”
Charni and Ateeyah seemed a bit rattled by Uncle Peter’s stern words, but Colette took no notice of her father.
“Thanks, André, you’re too kind,” she said loftily, sounding like someone in a Jane Austen novel. She smiled and handed him Duchess’s halter. “Come along, girls!” she commanded her friends.
“You girls will be staying in the guest flat – we’ve recently converted the attic into a separate flatlet, and it’s all yours,” Aunty Elinor explained.
“Oh, Mom, you’re the best,” said Colette, hugging her mother. “Let’s go, girls!” she called as she got back into the Land Rover.
“Luke, André, Grandpa Solly, please help with our visitor’s horses,” asked Aunty Elinor. “I’ll take the girls back to the house in the Landy so they can get settled in. First things first!”
“I’m sure you can’t wait to meet Silver Max and Tango Girl,” Colette called through the car window. “Your moment is about to arrive!” She leant back in her seat and flicked her brown hair over her shoulder, looking like a soap-opera star in a limousine.
Luke and Grandpa Solly had heard a lot about the two horses that would be gracing Solitaire with their presence. It was true, they were curious about the new arrivals, and they headed eagerly for the horsebox. In the meantime, André walked Duchess to her stable, where her name decorated the blue door in elaborate white lettering.
Duchess was a dainty bay mare, fifteen hands high, and with Colette in the saddle they made the perfect advertisement for horses bred and trained by Solitaire Stud Farm. Duchess and Colette were a winning team in horsemanship; neat and nifty and always perfectly groomed.
* * *
Nicky watched as Aunty Elinor drove off with the high-school girls. She had noticed a playfulness and sense of fun between the friends. A sudden sharp pain shot through her heart, momentarily taking her breath away.
She should have been hanging out with them, but now no one even dared to speak to her. And when the two visitors had addressed her, it was as if they were talking to someone who was mentally challenged!
What good am I on a stud farm when I feel faint when a horse so much as sniffs at me? I don’t belong here any more, Nicky thought as she headed off, away from the horses and stables.
Grandpa Solly, André and Luke were all occupied with the visitors’ horses, and no one even noticed her leave.
6
A place to think
Nicky stormed straight past Ratu. The palomino was watching the field horses that were grazing in the big paddock behind the barn.
“Those horses can be mean. They’re still young and they love a fight, so best you stay out of their way,” Nicky warned Ratu as she entered the old barn.
Inside the big, dark space was the tack room, which you entered through a massive wooden door and security gate. Because the room had no windows, the door and gate were always left open during the day. Saddles and bridles were kept on big brass hooks that were mounted to the walls, and each saddle had a name tag below it.
Nicky headed for a stool set against the back wall and climbed up onto it. Kneeling on the stool, she reached out and tenderly touched the two holes on the wall; the holes that had been left when the name tag had been removed. Just three months ago, the name tag there had read:
Nicky
Chocolate Charlie
On the hook above the two little holes hung her own black saddle. Her dad had bought it for her in Germany soon after she’d been selected for the Western Cape provincial showjumping team. Nicky stroked the leather, which now had only one long scar left on it. Grandpa Solly had fixed the saddle, and he’d done such a good job that even this scrape was barely visible; the other scratches had completely disappeared.
Nicky’s lost and broken stirrups and straps had all been replaced, and Charlie’s old bridle hung neatly from its hook below the saddle. It had been cleaned, and the bit had been polished to a shine. There it all was – just waiting to be used.
Sitting on that stool with her back against the wall, Nicky could see everything that was going on in and around the stables. She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her hand to her heart, where she could still feel a searing pain. She tried to concentrate on breathing deeply and evenly.
* * *
“How did you bury him, Paul?” Nicky had asked one morning as she and Solitaire’s stable manager had been going about their business in the stable. Nicky had known Paul wasn’t the type to avoid her question.
“Well, burying a horse is tough, Nicky.” Paul had said, and then hesitated. “You were there when we buried Jupiter after he got equine influenza, remember?” Calmly, he’d carried on with what he’d been doing – using a pitch fork to spread clean and dry hay.
Nicky remembered that day very well. They’d had to use a front-end loader to tip Jupiter’s lifeless body into a massive hole that had been dug next to the farm’s scrapyard. Even with the loader it had taken Uncle Peter almost all day to dig the hole. A massive, deep hole. Jupiter’s glorious body had been scooped up by the loader and dumped into the hole as if it were nothing more than a load of sand.
It gave Nicky the shivers to think that Charlie had been buried in the same way.
“We thought we’d put Charlie near Jupiter,” Paul had said. Although he’d clearly felt uncomfortable, he hadn’t tried to change the subject.
“How did you get Charlie back to Solitaire from Quagga Park Reserve?”
Paul hadn’t answered straightaway.
“How did you get Charlie off Snowy Mountain?” Nicky had persisted.
“Well, see, he was already dead, and he was such a powerful animal – muscular and heavy. We had to drag him down the mountainside.”
“But how exactly did you do it, Paul?” Something inside Nicky needed to know.
Paul had stopped what he was doing. “We tied his legs with rope and dragged him behind the tractor. Then we used the loader to put him onto the flatbed truck. And then we buried him next to Jupiter.” Leaning on the pitch fork, he’d continued. “That’s what life is like on a farm, Nicky. Horses are born here but horses also die here. These things happen,” he’d said kindly.
“But Charlie wasn’t just any old horse.”
“I know, Nicky.” Paul had looked at her sympathetically. “Listen, we can’t let this thing defeat us, right? We must keep our heads up high, and breathe in and out, and carry on with life.”
* * *
You
