Read Online Absolution Creek by Nicole Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

automatically to the .38 revolver at her hip.
    Horse whinnied quietly. ‘Shush,’ Cora reprimanded as she ducked to miss a low-hanging branch, the crunch of twigs and branches inordinately loud. They weaved along the water’s edge, ensuring a healthy distance remained between them and the creek’s murky depths. Cora hated the water, and Horse, sensing her dislike, rarely strayed off their designated path.
    ‘Good boy.’
    The tracks appeared almost immediately. The cloven hoofs were imprinted distinctly into the sand and led directly along the creek’s edge. Cora counted the impressions under her breath. ‘Small ones mainly,’ she commented dissatisfied. She nudged Horse and they rode on for some minutes until the green of shrubby lignum choked their path. The dense growth grew in a jagged Z shape, crossing the creek to ensnare a fence and effectively clutter the waterway. Cora and her station manager, Harold, had tried to burn the lignum out last year, however the brimming creek made a strong fire impossible and their attempts simply singed the edges. Only a dry creek would give them the conditions needed to burn the lignum – an unwinnable situation. The creek wound through three of their grazing paddocks and fed two strategically placed dams, providing major watering points for their sheep.
    Cora brushed aside a low-hanging branch. ‘Where are they?’
    Horse pricked his ears. A small flock of green finches flew from the lignum to sweep only inches above the water’s surface. They settled as one across the creek, a flurry of tiny flapping wings strung out in a line on the top fence wire. In an instant a big black sow and a litter of screeching suckers tore out of the lignum.
    Cora jammed her heels into Horse’s flanks and wheeled after the squat dark bodies. Water, lignum and trees flashed past in a blur. Within seconds they were level with the wild pigs. Reins tight in one hand, Cora drew her revolver clear, levelling it at the sow. A surge of adrenalin coursed through her slight frame as she breathed out slowly, simultaneously squeezing the trigger. The wild pig was the size of two border collies. Fat and sleek, the animal hurtled left then right. As expected the litter scattered as the old sow did a direct U-turn to head back towards the sanctity of the lignum. Gripping Horse’s flanks with her knees, Cora took aim and fired. The bullet hit the animal behind the ear, killing it instantly. Horse stopped dead in his tracks and Cora’s arms flailed in the air as the sudden jolt threw her forward and then back again.
    ‘Damn you, Horse,’ Cora complained, pocketing the remaining five bullets from the revolver. ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?’
    Horse lifted each of his legs in turn, shifting his weight slowly. His large eyes blinked. The rest of the litter dispersed in a crackle of hoofs and drying vegetation. The sow’s back legs struck out in the soft sand then stilled.
    Cora holstered the revolver, the smell of cordite thick in the air, the barrel hot. ‘One less,’ she muttered, turning Horse away from the corpse. In a few months the squealing suckers would be another eight grown feral pigs rooting up her precious oat crop or eating newborn lambs in the spring. She wiped at the sweat on her forehead, tucked stray bits of hair behind her ears. Her leg was already aching. The pull of it stretched from her lower spine to her knee. With a grimace she readjusted herself in the saddle, standing tall in the stirrup irons to rub at the knotted muscle in her lower back.
    Horse headed along the creek, his hoofs flicking up sand and twigs as they retraced their tracks. Soon Cora was shielding her eyes from the glare of dawn, her weak eye smarting as they cut through the paddock. They crossed the creek at its narrowest point at a cement pipe mounded with dirt, and continued on through the drying grasses. At the box tree, which marked the midpoint between the creek and the homestead, Cora