Read Online Moonstone Promise by Karen Wood - Free Book Online Page A

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    The old quarter horse put his head down to graze. Luke took a handful of mane and slipped up onto his back. It was broad and as comfy as a couch. He lay along it with his chest over the horse’s wither, hung an arm either side of his shoulders and clasped his feet together over the rump. The old horse snorted softly and kept grazing. Luke closed his eyes and let his head empty completely, until only the in and out of his breath ran gently through his conscience, interspersed with the slow pull and munch of the horse grazing. The past and the future ceased to exist. He was in the here and now, filled with peace and comfort.
    But as he lay there, the beat of the horse’s heart became gradually louder. It began to pound and hammer like a drum. The music from Bob’s car, the same voice, boomed into his head.
    The hammer’s coming down / The hammer’s coming down / Who’s gonna buy my soul?
    A horse screamed in the distance but it was muted, muffled by rocky hills and scrubs. There was something strange about it. Luke thought briefly about getting up and searching for it, but his body was heavy, so heavy. He lay along the horse’s back, motionless except for the slow rise and fall of his breath. The screaming stopped and he drifted away again.
    Sometime later a cool breeze woke him. He wasn’t sure if he had really fallen asleep or if he had just drifted into a kind of trance. The horse walked and grazed, walked and grazed, and he rolled with the movement of its body as though on a boat.
    Then he heard the horse again, a haunting, screaming noise so far away that it seemed to come from another time and place. It ripped through his soul like icy wind. There was another tiny, indefinable noise – a cry perhaps, or a bleat.

10
    WHEN HE WOKE he found himself lying in a field. It was morning and the sun cast its warmth over him. He could see nothing but grey-golden grass all around him. It was hot and birds tweeted in the new day. A nearby horse blew the dust from its nostrils.
    Luke wandered back to the camp and marvelled at the dramatic colour of the river. It was a pale icy blue, unlike any river he’d seen. Weeping branches hung over it, resting their fingertips in the slow-moving water, and knotted tree roots curled from its mossy banks like gnarly old toes over a step.
    At the campsite, the fire had died down to a pile of ash. Next to it, Tyson was hacking at a tin of baked beans with a pocket knife.
    â€˜This is gonna wreck my knife,’ he said.
    Luke pulled the budget box of muesli bars from his pack and chucked them over to him.
    â€˜Hmm, horse food,’ Tyson said, turning the box over and reading the label. ‘Got anything else?’
    Luke rummaged around in his pack for the net bag of apples. ‘Don’t bruise them.’
    â€˜More horse food,’ said Tyson, but he took one out anyway. He bit it clean in two and chewed noisily.
    Luke pulled his knife out of his pocket and resumed opening the baked beans.
    â€˜You know, there are three kinds of men in the world, Luke,’ said Tyson, lying back, looking up at the sky and speaking through his apple. ‘Fighters, soldiers and warriors. You know the difference?’
    Luke ran a hand over his cheek. It felt slightly swollen and he guessed there was still bruising. ‘I know what a fighter is.’
    â€˜Yeah, I can see that,’ said Tyson.
    â€˜Fighting makes me feel good sometimes,’ Luke admitted. ‘Powerful.’
    Tyson snorted. ‘That’s a false power,’ he said. ‘Didn’t do you much good with your brother, did it?’
    Luke bristled. ‘What would you know about Lawson?’
    â€˜Probably more than you think, young fulla. You’re not the Lone Ranger when it comes to all that stuff.’ Tyson sat up, pulled a muesli bar from the box, unwrapped it and began chewing. ‘Anyway, then there’s soldiers,’ he said. ‘Soldiers do