Read Online Sunset Ridge by Nicole Alexander - Free Book Online

shade of the engine room where their horses were tethered. All the boys’ horses were chestnut geldings out of the same dependable mare, which had finally died – their mother said of exhaustion – last year. They were heading to the river. Soon they would be fishing and talking with Thaddeus’s mate, Harold Lawrence.
    â€˜What about Thaddeus?’ Dave asked as Luther mounted up, his horse whinnying.
    â€˜Do you th-think he’d w-wait for us?’ He gave his mount a friendly cuff between the ears.
    They rode off at a trot, angling close to the sheep yards, careful to avoid the edge of the in-ground dipping trench. Harris bellowed commands as their horses skirted a stand of wilga trees. Behind them the tiers of bales on the wool wagon blocked view of their departure. Dave watched a bale hang suspended mid-air, and then steered his horse into the scrub.
    They rode through stringy saplings and mounded ant hills, over late-winter herbage and brittle grasses. The sun warmed his shoulders, and Dave guessed that it was only a bit past one o’clock when they crisscrossed a series of narrow sheep paths that signified they were nearing the river. Only twelve months ago they had been in the grip of a horrendous drought, yet they had fared better than the state of Victoria. With rivers dried up and grass non-existent, ten million head of sheep were thought to have perished down south. Dave couldn’t imagine such numbers. Things had been bad enough at Sunset Ridge, with their own sheep lying down on the parched ground, brown eyes gazing into oblivion. Yet the rain had come, as their father said it would. By spring of last year Sunset Ridge was returning to life; the bush was returning to life. Just as a brass band marched down the Banyan main street, calling young men to adventure.
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    By the time Luther and Dave reached the gently sloping bank of the river, Harold was tying his boat to a tree. He sploshed from the timber craft through ankle-deep water, his boots hanging over a shoulder, a saddlebag in his hand. It was a good two hours’ row from the village of Banyan to Sunset Ridge, although the time was cut on the return leg thanks to the westerly flow of the water. A few months older than Thaddeus, Harold was muscular, thick-necked and sandy-haired. His father owned Lawrence Ironmongers and despite being the son of a shopkeeper Harold had been friendly with the Harrow boys since childhood.
    With Thaddeus still loading the wool, the three of them baited their lines with worms Harold supplied from a battered cork pot and then spaced themselves apart along the river bank. Dave’s patience lasted five minutes. Tying the fishing line to a stick and removing shoes and socks, he clambered up a tree. A gnarled, stubby branch provided the first foothold, a rotted board secured with a rusty nail the next. Below, Harold tugged lightly on his line while further along the bank Luther chopped branches for a camp fire with his tomahawk.
    The scent of crushed leaves, distant smoke and tangy dirt and manure carried on the autumn breeze. Sheep grazed quietly on the opposite bank, their swollen bellies carrying the coming season’s lambs. To the left the river was protected by a winding row of trees that overhung the water’s edge, their branches dipping the surface like a bather readying to swim. Straddling a branch, Dave wiggled from side to side, edging forward until his feet dangled above the water. The westerly course of the waterway stretched into the distance before disappearing into a dense tangle of trees and scrub. Insects hovered over the river, forming miniature rings as they dropped to its surface.
    Lifting his hands, Dave formed a square with his fingers. Through the frame a wisp of sunlight speared down on the waterhole. Although the surface of the river was a murky brown, the wintery light revealed the soft swirls of the water’s current, tracing the top of it with various hues of