Dark Horse by Honey Brown

hit only metres behind you?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘And it was how big?’
    ‘As big as any I’ve seen in the ranges. Like the ones in Lauriston Park.’
    ‘Christ.’ His head tipped to one side and his hand rested gentle on his hip. ‘Did you . . . what did you do after that?’
    She explained how Tansy had run. For some reason she didn’t mention the stag. It wasn’t that she deliberately kept the animal out of the story, it was only towards the end that she thought to include him, and then it seemed strange – oh yeah, and there was this huge stag deer . Was the animal her secret? Did she want that special moment to remain between the stag and her alone? No one could understand what had passed between them.
    Heath talked freely about his walk up to the hut. It sounded to her as though he’d known precisely where he’d been at the time of the flood and exactly how to get to where he was going.
    ‘I walked up an old trappers track. There were creeks forming as I climbed, out of nowhere rivers were appearing. I hardly got across some sections. And since then we’ve had more rain. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re not only cut off from the bottom, from Lauriston, but if we’re cut off now from Spinners Creek as well. That’s what I reckon. We can check the road, but I know the way I came would be impossible to get down now. I don’t think we can even get back to the plateau and that area.’
    ‘There were washouts in the road. I thought, though, on foot there’d be a way through the bush.’
    ‘I’m telling you – there are whole new ravines that weren’t there a couple of days ago. The mountaintop is carved up. I’ve been trying not to frighten you, but, as far as I can see, the only way we’re getting down is to be helicoptered out. That’s why we’ve gotta build the yard. We shouldn’t panic – like you said, we’ve got food, we’ve got shelter, they will come, but it’s going to be a while before anyone can walk in and out.’
    Sarah set about digging the post holes they had marked. Heath, unable to dig due to his weak knee, left her side and set to work building the dividing wall inside the shed. They were isolated in their jobs, cut off visually from one another because of the fog, aurally in touch, but that was all.
    After a while Sarah noticed that the noises of Heath working had stopped. She paused and listened. She heard movement down at the other end of the shed, not where he was meant to be.
    She called into the fog, in jest to hide her suspicion – ‘That you, Sid?’
    ‘Aye indeed,’ Heath answered from somewhere near the van.
    ‘I didn’t know Sid was a pirate as well as a bushranger?’
    ‘Yeah, dunno why I was channelling Jack Sparrow then.’
    ‘I hope you’re not down there pinching food?’
    Sarah emptied the shovel of sloppy earth and squinted into the mist. Not a breath of wind to shift the fog, which was becoming increasingly suffocating as the morning stretched on. Tansy snorted. Unconvincing chirps and twitters came from the bush, tentative birdsong, none of the bigger birds – the kookaburras, the currawongs, the magpies and the ravens – had yet returned.
    Sarah heard the caravan suspension creak. She felt her pockets. The magazine of bullets was safe with her, but her phone was in the van. She’d put it on the bench last night when she gave him her shorts to wear, and she’d left it there this morning. Sarah went to move but stopped herself. It would be clear she was checking up on him if she went to the van. She waited for him to answer her.
    He didn’t.
    ‘You are stealing food, aren’t you . . .’ Her expression nowhere near as light-hearted as her tone.
    ‘Changing socks.’
    The socks had been drying by the fire, not in the van. Sarah pushed the spade into the soft ground and left it upright by the hole. She entered the shed nearest to where they were working and glanced at the internal fence he was building. He’d made four thick pillars,