Free Heart of the Country by Tricia Stringer

aching from being jolted along by his horse, his earlier enthusiasm had ebbed away as he came to the full realisation of what he had taken on. The three thousand sheep might be there somewhere but they were not all in one place. The property was vast and everywhere he went there were small flocks. There was no sign of the shepherd, McKenzie. Thomas would need his help to keep the sheep together or there would be no hope of managing such large numbers. If he were to succeed he would need some kind of strategy.
    He rode out each day, gradually his body accustoming itself to the saddle and the horse to him. Thomas had named the animal ‘Derriere’ in wry deference to his mother, who had always used the French word for buttocks. He didn’t think his derriere would ever recover from the experience, so he thought the name fitting. He treated the animal well and talked to it constantly, there being no one else but the sheep for company. The horse had no trouble with the rough terrain and was responsive to working with sheep. Thomas only hoped the animal could be restored to the good workhorse the auctioneer had said it had once been.
    Each night he’d light a fire wherever he was, and dine on damper and the dried meat from his provisions. A rough map, scribbled with AJ’s notes and landmarks, was his bible as he explored each part of Penakie. One particular morning he studied the landmarks on the map and deduced he was quite close to McKenzie’s hut, though there’d still been no sign of AJ’s shepherd. Today Thomas planned to visit the hut. Their employer had said the man was unreliable. Perhaps he was doing nothing while he thought there was no one to check on him.
    Thomas had barely been in the saddle an hour when he saw a horse ahead of him. It was in the shade of a tree, head down. It was saddled but there was no sign of a rider. Thomas dismounted, tethered his own horse nearby and approached on foot. The horse lifted its head and shifted uneasily.
    â€œSteady,” Thomas soothed.
    The horse shook its head and stomped its foot. Thomas could see its reins tethered in the low branches of the tree.
    The buzz of bush flies grew louder as Thomas got closer. He reached for the reins and ran his hand down the horse’s neck. It threw its head up and shifted its feet but appeared unable to move very far. A cloud of flies rose from its other side. Thomas ducked down to see what was holding the horse in place, then reeled back. No wonder the poor horse was agitated. There was a man lying on the ground, his leg tangled in the stirrup. Thomas had seen enough to know he was dead.
    The horse shook its head again. Thomas pulled his collar up over his mouth and nose.
    â€œTake it easy, boy,” he said.
    He took the reins, which he could now see were tangled rather than tethered, and eased his way around the horse to a point where he could reach the stirrup. The horse tried to move away, shifting the body on the ground. Flies rose up then settled on the flesh. Thomas’s stomach turned. What a ghastly business. It took him some effort to get the foot out of the stirrup, but finally it fell to the ground. Thomas turned his back on the man a moment and led the horse away, talking to it as he went. He’d come through a small creek a short distance back, so he took the horse there and let it drink before tethering it. It had a bedroll, and saddlebags with food and a firearm packaged around the saddle. The rider had obviously been setting out somewhere. Thomas left the horse and went back to face the gruesome task of dealing with the body.
    The man’s eyes bulged and his open mouth, a yawning gap in his thick beard, showed lips and tongue swollen and crawling with flies. There was a wound across his forehead and congealed blood matted his orange hair. The leg that Thomas had extricated from the stirrup was twisted almost back to front. The horse had dragged the man a distance by the look of the