The Thunderbolt Pony Read online

  She’s breathing hard. “Evie, I think my leg is broken. I can’t move it …”

  As she tries to push herself up on her forearms, I see her face turn white and she whimpers with pain.

  “Mum!” I say. “Don’t try to move. You have to stay still.”

  A moment ago, in the rush of fear that she was dead, I shook her awake, but now I am remembering my first aid from pony club. If she’s broken her back, any movement might paralyse her.

  “Don’t move, OK?” I say. She doesn’t reply.

  “Mum?”

  She’s blacked out. But I can see her breathing and I know that she’s alive.

  “Mum?” I try to rouse her again, not by shaking her this time, just gently rocking her shoulder. She murmurs.

  “Mum, stay here and wait for me. Don’t move. I’m going for help.”

  There’s a full moon tonight. A burning orange globe in the sky that illuminates the farm just enough so that I can see where I’m going as I run back up the driveway. My heart is slamming in my chest. The adrenalin surge that struck me when I was thrown out of bed refuses to release its grip. It makes my brain move at double-speed so that everything around me seems to go into slow motion. When I enter the tack room and reach for Gus’s bridle. I can see my hand pick up the bridle and I disconnect, as if someone else is occupying my body and it’s not actually my hand at all. I look at my saddle and think there isn’t time. I leave it and don’t bother with the helmet either. I cross the driveway and climb the wire-and-batten fence and drop to my knees on the other side and then get up and wipe myself off and scan the field for Gus.

  I can hear him before I see him. His hooves are pounding out a frantic drum beat in the night air. He comes towards me, head held high, tail even higher, nostrils flared and ears flattened in terror as he tries to find solace in the one thing a horse must do if danger is near. He is running.

  “Gus!”

  When I call his name he doesn’t hear, he’s too overwhelmed. I stand in the paddock and block his path as he gallops towards me and for a moment in the darkness I wonder if the moonlight will be enough for him to see me. He’s gone wild, so deranged by fear that even if he sees me, he may still trample me.

  “Gus!” I hold firm as he keeps bearing down on me, but my heart is slamming against my ribcage. Does he see me?

  I wave my hands above my head, making myself as big as I can, and I see his strides falter and slow, and then with a jerk he slams on his brakes and goes back on his hocks and pulls up.

  He’s trembling all over, his eyes wild, nostrils flared wide. Sweat foams on his neck and his flanks are heaving. How long has he been running like this?

  “Gus,” I murmur. “It’s OK, it was an earthquake but it’s over now. It’s over now and I’m here …”

  I hear my own words coming out of my mouth and it’s like I’m acknowledging to myself what just happened. An earthquake. Out of nowhere, out of the blue. I have never in my life felt as much as a quiver beneath my feet before, and now I’m standing in my pony’s paddock and my house – just a few metres away, where I was asleep in bed less than ten minutes ago – is in ruins and my mother is unconscious on the ground and the power lines still threaten to fall.

  And how do you explain to a horse what has just happened? My Gus, my poor Gus, is beside himself. I can see the whites of his eyes and he’s making this whinny that I’ve never heard a horse make before. It’s the sound of pure fear.

  When I reach to touch him, he jerks back like I have electricity in my fingertips. Then he lashes out violently – kicking with his hind legs.

  “Gus, Gus, it’s OK …” That’s when my tears come. He’s so terrified and I’m so helpless. But I keep trying, I keep talking to him and stroking him and slowly, like a fog is lifting from him, I see the old Gus return. His eyes change. He knows me again.

  “That’s right,” I say, “it’s me, boy, it’s me, Evie.”

  He softens into my embrace, and I hold him, fingers entangled in the rope of his mane, face buried in him, the two of us breathing as one.

  “Are you hurt?” I ask him.

  He lets me run my hands over his body, as I work my way all round him, checking for injuries, but his muscles twitch at my touch, the tension in him as taut and alive as the power lines that spark and crackle beside us in the night air.

  At his wither, I check his braids, and feel a wave of relief that they are still plaited tight.

  I slip the reins over his neck and the familiarity of the routine, doing up the cheek strap and cavesson, seems to reassure us both. I feel my heart beat more slowly as I cluck him forward and lead him to the gate. The latch got jammed shut by the earthquake, but I keep working it with my hands until I finally feel the metal give. It comes loose and I swing the five-bar out and lead Gus alongside it so I can climb the rungs to mount up.

  When I fling myself on his back, he dances a little from side to side and I hope that he’s calmed down enough to handle having a rider on his back. After what we’ve just been through, I wouldn’t blame him if he bucked me off. I keep talking to him, whispering softly that I’m here with him, telling him about Mum and what’s happened and why we need to do this.

  We’re going to Moana’s. Her farm is next to ours. Two ridges divided by a valley, with Chilly Stream in the middle. To get there on foot takes maybe twenty minutes, but I’ve never done it at night and that’s why I need Gus. He can see better than me in the dark.

  He doesn’t buck but he does this stiff-legged, tense joggy trot back up the driveway, and his spine is all bony against my bottom. Jock follows at heel, trit-trotting alongside us, and all the way I can hear the power lines overhead spitting and crackling and I worry that if they fall now I’ll get tangled in them and electrocuted, but finally we get past them and we are at the gate that leads to the ridge paddock.

  I lean down from Gus’s back to open the gate and almost slip as he side-steps through. Jock follows too, keeping up with us. I urge Gus into a canter. It’s so much easier to sit on his back at this pace as the gentle lope of his stride rocks underneath me. The moon is bright. It lights the path ahead enough for us and I trust Gus to be my eyes. I feel the wind in my face as we reach the top of the ridge and I look around me in both directions and see … nothing. I’ve been up here before at night, so I know I should be able to see the lights of Moana’s house in one direction and the lights of Parnassus township in the other. But tonight there is nothing except the blackness. The power must be out through the whole valley.

  I sit there for a moment, wondering if this is such a good idea after all. From here, the ridge makes a steep drop to Chilly Stream and it’s about ten minutes to Moana’s house. But I’d been expecting to have her house lights to guide me down, not to be riding out here blind.

  Go back, I think. But no, that isn’t an option. The house is gone and Mum can’t move and I can’t help her on my own.

  At the top of the ridge, where the goat track descends into blackness, I lean back to keep my balance and I squeeze my legs and I cluck Gus on. He doesn’t hesitate. He is so brave, he virtually flings himself off the ridge and I cling on even tighter than before because even though I can’t really see much, I know that now we’re on the narrow winding path that’s barely wide enough for him to keep his footing down the slope. The darkness is good in a way. If I could see, it would be worse because it’s a long way to fall. I don’t look at all. I trust Gus to get us down, and I know when we’ve made it to Chilly Stream when I can hear the water gurgling in the blackness ahead of us. I hear the dogs start barking and Jock barks straight back at them and now the Mahutas’ two enormous black Labradors come bounding out to see who it is. But even though they know me and Jock and Gus, they’re so on edge after the earthquake that they don’t let up – they’re barking like crazy and their hackles are raised. The next minute I see the familiar shape of Mr Mahuta in his shorts and gumboots and tartan shirt come lumbering out of the house and then I’m blinded by a torch bea
m.

  “Evie?”

  The light is still in my eyes. The dogs are still barking and Mr Mahuta is yelling at them to shut up.

  “Evie!” I know this voice straight away. It’s Moana’s mum. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  The worry in her voice makes me tear up a little, because until this moment I haven’t really had a chance to cry, but now I do. As she comes up and hugs me, I realise I’m shaking. Somewhere in the distance, there is a loud “boom” and then everything around us jolts and the dogs start baying again. It’s the first aftershock.

  ***

  That night seems so long ago, and there have been so many aftershocks since then. Moana and her family will be on their way to Kaikoura now too, all of them together in the car taking the inland road through Mount Lyford. And here I am, on the coast road on my own. Well, not alone. I have Gus and Jock and Moxy.

  The signpost for Ferniehurst has been tilted on its side. I’m pretty sure the earthquake did that. I stop right beside it to eat lunch. I’ve picked up a few windfall apples from the side of the road, and I have my stale bread rolls and the cheese. Jock will take a bread roll too but I’ve got nothing now for Moxy since I used up the old salami. I need to find some food for her.

  The road ahead gets steep from here onwards. I can see the hills rising up, blue with conifers as we enter the foothills of the Hundalees. But first we have one more river. We are about to cross Siberia.

  CHAPTER 7

  Moxy and the River Styx

  I’ve stopped feeling bad about having no food for Moxy. When we stopped for lunch in Ferniehurst, and Jock and I ate stale bread rolls, Moxy disappeared for about ten minutes and when she returned she had a rabbit in her jaws! She ate most of it for her lunch then let Jock have the rest. Now she’s riding up behind me on Gus’s rump once more and surveying the roads ahead down her elegant nose like she’s an Egyptian queen being carried on a litter. She’s always loved to travel.

  One time Moxy even caught the school bus. She’d followed me up the driveway that morning as usual, except this time she actually got on board the bus behind me and I didn’t notice her until after George the bus driver had closed the doors and driven down the road almost to the next stop. By then she was jumping on kids and running up and down and everyone thought it was hilarious, except George, who said she was making us late for school. I wanted to take her back to my gate, but George said he couldn’t turn the bus round. He said, “If she’s smart enough to get on the bus then she can find her way home.” And he picked her up and threw her out of the bus doors, then shut them again and drove off! This was before I had my OCD. But I remember that even then I was really worried about Moxy all day at school. I was so upset because I thought she’d never find her way back home and be lost forever, but at 3:15 when George dropped me off she was there at my gate waiting for me. She’s a clever cat.

  Right now, Moxy is grooming herself on Gus’s rump in the sun. It’s going to be a hot day and I can see the bridge up ahead. Beyond that the Hundalees rise up. The hills are dark green to the left of the highway and bleached like bones on the other side. It’s not far now before we begin to climb into the mountains. The road ahead is about to get tougher, and the first thing we must do is to cross Siberia.

  Siberia Stream flows through the mountains all the way from St Arnaud down to the coastal plains of Conway Flat. Most of the year, Siberia isn’t much more than a stream, but in the months when the snowcaps melt it becomes a wide, fierce torrent, choppy and deep.

  The bridge over it looks fine from a distance, but as I ride closer I see what the earthquake has done, how the metal barriers on either side have buckled and twisted, and how the tarmac surface of the bridge has giant cracks in it. In places you can see all the way through to the stony riverbed. There is no way you could drive a car over it. But I’m on a horse and so I cluck Gus onwards. He doesn’t want to move at first, but I coax him until he steps out, first with one hoof, and then another.

  They chime out a hollow sound and Gus spooks and side-steps, and as he does this, I feel the bridge shake beneath us.

  We’re only a little way across at this point, but I can already feel the whole structure shaking! I look ahead of me at the massive cracks in the tarmac, and I swear they’re getting wider as we stand here. And then Jock, who’s still at our heels, starts up barking. I mean, he’s going crazy, really barking his head off, and instead of staying back behind Gus, he suddenly rushes ahead of us, which is something he never does. He goes out in front of Gus and he stands there right in the middle of the bridge. He’s still barking at us, like a heading dog trying to turn the cattle round.

  “Jock, stop …” I begin to tell him off, but then I hear the creak of the concrete pillars beneath us and I feel the bridge lurch to one side.

  My heart is racing but I try to go slowly as I rein Gus backwards. I don’t want to turn him or move too quick as any movement in either direction could make the bridge beneath us collapse.

  “Steady,” I say as I back him up step by step. “Good boy.”

  Once we’re off the bridge, I dismount and Jock comes running to me. I hold him close and I can feel his heart pounding against my leg.

  “Good boy,” I whisper. “Good, Jock. It’s OK.”

  Only it’s not OK, because if we can’t use the bridge then how do we cross? The stream is swollen with icy water right now and the river rocks are treacherously slippery underfoot. But what choice do we have? We need to get to the other side and there’s no way I’m going over that bridge.

  I lead Gus down the steep bank of gorse and scrub that takes us to the riverbed. I look straight up at the underside of the bridge and see the tangle of steel spaghetti that’s been ripped out and exposed like guts spilling from beneath the concrete, and I realise it’s a miracle that it didn’t collapse when we stood on it. One good aftershock is all it will take for the whole thing to fall.

  Down here the river rushes in a furious surge and the bridge above acts like an echo chamber compounding the roar of the water. Gus doesn’t like it, and as I mount he snorts anxiously, skipping about.

  I urge him away from the cover of the bridge, further upstream, and then steer him down to the water’s edge. The stream is at its narrowest here and boulders stick up above the white froth. I’m not sure how deep it is. Surely it isn’t too deep for Gus to walk through it?

  “Come on,” I coax him. Gus dances a little. He’s a good cross-country horse and never afraid of a water jump but this surging torrent is not what he’s used to and as soon as he steps his front legs into the water I can feel him tense up in the drag of the current. He hesitates, but I kick him on because we have no choice. On his rump behind me, I can see Moxy peering down at the water. She lets out an anxious yowl.

  Gus gives a snort and then ploughs into the stream. Behind us, back on shore, Jock starts whining. I turn and see him looking upset at being left behind, his ears flattened, eyes worried. I’m about to call to him when, with a bark, he leaps boldly in!

  He’s only just submerged when he gets picked up and swept off by the current. I watch him paddling like mad as he gets taken sideways downstream. He’s fighting to stay with us and make his way across to the other side.

  Gus is up to his chest in the river now and striding forward. I try to hold my legs up so that I won’t get my boots and jodhpurs wet, and behind me Moxy has moved from Gus’s rump to perch at the highest point on top of the bedroll, digging into the nylon with her claws for dear life.

  Moxy can swim if she has to, I’ve seen her dive into the dam on our farm and cat-paddle her way to the other side. But this water is a washing machine, not a millpond.

  We’re just over halfway across when Gus stumbles into a hole. All of a sudden I feel him lose his footing and the ground drops away and it seems almost like he’s rearing as all four hooves leave the riverbed and he can’t touch the bottom any more.

  Trying to regain his footing Gus powers forward, dropping down on his h
aunches and swimming, and I give up on keeping my jodhpurs dry because it’s all I can do to stay with him, clinging on round his neck with both arms. We’re still in the grip of the current for another stride or two and then I feel his hooves dig once more into the sandy loam of the riverbed. We’re through the deep patch and back on the ground, and I’m soaking wet all the way to my armpits, but we’re OK. I look back over my shoulder to check and I see the tent and the sleeping bag still there, and then my blood runs cold.

  “Moxy?”

  All around me, white water churns and smashes against the rocks.

  I try to turn Gus, my eyes searching the water all around us and my voice drowned out by the torrent roaring as I scream for her.

  “Moxy!”

  ***

  It’s the night of the first earthquake. We’re in the car going back to help Mum. I’m sitting on the bench seat of the ute, squished between Mr Mahuta and Arama, Moana’s brother, and at that moment all I can think about is the fact that I’m stuck in the middle so I haven’t been able to slam the car door twice and it’s making me go all OCD. I can feel my heart pounding and on the radio there’s this woman with a really calm voice but she’s saying these really scary things about the earthquake, how it’s cut Kaikoura and Parnassus off at both ends of the highway and everyone on the coast road is trapped. “We are getting reports in from GeoNet,” she says, “that this was a seven-point-eight.”

  On a scale of one to ten, I am seven-point-eight, Willard!

  I am seven-point-eight and I am worried about my mum but also Moxy is missing too. Now that I think back I never actually saw Moxy make it out of the house – what if she was still inside when it collapsed? I’m trying so hard not to cry, but why didn’t stupid Mr Mahuta let me close the car door twice!

  The woman on the radio is now talking about tsunamis. “Residents in the Kaikoura coast region are being evacuated to higher ground …”

  My mum isn’t on high ground. She’s lying in front of the veranda. If the tsunami comes before we can get to her then it will be too late.