Harris

Old Harris

I could hear the crack of the leather against the wind and the heavy
steps that crushed the red pebbles. My brother hit my arm and raced
away from me, escaping my retaliation and leading the way to the ring
where the horse, big ol' Harris, was moving on circles for my uncle.
The show ring was made up of old tyres that filled with water and
mosquito babies and Mum said that snakes would go in there to live.
Because we'd arrived late, the sky was turning red and the other horses
in the paddocks were just black outlines against the distance. My uncle
cracked the whip again and stomped out his cigarette as he lead ol'
Harris round one more time, as if they were connected to each other by
that lead.

My brother and I always came up here in our school holidays and spent a
week at the farm. My aunty and uncle didn't have kids so they liked to
let us come and they could pretend to be a family just for a bit. One
time my brother asked why they didn't have their own kids and my uncle
didn't say anything and my aunty laughed and said we were the best
kids, why would they want others. She'd make big dinners different to
how Mum did, and sometimes better, though I'd never tell Mum.

Uncle was always up long before anyone else, and he'd be out dropping
hay into paddocks and talking to the horses. My brother would punch my
arm and run to jump up on the fence in the sunlight that had not had a
chance to die down yet and made us squint to see the horses coming up
for food. My brother would always dare me to touch the electric wire
and test if it was on. One time I did it. I asked my uncle when he was
near enough where aunty was and he just said away. I asked him where
and he said he didn't know and my brother nudged me, looked at me to
stop asking him.

Because my brother was older, he found out that aunty had gone away,
that they had had a fight and she'd gone. My uncle never said anything
much. Just worked around the farm. My brother and me ran around with
sticks in our hands and pretended to shoot each other, pouncing up out
of the grass. Sometimes Milly the farm dog would find us and give away
our position. Sometimes the magpie in the pine tree near the driveway
would swoop us and we'd both swear at the bird and throw sticks up at
it that would hit against branches and come back at us like rain. After
lunch my uncle let us sit on the tractor with him and we rumbled
through the paddocks that went off into the distance and waved to all
the animals as we passed.

We'd be sitting on the old tyres again later, my uncle leading a horse
around the circle like a sun dial, slow motion. He'd crack the whip and
I'd remember how I'd tried last year and it made me cry by stinging my
skin with its flick. He had a lot of horses out there, my uncle, but
big ol' Harris was always his favourite. Aunty had told us that he got
him when he was a boy and they'd grown up together. Harris always knew
what to do, she said, always knew how to act around him. Every night my
uncle made a special point of talking to Harris before he came
inside.

My brother got tired when we'd stared at the stars to long, trying to
pick out the satellites, which were like stars, only moving across the
night. He was always better at it than I was. My uncle was still out in
the circle, cracking loudly. This was longer than he was normally out
there. He had the light on at the stables to see properly, and as I
walked up the horse made a huge shadow over me each time it passed. I
peeked up through the tyres, pretending to sneak up on my uncle, just
to, I don't know what. He cracked the whip like a gun shot again and
turned with the horse, the red stones crunching under its feet. And he
was crying. The tears rolling over his dry skin that had hardened from
being out in the weather so much. He didn't try to wipe them away. He
didn't say anything, not even to the horse. He loosened on the lead and
let the horse stop running around the ring, took a deep breath and I
snuck away without him ever knowing what I saw, crept into the bed next
to my brothers, who was already dreaming far away.

On the third day at the farm with the sun cutting beams through gaps in
the window, touching onto be bed, I woke my brother to go outside. With
aunty gone, there was no breakfast smells waiting for us. We ran along
in gumboots and stood as deep as we could into the dam, looking for
yabbies while the water shifted the oversized rubber on our ankles. It
was when we were digging through the hay piles and jumping over gaps
that my brother asked where uncle was today. I said I didn't know and
we looked out but could not see him. We pretended to drive the tractor
where it was parked in the shed and ran after the sheep in the back
paddock, slipping on the wet grass and laughing. We tried to make a
raft from sticks and hay ropes so we could cross the dam like in a
movie, but it sank, three times.

My brother flicked leaved above himself under the grey tree, were
they'd all dried up and were still falling from the skeleton like
branches that reached their crooked fingers out to the sky. They came
down around us like paper snowflakes against the grey sky over
us.

We sat on the tyres waiting for uncle to come back. But he didn't.
Harris was puffing at us, stomping on the ground and making noise. My
brother thought he wanted food but we didn't know how to feed him. I
patted Harris on the nose and talked to him about where uncle was and
what we should do, but he didn't know either. My brother walked back
from the sheds with more hay than he could carry, dropping it
everywhere as he went, and he got me to open the gate to Harris so he
could drop it around on the grass. Harris watched the gate, waited for
my brother to come through, then ran out and off down the driveway. My
brother swearing and kicking fence posts.

The sky had only just started to wash away to night when I left my
brother, still kicking in the stones, to go inside and into uncle's
room, just in case he was still in there, hiding somewhere, waiting for
Milly to sniff him out. And it was so empty in there, the bed all
inside out. I imagined my uncle lying his head on here and crying the
night silently to himself. With that empty space beside him. There was
a pen and paper on the floor and I imagined that uncle had tried to
write it down, but he isn't big on words and he might not know what to
say or how to say it. But he tried to do it, I imagine. As he tried to
rest with tears in his eyes that would not let them close.

It was much later when my brother went to bed, hoping to forget the
mess he'd made, hoping it would be gone in the morning like when he
leaves his toys out at home. I couldn't sleep yet, worried about what
may happen to us in the dark, how the house would creak all night,
every sound becoming another person in my mind, breaking in the laundry
door. The lounge room. I walked down the driveway to find where Harris
was going to, kicking stones along in front, trying to stay away from
the darkness.

Next to the letterbox, my uncle was asleep up against the fence, his
hat over his eyes. He did not move when I touched him or when I yelled
for him to wake up. Just lay there flattening the grass. I dragged him
away, but still he did not move, his body now across the dirt driveway,
leaves stuck to his old shirt. Although I knew I shouldn't, I kicked
him in the back, and he moved slightly away from it, showed me he
wasn't dead yet. Though I don't think he was far away. I dragged him by
his arm along the dirt, slowly, slowly moving his heavy body up the
long driveway, looking up at the house in the distance.

With my aunty gone, this seemed a lot harder.

Then at my ear I felt a heavy breath, a push against my hair. Harris
stood over me, with the stars behind him. He nudged at my uncle,
crushed the loose stones under his feet. Harris looked at me, but I
don't know what he was looking for. He pushed his nose under my uncle,
and I helped to get him up onto Harris' back, where uncle slumped over
like a dead man from a cowboy film. I patted the horse on the nose, and
told him thank you.

Big Ol' Harris, he knew what to do.