Cam looked around. ‘He’s bred for staying. Third highest price for a yearling in New Zealand in his year. Won his first race by seven lengths. Then Edgar Charlton bought him for a fair bit for a dentists’ syndicate. First time out he ran seventh against a good field, pulled up lame. Out for seventeen weeks. Came back at Sandown in December, second in a bunch of spring leftovers. Tendon trouble, twenty weeks off. March at Caulfield. Ninth out of thirteen. Ballarat three weeks later. Stone last. Bleeding. Took the compulsory count. The dentists spit the dummy, sold him. Turned out twice for the third owner for one sixth and one last.’
‘Fella trains over near Colac,’ Harry said. ‘John Nisbet. Gave our friend up ahead the horse with a bowed tendon on his near side and bone chips in both front legs. A dead loss.’
‘With respect, this outing doesn’t look like an investment to me,’ I said.
‘Shake,’ said Cam.
‘Won’t hurt to have a look,’ Harry said. ‘Old Rex’s no Rhodes Scholar but he’s not Curly Joe.’
The front vehicle turned right. A rutted track ran around the gentle eastern slope of a round-topped hill. At the foot of the northern slope were a farmhouse, stables, assorted sheds, a round yard. Horses in rugs were standing around looking bored in half a dozen paddocks. About a hundred metres from the buildings, the front driver pulled half off the track, got out and opened a gate. He waved us through.
Rex parked next to a shed and Harry pulled up beside him. We all got out and put on our coats. The north wind had ice in it.
‘Christ, Harry,’ said Cam, ‘can’t we do this in the summer? Bloody nun’s nipple.’
The lead driver parked next to the farmhouse. All the buildings except the stables were old but the place was kept up; fresh paint, taut wire, raked gravel. As we got out of the ute, a boy of about fourteen appeared at the front door of the house.
Harry introduced us to Rex and when the other man came over, Rex said, ‘Tony Ericson, this is Harry Strang, Cam Delray, and Harry’s lawyer, Jack Irish.’
We shook hands. Tony was jockey size but too heavy, lined face, thick dark hair cut short, big ears.
‘Never thought I’d meet you,’ he said to Harry. ‘Me dad used to say, “Think you’re Harry Strang?” when we tried some flash riding.’
‘How’s your dad?’ asked Harry.
Tony Ericson cocked his head. ‘You remember me dad? He always said he knew you.’
‘Ray Ericson,’ Harry said. ‘Still goin?’
Tony Ericson shook his head.
Harry patted his arm briskly. ‘Sorry to hear it. Ray could get a camel to jump. Now what’s the story?’
Tony Ericson looked at Rex Tie. ‘You want to, Rex…’
‘You go,’ Rex Tie said.
‘Let’s get down the stables,’ Tony said. ‘I brung the horse in. Lives outside normal. Bugger’s had enough soft in his life.’
We went down a gravel path, through a gate and round the corner of a long cinderblock stable building. There were eight stalls but only one horse. It was waiting for us, brown head turned our way, nostrils steaming.
Tony said, ‘Rex tell you his name’s Dakota Dreamin? We call him Slim.’
The horse snickered as we approached. Tony stroked his nose and fed him something.
‘They say he was a deadset mongrel, kickin, bitin, but we never seen it. Like a lamb. Me girl looks after him, ten-year-old.’ He looked behind us and said, ‘Tom, shake hands with the gentlemen. This is me boy Tom, waggin school. He’ll give the horse a little hit out.’
The boy from the front door came up and shook hands awkwardly. Someone other than a barber had given him a recent haircut. He was going to be too big for a jockey.
We walked down a road between paddocks and over a small rise. Below us, invisible from the stables, was a training track. You could smell the watermelon scent of new-mown grass before you saw it.
‘Two thousand four hundred metres,’ said Tony Ericson. ‘Got a twelve hundred metre chute over there.’ He pointed to the left. ‘Starting gate. Same grass as Flemington. Bloke done it in the sixties. Went bang here. Used to have rails and all. Had sheep on it for twenty years but we mowed it and rolled it and it come up good.’
I looked at Harry. He had his hands in the jacket pockets of his leather-trimmed loden jacket and a faraway expression on his face.
He took a hand out and rubbed his chin. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Pride of the district, I imagine.’
‘Don’t follow,’ said Tony.
‘Other people use this?’
Tony shook his head. ‘No trainers around here. We only cleaned it up bout a year ago. Whole thing, that is.’
We all turned at the sound of hoofs. The boy, Tom, walked Dakota Dreaming up to us. The horse shone like glass, groomed to a standard only achievable by ten-year-old girls. It had pristine bandages on all legs. I knew enough about condition to know this creature was well advanced in his preparation to race.
Tony held the horse’s head. ‘Remember what I said. Take him out to the seven furlong. I’ll give you a bang. Don’t push him. If he’s feelin strong at the three hundred, let him go.’
The boy nodded and took the horse off. On the track, they went into an easy canter.
We walked along to where a big tin lollipop painted red marked the finish. Cam lit a cigarette, held it in the corner of his mouth while he fiddled with his stopwatch. Harry took out a small pair of binoculars and hung them around his neck. Tony Ericson put a blank into a starting pistol.
‘Don’t he mind the gun?’ asked Rex Tie.
‘Can’t hardly hear it over there,’ said Tony. ‘He’s ready. Light’s flashin.’ He raised the pistol above his head, waved it. The boy’s right arm went up and down. Tony fired, a flat smack.
Tom set a nice pace, about what you’d expect for a frontrunner over 1400 or 1600 metres on a country track. The straight was about 350 metres. When they came around the turn, you could see that the going was soft and that the horse was not entirely happy.
But the going wasn’t going to stop Slim putting on a show. At the 300-metre mark, you could see Tom urge the horse with hands and heels. It didn’t require much. With every appearance of enjoyment, the horse opened its stride, lowered its head and accelerated home. They went past the post flat out.
We stood in silence watching the boy, standing upright in the stirrups, slow the horse down.
Harry took off his hat and scratched his head. Cam was looking for a cigarette. Their eyes locked for a good three seconds.
‘What’s it say?’ asked Harry.
Cam found a cigarette and lit it with his Zippo.
‘For a stayer,’ he said, ‘smokin.’
15
Drew poured some red wine into our glasses, leant back and put his stockinged feet on the coffee table. ‘You want my advice?’
Harry and Cam had dropped me off at home but I didn’t go in. I’d been brooding all the way back from Hardhills and I felt the urge to talk to Drew. Once upon a time we’d talked to each other about all our problems.
I found him eating takeaway pizza over a pile of files in front of the fire in his house in Kew. The children were nowhere to be seen.
I said, ‘Well. Yes.’
‘Drop it. Forget Danny ever left the message. Take the gorilla’s advice about this Bishop too. You’ve touched a nerve somewhere.’
‘If I hadn’t been three-quarters pissed years ago I’d have tried to find out more about Danny’s movements the night of the hit-and-run,’ I said. ‘I might have kept him out of jail.’
Drew chewed for a while, studying the flames. Finally he said, ‘Bullshit, mate. Even if you’d been stone-cold sober and at the top of your form, it would never have occurred to you. You’d have pleaded him. You had to plead him. Since when do lawyers go looking for other explanations when the Crown’s got a case like that? Don’t kid yourself. There was no negligence there. There’s nothing owing on your part.’