Dark Horse by Honey Brown Page B

steadily for a moment. In a way she wished he’d get his story straight – did he know the mountain, or didn’t he? – because each time he wandered away from his account of things, her unease returned.
    ‘Maybe we should try drying out the inside of my phone?’ she said. ‘We might as well – it’s not working as it is. If we could get it working we’d at least know what’s happening with the weather and down in the towns, when they might be coming.’
    The cord lashing about was becoming impossible to ignore. Heath got to his feet and climbed up onto the van tow bar to reach the end of the rope tied to the roof rack. The van suspension creaked with his weight. His knee was without its clear film bandage. He stuck the leg out on an awkward angle, and tried to untie the cord with one hand while holding on with the other for balance.
    ‘I can do that,’ Sarah said getting up.
    ‘I got it.’
    Pain paled and tightened his features as he used both legs to stand on the tow bar. She could see his jaw grinding back and forth with discomfort as he finished untying the cord. No doubting his injury then, he was just stubborn about it like she would be.
    ‘It’s the workmen’s clothesline.’ Sarah tipped her face to the roof beams above her. ‘They would have tied off the other end up there.’
    Heath looped the freed cord in his hands. He looked unsure as to how to get down from his elevated spot. As she had done beside the bog, Sarah went to him and offered her shoulder as support. He remained flummoxed about how to make the small drop. She turned and presented him her back.
    ‘Climb on.’
    ‘I’ve got to strap it again,’ he said, a half-embarrassed justification for his predicament.
    The manoeuvre was less a piggyback and more a slippery slide. She hunched and he leaned his body onto her. She was becoming accustomed to his weight – pulling him through the bog, helping him into the shed, sitting him in the chair. As she straightened he was deposited gently on the floor. He stood on one foot at first, and then tentatively put down his other foot.
    ‘It’s getting worse.’ His face had turned grey, with worry or pain, or both.
    ‘I’ll help you strap it.’
    He put the cord in his pocket. Both his hands went around his knee. For the first time Sarah saw a look of unguarded fear in his eyes.
    ‘Hop to the chair.’
    He did.
    ‘Where did you put the cling film?’
    ‘In the drawer under the bed.’
    ‘Do you need painkillers?’
    ‘No, no,’ he said.
    The drawer beneath the van bed was hard to find. It was a concealed one that Sarah hadn’t discovered in her initial investigations. She pushed a panel at the foot of the bed and the long drawer popped out. Inside it were the clothes Heath had arrived in – cleaned, dried and neatly folded. Sarah pressed the items, to feel if anything was in the pockets. Without shaking out the pants, though, it was hard to tell if the pockets were full. And something about the precise way the items were folded told Sarah that Heath would know if she’d been fossicking through his gear. The roll of cling film was in the drawer too, as was a drink bottle Sarah had seen up the top of the kitchen cupboard, and a tightly bundled ball of garbage bags that he must have taken from the kitchen cupboards as well.
    When Sarah went back out to him, she carried her phone as well as the cling film.
    ‘You might be better than me at opening this.’
    Sarah passed him the phone. She crouched by his leg and began peeling a length of plastic from the roll. He seemed dubious about taking or touching her phone. He placed it beside him on the table. ‘I’d be too worried I’d damage it by opening it.’
    ‘It’s already damaged. I’m going to open it anyway.’ Sarah peeled a length of plastic from the roll. ‘If I get it working I could explain to the rescuers that I’m not going to leave my horse, all I need is a drop of food and supplies.’ Sarah looked pointedly across at