Zanzibar Down - Complete

Chapter 5

Almost everyone else that came to lunch were chatty and smiling, dad took one look at Katherine's face and knew that something was wrong. It made me angry, dad was never that attentive to mum, sure he did pay attention to her but she always had to verbally tell him what was wrong. He never picked up on any of her vibes and sometimes they were a lot more obvious than Katherine's.

It made me wonder, who had he loved more? Sure it was mom, they had been high school sweethearts and yet here he was, married and attentive not even four years after losing mum. A thought struck me then, as I watched them interact, as I watched Katherine tell dad about the incident with the sheet and salad...had he met her while mum was still alive?

When dad and Katherine's angry eyes turned to me their expressions quickly turned to surprise, I got up from my chair and left the lunch table. Screw having to sit through lunch with those two and my thoughts, Katherine and Brin had already ruined my morning so I was going to attempt to salvage some of my day before it turned to total custard.

It was a good thing that everyone really was at the table, if anyone had approached me I think I'd have told them to shove it. Deciding a ride on the horse was the best course of action I went and saddled my horse.

Dyris was a six year old buckskin mare and she was the prettiest horse I had ever seen. Mum had picked her out for me in the herd when I was just starting out with riding, I hadn't done a heck of a lot more competing as I grew. But I loved Dyris enough that I convinced both parents that I wanted to keep her.

Still I had to muck out her stall, make sure she was healthy and could still do work. Two years ago someone had seen me riding her and had loved the way she moved and handled that they had offered a lot of money on her. Beckett said I had been stupid to turn down that much money, but there was no way that I'd ever sell Dyris...she was worth more to me than money.

Even though I was angry and out riding, I was still conscious of the fact that I was on dishes duty. You never went against anything that Maggie demanded. Sure, like she said, I was still the bosses daughter but it didn't mean much when work needed to be done. Sadly Beckett and I had learned that the hard way when we were younger.

When we had both first started out on the station we had both been young, stupid and completely arrogant. We had done our share of work and then expected others to pick up after us, two days out with Maggie and we had both realized that work didn't stop when we were tired. There was always something to do and if every person did their job it would get done sooner rather than drag out.

It was amusing that Brin and her siblings were all going to figure that out soon as well, Katherine I think just didn't care a heck of a lot. Her life was at the main house and she was happy with that, it was like she was reluctant to leave the safety of the house in case a meteor hit it while her feet were touching dirt.

Growling in frustrations I pulled Dyris to a stop, the land that the station sat on was relatively flat. There were a few low hills dotted around the place, a few small cliffs but nothing huge that I could sit on and watch the world go by from.

Dyris and I had a few riding loops that we did every other day, everyone knew that they were mine and hers so pretty much left them alone. But today something had Dyris on edge, her nostrils flared, she kept pulling to go back and when I studied the mud on either side of the track I understood why.

When I realized what was spooking Dyris I let her pull around and we headed home, water buffalo weren't common on our station but with the amount of tracks down one of our loops I'd say there were at least four in the area.

Once I had put Dyris back in her stall it looked as if lunch was all done, people were milling about. Some were headed back down to the shearing sheds, I hurried towards the kitchens but was stopped by dad.