The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Read online

  "There ain't no meat on that horse," one of the doggers said.

  "Thing'll probably die before we get it back to the slaughterhouse."

  "I'll give you five dollars," Pippa said.

  There was a moment of silence.

  'Don't bid, don't bid, please don't bid against a little girl.'

  "Ten dollars," one of the doggers said.

  "I'll give you fifteen," another said. "Ain't got much meat on it, but I can earn that much for rendering its hide."

  "Twenty dollars?" Tears sprang into Pippa's eyes. She whirled to the men. "Please! Won't you let me bring her home?"

  The men looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

  "I ain't bidding against no kid."

  "Thing's so sick it won't even make it back to the knackery. Look at it. Dang thing's ready to keel over."

  "Yeah, let her have it. I got me enough horsemeat for today."

  Some of the doggers walked away.

  "Twenty dollars, twenty dollars, we have a bid for twenty dollars," the auctioneer said. "Who will give me twenty-five dollars for this little white pony?"

  A sensation of hope ignited in my chest. I squeezed Pippa's hand as, one by one, the slaughterhouse bidders who'd been sent here to clean up the leftovers turned away and decided to call it a day.

  A brown shape stepped out of the lengthening shadows, none other than the Troll-Knacker who'd outbid the boy on the Clydesdale. His brown serpent's eyes met mine. Flit. Flit. Flit went his tongue. His mouth parted in a sardonic sneer, his knocked-out teeth giving him appearance of a brown snake's fangs. He carried with him the hatred and resentment of all the things that were wrong in his life, things he blamed on somebody else rather than looking in the mirror. He looked at me, the woman who'd spurned him, and then he looked at Pippa, a cultured, beautiful child possessing aristocratic beauty. His face hardened into a look of utter hatred.

  "I bid twenty-five dollars."

  Pippa reached up to him, so ethereal, so beautiful, so radiantly pure as the setting sun hit her white-blonde hair so that, just for a moment, I felt as if -I- was staring at a miniature fairy princess.

  "Let me buy her," Pippa pleaded. "Please, Sir. Let me buy her. I promise I'll give her a good home."

  The tall, cruel Troll-Knacker laughed; an evil, raucous sound, like the sound of vultures blended with the cawing of crows.

  "Do you have a dog, sweetheart?"

  "Uhm, yes," Pippa's face lit up. "His name is Thunderlane. I treat him like a little brother."

  "Didn't you ever wonder where his food comes from?"

  An expression of confusion, and then horror settled onto Pippa's face.

  "Thunderlane would never eat a horse!" She threw her arms around Luna's neck. "Twenty-eight dollars. Luna doesn't have any meat on her, so if you bid any higher, you will lose your money."

  I rummaged through my wallet, praying to find some stray bills I'd accidentally stashed into a crevasse, but I carried none, for I'd deliberately emptied out my wallet of all but $50 this morning so I wouldn't be tempted to pick up a horse of my own.

  If there really is a Fairy Queen, please! Pippa needs you now!

  The Troll-Knacker gave me a mocking grin. This wasn't about Pippa. He bid to get back at me for telling him to piss off at the servo.

  "Thirty dollars."

  I fingered the coins left over from the purchase of the hot dogs, counting up the total, cursing myself for my own stupidity. Why did I spend my money on something so insubstantial? The shrapnel jingled in my pocket, not even enough to make a bill.

  "Thirty dollars and twenty-five cents," I called.

  "That's against the rules," the auctioneer said. "We only accept whole dollar bids."

  I restrained Pippa, realizing we'd just lost.

  "Thirty-one dollars," the troll-knacker laughed. "And if you keep bidding, I'll string her up and skin her while she's still alive."

  One of the other men who'd lingered grabbed the Troll-Knacker by the shoulder. He was an older man, in his mid-sixties, with the same no-nonsense demeanor as the man on the painted stallion.

  "That's enough, Sam," the old man said. "We got rules about how these animals are to be treated. If you claim you'll be deliberately cruel, I'll have no choice but to report you to the RSPCA."

  "Piss off," the Troll-Knacker hissed at him.

  "Thirty-two dollars," the old man said. "And if you keep bidding, I'll borrow a dollar from every other knacker here because we don't need the kind of heat you'll bring down on us if this little girl goes home and repeats what you just said on the eleven o'clock news."

  'You have no idea,' I thought to myself. 'You have no idea what this kid could do to you all once she grows up and inherits her grandfather's fortune.'

  "He's right, Sam," the auctioneer said. "We run a clean operation. We don't need no bad publicity. I got no choice but to disqualify you from the bidding."

  "You have no right!" the Troll-Knacker shouted. "No right at all!" He jabbed his finger into Pippa's face. "Don't matter who buys her. That horse is going to the dogs!"

  He stormed off, leaving the rest of us standing at the side of the pen. Pippa stood, confused, wringing her hands.

  "Did we just win?" Pippa asked.

  I looked to the auctioneer.

  The auctioneer pointed to the man who had intervened.

  "We have a valid bid of thirty-two dollars," the auctioneer said. "Can you beat that bid? Even by a single dollar?"

  Pippa looked to me. I fished in my pocket and through my purse. All I had left was her father's credit card.

  "Do you take credit?" I held it out to him. "Or maybe a check?"

  "Sorry, Miss," the auctioneer said. "We only take cash." He turned to the man who had won. "Sold for thirty-two dollars to Jim from the Caboolture Stockyard."

  A feeling of unreality settled upon me as the remaining throng wandered off to settle up their debts. No. This can't be happening again. I can't let this happen to Pippa's pony. I turned to the man who had stayed behind. The man who'd just bought Pippa's unicorn to kill it.

  "Please," I begged him. "Please! I can pay you tomorrow. I just don't have any money on me right now."

  The man's mouth settled into a grim line.

  "I'm sorry, Miss," the man's voice grew sharp with irritation, "but every month I meet people like you who come to these outback auctions, hoping to pick up a horse for next to nothing. And then when you get them home and realize they're sick and broken, you bring them back the next month to suffer through this all again, a heck of a lot sicker and worse for the wear!"

  "But I'll pay you! I'll pay you more than she is worth!"

  "Listen, lady. Even if you could afford to give her the best veterinary care, which I doubt or you wouldn't be back here in the dogger pens, I don't think the poor thing will make it through the night." He pointed at the pony. "Will you just look at her? The kindest thing you can do is end her suffering."

  Pippa threw her arms around the white pony and wailed, "But Rosie knows how to fix her!"

  "I've got to go settle my debts," the man said. "When I get back, I'd prefer you two were gone. Don't make me ask the auctioneer to have you removed."

  He walked away, leaving us next to Pippa's doomed pony. I stood in numb silence, unable to think of anything to say to comfort her.

  "You heard what the man said," I said. "We have to leave."

  Pippa kissed Luna's forehead goodbye. I turned and realized we were not alone.

  "Hello again," the old man from the servo said, the one I had seen the first time I'd come through the petrol station in Lockyer, the one with the jack-o-lantern grin. "You made quite a spectacle of yourself, I hear."

  I gave him a weak grimace, not enough to qualify as a smile.

  "Yeah, well, you warned me."

  "I did." He pointed at Pippa. "That the little girl you take care of?"

  "Yeah."

  "Quite an education she got here today."

  "Yeah, we both did," I said
. "It was one we both could have done without."

  The old man shrugged.

  "Jim's not a bad man. It's just business, that's all."

  "He should get into a different business," I said. "Killing horses is wrong."

  "You eat beef?"

  "Yeah."

  "You ever try to save a cow?"

  "That's different," I said.

  "The cow might feel differently about that," the old man shrugged.

  My mobile phone rang.

  "You going to answer that?"

  I glanced at the callback number and saw it was my mother.

  "No," I said. "It's nobody I want to talk to."

  There was an awkward silence.

  "You mean what you said, that you have enough money to pay Jim back tomorrow?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I have enough money in the bank. I just didn't realize the auction only takes cash."

  The old man nodded.

  "You got a business card or something?"

  "No," I said. "I'm not that important."

  "Let me take down your phone number, in case Jim changes his mind."

  "You know him?"

  "My wife is friends with his secretary," the old man said. "I'll ask her to call her as soon as I get home."

  I remembered the old woman from the servo with the magenta lipstick which clashed with her orange shirt. I wrote down the number and then led an inconsolable Pippa back to my car.

  "Luna is going to die." Pippa looked glassy-eyed as I buckled her into the back of the Falcon.

  "Everybody dies," I said. "At least it won't be at that bad man's hand."

  She hiccoughed as we drove, too grief-stricken to even cry, until the gentle rocking of the car mercifully lulled my poor little angel to sleep.

  How the hell was I supposed to explain this outing to her father?

  Chapter 43

  We got home so late we missed Adam's nightly phone call. I played the message off the answering machine so Pippa could hear her father's voice, but I all could do was thank God I didn't have to explain tonight what a rotten governess I was. There'd be hell to pay tomorrow, but for now, the only person I had to answer to was my own guilty conscience.

  I tucked Pippa into bed, thankful she fell back to sleep with a minimum of crying. She slept. I did not. Images of Luna standing in a kill pen swapped back and forth with my last memory of Harvey until finally I got up and plugged my laptop into Adam's docking station. It was too late to call anyone even if there was a single soul who cared, so I plugged in the land-line and dialed the number Julie Peterson had given me for an old-fashioned dialup provider, $24.95 per month, charged to Adam's credit card.

  I waited for the pages to load, painfully slow compared to the web surfing I could do if there'd been a mobile tower anywhere within range, but it was better than the service I'd had for the last two months which was absolutely none at all. I checked my g-mail account and deleted a few thousand spam emails.

  I then logged onto Facebook. The little red icons informed me I had 312 new friend requests and 2,271 notifications. I clicked the top link and saw a message from somebody I didn't know.

  .

  All I can afford is $10, but if it will help, please buy that horse for the little girl and I'll PayPal you the money right away.

  .

  The next few dozen messages all had similar pledges, a dollar here and a couple of dollars there. Most of them were from people I didn't know because a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend shared Pippa's picture along with my plea to rescue Luna.

  My throat closed up. It was now too late. Luna had been hauled off to the doggers, and if the old knacker was good for his word, he'd kill her first, not because he was a cruel man, but because he viewed it as an act of mercy.

  I closed out my browser, unable to read any more 'good news.'

  The first hint of dawn turned the sky grey. I wondered if Adam waited for me in the dream-realm, wondering why I hadn't joined him? More likely, he dreamed of Pippa, crying her heart out because I hadn't been able to save her pony from slaughter?

  I went into the kitchen and dug out Australian Cookery Today. We were out of blueberries, so I added apples and a dash of cinnamon. Since I hadn't gotten any sleep, I set some coffee to brew and added a splash of milk. I sat down in the red duct-taped chair and stared at the clashing blue paint which, truth be told, seriously needed refreshing.

  At last Pippa woke up and shuffled out of her room, her face red and puffy from crying and her small shoulders slumped with misery. I gave her a hug and invited her to eat.

  "There's three places set," Pippa said. "Will Daddy be home today?"

  "I thought the Fairy Queen might like to join us."

  Pippa's lip trembled.

  "There is no Fairy Queen. I made her up so I'd have a friend."

  A lump rose in my throat. Sometimes, a kid needed their delusions.

  "Sure there is, kid," I said. "Don't you know? A Fairy Queen's magic only works close to her dominion. It wasn't her who let you down, but me."

  The phone rang and I got up to answer it, steeling myself for whatever Pippa would tell her father. I almost said 'wrong number' and hung up when, instead of a man's voice, it was a strange woman.

  "Hello," she said. "Is this Rosamond Xalbadora?"

  "This is Rosie."

  "This is Thelma Pearson from the Caboolture Stockyard. I'm a friend of Ben and Vera Jennings. Vera called me and said you want to buy a horse?"

  Pippa padded over, her mouth open to ask me questions. I waved my hand to signal her to be silent. My heart beat faster as I cleared my throat.

  "Yes," I said. "A little white mare. Her name is Luna."

  "Jim said he'd sell it to you for two hundred dollars."

  There was a moment of silence.

  "That's $168 more than he paid," I said softly.

  "That would include the price to deliver it to Nutyoon," Thelma said. "Plus enough hay and oats to feed her until your local feed store opens on Monday." She hesitated and then added: "It's a fair price. The petrol alone for a pickup pulling a trailer will come to that."

  "Yes," I said quickly. "Tell Jim I will have the money."

  "You do realize she's a very sick pony," Thelma said. "Jim wants you to understand he doesn't think she will make it."

  I looked at Pippa, who stared at me, owl-eyed, her silver eyes round with a blend of fear and excitement.

  "We're willing to take our chances," I said. "Tell him we'll sign whatever kind of release he wants."

  Thelma got directions to the station and set up delivery for six o'clock tonight. It would give us enough time to prepare the stable and run into town to hit the ATM. As soon as I hung up, I grabbed Pippa by the hand.

  "She's coming," I said. "Luna is coming here tonight."

  There was a moment where Pippa stood motionless with disbelief, and then she let out a whoop, jumping up and down with excitement.

  The phone rang a second time. I went to grab it, and then remembered who it likely was. A feeling of dread settled into my stomach. Oh, crap… What if I told Adam about the horse and he ordered me to let it go?

  "Hello?" I said with trepidation.

  "Ahh, Rosamond. It's me." Adam's pleasant baritone instantly made me tingle. "I was hoping Pippa was awake so I can speak to her before I go out into the field?"

  I handed Pippa the telephone, leaving it up to her to say whatever she wished to tell her father. I would not volunteer the information, but neither would I encourage the child to lie.

  "Hi Daddy," Pippa said. "Guess where we went yesterday?"

  I could not hear Adam's muffled words, but I could imagine he said something along the lines of 'where, honey?'

  "Rosie took me unicorn shopping," Pippa said. "We saved one from an evil troll!" The kid gave me a wink. She knew darned well her father would not believe her.

  I could not hear Adam's response, but in return, Pippa answered:

  "We thought we'd lost her, but then the Fairy Queen sent
a white knight to bargain with the king."

  More muffled words, Adam indulging his daughter's storytelling. Pippa changed the subject and proceeded to chatter about the apple muffins I'd made for breakfast, the latest gossip from Mrs. Hastings, and a book she'd read during the car ride to the auction. Within moments her father hung up, already late to drill his latest gas well.

  Pippa turned to me and bit her lip, her expression a peculiar blend of guilt about lying to her father combined with a bit of deviousness she'd no doubt inherited from her mother.

  "He didn't believe you, did he?"

  "I didn't lie," Pippa said. "In fact, I told him the truth."

  With a laugh, we wolfed down our cinnamon-apple muffins, and then we changed into our grungiest clothes to prepare the barn for Luna's arrival. I had little experience caring for a sick horse. Harvey had always been healthy, and then when he hadn't been, my mother put him down.

  We strolled into the enormous monitor-style barn like conquering warrior queens and pulled open every vent in the roof and walls. Pippa swept while I shoveled, and then we broke out the hose and scrubbed the stall down with disinfectant. While it dried, remarkably quickly given the stifling heat, we climbed up into the hayloft and laughed as we took turns throwing bales of straw down the trap door into the stall below and watched them explode to coat the floor in a thick carpet of equine heaven.

  "We have no hay," Pippa said as we spread the thick mulch around the stall. "Only straw. Do you think Luna will like the grass out in the fields?"

  "She's very sick," I said. "Too sick to be turned out to pasture. The knacker said he'd send a bale of hay for tonight. The feed store is closed because it's Sunday, but we'll go tomorrow morning and ask what we should give her to make her better."

  We cleaned up just enough so we didn't stink, and then hopped into my car to hit the ATM machine in town. As we waited for our special delivery, I powered up the desktop to navigate through the flood of well-wishers, now up to over seven thousand. I clicked a link someone included that gave advice about how to fatten up a horse. I could almost smell my entire summer's earnings evaporating as they talked about special supplements, vet bills, trips from the farrier and equine massage.