In the Land of the Long White Cloud

ransacked his alcohol stores. The men drank and celebrated in the shearing sheds; Kiward Station’s shepherds, mostly friends of James McKenzie’s, stayed away, deeply uneasy.
    “My God, miss,” Andy McAran said to Gwyneira, summing up their thoughts. “They’re going to hunt James down like a rabid wolf. They’re all talking about shooting him dead! Surely he doesn’t deserve to have this scum sent after his neck. All over a few sheep!”
    “This scum doesn’t know its way around the highlands,” Gwyneira said, not knowing whether she wanted to calm the old shepherd or herself. “They’ll just step on each other’s toes; Mr. McKenzie will laugh himself to death over them. Just wait; they’ll run out of steam. If only they’d be on their way! I don’t like having these people in the yard. I’ve already sent Kiri and Moana and Marama away. I hope the Maori are keeping a good watch over their camp. Are you keeping an eye on our horses and saddlery? I don’t want anything to go missing.”
    Gwyneira was in for a very unpleasant surprise. A number of the men had come on foot, and Gerald—starting out with a nasty hangoverbut already drunk again by midday and still incensed at Fleurette’s renewed recalcitrance—had promised them horses from Kiward Station. He did not, however, let Gwyneira know right away, so she did not have time to have workhorses sent over from the summer paddocks. The men hooted as they divided up her valuable cobs that afternoon. Fleurette watched helplessly from her bedroom window as one after the other tried to ride Niniane.
    “Mother, he can’t just give her to them! She belongs to us,” she wailed.
    Gwyneira shrugged. “He’s only lending them to the men; they won’t be allowed to keep them. But I don’t like it either. Most of these brutes can’t even ride properly. That’s good for us, however. You can already see how the horses are bucking them off. When they come back, though, we’re going to have to break them in all over again.”
    “But Niniane…”
    “I can’t do anything to change it, dear. They want Morgaine too. Perhaps I can talk to Gerald again tomorrow, but he’s taken leave of his senses today. And this Sideblossom fellow is behaving as though he owns the place: he’s telling people where they can stay and ordering them around; he acts as though I weren’t even here. As soon as the fool’s gone, I’m going to cross myself three times. In any case, you won’t be attending the banquet tonight. I’ve already explained that. You’re sick. I don’t want Sideblossom to catch sight of you again.”
    Secretly, Gwyneira had long since planned to take their horses to safety that night. Under no circumstances would she send her valuable broodmares into the highlands with the search party. She had arranged with Andy McAran, Poker Livingston, and her other trusted workers to drive the horses away that night. As long as they just pranced about the pastures, she would have time enough to gather them up again in the coming days. The men would fetch the workhorses and place them in the stalls. It might cause a bit of uproar in the morning, but John Sideblossom surely wouldn’t delay their endeavor over different horses.
    She did not tell Fleurette that, however. She was too afraid the girl might want to take part in the action.
    “Niniane will be back the day after tomorrow at the latest,” she comforted Fleur. “She’ll throw her would-be rider and come home. She won’t put up with such nonsense. But right now I need to change. Dinner with the captains of the military expedition awaits. What expense over one man!”
    Gwyneira retired, and Fleurette stayed behind, brooding angrily. She was not about to acquiesce to her helplessness. Gerald was giving Niniane away out of pure spite. Fleur hatched a plan. She would lead her horse to safety while the men were getting drunk in the salon. To manage it, she would have to slip out of her room right then, since every path to the stables led through the salon, which was empty for the moment. The guests attending the banquet that night were changing, and sheer chaos reigned outside. She would not be noticed if she put her hair under a bandana and hurried. It was only a few steps from the kitchen door to the barn. If someone saw her, they’d take her for a kitchen maid.
    Fleur’s plan might even have succeeded if Paul had not been watching his sister. The boy was once more in low spirits; his idol, John