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water.
    â€˜He’s got the rope over her neck. She’s going to be okay, Jess,’ said Shara. ‘We’ve just got to pull her out now.’
    Jess couldn’t speak. She stood watching, her hands over her mouth, until her father made his way back to them, then ran in up to her knees to help him out of the water.
    â€˜I’ve cut the wire, but there are still bits of it tangled around her legs,’ he panted. ‘I couldn’t get very close to her feet, she was kicking too much.’
    â€˜Dodger can pull them out and we’ll get the wire off them later,’ Jess said, taking the rope from him. ‘Are you okay?’
    Craig nodded, still breathless. ‘Get Dodger.’
    Jess brought Dodger over by a hank of his mane and turned him with his tail to the water. Craig helped her to tie the rope around his neck. Then, taking him by the mane, Jess urged Dodger to pull.
    He picked up the slack, then came to a halt as he felt the weight against his shoulders.
    â€˜It’s okay, Dodger. You have to pull,’ said Jess, tugging at his mane. The old horse stepped into the weight and stopped again.
    Craig moved back to his rump and put a hand around his tail, giving him a push and making clicking noises. ‘Come on, old fella!’
    Dodger took a few more steps, his feet slipping in the mud.
    â€˜That’s it, Dodger, that’s it,’ said Jess. He kept pulling and she looked back to see Chelpie moving towards them through the water. The filly’s head began to slip off her neck. ‘Pull, Dodger, pull,’ she yelled. She jumped up onto his back and kicked him in the ribs. ‘Pull, Dodger,’ she yelled. ‘ Pull! ’
    Dodger strained at the rope, with everyone calling encouragement, until Chelpie’s bony white body emerged from the river. She trudged through the last few shallow metres with Opal dragging limply beside her.
    Craig pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the rope from both horses. Marnie appeared from the dark paddock, screamed loudly and rushed at Chelpie. The white horse snorted and disappeared into the blackness.
    Meanwhile, Opal lay with her head on the ground, making horrid gurgling noises. With a splutter, she cleared her lungs. Two strands of wire were still twisted cruelly around her hind legs.
    â€˜Stand back and let her mum smell her,’ said Jess, leading Marnie to her foal.
    Opal made tiny moaning noises while her mother nuzzled her.
    Jess looked at her filly in despair. ‘I’ll try to hold her head while you cut the wire, Dad,’ she said. ‘Shara, can you keep Marnie nearby to help her stay calm?’
    The next ten minutes were awful. Jess lay across the filly’s neck and sobbed while Craig tried to cut through the wire without hurting her. But when he had finished, his hands were sticky with blood.
    â€˜How badly is she hurt?’ Jess asked her father.
    â€˜It’s hard to tell,’ said Craig. ‘We’ll have to get her up to the shed and hose her legs off so we can look at them properly. She’ll need a vet to look at her in the morning. That’s if he can get through the floodwaters.’
    He opened the hatch at the back of the four-wheel drive and they all strained to heave the filly into the back. Jess sat at her head while Shara sat on the tailgate and led the mare behind them.
    Under proper lighting in the shed, Craig hosed off Opal’s legs and found several deep wounds that needed stitching, but all they could do was slosh some salt water over them and keep them clean. They broke open bales of straw and made a makeshift stable. Opal lay limply, her head outstretched.
    Jess sat on the haystack staring at her.
    â€˜There’s nothing more you can do, honey,’ said Caroline gently. ‘Come back up to the house and come to bed. You’ll be more use to her in the morning if you’ve had some sleep.’
    â€˜I can’t leave her,