Diamonds and Dust

by Sheryl McCorry

  ‘Burial finished, everybody, burial finished,’ I said at last, emotionally exhausted. I wove through the throng of people towards the homestead. I’d made a decision. As deeply as I cared for everyone here, who had looked after me in my darkest days, the time had come for me to move on. I had three young children who needed me strong in body and mind, and not going to pieces, or falling asleep at the wheel. I could not bury any more young people on Louisa.

  CHAPTER 16

  Mango Farm

  Our move to Mango Farm became a life change. The big family safety net of Louisa was replaced by formal classes at school in Broome and town life for the children. The girls began modelling and dancing lessons. I revelled in the luxury of my own home, filled with exquisite Italian furnishings and a wardrobe of Carla Zampatti and Christian Dior clothes. What a contrast to Louisa it was, although once the novelty of all this affluence had worn off, I found that I could take it or leave it.

  The money had come from Bob’s contracting, which was, as I’d foreseen, tremendously successful. We acquired three more 10-acre blocks outside Broome and successfully grew Townsville lucerne. Watching the crops mature made me happier than anything. In the shed by the house our plant and machinery stood shining and ready, rebuilt and mended for the coming mustering season.

  While my girls were at school, I had lots of time to contemplate life. One day I was making a fresh cup of tea and thinking how much I missed Katie and Alma, who had done so much to help me keep my sanity in Louisa. A soft scraping sound, like sandpaper moving across slate tiles, came from where Robby was playing with his toys on the lounge-room floor. Then I heard an explosion as something bulky crashed into the window.

  That made me jump! I dropped the crystal sugar bowl and shards went flying. One pierced the main artery in my ankle, sending bright red blood spurting over cupboards and walls, but I couldn’t worry about that now. What if Robby had fallen through the window? I bound my wound with a tea towel and hobbled around to the lounge where I was confronted with the largest king brown snake I’d ever seen. I grabbed Robby up off the floor and urgently checked him for puncture wounds. By now I’d forgotten about my problem, and blood was spraying the furniture. The place was beginning to look like the scene of a massacre.

  I had to sit down and re-tie the tea towel. Robby was bawling but my eyes never left the snake, which had stretched itself out along a wall in the breezeway. I guess it was a cool place to hang out.

  We sat eyeballing each other while I tried to stem the blood. I hopped out to the workshop with Robby on my hip. Starting to feel dizzy, I had to stop to rest. It was blazing hot as usual and the distance between house and shed seemed like miles.

  Soon I spotted Browny, Bob’s leading man, working on the dozer out on the farm. Sitting Robby down on the burning ground, I called for help, but the noise from the machine drowned me out. Browny never lifted his head. Robby was wailing at the sight of so much blood or perhaps his little bum was burning on the superheated pindan. I lifted him onto my hip but had to sit down again as my vision clouded. Cupping my hand over the wound, I waved the blood-soaked tea towel and called again. Browny spotted us, did a double-take and in no time we were heading for Broome Hospital.

  While I was being treated, the snake was killed – there was no choice. It turned out that the initial explosion, causing me to drop the sugar bowl, was caused by a kite-hawk flying into the window. When I returned home later that day, I cleaned up the blood, my own and the snake’s. But I have to admit, the place never felt the same after that.

  In April 1986, we heard that the Burke government was getting what it wanted: the Australian Land & Cattle Co.’s properties were being resumed by the Lands Department. The company geared up to take the State government to court. First it took out a full-page advertisement in the West Australian newspaper to alert the country that the Burke government was trying to pass legislation to regain land without appropriate compensation. The government argued that the cattle stations were run-down, and the Australian Land & Cattle Co. had had crippling debts ever since its Camballin dam and sorghum-farming plans went bobbing down the Fitzroy River. Julian Grill, the Minister for Agriculture, said no TB testing of cattle had ever been done on the properties. This wasn’t the case: Bob had done the first TB tests at Mariana Bore in May 1974. There were eight positives, but the government hadn’t extended the testing regime as it should have. TB is an infectious disease of cattle and humans caused by a micro-organism which manifests itself in different parts of the body. Testing for TB meant two rounds of mustering a year, 30 days apart. If a positive TB result was returned on the second test, that paddock of cattle had to be sold and sent to the meatworks, where further testing would be done. It was a hard, but clean and safe way to go before planning to restock.

  Eventually the government and company reached a settlement: the company would sell Bohemia and Louisa for redevelopment, and keep Kimberley and Napier Downs and the cattle. Head Office offered me the manager’s job on Kimberley and Napier Downs, and Bob was offered the contract mustering.

  Bob suggested I view Kimberley Downs before taking the manager’s position. I was keen already. After three months in Broome, we couldn’t get out fast enough. I was lost in town; I had everything, but it meant nothing. Ever since the brown snake incident, I’d been uneasy in the house. After the initial excitement, the children felt the same about Broome. Leisha didn’t like going to school on the bus, and had got into a fight with a boy after he pulled her skirt up. Besides, she lived for horses, which were out on the station. We weren’t built for town life.

  Bob and I journeyed to Kimberley Downs. Paint was peeling off the buildings and there was a general air of neglect. I walked around the sheds and homestead, the men’s quarters and the kitchen. The company hadn’t spent one cent on repairs and improvements while fighting the government. Inside the homestead there was nothing, not even a chair. It was so depressing.

  I sat down against a veranda post. Not a word passed between us. With little company funds, could I pull this together? Even more than the homestead, I was worried about the condition of the bores, mill, tanks, dams and fences. This would be an enormous job. Bob’s hard-edged voice broke the silence.

  ‘Give yourself six months. If you can’t show signs of pulling it together, get out.’ Forthright and blunt: Bob’s usual style. His rough way of laying things out always got my back up and goaded me into a decision. This would be my challenge. Bob knew I needed more in my life than the Mango Farm. But still, I hadn’t seen Kimberley Downs for six years and its dilapidation shocked me.

  ‘I’ll take the position – I can do it,’ I answered.

  The decision made, I was ready. Usually my taste for big tests meant hard work and heartache, but I couldn’t help giving this one a go.

  The company negotiated a loan with the ANZ Bank. Could the station repay it and survive? ‘Yes, the dollars are on the hoof,’ was our answer. It had become a kind of mantra, that phrase.

  It was time for action. I hired men to whitewash the walls inside and out, no frills. We hired a lovely Thursday Islander, Beccy, as cook. Sandy, a woman who was living with one of the stockmen, would be a nanny and governess for the children. Three fencing teams were needed for repairing, replacing and erecting new fences. We worked hand in hand on the TB program with the Derby office of the Agriculture department.

  Soon we were on a roll, with hard work and happy faces. We had hired hands in the men’s quarters, women in the converted old Kimberley Downs schoolhouse, and my family in the ‘big house’. All meals were taken together, with no airs and graces. The children ran around the homestead playing, excited to be back in the bush. We had more staff here, a little community nestled in the valley, surrounded by Homestead Creek and Mount Marmion. Robby had just turned two, big sister Leisha was nine and Kristy seven, the ‘mother hens’ keeping a watchful eye on their little brother. I shot seven snakes in the first week, including one we found in our toilet while Robby was in
there. I blew off the snake’s head, pellets ricocheting from the porcelain pedestal to the corrugated iron walls in a deafening blast which left a huge hole in the wall.

  Jimmy Marshall, an Aboriginal fellow, became my right-hand man. My brother Michael had left us to run the power plants on Balgo Station on the Tanami Desert. Having fallen in love with Janine, a Broome local who would become his wife, Michael was looking for an independent future. Jimmy was, like Michael, a jack-of-all-trades – he knew about bores, fencing, welding and mechanics. He was a little old for ringing on horseback – or mustering as a stockman – but the knowledge was there. Jim had been around Bob’s camps for 30-odd years, and now he was in mine.

  The bores were in terrible condition. Jim was doing a wonderful job manufacturing parts, but the water tanks were rusting away. We patched them with fibreglass, or hessian and tar, or even, in one case, with some antbed that Jim broke up and packed down like a poultice.

  The challenge turned out far bigger than expected, but I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Bob returned home between his musters on Millijiddee Station for the Aboriginal owners there. He suffered worsening back pain now, and would sit for hours smoking quietly, lost in his own world. He was nearly 60, but seemed much older judging by the pain written on his face. Still, the children brought a smile to his face as he watched their antics about the homestead.

  CHAPTER 17

  Killer on the Loose

  Soon after we moved to Kimberley Downs, a crazed marksman was on the loose in the area. Joseph Schwab had been stalking and killing people in the Victoria River district of the Northern Territory and the Pentecost River region of the Kimberley. It was worrying, since Bob and his team were off doing the last roundup on Louisa and Bohemia.

  We were out of stores on Kimberley Downs and in need of parts. Before leaving, I made enquiries; the general opinion was that Schwab had left the area in his Toyota Hilux. Of our people, Bill and Sean were out on the mill run, Sandy, our nanny/governess, was with the children at the homestead, Jack, Alma and their family from Louisa were in the camp, and Beccy, my Thursday Islander cook, was with me.

  ‘Be aware of any Hilux with a bull terrier,’ I warned everyone before heading out to do some shopping. Apparently a bull terrier had gone missing after Schwab’s horrific execution of picnickers on the Pentecost River north of Napier Downs, only a day’s travel away.

  The Gibb River Road was rough and corrugated. As always, the Toyota had a tendency to chug and choke, usually due to an obstruction in the fuel tank. The truck would slow, the blockage would clear itself and we would regain speed. ‘My God, Bec, we don’t need fuel worries today,’ I said. I felt frustrated and was now uneasy about the trip. As the Toyota cleared itself, I drove at breakneck speed towards Derby. At the Meeda turn-off I came across a Hilux, seemingly lost. Surely not, I thought. Anxious and fearful, worried for my children and staff, I wanted to turn back to the station. Instead I continued to Derby, shopped like a crazy woman and threw the stuff in the back as quickly as possible.

  ‘Any news on the killer?’ I asked the fuel attendant at Rick Jane’s garage in town.

  ‘I think they got him,’ he answered vaguely. Why I didn’t go to the police station to report my sighting of the Hilux I will never know.

  Kimberley Downs’s front gate was 50 metres off the Gibb River Road. I swung into a skidding halt. Someone had padlocked the gate behind him and was travelling at high speed towards the homestead, leaving a wake of red pindan dust.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It seemed unreal. I went cold. Sick to the pit of my stomach, I had the most terrible fear that this was Schwab.

  ‘It’s locked, Sheryl,’ came Bec’s dejected voice from the gate. I trembled with fury and fear as I rummaged through the toolbox and found bolt-cutters.

  We had the padlock severed within minutes. ‘Hurry, Bec!’ I yelled, jamming the Toyota into second gear for a quick take-off. ‘I’ll ram this bastard.’

  Accelerator flat to the floor, I chased the red dust, gaining ground on the vehicle. Heading towards the next gate, I realised the dust had diminished.

  ‘Bec,’ I said, ‘that vehicle has turned off towards Boundary Bore.’ We flew towards the homestead. Pulling the vehicle around and reversing up against the freezer, I heard the kitchen phone ring.

  ‘Sheryl, phone. It’s the Derby police,’ yelled Bill, my windmill man.

  ‘Have they caught the killer?’ I asked the sergeant. He didn’t answer, but advised me that a Hilux, with wide tyres and a bull terrier in the back, had been sighted in our area.

  ‘Do not approach the vehicle under any circumstances,’ he said.

  ‘Is it the killer?’

  He repeated the warning: ‘Do not approach this vehicle.’

  We ate dinner with an eye on the entrance to Kimberley Downs. My children were frightened and nervous. Robby didn’t fully understand the situation, but clung fearfully to my side. The staff were moving about on eggshells. Jack and Alma came up from the camp to sit close by. My gut was a tangled mess, although I remained composed as I spoke to my staff. I worried for my children’s safety – I knew we were sitting ducks for a marksman, and the homestead and buildings could not be secured.

  ‘If any of you wish to leave for Derby, then do so,’ I said. ‘A truckload of horses is due within the hour. As you all know, I have thousands of head of cattle relying on pumps to keep the water up to them, so I must remain. Those that remain with me roll your swags; once the horses are unloaded we’ll go outback to Tullock’s Bore and camp.’ This was a safer bet than staying at the homestead.

  All the staff remained with me. The evening was pitch-black, no breeze, a light scattering of stars. Headlights showed on the rocky ridge above the entrance to the homestead. We froze in fear. A hush came over us all as we stood with ears straining to hear if it was a truck or a Hilux.

  ‘Truck, Missus, truck,’ said Jack with his eyes wide, catching his breath after a run through the blackness. He had taken it upon himself to keep watch from the stables. Good old Jack, he always looked after us!

  After we had unloaded the horses, the fearful state of the truck driver became evident. ‘Can I use the phone?’ he asked, running towards the homestead. The driver had been informed on his truck radio that Schwab had been sighted in the area. We said we’d escort him through the two sets of gates to the Gibb River Road.

  Three Toyotas set out, escorting the truck, each with a front passenger riding shotgun. We were all terrified. With the truck on the road, we drove to Tullock’s Bore and set ourselves up to spot any lights. During the restless night, I woke to the cry, ‘Missus, Missus!’ Heart and pulse pounding, we were frightened to death of a cab light in one of the vehicles.

  There was huge relief when golden rays of sunrise came bouncing across the yellow claypan. We crawled along the dusty two-wheel track towards Homestead Creek and stopped. Sean and Bill, my windmill men, courageously crept on ahead to check all buildings. I was afraid that Schwab could have stolen into the station under cover of night and was holed up in one of the buildings, his sights trained on any one of us.

  Later that day I took the children and all the staff – about a dozen of us, no-one left behind – along the Lennard River via Rarragee to Napier Downs, where Jimmy’s parents, old Johnny and Rita Marshall, were the caretakers. From behind the range came the ringing of two high-powered gunshots. I was frightened, but also angry that Schwab had us on the run like this. Jack sat by the old wooden cattle yards keeping a watchful eye on the station entrance and the Napier Range. The boys worked in the shed while I splashed some whitewash around the homestead to keep myself occupied.

  At mid-morning the following day, Bob arrived from Louisa. Without telling me, Bob had contacted the Fitzroy police and offered to fly at his own expense to try to locate this maniac. The police advised strongly against this. Schwab was believed to be carrying an arsenal capable of shooting down a plane.

  Without knowing it,
on his way home Bob had passed within 200 metres of Schwab. As we travelled back from Napier to Kimberley Downs, I alerted Bob to some fresh tracks which did not belong to a station vehicle. The tyres were wide. When we arrived at Kimberley, the top gate on the airstrip paddock had been left open and the star picket flattened: someone had left in a hell of a hurry.

  It wasn’t clear if someone had been in the homestead, but a chair had been positioned behind overflowing hanging ferns on the veranda, providing a panoramic view of the buildings. On a table beside it were kitchen butcher knives and old-style hand shears.

  Schwab was spotted on Plum Plain, south-east of where we were, the following day by the pilot Peter Leutenegger, who was heli-mustering horses for the Fitzroy Rodeo. Peter alerted the authorities, and Schwab made the fatal mistake of taking on Western Australia’s top tactical response squad. Surrounded on Plum Plain, he answered their demand to surrender with a torrent of gunfire, and was shot dead. We were left with some frightening unanswered questions. Had the vehicle we had seen on the station, tearing up the track towards Boundary Bore, been Schwab’s? Had he been in the homestead, sitting on the chair with knives and shears at the ready? There would never be a way of finding out for sure.

  CHAPTER 18

  My Girls

  By 1987 Leisha and Kristy could ride, no doubt about that. Leisha was 10 and Kristy eight. The girls were good mates and looked alike. They didn’t receive their first saddles until proving their proficiency by galloping bareback to Bob. Their favourite after-school pastime was racing each other up and down rocky ridges, jumping deep gullies and crossing hazardous creeks. Strongly competitive, they were riding better every day.