Coming Rain

by Stephen Daisley

  The dingo studied the dead kangaroo and the surrounds for a while longer.

  Her eyes drooped and she licked at her shoulder, a healing wound the black dingo had made with his slashing teeth as he mated with her. The black dog was strong, crossed with one of the big run-off cattle-station dogs.

  They had become welded when he covered her and finished, knotted with his swollen glands locked inside. She had yelped, turned and bitten at him, opening his ear. His dominance reasserted itself and he stood snarling over her with strong, straight legs. She obeyed with look-away eyes and became still for him as they waited. And then he slipped out, and was gone. Head down running west and never looking back at her. Ten minutes later her nose was following where his feet and saliva had touched the rocks and sand. The rapture of what would become a pack, twelve or so dingos, running in and beside her.

  She felt a twist of hunger for six and stood. Approached the yonga carcass from a side angle, bent her head under where the tail had been taken and began tearing at the flesh. Soon she had exposed the intestines. Swallowed a mouthful of gut fat. The doe’s soft liver, pulpy in her mouth. The dingo bitch gulped the liver and choked. Vomited up the black mess and began to eat it again.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was mid-morning when they turned off the Great Eastern Highway, rattled across the rails of a cattleguard and onto the red mile that led to Drysdale Downs homestead. They passed a five-wire fence. Iron star pickets and two top barbed, wool stuck in the barbs. The dried bodies of several wild dogs had been wired with ancient spines and leg shapes outstretched on the fence. Paddocks of dried mitchell and failed flinders grasses, yellow grass and smoke bush out to a series of hollows and rises away to the horizon. Beyond there the wheat fields.

  Three pink and grey galahs flew off the fence at their approach.

  ‘Drysdale Downs,’ Lew said. His voice croaking from the dry silence. ‘How many they got?’

  ‘Not as many as they used to,’ Painter said. ‘About twelve hundred I believe. Three maybe four days for us.’ He coughed. ‘Used to run over ten thousand head but they gone mostly to wheat now anyway. Should be the other way around. Dunno if they got shed hands coming even, it’s all a bit of a doubt mate.’

  ‘No blackfellas you say? None?’

  ‘Not now, not ever. I told you. They will never lay a foot here. None bloody left.’

  A Comet windmill in the near paddock. Tall and rusted tubes welded into a thin quadruped structure with a working platform bolted below the circle of blades. Long curved metal flukes. A bent pipe running from the top of the bore to the holding tank. Two stone drinking troughs north south.

  ‘Something else I should tell you,’ Painter said. ‘Pull up here for a bit.’

  Lew stopped the truck at the side of the track. Stones crunched beneath the tyres. He looked over at Painter.

  ‘The boss, John Drysdale, lost his wife a few years ago. Had their share of troubles on the place, her was just the latest.’

  Lew with both wrists on the steering wheel, leaned forward, watching. ‘Lost?’

  ‘Cancer. Yep. Jack the dancer, y’know.’ Painter stared out the side window. ‘Took it hard I heard. Like a dry stick in the wind these days.’

  ‘By himself now?’

  ‘No, a daughter, she was at boarding school in Perth. She come home I believe. Clara, her name. Thought I would let you know to tread a little careful, y’know, ducks on the pond. Less said the better.’

  Lew nodded. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ He eased the clutch pedal out.

  ‘Have you seen that?’ Painter nodded out the window as they drove. An ancient red harrow rusting at the edge of the paddock. Its metal seat, buttock-shaped and perforated, high above the metal spines. Rusted trace chains. Large spoke wheels. Abandoned but kept, grown around like a wound. Long wheat grass through it.

  ‘Yeah mate. An old harrow.’

  They drove up to a shearing shed raised up on wandoo stumps. Pulled the truck to a stop and waited for the dust to settle. They got out of the truck, closed the doors and stretched. Hands braced above kidneys.

  A blue heeler cattle dog ran from the yards and began barking. John Drysdale walked from the woolshed, holding up one hand to block the sun and looking at them. A tall, lean man, dressed in a faded green shirt and trousers, his head at an awkward angle to his shoulders, almost as if avoiding recognition. One side of his face had healed so that it looked like the bark of the bloodwood marri. The lids of his left eye were coral pink and wept and drooped and often it felt as if that side of his face was still on fire. It was the memory of the spinifex and blue-bush fire he and his father had been caught in while mustering out near Daybreak Springs. A brown Akubra hat on his head. He called to the blue dog. ‘That’ll do Jock, sit down there.’

  Jock sat, mouth open and long pink tongue hanging out, closed his mouth and began to scratch at something behind his ear. Groaned as he scratched.

  ‘Hello Painter Hayes. Had any rain?’ John Drysdale held out his right hand.

  ‘Boss,’ Painter said. ‘No rain.’ He took John’s hand and they shook hands.

  ‘The bloke upstairs has been trying us,’ John Drysdale did not smile.

  ‘Keep calling him, boss,’ Painter nodded. ‘It’ll come.’

  ‘Better be, let’s hope so.’

  Painter turned his head, coughed and spoke as John looked to Lew.

  ‘This is Lewis McCleod, Mr Drysdale. You may have known his father Mac?’

  ‘Can’t say I remember him. How are you Lewis?’

  ‘Good good Mr Drysdale.’ Lew said and held out his hand. They too shook hands.

  The land was silent, the truck’s motor ticking from the heat of the motor. A pair of crows called to each other and after a minute, the metal creaking sound of the Comet windmill began. They watched the D-pattern tail swing away from the wind coming out of the desert.

  ‘His father shore here,’ Painter said, ‘in the late thirties once or twice I believe.’

  ‘He did?’ Drysdale looked closer at Lew.

  ‘First I knew of it Mr Drysdale.’

  The circle of blades whirred, moving in the air. The wind lifted and the flukes began turning faster, and the familiar sound of the air and moving metal of the windmill.

  ‘Anyway good to see you both,’ Drysdale said. ‘Mustered yesterday. Shed and yards full. Just the hoggets. Tally I have is just under twelve hundred head. More or less.’

  Lew and Painter both nodded. ‘Good good.’

  ‘Three days I would say. Four the outside. Perhaps a week or so if it rains.’

  The sky was blue for as far as they could see. No clouds, not one, just the wind coming out of the eastern desert. The windmill’s pump piston began moving up and down, dry-hissing in the sleeve of its cylinder. A small dust cloud swirled away behind the woolshed.

  ‘That is a hopeful condition Mr Drysdale,’ Painter said.

  ‘Never know,’ Drysdale replied. He turned, as they heard horses coming at a steady run.

  Clara Ruth Drysdale rode towards them. Nineteen and sitting a white gelding as if she had grown out of it, holding a big-bellied grey mare on a long rope behind her. The horses slowed, baulked a little to the walk and stopped in front of the men as red dust caught up and blew around her and over them. A team of lean mustering dogs loping behind her. They ci
rcled Painter and Lew. The head dog lifted his leg against the wheel of the truck, squirted a line of urine and ran over to Jock to stand and bristle in defiance. Jock’s top lip lifted and he began to open and close his mouth. The edges of his tongue curling as he too snarled. A low growl coming from his throat.

  She had dark brown eyes, freckles and black hair cut unfashionably short. Cheeks flushed brown red with blood and sun. Her father’s old, worn Akubra hat, hole in the peak. It had come off her head and hung down her back by a cord. Waved a hand in front of her face at the flies. Smiling yet as the gelding walked back three more steps and began turning away from them. Touched his nose onto the upper jaw of the mare on the lead. Nibbled at the halter brow strap.

  ‘We just having a bit of a wongi,’ her father said. ‘Bit of a chat here with the boys.’ He turned to the shearers. ‘You remember my daughter Clara, Mr Hayes? The image of her mother.’

  ‘I saw your truck coming Mr Hayes.’ She was almost shouting in her easy breathlessness. ‘Good to see you again.’ Pulled the white horse’s head to the off side as she spoke to him.

  ‘Miss Drysdale,’ Painter said and smiled up at her. ‘My you have grown. Good to see you. What are the horses you have there?’ He recalled her love of the animals.

  Clara waved again at the flies in front of her face. Glanced at Lew once, twice. He could not take his eyes off her. Three times now she had looked at him.

  She looked back and pointed to the pregnant mare on the lead rope. ‘That is our shy Pearl, she is in foal, well you can tell that by her look, and this is Tom, her half-brother who we had to geld as a yearling. Uncontrollable otherwise.’ She leaned forward in the saddle and patted Tom’s dappled white neck. ‘Remember that Dad?’

  The men all smiled up at her like they had heard something they didn’t need to and were silent.

  Painter spoke to her and pointed to Lew with an open hand. ‘Miss Drysdale this is Lewis McCleod.

  ‘Miss Drysdale,’ Lew said. ‘How do you do?’

  Her face lit and she blushed and looked to herself; at how her loose work shirt was hanging off her. The jodhpurs tight on her thighs and a hole in the knee. The bloody flies all over her. A million of them. ‘Hello there,’ she said with the sudden confidence of boarding school. ‘Good thank you.’ Tom once again moving beneath her. ‘And yourself?’

  ‘I am fine thank you,’ Lew said.

  Painter watched them.

  Drysdale was leaning back. Raised a hand and spoke. ‘Clara, I was about to tell them that we will be doing the roustabout and pressing work in the shed. There are no shed hands coming.’

  She shook her head. ‘As well as mustering and penning? It won’t work Dad. You should have got a shed hand or two. Goodness sake.’

  ‘We have been having troubles. But they are sent to try us are they not?’

  Clara looked at him as if he was losing his mind. ‘I would rather shed hands were sent to help than troubles to try us. Or what about those awful bank managers. What did you call them, Dad? The assassins of hope? Like a weather forecast, you said they were. And we need to carry more sheep, Dad; have you seen the price of wool? White gold.’

  Drysdale gave an uncomfortable laugh. Shot a quick look towards the shearers. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about that, girl.’

  Painter coughed. ‘We better get settled in then Mr Drysdale,’ he said. ‘We’ll get over to the quarters?’

  Drysdale, nodding, was about to say something when Clara spoke up. ‘There must be wild dogs, dingo about, I saw crows before, flying up and jumping like they do.’

  ‘Dog crows?’

  ‘Beyond the highway,’ she said. ‘Like they were following you almost.’

  They looked to where she pointed. ‘Gone now by the look.’ Tom walking backwards beneath her.

  The land fell away to the red mile track and fence line. The Comet windmill and water tanks. A flock of white cockatoos walking in a wide paddock behind the woolshed. The earth, yellow and red brown and in places shimmering white to clear. A line of trees marked the Great Eastern Highway about half a mile away. They watched as a large articulated truck and trailer appeared in the distance and the sound of a powerful American motor washed in to where they were and then it was past them and disappearing away to the east.

  ‘Going to Kalgoorlie I expect,’ Drysdale said. ‘The gold mines there.’

  CHAPTER 10

  After she had eaten, the dingo rested a short distance from the highway. She had followed the road until she found an overhanging rock outcrop fringed by wax bush, smoke bush and gimlet saplings. She was almost invisible.

  Her belly made liquid digestive sounds and the two rows of her teats had begun to itch. Her eyes drooped and she put her chin on her paws and slept. Flies touched her nose and mouth. Once she snapped at them. Waited, made a small groaning noise and relaxed, lay on her side. Lifted one paw to rub it over an ear; allowed the paw to slip and rest at the end of her nose. Sand moving in front of her nostrils as her breathing deepened. A small pup-yip and she slept.

  She opened her eyes when the ground began vibrating. Raised her head, ears turned to the sound. All other noise was sucked away as the approaching presence came through the red earth towards her. Terrified, she crouched, ears laid flat to flee, and as the sound roared by she snarled and flattened herself into the ground, tail between her legs. Roadside bushes swayed in the air wash of its approach and passing. The heavily laden truck and semitrailer roared past on the highway. She began to tremble and then made herself as invisible as possible in the earth and waited.

  The noise faded away. She stood and came out of the hiding place. Sidled to a clearing and sat in the shade of a karrik bush. Crows were stalking about, as if following her. She ran at them growling and jumped up as they flew off to land a few feet away and caw and waahdong their displeasure. She raised her nose. Tested the air.

  CHAPTER 11

  Clara was speaking to them. ‘The windscreen on your truck is broken Mr Hayes.’ She squinted to look more closely at their vehicle. ‘And it is dented on the front mudguard. Headlight gone too?’

  Lew raised his head. ‘I almost forgot. We found a joey along the way. Would you like to have it Miss Drysdale?’

  Painter was staring at him. ‘Hold on now son.’

  Lew turned and walked to the truck.

  An explosion of dogs and dust. Jock and Clara’s head mustering dog were whirling into a fight. Snarling and high-pitched yelping. The dogs were spinning in the dust. A great tumbling, shaking dogfight and some of the other mustering team ran in and savaged Jock as the yelping continued. One of them had him by the hind leg and was dragging the leg out. Another big dog was attacking his flank. Jock yelping and tumbling in fright.

  Clara rode Tom into them, bent low down on the neck of the horse and yelling to the dogs, growling at some of them. ‘Get out of it King you blasted nuisance. Meg. Fleet, get. Stop it Boofy you bloody pest.’

  John Drysdale walked over to the fight and simply booted his blue dog out of it. Jock ran, bleeding, carrying a back leg and yelping in pain, ears back and tail between legs, to the shelter of the ground beneath the woolshed.

  Her father was pointing at Clara’s pack of circling, victorious dogs. ‘Why girl do you carry so many dogs?’ Raised his voice to her turned shoulder. ‘We don’t need all of them. Girl? Well we do not.’ />
  She did not reply to her father.

  Lew was holding the joey. It was still wrapped and roped in the grey woollen blanket. Clara looked back at him as he crossed to where she was restoring order among the pack. She had dismounted and let the reins trail. Lew watched as she pushed the riding crop into the jodhpurs above her backside. It rode up like a flag as she bent.

  Clara took a thin chain from a saddlebag and ran the chain through their collars and clipped that back on itself through the woolshed yards. Speaking to each of the dogs as she did this. ‘Sit down there King. Yes you the boss. That will do Sky. Good girl Meg. Sit down Fleet. Behave yourself just now Boofy, you bloody fool of a dog. Dee you darling.’ Sometimes she just said their names. Jess and Bill. Swift and Don.

  Each of the dogs showed their obedience to Clara as she chained them. The senior dogs glancing at her with soft eyes and placing dignified chins on paws. The younger dogs tending to abandon all restraint and, in a frenzy of subservience, roll on their backs and wag their tails, desperately trying to lick her hand. Bill, still young enough to roll over and demonstrate his adoration by pissing all over himself.

  Clara turned from the dogs and smiled up at Lew. Stood. ‘What?’ She stepped forward and uncovered the head of the young kangaroo as you would uncover the head of a baby. Gave a chuckle of delight. ‘What have you got here?’

  Lew was holding the blanket-covered bundle. ‘You will have to name it Miss Drysdale. Especially now it belongs to you.’

  Behind her the dogs, which had all stood, noses lifted and quivering, began to boom and bark as the scent of the joey came over them. Clara turned her head. ‘Quiet,’ she growled. ‘King. Stop it.’

  The dogs quieted and settled, watching Clara’s every move, her every gesture. Tom was walking back again, dragging the reins away from them. Pearl moving with him, also backing away. Clara beamed as she examined the delicate head and face bones of the terrified joey. ‘What a darling you are,’ she whispered. ‘Sweetheart.’ Two fingers exposed the nose. The baby kangaroo was struggling in the blanket. Lew, smiling too, reached to cover its eyes. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, handing the bundle to her. ‘Would you like to keep him?’