by Sarah Hay
‘How’s that horse you got?’ Texas asked.
‘She seems pretty smart. Although when I started she jumped around a bit.’
He chuckled. ‘Yeah I saw you,’ he said. ‘Your face, it was like this, eh?’ He pulled an expression showing wide eyes and a tight mouth.
She laughed. Cookie who was sitting opposite them laughed too.
‘Young Tommy boy nearly got a horn up his ring,’ said Cookie.
Texas snorted. ‘Yeah that got him moving.’
‘What happened to Gary?’ she asked.
‘I think his horse stumbled or something. Reckoned he nearly come off near that old piker.’
The moment extended with the stillness of the afternoon.
The sound of the cicadas seemed more subdued. Her horse, like the others, rested a leg, eyes blinking closed, long strong ears seemingly tuned out until a match scratched the box and they flicked forward or twitched to unsettle a fly. Bridles jingled with the occasional movement. There was no other sound. She leant against the tree and around her men lay on their backs in the dirt, faces covered by hats, and the normal boundaries of time seemed to vanish.
She wondered sometimes at the value of this rest in the middle of the day. It made it so much harder to swing back
Texas up into the saddle, but once she was back there she forgot the stiffness, the feeling of grubbiness. She held the reins lightly in her hands, and her body fitted into the curve of the animal. Looking through the ears of the horse, she thought of Samson; she had sold her old horse to a girl from Cambridge. His stable would now be empty, or perhaps there was someone like her living in north London renting it, catching the 221 bus along the A1 to Frith Manor. They would buy their feed from the guy in the cowboy gear who drove a battered blue lorry that delivered on Tuesdays and take their horse over the cavaletti jumps in the nearby field or borrow a horse float for the drive to Arkley where there were areas of forest and undulating farmland. It was only at Arkley that the noise of traffic became a ceaseless murmur and she could dream of distances in Australia.
Cattle spread in the direction they were heading and the men returned to their positions. Tommy walked his horse beside her. They were at the back of the mob. She could only just make out through the dust the tall straight figure of Texas, leading the cattle.
‘How far to the yards?’
Tommy shrugged and spat over the side of his horse’s head. ‘Maybe three, four mile.’
The country was changing. Becoming bushier.
‘They reckon there are wild pigs around here,’ he continued.
She lightly touched the rein of her horse and it moved towards a steer that stood behind a shrub. It trotted forwards and disappeared into the mob. Tails flicked from side to side. And occasionally a micky bull clambered onto a cow.
‘You ever seen one?’
‘What?’ she asked.
‘A pig, wild one.’
‘What do they look like?’
‘They’re real mean eh? They got tusks on them like this.’
He made an elaborate gesture with his finger. ‘They chase you,’ he added.
IV
Laura decided that when the men told their stories around the fire at night it was to reassure themselves that they’d survived.
They were talking about the breakaway cattle, the few that had got through the line of horses and riders when they were attempting to push them into the yards. A large bullock had leapt between her and Jimmy, the tip of its horn grazing her shoulder.
‘Eh aunty, what happened? That big bullock want to jump on you?’ said Jimmy, a grin on his face.
‘She too busy worrying about the fly in her ear,’ said Texas, sitting down in front of the fire.
She had thought she was going to go mad. That it would be in there forever, burrowing into the flesh of her ear, laying maggot eggs. After most of the cattle had been secured in the yards, Texas had taken her horse and told her to go to Cookie, to where he was setting up camp under the trees on the
Texas riverbank, and get him to pour some water into her ear. She looked across the fire at Tommy who was talking about the steer he’d gone after. And the others were teasing him about the one he’d lost. But she hadn’t told them her story. She was still replaying it in her mind.
After the fly was washed out she lifted their gear from the back of the vehicle and found a flat area of ground that appeared to be clear of ant nests. When she’d opened her pack and laid out her clothes, she’d realised they were all dirty and the singlet she was wearing was wet and streaked with dust. The sun was just above the treetops. There was perhaps an hour or more left of light. The river would be behind her. She collected her clothes and placed them in the pack and carried them down through the trees. But the riverbed was dry. A vast expanse of sand lay between the bank on which she stood and the other side. It was coarse yellow sand pitted with the tracks of animals. The birds had begun their late afternoon chorus, pairs of birds coming in to roost for the night. Two rivers had come together to form this? She couldn’t believe it. And not far from there was where apparently it drained into the big man-made dam. It was supposed to be more than twenty times the size of Sydney Harbour, which she also found hard to believe, although she’d never seen either of them. This country seemed to be incapable of producing such vast amounts of water. She had witnessed weeks of dry blue sky and of dust that stuck to everything. She was tired of the oily feel of her jeans and of her legs always enclosed in hot heavy fabric. The river curved away to her right. There must be a waterhole somewhere along there. She would walk until she came to one.
The sun disappeared behind the trees and they were outlined by sparkling light.
A slip of liquid shone like metal in a gutter that ran close to the side of the bank, and although it didn’t reach all the way across, it would be enough. The first thing she did was take off her boots. The damp cool sand seeped between her toes and caressed her feet. She removed her jeans, her underwear, her singlet and stood in that soft evening air, seeing for the first time for weeks her reflection in the water, noticing the contrasting colour of her skin from where the sun reached her arms and where it was hidden by clothing. She took all the clothes out of her pack and pushed them into the shallows.
She followed them in and lowered herself into cold water.
Sitting, it reached her chest. She slowly moved the clothes around, not wanting to disturb, to muddy the water. If they were to stay another night, would Texas join her? They could lie in the water and it would be like a silken sheet slipping over their bodies. It was hard to imagine, though, Texas without any clothes. Every night they sat in the darkness on either side of their swag, pulling off their boots and everything else, before they met in the middle of the mattress, under the covers.
Although sometimes she saw the shape of him, stretching tall in front of the dawn sky, when the soft bellies of cloud were faintly pink.
Just as she was about to get up, she noticed the movement of animals coming down the far bank. They were heading towards the waterhole. Too small for cattle. Oh my god, it was
Texas a wild sow and its piglets. She sank lower into the water, to be still, to not move, to not make a ripple. Trying to quieten the sound of her heart knocking in her ears. The piglets squealed and bumped into each other while their mother drank. And then there were dogs at the edge. Pale-coloured animals that must have been dingoes. She hadn’t even noticed them appear. And across to the far end of the waterhole, a distance of about two hundred metres, a large horned animal dropped its head to drink. She must have seen one before, in a picture or at the zoo, for she recognised it was a buffalo. The water enveloped her and, strangely, the animals took no notice of each other. Her breathing eased a little. She didn’t know how long it was that she felt like she didn’t exist and the pigs and the dogs and the buffalo went about their usual activity. Eventually they straggled off and she was able to step out of the water, noticing the ridges of sodden skin on her hands and feet.
She dried and dressed in her only piece of clean clothing, a blue and yellow sarong that her parents had bought one year from a beach stall in Le Lavandou. She carried the wet clothes the kilometre or so back to camp, walking through deep sand, unable to distinguish her tracks from those made by animals. Her clothes now hung from a rope borrowed from Cookie which was strung between two trees. Cookie looked up from his pots and said she could have done his washing while she was at it.
The men rested in front of the fire with mugs of tea and cigarettes. She had lived with the same image for weeks now, but she saw it as though for the first time: the shape of their hats, the outline of their bodies, light flickering over the lower half of their faces, arranged in a semicircle, and she realised the stories they told, although they changed every night, gave meaning to their existence. She heard the crackle of the bush behind her and thought of things she couldn’t see. Listening to their talk, she decided she wouldn’t tell them what happened at the waterhole. She didn’t want them to think of her naked.
There was no gas light since their camp was only temporary, and when the fire died, the men left for their swags. She knew they would keep moving camp until they reached the permanent yards that had a loading ramp for the truck. She climbed into the swag beside Texas and he held out his arm for her to come closer.
V
Laura had a sore on her hand that wouldn’t heal. Texas told her it was barcoo rot.
‘You need to eat more onions,’ he said.
They were in the round yard of the cattle yards. Although it wasn’t actually round, more like a hexagon, gates opened out from it into pens that kept the cows and the steers apart, and the calves from their mothers. As well as controlling one of the gates, she was responsible for recording the numbers of cattle as they passed through. Texas worked the main gate that led into it and announced where the animals were to go. She found herself watching and it was like the first time she wanted him,
Texas wonder and desire sharpening the light and the shape of everything. He didn’t seem to notice but then he looked up.
‘You got your eye on them cattle?’ he said with a sideways smile.
Some of the men had exchanged their William boots, as they called them, for sneakers so they didn’t slip. They were armed with pieces of poly pipe and they moved in and out of the cattle, occasionally leaping up onto the railings when a cow or a bull went after them. One time a bony old cow had chased her in the forcing yard. Laura didn’t have any sneakers and her boots slipped; she fell back and the cow was underneath and it sent her flying over the top of the yard. Luckily it was a cow without horns and the only injuries were to her pride and to her coccyx. Maxwell and Gary were sitting on the opposite rail and she looked up and caught them grinning wildly, slapping their thighs in amusement. Since then she’d made sure she had a job away from the action. Scruffing calves was different. She helped by holding them down after they were chased and toppled by one of the men. It was hard work and the calves were stronger than they looked. Often it took two people to force the animal over and then its ear was marked and it was branded, and if it was a male its ball bag was cut and two bluish testicles squeezed from the opening. The calves often made a noise that made her think they were choking and when they were released they stood unsteadily beside the fence that separated them from their mothers. The smell of burning hair became as thick as dust. The gate clanged shut and over the sounds of the cattle she heard a vehicle. She saw it pull up and she called out to Texas. ‘The boss is here.’
John walked over to the yards, leaning in between the railings to talk to Texas. He remained on the outside and never glanced in her direction. He had driven off by the time they broke for dinner camp. Jimmy was walking beside Texas.
‘What did the veranda boss want?’
‘He reckon some of those cows need spaying.’
She was on the other side of Texas and he reached out for her ponytail, twirling it around with his hand.
‘That’d be your job eh?’ And his hand dropped to her wrist, and held it up. ‘Good small arm.’
When they returned to work that afternoon she realised he wasn’t joking. The branding fire was stoked and a metal bucket of water placed on to boil. There were instruments, the long-handled scissors and the needle and the knife, to be sterilised. Tar was heated and twine prepared for threading. She was grateful for her nursing experience. She wasn’t squeamish but she felt for the poor old cow that stepped gingerly through the gate when it was released, a splash of black tar sealing the stitched wound in the hollow of its flank. There were ten of them.
‘Will they survive?’ she asked when the last one joined the others.
Texas shrugged. ‘Some maybe. See that one over there.’
He pointed through the gap in the railing to the yard where the steers and the bullocks were held, the cattle destined for the abattoirs. ‘That big old cow, she a meatworker cow, see how big and fat she is. That one spayed maybe two, three year ago.’
Texas Tommy poured water on the fire and it spat thickly and dust and smoke became steam. Then he leant against the railing beside her.
‘Wouldn’t mind a ready-made smoke,’ he said as he leant in to lick the rollie paper. ‘And a ready woman for that matter,’ he added, eyes glancing sideways.
She looked at his profile, face filthy from the moisture of steam and the dirt and soot that adhered to it. His teeth were stained and in the corner of his eye was a globule of the black dust that also ringed his nostrils.
‘Too busy riding bulls at the rodeo, eh Tommy?’ Jimmy was sitting on the top rail. ‘No time for loving up.’
Peter’s laugh drowned out the others’. It was deep and his belly seemed to move with it. Texas picked up the branding iron and stood it against a post.
‘You smart fellas better get going with those cows. Take them back before dark eh?’
It took another day and a half to return the breeders and the young calves to their paddocks and to finish loading the meatworker cattle onto the truck. After dinner camp they packed up their gear and stacked it on the back of the Toyota. Maxwell was standing beside Laura. His whiskers were like white splinters against his skin. She remembered Peter telling her that when Maxwell was a young fella, he’d been speared in the thigh by the horn of a bull. That’s why he couldn’t move so fast any more.
‘Maxwell, why don’t you sit in the front?’
Shaking his head. ‘That place for you.’
She hesitated by the car door.
‘Get in,’ said Texas who was driving.
Cookie followed behind her. The others climbed on the back. She noticed Maxwell was the last to settle amongst all the swags. The heat from the engine was almost burning her leg and her other leg was pressed close to Texas and every time he changed gear, his arm crossed the top of her body and his wrist brushed the inside of her thigh. At times she thought she knew where they were but then they headed in a direction she didn’t expect. The windows on both sides of the vehicle were open and the air that blew in was hot like a hairdryer and sometimes it was mixed with tobacco smoke and ash flicked around the cabin. They were driving towards some ranges that were shaped like a line of purple plasticine, pinched at the top into thin edges. She remembered her niece’s second birthday at her parents’ house in Mill Hill. She had given the little girl plasticine but her sister had said her daughter wasn’t old enough. She’d probably eat it. And they’d all laughed at Laura who didn’t know what to give a two-year-old child. But it had distracted her family from trying to talk her out of going to Australia. Sometimes she imagined what it might be like to live in the same street as her sister. Driving from her parents’ house to the end of the road and onto the busy high street, then around the roundabout they called a circus and onto the motorway that lifted you above street level, with all the other cars heading in the same direction. Half an hour later, taking one of the many exits onto a slip-road that led into a row of ugly postwar houses, owned by the local council but with an
option for working couples to buy. And her car would be parked in the front of the garage that was painted blue, the coloured door the only thing that distinguished it from the others in the street. And there would be holidays in the sun once a year perhaps, to Marbella or Majorca.
The landscape through the dirty windscreen was mostly flat with the occasional tree, feathery shrubs and grass that grew thinly. Sometimes there were red rocks in between. The vehicle followed a two-wheel track for what seemed like hours and then it turned onto a freshly graded road and she didn’t realise she’d been resisting with her body the bumps in the road until there were none.
‘Who’s done this?’ Cookie looked across at Texas.
‘He’s got some grader driver putting in new roads round the place.’
‘What for?’
‘He reckons he’s putting in more bores, more fences. Fencing them brahmas in.’
She hadn’t asked where they would be spending the night. She had developed an ability to think no further than the moment. There was no use planning ahead when she relied on others to find the way or drive her somewhere. She was pleasantly surprised when the track turned and she recognised the roof tucked beneath the hill. They had come to the place where the Swedish boys had stayed. Texas said there would be hot water to wash in. They just had to light the fire for the donkey. There was no sign of Hans and Sven, not that she expected to see them. She knew they’d be long gone, probably in Perth by now. But there was another vehicle there. A ute with a fuel drum on the back.
‘Looks like the grader driver’s camped up here as well,’ said Texas as he switched off the engine.
She hadn’t noticed before but the other wing of the homestead had doors facing out to the yard and behind each one was a small room with a bed and sometimes a cupboard.
It was clear they hadn’t been used for some time; one of them had the grader driver’s things but the others were full of gravelly dirt and dust and cobwebs. Texas came up behind her carrying the swag.
