Rosie had only ever worked her dogs on sheep in dry paddocks. The sheep just drifted along in mobs if the dogs worked them right. She was surprised at how hard the cows and calves were to shape into a smooth, flowing group on the waterlogged river flats. They baulked at the deeper drains of water and wouldn’t cross. They refused to stick together as a herd, preferring to run after their calves. And some cows turned and charged the dogs.
Rosie soon realised she would have to ride harder and closer to the cattle if she was to move the herd to safer ground. She urged Oakwood on, her thighs gripping his bare back. When a cow turned back towards them, Oakwood’s instincts switched on. Rosie sat back on his spine and grabbed a fistful of mane as his stockhorse genes came to the fore. He worked the shoulder of a beast, matching the cow’s every move. His legs darted beneath him as he weaved in front of the cow and shouldered her back towards her mates. Rosie let Oakwood take her. Trusting him. Encouraging him. Every now and then she’d lose her balance and slip from him, landing solidly on the ground that lay beneath the shallow water, but he would stand and wait until she clambered back on.
The dogs, too, were proving their worth and seemed to understand the urgency of the situation. Diesel and Gibbo were working hard to push the lead cows and calves through the water spilling rapidly across the river flats. The furious cows, protecting their calves, bellowed at the dogs, slinging their heads low to the ground and storming forward at a charge. The kelpies teamed up, snapping and barking at the cows’ open, moaning mouths. With a nip of the hocks, darting from the kick, the dogs soon had any rogue cows back in the herd.
They worked like this for a full hour, moving slowly towards the high ground, the terrifying roar of the rising river behind them spurring them on. The cows plunged through drains and emerged on the other side, edging closer to the bush that rose up beyond the fenceline. Pin rushes were replaced by low ti-tree and dog bush and, beyond the fence, gum trees rose up overhead.
Rosie looked back. It seemed silver sheets of water were taking over all that had once been land. Oakwood heaved, steam rising from his body, while the cattle mooed restlessly, trying to mother-up with their calves. The dogs stood panting in the rain. Though Rosie had succeeded in moving the cattle, she was now stuck on the wrong side of the river – and Jim was missing. She felt anger rise up in her against Gerald as she heard his voice in her head: ‘Don’t you know those bloodlines trace back to the original Crondstadt Hereford bull imported from Herefordshire?’ So what if they did? Rosie thought. They had nearly cost her her life, and now they had surely cost Jim his.
Rosie shivered. She knew she had to find shelter for herself and for the cattle.
‘Which way to the gate?’ Rosie said to Oakwood. The cattle were already drifting south along the fenceline.
She heard Jim’s voice in her mind saying ‘Let the animals teach you’, so she called the dogs in behind and began to follow the herd. The lead cows ambled along at a decent pace, their red ears flickering back and forth. Rosie’s feet stung and a numbness was rising up her legs. She wriggled her toes in the wet fabric of her socks and felt them burning hot with pins and needles.
As the last of the cattle trailed through the bush gate, she turned Oakwood’s head to face the river. She wanted to go back to look for Jim, but the pain in her feet had now shot up to her knees and she was shivering uncontrollably with no boots, no coat and no hat. Also, it was getting dark. Heading back down to search for Jim along the river would only put her dogs and horse in danger again. She turned her back to the floodwaters and headed up the hill, looking for the track that, she hoped, would lead her to the hut.
On top of the ridge the wind blew madly and the rain pelted horizontally at Rosie. She couldn’t feel her toes or fingers at all. She wasn’t sure how far she was from the hut, or even if she was on the right track. She knew hunters and trail riders sometimes used it, but she had never been allowed on those trips.
‘Oh, Rosemary’s not at all horsey,’ her mother would say when the trail leader offered to take the slim quiet girl up with the group. ‘She’s terrified of horses, actually,’ her mother would add, laying an arm across Rosie’s shoulders.
From when she was very young, Rosie had believed the stories her mother made up about her. She started to fear everything and avoided adventure, despite longing to go with the riders. Now, out here in the blustery wind and the flood, she had never felt more fearful, yet at the same time she had never felt more brave. She looked ahead on the track and imagined that Jim was riding in front of her. She pictured him, the rain running from his oilskin and trickling down the rump of his horse as he sat tall in the saddle, proud and strong, defying the elements. But when she blinked the image was gone, and she was all alone under the sodden gum trees tossing wildly in the wind. Rosie thought of Jack Gleeson, riding onwards with his pup and his stockhorse, and she felt a shiver run through her. Suddenly the bush around her seemed to shut out time itself. There was only place. This wet, cold world that was so beautiful, yet so savage, like a dream. There was only her and the animals, moving through a landscape that was terrifying in its fury and chill, yet so full of life. Rosie ducked beneath a branch and there, on the edge of a clearing, was the hut.
A lean-to at the side provided shelter for Oakwood. She hitched the slimy leather of his broken reins to the solid upright verandah posts and covered his hindquarters with an old hessian sack she found on the verandah. It would at least keep his kidneys warm, Rosie thought. Then she threw open the door and ducked her head as she stepped inside, inviting the dogs in with her. Stooping, she lit the tiny pot-belly stove that stood in the centre of the hut. Someone had set it previously, as was the unwritten rule, so it crackled to life immediately, startling the spiders that had made the stove their home. Rosie lit two candles that were stuck in old whisky bottles and set them down on a shelf so she could see better inside the dim light of the hut. A sagging single camp bed, its bursting mattress covered in possum and rat dung, was in one corner. She swept the mattress clean with the sleeve of her shirt, then dragged it from the bed on to the wooden floor next to the stove. Then she curled up in a ball beside the fire, her arms slung about the dogs, and began to cry. They licked her tears with their warm wet tongues until she settled.
Thank God for my dogs, she thought. Without them she was sure she’d go mad. Still shaking, she began to long for the arms of her stockman around her. And then it hit her – she was in love with Jim. The emotions that welled up in her were so much more powerful than anything she’d ever felt for Sam. And in that very same moment, the thought that Jim could have drowned tore into her soul, so that again she found herself crying uncontrollably.
BALLAROOK STATION, CIRCA 1870
Work in the shed had ground to a halt because of wet sheep, so Jack sat about the quarters listening to the raucous carry-on of the men. He didn’t join in. He was too busy thinking of Mary Ryan. He couldn’t shake her from his mind.
He had first seen Mary in the orchard, picking lemons with the station children. She had honey-coloured hair, tied in a navy bow, and she was holding a cluster of lemons in her pinafore. A short distance away, her black pony tore at the sweet green grass of the orchard, while the children filled the pony’s saddlebags with lemons. Jack had smiled at her and she had smiled back.
Since that day they’d fallen into an easy friendship, peppered with flirtatious comments. Mary would laugh at Jack, and taunt him, then with her shining blue eyes entice him into talking more about his plans for Kelpie. And she’d listen, seemingly spellbound, as she watched his full lips move. Jack had been breaking Kelpie in during shearing, but the dog was making the most of her day off today by dozing at Jack’s side, resting her tender paws and stiff muscles.
He looked up from his book when the sun broke through the clouds and shone through the window. A cheer rose from the men as they tumbled outside, made restless by too much idleness.
Jack stretched and looked back to his book, waiting for the afterno
on to end so he could escort Mary home to Bunyip station. A moment later, he heard Mark calling to him. Walking outside, with Kelpie at his heels, he saw that the men now stood around in a raggle-taggle circle.
‘We have a wager for you, Gleeson,’ Mark said. ‘A game which only one man and dog on this station could win.’
The men threw coins into the battered hat Mark waved under their noses. Even the cook had come out of the mess and rounded up the homestead staff to see the display of ‘tinning the chicken’. Mary ushered the children from the schoolroom and they clustered around her, a little way off from the men. Jack glanced over at Mary and gave her a wink. She bit her lip, stifling a smile.
As a girl growing up on a station in the west, Mary was used to young workmen coming and going, flirting with her and her sisters. But Jack was different from the rest. There was a seriousness and gentleness to him, and she loved the way he spoke to his animals, from his lazy old dog to the bright young Kelpie. Jack was rugged-looking, his skin tanned from outside work and his hands rough and dirty, but his face was so handsome with his blue eyes and high cheekbones, his hair cropped short and neat. And unlike the rest of the men, he was always clean-shaven by Sunday, his skin smooth from the blade. He even spoke like a gent. Mary felt goosebumps rise on her skin as he emerged from the cluster of men and stood in the circle with Kelpie at his heels.
‘Bets are now closed,’ Mark called out as he set the hat on a post. Then he put down an old tin in the centre of the ring. It lay on its side in the dirt, its shiny surface gleaming. He then took up a sack and on the edge of the ring shook out a flustered chicken. It was part-way between a grown fowl and a fluffy yellow chick. Its beady little eyes and snip of a beak were still chick-like, yet it had the long gangly legs of a grown chook. It flapped its tiny wings and shook its whole body to reorganise its feathers, then cheeped nervously as its eyes adjusted to the sunlight. The crowd looked at the pullet and the tin.
‘Not likely!’ called one of the spotty roustabouts. ‘There’s no way he can do it!’
Kelpie glanced up at Jack, quivering with anticipation. She was just six months old. Jack had worked her hard during the first weeks of shearing at Ballarook but nothing quenched her desire to herd. She was an ordinary collie to look at, but her eyes showed such intelligence and her lop-ears pricked up keenly when she worked. And work she did. She would work anything from chickens to ducks, rams to bulls, from lambs to the snotty-nosed kids that lived on the station. Kelpie’s herding instinct was so strong she would even try to work swallows as they darted about their nests under the eaves of the station’s outbuildings. But guiding all Kelpie’s instincts was a connection to Jack that was unbreakable. His voice steered her spirit, led her in all that she did. It was as if she lived for him.
In a quiet voice Jack called, ‘Kelpie, get over.’ She cast out clockwise, deftly trotting over the boots of the men, trying to place as much distance as she could between herself and the chicken. It began to run away in flustered jerky steps. But quick as a whip-crack Kelpie was around and blocking the path. She dropped to her belly and let the chicken settle for a moment. Then, by raising first one paw, then the other, Kelpie stealthily moved forward, crouched, belly low to the ground, as steady as a cat. The chook moved away from her, but was blocked in her path when Kelpie appeared as if by magic on the other side of the ring. Gradually Kelpie worked the chook towards Jack, into the centre of the circle.
Jack moved to the opposite side of the tin. Kelpie glanced up. As if connected to him by a secret language she moved too, mirroring Jack’s position, crouching on the other side of the tin, the chicken between them. As Jack whistled a low steady whistle, Kelpie crept forward. The chook clucked gently and strutted closer to the tin. The men watched in silence, hands folded across their broad chests or thrust deep in the pockets of their dungarees. The little yellow chicken, tilting its head to the side, eyed the tin suspiciously.
‘Kelpie,’ Jack said quietly, ‘walk up.’
Kelpie closed in on the chook with precise movements, stopping if she felt the chicken would run. As the seconds ticked by, the chook relaxed, and seemed somehow mesmerised by the unblinking eyes of the collie dog. Kelpie crept forward until she was just inches from the chook. Then, bowing its head as if submitting, the chook gingerly looked into the dark round space within the tin. Its thin eyelids blinked slowly over its beady brown eyes. A hushed sigh of amazement ran round the group of men. The spotty boy’s mouth fell open and Mark licked his lips in glee at the money he would win. The chicken placed its claw-like foot in the tin, ducked its head and then shuffled its whole body inside. It lay inside the tin, peering out as a loud cheer went up from the shearers. They slapped Jack on the back with their big, lanolin-coated hands and shook their heads and tugged their beards. The children danced up and down and clapped their hands.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ said the biggest and burliest of the shearers. ‘I’ve never seen the likes of it, ever!’
‘Fleeced by a dog!’ cried another, pulling the innards of his pockets out and laughing.
‘I told you Jack and his dog could work the devil back down to Hell if he wanted,’ said Mark. Then he scooped the chicken back into the bag.
Jack looked beyond the crowd to where Mary stood with the excited children bouncing about her. He winked at her and she gave him a smile.
The men, in good spirits from the show, walked into the dimness of the cookhouse to take up a card game. Mary whispered something to her sister Clare, who set about getting the children back to the schoolroom. Mary remained, a flush of colour on her cheeks. As the men drifted back into the quarters, Mary walked up to Jack.
‘Would you show me again what she’s like on the sheep in the shed? They say she’ll pad over their backs from one end of the shed to the other,’ Mary said invitingly.
Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure? If word gets back to your da that you’ve been spendin’ time alone with me, he’ll string me up.’
Mary said nothing, but took his hand and led him into the shed.
Inside, Jack felt the heat of desire as Mary stood near and slid her small, warm hand up his arm.
‘You don’t really want to see my dog work, do you?’ he said, turning and looking down at her.
‘Of course I do.’ She smiled up at him. ‘But maybe a little later.’
Jack breathed in the humid air, thick with the smell of sheep. Outside, black clouds rolled over the sun again and a clap of thunder shook the shed.
Mary jumped and let out a little gasp.
‘I’m terrified of storms,’ she said, not looking terrified at all. She leant against his chest.
Jack put his arms around her.
‘There’s nothing to be scared of, Miss Ryan. I’ve got you,’ he said.
‘Indeed you have got me, Mr Gleeson.’ She reached up on her tiptoes. They kissed while the storm unleashed a torrent of rain and a wind that whipped in through the let-out chutes and sent the locks flying over the board.
The tin roof banged in the wind and the door of the hut slammed shut. Rosie woke with a start. She squinted at the doorway from where she lay, curled up by the pot-belly stove. Diesel and Gibbo sprang to their feet, each letting out a sharp startled bark. There in the doorway stood a tall figure. Rosie breathed in sharply, not sure if she were dreaming.
‘Jim?’ she whispered, hardly daring to believe that he was real. She stood and moved towards him. He was soaking wet and shaking with cold. Rosie stood on the tips of her toes and flung her arms about him, putting her warm lips to his ice-cold mouth.
‘My God! I thought you were drowned,’ she said. ‘Here, let’s get you warm.’ She began to undress him, kissing his neck and shoulders as his work shirt slipped away.
‘Oh, Rosie. Rosie! Thank God you’re safe,’ Jim said as he began to pull her clothes from her. He cupped her breasts in his large hands and stooped to kiss them. Rosie ripped at the buttons of his jeans with trembling hands and began to peel away the stiff
denim from his cold white legs. Soon they were naked beside the stove, shivering, wrapped in each other’s arms. As they lay together on the old mattress, Jim searched out Rosie’s eyes.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said.
Rosie held Jim tight as warmth for him flooded though her. Her fingertips roved over his skin, his pulse fluttering beneath her touch like a butterfly caught. He was alive and so was she. They moved together as if in a slow dance of celebration, drawn hungrily towards each other’s life and warmth. As Jim slid inside her, Rosie let out a groan and tilted her head up towards the shingled roof above. Jim began to thrust into her. As she clung to his strong body, Rosie felt the bitter-sweet pain of having so much passion for a person run through her. And then they were both shuddering and crying out above the noise of the wind and the rain.
Afterwards, Jim held her so tenderly and whispered to her so lovingly, Rosie thought her heart would break.
‘Oh, Rosie, beautiful girl. Thank God I found you,’ he murmured into her hair.
Chapter 24
The next day, the rain had eased to drizzle yet still no sunshine could break through the brooding grey clouds. Jim and Rosie dressed in their dry clothes, then Jim knelt and wrapped pieces of hessian around Rosie’s feet and tied them with orange bale twine.
‘Not exactly the latest fashion, but better than going barefoot.’
‘Wonder where my boots and coat ended up? Probably six foot up a gum tree by now.’
‘Or six foot under the silt in the riverbed!’
Jim tried to insist that Rosie take his saddle, but she persuaded him she was happy to ride Oakwood bareback. She liked the feel of the horse beneath her. The warmth of him and the flex of his muscles seemed to ease her stiff, sore body.
As they rode along the ridge, Jim told Rosie how he’d searched for her the day before, up and down the river bank for hours, until it was too dark to see. His face clouded as he re-lived his sickening panic at seeing Rosie taken by the river.
The Stockmen Page 17