I tell them Meow is too old and he doesn’t want to play; they look at each other with an expression that says, ‘what’s old?’, then bound away out the door at speeds just under Mach One, looking for the next adventure. They usually end up in the sandpit, always careful not to disturb Boots if he is sleeping. If the dogs get too close and disturb him, he will give them a nip; they learned very early in their puppy days that Boots can give quite a nasty nip.
Which brings us to Boots, the present reigning character on Bullo. He has to be a Charlie-in-horse-clothing; maybe that’s why I like him so much…
Boots is very old now, and he resides in the garden so we can care for him. He is blind in one eye, his teeth are worn down almost to gum level, and it seems impossible to keep him up to weight. We are going to try a bit of stout with his feed, to get a bit of weight on him. But he is bright-eyed, his coat is shiny and he eats all day. And should a filly in season walk past, just watch the miraculous change. He will be standing under the tree, hound-dog expression, drooping, ears down, snoozing, looking for all the world like the next in line for the knackery, and some filly sashays by and gives a ‘how-de-do’ whinny.
The head shoots up, the ears prick, the bow goes out of the sagging back, the neck arches, the tail elevates in a graceful curve of red cascading hair, and he starts swaggering in a graceful trot, as if he is lead horse at the Vienna Riding School. He races over to the fence and struts his stuff, whinnying and snorting and tossing his head. When the filly eventually moves on, he deflates like a balloon losing air, and finally gets back to the tree and continues his snooze. This transformation can happen many times a day.
Boots, apart from doing what comes naturally, being a stallion, must be the most pleasant-natured horse ever—and especially for a stallion. When we had our free-ranging chickens, apart from using Boots as a protective shelter from the chicken-hawks, they also joined him at his feed time. So, one stallion and thirty hens had a meal together. His feed bin was half of a forty-four-gallon drum, so as many chickens as possible would get into the drum around Boots’ head and eat with him, while the rest would teeter around the rim, regularly falling in on top of everything, or off onto the ground.
Boots was so patient, he never hurt the hens, but every now and then when he let out a tremendous snort, all the hens in the bin would elevate a few feet, then stagger around the yard. The next lot would jump into the bin to eat, only to be similarly elevated by the next sonic-boom snort. By lunchtime, all the hens would have hearing impairments, and chicken communication and egg-laying arrangements would be done at very high decibels. A cry for help warning of an approaching, diving chicken-hawk would be so loud that it even put the chicken-hawk off target! Their hearing would return by afternoon, just in time for the next feeding session.
Feeding time is the only time Boots will try to bully you for his feed, even though he is gentle with the chickens, but if you hold up a clenched fist he will back off. He was fairly old when he came to Bullo, and his former owners told us about the fist. If he was naughty, he got a punch in the shoulder. Even to this day, if you hold up a clenched fist, you can see the muscles in his shoulder tighten, waiting for the punch. He is the only horse I know that stands outside the house, at the rope across the kitchen door, and ‘weaves’ to get in. Most racehorses stand in their stalls and ‘weave’ to get out! (Weaving is a rocking action where the horse sways from side to side at a barricade; most stabled horses get the ‘weaving’ habit.)
Boots is very fond of coming into the house, and over The Wet, when it’s very hot, you can’t keep him out unless you barricade every door. He can walk through the house and not knock anything over. He always heads for the kitchen, and food. In this department, Boots definitely thinks he is human. He will eat eggs, bacon, Vegemite and bread, ham and tomato sandwiches. He drinks coffee, chocolate milk; loves chocolate in any form, from bars to cakes. One of our cooks set out morning tea for some guests on the kitchen bench, then went to get the guests. Boots sneaked in the back door, and while everyone was chatting around the swimming pool, he wiped out scones, cream, jam, cake and sandwiches. He knocked over the milk and lapped it up off the tiles, and lapped and sprayed the sugar all over the remaining mess. The only thing left intact was the pot of tea; Boots doesn’t like black tea.
I caught him raiding the kitchen one morning. Jackie was thawing out three quiches for lunch, and they were on the bench, still with clear plastic covering them, and poor old Boots couldn’t work out why he wasn’t tasting any food. He had dug a hole in the quiche filling as he vainly tried to get some of it into his mouth, but the plastic hadn’t broken. He had such a mystified look on his face. I led him out the door, leaving three quiches with strange-shaped bare patches in the middle, which mystified Jackie until I told her we’d had a visit from Boots.
If he isn’t fed on time, he makes life difficult for you in any way he can. I was late feeding him one day, and he came looking for me in the house; he found me in the office, on the phone. He has been around long enough to know that a lot of my life is spent holding that strange contraption. To get my attention, he picks up papers and pens and generally pushes things around and off the desk. To keep him in line, I tap him on the nose to stop him from destroying anything. So my conversation proceeds while a silent game of tag goes on with my right hand raised ready to slap Boots’s nose, and him trying to grab anything off my desk that’s out of reach of the raised hand.
This game was in progress one day when I was on the phone talking to the bank manager; Boots was bored with the snatching game, and was looking out the double doors, when he spotted a filly. He took the deepest of breaths, and let out a welcoming whinny to the filly, a paddock away. In the closed room, the noise was deafening, as it reverberated off every wall. Even old Boots stopped short with a ‘Good heavens! Was that me?’ expression on his face. The filly stopped and replied, and Boots this time launched into a longer response. Of course, conversation on the phone was impossible, so I had to wait until Boots decided he might mosey on over to the fence, and have a chat.
When silence returned, I asked the bank manager if he was still there.
‘What on earth was that?’ he asked. I told him it was our stallion calling to another horse. He wanted to know was I telephoning from a stable. No, I told him, from my office.
‘You have a horse in your office?’ I suppose sitting in Pitt Street, Sydney, this would seem strange. I told him Boots often came into the office. I smiled as I put down the receiver; I could just see the entry in the Bullo River diary file at the bank: Spoke to Mrs Henderson at 9:15 a.m.; conversation interrupted by Boots, the stallion, whinnying in office, calling to filly—not on the phone!
Boots is a flagrant exhibitionist, demands to be the centre of attention, loves to eat all day, would probably drink beer all day if given the opportunity, and will try to chat up and chase any filly that passes by …
Sounds just like my Charlie!
I wonder … no, not possible … yet …?
‘The little black car’. Ford Anglia and my sister Sue, with one of her dogs.
Dasher, in Manila.
Lloyds Landing in Maryland, USA.
Setting out on an adventure in the cornfields. Bonnie and Marlee with Prince (Prinie) and red wagon.
Bonnie and Marlee (aged four and six) on the lawn of Lloyds Landing, USA, 1967.
‘The icecream look.’ Prince London of Lloyds Landing.
Mrs Henderson and Prinie at Lloyds Landing.
Uncle Dick with a beer in his hand.
Stumpy (the stock camp cook), Uncle Dick and Danielle, Christmas 1986.
Charlie in an army helicopter on Bullo.
Charlie.
Rosa the goanna climbing out of the swimming pool, after a few laps.
Danielle with a poddy calf.
Pye-wacket the marmalade cat with Shad (Marlee’s labrador).
Dogs galore! Hottentot, Honey, Panda, Frisky and Bud.
Hottentot dressed up as
Charlie! He is sitting in Charlie’s chair at the dining table with Charlie’s glass in front of him.
Hottentot posing.
Hottentot sitting in the helicopter.
Marlee on the dreaded Sundowner!
Marlee put a western saddle on Buckshot. This was not a successful project!
Prima Donna.
Ready-set-go! Donna diving in to race.
Danielle and Donna (post-race).
Max at the staff quarters.
Marlee with grader. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Marlee and me. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Hunter, the stock market dog.
Tennis outback style. I’m telling Cosmo he can’t chase and chew the tennis ball, while Donna (not in the picture) waits, ready to pounce. We didn’t stand much of a chance between the two of them!
Did someone say dinner? Cosmo looking hungry.
The homestead at sunset. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Milking cow, Pumpkin, with her adopted calves. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
I tempt Pumpkin with some feed, prior to milking. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Marlee and me with Bazza, our French bull. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Beautiful Boots. (John Curnow)
Marlee and Franz with Mustang (Muzzie). (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Muzzie taking a well-deserved break in the cattle yards.
Sumie in the shadehouse, helping me with the gardening. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
Bullo River Gorge. (David Hancock/Skyscans)
The house where Franz grew up, no. 1 Obermillstatt. It’s over 400 years old.
Gold Deck skiing lodge, overlooking the valley where I wrote the second half of this book.
About Sara Henderson
Sara Jane Henderson (15 September 1936 – 29 April 2005) was an Australian pastoralist and author. She was named Businesswoman of the Year in 1991 for managing the Bullo River cattle station, 360 kilometres south-west of Darwin in the Northern Territory. In 1993 she published her autobiography From Strength to Strength which focused on her family’s efforts to manage Bullo River after her husband died in 1985. She became a spokesperson for BreastScreen Australia and urged women over 50 to have regular mammograms to discover breast cancer. Ironically, in 2000 she discovered that she herself had breast cancer. The tumour was removed, but her cancer recurred and she died at a hospital in Caloundra, Queensland on 29 April 2005.
Other Titles by Sara Henderson
From Strength to Strength
The Strength in Us All
The Strength of Our Dreams
First published by Pan Macmillan Australia in 1995
This edition published in 2013 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Sara Henderson 1995
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Some of My Friends Have Tails
EPUB format: 9781743341735
Mobi format: 9781743341742
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Some of My Friends Have Tails Page 24
