Tethering their horses in the shade, they unpacked their saddlebags and settled down for a break. Matt hollowed himself a nice little piece of dirt at the base of a leopardwood tree, which formed a good backrest, and watched as young Jack perched himself on a log. Soon they were drinking steaming black tea from a thermos with lumpy spoonfuls of sugar. Jack handed Matt a corned beef and pickle sandwich.
‘Doesn’t get much better than this,’ Matt said aloud. His teeth dug cleanly through the fresh bread, his tongue savouring the bitey onion of the pickle. It’d been near five hours since breakfast and Matt’s stomach lived for regular meals. He was like a baby; five meals a day and a bottle at night.
‘So are they going to advertise for a new jackeroo then?’ Jack asked, between slurps of tea. He knew the drill. He’d been at Wangallon for over twelve months, had always done what was required of him quickly and efficiently and if he didn’t know or understand something, he asked.
Matt let the boy squirm a bit. A few years back and young Jack would have been a jackeroo for at least a couple more years, but the pastoral industry was changing and a kid with ability like this one couldn’t be left doing menial tasks and spending every Friday in the station garden.
‘Thought you liked gardening?’
Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly with concern. ‘Very funny,’ he responded when Matt couldn’t keep his top lip from stringing out into a smile. ‘I don’t mind it. I like to see things grow. Used to help my mum a bit. And Sarah’s real nice.’ He slurped at his tea, scowling at the heat. ‘What was her grandfather like?’
‘Tough as bloody nails and damn smart.’
‘And Anthony started as a jackeroo?’
‘Hand-picked, they reckon, by old Angus himself.’ The boy fell on his feet all right; Matt couldn’t deny that. Not that Anthony wasn’t capable.
Jack took a long slurp of his tea. ‘He seems really good at managing.’
‘He’ll need to be.’ Matt picked a string of meat from between his two front teeth. Somehow he didn’t think Anthony’s management capabilities would be restricted to Wangallon. He was living with a Gordon, one who probably wouldn’t stay docile for much longer. She couldn’t. It wasn’t in her blood. Besides, he reckoned the girl had pretty much done with the mourning of old Angus; she was starting to express a few opinions.
He himself had only agreed to work for Angus because he was old school. Properties like Wangallon couldn’t go on into infinity unless owner and staff understood each other and Angus Gordon and Matt Schipp had understood each other. With a satisfied belch, he squared his shoulders against the knobbly bark supporting him and rubbed his shoulderblades contentedly.
‘Is it true Wangallon was built on stock theft?’
Matt peered out from underneath his hat. One thing he didn’t believe in was repeating gossip. He flicked a good finger at a large black bull ant traversing the length of his jeans and considered the boy’s question. ‘I’d say pretty much anything could have happened out here one hundred and forty years ago, Jack. The thing is …’ he paused for emphasis, ‘we will never know how much is talk and how much is actual truth.’
‘It’s just that everyone in Wangallon Town has a story.’
Matt pictured the general store, pub, single tennis court, hall and school. There were ten houses in its four streets. ‘I’ll bet they do.’
By late lunch the ewes were holed up in their new paddock, camped from the day’s heat under the nearest group of trees. Matt shut the twelve-foot gate after them, marvelling at how quickly they could settle. They rode back in tired silence. Jack occasionally whistling snippets from unrecognisable songs, in between talking to his kelpie, Rust, to get him to keep up.
‘You’ll have to spend a bit more time with that horse of yours. Get him to wear young Rust there.’ Matt looked over his shoulder at the tiring dog. In another half a click he’d be foot sore and straggling, ruined for a full day’s work tomorrow.
Matt’s own dog, Whisky, a surly collie with a grudging respect for Sugar borne of two skin splitting kicks to his muzzle, sat gingerly in front of Matt, his front paws extended in a gruesome lock across Matt’s thigh.
Jack looked at Whisky’s mournful expression.
‘Want to give your young mate a ride?’ Matt asked Whisky roughly.
Minutes later, Whisky was walking alongside Sugar at a neat pace, his now alert gaze looking up to check on Rust, who was clamped close to Matt in a vice-like grip.
‘What’s on tomorrow?’ Jack asked, noticing that his dog had a distinctly human expression on his face that could only be described as being scared shitless.
‘We’ll move the steers from the 4,000 acre road paddock onto the oats. I’ve got a couple of contractors coming out to give us a hand. Then we’ll drive over to Boxer’s Plains.’
Matt had been checking the feed situation on Boxer’s Plains every Sunday for the past three weekends. The 20,000 acres had been stocked to the eyeballs for over six weeks and the feed would begin to cut out if the block wasn’t destocked soon. He was a little surprised when his querying received an it’s under control comment from Anthony. It may well be but on his reckoning they had a month before the country was chewed out. Matt’s finger probed irritably at a hardened lump of wax in his ear. Every time he offered some management advice, Anthony was all over him like a fat lady at a buffet. And ever since their disagreement in the Wangallon kitchen and the early opening of the pit, their once cordial relationship had disintegrated into feigned politeness. Nothing worse than a young manager with an attitude and Matt had seen his share of them.
There were a couple of young people at the helm of one of the most well known pastoral properties in New South Wales and Matt had a suspicion that one of them had his own agenda. Cripes this was going to get interesting. At least the third owner of Wangallon hadn’t shown his face yet. That in itself was a blessing. Matt walked his horse through the house gate en route to the stables.
‘I’m sure glad Sarah likes her cattle and sheep. I wouldn’t like to be spending my time driving headers and tractors.’ Jack watched in amusement as Matt picked Rust up off the saddle by the scruff of his neck and dropped him on the ground. The dog landed securely on all four paws.
‘Me neither, Jack,’ Matt replied.
Wangallon was built and would continue to thrive on stock. They still had a few thousand acres sown to oats every year to fatten their cattle and cull sheep and they sowed barley, which they crushed in a mill to feed out as a top-up supplement to the steers, but that was the extent of the farming operation. Some of their neighbours had embarked on carefully mapped-out land clearing exercises and had enjoyed the monetary benefits of big cash crops of wheat, barley and grain sorghum but, like any commodity, grain growing was subject to the vagrancies of both the weather and the marketplace. Farming was an expensive business and Wangallon had always made more out of grazing.
At the stables Matt unsaddled his horse and began brushing Sugar down with a curry comb. Sugar stood quietly like a woman at a beauty parlour getting her hair done.
‘I guess I’m a bit of a tree hugger, Matt,’ Jack said almost shyly as he undid the girth strap on his own mount and dragged the saddle free.
Matt clapped the lad on his shoulder. ‘I know exactly what you mean. We’re stockmen, not tractor jockeys.’
Sarah, Matt and Jack were unloading their horses from the float at the road paddock when a flashy white and yellow trailer pulled alongside them.
‘You’re late,’ Matt admonished as the two men walked towards them.
‘G’day. I’m Toby Williams.’ The taller of the two shook Sarah’s hand. He was slightly built with broad shoulders and budgerigar blue eyes. ‘And this is Pancake.’
‘Pancake,’ Sarah repeated, unsure if he referred to his horse or the squat roly-poly man beside him.
‘Pancake,’ the shorter man clarified, ‘on account of when I take me hat off, me hair’s always squashed flat like a –’
‘Panc
ake,’ Toby grinned, zipping up his jacket.
‘Okay then.’ Sarah knew it was going to be one of those days.
Toby and Pancake opened a number of mesh dog cages and a bedraggled assortment of working dogs escaped. The horses reared and whinnied, the dogs barked and peed on every tyre they could find, twice, and then completed a number of quick dashes around both horse floats. Finally the entire crew settled into work mode. Sarah looked at Bullet, who stared back with a look of disdain. He never had taken much to working with strangers and was just as likely to bite first and bark later. Sarah waggled her finger at him to behave.
‘Knew your grandfather. Wily old bastard, Angus.’ Toby lounged nonchalantly in his saddle, his right leg hooked up as if he were sitting in a chair.
‘Thanks.’
‘Now he was a grazier. Old school-like.’ He gestured towards Matt. ‘Wasn’t surprised when I heard he got the run of things down here. Reckon Angus had everything all sorted by the time he kicked the bucket and that’s the way it should be if you’ve got any nous.’ He gave Sarah a slow head-to-toe glance. ‘So how are you going being boss of Wangallon?’
Sarah experienced the unusual sensation of being mentally undressed. ‘It’s great.’ Her fingers pulled at the zip on her jacket until it reached her throat.
Toby’s mouth crooked itself up at one corner until an unnerving grin gradually spread from his cheek to a fan of sun-created wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.
‘We’ll split up.’ Matt gave brief directions on how he wanted the paddock mustered. He pointed out a 30 acre clump of belah trees that ran in a belt across the southern tip of the paddock that could easily hide a canny mob of steers, and gave directions for gateways. Before he’d finished his last sentence, Toby was already cantering away from them, Pancake and a menagerie of dogs in pursuit.
‘Where’s Anthony?’
Sarah hunched her shoulders. He’d left the homestead early that morning without a word and was strangely quiet the night before over dinner. If she’d been in the mood for an argument she would have mentioned the accounting problem, but she knew him too well. Anthony’s quiet mood was indicative of a problem and she wasn’t going to add to his angst, at least not until tonight.
Standing up in the stirrups, Sarah whistled at Bullet. Excitement had got the better of him and in an effort to slow the 50 or so steers that had broken from the main mob he had raced to the front and was now hanging off the nose of one of the steers. Touching her spurs lightly against her mare, Tess, Sarah galloped across the paddock towards Bullet, aware the main mob was eyeing the runaways with interest. Bullet’s one-man war was beginning to look very one-sided and a moment later the dog was airborne as the steer he clung to flung his head from side to side, tossing him skywards. Sarah watched as Bullet picked himself up out of the dirt and then raced back into the fray.
Behind her came the crack of a stockwhip and yells of abuse. The thousand-strong herd of 450 kilogram-heavy steers had changed direction. Intent on joining up with Bullet’s escapees, they rushed the ground, closing the 600 metre space within seconds. Sarah galloped alongside the mob, urging her horse closer to the steers in an effort to turn them to the right. Tess obeyed the tightening rein, Sarah’s leg brushing the hairy hide of one of the steers before a large log forced Tess to jump and veer to the left. Jack’s dog, Rust, sped past Sarah as she straightened herself in the saddle and then Moses, Matt’s musclebound blue cattle dog, appeared.
‘About bloody time,’ Sarah yelled as the dogs disappeared into the dust. Ahead she could see a figure on horseback. Her horse edged closer to the lead. Bullet was still out there and a quick flash of Whisky’s black and white coat suggested Matt was the lone rider up front. Sarah squinted through the midmorning winter glare as Toby galloped past her with five dogs following. There was a break in the mob and he galloped his horse directly into the fray, momentarily diverting the oncoming cattle with a crack of his stockwhip. Then he was out skirting the edge of the mob, riding wildly to the front.
The cattle were beginning to turn as Sarah stuck to their left flank with Pancake and Jack. Ahead she spotted Matt. He was sitting right in the path of the steers, horse and rider as unmovable as statues. Sarah gritted her teeth. There was enough beef heading his way to pulp him into a meat patty. He cracked his stockwhip once, twice, three times from the saddle and Sarah held her breath.
Toby Williams appeared like a wraith out of the dust and a blur of red and white hide. Standing tall in the stirrup irons, he cracked his whip above his head until Sarah felt her own arm grow tired from the effort of watching him. His horse spun and reared upwards, then, satisfied that the mob was calming, he cantered back to the wing. A few minutes later he trotted past Sarah, acknowledging her with a flash of white teeth and a tip of his hat.
Within the hour the now sedate steers were trotting through the gateway and onto the oats, snorting air and panting. Sarah joined Matt at the gate as a dozen or so exhausted stragglers brought up the rear with Jack, Toby and Pancake behind them. Dogs littered the dirt track like bowling alley pins.
‘Toby Williams, where’s he from?’ Sarah asked Matt after she’d taken a quick swig from her water bottle.
‘The Territory. Big run. Fell out with his older brother over a girl, so he’s down here for six months or so until the storm subsides.’
‘He’s handy.’
Matt nodded. ‘He’s your drover.’
Sarah watched him approach from under the brim of her hat. ‘And Pancake?’
‘Victorian. Mountain Country bred: Probably the better rider of the two, just not as showy.’
‘Got the buggers,’ Jack said when they all met at the gateway.
‘Good dog that,’ Toby commented to Sarah. Bullet was standing on his hind legs, his paws on Sarah’s boot. Toby slid off his saddle and passed the dog up to her, his hand managing to rest briefly on Sarah’s thigh.
‘You’ll be his friend for life,’ Sarah commented as Bullet settled himself on the horse as if he were on a rug.
Toby looked at her and winked. ‘Hopefully.’
They headed back slowly in the direction they’d mustered, the dogs trotting down the dirt road in front of them. Matt caught her eye. ‘Gardening and office work isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.’
Sarah tore her eyes away from Pancake, Toby and Jack who were all laughing loudly. ‘You can say that again.’
Luke Gordon relaxed one arm behind his head where he lay on the bed. On the first night he had enjoyed the novelty of lying a few feet above the ground, but now in this narrow room, upon a lumpy mattress almost wrecked by his exertions, he longed for freedom. In the gathering light he could see his belongings: swag, boots, strewn clothes and saddlebags on the floor beneath the casement window. The remains of his money, a paltry sum he was sure, would still be beneath the leather inside his left boot. Hopefully the cook would manage some eggs and perhaps some thick bread with a good dollop of mutton dripping – aye, that would set him up for the day.
The water splashed loudly. Droplets from the dampened cloth ran in rivulets over her bare shoulders. The beads of moisture moved downwards, tracing the length of her spine until it gathered in the soft folds of the chemise pooled at her waist. Gradually the wetness began to darken the material, forming patches of variegated colour. It was an uncommon sight to watch the female form bathing in the still of morning. Especially this girl, for she was careless. Her skin shone moistly from her endeavours, her long brown hair dripped onto the wooden floorboards. The curtains, drawn wide to reveal a brightening sky, illuminated the few scattered objects in the room. Bed, washstand, table, chair and the girl. Barefooted, her long underskirt swung almost tiredly as she moved her hips from side to side, the washcloth sweeping perfunctorily beneath an armpit. Somehow, her morning routine had suddenly become too familiar.
Standing, Luke stretched into his nakedness, feeling the pull of his thigh muscles and the dull pain of his back. There was more to these aches than the many
hours recently spent freeing his mind and body from months of isolation. Age gave him twinges and pains, headaches and stomach aches. It stung him when he thought of his 46 years. And now he carried another wound to add to his list of scars. Although his shoulder was usable he could no longer lift his arm above his head. Somehow he could not imagine making old bones.
The floorboards squeaked as he walked towards the girl. Lauren twisted away from his grasp, pulling up her chemise in an effort to cover her nakedness, giggling as he touched her breasts. Her fingers scrambled into the armholes of her clothing, plaiting swiftly at the ribbon lacing at her cleavage. Luke relented quickly, shifting sideways until half the room separated them. He could not understand this coyness, not after nights spent in a bed paid for by him. Suddenly she looked downcast as if she had been willing all along. Luke gave a brief grunt. He was not interested in histrionics.
‘Do you have the makings?’ She pinned her brown hair roughly into a bun at the nape of her neck.
Luke found a tin of tobacco and papers in his doeskin trousers and passed them into her calloused hands. She rolled the tobacco quickly, effortlessly and then encased it in a strip of thin paper plucked efficiently by thick, short fingers. Once finished she placed the makings on the washstand and backed away as if trading an object for peace. Luke, pulling on his trousers and slipping the braces over his shoulders, helped himself to the water in the porcelain bowl, adding the remains of the matching pitcher. The homemade boiled soap carried the tracing of fat almost too rancid for use, yet it scrubbed into an excuse for lather and he doused his face, arms and chest vigorously.
‘It’s Christmas tomorrow.’
He wanted to ask her what this statement was meant to mean to him; instead he did what came the most naturally – he ignored her.
A Changing Land Page 8
