But she didn’t.
In the middle of the circle of men sat Mr Lomax and Billy Wright. The Chinaman was drawing in the dirt with a stick while Billy glared at the opposition, the River Run men. Head tilted to one side, the shearer ran an experienced eye over each of the men, from top to bottom and back again, as if judging who was the better fighter, and who the weaker opponent.
‘So, that’s our terms. Either you leave Lomax and Billy be and let them finish the job, or we all strike.’ It was Donaldson, the faint-voiced shearer from the Riverina. A watermelon-headed man with beefy arms, Eleanor immediately recalled her first sighting of the shearer in the village. The man pushed through the tight grouping of men to stand like a towering prow in front of the agitated crowd. ‘The days of you toffy-nosed squatters laying down the law to us men is over. Hear? We don’t have to take crap from the likes of you anymore.’
‘It’s not the forties now,’ the overseer said firmly. ‘Each of you signed agreements, all except you, Donaldson. There’s always one who has to ruin it for everyone else. And you’re the new man.’
A slight mumble flickered through the shearers. Mr Goward’s carefully chosen words struck a chord.
‘We pay the agreed rates,’ Colin spoke up, ‘house you and feed you according to the pastoral rules.’
In response, a few of the gathered men began to nod in agreement. Eleanor looked to Hugh, tensions were starting to ease.
‘But we have to put up with stealing?’ said Colin, who appeared to have grown angrier. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’
The men fell silent. Eleanor wrinkled her nose. No, no, she thought, don’t give them reason to argue.
‘Maybe if you gave a man something decent to cook with we wouldn’t have to go foraging, on and above like,’ Billy Wright countered from where he sat.
Colin took a step forward. ‘Eat that well at home, do you?’
Through the diminishing space, Eleanor watched Rex shake his head.
‘Come on now,’ Hugh said quickly, ‘there’s a right and a wrong way to do things. This ain’t it.’
The wounded shearer, Johnny Daisy, who sported a roughly stitched forearm stained pinkish-brown by mercurochrome, spat in the dirt. ‘A man can put up with a lot of things, but once a fella gets personal …’
Goward took a step forward.
‘I’ll handle this,’ Colin stated. ‘I want all you men to get back to work immediately. If you did what you were paid to do, you’d be too busy to whinge.’
Oh for heaven’s sake, Eleanor thought.
‘Says who?’ Donaldson challenged.
‘Who cut up The Worker for us to use as dunny paper, eh?’ a man yelled out.
‘The cook’s in it too,’ Billy Wright said loudly. ‘Dirt sandwiches. That’s what I got yesterday.’
‘What’s this really about?’ asked Hugh impatiently. ‘It’s damn hot. We all know that. If you want to sit down until the weather improves, that’s up to you.’
‘A bit of hot weather never pulled a man up doing the long-belly blow.’ Billy Wright had gone from glaring adversary to interested participant. ‘But there ain’t no fans. There should be fans in the huts when it’s this hot.’
‘That can be arranged,’ the overseer replied slowly, trying to make eye contact with as many of the shearers as he could.
‘He’s just trying to soften us up.’ Donaldson twisted the heel of his boot in the sand. Flicked it behind him like a bull kicking up dirt. ‘Bloody fans when a man’s been shot. You lot are soft in the head. Got a skippy-full running around in the top paddock, you lot have. A man nearly died here.’
‘What about that boy of yours shooting an innocent man?’ someone called, his comment receiving shouts of that’s right and can’t trust the bastards.
‘You did it cause you thought he was a commo,’ Billy Wright spoke loudly. ‘A commo that might of had some aff-aff-aff–’
‘Affiliation,’ Donaldson finished.
Billy nodded. ‘That’s right. Some affiliation with the union. You lot are trying to keep the heel of your boots on our throats, trying to stop them that are all for a fair go for the worker, from getting a fair go.’
‘Pack of bastards.’ Donaldson wiped roughly at his nose. ‘Here we are doing all the sweating, while you lot couldn’t work in an iron lung.’
Eleanor thought immediately of what she’d learnt at dinner the previous evening. Clearly she was not the only person aware of Hugh’s loss, for Rex and Fitzy’s expressions turned to dislike.
‘An iron lung, did you say?’ Mr Goward said, almost too quietly.
Donaldson was grinding his knuckles into the palm of his hand, the action flexing tendons, veins and muscles too plentiful for one man. ‘This ain’t no joking matter. Who will be next, eh, when one of these toffs lifts his rifle? Me? Him? Or him?’ He pointed randomly at his colleagues. This time the men’s voices grew to a loud rumble.
‘If the man was a scab,’ Rex interrupted, ‘I guess I’m not that fussed.’ If the remark was a humorous attempt to defray the situation, it didn’t work. There wasn’t even a chuckle, although the cook smiled widely at the gardener.
‘This need not involve everyone,’ Hugh announced. ‘If it’s a fight you want, Donaldson, well, I can accommodate you.’
Eleanor wasn’t sure who moved first, but in a split second Donaldson and Hugh were throwing punches at each other, while a few of the rouseabouts and shed-hands grappled with the jackeroos. Murph fought like a thrashing machine and even Wormy landed a few good hits, while Archie laid into everyone he could with his boot.
‘That’s not fighting,’ the shearer, Johnny Daisy, complained. Walking from the group of bystanders, he landed a punch to Archie’s jaw that sent the boy sprawling in the dirt. ‘This is the bush. We don’t fight like guttersnipes out here.’ He casually walked away to sit on the wooden support of the rainwater tank. Archie lay on the ground, out cold.
The spectators, including Colin, Rex, Dawson and the cook, took bets anew and rolled cigarettes while men tumbled around in the dirt. Dogs were barking, men were yelling, the noise combining with the dull thud of jaws, chests and stomachs being walloped. The Chinaman and Billy Wright found themselves in the middle of the scuffle and they moved quickly. Billy caught sight of the cook laughing and charged the bigger man, head down. The two of them rolled around in the dirt. The white, wobbling girth of Fitzy spilt free of his shirt as he wrestled with the wiry shearer. The Chinaman ran in the opposite direction to stand on the rainwater tank-stand beside Daisy, grinning at the chaos below.
In the middle of it all stood Hugh and Donaldson. Squared off opposite each other, throwing punch for punch, it appeared as if the demand for murder was mutual. The Riverina man’s nose was bleeding profusely and a cut above Hugh’s eye was clearly restricting his sight.
‘For heaven’s sake, Hugh, stop it!’ Eleanor called out, balling her fists. ‘Colin, do something.’ Her stepfather shrugged. She looked about for something she could strike Donaldson down with and picked up a length of wood.
‘Not this time, Miss Eleanor.’ Dawson was beside her, grasping the lump of timber and stilling her progress. ‘This be man’s business,’ he said quietly. ‘And if it be man’s business, how will it look if a woman goes and saves him?’
‘But –’ Behind them the red dog, Warrigal, barked and growled.
The Aboriginal wrested the timber from her and threw it away. ‘And besides, you being a white girl, you supposed to be a lady, aren’t you?’
‘I suppose, but –’
‘You be the Boss’s daughter, so best you can do is be ready for the bandaging.’ He gestured at the overseer, who stood stoically trading punches with Donaldson as if they were at a prize fight. ‘If that whitefella Goward wants to make a point,’ Dawson explained, ‘then he’ll stand there and fight until he can’t stand no longer. I seen him like this before, most of us men have. But Donaldson,’ he gave a chuckle, his teeth bright and white against dark skin, ‘D
onaldson, he have no idea that if Goward falls he’ll keep on fighting. Bite him on the ankle, if that’s all he has left to use.’
‘And Donaldson?’ Eleanor winced, as the shearer landed an upper-cut to the overseer’s jaw.
‘Oh, him?’ The Aboriginal gave a nod of approval. ‘He’s real good too, so they say. That’s what makes it interesting. Especially for a blackfella, two whitefellas laying into each other.’ He grinned. ‘But don’t worry none, Miss Eleanor,’ he told her, seeing the look of concern on her face, ‘why I seen the overseer fight two men and him with a busted leg, years back, in Queensland. He won. That’s the type of man he is. ’Course he didn’t know his leg was broke until afterwards.’
Eleanor thought of the money exchanged. ‘So he’ll win?’ She was unexpectedly pleased by the idea.
Dawson rubbed his chin. ‘Probably.’
Hugh staggered under a blow to the stomach.
‘That’s not particularly positive.’
The blackfella shrugged.
Georgia Webber arrived in a battered farm truck and, slamming the door, walked straight to the overseer’s horse where she grabbed the stockwhip. Eleanor and Dawson stepped out of her way as the doyenne of River Run strode towards the fighting men. Unfurling the whip, she cracked it three times in quick succession. The overseer landed one final punch, bringing Donaldson to his knees, Goward swaying but remaining upright. The other men quickly stopped fighting, turning towards the woman who stood furiously among them.
‘What the hell do you lot think you’re bloody well doing?’
Eleanor had never heard her mother swear, ever, and watched on in amazement.
‘This is a goddamn sheep property and, strange as it may seem, I thought we were meant to be bloody well shearing!’ Georgia began to wind up the stockwhip. ‘Anyone else think that’s what should be going on here?’ Threading the curled raw-hide whip through an arm, she rested it over a shoulder.
One by one, the men who’d been fighting brushed themselves down and moved back towards their original groupings. Fitzy tried a number of times to clamber to his feet, but he was like a beached whale. Rex and Billy Wright managed to help him up.
Donaldson was staring at Georgia with undisguised contempt.
‘Donaldson,’ Hugh said loudly for everyone assembled to hear, although his voice sounded dry and ragged, ‘this is Mrs Georgia Webber. The Boss,’ he said with emphasis.
The shearer nodded. ‘Missus, Boss,’ he confirmed, his eyes flitting briefly in Colin’s direction.
‘State your grievance,’ Georgia said bluntly, taking a step towards him until they were only a foot apart.
Donaldson was quick to list everything previously mentioned before the fight broke out, from The Worker being used as dunny paper, to his mates being fired, to the dirt in yesterday’s sandwiches and, finally, Robbie’s shooting of the stranger.
Georgia answered each complaint slowly and carefully. ‘I’m not sure what goes on down in the Riverina, Mr Donaldson, but here on River Run the days are long and hot, a bit of a harmless joke shouldn’t be cause for major offence and I’m sure Fitzy will do his best to ensure the food returns to standard.’
The cook, red-faced from the exertion, agreed.
‘As for Mr Lomax and Billy Wright,’ she stepped past Donaldson and addressed the shearers and shed-hands, ‘those of you who have been coming to this shed,’ she walked along the group of men, nodding at each one individually, ‘know that I have always done my utmost to ensure that this property is run in accordance with industry standards. No man is underpaid or hard done by, or forced to put up with any inconvenience where humanly possible. And if,’ she continued, ‘you have made demands of me, they have usually been met, even if those demands have taken advantage of the labour shortages that have ravaged this country since the Great War. A war that eventually claimed my first husband.’
Some of the shearers hung their heads.
Georgia returned to stand in the centre of the two separate groups. ‘All that aside, I expect my men to behave. Regardless of whether it’s bloody hot or not.’
There was a smirk or two. Not only did the men respect her mother, Eleanor realised, but they liked her, grudging though that admiration may be.
‘Now, by my reckoning, this is day three of shearing. Why don’t we say it’s Monday and we’ve just begun?’ Her tone grew pleasant, conversational. ‘Mr Lomax and Billy, you can have your jobs back. But, be aware,’ she lifted a finger, pointing at both men, ‘I’ll be watching. And you.’ She turned to Johnny Daisy.
The shearer looked over his shoulder as if Georgia addressed the man behind.
‘You,’ Georgia repeated, finally getting his attention, ‘get that wound cleaned and bandaged and no more mercurochrome. If it gets infected we won’t be able to tell before it’s too late, the way the antiseptic’s stained your skin.’
‘Yes, missus. I mean, Boss,’ Johnny answered sheepishly.
‘What about the shooting?’ Donaldson persevered.
‘We don’t shoot people here for their political leanings, Mr Donaldson,’ replied Georgia. ‘Although I’m not sure how such things are handled in the Riverina.’
A chuckle rose from the assembled men.
Georgia didn’t wait for the mirth to subside. ‘My son Robbie has been sent away to boarding school, so he won’t be causing any more trouble. As for the patient, he is awake, but yet to speak and expected to make a full recovery.’
Eleanor concentrated on the sun glinting on the woolshed roof.
‘Very good, very good,’ Mr Lomax answered, as if speaking on behalf of everyone. ‘We go back to work now. I like Australia. Australia has been very good to me and my family.’
‘And we like having you here, Mr Lomax.’
Georgia’s reply was answered with a grin.
There was a moment’s silence and then the men dawdled back towards the woolshed, to disappear inside the cavernous building. Donaldson was among the last to leave, as if by lingering he was making a final, if pointless, gesture of contempt. Georgia matched the man’s steely gaze until, almost reluctantly, he too finally turned away to follow the last of the men.
From inside the woolshed came the putt-putt sound of the Lister engine being cranked up. Fitzy, Rex and Dawson were arguing over money as they headed towards the shearers’ quarters.
‘But he nailed him,’ Dawson argued.
‘But neither fell,’ Rex countered. ‘Donaldson only went to his knees. Out for the count. Those were the terms.’ The gardener clucked his teeth like an old woman. ‘Very disappointing show.’
Eleanor noticed that her stepfather was examining Archie’s wounds. The young jackeroo was holding his jaw and whining.
‘It’s not broken, lad,’ Colin advised. ‘Fractured maybe, but there’s not a lot that can be done for that.’
The boy tried to speak.
‘I’d go back to your quarters, Archie. Clean yourself up and then lay down for a bit. You lads,’ he addressed the three remaining jackeroos, ‘get back to work.’
‘You best tidy yourself up as well, Hugh.’ Georgia ran a critical eye across the overseer, taking in dirt-covered clothes, missing shirt buttons and the wounds to his face. ‘I can’t have my Stud Master looking like a common street fighter,’ she said with a smile.
‘Sorry, Boss.’ He wiped blood from his mouth. ‘And thank you, Mrs Webber, I won’t let you down.’
‘You look positively goggle-eyed, Eleanor,’ Georgia observed, as they walked back towards the farm truck. ‘Come on.’
Eleanor exchanged a brief smile with Hugh. ‘What about …? I mean …’ Quickening her pace to catch up with her mother, Eleanor called after her, ‘Shouldn’t we check their wounds, get some bandages?’
‘Bandages?’ her mother repeated, walking on.
Eleanor wanted to speak to Hugh, to make sure he was alright, to congratulate him on his promotion. Instead she dutifully followed Georgia, opened the door of the truck and sat in the pass
enger seat next to her mother.
‘What?’ Georgia asked, noticing her daughter’s wide-eyed stare.
She wound down the window, the interior of the vehicle was like a furnace. ‘I just didn’t realise.’
‘Realise what?’ Georgia turned the key in the ignition. ‘What it takes to run a property?’
The old truck vibrated noisily. Eleanor couldn’t find the words to express her feelings. ‘You were –’
‘Loud, bossy and I use bad language,’ her mother countered, as if acknowledging her faults. Georgia searched the dashboard, rifling through old Cooper’s notebooks, empty Fruit Tingle wrappers and an assortment of nuts, bolts and lengths of twine. ‘Your father, God bless him, would never have approved, Eleanor.’ She turned to her daughter and winked. ‘At least not in public.’
When the squashed packet of cigarettes was finally located and one was lit, only then did Eleanor notice that her mother’s hands were trembling.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The truck rattled across the road towards the homestead as the red dog, released from the chain, leapt into his master’s arms. Eleanor watched the reunion in the side-view mirror, until distance and dust clouded her vision. She hoped Hugh was alright. He’d certainly taken a pounding.
‘I should be able to move on, but every single day I think of your father, Eleanor.’ Georgia changed gears as the vehicle navigated a pothole in the road.
Eleanor wished she could think of an appropriate response, however, the suddenness of her mother’s admission caught her quite unawares.
‘It’s wrong, I know,’ Georgia admitted. ‘In some respects I’m no better than Lesley with my grief, except that I’ve managed to internalise it.’
‘But you have moved on, Mum,’ said Eleanor gently.
Georgia gave a sigh. ‘Not in my heart,’ she answered wistfully. ‘Of course Colin gave me Robbie and it’s your brother who has been my salve, especially over the last few years.’ The vehicle slowed as it passed the working dogs tied up under the trees, the chorus of yelps quickly petering out. ‘I indulged Robbie, well, we both did. It was wrong and I blame myself for having to send him away. I should never have allowed him to be given that rifle, but he’s such a mature boy for his age and Colin was so adamant at the time.’ The green of the back garden appeared like an oasis. Birds swooped low across the chain of ponds. ‘People think children bond them together, and I guess they do for a time, but the reality of any partnership is, whether there are children or not, a relationship either works or it doesn’t.’
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