Love on Forrest Downs

by Sheryl McCorry

  I looked straight at McCorry and Kristy, and said, ‘I’m not dead yet. I don’t think I have to give anything away.’

  I stood up, pointed towards the back door and told McCorry and Kristy, ‘Get the hell out of here – I’ve had enough.’ I was starting to feel very angry, to think that they were both trying to take me for a fool.

  I could see Kristy was agitated and angry about not getting the horses she wanted. As I walked to the door, with Kristy ahead of me, McCorry followed close behind us.

  ‘I can’t believe what you have asked me to agree to!’ I said, when all of a sudden Kristy swung around, very nearly sending me flying. McCorry was so close behind me that when I instinctively turned away from Kristy, I had the shock of both of his closed fists in my face.

  So there I was, ambushed by McCorry and Kristy, two people I had looked after and stood by in tough times, and whom I had trusted implicitly. I could hardly believe it – but they certainly weren’t going to make me change my mind about their demand.

  At horrible times like these I would wonder why in hell I had taken this young girl into my life and family, only to have her hate me and my children. Kristy and I were in contact a while back but sadly now Kristy’s communication with me has ceased since I divorced my third husband, Terry. Now there’s never a phone call or card to Leisha, Robby or myself. I am the woman Kristy called ‘Mum’ since she was four years old. I took her into my home and reared her as one of my own. I never treated her any differently from my own children; I gave her the best life I possibly could when she was young, and then I rescued her from many difficult situations once she was an adult.

  I don’t hold any animosity towards Kristy for suddenly breaking off all contact – for the second time – with the family who shared their lives and home with her for so many years. Instead, I try to understand why she behaves the way she does. Kristy is no longer an abandoned child – she is a grown woman and fully understands how terrible it was for me to stay in the marriage to Terry. She had been there for me when Terry was physically and psychologically violent towards me, just as I had been there for her when she needed support. She had even moved in with me again.

  At times I feel that maybe I am to blame for her behaviour. Knowing that I have been the only stable influence in her life for the past thirty years, I think she might have felt abandoned again when I left Wildwood, and Terry, behind. If that is the case, I am truly sorry.

  Even right till this moment I still hurt deep inside. But I won’t talk about it with Robby and Leisha, because they say, ‘She’s gone, Mum’, and that’s that. They went through their own sufferings with me. I feel a bit bad in some ways – when they were younger I took on all these other abandoned and wayward children, and I always thought that everything blended right. I never saw any different. And Kristy did seem to blend in fine – until she didn’t. It does seem like she has gone for good now, though. And I don’t think that will ever stop hurting.

  *

  In Derby, we lived in a shared duplex with Sister Pat, a Catholic nun. McCorry had suggested this move to town, and I mentioned a little about it in Diamonds and Dust but kept the terrible, humiliating bits secret.

  Sadly, the move to Fairfield had never allowed me to fulfil my dream of running my very own station – there wasn’t enough time to do that properly before McCorry wanted to sell the property and move on with his life alone. He probably always saw himself as a loner even though he’d married and had children, and in ending our marriage he was simply returning to his natural state. Some might say he was selfish, but I’d like to think that I could understand.

  However, there’s a difference between being a depressed loner and the terrifying side of McCorry that the children and I saw in our final days at Fairfield. Not only was he drinking until all hours of the night and morning during this time, but he was raving about ‘doing away’ with me, his wife, as well as our beloved children.

  Towards the end of our family life on Fairfield, the nights were terrifying for me. I crept about in the shadows of the homestead following McCorry in the darkness, making sure he never found the firearm I had hidden from him. One night I woke with a fright to find McCorry not in his bed, and I immediately became frantic because his threats to shoot the children and me were always foremost in my mind. I could hardly bear the suspense as I moved quietly through the homestead in search of him, all the while trying not to wake the children.

  Eventually, with a heavily pounding heart and sweaty palms, my body shaking in fear, I stepped outside and moved ever so quietly in the dark until I found McCorry lurking by the frangipani tree with the gun. I watched him, wondering what had become of this good cattleman – my children’s father – who had now become a total stranger to me and someone I could no longer trust.

  Somehow I found the strength to stride confidently towards him. I grabbed the high-powered firearm with both hands, hung on for dear life and demanded he let go of the gun.

  ‘Please let go, Bob,’ I begged. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  I didn’t for one moment think that if he wanted to, he could shoot me; I didn’t let myself think it. I fought to keep my grip on the firearm while silently begging my damp palms not to let me down. I simply could not let him get the gun, though, because his threat to shoot us all rang loudly in my head.

  Finally McCorry seemed to go into a trancelike state, and he let me take the gun from him. Still holding tightly onto the rifle, I moved swiftly towards the front veranda of the homestead and ran smack bang into Leisha – our nerves were so close to snapping that, thinking the worst, we both emitted screams of terror.

  At that time, Leisha, Robby and I constantly tried to watch out for and protect each other. In some ways the move from Fairfield Station to Derby didn’t mean that we could stop, because our sense of fear never lessened – and it should have. My children and I should have felt safe and secure in town, because we had left behind the shocking experiences with McCorry on Fairfield Station. But we carried the fear of what might still happen with us.

  The anger I felt for McCorry at that time has now left me, because I’m no longer fearful. I am not cowed by the experiences. I not only tolerated them – I survived.

  CHAPTER 7

  Marvellous Michael D

  Many years later, after my divorce from Terry, I set up home again on my farm, the Shiralee, south of Mount Barker. The move back was reinvigorating – better than any holiday. All I wanted to do was pull the Shiralee back together and buy some breeding cows. The simple pleasures were the most comforting: to be able to sit on the back veranda with a mug of hot tea and watch the little wrens flip around the hanging baskets; to gaze towards the Porongurup mountain range with its ever-changing views; to sit and dream of my future, wondering what it held for me.

  In August 2008, I met the most wonderful, caring and hardworking man, Michael D. In some ways he is a southern version of old McCorry in the good times: a man who always puts others before himself.

  I met Michael while buying cows from his Forrest Downs property, which is 130 kilometres away from the Shiralee and about 260 kilometres south-east of Perth. Out of this business deal grew a loving relationship that has brought happiness and friendship, and respect from not only my adult children, their partners and families, but also my ageing parents – particularly my mother, and that’s saying something!

  Before we met, Michael read my first book, Diamonds and Dust; he also had an interest in the outback, and the Kimberley in particular. At the time we met, however, his beautiful Angus maidens were my main interest – although it didn’t take long for that interest to shift to him. Michael was a tall, suntanned, strong, well-built yet gentle farmer with hands the size of dinner plates and attractive brown, laughing eyes. A light sprinkling of grey in his dark curly hair added a slightly dignified air. Yes, I thought at the time, if Michael was in the saleyard I would select him for myself.

  As our friendship developed our talks became longer and mor
e in depth, and it soon became clear that we shared many common bonds. We both had a pioneering spirit in regard to the land, and we’d both had previous marriages that hadn’t turned out so well.

  Michael was brought up in a large, traditional farming family of nine children. He spent his younger years growing potato crops and clearing land to help expand the family farming empire in Pemberton in south-west Western Australia, while not giving much thought to the local girls or social scene. Then he made two rather disastrous marriages. Michael told me that his father, Walter, had predicted the demise of both of his marriages before they even started, because Michael chose women whom Walter thought to be unsuitable.

  I suppose Walter worried that because neither woman was from a farming background they might have had more interest in the family empire than any real love for his eldest son. And how could you blame an old farmer for thinking that way when he had worked his guts out his entire life and only wanted to protect his family farms and his children’s future on the land? I would never blame someone for thinking that way, because I have seen many farming-family empires broken up – and some destroyed – because of the spouses chosen by the sons and daughters of those families. I personally experienced the financial cost of taking a much younger lover in the late 1990s, after I had split from McCorry.

  Michael was a bachelor farmer until the age of thirty-eight, when he married Giaan, a barmaid from the local watering hole. Apparently they weren’t off to a good start when his future wife was seen hocking the engagement ring she just had to have – and which, Michael says, he couldn’t afford – the day before their wedding. And, sadly for Michael, that wasn’t the worst of her behaviour, as he was to discover. It wasn’t long before the marriage ended up in Family Court and cost Michael a small fortune. But he picked himself up and continued farming the family properties, and was able to find peace within himself again.

  Some four years later Michael crossed paths with Giaan’s friend Julia, who was wandering around with her four children at the Scott River, east of Augusta. Michael was tending to cattle on another of the family properties. In no time, Julia had developed a crush on him, and she and her four children moved to a rental house in the town of Pemberton – near Michael’s family’s properties – despite Michael’s protest that everything was moving far too quickly for his liking.

  It wasn’t long before the house Julia was renting was sold and she and her children were left with no roof over their heads, in a town where they hadn’t lived before. Michael is known for having a heart of gold, so he let Julia and her children move into his house on the Pemberton farm – against the advice of some family and many friends. After having been on his own in the old farmhouse for some time, Michael felt that the company of others would liven up the old place. Well, he got that and more – he quickly found himself in a relationship.

  Soon Julia became pregnant and asked Michael to marry her. Michael and his siblings had grown up with a strong knowledge of the Catholic faith, so he felt that marrying Julia was the right thing to do. But it was another calamitous marriage. The only good thing to come out of it was their daughter, Carrie.

  The marriage was turbulent, to say the least. Julia liked to create drama and she also behaved aggressively towards Michael. She gave him many reasons to leave, but he didn’t because he had two good reasons to stay: to watch out for his little daughter and to work on the family farm.

  The marriage came to an end when Julia disappeared into the shadows of outback Queensland. Michael says the only downside to this was that Julia took Carrie with her, and he now rarely sees his beloved daughter.

  After this second attempt at marriage ended in divorce too, Michael swore off women, and marriage, completely. This was understandable, but I tend to think the main reason he got into trouble was that he has an enormous heart, and if anything it’s too big: he wants to think the best of people, and sometimes that has got him into strife.

  Michael’s connection to station life goes back a long way, long before my own time on the land. Michael’s paternal grandfather, Alan Dunnet, once owned Balfour Downs Station with his brothers. The cattle station was situated in the east Pilbara on the headwaters of the Fortescue and Oakover rivers, shaded by the Saltbush and Robertson ranges to the eastern side. From there it’s not that far to the Canning Stock Route on the Talawana Track across the Little Sandy Desert. In the early days Alan and his brothers alternated between farming at Nannup in the south-west and Balfour Downs Station.

  Alan Dunnet and his wife made the 300-kilometre trip from Balfour Downs to Meekatharra for the birth of Michael’s father, Walter, in 1928. Walter was born into the harsh conditions of the outback. The original Pemberton family farm in Western Australia is over 104 years old and still farmed by the Dunnet family to this day.

  Several years ago, Michael branched out on his own to run more breeding cattle and increase his cattle numbers in the farm feedlot. First he purchased and moved to Yo-Espro Farm on the outskirts of Watheroo, which is approximately 240 kilometres north of Perth. It was a property that had previously been used for cropping and had also carried sheep. With the help of his father and brothers, Michael spent time and money getting Yo-Espro into shape so they could run their large herd of Angus breeding cattle and a feedlot.

  With Walter constantly by his side, Michael somehow battled three consecutive droughts, but when the Yo-Espro paddocks became nothing but raw, windblown sand, he had no alternative but to seek agistment across the country for his beautiful Angus breeders.

  Michael then made a firm decision that Yo-Espro was unsuitable for running cattle on a large scale. He promptly sold up and purchased another property south-west of Kojonup, in the belief that the new property, Forrest Downs, would be more suitable for running cattle. He was right, and Forrest Downs is where he has lived ever since.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mustering in the spring paddock

  Robby and Tara arrived at Forrest Downs early one Monday morning in May 2009. The spring paddock needed to be mustered and their offer of help was very much appreciated by both Michael and myself. I quite like the spring paddock: it’s a reasonably good blacksoil paddock of 700 acres, blessed with the largest freshwater spring in the district. When Robby and Tara arrived the paddock was occupied by shiny Angus mothers with good bone structure who carried themselves with a slight touch of arrogance and the knowledge that the time of year had come around again when their weaner calves had to be taken from them and paddocked separately. The Angus cows were breeders that had been reared by Michael and his family over many years, and these animals were a credit to their efforts.

  We had two days to muster and process the cattle through the cattle yards, as the same yards would be needed for animals that Michael was planning to buy at the Boyanup and Mount Barker cattle sales on the coming Wednesday and Thursday. After checking our gear, the four of us rode on our motorbikes across the bugga-bugga – meaning potholed – blacksoil plain until we reached the western boundary of the spring paddock.

  Splitting into pairs, we worked slowly and steadily, pushing cows and weaners from outlying areas into the main mob. At times we had our work cut out for us, dodging bull holes and low-hanging branches while trying (in vain) to outsmart the Angus mothers as they tried to lead their weaner calves away from the mob and into the shelter belt of the paperbark swamp. Cunning and calculating – like any mother who wants to protect her young – the cows knew it would be difficult for us to manoeuvre our motorbikes through the oozing black quagmire and the close thicket of the paperbark swamp. Cautiously weaving and dodging the charge of one angry Angus mother who appeared to have had a gutful of being pushed in what she clearly thought was the wrong direction, I very nearly went arse-up on my motorbike, while every gram of extra weight on my body jingled and jangled its way across the bugga-bugga flat with me.

  Tara and I kept the mob of ‘girls’ together, pushing the cattle steadily from the bugga-bugga to undulating gravelly terrain, while Mich
ael and Robby chased the ‘outlaws’ – the wild and wayward few – and returned them to the mob. Eventually, with only a few cunning mothers still trying to make a break for freedom, we hit the rise, with the cattle in hand, on the far side of the spring paddock. We were now left with the rather wide laneway that led through to Wandoora Road and the cattle yards on the other side.

  Mustering this part of the spring paddock was always a real challenge: for some reason the cattle simply hated the last kilometre to the roadway, making the last leg of the muster seem much longer than it really was. Heavy black dust rose all around and cattle challenged us from every direction as the four of us rode the seat out of our pants trying to get the cattle over the rise and into the laneway.

  Having Robby and Tara mustering cattle by my side gave me a great feeling of satisfaction and contentment – like any mother working with her child, I felt extremely proud. At moments like these I always hoped that Robby’s dad and his older brother were gazing down on him from above. Seeing that Robby still had an interest in the land and in cattle would surely put a smile on their faces.

  Leaving Michael, Robby and Tara to handle the animals, I turned my motorbike around and raced towards the Wandoora Road to make sure that the ‘Cattle Crossing’ signs were still in place. We hardly ever saw a vehicle on this road, but wouldn’t you know it: the moment we had 300 head of cattle starting to cross, a vehicle came out of nowhere and spooked them. As I raced to block cattle and traffic, I began to worry for Tara’s safety. Although I was confident she could handle her bike and the cattle around her, she looked so small and fragile in among the flying dust and rushing mob.

  Stampeding cows and their large weaners had decided that there was no way they would cross the road to the yard. Instead, the frightened, stubborn, fast-moving mob gave the three riders a rough time, pushing and shoving each other in the swirling dust. Michael, Robby and Tara were giving it their all, holding together what cattle they could while others escaped and returned to the freedom of the paddock. From my position, blocking cattle and traffic on the road, all I could see were the indistinct shapes of cattle galloping in the flying dust. The thundering of hooves was deafening and scary. I had never seen anything quite like this since leaving the Kimberley and the cattle-station life. The only difference between then and now was that in the Kimberley there were larger cattle numbers in a mob.