by Derek Hansen
‘I’m going to tell Dad.’
Neil started at the sound of Glory’s voice. Judging by the ashen look on her face, he guessed his sisters had arrived just in time to witness Billy’s narrow escape. Neil sighed.
‘Don’t bother. I’ll tell him myself.’ He couldn’t understand what it was about girls that made them want to ruin everything.
Neil’s official NSWRL footie had as much to do with Japan’s economic recovery as it did with his father’s generosity. Japan couldn’t get enough fine merino wool and pushed the price up to the point where wool-growers all over Australia rubbed their hands together in glee. But every time it looked like the Dwyer family could break the cycle of borrowing, something always stuck its leg out to trip them up. Nobody suspected as they moved into winter that the late summer rains were destined to be the last good fall they’d get for two years. Even with the Japanese buyers pushing wool prices to record levels, the family couldn’t afford the hay or grain they needed to supplement the scrub they cut for their stock.
Braden Dwyer, the boys’ father, worked himself to a standstill cutting scrub but had no hope of cutting enough. At first he did the right thing by cutting the middle out of the fodder trees so that regrowth would stand him in good stead during the next drought. But even with the boys pitching in on weekends and his wife, Millie, lending a hand, he couldn’t keep up with the need. He resorted to the short-term solution of cutting down entire trees, but still his sheep lost condition to the point where they were little more than bags of bones. Left with no choice but to reduce the number of sheep to a more manageable level, Braden began selling off half of his stock. It was a heartbreaking decision whichever way he looked at it.
While the remaining beasts would probably get by on the scrub he cut, he’d effectively halved their wool cheque, something that wouldn’t impress the bank. All he could look forward to was another round of belt-tightening, of patched trousers, cracked boots and making do, of squeezing more service out of equipment and vehicles already held together by baling wire. Of course he got a few dollars for the stock he sold, but the beasts were in such a sorry condition that it wasn’t much, not after the costs of transportation. That was the thing that galled him most. The drought was selective and hadn’t touched properties further east or over the Great Dividing Range. The wool-growers there had snapped up his sheep for a pittance and put them on lush pastures that would have them back in prime condition in less than eight weeks. He explained all this to his kids around the dinner table as he faced another sell-off. Like most fathers on the land, he expected at least one of his boys to follow in his footsteps and he never missed an opportunity to teach them the realities.
The boys listened attentively, taking in everything their father told them, trying to find solutions to the problem that their father hadn’t thought of.
‘Why can’t we just take the sheep to where there’s grass?’ said Billy. ‘Fatten them up and bring them back again.’
‘That’s called agistment.’ His father smiled. ‘Some wool-growers do that but they have to pay to put their stock in other people’s pastures. You have to add that to the trucking costs and then sit down and work out how much you reckon you’re going to get for the wool. I’ve thought about it and I reckon it’d end up costing us more money than we’d get back.’
‘Couldn’t we walk them?’ asked Neil.
‘Maybe if we’d started two years ago, but the sheep couldn’t handle it now. They’re too weak. Besides, there’s only weeds left along the side of the road. A lot of the beasts are hungry and stupid enough to eat them and poison themselves to death.’
‘Can’t we just buy more feed?’ asked Billy.
‘We’re buying all we can afford now. If we buy more, we won’t have enough to feed ourselves.’
‘We can eat snakes, goannas and frill-necks like the abos do.’
‘Billy!’ said his mother sharply.
‘Well, like the blacks do,’ said Billy.
‘Are you going to catch them for us?’ asked his dad.
‘Yeah,’ said Billy eagerly. ‘If you get us an air rifle.’
His parents burst out laughing and even Neil, who always stuck up for him, had a broad smile on his face. They discussed other options, not letting the situation get them down but using it to generate discussion and more laughs. The boys loved these occasions because they gave them a chance to impress their dad. Even so, when Neil and Billy finally took off for bed, they went with hearts burdened by the family’s plight, both of them desperate to find a way to help out.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Billy as the boys lay awake in the dark.
‘What?’
‘We could ask Rodney’s dad if we can noodle through his mullock heaps. Maybe we can find some opals.’
Neil thought about the idea. It wasn’t bad. They could put in a few hours after school before it got dark. Stories abounded at school about kids up on the Ridge who found good opals noodling through the mullock. One black kid had found a beauty of a black harlequin worth more than eight thousand dollars. The trouble was, a lot of the opal found on Rodney’s place was pretty poor quality, light-coloured and brittle, though his dad had found a couple of lenses which had yielded some really good-quality precious opal. Neil supposed Rodney’s dad must have found enough to keep him interested.
‘We could give it a go, I suppose,’ said Neil. ‘But Rodney’s dad sifts through everything pretty thoroughly. Rodney reckons he can spot a good black opal on a dark night through half a metre of claystone.’
‘Yeah, but every digger misses something some time,’ said Billy. ‘That’s a proven fact.’
Neil nodded. Whether or not it was a proven fact, it was certainly local lore. Everyone had a hard-luck story of digging out mountains of opal dirt, only to have their quarry slip through their fingers and into someone else’s.
‘We’ll talk to Rodney tomorrow. If we do it, we’ve got to keep it secret, okay? Dad’ll only get cranky if he finds out. Now go to sleep.’
Billy closed his eyes and imagined searching tirelessly through giant mullock heaps and the glory that would come with reversing the family’s fortunes. He fell asleep just as a flash of colour caught his eye.
Rodney’s father was wary about letting anyone near his diggings but gave the boys permission on three conditions. His first condition was one that had been drummed into them from the time they could crawl. Under no circumstances were they allowed to go underground. The boys nodded obediently, although, in truth, they’d secretly searched more mine shafts and tunnels than they could count. There was no way of stopping them so long as there were lengths of rope and ladders left lying around. Exploring tunnels on their hands and knees with just one torch between them was just about the most exciting thing anyone could do. And there was always the possibility that there were precious opals lurking just millimetres away in the claystone walls. Different eyes saw different things down in mines.
With Rodney’s help, the boys had become pretty adept at picking bad ground that could collapse in on them and tunnels where props had been removed. Once Rodney took them down a shaft to show them a booby-trap his father had made which would cause the tunnel to cave in. His father was paranoid about other miners sneaking in and making off with his opals. He’d rather bury the bludgers alive than let them get away with it.
The second condition was that they only picked through dumps Rodney’s father had marked with a stick and a piece of cloth. That way he could save the boys the effort of working through mullock that would only yield a smattering of potch, or common opal, at best and put some brakes on their ambitions. He’d sunk shafts all over the place, wherever he’d found wild orange or large box trees growing. The trees liked to sink their roots down into disturbed ground caused by joints or minor faults in the strata, which was where opals tended to be found. The last thing he wanted was overexcited kids racing around open shafts.
His third condition was that they showed whatever they found to
him first. To keep them honest, he offered to polish their finds for them before they took them home. Rodney’s father didn’t expect them to come across much, but he gave them every chance by marking heaps of Finch claystone from shafts that had given him a bit back.
Rodney was allowed to work with the boys provided he gave any opals he found to his dad. Both Neil and Billy thought that was a fair deal because just working alongside Rodney improved their chances. Rodney knew all there was to know. He could tell Finch claystone from Coocoran claystone and knew at a glance which soil was good opal dirt and which wasn’t worth bothering with. When he saw the mullock heaps they were allowed to fossick through he knew they came from good diggings.
The three boys were pretty excited when they got off the school bus at Rodney’s place, especially Rodney because they were going to do something he was good at for a change. He’d told them how he’d salvaged one of his dad’s old rumblers. It was a revolving mesh drum through which loosened dirt could escape, leaving only hard material like sandstone and, with a dint of luck, opals. Rodney had helped his dad sift through mullock since he was four years old and had only found opal of any value on a handful of occasions. Even with the rumbler, Rodney knew their chances of finding anything worthwhile were remote, but in the way of boys everywhere, they’d managed to talk themselves into believing otherwise. They walked up the red gravel plateau in a landscape so dotted with shafts and their surrounding off-white doughnuts of mullock that it looked more lunar than terrestrial, as though a thousand meteorites had impacted there. Both Neil and Billy were used to the sight but now they looked at it through the eyes of fossickers. Finding a needle in a haystack was a pushover compared with the task ahead of them. They walked to the nearest dump that Rodney’s dad had marked and got ready to attack it.
‘Rodney, you take the pick, I’ll take the shovel and Billy can turn the rumbler,’ said Neil. ‘We’ll change jobs after every six loads.’
The boys set to work but it was hard going. The top strata of soil, the Coocoran claystone, had dried out and turned into shin-cracker, and there were lumps of Wallangulla sandstone taken from the second strata which were equally solid.
‘Dad worked a good deam where thid duff come from,’ said Rodney. ‘Went in a-bout three metre. He won’t day but I rec-kon that wad where he found hid but-ter-fly wing black.’
The butterfly wing black? It was one of the few opals Rodney’s dad had ever shown to them. It was smaller than the nail on Billy’s little finger but the greens and reds in it were electric. What more incentive did they need? If this stuff came from the same seam they had every chance of finding something precious. Neil and Billy worked with a will and no thought of pacing themselves. They were puffing long before the sixth load went into the rumbler. But Rodney, who was used to the work, looked like he could go all night. The boys had rarely seen him looking so happy.
‘Why don’t we sort through what we’ve got?’ said Billy. ‘Give us a chance to get our breath back.’
‘Okay,’ said Neil. He divided the heap of stones and rubble tailed out from the rumbler into three roughly equal piles. ‘Billy, you have first pick, Rodney second, me third. Next time Rodney chooses first and then it’s my turn.’
Neil and Billy copied Rodney and nipped any promising lumps with pincers. The first round yielded nothing but that failed to dampen their enthusiasm. They did another six loads for the same result. Billy was halfway through the smallest pile in the third round when he caught an unmistakeable glint of something emerald.
‘Opal!’ he screamed. He couldn’t believe it could be so easy. They’d only been at it for less than two hours and he’d already solved his family’s problems. He could feel his father’s hand patting him on his back, the hug from his mum and something approaching genuine respect from his sisters. He held up a piece of rock-hard claystone about the size of a boiled egg yolk.
‘Led me dee,’ said Rodney. He took the piece of claystone from Billy, looked at it critically and nipped it with his pincer. He gave his verdict. ‘Jud pekd,’ he said and nonchalantly tossed the claystone back to Billy.
‘Bulldust!’ said Billy. ‘They’re not just specks.’
‘Give me a look,’ said Neil. He gave Billy’s stone a quick once-over and, without warning, smashed it with the shovel.
‘What are you doing?’ shrieked Billy.
‘Take a look,’ said Neil.
Billy looked and all he could see was a flattened pancake of dust. He ran his fingers through it but couldn’t find any colour at all. The disappointment was no less crushing.
‘If Rodney says there’s just specks, there’s just specks,’ said Neil quietly. ‘He knows what he’s talking about and you don’t. You put him down when you don’t listen.’
Billy accepted the rebuke and apologised.
‘Id oh-kay,’ said Rodney.
‘At least it was better than nothing,’ said Billy.
‘That’s right,’ said Neil. ‘And if there’s an ant around here looking for a stone to put in a ring, I’m sure it’ll be grateful.’
The boys managed a few more laughs but found nothing that day or in the next two days. By the fourth day their enthusiasm had really begun to flag.
‘We’re never going to find anything in the dumps,’ said Billy. ‘Rodney’s dad has already picked through them and he’s too good.’
Rodney’s chin drooped, as though he’d let his mates down. He loved it when the boys came around to his place, loved to be in a position where he was important and they listened to what he had to say.
‘We knew that right at the start,’ said Neil.
‘I reckon we’re going to have to look underground to have any hope of finding anything,’ said Billy.
‘He’d ride,’ said Rodney.
‘We’ve been down plenty of shafts and never found nothing before,’ said Neil.
‘Yeah, but we weren’t really looking before,’ said Billy.
‘I dunno,’ said Neil. ‘Rodney’s dad’ll go off his brain if he finds out.’
‘How’s he gunna find out?’
‘What if we find something?’
‘We’ll tell him we found it in the mullock.’
‘What do you think, Rodney?’
Rodney hesitated before answering. He knew far better than the boys what it was like when his father went off his brain. He was the one who had to cop the abuse and the beltings that covered his arms, legs and back in bruises. But if they didn’t go looking underground, he knew they’d give up looking altogether and the boys would find something else to do which, more than likely, wouldn’t include him. Even if they did include him, it wouldn’t be like searching for opals. It wouldn’t be something he was good at. Rodney agonised but in the end he had only one choice.
‘Don tell dad nuf-fin un-led id me that find the opal.’
‘I dunno,’ said Neil. He wasn’t worried about cave-ins because Rodney’s dad was cautious. When he drove in along a seam he always left plenty of stone pillars in place to shore up the back of the stope and arched the roof so it was supported by pressure from the sides. Sometimes he moved props from diggings he thought were no good to use in other tunnels, but their soles always left an imprint which was easy to spot. They never went into tunnels where props had been moved. It wasn’t the risk that got Neil thinking but the breach in trust and in protocol. It was one thing to play in the tunnels and explore them, but another matter entirely to pick through someone else’s diggings. Everyone knew that. It was okay to bend the back in mines that had been abandoned, but, as far as Rodney’s dad was concerned, these were all still active.
‘Oh, come on,’ urged Billy. ‘It’s our only hope.’
‘Thad ride,’ said Rodney.
They were so keen and eager to do it, Neil had to give in.
‘All right, but we’re gunna need torches,’ said Neil. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘Yes!’ Billy threw his arms up in delight.
‘You and Rodney can go d
own and I’ll stay on top to haul up the bucket. Any dirt you loosen has to go in the bucket or Rodney’s dad will know someone’s been down there, okay?’
Of course it was okay. But Neil still felt a sense of disquiet. What they planned to do amounted to stealing and that was wrong. He also had the problem of disposing of the material they brought up after they’d checked it for opals. Anyone could tell new dirt from old so they’d have to bury it under a load of shin-cracker.
The following morning he and Billy each smuggled a torch into their schoolbags so they wouldn’t give the show away. They spent all their free time during the day arguing over which mines were more likely to deliver the goods. In the end they let Rodney decide, which made him feel like a million dollars. His father was working a new patch he’d marked out half a kilometre away, giving them a clear run over the main workings. The newer mines offered the most hope, but Rodney was smart enough not to go near those. His dad lived and dreamed opals, and sometimes his dreams took him back down his recent diggings in search of recalled or imagined signs. Instead he took the brothers over to a shaft where they’d found plenty of potch but never found anything worthwhile. Rodney’s dad had always maintained that, given the traces, there had to be good opals there, but as hard as he’d looked, his labours had come to nothing. Billy thought the choice of tunnel was inspired. Different eyes see different things. He convinced himself that his eyes would see what Rodney’s father had missed.
