Outback Station

by Aaron Fletcher

  "Well, anyone can tell by talking to you that you're not an ordinary stockman," Pat mused. "But I should think it would take a keen eye indeed to see it from a distance. In any event, they had a corroboree last night, and Mayrah told me it was because they think there's going to be another big sheep station hereabouts." He laughed, puffing on his pipe again. "So if that's what the Aborigines think, I don't believe I should stand in the way of it. Would you like more rum, David?"

  David was dumbfounded, silent for a moment, then he nodded. "Yes, after that, I could use another drink of rum, Pat."

  Chapter Six

  Cresting a hill, David and Pat reined up, the pack horses behind them stopping. A flock grazed in a valley below, and across the valley, a stockman sat beside his horse and watched the sheep. "That's John Bowen," Pat said. "His area is the north part of Bulloo Paddock, which will graze about three thousand sheep."

  Recalling what Pat had said about the names and locations of the paddocks, David knew they were at about the mid-point of the station, near the north boundary. They had worked their way across from the northwest corner of the station, replenishing the stockmen's supplies. So far, that had taken two days while riding at a steady pace, and David reflected that his estimate of the acreage of the station kept increasing.

  As they crossed the top of the hill and started down its side, the stockman's dogs alerted him. Trained not to bark, which could panic the sheep, they moved about restlessly as they looked toward David and Pat.

  The stockman stood up and shaded his eyes against the sun as he looked across the wide valley, then he waved and jumped on his horse.

  A small, thin man in his early twenties, John Bowen beamed with pleasure at having visitors as he rode up, exchanging greetings. ''Will you be able to stop for the night, Mr. Garrity?"

  "No, there's plenty of daylight left, and we have miles to cover," Pat replied. "Where's your fold and hut?"

  The stockman replied, pointing to the north, and Pat reached for the halter rope on the pack horse that David led. The two men rode away with the pack horses, and David remained to watch the flock. A short time later, the supplies at the stockman's hut replenished, the two men returned.

  David and Pat rode on to the east across the rolling, brushy terrain, the flocks miles apart in the paddocks. Hours later, they came to a valley that reeked with the putrid stench of decay. Pat frowned darkly as he and David searched and finally found the source of the odor, the mangled remains of some ten or twelve sheep in a ditch. Near the ditch, the carcasses of two dingoes hung from a tree limb.

  The flock, a few miles away, was larger than the last one and was tended by a stockman and a jackaroo. The stockman knew he was in trouble over the dead sheep and tried to explain, but Pat cut him off.

  "If you'd kept your eyes open when you had the sheep in that valley," the bearded man said gruffly, "that many wouldn't have been killed. Also, there are more than two dingoes around here. Your jackaroo could watch the flock while you're tracking the rest of them down."

  "Aye, I'll do that, Mr. Garrity," the stockman replied contritely. "The value of the sheep can be docked from my wages."

  "I don't want the money, I want my sheep kept alive. The next time the head stockman or I bring supplies, I want you to have a lot more than two dingoes hanging in trees around here. Have your jackaroo lead the way to your fold and hut, and I'll measure out your supplies."

  The stockman apologized again, then beckoned his helper. As they followed the youth away from the flock, Pat explained to David that stockmen in the more remote areas of the paddocks had to be especially watchful for dingoes, because the animals were less frightened of humans. "They aren't as bad as they used to be," he added, "after having had a taste of what firearms will do. That won't be the case when you set out into land that's never been grazed, so dingoes will be a very serious problem for you."

  At the fold and hut, Pat measured out the flour, salt, rice, tobacco, and other supplies for the stockman and jackaroo. He and David then rode eastward, with only one more stockman's supplies remaining to be delivered. The stockman farther on to the east of that one would be the first on the next circuit that either Pat or Fred made, one of them visiting every stockman at least once every two months to deliver supplies and make certain that all was well.

  Near sunset, they stopped at a billabong and made camp. The amount of supplies to be delivered looked large to David for one stockman, which he mentioned to Pat while they were eating. The station owner explained that the stockman, Adolarious Bodenham, had an Aborigine woman who had borne him several children.

  Continuing in an amused tone, Pat said that Bodenham was a recluse who wanted nothing to do with anyone except the woman and children, and had shown up at Wayamba Station the previous year, after years of roaming the wilderness. He was evidently from a very good family in England, a life he had abandoned for the one he had found in the outback.

  "That's sketching pads," Pat went on, pointing to a bundle wrapped in oilskin. "He's an artist, and it costs me a few guineas to support him and his mob, but between them they graze more sheep than any other stockman." He laughed, drinking his tea. "Adolarious is an odd one, but you find all sorts among stockmen."

  "That's true," David agreed, laughing. "Kunmanara is a good workman for Frank. Do you have any Aborigines as stockmen?"

  Pat shook his head, explaining that Kunmanara was an exception because most Aborigines were unable to understand the concept of individual ownership. "If one of them had a flock, he would give the others all the sheep they wanted and see nothing wrong in it. Also, they might leave at any time on a walkabout, and nothing will stop them when they decide to go on one."

  "What is a walkabout, Pat?"

  "It's a sort of wanderlust that can strike them suddenly. Mayrah told me that it's much more than that, but I'm never able to grasp half of her meaning when she talks about Aborigines. I think it's because we don't have words in English for what she wants to say. In any event, the Aborigines at my station hunt down dingoes and do chores, but nothing else."

  "Well, I'd be dead if it weren't for some Aborigines. If I ever have a station and some want to come there, they'll be welcome."

  Pleased by David's attitude, Pat smiled and nodded. They talked awhile longer, smoking their pipes and drinking tea, then they unrolled their blankets beside the fire.

  At dawn the next morning, they had a quick breakfast, then broke camp and rode on to the east. Some two hours later, smoke from a cooking fire rose among the hills ahead, the fold coming into view a few minutes later. Instead of a hut, there was an encampment beside the fold. Washing hung on a line near two large shelters made of bark, and an Aborigine woman and several small children moved about the fire.

  When they saw Pat, the woman beamed in pleasure, and the children squealed in delight. As the supplies were being unloaded, Pat took out a tin of sweets and handed it to the woman. The children whooped joyfully and bounced around as the woman gave each of them a piece of candy. When the supplies were stacked beside the fire, she pointed to where the flock was grazing, over the next hill.

  The huge flock was spread out across a valley. The dogs and several more children, ranging up to early teens, were scattered around the sheep. The children greeted Pat, then directed him to a clump of brush near a horse that was tethered and grazing. Pat and David rode over to the brush, reining up their horses a few yards from it.

  "Are you there, Adolarious?" Pat called.

  "Yes, I am here, Mr. Garrity," a man answered from the brush. His accent that of an Oxford don, his tone was one of patient resignation over the intrusion upon his solitude with the woman and children.

  "I see you're teaching the children English now," Pat said. "I hope you're also teaching them sums as well as reading and writing."

  "I'm doing all you suggested, Mr. Garrity," Adolarious replied. "However, I must say that I still retain the same strong reservations about cluttering the minds of unspoiled, natural creatures."r />
  "That isn't what they are, Adolarious. They won't know how to forage like Aborigines when they're grown, so they'll have to work, and schooling will be a great aid to them. I brought more drawing materials for you but I trust that you're not drawing any more live dingoes."

  "No, I'm using dead ones for models. But they aren't the same."

  "Indeed they aren't, and the sheep would agree most heartily if they could talk. Well, I'll be on my way. G'day, Adolarious."

  "Farewell, Mr. Garrity."

  Riding away, Pat led the way at a steady canter. During the early afternoon, he and David came to a deep stand of boxwood, the ground bare of other growth between the trees. Immediately to the north was a low, barren, rocky mountain of stone and shale. Several miles long, it was oriented almost due east and west.

  They rode up the mountain, and from the crest, the land to the north was like an Eden. Rolling terrain covered with lush, deep spinifex, saltbrush, and mallee stretched to the horizon. Excellent graze for sheep, it was dotted with open forest and thickets that marked waterholes.

  "I call this Barren Mountain," Pat said, "and it's my northern boundary. I've always been concerned that another grazier would come in here and encroach to the south. I can fight for my land if need be, but I'd rather have a friend on this land."

  "It certainly looks like good land," David mused.

  "Aye, from here it does. Wayamba keeps me busy, and I've never been farther north than Barren Mountain, but I've heard talk about it. At a distance to the north, there's a creek that the Aborigines call Tibooburra. Far beyond that is a line of sharp hills that look like spires. Between here and those hills is as much land as you could ever want."

  "If I can get a foothold on it," David added.

  Pat agreed, then talked about specifics of an arrangement. "The money in that purse the bushranger had looked like about a hundred guineas," he said. "For that much, I'll sell you horses, dogs, all the equipment you'll need, and a thousand sheep. That'll give you the lambs and wool, and you can also take a flock on shares."

  "How large a flock, Pat?"

  "As large as you want to take. It would entail work that would grind most men into the ground, but you can take four thousand, if you wish. Then you'll have your own flock within two years at the most."

  "Or debt for many years to come, if I lose them to dingoes, in a flood, a grass fire, or any number of other things."

  Pat stroked his beard, smiling. "If you don't want to take risks, then you don't want to be a grazier, David." He chuckled.

  David laughed, agreeing. Pondering for a moment, he realized he was unable to make an informed decision as too much depended upon chance. Then he decided that any risk might as well be a large one. "I'll buy a thousand and take four thousand more on shares, Pat," he said.

  Pat smiled, putting out his hand. David shook hands with his friend, sealing the bargain between them, then they turned their horses and rode back off the mountain toward Wayamba Station.

  A week later, David drove five thousand sheep northward on the station. His two pack horses were loaded with supplies and equipment, the second one also dragging poles for a temporary fold. Cracking his stockman's whip, he kept the sheep moving at a walk as five dogs patrolled each flank of the long column to head off those that tried to turn aside.

  At sunset each day, he put the sheep in the temporary fold, a rope stretched between the poles. He new the rope contained the sheep only because they thought it did, accustomed to being in a fold at night. If anything frightened them, the sheep would trample the rope and scatter for miles in the darkness, some of them going too far for him to find.

  It was part of the risk he had accepted, and one of the disadvantages of having such a large flock to manage alone. He slept no more than two or three hours a night, waking and going to look when any of the sheep stirred. As he moved the flock at a steady pace, he began dozing in his saddle for periods of a few minutes, becoming ever more weary.

  The day that Barren Mountain came into view, his beard was thick and he was covered with dust as well as so tired that he was numb. Later that morning, he woke from a nap in his saddle to see another flock a mile away to the west, and the stockman hastily turned his sheep. David whistled to his dogs, summoning them to the left side of his flock.

  If the flocks were too close, the sheep would flow together like quicksilver. Of more importance to David than the trouble of separating two flocks was that he might not get his original sheep back. Along with wethers for food and several rams, he had chosen only ewes in their prime, many of which should give birth to twins.

  As the dogs raced to the left side of the flock, the sheep veered eastward. David exchanged a wave with the other stockman as the two flocks moved safely apart. A few minutes later, he signaled the dogs and turned the sheep back toward Barren Mountain.

  The flock moved at a good pace across the mountain, then slowed in the lush graze on the other side, cropping mouthfuls of grass, saltbrush twigs, and mallee seed pods. David cracked his whip, keeping the flock at a walk. When he arrived at a billabong during late afternoon, he put up the fold while the sheep drank and grazed.

  The next morning, with the dogs scattered around the grazing sheep, he began building a permanent fold. He felled trees, then split the logs with wedges and a mallet. As the rail fence took shape, he transplated clumps of acacia to the fence so that over the years the brush would interweave with the rails and make a thick wall of brush and wood.

  Knowing the scent of the flock would eventually draw dingoes, he began patrolling around the flock during late afternoons, when the wild dogs started their evening hunt. The first time he saw one, the tawny yellow animal charged boldly out of the brush toward the sheep, and he shot it. He glimpsed several dingoes slinking away from the flock through the undergrowth, and that night he heard their dismal howling nearby.

  The next afternoon, he carried both his double-barrel musket and his spare one, which he had loaded with bird shot. Some of the dogs began bristling, and he rode around the flock toward them. As two dingoes raced into the open toward the flock, he killed one and wounded the other. Then he lifted the second musket, aiming at other wild dogs fleeing through the brush. The pellets ripped through the foliage and stung several of them, their yelps blending with those of the dingo wounded by the bullet.

  That ended the threat during the afternoons as the dingoes had been frightened away by the gunfire. David occasionally glimpsed them lurking in the brush, but no more attacked the sheep. There was still danger at night, however, when the wild dogs could make the sheep break out of the temporary fold if they attacked, and he hurried to finish the permanent fold.

  When it was completed, and for the first time since leaving the home paddock at Wayamba Station, he had time to bathe, shave, and wash his clothes. He could also sleep soundly at night, but found that he no longer needed to. Sleeping lightly and rising at any sound to check on the sheep had become a familiar routine, no longer making him weary the next day.

  After the fold was constructed, his days were still filled with activity. He occasionally killed and dressed a wether to provide food for himself and his dogs. He fleshed the skins and cured them with the inner bark from peppermint trees, a process Frank had told him about. Using some skins to make a comfortable bed, he cut and sewed others into a warm, thick coat for the coming winter.

  As a first step in establishing his station, David intended to divide the land into paddocks, with a permanent fold in the center of each one. Following that plan, he moved the flock eastward for several miles, then began building a second fold. He had trouble with dingoes again, driving the wild dogs away by killing and wounding several of them.

  When he moved the flock once more, driving the sheep to the northwest, the weather had become cold and rainy. Counting the notches he had made on a hardwood stick to keep track of the date, David saw that March had arrived. The weather was miserable, his anxiety over the sheep was a constant burden, and his daily
labor from dawn until dark was unrelenting. But he was supremely happy, attending the flock that was the seed stock for flocks of his own, and exploring the vast land where they would graze.

  June and winter came by the time he worked his way north to Tiboboburra Creek, a wide, swift stream flanked by thick forest. At a curve in the creek, he found a tall hill that gave a panoramic view of the surrounding terrain. Below the top of the hill was a sheltered plateau, a perfect location for a house. It was a place of surpassing beauty with the hill dominating miles of rolling landscape, and David knew he had found where he would eventually build the home paddock for his station.

  During midwinter, Kerrick reached the line of hills that Pat had told him about. Like Barren Mountain, they made a natural boundary for a sheep station of immense size. The first time he glimpsed the hills, he had to agree with Pat that they did resemble church spires, and he decided to call them Steeple Hills. Drainage from the slopes made the graze to the south of them exceptionally lush, but the land was slashed by ravines that warned of flash floods. Finding a wide, grassy knoll that rose above the low-lying land, David built a fold out of danger from floodwaters.

  On a raw, damp morning two weeks after the fold had been completed, the wind rose and light showers that had been falling for the past few days turned into steady rain. David began driving the sheep back to the fold early as the ditches started to fill with water.

  When he reached the hill where the fold was located, the rain was a downpour and gullies overflowed with foaming, roaring freshets that were flooding the ravines.

  On the exposed slopes of the hill, the wind was a howling gale, lashing the driving rain in all directions. By the time David had the sheep in the fold, his bark hut had been flattened and his campfire extinguished, but he had far more urgent concerns than his comfort. The surrounding land was starting to flood as runoff from Steeple Hills reached it, and animals were fleeing to higher ground.