The Call of the High Country

by Tony Parsons

  Anne hated to have to tell David that one of his precious pups had been taken, but it had to be done. They had never lost a pup to eagles before. Cursing his luck with dogs, David covered the pup yard with fine wire and did not allow the pups to leave it unless someone was there to watch them.

  David started handling the pups when they were eight weeks old. They were fitted with light collars, to which he attached long lengths of cord. They were also tied up for brief periods each day. One of the males was a red and tan like its sire and the other was a blue and tan. From the outset the red and tan seemed to be the better pup of the two. The two bitch pups matched the colours of the males, but in their case it was the blue and tan that appeared to be the better pup. On the strength of these early impressions, David put in a lot more time with what he considered to be the two best pups of the litter. As the months went by, his first impressions were confirmed. The two pups he liked were so promising that he was beginning to feel quite excited. He called the red and tan male Clancy, and the blue and tan bitch Needle.

  Often he would take the two pups to town on the back of the utility so that travelling became second nature to them. David wanted to get the dogs completely used to strange noises, such as loudspeakers, as well as unfamiliar grounds and their different surfaces. At first he took Belle along with her offspring, which initially helped to minimise their concern about being transported away from their familiar haunts. David was fairly committed to working Belle at the National and he reckoned it wouldn’t hurt her – seasoned bitch though she was – to be carted about.

  The two young dogs exhibited different natural tendencies. Clancy had a strong natural left-hand cast while Needle preferred to cast to her right. David worked on these weaknesses and before long he had both dogs casting equally well on either side.

  The biggest problem affecting the performance of kelpies in trials was their tendency to ‘come on’ to their sheep too quickly. David put in a lot of time making sure that his dogs did not bustle sheep. He obtained permission to work them at the local showground and carted sheep in for the dogs to work. He was well aware that dogs usually worked better at home than away and that this had to be given consideration so that nerves did not affect performance.

  David had been lucky to get two dogs with natures like their parents’. In David’s view, Clancy and Needle had the right blend of temperament and working instinct. They were kept out of the yard and only worked on small, lively mobs in the hills. They were given plenty of casting practice along with mob work, and they were kept off three-sheep work until they were about eighteen months of age. Then David introduced them to obstacles.

  When David could stop and sit Clancy and Needle a quarter-mile away and cast them right round the hill paddock above the house, he felt that he was more than three-quarters of the way along the track to Canberra. The rest of the training involved steadiness, positioning and off-balance work. Most good kelpies are born with instinctive balance. To get a dog to work off-balance is against a dog’s natural inclination. At a sheepdog trial a handler is required to stand in a small circle at one side of each and every obstacle. To work sheep through these obstacles, a dog is actually working off-balance. A good obstacle dog must also be trained so that it can be moved freely from side to side. If a dog is too sticky in eye, or too hard in nature, it will not make a great obstacle dog because the sheep will nearly always beat it round the wings of the obstacle and cause a loss of points, and perhaps the loss of the trial.

  There were a few freak dogs who were born obstacle dogs. The great black kelpie dog Wilga was one. David believed that to witness such a dog working three sheep at an obstacle was one of life’s great experiences. He sensed that both Clancy and Needle possessed this wonderful old-time kelpie movement. It was not until he began working them on obstacles that he was absolutely sure of it. It was at this stage that he knew he had two young dogs he could take to Canberra. He did not even let on to his father what he really thought of Needle and Clancy.

  All of this work was carried out over a period of a year or so. Training a sheepdog is not something you can do overnight. During this time David often worked his dogs either very early in the morning or very late at night, by moonlight. Only his immediate family knew how much time and effort he was devoting to his dogs, on top of his normal work on both properties.

  Catriona began to take an interest in the training of Clancy and Needle, and sometimes accompanied David when he took the dogs off into the hills for steady work. She was still unsure about his feelings for her, although her own love for him was as strong as ever.

  One day in late summer David came up for lunch to find his father waiting for him at the top of the steps. He could tell by the look on Andy’s face that something was amiss.

  ‘What is it, Dad?’ he asked with some trepidation.

  ‘It’s real bad news, Davie. Tim Sparkes is dead.’

  ‘Tim dead? Oh, no. Do you know any more than that? Did he die in hospital?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid to say that he shot himself. Seems he left a note, saying that he wasn’t going to live the rest of his life as a cripple. He asked for his papers, which he kept in a locked briefcase along with a pistol. That’s how he did it.’

  David sat down on the top step and tried to come to terms with what his father had just told him. It was almost impossible to believe that Tim was gone. He had always been so full of life. It was Tim who had taught him how to box, and Tim who had always come up with the right horse for him. It wasn’t fair. Life just wasn’t fair. Tim had so much to live for: a good life, a property and plenty of money. Tim had been a mate, the oldest mate he had, and now he was dead. David couldn’t believe that he would never again read Tim’s name in Hoofs and Horns magazine, unless it was his obituary.

  ‘Hell, how could they have slipped up like that, letting Tim get hold of a pistol?’ David said angrily.

  ‘I reckon Tim knew what he was doing, Davie. He would have hated being totally dependent on other people.’

  ‘But he’s gone, Dad. Gone. We’ll never see him again. Bloody hell. It sure makes you think about things.’

  David got up and paced along the verandah. Andrew saw the tears in his eyes and had a good idea what he was feeling.

  ‘Tim wouldn’t want you to pull back on his account, Davie. No way. He would want you to go on.’

  ‘What did Mum say?’

  ‘She’s having a good old cry. You know she had a soft spot for Tim. She had a bit of trouble getting used to him in the early days, like everyone did at first, but she soon woke up to the fact that he was a fair-dinkum bloke. A bit rough, but pure gold. It’ll be a long time before we have a better friend than Tim. Wilf White’s one. I reckon we have a lot to thank them for.’

  ‘Aw, hell, I feel awful. We should have brought him down here where we could have seen him more often. Maybe he wouldn’t have done it, then.’

  ‘Don’t crucify yourself, mate. It was Tim’s decision. It’s done, he’s gone and that’s that. Life has to go on. Make him proud of you, Davie. That’s what he would have wanted.’

  It was a long, tiring trip to Rockhampton, made all the more difficult because it was done in the knowledge that the larger-than-life Tim Sparkes would not be there to welcome them. The funeral was a big one, as Tim had been a very popular fellow on the rodeo circuit. There were many well-known roughriders and campdrafters in the church and at the graveside service. David and Andrew were depressed to know that they would never see Tim again. He had been such an individual character; a long streak of a man who had appeared to be indestructible. After the funeral they slipped away and, with David and Anne sharing the driving, they made a fairly quick return journey.

  Life had to go on and the National was not all that far away. This time they would be hiring two caravans, one for David and one for his parents. It would be the first time all three of them had had any kind of holiday together.

  Following Tim’s death, Andrew and Anne noted that David b
ecame very quiet. He would ride away into the hills with Clancy and Needle and they would not see him again for hours. When asked by his father how the dogs were performing he would fall back on his old response of, ‘Well enough’. His work with the dogs did not abate, and if anything he seemed more fiercely determined than ever. Then, one evening, he walked into the house and without preamble addressed himself to his father.

  ‘You feel like walking up to the top paddock, Dad?’

  ‘Seeing you’re inviting me, I reckon I do,’ Andrew said. ‘You got something special to show me?’

  ‘Maybe,’ David stalled.

  Andrew was aware that David had built extra obstacles in his old casting paddock. These obstacles simulated the National Trial course exactly. He was also aware that David had been timing the dogs here. It was a tougher task to pen here than at Canberra because the sheep all wanted to bolt back to the top of the hill.

  Andy sat himself down on the big log seat and waited for David to come up the hill with the two young dogs. He had been very keen to see these dogs in action, but David had put him off every time he had asked about them.

  David tied Clancy up on the fence and sat Needle down behind him. He walked about twenty yards away and then cast her up the fence. She went out like an arrow and hugged the fence until she was perhaps thirty yards behind the sheep. From that point on the young bitch gave a flawless exhibition of control. When she had penned, Andrew clapped his hands and grinned.

  ‘What do you reckon, Dad?’ David asked as he walked back to Clancy.

  ‘I reckon you’ve got yourself a real class bitch there.’

  ‘You do, eh? Let’s see what Clancy can do.’

  After Clancy had completed his tasks, Andrew walked over to David and put his arm on his son’s shoulder. He seemed so affected by what he had seen that words would not come.

  ‘The best, the absolute best young dog I have ever seen, Davie. The bitch is good, but Clancy – well, he’s very special,’ he said at last.

  ‘I’m pleased you like him, Dad. I reckon we can go to the National now.’

  But two weeks later, tragedy struck. David was working Clancy on a hillside one morning and two wethers broke away. Clancy wheeled to block them and one big, rangy wether – which David thought was probably pea-struck – ran straight at the dog. It was travelling very fast, and it hit Clancy and threw him several feet to one side and hard up against a dead stump. David heard the dog’s yelp and sent his horse plunging across the hill to where Clancy stood. Clearly, there was something badly wrong with one back leg.

  David dismounted and knelt beside his dog. Clancy whined and licked David’s hand. Part of Clancy’s left back leg was swinging free. It had been fractured badly. There was no hope of taking Clancy to Canberra this year.

  David lifted the dog in his arms and placed him across the saddle before mounting. ‘I’m sorry if it hurts you, Clancy, but I have to get you to the vet.’

  It was a very slow ride back to the homestead. David placed the dog on the front seat of the utility before going into the house to tell his parents what had happened.

  ‘Clancy’s got a broken leg,’ he said as he walked into the kitchen. ‘I’m taking him to the vet.’

  ‘Is it bad?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘I reckon so. Looks as if it’s broken right through.’

  ‘Oh, David,’ Anne exclaimed with real sorrow in her eyes. ‘Does this mean you can’t take him to Canberra?’

  ‘Not this year,’ he said, and without another word he walked out.

  Anne’s face fell. She knew how hard David had worked to get the two young dogs ready for the National and what it meant to him. And how would Catriona take another year’s postponement?

  Clancy returned home later that morning with a pin in his leg and the vet’s assurance that his leg would heal satisfactorily. David had stopped at the mailbox on the way in and he threw the pile of mail down on the table and slumped into a chair.

  Anne put a cup of tea and some cake in front of him and glanced across at her husband. ‘Why don’t you go to Canberra with Belle and Needle, David?’

  David looked at her and shook his head. He wasn’t going to Canberra without Clancy. What even his father didn’t know was that Clancy was a freak trial dog. Needle was very good and Belle was brilliant on certain sheep but Clancy was a freak. He reckoned he could get into the finals with both bitches, but he doubted if they would be able to win.

  ‘No Clancy, no Canberra,’ he said. ‘He’s the dog I need in that company. We’ll simply have to wait another year.’

  Anne picked up the mail and began leafing through it. ‘There’s a letter here for you, David,’ she said, handing it over to him.

  David didn’t care about anything right now so he put the letter in his shirt pocket and went down to feed the dogs. When he had finished feeding them, he took the letter out of his pocket and sat down on Nap’s log kennel while he read it. The letter was from a firm of solicitors in Rockhampton and its contents were startling.

  It seemed that Tim Sparkes had left him his cattle property and all its livestock, not to mention a considerable sum of money. The news was so breathtaking that he had trouble absorbing it. Surely Tim had close relatives he would have left the property to? David read the letter again. There was no mistake – he was the sole owner.

  The ramifications of this news were staggering. Now, in terms of cattle and property, not even Angus Campbell would have more assets than the MacLeod family. They would actually own three or four times as many head of cattle than the Campbells. This wonderful gift meant that the MacLeods would be financially secure well into the future. They would now be real graziers, all because of good old Tim.

  David went up to the shed where he had placed Clancy. The dog’s leg had been put in plaster. David looked down at him and Clancy wagged his tail. ‘We’ll be there next year, mate. You get that leg healed up, and we’ll be there.’

  David made his way back to the house. He reckoned that when his parents saw the letter there wouldn’t be much more work done for the rest of the day.

  Anne’s sharp eyes sensed immediately that David had received news of some kind.

  ‘David, what’s happened? More bad news?’ she asked.

  ‘Hardly,’ he said, handing the letter across to his father. He reckoned he should read it since Tim had been his old mate. Anne leant over his shoulder as he read it through.

  Dear David MacLeod,

  In accordance with the Will drawn up by us for our late valued client, Mr Timothy Gordon Sparkes of ‘Aberfeldy’ Station, Broadsound, Queensland, it is our pleasure to inform you that you have been named as sole beneficiary in the estate of the abovenamed Mr Sparkes.

  The Estate comprises:

  Firstly, the property ‘Aberfeldy’, west of Broadsound and comprising 48 000 acres; and all of the stock running on this property: 3500 head of cattle at last muster, and horses to the number of about 100, mares, yearlings and some older stock horses.

  Secondly, a four-bedroom holiday home of about forty-two squares on half an acre of land (two blocks) at Yeppoon, which is in good condition and was the retirement home of Mr Sparkes’s late uncle.

  Thirdly, funds to the order of $223 000.

  In his Will, our late client expressed the hope that you would consider retaining the present overseer, Donald Alan Morgan, as your overseer or manager. Our client considered Mr Morgan to be very competent and entirely trustworthy.

  As you are now the beneficiary of the late Mr Sparkes’s estate, we would urge you to come and see us at your earliest opportunity to complete the necessary paperwork. In the meantime, a phone call advising us of the receipt of this letter would be appreciated.

  We remain yours faithfully,

  Tristram Jennings

  Michael, Jennings & Duncan

  David stood back and watched his parents’ reactions. His mother’s eyes were glazed at first and then soon filled with tears. His father had frozen, unable to lift his e
yes from the letter.

  A hundred thoughts flashed through Anne’s mind. The uppermost was that this was a miracle. Now David could marry Catriona! He was a wealthy man, and – in terms of money at least – he could speak to Angus as an equal.

  Andrew reread the letter and let the facts sink into his startled brain. He had worked hard all his life, busted himself, so that they might have a measure of prosperity in later life and so David would have a future on the land. And now it seemed as if all their financial worries were over. If anything happened to him, Anne and David need never worry about money. Tim’s overwhelmingly generous gesture was just so unexpected. Andrew didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I told you he thought a lot of you, Davie,’ Andrew said at last.

  ‘I would much prefer Tim to be alive and as we knew him,’ David said in a broken voice.

  ‘We all feel the same, David,’ Anne said with tears running down her face. ‘But it is wonderful that Tim thought so much of you he should give you all he had.’

  ‘It was Dad who was Tim’s old mate, and you always looked after him, Mum. He regarded us as family.’

  ‘What a great help this would have been a few years ago,’ Anne said. She was thinking of how Andy had not hesitated to return to shearing to help pay off Poitrel, and in so doing had brought on the stroke that had almost killed him.

  ‘What’s done is done,’ Andrew said. ‘No good talking of what might have been. Davie, you’ll have to ring these solicitors first thing Monday morning. Now that you aren’t going to Canberra we can shoot up there and see them before going out to the property. I think you should also advise them that Don Morgan is to be retained. That should put his mind at rest. Just as well we’ve got a new vehicle, as it looks as if we’ll be making regular trips up north.’