The Call of the High Country

by Tony Parsons

  PS That Catriona was the prettiest girl I ever saw. She must be really something by now. Don’t lose her, old mate.

  David, who couldn’t see clearly for the tears in his eyes, handed the note across to his father. When Andy passed the note back to him, David saw tears where he had never seen them before. Tim sure had been one special bloke.

  ‘I reckon that if a man meets one fella like Tim Sparkes in his lifetime, he’s damned lucky,’ Andrew said.

  David nodded and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. He folded the note and put it in his shirt pocket. ‘Mum and Kate will want to read this,’ he said. He sat and looked down the road for a few moments until he felt able to drive again.

  ‘We’d better get on and see what needs doing at Aberfeldy,’ he said.

  As it happened, they found there was quite a lot that needed attention. Don Morgan took them on a tour of the property, and they considered everything from the perspective of ownership. Andrew was very critical of the Aberfeldy cattle, which he referred to as ‘yaks’. They didn’t appear to carry much meat on them, and he felt the whole herd required upgrading. David listened to Don’s counterargument, which reflected his local experience and commonsense.

  ‘I think there’s good sense in what both of you say,’ David said at last. ‘The herd could stand a bit of improvement, but you can’t ignore the fact that those “yaks” are hardier and handle these conditions better than a lot of the purebred cattle. But it’s not much use running cattle just because they’re hardy; we’re trying to grow beef. Either that or we could look at selling live cattle overseas, in which case we should think about getting some good Brahmans and breeding our own bulls. Maybe we can do both. We should also consider upgrading the pastures. Let’s see what we can do to keep the hardiness and at the same time put some more meat on them.’

  There was also some fencing that needed attention, and the water reserves needed to be augmented. David had a horror of going into a drought with so many cattle and inadequate water. He didn’t have any doubts, though, that Morgan was a competent man, so he decided to increase his salary to that of a manager’s figure.

  ‘Thanks very much, Mr MacLeod. I’m getting married later this year so the extra dough will be a big help.’

  ‘That’s great. Congratulations. Are you happy with the house? Does it need any work?’

  ‘The house is all right for me, but a woman might not think so. There are a few things that could be improved.’

  ‘Let’s look at them while we’re here,’ David said.

  Later that afternoon when they left Aberfeldy, David and Andrew were happy with what they had achieved. It was going to take time, but they would gradually get the property up to scratch.

  ‘Don, if there’s anything you’re unsure about, you’re to contact me. If I’m not there, talk it over with Dad. You manage the place and keep me informed.’

  ‘Righto, Mr MacLeod,’ Morgan said.

  ‘And you can forget the “Mister” business in future. My name is David and Dad’s is Andrew. There’s something else: I’d like to see you devote a bit more time to the horse side of things. Tim was a great man for his horses, and I’d like Aberfeldy to become even better known for its horses. I should think we’ll need another good stallion here. I know you’ve got a good colt by the old horse, but we can’t use him on his half-sisters. I’m not sure whether we should mix up the bloods or develop a stud of either quarter horses or Australian stock horses. If we did that, we could offer some at the stud sales. What do you think?’

  ‘That sounds great. I’m pretty keen on horses myself. That’s how I came to be here. I was working on a place running a lot of horses and Tim offered me more money to come here.’

  ‘There’s no need to give me an answer now. Have a think about where we should be going with the horses and let me know. Dad and I are hill-country men and used to a different type of horse to you fellows up here. You going anywhere particular for your honeymoon?’

  ‘We haven’t decided.’

  ‘You can use the house on the coast if you like. Save you some money. Keep an eye on it and make sure it’s kept in good order. Dad and I are going there now to have a look at it.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you, David.’

  ‘Okay, you’re the manager now, Don. Tim wanted you kept on, and if you do the right thing by us, you’ve got a job here for a long time to come. Just keep me in touch. We must be going.’

  As they drove away, David asked Andrew, ‘You reckon Don will be okay?’

  ‘I reckon so, Davie. He knows what needs to be done and he appreciates he’s going to get some support. Tim and his uncle never worried too much about the place. Yeah, I reckon Don will be all right.’

  They stayed the night at the Yeppoon house, which had a great view of the ocean. It was an off-ground weatherboard built for Queensland’s humid coastal climate. You could stand up under the house and still have a foot of clearance over your head. The floor had been asphalted, and there was a long bench fitted with a vice and a grinder. Bits of leather hung from nails above the bench and there were still tools in racks. It was apparent that somebody – probably’s Tim’s late uncle – had been a leather worker.

  Once upstairs – David lost count of the number of steps, and looked anxiously to see how his father was negotiating them – the view of the ocean was breathtaking. There was a long, narrow-roofed open verandah from which to view the coastline. By the look of the cane chairs and table, someone had liked this spot. The rooms were large but in need of paint, and they were all furnished. They also found that there was a new Kelvinator fridge and freezer, and an almost new ride-on mower. The whole under area of the house was latticed and could be locked by a large padlock. An open garage was attached to the house but that was empty.

  ‘I reckon Mum would fancy a few weeks here,’ Andy said when he’d had a good look through the house.

  ‘It wants smartening up a bit, though,’ David said. ‘I’ll arrange for Don to have some work done here. The bathroom and kitchen need modernising and the place needs a lock-up garage. Those improvements would make all the difference.’

  All in all, Andrew and David were well satisfied with their trip north.

  They returned to High Peaks and to the best winter for many years. The big wet was ushered in by the storms that fell the day David and Catriona had had lunch in the big cave. More heavy rain followed, as did unseasonably humid weather for autumn. There were floods on the coast, and old hands reckoned it was the best start to winter they could remember. The blowflies loved the sticky weather. All the sheep had to be mustered and jetted because a small army of stockmen would have been hard put to look after 6000 sheep in the paddock the way the flies were striking. Even though all the sheep had been crutched, it didn’t prevent them being struck on the body. During this period David learned a lot about flystrike. Sheep that were yellow in the wool were the worst affected because their wool stayed wet longer and generated more odour, which attracted flies. The white-woolled sheep suffered least.

  The indefatigable Kate loved mustering with David and his dogs. Her greatest pleasure was to work alongside David on weekends and on her days off. She especially enjoyed David’s companionship when they boiled the billy for lunch somewhere up in the hills. David had once told his mother that Kate was as much a bushie as any of them, and Kate regarded this as a tremendous compliment. She rode a horse very well now, could handle a six-foot whip most adequately, and could do any job with sheep and cattle. She was also more than useful with young horses, which fitted in very well with David’s plans for the future. Best of all, Kate was a tremendously cheery person who never allowed even the most adverse conditions to affect her.

  Those days, David seldom had to tell his aunt anything at all because she could sense what he wanted before he even opened his mouth. When Kate had taken up residence at Poitrel, she had set out to make herself a top stockperson. She could even shoe a horse and make a good job of it, too. Andrew and
David had started her off on quiet, well-schooled horses, and as her proficiency grew they put her on better and smarter horses. Kate had had several busters, but this had never affected her enthusiasm and she declared her readiness to take on campdrafting.

  During this present period of fly trouble, David usually mustered the sheep and brought them down to either the Poitrel or High Peaks yard, where they treated the struck animals and jetted the mob. If Kate was not working at the hospital, she mustered with David. He would gather up small mobs of sheep and take them to Kate, who would hold them together with one of the older dogs while David rode away again looking for more sheep. This procedure made hill-country mustering a lot quicker and helped them save some sheep.

  There were now good sheep yards at Poitrel and these could be used for jetting, although all the shearing was done at High Peaks. On this particular Saturday morning Catriona was to have come up from Inverlochy to help with the mustering, but she had rung at the last moment to tell David the Campbells were expecting relatives from interstate and she would have to stay and help at home.

  Kate was riding a new horse. It was a chestnut gelding that they had not long broken in, and Kate had fallen in love with him so much that she had offered to buy him. Kate had never asked for anything before so David had given her the horse, which she named Chief. David and Kate were mustering the last of the wethers in the highest paddock on Poitrel. It was murderously difficult country to muster, almost as bad as the worst of Yellow Rock, and sheep running in it became as agile and cunning as mountain goats. The country was dotted with dogwood scrub, manna gums and boulders of all shapes and sizes, with rocky gullies thrown in for good measure. It was also pitted with wombat holes, and wallabies loved it. The thick patches of scrub gave them protection in the open, and there were caves and ledges where they could shelter in bad weather.

  David had gone round one side of a rocky ridge with Nap behind him and Kate had gone the other way. There were a few wethers on this last ridge and they were proving very difficult to extricate. Out of nowhere, a wallaby jumped from the rocks beside Kate, causing her new horse to shy.

  When Kate did not rejoin him, David retraced his route and followed the track she had taken. What he saw sent shivers up his spine. Chief was standing with reins trailing and there was Kate lying prostrate on the ground. Her right leg was splayed across a rock and she did not seem able to move it.

  David was off his horse in a flash and kneeling beside her. Kate gave him a sickly grin but her face was screwed up in pain.

  ‘It’s your leg, isn’t it?’ David asked, and through her agony Kate could not help noticing the tenderness in his voice.

  ‘I can’t move it, David. Ten to one it’s broken. If you can sit me up, I’ll be sure.’

  David propped her up and held her while she gingerly felt her leg. She grimaced in pain as her fingers found the break she knew was there. When she nodded, David rocked back on his heels and considered the situation. If he put Kate up on the saddle with him, he risked damaging her leg even more, not to mention the pain she would have to go through. Should he try and splint the leg and take Kate down off the mountain on his horse? It was a real dilemma.

  ‘What are we going to do with you, Sister Gilmour?’ He was trying to joke about the situation, but he knew there was nothing to be cheery about.

  ‘My leg needs splinting and then we need a stretcher. And a couple of good men to carry it,’ Kate said and grimaced again.

  ‘I can probably find a splint or two, and I might, with time, even be able to manufacture a rough stretcher, but I can’t produce another man or two.’

  ‘I think you’ll have to go for help, David,’ Kate said at last.

  ‘I don’t like leaving you here on your own. I think I’ll send Nap home.’

  ‘Nap! Would he leave you?’

  ‘I’ve sent him shorter distances when I was teaching him tricks. He’s a very brainy dog. I can’t be sure, though, whether Mum will see him. He wouldn’t go to Poitrel: that isn’t his home. He’d go through the High Peaks boundary and down the side of Yellow Rock. I think it’s worth a try. If we don’t turn up by nightfall, they’ll come looking for us anyway.’

  He sat down on a big boulder, took out his livestock notebook and began to compose a note to his mother. He wrote down what had happened and then drew a rough map of where they could be found. He ripped the pages from the notebook and wrapped them in his handkerchief, which he then knotted and tied to Nap’s collar so that it hung down and could be seen easily.

  ‘Home, Nap, home,’ David ordered urgently and took a few steps in that direction. Nap looked at him rather queerly and then trotted off a few paces but stopped. He looked back at David with a quizzical expression on his face.

  David repeated the command. ‘Home, Nap, home, quickly.’

  It took Nap a while to understand David was serious and not simply playing, but he eventually took off. David watched the dog until he was out of sight and then went back to Kate.

  ‘I think he’ll be right, Kate. Drink?’ he asked and she nodded.

  ‘First I’ll fix up a spot of shade for you.’ Kate watched him while he used his stock knife to sharpen some green staves which he drove into the ground with a lump of rock. Kate could not quite work out how he managed it, but within the space of a few minutes David had erected a canopy of green branches over her so that she was not lying exposed to the sun. He then walked up the hill and caught the chestnut gelding, which was nibbling grass among the logs and rocks. ‘Steady, you billygoat.’ Chief rubbed his head against David’s shirt and seemed unaffected by whatever had happened.

  ‘How did it happen, Kate?’ David asked when he had tied both horses to saplings close by.

  ‘A damn wallaby just came out of nowhere. It must have been planted behind the rock and it just, well, took off. Chief put on a big shy, went half over and pitched me. One moment we were walking along nice and steady, and the next I was on the ground. It all happened so fast. My leg came down across that rock and I nearly passed out with the pain of it.’

  ‘You never know what a young horse will do, and when you’re breaking them in you can’t duplicate every kind of experience you might strike. Now, I think a cup of tea is called for,’ he said and grinned.

  Kate’s eyes widened. ‘How on earth are you going to make tea?’ she asked.

  ‘Not far from here is that cave I mentioned. I left a billy there in case I ever needed it again. There’s a spring right beside the cave and I have everything else we need in my saddlebag. I’ll make a fire first.’

  ‘ ’Tis wonderful you are,’ Kate said in the Irish brogue she used to embellish the many jokes she told. She watched David as he knelt and fed the fire with small sticks and then larger branches until he had it blazing well. Then he went to retrieve the billy, and when he returned he sat it between a couple of small rocks and switched his attention from the fire back to Kate.

  ‘Should I try and splint that leg?’ he asked.

  Kate gritted her teeth, as her leg was hurting a lot, and she imagined it would be much worse when touched. But it needed to be made stationary. What she needed before anyone touched her was a pain-killer.

  ‘It’s going to hurt like hell but it should be splinted,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can find after we’ve drunk this.’

  He made the tea and propped Kate up while she sipped it from his pannikin. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful, David.’ When Kate had finished, David made himself a cup, and while it was cooling he collected some more green branches and made a kind of cushion so Kate could sit up against a log.

  ‘How long do you think it might be, David?’ Kate asked.

  David screwed up his eyes while he thought. An hour for Nap to get home and who knows how long before Anne noticed him and what was hanging from his collar. Nap would probably go to his kennel and stay there waiting for someone to tie him up. But once Anne did read the note she would get things rolling soon enough. That
was the easy part. The big problem was actually getting people up there and then getting Kate down again. They really needed a helicopter, but the closest helicopter was probably in Tamworth. You couldn’t get a vehicle within miles of where they were, which meant ambulance officers and police would have to ride on horseback up the mountain. And how would they get Kate down the mountain on a stretcher?

  ‘I can’t honestly say, Kate,’ he said at last. ‘If the police can get hold of a helicopter, which I’ve asked for, it might be only a couple of hours. A lot depends on how soon Mum sees that message.’

  ‘And if there’s no helicopter?’ Kate asked anxiously.

  ‘It could be quite a while. I’ll need to collect more wood so I can keep the fire going to let people know where we are. I’ll use green branches while the light holds. If Mum sees that message quickly, Catriona should be here before dark with blankets, food and some aspirin for you.’

  ‘What an organiser you are, David. I’m glad you’re here with me.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Anne was out in the vegetable garden watering her spinach when she heard the dogs barking. She had been working on their accounts and had slipped out for a few minutes to do the watering. It was unusual for the dogs to bark unless riders were returning or they heard a vehicle coming up the road. Occasionally a fox would come right up to the house looking for a meal, and the dogs would make a racket then. There were hens running loose with chicks and she didn’t want to lose them, so she took down her gun from the rack, loaded it, and went outside to investigate the barking. The first thing she saw was Nap drinking from one of the horse troughs. His tongue was out and his sides were heaving. Her first thought was that David must have ridden across from Poitrel, but that did not make sense. David and Kate were mustering together on Poitrel, and Andy and Greg were jetting in the Poitrel yards.

  Then she noticed the blue handkerchief – David’s handkerchief – hanging from Nap’s collar, and her heart missed a beat. Nap would never leave David unless there was trouble in the hills. Anne called Nap to his kennel and untied the knotted handkerchief. Two tiny sheets of notepaper floated down in front of her. She picked them up and read what David had written: