The Call of the High Country

by Tony Parsons

  David walked to the gate of the arena and looked back at the people in the stand. He noted his father and mother and Catriona – and, sitting beside her, Angus and Jane Campbell. From the smiles on their faces, David reckoned things were going to be okay at Inverlochy. Andy had his notebook and pencil on his knee so he could do his own judging.

  Away to the right David quickly noted Laurence Singer standing beside his film crew. They had filmed his earlier rounds and were now in position to record this, the last and most important round of the National Trials.

  David took a deep breath and stepped out onto the ground. When he walked out to the peg there was absolute silence around the ground. The crowd had increased significantly and there were even many dignitaries in attendance. David knew he had to score another 96 to win. If the sheep ran well off course, that could lose him enough points to beat him in the opening moments of his round. Belle was in third place and would be fourth if Clancy scored above her. Even so, third place in the National would be a very satisfactory result. But it was Clancy he now had all his faith in; he was the blend of two of the greatest kelpies, Nap and Belle. Combining Nap’s brains and Belle’s moves, Clancy had it over the pair of them. What really made the difference, what really set Clancy apart, was his extremely rare hypnotic power over sheep. This gift had been the hallmark of legendary kelpies like Coil, Biddy Blue and Boy Blue. After sheep looked into the eyes of these dogs, they seemed to come under some spell and moved under their direction. This was something entirely different to a dog’s power to frighten sheep.

  David’s father had told him about this rare trait when he was a small boy. It was found in certain strains of pure-blood kelpies that had not been contaminated by other bloodlines, and traced back to the old Quinn and King and McLeod strains. Andrew MacLeod’s dogs had these strains. But a dog needed more than this to be a good sheepdog. Clancy had it all. The first time David had worked him on sheep, he noticed that they neither fought nor ran from him but simply moved away quietly. That was when he first suspected he had a dog to be reckoned with on the trial ground. He would have to make the three sheep look at Clancy long enough to be drawn in by his hypnotic power.

  Only one other person on the ground outside David and Andrew recognised what made Clancy so different from any other dog competing at that year’s National Trial, and that was the legendary old sheepdog man swathed in a heavy overcoat and scarf who was sitting up in the stand near David’s family and friends.

  David tried to put all his fears about Clancy’s dicey feet into the back of his mind and concentrate on the dog’s great gift as he made his way out to the centre of the ground. As soon as the first clang of the starter’s bell rang out, David signalled Clancy to cast left. He used a very different-sounding whistle than normal, the whistle he used when he required his dogs to run at top speed to collect rogue wethers bolting for rough places. Normally David liked his dogs to run their casts at a steady pace so they could concentrate on what they were doing, but right then the priority was to get Clancy out and around the sheep before they ran into the wind and veered off the tight course.

  Clancy understood what the piercing whistle meant and he shot away like an arrow discharged from a powerful bow. He was a very fast dog, and despite the boot on his front paw, there was no exception to his speed today. It looked as if the pain-killer in Clancy’s foot was doing its job.

  The sheep had hardly smelled the wind before Clancy was behind them. There David held him, and held him even longer, while the sheep looked deep into his big eyes.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ someone in the stand asked the legendary old man.

  ‘What is he doing, you ask. By crikey, this dog is going to mesmerise his sheep. When they turn away, they’ll do just what that dog asks of them.’

  ‘Why is he wearing a boot?’ a lady near them asked.

  ‘I heard he was burnt in a bushfire,’ her husband replied.

  ‘Oh, the poor little dog. I hope he wins,’ she said.

  The crowd looked on in amazement as Clancy cast his mesmerising spell over the sheep. Soon enough, as if in a slow-motion movie, the three wethers turned away and walked very slowly down the ground towards the handler’s starting peg. Clancy steered them around the peg in a very tight semicircle so that they were not even a fraction off course, and then pointed them in the direction of the first obstacle. The sheep moved in a dream-like manner, almost as if they had been drugged, and passed through the race only seconds after David arrived at the handler’s circle. He moved off towards the bridge and was there to check the sheep on the near side as Clancy covered them on the right. The sheep turned and looked at Clancy again and David let them soak up the dog’s unique power. Then they turned away and walked sedately up the ramp of the bridge onto the bridge itself. There they stopped momentarily and David brought Clancy up the ramp and onto the bridge. The sheep jumped off and walked a few steps before stopping and looking back. To the spellbound watchers, it almost seemed as if they were waiting for the dog to dictate their course.

  David walked to the handler’s ring at the pen and let Clancy bring the sheep to him. This was a tricky part of the course. If the sheep left the pen before he had closed the gate, he would get no score at all for this component of the trial.

  Clancy circled to the right to drive the wethers back against the gate, and then blocked them when they moved an inch towards David. One sheep looked back at Clancy and then trotted into the pen. The other two followed suit. David sat Clancy down, left his circle and shut the gate. He touched Clancy briefly on the top of his head before opening the pen to take the wethers off the ground. And then there was an enormous roar and a spontaneous burst of clapping from right around the ground.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ the old legend said to nobody in particular. ‘You can take it from me, you may never see the likes of that dog or his handler again, if you live to be a hundred.’

  ‘What did you score him?’ Harry Marchant asked, turning to the old man.

  ‘In my book, you couldn’t get him for a point. It was just as perfect as Johnny’s run in 1952.’

  Anne clutched Andrew’s arm in excitement. ‘What did you score him, Andy?’ she asked, knowing full well how hard a judge her husband was of sheepdogs.

  Andrew showed her his notebook.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she exclaimed, and whispered something in Catriona’s ear, which she in turn passed on to her father. Angus had sat spellbound as he watched David in action. It had been a class act. The fact that this young man was going to be his son-in-law was something to think about.

  David took the three wethers to the collecting pen with the noise of the crowd drumming in his ears and his heart pounding wildly in his chest. His eyes scanned the ground for his family and Catriona, but in all the commotion he couldn’t make them out. He knew that Clancy had just worked the best round he had ever seen. He had thought Belle’s 99 at their local trial was just about perfect, but Clancy’s round was the ultimate. But would the judge think so?

  And then the noise of the crowd died away and there was a hush right around the arena as the judge walked over to the officials behind the starting peg. A man approached the microphone to announce the score. David heard, as if in a dream, the words ‘one hundred points’ come over the loudspeaker. Clancy – a Maiden dog – had scored the possible 100 points, equalling the performance of the legendary Johnny. Clancy, the novice, had won the National Trial.

  Now the sound was almost deafening as David walked back across the ground, soaking in the atmosphere of this incredible occasion. He had wanted this win, here, for his father, more than anything. Now all Australia would know about the MacLeod kelpie dogs.

  As he walked the last steps to the gate through which he had entered the arena, his eyes at last found the faces of the people who meant so much to him. There was his mother, her face covered in tears as she looked on at David, who, in turn, desperately sought his father. Anne’s face was beaming as she watched Andrew. She th
ought she even saw tears on the old fellow’s face.

  Anne was so enormously proud of both men she could hardly speak. Words seemed to choke in her throat. Her son had done what he had set out to do, what he had said he wanted to do ever since he was a boy. He had given his father the greatest prize a sheepdog breeder could aspire to. Twice Clancy’s progress towards this great prize had been threatened by injuries, but today his great class had finally prevailed. It was almost too much to bear. And for as long as Andy lived, whether it was for a week or a month or for years, he would have this day, and Clancy’s great effort, to remember.

  David approached his father, the iron-hard bushman whose skill he had inherited, his father who had almost killed himself to give his family financial security. How much more could Andy have done with dogs if only he had not chosen to work so hard?

  Andrew could hardly believe what he had just witnessed. Clancy had worked the greatest round of three-sheep work he had ever seen. Like Anne, he was so proud of his son that words failed him. His dogs had been virtually unbeatable at local trials, but it was the National that separated great dogs from the rest. Clancy had now joined the band of legendary dogs that had won the National, and the MacLeod name would be enshrined in sheepdog history. Andy thought of all these things as he reached out to clasp his son’s hand. What a man David was! He had given Andy’s life new meaning.

  Now David was being thumped on the back by Bruce McClymont, who had just seen something he never expected to see. Everything else paled into insignificance when compared with what David and Clancy had just done. As David’s eyes continued to search the enthusiastic crowd of well-wishers, he saw Laurence Singer and the film crew bustling their way through the crowd, and then Angus and Jane Campbell and, behind them, with her gorgeous hair blowing across her face in the chilly wind and her brown eyes shining with love, Catriona. Catriona, who had loved him and waited for him all these years, and who had defied her parents for him. And then she was clinging to him, her arms around his neck and her lips pressed against his cold cheek. Oblivious to the people crowded about them, David and Catriona were, momentarily, lost in a world of their own. When they reluctantly drew part so David could acknowledge the congratulations of fellow handlers and others, their eyes were still locked on each other.

  People were all around him. They were shaking his hand and patting his dog. Clancy stood quietly with his intense hypnotic eyes staring up at David.

  ‘Jump, Clancy,’ David commanded, and Clancy leapt up into David’s arms, causing another outbreak of cheers and applause to erupt. David rubbed the dog’s head and ears and then put him down beside him. Clancy soon seemed bored with proceedings now that his job was done.

  The presentation was made with David still in a daze. A big old man, stooped by the years, came up and shook his hand. David learned later that he had shaken hands with the greatest handler of border collies Victoria had ever seen. ‘Young man, if I die tomorrow, I will be happy for having seen you and your dog work today. I once saw one dog like your fellow and that was a long time ago. Don’t let that strain die out.’

  The old man’s words, like the words of so many others that magical afternoon, were whirling around in David’s head as he stood with his prizes and talked to the media.

  And then Bruce made his play. He had reaped a profit of over $45 000 from his kelpies the previous year, and he reckoned that if he owned Clancy he could up that figure significantly. But even more than the prospect of the profit was McClymont’s vision of becoming part of the legend that would surround this day.

  ‘David, would you take twenty thousand dollars for Clancy?’ he asked in a voice that could be heard above the noise of the crowd.

  David looked across at McClymont and shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t sell Clancy for twice that figure, Bruce. This dog is not for sale. I don’t need the money, and that’s not why we keep the dogs. You can have first crack at a good dog by Clancy, Bruce, but I wouldn’t part with him for anything in the world.’

  When everyone had had their say and all the photographs had been taken, the afternoon was almost done and it was becoming quite cold.

  ‘I think this calls for a drink,’ Andrew said. ‘In fact, it’s too damned cold not to have a drink. What do you say, Davie?’

  ‘I reckon you’re right there, Dad,’ David replied.

  So they went back to the caravan and cracked open a bottle of whisky, which Anne had packed in anticipation (she knew Andy wouldn’t drink champagne). Catriona had refrained from joining them just yet; she knew this was an emotional time for the family and, much as she felt close to the MacLeods, she wanted to give them some space. David reached for the beautiful sash that had been presented to him as winner of the National Trial.

  ‘This is for you, Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Get out of it! It’s yours, Davie,’ Andrew said.

  David shook his head. ‘They’re your dogs, Dad. All I did was work them. This is for all the years you couldn’t take your dogs to trials because you were too busy paying off the place. I want you to have it.’

  ‘Nobody else could have done it but you, mate,’ Andrew said. ‘I doubt that I could have. Nothing I can say would be enough to tell you how proud and how thankful I am of you and what you’ve done.’

  ‘That’s reward enough for me, Dad.’

  A tap on the van’s door interrupted their quiet celebration. It was Bruce McClymont and, behind him, the three Campbells. They were invited in and Andrew dispensed more whisky.

  David and Catriona made their way into a quiet corner, desperate for a few minutes alone. They sat on a bed and looked into each other’s eyes, while around them a friendly argument raged – both Bruce and Angus wanted to take the MacLeods to dinner. Anne solved the dispute in her usual practical fashion by suggesting that if they absolutely had to shout dinner, they should share the expense. With this suggestion, the glasses were filled and clinked again.

  The conversation hardly registered with David and Catriona. They had eyes and ears only for each other.

  ‘So you did it,’ Catriona said. ‘I can hardly believe it. You seem to have been telling me about this trial for as long as I’ve known you.’

  ‘Crikey, surely not that long?’

  Catriona nodded. ‘Those dogs were always the most important things in your life. I was just a distraction and a pest,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Aw, Cat, a bloke has to put on a front. I didn’t want people thinking I was soft.’

  ‘Well, now it’s just you and me, David. I can’t believe we’re almost there. And, David, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that Daddy has come to his senses.’

  ‘Your father is a realist, Cat. He’s also a bigger man than I gave him credit for. Anyway, I’m as pleased as you are – now you and your mother can plan the wedding to your hearts’ content.’

  On the way to dinner, Anne stopped to ring Kate and give her the great news. Kate was beside herself with joy. She’d always had faith that David would do great things. Now he had proved it.

  At the restaurant, David held Catriona’s hand tightly under the dinner table. He felt her leg against his calf, and he smiled with sheer delight. Now that he had done what he had set out to do, he felt more relaxed and somehow quite different. Now what mattered most was the girl sitting beside him. Catriona had never doubted that David was the right man for her. She had never really complained about being made to wait for him, and she had never even been tempted by the dozens of young men who had doted on her. David couldn’t believe that before too long he would finally marry this girl in a million and live with her on High Peaks.

  Presently Angus got to his feet and, with the waiter pouring champagne, had his say. He spoke of the years he had known the MacLeod family and of how they had worked to own two properties, and now owned four. He also spoke of Andrew’s great ability with dogs and horses and of how he had passed on that same great talent to David.

  ‘I would like to make a toast,’ he said, ‘to the be
st trial dog I have ever seen, to the two best dog handlers I have ever seen, and to the very best neighbours and family-in-law a man could ask for.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Bruce roared. He was feeling wonderful and wanted the night to last forever. He felt he had played his own small role in today’s miracle by honouring the agreement he had made with David to return Clancy’s sire, Nap. After Angus had had his say, it was Bruce’s turn to get to his feet.

  ‘My co-host has very eloquently given you a toast which echoes my own thoughts. Unlike Angus here, I haven’t had the privilege of being a neighbour of the MacLeod family, and, unlike Angus, I never saw Andrew work a dog, but I want to say that it has been a privilege to know and do business with the MacLeods. This has been one of the greatest days of my life. Now I know why the kelpie made such an impact on Australia all those years ago.

  ‘David, you and Clancy will leave Canberra tomorrow, but what you did today will never be forgotten by the sheepdog fraternity. Your feat will pass into legend. If you never break in another kelpie, your name and Clancy’s name will be enshrined in sheepdog lore. To you, David and Catriona, and to Andrew and Anne, my thanks and very best wishes for the future.’

  When Bruce sat down, Anne leant over and kissed him. ‘Thank you, Bruce,’ she said.

  ‘Do you realise you’re a living legend?’ Catriona whispered in David’s ear.

  ‘That may be the case, but I know what I would rather be right now,’ he whispered back.

  ‘You’ll just have to wait for that,’ she said with a glint in her eye.

  Eventually the night had to end, so the MacLeods and Bruce McClymont returned reluctantly to their caravans and the Campbells to their motel.

  The next morning, as they were packing to go home, some of the handlers who had stayed the night came across to say goodbye. There were enquiries about pups and whether David would bring his dogs to their trials. David’s replies were noncommittal. He told them it would be some time before he could trial again.