At first I thought it was one of the wild horses and I was about to run back to the camp to get Jonny’s gun. But as the cattle moved around, there between all the other brown cows I saw Casper, the white Brahman bull.
He’d been Jonny’s poddy, named after the friendly ghost because he was white and so tame. He’d grown into a strong-looking bull – muscly and wide. As the others moved around and carried on mooing, pissing and rearing up around him, Casper stayed still, his long ears floppy and friendly at the sides of his head. His eyes seemed almost black against his white hide as they watched me. He looked like an angel, or something. I turned and saw Dad and the other fellas in their swags on the ground. I didn’t want to frighten Casper away, so I didn’t shout to Dad to come and see who I’d found. I’d forgotten all about Casper. I couldn’t remember seeing him for a couple of years, but there was no mistaking him – even in the dark. I didn’t reckon we’d have another plain-white Brahman bull like him. But, there was something else too. The way he looked at me made me certain it was him. It was like we knew each other. None of the others looked at me like that. They weren’t interested because they didn’t know me.
Casper had been turned loose like all the poddies were once they were big enough. Some of them stayed around the house for ever, too tame to make friends with the other cattle in the desert. But then there were others like Casper, who grew as wild as the rest, until we didn’t recognise them any more. I guess because he was white, Casper stood out. I dunno why no one had spotted him when we’d mustered the cattle. Maybe Reg, or one of the other fellas, had seen him, but because there was only Dad and me who knew who Casper was, they’d just think he was another bull.
After a minute or two, Casper looked away and moved into the herd. I waited for a while then walked back to my swag. Dad was awake. He asked where I’d been, so I said I’d been checking the yards. Dad nodded, like he approved. So I told him I’d seen Casper. He smiled and said we’d have a big decision to make in the morning, then.
I was awake before the sun came up. My nose was cold, but everything else was real warm inside the swag. I heard Rick coughing and so I sat up to see what was going on. Dad was already up, lighting the fire. No one else was awake, but I reckoned I should get up and help Dad.
We cooked sausages for brekkie, and man, they smelled good. All burnt and smoky. I had a cup of coffee afterwards too – Dad reckoned it’d set me up for the day. As soon as the smell of sausages wafted over to the other swags, the rest of the fellas started to wake up. They were all scratching themselves and stretching, like the dogs did if they’d slept under the house.
Then the sun started to rise and the radio in Dad’s ute fizzed. It sounded real loud out there in the desert. Liz’s voice came through. She was radioing to tell Dad that Mum had called. We all heard her say Sissy’s waters had broken. Reg looked at the ground and I could tell he was pretending he hadn’t heard. Dad just said, ‘Right. Right. Righto, then. Well. Well, you’d better keep me posted then. Over.’ When I reckoned the fellas weren’t listening any more I asked Dad what Liz meant about the water breaking and he said it meant they’d be taking Sissy back to hospital and that this time she would be having the baby – for sure. Finally, Sissy was getting a move on with it, I thought. Dad seemed real fidgety. He said, ‘Not long now.’ I asked how long, but he didn’t know. He said it was a waiting game.
Then we heard a rumbling in the desert and I thought the road train had come early but I was wrong. It was the Barron brothers. They’d been over at Wild Ridge all night, filling the water tanker. It rolled into the yards like a giant piece of tin foil.
Once we started drafting, everyone could see Casper. Reg laughed at him, he reckoned he was like a gin in a snowstorm. We all laughed at that, even Jack. I felt funny – it made me think of Sissy and the baby.
I wondered what would happen when Casper came into the yard. I didn’t have to wait long. Rick opened the gate and Casper walked through. He looked real tall and proud compared with the handful of smaller Hereford cows that came through with him. They bucked, ran and jolted around, frightened of what we would do to them. Reg started off with them, choosing just one to go through to be trucked and releasing the rest into another yard to be sent back to the desert. When faced with Casper, Dad looked at me and I could see he was unsure what to do. He forced a smile and beckoned me over. ‘Well? What should we do?’ he asked. I shrugged. Dad put his hand on my shoulder and said that running a station was all about making decisions. I nodded so he knew I was listening. He then told me to think real hard. I looked at the ground. Thoughts of Jonny raced through my head. I wondered what he’d do. Then I thought of Buzz and I knew straight away what the right thing to do was. I looked at Dad and said we should keep Casper.
Reg had come over to see what we wanted to do. Dad looked at me and said to Reg, ‘Danny reckons we should keep him.’ Reg turned the corners of his mouth down and nodded. Dad then asked me why. I dunno what was more important – the fact Casper had been Jonny’s, or that he was such a good-looking bull, but it was the second reason I gave them. When they heard that, they both nodded. Dad patted my back and said, ‘Good decision.’
Reg agreed, he said, ‘Good on you, Danny.’ He reckoned we needed a good, strong breeding bull.
Once the cattle were all drafted and the ones for trucking were waiting patiently in the holding yard, the road train rumbled into the yards. That’s when Dad said he’d take me back to the house because he knew I wanted to see Buzz. I reckon the real reason was that he wanted to be there for when Mum called about Sissy.
When we got back to the house, Liz was cooking dinner. She said no one had called – even before Dad could ask. He looked real worried then, and went to the phone. I watched him dial the number for Aunty Ve’s, pinned on the wall next to the one for the clinic where Mum worked.
He waited and waited for what felt like ages, before he slammed the phone down again and said, ‘No answer.’ He said he was going for a shower. When he came out, he still had the towel round him and he went back into the kitchen to use the phone again.
I guess there was still no answer because he slammed it down again and went to get dressed. When he was dressed he got the phone book out and started looking for the number for the hospital in Alice. He dialled the number there and asked to speak to someone who knew what was going on with Sissy Dawson. Whoever answered can’t have known who Sissy was because that’s when Dad said, ‘She’s my daughter, she’s having a baby.’ I guess they must have put him through to someone who did know who Sissy was because that’s when I heard Dad say: ‘I see. Right. But she’s going to be OK?’
When he finished on the phone he looked at us all staring at him and said, ‘No news yet.’ I didn’t like it.
We were halfway through our food when the phone rang. Dad sprung up from his seat and almost ran into the kitchen. I could hear him breathing heavier than usual. ‘G’day, love, what’s happening?’ he asked, so we knew it must be Mum. Dad nodded a bit and said, ‘Right,’ then nodded again, more slowly like he was trying to understand something.
‘Is she going to be OK?’
He looked at us all staring at him – ‘It’s taking longer than expected,’ was all he said. I dunno why, but there was something about the way he looked that reminded me of how he’d been after Jonny died, and I felt sick. Real sick.
We all walked back to the table, but I couldn’t finish my dinner. Everyone pushed the food round their plates in silence.
Afterwards, Liz cleared the table and the rest of us watched TV. Dad was real jumpy. He kept flicking the channel over and he looked at his watch about a million times. He was real concerned about being able to hear the phone above the TV – even though it had never been a problem before. He didn’t sit down all night – not really. He’d sit down then jump up again. He’d pace around in the kitchen, and every now and then he’d pick the phone up, just to check it was still working, then put it down again real quick.
We watched all kinds of programmes on the TV that we weren’t usually allowed to. Then, at nearly midnight, Dad said we all had to go to bed. Emily was already asleep with her head on his knee. He picked her up and told me to switch the TV off. His face looked white and his eyes were real dark.
As I lay in bed I could hear voices in the dining room. It was Liz and Dad. Liz asked Dad if he was all right. I guess he must have nodded, or something because then Liz said, ‘I’m sure she’ll be OK.’ Dad didn’t answer for a minute. When he did he said, ‘If she comes through this, I won’t give a damn who the father is. I’ve been a fool, Liz.’ Then there was a big silence, for ages, before Liz said Dad had done what he thought was the right thing at the time. He gave a big sigh then and said, ‘I don’t know how much more we can take.’
Hearing Dad say that made me real scared. I rolled over and looked at the empty bed next to mine and tried to remember what it looked like when Jonny was asleep in it.