When night came I heard him again. I swore and lit my pipe then walked to the door of my hut and looked towards the river.
The red gums that fringed its banks made twisted scrolls on the sky’s edge. The stars were coming out and I could smell the breath of the lignum and reeds that spread back from the river in a protecting barricade of shadowy growth.
Plovers cried going across the sky. I listened but he was silent. I waited a few minutes then went back into the hut.
Surely, he won’t cross the river again, I thought.
He was an old scrub bull that roamed the timbered hills beyond the Murray. He had snaily horns and was a dull brindle colour. I had one of Carson’s shorthorns running with my herd. I only paid a tenner for him but Carson said he was a champion. Carson was always telling me he was a champion.
‘He’s a champion, I’m telling you,’ he used to say.
The old scrub bull used to spend a lot of time trumpeting challenges across the river at the champion, but I did not think he would ever swim across to fight it out.
I had driven him back a week before and that morning I gave him Larry Dooley across the bend after I had found the two facing each other in a clearing.
I drove him through the reed beds at a gallop. Near the river the water became deeper and I drew rein. He slowed down then and began to bellow. I cracked the stockwhip and yelled at him. He moved forward, a low, sullen rumble coming from his throat.
He was a big bull and he sank deep in the mud. He plunged violently as his hind legs failed to find a solid footing. A spray of muddy water shot above the reeds and splashed against his sides. A frightened waterhen shot from a clump of lignum and hurtled across the river with its extended feet scratching furrows on the smooth water.
He suddenly slid into deep water between the submerged river banks. It curved in a tumbling roll around his chest. He lifted his head till the level plane of forehead and nose was parallel with the surface and struck out for the other bank. I watched him wade ashore with water streaming down his flanks and mixing with the mud clinging to his legs.
Next morning I saddled up and rode along a pad skirting the reeds. Even then it must have been touching a hundred. Just above the ground the air shimmered in waves and in the distance cattle had the appearance of being submerged in water.
I heard the old bull trumpeting across the river. He lowed menacingly then sucked in his breath in a high-pitched challenge. I rode towards the bend and saw him standing on the opposite bank. He was silent now and stood with his head rigidly still, the muzzle pulled in towards his neck. His tail was held away from his hindquarters. His stillness was an alive and ominous thing.
On my side billows of dust were rising from beyond the reeds beside which I had reined my horse. The young shorthorn was expressing defiance of the old bull’s challenge by savagely pawing the brown earth and tossing the dust into the air. It fell upon his shoulders and spilled to the torn ground. He buried his short horns into the soil and flung lumps of grass and earth above his head. A deep, menacing rumble came from his salivering mouth.
I was proud of that bull. Carson said he was a champion.
‘He’ll improve your herd out of sight,’ he said.
But today I had no sympathy for him in his quarrel. I suddenly felt sorry for the old campaigner who was fast losing his right to the country he had ruled over for so long. Where he had wandered without hindrance, barbed wire fences now barred his way. Men were pushing their way farther and farther into the hills that sheltered him. One by one the sleek cows that had borne his progeny were rounded into cattle yards. Milling and crushing against each other, their lifted heads supported by the flanks of those snorting in front of them, they surged forward to escape the savage attacks of wall-eyed heelers. They blundered forward in droves, urged by shouting men along the stock route that lead to the railhead and to the trucks dirty with the smoke of cities.
The old bull’s hocks still bore the teeth scars of dogs. The calloused ridge of a stockwhip cut slashed his flank. Carson had told me of the furious charge that shattered a six-foot post-and-rail fence and earned him the freedom he alone enjoyed.
He warned me about him, too.
‘Don’t let him get with your herd. He’ll ruin your stock. Now, my bull, he’s a champion. . . .’
I tied the horse to a Yellow Jack and crept towards the river. I crouched behind a log and watched the old warrior slide stiff-legged down the dusty bank. He waded through the shallow water then, snorting, launched himself forward.
The champion waited for him. He moved his hindquarters, using his firmly placed front legs to pivot on so that he faced the old bull as he clambered up the bank.
The old chap shuffled sideways towards him. The champion changed his position so that he stood at right angles to the older bull’s approach. Both their heads were drawn sharp down. When the scrubber was within a few yards of the shorthorn he stopped. They both stood very still, their small, black eyes gleaming with a cold, calculating fury.
My champion shorthorn, I kept saying to myself. Don’t be a fool. Carson says he’s a champion, but if he gets one good rip he won’t be worth two bob. Hop in and stop them. But look at the old fellow’s horns, I kept saying to myself. He can’t do any harm with snaily horns like that. Anyway, the shorthorn has youth on his side.
He had youth all right, the impetuous courage of youth. He suddenly lowered his head and, whipping into position, drove at the old bull’s shoulder, but quick as a dingo, the veteran leaped round and met the powerful head of the champion with his own.
Head to head they dug their hooves into the ground and struggled to force each other back. With enormous shoulders bulged with straining muscle they pivoted around, their locked heads tearing the earth for a foothold, each striving for a quick evasive leap sideways that would leave them free to drive a rip to the other’s shoulder.
I rose from behind the log and came closer to them. I was shaking a little as if it were friends of mine that fought together. I yelled, then repeated softly to myself: ‘Carson says he is a champion. Carson says he is a champion.’
‘You old beauty,’ I cried.
The old bull had made a savage lunge forward. He drove the champion back with a swift rush. The shorthorn bellowed with surprise and rage. He leaped sideways, evaded a side toss that the old chap aimed at his shoulder, then hurled himself at the other’s exposed side. One of his shining horns slid into the thick flesh behind the warrior’s shoulder. The champion tossed his head, tearing his horn through flesh and muscle and then wrenched it free in a savage twist.
The red blood gushed down the scrubber’s brindled hide. It stained with crimson the horn of the champion and trickled among the close-curled hair between his eyes.
I had expected a roar of pain from the old chap, but save for a deep grunt when the horn sank home, he was silent. He twisted away in a quick leap and turned to face a rush from the champion. The impetus of the drive forced him back. His hindquarter scraped across the jagged end of a broken limb projecting from a stump. He bellowed with rage and stayed his backward run with a convulsive thrust of his back legs that scattered the dry leaves and sticks behind him. Step by step he forced the champion back.
Suddenly with the skill learned in a hundred fights the old bull gave ground in a leap backwards. The champion, freed from pressure, blundered forward to lock horns again. But the old bull was not there. He had whirled to one side and bellowing savagely he now drove his lowered head at the champion’s exposed side. His thick-boned crown slid beneath the young bull’s body. He reefed his powerful neck upwards, lifting the shorthorn from his feet and throwing him floundering to the ground.
He drove in again, sinking to his knees the better to bury his snaily horns in the other’s soft body.
The champion bellowed and kicked in anguish. He rolled, half rose, fell again. Strands of tenuous saliva blew from his mouth. The silver threads clung like cobwebs to the old bull’s head. The old scrubber crushed his plated head against the champion’s ribs, shaking it to and fro in a savage mutilating of his fallen antagonist.
The shorthorn rolled clear and, springing to his feet, fled with the old bull in pursuit.
He did not chase him far. He stopped and pawed at the earth, tossing lumps of soil shoulder high and lowing triumphantly.
I made a bee-line for my horse.
Back over the river he goes, I said, but when I returned I reined the horse and looked at him. He was grazing quietly amongst several of my best heifers.
I swung my stockwhip then slowly looped it again.
The shorthorn might be a champion, I said to myself, but so is this fellow. Blow Carson, I say.
I turned my horse and made for the hut and I felt better somehow.