TWENTY-SIX

I looked up at the sky and the sun caught on my face and made my eyes sting even more than the smoke did. I hoped Jonny was paying attention and that he’d had a word with someone up there about getting us some rains—just because he was in heaven, it didn’t mean he couldn’t help.

Liz came over and picked up the second shovel. I kind of smiled at her. For a vegetarian, I reckoned she was pretty handy. The two of us didn’t say much. We just kept an eye on the fire and tried not to think about what was on it. It was nearly dark when Bobbie’s ute arrived back at the Dam. She’d brought some dinner for us. Emily was with her. She wouldn’t get out of the ute, though. I guess after what she’d seen that morning she was too scared. Bobbie said Mum had called to let us know she’d got to Alice OK. The Pommie asked how Sissy was, and Bobbie told her there wasn’t really much happening—yet.

I asked if Mum was coming home. I mean, if Sissy wasn’t having the baby, she should just come home. Bobbie said she hadn’t told Mum about how bad things were on the station—she said she didn’t think there was much point in worrying her. I didn’t get it—if Mum knew, she’d definitely come home. I said that to Bobbie. She said, “Exactly—Sissy needs her there.” Like that explained everything. She dropped the tucker for us and sped off to Gum Tree to take Dad and the fellas theirs, and tell him the news about Sissy. I reckoned Dad’d be real mad at her for not just getting on with it and having the baby so Mum could come back and help at the station.

Liz and me took it in turns to eat the food, so there was always one of us keeping an eye on the fire. It was more or less dark when I noticed in the light from the fire how dirty Liz had got. I don’t think I’d ever seen her like that. She had black marks all over her face and clothes. Her hair was kind of wild and she looked tired. I guess we both smelled pretty bad too.

We were busy keeping an eye on the fire when through the darkness I heard a noise. Something moved. I realized my gun was in one of the utes at Gum Tree. I cursed myself as I wondered if I could tackle a crazed, dehydrated bull with just the spade I had in my hand.

Then I saw him.

It wasn’t a bull. It was Gil Smith. “You need a hand?” he asked, like everything was fine. Like he hadn’t been rooting with Sissy, or got her pregnant, or anything. I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked, I couldn’t move. Because of him, Mum was stuck in Alice with Sissy when we were having the worst muster ever.

Everything exploded somewhere inside me.

I ran at him, and before he knew what was going on, I’d punched him real hard in the face. It felt good. I was about to go in for another, but Gil had got his balance and was ready for me. He was bigger than me, so he blocked me and grabbed my body and kind of pushed me onto the ground. I grabbed at his shirt and it ripped. Gil was on top of me then. Even in the dark I could see blood coming from his nose. We wrestled like that on the ground for what felt like ages. The Pommie was shouting at us to stop. I saw her try to grab Gil to pull him off me. He swung his arm backward to push her away and smacked her in the face. She staggered and fell onto the ground. I was mad as hell then. I kicked him a few times and managed to get a couple of good punches in—one to his eye and another to his side. He whacked my cheek twice and it felt like my whole face was going to burst.

Gil had my arm up behind my back and was pushing my face into the dirt. I was out of breath and my chest hurt as I tasted the dirt, all dry and gritty. I was wriggling around like that underneath him when all of a sudden there were lights and a load of people.

The weight on top of me lifted.

Dad and Elliot had come back from Gum Tree. Elliot pulled Gil off me, and Dad pulled me up off the ground. I was breathing real hard—but my chest couldn’t suck in enough air. It felt like I was having an asthma attack.

As I reached for my inhaler I saw Dad had hold of Gil’s neck in one hand and his other arm was high in the air, ready to punch him in the face. Elliot moved in then and started pulling Dad back away from Gil. I wanted Elliot to let Dad go, so he could beat the crap out of Gil, but my chest was so tight, I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.

The Pommie got between them then—so her back was to Gil and she was facing Dad, pleading with him to stop. She had her arms out as she tried to push Dad away. But Dad was real strong. Elliot’s face was all twisted as he wrestled with Dad. He grabbed Dad’s arm and somehow forced him backward. The Pommie was saying all this stuff about how Gil had only come to help—“He just wanted to help!” she said over and over again until eventually Dad seemed to hear what she was saying. He stopped what he was doing and let go of Gil.

Dad was breathing real hard and I could tell by the look on Gil’s face he didn’t know whether to run or stand his ground. The Pommie was babbling on and on, saying, “It was Danny—he started it. Gil just came to help. That’s all.” I was mad at the Pommie for dobbing me in. I shouted out, “He’s a mongrel!” Dad looked at Gil for what felt like ages. Then, when he’d caught his breath a bit, he asked him if what the Pommie was saying was right. Gil didn’t say anything. He just nodded his head. Dad slowly picked his hat up off the ground and knocked the dust off it. The headlights on the ute were still on and in the beam he noticed the blood coming from Liz’s lip and asked if she was OK. She said it was an accident.

That’s when Dad said, “Get in the ute, Danny. Now.” He looked at Gil, then back at me and said Elliot was going to drive me and the Pommie back to the station. I was mad as hell then. I shouted all sorts of stuff about how Gil had been rooting with Sissy and that it wasn’t fair. I wanted to stay at stock camp with him and the fellas.

Dad came over and dragged me by my shoulder out of the headlights away from the fire. When he let go of me, he told me to listen. He said he hadn’t time to worry about me fighting with Gil on top of everything else. He said for once I had to do as I was told. He’d be relying on me the next day when the helicopter came. “Do you want to miss that?” he asked, eyeballing me. I shook my head. He kicked the ground and put one hand on his hip as he threw his head back and looked at the sky—like he was looking for something else to say. Then he turned round and saw Gil and said, “You still here? Go on—go. We don’t need your help.” But Elliot said to Dad that if Gil hadn’t raised the alarm about Cockatoo Creek, God knows what would have happened. Gil looked at Dad and said that he only wanted to help. I swallowed the lump in my throat. After a second or two, Dad looked back at me and said in a quieter voice, “You’ve done a good job here with the fire. But it’s late. You need to go back to the station and get some rest.” I knew not to argue.

As I walked to the ute, I looked over at Gil. He looked round too and we stared at each other. I heard Dad say to him, “OK well, as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful,” and he handed him one of the spades. I still didn’t like him. He was still a mongrel.

When I got in the ute, the Pommie said she was sorry. I knew she meant for dobbing me in. I didn’t reply. She said she only told Dad the truth. “Gil just wanted to help.” When I still didn’t answer she gave up and asked Elliot how things were at Gum Tree. “Not good,” he said. Liz asked how many he thought were dead. Elliot shrugged. I don’t think anyone wanted to count them.

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I can’t remember going to sleep that night, I just remember waking up about a million times in the night, wondering if it was time to get up and go back to help the fellas. When I did get up, the Pommie was already in the kitchen. My face was sore from where Gil had hit me and so she got a tea towel with some ice inside it for me to put on my cheek. It felt real cold—or maybe it was my face that was hot. I couldn’t tell. I noticed her top lip was lopsided. It was fatter at the right where Gil had hit her, and there was a little cut. I felt bad about that. She asked me if I was ever going to speak to her again. I shrugged and said, “Suppose so.” She smiled then and handed me some toast.

When we got to Cockatoo Creek it was strange. The carcasses had burned down to nothing and the smoke had gone. It was a bit like everything we’d seen and smelled the day before had been a bad dream. If it wasn’t for the black mark on the desert where the fire had been, I might have believed I’d just woken up after a nightmare. When we saw the fellas, though, I knew everything we’d seen the day before had been real. They looked feral. I guess none of them had slept. They smelled worse than some of the carcasses had and they were real dirty. I looked around, but Gil wasn’t there. I didn’t like to ask Dad about it in front of the fellas, but I reckoned he’d either sent Gil packing, or else Gil had stayed with Jack in the Blackfellas’ camp. Seeing us arrive with some tucker cheered everyone up. I guess they were perishing because they made short work of the brekkie the Pommie had made for them.

And then we heard something buzzing in the sky.

We all looked up at the little silvery speck catching the sun against the blue sky. We watched it become a dot and eventually turn into a helicopter. Reg shouted, “The cavalry’s here!” I’d heard about people mustering with a helicopter before. It was meant to be real quick, but it cost a lot of money. I couldn’t believe Dad had hired one. I looked around and the fellas were all nodding at the sky, and I felt weird—scared, but like maybe, if we all worked real hard, we might be OK.

This guy called Jerry was the pilot. His clothes were real clean and his skin looked like the Pommie’s. He wore these big sunnies and a pair of little gloves. He was a bit like someone on TV, all shiny, white teeth, and creases in his trousers. He shook hands with Dad, and the two of them and Reg had a chat about the muster. It looked a bit like someone had traveled back in time, or something. Dad and Reg looked like a couple of cavemen next to Jerry. Then we watched him climb back into the little machine and strap himself in. As the blades started turning, they threw dirt up from the desert, as well as a wind. The helicopter hovered upward off the ground, like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to. It hung in the sky, unsteady, as though it was on a thin string. It looked like Jerry was waiting to get his balance, and then when he was happy, the helicopter began to move, dragging its tail like a dragonfly. When we looked up we could see Jerry in the glass bowl of the cockpit—he looked a bit like a goldfish when he gave us a wave.

I’d never seen a helicopter muster before. I didn’t know how it worked. Dad asked if I wanted to watch, or if I wanted to go with him in his ute. I dunno. I felt strange about everything the night before with Gil, so I said I reckoned I’d watch the first one—just to get an idea of how it was done. He thought that was a good plan.

It was hard to keep an eye on the helicopter, though. There was a big heat haze and its blades flew round so fast it threw loads of dust into the air. Every now and then the sun caught against the helicopter’s white metal and glass, so we could catch a glimpse of it rising out of the bush, dancing like a mosquito in a flash of light. It seemed to throw a tornado down on the ground, which sucked the cattle and dust out of the desert. Dad and the fellas were on the ground in their utes and bull catchers to help guide the animals out of the desert and into the yards. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them talking to each other on the radios.

I’d never seen anything like it. It worked like a magic trick. A bit like when you get a magnet and it picks up all those little metal-filing things. One minute there was just the hum of the helicopter and a dirty mark on the sky where it was dancing around, in and out of the bush. The next thing we knew, this mob of cattle started to snake out of the desert toward the yards. It made the desert and drought seem smaller somehow. Considering how dehydrated those cattle were, they moved real quick. I guess it was pretty terrifying for them. I wondered what the cattle thought the helicopter was, or if they just felt the tornado above them and heard the buzzing engine, like an annoying cloud.

Seeing the cattle moving along together made the knot in my belly loosen a bit and I felt like I could breathe more easily. After burning all the carcasses, I’d started to think there wouldn’t be any live ones left. But there they were. Dawson cattle. They weren’t the best-looking mob I’d ever seen—they looked like they’d had a fight with someone—all bruised and tired. I hoped they’d be OK. I looked at the Pommie and smiled. “You can do it!” she shouted. I guess that was how we all felt. We knew we had a long way to go, but it was the first sign that some of our cattle might survive—which meant we might too.

As Rick scrambled forward to close the gate after the cattle went into the yard, I saw him give a thumbs-up to Dad. Dad’s fist came out of the window of the ute, and he held it high in the air like athletes do when they win a race. I knew we were getting somewhere. His hand then saluted the sky, to say thanks to Jerry too. Then they all circled the yards and headed off south, following the buzzing engine above them, to find the rest of the survivors.

The next mob looked about the same as the first—thin and tired. The fellas shut the cattle in the yards. We went over to see them. Reg shook Dad’s hand. They were talking faster than before, like they were excited. They were talking about what to do next. They wanted to let the cattle at Cockatoo Creek calm down, but the longer they were held in the yards, the more water they’d need to truck over from Wild Ridge. Reg looked at his watch and reckoned we could leave them there to calm down, while we all went to Gum Tree to muster the cattle there. That way Dad would only have to pay for the helicopter for half a day. Afterward we’d be able to come back and draft the ones at Cockatoo Creek, in time for when Bob, the road-train driver, arrived. Dad reckoned it was a good plan. He said the fellas were all bushed after working so hard, but if they could crack on and get things done they’d be able to have an early night. Reg nodded and went to tell his fellas what the plan was.

Bobbie and Emily showed up then. I guess Bobbie must have known the dead ones would have gone so Emily wouldn’t be scared any more. Seeing the cattle in the yards, and watching Emily running over to have a look at them, made me feel better about things. Bobbie went over to Dad and I heard her say Mum had called, but there wasn’t any news. Dad nodded and hauled Emily onto his shoulders. The three of us walked round the yards to look at our cattle. They weren’t the best, but somehow that didn’t matter. We’d saved them. Dad said it wouldn’t take long to draft them because there wouldn’t be many worth trucking. He reckoned it was better to keep them than risk trucking the weaker ones. That way, if they died, they did it in the desert where no one would see them. The last thing we needed was for Timber Creek to get a bad name. I guess everyone in the Territory would have heard about the nine that died on Bob’s road train—bad news always seemed to spread like a bushfire. Dad said we’d need to bring water to Cockatoo Creek for as long as Wild Ridge could supply it. He reckoned it was the only way to try and make sure the cattle there survived.

As soon as we’d had a look at the cattle and made sure the pump was working so they’d have enough water, we all followed the helicopter to Gum Tree. When we got there, the yards were set up ready to welcome the cattle. When we looked past the metal grid drawn out in the dirt like noughts and crosses, we could see where Jerry was from the dusty mark in the sky. Me and the Pommie went with Dad in his ute. We fell in line behind Rick and all convoyed out into the desert.

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Normally when you muster on the ground, it’s all about finding the cattle and sticking with them, so they go where you want them to go. This time it wasn’t like that. Jerry had already found the cattle and herded them together, all we had to do was follow the helicopter and then flank the cattle, to stop any stragglers getting away. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. It was much faster than normal and I guess that made it better for the cattle. I dunno how much that helicopter cost, but I reckoned it was worth every penny. As we watched the helicopter suck the cattle out of the desert, I punched the roof of the ute and shouted, “Wooohooo!”

Jerry made one last sweep of the desert to get a few more cattle for us to draft and once they were safely inside the yards, he landed the helicopter and came over to see Dad. Dad shook his hand and said he was a lifesaver. Jerry said, “Any time.” Then he climbed back inside the helicopter and started the blades. We all watched Jerry leave in a cloud of dust, like a magic trick.

It wasn’t like the drought had gone away, or everything was OK again. You only had to look at the cattle to know that. But we all felt better looking at the live ones. The fellas were chatting and laughing a bit again while we ate our tucker. We ate lunch at Gum Tree Dam so the fellas could check the water pumps were working properly before we went back to Cockatoo Creek to start drafting. Dad reckoned they’d have the cattle at Cockatoo Creek drafted in no time. There weren’t many worth trucking, so it wouldn’t take too long.

Ron and Greg came out of the bush driving the loaders they’d been using to bury the dead cattle. They looked real tired. When they jumped down from the cabs, Dad shook their hands and said, “I owe you fellas—big time.” Greg smiled and said, “Thank God Gil Smith was on a walkabout, eh?” I saw one of Dad’s eyebrows rise a little when he said that. My bruised cheek throbbed. Dad said he was serious—any time the Crofts needed a hand with anything, all they had to do was ask. Greg said, “No worries.” He reckoned a couple of cold ones, once the muster was over, would cover it. Ron reckoned Greg would do anything for a couple of beers. Dad looked sad then and said, “Seriously—thanks. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

As we watched Ron and Greg head off back to Gold River, Dad realized there was no one at Timber Creek station. He reckoned he needed someone there just in case Mum phoned with more news about Sissy. I dunno what he was worried about—she had Mum and Aunty Ve there with her. The Pommie said she needed to go back to take the dirty pots and pans from lunch. Dad said, “Thanks, Liz,” and then asked Bobbie to stay at Cockatoo Creek and help write the cattle numbers down while the fellas did the drafting. She agreed and Emily said she’d help too.

Dad was right, it didn’t take long to draft the cattle at Cockatoo Creek. Afterward Dad sighed and said, “Well, they’re a sorry bunch, but at least they’re alive, I guess.” Reg said that if we could truck a similar number at Gum Tree as what we’d got at Cockatoo Creek, then the station might break even. Elliot thought about that and said, “And we’ve still got to muster at Timber Creek too.”

Dad looked at the sky and said, “Breaking even isn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. But I guess as long as we don’t go under, eh?”

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Once the yards were down, Reg and his mob were going to go back to Gum Tree to set up camp there, ready to draft the cattle first thing in the morning. Dad said we’d have the best chance over there if we let the cattle have the night in the yards with the water. I felt taller than the Barron brothers when Reg said that if I wanted, I could go and stay at stock camp with them. He reckoned he could do with another set of eyes to keep watch on the cattle because the fellas were all bushed. I looked at Dad to make sure he reckoned it’d be OK too, and he smiled. I was so stoked.

Dad and me went back to the station so he could get a shower and I could get my things for stock camp. I’d got my swag ready for sleeping in. A swag’s like an outdoor sleeping bag we use so you don’t need a tent. My water bottle was full, I’d put Jonny’s cattle book in my bag, and I’d been to see Buzz to explain I wouldn’t be there to feed him in the morning. I was worried about him, but the Pommie said she’d look after him.

Eventually, Dad said he was ready to go—and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the phone rang. We all knew it’d be Mum. Bloody Sissy! I was scared she was going to tell him something that meant we’d have to stay at the station. I reckoned I was never going to get to stay at stock camp with Dad and the fellas. I looked at the photo of Jonny on the piano. I wanted to touch it. But then Dad hung up the phone, and I guess he could see I was waiting to hear what was going on because he said, “Still no news.” Then Dad grabbed his hat and said, “Ready?” I nodded, and so we went out into the yard, jumped into the ute and headed to Gum Tree.

When we got there I could tell the fellas hadn’t been there too long. They hadn’t even got the fire going. They’d got their utes and bull catchers parked round in a sort of circle, with the truck with all their supplies in the middle. They were just dragging boxes out of the truck to make some tucker when we pulled up. We jumped out and got our stuff from the back. I watched Dad dump his rolled-up swag on the ground near the others, so I did the same. Although it was getting dark, there was still enough light for the fellas to see what they were doing to build the fire.

Dad sent me to find some firewood, so I headed toward the thicker bush and started picking up any pieces I could find. When I got back with the first pile, Rick had already arranged some rocks on the ground to mark the place for the fire, and when he saw me with the pieces of wood stacked up in my arms, he said, “A few more loads like that should do it.” When I got back with the third load, there was smoke billowing from the ground.

Reg was busy cutting up some meat and throwing it into this real black, metal pot, while Lloyd and Elliot peeled some potatoes. It looked weird watching them do that—I don’t think I’d ever seen a fella doing kitchen work before. They chucked it all in together, and once the fire was going they put the pot on top of the flames and waited for it to cook. It was darker then, and so everyone came and sat round the fire to have a cuppa and a smoke while we waited for the tucker. In the red glow of the fire the fellas looked real feral. It looked like we were all in hell or something.

I sat down next to Elliot. The fire felt real warm on my bare arms as I poked at it with a stick. It was a real moonlit night too. The nighttime desert noises were all around us, as well as the sound of the cattle braying in the yards. Even though they were a sorry-looking bunch, they were still pretty noisy.

Reg leaned forward to have a look inside the pot on the fire to see how his stew was coming along. I breathed in the stock-camp smells, and could almost taste the desert. I wanted to hold that breath in my chest forever so I’d always remember what it was like out there. I wanted to make sure that when I was at boarding school and the muster happened the year after, I could close my eyes and kind of imagine I was there with Dad and the fellas, even if I was two hundred miles away in Alice. Kind of like I did with Jonny’s picture.

When Dad came back from checking the water pump he took a flask out of his bag and poured us both a cuppa. I didn’t really like tea normally, but there, with the fellas at stock camp, I guess I felt differently about that. It was hot and sweet, and the plastic cup felt good in my hands. I watched how Dad held his, without using the handle, and copied him.

After a while, Reg took out this real dirty piece of cloth and carefully lifted the pot off the fire with it. Rick passed over a pile of dented metal plates as Reg said, “Grub’s up,” to no one in particular. He spooned the tucker out onto the plates and passed me the first one. It tasted good. Reg reckoned we needed to get it down us while it was hot, to keep the cold off in the night. Even though it was real hot in the day, out there in the desert it got pretty nippy during the night. I knew that from when I ran away after Buzz went missing and how cold I’d felt when Mick had found me.

While we ate the steaming-hot tucker, Reg and Rick talked about a muster they’d done at a station as far south in the Territory as you could go, and how even down there they’d had problems with water. Dad listened to what they said, finished his mouthful of the stew, and said he reckoned it was a blip and that we’d weather the storm. Then he said he didn’t want to talk about the weather any more. He reckoned he’d had enough of it. He looked at his watch soon after that and said it was time to turn in and everyone started rolling out their swags. I lay on my side and tried to sleep. The stars were so bright, though, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Jonny and if he was up there somewhere, watching to see how I got on. I wanted to be the best stockman Timber Creek had ever had.

I dunno what time it was, but after what felt like hours and hours I decided to get up and have a walk round the yards—just to make sure everything was as it should be. I could hear Reg snoring under his swag and the other fellas all seemed to be sleeping too. I looked at Dad’s swag, but he’d pulled it over his head, so I couldn’t see if he was awake or not. It was strange being out there with them. Even though I wasn’t on my own, I kind of felt more alone than ever before.

As I walked round the yards, with the moon shining down, it felt like my eyes could see as well as they could during the day. I was keeping an eye out for dingoes. I had a couple of rocks in my pockets just in case. If they got into the yards and started terrorising the calves I would throw the rocks at them—I was a pretty good shot. I’d been practising. That’s when I caught a glimpse of something white in the yard.