Well out of Emmie’s hearing, propped against the garden fence, chewing and discarding blades of grass, sat Sam and Moss.
Sam was a man of few emotions, few words and little action. He did feel, however, that some action was necessary when Mr. Jack Todd had twice driven his wife Emmie home from her trapping in his jeep. What’s more, he had suggested that she go shares with him in his poison furrow, which he proposed to lay the following week, or at least Emmie was to lay it with apples and strychnine provided by Mr. Todd. Then they were to share all the profits from the skins.
Emmie was away from home far too much with her trapping. How was he to know what was happening when he was away carrying out his duties as mailman! Sam angrily plucked another blade of grass. ‘These wimmen wantin’ a bit of excitement and extry money!’
Moss was indignant, too. Sam’s troubles were now his. Hadn’t Emmie nearly married him instead of Sam? ‘Bringing her home in a jeep, what next? Him with his bulldozer and tractor and cattle bulging with fat!’ Moss’s voice was shrill. ‘The way he orders Em about!’ And the part that hurt them both most was that Em didn’t seem to mind.
They agreed that something must be done about it.
‘We could set fire to ’is bridge. ’E wouldn’t be able t’ get in or out then f’r some time.’
‘No,’ said Moss, eyeing two red steers grazing peacefully on the opposite side of the Marshes. ‘We’re not fence-cuttin’ bridge-burners. That don’t do us no good.’
For some time they sat silently brooding and peeling the bark off the garden fence.
‘Old Todd’s just about et out by rabbits,’ remarked Moss. ‘She’ll make a bit o’ dough outer that furrow; not to be sneezed at, Sam?’
Moss smiled to himself. He loved a spot of trouble. ‘Now, don’t you say nothin’ to Em. Push ’er off willin’ like at day-break. Give ’er a cup of ’ot tea. Then clean the pickle-cask out.’
Sam grunted uneasily and pulled another strip of bark off the garden fence as Moss explained his plan.
‘It’ll take her and Todd three hours to skin all they catch. Most likely, she’ll even have t’ show ’im how t’ skin a rabbit.’ Moss hawked and spat contemptuously.
Sam scowled. He didn’t like the idea of willingly pushing Emmie off. She’d think he was barmy. But he did like Moss’s plan for settling Todd.
Jack Todd, Esq., filled with progress and zest for opening up new country, had selected a large area of Crown land for himself. His boundary ran through an expanse of mud and bog called The Father of Marshes, which separated his land from Sam and Emmie’s small holding.
He knew all his neighbours resented him, but didn’t doubt his own ability to overcome that. Make friends with these rabbit-trapping cocky-farmers, show them a thing or two and so avoid a burnt haystack or cut wires in your boundary-fences. He was not a bad sort of bloke; his ideas were all right.
When driving his jeep over his selection for the first time he had seen Emmie. To him she was an odd sight, with a string of rabbits threaded on a wire bobbing around her waist, a baby tucked in a sugarbag slung on her hip, a kangaroo, cross-legged, tied to the end of her trap-hoe and dangling over her shoulder.
Slight and brown and feeding the baby as she daintily picked her way between the snags and fallen timber. She laughed up at him shyly as she parted her string of rabbits and climbed into his jeep.
He liked her small oval face and her firm pink skin shining through the slit in the back of Sam’s old coat.
The dawn breeze was saturated with the powerful blend of sassafras and tea-tree blossoms. A snipe feeding in the mud on the edge of the Marshes clicked a warning to his mate and they whirred across to the other side, where the two red steers, hock-deep in fog-grass, browsed contentedly.
Still silvered with frost, the dead rabbits strung along the clothesline rattled a hollow melody. Even the smell of the Marshes was good to Emmie. She sang gently to herself as she set out on the two-mile walk to Mr. Todd’s poison furrow.
It took Sam and Moss a good hour’s tramp around the northern side of the Marshes to reach the two red steers. It took them even longer to drive them back into Sam’s yard.
Time would not permit the slaughtering of both beasts, and, anyway, half a steer would more than fill Sam’s pickle-cask. They decided to keep one beast for two weeks, and, if discovered, to declare they knew nothing about him—he must have lost his mate and strayed. So Moss fixed No. 1 while Sam drove No. 2 into the valley and across the creek. He joined him up with Strawberry and her last year’s calf and left them conveniently cut off from the house by a clump of tea-trees.
‘As well as narkin’ that Todd, beef’ll be a bit of a change from ’roos an’ bunnies,’ remarked Moss as he pressed the steer’s hide into the fire. Sam said nothing, and, cutting up the head, threw pieces to the dogs.
Moss thought he would be on his way before Emmie came home. Let Sam account for the full pickle-cask. He took his share of beef and left Sam struggling to give the two children some breakfast.
All pleased with their morning’s achievements, Mr. Todd and Emmie from the jeep and Moss from his box-cart exchanged minor pleasantries as they passed on the road.
‘What luck?’ inquired Moss.
‘Four hundred and twenty rabbits, ten possums, six ’coots and three native cats,’ replied Emmie proudly.
‘We must exterminate this pest. Mrs. Creese has practically done all the work,’ laughed Mr. Todd, giving Emmie a playful slap on the back. ‘I’m taking her home for some breakfast.’
Emmie, unaccustomed to acknowledgement and credit, beamed.
Mrs. Creese indeed! Why, even the parson didn’t call Emmie that. Moss nodded towards the chaffbag on the floor of his cart. ‘Just been over to get some dorg’s meat from Sam,’ he explained. ‘The kids are O.K. Sam’s given them their grub.’
So successful was the plan that the following week Mr. Todd and Emmie laid another furrow. This time Mr. Todd not only called for Emmie, but kept her away all day skinning and pegging-out their catch and giving her more hearty meals.
Mr. Todd made no mention of the missing steers. Sam’s resentment grew, fanned by Moss’s lewd mirth. It was that jeep that annoyed him most of all, and he’d had the kids. Bawling and fighting around him all day, they were Emmie’s job. Pity he’d asked Moss’s advice. Emmie, too, she was as bad. Accepting the full pickle-cask without as much as one question. A present from Moss! He knew she didn’t believe him. But why couldn’t she say so? It was about time Moss came over to fix that second steer, too.
Emmie, intoxicated by her diversions, thought nothing of it when Sam agreed readily to her helping Mr. Todd with a third furrow. Nor was she suspicious when Sam, with an unusual burst of energy, said he was ‘goin’ possuming,’ and disappeared for the night. She went to bed early to be ready for the gathering-up of the third furrow the next morning. When Mr. Todd failed to pick her up in his jeep and also failed to turn up at the furrow, Emmie was not only put out, but she was thoroughly alarmed.
Sam had had a busy night. First he had let down the slip-rails and driven the red steer, Strawberry and the calf through the creek, out the gate, into the Marshes, through the gate again, across the tea-tree flats and back into his yard, leaving a multitude of cattle tracks on the near-by ground.
Then he had slaughtered the steer, filled up the pickle-cask with one half and hung the other half in a chaffbag at the top of a gum-tree. Next he had set off towards Todd’s farm armed with a bottle of kerosene and a pair of wire-cutters.
By the time Emmie gathered up all the catch she was tired, indignant and hungry. These men, they were all the same, and Todd was no different from any other! Promising you this and that! Hadn’t she taught him how to lay a furrow, to gut and skin a rabbit? Done nearly all the work herself and then, just when he was needed most, he didn’t turn up at all!
Moss, knowing of the third furrow, went over to see Sam, whom he found still asleep.
‘About that steer?’ said Moss, shaking him.
‘Gorn!’ said Sam.
‘What!’
‘Yep. Slip-rails down!’
‘He wouldn’t go far.’
‘Has—can’t find ’im. Looked for hours.’
Sam, picking his trousers up from the floor, put them on and led the way outside. He pointed out the cattle tracks. ‘Strayin’ cattle musta took ’im off.’
‘Funny they didn’t take Strawberry and her calf.’
‘They did,’ assured Sam. ‘Found ’er out on the mountain.’
Moss looked at the tracks doubtfully. ‘They’re pretty fresh. We’d better follow them.’
Emmie had just cooked an appetising meal of roast-beef and potatoes when Sam and Moss arrived home exhausted, having combed the foothills for further cattle tracks all day.
Emmie inquired: ‘What red steer?’
Sam looked a bit sheepish.
It was Moss who explained that it was another one he was sharing with Sam.
‘Some cove musta pinched him from us,’ put in Sam.
‘Perhaps the same stinkin’ cove who burnt Todd’s bridge.’
‘Burnt Mr. Todd’s bridge! When?’ Emmie sharply asked.
‘Larst night,’ said Moss, deliberately looking at Sam. ‘And cut all the wires in ’is front fence!’
Sam reached for the blackened billy on the hob and slowly poured himself a mug of stewed tea.
‘That’ll keep ’im busy f’r some time. Yes, Mrs. Creese, you’ll ’ave all the rabbits t’ skin and lug ’ome y’self. There won’t be no smart guy now to ’elp you. It’ll take him a month to build a new bridge.’
Emmie, her face shining with admiration, looked across at Sam.
‘’Ere, let me make you a fresh billy of tea.’
It was wonderful what Sam would do for her when roused.
‘Sam’ll help with the skins, won’t y’, Sam?’
Sam grunted his assent, and Emmie, beaming happily, pulled a large portion of freshly-corned beef out of the cask and handed it to Moss.
‘I’m sorry about y’r steer getting away on y’, Moss. It’ll be a bit of a loss. We’ve still got some left from the last one y’ killed. Take a piece of that!’ she said graciously.
