Mud clung to Louise"s leather riding boots making her feet heavy as she chased a heifer out of a corner of the yards. She hadn"t expected to be racing around in slippery conditions and the smooth soles gave her no grip. Graeme had watered the yards overnight to keep the dust down and now she floundered in the quagmire.
"Push them up, Louise!" Ben"s cry could barely be heard over the noise of the cattle.
"What do you think I"m doing?" Smacking an older cow on the rump, Louise chivvied the beasts as they headed to the narrow entrance of the race. The more experienced animals lumbered into the narrow confines without a problem, but the young stock baulked at the strange enclosure.
Louise hadn"t minded rising early to help out in the yards. The sunrise had been glorious and the dawn air cool. She hoped to learn something about cattle work but after two hours of clambering through rails and traipsing through muck, she wondered why she was there. So far she had seen nothing other than the tail ends of the stock. Up on the drafting gate, Ben operated the handle that directed the beasts through different exits while Jacinta marked a sheet with the numbers of heifers and steers to be weaned. The pair laughed and joked together as they worked.
The last of her pen of cattle slipped through the opening. Louise felt exhausted. Slipping the chain around the heavy iron gate and latching it closed, she heaved a sigh of relief. Ahead of her the drafting gate gave a last clang, all the cattle having been sorted into different groups. Thousands of cream and beige heads packed into the divided yards, squashing together for the best place next to the water troughs. Humped backs and lolling ears made her think of a pack of camels. She reckoned these beasts were nearly as tall. The biggest Brahman bulls stood higher than her shoulders.
One of the stockmen waved her over. Everyone clambered out of the yard and wandered across to a shady tree. Grateful for the iced barrel of water that propped on a stump, Louise glugged down a long drink. Flopping onto the ground, she wiped dust and sweat from her brow. "That"s really hard work. My feet feel like they"re encased in lead."
Graeme leant against the tree next to her. "Being the driver is hard yakka. After smoko you can tail in the race."
Ben came and sat on the other side of Louise as Graeme was talking. "That"s the easiest job. I"ve sharpened the knives. You won"t have any trouble."
Louise had no idea what was expected of her, but assumed someone would show her when they restarted work. She watched Jacinta stride back from the house carrying a large platter of cake and biscuits.
"Grub"s up. Tuck in." She put the plate on the ground as many hands reached for the food.
Louise"s stomach still felt too knotted to eat. Besides, she had filled herself with eggs on toast at breakfast. Jacinta always seemed to be cooking, and had a table load of food ready when Louise climbed out of bed earlier. She wondered where the girl found her energy. For now, Louise was happy to rest in the shade and sip on another beaker of water.
After smoko, Graeme positioned Louise on the outside of the race and handed her a sharp knife. Grabbing hold of a calf"s tail, he showed her what to do. "A quick slice through the hair shows this one has been processed. That way if they jump out of the race, we know which ones have been wormed and which not."
Louise understood. Grabbing hold of the tail of the next calf in line, she sawed at the tough hair as Ben injected the animal with wormer. Pleased with the tidy cut, she straightened up from her crouch. "Okay, I"ve got the idea. I"m ready."
The race held between six and eight calves, depending on how big they were. As the last one went through the calf cradle, a new batch was chased in by the stockmen. Ben walked down the line injecting as he went. It was Louise"s task to mark each tail as he did them. After the first few, she felt she had a rhythm. "Hurry up, Louise. You"ve got to be quicker." Ben waited on the end gate to let in the next batch of calves.
"Some of these tails are really thick. I don"t want to cut the flesh." Louise couldn"t believe that Ben wanted her to hurry. Nothing she did seemed to please him at the moment.
"Don"t worry about making them straight, they"re not going to a show. It"s just to mark them." Ben shoved a calf off the rails as it tried to clamber over the side of the race.
Jacinta stood with her hands on her hips at the calf cradle. "Come on, Ben. There"s nothing coming through. We can"t waste time."
Determined not to let her friend down, Louise hurried her knife work despite the difficulty of having to stretch her arms through the rails. Sometimes the calves bunched together so tightly she couldn"t grab the tail and had to lean over the top. Chopping at the tails any way she could, the ends resulted in a ragged line. On some she didn"t think she would be able to tell whether they had been marked or not, but Ben had stopped complaining at her speed.
After half an hour, her hands stung from holding the knife tight and she felt as if she"d never be able to straighten her fingers again. With a quick slash she hacked at the hairy tufts of the last calf in the race, knocking her hand against the rails. "Ow! I"ve cut myself."
Blood ran in a stream down Louise"s hand. She tugged a hanky out of her pocket and wrapped it around her finger. "Are there any plasters here?"
With a big sigh, Ben came over and had a look at the cut. "It"s not that bad. Hold it tight and the bleeding will stop."
Graeme came over and disagreed. "Pop into the house and grab a bandage. You"ll find the first aid kit on a shelf in the kitchen. We can manage while you"re away. Do you feel okay?"
Tears threatened to well up in Louise"s eyes but she fought them back as she nodded. Her hand no longer hurt. She thought perhaps it was from shock, or maybe her disappointment at letting Ben down. It wasn"t fair; she"d never done this sort of thing before and she found it much harder than it looked.
After managing to apply a rough bandage to her hand, not an easy task on her own, Louise hastened back to the yards. Determined not to let the difficulty of the work overpower her, she slipped through the rails back to the race. If Jacinta could do it, so could she.
Graeme checked the dressing on her hand and nodded approval. "You"ll live. You won"t be able to use a knife like that though. How about you help push up the next pen of cattle? I know it"s hard work, but there"ll be two of you in there this time. We never go in with the bulls alone."
Louise looked across at the next pen to be processed. While she had been attending to her cut, the cows and calves had all been through the race. "What do you do with them? They"re already branded and ear-tagged."
"They still need to be drenched for ticks and other pests. It"s much quicker than the calves, and then we"ll stop for lunch before we tackle the weaners."
The pen of bulls looked daunting to Louise. The Brahmans didn"t have horns but they weighed over a tonne. She joined one of Graeme"s stockmen in the yard who indicated she should go around the mob of cattle and drive them from behind. Copying his actions, she waved her hat and shouted. Some of the bulls wandered towards the exit but others stood and looked at her. Jumping up and down, she flapped her arms and moved towards a massive dark grey beast. With a grunt, he turned and followed the others.
The heavy bulls walked a lot slower than the cows and calves that had scuttled around in a frenzy. Louise found this work much easier and came to know just how hard she could drive the animals without over exerting herself. She worked out that approaching their head and staring at them seemed to be more effective than chasing them.
One slate grey bull kept evading her attempts to push him toward the gate. He had taken a firm stance in the far corner and no matter how she darted at him, he wouldn"t move. She decided to leave him for the more experienced stockman who was driving the last three bulls into the race. Walking back across the yard, she heard a sudden chorus of shouts.
"Turn around!" "Run!" "Louise, get out!" All the messages came at once and confused her.
Glancing over her shoulder, Louise saw a cloud of dust coming towards her at speed. It suddenly dawned on her that the bull was on the attack. Gaining strength she didn"t know she had, she flew to the rails and leapt to safety as the powerful beast crashed into the metal bars. His lowered head smashed with a bang where her legs had been a second before.
Perched on the top rail, Louise"s heart pounded as she recovered from her mad dash and the close escape. She could see Ben stomping over to her.
"Never turn your back on a bull! Or a cow for that matter. What were you thinking, Louise? You must know better than that." Ben"s face glowed red with anger.
Shaking, Louise jumped off the rails to safety. Furious with Ben for his attitude, she wished she was anywhere else. Throwing her hat to the ground, she shouted back at him. "Some of us didn"t grow up on a farm, Ben. I hate this yard work. I want to go home and ride Honey. It was a stupid idea to come for the holidays."
Graeme came over and pointed at Ben. "Shut up. We"ve all had near misses like that and I could tell a few stories about things you did when you were younger." He placed his arm around Louise"s shoulder. "I think you"ve done really well. It"s almost lunchtime. Why don"t you go and join Cooky at the camp. We"ll be over soon."
A small flock of dark grey birds the size of blackbirds pecked at the ground around the old cook where he sat on a low three-legged stool. As Louise moved nearer, the birds rose in a flurry of wings and resettled a few metres away. "What are they squabbling over?"
The wiry cook looked up and chuckled. "Them Happy Families? I threw them some crumbs. They"ll argue over anything."
"Can I sit here?" Louise pulled up a camp stool opposite the small fire where a large black billy swung on a tripod.
"Don"t cost no more than anywhere else. Are they on their way over?" The cook stood and hefted a large pot into the coals. Lifting the lid, he sniffed as he gave the meat a stir.
"Graeme sent me over to say they"d be here soon. What"s for lunch?"
"Wait-and-see-pie! That"s what me Pappy always told me." The wrinkled man folded his spindly legs beneath him as he squatted back on the rough-hewn stool.
Louise watched the birds continuing to shove each other around, squawking and pecking. "Why are they called Happy Families when they fight all the time?"
Cooky"s eyes twinkled. "That"s exactly why. They live in family groups, and like any family, there"re always rivalries and squabbles. They"re really Apostlebirds."
Placing a couple of tin mugs on an upturned stump, Cooky poured black tea from the billy and added three heaped spoons of sugar into each. "Here, you"ll need this after a morning in the yards. Hard work, ain"t it?"
Agreeing, Louise took the proffered cup and sipped the sweet liquid. Ignoring the tea leaves floating around, she found the hot drink refreshing despite the heat of the day. Her anger with the world dissipated as she watched the cook busy about getting lunch laid out. He wiped the dust off a stack of tin plates and removed the lid from a tub of cutlery. A large shaker of salt and a pepper grinder stood centrepiece on the wooden bench that served as a table.
Graeme led the stockmen over to a large concrete sink that rested on iron rails. A long handle served as a tap to the flow of bore water that gushed from a pipe protruding from the ground. The men doused their heads and scrubbed their hands over their faces before joining Louise and Cooky at the fire.
Ben and Jacinta wandered over a few minutes later, by which time everyone else had platefuls of food. Louise used the excuse of having a mouthful of thick-cut toast and mince to avoid having to say anything.
When it was time to return to work, Graeme waited until Ben and Jacinta had wandered off. "Louise, if you want to give Cooky a hand this afternoon, I"m sure he"d appreciate it. There"s another stock camp of men coming in tonight so he"s got a lot of people to cater for."
Understanding that Ben"s uncle was offering her an opportunity not to go back in the yards, Louise felt guilty. "Only if he wants me. I don"t want to be in the way."
Cooky threw his hands in the air. "It"s not often I get to spend the afternoon with a pretty girl. Company"ll be good."
Grateful for his comment, Louise accepted. "I can wash things up if nothing else."
The air became thick and heavy as the earlier breeze disappeared in the afternoon. Louise"s chatter about her morning dried up as the heat and tiredness overcame her. Louise couldn"t understand why Cooky kept the campfire going. "Why don"t you do dinner in the kitchen at the stockmen"s quarters? Ben showed me round when we arrived and it looks like a great set-up."
Cooky"s beard hung in a long plait, fastened with a rubber band near his waist. He tucked the end into his belt. "I don"t like no confined spaces. I was born outside and I live outside. There ain"t nothing I can"t cook on an open fire."
Fascinated, Louise became more alert and asked about Cooky"s background. She discovered he had been raised by his grandfather, Pappy, after his mother died giving birth to him, and his father left a few months later.
"He was the best drover in those days, old Tom Donaldson. I went with him everywhere. Never had no schooling. It was him who taught me to cook and all." A faraway look came into Cooky"s eyes as he stared at the horizon.
Louise shuffled on her seat. "Why didn"t you become a drover like him? Or a stockman?"
Brought back to the present, Cooky tugged his shirt out of his jeans and lifted it high to his chin. A thick scar like a contorted snake trailed from one hip across his belly and disappeared around his chest. "A bull gored me when I was eight. I ain"t been near them beasts other than to butcher them ever since."
Shocked, Louise thought back to her morning in the yards. Thank goodness the bull that chased her hadn"t had horns. "That"s awful! What happened? You"re lucky you didn"t die."
Nodding, Cooky told her the full story of how he"d thought to help his Pappy and had ridden a horse into the bush to chase an escaped bull. The beast had turned and charged him, knocking the horse over and raking both of them with his horns. His grandfather had to shoot the bull to save him. "There weren"t no way to contact a flying doctor or anyone in those days. One of the Aunties stitched me up with something. They was always good with bush medicine."
"What aunties? Did you have a big family?" Louise kneaded a large bowl of flour and water that Cooky had asked her to mix for damper.
Chuckling and shaking his head, Cooky explained, "Me mam was Aboriginal. There was always a few of them following the camp. We called the older ladies "aunty" out of respect. They knew a thing or two, them old girls. Most of that knowledge is lost these days."
A comfortable silence fell between them as they continued to work together on the evening meal. Cooky looked up at a flock of corellas causing a commotion as they landed in the dead gum tree over at the yards. He joined in, mimicking the raucous birds. As he changed tune, the white parrots took to the air and swooped low over the camp before flying in a huge circle overhead and returning to their perches.
Louise was convinced that the birds had responded to Cooky"s whistling. "That"s amazing! Did you really call those birds over?"
"I can do lots of other birds too. Listen. What"s this one?" He whistled all different bird songs to Louise, who tried to guess each one in vain.
Time passed quickly as Louise chatted to Cooky about birds, his past, and life in the outback. He reminded her of Harry, the hermit who lived in the mountains that had helped her and Ben with the brumbies. Both old men preferred to live outdoors and had an affinity with animals. She was amazed how much she learnt from Cooky in such a short time, unlike with Harry whom she knew nothing about, despite being friends for eighteen months. Thinking of friends, she wondered what Ben thought of her not helping in the yards. This holiday wasn"t turning out like he"d promised at all.
