The old year passed by and the truck wireless kept me in touch with current news. It had taken about a week to educate the last of the cattle away from the black hole. I got to know some of the cows and I called them super-optimists. On the way to the bore they broke away from the rest and walked up to the black hole fence. They’d have a long look, nostrils flared for the smell of water and then with a flick of the tail it was back to the bore trail.
I moved camp back to the bore. The black hole camp I’d shared with the goannas. They have an extraordinary sense of smell and knew I had some goodies in the tent. I left a plate by the fire one morning and when I returned the boss goanna—the big black fellow—ran away with it in his mouth. I had to chase him and he only dropped it when he reached the foot of his tree.
It was about the sixth day of January, 1995, and I hadn’t had time to check the boundary. At this time of the year even moderate days were still hot, but nothing like the heatwaves that came and went in cycles. With the cooler temperature it seemed a good opportunity. Diesel was low and the cows and calves at Amby Creek needed checking. If I checked the boundary at Mt Kennedy I felt I could leave for a day and a night.
Circus and Yarramin were never far from the bore and Yarramin made his usual camp inspection when I moved back. He would eat anything and to feed him was fatal, for he would wait outside the tent and get his legs tangled in the tent ropes. The boundary inspection would have been a lot more pleasant on Circus, but some of the country was so rough and steep it wasn’t worth putting a horse through it.
Walking west from the bore the country was heavily timbered with lancewood and ironbark. The trees sucked the moisture and left little for grass. The only grass belonged to the wire grass family, unpalatable for cattle. I didn’t expect to see cattle tracks in this country and when I did I stopped and examined them. A mob had gone through, probably thirty to forty head. They had been driven fast and ran packed tight, knocking down brush and snapping branches from trees.
I followed the tracks for about three kilometres, tracking backwards. I reached the western boundary and here the mob had been driven along the fence. The fence led over a sandstone ridge covered in wattle and dropped into a ravine, flat at the bottom and under head-high kangaroo grass. Halfway across this narrow strip I found the fence down, where the cattle had been turned in. I didn’t see any horse tracks and didn’t expect to. The horsemen would have crossed somewhere else and wiped the tracks leading to and away from the fence:
To confirm my suspicions, I had in the past few days seen some strange cattle among mine and simply assumed they’d got in from somewhere. They hadn’t got in. They had been driven in.
Another two kilometres on I found the fence down again. Logs had been laid across the wire and a couple of wooden posts had been lifted out of their holes, which would not be difficult in sandy loam soil. Clearly men rode these ranges and stole cattle.
I moved slowly, looking for horse tracks, and by mid-afternoon had only gained the far north-east corner on the basalt tablelands. I saw no more tracks and in the high country the fence was in good order.
It was a long walk back to the bore. Half a kilometre out I could hear the labouring chug chug of the diesel engine. I had become fond of the noise and its echo through the timber, for it was more than an echo of sound; it was a vision of flowing water, healthy cattle and security. The sight of a strange vehicle by the tent was not so welcome.
It was an old model vehicle with a trayback and sides. Vehicles have never interested me much, but at a quick glance it might have been a Land-Rover, popular in the sixties. The driver stood near the front of the vehicle, looking down towards the bore where a group of cows and calves was filing through the gate into the access paddock. He didn’t see me coming and wheeled around when he heard my boots crunching the eucalypt leaves.
‘Jesus—yer give me a fright!’ he burst out, forcing a smile. He was about my height, but had a powerful look about him, a sleeveless shirt exposing deeply tanned, sinewy arms. There was a litheness, about everything he did, even when he pulled a cigarette packet from his shirt pocket.
We shook hands and I asked, ‘You from about here?’
‘Not too far away. I’m a station manager.’ He made no further effort to introduce himself.
‘Similar country?’ I asked. With strangers it was always the weather or the country. I always prefer to talk about the country.
‘Rougher,’ he replied.
‘This is better than it looks,’ I said. ‘The tablelands are covered with the biggest expanse of bluegrass I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh yes it’s beautiful on top. The gorges that drop off it would worry me. Do you think you’ll ever find them all?’
‘I wouldn’t like to leave them for long.’
‘You can’t leave them for a day.’ His grim reply jolted me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s a bad bunch that come and go. The soft name given to ’em is the Wild Bunch. Other names are less flattering.’
‘Sounds like they rob banks and snatch payrolls!’
He shot me a knowing look and smiled wryly. ‘They’re not much better. If it wasn’t for air surveillance these blokes would be right into it, although none of them have Butch and Sundance’s charisma.’ He paused and looked at me steadily, his jaw set like a man about to deliver very bad news. ‘There’s no thanks for this sort of thing, but someone has to tell you. You’re a deadset sitter. They hit Claravale station a few weeks back and not a beast sighted since. What was most alarming was their boldness. They cut out what they wanted and ran ’em straight past Scalp’s yards.’
‘How many?’ I was truly shaken.
‘Forty or fifty head.’
‘That their biggest coup?’ I was trying to convert the new threat into dollars.
‘Oh no,’ he almost moaned, shaking his head. ‘They’ve knocked off up to a hundred head in a single raid.’
‘Impossible,’ I declared. ‘You can’t run off with a mob that size.’
‘In the heavy pine and lancewood yer never see ’em. You might run a three-day camp before you know yer short. You’ll learn. Wait until yer go to round ’em up.’
‘Scalp should have told me,’ I said. ‘The stock route would be better than this.’
‘My bet is he couldn’t get you here quick enough. Once here yer stuck. Someone’s gotta run that big old bastard of a diesel for water and he’s away pullin’ scrub. You’ve become his minder and he gets a cheque every month to boot.’
‘Minder!’ I exclaimed.
‘Call it what you like. Big place north of here employs a gunman. Anyway Scalp’s got a thousand head scattered about and while yer watchin yer own I guess he thinks his are safe enough and he can go pullin’ scrub and forget ’em. They water everywhere on springs and dams. He’s given you the dry country. But in a drought like this one yer lucky to get it.’
‘I had planned to have a week or two at the bore and if there were no problems pay someone to run the engine and go home.’
‘No one’s goin’ to come out here. Plenty of brave men around the pubs of a night. But try ’em next morning.’
‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘I could make it worth your while.’
‘It’s hard enough watchin’ me own back on forty thousand acres.’
I breathed deeply. This was bad news. Far worse than I could ever imagine—I could hardly take it in. ‘It’s that bad is it?’
‘You ride with yer gun, sleep with it and when yer squat behind a tree you have it in reach. These blokes’d shoot a hundred cows just to get the hundred unbranded weaner size calves. They have credit on demand and use bills for toilet paper.’
For some moments his phrases seem to echo in my mind. It was as though I had slipped into a nightmare and was waiting for that jolt when you’re suddenly conscious of your own snore and with that you’re back in the comfortable, safe real world.
A sprightly bunch of cattle trotted through the timber to the access paddock and the water. They were led by a big framed cow. Her calf was one of those frolicking in the rear. She caught the scent of the camp fire and stopped. The calves, too, stood motionless. Their communication was instant. The discipline beyond the new world of humans. Then she swished her tail back over her rump, tossed her head once with delightful arrogance and walked on. They didn’t trot again.
‘You been under fire?’ I asked.
‘Yeah—twice,’ he muttered and nodded vigorously. ‘It’s when they’re drunk. They don’t aim. Bullets skip on the dirt and slam into tree trunks. It scares the shit out of yer.’
‘If you did that back home there’d be a squad of police on the scene in thirty minutes.’
‘No police. Yer leave ’em out of it. They won’t find ’em for a start and if they did they’d find unarmed stockmen looking very surprised and sympathetic.’
‘I’d call them just the same.’
‘That night they’d shoot yer horses. If you had a house they’d burn it.’
During the next half hour he related the little he knew about the Wild Bunch. The identity of some was so obscure they might as well have been faceless. The one feared most was ‘Frankie’. Accused of everything short of murder he nursed a grudge against the world and drank heavily. By the time he had finished his story more cattle had drifted in. Some trotted and some walked. Each little group had a matriarch and she made the decisions. After they drank they wandered into a patch of brigalow and mingled with other groups. Some cows would lock heads, light-hearted gestures of territory—that’s my shade, not yours. The little charades went on all day.
I had begun to feel very hollow in the stomach. I asked this bloke if he’d like to try a reheated johnny cake. He still hadn’t volunteered his name and after all he had told me I gathered he didn’t want me to know. The cakes were palatable enough with jam and fresh billy tea and we talked for a while longer. I listened to him carefully; for a comment, slip of the tongue—anything that might suggest exaggeration and rumour, but his story didn’t change. I had to plan for the worst possible scenario. In fact I hardly noticed him go. He had left me with a lot of thinking to do.
After the visitor left I sat on my log seat for a long time and dwelt upon the unbelievable. Over the years I had heard about outlaw pockets in Queensland and the Northern Territory. It had always been my private belief that some men duffed cattle, resorted to shoot-outs where bullets were never aimed at human targets and plunged into pub brawls to fill a vacuum of loneliness and despair.
Outback Australia possibly comprises the loneliest landmass on earth outside the great ice wastes of the poles. There are vast deserts in Africa, but people live in them and have created culture going back thousands of years. There is no longer a culture in the remote areas of Australia. The Aborigines first lived on stations following the destruction of their own culture. And had the situation been left alone by bureaucracies and by people passing through this world who at the end of the day have acquired zero knowledge of any facet of human existence, I believe more of these people would today own and manage cattle stations in the outback.
The Aboriginal people today live in old mission camps and on the edges of towns and the majority survive in the cities. If it had not been for the opening of the live export trade, Top End cattle stations would have been reduced to lonely homes in a wilderness, for cash flows would not have even equalled the cost of mustering. An area half the size of western Europe may have become almost uninhabitable with a climate alien to all but the Aboriginals. The dark people belong there and will save that fragile land from the irreversible ravages of the southern arid zone.
The unbelievable was that I had blundered into one of the last remaining pockets on the edge of civilisation. For the cattle I had no regrets. The only mob not secure now was the two hundred cows left at Amby Creek. For myself I had to admit I had no regrets in the short term. I enjoyed the return to the wild. It is always nice to dream about a world that is a spinning nightmare, in which you alone can step off and on as you please. The reality is you only ever step off once. The fantasies soften the blows and those who can never indulge in fantasies grow old before their time. My immediate fantasy was to have Sal here with me. Together we could escape the world for a time, observe the cattle in this beautiful setting of forest, gorges and high tablelands, and at night listen to the possums squabble, the dingoes howl like the violin of the Dreamtime and wake to the shrill call of the curlew. But alas it was a fantasy. We were locked apart and loneliness would fall heavily upon her now.
Next morning, Saturday, I loaded the empty diesel containers and left for Mitchell. About sixteen kilometres down the track I stopped to watch a feeding frenzy. Seven or eight wedge-tail eagles had set upon a kangaroo hit by a vehicle overnight. They tore at the carcass with their claws and their huge beaks pulled the meat from the skeleton. I felt privileged to be able to watch. These birds are the lions of the sky—the largest eagles surviving in the world today. A larger bird in the Philippines is so close to extinction it may not be a valid comparison.
I observed no fighting among the birds. There was a total acceptance of one another and they appeared to have little interest in me. I had been watching for more than five minutes before I saw why. Perched in a tree high above them a pair of beady eyes stared down on the truck. This bird was the sentinel.
Throughout my life I have been saddened by the basic lack of understanding we humans have of all other creatures. We have become too removed from the natural world and basic commonsense. I have always defended this magnificent eagle and an Aboriginal whom I have employed on odd occasions told me of a white man in the Quilpie district who shot eagles relentlessly for forty years with no drop in lamb losses. The Aboriginal shot a large sow one day and gutted it in front of this man. Its insides were full of young lambs. There is a tragedy in paradox here. The eagle was the only ally this man had. An eagle can swoop and take a piglet, whereas a dingo has to face mum.
What we have lost in the name of civilisation is difficult to define. While I watched these birds feasting I pondered over the millions of magnificent animals the white man has shot needlessly over the last hundred years. I didn’t hear the vehicle coming from behind, such was my trance. The first warning came from the sentinel. The bird’s huge wings expanded and those on the carcass responded immediately. With a beat of wings they rose into the trees. One only alighted to a nearby log.
Beside me a four-wheel-drive trayback had stopped. There were three blokes in it. The driver already had a rifle out the window. His hat cast a shadow over his face. The one nearest me I could see. He had heavy jowls and his scruffy face badly needed a razor. The life in his eyes had died long ago and he sucked on a stubbie of beer the way he might have thirty years before with a bottle and a teat.
‘These birds are protected,’ I yelled to the driver as I got out of the truck.
‘Not here mate. We use ’em for target practice.’
The bird perched on the log didn’t like me leaving the truck. It followed the others back into the timber. The eagles selected high trees and were already out of range for anything but a freak shot.
‘You the Mexican?’ the driver asked when the bird had gone. He moved the rifle back into the vehicle.
I nodded. I didn’t feel like saying anything. There was no need for any introductions either. I reckoned the driver was Frankie of the Wild Bunch.
‘None of my business what you do,’ I said at last. ‘But I was enjoying watching those birds feed. Nothing special to you blokes because you see them all the time. Where I come from they’re rare.’
‘That’s alright mate,’ the driver said in a tone that let you know it wasn’t alright. He too hadn’t shaved for a while. The stubble was slightly reddish on a belligerent-looking face. His hair was brushed back sharply revealing a broad forehead. The size of his arms suggested a heavy build and someone not too fit.
I stepped away from the vehicle and they drove off. The eagles were well away from the road now, maybe two hundred metres and when the vehicle drew level with them I saw a barrel emerge from the passenger-side window and a shot was fired harmlessly in the direction of the birds. The report was sharp and loud and the big birds rose into the sky and drifted away.
I drove on to Mitchell, filled the diesel containers and went to see how things were going with the horses. Vodka had run a good time and Bill, his trainer, was keen to start him. He had looked through the western districts programme and all the clubs had shut down for January. We had to wait for Wandoan at the end of the month. The story of the three year old was less encouraging. He had bucked like a veteran rodeo horse.
Mary, Bill’s wife, always provided tea with some scones and in no time the morning had vanished. I look back on those morning teas with Bill and Mary Anderson as some of the best moments in Queensland.
The next stop was the Old Boy’s. He had already moved the cattle onto better feed. His cultivation paddocks had exploded with summer weeds, some of which cattle loved. He said there was no need to move for two weeks, which was a relief. My calculations on the bore had not been quite accurate and I had to run the engine sixty percent of total time to keep ahead of the cattle. It appeared I might have to sell the remainder at Amby Creek.
After a drive out to the cattle in the Mad Max machine, a cup of tea, a report on the rats and the last lot of jokes he had gathered from various bars, I went on to Muckadilla. Someone would have found my spectacles by now!
It was late in the afternoon when I arrived and the hotel was packed. Donna was so busy I didn’t get to speak to her for an hour. No glasses had been found to her knowledge. Ask so and so—they went to Roma, but should be back before dark. I decided to take the gamble and stay for a while. If I got the glasses I could drive back to the camp after a meal. If no one had them I had to wait until morning.
The hotel had a party atmosphere from the moment I walked in. There must have been twenty kids diving and splashing in the pool. The tables set around the pool, under umbrellas, were all taken by travellers. Those from Brisbane and Toowoomba on holidays stood out. The men wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts and the women soaked up the last of the sun in two-piece costumes. Inside, the locals hugged the bar. Caps never came off, but most of the women wore frocks and filled the long bar with a measure of femininity I had not seen before.
With a beer in my hand I began to look for faces. The young guide-post flattener Nick and Rupert had chatted to was there. He raised his glass. For the moment he was sober. I couldn’t see anyone else I knew and must have looked a bit lost, for Donna appeared at my side and took me across to a table where four blokes were seated. They were drovers, enjoying a bit of a break from the cattle. I had not seen them before and I found them much easier to talk to than the bullies in October. They told me about the lady boss drover. She had cows with young calves and heat had caused havoc with the calves. The men had thrown it in and left. The stock route south from Mitchell had plenty of feed and little water. When they left Mitchell storms had filled every gully and ditch and no one had anticipated such a rapid evaporation of the water.
‘She won’t make it through if the Wet don’t blow up again,’ one bloke said. He had a moustache and a rugged face to carry it. His western hat had character, shaped for his head. So many of the hats worn by stockmen conjured up the brainless cowboy look.
‘Make it where?’ I asked.
‘Down the dry track,’ he said. ‘It’s like a desert to St George. Very little water. The Maranoa runs underground.’
News like this made me count my blessings. Two hundred and twenty kilometres of scrub and dry stages. One woman and two girls. I began to wonder whether the women in the twenty-first century might have to do the front-line fighting while the men managed the supply lines.
‘She’ll make it,’ the drover with the long nose said. ‘Stubborn bitch they say.’
We drank a round and conversation swung around to my cattle.
‘Yeah, know the place.’ He didn’t speak much this bloke. Balding slightly, he spoke and looked at you with his head tilted back. Not the most friendly of the foursome, but the best of them if strength of character is indeed registered in a man’s face.
‘Bloke from Longreach lost fifty percent in there,’ he said. ‘What they could muster they walked out. They walked north.’
‘North,’ I said in disbelief. ‘A couple of good stations and then the most hostile country in Queensland.’
‘They slipped down through the Great Divide. Good belt of country there.’
‘There was a fight at the yards,’ the long-nosed bloke said. ‘Some mad bastard said he was gonna shoot ’em all. So they went north to avoid the pass.’
The beers softened the reality of the rangelands and I resigned myself to at least two weeks of night blindness. The tall bloke whom I last remembered trying to shoot the moon after the barbecue had arrived with his woman. She had a pretty face but the muscles of a man. God help him if his virility failed.
The bar had become a sea of faces and hats. I excused myself to have a wander through the crowd. Near the pool table I found Scalp and Jenny. I made sure I shook Jenny’s hand firmly. I wondered whether she had the same rule for kissing.
‘Have a New Year drink with us,’ Scalp said cheerfully. ‘We missed the barbecue. Make up for it tonight.’
‘Don’t make up for the hangover.’
‘My hangover’s waitin’ for the first beer.’ Scalp wore mischief like some women wear cheap perfume.
‘Met the mob up there?’ Jenny asked.
‘I’ve met them. Guns and a shot thrown in as well.’
‘They’re taken pot shots already?’ She looked stunned and I saw a glimpse of the real woman.
‘They fired at some eagles,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘They have to drop their sights a fair bit yet.’
‘Come on Jen,’ Scalp laughed and put a beer in her hand. ‘Make the man nervous, lookin’ serious and all like that. They’re just larrikins them blokes. Be here in a minute. We’ve got some musterin’ plans.’
‘Bit of bronco work too I suppose,’ I said.
‘I’m going up to keep ’em in line,’ Jenny said firmly. ‘The buggers get drunk and are rough on the horses.’
Four blokes had appeared on the verandah, through the open double doors. Three of them had been in the trayback. The one not at the eagle scene was Johnny. Short and dark, his face travelled from sombre to the widest grin I have ever seen. If he played poker he would lose every hand. He bowled up and shook hands with Scalp and gave Jenny a kiss and a squeeze. There were no introductions. He knew who I was and it was party talk as though we had known each other for years. He wore a red shirt with the long sleeves rolled up and a red bandanna to keep his black hair in place. Not a man in the bar looked as striking as this bloke. He had shaved and unlike his mates he had a strong face with just the faint crease of mirthful lines coming away from his mouth.
Frankie’s entrance was about the reverse. Close behind Johnny, he sneaked in, his eyes working overtime to take in every angle of the big room within his vision. Ike had the big characterless cowboy hat on. He wasn’t too worried who saw him enter. Tall and lean he looked the stockman only for the hat. Lenny slunk in like a mongrel dog. There are some men in this world that couldn’t buy it, and if a woman did oblige she would deserve the community medal. Nature herself let the miracle of procreation down sometimes and one would be inhuman not to feel compassion for the victim. Yet these blokes had accepted him and I wondered briefly whether they were merely larrikins after all.
‘Meet Starlight’s shadow,’ Johnny said suddenly and giggled. It was an infectious giggle and despite being the target I laughed myself. The others closed in and we shook hands as though the eagle incident had never occurred. ‘There’s some camp fire yarns in this bloke,’ Johnny blurted out and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Steals horses and runs bank managers out of town.’ Back went his head and he roared with laughter. Even Lenny smiled. I felt desperately uncomfortable. Some people had turned to take a peep at us. Then the girls arrived. They must have gone to the powder room first. Wherever they came from they arrived just in time. I almost introduced myself. Johnny’s girl had a wave of blonde hair across her face. Soft and young with a rare femininity for this region, she would have adored a wild and colourful man like Johnny. Her name was Anne. Beside her stood Josie, a wild-eyed brunette. She had fun and naughtiness written all over her and I felt she might have been only Frankie’s on a whim. Frankie had stopped glancing around the room and was already asking her about a drink. It was Dutch shouting which greatly relieved me. I had four on board already and a whole round with this group might not put me down, but I had become instantly nervous of Johnny’s mouth. There had been an incident with a bank manager and I had been within my rights, although above the law. That Johnny knew about it was staggering and I decided to deny any knowledge of what he was talking about.
Ike’s girl probably used horse sweat for perfume. Thin, dry skinned and with stringy blonde hair she was typical of those women who give every ounce of their love to horses. Not that I have contempt for them. These women set the standards for horse care and we need them. I can pick them at a glance and before I was married I steered clear of them. Their passion for horses is beyond the capability of the male. I once saw a mate of mine emerge from a stable pulling up his pants. It was an autumn afternoon, a long time ago.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said to him. I knew the girl.
‘Bale of hay,’ he grinned. ‘Her horse had no hay.’
I eased myself out of the group and had a steak from the barbecue. I rang Sal and there was an atmosphere of strain between us when I hung up. The cattle were settled and the bore had proved to be reliable. Why wasn’t I coming home? It was a fair enough question and I had to make up stories about mending fences and packs of dingoes. I couldn’t tell her about a band of outlaws. I wasn’t confident she would believe me. Who would in 1995?
I felt low in spirits after the phone call and had no desire to go back into the hotel. I couldn’t see well enough to drive, so I pitched a small French army tent I carried as a spare. They were the most durable tents I have ever seen and this one I had carried around for twenty years. I walked across the road and over the railway line. On the second trip back to the truck I picked up a thin mattress and half an hour later I closed my eyes.
The first shot woke me out of a heavy sleep. With the second shot I even heard the bullet cut the air. Right over the top of the tent it went. I may not have moved if it had not been for the shouting, both male and female. During the next few seconds I absorbed a few jumbled words. He’s this and that, roared someone. A woman screamed ‘Don’t shoot!’ I had my boots on in a flash, but I fumbled badly with the tent’s gauze zipper. When I got out I ran for a pile of railway sleepers and squatted behind them. The shouting had stopped and in the dim glow of the only two street lights I saw a small blurred figure walking back to the hotel. No one had emerged from the hotel. There was music from a tape deck and even if anyone heard the rifle shots they would be too drunk to care. I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of the tourists lying in their little rooms. The party in the bar was in full swing and judging by the language I could hear, a rough one.
I couldn’t stay outside naked for long. The mosquitoes homed in and I found myself slapping parts of my body I normally take good care of. I went back to the tent and slumbered fitfully until dawn. I must have felt safe then, because I fell into a heavy sleep.