I gave myself ten days to get rid of the crutches following my knee operation which was no more than repair and trimming of two damaged ligaments. For the first time in months I could straighten my leg and if it had not been for the gloomy long-term prognosis I would have expected to be able to sprint and catch a calf once again—which I had done only three days before the accident. The calf had lost direction, gone through a fence and was a good six kilometres from his mother when I caught him and strapped his legs. He was the last calf I will ever run down and catch.
I used much of this time visiting my mother in the nursing home at Coonabarabran. The cancer had her bedridden and the only thing left in her life was visits from family and friends. She loved my accounts of the Queensland bush and I did my best to make her laugh, as she’d always had a keen sense of humour.
From the crutches I went to a knee brace and I could walk quite well. The second lot of weaners were long overdue to be taken off their mothers. There was little feed for them back home at Myall Plains—just enough to get them over the long haul from Queensland before they headed into the deep south. Sally and I had taken another trip to the Murray in search of feed and had met Geoff White, manager for Wesfarmers Dalgety in Albury. He’d found agistment for me at Jerilderie. The paddock was a lovely mixture of clover and natural grasses. After the inspection we’d gone into the little town and visited the original post office. The famous bush-ranger Ned Kelly had closed Jerilderie down for a couple of days in the late 1870s. He and his brothers and a couple of extras had enjoyed quite a blow-out, something a few of my mates and I would have loved to have done in the days of wild youth. In fairness to Ned it’s recorded he paid for his drinks and whatever else he may have needed that was not available across the border and back up in the mountains.
It was about the twentieth of June 1995 when Sal and I left for Queensland with the boys.
The winter trip to Queensland necessitated some additional equipment; namely, a four-wheel-drive bike. I couldn’t ride a horse but felt I would be of some use on a bike.
Nick and Richard had come home at the end of the first semester and were looking forward to a few days riding. Tom had a late exam and would fly to Roma.
It was one and a half day’s drive to the camp I had in mind. I decided to break the trip at Mungindi on the border. Before the introduction of cotton no one would have thought much about this little isolated town. And if it were not for a sculpture in the hotel none of us may have thought of Mungindi again. The wooden sculpture is a giant penis perfect in proportion and detail. It seems to say, ‘You may think this town is a little dot on a thousand-mile river, but you will never forget it.’
Next morning we went on to Echo Hills at Surat. The saddles were stored in a cottage there. Sal and I had returned briefly in April to draft off a wing of steers and sell them in Roma. On this occasion there was no one around. Ken and Rosie were away or had gone to town. We collected the saddles and drove out to where the horses were running. Circus was lame and in light condition. They had ample feed, so this worried me. Yarramin seemed in good form and the buckjumper had his head over the fence for a smooch. He was the most deceptive horse! You would have thought a child could be legged aboard bareback. Just the weight in the stirrup, Peter Anderson had told me, was enough to set him off. ‘He’s into it before you reach the saddle.’
The horses were all we had left at Echo Hills. The few cows and calves I had transported home. The heifers and unsold steers I had to truck back to Mt Kennedy, as the feed at Echo Hills had cut out and there was not enough feed at home for them. There was nowhere else to go.
At Roma we bought a week’s supplies and headed out. After six weeks absence what struck me most was the dryness. The autumn green had long gone. The tall grasses were finished and even the Mitchell grass had been frosted. It wasn’t a good sign for the higher tableland country.
Picking the camp site was good fun. Clear skies heralded frosts at night and I discarded the old camp site near the bore, down in the valley. I selected a site on the tablelands, about a hundred metres off the road. We had to make a track in by throwing a few logs aside. The forest had been pulled at one time and the regrowth was about six metres high. The spot itself was a scalded piece of ground that had not recovered. To the west a tree barrier blocked any view, but to the east the ground fell away to form a low depression and beyond that a sandstone escarpment walled in the new emerging forest. The rock of the escarpment was cracked in a thousand places from a sun that had baked this land for millions of years.
We only had about an hour and a half of daylight left, which is not much time when tents have to be erected, camp set up and a pile of wood gathered. To begin with the boys and I unpacked and Sal commenced the preparation of her ‘kitchen’. Nature threw in the basics—a big dead log wide and high enough to be a bench and a wilga tree with wide lateral branches. Among the branches of the wilga Sal hung the food safe, the cooking tongs, a ladle and the tea towels. Underneath, in the deep shade of the branches, she placed the Esky full of meat and the dry food boxes. Three or four metres away from the tree we set the fireplace simply by scraping the ground.
With everything unloaded from the trailer and the four-wheel drive, the boys and I started on the tents. Choosing sites took longer than the actual erection. Nick named Sal’s and my tent the ‘presidential suite’. I’d had it made to specifications as I don’t like the modern camping tents. It was the same basic design as my old French tents, but much larger. When the boys were small I used to tell them they were sleeping in the tents of the Foreign Legion and that it was a great privilege. Now the tents were old and tattered and I had a feeling that if I said anything about the French Foreign Legion the boys might have tied me up in one of them.
Richard chose a spot close to the kitchen for his tent. It was the fire he had in mind. Nick put his up half under another wilga. He loves sleeping in and I wondered whether he thought I might miss his tent on the dawn wake-up. Tom’s tent they put up near the presidential suite.
‘It’s no honeymoon for us,’ Nick said with that wicked grin of his. ‘Nor will it be for you and Mum.’
Richard was in his element with the firewood. He struggled with huge logs and wandered a long way to find the ones he wanted. He loved the bush and we had done the odd rock climb together. At the early age of twelve, he’d come with me on a roped ascent of Timor Rock which is a one hundred and fifty metre climb. Looking back I don’t know how he did it. I am a little older and hopefully wiser than I was in those days. The most memorable climb we did together was the twelve hundred metre peak of Mt Lindsay on the Queensland border when Richard was about twenty. The afternoon before our planned ascent we couldn’t find the track leading to the base cliffs. We split up and Richard found it. The only clues were tiny patches of bare ground and rock worn from the odd boot. Under the tangle of lantana and overhead jungle the ill-defined trail lay in heavy gloom. Unable to restrain his excitement Richard climbed three hundred metres to the first cliff. It was when he decided to return the trouble began. The gloom had deepened with the sun only an hour above the horizon and looking down the jungle yielded no sign of a trail. As dusk gathered I waited by the four-wheel drive, very concerned and periodically calling out to him. When Richard emerged from the gathering dark he was covered in ticks and had been laced across his bare arms by stinging trees. He still wore the cool that saved his life, but I could see he had been through a dreadful experience. He’d made several attempts to find the trail down and each time met an impenetrable barrier. Finally he decided to crawl so that he would be able to see even a disturbed pebble. He tracked himself down. We both knew the implications of a night up there were serious, with burns from the stinging trees triggering panic combined with the slow toxic release of the ticks. It wasn’t until we sank a couple of beers in the local Woodenbong pub that we learnt how serious. Only months before, a German tourist had died on the mountain. Lost like Richard, he panicked and, half crazed from the stinging tree burns, he fell down a cliff. When they found him a fortnight later the dingoes had picked his bones clean.
We camped in the bush that night and at dawn headed for the base cliffs of the mountain. Richard had no fear of the trail now. It was very steep and we seemed to be halfway up the mountain when we reached the cliffs. Our order of ascent had been reversed over the years. Richard led the way now and I belayed out the rope. There were five full lengths of the fifty-metre rope to the summit plateau. There were pitches that pushed me close to my middle-aged limit and sometimes I wasn’t thrilled to glance between my legs and see the forest canopy more than a hundred metres below.
Morning mist hugged the ancient cliffs of the summit and we pushed through ferns under stunted eucalyptus in search of the highest point. Out of the mist loomed a band of rock, not more than five metres high. It was a smooth wall and a lightning-sprung fire the summer before had blackened most of it. The fire must have had great heat because the few holds we touched crumbled. It was exasperating. Unless we scaled this wall we would fail in our bid to climb the mountain. Richard’s a strong man and I tried climbing on his shoulders, but I still couldn’t reach a handhold. For a few minutes we felt defeated, then I thought of a lasso. It was a long shot. A very long shot. I made it out of one end of the climbing rope and began throwing it up over the rock. On the fifth or sixth attempt the rope took hold. The problem was, ‘on what!’ A protruding boulder would be safe, but a shallow-rooted shrub was not. We both pulled on the rope and it held.
At this point a gust of chilly wind parted the cliff-clinging mist and we saw that the ledge we were standing on was exposed to a drop of more than three hundred metres. There was nowhere to belay the rope. I hadn’t brought any pegs as I hadn’t planned such a serious climb.
‘I’ll go,’ Richard said firmly. ‘I am the strongest.’
‘And I am lighter by at least twenty kilos.’
Richie couldn’t argue against that logic. The lighter the person, the more likely the rope would hold.
I showed him a break belay. I had gone to a climbing school once and been taught some useful tricks. In snow and ice climbing the belay man uses his ice-axe to break the speed of the rope. The idea is to let the rope travel, but to steady it and finally stop it. In this situation we would use Richard’s knee. He would push himself hard against the wall and hold the rope just above his knee.
Hauling myself up the rope was desperately difficult. If I’d had confidence in the anchor I would have planted my feet against the wall and walked up. Instead, I had to do a direct hand-over-hand pull. Near the top a hand hold presented itself and I moved away from total reliance on the rope. I put my head over the lip and looked for the anchor—a tussock of grass. I couldn’t go back without taking the strain on the rope once again and the edge, now level with my face, was crumbly. Gingerly, and anything but happy about it, I had to take hold of the rope again and ease myself over the lip. Richard I belayed, anchoring myself to one of the trees. The whole summit plateau was covered with stunted eucalypts.
After this obstacle Richie and I walked to the summit and examined the entry book, which is kept in a little steel box. The previous climber was Tim McCartney-Snape, some nine months before.
‘Too easy!’ That’s all he wrote, apart from his name and the date.
We weren’t impressed. For Richie and me it had been bloody hard, but we hadn’t climbed Everest solo either!
We took our time on the descent and it must have been late afternoon when we walked into the pub. Apart from wanting a drink or two, we had some ticks to be removed. A bloke at the pub was an expert. Somehow he pinched the skin and virtually popped them out. We had to strip to our underpants, but the Woodenbong pub would be the most laid-back place I have ever been in. A couple of beers led to a game of pool, then dinner, and later in the evening Richie and I were fascinated by all the characters. Two drunks were watching a blue video.
‘I’ve seen your wife in those black panties,’ one said to his mate.
‘Yeah, well you think you’re smart,’ the other said.
‘Smarter than you.’
‘Yeah, well ya not as smart as ya think, because just about every bloke in Beaudesert’s seen her panties.’
By nightfall we had everything in order. Each of us had a log seat and the boys had taken a XXXX from the Esky. For Sal and me it was red wine. The fire was ablaze and with a glass of cabernet sauvignon the chill of the June evening was held at bay. Just half a glass made the fire seem warmer and brighter.
The darkness crept in and we were discussing plans for the next day when a little dark form appeared at the edge of the lantern light. She was later to be called Nug Nug, for a possum so keen to join us was deserving of a name. Each morning we would wake to a bit of a mess in the ‘kitchen’, and the only place for the biscuits was in the food safe. We learnt the hard way. She could actually open a plastic container with her tiny paws. She had no fear of us and one night when I was reading by a lantern she crept onto a log only two metres away. She sat there for some time and stared at me. I didn’t move and pretended not to notice, when all at once she startled me with that extraordinary husky sound possums make. She had something to say to me alright.
That first night Sal made a casserole in the camp oven. It consisted of round steak sliced into small pieces, potato, carrot and broccoli. She tossed in herbs and spices and with red wine to chase it with we could have been dining at a luxury restaurant.
Only among the great forests are the stars sharp and clear in Australia. After rain the desert stars may be sharper still, but usually there’s a high level of thin dust and in the settled areas smog and dust forever mingle.
A dingo howled from the escarpment, a curlew’s scream pierced the night air, and carrying on a light breeze from the south-west I heard a scrub bull vent his lungs to claim his territory. Tired and well-fed, we all slept soundly.
I had been in contact with Gil and he had told me to just turn up when we wanted the horses. Scalp I had written to. It was hit and miss whether he ever got the letter. There was no telephone. The only hint he was about were the dead dingoes. His favourite spots for hanging carcasses were the cattle grids.
Before any mustering could be attempted we had to repair the holding paddock where the cattle had knocked the fence down in the stampede. I had to do the same exercise again, but the odds were in my favour, I felt. The cattle had had another four months watering at the trough and would be generally more settled. Also I felt camping right away from them might help.
All the fence posts were wooden. Twelve of them were snapped at ground level, some with ugly sharp spikes protruding from the ground. The boys had to dig them out and cut new posts with an axe. At least I felt it would be axe work. Nicholas had brought up an old power saw that hadn’t run for years and he was very optimistic when I left them. The only work I could do was strain the wires and that wouldn’t be for four or five hours. I had the opportunity to do a thorough inspection of the feed from the back of the four-wheeler bike.
It was slow going up on the basalt plateaus. At the pass I left the road and weaved my way through an intricate network of boulders. Sometimes there was no stone or rock for half a kilometre and this is where the bluegrass grew like mature stands of lucerne, but now it was gone. The cattle had left the high country and were feeding on the tall scrub grasses, which had little nutriment. I had to move them, which meant I had to find Scalp if he didn’t find me. There was other country. He had offered it before, but there was a problem with water.
I got back to the bore about midday. Nicholas had a look on his face as though he’d been posted a distinction for every subject. The posts were cut and in the ground. Waiting for me they had begun replacing broken rails at the trough. It was my turn to work and I got busy with the wire strainers.
‘If only Nick would apply the same enthusiasm to his course as he did to that power saw,’ Sal laughed.
Sal’s not one to sit around and watch, but she had to that morning. She’d brought with her S’pose I Die by Hector Holthouse. It was an intriguing story about the adventures of the first white woman into the pastoral leases of western Cape York.
‘Compared to what they endured our little mustering camp’s pretty tame,’ Sal said over a billy-made mug of coffee.
‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ I replied.
There was nothing left to do that afternoon and we all went into Mitchell to meet Tommy. He had flown to Roma and then met the Charleville bus. When we got back out to the camp I caught him having a few pensive moments while he sat on the ‘kitchen’ log.
‘Double Bay to here,’ he said soberly. ‘Gee Dad, it’s a bit of a shock, all in one day.’
I knew exactly what Tom meant. Even after long flights, people in Europe or America basically alight to physical conditions similar to those they left behind. Modern airports, coffee shops, taxis, traffic-filled streets and the smell of tarmac. Out here we were ninety kilometres from the nearest village in dry scrub that in midwinter produced not the slightest vestige of the softness and freshness of suburban gardens.
Tommy, however, loved a bit of adventure and often asked me when the next outback trip was planned. Following the wool crash there had not been one for some years. We had gone to the Gulf together in 1984. Tom was only eight then and too young to join his brothers for a week on the ski slopes. When we all regrouped at home about ten days later it was Tommy who had all the adventure stories and his brothers were very quiet, for canoeing in crocodile-infested rivers and exploring wild remote gorges in the Territory made skiing on overcrowded trails seem almost boring.
Next morning we headed for Claravale soon after dawn. I had telephoned Gil from Mitchell and he said the horses would be in the yard waiting for us. It was about fifteen kilometres to Claravale over a rough track and when we arrived Gil offered to float the horses over in his truck. It was a major inconvenience for him, I thought, and I hesitated for a few moments. He insisted and said if the boys rode over the days were too short for any hope of a muster. I knew he was right and it had been worrying me. Also we had to take what we got in one day. The country within a kilometre of the bore was eaten out. There was nowhere to feed the cattle out while we mustered for stragglers.
Gil had three horses picked out. One was a big bay gelding that nearly snorted the place down. I thought it was all bluff, but even so when Richard got on I was very relieved to see the tail lift and the gelding walk calmly around the yard. The next horse was a black gelding of about fifteen hands, named Black Cotton, which Gil told us had been foaled about the same time as the notorious Fine Cotton ring-in case had come to light. Nick was given Black Cotton and if straws had been used I felt Nick had drawn the longest, for the third horse I didn’t like.
Most horses have soft, expectant eyes. This dark bay had what we horsemen call bad eye. Such horses watch you, but never directly. They watch out of the side of the eye. They don’t like humans and want nothing to do with us. You never see their ears pricked forward.
Tom and I strapped him and upon tightening the girth he ran backwards. I got Tom to lead him for a while, first just walking, then trotting. All eyes were on us now. I am sure Gil and his man were quite amused, but they were too polite to show it. Before finally coming home and sinking his roots in the family station, Gil had worked in the Territory cattle camps and managed stations in the Carnarvons. When I first saw these men ride I felt greatly humbled. I had ridden in about two thousand races on the track, but when I watched these men gallop heedlessly through heavy scrub I felt as much a horse veteran as a city yuppie would have.
On one occasion I saw Gil chasing a steer along a steep-banked creek. The steer jumped two metres, landed in deep water and he must have thought freedom was on the other side. But Gil followed. He and the horse nearly disappeared from sight in the water, so enormous was the jump. I think the stockmen of the Carnarvons are the most fearless riders on earth and they think nothing of it, because they are reared to it.
Tom wasn’t nervous and I made sure what was in my mind stayed there. Horses that run backwards on mounting will rear over backwards if the mouth bit is given a sudden pull. Tom got on and I held the near rein, but only gently. The gelding took two steps back. Gently I coaxed him forward and told Tommy to walk him on a loose rein.
The dark bay did nothing and for the rest of the mustering camp did nothing wrong. Richie’s big bay shied on the first day, but compensated by bounding up mountain sides like an overgrown goat. Nick’s Black Cotton was a delight for him.
Gil and the boys loaded the horses and we set off for the paddock. With washouts and gutters along the track the trip took an hour. They dropped the tail board at the unloading mound near the bore and the boys swung into the saddle, eager to start.
My immediate concern was to get the boys out and back with no one lost. I drew a map of the paddock on the ground with a long stick. Richard was to ride the northern scrub valleys and Nick and Tom the plateau, which took in about a thousand hectares. In the cool winter sun I expected the cattle to move along without much pushing and converge on the bore.
I began to give basic instructions about using the sun as a compass. They let me go on for a couple of minutes, then they explained to me how to correlate the sun with the hour hand on a watch. Their cadet camps hadn’t been a waste of time after all! For a moment I felt like daddy bear taking the bear scouts on a picnic. When they were little, I must have read that story to each one of them a hundred times.
The boys had their lunches in saddlebags and I didn’t expect to see cattle or a rider for hours. I muttered something to Sal about looking for feed.
‘Do you think we should?’ Sal had that worried mum look.
‘The cows can’t come back in here.’
Reluctantly Sal got into the four-wheel drive and we left. If she had any doubts then, she had none by the time we had reached the pass. We saw a little mob coming in for water and stopped. To stay on track they had to cross the road. Their coats were dry and on their briskets I saw rubbed hair—the winter lice had arrived early for these parts, hastening a rapid drop in condition.
We drove on beyond the pass. The soil was sandy and the pine forest hugged the road for some kilometres. Then we dropped into a low valley, hemmed in from the west by sandstone escarpments. The pine gave way to brigalow, and there was a good coverage of dry grass grazed on by some longhorns camped just off the road. They rose quickly to their feet as we approached and I stopped to have a good look at them. Their condition was quite good and they didn’t seem to be affected by lice, which flourish on cattle losing condition.
Only three kilometres further on we crossed a cattle grid and entered a paddock that appeared not to have been stocked for years. There were no telltale walking pads and the scrub grasses were tall and brittle-dry. I saw an old vehicle track disappear into the brigalow and decided to follow it. It led to a trough. It was dry. No water for years, but it was in good order. I juggled the float valve and could see no reason why it wouldn’t shut off. The connecting polythene pipe had been simply laid on top of the ground. Sal felt like a walk too, so I grabbed the rifle and we followed it. The brigalow was thick and we didn’t see the galvanised tank until we reached the foot of a little flat-topped hill. An old vehicle track, which had been used to bring in the materials, led to the tank. Another pipe came from the south to the tank. That was the supply line. Somewhere there was a bore. The tank itself was huge, I thought about thirty thousand gallons. It hadn’t been used for a long time and the rust had eaten holes through the iron. But the structure was solid and could be fibreglassed.
‘If the bore still works we can get water.’
Sal looked at the rust holes and the supply line that seemed to emerge from the scrub like a long black snake. ‘No water here for years means a broken-down bore,’ she said gloomily.
We walked back not feeling very confident.
‘Not much good worrying about the water if there’s only brigalow scrub.’ I said ‘We’ll go back to the road and see if there’s another track.’
‘Please don’t take any risks,’ Sal pleaded. ‘The boys will need us. They’ve never been in anything like this.’
I had to drive another five kilometres before I found another track. It ran due west and was partly overgrown.
‘Scratch the car,’ Sal said hopefully, wishing I’d stop.
The car lurched and rocked and the sucker growth on the track went under the bullbar. ‘I didn’t borrow the money to buy this thing to be a yuppie you know.’
Sal remained quiet. She was being very brave. As the depth of the forest closed behind us I noticed a little fear tighten the skin on her cheekbones. It’s ironic, but it takes a little fear to heighten the beauty of a woman. Unless endowed with extraordinary beauty, a bored woman will become plain.
I pushed on for about twenty minutes and a little voice from my subconscious began to murmur something about irrational obstinacy when suddenly we burst into open country. A kilometre to the west I could see the forest line and to the south a range rose one hundred and fifty metres above the plain. I couldn’t believe it and got out of the car. The buffel grass had gone wild and was up to my thighs. It was winter dry, but each tussock was like a big armful of hay. Everywhere lay charcoal and as my eyes adjusted to the new scene I noted the black burnt-out stumps.
‘There was a bush fire,’ I exclaimed excitedly. ‘Maybe three or four years ago and someone dropped some buffel grass seed.’
‘Oh, it’s magnificent.’ Sal was out of the car and walking among it too. We were like excited children.
There was no need to drive any further, but I couldn’t resist it. It was a winter oasis and teemed with wildlife. Mobs of kangaroos, now largely shot-out in the Maranoa, hopped a few lazy bounds and went on feeding. Pairs of plains turkeys flapped their enormous wings and glided just far enough to feel safe, and under the sparse regrowth—a mere metre high—it wasn’t difficult to spot the shy rat kangaroos.
The gloom we had both felt evaporated and left us fresh and positive. It reminded me of oppressive heat triggering a rain squall and afterwards leaving the air cool and crystal clear.
The lurching and the bumps didn’t seem so bad on the way back to the road. Near where the longhorns were lying up I had seen the sign of a track. We headed down it and held our breath. The track was washed out and badly gutted and the scene we drove into wasn’t surprising. It was a mini environmental disaster. A few days before a southerly change had brought a little rain and with the ground so compact and hard around the tanks and the bore, the water still lay everywhere in a hundred small puddles. With years of oil spillage the ground was dark grey and the oily water resisted evaporation.
It was impossible to guess when the bore was last operated. The tanks looked okay and about a hundred metres away I could see huge mounds of dirt. A dam had been sunk within the last three or four years, which was strange near a bore. Either the bore had been abandoned or no one had time to check water troughs and had opted for surface water.
The first things I inspected were the fuel tanks. People often let petrol engines run out, but not diesels. They have to be bled and sometimes air pockets form in the fuel lines. No one wants this bother and luckily both these engines had been turned off before they ran out.
The engine on the bore was a monster and larger than that on the south bore. I guessed it was a 1930s model Southern Cross. There can be nothing half-hearted about starting these antique diesels, even if they run every week. In this case, it would be essential to drive through the first kick on the engine gummed up by residues formed in a long cold stand. It’s not knowing what that kick will be that creates fear. In Queensland there are horrendous stories about the old diesels. Unlike the southern states, Queensland has always been big cattle country. Big mobs of cattle demand big volumes of water and in the old days only these big monsters could do the job. Men have been found dead, struck in the head by a flying crank handle. Cast iron tops have exploded like grenades.
Having oiled the compression chamber, I drove the crank down fast, released the compression and heaved into the stroke. It was an anti-climax. So heavy were the old rods, she didn’t kick back. There was a gentle throb and the handle fell away in my hand. The first few belches of smoke were black and heavy, like smoke from burning tyres, then the revs rapidly picked up.
The grin was soon wiped from my face. Diesel sprayed over me like a shower. I scrambled around the other side and jammed the fuel line back into the little overhead tank. Sal had been watching and ran to my assistance. I got her to hold the fuel line while I got some tie wire. After a lot of fiddling and poor Sal also getting covered in diesel, we had the line secure. Fifteen minutes later we heard the water gushing into the tank. It was brown, full of rust from the bore pipes.
With the engine that pumped water along the supply line I was not so lucky. It looked in terrible shape. I knew a mechanic in Mitchell and would have to bring him out. The main thing was the bore. I had water and the problem now was the cost of getting it out to the feed and getting it there in a hurry.
To wash the diesel off ourselves I filled a plastic bucket with the bore water. The tank had a leak at the base and there was no point in running the engine for long. I just wanted it to have a good warm-up and to blow out the old carbon. With Sal’s help again I also had to fill the cooling tank with water, which we tediously gathered from the tank leak. The cooling tank had a capacity of about one hundred litres. I stood on an old drum and Sal carried the water. We must have looked like something out of Jolliffe’s Outback working beside the two-metre-high engine and all the mess and debris.
Sal needed to spend a bit more time on diesel cleaning than me, so I walked over to the dam. There was some muddy water at the bottom. A fresh cattle pad led to it. This was where the longhorns drank. In a pinch our cattle could get one drink here. That gave me two days to get the water on. It was almost absurdly optimistic and I left the dam feeling dry in the mouth.
Back at the south bore the mustering was proceeding well. The cattle were filing through the gate into the holding paddock and the early arrivals were making no effort to leave. I am sure the old cows know when they are going to be moved to fresh feed. When the feed runs out and the stockmen arrive, they know. I’ve been certain of it for years.
Richard was the first in. He looked tired and the big bay had dry brown sweat stuck to the saddlecloth. He’d been over the high plateau country and zigzagged back through the two principal valleys. An hour or more later Nick and Tommy came in with about sixty head. Glancing over the mob I thought they’d got them all. If not, then only a few stragglers would be left. The boys said they had run well and for once everything had gone without a hitch.
There wasn’t much daylight left when we finally turned the horses loose after a feed of hay. The cattle looked hungry and with the long walk ahead the next day I felt very worried as I drove back to the camp. The boys would have to go it alone again. The cattle were far less robust than last time, but if the lead bolted we’d be in trouble. While they were doing the drive I had to go to Roma and see if I could find someone to urgently fibreglass the rusty tank.
Back at the camp Richie got a blazing fire going within minutes. There’s something about flames shooting tongues of red at the moment of sunset. It’s as primeval as the beginning of time. A mug of red wine goes back a few hundred years too, and Tommy must have thought I needed it. He poured his mother a mug as well and Nick thought he would carry the mood even further by playing ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ from the four-wheel-drive. By dark the nagging fear of no water and no feed had evaporated.
Sucking the draught from a short piece of hollow log, the fire smothered any sound from outside the camp and the headlights caught us all quite unprepared. The lights went out and I could see it was a typical hunting truck with a spotlight mounted above the cabin.
‘How yer goin’,’ growled our sudden guest. It was Johnny. The cheekiest face in the world.
‘Johnny!’ My mouth must have fallen open. The rumour was he had been given six months in jail since I had seen him in March. Trying to break up a fight, he had fired a harmless shot in the air. Anywhere but in a town, it may have had the desired effect and been forgotten.
‘It was reduced to six weeks,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘Stupid drunken spree. Fired a shot skyward to try and shock two blokes out of a dirty fight. It was near the pub and the cops were already on the way.’
Johnny had a case of beer in his arms, which he put on the ground and gently brought his girlfriend into the lantern light.
‘This is Tina,’ he said. Tina had clear features and long fair hair. She was in her early twenties. In a different place, she would have been pretty. When she spoke there was a southern accent.
I introduced them both to Sal and the boys. ‘Welcome to the Blank Space,’ Johnny responded, with that wild look in his eye. Looking at Sal he said, ‘Reckon you’d have to show up to keep him in line.’
Johnny pulled some stubbies from the case and passed them around. Sal and I declined as we had half a mug of wine each. I noticed Johnny screwed the top off for Tina.
‘Roo shooting?’ I asked.
‘Chiller’s payin’ ten bucks a carcass. If you get among ’em it’s not hard to drop four hundred bucks worth in a night.’
‘I don’t see many,’ I commented. The lack of kangaroos had bothered me for some months. In 1958 I’d flown to Blackall on the downs further west and I would have sighted two thousand kangaroos on the way to Maryvale Station.
‘Got to get onto a station not shot out. Not many left.’
The steak was sizzling and releasing delicious aromas when the lights of a car appeared on the road. For a few moments the car didn’t move. The driver didn’t know who we were. I walked to the edge of the camp and yelled out.
The vehicle turned in and moments later Scalp emerged into the lantern light.
‘How youse all goin’?’ he asked. He seemed genuinely pleased to see us all.
I introduced him to Sal and the boys. He was nervous, as though unsure of himself. I thrust one of Johnny’s stubbies into his hand. Johnny had split the case open end to end with a knife.
‘Youse takin’ off a draft of weaners?’ Scalp asked. He had a good pull on the stubbie.
‘Got to move too,’ I said. ‘Be alright if I reconnect the water to the brigalow paddock?’
‘Hell yes!’ Scalp exclaimed and tilted his wide-brimmed hat so that the lantern light reached his face. ‘Good feed on the burnt country. Them cattle’ll do well.’
‘Far fence looks like a boundary,’ I said.
‘Fence stops at the cliffs. Off that strainer another fence runs west and it’s a boundary too, but I ain’t involved there. Them escarpments are the boundary. But north of that fence …’ He started to laugh and Johnny giggled.
‘The stirrup fighters,’ Johnny cut in, and giggled louder.
‘Heavens!’ Sal straightened from her cooking over the fire. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘When they’re musterin’ and there’s a heated blue they fight with the stirrup irons on horseback.’
‘They couldn’t,’ Sal uttered in dismay.
‘You bet they do,’ Johnny said, taking a swig.
‘They must just about brain each other,’ Nick said incredulously.
‘They got none,’ Johnny exclaimed and went off in another giggle.
‘How do we keep clear of them?’ Tommy asked, more than a little disturbed.
‘Oh, they’ll boil the billy and wave you over,’ Scalp said, and then laughed. ‘Just don’t take any of their cattle, because they don’t call the stock squad.’
‘A bloke caught duffin’ gets taken to the nearest trough,’ Johnny added.
He saw the sober look on the boys’ faces and I could see he was going to paint a vivid picture. ‘From one to the other, they run him up and down the full length with his face to the bottom. The poor bastard kicks and splutters and for a whole five minutes they make him fight for his life. Then they throw him out and thump the water out of him.’
‘I couldn’t imagine they’d have a duffing problem,’ Richard said quietly.
The comment took Johnny by surprise. I had heard of the trough treatment.
‘They don’t, no.’ Johnny drained his stubbie.
‘But don’t worry,’ Richard said. ‘I won’t ride in there. In fact if I am asked to join them for billy tea I’ll go on foot.’
There was a lull then and I asked them if they had seen Frankie.
‘Have a beer with him occasionally,’ Scalp said, gazing into the fire.
‘I heard he’s been burnin’ again,’ Johnny giggled. ‘Givin’ the Dawson Bar a bad time. They lost so many cattle last year they hired a troubleshooter.’
‘It’s not the cattle,’ Scalp said. ‘This bloke’s a bit of a pro. He’s hangin’ around Josie and she’s a butterfly—lappin’ it right up. He’s aimin’ to get Frankie mad with jealousy.’
‘Frankie might make the big mistake too,’ Johnny confirmed. ‘But the cock-sparrow will be the mistake. Bet he don’t know Frankie can drop a dingo at five hundred yards.’
‘I hear this bloke’s good too,’ Scalp said soberly. ‘If he’s a pro he’s only gotta catch Frankie holdin’ a gun. It’s one-sided.’
‘Don’t follow you, Scalp,’ Johnny said forcefully.
‘The grog’s got Frankie. He runs the cleanskins sober. Carries a gun to scare anyone, but would never use it. Before his mother died he copped a lot of that bible stuff.’ Scalp paused and looked evenly at us. Sal had removed herself to the dark side of the lantern and was busy with some kitchenware.
‘Frankie won’t shoot sober,’ he went on. ‘Drunk he’ll do anything and it don’t affect his accuracy.’
‘Frankie’s alright,’ Johnny muttered.
No one spoke for a few moments. I sensed a loyalty among rogues. They knew each other’s weaknesses and accepted them.
It was a conversation not many women would like. I started it, but I was keen to know how Frankie had been. Women like to feel secure. They don’t like to have to think about a lonely man in the bush who’s okay if he’s sober and dangerous when drunk. Tina had gone back to the hunting truck and I think had been making up a bed in the back. Sal busied herself with the cooking. At the first opportunity I swung the conversation around to tree pulling.
‘I’m booked up for months,’ Scalp said. ‘They’re gettin’ the permits while they can. Some tribe up north’s goin’ to claim half the Cape they reckon. If they get it the shit’ll hit the fan. I don’t know nothin’ about it. I just push the throttle and pull ’em down a chain at a time. But that’s what them blokes are sayin’ up there and everyone down here’s worried.’
‘But why pull it if you can’t develop it?’ Tommy asked. Young people everywhere were worried about the forests.
‘Cattle and politics, I reckon,’ Scalp answered. ‘Get the cattle on the country and ya halfway to winnin’.’
Scalp was right. In Queensland the rate of clearing had increased, pushed by a shift in purpose. It appeared some leaseholders were pulling to beat the fallout of Mabo. The High Court in 1993 stated native title was extinguished where indigenous people no longer had an ongoing relationship with the land. What appears to be not understood is that under Aboriginal culture an ongoing relationship need not be pragmatic. Their culture is a complexity of beliefs intrinsic to the land itself and therefore transcends physical presence. They may have vacated the land a hundred years ago, but their ancestors are buried there. The confusion may persist for decades as the finding has sparked a clash between two diverse cultures with entirely different interpretations of the fundamentals of existence.
A few beers and the sizzling of steak had stirred everyone’s appetite and not much was said while we all ate, balancing the plates on our knees. Scalp and Johnny put away several stubbies in the next couple of hours and Scalp laughed a lot. Johnny got sick of the beer and carried a flagon of red wine from his vehicle.
Scalp left first. He said he’d saddle up at daylight and meet us at the south bore. The boys were short-handed for the drive and I was very grateful. Johnny couldn’t come. He was anxious to get to the station and claim his shooting territory before another shooter arrived.
The wine didn’t do Johnny much good and he looked like sleeping by the fire. Sal and Tina had a chat over coffee, washed up in the bucket and left for bed. Before Johnny slipped into a heavy sleep he managed to unload something on his mind.
‘Scalp’s got to find a fair bit of money.’
‘Who for?’
Johnny stared at me through glazed eyes. ‘The bank.’
‘Won’t the pulling help a bit?’
Johnny nodded. He had his head on an old blanket Tina had given him. ‘But he won’t be here. Neither will I. Yer goin to be on your own Mick.’