A Changing Land (4 page)

Luke Gordon hunkered down in his swag and dug his side into the rocky ground beneath. A rock poked at his hip and he thought of his father. He expects the old man would be up by now, his boots striking the wide verandah of Wangallon Homestead as he strides towards the stables. He imagines his bed still warm, a fan of hair with the black–blue gleam of a crow's wing dark against sun brightened sheets. Though it is still some hours from piccaninny daylight, Luke has been awake intermittently through the night. Aborigines have been following them and despite the steady crawl of exhaustion, he stays alert. Mungo, Boxer's son, is standing guard with two others. Out there Mungo never sleeps. He stays awake to keep the dark at bay, thinks of the girl he loves and would lie with if given the chance.

Luke hears a rider approaching the camp side of the mob. There is the crackle of twigs and the rustle of leaves as Mungo's companion arrives to wake the horse-tailer, Percy. There is the familiar sound of boots being pulled on, a coat shrugged into and
the splash of urine in dirt. The fire's still hot and soon Percy is slurping his tea, his swallowing mingling with the lowing bullocks and the tethered night horses tramping the ground.

Percy's footsteps are clearly heard as he leaves the camp and heads past the night horses to where the day horses are camped. Luke opens his eyes reluctantly. He can smell fresh beef frying as the old cook coughs his lungs up. It is the thought of another thick frost that has him rising quickly to dress; boots, hat and coat. He rubs crystals of sleep from his eyes, stretches the knots in his lower back and relieves himself. A tin basin of water, iced over, sits on a log nearby. Luke cracks the ice with his pocket knife. The water stuns him awake, droplets run like ants between his neck and shirt as dawn begins to rob the countryside of its black silhouettes. The sky grows grey. It will be sometime yet before the sun takes hold of the rim of the earth and tugs itself upwards and into view.

There are grunts as five slumbering forms stir, roll up their bedding and pull on boots. Some drag their bedrolls to the fire's rim and sit silently beside the warmth.

‘Food's on,' the cook calls at the top of his voice.

As boss drover, Luke takes the first plate and pours himself tea, adding two lumps of sugar from the sack where the provisions are stacked. He squats in the dirt, chewing slowly, his pannikin resting on the rocky ground before him. They are past halfway through the trek southward to market. In a month or so he plans to be feeding the bullocks in the valleys. They've done the hard part, the real snap of winter, although the mountains tend to curry favour with wind and ice and he will be pleased to be free of their cold shadow. With luck he and his team will reach the markets safely. So far in the near five months they have been on the stock route, their losses have been minimal: six dead, including the one that dislocated its shoulder crossing the gorge yesterday. Luke chews on the hunk of beef, relishing the juices. It's a fine change from salted mutton. He has told Cook
to render up some of the fat for dripping, promised him another day in this same spot.

Behind him the men are silent, concentrating on waking and eating simultaneously. Luke clears small rocks from the dirt, draws a bit of a map with a greasy forefinger. By his reckoning they are about one hundred and fifty miles south-east of Ridge Gully. He's never been to this town where his mother, Rose, was born, never met his grandmother. Maybe after Christmas he'll postpone the yearly drive south, venture down that way. If he doesn't go soon his grandmother will be dead. He thinks about her emporium. It has been like a cool drink on a hot day for most of his adult life; someday the emporium will be his, then he will have an option other than this. Wiping his fingers on his doeskin trousers he remembers his dead brothers, his beloved mother. He loves droving, yet hates it. It gives a man too much time to think.

Percy returns with their horses. He has fifty-two under his watch. With eight men on horseback and two horse changes alone in daylight hours, his job of caring for their team is the most important. The men saddle up, bursts of steam rising like small clouds from their horse's nostrils. Eventually the men straggle off in the direction of the mob.

‘Feed 'em into the wind,' Luke advises, knowing the stock would walk into the southerly naturally. ‘We'll water them at Ned's Hollow.' Luke does a quick check of the wagon, counts the pack horses. ‘Supplies right, Cook?'

The grey-haired poisoner, as the men call him, salutes. Luke takes a drag of his roll-your-own, blows the smoke clear of his eyes. Cook was in the army years ago, so he says. The men hint at a convict past. Luke doesn't care, he just needs someone who can cook without killing anyone, although there had already been sore stomachs aplenty this trip. He looks at the mountains to the east of them; great monolithic tombs of stone that block the view of the flat country on the other side. He is restless for the open
plains of Wangallon, knowing full well that once he gets there he will feel the need to leave. It has been like that for a very long time; the wanting of the property, the need to be on Wangallon soil, then the reality of what it means to stay. With a final sip of his tea, he tosses the remains in the dirt, turns the collar of his coat up against the nippy southerly, the tread of 1500 cattle filling the air.

Luke turns his horse Joseph north towards the rear of the mob as the cattle walk slowly southwards. Mungo is hunched in the saddle, his hat pulled low over his dark skin. He smiles the smile of a long lost brother.

‘Time for some food, Mungo.'

‘Fresh cooked by a woman,' Mungo answers as if there was a choice. ‘Black duck, mebbe some potatoes.'

Luke laughs. There is beef at their camp, however Mungo is more concerned about the cook who would feed him, in particular a black-haired girl Luke has never seen. ‘She'd be lucky to have you.'

The Aborigine grins. Luke slaps him lightly on the arm. He has told Mungo that he's in love although his childhood friend refuses to agree with him.

‘She was promised to an elder. He died. Probably by now she is promised to another.'

Luke understands his friend's feeling of frustration. ‘What will you do?'

Mungo shrugs. ‘She would leave the tribe.' His voice is shaded with disbelief. ‘Her eyes are soft as a rabbit's, but her heart is strong. She says that this is not our land anymore. I say it is not for the owning.' He glances over his shoulder to the line of dense trees behind them. ‘Them fellas out there, Boss. Might be they come too close.'

There had been little trouble with Aborigines this trip, apart from the usual skirmishes and a bit of bartering for safe passage.
Luke glances at the trees behind him, pats his carbine rifle, gestures to Mungo with a quick incline of his head. They have been followed these past two nights. Both of them have been waiting for the blackfellas to appear. They have sat under trees drooping with coldness, hugged rawhide gloved hands beneath their armpits and wiped at their snotty noses between sips of tea and snatches of conversation. Luke wonders about his friend's woman. He wants to tell Mungo to speak to his father, Boxer, who is an elder. He doesn't for fear of offence and the cautionary thought that it is blackfella business.

The familiar red and white of a bullock's hide flashes through the trees. Mungo looks knowingly at Luke as a loud bellowing announces trouble. The tail of the mob are a good three hundred feet from the tree line. Luke doesn't feel like an altercation today. Having woken a little less stiff than usual and with a portion of Wangallon beef stuffing his belly, he was hopeful of a more leisurely start. Instead he finds himself following Mungo.

They walk their horses into the timber, ten feet, twenty, thirty … Luke pulls quietly on Joseph's reins, Mungo points to the right. They walk single file through the trees, Luke with one hand on his rifle. There is the crashing noise of a large animal charging through the dense woody growth. The sound echoes loudly for long minutes. An ambush is a distinct possibility, especially here where the trees grow so tightly they appear to have been planted in rows. Another thirty feet on, Mungo heads left. Luke grimaces at the noise of hoofs on leaf litter, his eyes searching for a patch of sky in the canopy above. Joseph pricks his ears and halts midstride. Three Aborigines block their path.

Two of them wear torn white men's clothing. Renegades from a station, Luke assumes. The other is tall with a long spear in his hand and alert eyes stare from within the roughness of bark, like skin. He has a wiry beard and a narrow, bony chest, which carries a number of scars thick with age. A possum skin coat, the fur next
to his skin, is dragged over one shoulder. Behind the trio a freshly speared bullock kicks its last amid the trees. Luke draws his forefinger tight against the rifle's trigger, lifts the weapon very slowly. He is ready to shoot. Mungo climbs down from his horse and lifts his empty hands towards the trio. The two renegades carry nullanullas. One blow could crack a man's head. Luke knows he and Mungo are in a precarious position. Yet his old friend is talking softly and taking a step towards the warrior with the raised spear.

The black answers with a string of unintelligible words, his eyes a yellow white pricked by brown. He points at Luke as if he were a leper, the horizontal crack of his mouth spitting anger. Luke would rather shoot the man dead. They are wasting time and his gut tells him that this is one black that should be put down. Mungo is still talking when the spear is raised and thrown. Luke manages to fire off a single round at one of the renegades, then his flesh is pierced and he is thrown back out of his saddle as Joseph rears in fright.

In the kitchen Sarah made coffee for three, strong and black, adding milk and sugar to soften the bite of her own cupful. She couldn't imagine Shelley showing herself for at least an hour, so Sarah decided to wait to have breakfast with her. On the old pine kitchen table she placed a notepad and pen, a blue and white bowl filled with apples and mandarins and waited for Matt Schipp, Wangallon's head stockman, to knock at the back door. The kitchen wall clock struck 7.15 a.m. exactly as Matt's thick knuckles struck the doorframe. By the time Matt was seated, coffee in hand and his signature laconic grin in place, Anthony was already halfway through a crunchy red apple.

‘I was about to ask Matt –' Sarah began, after they'd all commented on the fine morning.

‘Can we just discuss a couple of staff issues first, Sarah?' Anthony interrupted, biting the core of the apple in half and devouring it in two bites.

Sarah leant back in the wooden chair. Clearly it hadn't been a question.

‘I was hoping young Jack was ready for a step up the ladder.'

‘He is,' Matt answered, swallowing a good mouthful of his coffee. ‘Good kid. Listens well, takes advice.'

‘I'm pleased to hear it,' Sarah agreed. Only last week she had complimented the young jackeroo on the fine job he'd done with the garden. She would be sorry to see him go, even if he was only asked to spend one workday a week giving her a helping hand. ‘Perhaps he could come and help once a fortnight –'

‘Take him out with you next time, Matt.' Anthony spoke over Sarah. ‘Maybe put him in charge of moving that next mob of ewes.' He reached across the table for another apple. ‘I can't promote the kid and then send him back into the garden, Sarah.'

Matt looked from Anthony to Sarah, before reaching for a mandarin. His blunt, perpetually saddle-oil-stained fingernails mangled both the skin of the mandarin and the soft flesh of the fruit.

‘I had a look at that fence over at West Wangallon,' Anthony continued. ‘It must be nearly fifty years old. I thought we could make it one of our winter projects.'

‘Matt doesn't do fencing.' Sarah winked conspiratorially at their head stockman. Her grandfather hired Matt just before his death and his continued employment on Wangallon hinged on the verbal promise that he would only ever work with stock. Anthony frowned. ‘Matt knows you don't get to pick and choose your jobs in the bush, Sarah.'

‘I'll send one of the boys over to check the fence,' Matt offered peaceably, while effectively extricating himself from the job. ‘I'm thinking we'll need to open the silage pit in a fortnight, start feeding the cows. The early oats we planted will last the steers out until sale time, but we can't risk shortening their fattening time by adding to their numbers. Probably be worthwhile selling a couple of hundred of those late weaners. And now would be the time to do a pregnancy test, then cull any cows not in calf. As for the sheep –'

‘Sounds good to me, Matt,' Sarah interrupted. It was exactly what she had been thinking over the last few days. ‘I've found some corn, we can get it delivered next week and –'

Anthony scraped his chair back. ‘I'll think about it. I'm not convinced that we can't put fifty or so more steers on the oats and I'm not in favour of opening the silage up too soon.'

A slight frown crossed Matt's weathered face. ‘Any cow in calf needs to begin receiving supplementary silage in a fortnight – in fact the sooner the better. Unfortunately, mate, there's not much we can do about it.'

‘Leave it a week or so longer.' Anthony drained his coffee. ‘The old girls can scrimmage around for an extra ten days or so. Feeding the silage out should be a last resort.'

Matt shook his head, pursed his lips together. ‘We don't know when it's going to rain and nothing's going to grow during winter. If you're hoping that the silage will see us through, it may not; besides, you just can't feed them that, there are not enough nutrients in it. And if it doesn't rain then we'll have to truck weak cattle out on agistment. Sorry, I really think the pit should be opened.'

Sarah expected to hear a small explosion going off, or the voice of her grandfather telling these two young quarrelling pups to wake up to themselves. Instead she spoke across the tensing silence, explaining that the stock route would be a good option, that they could delay the opening of the pit by five days and then plan to put some of the cows on the road, sixteen hundred or so. The rest could be spread around Wangallon to safely calve, assured of enough feed to get them through until spring when hopefully it would rain.

‘There's no one on the route around here at the moment. And although it's mainly dry feed, there's a lot of it and the watering points are all good.' Sarah gave an encouraging smile to the two silent men.

Matt was the first to speak. He begrudgingly agreed and offered to call a drover he knew of in Queensland, then he excused himself. Sarah was left facing Anthony across the table.

‘Was that necessary?' Anthony asked, pulling a red cooper's notebook from his shirt pocket and noting down some figures with a stubby pencil.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘We were talking about the right time to open the silage, now you have us on the stock route in a matter of weeks.'

Sarah clasped her coffee mug. ‘You can't try to feed all the stock here, Anthony. We need a contingency plan and waiting until the last gasp when we're out of feed and the cattle are weak is not an option.'

Anthony tucked the notebook back in his pocket. ‘Well, you suddenly seem to have developed very strong opinions.'

Sarah placed their coffee mugs on the kitchen sink. Had she? It seemed like common sense. In her heart Sarah knew her plan was good. And if it stopped Matt and Anthony from agreeing to disagree, there was an added bonus. She thought back to their opening conversation and Jack Dillard's promotion. ‘So I'm expected to handle the garden as well?' Sarah rinsed their mugs out and sat them on the sink. She knew he considered big bush gardens a waste of space, time and water. Especially as they rarely had time to enjoy it.

‘It amazes me that old Angus employed Matt. He is becoming more like a manager every day and Wangallon doesn't need two of us.'

‘He's head stockman,' Sarah reminded him. She wanted to add that Matt wasn't going anywhere, but now wasn't the time to explain Matt's employment terms. Sarah could only imagine the look on Anthony's face. ‘The man has almost no dexterity left in six of his ten fingers.' Having caught his fingers in a grain auger years ago, Matt had turned his original agricultural interest from dry land farming to stock work.

‘And doesn't he let us know it.' Anthony was on the back porch pulling on his riding boots.

Sarah was ready to launch into a polite reminder of her place in the Wangallon feed chain. She was not prepared to give up paddock time to look after the garden and both Anthony and she were meant to be sharing the managerial responsibilities; however the telephone was ringing and Matt could be heard on the two-way radio talking to another stockman about straying cattle. Picking up the telephone, Sarah put her hand over the receiver. There was little point staying annoyed with him. ‘What are you up to this morning?' The back door slammed in reply. ‘Well great, just great.' Thank God Shelley liked her sleep-ins. ‘Good morning, Wangallon,' Sarah spoke into the telephone, sounding happier than she felt.