The night was stuffily warm, though there was a slight breeze from the river, but Mal sat up. He didn’t fancy going back to sleep and dreaming again. Old Tom’s reproachful eyes rolled in his dead head now whenever Mal so much as closed his eyes. The corroboree would be a funeral . . . and someone would have to tell old Tom’s wife, Nita, and his brother, Colly.
It wasn’t a good thought and of course it made sleeping an impossibility, so after another twenty minutes or so of fruitless worrying and wakefulness, Mal decided he would get up and check the smoke-fires and make sure that the body had not been disturbed. He creaked to his feet and stepped carefully over Rupe’s sleeping figure . . . only Rupe wasn’t asleep. He nearly gave Mal a heart attack by sitting up and addressing him.
‘You awright, Boss?’ he said in a hissing whisper. ‘You dream awful bad, I shook you ’wake jest now. It waren’t your fault Old Tom drown. He knew boats an’ rivers. His time had come.’
‘I should have gone myself,’ Mal whispered wretchedly. ‘Or kept him with us so that we could all go together.’
Rupert shook his head. ‘No, Boss. Tom knew the way to Saundersfoot Station, you din’t. But don’ forget, Uncle Josh needed you, not us fellers. You done right. Tom won’t ghost you.’
‘I’m not afraid of that, it’s just that I feel bad because I told him to go. But you’re right, what happened wasn’t my fault,’ Mal said, and to his surprise his guilt was lessening already. Rupert was sensible; he, Mal, could not possibly have left Uncle Josh and swanned off ahead of the others to see if he could fetch help. And Tom was good with boats, at ease with the river. And though they called him ‘old Tom’ he wasn’t that old, probably no more than thirty-five – in the prime of life, in fact.
Except that he’s dead, Mal’s conscience reminded him miserably. You had the men in your charge and one of them is dead. Just how do you explain that?
But he knew he was simply blaming himself for something he could not possibly have avoided. So he climbed down the tree, put more damp undergrowth on the smoke-fires, checked that Tom’s corpse still lay in the hammock slung, now, between two trees, and then climbed up to the platform once more. He got back into his bedroll, then looked towards the eastern horizon. Very soon now the light would begin to strengthen; it was scarcely worth trying to sleep . . .
Moments later, he slumbered, and continued to do so dreamlessly until morning.
Mal had not known quite how old Tom’s corpse would be treated, waterlogged as it was, and afterwards he was advised by Wally that if such a thing ever happened again, he should bury the body and not bring it back, but because he didn’t know, he became, for a month, a part of the mourning process.
It included many corroborees, enactments of old Tom’s last wild ride down the river, his overturning in the boat, the destruction of his craft and his eventual death. And of course, though it was the wet, the temperature was well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and humid, too. The smell of poor old Tom gently rotting got into Mal’s nostrils and seemed to permeate every corner of the Station and despite himself, Mal was thoroughly relieved when at last Tom was buried.
In March, with Tom’s corpse gone, the weather gradually began to improve. The storms eased and though rain fell, it was softer, warmer rain. April came, but Uncle Josh still did not send the message that he was coming home. So in May, with considerable trepidation, Mal visited the Bartok Range.
He was warmly greeted by Mrs Allinson and Uncle Josh. Coffee kept out of the way for a bit, then came through into the living area, very demure in a white lawn dress with pale-green embroidery round the neck and sleeves, her pink hair tied back with a piece of green satin ribbon. She offered tea, biscuits and slices of rich fruit cake and then sat on a low stool staring at Mal whilst Mrs Allinson told him that Uncle Josh was making a very good recovery and would probably be returning to the Wandina in June, when the boggy low ground, near the river, would have begun to dry out.
‘You’ll be musterin’ then,’ she added. ‘So you’ll be off all day and Uncle Josh will be able to oversee life at the homestead in your absence.’
It sounded reasonable and Uncle Josh certainly looked well. He was far less frail, and he had been making bits and pieces of furniture for the Allinsons. Two neat stools, a small round table and what he described as a clothes chest which, he said with a twinkle, was especially for Coffee to put her trousseau in.
‘Are you gettin’ wed then, Miss Allinson?’ Mal asked politely. If she was, what a relief! He would no longer need to feel bad about her if she was getting married.
‘Hear him!’ Uncle Josh said, wheezing with laughter. ‘Don’t worry, young feller, Miss Coffee won’t be wed for a whiles yet. These things take time.’
Mal said he was sure they did and swiftly changed the subject. He wanted to know whether they should plant an extra two or three tons of maize, because the mares had foaled well and the calves out on the wonderful after-rains grass were making up nicely. Mal had it in mind, he told Uncle Josh, to increase the size of the herd this year.
‘You’re a good hand with the horses, I grant you that. Royce says so, and he was always horse mad, but have you broken any brumbies yet, this year?’ Uncle Josh said. ‘If you’re goin’ to do that you’d best plant more maize. The brumby mares will have their foals at heel by now, you can get good stock that way.’
Mal disagreed, but did not say so. They could argue it out later. He thought Royce’s attitude to horses was the right one – breed your own, breed from the best, and you wouldn’t go far wrong. You could pick a pretty foal out of a herd of wild horses and find when it grew up it was vicious, lazy, anything. You had no blood lines to guide you, there was no way you could look back and say,
Of course, the mare was always quick to pick a fight as a filly
, or
The stallion that sired this one had an independent streak
. But there you were; Royce thought for the future, Uncle Josh still sometimes just thought for cheapness or convenience.
Wally, still cooking for the Station, was delighted with the amount of fresh food being brought in each day from the bush. They did not need to bring a killer in from the herd for its beef when there were wild duck, geese, wild pigs and even the barramundi fish waiting to be cooked and eaten. Meals were large, delicious and varied. Wally made huge fruit cakes, covered them in marzipan and then iced them thickly to keep them fresh. He wrapped them in greaseproof paper and packed them away in sealed tins and they would be brought out, throughout the year, whenever someone had something to celebrate.
‘Make ’em rich an’ they’ll stay good longer,’ he instructed Mal, limping contentedly around his kitchen. ‘My, won’t we have a corroboree when Mr Josh gets back!’
‘Sounds more like women than cakes; make ’em rich and they stay good longer,’ Mal said, grinning. ‘But before we can have a corroboree, there’s work to be done. We’re cuttin’ the rice grass tomorrow.’
‘Fat lot you know about women,’ Wally pointed out. ‘You’ve less idea than Mrs Quilter’s cat. But I’ll give a hand with the rice grass if you like.’ Mal knew the older man liked cooking all right, but he enjoyed doing what he would have called ‘man’s work’, when he was able to handle it, and he enjoyed being back with the other stockmen, too. ‘Tell you what, Boss, I’ll drive the cutter.’
Rice grass was wild, but it made excellent hay. It had to be cut just as the seed formed, before the ground was properly dry, and it meant going away from the homestead to the swampy, boggy country where it flourished. It would be a day out, and a nice day, too, and Mal told Wally that, provided he made the men’s tucker first, they would be glad of his help.
‘That’ll be bonza,’ Wally said. ‘I’ll pack the tucker tonight, then we can be out by dawn.’
June arrived, and on the Wandina Mal set the men to ploughing the mud-flats down by the river and sowing the maize first and then their vegetable seeds. Wally threw himself into such pursuits with the utmost pleasure, enjoying an activity which meant he could be active but did not need to straddle a horse, and even Toulu, the cook-boy, helped. The tiny children, lower lips stuck out, would weed between the rows once the vegetables were established, for directly after the wet everything grew like wildfire on the mud-flats. Indeed, everything grew like wildfire everywhere . . . Mal’s garden, modelled on Kath’s, flowered magnificently and in the orchard the branches were bowed low with the weight of the young fruit.
And it was time for the first muster. The cattle, sleek and fat from the rains and the abundant grass, were everywhere. They would have to be rounded up, counted and physicked if they needed it, the calves would be branded and then they would be taken to water. A muster can take around four weeks and the first one after the wet was usually a fairly lengthy business so Mal went round checking every single thing.
‘Tucker?’ he said to Wally, who would be accompanying them as cook. It left Maisie doing her worst on the station, but with the men away that didn’t matter much. ‘How much salt beef? Is it well dried out?’
‘Sure, Boss,’ Wally said in a slightly aggrieved tone. ‘I been dryin’ out the beef ever since the maize went in – the kitchen was like an oven yesterday. And I’ve packed all the other stuff – flour, tea, sugar, rice, seasonings, treacle. We shan’t go short.’
‘Tobacco? Matches?’
Mal never forgot his first muster, when he had failed to bring any matches. It didn’t matter that much since every Aboriginal knew how to make fire with two sticks and some dry leaves and twigs, but it riled him that he had forgotten something like that and he’d been well teased about it, too.
‘Sure, Boss. Some of them dried plums, an’ all, and some spare clothing, and a roll of canvas.’
Mal nodded. You never knew when you might need a roll of canvas. It could come in useful for a thousand things, from bringing a wounded man home in comfort to patching torn trousers.
‘Right. Then we’re off at first light tomorrow.’
‘We’ll be ready, Boss,’ Wally said. He meant it, too. When Mal came into the yard at first light Wally would be before him and so would most of the men. ‘Bed now, though. Last night on a mattress for a while, eh?’
‘That’s it,’ Mal agreed. ‘And Uncle Josh will be home some time this month . . . I shan’t be sorry. I love the work, but it’s better when Uncle Josh is here to tell me how he wants things done. Even if that does include breaking in a few brumbies.’
‘Now’s the time for that,’ Wally pointed out. ‘You want the foals young.’
‘I do. But we’ll tackle that after the muster.’
It was a fair muster. Johnny Byall discovered he had been sharing his bedroll with a taipan, a deadly poisonous snake, but since neither bit the other, as the men said, it was just a good story to tell round the campfire. They rounded up a number of cattle, were delighted with the condition both of the beasts themselves and of their new calves, and lost a horse when the animal brushed against a stinging tree in a particularly bad and thick part of the bush and broke its neck as it panicked and tried to escape the pain of its stings.
It was always hard to tell if one had suffered from the attention of duffers, the thieves who came silently on to your Station, branded your cattle with their own mark, and then drove them away, but Mal did not think so. He had a fair idea of how many head they should have and so far, nothing seemed amiss.
Indeed, after four weeks of sleeping rough and eating, at least in part, off the country, though with plenty of tea to drink and dampers and salt beef to make the diet more solid, he found himself oddly reluctant to turn for home. He was riding a tall, raw-boned grey called Puff, a gelding who liked to lead, but for some reason he felt compelled to hold the animal back. I’m being stupid, he told himself. If Uncle Josh is back then life at the Wandina will be easier for all of us. But despite these brave words the nearer he got to the Wandina, the deeper grew his unease.
It was not just him, either. Rupert, riding up beside him, turned his face up to the blue and cloudless sky.
‘Sometime trouble come from clear sky,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I have bad feeling . . . yet it’s been good muster. Mebbe Mr Josh still crook?’
‘You’ve got indigestion from too much salt beef and too many dampers,’ Mal said. ‘I’m the same. I feel kinda heavy. Or mebbe it’s just that no one wants a good muster to end.’
Rupert gave him an astonished glance and Mal had to laugh. Musters were grand, but you didn’t sleep soft, you ate whatever was going, you rode hard and small injuries made themselves felt – cuts across your palms, softened by the months of hanging round the homestead during the wet, blisters, gashes and bruises caused by the awkwardness of the calves, the aggression of the cows, the antipathy of some of the bulls. So even if you enjoyed a muster, it was a good feel to return to the homestead with the job well done.
‘All right, all right, I’m talkin’ through my hat. It’ll be bonza when we get home, see if it ain’t!’
They reached the slip rails round the home paddocks when it was still evening, though in June the nights seem long. Their small company had brought a killer back, a 500-lb bullock which was lame in its off-fore. Two of the hands saw it into the yard, but Mal had seen the lantern light coming from the homestead – not from the kitchen, but from the living area. Uncle Josh was home, then, his conviction had been well-founded. He slid off Puff and threw the reins to Soljer.
‘I’ll come out in a minute; I’m just goin’ to tell Uncle Josh we’re back,’ he said. ‘Get Puff’s tack off as soon as you’ve done your own mount.’
Soljer nodded and led the two animals off, and Mal strode up the steps, across the verandah and into the living area. Uncle Josh sat in his favourite chair, tamping tobacco into his pipe; he raised a hand in greeting as he saw Mal.
‘Heared you comin’,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Near as dammit come to meet you, but decided against it. The lad’ll be here soon enough, I said to myself. Then we can have a jaw about what’s been goin’ on.’
‘I guessed you’d hear us, what with the killer bellowin’ an’ all,’ Mal admitted. He squatted on the floor, stockman fashion. ‘You’re lookin’ better, Uncle Josh. How d’you feel?’