The Bark Cutters (43 page)

‘Don't forget the bushfires.' Mrs Macken placed laden white plates on the table. ‘They're a form of regeneration for the trees.'

‘I never realised you knew so much about Australia, Mum,' Jim said with interest.

‘Hope you like haggis, Sarah.' Mrs Macken poured water from a tall plastic jug and passed everyone a glass.

‘Yes, it's a specialty, you know,' Mr Macken said.

Sarah brought her knife down tentatively to cut across the brown, rubbery surface. She knew all eyes were on her, so she took a quick mouthful, followed by a forkful of potatoes and turnips. ‘Interesting.' She smiled, not sure whether she should say thank you. The flavour was like roast chicken stuffing, almost gamey.

‘Well, a small drop won't go astray.' Mr Macken had risen and returned to the table with a bottle and four dram glasses. ‘Goes particularly well with haggis.' He poured and passed the squat cut glass tumblers.

Sarah sniffed the straight whisky, as the other three drank theirs down.

‘Drink, Sarah, it won't hurt you,' Jim coaxed. ‘In the Gaelic, whisky means the water of life.'

Sarah swallowed the bitterness and ate a mouthful of haggis.

‘You had better give Sarah here the details,' Jim said to his mother.

‘Well, Sarah, you take one sheep's stomach, wash and clean thoroughly …'

Sarah scraped the soft food onto her fork.

‘Most important, lass,' Mr Macken interrupted, ‘most important.'

‘… then stuff.' Mrs Macken continued.

In Sarah's mouth, the contents squashed easily. She chewed lightly on the meat.

‘The recipe's a secret, Sarah,' Jim said in a mock serious tone, ‘but maybe, if Mother likes you, she'll share it with you later.'

Mrs Macken rolled her eyes.

Sarah automatically thought of the Colonel's secret recipe of herbs and spices and wished she was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.

When dinner was finally finished, Sarah thanked God silently and passed her plate.

Selecting an old book from a cluttered shelf, Mr Macken sat down on the floral two-seater sofa. They had moved from the dining table and, having pushed it back against the wall, the four of them now sat before a softly glowing fire. Gliding loving fingers over yellowing pages, Robert Macken pointed to the Clan Gordon tartan, a faded picture of blue, black, green and yellow, with the motto,
Abiding
. ‘Loyalty, the essence of being a clansman, bind the Scots together, hold them fast,' he said. At his father's words, Jim left Sarah's side to warm himself by the fire.

Mrs Macken watched her husband as he spoke, her eyes never leaving his face. Behind them, Jim gazed into the air above their heads. The Mackens were very close, Sarah realised, which would no doubt make Jim feel like an outsider occasionally, living as they did in such a small house.

Robert Macken drained his whisky and settled back in his chair. ‘It was the late 1840s – my family immigrated to America after the potato famine,' he explained. ‘Nothing to live on here, no way to pay rents.' He continued, ‘Jim wants to carve out a huge area, grow sheep and cattle in great numbers,' he shook his head. ‘The ground is no good. It is a waste of good money and effort. A man should be happy to have a roof over his head and live on the land he loves.'

‘I never said Tongue was the place to be doing it,' Jim retorted angrily. ‘South, now that's where the good soil is.'

‘Not a week goes by, Sarah,' Mr Macken continued, ignoring his son, ‘when our talks don't disintegrate into arguments.'

‘Differences of opinion, dear,' Mrs Macken said, correcting her husband carefully. ‘Jim has lots of suggestions when it comes to improvements,' she added, directing her comments to Sarah. ‘And he's smart enough to handle things by himself.'

Sarah had the most unpleasant feeling that this last comment was directed at her.

‘We were like slaves when the English first came, and not much has changed.' Jim drained his whisky. ‘Working the land is hereditary for us, Sarah, communal. In the old days we gave military service in return and perhaps a share of the staple crop. But the landowners moved many of us off to improve their lands, to make way for large-scale sheep and cattle production.'

‘And you want to do it again, lad.' Robert glared at his son.

Jim didn't seem to hear him. ‘I want equality. I want a chance to expand our business. Here we are on impoverished lots. Some of us are still trying to eke out a living from fishing and kelping, but there wasn't much of that left a hundred years ago.'

‘But surely the government must be –' Sarah tried to speak.

‘Oh sure, Sarah, there have been a number of Acts. At least now it's easier for tenants to purchase their crofts, and we have security of tenure as well as the right to bequeath tenancies.' Jim's
voice was sarcastic. ‘Some crofts are agriculturally viable, but some can't even provide their owners with a subsistence living, so they have to diversify.'

‘Like B&Bs?' Sarah asked. She thought of the numerous cottages passed on the long road north.

‘Exactly.' Jim turned to his father. ‘I don't want that life. I want to buy more land. Look around you: people barely subsisting, surrounded by rusting machinery, derelict vehicles, stray dogs and goats tied up at fences.'

‘Oh, but Jim,' Mrs Macken said, ‘what of the sleek cattle and stacked peat?'

‘The simple life,' Jim said sarcastically. ‘I don't want to be poor, and I'm sure as hell not ready to retire.' He stared at each of them, wild-eyed and defiant. ‘My idea, Sarah,' he said, swallowing hard, ‘is to sell to Lord Andrews, and move south or buy from him to increase our portion.'

‘I will never sell,' Mr Macken announced with an air of finality. ‘And I'm not buying either. You're a little boy with mighty large ideas. Goodnight, lass,' he called to Sarah as he walked across to the narrow staircase leading to the bedrooms upstairs.

‘I thought you loved Tongue.' Sarah spoke quietly to Jim.

Jim waited for his father to leave the room, the heavy thud of his steps carrying noisily through the cottage. ‘Oh I do love the north, Sarah, but being poor, never amounting to anything, well, that's not being patriotic, that is just stupid.'

‘Well, it's time for bed, I think,' said Mrs Macken as she rose.

‘Mum, I thought Sarah and I might stay and talk a while.' Jim moved to sit next to Sarah on the couch.

‘I'm sure Sarah would like to get back to her B&B. After all, Jim, she is only visiting.'

Mrs Macken was already walking towards the door. Sarah took the hint. ‘Absolutely. It was a lovely dinner.'

‘Have a safe trip home.'

Somehow Sarah didn't think Jim's mother was referring to Mrs Jamieson's home.

‘Had enough already?' Jim said, his tone one of disappointment as he followed her to the door, his mother smiling and waving behind them.

‘I guess I'm tired.' Sarah tried to sound casual, but clearly Mrs Macken didn't have a high opinion of her.

They drove back the short distance to Mrs Jamieson's B&B in silence.

‘So, Sarah –' Jim began, his voice sounding strained as he parked in front of the B&B, ‘what's going to happen? Are you just going to leave?'

His words came unexpectedly. ‘Jim, we've only known each other for a few days.'

‘I know, I know. It's just that I feel like I have known you all my life.'

Sarah looked directly into his violet eyes, feeling the pull of her past against an unknown future. ‘I'm not looking for a relationship, Jim. I'm sorry.' She got out of the truck and closed the door gently.

That night, Sarah slept fitfully. Her mind drifted, returning to the Gordons and to a time she never knew. Soaring above Wangallon she followed the lines of fences crisscrossing the expanse of country purchased by theft and christened with blood. The air was dry, the lack of moisture making it difficult to breathe. She awoke anxious and uncertain, her eyes flickering across the semi-gloom of Mrs Jamieson's scantily furnished guest room. The land was far more sacred than any of them realised, the Aborigines knew that. They had lived in and around Wangallon for many years. Their mark could be seen in the carvings on the old trees;
food carriers for women, canoes for the men, shields for ancient battles. Perhaps Wangallon was wound up in some huge spell of regeneration, with each successive family compelled to follow in the steps of those before them. Then there were the great-uncles and half-uncles, young children, teenagers, men who, over the century, had died during the foundation and life of Wangallon: her great-grandfather's brother, her grandfather's half-brother, Luke, and her own brother. Only her father's generation had survived unscathed, or had it? Her dad was an only child. Was it Wangallon's way of protecting itself? The property would never be split up as there was only one heir in every generation. If she stayed there, if she had children, would only one survive?

Downstairs, Sarah made coffee and sat quietly in the pre-dawn gloom of the sitting room. It was almost disconcerting to be in an environment that was so quiet. She half expected a dog to howl, and she ached to hear the scatterings of some small creature on a corrugated iron roof. Even the old owl, perhaps the descendent of one from years past, the one present at the settlement of Wangallon, was silent in her mind. Sarah could see him sitting, peering into his domain, searching for the tiny mice and small lizards that inhabited Wangallon's garden. Sarah knew it was time to leave Tongue. Her dreams of Wangallon had reinforced the importance of the land and made one thing clear to her. Her family's association with Wangallon could not end with words said in anger. Nor could she deny the important role Anthony played in the property's future. Regardless of whether he had ulterior motives, they needed to be friends.

Angus shrugged his shoulders deep inside his oil-skin jacket. The only warm patches on his entire body came from the tin mug of coffee clasped firmly in his hands and the spot on his thigh claimed by Shrapnel's head. His backside had lost all feeling, perched as he was on a fallen bough that, reincarnated as a log, provided a sturdy if not damn uncomfortable seat. Anthony, sitting opposite him on an upside-down twenty-litre oil drum, tossed the dregs of his black tea onto the camp fire, the splats of moisture sizzling on the dying embers. The boy looked exhausted, in fact they all were. There was nothing more debilitating than working in cold conditions with a southerly wind biting all day long, after a freezing night in a swag. Resting his hand protectively on the soft down of Shrapnel's head, Angus inclined his own towards his young station manager.

‘Let Dave and Lyle go when they've gathered in the last of the steers, they can take the horses back and unpack the gear.'

‘You want to go too?' Anthony asked, stretching his legs out to ease the ache of coldness needling at his bones.

‘What, and leave you and Pete to enjoy this beautiful day all by yourselves?'

They were miles away from Wangallon homestead on the southern boundary. Expediency remained Angus's prime motivation for camping out last night, but even with the hours of travelling saved, the job of trucking eight hundred prime steers to market was a two-day exercise and Angus had been frozen for every minute of it.

‘There's only one more road train to load. So if you're up to it?'

Angus scowled into the wind. He'd been up to it forty years before this young lad had even been born. From the pocket of his jacket he pulled a small chocolate-chip biscuit and, ignoring Anthony's disbelieving shake of the head, he fed the morsel to Shrapnel, the dog crunching up the choc-bits like a kid. Pity, he thought, they used to be his favourite but age had relegated his dentures to the soft variety. At the thought of it he prodded the outside of his jaw where it hinged top to bottom. Things hadn't quite been mechanising properly in that department since dawn when his pocketknife had been required to crack the ice holding his dentures in a tin mug of water.

‘She'll be on her way back soon, you know.' He was telling Anthony of his granddaughter's hoped-for imminent return, in part because the whole bloody episode continued to drag out like some midday soap opera. If Sarah didn't agree to his terms when next they spoke, he intended to disinherit her. Yet he still needed to keep the boy's interest peaked. Surely the news of her broken engagement had done that. ‘You two are really going to have to put your bloody differences behind you. I'm sick and tired of it all.' Out on the horizon, a cloud of dust rose high into the atmosphere. Pete, Lyle and Dave, three experienced cattle musterers from the top end, were bringing in the last two hundred head
from over the river. Angus nodded approvingly. At least some people knew how to keep to schedule. Soon the bellowing of over a hundred years of breeding would carry through the slate-grey afternoon, stirring the bush creatures into wakefulness with their dirt-shuddering gait. ‘I'm getting too old, Anthony, and final decisions have to be made. You know I want you to stay on as manager, but I've another offer. If you marry Sarah you'll inherit thirty per cent of Wangallon.'

Anthony looked across to where Angus's hands brushed the thick pelt of his old dog. The old fella certainly knew how to get a man's attention and the carrot he'd been dangling for the last three years was now finally a solid gold one. Thirty per cent of Wangallon. He'd dreamed of the possibility, never daring to believe it would happen. He'd
almost
accepted the probability of being lifelong manager. The problem was … well, the problem was Sarah and he was damned if he knew why he was even thinking about her. ‘Does Sarah know that?' A small grain of concern was beginning to form in his gut.

Angus picked at a small brown tick, which, having settled itself proprietarily behind Shrapnel's floppy left ear, was proving difficult to budge. Finally he prised the pest free, squashing the tough body between a stockyard-filthy thumbnail and index finger. ‘Sarah's opinion is irrelevant.'

‘It seems pretty relevant to me,' Anthony perservered. ‘Does she know?'

‘I told her of the conditions.' Flicking the remains of the tick towards the dying fire, Angus wondered, and not for the first time, how the hell he'd managed to choose a boy with a conscience. ‘If you don't marry within the next five years, Wangallon is to be sold. She'll get zilch. Well, actually I think I said something about marriage sealing the deal. She has to move back and live on the property for five years.'

‘What?' Anthony looked at the old man opposite him, a man
hardwired by sun and rain, a man whom he knew would do anything to protect his beloved property. But it wasn't about protection anymore, it was about total control until the very end. ‘You can't force people to marry, Angus.'

‘I know every bend in the creeks and rivers that flow through this rich fertile land. I can follow the trails used by my ancestors when they first selected Wangallon and I can take you to corroboree grounds even the local Aboriginal elders are unaware of. This land is mine and I will do with it as I see fit.'

‘Even take away your own granddaughter's inheritance?' Anthony didn't want to be a part of this mess. This whole business was seriously screwed up. Shit, Angus was seriously screwed up.

‘I can hardly leave it to an inexperienced single woman. That's where you come in.'

‘This isn't the 1900s, Angus.'

‘I have a buyer already. A Yank actually, but he's a good operator and he knows what he's doing. He wants it, he loves cattle and he has a son to inherit. I'm looking for a strong custodian, Anthony. Someone who wants Wangallon, someone who deserves Wangallon. I expected more from you.'

‘What do you mean you expected more? I've worked my arse off here, delivered year after year, kept within budget, ensured profits grew –'

‘Blah, blah, blah,' Angus lifted his arms briefly into the air. ‘Of course you did all that. You would have been out the bloody door years ago otherwise. No, I chose you. Out of all the would-be-jackeroos I chose you. Anyway, you had a good pedigree. I knew your grandfather. Fleeced him once in a card game down in Melbourne actually,' Angus chuckled. ‘With the financial situation on your own property, there was little chance that you would ever be given the option of returning home, so you were perfect. Your mother's Scottish on her maternal side and both you and your brother were big, strapping, good-looking boys. Perfect.'

‘Perfect?' Anthony began kicking dirt onto the embers of the fire, his riding boots grinding in the soil and smouldering wood. Satisfied it no longer posed a hazard, he dropped his empty mug into the top of his esky before replacing the lid firmly. ‘Perfect,' he repeated slowly, the ramifications of Angus's words burning him like a red hot branding iron. His fist curled automatically and for a fleeting second he imagined himself crossing the few feet between them, his knuckles crunching bone on bone, the old fella tumbling backwards over the log. His fist dropped to his side. ‘It won't work,' he said simply. Dogs were barking loudly, the lead of the cattle were only five hundred metres away from the yards, Anthony listened to the loud bellowing and heard the sound of a whip cracking. ‘It won't work because Sarah already thinks I want to get my hands on Wangallon.' Now finally he understood why the night at the races had turned sour. Sarah, he and innocent old Jeremy were only pawns in a game that most probably had been played for generations.

‘And?'

‘Well, that's what you've bloody well insinuated to her.' He thought back to their last conversation. No wonder Sarah didn't want to talk to him. Down the wide dirt road the unmistakeable rumble of a road train reverberated in the air. The chrome expanse of the truck glittered in the weak mid-afternoon sun, the driver working slowly down the gears as he neared the loading ramp.

‘You can fix things,' Angus stated firmly with an exaggerated wink.

‘These are peoples' lives you are messing with. Jesus, I can't believe this shit. You chose me as a fucking breeder.'

‘Get over yourself, Anthony. Business is business and there is no place in the world for second best.'

‘Yeah, well you certainly illustrated that with your own son.'

Angus stood up. Shrapnel, jumping up quickly onto the log
beside his master, began to growl softly. ‘Don't presume to dictate to me, boy.'

‘Isn't that exactly what you have been doing all your life?' The cattle were at the yards, streaming in in a rush of red and white, filling the pens with dust, dogs and the yells of the men as they forced the cattle onwards. ‘You're not the man I thought you were,' Anthony finished simply. The truck, already reversing, gave a great exhalation of breath as the air-brakes came on and the long vehicle became stationary.

Angus joined him as they walked towards the yards, his knees paining with effort as he fought to keep up. ‘I'm exactly the man you thought I was, Anthony. That's why you're still here.'

At the cattle yards Anthony scaled the high timber fence, jumping down into the yard below.

‘I'm giving you two months' notice, Angus,' Anthony called back. ‘I've had enough.'

Angus rested his arms on the timber railings, his gnarled fingers playing with the rough splinters beneath his hands. ‘I won't accept it.' He'll get over it, Angus decided. Maybe now things were out in the open some kind of reconciliation would be possible between Sarah and Anthony. At least that is what he wished for, that and wishing Cameron had been a better horseman. With difficulty Angus climbed the timber railings, his face distorting as his knees suffered under the twisting motion of lifting one leg over the top railing to begin the climb down the other side. Years ago he would have flown over the bloody thing in a flash, made a mockery of these new breed of lads who called themselves stockmen. God, how he hated old age, especially when there was still so much to accomplish. Walking through the first empty yard, he lifted the chain on the large gate to enter the next, which held about fifty head of steers. They were in forward-store condition, a long way off being fat but certainly a handy enough weight to consider selling
them, a far better option than trying to feed them as the bite of winter exaggerated an already debilitating drought.

‘Angus, get out of the way!'

It was the lad Anthony, screaming and running towards him from the left. To his right, old Shrapnel barked and straight ahead a steer was charging directly at him.