Diamonds and Dust

by Sheryl McCorry

  It was very humid among the tall spear grass, which was as thick as I’d seen. The banks of the river were muddy and slippery. In between taking turns on the shovel, we were collecting branches, bushes, rocks, anything that we could pack in the wheel ruts to make a bed for the vehicles to cross on. The bull-buggy came across first with no problems. Then it was my turn with the International. I backed it up as far as I could, then took a run at the bank, slipping into the riverbed and then gently easing it up the other side, tyres gripping the branches and rocks. Success! I had passed my first test.

  While Silver sobered up back at the station, the stock-camp cook was Mary, a wonderful older Aboriginal woman. The stockman Peter was her man; he was much younger than Mary and would look after her as she grew older. Peter was from Wave Hill country in the Northern Territory, and I believe Mary took Peter under her wing to guide and protect him through country that wasn’t really his. Mary and I were waiting for orders to make camp. Dusk was nearly on us as the men moved the cattle a little further ahead. Without yards to enclose the cattle, the stockmen would take turns riding around the mob, keeping them close throughout the night.

  McCorry rode in later than the rest of us and gave the order to make camp. He unsaddled Little Arab, dropping his saddle to the ground. His favourite dog Whiskey moved in and settled herself down by his saddle, where she would stay until just before daylight when the camp was ready to move on again.

  I unloaded all the swags, dropped all the boys’ gear together, and put McCorry’s and mine closer to the truck. We were only metres apart, but it gave me the privacy I needed. Mary was out collecting dry wood and I went to help her. With our arms full, we soon had the camp fire crackling.

  Between the two of us we unloaded the flour drums and Mary proceeded to make damper for the next night’s dinner camp. As we hadn’t yet made it to the first spring on our route, I siphoned water out of a 44-gallon drum that rode on the truck. It had to do for the tea that night. Dinner was get yourself a slice of fresh damper and a slice of salt beef, boiled before we’d left the station, then eat it with your back resting against your swag. Then you’d wash it down with a pannikin of black tea.

  Gazing over the top of my damper, I took a peek at the stockmen. Most of them were peeking straight back. They all seemed happy and were laughing and joking. I soon realised that the simplest of pleasures in the right company were all I needed to be happy.

  During the day I’d noticed that we were following no road or track. That night in camp, I asked McCorry why.

  ‘There’s none to follow,’ was his terse reply.

  At first I was annoyed at his arrogance, and put it down to the hard day we’d had. It was obviously a silly question and I told myself I should trust his judgment – but I was hoping we weren’t lost. I told myself to put my faith in him, and let go of my fears.

  He told me that when mustering wild cattle, the idea was to ‘take the yard to the cattle and not the cattle to the yard’ – a good rule when working feral cattle in the Kimberley. They certainly weren’t going to come to us.

  I’d have liked to extend the conversation further, but McCorry was a quiet man – the brooding, silent type. I couldn’t easily read his emotions in his face, and despite my best efforts he kept the conversation short. There seemed something mysteriously inaccessible about him.

  The next morning was a pretty sight, the early morning shafts of golden sunlight spearing their way down through the gums, wattle and tall grass. We set off towards Tarragi River country, and occasionally a flash of gold bounced off the lead bullock’s horns. We were headed towards the boundaries of Kimberley Downs and Napier Downs stations, Australian Land & Cattle Co. territory. We had no intention of crossing their boundary. We were simply going to pick up the cleanskin cattle that were lost on our side. They were only looking for an owner to take care of them! It wasn’t as if we were stealing. The managers of those properties, McCorry said, spent too much time worrying about our moves and not enough thinking about how to get these cleanskin cattle for themselves. And it wasn’t as if we had many advantages. Our basic mustering camp was up against a helicopter, a Cessna and three stock-camps. Trucks, bull-buggies and vehicles galore – you name it, they had it.

  We made our way towards the boundaries, and suddenly we could see in the distance a roaring melee. The neighbouring stock-camps were thundering towards us, the noise of their helicopters and light aircraft echoing down the valley. It seemed like the cavalry was charging. But the noise had scared the cattle, who’d run kilometres ahead of the machines and were headed towards us. The way things were going, our neighbours would lose more cattle to us than they would yard at the end of the muster! Under grey dust clouds, from the distance, cattle were coming toward us, following the smell, the tracks and their thirst for water, and fleeing the noise behind them. Instead of going out and hunting for the cattle, all we had to do was sit back and wait.

  McCorry spread the coaches into position behind a saddle in the hills. He rode to the top of the saddle and looked towards the undulating Mondooma country, and sure enough, that great cloud of dust was still travelling towards us. There looked to be 600 to 800 head of cattle. McCorry told the men to let the coaches spread out even more; the stockmen lay down flat along their horses’ necks and waited. The cattle were coming through the saddle, 20 to 40 at a time.

  I stayed in the vehicle and watched. For the next hour or so it was a frenzy of charging cattle, galloping horses, dust and danger. After the dust had settled, McCorry estimated that we had retained about 350 head, while hundreds of other cattle had broken out and gone on their merry way into the depths of our Oobagooma country. This was the easiest and fastest mob of cleanskins that McCorry had ever picked up.

  Later, at a camp on our way back to the station, Mary and I were walking towards a spring when a huge goanna crossed our path. We often came across goannas; in fact the night before, Mary had killed and cooked one. She told me it was my turn. I had no qualms about killing it, because I knew that if I didn’t, she would, and I preferred it to be dead before it went into the coals.

  ‘Very good and fat,’ Mary said, watching the goanna slide through the undergrowth.

  I knew I had to do this, but felt I was being tested. I bent down and picked up a large lump of wood with a heavy end. Creeping up behind the goanna and raising my weapon, I closed my eyes and pelted it over the head again and again to make sure.

  As the men came into camp that night, questions were asked about the goanna. Mary was only too pleased to fill them in on every detail. Smiles and yahoos from the stockmen showed their acceptance of me. Maybe now I could approach McCorry and Harry and see if they’d let me chase breakaway bulls with them.

  The camp had been out on the run for three weeks, and we were down to the last piece of salt beef – it was green, very green. God only knows where it came from, as I’d emptied out the flour drums where we’d had the beef stacked between gum leaves. We decided we would have to eat it. We didn’t really want to kill a beast now, given that we’d be back at the station in a couple of days if all went well. The meat was only green on the outside; there were no wrigglers or maggots. So I presumed it was edible. I sliced off the green bits the best I could, and cooked what remained. Surprise! It was delicious, tender and tasty. I’d had thoughts of the whole camp getting sick and having to spend all night behind a tree with diarrhoea, but luckily we were all fine.

  About midday on the last day, McCorry rode ahead to alert Silver that the camp was coming in. This was to give the cook plenty of time to prepare a huge baked dinner. But when McCorry walked down the cement path towards the kitchen, he found Silver halfway to the veranda, sprawled out in his brightly-coloured jocks, amid a pile of empty cordial bottles. The water bottles from the fridge were empty too. Silver had discovered a full bottle of metho that had been hidden in the store many, many musters ago. Raising his head slightly, with bleary, bloodshot eyes, he slurred; ‘If you’re looking for McCorry, he’s
mustering.’ Then he dropped back to the cement, out cold in a drunken sleep.

  The cattle were yarded well before sundown. The yard – built between two huge boab trees – was old, the post and rails held together with wire twitches (pieces of twisted wire used as fasteners), but it was still sturdy enough to hold about 400 head. The stockmen nose-bagged the horses and gave them a little extra chaff and nuts as a reward for a good job, before letting them go in the horse paddock for a spell. We had a week to draft the different lines of cattle out – divide them into bulls, cows to keep, weaners, mickeys (young bulls) that needed castrating – then brand the cleanskins, and truck the ‘meatworkers’ to the abattoir in Derby, 130 kilometres away.

  With Silver out of action that night, I willingly took on the cook’s job, preparing potatoes, pumpkin and onions, throwing them into the largest baking dish I could find, with a generous sprinkle of salt and some rendered fat that still looked healthy.

  I hauled from the fridge a very large rump, cutting it into half-inch-thick slices for grilling. The full baked dinner we were all looking forward to would have to wait another night. Better still, we might catch a huge barramundi from the Robinson River just below the homestead.

  Oobagooma did not have the most elegant of station homesteads. Constructed mostly of corrugated iron, it had no ceilings or doors but plenty of window space. The cement floors were as corrugated as the roof and the toilet was 4 metres from the dining table. Sounds and efforts were advertised for all to hear. Sometimes the noises from the bathroom were enough to start the dogs on a barking frenzy. I timed my visits very carefully.

  The next day, after a good breakfast of steak and onions, the stockmen and all the Aboriginal kids headed towards the old wooden cattle yards to give McCorry a hand with the drafting. I had already organised a road train, via the Flying Doctor radio, so that at first light on the following morning the cattle would be trucked to the Derby meatworks.

  While cleaning out the yard we had a visit from McCorry’s old hatter friend, Cec Rodericks. (A ‘hatter’ was the name given to people like Cec who lived lonely and eccentric lives in the bush or outback.) Cec was an odd sort of character, but likeable. His wiry frame was draped with well-tanned skin, more like a hide, exposed to the elements of the Kimberley for many years. His face, which looked like a well-cooked johnnycake, was framed with unruly grey hair and a long white beard that hung to his navel. Old Cec would nearly always be dressed in a narga or loincloth when McCorry saw him, but if I was present he would put on an old worn pair of shorts, tied on one side with a number 8 wire twitch.

  When Cec was near the station, he would camp under the pandanus near the billabong, a stone’s throw from the wooden yards where we were drafting the cattle. His camp was basic; one old wartime wire camp stretcher covered in tattered canvas and supported by some Dingo Flour drums.

  Cec would wander over from the billabong to have a chat and give a hand in the yards while the drafting was on, although at the end of the day on our way back to the homestead, we would often wonder if he would ever let the cattle loose – he never liked seeing them trucked off the property to the meatworks, and we suspected he would prefer to set them free, to roam like him.

  I always worried about him: we never knew where he was, or where he would pop up on this million-acre cattle run. I always hoped he was alive and happy, as he was only sighted for about three days every 12 months.

  On the other hand, three days was definitely the limit. I saved any newspapers we’d scored from passers-by and store runs, which Cec would study solidly for two days, then give us a burst in the evenings on the state of the nation.

  On this visit, Cec was sharing his camp by the billabong with about eight very large feral pigs and their piglets. Each pig was named after a politician and Cec would refer to them as if they were old friends. I was terrified of these bloody politician friends of his, who’d roam into the homestead at will. One snort from Whitlam, who had a broken tusk and seemed to be the daddy of them all, and I ended up in among the flour drums on the old wire bed. Once when McCorry and I visited, Cec was upset, as Malcolm Fraser had spent most of the morning rooting up his camp, and Whitlam hadn’t shown up at all after a night out.

  My biggest worry was that if Cec was ever unwell, or fell down and hurt himself and was unable to get up, the pigs might just eat him alive.

  At day’s end, McCorry and I would relax together in two ‘Queenslander’ deck chairs, talking over the day’s events and plans for future moves with the musters. I was pleased he chose to talk about work with me, and I was eager to listen and learn all I could.

  A worry had been working towards the front of my mind: I had to tell McCorry that after six weeks at Oobagooma I still held my job at the telephone exchange in Broome and must return soon or lose it.

  When I did tell him, he said he would ‘fix that in the morning’. I thought he meant he’d organise a charter flight out for me. I couldn’t believe it, and was saddened by the thought that the next day I’d be gone from this man who had made me feel safe and secure as we mustered cattle together.

  Only that day he’d held my hand as we strolled along the banks of the crocodile-infested Robinson River. We’d had a beautiful drive along the riverbanks, missing gullies and deep holes formed in the wet season. Every now and then, crocodiles would take fright from sunning themselves on rocky ledges and splash into the water. Away from the river, I spotted a billabong surrounded by blue waterlilies. A mob of wild pigs hurried their piglets away from us. I was walking through waist-deep grass towards the billabong when I came face to face with a huge goanna standing straight up on its tail. Spinning in my tracks, crying out, I ran smack into McCorry’s arms. While I was madly fighting him to flee the predator, his grip tightened.

  ‘Slow down, slow down,’ he said, holding me firmly. ‘It’s just an old goanna, too old to get out of your way.’

  I relaxed against McCorry and rested my head on his shoulder. He held onto me for a while longer. It felt so right.

  That was the first time we’d touched. At the homestead, we slept in the same bedroom – there was no other – in single camp stretcher beds. We had completed a couple of musters together and he had not attempted to touch, let alone grope, me. All he’d done was lovingly hold my hand in his hard callused one, or offer me a welcome, strong arm around my waist. In the mornings he would bring me tea and toast, and kiss me on the forehead. He was of the old school, of ‘getting to know you’, and I appreciated this.

  I knew deep down that I was falling in love with him. There was a mysterious magnetism around McCorry that both inspired and fascinated me.

  Morning arrived before I was ready; I’d had a restless night churning over what lay ahead. McCorry woke me at what seemed an earlier than usual hour with tea and toast, plus pen and paper. Not properly awake, I asked him what he wanted me to do with this. He said to write my resignation to my boss, Mr Gauld, the Postmaster in Broome. McCorry said he would send the telegram immediately on the Flying Doctor session that morning.

  At first I was shocked and confused. I’d had thoughts of visiting my parents in Shark Bay. But then, while having my tea and toast, thinking about the telegram I was to write, I couldn’t help but smile, thinking this was a funny way of asking me to stay with him.

  I could have refused and demanded a charter flight, but I wanted to remain, to work with him and be with him, and I did. He said nothing, as if he’d expected me to do so all along.

  A week later, we were up before the break of day. McCorry and I had a pannikin of tea and a couple of slices of toasted damper before heading for Derby to replenish the station store. The next day we would head out for another sweep in the back country.

  The road into Derby, about 130 kilometres, was very narrow and terribly sandy in places. McCorry’s rather new black-and-white Valiant was in the middle of the track, its wheels in the deep ruts. Every now and then there would be an almighty whack from a rock or branch hitting the floor. I pr
ayed all the way.

  Our first stop was at the post office to collect the mailbag, then the bank, and on to Elders (a rural trader selling anything and everything) to collect the stores and the bits and pieces needed for repairs to the saddles. We loaded the Valiant with as much flour, sugar, Sunshine powdered milk, tea leaf, niki niki, and Log Cabin rolling tobacco as we could fit. Then the perishables went on top. There was no alcohol on board as McCorry ran a dry station, a rule for one and all.

  With the boot and back seat loaded to the roof, the Valiant’s nose was now in the air and I joked that we looked like a DC3. The last stop was for McCorry to have a few cold beers with his old mate Jock Pontant, a mechanic in Derby, before heading back to the station.

  I couldn’t believe my new life! Here I was, perspiration trickling down my forehead and between my breasts, having my very first cold beer with a couple of old-timers from the Kimberley! Sitting up between them, listening to their yarns about the bush, I was happy, knowing McCorry would get us home to the station safely. Back in the Valiant, he pointed the nose in the general direction of Oobagooma and took off, both of us sharing a mood of great contentment, this time the vehicle cutting slightly deeper into the road.

  Sorting through the mailbag the following day, I was surprised to find a letter from an old boyfriend, a well-to-do businessman in the Broome and Kununurra district, trying to convince me that I would be lost and totally bored to tears in the outback. ‘Please think about coming back,’ he wrote. I carefully tore it into tiny pieces and went into the loo to dispose of it.

  I was having a hell of a job repeatedly flushing the toilet and trying to bash the sodden paper down with a mottled old toilet brush, and could hear McCorry’s spurs tapping on the cement kitchen floor. He hollered out, ‘Having problems, love?’