‘Like you.’
Painter’s laughter.
‘I reckon Mr Reid was doin’ a bit of boxing out the ring with some of those old girls too, no doubt about it. Used to touch his arm, some of ’em. Leave it on there for a bit, y’know, and they would laugh with their mouths open like they was getting something for nothing.’
Painter imitated the housewives’ laugh. ‘Oh, ha ha ha Mr Reid you such a funny man. Haa haaa ha. You make me laugh.’ He bent and touched his hands on his knees. ‘Some of them, they would do just that, bend over and put their hands on their knees as they laughed, just like they were bowing to him. Laughter is always the first betrayal. Y’know? Balance the books with their cunts, not the first.’
Lew was shaking his head at Painter. This old man’s story.
‘Yep,’ Painter said. ‘One of white and half of brown and how’s the baby Mrs Jones, and no fuckin’ worries Mr Reid. Good on him. They sweet for an afternoon with Baldy Reid, a cup of tea and a slice of butter cake. Settlin’ the outstandings, if you know what I mean? Only fuckin’ outstanding thing about him was in his pants. Do what you can eh?’
Lew nodded.
‘Well. That’s Jimmy there. Doing what he has to, to get by. Making bread, laughing his head off whenever he says hello. Or his mother got hit by a fuckin’ tram. No difference. He laughs and hates like a snake who he laughs for.’
‘Righto then.’
‘Righto?’
‘Don’t go on about it. There’s no changin’ your mind.’
‘Y’know, I sometimes wanted those women to just stop laughing at old Baldy like he was some sort of a good bloke. He wasn’t, I can tell you. Dear old Paddy, the horse right? That bastard Reid used to knock him about too.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ Lew said. ‘Treatin’ Jimmy like that.’
‘Everything to do with it son,’ Painter said and stared at Lew. ‘I didn’t want to believe in Jesus for the same reason. End up in China, laughing your cunt out.’
‘Get away now. That makes no sense at all.’
Half an hour later they gathered their shearing gear and walked down a side track towards the woolshed. They wanted to prepare their stands and sharpen their cutters for the start of the next day’s work. Towels over their shoulders. They had left the tail soup cooking.
Cirrus in the western sky like a red thrown fleece, scattered clouds and blue sky rising beyond them.
‘Footsteps to heaven,’ Painter said. ‘That sunset there. Fine tomorrow, you good for a start before light, mate. Four?’
Lew, walking beside him. A bandolier of combs over his shoulder and carrying a Gladstone bag that held crepe bandages, liniment and plasters. Spare wristbands, a bottle of aspirin, a box of matches and a tin of Dr Pat’s tobacco. He didn’t smoke but he always kept a spare tin in case Painter ran out and they couldn’t buy any more for while. Told Painter he was a cranky old bastard without any smoke. There was also a tourniquet, a bottle of antiseptic and Condy’s crystals. Eyewash and a pot of Vicks. Emu oil. Goanna oil, a sterilised needle and suture thread. An arm sling and a pair of scissors.
‘I’m good for four.’
At the front of the shed three enormous white gums. Here before Captain Cook, Drysdale had told Painter. Bark was peeling off them in long, pale shreds and hanging down like scalded skin or a half-shorn fleece. If they could talk, Drysdale had once said to him. Painter had thought him a little touched to say that. If the fuckin’ trees could talk.
The first thing that struck them as they entered the closed shearing shed was the smell, a heavy nitric smell of sheep wool and dung and urine. The startled clatter of feet as the penned sheep shied away from them.
‘Leave the door open will you son?’ Painter looked over a catching-pen door. ‘Don’t look too bad,’ he said. ‘Two-tooth wether and ewe hoggets.’
‘Merino? Clean?’
‘Merino cross. Pretty clean.’
Lew found the Villiers motor which powered the sharpening grinder. He checked the fuel level and primed the motor. Pulled the cord to start the engine. The metal discs onto which the emery paper was attached started spinning, slowly at first, then more and more quickly, settling into a steady hum. Painter stepped forward, said thank you.
Lew walked to the shearing board and looked down the empty length of it. Sat on an old wool classer’s high chair with flat wooden arms on which to write. A pen groove and an ink well. Ink spatters from a thousand tally books. Fading light coming in from the windows. Long white spider webs in the overhead drive wheels and porthole doors closed. The stained board worn into smooth hollows from the passage of countless sheep and countless shearers. Something like a barefoot boy was running a clacking stick along a corrugated-iron shed. He had seen large teams of shearers and roustabouts posing for photographs outside a hundred woolsheds. He had sat among them. Soldiers and miners too.
Only their two catching pens had been filled. All along the rest of the shed, the immensity of an abandoned space; the other pens, other stands, empty now and for a long time.
Lew stood and looked at the board as imagined angels flew: like white cockatoos passing porthole windows and Your Cheatin’ Heart playing on a radio. Heard the constant slap and bang of catching-pen doors being opened and closed. This work, bright and real, of noise and high metal on metal come to be surrounding the swaying lines of shearers in their vests, wet with sweat; long padded trousers held up with the wide leather belts that flared on the back as support. Bowyangs below their knees and moccasins made from leather or wool-bale sacking and brown bale twine on their turning feet. They were ever stepping and pivoting into their work with impossibly long arms, and backs that straighten to finish and rise to step forward again and again and again.
‘Tween dog and wolf,’ Painter, standing behind him. ‘You been looking down there for a while now son.’
‘I was thinking about the old gangs Painter. The ten-stand sheds. Those men. Twelve, sixteen stands.’
‘Something to see when they going. Been in enough over the years. Errowanbang in New South Wales had forty stands. Near Orange.’
‘Forty shearers?’
‘So I was told. Blades but.’
‘In the same shed, all those men shearing at the same time? Forty of them?’
‘That’s the story son.’
CHAPTER 14
Seeking the cover of scrub land, fringes and hollows, she ran. Mouth wide open, tongue wet and balanced, her body adjusting to the earth as she passed through the country, she was what she had become, a pregnant dingo bitch running.
When she reached open land or a space of cleared unfamiliar ground she stopped at the fringe. Lay down and lifted her nose. Listened, waited. Listened again to the wind and any birds other than the crows. She detested them, the dog crows, their bold derision. They would scavenge her kills and yet perversely taunt. Once, she had caught an old one by a leg, too slow to lift off, and she had relished the slaughter. Ate its head off down to the breast, like a fox would. That was her disrespect.
If she became content the unfamiliar clearings held no danger or were unavoidable, she made her crossing quickly without breaking stride.
The sun was high overhead when she reached the rocks where there was a path to the water of the old mothers’ springs. Paused at the break in the scrub where a two
-wheel dirt track snaked towards the gates. Smelled horse dung; saw the droppings and the lifted dish shape of hoof marks in the gravel. A riffled line of domestic dog prints in the middle of the track where they had followed the horse. Their spoor markings of urine and sun-white faeces scattered along their line of travel.
She backed away, retreating further into the smoke bush. Panting from the journey. She lay under the low branches and brush, waited, her eyes closing. When she woke, she approached the track again, lifted her nose, smelled something rotting. She stayed in the cover of the scrub and trotted to the fence. Waited and turned to follow the fence line to where the emu gap should have been. Followed the sandy hollow alongside the fence while remaining on the hip of it and came across the decomposing carcass of a wombat. The foul smell above the exposed rotting body like a green mist, something to be avoided. The gap in the fence had been repaired with fence wire and mesh. She backed away, the deadly silence terrifying.
Her need for water was becoming desperate.
CHAPTER 15
Lew made his way to the motor room and found the Bentall generator in the fading light. He primed it and inserted a crank handle into the motor. Rotated it slowly then rocked the handle.
Read: Timing at ten degrees of crankshaft rotation. Rubbed his eyes.
It was darkening in the motor room so he returned to where Painter was sharpening his cutters. A circle of red and orange sparks flew around the old man’s hand. When he finished each cutter he threaded it onto its wire. It was becoming quite dark in the shed. He glanced at Lew. ‘You right?’
Lew shook his head in the gloom. ‘I want to start the generator. Make sure the lights and the machines are working.’
Painter shrugged. ‘Good idea. You want the lamp?’
Lew reached out. ‘I need to check the motor. Attach all the belts.’
Painter walked to his stand. The ringers crib. Traditionally, the first machine in the shed nearest the door and press, where the best shearer in the gang shore. A stand of pride and respect, hard won. Fought for with numbers shorn. He handed the lamp to Lew. ‘There you are.’ He began shaking a small oil can on the box shelf near the catching-pen door. Checking its level.
Lew returned to the motor room and stood the kerosene lamp on a table. Used a gauge to measure and tighten the timing belt, opened, closed and opened again the fuel lines. Primed the motor. Painter had followed him and stood at the door watching. The light of the lamp in the corrugated motor room; the solid Bentall engine as certain as tomorrow or the Bank of England. A wide drip tray beneath it. Wooden cross braces and a green forty-four-gallon drum of benzene. Sheffield spanners and a line of screwdrivers on a pegboard wall. Spare drive belts hanging from hooks. Chains, Birmingham made.
Lew found the crank handle, positioned it and took the weight of the drive shaft, rocking the handle back and forth. His arms were marked with sweat and his hair was wet, falling into his face. A streak of black oil on his shoulder. ‘The bloody thing better start,’ he said and rotated the crank handle with a whipping motion.
It caught, paused and hesitated. Hissed, almost at a stop. He straightened and lifted the rocker cover. Pushed his fingers into the top and side of the motor, found the SU, adjusted a grub screw and the engine caught again and began to run. He waited for a moment, his head turned to one side. Then he grabbed a spanner and used it to push a number of long and short belts completely onto their conveyors. The mechanical connections in the woolshed bumped and began to turn, squeal and then the whistling, sweet sound of the belts running through the rafters. The greased gears of the shearing shed. He walked along a line of overhead rollers holding an oilcan above his head. ‘There they are now,’ he said as he walked and squirted the oil can. ‘Listen to that?’
‘Young Mr McCleod.’ Painter watched him. ‘No doubt about you.’
The movement of air through the shed and once again the sheep in the pens stirred. Painter switched on a bank of lights and the shed began to glow orange, sparkling as if unsure, and as the generator pulsed the light changing and increasing to a steady yellow white.
‘Good.’
They returned to the main part of the shed and it was Lew’s turn to sharpen his cutters. The woolshed now bright and well lit. Painter walked to his stand and connected the handpiece to the down-rod. He drizzled oil over the comb and cutter, adjusted the tension and pulled the rope to engage the running gear. The handpiece buzzed and he studied it for a moment, pulled the rope again to disengage the running gear. Repeated the process with his spare handpiece. Filled the oil can and stepped to the catching-pen door, leaned on it and looked at the sheep in the pen. Lit a cigarette, waiting for Lew.
Lewis finished his sharpening, turned off the Villiers motor and walked to his stand. He also went through his preparations for the following day’s work. Testing the gear, turning the handpieces on and off, tightening both of them to suit the pace of the generator. He placed the Gladstone bag below the wooden shelf on which the oil can, chalk raddle and tar pot and brush were kept.
They heard the sheep in the outside holding yards begin to make panicked sounds. Lew crossed to a window, looked out.
CHAPTER 16
Two hundred yards away she lay in the coming dusk amid the gleam of insects and settling dust, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the night. She had not had water for two days.
She had been to Winjilla earlier and attempted to dig beneath the wire. Came across the traps, the stink of death and poison all over them. And now she waited. Put her chin on her paws. The itch and quickening of her teats and coming here to their water, the only water, compelling her to rise, low to the ground and to approach the yards where the men held the sheep.
The packed number of sheep was as nothing. It was the water in the trough that she could smell. Broke into a sliding trot, a white shadow in the dusk. A sharp angle against the light there. Craving, she moved along the set of yards, slipped sideways between wooden poles, through the sheep to their undeserved water and the mob went berserk, sprinting away from her as if she was already killing them, climbing on each other in their fear to get away from her.
She reached the water, lay down and watched, waited for just a moment. Then rose and began to lap at the stone trough. Her thirst had been eating her as she was now eating the water. Backbone showing, rising with each gulp, tail between her legs, hollow bellied but for her womb, gulping the liquid into her.
The lights in the woolshed came on and she heard one of the men open a window and look out.
She heard them speaking. The noises they made. The same, old man young man of the monstrous light. Clouds crossing the meeka. She knew their smell. When her gut was almost full, she stopped drinking and lay flat. Waited.
The men were becoming unsettled. As if they wanted to move. To begin to come closer. She darted glances to where she could flee. Ears flat, belly low in the stony rut near the drinking trough. Death surged into her blood, giving her strength, savagery, and detestation of these men who made noises only of indecision.
Lay still and listened to her own heart, its slow steady beat, her shallowest breathing. Nose taking in the scent of everything. Her being began now to quicken as she heard the shed door slide open. The young man walking down the wooden steps and across the ground. He was carrying a kerosene lantern and the light swung in flaring circles across the ground as he walked. His bare feet on the sandy gravel. The great wa
sh of his stink coming towards the yards.
Her hind legs bunched, back feet seeking purchase in the ground, ears flattened and her top lip lifted in a soundless snarl. Her tongue flickered over her nose, licked at her silent snarling teeth and gums.
He leaned on the top rail a few feet from her. Held up the light and looked to where the panicked mob was still scrambling as to be as far away as possible from where he was. He leaned further over the rail, looked beneath it and along towards the drinking trough.
The dingo exploded into sight and sprinted away from him at a dog angle, racing into the mob of scattering sheep, disappeared among them for a moment and reappeared, leaping up and running over their backs like a working dog. She flew over the top rail and stretched out running, away into the night. Slowing for a moment to trot and look back at him. Turning east and becoming lost in the scrub and darkness.
CHAPTER 17
Lew reared back as the dingo bitch burst across the yard. Before he could recover she was gone. He’d dropped the lamp and it was starting to catch fire in the dead grass from spilled kerosene. He picked up the lamp and quickly turned it off. Stamped on the burning ground with his callused feet.
Painter called out from the door of the shed. ‘You right son?’
Lew pointed. ‘A dingo. It took off.’
Painter walked to the yards, also looking out into the darkness.
They turned as they heard the noise of a Land Rover pulling up at the shed. The motor died and the hollow sound of the door opening and closing. John Drysdale got out and walked up the ramp. He hadn’t seen them. Slid back the door and a great yellow square fell out across the ground. The blue heeler Jock running behind him.
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