The shooter, howling now, was opening the door of his car. He began to point a rifle but he fell; the rifle fired and the shot went harmlessly into the air.
The bitch stood on the top of the embankment and yelped at the adolescent. He ran at the bank and threw himself up at it, his front legs clawing and his neck straining to get up. The one good back leg scratching frantically in the dirt. She reached down with her mouth and took him by the scruff, bit down hard and pulled him up. They fell together and rolled over in a tumble of legs. She was first to stand, waited for him to right himself and turned to look back the way they had come as they began to run through the brush.
Abraham Smith watched where they had run to. He sat in his car, rifle across both knees. Drivers door open and he had one foot on the ground.
It was getting dark and the shadow of the moon was rising in the east.
CHAPTER 28
It was just after morning smoko the next day when Painter smiled and raised his hand as Clara came into the shed and walked to the board. He reconnected his handpiece to the down-rod. Drizzled oil on the comb and cutter.
‘Miss Drysdale.’
‘Mr Hayes.’
They both looked at Lew. He raised a hand and opened the catching-pen door. ‘Miss Drysdale.’
‘Mr McCleod.’
Lew caught hold of the nose of a wether hogget, twisted it down onto its backside, took both its front feet and dragged it out onto the board. He gripped it firmly between his knees, reached up and pulled the cord to connect the handpiece to the running motor, caught it up and began to shear. Took off the belly wool, tossed it into the board at her feet. Cleaned both legs and made three more short blows around the crutch along the back legs. Stepped forward and shore the throat, the head, the face and around the ears; across the poll and, turning the animal, began to sweep the handpiece up the flank and along its spine.
Painter watched him, took a few minutes, rolled a cigarette and said nothing.
Lew looked up from the long blow and said nothing.
Painter lit the smoke and then he too opened the catching-pen door.
Clara bent and scooped up the belly wool and threw it into the appropriate bale. She took a straw broom and began to clean away the offcuts coming from the sheep. Bent in attendance to the fleece as it came from the body of the hogget Lew was shearing. ‘No second cuts Mr McCleod,’ she whispered to him. ‘Good work.’
He smelled white gardenias and he held his breath and looked at her mouth, which was smiling at him as she folded the fleece back and reached beneath the hogget’s rump, freeing the bottom knot, to allow him access to the final blow. He nodded to her in thanks.
She walked the board between the men, retrieving belly wool, face wool, eye wigs. Sweeping dags and pizzle wool to one side. Bending to roll and gather up the wool. Sometimes she said, there you are, as the white fleece floated above and settled onto the classing table.
Lew was standing, paused with one hand on the catching-pen door. He was looking at her as he wiped sweat off his face with a towel.
‘Mr McCleod?’ She frowned.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you feeling well? You are staring.’
‘My name is Lewis. Yes. You can…if you want to. Call me that.’
She looked at him. He was whip thin, strong and capable. He moved like a cat when he shore. Certain hands. Wet black hair and smiling mouth. She nodded, whispered, ‘That’s all right.’
He nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘Not in front of Dad though,’ she said. ‘My name is Clara.’
‘Clara.’ Lew dipped his head in agreement. ‘No. Of course not.’
They stared at each other.
Painter glanced over at them as he changed a cutter on his handpiece. He oiled the new cutter and stepped into the catching pen. Yelled to the sheep there: ‘Hello.’ Began dragging one of them out.
‘Woolaway Miss Drysdale.’
‘Oh.’ She broke off from Lew and ran to pull the wool away from Painter’s heels. ‘Sorry Mr Hayes.’
CHAPTER 29
The work went on. Dust rising up and blowing into the shed and the heat of the sun on the corrugated-iron roof come radiating inside. If you looked outside to the north the world was divided into two slabs of colour. Red and blue. The land and the sky. No clouds. No rain. Red land and blue sky.
Sweat arrived in veins, river-lines from the two shearers’ ever-moving forearms and backs and shoulders. Strong necks and set jaws, blinking eyes and bodies never stopping. They were soaked with sweat, dripping.
Long white cobwebs blowing back and forth in the dark wooden rafters of the woolshed. You don’t stop. No matter what, you don’t stop working here.
Forever enclosed by tracks on the corrugated-iron walls, the black stencilled letters and names, spoor of other gangs, other pressers who had worked here. Their passing marks, like pissing on a tree. Station and farm names: Jindy Stn 1935 F/W 1200. R Horrocks Bellys & Pieces; I shore 250 Tobruk; 60 bales of Glenburgh wool 1939; Jack Sorensen shore here. Wawoon and Gungurra. Carrington Homestead here. 79 H GRDC 2860. Spion Kop, JJS 300 strg wool lmb. Bimbjy Stn.
CHAPTER 30
The dingo continued in a rough northeast pattern. The last shot had ricocheted away, smashing through the scrub. She still heard the old man cursing, heard the frustration and felt as if they would be safe from him. His howl of lament. His unhappiness meant safety. Almost victory.
The red dog was beginning to founder and she knew that she too was at the limit of her strength. They would have to stop soon to rest. They needed water. Blood, fat, meat. She slowed their escape to a steady trot but was determined to keep going for as long as they could.
They continued to travel, running on nothing but memories of themselves and themselves running until the young red dog simply stopped and staggered. He began to dry retch. His back arched, his body began heaving. Staggered again, this time backwards as if to sit, and fell over onto one side. Lay still and panted, legs straight out. One of his feet twitched. Drooling slime coming from his mouth. She returned to where he was lying and sniffed at him, licked his dry nose once. His eyes followed her, blinked and he then looked away to where they were running to. Away from her. She waited and then lay down near him. After a minute she lowered her chin onto her paws. Ears always cocked to the south. To where the shooter would come if he was going to.
It was quiet; the sounds of the still country began to return to her. The birds and nearby the noise of a lizard in the leaf litter and crunch of torn bark shredding from ancient gums. Wind come up out of the desert. Night coming also. Her head had stopped bleeding.
She looked over to the young dog and he had closed his eyes. His ribbed chest was moving in and out and she could see the sand grains and small sticks being disturbed in front of his nostrils. Quick breathing. His almost complete exhaustion was obvious. Death for him, close.
CHAPTER 31
They finished shearing the next day just before lunch. Drysdale came and turned off the generator. It was late afternoon and the interior became empty and still. A long silence where there had been nothing but noise and movement. Lew noticed Painter speaking with the old man and them both looking at him and at Clara.
The swishing noise as Clara continued to sweep the board, ensuring everything was tidy and left as it shoul
d be.
John Drysdale stepped away from where he was speaking to Painter. ‘You go back to the house please, girl,’ he said and pointed at her. ‘Good. Thank you.’
By the tone of his voice both Lew and Clara knew this matter was not to be questioned. Once again, she was being dismissed from their company.
‘Go on now. Take your dogs.’
She shot a frowning look at her father, leaned the broom against the wall and left the shed.
CHAPTER 32
The dingo stood and felt the giddiness, the ground whirling before her. She waited until it stopped. Took three steps, again waited. She needed to hunt and this need was as great as that to mate and to suckle; it was as if she breathed. Without glancing back at the young dog she put her nose to the ground and at first walked, then trotted into the long yellow grass. Soon she was invisible.
As her mother had taught her to hunt she now hunted. Mostly it was patience and listening. Stilling to become as the moving land, the earth, the smoke bush. Yate trees and gimlet, salmon gums, ghost and white gums wandoo. The hushing of her heart and quiet breathing and to wait and then to attack. Nothing else. It was nearly dark, but not to her.
She saw the bungurra as he saw her. The forked tongue flickered out at her and she leapt and bit down on its fat banded tail. Lifted it in the air and tossed it just as its sleek head came around to bite her. The sand goanna tried to flee into the darkening scrub but she sprang on it again and grabbed it behind its racehorse head. Her fangs crunched the vertebrae and the bungurra’s head flashed open-mouthed, side to side. Its tail and body twisting in double-jointed reptilian fury. Twisting and hissing at her even as it died.
She drank its oily blood. Her whole body arching and absorbed with what she was doing. Tore the goanna’s fat belly apart as it was dying. Swallowed the sweet stomach contents. The gorgeous yellow fat slid down her throat.
The body of the twitching bungurra goanna lay near her. Her belly began heaving from overeating and she retched but kept the food down. Her whelp roiled and she knew that they had been in hiding, tucked and still as she fled the killer. Now they were content.
Flies began. She took the lizard up into her mouth, its body hanging from her jaws, turned and began to trot back to where she had left the young dog.
It was dark, the night, when she reached him, he had curled closer into himself, changed his body shape. His nose to his tail. His breathing had slowed. This was a good sign. She dropped the half-eaten goanna near his nose. Walked backwards and lay down.
He woke and sniffed at the meat in the darkness.
She watched him as he began to lick at the hunt. Once she would have killed such an adolescent from another clan. Now he was taking the oil seeping from the fat of the bungurra. He rose on shaky legs and began to eat, gulping at the pale meat. He vomited. Paused and ate again, like a pup with undigested meat regurgitated for him. A mother’s feed. She stretched and began to fall asleep. The first of the two moons rose.
CHAPTER 33
Lew followed her out of the woolshed and stood on the landing.
She had reached the yards where Tom was haltered to a bottom rail next to a circular cement water trough. A saddle blanket and saddle on the top rail beside him. The bridle on a post.
‘Clara,’ he said.
She ignored him and took the blanket and put it across Tom’s back. Turned to the saddle. One of the stirrup irons slipped and got caught as she lifted it. Lew was standing in his moccasins. Heavy cotton trousers, bowyangs. His upper arms, white in the sunlight as always, covered in cuts and scratches. He heard her curse as she dragged the stirrup iron out of the fence and turn to him. Her arms full with the heavy stock saddle.
‘Lewis,’ she said eventually, looking at him with a raised chin. Tears in her eyes.
Her team of dogs had aligned themselves along the yards, seeking out any scraps of shade. Lying down, heads up, panting and blinking, watching her every movement. Every gesture. All with open mouths, pink tongues dripping.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ he said, ‘for all your help.’
She looked at him a moment longer, glanced at the dogs and stepped to put the saddle across Tom’s back. Stood on tiptoes to free the iron from the seat and the twist. ‘That’s quite all right,’ she said as she knelt under Tom’s belly, her shoulder into his side, and retrieved the girth strap. Retreated again to her boarding-school voice. ‘I enjoyed the change,’ she said. ‘And you are leaving soon aren’t you?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘No?’ Clara stood and lifted the side flap of the saddle, found the buckles, aligned and tightened the girth. Said stop it to Tom who had held his breath against the tightening, waited for him to breathe out and pulled the girth strap tighter. ‘Unavoidable,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it? Your leaving?’
‘You are very beautiful, Clara, I have not ever seen,’ Lew placed both hands on his head. ‘And I keep looking at you and you do too. At me. I know you do. I just want to say this. Should I even say this?’
She shot him a hard look, turned away. Gave a tentative smile, her eyes becoming big as she lifted the bridle off the post and stood in front of Tom, said Tom and let the reins hang over her arm. Placed the headband across his forehead while bringing the bit up and into his mouth. Insisted to him to take it. She reached up to ease his ears and forelock through the headband and quickly buckled the chinstrap just as he champed at the metal bit in his mouth.
‘I don’t have to go,’ he said.
She could not look at him. Her breathing had become shallow. Shook her head and after a moment of thinking, spoke. ‘It’s all right Lewis. It is. Thank you, that was a lovely thing to say.’
Lew looked over at her dogs. ‘They can’t take their eyes off you. Not for a second. They are all in love with you.’
She seemed to jerk, involuntarily. As if he had said something that shocked her, and she placed her hand over the eyes of her horse.
Tom began to swish his white tail at flies. Shook his head and blew air out through his nose. The rattle of the bridle and bit.
She retrieved the reins and put them over the gelding’s head, held them in the stiff hair of his mane.
‘Come over to the house stables later,’ she said. ‘I have a filly there I’m introducing to the lead. A yearling and she is just something. Black, but she will dapple to grey, same blood lines as Pearl and Tom.’
‘Where?’
‘At the dressage yards, near the house. I’ll bring little Gwennie down for you to see. I have made a carry bag for her to ride in, wait till you see her.’
‘Gwen?’ Lew frowned, remembered. ‘The joey?’ This feeling of wanting to laugh with joy as he looked at her.
‘Yes, Lewis, little Gwen. You did give her to me, remember?’ She glanced at the woolshed door behind him. ‘Don’t tell Dad or Mr Hayes though, will you?’
He nodded. ‘The stables? No, I won’t.’
The team of dogs had stood as Clara moved. Their panting and pausing as they watched her. How they loved her. Waited on her, tails wagging. Whining for her to notice them. Two or three of them sat, not taking their eyes off her for an instant. Not an instant.
‘Down from the house. Try not to be seen.’ She turned, held the pommel with both hands, leapt and swung herself up and into the saddle. Her feet searching out the st
irrup irons. Tom lifted onto his back legs a few inches and she used the pressure of her thighs to turn him as she took the reins between the ring and middle fingers. Bent her chin forward to check the buttons of her shirt. Whispered darling to Tom. And: walk back; behave yourself now.
She was, all the time, in motion, turning away. The unchained dogs up on their feet. Standing proud and obedient for her. He heard her whistle; they barked, whined and trotted out behind her, arranging themselves into the pack order of dominance.
King in front on her near side. Fleet on the off, narrow eyed, glancing across at King to ensure he remained a little behind. A younger male ranged slightly ahead and Swift rounded on him and tore at his face in a short savage attack. The running order was restored and the dogs ran on, high wagging tails and open mouths behind their mistress. Sky looked neither left nor right. Her belly was full of pups again. Heads and tails, six maybe seven.
Clara raised a hand without looking back at him and kicked Tom into a slow canter. Her straight back and hips moving already within the rhythm of the horse’s gait. Tom always ran more proudly when she was riding him. His white tail thrust out straight as a flag draped. Just fine and showing for all to see. I am alive and almost a stallion, a gelding cut-proud. Look at me, look at my tail. This is who I was.
Behind them shorn sheep blared in the tally-out pens. He did not know he heard them as he watched her. He could still see her arched back and the rolling movement of her backside controlling the sweet canter. He asked Painter’s Mr Jesus, the Man on the hill, the moon, the entire universe and everything he ever believed in for her to look back at him. Even the hope of rain and her dead mother to return. Just at that moment.
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