‘Now, then, wee thing, we’ll try a wee bit of ridin’,’ we heard him say, as he leaped back astride the colt. There was now nothing to stop the colt’s legs from moving, and it sensed freedom and went wild. He pig-rooted, with his head down and back legs in the air, and when that didn’t dislodge Ray, he moved into full-on bucking all around the yards.
‘Hang on, Ray!’ we shrieked helpfully, forgetting we were meant to be quiet.
‘Aaaoouweeeeee!’ Ray shouted back, as he clutched on for dear life, the mane in one hand, reins in the other. We couldn’t believe he was bareback. So brave.
Next minute Ray was sent flying in a perfect arc over the colt’s head and landed face first in the dust.
‘Back on,’ commanded Charlie, who’d caught the colt at the far end of the yard. ‘Can’t let him get away with it.’
Poor Ray. He dusted himself off and hoiked himself back up on the colt, only to be chucked off again.
We had to go for lunch but could hardly eat, such was our excitement and worry for Ray.
Ray didn’t or couldn’t eat lunch.
But Ray was nothing if not determined.
By mid-afternoon, he said to Charlie, ‘Time for the bridle and saddle, to be sure, yes?’
Charlie agreed. There was more dust and swearing, but Ray was soon astride the colt, with both saddle and bridle intact. By the time we’d left to do our evening jobs, polish our boots, have a bath and go in for dinner, Ray was now the boss of the colt. He rode him around and around the yards and stayed on.
When Ray staggered in later that night, he could hardly walk. But Dad slapped him on the back and Charlie grinned like a proud parent.
‘Only four more horses to go this week,’ said Dad. ‘And lucky we’ve got these good colts, not the brumbies.’
Ray nodded weakly.
‘How about a bit of guitar before we have to go to bed?’ we begged Ray.
Mum stepped in. ‘Ray’s tired enough,’ but Ray’s eyes lit up. He didn’t move far without his guitar. Even though he was sore and tired, he pulled it out and strummed a few songs. He was a beautiful guitarist and with his lilting accent we felt transported to what we imagined were the green hills of Ireland.
‘Bed time,’ ordered Mum, eventually. ‘Ray’s got a big day tomorrow.’
‘And the day after that and the day after that,’ said Charlie, still grinning.
‘I’ll play yer all “Nobody’s Child”,’ Ray offered, unexpectedly. ‘Just as a goodnight lullaby. One I learned back home.’
Ray started singing about an orphan who wasn’t wanted by anybody because he was blind. He didn’t have any kisses from his mother or smiles from his father. He was just like a plant growing wild in the field. It was about the saddest song I’d ever heard, and I felt tears filling my eyes.
‘To be sure, it is sad,’ Ray agreed, as he put away his guitar and Mum packed us off to bed. I hoped going into such a sad space in his heart and head wouldn’t put him off his breaking-in program tomorrow.
Luckily for us, Ray was good-natured and cheerful, and was in good form by the morning. He went on to break in horse after horse for Dad and helped build his plant of horses for the stock camp.
But Charlie still had some mischief up his sleeve. One morning at breakfast he said to Dad, ‘I reckon we should give Ray a go on Big Mac. The horse has come in with some of the other plant.’
Dad frowned. ‘Nobody can ride Big Mac. He’s just a mad buckjumper.’
We knew Big Mac, too. He was a huge bay horse, sired by a brumby stallion to a brumby mare. He was terrifying. Dad and many others had tried to break him in and failed.
‘I reckon our Ray might have a chance,’ persisted Charlie.
All eyes turned to Ray. Yet again he swallowed his steak and eggs so fast I thought he might choke.
So, Ray was given his next big challenge, which we thought was very unfair, and we rushed down to the horse yards with Dad and Mum, who’d come out to watch in case things went wrong. Charlie put the bridle on Big Mac and led him over to Ray. We all held our breath.
Ray lifted up the saddle he was holding and put it straight on. Big Mac stood there calmly, tail flicking back and forth against the flies. He didn’t even seem worried. Ray patted him and put his foot in the stirrup a few times to indicate he was about to mount. The big horse continued to stand there quietly, unperturbed.
‘Maybe he knows that Ray is the big horse breaker from Ireland!’ M’Lis said excitedly.
Ray put his foot in the stirrup one more time, and swung aboard.
‘Yay!’ we yelled.
Ray got into the saddle, put his other foot in the stirrup, and after a long moment, Big Mac looked around, tossed his head—and then went wild. We couldn’t believe it as we watched him buck and buck and buck so high and so fast that Ray was thrown to the other side of the yards. Then Big Mac stopped, and went happily back to eating some chaff on the ground.
‘I think he just likes to buck,’ said Ray, despairingly, staggering back across the yard.
‘Have another go,’ said Charlie. We couldn’t work out if he still had the glint in his eye.
Ray approached Big Mac again. The big, old horse looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Once more, he let Ray climb aboard easily. But once Ray was aboard, he started to buck. He bucked and bucked. This time, Ray held on, knees bent, like a true buckjump rider. In fact, Ray held on so hard that he looked stuck to the saddle. We were amazed, but then we realised what was actually happening: Ray couldn’t get off. Big Mac wouldn’t stop bucking long enough to let him.
We could see the desperation on Ray’s face. As Big Mac approached the rails, Ray decided it was now or never. He let go of the reins, grabbed the rails with both hands, kicked his feet out of the stirrups and leaped onto the rails. He swung from them, high above the ground, as Big Mac took off down to the end of the yards, saddle and stirrups flying. Ray clung to the rails, his knees bruised and his fingers scraped, his hat scrunched on the ground. When Ray realised it was safe, he climbed down like an old man. We all cheered.
‘It’s just a game to that horse,’ said Ray disgustedly, as we took him up to the kitchen for a strong cup of tea. Ray was pretty bow-legged by now.
Ray gave up on Big Mac but he still kept on breaking in horses for Dad. Soon there was a good plant of horses available for the stock camp. More stockmen arrived and Dad had what he needed: a strong group of men and horses to muster cattle for market.
But no one was allowed near Dad’s beautiful horse Limerick. No one ever dared consider riding him, much less handle or even touch him. All the other horses on the property were interchanged between musters and the men took whichever horses were fresh and available. Limerick, however, was hands-off.
14
Learning to Ride
It was time for M’Lis, Brett and me to learn to ride. All kids on cattle stations rode horses and joined the stock camp as soon as they could. We wanted to be like everyone else, especially Charlie and Ray.
But I was the ‘nervous nellie’, to use a phrase I’d read in a book.
I’d seen what happened to the men, and I knew what came with riding. Pain. Lots of it. Horses were beautiful, noble, strong—but also dangerous. You got hurt. You were thrown off, trampled upon and suffered. Life seemed hard enough without deliberately adding pain to it. Dreams of being left to die in the empty desert courtesy of Big Mac who had just bucked me off (and was now galloping wildly into the horizon) consumed my already overactive night-time imagination.
But Dad said it was time, so it was time.
Dad had a lovely Shetland pony called Pinto down at Witchitie, and I thought, If I could just ride him, I’ll be all right. Pinto was old and quiet and lived in the paddock near the Witchitie house. When we were down there, Dad would lead him up onto the lawn for us. We’d climb onto his broad back and pat his mane and breathe in his sweet, horsey smell. Sometimes we’d feed him carrots or apples. When we felt brave, we’d stand up on him. H
e never minded, and just munched the lawn. We loved him.
Pinto wasn’t at all terrifying, unlike the sixteen-hand stock horses or bucking colts and fillies we had here. But Pinto wasn’t here.
Mum, fortunately, decided another Shetland pony would be perfect for us to learn on. So she and Dad bought a little grey Shetland pony from Alice Springs.
We called her Lesley (after Miss Clarke, of course). Dad’s lovely sister June came up to teach us how to ride, and she brought her friend Robyn. Both were expert horsewomen and their job was to transform us from wild bush kids into expert riders too. Dad and the men were too busy to do it.
‘Learning to ride is simple,’ Aunty June and Robyn chorused. ‘First, you have to learn to walk, trot and then canter bareback. Once you can do that without falling off, you can have a saddle.’
Two old, bony stock horses that had been put out to pasture were brought in to rotate with Lesley for us to practise on. As it turned out, Lesley was the most difficult of the three horses to ride. She was unlike Pinto in every respect. She was cranky and didn’t like having us little ones on her. The minute we would hop on, she would bolt, and we would clutch on, screaming. Her favourite trick was to then prop, coming to a sudden stop and sending us sailing over her head. We didn’t have helmets—nobody did in the bush—so we just had to hope we didn’t land on our heads.
It wasn’t much fun learning on the two bony, old horses either. Trotting meant bumping up and down on their bony backbone, clinging on with our little knees, and then holding on for dear life once the horses broke into a canter. We had so many falls and scrapes and near misses that I almost gave up before I started.
‘You can’t give up,’ Aunty June told me firmly, when I came to her with a quivering lip and bruised bottom. ‘You need ten falls off a horse before you can be called a rider. And that’s ten falls off a saddled horse. You’ve got a way to go, yet.’
Aunty June and Dad were of the same mould. There was no surrendering on their watch. And given what our Irish Ray had been through, we didn’t dare complain. Ray and Charlie would sometimes come and watch us learning to ride and I always hoped they didn’t think me too hopeless. Brett and M’Lis were much better at it than I was. And nowhere near as nervous.
Finally, we became good enough to be given a small saddle to use on Lesley. In truth, it could barely have been called a saddle—more a piece of leather on Lesley’s back with clogs for stirrups that we could put our feet inside and cling to—but it did give us a bit more grip. Lesley still bolted and tried to chuck us off whenever possible, but the saddle gave us a bit more security, and our falls became fewer.
Eventually, the great day arrived when we were allowed to graduate to a proper saddle. By this time, Aunty June had returned to South Australia, so we were in the hands of Charlie, Ray and Dad. On the basis that there’s no such word as can’t (Dad’s favourite retort to any of our feeble complaints), we were then sent out to join the stockmen for our first muster.
‘Here we go!’ shouted Brett, as the three of us rode out of the house gates for the first time. Our destination was a mob of cattle up near the yards. It wasn’t a long trip but it was our first one, and hugely important to us all: me at age eight, M’Lis seven, Brett and six, all grown-up. Mum stood and waved goodbye from the gate, just as we had done when we were younger, when waving to the stockmen heading out to the stock camp.
My stomach was full of butterflies and my hands were sweaty. But Brett and M’Lis were happily whistling Slim Dusty songs. They couldn’t wait to get to the mob and be part of the stockmen’s world at last.
‘And here they are!’ shouted M’Lis, pointing towards the group of cattle in the distance, with a big grin on her freckled face. Ahead of us were red dust and bellowing bullocks and the sound of stockwhips. We could smell the bulldust, smell the cattle. I could smell my own fear.
Dad had drilled us beforehand so we knew the rules of approach. Come behind the mob slowly, take up a position on the tail, don’t get in the way of the lead, let the men take the wings. Our job was to learn how to keep the cows and their calves moving along from the rear. Once we knew what we were doing and became better at the job, we would be allowed to take the wings, and maybe even the lead. But today just being on the tail was a huge responsibility.
That event was a rite of passage for us. We were leaving behind childish things and becoming little men among big men. It never occurred to us to ask why we had to do this. It was life in the bush and that’s just how it was.
M’Lis and Brett felt proud and honoured to have come so far.
Me—I felt that in snatches, but mostly I just had knots in my stomach.
Dad, who showed no fear about anything, was now spending a lot more time in the air. He flew low over fences and gates, to see if they needed fixing before and after a muster. He checked outlying paddocks where cattle might be stuck and perishing, and yards after trapping to make sure there were no cattle left inside. And he practised his dives and swoops again and again. He became deadly at scaring away dingoes swarming around a bore and attacking calves. He flew harder, lower, faster.
Of course, Dad didn’t tell the aviation authorities down south what he was doing with his plane.
‘Need-to-know basis,’ he’d say firmly.
Bloody bureaucrats.
So, while Dad practised his flying, M’Lis, Brett and I practised our riding.
One day after school we all saddled up to go out into the horse paddock. M’Lis was on Lesley, because she was the best at controlling that difficult little pony. I was still on the old, slow stock horse, because I was still the least adventurous (my heart was always back at the homestead with my books and stories, where I felt safest and happiest). Brett was considered good enough to ride Bundy, a rangy, cranky stock horse the stockmen used in the stock camp; Bundy was short for ‘Bundaberg Rum’, so that should have said everything.
We had a good ride and headed home along the north side of the creek. We were feeling happy with ourselves and our progress; me, especially. But just five hundred metres out from the yard, Bundy slyly rolled his head and jumped over a ditch. In that strange and deliberate movement by that cunning old horse, Brett was thrown to the side, and M’Lis and I watched in disbelief as he sailed downwards and his head smashed into a rock.
‘Brett!’ We jumped off our horses and rushed to him.
Brett didn’t move. He lay crumpled.
‘Brett!’ We tried again.
Still no answer. His eyes were shut.
M’Lis and I stared at each other, stricken.
‘Quick!’ M’Lis finally had the presence of mind to act. ‘Get Dad. I’ll look after him.’
I pulled my old stock horse behind me as I ran frantically towards the yards. Locking the gate behind me, I tore up to the house, screaming, ‘Mum! Dad! Brett’s fallen! An accident!’ I nearly said, Brett’s dead, but didn’t dare, just in case I was wrong, which would have made things worse.
Fortunately, Dad was home and in the shed. He came out at a run, as did Mum, her eyes wide with horror. We all raced across the gravel and through the yards and up the hill. We could see two tiny figures in the distance, one slumped on the ground. The two horses were standing obediently with M’Lis (Bundy had now decided to behave himself ). Dad looked down at Brett and carefully lifted him into his arms. As he did, Brett moaned and moved, and we all uttered sighs of relief.
‘Just knocked out, that’s all,’ said Dad, carrying him to the house. Mum and I followed, panting, while M’Lis brought the horses.
After some ice and a soothing flannel placed on his forehead, Brett came to. He hadn’t been knocked out for long. And luckily for him, he got the next day off school.
But his reprieve was short-lived. The day after that, Dad took Brett, M’Lis and me back to the horse yards.
Bundy stood there, looking at us nonchalantly through lowered lashes.
‘Saddle Bundy up,’ Dad instructed Brett. ‘Got to get back on. Can’t ever le
t a horse think it’s won. You must be the boss, always. Have to get back on and keep going.’
Brett swallowed hard. He went and got his saddle and bridle, put the bit in Bundy’s mouth, did up the girth and climbed on. Bundy snorted, but let him stay there. M’Lis and I watched, frozen.
But Dad hadn’t finished.
‘You girls next,’ said Dad. ‘Get your horses. Saddle up, too. Then I want you three to go out and join the mob that Ray and Charlie are bringing back in from Palmer’s Camp. By the time you get there they’ll have reached the hills. They’ll need some extra hands.’
There was no opportunity to shirk or be a wuss on Dad’s watch. Every difficulty was just another learning curve to be overcome. And just like Ray had done with the colts and fillies, Dad was breaking us in, too.
Aunty June’s ‘ten falls’—and even the number suffered by Ray—faded into comparison with the number I managed as I learned to ride.
One of the worst came from a tall chestnut stock horse I was riding called Back to Front. We’d just finished pushing a mob into the cattle yards. I was on the tail and went to close the gate, but something startled Back to Front—maybe a bird—and he reared backwards. Shrieking, I fell backwards too, and thudded onto the dirt, flat on my back. It was a hard landing, which left my back badly bruised. I could hardly walk for days, but Dad said briskly, ‘You didn’t break anything, so you’re okay.’
I had another fall chasing cattle. By then I’d become confident enough to chase cattle at a flat gallop if need be. So, there I was, leaning low over my horse’s neck, trying to stop the getaways. One of the greatest sins of mustering was to let cattle get away; I couldn’t let that happen. Even if I didn’t always feel confident inside, I couldn’t let anyone know, or let the men think I wasn’t up to the job. The rule was clear and simple: you always brought the cattle home.
But this time, I was after two heifers who were fast and heading towards thick scrub. As my stock horse and I gained on them, my heart was thumping so hard I thought it would explode through my ribs. We hit the scrub and the heifers dived into the thicket, lost to sight. As we raced in after them, my horse hit a rabbit hole and stumbled. It was so unexpected and we were going so fast that I simply sailed straight over the top of his head.
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