The Stockmen

by Rachael Treasure

  By the time he and Elizabeth arrived, it was too late. Sam was dead. Their strong, beautiful boy lay bloody and still on a steel trolley in the hospital morgue, and Marcus could not get that vision out of his head. Each day, when he went to feed Sam’s dogs and horses, he found himself ripped open with grief. The animals triggered so much trauma that soon Marcus couldn’t bear to go near them. For several days, the dogs and horses went unfed and unwatered. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t help it. Gripping a post at the corner of the kennels, he bent double, vomiting up the pain and grief. Early one morning he found himself standing before the dogs with a rifle in his hands, until Elizabeth came screaming from the house in her nightdress to drag him inside.

  The dogs, as if they knew they were doomed, fell to howling in an eerie chorus. Elizabeth huddled like a frightened rabbit in the corner of their bedroom as Marcus bellowed out the window, ‘Sit down! Sit down, you bloody dogs!’

  When the dogs continued to howl and Sam’s horses belted wildly up and down the fenceline, calling to each other, Elizabeth watched as her husband gave in to grief.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said, grabbing for his boots. ‘They have to go. All of them.’

  The dogs yelped as he violently dragged them by their collars and flung them on to his ute. Then he hitched the float and marched away to catch Oakwood and the mare.

  Back inside the house, his wife lurking near like a shadow, he talked to Gerald Highgrove-Jones on the phone in soft tones. Elizabeth sobbed when she heard Marcus asking if Gerald would take the animals on.

  Now, sipping his coffee in the Highgrove sunroom, Marcus wondered if he’d made the right decision. Gerald was saying something about the responsibility for Sam’s animals being his daughter’s domain. Marcus glanced doubtfully at Rosie. She looked smaller and younger than usual in her baggy tracksuit pants and an oversize teddy bear T-shirt. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She looked like a little kid at home from school with the flu.

  ‘I don’t know the first thing about looking after them,’ she said, ‘let alone working them.’

  Marcus sat forward on the couch and leant towards her.

  ‘You can call me any time for advice,’ he said. ‘Please, Rose. It upsets Elizabeth too much to see them every day. We could never sell them. But we don’t want to give them to just anybody. You know how much they meant to Sam, that’s why you should have them. You’ll be fine. I’m sure your family will help you,’ he said, already doubting his own words.

  ‘Okay then.’ Rosie nodded uncertainly. ‘I’ll give it a go. I’ll take them on.’

  She could almost feel Marcus’ relief. He came over to her and hugged her. It wasn’t a warm hug. He simply encircled her in his arms for a moment. Then he took a step back and muttered, ‘We would’ve loved you as a daughter-in-law. You were perfect for Sam’s future.’ Swallowing down tears, he walked quickly out of the sunroom.

  Rosie sat in silence, watching her father putting the cups and untouched biscuits back on the tray.

  ‘Now what do I do?’ she asked eventually. Rosie had been so preoccupied with Sam’s death that she hadn’t paid attention to her father in weeks. He looked … different. There was such a faraway, vacant expression on his face that she felt like she was looking at a stranger.

  He blinked at her, then said coldly, ‘I can’t help you. I’ve got enough to think about.’

  ‘But, Dad!’ Rosie said incredulously.

  ‘Get Julian to help you.’

  ‘I want your help! Why won’t you ever help me?’

  Gerald turned his back to her.

  ‘You’re just a stingy, grumpy old bastard!’ Rosie yelled. Gerald spun around. His face was white and drawn.

  ‘That’s enough, Rosemary. I’ve sacrificed a lot for you. You have no idea!’

  ‘What? Shelling out for school fees and designer clothes? What about time? That’s all I want, Dad, some of your time. Why can’t you teach me about farming, and looking after Sam’s animals? I bet if Sam had left me some Wedgwood china you’d be fine with that! Much more suitable for a bloody grazier’s wife! And stop calling me Rosemary – I’m Rosie from now on! Plain old Rosie Jones. I’m not taking this Highgrove-Jones crap any more!’

  Frustration and anger brimming over, Rosie flung her arm across the silver coffee tray, knocking cups and biscuits to the floor. Black coffee grains splattered over the couch. The coffee jug smashed on the polished timber floor.

  ‘How dare you!’ Gerald yelled. ‘After all I’ve done for you! I should’ve known it would come out in you in the end.’

  Rosie stood shaking her head.

  ‘What? What do you mean? Dad?’

  ‘Ask your mother,’ he spat at her, before storming from the room.

  With her father’s words echoing in her head, Rosie pulled on her boots and ran across to the stables. In the stalls, Oakwood and the mare tugged hungrily on hay nets. The sound of the two horses chewing rhythmically comforted Rosie. She breathed in the sweet smell of horses and fresh hay. In the third stall she heard the rustle of straw, and water being lapped up thirstily. Standing on tiptoe, she peered over the stable door to see Sam’s dogs sniffing around their new surroundings. Dixie, the smoky-grey bitch, was lapping at the water. Rosie noticed, with a panicky feeling inside her, that the bitch was heavily in pup. Suddenly the two black and tan males noticed Rosie peering at them from over the door. Anxious, hackles raised, they began to bark loudly at her. Rosie took a step back and the panic rose higher. What was her father on about? What had he meant? A terrible feeling gripped her. She had to get away from this place.

  Leaping into her father’s work ute, she turned the key, not bothering to wait for the diesel glow light to go out. Then she revved her way out of the courtyard, away from Sam’s animals and Highgrove homestead.

  James Dean tried not to laugh when he saw the girl in the tracky-dacks and teddy bear T-shirt standing at his bar.

  ‘Hair of the dog, eh?’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘No. No more dogs please. And sorry about my hair.’

  Rosie came and sat on a bar stool in the empty pub. James Dean waited for her order, but no order came.

  ‘What’s up?’

  When he stooped down to look in her eyes, she burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, now come on! There’s a surcharge for bawling at my bar.’ He came around the counter to her. ‘You’re messing up my clean bar mats. We’ve only just washed them! Come on, darlin’,’ he said, putting his arm across her shaking shoulders. ‘Come out the back. My missus, the lovely Princess Amanda, is here today. She’ll make you a cuppa and you can tell her all about it.’

  He steered Rosie through the bar.

  ‘Mands!’ he called out. ‘Got a basket case for ya!’ Then in a quieter voice he said, ‘Just joking, love. We’ll sort you out.’ And he patted her on the back.

  Chapter 7

  When Rosie sobbed her way into the pub’s kitchen, Andrew ‘James’ Dean introduced her to his wife. Amanda had the longest, brownest legs Rosie had seen. She had cropped blonde hair, wore runners and shorts, and would’ve looked more at home pole-vaulting than standing amidst the stainless steel of the pub’s industrial kitchen. She looked at Rosie with warm, almond-shaped eyes, eyes as kind and pretty as a jersey cow’s, Rosie thought. Amanda made her hot chocolate with marshmallows melting lavishly in the steaming mug, then pushed a packet of chocolate teddy bear biscuits towards her.

  ‘They match my T-shirt,’ Rosie said, laughing between sobs and wondering why she was here seeking solace at the kitchen table of a complete stranger. James Dean lingered in the kitchen, telling Amanda the story of how Rosie had written herself off the day before.

  ‘Rosie was Sam Chillcott-Clark’s fiancée,’ he said to Amanda. ‘You know. The bloke who was killed in Dubbo’s ute accident.’ He didn’t try to sanitise the accident with sterile words like her mother’s friends did, or talk softly or gently around it. He was straight to the point, and his frankness was comforti
ng to Rosie.

  For the next two hours she found herself pouring her heart out to Amanda about Sam and Jillian, about how she didn’t fit into her family, and then the fight with her father. How she’d come to town not knowing where to go or what to do.

  ‘Then, to top it all,’ she said to Amanda, ‘Sam’s father has dumped Sam’s beautiful horses and dogs in the stables for me to look after. How am I supposed to deal with them? I’ve seen Julian and the workmen with the dogs, but I’ve never been allowed one of my own … and as for horses … I learned to ride on Trixie … but that was years ago. Sam never took me riding. He always said I couldn’t handle his style of horse. That I might ruin them with my inexperience. And now … there they are in the stables! What is Sam’s dad thinking?’

  Amanda listened intently as she peeled and chopped vegetables for the counter meals that evening. When Rosie paused for breath, Amanda said, ‘Name three things you love most in life. Off the top of your head.’

  ‘What?’ asked Rosie, wondering how this was relevant.

  ‘Come on. Three things,’ Amanda said, nonchalantly waving a kitchen knife at her.

  Rosie sat back and frowned. A few things sprang to mind … like gardening? Entertaining friends? Redecorating? But of course it was her mother who had told her to be interested in those things. Rosie grimaced as she realised how lost she was. How her mother dominated her every thought.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘You do. Try harder,’ said Amanda as she cranked a can opener around a massive tin of sliced beetroot. Rosie thought.

  ‘Shearing time!’ she said suddenly. ‘For some reason I look forward to it every year, even though Dad chases me out of the shed because I have to help with the cooking instead … but I love the sounds and smells of shearing. I try to take the smoko in every time and I stay there for as long as I can, until Mum chucks a spaz when I don’t get the cups and basket back to her in time to wash them up.’ Rosie sighed and thought some more.

  ‘Then there’s watching the dogs work. I love that. We’ve had a few stockmen over the years who had brilliant dogs. There’s those stockmen that were hopeless … their dogs would crap in the back of the work ute every time and bark like mad and the men would belt the bejesus out of them. But the men with good dogs … oh, I love to watch them in the yards. And then there’s the sheep. I love to watch them walking on to water in the evening, or eating excitedly when they’ve been moved onto a fresh paddock, and especially I love to watch them when they think.’

  ‘Think?’ said Amanda doubtfully. ‘You’re trying to tell me sheep think?’

  ‘Yes. Of course they do. If you watch them when they don’t know you’re there. You know … the look they get on their faces when they could be thinking. I’m convinced sheep do actually think. At least I think they think … I think?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Anyway, they’re things I love … oh, and … and I love the hills on Highgrove station. I love the way the sun makes them glow and the way the trees cluster in green patches in the gullies and along the ridges.’

  ‘Great,’ said Amanda, smiling at her. ‘It sounds like you are born and bred to be on the land that you love … a stockman and a drover.’

  ‘A stockman?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But Dad’s never allowed women stockmen on the place. It’s men-only in the quarters.’

  ‘That’s like saying it’s women-only in the kitchen,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Unless the man calls himself a chef.’

  ‘And then he leaves the washing up for the women.’

  ‘Sucks, doesn’t it?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Only if you let it. It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to live by those rules. Andrew and I share everything. It’s my shift today in the kitchen, then his tomorrow, then his mum, Christine, comes in the third day. She’s raised him to take on all the domestics.’

  ‘Not like our family! I’ve never been encouraged to do anything the men do. Never. Mum always needs a hand with the house, or the garden or the “community events”.’

  Rosie rolled her eyes.

  ‘Dad’s just as bad. Farm work is work for Julian, not me. I don’t belong out there and he lets me know it. And I guess in a way, Sam was the same … it’s funny but I hadn’t noticed how adamant he was about it. He barely even gave me a tour of his place. It was like he assumed I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘But the land and the animals could be your true passion,’ Amanda said. ‘And a life without passion isn’t really much of a life. Why should you let other people dictate where you can and can’t be?’

  Rosie looked down at her lap.

  ‘But I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘Start where your heart is. And by telling your mum and dad to stick their old-fashioned ideas up their arses.’

  ‘Mmm. Just like a suppository!’

  ‘Yeah! Just like a suppository, I suppose. Go, girl!’ said Amanda, punching the air with her beetroot-stained hands.

  The girls fell silent with smiles on their faces. Rosie slowly peeled a spud as she thought about all the possibilities awaiting her out on the crackling golden hills of Highgrove.

  ‘Ah, got her to work at last,’ said James Dean as he bounded into the kitchen with a box full of lettuces. ‘Save me doing that job!’

  ‘You’ll never guess what Rosie’s inherited from Sam,’ Amanda said.

  ‘The clap?’ he said. Rosie shot him a glance. ‘Sorry, just slipped out. Not funny really.’

  ‘No. It’s fine. It is funny really,’ said Rosie, ‘when you think about it …’

  ‘So what’s in your inheritance from Mr C-C?’ he asked. Amanda answered for Rosie.

  ‘Three well-bred stud kelpies and two registered Australian stockhorses! Prize-winning ones at that. And she’s going to learn how to use them on her place. Imagine the adventures she’s going to have with them!’

  Rosie had never considered Highgrove as ‘her place’. It belonged to her father and to the pale faces of the dead ancestors hanging in gilded frames in the hallway. Rosie had always known Highgrove would one day be Julian’s place. It was his right to drive around the paddocks and hillsides … never hers. But, Rosie realised, that could change. There was nothing to stop her joining Julian on the farm. Nothing to stop her except herself.

  ‘I suppose I could have adventures with Sam’s animals. We’ve got run country in the bush up the back of the place. There’s a hut there, high above the river. Julian and the stockmen camp there when they muster the runs, but I’ve never been. I’ve never been there. Can you believe that? You can only get there on horseback. I could work for Dad, outside, and ride out there this year for the muster … I could ride out on Sam’s horse and take a dog with me!’

  ‘Of course you could!’ Amanda said.

  ‘Sure you can, darlin’,’ chipped in James Dean.

  ‘I guess I’ve got what I’ve always longed for, but I didn’t know it.’

  ‘Exactly. So get out there and have a go!’ James Dean said, pointing a lettuce firmly at her.

  ‘But I can’t imagine it.’

  ‘Well, start.’

  ‘Mmm. I don’t know.’

  ‘She needs something other than Blundstone boots to convince her,’ James Dean said. He paused. ‘I know! She needs a ute. Her life will be transformed if she gets a ute.’

  ‘A ute?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Yes. A ute. You can’t have dogs and horses and drive them about in a Volvo. This girl bloody well needs a ute.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yep … in the famous words of the Uteman himself, a ute without a dog is like a shag without a sheila – it’s kinda lonesome. And likewise for the dogs who don’t have a ute!’

  Then he clicked his fingers and pointed at Rosie.

  ‘Aha! Have I got a deal for you!’

  ‘What are you up to now?’ Amanda said with narrowed eyes.

  ‘Neville!’ he said to her. A
manda paused and thought about it. She started to grin.

  ‘Yes! Neville,’ she said, and they both ran out to the bar.

  ‘Neville?’ Rosie asked as she followed them, completely confused.

  Neville was sitting slumped at the bar watching Sky Channel and prodding his smouldering rollie in the ashtray with fat yellow fingers.

  ‘Doing any good with the dish-lickers?’ James Dean asked, nodding towards the greyhounds on the screen.

  ‘Nah,’ rasped Neville.

  ‘Never mind. Next race.’ James Dean patted him on the back. ‘Now, old sunshine, you remember Rosie from yesterday?’

  ‘Bloody jukebox queen,’ Neville said, squinting at her through cloudy eyes.

  ‘Yep, the boots ’n’ all girl. Well, now she’s got some boots and she’s got herself some dogs, so the next step is she’ll be needing a ute.’

  ‘I will?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Amanda said. ‘It’s your dream to have a ute.’

  ‘It is?’

  The next thing Rosie knew she was listening to Neville and how his gout was giving him hell in his leg.

  ‘Can’t change the gears. Clutch leg, you see!’ He tapped at his left leg and moved it slowly back and forwards, dangling it from the bar stool. ‘Bugger of a time with me gout.’

  ‘An automatic would mean old Nev here could get about some more, see?’ said James Dean, smiling.

  ‘And a ute would mean Rosie Jones and her dogs could get about more too,’ said Amanda.

  ‘So you want me to swap Mum’s old Volvo for Neville’s old ute?’ Rosie looked at them all, terrified at what her mother would say.

  In the next moment, she found herself sitting next to Neville at the bar. They were rehearsing the art of the column shift. They waved their arms about, hands clutching the imaginary gearstick.

  ‘It’s three on the tree. Up for first,’ Neville wheezed.

  ‘Up for first,’ repeated Rosie.