The Stockmen

by Rachael Treasure

  ‘No more, thanks. I’m driving.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘A dog trial and ute show. Jim had talked me into entering Gibbo in the novice section of the trial, and Neville in the Old Clunker section of the utes.’

  ‘Old clunker? Sounds like I’d be eligible for that section!’ Mr Seymour laughed. ‘And Bones too, for that matter!’

  ‘Well,’ said Rosie, ‘why don’t you come?’

  Mr Seymour looked at her with a wry smile.

  ‘I like your style, girl.’

  Rosie helped Mr Seymour into Neville’s passenger seat. Beneath an old coat Mr Seymour wore his best shirt of beige geometric patterns, and his brown nylon pants were pulled up nearly to his armpits. He smoothed his hands over his grey hair, which he had slicked over his bald spot. In the back of Neville, Lazy Bones settled his fat body next to the other dogs and turned his nose to the rushing wind. His pale tongue blew back and flapped beneath his grey muzzle.

  ‘Rides well,’ Mr Seymour remarked as the ute bumped over the showground grid and pulled to a halt with another deafening backfire.

  Rosie handed the man on the gate their entry money and drove towards the line of utes that ringed the oval. There were brand-new utes with gleaming paintwork, and a motley mob of ancient paddock-bashers. Old Neville limped past the shiny modern utes lined up like young soldiers, their massive bull-bars jutting out importantly. Some had truckie mudflaps that hung beneath their tailgates, others had aerials shooting up like spears. All of them were covered in stickers that said things like ‘I’m totally UTED’ and ‘Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts’. Most had big round spotlights mounted on their bull-bars and all of them had Bundy Rum stickers or artwork of the Bundy Bear painted on their gleaming surfaces. The young crowd leant around the utes, shirtsleeves rolled up, big hats jammed on and beer cans encased in various stubby holders grasped in their hands.

  Someone banged suddenly on the roof of the ute. James Dean stepped forward, raising his beer. He leant in through the window.

  ‘Hey, baby … fast mover! I like your new boyfriend!’

  He reached across Rosie to shake hands with old Mr Seymour.

  ‘James Dean,’ he said.

  ‘Clark Gable,’ Mr Seymour said.

  ‘I reckon this here jezebel would keep you on your toes?’ said James Dean, inclining his head towards Rosie.

  ‘I haven’t got her in the sack yet, boy, but I’m working on it,’ Mr Seymour said, rasping with laughter.

  ‘Gentlemen, please!’ said Rosie, pulling a face. Then she ground the gearstick into place and floored the accelerator so that damp soil spun up from the tyres.

  ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ she yelled to James Dean as he waved goodbye.

  ‘Really,’ she huffed to Mr Seymour. ‘And I thought our relationship was purely platonic.’

  ‘Sometimes you gotta skite in front of the boys,’ he replied. Then he turned his attention to the line-up of ancient utes featuring dinted panels, rust spots and trays cluttered with old junk.

  ‘Oh, this takes me back,’ he said.

  Rosie parked Neville in the line-up and, as if announcing he’d arrived, the ute gave off one of the loudest backfires yet.

  ‘I’d better go enter Neville, then I’m due at the dog trials. What do you want to do?’

  ‘Me and Bones can poke about here for a bit and look at these old boys.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rosie said as she unclipped Gibbo. ‘Just make sure you and Bones are in the ute when the judge comes past. Remember, you’re part of the old-clunker image!’

  She smiled at him and walked off towards the show secretary’s caravan.

  ‘Hey, lass,’ Mr Seymour called after her. She turned and squinted into the sun. ‘Jim was mad to leave you behind. You’re a good type.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Rosie said brightly, but she felt sadness settle inside her.

  In the secretary’s caravan, her mother’s ex-rent-a-crowd batch of graziers’ wives fussed over their celebrity guest, Allan Nixon, the ute judge.

  ‘Do we call you Uteman or Allan?’ twittered Susannah Moorecroft.

  ‘I answer to anything,’ he said lightly. He looked up from beneath his Ford peaked cap to see Rosie standing in front of him.

  ‘G’day,’ she said. ‘I’m here to enter in the Old Clunker section.’

  ‘And which is your mongrel ute?’ Allan asked.

  He leant out of the caravan to see where Rosie pointed. Uteman was greeted with the image of Bones shakily lifting his arthritic back leg on the front tyre as old Mr Seymour leant against the ute, rolling a smoke and hacking up a phlegmy gob onto the ground.

  ‘I’m afraid the two old fellas go with the ute,’ Rosie said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Was that part of the trade-in deal?’ Uteman asked.

  ‘Um, well kind of.’ Rosie looked over to the glossy yellow Ford ute that was parked by the caravan and had a Uteman number plate. It looked like it had just driven off the showroom floor. ‘That your ute?’

  ‘Yeah. Paintwork’s a little bit flasher than yours but I don’t have such unusual accessories,’ Allan said, glancing back to Mr Seymour and Lazy Bones. ‘Right then, we’d better get you entered.’ He turned towards the secretaries. ‘Ladies?’

  Mrs Moorecroft pushed a form forward and began to write Rosemary Highgrove-Jones in the space that said entrant.

  ‘Ah. Actually, it’s Rosie Jones,’ Rosie said.

  Mrs Moorecroft’s face gave nothing away, but Rosie could tell she was bursting to ask a million nosy questions about the goings on at Highgrove station, what with Gerald having left the property – with Margaret’s sister! Then the carry-on between Margaret and the newspaper man. And the rumours that her son was homosexual. Now here was Rosemary, who’d apparently taken up with a stockman and had turned up today in that terrible old ute with that disgusting old man … and she’d dropped her hyphen!

  ‘I need to enter the dog trial too,’ Rosie said, smiling up at her.

  ‘Over at the porta-yards there’s a blue tent,’ Mrs Moorecroft said crisply, waving her pen in the general direction. ‘You can enter there with the Yard Dog Association.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rosie said, ‘and yes, you can tell Mum’s friends – it’s all true.’

  Rosie didn’t hang around to see Susannah Moorecroft’s cheeks flame red.

  Rosie and Gibbo’s names were announced over the loudspeaker and a murmur went through the small crowd. Rosie knew they were talking about Gibbo being Sam Chillcott-Clark’s young dog, bought as a pup from the Pandara Kelpie Stud and shipped over from Tasmania. But while some in the crowd were harsh and judgemental, the people who trialled dogs were kinder. Especially the dog-trialling girls, who knew the truth about Sam. They welcomed Rosie and encouraged her to take her first nervous round in the competition yard.

  ‘You’ll be right,’ one said.

  ‘Gotta be a first time for everything,’ said another. ‘Once you’ve done one, the rest will follow.’

  They smiled at her warmly.

  ‘Make sure you familiarise yourself with the gate latches. In my first trial I couldn’t even unclip the chain,’ laughed the first.

  Rosie swallowed down nerves.

  In the yard, Gibbo cast out naturally enough but was too forceful on his sheep as Rosie hadn’t yet worked out how to steady him down. He was hit-and-miss on his stops so it took her some time to get the sheep flowing into the first pen because Gibbo always overshot the shoulder of the small mob and turned the leaders in on themselves. When they got to the race, instead of jumping up on the sheep’s backs, Gibbo disappeared underneath them and was buried completely under wool and hocks. Rosie, red-faced, had to peer underneath and coax him out again. The judge helped her out when the sheep blocked in the drafting gate, and again he put down his clipboard to help her with the put-away latch. Despite her pitiful score, whittled down from her original starting points of 100, the crowd gave Rosie an encouraging round of
applause when she at last put the sheep away.

  She was heading back to the ute when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘He shows fine promise, that young dog. Well done.’

  Rosie spun round. It was Billy O’Rourke.

  ‘Shame about the handler,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You won’t learn if you don’t have a go.’

  Rosie looked up into Billy’s laughter-lined eyes. He clapped a strong hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ he said.

  ‘How are the plans for the kelpie auction going?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Oh, we’re getting the town organised. It’s scheduled for winter. The long weekend in June.’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘How are you coming along with the Gleeson research?’

  ‘Slowly,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘We want to start running the articles in the new year,’ Billy said. ‘We need to get the word out so that people have time to select dogs to offer for sale.’

  ‘I know, but I’ve been so busy with the station that I’ve barely had time to train the pups, let alone finish Jack’s story.’

  ‘I heard you lost your stockman,’ Billy said gently. ‘I’m sorry about that. Must have rocks in his head.’

  Rosie looked down at her boots, but didn’t answer. Sensing her hurt, Billy steered away from the subject of Jim. ‘What stage are you up to with the pups?’

  ‘We’d got as far as putting them round a few sheep in a yard … you know, teaching them the left, right and stop commands. But I don’t know how to finish them off. Get them backing and barking, and casting.’

  ‘I can teach you that in a flash. How about you bring them over to my place and I give you a lesson?’

  ‘That’s really kind of you, but are you sure you’ve got time for me?’

  In truth, Rosie felt as though things were spiralling out of control on the farm. It was great to have Julian home, but the new tree business had absorbed all his time and energy. She needed someone else to help her. The pups had been neglected, and Sassy’s foal, Morrison, was downright wild from lack of handling.

  ‘Really, Billy. I wouldn’t want to put you out,’ she said again.

  ‘I’ve heard how good the pups of yours are. I’m doing this for the sake of the auction, too. We need really good-quality types for the first sale so that Casterton gets a good name for kelpies. And if I can train you at the same time, you’ll be able to demonstrate them so you’ll get a good price.’

  ‘It sounds fantastic,’ Rosie said, almost sighing with relief.

  ‘How about we start tomorrow? Do you want me to come to Highgrove to save you time?’

  ‘That would be great. Thank you so, so much.’

  Feeling buoyed by Billy’s kindness, Rosie walked through the crowd with Gibbo at her heels. As she weaved past the people clustered round the utes she heard a shrill voice call out, ‘Rosemary! Rosemary!’ There, tottering in her heels, a camera slung about her neck, was Prudence Beaton. She grasped Rosie’s upper arms and kissed the air on either side of Rosie’s cheeks.

  ‘My God! I haven’t seen you in ay-ges! How are you?’ Without waiting for an answer Prudence prattled on, ‘But look at your hair! It’s so long. And you’re so thin! Too thin. But enough of that … how about a shot of you and the dog for The Chronicle?’

  She held up her camera but Rosie could feel Prudence looking her up and down and noting the dirt under her short fingernails and the calluses and cuts on her hands.

  ‘Fine, but can we take one with my friend in it and the Uteman?’ Rosie gestured towards Mr Seymour, who was talking excitedly with Uteman. Prue frowned. Mr Seymour was the last person needed for the social pages. But before she could argue, Rosie felt two hands over her eyes.

  ‘Guess who?’ came a voice.

  For an instant her heart leapt with joy. But when she turned she saw it was Dubbo standing before her.

  ‘Sorry I missed your run with the dog,’ he said. He gave Rosie a kiss on the cheek before she could step away.

  ‘Perfect!’ said Prue. ‘Can you do that again for the social pages?’ She held up her camera. Click.

  ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Well, time to gather more news. Toodle-loo. We’ll catch you for that drinkie later, David. And you owe me a kiss too.’ And she was gone, scribbling their names into her notebook.

  ‘How have you been?’ Dubbo said.

  ‘You lied to me,’ Rosie said coldly.

  ‘What?’

  She began to walk away but Dubbo caught her up.

  ‘Look, Rose, if this is about the stockman, I was just relaying what I’d heard. I was trying to help.’

  Rosie looked at him incredulously.

  ‘That’s bullshit, Dubbo, and you know it.’

  ‘Come on, it was with good intentions. Whether it was the truth or not, the fact is he wasn’t right for you.’ He touched her arm.

  Rosie pulled away. She couldn’t believe Dubbo’s arrogance. How would he know what or who was right for her? But she didn’t want to fight with him. It just wasn’t worth it.

  ‘Why don’t you just go and find Prue for that drink?’ she said eventually. ‘Now there’s someone who’s perfect for you. And if you still want to come and buy one of my pups, you’ll be paying full price!’ She turned her back on him and walked away.

  That was it, Rosie decided. She’d had enough of men. From now on she’d just throw herself into running Highgrove and training her kelpies up for next year’s auction.

  ‘Come on, Mr Seymour,’ she said, ‘we’re outta here.’

  Mr Seymour shook his head. ‘Can’t go yet! The judge is about to announce his decision. Just you wait. I told him my special joke, the one about the Pope, the Virgin and the gerbil. He loved it. It’s in the bag … just you wait … that Adam brand CB will be ours!’ He rubbed his hands together.

  Rosie frowned. ‘CB?’

  ‘Yes! You can win a CB radio!’ Mr Seymour said.

  Rosie sighed and shook her head, then laughed. The encounter with Dubbo had upset her, but now, back with Mr Seymour, she started to relax again.

  ‘Not a CB, a CD – they mean a compact disc … you know, like a record.’

  ‘Well, what’s this Adam brand? Is it like Black and Gold brand?’

  ‘You mean who’s this Adam Brand? He’s a spunk in tight jeans who sings good songs. Oh, never mind, if we win, you’ll find out.’

  As Allan Nixon switched on the microphone the group of boys who stood beneath their big hats with hatbands made from black bale twine and yellow Bundy Rum lids raised their stubbies and whistled.

  ‘Ladies and gents …’ Uteman began to woo his devoted crowd of fans by telling the joke Mr Seymour had told him. Some of the ladies in the caravan pursed their lips in disapproval, but the young guns howled with laughter. Then he began to summarise the winners in each category, which included Most Mongrel Ute, Best Bull-bar, Fattest Ute, Best Chick’s Ute and, at last, the Old Clunker section.

  Uteman leant towards the microphone.

  ‘Runner-up in the Old Clunker section is The Brown Stain, owned by Craig Gardener – congratulations! But the overall winner is …’ Uteman paused for dramatic effect, ‘Neville! Exhibited by Rosie Jones, Old Mr Seymour and Lazy Bones the dawg!’

  Rosie stepped forward and Allan presented her with a signed copy of his latest Beaut Utes book and the Adam Brand CD which she promptly handed to a confused-looking Mr Seymour.

  ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ she said, helping Mr Seymour into the ute. ‘We’ll get you home before too many of the old biddies from Meals on Wheels get wise to how sprightly you are. They might cut off your meals if we party on too hard here.’

  ‘You’re a good girl,’ he said as he reached for his rollies.

  At Mr Seymour’s house, just as Rosie was settling him into his chair, he reached over to his side table and grabbed a heavy old scrapbook of clippings. God, she thought guiltily, she didn’t want to talk kelpie history right now! She ne
eded to get back to Highgrove to feed all the dogs and horses. Sensing her reluctance to stay, Mr Seymour nodded towards the door.

  ‘Off you go, then. We’ll talk about what’s in this later. Take it with you. Just bring it back when you can.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Rosie gave Mr Seymour a grateful kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Don’t forget to take Bones with you,’ he reminded her gently. ‘Some of the old chooks are threatening to have him put down with the green dream.’

  ‘God!’ shuddered Rosie as she pulled Bones towards her. ‘Come here, boy. We’ll get you home and you can sleep in my room.’

  Chapter 32

  Tucked beneath her doona, with Bones snoring gently on a mat beside her bed, Rosie opened Mr Seymour’s scrapbook. There in the pages were pictures of him as a boy in Ireland.

  ‘Cor, you weren’t a bad looker back then,’ she said as she studied Mr Seymour’s handsome features. Glued on the next page were photos of a family standing in front of a stone cottage. Beneath was scribbled ‘The Mahonys’. Rosie looked at the two little boys standing in front of their mother. She recognised the smaller one as Jim. She ran her finger gently over his image.

  ‘Cute,’ she said.

  Further on in the book were clippings, held fast with yellowing sticky tape. In one Mr Seymour had underlined the words: It is remarkable how, at that time in Australia, many of the best known breeders and workers of sheep dogs were located in the one small, remote district: Gleeson, the Kings, Quinns, Willis, Beveridge and McLeods of Bygalorie.

  Rosie wondered if Jim had headed up to New South Wales, to the very same district of the Riverina, near Ardlethan, in search of work and the old kelpie bloodlines. She sighed and turned the page. It was all very well to trace the bloodlines of the dogs, but Rosie really wanted to know what had happened to Jack and Mary all those years ago. Did they make it work, despite the differences between them? Rosie laid her head on the pillow and tried to conjure up the feeling of Jim’s touch. Soon she slept.

  Water trickled into her dreams and began to rush in torrents. Silver rivulets spread like veins over green winter pastures. Water glistened in wide grey sheets across paddock flats and surged towards deep gullies and creek beds. The creeks, in response to the roaring rain, rushed through ever-deepening clay beds so that giant rocks tumbled loose and fell into dark caverns that churned with angry water. A hut had come loose from its foundations and was swept along in the torrent.