Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  The worry now was the rapid disappearance of old dry grass. The kurrajongs had not only provided nutrition, but roughage as well. I knew a few kilograms of grain each day would not hold the cattle together for more than a month. The drought had already proved to be a freak climatic phenomenon and no one could have any confidence in a spring break. I began to plan a mass move to Queensland. Some of the calves would die in transit and many would die on the stock routes, but I had to have a plan or I feared they would all die. Sal and I discussed the grim prospect at great length. There had to be a thorough reconnaissance of the stock routes. If we could drop off near Roma and overland to central Queensland, the breeders might be saved. Billy Little, the drover who had answered our ad in the Western Star, was the man I wanted for the job. But first I had to see the stock routes for myself.

  It was mid-September when I loaded Circus and twelve heifers onto the old farm truck. Circus was an aged gelding with a few tricks that made him a bit special. The naughty one was gate-opening. The good trick was his ability to turn a rogue beast on a loose rein. On such occasions he had made me look like a super horseman. He could turn and shoulder with extraordinary speed and all the rider had to do was lock in with the knees and watch his ears. If you lost sight of his ears he’d leave you in mid-air. I remember a rogue bull bolting for freedom one day and when Circus wheeled him I turned to look at the men watching and every mouth was wide open. They thought it was my riding. It never was.

  The plan was to inspect the agistment country, assess whether the tailer was still needed and then head out to Blackall with Circus. At frequent intervals I planned to unload him and just ride about. I have always been of the belief that feed and country can only be inspected from horseback. In this day and age, my view would be seen as very old-fashioned.

  Circus had a whole partition to himself. If I had let the heifers in with him he would have bitten their ears off. The heifers were to be let loose with the young cattle at Amby Creek. Since I had to take the truck for Circus, I might as well put it to use—it was twelve less to feed at home.

  I would be away about ten days. Greg had proved to be a good strong worker and with Sal driving the feed truck nothing would be any different in my absence. One of my boys, Nicholas, was giving up his job in Sydney to come home. The contract lopper had left for another property and Nick was going to continue with the lopping. We were down to two hundred trees and only the strongest of the cows would walk the three kilometres to the higher ridges. Every cow that went Nick’s way was one less to feed.

  The drive to Amby—eight hundred and twenty kilometres—took fourteen hours. Circus was very fed up. I backed into the loading ramp at the railway yards and as I inspected the yards for gates left open he was stamping his front hoof. He came off with a snort and submerged his muzzle in the water trough. I had some lucerne hay bales stacked in with him which he had pulled about. I stacked the hay in a separate yard and let the heifers off. I let them have a drink and fed them in a separate yard as Circus had no intention of sharing the hay.

  My own bunk for the night was a small tarpaulin on the ground and a sleeping bag. With the torch I found enough wood to boil the billy and cook some steak on the griller. I was dog tired and must have been asleep by eight o’clock. A couple of trains rumbled past through the night, but the real disturbance was a damp nose in the face about 4.00 a.m. A mob of horses were loose on the stock route and they would have heard Circus blowing and snorting his disapproval of being locked in a strange yard.

  Camping in the bush will always hold romantic connotations. The one moment that definitely isn’t romantic is the chill of a spring dawn. I invariably find myself stumbling around for twigs and little dry sticks to light a fire and boil the billy. For me life doesn’t begin until that scalding liquid is going down my throat. Even if a stampede was imminent it would make no difference.

  I had some toast heaped up with blackberry jam and washed it all down with the tea. Then I loaded Circus and the heifers and drove out to Amby Creek.

  I arrived at the cattle tailer’s camp about an hour after sunrise. For a few minutes I thought it was deserted. There was the old Bedford truck I had seen before, plus a battered-looking trailer. Smoke still rose from the ashes of the night cooking fire and in a hastily made yard of ringlock and steel posts stood two old ponies. Then a face appeared from the rear of the trailer. The man was grey with deeply lined skin. From the back of the truck I could hear a lot of movement, a few coughs that only smokers can make and presently Dick, the tailer I’d engaged from Yuleba, climbed down a little ladder.

  I apologised for arriving so early. Dick shrugged and said he was normally up and saddled by this time. He stoked the ashes, threw a few sticks on and when flame burst from nowhere he placed a large billy. It looked like being a day of sitting around the camp fire. Among bushmen it always seems impolite to get quickly to the point. We chatted about a number of things and slowly we got around to the cattle. By this time his brother had emerged from the trailer. He was stooped, stiff, bandy-legged and more haggard than I first thought. Dick said he had asked his brother to come out because the feed was so scarce we would have to go onto the stock route. The news came as a shock. The cattle had been here four weeks and I’d thought seven weeks feed was conservative.

  They were busting to go, these blokes. Droving had been their life and they knew every inch of the big stock route that cut through the heart of Queensland. They wanted to go to Tambo, some three hundred kilometres to the north-west. I questioned them about water and it was immediately apparent they knew it all, right down to the bog holes in creeks. I looked at the two old ponies and wondered whether they would survive the muster, let alone the walk to the first watering point. Dick assured me he had plenty of horses left at home. Next question was a third man for moving camp, and then there was the wages. There was an old bloke they could get and they wanted $700 a week each. Dick had put himself on the top money with a third-rate droving unit. I didn’t have any enthusiasm for the project and it must have showed.

  Next thing Dick told me someone was making a habit of appearing from nowhere on a red motorbike at the crack of dawn. That the bike rider was cutting steers out into a paddock to the north. Dick said he and his brother had put them back each time, but any day now cattle would be stolen. He said bad things happened here. He got very confidential and his voice became little more than a whisper. What gave him away was his eyes. When he looked at me he was trying to assess whether I had fallen for the bullshit. It was in his own interest to persuade me to put the cattle onto the stock routes. There was no employment left here. On the stock route he could earn good money doing the job he loved. However, he should have credited me with more intelligence and attempted to market his capabilities rather than issue a lot of bullshit.

  It wasn’t long before the question of supplies came up, and money. Dick was due for a cheque. I had paid him a fortnight in advance when I engaged him. His brother I had never engaged, but Dick asked he be paid a couple of days wages. I was in no position to question anything and wrote the cheques out immediately. Within minutes they were preparing to leave for town and I decided to leave them and drop the heifers off at the dam. It was bare around the camp site and I was keen to drive the next kilometre or so to the dam and see how the feed looked.

  The picture Dick painted appeared to be spot on. There was no feed in the vicinity of the dam, but the cattle watering there looked full enough. Beyond the dam I had no access in the truck; it was a horseback job. I remembered the best of the country was north of the dam and I desperately hoped the feed had hung on there. There was only one way to find out. After unloading the heifers in a ditch I drove back to the railway yards and loaded Circus. He was pleased to be on the move again and in no time we were together striding out over the downs dotted with scattered myall and brigalow.

  We had not been going long when an emu burst out of the brigalow and in long bold strides came straight for us. Circus must have thought
his worst nightmare had become reality, for I had no say in what happened next. We made good time over the next half kilometre. There are no emus left on Myall Plains and after that ride I plan to buy a handful just for the horses to look at.

  The further I rode the better the feed seemed. But it was the dust that alerted me. There were little groups of cattle scattered everywhere and when they walked the dust drifted up through their legs. I dismounted and rubbed bits of grass through my hands. It disintegrated into powder. The days were already hot and it seemed the sun had finished the old grass off. The cattle too looked dry in the coat. Dick was right—we needed to get out, but Billy Little was the man I would be looking for.

  I reached the boundary on Circus and noticed the cattle had worn a pad along the fence. It was a sign of restlessness and concerned, I rode along the fence heading east. Very soon I found the fence down and tracks going in and out. Another kilometre and I saw some of my steers in the adjoining country. They had mated up with a couple of Santa Gertrudis bulls that looked a bit wild. An hour later I found a gate open into a small access paddock with a dam. Some Myall Plains weaner heifers were lying down in the shade of some brigalows and I rode over to them. They looked terrible. They had walked into the paddock days ago, watered, and for no accountable reason had not fed out again. Bewildered young cattle will behave in this manner. The infuriating fact was that no one had checked. No one had bothered to repair the boundary fence either.

  When I got back to the camp Dick and his brother had returned and had the big billy on. I took them on quietly. I explained I had a prior commitment in regard to any droving. They seemed to take it airight and after a couple of pannikins of coffee they loaded their belongings and left. I had fallen in badly, but at the time of engaging this man I knew the risk and I have never been afraid to take a gamble.

  I gave Circus some hay and for my lunch opened a tin of lamb stew. The steers outside the fence had me worried. Sometimes they form a strong attachment to bulls and if those bulls were scrubbers Circus and I would hear the slap of leather and suffer a few scratches. If I could get them back in I would strain the fence. I had a set of strainers and pliers in the truck which I put into a haversack. When I reached the boundary I cut the loose wires and pulled all the material back to make a gap in the fence. Circus and I had to get out and I wanted a wide gap for the steers. Rogue cattle will walk through fences in disrepair, but when it comes to going back they are smart enough to run past their point of entry and pretend they don’t know about it.

  I rode out into country that was no longer open downs. The timber reined in the visibility and from the north emerged a high rocky spur. Where I had cut the fence the ground sloped towards a dry creek. Pushing unwilling cattle along a fence with the slope running away was a distinct disadvantage. Beyond the creek the scattered box gave way to thick scrub. The last line of defence was the spur itself Quietly was the way to go. If there was to be a chase I needed to win it before the scrub.

  The cattle lay under a big tree near a dam, so boggy that two of the Old Boy’s ewes were stuck and crows had pecked their eyes out. I carried a knife on my belt and performed the sickening task of cutting their throats. I wiped the blade on the wool and walked slowly back to Circus who I had tied under a tree.

  The steers had taken no notice of me. It was the bulls that were wary. They were on their feet and one had the eye of a wild animal. Scrubbers are bulls that have escaped the castrating knife, but these had quality. It wasn’t the country for spelling your herd sires. They may have been missed in a muster or just abandoned. The trick was to edge the steers away on their own.

  One steer wasn’t going to have a bar of it. Each time I poked him out he promptly ran back to the bulls who became more and more agitated. It was just a matter of minutes before the bulls would cock their tails and bolt for the bush, with the steers in hot pursuit. I would have to take the bulls as well.

  It went well for the first kilometre. I began to think it was going to be a rocking horse job. The trouble began when the slope fell away from the fence towards the creek. The wild-eyed bull led them and he kept angling towards the creek. Twice I turned him back towards the fence, but on the third occasion he broke for the scrub on the other side and the others took off with him.

  Circus always knew before any signal came from me. Within three seconds we were at full gallop to head him off. The bull showed a great turn of speed and knew where the scrub was thickest. Worse still, the other bull had switched course and one steer swung and went with him. The wild-eyed bull burst into a clearing and instantly there was an opportunity to cut the steers away to the left and head them towards the other steer and bull. Then from the corner of my eye I saw him and so did Circus and if he hadn’t spun side-on, the charging bull would have knocked us down. The bull caught Circus in that first fleeing stride and I felt his whole body being carried underneath me. In a split second it was over and Circus was in full flight for the second time in just hours. I shudder to think of the damage if the wild-eyed bull had carried horns.

  We stopped a hundred metres away and both Circus and I breathed heavily. We needed a few minutes to take stock of the situation. The cattle had gone into the stone country which I was told sometime later to be the most southern spur of the Carnarvon massif two hundred kilometres to the north.

  I could only follow at a walk. I had never ridden in country so inhospitable to a horse. In the southern alps or the steep country of the Warrumbungles, there is always some dirt for a horse to get a foot in. Not so here! Just millions of round-shaped rocks piled on one another as though the devils of hell had been given a picnic day. In fact the low range was once a reef in an ancient sea.

  Poor old Circus picked his way over the top and on the other side below the stone I picked up the tracks. Soon I caught glimpses of cattle rumps sliding through the timber ahead. The only hope was a hell for leather ride. The bulls would tire, drop out and ultimately the steers would run themselves out. I yodelled my head off and on a loose rein Circus threaded his way through the box timber. There were patches of sandalwood and wilga and I crouched low. Jagged branches ripped at my shirt and if it were not for a chin strap I would have lost my hat in the first fifty metres.

  The bulls had quickly found each other after the first break and were already knocked up. They ran no more than three hundred metres before they swung sharply to the right. The steers were in full flight, their tongues out and bubbles of froth clinging to their mouths. I began to ease down. From past experience the steers would slow to a trot and then stop. At that point it was vital to keep clear and allow them to cool off. I was so confident of success I must have lost concentration. Circus stopped with a jerk at a fence. It was a new fence with high tensile wire. A beast can hit a high tensile fence and its weight alone will take it over. The fence will bounce back as though nothing happened. A few minutes tracking and I found where the steers had hit the fence and gone over. I had left my haversack with the pliers at the other fence, but even if I had the equipment I had no right to cut this fence.

  I don’t think Circus minded seeing the fence. It was the end of the day and he knew it. A fast walker at the best of times, his stride lengthened when I turned and headed back.

  I loaded Circus and took him back to the railway yards. I gave him more hay than he could eat, set up a bit of camp and drove the truck into the village where there was a hotel. The position with the steers was serious now. They were worth about $350 per head and with the drought expenses compounding I had to get them. On the way back to the village I had stopped at the homestead to see if the Old Boy was about. The place was deserted. It was said he had a girlfriend tucked away somewhere. A young one. He had a bloom in his cheeks for a man of his age and when he told me it takes a young one to fire old hormones I disagreed, but it worked for him.

  At the hotel I made enquiries about stockmen and who owned the property north of Amby Creek. The publican couldn’t have been more helpful. He telephoned the proper
ty and within minutes I had permission to go in and get my steers. Half an hour later he had arranged for a stockman to come to the hotel and meet me. We agreed on a wage for the day and planned to leave Amby at daylight.

  The stockman liked to be called Smokie. He looked like one of those blokes Hollywood would grab by the shirt collar if he went near the front door. You can’t create men like Smokie. Life moulds them. How many mustering camps he had been on and how many bad horses he had ridden was written on his face. His features were hard and his eyes a little sunken. God only knows what he had smoked in the last half century, and when he dies the directors of every tobacco company should be at his memorial. The smoking and his numerous accidents had wasted him. He was gaunt and in the mornings the stiffness gave him pain. In the past, men have fought for this country, returned as heroes and more often than not settled down into comfortable lifestyles. Our stockmen of the deep interior live their whole lives on the front line and I have not seen an aged one yet who was not scarred and busted up. And make no mistake, it still is the front line against nature. The only difference between the present and the previous century is that you won’t get a spear through the thigh and you drive to town instead of ride. The devastating droughts, the great floods and the bush fires disrupt our lives as much as ever.

  Smokie lived in Amby and he had a few hectares to run his horses. When I arrived in the truck to pick him up he was bent over examining the hoof of his horse. I went over to the old stable and I knew before he spoke something was wrong.

  ‘She’s lame,’ he said. ‘My other horses are on a property miles away. It got too dry to keep them here.’

  The news posed an instant problem. The paddock the steers had jumped into was a big one, split by the uplift of a long wide escarpment. I hadn’t tracked for years and I didn’t think I could track over stone. I needed Smokie’s help. Two riders could head off in different directions, cross-tracking, searching for the sign of a hoofprint. We would have to anticipate the lay of the land and any breeze. Even if a breeze is too slight to stir the whisker tops of old grass, cattle will walk into it, so they smell danger long before they see it. It’s a survival instinct developed over thousands of years.