Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  ‘How good’s your tracking?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve done my share.’

  ‘We’ve got to get a horse then,’ I said. ‘Every day counts with me. My father’s very ill and my wife’s left to run all the drought feeding.’

  ‘Mine are just too far away. By the time we get back the day’s shot.’

  ‘Who owns the horses on the stock route?’

  ‘Dunno. I first saw ’em a fortnight ago. Drovers drop horses here at times in between jobs.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ll grab one.’

  Smokie didn’t comment. He lived here. Next week I would be in New South Wales. He picked up his saddle with the leather lunch bag attached and put it in the truck cabin. Next thing he began rolling a cigarette.

  The horses had been near the yards most of the night. I think Circus had been accepted and they were waiting for him to come out. When I drove back they hadn’t moved far. Catching one could be a problem. I didn’t want to feed them into the yards. Their owner would see the tracks and know something had gone on. If they were drovers’ horses, oats in a bucket would do the trick.

  I had an old milking bucket for this job. Plastic buckets are useless in the bush. All I. had to do was shake the oats in the bucket and the response was simultaneous. The one I liked just on appearance was a brown mare of fifteen hands. She had a kind eye and walked up to me as though I had ridden her all my life. I let her smell me for a while and gave her a free go at the oats. The others all wanted some too and I could see if I didn’t soon get the bridle on she might be bossed out of the way.

  I led her to the yards and let her carry on eating out of the bucket while I unsaddled Circus. I told Smokie to put his saddle on Circus.

  ‘No, I’ll ride that one,’ he said, ‘you stay with your own horse.’ Then he smiled that cheeky grin that was so much part of him. ‘I’ll call her Sarah-Jane.’

  I thought about it for a moment. Pinching a horse was serious stuff. I didn’t expect to be caught, but there was a risk.

  ‘You can name her, but I’ll ride her,’ I said at last. ‘It’s a hundred to one anyone’s going to give a damn about this mare being ridden for one day, but if there is trouble it’s straight and simple if I am the only one to touch her.’

  Smokie didn’t care much either way and we loaded her. It was about forty kilometres to the paddock. A gravel public road followed the eastern boundary and there was a gate. I backed the truck into a ditch and before leaving on horseback each of us had a long drink of water.

  Circus thought Sarah-Jane was alright. He smelt her bottom and she squealed and flattened her ears, but there was no time for horse smelling. The tracks were right at the gate. The steers had evidently run onto the fence and followed it. The tracking was easy until they veered left and headed into the paddock. The country was heavily grassed with scattered brigalow. Everywhere I glanced I saw groups of emus and mobs of kangaroos. The stinkers too were prolific. Stinker is the local name for a little fellow we call the swamp wallaby in New South Wales. They do stink too, the little rotters.

  Despite the grass, we were able to track just walking along on the horses. We both knew it wouldn’t last. Ahead was the low range and the stone country. Perhaps they turned and kept to the low plains, I thought—although in vain. Where the stones started, the tracks stopped. We talked for a few minutes and agreed to split up. I would ride due north for half an hour or five kilometres and then swing westward. Smokie would ride north-west for an hour and wait. I would cut his tracks and meet him. If one of us didn’t cut the cattle tracks they had crossed the range and swung west or south-west.

  Tracking is fun if you’re good at it. At the age of six I could track just about anything. I carried a hessian bag for rabbits. In the heat of the day I tracked them to their squats and with a stealth that comes only from running wild I grabbed them behind the ears. The Aboriginal trappers taught me so much, but when my parents sent me away to boarding school I lost it all. Today I can track a little, but whatever developed in the eye through to the brain never came back.

  I had only ridden for twenty minutes when I cut the tracks. I began to feel excited, as though I was on some hunt. The steers had been running, tightly bunched. Something had spooked them on the range and they came back off it. Smokie would have crossed over by now and I felt his ride was going to be a dead end. But bewildered cattle on the run are very unpredictable. They ran north-west for only half a kilometre before they turned and headed straight over the low range. I couldn’t see a single track in the stone, but when I reached the crest there was a slight breeze. I rode down the other side keeping it into my face and within minutes I had the tracks again.

  Probably ten minutes later than me Smokie had cut the tracks too. At that point he waited for me. He knew if I didn’t find the cattle tracks I would find those of Circus.

  West of the low range the brigalow had been poisoned. We rode through dead timber and fallen logs. I found the tracking very hard and at times Smokie had to dismount and drop to one knee. In tough going you sometimes have to ride ahead and attempt to re-cut the tracks. On one occasion the steers did a full circle. Smokie never lost the tracks.

  By midday we were both very thirsty and it was pure joy to ride onto a broad expanse of water. Queenslanders don’t mess about when they sink a dam. Most dams are at least fifty metres across. This one had beautiful clear water, and humans so seldom came here the birdlife had no fear of us. The ducks watched us for a few minutes, then carried on with their feeding.

  The horses had a long drink and we tied them up where they could pick at some grass. The tracks of the steers were everywhere. They had taken a long drink and we knew they would not be far away. We had no billy. I missed my tea so much a saddle quart pot was the first item I purchased when I next reached town.

  There was nothing spectacular about the dam. Throughout Australia there are thousands of peaceful water settings. Yet here was a tranquillity I had not seen for a long time. I thought of the mud and the smell and then it hit me—the boggy dams at home had no life at all. The ducks had gone and not even the parrots came in for a drink. I could have stayed there for hours.

  We swung back into the saddles and found the steers just a few hundred metres away. They had mated up with several crossbred bullocks and all were lying down in the shade. Smokie wanted to cut the Hereford steers out immediately. I told him it wouldn’t work; that there were two rogues and we would end up tracking them another ten kilometres. He was insistent and I reluctantly agreed to an attempt. I am a loner by nature and don’t like to argue for long.

  We walked them to an area of open ground not far from the dam. Smokie rode in quietly and eased the bullocks out, one at a time. He cut them out on the dam side, hoping they might simply walk to water. For a moment I thought it was going to work. It was the red steer with the horns, the troublemaker, that spoilt it. He dashed past Smokie back to the bullocks. Smokie tried again and after each failure the cattle were more stirred. I had trouble holding the mob together. It was inevitable they would break, and they did. By luck alone they bolted south and we followed in lethal country for horses. The timber was dead and much of it lay twisted in heaps. At the best the horses would get lacerations to their legs. It was the possibility of a serious stake that bothered me. But our tracking time had run out. We had to keep them in sight.

  The cattle went all the way to the southern boundary. Sarah-Jane was a lather of sweat and so was Circus. For the first time I began to feel some guilt about the mare. To borrow her for a quiet ride was reasonable. To give her a hard workout and risk injury was plain tough. I told Smokie we would take the lot and float the bullocks back next day.

  We had to go over the stony spur again and I elected to ride ahead and wait on the other side. There was no dead timber here. It was more like an open plain compared to what we had just left. I had a premonition the steers might have one last burst for freedom. There was a lot of low scrub on the spur itself. Animals sense fr
eedom in rough terrain and will use it to advantage.

  I heard the stones before I saw them. They had switched direction to the north and Smokie was helpless to do anything. No horse could gallop downhill in that stone. I cantered out onto the plain to give myself more room. It was vital every beast had reached the plain before I attempted to turn them. The troublemaker with the horns came straight at me. He had no intention of charging. The beast was a rogue and he knew front on was the way to beat me. I moved to the side and let him go. When the others drew level I cantered in behind and waited for them to bunch their rumps. They spurted into a gallop and I followed, waiting for the plain to open up into a treeless expanse. The horny was only thirty metres ahead and if I’d had Circus he would have been well covered. But Sarah-Jane was slower and I had to be patient and wait for the opportunity.

  There was a thundering of hooves and as we broke out onto the open plain I had a pang of nostalgia for the racetrack. Sarah-Jane rose to the occasion and as we neared the tail of that horny rogue I whooped like an Indian. The startled steer spun on his hindquarters and without knowing it he was once again on course with the others following. I glanced back and saw Circus and Smokie gallop onto the plain. Smokie turned to the east in case the cattle swung back towards the range.

  That was the last bit of drama. We put them through the gate where we had left the truck and Smokie walked them along the fence towards the Amby Creek yards. I loaded a tired Sarah-Jane and followed in the truck. It was a long walk to the yards, through another two gates, and the shadows were long when Smokie shut the stockyard gate.

  I fed Sarah-Jane a big lump of hay in the yard and planned to release her into the stock route mob later in the evening. Circus had to be fed on his own as usual.

  It had been a long day and I didn’t feel like camp cooking. Smokie said the little pub served meals and a few beers to wash it down sounded pretty good. There were several men in the bar and a couple of women. It was a friendly atmosphere and Smokie saw that I met them all. One was a horsebreaker at the crack of dawn and tractor driver in the sorghum belt for most of the day.

  It was going to be one of those evenings where the sinking of a few beers would be expected, so I slipped away and made my phone calls. Sal was just back from the hospital at Coonabarabran. A blood transfusion had become urgent for Dad and the doctor had put Mum in as well. Sal said they were both in the one room. I asked her about the cows and she thought they were holding, but the calves were looking more and more lifeless. The cows were only making a little milk. When I said I would be back the day after tomorrow she seemed very relieved.

  During the day I had made a decision to move the cattle from Amby Greek. It was about a ten-day walk to Roma and when they got there I would sell them.

  Drover Billy Little’s number wasn’t answering so I contacted the head stockman at Dalgety’s. Billy had taken delivery of a big mob on the upper Warrego. I had missed him. I realised now I should have given him the cattle to start with. The thousand dollar cash saving per week was peanuts compared to loss of weight. Action on the stock routes had been quiet since the summer wet. Most of the feed was just as dry as the adjoining paddocks, but it was along the creeks and the flats where stock did well.

  I went back to the bar and started making enquiries about drovers. Smokie had begun to spark and said he and I could walk them in. The stock route to Roma didn’t offer much excitement, but he assured me his poetry and singing would fill the gap. I had heard of a boss drover who employed only young women for the horse work. He had been quoted as saying the women were far more caring and looked after their horses better than men. I put it to Smokie and he said it would kill him and if they failed his wife would not. The conversation got more ridiculous as the evening wore on and I enjoyed many of Smokie’s tales about the wild country of the Carnarvons. It sounded like a huge blank space on the map. There were too many stories to remember, but the best was the tale of the riding constable. The constable had arrived at a station looking for a valuable thoroughbred mare. As usual the bush telegraph had alerted the manager. Before the policeman arrived they saddled the mare, rode her until she sweated (to make it appear she’d been ridden all morning) and resaddled her with a wide saddlecloth that covered her shoulder brand. The manager pretended to take the matter very seriously and offered the constable his own private mare to ride out and inspect the station horses. A man was sent with him to give any assistance that might be required. The constable rode for three hours on the stolen goods! I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the constable. I am sure I wouldn’t have woken up to anything as daring as presenting the stolen mare for him to ride.

  Fortunately I had walked from the camp to the pub. I knew I wasn’t going to escape with a couple of beers. Smokie didn’t have to walk far either. When I got to the camp I let Sarah-Jane out. If I had known the steers were going to run into some sensible old bullocks I could have gone out alone and Circus and I would have got them unaided, but in fact meeting Smokie was a positive twist of fate. In the next few days there was to be a run on drovers almost unprecedented, so without Smokie I don’t know what I’d have done.

  Next morning I took the bullocks back to their paddock in the truck. The rogue steers I took to Roma to be sold at the next fat sale. Roma sells fat cattle every Thursday for the meat trade. I arranged for a Dalgety’s stockman to feed them hay until sale day. I had a great sense of relief when they ran off the truck at the Roma yards.

  The inspection of the stock route out to Tambo could wait until I came back. Maybe no drovers would be available! I couldn’t leave Sal at Myall Plains on her own while I overlanded the herd to central Queensland. I had a sickening feeling that day that all options for the Myall Plains cows and calves were running out. We were heading into a dead end.

  I left Circus with the Old Boy. I hated doing it, but to get him back across the border I had to obtain health papers and I was coming back in a few days. Smokie would keep an eye on the cattle and sort all his old gear for the droving. All I had was the truck and a bit of camping gear.

  Both my parents were still in hospital. It was late afternoon when I walked into their room. Dad was dressed, sitting in a chair. Mum was in bed. It was a pathetic and moving scene. They had loved life and they had lived it. Now it was all coming to an end.

  I couldn’t find the words to tell Dad things were no good in Queensland. They had just completed his blood transfusion and for two or three days he could expect to feel well. Bad news in Queensland would spoil it. We talked about characters and places and I felt guilty when I left.

  While I was away Nicholas had arrived home. He had already started lopping and like me he enjoyed it. If I look at a photo of myself at twenty-two then look at Nicholas we are almost identical, except he is taller. He has the same passion for solo sport as me. I always feared it might be rockclimbing. Despite all the technology, I still think mountaineering is the most dangerous of all sporting activities. Instead, Nick chose to be a surfboard rider and skier.

  Having Nick home was a breath of fresh air. It was as though we could put the drought behind us for just a few days. We loved the same videos and Sal would find herself going to bed early to get away from the stuff we watch. For me it was bliss—anything to take my mind off the nightmare around us.

  Both Mum and Dad were discharged from hospital a couple of days later. There was no way of avoiding it; Dad had to be told. As sick as he was, he owned the cattle.

  Dad was in his usual chair by the fire when I went over to the cottage.

  ‘We’ll have to walk the cattle to Roma and sell them,’ I said without any preamble.

  He nodded and gazed out the window for a while.

  ‘The bank overdraft’s getting away again. There’s no choice.’

  Then he asked, ‘Why not float them? The market’s worse every week.’

  ‘They’ve slipped. The stock route might pick them up.’

  ‘The feed didn’t last long.’ His voice had that irritable t
one.

  ‘The feed’s there, but it’s too old and sour.’

  ‘Who will you get to walk them?’

  ‘There’s no one available,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ve got to walk them in myself.’

  I could see the alarm spread across his face. His one dread now was being forced into hospital. While Sal and I were on the property he felt secure.

  ‘There must be drovers about.’ I saw at once he was becoming breathless.

  ‘None in Queensland. But it’s okay,’ I said, trying to be reassuring. ‘Sal’s not coming and Greg’s doing a good job with the feeding.’

  The oats had run out and we’d been forced to buy wheat. The grain is toxic if not initially fed in small quantities and we began feeding it with great reluctance. There was no sickness and we quickly increased the ration. We knew it was never going to be as good as oats, but by this time the stocks of oats in eastern Australia were exhausted.

  ‘It’s been a dreadful turn-out,’ he said at last. For forty years he had used that expression when he was displeased.

  ‘I should only be away a week.’

  He said nothing for a while. I found myself in that unreal, chilling situation of looking at my father for maybe the last time. I was to leave in two days and I didn’t expect to be back in a week. If the job dragged on for a fortnight I could expect to be called back. I decided I would help Smokie set everything up and arrange for Nick to go up on the overnight bus.

  The day I departed again for Queensland was a sad day. It was the last conversation my father and I ever had. He was in bed with nausea. He had a handkerchief opened up under his chin.