Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  If I were to plead not guilty the case would be adjourned and I would be tried by a jury. I was appalled such a petty offence could reach such a serious level. If I were to plead guilty the magistrate had the power to discharge the case or impose a fine. Bound in with a fine was a criminal record. My solicitor thought the charge was trivial in light of the fact I had returned the mare the same day and had there been a serious injury to her the prosecution would have obtained a veterinary report. He advised me to plead guilty.

  To fuel my unease about the matter, a carload of rough-looking young men had come looking for me on the reserve. I was in town seeing my solicitor. Nick said they arrived in a sixties model Holden with half the paint off. He said they were up to no good and he wouldn’t tell them where I was. I asked Nick if they went back to town. He said he watched the car after it left. When they reached the highway they turned towards Miles.

  I realised at once it was the Yuleba mob—friends or family of Dick the cattle-tailer. He knew he had been sacked at Amby Creek and I’d thought he’d left just a little too quietly. The drovers all knew each other. I was yet to meet the owner of Sarah-Jane, but it crossed my mind he might be a mate of Dick’s.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ I said. ‘The court case is only a couple of days away. Be all over then.’

  ‘No Dad.’ Nick was always firm in his opinions. I respected them. ‘They’ll be back. There were five of them.’

  ‘I’ll stay in town then.’

  Nick nodded in agreement. ‘If it’s only fists we can hold our own. They had guns in the car. Maybe roo shooters. Maybe not.’

  I knew I had to take the trouble away from the camp. Problem was I didn’t know what this mob looked like. They could be on top of me before I could even turn around. Yet I didn’t feel nervous in the street as I couldn’t visualise such a blatant attack. It was in the hotel I felt nervous. The Commonwealth has long corridors and my room was near the old wooden stairs leading off the verandah to the rear courtyard. Late at night, when the bars were finally closed, I missed the smell of the camp fire and the security of all being together. It was a state of mind of course. If there was any danger, it was less than from a bolt of lightning.

  To speak to Sal every night I had to telephone the Coonabarabran hospital. She was very calm. Most of the time she just sat by the bed holding Dad’s hand. My mother was very ill as well and my sister had to give as much time to her as to her father. At the time Sal spared me the sad details of Dad’s last days.

  On Tuesday morning, 18 October 1994, my solicitor and I walked into the courtroom about 9.00 a.m. We were informed at once that my case was second on the agenda and would commence any minute.

  The courtroom was impressive with its beautiful timber beams and old wooden benches. I wondered whether anything had changed since the court opened in the early 1860s, more than one hundred and thirty years ago. I was snapped out of my dreams by being asked to stand in the dock. The police prosecutor read out the charge—unlawful use of a mare.

  I was shocked at the wording. The court was packed, not for my hearing, but other matters to follow. The magistrate seemed to hesitate, in fact I thought he passed his hand across his mouth. He asked the prosecutor to read the charge again. Mercifully, the details of the charge were then read out and there was probably a sigh of relief from some and a groan of disappointment from others. Some people were in for a long wait and if they could be entertained along the way I am sure they would have been grateful.

  My solicitor then took the floor and spoke at some length about the circumstances surrounding the use of the mare. He explained that while my plea was guilty, the circumstances were exceptional. Reference was made to the severity of the drought in New South Wales and the great strain of looking after cattle a long way from home. He stated that I was a registered amateur jockey and if I were to receive a criminal conviction the Australian Jockey Club would decline to renew my licence. In conclusion he asked the magistrate to also consider that I’d had no previous brush with the law.

  Both my solicitor and I stood for what seemed a long time. I felt my pulse racing. What if I was convicted and jailed! On the day of my arrest I had asked the officer straight out if that were possible. He said it was, but he doubted that would happen. The magistrate had opened a huge book, I think the thickest I have ever seen. I noted too how old it was. Instead of being a clear white, the edges of the pages were black, a soiled sort of black. Then the magistrate made a strange comment which was barely audible. He said he was examining a reference from the previous century.

  I began to think the worst. This was going on too long. My solicitor kept his eyes to the front and his face was expressionless.

  Suddenly the magistrate closed the book and looked at me. It was not an unkind look.

  ‘You needed a horse to get your cattle back,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes your Honour,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I thought I might lose them.’

  ‘Charge dismissed,’ he said and nodded to the prosecutor.

  Outside the court I asked my solicitor if he knew the reference the magistrate was consulting.

  He smiled, tickled by the humour of it. ‘Harry Redford, 1873.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘That old record book is living history. Any local lawyer with a love of this area has been through it. I knew exactly where he was.’

  The Roma Court is of great historical significance. In colonial times it was far more than a district court. Offenders were brought hundreds of miles to appear at Roma, including the famous boss drover Harry Redford, immortalised as ‘Captain Starlight’ in Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms.

  In 1870 Starlight lifted a thousand bullocks from a station called Mount Cornish on the upper Thomson. That entire region of Queensland had only been settled for a few years. The headquarters of any station would have been only a base camp and there were no fences. It was therefore feasible to steal such a large mob and the theft be undetected for some weeks. In her book The Territory, Ernestine Hill claims that Starlight’s duffing raid is the biggest in history.

  There are two conflicting accounts of what became of the cattle. What’s factual is Starlight’s crossing of the eastern Simpson Desert. Normally impossible, it was a wet season and lakes that have been almost continually dry since the retreat of the Ice Age were full.

  Starlight was arrested not for the historic theft, but for the possession of a white bull. The bull was not wanted and several attempts were made to drive him away. Finally the animal, which had been reported missing from a station in South Australia, was recognised in the Adelaide saleyards.

  The bull saw more of Australia than most people did at that time. He walked to Adelaide, was then shipped to Rockhampton, walked to Blackall in central Queensland and as evidence before the jury had to hit the road again for Roma. For some weeks he was fed by the local constabulary in a yard outside the courthouse.

  In modern times a jury’s verdict of not guilty has rocked a nation. Starlight’s acquittal may not have rocked the colony, but for a man who was truly guilty to be carried from the court shoulder-high was one of the rare lighter episodes of a miscarriage of justice.

  The judge’s concluding remark to the jury has been recorded. ‘Thank God, gentlemen of the jury, that it is your verdict, not mine.’

  My moment in common with Starlight was so minor that it is my loss. I would love to be remembered as the first man to overland cattle onto the Barkly Tableland. To be remembered as the man who founded the famous Brunette Downs. Starlight was a colourful character who broke the law, but never harmed anybody. Trying to cross a flooded river on the Barkly, he died as an old man with his boots on. His grave is on Brunette, simply marked ‘Starlight’s Grave’.

  Far from carrying me out shoulder-high, Nick’s opening comment was, ‘Now that you’re acquitted they’ll be really pissed off.’

  But we never saw any of them again. There were no drovers at the court. Nick, Rupe
rt, Smokie and I discussed it at some length by the camp fire and we concluded someone with authority played a hand in the matter.

  The eighteenth of October 1994 is a day I will remember for its enormous relief. The nineteenth of October 1994 I will remember as one of the very sad days of my life. It was the day my father died. Dad and I parted with no warmth. That was the sadness. Through no fault of his I was reared in extreme isolation. I related to what I knew and in my early world there were few people. He never understood.

  The passing of my father prompted the same halt in time that occurs in any family the world over. For perhaps a week time stood still. The good times were remembered and the bad were mercifully forgotten. Only when faced by death does everyone show, no matter how deep they may have to dig, that there is some compassion in them.

  Dad was interred in the family vault at Orange. When the undertaker padlocked the door it was to be for the last time. To me Dad was the last of the Irish Keenans. The first interment had been in 1856, of James Keenan who’d landed in Sydney with his wife in 1828. It was said he broke in horses for William Wentworth, but no written record emerges until 1851 when James Keenan purchased Cheeseman’s Creek, a property of twelve thousand acres near Molong. In 1854 he slaughtered a neighbour’s heifer and the case was heard in the Bathurst Court. He was exonerated, but it appears we always had that wild gene. The family remained in the Bathurst—Orange district until 1923. For more than half a century the property known as The Bridge was the family home. My father was born there and despite heavy subdivision within the Orange district, the property remains today as it was in 1923.

  The scene at Myall Plains at the time of Dad’s death can only be described as one of lingering despair. Each day two or three calves died from malnutrition and most of them looked dry in the coat and were tucked up with hunger. The cows too were deteriorating. The value of the wheat fed to them each week exceeded two thousand dollars, but it was nothing like enough. Even if the finance and the feed were available, a doubling of the ration would have been of little benefit to the calves. Their mothers needed fresh green grass or quality lucerne hay to make milk. Neither was available. The whole lot had to be moved and it had to be done within days. But to where! The Queensland stock routes were eaten out. There were rumours of agistment in South Australia, but the cows and calves would not survive such a journey.

  I had been following the rainfall reports every week and a small pocket of country in the upper Murray had received about fifty millimetres. The western foothills of the alps were in the middle of spring. Clutching at straws, I thought maybe the stock routes there had fresh green feed. To save myself a trip I could have contacted the local Rural Lands Board, but with the drought so widespread I didn’t expect any encouragement. I decided to look for myself.

  In the meantime Nick had passed the cattle over to the Dalgety drovers. They took them to the Roma saleyards and drafted them ready for sale. Nick and Rupert stayed on. They set up camp near the yards and waited for the sale. On completion of the drafting there were some rejects and Nick loaded them onto the truck and took them out to the Old Boy’s place at Amby Creek.

  There was no work for the horses anymore. The boys rode them around the outskirts of the town and little by little, usually from a slip of the tongue, I began to realise there was no shortage of female company. A month later the manager of the Commonwealth Hotel left me in no doubt. He gave me the restaurant bill. I was delighted to pay it. The boys were not on wages and had worked hard. Following the handover, Nick took Smokie and his mare home to Amby. The night before, the boys had bought a carton of XXXX beer and Smokie entertained them with his mouth organ. They said he was fantastic.

  The next morning Smokie warned the Dalgety boss drover about the rogues. He didn’t listen too well. Those smart rogues made the professionals look like another episode of National Lampoon’s Australian outback holiday. Nick and Rupert were called upon for help and things must have been desperate for that. There’s no prouder man than a drover.

  The trip to the southern highlands was little more than a reconnaissance of stock routes. Sal and I had been apart for two months. We both needed an escape from the nightmare world of drought. It was only four days. Four days of green pastures, fast flowing mountain streams, hospitable people and magnificent walks. On the third day we had an argument about the compass. I had locked it in the car and had the haversack on my back. I didn’t want to open up the vehicle to get it. I told Sal it was impossible for me to become lost. She should feel safe with me! We planned to hike to the summit of a giant monolith and photograph the spectacular uplift of the alps on the western side.

  After some discussion, I gave in and retrieved the little compass. An hour out from the car the fog from the river drifted onto the mountain and we had to abort the climb. Stepping carefully, we slowly descended. We entered thick fern growth, which wasn’t around on the way up. Being just another obstinate man I still wouldn’t look at the compass. On the valley floor we walked through a eucalypt forest and I expected to reach the road any minute. We walked on in gathering gloom and I eventually consulted the compass. I think that little pink object saved a search party being mounted. If only our problems at home could have been so easily solved.

  We hated leaving Kosciusko, Corryong and Tumbarumba. It was a world so far apart from the one we’d become used to. To have been able to walk our cattle on those southern stock routes would have been a privilege. No dry camps, holding paddocks every eight to ten kilometres, affable people and scenery at every turn in the road. But we were too late. Several droving units were already on the move and there was clearly no room for a big mob of cows and calves.

  The day we returned home was sale day at Roma. Nick was jubilant when he telephoned me. The Roma district wheat crops had been written off and farmers wanted steers to turn onto their crops to salvage what they could. The day before the sale there was a storm in Roma with forty millimetres of rain. It all combined to produce a reasonable sale. I estimated the steers made a hundred and thirty dollars a head more than corresponding sales in New South Wales; the heifers about fifty dollars more. What would have been the conclusion of a drought analyst? The markets had fallen since mid-August, anchored downwards by the drought, and circumstances had forced me to leave home at a critical time. I think the conclusion would have been that I’d given too much attention to the young cattle at the expense of the cows and calves. The sale at Roma may not have been any better than a Wodonga sale in mid-August after all expenses had been added. Working on the land will always involve timing and anticipation. Nothing will ever change that.

  The best news was the rain. Nick said there were big storms in the Injune district, dropping up to a hundred millimetres in isolated pockets. Injune is only a few kilometres south of the northern cattle tick zone. For most overlanders the area was a dead end and one to be avoided. British breeds are highly susceptible to tick infestation and the cattle on the move from the southern drought were predominantly British—Hereford, shorthorn or Angus-cross. To move cattle back out of the tick zone they must be dipped twice.

  With the cattle sold there was nothing to keep the boys in Roma. They were booked on the Toowoomba bus and would be arriving in Coonabarabran at midnight the next day. They had taken the horses out to the Old Boy. That meant they would run with the brumbies. Nick had seen Mrs Brown. She towered above the half-breeds, he said, and he thought she had already usurped the stallion’s control. I told Nick there would be no doubt.

  To leave the soft green countryside of Corryong in Victoria and wake up in western New South Wales was a depressing experience in the spring of 1994. The great deserts of the interior had temporarily expanded to the dividing range. Not even the butts of dead grass remained.

  At least Greg had done a wonderful job with the backbreaking work of lifting wheat bags from ground level onto an old one-tonner and carting them to the starving cows. On my first day back from the Murray I went out with him and saw at once time
had run out. The calves were going to die. During the past month some of the old cows had perished while giving birth. The ground was so bare the dead cattle stood out starkly—crumpled heaps of hairless hide, like a plangent reminder of impending calamity. A cold wind crept over the plains and it cut through my clothes as though I were standing naked. These high plains of my childhood had become a place of death.

  It was a sobering homecoming for the boys. Drought and war have a chilling element in common. Under siege, cities may hang on for months. In drought, property owners will hold on and on. Then quite suddenly it all compounds. The battle’s lost. Death pervades the whole scene and every breeze carries the smell of it.

  Following the death of the head of the family there are always estate matters to be settled. I was left sole executor of a highly complex estate. But I couldn’t give it a moment’s consideration. Nick, Sal and I sat down to discuss the plight we now found ourselves in. We decided that we would split the herd into three. The cows with the baby calves would stay as there was no hope of little weak calves surviving an eight hundred kilometre trip. To provide urgent green feed Nick would stay behind and lop the kurrajongs that had been pruned back in a dry spell in 1991. It was premature for the trees, but fortunately I had done the lopping myself and left all the small branches which had since grown out. The grain feeding would be cut to every second day to encourage the cows to go looking for kurrajong.

  We anticipated the size of the mob staying at about two hundred head. Whether they would survive with summer around the corner was pure speculation. The only thing certain was the commitment of Nick and Greg. The bulk of the cattle would be roadtrained to Queensland. Including the calves, that was about nine hundred head. Nick was in charge of the loading and Rupert and I would receive them at the other end.

  Still unknown was the destination. There was a bus to Toowoomba that night and I would take it. Rupert had only just arrived. I told him to come up with the roadtrains.