Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  I dressed, rolled up the tent and walked across the rail line and the highway to see about breakfast. Donna was behind the bar cleaning up. She had a sexy slip of a frock on. It clung to every curve and I felt like saying I would be more comfortable if she took it off. She looked exhausted and she mumbled something about never making it through the day. I was lucky to have a tent to escape to, she told me.

  I didn’t have the heart to say anything about breakfast. I found the cereal, made toast and drank a whole pot of tea. It was back to the camp and I hoped she might sit down for coffee, just for a minute. She didn’t.

  It took two hours to drive out to Mt Kennedy. The black hole was in sight of the road and I saw two cows hanging on the fence I had erected. Despite the distance I could tell something was wrong. Sick cattle have a way of standing. The back is slightly humped and the four legs are planted square, as though to steady themselves.

  I stopped the truck and walked over. They were like skeletons. They had not drunk for days and they should have been dead. Only months later did I hear about the native pear trees. In the cool months cattle have been known to survive on these trees for weeks.

  There were some in the paddock and they’re the only explanation I can find for the survival of those cows. The cows didn’t want to walk but were too weak to offer any resistance. One of them kept stumbling and I let them poke along in a general direction. The bore trail held no appeal for them and they ended up on the road, not far from the truck.

  We had only gone a short way along the road when I noticed a lone calf sheltering in a clump of box suckers. I made it get up and saw it had a broken leg. The little steer had been hit by a vehicle and his mother had planted him while she went for water. He was a big calf though and in the heat milk from his mother would not have been adequate. Taking him gently, I made him hobble along with the cows. A few hundred metres on, the bore trail crossed the road and entered a thick patch of box suckers. The cows followed the trail this time. It was just a few minutes to the trough and I needed a drink myself, which I got directly from the float valve.

  On the way back to the truck I followed the vehicle track to the main road. At the turn-off I found another calf, dead and soaked in its own blood. A robust steer calf, with a soft red coat.

  I examined the road. There were no skid marks. The vehicle had hit him hard and the driver had meant it. Two calves within five hundred metres is not an accident.

  The loss of income flashed through my mind, but it had nothing to do with the rage I felt at that moment. I thought about what this little calf had been through. Born on cold windswept plains with not a blade of grass, carted nine hundred kilometres in searing heat, stumbling around half blind with pink-eye and just as he begins to frolic and love life he’s snuffed out by a vehicle, deliberately.

  I walked back to the truck and drove it to the camp, which was only about two hundred metres from the calf. With my camp axe I cut down a box sucker and cut two pieces out of it. It would have been bordering on dementia to erect a cross on the side of the road. I simply laid it beside him.

  Before the calf incident I had been content to mind my own business and look after the cattle. Now the problem of lawlessness in the rangelands was mine as well. The men who killed the calf had set upon themselves a relentless enemy. I would track them, watch them and when they undertook criminal activity, I would contact the police. Next day I drove one hundred and forty kilometres to Roma to discuss a stake-out with the stock squad. I wanted to get rid of the Wild Bunch and the sooner the better.

  When I arrived the stock squad was out on a job and I was passed on to an officer of the CIB. I told him the location of my cattle and he immediately invited me into his study. He told me the region was of serious concern to the police, as there had been several reports of cattle theft during the past two years.

  I explained my plan and I had a feeling he secretly liked it, but could not condone it.

  ‘I can’t give approval on the record,’ he said. ‘If you’re shot and killed I am in big trouble. Furthermore, you cannot undertake a citizen’s arrest with a rifle.’

  ‘I can get myself to a station and use the phone.’

  The officer wrote down three telephone numbers on a piece of paper.

  ‘When are you going in?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘If they find out and get hold of you,’ he paused and looked at me with a solemn expression, ‘I think you’ll get a bullet and be burnt up a hollow log.’

  We chatted for a while and he knew all about the cattle duffers’ tricks. He told me the strange cattle in among mine were possibly ‘coaxes’. Before the rustlers strike they pop a few very quiet cattle of their own into a herd. They are soon accepted by the herd and when the horsemen arrive for the raid the ‘coaxes’ lead the way. With good ‘coaxes’ a job could be done under moonlight.

  I left the police station confident of support. Before I went in I’d realised official approval would not be given. This was a vigilante operation and if law enforcement authorities supported vigilante action the community would not know who was being protected.

  The next thing was to purchase supplies. Dried packets of beans and peas, rice and pasta were the main items on the menu. My luxury was five tins of lamb casserole. A bit heavy for the backpack, but I only had the heavy load going in. I couldn’t depend on any bush tucker. There were no foods I could collect and apart from the rifle shot giving me away, there were no animals I cared to shoot for meat.

  It was mid-afternoon when I left Roma and by the time I got back to the camp it was too late to go up to the stockmen’s hut. I had to start the engine and I wanted to check Circus and Yarramin. The country near the bore was eaten out and once I had found fresh tracks I followed them as far as the road. Circus was wary of strangers, but Yarramin would go to anyone with a piece of bread.

  At the road the tracks simply crossed and the pair of them had kept walking. There was no need to track them any further and as I turned to go back I heard a vehicle. On the average three vehicles a day passed through here.

  Frankie was on his own. ‘G’day,’ he said. He stopped in the middle of the road and I noticed his pupils were dilated and he had a stubbie in his left hand.

  ‘Got a bit of mustering to do?’ I asked, shaking hands through the window. I wanted to be as friendly as possible.

  ‘Scalp wants a few dollars. We’ll run a few out of the hills for him.’

  ‘I’ll bet your horses need the work.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll be fresh,’ Frankie laughed and took a swig. ‘Johnny and Ike are up there now. I’m not much keen on the buckjumpers.’

  There was a pause and it seemed a good time.

  ‘I’ve got to go away for a few days. Reckon you could start the old diesel for me? Be worth a couple of cartons.’

  ‘Be okay mate.’ Frankie’s glazed eyes suddenly looked normal and he nodded several times. ‘We’ll kick the old bastard up. Enough diesel there?’

  ‘Got a fresh load today. Be enough until I get back.’

  ‘Go home and relax,’ Frankie said with extraordinary sincerity. He made me feel a bit of a bastard. ‘When ya goin’?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  He left and I walked back to the camp. I didn’t feel tired for hours and must have stared into the red coals for some time. At heart I didn’t much like the job I had set myself. I’d been out of money and run a cleanskin or two in my time. But I wanted to go home. My place was back home with Sal, nearly nine hundred kilometres to the south. My passage to freedom was to bust up this outlaw bunch.

  I had obtained a topographic map in Roma. I paid meticulous attention to the vehicle tracks that entered various parts of the ranges. I had to drop the lorry on a remote track well away from where these men might ride. Several kilometres to the east of my camp there was an abandoned farm house marked on the map. According to the map a track still led to it.

  By ten o’clock next morning the supply tank was full.
It was time to leave. I anticipated a five-hour walk from the truck, lugging a heavy load. The track appeared to carry a bit of traffic and that worried me when I turned off. After three kilometres I discovered the reason. There was a bore with a pump jack on it. Beyond the bore the track all but disappeared. There were washed-out gullies and where the track passed through pine forest I had to push regrowth down with the bullbar. About eight kilometres in, the track swung to the east. It was as good a place to leave it as any other. I nosed the cabin into a thick clump of pine.

  The army tent I rolled up very tightly and attached a strap to it to sling it across my shoulders. Thanks to the paralysis ticks I couldn’t leave the tent behind. Carried by kangaroos and wallabies, these ticks grow to the size of a small spider and will home in from metres away. They are poisonous and if not removed may lead to paralysis.

  All the food I crammed into the backpack with two billies and a plate. One change of clothes I fastened to the top of the pack. The four litres of water and my bolt-action rifle I carried. I was amazed how comfortable I felt when all loaded up. You always feel the weight for the first few minutes.

  To the west of where I left the truck the range ran due north. The track in had hugged a creek that cut through this range in a deep perpendicular gorge, which I had pinpointed on the map. I now had to climb to the top of the range and walk along the crest for some kilometres to reach the paddock in which my cattle were running.

  I had two options—climb diagonally to the top or face it head on and get it over with. The load anchored me like lead as soon as I commenced the upward steps and I opted for a head-on climb. I had to scramble over two bands of rock and when I reached the summit, over two hundred metres up, my clothes were wet. Mercifully the weather was mild for central Queensland in January. The range at this point was higher than the broad tablelands to the north. I found myself on a genuine plateau, dead flat on top with steep slopes rising into cliff formations. I walked into a mob of Brahmans and, startled, they bolted for a little way and stopped. They didn’t see humans much. Satisfied I was not a threat, a few cheeky ones followed me for a while, but kept their distance. I saw lots of kangaroos and wallaroos. Kangaroos are not often sighted on the Maranoa any more, since the roo meat industry took off. I think using kangaroo meat is a sensible solution to population reduction. The problem appears to be sustainable reduction. In Mitchell alone there are possibly ten young men who sleep all day to shoot all night. These men are efficient and can clean out an area very quickly.

  There were still three hours of daylight left when I stopped for a rest at the fence of the paddock containing my cattle. A mob of red heifers grazed nearby, fat and shiny in their short-hair coats. These were some of the heifers that had come direct from Myall Plains in November. They were only about a kilometre from the cave spring and probably watered there.

  For the next hour I walked through the bluegrass. Everywhere on the plain-like landscape were little groups of cattle. The entire herd was now feeding up here. I had not seen the cows look so good for two years.

  The hidden camp site I had in mind was in a steep ravine—too steep and boulder-strewn for cattle. At the top end, close to the tableland edge, a small trickle of water supplied a couple of rock holes. The only problem was where to pitch the tent. It had to be concealed and the most hidden corners were all rock. Below the waterholes, where the sandstone commenced, a huge ironbark tree towered above a thick copse of lime trees. The tent would be obscured from every direction. I went into the trees and found a patch of ground free of rock. It was only when I collected the tent and carried it down that I felt uneasy about sleeping there. I rejected the site and finally settled on a flat piece of ground above a rock fall. It was thoroughly closed in with stout little trees, which I think were a species of wattle. I made my tent poles out of the branches and the wood was hard enough to make crude tent pegs.

  The collection of firewood was a bigger job than normal. I usually light a big log. The ashes stay hot and if I want a flame I only have to throw a few twigs on. Central and eastern Queensland hold high humidity levels throughout the summer and the incidence of bush fires is much less than in the southern states. On this job fires had to be small and could only be lit at night. I had to collect armfuls of scrap wood.

  That empty feeling of hunger took hold long before dark and, sitting on a rock with no fire in a gloomy gorge of boulders and cliffs, I had a moment of self-doubt. I had been driven by anger to set up an arrest. Driven too by rumour and innuendo. Like the ratbag horse on race day—if you don’t know, it’s okay. Calm now, I began to accept the calf killing may have been the work of a drunken driver. The cattle were inclined to use part of the road as their trail.

  Self-doubt is like a parasite when confronted with solitude. There is no one to talk to. Yet good could come out of this little commando exercise. If the tank was topped up and the cattle left alone I could go home. Divide my time. When I was away I could pay the blokes in beer to kick the engine up. A boil-over of wishful thinking, but for the moment it smothered those self-doubts.

  I slept well and woke before dawn. With a quick billy boil I had the fire snuffed out as the first rays of the sun landed on the tree tops. If they were going to make a move on my cattle they would start early. I needed to be up on the tableland edge, traversing the bands of rock. Sound carries early in the morning before the heat stirs the air and the millions of leaves in the forest canopy begin to whisper to one another, swallowing all but the loudest of sounds.

  For two hours I trekked north, keeping below the lip of the tablelands. I heard cows and calves calling each other, the occasional screech from an eagle, once or twice the high pitch of a whistling kite, and the passage of one vehicle. By lunchtime I was satisfied nothing would happen that day. Back at the camp I was busting for a mug of coffee with a dash of powdered milk. Very rarely in my life have I been denied coffee at mid-morning and tea every other time. Smoke, unfortunately, just a wisp of it, can be detected fifteen kilometres away. Lunch had to be a few dry biscuits and spring water. I had to think about the rest of the day.

  I had foreseen a lot of sitting around and jammed Back o’ Cairns into the backpack. Weeks before I had decided to read about situations far worse than mine and just a few chapters into this book made my weeks feel like a prolonged picnic. The heat was on the lift again too, and past noon I needed to be occupied with a book. To the north storm clouds had gathered, lightning flashed far away and gusts of wind could be heard high up, as they passed through the skyline trees.

  The curlews woke me before dawn. When I was a boy there were curlews in the timbered country of New South Wales. Some called them storm birds and others scream birds. By the late fifties the foxes had killed the last one. When I arrived out here I hadn’t heard one for forty years and didn’t recognise their high-pitched call until I saw a pair in the headlights one night.

  A great variety of birds chattered away in the gorge for the first couple of hours after sunrise and I would have given anything for a bird identification book, a pair of binoculars and someone to say this whole exercise was a crazy dream. I had woken up with a different outlook. I boiled the billy again at eight o’clock and had a mug of coffee. To the north-east, maybe two hours hike, I had heard talk of a deep black canyon. I could be back for a late lunch and still have time to check the cattle. The mere thought injected some enthusiasm into the day. I shouldered the haversack and left the rifle in the tent.

  A slight breeze from the north stemmed a rapid rise in the heat and I took little notice of the puffy white clouds. The tableland plains gave way to steep rocky ravines and the vertical drop into the canyon pulled me up suddenly, not unlike the spectacular valley plunges seen west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains. The difference here was the colour. It was like looking into an eerie abyss. The cliffs were black and at the bottom huge scree slopes swallowed the canyon floor almost all the way to the dry watercourse. I found myself looking for vegetation and animals found nowhere el
se, but that of course was a reflection of my mood triggered by this sombre place.

  Vegetation sprouted from the gullies and the crevices. Figtrees were in abundance and I was amazed to see so many kurrajongs. There was just one waterhole in this box canyon. Looking down a few hundred metres, the water appeared black like the rock. Anywhere I touched the rock it was fragile. It was a place I think the Aborigines left alone, for I felt it welcomed not a living thing. The figtrees, the kurrajongs and the rock-clinging shrubs were there under sufferance. Yet I had no sudden desire to leave and maybe time had stood still. Whatever it was I was quite taken by surprise when I heard a thunder clap and saw a streak of lightning.

  I broke into a steady jog on the way back and after twenty minutes had good reason to curse my nervousness. All the surrounding country was covered with large round black stones. Their size varied upwards from that of a cricket ball. I stumbled on one and went close to a sprain. I got away with it, but had to walk with a limp. Dark clouds were massing from the southern horizon to the north.

  Back in the gorge the first thing I did was gather wood and put it in the tent. I had watched one storm envelop a range far to the west and without doubt it was wind driven. Not a breath of air stirred and the birds were silent. I hastily lit a fire, opened a tin of lamb casserole and tipped the contents into a billy lid for fast heating. Time had run out for a cup of tea and I placed the pannikin directly onto the flame to make coffee.

  There appeared to be three storms threatening to break from the west. I watched with apprehensive curiosity and within the space of a few minutes they merged into one. The approaching dark mass took on a greenish underbelly, like the inside of a carcass let to rot in the sun. Dark fingers broke away from the mass, recoiling and changing direction like a bunch of serpents suspended in the sky. Then a roaring sound filled the air and I knew it was cyclonic force wind striking the opposite spur. I sprinkled some coffee into the pannikin, grabbed the stew and headed for the tent.