The two riders lit a fire and sat on a log. They seemed small. From a distance I couldn’t be sure and the wide-brimmed hats made it harder. Perhaps they were women. Not long after, two more riders arrived. No cattle and they dismounted as well. I only had to observe their walk to know they were men. They too sat down on the long log and there appeared to be no attempt to boil water for tea. I scanned as hard as I could for signs of a rifle. Rumour in the district claimed they carried pistols.
Maybe half an hour later the last pair of riders came in with a few head of cattle. They didn’t dismount though. There seemed to be a brief discussion and the other four remounted. It looked like I wouldn’t get an opportunity. I expected them to turn the cattle out the gate and head off with them. Instead they commenced drafting on horseback. One rider worked as gateman, the two smaller riders who I thought may be women took no part and the other three worked their mounts among the cattle. The speed of the work was staggering. Most of the cattle were being let out—the poll Herefords, which were mine. From a distance it seemed they were turning back horny cattle and I only had three or four in the entire herd. I had to get closer. If they were taking only strangers I intended to stay out of it. It was a good time to move. All eyes were fixed on the cattle.
Only fifty metres from the fence I took cover behind the trunk of a big ironbark. I reached it just as the drafting stopped. I could see the cattle clearly now—about twenty-five head. Six or seven of mine were among them. The two small riders were female. All of them were still too far away to recognise. To my relief they all dismounted and tethered their horses back onto stumps, trees and low branches. The quart pots were removed from the saddles and filled from the trough. Some heavy sticks were thrown onto the fire. I waited until they were all seated on the log before leaving cover.
It seemed a long walk. What I hated most was carrying a rifle, cocked, ready to use against people. I don’t like guns. I feel the civilised world has outlived their use in the backyard and the paddock. Rifles are now so sophisticated that hunters are having themselves on when they say it’s a sport. I am a hunter too, but I dive with a speargun. The odds are still stacked my way, yet the fish I hunt have a chance. An error of judgement and I can drown within a few minutes. And always there is the shark and the fear and the privilege of entering a wild unspoilt world on its terms. What’s more, guns are only an illusion of security. If someone wants to get you badly enough they will. And as I walked towards these people, gun in hand, I was doing it because I thought they may have guns. If one reached for a pouch, and these men of the bush had pouches slung on their belts, I had to catch in my sight what came out. These were the thoughts flashing through my mind as I reached the fence. The sweat poured off me. They still hadn’t seen me.
The first rider to spot me was the tall bloke. I hadn’t seen him before. He said something I didn’t hear and all eyes focused on me. No one moved. I stopped about fifteen metres from the log. Their facial expressions were all different. I watched their hands intently. They all knew and kept them to the front. There was another bloke I hadn’t seen before. A stockman type—good stamp of a man. He was clearly alarmed. Frankie looked at me as though he were trying to hold back a smile. The tall bloke seemed unperturbed, as though he saw this sort of thing every day. It was the woman and a girl who made me feel like digging a hole and jumping in. The woman was Jenny and she was clearly very frightened. The girl, tall for her age, looked on in fascination.
‘What’s goin’ on?’ I said harshly. ‘You’re in my paddock handling my cattle.’
The tall bloke rose and casually walked over to me and shook hands. It was cool. I admired his guts and I felt smaller still. He said his name and went back to the log. It was a gesture of genuine friendship. Almost without a word he said it all.
‘Come to get the strays, Mick,’ Frankie said smiling. ‘Also got your cleanskins. We reckoned you’d show up, so thought it a good opportunity to plonk your brand on. You don’t want unbranded cattle walkin’ around the place in this country.’
Maybe I had struck a chord with someone, or were they testing me? Whatever it was I felt immediately humbled.
‘I am sorry,’ I said, and never in my life had I meant it so much. I took the magazine out of the rifle, ejected the bullet from the barrel and put the magazine in my trouser pocket. The bullet I left on the ground. ‘There are so many bad rumours about this place. Then someone killed a calf and maimed another.’
‘Been a bloke at that for a while,’ Frankie said. ‘Just another bastard tryin’ to give us a bad name.’
There was a tree behind me and I leaned the rifle against the trunk. Then I took off the backpack and dropped it beside the gun. Anyone watching could see it was empty.
‘When did you last eat?’ Jenny asked.
‘Only ran out today,’ I said, still feeling acutely uncomfortable.
‘We bought plenty of sandwiches,’ she said, relaxed and her old self again.
‘I’ve got food in my main camp.’
‘There’s more than we can eat.’
‘Got some grog in that camp?’ Frankie asked eagerly. ‘Ride back over that range’d be so much easier.’
‘Got rum. I’ll get it.’
‘No,’ Jenny said sharply. ‘He can wait until tonight. We got the cattle. Let’s get back with ’em.’
I would have liked a drink, but I wasn’t going to argue. Neither was Frankie. The other two blokes weren’t interested. The tall bloke was older than me. He began talking about the cattle and the feed as though my intrusion was no more than that of a passing motorist. It broke the tension.
The corned beef sandwiches from the saddlebags were all put near the fire on a piece of bark and when the quart pots had boiled we started on them. I could have eaten half of them in five minutes. I ate slowly and kept my eyes off the pile.
‘You got yer brand in the truck?’ Frankie asked.
‘Yes. I can make it to the truck in three hours. Pick up the tent on the way.’
‘Take us two hours to the yards. You come up in the truck, we’ll brand ’em and you can load ’em in the morning.’
‘In the morning?’ I queried.
Frankie had that smile again. ‘You’ve had a quiet time out there. Better throw yer bunk in, stay the night.’
‘Who tracked me?’
‘We call him Boon. Half black. Mother was a full blood from Muckadilla. Does a bit of ringing here and there.’
I didn’t ask any more questions such as where the strangers came from and all the different brands. I wasn’t going to be told and it wasn’t my business. The men drained their quart pots and I finished the tea from the quart pot cup Jenny had given me. The girl looked about twelve and chatted non-stop about her horse. To me the chatting was a sign that all the tension had gone. Maybe my appearance with a gun was nothing much out of the ordinary.
Everyone went to their horses and I picked up the gun, the backpack and the water container. At the camp I left everything. I could get a drink at the spring and from there I could walk to the truck without water.
When I got back to the truck I found the tracks of another vehicle. They were old tracks, made about the same day I came in. They had picked my tracks coming off the main road.
I drove back to my base camp at the bore and tossed the bed-roll into the float. There was no food worth taking up to the hut. I couldn’t imagine any of the men eating rice. The only thing of any value was the rum. Before I left I turned the bore off.
It was late afternoon when I arrived at the hut. The last of the sun’s rays caught the dust drifting from the yards. The heat hung in the air, like the dust, and through the amber light the cattle and the horses were slightly blurred. The horses, a dozen or more, were held in a small paddock joining the yards. In the yards two hundred head of cattle circled restlessly. The little mob brought up from the bore were in a separate yard.
The old fireplace at the front of the hut had a cluster of black billies and in the middle o
f a small flame was a cast-iron camp oven. Nearby on a four-gallon drum was a pile of tin plates. An assortment of cutlery emerged from a dented billy.
On winter camps everyone loves a log fire. On this midsummer camp no one wanted a bar of it. They all sat well away. Seats were scarce—swags, rusty four-gallon drums and old tyres.
I parked the truck near the yards and walked over to the group. The first thing I saw was the red bandanna on Johnny.
‘Here comes Wyatt Earp,’ he yelled out. I expect I deserved it. The first time he met me I was Starlight. I wondered who I’d be next time.
‘Only Wyatt always had a woman,’ someone countered.
Johnny giggled after almost everything he said. It was infectious and everyone laughed, although I could see some didn’t know why they were laughing.
‘Oh, he’s got one alright,’ Frankie added with that cheeky smile. ‘He just doesn’t want to know about her.’
I felt uncomfortable again and didn’t know where to sit or what to sit on. The tall bloke produced a saddlecloth.
‘Better sit on this, Mick,’ he said. ‘With the bloody dog burr around here you can’t sit on the ground.’
Johnny had stopped giggling. ‘Any of us would have done the same,’ he said soberly. ‘All them rustlin’ stories would worry any bloke sick.’
‘No one out of this camp’s going to touch your cattle Mick,’ the tall bloke put in. ‘If you stay out here long enough you’ll find there’s no black and white. The country’s hard. The men in it are hard and unforgiving. The women who follow them are hopelessly in love or insane.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Jenny said indignantly.
Everyone laughed and I felt at ease. Someone had pushed a stubbie into my hand and I eagerly screwed the top off.
Anne and Johnny sat on the same swag. Josie had her own fold-up chair. In tight riding breeches she looked sexy and I had a feeling the camp would never be dull while she was about. Ike and his horsey girlfriend, Mary, were seated on an old truck tyre. They were talking quietly and I guessed the subject was horses. Frankie was into the beer and already had that glazed look in his eyes. Not that you saw his eyes much, as he looked everywhere but at the person he was talking to. Seated on a couple of car tyres Lenny kept to himself. Like Frankie he was probably an alcoholic.
There were two blokes missing. One was the stockman I had seen at the bore. His name was Geoff. The other was the tracker. I hadn’t met Boon. He was part Aboriginal and kept to himself.
Geoff wasn’t far away. I just couldn’t see him through the dust. He had been with the horses and when I turned to glance back at the yards I saw him walking over. The coming darkness brought the girl in as well. She had been wandering around through the timber. There seemed to be a simple, unspoilt radiance about her. Never having had a daughter, and a sister so much younger I never knew her, I found myself stuck for words. She asked me if I had any pets. Her whole life was probably pet animals. Twelve to fourteen years old, she may have only had patchy schooling.
‘Sheep dogs and horses,’ I replied. How boring! ‘What do you have Clara?’
‘I’ve got a wallaby at home. Everyone calls him a stinker, but I don’t think he’s a stinker, except when he gets in the house and does you know what. And I’ve got a hen. She follows me about and clucks a lot.’
The chatter went on and on. The men got back to talking among themselves and halfway through the second stubbie Jenny called from the fireplace.
‘Come and get it.’
The meal was kangaroo stew with potatoes and carrots. The lean meat is delicious and has a slightly richer flavour than beef. Out here on these wild tablelands finding a roo for dinner was probably no more than a fifteen-minute hunt.
I sat next to Jenny to eat my plate of roo stew. She sat on a saddlecloth as well and had her plate between her legs. The stubbies were passed around again and Ike drove a battered looking ute up to the side of the hut and slipped a Bruce Springsteen tape into the player.
Johnny must have decided beer was too tame and he poured himself red wine from a flagon. Just the look of the flagon sent a wave of biliousness through my stomach. Next thing Lenny emerged from the edge of the lantern light and Johnny filled his pannikin. He was never called Lenny, I soon found out, only Pig’s Arse. He had probably been called that for years and saw it as part of his acceptance in the clan.
‘They don’t mind you Mick,’ Jenny said after a mouthful of beer. ‘They see you as one of them. Doesn’t matter about your cattle or whatever else you got.’
It was no good saying I had inherited an estate left in a shambles, because these people had nothing. They shared that rare freedom bestowed upon the poor. There was nothing to lose. Only their lives could be taken from them.
‘What did they all do before?’ I asked. I began to feel the third beer relax me and whether I was one of them or not, I might as well be.
‘Before everything collapsed, you mean?’ Jenny said and went on without waiting for me to comment.
‘Ringers, shearers, fencers and Mack, the tall bloke,’ she gestured towards him, ‘he followed sheds all over western Queensland. Top woolclasser. Today the survivors class their own wool.’
She must have read my mind, because I didn’t like to ask.
‘Money’s hard to come by. Most now are on the dole. Not these blokes. They live on their wits—grab a day’s wages here and there.’
One pannikin of plonk and Johnny was away. The swags, old tyres, drums and saddlecloths were carried in to make a circle around two lanterns while Johnny danced with total abandon. He pulled Anne to her feet and Josie dragged Pig’s Arse by the arm into the dirt and ash-trodden floor. I didn’t think a bayonet would jerk him into action, but once the fat joints loosened up he demonstrated superb rhythm and eyes that were normally half closed began to bulge with animation. Josie would have held the floor anywhere. She glided around Pig’s Arse like a butterfly and loved teasing him.
‘Like this every night?’ I could feel the beat myself. Apart from Muckadilla, I hadn’t danced for two or three years.
‘Every night,’ Jenny laughed. ‘We girls might have a couple of nights here. Can you see Josie washing herself out of a horse trough for a week? But the men love it out here. It’s freedom. The strict behavourial rules of modern society don’t exist here.’
Geoff got up on his feet and coaxed the little girl to dance with him.
‘Clara loves the bush,’ Jenny said, delighted to see her daughter laughing. ‘The simple things are missed by children in the towns. Television and the video have destroyed initiative.’
Jenny spoke two languages. Away from the bars and direct contact with these rough-speaking men she was honest and articulate.
Springsteen bawled out ‘Born in the USA’ and the stockman swung Clara round in an old sixties rock ’n’ roll style till her black hair spun out almost level with her eyes and she began to giggle. Pig’s Arse was mouthing the words, sweating profusely and stamping like a caveman. Ike and Mary had shifted beyond the lantern light. Frankie just sat on his drum, looking at Josie through heavy eyes.
‘Where’s Scalp?’
‘Pulling scrub. Everyone wants scrub pulled. Fear of native title and God knows what else.’
‘Good money?’
‘An acre of wilderness is worth twelve dollars.’
The cost squeeze was having a devastating effect on Australia’s last vast belt of forest—central Queensland. The profit margin per beast had become so low, survival depended on numbers. The problem with old fragile soils is vividly demonstrated once they are exposed to the wrath of the sun and relentless wind. In a good season the introduced buffel grass will provide tonnes of feed per hectare, but the ideal season may appear once in three years. More often than not the wind and the sun rapidly burn the feed off and in the winter frosts destroy any nutrient left in the old feed. There is no doubt that buffel grass increases carrying capacity, but exposure to the boom and bust cycle of the seasons is doubl
ed. If farmers would only leave a sprinkling of trees when they clear, exposure would be minimised. I have been on a property north-west of Roma where this was done. The carrying capacity per hectare was the highest in the region and sucker growth had not been a major problem.
The tragedy for the Australian interior appears to be locked up in our inability to destroy the image of the wealthy pastoralists. For more than a hundred years the elite were those kings in grass castles. Right across society there was a feeling of envy and jealousy. The bitter shearing strikes of the 1890s aptly demonstrated the feeling in the community. Today the only wealthy pastoralists are those with off-farm investments. A farmer with an income above what middle-income earners make in any city would be exceptional. There are a handful of wheat tycoons and the cotton farmers are probably on borrowed time, considering the level of pesticide resistance now apparent in the United States. Yet if a politician were to announce a direct commodity subsidy his or her political career would cease to exist. The Australian community will never tolerate a commodity subsidy to owners of rural land. And sometime in the next century historians will be lecturing students about the great agrarian blunder in Australia’s pastoral industries. Apart from those surviving in National Parks, the great belts of pine and brigalow will be gone. Wind and water erosion will have compounded to cause such massive environmental problems that legislation will have to be passed to remove all environmental power from state governments and place it in the hands of the Commonwealth.
Of course not to clear at all is as short-sighted as drastic clearing. The native pine has a short lifespan and there is nothing more useless to farmers or cattle than a thick patch of brigalow scrub. The Aborigines before us systematically burnt patches every year. The whole Australian environment of the interior had been adapted to the fire cycle for thousands of years. Australian archaeologists refer to Aborigines as the fires-tick farmers. Their methods were imprecise and there would have been instances of overkill, but they definitely understood the need for balanced preservation.
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