Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  Sal packed up the clothes we were likely to need, a box of non-perishable food and utensils for outdoor cooking. By torch I loaded the truck with ten bales of hay, containers of fresh water, saddles, farrier gear and horseshoes, tents and mattresses. We set off at six the next morning.

  It was about seven o’clock when we arrived at the nursing home in Coonabarabran. Sal and I walked into Mum’s little room expecting to find her cheerful, as she usually was, and received another shock. Mum was in a coma. The nurse on duty had been trying to telephone me for the past hour. The doctor had been and advised Mum could go at anytime. The trip was off. For two days Mum drifted in and out of consciousness and on the third day she seemed to lapse into a deeper coma. It was a dreadful dilemma. The senior sister told us Mum could hang by a thread for days.

  We decided to make a quick trip in the four-wheel drive. There were lots of bush tracks and with a bit of care I could negotiate most of them. If I found the cattle on water I could return immediately, stay with Mum in her last days and then mount a muster. If the situation proved to be grim I had no plan to fall back on.

  It was a decision made with a lot of sadness. In my heart I felt I would never see Mum again. She was propped up on pillows and her face was deathly white. I looked at her for a while, a long last look, kissed her lightly and left.

  We drove straight to Kooyong, Bill and Sandra’s property, about ten hours away. Bill had two bikes and he suggested we load them onto his truck and he and I would head out to Mt Kennedy. It was the commonsense thing to do and I agreed, although reluctantly, as I knew Bill’s annual bull sale was only days away and he could ill afford the time.

  There was an eeriness about the rangelands that morning. It was probably all in my mind, but I know Bill felt it too. In the old south bore paddock where the steep slopes of the bluegrass tablelands formed a barrier to the east, we saw little mobs of cows chewing on tussocks of forest grass. Their stomachs had dropped since I last saw them and those that looked back at us through the trees may have been watching for the sign of a hay bale. The first to calve would be any day. With a calf to protect the cows in this paddock would be under double stress. They had to walk to water, forage deep into the forest and keep a wary lookout for dingoes. In normal conditions a maternal group will plant all the calves together and one cow will become the minder. But when nutrition is very low every cow is ravenous and these little arrangements seem to fall apart.

  I directed Bill to the trough and we examined the cattle tracks. It was almost impossible to assess with any accuracy, but the pads suggested about fifty head were coming in for water. The fact that the tank still had about twenty thousand litres of water confirmed only a small mob was drinking there.

  At the trough watering the brigalow paddock there had been one or two days of chaos. The trough itself sat in black mud. When we got out of the vehicle the stench was strong, like a backyard pig sty. The smell indicated cattle had been hanging around the mud, trying to seek moisture from it and at the same time letting their faeces fall into it.

  To get to the float valve I had to throw an old post into the mud and step on it. The float lifted freely in my hand and the valve closed. Sometimes when a float has been out of use for some time, corrosion will form on the hinges. There was no clue to its failure and when Bill stepped over the mud to check he too was at a loss to explain how the water had all let go. The trough was bone dry. The fibreglass surface showed the stains of frantic mud-covered noses.

  We examined the most recent droppings and concluded the last beast had left maybe four days before. It was a good indication they had all found water. If cattle can’t get out of a paddock they usually hang around where they last got a drink.

  Bill drove back to the road and turned towards the cattle grid. From the grid a track ran east, following the fence. The track had almost disappeared under regrowth, but the cattle pad along the fence was fresh and the old grass had been trampled into the dust. Bill backed into a ditch on the side of the road and we unloaded the bikes.

  I hadn’t been on a two-wheel motorbike for years and the one Bill set up for me was a big trail bike. He showed me the gears and I suggested he lead the way.

  It was only about half a kilometre to the first corner of the paddock and there we found the fence cut. The cattle had gone through and the tracks indicated they had walked in an easterly direction, tightly packed. The puzzling tracks were from those cattle that hadn’t gone through the fence. They had followed the fence running north. They may have been the first to the corner, before the fence was cut. Close examination of the tracks showed they hadn’t returned.

  My immediate fear was for the cattle that had not gone through the fence. In the past I have found cattle bunched up in a corner because they could smell water in another paddock.

  We spent the next four hours on the bikes looking for the cattle, though to be strictly accurate, Bill spent a considerable portion of the time waiting for me. He said it was like watching Mr Bean live and after an hour swapped bikes with me, but I don’t think it made much difference as I still got the throttle confused with other levers.

  It appeared all the cattle had found water, but they had spread over thousands of hectares. On the big open plains country of north-western Queensland the spread of cattle is normal and presents only minor mustering problems. In the rangelands of the Blank Space the mustering can be formidable. To compound the situation the cows were all about to calve.

  The cattle which had walked the fence had been blocked by the escarpment on the western side. At that point they had left the fence, followed a game trail below the escarpment cliffs and found the gorge. About five kilometres beyond the gorge they found a spring near the charred remains of a homestead. Like the forlorn sight of a cross in a private graveyard, the darkened chimney stood alone.

  There was no sign of a fence and we concluded the escarpment was the boundary for about three kilometres. If stock had to be kept separate in the past, a temporary fence must have been erected across the floor of the gorge.

  The mob let through the fence, which may have accounted for three-quarters of our herd, had walked into a mob of station cattle and followed them to water. It was a huge dam about half full. The water marks on the bank indicated a rapidly receding waterline. Without knowing cattle numbers, Bill and I could only wildly guess, but we thought in ten weeks the cattle would only have a mud hole.

  East and north of the dam there were no vehicle tracks. I think Bill might have handled the scrub and fallen timber, but he was particularly emphatic about me not having a go.

  In one respect the day brought a wave of relief. The cattle had found water and most were on reasonable dry feed. The ones that had walked back to the old paddock were probably rogues, and based upon decades of observation very few rogues ever starve. If it were not for the imminent calving no urgent action would have been necessary. Once they began to calve little mobs of cows would poke away into hidden pockets in the forest and only water every two days. The stockmen of this country have told me cows will go three days without water in the wintertime. They drink copious amounts to get themselves through. It allows them to conserve energy and remain with the new calf.

  I understood from conversations I’d had over the months I’d been in Queensland that seven hundred station cows ranged freely over this largely undefined area. These cows too were on the point of calving. A thousand head, dispersed through ranges, across great plateaus, tucked up in deep ravines and jungle-like belts of scrub locked me into a highly vulnerable situation. The riders of the rangelands could easily poke a hundred cows away into the more inaccessible ranges of the Great Divide. Once the calves were big enough they could drive the mob to one of the outstation yards scattered around the forested hills, or, if the stockmen were young, to just an open piece of ground for roping and bulldogging. When the calves were old enough to wean they would be trucked away and the cows bushed.

  It was rumoured these herd-drafting operations had
been going on for some years and may have accounted for the longhorns and sundry brands I saw in the yards the day the drunk tried to pull me from the truck.

  ‘You’ll have to get them together as soon as possible,’ Bill said, as we turned the bikes around to head back to his truck. ‘Once they calve, mustering your cows from the others will be a nightmare.’

  ‘I’ll have to go home.’

  ‘You’ve got a week or two. I think you’ll get them all.’

  Bill knew I was caught up in a very unpalatable situation and tried to soften the reality. The one thing that might give me time, I thought, was to make sure anyone hanging around the ranges or the camps with duffing in mind knew I was around. They didn’t know I had to go south again. Bill thought it was a good idea too and we drove down to the old stockmen’s hut, across to the yards, along a track through the horse paddock and back to the road. Unless the duffers saw me they would have no way of knowing it was me for certain, but no one else had sufficient interest at stake to ride a bike all over the place.

  Back at Bill and Sandra’s I received the inevitable news. Mum had died that morning. It was no shock of course, just that final realisation that I would never again see or speak to someone I had known from the first dawn of memory. That’s what is difficult to come to terms with. I know it is the same for everyone, for no matter how long a loved one has been terminally ill, we have to grapple with that sudden void.

  Next day Sal and I drove south again. For a lady in her eighties, Mum had kept in touch with the younger generations and they turned out in force at her funeral. Known to her grandchildren as Nan, she’d had open house for my friends and my sister’s friends over a long period of time. They hadn’t forgotten her.

  With the talking over and the usual references to memories—sometimes happy, sometimes sad—of times long ago still ringing in our ears, Sal and I were soon thinking of making our way back to Queensland.

  When we packed again for Queensland it was about mid-August. The weaners had been at Jerilderie for a fortnight, the cows and calves on hand were battling along well on the basalt ridges and the struggling wheat crop badly needed rain. Greg was on repair work at Myall Plains, mainly fences, and he helped me load the truck.

  This time Sal and I knew we could be away for months. The mustering alone might take a month, then we would have to live with the cattle on the stock route. Following our previous visit when we found the cattle bushed we knew we had to do something. The decision to go on the stock route was tough, but with cows roaming everywhere through cut fences, boxed up with other herds and water rapidly drying up, we had no choice. The whole thing was very daunting. Cows would be dropping off and having their calves, and the penalty for loitering on Queensland stock routes can be severe. I’ve heard of mobs being ordered off, despite having nowhere to go. And when cows and young calves are left behind they are exposed to theft.

  Among the usual essentials I took on board two hundred litres of fresh water, enough oats and chaff for two months and twenty bales of lucerne hay. There were things I was undecided about, but threw on anyway. One was an old hammercock shotgun. I expanded my toolkit to include equipment for any breakdown short of stripping the engines.

  The difference with this trip, apart from embarking upon a journey of incalculable problems, was the taking of two vehicles. The truck would be used to carry equipment, transport the horses, collect stragglers and, in general terms, become the base camp. The four-wheel drive we needed for trips to town to replenish supplies and have that occasional hot shower. Also, we’d need that little escape to ‘Double Bay’.

  Travelling in convoy we planned a three-stage trip. Money was tight now. I looked upon this trip as an expedition and sold the last of my sheep to finance it. We had to save everywhere possible and that meant no staying in hotels.

  On the first stage we camped at St George by the river. With the seats folded down, the four-wheel drive provided a reasonable bed. We had company too on this trip—Ellie and Millie. The two little bitches would help flush cattle from thick clumps of scrub. They travelled in the stock float with all the equipment and felt very insecure about the whole operation.

  It rained overnight in St George. We hadn’t seen rain for weeks and when Sal and I got up and walked around to ease the stiffness there was that wonderful smell the wet soil gives after the long absence of rain. Galahs shrieked overhead and scores of birds chattered along the banks of the Balonne. Normally I may not have remembered such things, but it was the first moment following the funeral I felt alive again.

  Puddles of water lay alongside the road all the way to Echo Hills. The farmers we passed on their way to town waved and one bloke fixing a fence waved both arms. People on the land rarely have anything to cheer about, but that day carried a rare light-heartedness.

  At Echo Hills we were greeted with smiles by Ken and Rosie and coffee had already been made. The rain had come in time to spur the wheat crop into head. With cattle prices the worst for twenty years and wool down again, no one had to utter a word—the rain was like gold dropping from the sky.

  Our coffee break at Echo Hills was lunch as well. We caught Circus and Yarramin with a bucket of oats. Yarramin looked well, despite his great age, but Circus hadn’t put on much condition. At least he wasn’t lame. The buckjumper had his nose in our faces and armpits. He was a big useless pet. We left him behind—he’d mated up with an old horse and I didn’t want to split them. Something had gone horribly wrong with the initial handling of this horse and I felt a bit sad when I moved the truck away from the loading ramp for the last time. The cattle were gone. I knew we would never be back.

  About mid-afternoon we topped a rise and the Roma hills broke the flat line of the horizon. No one ever wrote of scenery out here or ever would. It is the character of the land that envelops the people here. For me it’s impossible to put a finger on it. Whatever it is I felt a sense of coming home when those hills hung on the horizon before us. There was so much worry and sadness down south that I think the prospect of being simply among the cattle and in the bush was a psychological relief.

  Still, it was tempting to stop in Roma and have one last night in civilisation before going bush. But there was nowhere suitable for the horses and the dogs, so we pushed on to Amby. It was nearly a year since Circus had arrived in Queensland, spending that first night in the Amby railyards with the horses on the stock route smelling him through the rails. Sarah-Jane had been one of those horses and I wondered where she might be on that thousand-mile stock route that threads through the heart of Queensland.

  Nothing had changed at Amby and I expect twenty years would have to pass before a new fence would be noticeable. I backed into the loading ramp and when I got out I saw the ashes of my old fire. Circus too remembered the yards and gave a bit of a snort. I fed them both hay and then Sal and I gathered some firewood. Sal had done a little bit of shopping in Roma, before catching me up. There was no ice or meat this time. We decided to get used to dry food and tins from the first day.

  The most excited about our camp beside the rail track were Ellie and Millie. They were out like two little rockets when I pushed open the truck’s sliding door and for the next ten minutes they sniffed nearly every square metre within a stone’s throw of the yard. The smells were all new and their tails were upright.

  After dinner, we walked across the railway line to the pub to telephone the boys, confirming that we had arrived and checking they were on track to leave. Richard was coming the day after tomorrow from Lismore in his little Brumby ute and Nick and Tommy were coming from Sydney by bus in about three days’ time. The girls had been offended at being put back in the float, but not having been educated to behave in little towns they would have trotted into the bar.

  We had two drinks. There were one or two familiar faces, but no one I knew to talk to. Back at the camp I tossed the mattress on the ground. ‘It’s so good you get to hate sleeping in a room,’ I said to Sal.

  James Blundell, the s
inger, wrote a song called ‘Camp Fever’. In it he sings about the sunrise in the mountains. If I could sing, it would be about falling asleep while peering at the stars. With me it only takes one pot of beer.

  The air was cold and still and when we woke after dawn the frost had settled over the top blanket. The girls were at our feet, curled up into little balls. There would be no smelling and sniffing for an hour at least, and with my nose back under the blanket there would be no breakfast fire for another hour either.

  We had breakfast, loaded up and two hours later we were at the gorge. It was an ideal camping spot for the job. I was going to make the brigalow paddock the holding one. Each little lot of cattle would be brought to it. By camping in the gorge we blocked the only way out and we were so far off the road I didn’t expect camp visitors. And also, I had to admit to myself, it was wild with a rugged beauty. The last cattle to be mustered would be those that had already gone through the gorge.

  To find a suitable camp site the vehicles had to be driven through the narrow gorge. At one time the blade of a bulldozer had pushed some large boulders to the side. Once through the gorge we found a protected spot with level ground and some lovely big gumtrees. It was among the trees I erected the tents, but after my experience with the ironbark crashing down in the storm several months before, I took note of the branches overhead. Before the boys arrived I wanted to have a fully established camp, so I put their tents up as well.

  The floor of the gorge was a creek bed. It was principally sand with grey silt and covered in heavily grazed green grass. In fact the marsupials kept the green down to ground level. It was perfect for a camp fire, as elsewhere the rapidly warming days and brittle dry grass posed a fire hazard.

  After unloading the horses and tethering them to a tree with some hay, I helped Sal set up her kitchen in the creek bed. Heavy rain never falls in central Queensland in August, so the chance of a flash flood was indeed remote. A cliff rose vertically from the bank of the creek and above the first fifteen metres the slope angled away to form a steep mountainside covered in rock-clinging shrubs and protruding boulders. With care, a man could scramble to the top, which I estimated to be about one hundred and fifty metres above us. The cliff itself was of fragile sandstone, more like a giant wash-out than a normal sandstone gorge. A metre or so above the cliff you could see the colour of the rock change from a grey to a heavy black basalt flow, indicating where periodic volcanic activity had burst through the earth’s crust during the past forty million years.