‘No!’ Luke’s eyes flashed as he pushed her hand from him. He could see tears resurface in Cassy’s eyes. What had happened to that feisty girl he’d first met, he wondered? Out here, Cassy seemed bland and almost stupid. He found he couldn’t stop himself comparing her to Emily.
‘Cassy, I’m sorry. I really am.’ He took her by both hands, and stooped to look into her eyes. ‘But we’re not going to be together again.’
‘Ever?’
‘Ever.’
She began to cry.
‘You’ll be fine. You will be.’
Cassy nodded, smearing tears across her face. She sucked in a breath, looked up at him and jutted out her chin as if trying to regain her strength.
‘C’mon,’ Luke said. ‘I’ll take you to the pub for lunch. Before you drive home.’
Cassy nodded sadly and forced a small smile.
‘Hey, do you want to ride the horses down to town?’ Luke asked.
Cassy shook her head. ‘No way! Horses terrify me.’
And at that point, Luke knew there was no turning back.
Twenty-one
At the pub, Cassy frowned at the blackboard, then looked despairingly at the menu in her hand.
‘Do you have any vegan dishes?’ Cassy asked Donna, who was standing, hip jutting out, tapping a pen on her teeth while she waited.
‘We have vegetarian meals,’ Donna said, holding the order pad close to her chest. Luke shifted uncomfortably while Cassy sighed.
‘Do the vegie burgers have eggs in them?’ Cassy asked.
‘I’m not sure. I can read the packet for you.’
‘Are they cooked on the same grill as the meat?’
‘We can use a frypan if you like,’ Donna said, trying to keep her voice light. She was used to the city customers who came in droves during holiday periods and demanded so much more than the locals. It was part of her job to accommodate them, so she shifted her weight to the other hip and cemented a smile on her face.
Cassy looked up. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to have a garden salad. No dressing. And a small bowl of fries if they’re cooked in clean vegie oil.’
‘Fries?’ Donna said. ‘We can do a you a batch of chips, in fresh oil, if you like.’
‘Yes,’ said Cassy rudely, ‘I would like.’
Donna thanked them as she gathered up the menus, her smile fading the moment she turned her back.
‘Cassy,’ hissed Luke, ‘this isn’t Melbourne.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Oh, how I bloody well know. Why anyone would want to live here is beyond me.’
Luke glanced around at Donna, who he could see was talking to the cook behind the big bain-marie. Cassy followed his gaze.
‘Stop being embarrassed, Luke. It’s my right to be a vegan. I don’t see what the fuss is about. Don’t they know it’s wrong to eat animals anyway?’
‘Cassy,’ he said tiredly, ‘you only say that because you’ve never been hungry in your entire life. You’re surrounded by good food and can eat what you want, when you want. Don’t you see, yours is such a privileged view? If your family was starving in some third-world country, you’d be grateful to be eating at all. Especially meat – rat, or guinea pig, or dog, you’d be eating all of it, even the entrails, just so you and your family could survive.’
‘Luke, stop! Yuck!’
Luke looked levelly at her. ‘I respect your choice, but please don’t dump on the barmaid here because she doesn’t share your world views. They mean well. They are nice people.’
Cassy’s eyes flickered. ‘Yes, I can see you think they’re nice.’ Her gaze bore into him and Luke felt the Cassy of old stick like hooks in his skin. ‘These people not only grow beef, they do it on pristine wilderness. It’s criminal. Farming livestock ought to be stopped! Those poor cows.’
‘Then what would happen to the cows if everyone stopped eating meat, Cassy? Have you thought of that? All the breeding animals would be put down because the farmers can’t afford to run them on the land for nothing. So the animals you’re trying to protect would end up dead anyway. It’s the way the world works. Besides, the way they raise cattle here is far more environmentally friendly than all those beasts fed on corn in feedlots in the US. Get some perspective.’
‘Me get some perspective? If you had any perspective you wouldn’t have bought a property in a place you don’t even know! I can tell you’re trying to pick a fight, Luke, so let’s just change the subject.’
‘Fine,’ he said, clasping his fingers together. ‘I hope you enjoy your meal.’
‘Yes, Luke. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my meal. Our last meal together,’ she added bitterly.
They were sitting in broody silence when the door of the lounge opened and a big bloke in an oilskin, beanie, grimy jeans and boots walked in. Donna, coming from the kitchen, smiled at him.
‘In for lunch again today, Bob?’
The big man peeled off his coat, revealing a burgeoning blue singlet with white text on it: Dargo River Inn, Liquor up the Front, Poker in the Rear. Grey hairs curled over the neckline. He sat at a table and took off his beanie, revealing messy long grey hair with a bald patch on top.
‘Bob’s regular, please,’ Donna yelled towards the kitchen. ‘Salad or veg with your steak today, Bob?’
‘Just chips, thanks, sweetheart.’ He pushed a twenty-dollar note towards her, and she set off to the bar to pull him a beer.
Luke saw Cassy looking distastefully at Bob’s singlet. Then he saw Bob look sideways at Cassandra. He visibly flinched at the sight of her spiky hair and facial piercings.
‘Geez,’ Bob said, ‘you fair dinkum gave me a fright, girl. It is girl, isn’t it?’ he asked, looking Cassy up and down, taking in her black, androgynous clothes and chunky kick-your-head-in boots. Cassy narrowed her eyes just as Donna set down Bob’s beer.
‘This is our new park ranger, Luke Bradshaw,’ Donna said, ‘and his lovely lady-friend.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Bob.
‘This is Bob Flanaghan,’ Donna said. Bob made no attempt to shake Luke’s hand. Instead he skolled his beer, never once taking his eyes from Luke.
Flanaghan, thought Luke. One of Emily’s cattlemen clan. Trouble, too, from the look of him.
Bob set down his empty beer glass. ‘So you’re the new bloke here to fence us out of the cattle runs if the bans are passed, are ya?’ Luke was about to answer when Bob turned to Cassy. ‘Be careful hanging out with your parkie boyfriend, love. You’ll be in trouble if you get tangled up in one of his electric fences with all that metal in ya. You’ll get a zap!’
He laughed as he gestured towards Cassy’s piercings in her brow, ears, nose, mouth and tongue. Cassy scowled at him.
‘I’m sorry, darlin’, but it looks like you ran fair through a fence and you’ve still got barbs and bits of star pickets in ya.’ He leaned forward so he could see past Cassy to Luke. ‘How do you kiss her with all that metal in her face?’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ Cassy said.
‘He’s only having a joke, Cass,’ Luke said, looking up at Bob. ‘We’re just here for a quiet lunch, mate.’
‘Lunch, eh? Then a bit of fishing after, maybe. Looks like she’s already fallen in the tackle box!’
Bob began to wheeze with laughter as Donna stepped forward with a fresh beer.
‘Bob, leave the young lovebirds alone.’ She turned to Luke and Cassy. ‘I think our Bob has had a few before coming in,’ she said as by way of apology.
‘They ought to lighten up,’ Bob said. ‘And one way of lightening up would be to take all that metal out of your face. You got shares in BHP Steel or something?’
‘Bob, settle,’ said Donna before she breezed off to the kitchen again.
Cassy stared at Bob, fury written on her face.
‘How can you stand it here in this redneck town?’ she asked Luke.
‘They don’t ever stand it for long,’ Bob said, swigging again on his beer. ‘Got no bloody clue, you bloody city slickers. You thi
nk you’re doin’ a good job, do you, eh? You wait till that ban comes through. One spring it’ll take, one good spring with no grazing and we’ll have a fire through that so-called park of yours and it’ll all be buggered. You bloody greenies have no idea. You’ll wreck the lot of it.’
‘And you’re not wrecking it now with your shitting, farting cattle?’ Cassy said. Luke shot her a look to silence her, but she kept on. ‘When they do pass that legislation and you’re banned from the mountains, thousands of people will be celebrating, you hear me?’
Bob’s face began to redden. His eyes flared intense blue. ‘You bloody stupid greenies have got it all wrong! You think kicking farmers off the land and planting trees is a good thing for the environment – now we got trees all over the countryside! I’d like to see you find ways of eating the bastards. You townie mongrels take your long showers, shop every day and live in them big houses, then blame us for buggering the environment. Well, you can eat the crap from China for all I care. Just stop kicking us farmers in the guts!’ Luke remembered Darcy caution him about Bob Flanaghan. He could see Bob reach boiling point. He was beyond reason.
Lunch or no lunch, it was time to leave. Luke stood up.
‘Where ya going, Mr new parkie boy?’ Bob slurred.
‘No point talking while you’re full of piss and bad manners, Mr Flanaghan,’ Luke said. ‘You come and see me another day and we can talk.’
‘Huh!’ snorted Bob. ‘Talk! That’s all you bloody government bastards do is talk! Well, we’ll give you an induction to your job you’ll never forget, kiddo. We’ll see you in the Wonnangatta next week.’
Luke tilted his head quizzically. The Wonnangatta?
Bob rambled on. ‘The cattlemen are taking a mob into that park to show what a shithouse job you’re doing with the land. And the media will be there to record what a mess you bloody VPP people have made of it. Once that gets out, there’s no way known they’ll kick the cattle off. Youse bastards are stuffed.’
Luke knew the VPP’s Wonnangatta National Park was in an area even more remote than the Flanaghans’ grazing runs. It was the most isolated cattle station in Victoria, and in its heyday had been a thousand acres of beautiful natural pasture, bushland and river flats, nestled in a valley over two thousand feet above sea level.
To evict cattle from the area, the government had bought the property at great expense about twenty years ago. But the logistics and cost of a bureaucracy managing land that vast and remote was a nightmare. Luke had never been in the Wonnangatta but his ears pricked up at Bob’s news that the cattlemen were planning to take cattle in illegally as a media stunt. Emily might have the face of an angel, but her uncle had the face of an arsehole. Luke Bradshaw had no problems going straight out to the phone box across the road from the pub to ring Kelvin Grimsley’s mobile.
Cassy sat on the back tailgate of Luke’s ute swinging her legs as Luke made the call. She looked like a hyena that had dined well that day, such was her joy in seeing Luke dob in the cattlemen’s plans to his boss.
Luke was surprised to hear Grimsley answer his phone on a Saturday and even more surprised to find he already knew about the cattlemen’s plan to take cattle into the Wonnangatta. The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria had emailed the VPP.
‘They think they’re being courteous and playing fair by telling us,’ Kelvin said over the phone. ‘But they don’t know the number of headaches they give us. They acknowledge it’s an illegal action but still they do it! They have no idea of the paperwork and cost it generates. It’s taxpayer money they’re wasting!’ Kelvin’s card in his hand, Luke ran his index finger over the embossed VPP logo.
‘Can I do something to help?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have your Heyfield supervisor call you first thing Monday.’ Kelvin began to outline the plans they’d put in place. ‘Darren is drafting a Coordinated Incident Plan and formulating a Risk Management Assessment of the potential situation in regard to the proposed protest. Then he’s compiling a rostered crew of staff both in the Heyfield offices and on the ground and he’s going to liaise with the DLSC&EL Corporate Communications Unit at every stage and formulate a Media Unit outlet. I’ll have him draw me up a flow chart of the Departmental Responsibilities for each unit during the protest. That way we can notify staff right from the top, starting with the Deputy Land Stewardship and Biodiversity officer down to the Forest and Biodiversity Utilisation Unit. But as you’re just a ranger on the ground, you don’t need to worry about any of that, Luke. You’re not yet adequately trained. Darren at Heyfield can guide you.’
‘So he’ll phone me Monday?’ said Luke, his head swimming from all the government lingo.
In Melbourne Kelvin Grimsley tapped his teeth with his finger as he thought. He wondered where he should roster Luke onto the Protest Response Strike Team. But the boy had such limited training it could be a risk. He was yet to complete his 4WD training unit, his unit one fire combat block or his minimal environmental impact camp-out instruction. At the interview he had seemed like a bright young man, but it would be risky to take someone so inexperienced out into a volatile situation. Kelvin cursed the cattlemen again for the trouble they caused and for the disruption to his weekend.
He recalled that Luke had been a farm boy and Kelvin felt a glimmer of disappointment over this fact. Agriculture was such a simplistic pursuit, and country people were often dimwitted and narrow-minded, he found. Still, Kelvin rationalised, at least the boy had a university degree.
‘Yes, Luke, Darren will set up a conference call first thing Monday morning. Nine o’clock.’
Luke thanked Kelvin and hung up. Nine o’clock was first thing? Luke laughed to himself remembering his life on the farm. Nine o’clock was time to come in for a cup of tea after two hours of work.
‘Well? How did you go?’ Cassy asked. ‘You didn’t say much this end.’
Luke shrugged.
‘Got anything to eat at home?’ Cassy said.
‘Hadn’t you better be getting back to Melbourne?’ Luke said. He could tell Cassy was winding herself up for another predatory pounce. He had to get her out of here.
‘Luke, I’m starving. I need food!’
Back in his house, he opened the cupboard.
‘Baked beans. Or tinned baby corn spears.’
Cassy rolled her eyes and reached for the baked beans.
Luke didn’t feel like talking to Cassy so he picked up the documents Emily had left him. He sat down heavily in the chair.
‘What are you reading?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. Cassy turned her back.
The first document was Tasmanian. He frowned, wondering how that was relevant to the mountains he was about to caretake. He flipped to the next. It was a submission to the Victorian Government after fires in the area in 2003. Emily had marked a page with a sticky note and highlighted the text in green. The extract had been written by descendants of the original cattlemen. They talked about the cattlemen in the thirties who would throw out a match every couple of hundred metres along the ridge lines ahead of the snow season, so that fire in the area would not be a problem come summer.
Luke looked up to see Cassy stirring the saucepan on the stove top. Her face was set. He could tell from her expression she was gearing herself up to drive away after this last pathetic meal. He felt sorry for her, but he could no longer offer her comfort. He went back to his reading, thinking of Emily and her pigheaded relative, Bob. Was it simple truth that the once open, rolling grassland in the area had been taken over by scrub since grazing and burning controls by government?
How could these stubborn, proud, uneducated people be making claims like this? During his degree Luke had studied CSIRO findings that proved livestock grazing in alpine environments was not, in his lecturer’s words, ‘an effective fire mitigation tool’.
He wondered now who had run the studies and where the truth lay. Luke could understand the cattlemen’s frustration with the whole process, but wondered why Bob had to
be so aggressive. He threw the paperwork on the table. It was all too confusing, and at the heart of his confusion was Emily.
Cassy set down two plates of baked beans.
‘Our last supper,’ she said and then began to cry.
Luke shut his eyes. He just wanted her gone from his life. And now with the clash of information swirling in his head, he wanted the whole cattlemen debate, even Emily along with it, gone too.
Twenty-two
Emily shifted in the saddle as the young gelding plunged through the dogwood scrub towards the Wonnangatta National Park. The bush around her smelled sweet from the overnight shower. Thirty other riders were following her, their horses pausing to step over high logs or weave around trees. Rousie had his tongue fully out, front paws up on a log, ears pricked as he watched the small mob of Hereford cows ahead lumber steadily down the slope.
There were no roads into the Wonnangatta National Park, just hair-raising tracks that four-wheel drive enthusiasts tackled in the summer holiday season. Before the ride, Emily knew there’d be screamingly steep mountainsides to slide down into the station and over a dozen deeply gouged river crossings to forge.
Snowgum’s injuries still made her unrideable for such a long, tough trek. Emily had wondered if her own body would take the rough riding, and if she’d be able to handle Luke’s young horse, who was still green at moving through and around trees. But once sitting in her old stock saddle on the beautiful young chestnut, Emily felt as if she’d truly come back to life.
The plan by the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association was to take three groups of cattle – ten in each herd, from three different mountain regions across Victoria – into Wonnangatta as a media stunt with a message they hoped would reach the minds of the men and women in the Victorian Parliament.
‘What’s the worst that will happen to us by going in there?’ Emily asked her father.
Rod shrugged. ‘We could be fined a thousand dollars a head but I doubt there’ll be arrests. The police and Parkies know it’d be public-relations suicide.’
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