Lang Downs

by Ariel Tachna

  They stopped at a gas station before leaving town, reminding Caine once again how far they had to go and how cut off they would be once they got there. “What do you do for gas at the station?”

  “We have a petrol tank that we fill once or twice a year,” Macklin replied. “We mostly use it for getting into town and for the generators when the power goes out. Most of the work is done on foot or on horseback and with the dogs. Too many places even a ute can’t go.”

  “A ute?” Caine asked.

  “A truck,” Macklin clarified, “with a flat bed behind it.”

  “Oh, a pickup,” Caine said.

  “Blow-in,” Macklin replied, but his voice was more teasing than critical.

  “I’ll learn,” Caine swore. “Give me a few weeks and I’ll have all your slang figured out.”

  “You know,” Macklin said, heading out of town and back onto the highway, “I almost believe you.”

  It was the best compliment Caine had gotten since he arrived in Australia.

  AN HOUR later, they pulled off the main road. “Last chance to back out,” Macklin joked. “From here on out, it’s nothing but you and the outback.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Caine asked, the relatively easy camaraderie of the morning having eased his fears from the day before. He was sure they weren’t done with misunderstandings and confrontations, but as long as they had times like this morning spent in comfortable silence or pleasant conversation, Caine figured he’d live with the rest, and as they got to know each other better, maybe those moments of tension would come less often.

  “Not a thing, pup,” Macklin said, “except for you to open that gate so I can drive through.”

  “S-s-sorry,” Caine said, not having realized Macklin would expect him to help. “I d-didn’t know.” He jumped out of the Jeep and opened the gate, waiting until Macklin drove through so he could latch it behind them. He ran back and climbed in.

  “Don’t give me that beaten-down look,” Macklin scolded as he drove on. “I wasn’t yelling at you. No reason for you to get upset. If you get upset at every correction or suggestion, you aren’t going to last long out here.”

  “I’ll learn,” Caine said again, more fiercely this time, as he cursed his stutter silently. Nobody ever had to guess if he was nervous or upset because his voice gave him away instantly.

  Macklin let it go at that, steering the Jeep across the open pastureland, a rutted dirt path the only indication now of where they were going. Caine grabbed the armrest on the door as they bounced along, the bumps jarring him even at the much slower speed. If he had this to look forward to for the next four hours, he was going to arrive at Lang Downs so sore he wouldn’t be able to walk.

  “This part of the road is used by the heavy delivery trucks so it gets torn up a lot faster than the roads deeper in the station,” Macklin said, seeing Caine’s distress. “Taylor doesn’t bother maintaining it more because it’s a lost cause. Once we get past the next gate, it won’t be quite so rough.”

  Caine hoped that was true because he’d hit his head on the roof twice already, even with his seatbelt in place. “And on Lang Downs?” he asked.

  “We’d never let a road get in this condition,” Macklin said, his pride in his home so clear in his voice that Caine felt his heart beat a little faster.

  “I’m glad. I know it’s not my home yet, but it will be, and I want to be as proud of it as you are.”

  “Taylor runs his station as he sees fit,” Macklin replied with a shrug. “Michael ran Lang Downs on a different set of priorities.”

  “And what set is that?” Caine asked curiously. “If I’m going to fit in, if I’m going to help you continue the tradition you’re so proud of, I have to know what I’m upholding.”

  “He believed in working with the land instead of against it,” Macklin said. “He believed taking pride in even the smallest job led to pride in the whole, and he was never afraid to get his hands dirty next to the jackaroos. He never asked anyone to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. Eventually he got to the point where he couldn’t do some things because of his age, but there wasn’t a job on the station he hadn’t done at one time or another, from shoveling sheep shit to patching up roads to doctoring sick lambs.”

  “I can’t say I know how to do any of those things,” Caine admitted, “well, except maybe shoveling shit because how hard can that be, but I want to learn, and I want people to say the same thing about me when I’m Uncle Michael’s age. Especially the part about taking pride in what I do. Even when I worked in the mail room in a job that nobody else cared about, I tried to do my best because if I didn’t, I knew it, even if no one else did.”

  “With that attitude, you can learn the rest,” Macklin said. He frowned suddenly and put on the brakes. “Stay here, pup.”

  “What’s going on?” Caine asked, scanning the range and looking for whatever had caught Macklin’s attention. He didn’t want to disregard the foreman’s order, but he’d just finished saying he wanted to be remembered as being willing to pitch in with whatever needed to be done. That said, his ignorance at the moment might be more hindrance than help, so he stayed where he was, watching in case another pair of hands became useful.

  Macklin strode across the bush with such confidence and ease that Caine felt a stirring in his gut again. This was a man who belonged in the outback, who understood how the world around him functioned and knew his place in it. Eventually he slowed, bending down over something Caine couldn’t see. A few minutes later, he stood again, waving his hat to get Caine’s attention. Caine opened the door and stepped down.

  “There’s a tool kit in the boot,” Macklin called. “I need a pair of wire cutters.”

  Caine had no idea what wire cutters looked like, but he figured something like a pair of scissors or snips, so he went to the back of the Jeep and rummaged around until he found something that looked likely. He picked his way across the bush far less confidently than Macklin had done, not sure what pitfalls—physical or animal—might be between him and his goal. When he reached Macklin’s side, he offered the wire cutters and looked down at the sheep baaing in distress at their feet. “Can I help?”

  “You’ll have to,” Macklin said. “I can’t cut the wire and hold the lamb still at the same time.” He pulled a pair of work gloves from his belt and handed them to Caine. “They’ll be too big, but otherwise you’ll tear your hands up working with the wire, and I doubt you’re strong enough to hold this girl down. She weighs almost as much as you do, I’d wager.”

  Caine looked skeptical since the lamb didn’t look all that big to him, but he pulled the gloves on and knelt down next to Macklin, studying the mess of barbed wire around the sheep’s legs and torso. He wanted to get it off her as fast as possible with as few cuts as possible to minimize the chances of hurting her in the process.

  “What are you waiting for?” Macklin asked after a moment.

  “Nothing,” Caine replied, forcing the wire cutters through the mess. The barbed wire snapped, freeing the lamb’s leg, but it was still tangled around her belly. “She’s a mess, isn’t she?”

  “I’ve seen animals in better condition,” Macklin agreed. “Get her loose. We’ll have to take her to Taylor. If we leave her out here like this, the dingoes will get her for sure.”

  Caine nodded and cut the wire a few more times, feeling each snip reverberate up his arm. Yet one more area where he wasn’t as strong as everyone else, but he got the job done, and that was the important thing, as far as he was concerned. He’d get stronger with time.

  When the last of the wire fell free, Macklin hoisted the lamb to his shoulders. “Get the wire. If we leave it here, something else will get caught and might not be as fortunate to have someone stumble across it.”

  Caine scrambled to do as he was told, gathering the scraps of wire and the wire cutters and hurrying after Macklin, silently wishing for the same ground-eating stride. He didn’t think Macklin was that much taller than he was
, but he walked like a man twice his size.

  Macklin tossed the wire in the back of the Jeep with the toolbox, but he put the lamb in the back seat. “Climb in there with her, pup, unless you’d rather drive.”

  “I d-don’t know where I’m going,” Caine said. He didn’t point out that the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the Jeep. On a private dirt road, he wasn’t likely to run into oncoming traffic or have to worry about the rules of the road, but he still wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  “You don’t know anything about lambs either.” Macklin tossed him the keys. “I’ll tell you which fork to take.”

  Caine climbed into the driver’s seat, sure this was a bad idea, but he wasn’t going to tell Macklin that. The foreman already thought he’d turn tail at the first hard spot, and Caine wasn’t about to do anything to support that misconception. Checking over his shoulder to make sure Macklin and the sheep were settled, he put the car in gear, praying he remembered how to drive a stick shift, and jerked forward over the rutted road. He heard Macklin mutter something in the backseat, but he was too focused on not stripping the gears—especially with the gear shift on the wrong side—to try to figure out what the foreman had said.

  They bounced along painfully for long enough that Caine began to fear he’d missed a turn somehow when Macklin leaned forward. “Take the right fork ahead. It leads to the homestead at Taylor Peak. That’s where we’re most likely to find someone to take care of this poor girl.”

  As predicted, the road split ahead, not an intersection so much as two paths diverging. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” Caine mumbled with a smile at his own whimsy. He was a long, long way from New England, although he could certainly make an argument for taking the road less traveled by coming to Lang Downs.

  “What was that?” Macklin asked.

  “N-nothing,” Caine said. “A quote from a poem I read a long time ago.”

  “What quote?” Macklin pressed.

  “T-t-two roads d-d-diverged in a yellow w-wood,” Caine said, the feeling of being on the spot sending his stutter into high gear. “It’s from ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. He p-picks the less traveled one at the end of the poem.”

  “It doesn’t ring a bell,” Macklin said with a shake of his head. “Not a lot of American literature in Aussie schools, at least not when I finished twenty years ago. Maybe now, I don’t know.”

  “We don’t get a lot of Australian poets in our schools either,” Caine said, not wanting Macklin to feel like Caine was criticizing him for not knowing the poem. “Some British literature, a bit of what they call World literature, American lit, of course, but unless you’re an English major in college, most of it is in one ear and out the other.”

  “Not for you,” Macklin pointed out.

  “Just that one,” Caine said, “and don’t ask me to remember the rest of the poem. I know that one line, and I vaguely remember the sense of the rest, but I couldn’t quote any more of it. I’m not even sure I could when we were studying it.”

  “I didn’t mind the novels so much,” Macklin said. “Some of those were pretty good, but I never could get my head around the poetry. Too much crammed into too small a space without enough to clue me in to where it was going.”

  “I know,” Caine said with a sympathetic smile. He paused to force the Jeep back onto the rutted track, cursing under his breath. “Now give me a good adventure to sink my teeth into, and I could read and discuss for days.”

  “Robinson Crusoe,” Macklin suggested.

  “Count of Monte Cristo,” Caine countered, “although I enjoyed Robinson Crusoe too.”

  “Tale of Two Cities,” Macklin added.

  Caine sighed. “Sydney Carton… now there was a hero.”

  “Or maybe an anti-hero,” Macklin replied. “I couldn’t get into a lot of Dickens’s other books, but I loved that one. Oh, and same time period, but totally different feel… The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “I haven’t read that one,” Caine said. “I know the story, but that’s because my French teacher made us watch the movie with Jane Seymour and what’s-his-name in it. Oh, and Ian McKellen as the bad guy.”

  Macklin laughed. “You can’t remember the name of the actor who played the hero, but you remember Ian McKellen?”

  “Well, duh,” Caine said. “He’s hot as fuck, for one thing, and he’s out and proud for another. Of course I remember him in stuff.” The moment the words escaped, he regretted them. Not the sentiment, but he didn’t know how Macklin felt about him being gay, and he didn’t want to make the foreman uncomfortable. “Sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know.”

  “It makes no difference to me who you find attractive,” Macklin replied. “That’s your business, not mine. You might not want to be quite that blunt with the jackaroos. They won’t like it if they think you’re coming on to them.”

  “I’ve known some straight guys I found attractive objectively,” Caine said. He kept his voice measured because he didn’t sense in Macklin’s tone the ridiculous fear he sometimes ran across that his goal was to somehow turn every straight man he met gay—as if!—and he didn’t want to come across as unduly defensive. “It’s kind of like you looking at Nicole Kidman or someone and finding her attractive. Sure, she’s nice to look at, but you know it’s never going anywhere because she’s never going to be interested in you. My number one requirement in pursuing someone is a chance of him returning my interest.”

  “Fair enough,” Macklin said. “There’s a gate up ahead. Usually I’d open it for you, but I’m not sure this girl’s going to let me get out and back in without tearing up everything.”

  “I’ll get it,” Caine said, putting on the emergency brake and hopping out of the Jeep. He opened the gate and then had to remind himself to go back to the right side rather than the left to get back in.

  He drove through, closed the gate behind them, and then drove on. As they continued, the road became considerably smoother. “I guess we’re getting near the main house?”

  “Yes,” Macklin said. “Another twenty minutes, maybe. Just keep going.”

  Caine did as Macklin said, finding it easier to drive the Jeep as the minutes ticked by. The sheep in the back seat bleated occasionally, but it didn’t sound to Caine like she was in constant or terrible distress. Not that he knew what that sounded like, but he figured if she were really badly hurt, she’d make more noise if nothing else. As they continued, the dirt road changed to gravel and rough-hewn buildings started to come into view.

  “Head toward the barn all the way to the left,” Macklin directed. “Even if Taylor isn’t there, someone will be who can take the lamb off our hands and sort her out.”

  Caine slowed as they entered the busier paddock area. As he approached the barn, several men came out of the various buildings, watching their approach with stoic faces that betrayed no interest or emotion, only awareness. For no reason he could name, it made Caine nervous. “N-nobody’s g-going to be upset that we’re here, are they?”

  “Don’t panic on me, pup,” Macklin scolded as Caine put the Jeep in park. “We’re just helping out the neighbors. You can stay in the car if you want.”

  Six

  CAINE WANTED nothing more than to stay in the Jeep as Macklin opened the door and pulled the lamb out, but he wouldn’t help his case any by cowering in the vehicle like he didn’t belong, or worse, like he’d done something wrong. He opened the door and scrambled down, trotting along behind Macklin as the Lang Downs foreman carried the lamb toward the biggest of the clapboard barns.

  “Who’s the kid, Armstrong?”

  Caine waited to see how Macklin would answer, sure the foreman’s response would govern his interactions with these men for some time to come, but Macklin ignored the question entirely.

  “Where’s Taylor?” Macklin said, setting the lamb down.

  “Out in the bush,” one of the hands answered.

  Macklin scowled. “We found one of your lambs all tangl
ed up in barbed wire. Tell Taylor he needs to clean up after himself better because if his trash gets on my land, I’m not going to be happy.”

  “Tell him yourself,” the hand replied as another one took the injured animal into the barn. “It’s not worth my job to say something like that to the boss.”

  Macklin’s scowl deepened. He pivoted on his heel and stalked back toward the Jeep, leaving Caine scrambling once again to keep up. “Give me the keys,” Macklin practically growled.

  “They’re in the ignition,” Caine replied softly.

  “Then get the wire out of the boot. I don’t care if you toss it in their faces, but they can clean up their own bloody mess.”

  Caine hurried to do as Macklin said, opening the boot and pulling out the strands of wire he had cut off the sheep. In his haste, he forgot the gloves he still had on his belt from earlier, and one of the barbs jabbed deeply into his palm as he tossed the wire on the ground. He bit his lip to silence the curses that wanted to pour out, sure Macklin and the other jackaroos would never have done something so stupid. He shut the rear door and climbed back in the passenger side, remembering to go to the left side rather than the right. As soon as Macklin started the Jeep and pulled out of the yard, Caine let out the curse of pain he’d been holding back.

  “Fuck.”

  “What now?” Macklin asked, his face still hard.

  “Nothing,” Caine replied, cradling his hand against his chest. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

  “Nothing I’d like better, pup,” Macklin said, not looking in Caine’s direction. “You handled yourself well back there. Taylor’s men are an unruly bunch of idiots. I don’t know how he puts up with them.”