Warrigal's Way

by Warrigal Anderson

  The boys were waving their hats to her and yahooing, giving me heaps. “Wanta rip up and say good mornin’ to her, mate? Go on, we’ll wait,” yelled Mike at the top of his voice, I wished I could disappear up Shorty’s nostril.

  Did I see her again? Too right I did, many times.

  12

  Swansong on the cattle

  Over the next year or so we got a lot of small jobs—one to two months with two to four hundred head. But we could all see the end coming—the trucks were killing us.

  The last big job we got was to bring fifteen hundred head from the Territory to Townsville. We picked them up from the yards at the Sudan, just over the Territory border. They had come from Humbert River and were bastards, a mixed mob with a heap of scatterbrained heifers among them to keep us on our toes. Lucky that Barkly Country is so open or we would have lost them a couple of times.

  Sleeping out in that country from June through to August, I’d be wrapped in an oilskin coat with about three layers of clothes on and still be blue with the cold. And roast in the sun in the daytime. And your horse would be saddled and bridled with the bit slipped from its mouth, the reins slipped through the stirrup irons, a picket rope around its neck which you held in your hand while you slept, because the electrical storms might set the cattle rushing, and you’d need to have your horse handy. Those electrical storms they get out there were frightening but they were beautiful. When I hear the Yanks talking about the prairies being big and wide, I think of that country.

  There were too many cattle for the three of us this time and because they were a scatty mob, Hugh hired a couple of Territory blokes who were willing to go with us. Jim was a blackfella, a top stockman and an ace bloke. Some droving teams had two camps, one for the blackfellas and one for the whitefellas, but we didn’t. Hugh liked his blokes to be one efficient mob and he had no time for bigots. If this didn’t suit, you weren’t in our camp. (And it didn’t suit a lot around the bush. Bigotry is not just for the squatter class—cattle and droving plants had their fair share of it as well.) Hugh was Dad, God, the highest authority figure in my life, Ted was my mentor and teacher, Mike, my absolute best mate, but Jim, Jim became my hero. I had never met anyone like him. In my mind he could do anything. He was the only bloke I ever knew who was completely at home in the bush, and whatever he did he made it look so easy. I wanted to be just like him.

  We were having a yarn one day and he asked me how come I was out on the cattle so young. I didn’t quite know what he meant, so he asked, “Did you run away from home?” I had no hesitation in telling him I was running away from the Department, and explained that although my skin was as white as any white Australian’s I was actually a quarter-caste, and that was good enough for the government. He knew what I was talking about, as all the black families had been touched by the policy.

  My life changed radically after this, as Jim took me in hand and started to teach me the bush and tell me Dreamtime stories. I knew nothing of the Aboriginal side of me, and I told him the only place I ever heard Mum talk of was Lake Nash on the Queensland-Territory border. He said, “Your Mother must be Warlpiri or Allywarra woman. Anyway, this is your Mother country,” and he moved his arm in a wide sweep. “And I am your Brother.”

  From then on my Aboriginal education went hand in hand with my campfire education. Ted taught me reading and writing around the campfire at night (or I should say printing—I still haven’t got much of a clue about scratchy writing, although I sign my name pretty good.) Jim told me about the rainbow snake, and how the crow brought fire, and a hundred others I have forgotten till I hear them again and then the memories come flooding back. He taught me how to live on and with the land, what to eat and how to find it, what tracks were whose. Every day was a learning day although I sort of didn’t realise it as it was all so exciting and new.

  I wasn’t too fussed with Ted’s stuff, but paid close attention as I knew I could get a number ten boot delivered swiftly by him or Hugh for slacking, if they reckoned I needed it. I didn’t realise what I was getting from Ted until later, when I’d sit on my horse at the back of the mob, and my head would be in an iron mask, or I’d be swordfighting with the Musketeers—I’d be D’artangan and the dogs my friends Athos and Porthos. The afternoons I spent on Treasure Island with Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins!

  I had a good arsenal of swear words, which I didn’t know were swear words for a while because I didn’t know what they meant. I listened to the boys getting a mob into the yards through the gates, and picked up some of their language real quick, and got a tanning from Hugh for dropping a few of my newly learnt words.

  Russell, the other stockman, was teaching me to tail-down a beast. “It comes in handy, mate, when you want to have a look at a stranger, or teach a beast who keeps breaking from the mob some manners.”

  I was keen and reckoned I had got the hang of it, so the boys cut a young steer out of the mob and I was going to give it a go in the night paddock before we got on the road. Everyone had a seat along the fence except Ted, who was over by the truck leaning on the mudguard.

  I galloped up on Shorty, leaned out and grabbed the tail and gave it a pull. The steer give it a flick, and shot me straight out of the saddle for three orbits of the moon. It then waited till I got up off the ground and chased me to the truck, all in front of my adoring audience, who were hooting and yahooing, and bloody near falling off the fence in mirth at the sight of a bull the size of Townsville’s Tattersalls pub trying to murder me. I headed for the truck at a hundred miles an hour and got there about three cigarette papers before it did. Ted was standing at the front mudguard, bent over laughing and nearly busting his gut, when the bloody bull went past him and just grazed his top lip with his horn. I was on the running board laughing, but Ted went from outer space mirth to purple-faced rage in world record time—it was my fault, I’d brought the bull over to get him!

  By the time he had his boot cocked and taken aim at my behind, I had crossed the paddock and was back up on Shorty. The old scrag had cooled down by tea-time, thank Christ. And that was tailing-down a beast!

  Russell and all the other boys used to give my ears a hard time about getting off my horse around the mob. “These buggers are myalls,” Russell kept telling me. “You ask Jim. On a horse they think we’re one of them, but on foot you’re one of the enemy and they’ll up you.”

  Me being a typical young smartie and not having enough brains to listen, I got my comeuppance the hard way, and just gave the boys more ammo for when they wanted to tease me or raise a lump on my ego. We were turning out this government holding paddock one morning, and Hugh called out to open the gate. I rode over to it and it was a horrible arrangement of wire and battens—the famous cocky gate. I was having a hell of a time trying to open it on Shorty so I got off. The boys had pushed the mob right up to the gate and they were backing up behind it. I got the gate open and turned around to get back on Shorty who had wandered about ten feet away. I heard Mike yell “Look out!” and a bloody old cow with a calf was coming at me like a bulldozer. Shorty had more brains than me—he was off. There was a gum tree across the road with the first branch about twelve feet up. I don’t know to this day how I got up there, but the boys reckon I was going so fast I just ran up the trunk. Either that or I’m a bloody good jumper under pressure. I could feel that old cow’s breath on my neck every step of the way, and she hung around under the tree, old scrag.

  The boys left me up there, the swines hooting and giving me crow calls. That bloody old cow wouldn’t leave the tree till the mob was way up the road. Then her and her rotten calf finally decided to join them. I got down out of the tree and had to walk about three million miles before I could catch Shorty. He was playing little games and the air was blue with every swear word I had ever learned, and some I invented, before I caught him. Did I learn a lesson? Let’s just say I never had to be told again.

  Ted taught me how to cook and smoke, although he didn’t know about the smoking, I thought
! I used to pinch a plug of his or Mike’s Log Cabin tobacco whenever they left it where I could get my hands on it, then I would destroy a dozen ciggy papers trying to roll a smoke. Ted also had a flagon of Bundy rum—medicine, Ted used to call it. It was used for slugs in the pannikins on cold or rain-soaked days, night rides, or freezing mornings. I became quite an expert at sneaking a drink when I thought Ted wasn’t looking. I thought I was so flash. Have you ever heard the expression “give him enough rope”? The boys had me sussed from the start, but were just waiting for the right moment to give the rope a hefty yank. Learning is never easy in the bush, and the harder the lesson learned, the longer you remember.

  We were overnighting in a tiny place on the Isa side of Maxwelton, called Nelia. We had pushed the mob a bit and they were bedded and quiet. Ted had been into Maxwelton to stock up, and just after tea, instead of doing the dishes, he came over to the fire—for the pleasure of a yarn, he reckoned. He sat down beside me and pulled out a packet of tailor-made cigarettes. He pulled one out and lit it, and offered me the packet. “Want a smoke, mate? Go on, I know you have a puff.”

  I sneaked a look at Hugh to see if he was going to lower the boom, but he was talking to Jim and not taking any notice of us, so I swooped on the packet like a rat biting a finger. “Yeah. Ta, Ted.” I was so bloody dumb. I reckon the boys used to plan these things months ahead and when entertainment was needed they would whistle up the goose. I fell into this one like the favourite at Doomben race course. He gave me a light and watched as I drew back, and then give me a big slap on the back. I choked, I went green and I coughed my heart out. As soon as I stopped coughing he whacked another smoke in my mouth, “Puff her up, mate. We got plenty left.” Off I went coughing again, feeling real crook. He slapped a pannikin of Bundy in my hand. “Drink her up, mate. Gotta have a drink with a smoke, us grownups.” He threatened me with the diabolical things he would do if I didn’t drink, so I drank. He filled the pannikin again. “You should enjoy this, it’s the other half of the flagon you been sipping on. Drink her up.” I took a swig and felt the volcano starting to build up around my big toes and like an express train shoot up my throat and bounce off the front of my skull and spray out my mouth like a sun-warmed can of Mortein. I felt like I had an atom bomb in my gut. My sight had it, my head was thumping—I was dying. Hugh rescued me and put me into a world that spun, wobbled, and moved up and down.

  I crawled out of the swag next morning like a survivor from the “Titanic”, to get a plate of half-cold greasy bacon and eggs pushed under my nose. That cleaned out the rest of my stomach. Then the rotten old bugger put a slug of Bundy in my tea. That was it. After that I had the occasional glass of cold shandy, once or twice a year, but it was a bloody sight longer than that before I tried Bundy and cigarettes again.

  We didn’t have any drama getting to Townsville and as Hugh paid us off he told us he was closing the plant so we would be splitting and going our separate ways.

  “What will you do, mate?” Mike asked me.

  “I think I might go and see if I can find Mum. She will be worried, not hearing from me for so long.”

  “Well, if you come to Brisbane, look in the Kangaroo Point pub. If I’m not there, I’m bush.” I asked around when I went up there a year or so later, but I never caught up with him.

  Jim had his swag rolled and he told me, “Don’t forget, mate. Come back to the Territory. It’s your country.” He shook my hand and gave me a hug. “I’ll see you when I see you. Look in the Tennant Creek pub, someone will know where I am.” But I didn’t see him again. I heard he’d been killed in a road accident.

  Ted was heading north and Russell was going with him, into the Gulf country. I felt really sad at parting from Ted. I am who I am today because of his and the other boys’ efforts to take a kid in hand. Today I realise his gift to me is worth more than all the riches on earth. I have dedicated this book to Ted in memory of a sandstone rock and a charcoal stick from the fire. He was able to teach a dumb kid to read and write using a Micky Spillane novel of Mike’s as a textbook.

  Me to Ted: “What’s panting with desire mean?”

  Ted: “Well, you get puffed when you run, don’t you?”

  Me: “Yeah, but what’s desire?”

  Ted: “Christ, don’t you know anything? It means you badly want somethin’.”

  Me: “So panting with desire is runnin’ after somethin’ you badly want?”

  Ted: “That’s it, you got it.”

  Hugh was sitting with a cup of tea and a strange look on his face. “Mate, you’re the best,” he said to Ted. “I’m gunna buy you the first half dozen beers in town. That’s the best explanation of desire I ever heard.”

  I heard the boys sniggering in the background. I remember that because that was the first time Hugh had ever commented on my teaching, and he had never offered anyone half a dozen beers before.

  Hugh was not sure whether to stay in Townsville or go to Rockhampton. He hadn’t made up his mind.

  They put me on the train, amid my swag and saddle, and waved as the train pulled out. That was the last time I ever saw the boys. I felt like it was the end of the world and was pretty close to tears, but I was an entirely different kid from the one who had come up four years before. Dressed in my stockman’s gear, well worn but clean and ironed, thanks to Ted, stockwhip coiled and buttoned under the epaulette of my jacket, I looked a pretty self-assured young bloke. The smartie guard asked me. “Is it for show?”

  I asked him if he wanted me to show him how to take flies off his nose with it. “Get about your work and stop bludging,” I said.

  He didn’t hang around. He went off mumbling under his breath about cheeky young buggers. I wasn’t going to take cheek off him. The boys had taught me to fight and I was only too willing to be in it.

  13

  Back into enemy territory

  The train journey bored the pants off me and we finally got into Brisbane about nine in the morning. The Sydney train didn’t leave till early evening, so I went into town and wandered around for a while, had a feed, went to the Commonwealth Bank and withdrew ten pounds and arranged to have my account sent to the main branch in Melbourne. I had saved nearly two hundred and thirty pounds in the four years, thanks to Hugh banking my five pound each month, so I wasn’t broke. It was a tidy sum in those days. Jim had told me that if the Department got me they would take it and I would be bloody lucky to see it again. “Blackfellers can’t have money down there,” he reckoned.

  So I had my eyes tuned to Black Suits again. I thought I would be alright, as I was bigger and older and looked like any other white Australian kid my age. But Jim had told me, “Don’t get too cocky, mate. Those buggers have their ways. Just when you don’t expect it, they’ll grab you, so keep your wits about you.”

  I thought that was good advice, and intended to follow it.

  I had heaps of time so I decided to go to the pictures. Her Majesty’s Theatre had “Ben Hur” on. It was about an old time Roman bloke, with a fast cart and a heap of horses. I wouldn’t mind his horses but the picture didn’t make a lot of sense to me. The hero was a muscley bloke, and a good-looking sheila was chasing him, but he didn’t want her. He must have thought she was a bit crook, so he spent all his time fighting anybody that got near him and chasing another lady that didn’t want anything to do with him. At the end of the picture he won a race with his horses. I didn’t dwell on it too much as it was too confusing.

  Thankfully I got on the train at six. My gear was already aboard, so I just had to find a seat. There were a couple empty in the smoking car so I grabbed them. Did I hack a smoke? Not bloody likely!

  I sat down and pulled my hat over my eyes and slept. I woke stiff and sore at Casino. I jumped down and fought my way into the refreshment room for a pie and a bottle of orange juice. Then I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I was bleary-eyed and tired when I landed in Sydney.

  I booked my saddle and swag into the left luggage office and rang Nancy. Sue answe
red and went crazy. “Where are you? Get a cab and come straight around.”

  I saw Sue outside waiting as we turned the corner into the street. I paid the cab and got out, and she just stood and stared, I thought something was wrong, my fly undone or something. I was getting uncomfortable when she finally said, “Ed, I don’t believe it! Is that you?” She came up and gave me a hug, then held my arms and stood back and looked at me again. It sounded funny being called Ed again after years of the boys using my Aboriginal name.

  “I wouldn’t have believed you would have grown so much in four years. How old are you now? Fifteen?”

  “Nearly,” I told her. “Fifteen in three months time. Plenty of good tucker, open air and hard work,” I told her.

  “Come inside, Colin will be home soon. We’ve been married about a year now, he’ll be rapt to see you. Sit down and I’ll make us a cup of tea. Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know. The pig left his wife and he and Nancy have gone to Perth to live in sin.”

  Sue was telling me this as Colin came in the door. “Well, I’ll be buggered. Geez, g’day Ed. When did you rock in?”

  “I more or less just got here,” I said. “Sue’s just put the jug on. Geez, married life must be good. You’re both looking terrific.”

  Colin laughed and put his arm around Sue and gave her a squeeze. “Nearly a dad—another four months. Come and have a cuppa and tell us what you got up to when you left here. I’m dying to know.

  So we settled down around the table and had a cup of tea and I told them all that had happened to me since I left.

  “Well, I’m buggered,” said Colin, “you’ve had quite a time, I often wondered what happened to you. The girls wanted you to stay, and they were worried about you for ages after you went.”