Bella's Run

by Margareta Osborn

  ‘Nothing?’ Will’s voice was disbelieving. ‘His fiancée tells him she’s going away for six months and he says nothing?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him.’ It slipped from Bella’s mouth before she could stop it.

  ‘You what?’

  Bella swung around to face him. ‘I didn’t tell him, okay. Well . . . I did tell him but, not face to face. I left him a note.’

  ‘You left him a note?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I said. You know, a page with words on it.’ Bella knew she was being churlish but she didn’t care. ‘He was busy. Work had a takeover bid on and I just didn’t get a chance to talk to him. So I did the next best thing and left a letter. Plus, it’s none of your business anyway!’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not.’ Will looked at her bare left hand. ‘Where’s your ring?’

  Bella mounted the verandah steps and turned to face him, both hands on her hips. ‘I left it in Melbourne, if you must know. Not much use to me out here. Look. You really must have heaps to do. I’m fine here now, but thanks for coming to see Maggie off. It meant a lot to her.’ Bella’s tone left no doubt, she couldn’t see why herself.

  ‘Mmm . . . I guess I know when I’m not wanted,’ Will said with a grin, making the dimples on his cheeks dance.

  Bella glanced away. Her body was betraying her; she couldn’t look for fear of what her eyes, her face would say.

  Wuss! Patty’s voice echoed. Never knew you to be a piker, Hells Bells. Bella immediately lifted her head and looked Will dead in the eye. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, no doubt. Thanks for coming. Now, goodbye.’

  Will could take a hint. He’d found out most of what he needed to know anyway. He drove away from Maggie’s place, a thoughtful expression on his face, a quiet and almost cheerful whistle sliding through his teeth. She’d left the ring behind, hey? That had to mean something.

  He was starting to look forward to the next few months.

  Chapter 33

  ‘Around’ ended up being the next Saturday afternoon.

  The week after Maggie’s departure had seen Bella settle into a peaceful but busy routine. Before leaving Melbourne she had emailed her old boss from the Department of Agriculture, David Neille, with whom she’d kept in sporadic contact over the years. She’d asked him if he knew of any contract work she could do from home now she was jobless and back in the country. Maggie was supplying her utilities and meat and she had savings in the bank, but a bit of money coming in wouldn’t go astray either, she’d decided.

  He’d replied immediately.

  ‘You’re a flaming godsend, Bella. I’ve got a Landcare project which is half finished. The girl doing it has had to toss it in unexpectedly. It’s something you’ll be able to do no worries, in fact I think you’ll love it. We’re drawing up project plans for some Landcare groups in the area. You’ll need to be able to travel, but only locally, and we’ll provide you with a computer and mobile phone. You’ll just need internet access so you can upload written reports to us back here at the office. It pays pretty well. Are you interested?’

  She replied, ‘Yes please!’ and was pleasantly surprised at how much she was looking forward to it. She’d loved working with farmers in the old days and hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it.

  By Wednesday Bella had started a pattern to her days. Farm work kept her outside and busy in the mornings. She rose around seven and was finished in the house by eight. After letting Turbo off his chain and the chooks into their run, she fed Maggie’s two poddy calves with some cow’s milk old Wes Ogilvie dropped off every few days.

  She’d found it a stinky job because after a third day in the drum, the milk smelled disgusting and was starting to congeal into sticky, white lumps. She didn’t have to heat the milk, she just poured it into a four-teated feeder, tipping it on an angle as she latched it on the gate. The Shorthorn and Hereford Cross calves could then feed from two teats rather than using four.

  The calves always came running, and she laughed at their antics while they were trying to find which teats to drink from. The looks of confusion on their faces when they sucked only air at the top end of the feeder were hilarious. Sometimes she had to help them find the teat that was running with milk, and then their little tails would swing briskly to and fro in delight.

  After the calves were done she usually cranked up the four-wheel motorbike, loaded Turbo onto the carryall and took off down the farm track towards the river, checking all was well in the paddocks along the way.

  Maggie had sold most of her stock once she knew she was going on her trip. She normally bought in eight- to nine-month-old steers and then grew them out to eighteen- to twenty-four months. She usually tried to get them up to the four hundred kilo mark before she sold them off, she had told Bella before she left – and the year before she had even managed a five hundred kilo Murray Grey. She also had a handful of breeders, heifer calves she’d reared up herself. She hadn’t been able to part with these but she assured Bella there was only one of them due to autumn calve.

  ‘She’ll be okay, it’s her third calf, but just keep an eye on her all the same,’ she’d noted to Bella on their drive around. ‘If she looks like she’s in trouble, just ring Will or old Wes, they’ll come up and give you a hand to calve her down.’

  There was a fair bit of feed around for this time of the year, so Maggie had wanted her to strip-graze the paddocks using a portable electric fence that needed to be moved every couple of days – otherwise the small herd of cows would have just indiscriminately trampled down a whole paddock of good feed.

  So Bella checked on the cows every day, winding up, moving and resetting the electric fence when she judged fresh feed was needed. Then she and Turbo cased out the rest of the farm, enjoying their morning’s drive in fresh mountain air.

  Afternoons were devoted to her departmental contract work, of which she was still in the research stage. Wading through a pile of reading including Catchment strategies and previous Landcare group plans, she wanted to get a handle on everything before she met the Landcare group members face to face.

  And so by Saturday afternoon, other than a barrage of emails from a cross and confused Warren (which she’d manage to ignore), there had been no hiccups to upset what was a very enjoyable week.

  ‘Thought you might need a bit of firewood.’ A deep voice spoke, causing her to bump her head on the low chook-house roof. She’d been head-in, arse-out, cleaning the nesting boxes, which had been in dire need of new straw.

  ‘What the . . . ?’ Bella cursed, rubbing her head.

  ‘It’s going to come in a bit rough next week, and I normally cut Maggie’s firewood for her. You’re running low, I noticed last Sunday, so I thought I’d better do something about it,’ said Will, moving to lean on the chook-yard post while watching her rub her noggin.

  ‘You? You do something about it? I don’t think so, bucko. I’m more than capable of using a chainsaw!’ Bella was indignant.

  Will surveyed her faded pink drill shirt, worn Wranglers and battered Redback boots. ‘I’m sure you are, Hells Bells, but seeing as the wood is in my paddock I reckon it’s my right to use my chainsaw. Plus,’ he added with a wicked grin, ‘Maggie’s chainsaw is in the repair shop. My repair shop, waiting for a new chain and bar.’

  So Saturday afternoon saw Bella in a LandCruiser ute with Will, climbing up into the bush-laden mountains surrounding the Tindarra Valley.

  I will not talk to him, I will not speak one little word! she childishly vowed to herself.

  They drove for a while in silence, and then Will reached out and turned on the CD player. Taylor Swift came blasting through the surround-sound speaker system, singing her song ‘Love Story’. She didn’t dare look at Will while the song played out.

  ‘So I’ll cut the wood and you can stack it in the ute. Fair enough?’ Will’s voice brought Bella back to the Gippsland bush, as they both exited the vehicle.

  She nodded and walked over to lean on a nearby tree while he sorted out
his chainsaw. The afternoon sun beamed down hot in this protected slice of the forest, and the fallen branch Will planned to turn into firewood gleamed a ghostly white in the light.

  She watched as he pulled his flanny shirt over his head. Then she quickly turned away as he inadvertently exposed a six-pack of solid muscle as his blue singlet made to go with the shirt. Grabbing at his singlet, Will yanked it back down to his waist, where red-gold hairs disappeared into his belted jeans. Bella forced her gaze to remain on the bush surrounding them, looking anywhere but at that gorgeous body she remembered so well.

  Those hands, which just over two months ago had coveted her breasts and helped remove her remaining clothes, now moved to pump the fuel bulb and lift the choke on the saw, then pull the motor to life.

  And then there was nothing to do but shift all the logs that Will cut, and stack them into the tray of the ute. It was monotonous enough to distract her from dangerous thoughts. She’d had the presence of mind to grab a pair of Maggie’s old gardening gloves, and by halfway through the load she was happy she had; the rough-sawn timber would have made a mess of her city-softened hands.

  But despite the hard work she was enjoying herself, finding muscles she hadn’t worked for a very long time. She was surprised when Will finally shut off the saw, the sudden quiet startling her more than its constant roar.

  ‘All done, Hells Bells. That should do you for a good while.’

  Bella nodded and went to gather the last few logs lying on the ground.

  ‘So are you going to speak to me at all today, or is this as good as it gets?’ he asked as he loaded his chainsaw and fuel drum on top of the wood in the back of the ute.

  ‘I’ll talk if there is a need too,’ said Bella with a snap.

  ‘A need, ay?’ repeated Will, as he moved to tie down the load.

  ‘A need,’ stated Bella as she grabbed the rope she was thrown. She tied it in a truckie’s knot, her fingers only slightly hesitant as they worked to remember the moves. It was with a smile that she snapped the finished rope nice and tight across all the wood.

  ‘I remembered after all this time,’ she muttered to herself as she moved to get into the ute.

  Of course you did, you goose! You can take the girl from the country, but not the country from the girl.

  Since when did you become a bloody philosopher? Bella retorted mutely to Patty.

  As the sun set, Will and Bella wound their way back down the mountain, the track curving around the hills as it gently took the rise and fall of the land. They drove past Will’s upper bush paddocks at the end of the valley, then past Wes’s old house sat tucked hard up against the river, up over the wooden bridge crossing the Tindarra River and along the gravel towards Maggie’s place.

  The Tindarra River moved at a sharp left-hand angle, and Bella could see Will’s cream weatherboard house on the hill beyond Maggie’s place, its painted shutters standing out. Down below his house was a large set of stockyards, which were bigger in expanse than his home, putting into context which was the more important. She could see the roof of the corrugated-iron shelter covering his modern cattle crush, now lit by a huge, glowing floodlight attached to a pole on a massive hayshed.

  Will backed his ute up to the old water tank at Maggie’s, which was lying on its side serving as a wood shed. He undid the tailgate and then moved to the cab as Bella got out. Hitting a button on the console of his ute, the tray tipped up silently on a hydraulic arm to deposit its load half-in and half-out of the drum.

  ‘I’m impressed!’ Bella couldn’t help but exclaim. ‘That’s got to be better than having to stack it a second time round.’

  Will smiled to himself and called out from the cab. ‘It’s nice to hear you’ve got a voice, Hells Bells.’

  Bella frowned and kicked the ground.

  ‘I’ll be off. I don’t suspect you’re going to offer me a beer or a cuppa?’ Will looked down at Bella’s stony face. ‘No, I didn’t think so . . . I’ll head off then.’

  ‘Thanks, you know, for today,’ Bella muttered.

  ‘The pleasure was all mine,’ came the dry reply.

  Chapter 34

  The days continued, without much to upset the ebb and flow. The weather did turn nasty, so Bella added collecting firewood to her list of morning chores. Mentally she thanked Will for his forethought, and she knew she should have probably got on the phone to him to verbalise it.

  You’ve got the hots for him, came Patty’s voice. You’ve got the hots real bad!

  Bugger off! Bella admonished, as she reached for the phone. She rang her boss at the Department instead.

  ‘Dave, I reckon I’m ready to go,’ she told him.

  ‘Beaudy, Hells Bells, you’re a bloody ripper.’ David Neille was all enthusiasm. ‘Did I tell you how grateful I am for this?’

  Bella laughed. ‘Yes, Dave. Several times in fact.’ Warmth flooded through her. It was so nice to be back among friends who knew and valued her work. It made her feel good about herself.

  ‘I’d best email you a contact list and you can start setting up some meetings with the farmers. You’ll need to liaise with the Landcare groups to organise times, venues and stuff. If you email the flyers you want sent out down here, I’ll get the receptionist to print them up and send them out to the members. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Just great. I’m looking forward to it. But I’ve made a few changes to the format. I reckon we’ll do two meetings for each group. We could do the big-picture stuff, like where are you now and where do you want to be, say, in five years, and the bridges, metaphorically speaking, we need to build to get there, on the first night. And then we’ll pull it down to their specific farms and Landcare area on the second night and work out who, what, when, where and why. Is that okay? Can we afford to do that?’

  ‘Sure, whatever you think will work best,’ was the confident reply.

  ‘I think this will be better for all concerned,’ said an earnest Bella into the phone. ‘Then the Department gets what it wants, but the farmers also get something to take away and plan with as well. It’s a win–win situation, as Warren would say.’

  ‘And just how is Warren?’

  ‘He’s fine. Well, at least I think he is,’ said Bella. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘And he’s okay with you doing this? He’s not worried about you being up there on your own?’

  ‘I’m hardly on my own, Dave,’ said Bella, dodging the first part of his question. ‘Old Wes is just down the road. And there’s Will O’Hara, of course.’ She looked out the window at Will’s glowing stockyard light. It came on automatically at dusk each evening and was a comforting presence during the long dark nights.

  ‘Of course, of course. I’d forgotten about Will. Nice bloke, shame about his wife. I hear she’s shacked up with some flash horse-breeder in New South Wales. Up the duff to him too, I heard.’

  ‘Dave, you old gossip,’ said Bella with a chuckle. She could just picture her boss, feet propped up on the big desk in front of him, chewing the end of his half-moon glasses.

  ‘Anyway, I’d best get home, Bella. And I’m sure you’ll need to get a fire going. It looks pretty bleak up in those mountains from down here.’

  Bella looked out the window to the west. ‘Yes, the rain has just started to blow in from up the valley. Can you email me that contact list tomorrow, so I can start organising meetings with some farmers?’

  ‘Righto, I’ll talk to you again soon.’

  ‘And, Dave . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ came the fatherly voice down the phone.

  ‘Thanks. Thanks for everything.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Hells Bells. Nightie, night.’

  It was in a howling southerly wind that Bella rode out to check the farm the next morning. Even Turbo was loath to leave his kennel, the wind was so bitingly cold. Drizzle softly pattered down onto her broad-brimmed Akubra hat, which she’d pulled tight over her ears in an effort to keep it from being blown off. A Driza-bon
e covered the rest of her.

  ‘C’mon, Turbs, I need the company,’ Bella said to the dog as she dragged him whining to the motorbike. Lifting him up onto the carryall, she snapped on his chain and cranked over the bike’s motor to get on her way. The poddy calves were huddled in their little shelter shed, piled on top of one another to keep warm. The chooks hadn’t ventured from the chook house yet, and as Bella rode into the wind she didn’t blame them.

  She manoeuvred the bike carefully down the farm track. The rain overnight had made it a grease bowl. As they slipped and slid their way along, Turbo whined and tucked his head under her arm.

  ‘You sook,’ she said to the dog as she fondled his ears with her spare hand. ‘Next thing you’ll be in the house in front of the fire.’ Turbo barked in agreement.

  Suddenly, something caught her eye through the rain. She stopped the bike at the gate of the paddock and climbed off, leaving Turbo on the chain. He whined, wanting off, but she turned and shushed him instead. Opening and then shutting the gate latch, she quietly moved into the paddock and around the animals. Cows didn’t mind the rain but they hated wind, and so were all huddled in the far corner, backs to the gale.

  All except one.

  The cow that had caught Bella’s eye sat out on her own further down the paddock. As Bella quietly approached, the cow let out a bellow and swung her head around, ears pricked, eyes dull. Bella could see the problem straightaway. Poking from out her behind was a small sack of fluid and two tiny hoofed legs. The cow seemed to hunker down into herself and then let go with a convulsive thrust; the tiny legs barely moved. The cow had another go; this time the legs didn’t move at all. And they should have, Bella knew.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered into the rain. She needed to get the cow on her feet. After trying for a few minutes to no avail, she realised she had to get some help and fast or she’d lose both the cow and calf. Bella sprinted through the now-teeming rain to the bike, then gunned the engine and headed back to the house. Pounding up onto the verandah, she only took time to kick off her gumboots at the door. Striding through the cosy, fire-lit room, she ignored the water pouring off her coat and hat and grabbed Maggie’s teledex from the drawer.