When the Dust Settles

by Cook, R

  ‘Hillsy, is that you?’ I called out.

  ‘Yes it’s fucking me, get me the hell out of here!’ came his frustrated reply.

  Hillsy was only a small bloke – he went on to be a jockey – and the Year 12 students had stuffed him into a locker. As I was trying to wrangle the door free, the older kids returned and told me to walk away. One big bloke, who looked like he’d been kept back a grade, threw his basketball at me which I managed to catch before it hit me. Knowing it would antagonise him, I started to bounce the ball until the boy approached me.

  ‘Give it back, you little shit,’ he demanded.

  So I did. I threw it as hard as I could right into his face. It had the desired effect. His nose was busted and there was blood everywhere. Capitalising on the surprise, I ran in with a few more punches to give him, from what I remember, a pure thrashing. I then freed Hillsy and disappeared before the teachers came.

  My fighting was starting to get out of control later in Year 8, when I found myself again having to choose between being cool and my sister. School captain Lilly had rallied those on the hill to get involved in the school choir, as the group’s numbers were dwindling. As usual I walked into the room being loud, cracking jokes and thinking I was cool. Seeing the teacher hadn’t arrived yet, I jumped on the piano and knowing a couple of basic tunes, I started playing. With the class in disarray, the teacher arrived and yelled at me, ‘Robby, get off the piano.’

  ‘But Miss, I’m being a pe-nist!’ I called back.

  Of course the kids laughed and the whole room got even louder. The teacher then decided to leave, either in disgust or to bring something she’d forgotten for the choir practice. So Lilly, being the responsible student she was, stood up and called out to the group.

  ‘Everyone shut your mouths. We’re here to learn to sing and that’s what we’re going to do. Have some respect,’ she said.

  In response, one of the boys replied, ‘Geez Lil, you don’t need to bite our heads off.’

  While the room settled down to a murmur, I heard a rough derogatory comment made by a former male friend of Lilly’s to his mates. In an instant, I knew what I had to do and how to fix it. I stood up, grabbed my chair by the legs and cracked this ill-mannered kid across the head. I had no problem taking issue with that comment, and I knew if I hit him hard enough he wouldn’t get up off the floor. Later, in the office, the principal went off his handle at me, punching the desk and demanding answers. I was standing there smug in my glory with the older, much bigger kid standing next to me with the remnants of the battle all over his face and shirt – evidence of a fight that, at the time, I was very proud of.

  ‘This little psycho just hit me with a chair,’ said the footy jock, before the principal told him to leave the office.

  ‘What happened?’ asked the principal.

  ‘He was making a rude comment about my sister,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you’re not allowed to go around bashing people,’ he snapped back.

  ‘Well, people aren’t allowed to say filth about my sisters,’ I retorted.

  ‘Rob, I’m going to have to expel you from school,’ cautioned the principal.

  ‘What, for hitting someone who publicly humiliated my sister?’ I asked.

  After he told me he was going to ring my parents, I left the office. Lilly walked up to me outside, put her arm around my shoulder and rubbed my head. She knew exactly why I had done it. When I got home that day Mum and Dad knew of the incident, but I’m not sure how much detail the principal had told them. I had detention for a week but never got expelled. At the end of the week, he asked me if I had learnt my lesson.

  ‘Yeah, next time I’ll take better aim and hit him harder,’ I told him. ‘I’d do it for my other sisters too because I’m not going to sit by and let people talk that shit about my family.’

  That particular fight, while being the worst thing that happened to me during school, was a turning point and Years 9 and 10 were a breeze for me. I never had to worry about anyone picking on me and there were no more rotten sandwiches in my lockers. One of the most valuable lessons I’d learnt at school was the importance of loyalty to my friends and family. But that was something I’d later forget when it came to my father, a mistake that would end up defining my very future.

  3

  PINEAPPLE

  ‘Hurry up, ’cause this won’t buy the kid a pram,’ Dad would yell.

  It was his favourite saying, one that reverberated throughout my childhood. In other words, whoever it was directed at needed to work harder. Dad was the hardest worker I ever spent a day in the sun with, whose work ethic came from his father, Tom Cook, a Queensland farmer and grazier. Together with his wife Margaret, in 1957, Tom had forged a life on a 2500-hectare property called Coovin, about sixty kilometres north of Clermont. The eighth of eleven Cook kids, Dad was taught to work hard from an early age. The family lived in a tent for the first twelve months on the property, before the boys helped build a shed out of the local timber – that became the homestead for the next ten years. Initially Grandad Cook grew crops and ran sheep, until it was decided cattle would do better on the black-soil, scrub country. Dad went to a small local school before being sent to boarding school at Marist Brothers in Brisbane for Years 8, 9 and 10. It was no real surprise that he left school early to return to the property as he loved working with his hands. However, the ferocious 1969 drought meant he instead spent most of the next four years contract fencing and yard building away from Coovin with his father and older brother Jim.

  As all young blokes inevitably do, Dad sought out adventure. Together with his mate John ‘Jumbo’ Burnett, he began a trip around Australia, picking up work where they could and riding broncs at local rodeos, hoping to win money to keep them going on the road. When a job fell through near Halls Creek in the Kimberley, they decided to jump in a cattle truck headed for Suplejack in the Tanami Desert. However, the truck became bogged on the way and they had to help unload all the cattle and hold them in temporary yards made of hessian. Suplejack’s owner, Bob Savage, emerged in the middle of the night to retrieve the truck and reload the stock. He must have been impressed by what these two young blokes had done because he offered them work for a few months at the station. One of Bob’s daughters, Letty, soon caught Dad’s eye and there, in the middle of the desert, he managed to find love.

  As a youngster, all my dreams were inspired by Dad. First and foremost, I wanted to be a world champion bronc rider, something I’d tell anyone who would listen. Hoping desperately for my parents to allow me onto the back of a wild horse, my begging and pleading started well before I had turned ten. Those unbroken horses can put the fear of God through any man when they’re kicking up dust and snorting in the yards. Riding my first poddy when I was four had me hooked for life. The idea of having to stay on and compete with an over-enthusiastic, bucking animal for eight seconds in front of a screaming crowd was me all over. But I had to be content with the junior steer rides at the various rodeos until I was thirteen, before I could move one step higher. While Dad had been busting his backside to build new fences and yards at Rakaia, I had been in his ear about building a rodeo arena and chute so we could practise.

  The bucking chute is a small, gated enclosure that allows just enough room for the animal to stand in, while the cowboy gets set to ride. Different disciplines of rodeo require different equipment. In bull riding, a bull rope, which goes around the bull’s belly just behind the shoulders, is used by the rider to tie his preferred hand firmly to the bull’s back. An internationally recognised saddle is used for saddle bronc events, while a special rigging is used for bareback broncs, known as the latigo. The rigging is generally made from wood or fibreglass and resembles the handle on an old-fashioned suitcase. All stock in the three categories are fitted with a flank rope or kicker which entices the animal to kick high while it’s bucking. Although all rough stock events require the cowboy to ride for the eight-second whistle, different rules apply for each. The horse se
ctions require a ‘mark out’ where the rider must hold contact with his spurs over the break of the shoulder of the bronc and hold this position for the first jump out of the chute, until the horse’s front feet hit the ground. Failure to do this results in a disqualification or ‘no score’. Each event is scored by two independent judges who critique the ride out of a total score of fifty. Combining both judges’ cards gives the cowboy a final score out of one hundred.

  Unfortunately, all the pestering in the world couldn’t get me on the back of one of those wild animals soon enough. I was lucky, though: Dad built me a full-sized rodeo arena, and at least my mates and I could buck out some steers and poddies at home. Poddies are generally weaner-sized calves. It was these times at home where I developed most of my basic rodeo skills and fed the yearning within to start riding with the big boys. Finally, when I turned thirteen, Dad caved in.

  ‘I’ll cut you a deal,’ he said. ‘You can ride in the open bullock event against the men and if you ride time, I’ll let you ride in the saddle bronc.’

  Although both bullocks and horses hurt just as much when you get stomped on, Dad saw the horses as being more dangerous. As a rule, broncs are more likely to buck away from you if they do throw you off, whereas a bull will come back and try to camp on you. But if you get bucked off a bronc you will get thrown a lot further into the sky than you would on a bullock. My interest in riding bulls and bullocks was nil, but if I had to ride one to show my father I was ready to ride a bucking horse, then I would do it. I hadn’t waited this long to simply shy away. So when the local rodeo came to Miles, I took along my rope to ride in the open bullock ride. It was as rare as hen’s teeth for a thirteen-year-old to compete against the men, but I knew what was at stake. Just like I had practised at home so many times before, I jumped on the bullock and rode it like my life depended on it, reaching the eight seconds. It was all over in the blink of an eye. My ride wasn’t good enough to put me in the winner’s circle, but it was enough to allow me to ride a bronc. As soon as I was out of the arena, I ran across to the pay window to nominate for the saddle bronc event to be held later in the day; true to his word, Dad was to let me ride. I nervously watched the other competitors, knowing my time in the chute would come around quickly. I’d drawn a horse called Pineapple, and when I saw it storm up the race, I was petrified. He was a big, strong chestnut gelding, a former racehorse in fact, and I knew enough to know if he’d gone from the track to the bucking ring, it was for a good reason. I was glad Dad was there to talk me through it.

  ‘Get your mark out,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Then let everything else happen in the arena.’

  Many of the older cowboys loved seeing a young bloke keen on the rodeo, so they also got behind me, cheering me along. I lowered myself slowly onto the snorting, impatient horse, eased my boots into the oxbows and grabbed hold of the bucking rein. Soon the crowd and my father became white noise as I called for the gate to be opened.

  ‘Let’s go boys,’ I only just managed to choke out.

  As the gate cracked open, Pineapple blew out of the chutes without hesitation. He reared up and then dropped his head, twisting in a full circle, throwing me straight back into the chute on my head. It had only been two or three seconds before I was flung into the dirt. The horse had got the better of a very young, inexperienced rider. But that was enough, I knew this was for me; I was hooked.

  Ever since that day at the Miles rodeo, riding broncs took over my life. I loved the adrenaline hit it gave me, the adoration that came from the crowd and the smiles from the girls. It was also something I found very natural and, in turn, became good at.

  I had shown Dad I had the guts to ride. Now he took me aside, as he had done with my boxing.

  ‘If you’re going to be a bronc rider,’ he said, ‘then you’re going to have to practise.’

  He soon bought me a bucking horse to take home and do just that. Whenever we had the opportunity we would saddle up the bronc at our private rodeo arena so I could sharpen my skills. In the chutes I’d jump on while Dad opened the gate. Once I was bucking out he would quickly climb on his own horse to ride pick-up. The pick-up’s role is to ride alongside the bronc at the end of the eight seconds, so the rider can jump off safely, grabbing the pick-up rider and horse on the way down to break the fall. Sometimes I’d be riding the bronc for more than ten seconds, screaming at my father to pick me up. He would just yell back at me to practise my spurring and control, and when he was ready he would ride in and help me jump off. It was a great way for me to learn, even if it was pretty tough. I know Dad always wanted the best for me and would push me to keep improving. When I went well he would tell me so.

  ‘That was a good ride,’ he would say.

  Dad’s character was the ‘actions speak louder than words’ type. His support drove me to try harder, without needing to hear him tell me he was proud of me.

  At the age of fourteen, I made the Queensland State Rodeo Finals held in Dulacca, just forty kilometres west of Miles. There were a lot of my schoolmates at the event and I loved the idea of being the only kid in the open saddle bronc category. I had been working on my technique since my first ride, even studying videos of American bronc riders, where at the end of their eight seconds they would jump off and land on their feet next to the horse. While that move was a crowd-pleaser and looked straightforward, I found it was a lot harder to master in reality. Spending time leaping from the lounge chair and the front gatepost wasn’t quite close enough to doing it from a live bucking horse. But my mind was made up: if I made the final round, I would attempt to jump off without the assistance of the pick-up man. Again my nerves were running high, as they would inevitably do at every rodeo, when I slid into my saddle aboard a feisty grey horse called Spider. This time around I did very well: I managed to get in time with the bronc from the start and, for a kid, I had a fair crack at spurring him, too. When the buzzer sounded to indicate I had ridden time, I tried to seize my moment. Unfortunately for my ego, I miscalculated my timing. As the horse went forward and downwards, I jumped but was too slow. The horse’s rump came back up and hit me square in the backside, tossing me through the air and to my horror, straight out of the arena. I flew over the top rail and landed on the front of a hotted-up utility, denting the bonnet and cracking a star in the windshield with one of my spurs. At the time and in the rush of the moment, I didn’t realise the damage I had done to this spectator’s vehicle. I jumped to my feet and shouted something at the horse as the crowd cheered me on. Although I hadn’t pulled off the dismount, it was still very entertaining, my friends assured me. Later on in life I became mates with the young bloke who owned that ute, and we would often joke about the night I scuffed up his pride and joy. Clearly I wasn’t judged on my dismount, but I still managed to come second in the finals. It wasn’t the worst way to fall off a horse – I would learn in the future that there are some ways that can prove near fatal.

  I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but none bigger than the day I told my dad to ‘get stuffed’. I often find myself thinking about that moment and asking the fifteen-year-old inside me why I needed to go that far. How could I be so self-centred, forgetting for even a second everything both my parents had done for me? Was I really that cool, that I didn’t have a place for the man I had idolised for so many years? At least I didn’t think I needed anyone when I left school in Year 10. But if I thought life was going to be a holiday, which I would merrily drift through, I was sadly mistaken. I went off to work with Dad on the fence line. He had warned me that if I was old enough to quit school, then I was old enough to work like an adult. While I had spent many a school holiday working with Dad and his men, it was never tough going. Not that I had noticed at the time but Dad would make a huge effort to go easy on me and my siblings, allowing us to daydream. Needless to say, it was a huge smack in the mouth when I went on the books as a wage earner with the business. We would wake up at 4 a.m., then work the day digging post holes, knocking in steel posts and running out
barbed wire. It was hot, hard work. A lunch break with a cup of tea and a sandwich would fly by, and then we’d work well into the darkness of an evening, having dinner and a shower way past my usual bedtime. I would crawl into bed, completely and utterly rooted. I struggled physically to get up each day. Life after school was about work and just work.

  After a full week out in the camp along the fence line, I was expecting to come home and have the weekend off. I’d even hoped I might get a nice sleep-in. But it was never to be. Dad would come into my room before daylight on a Saturday morning, dig me in the ribs and get me to go out to cut timber, repair yards or just do some general work around the property. I couldn’t understand it. He didn’t know what ‘stop’ meant. As a teenager, I was sure life wasn’t meant to be this hard. It had only been a few weeks, but I was quickly becoming fed up with the lack of sleep and downtime. In the third week, and to my delight, it started to rain on the property we were fencing, so we were forced to return home prematurely.

  This is terrific, I thought to myself. There’s no way he will make me go to work tomorrow.

  The next day I woke up and walked into the kitchen at around 6 a.m.

  ‘I’m going to go out to the shed and see if I can get the generator working,’ said Dad.

  Bloody hell, I thought, it’s pissing down rain and he’s still got to find himself a job.

  We had walked out to the shed when I remembered that the night before, Dad had asked me to pull the toolbox off the ute and open it all up in the shed to let the water out. I hadn’t done it; I just forgot. Dad was not happy and began ranting about me not doing what I was told.

  ‘Shape up or ship out,’ he yelled at me.

  I tried hard to regain favour by attempting to dry out the tools but after some more heated discussion, I made the fatal mistake.