by Cook, R
Towards the end of the flood, as the roads were beginning to reopen, trouble struck one young man on campus. Although food had been dropped off to us via helicopter, other items like prescription medications were not. Unfortunately, this particular lad had some mental health problems and whether it was because he had run out of medication or he felt trapped and isolated by the flood, he decided he’d had enough of life. Climbing up one of the trees, he tied a rope around his neck and to a branch on which he sat, before yelling out that he was going to kill himself. In hindsight, it was probably more a cry for help. Dozens of students gathered beneath the tree, trying to talk the bloke down. As a teenager, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to kill themselves and saw it as weak way out of problems. As no one else seemed to take a lead, I decided to climb the tree and sit next to the would-be jumper, just a few metres off the ground. I had been friends with the bloke and, while he was relatively comfortable with me sitting next to him, I wanted to get him to the ground quickly. While I distracted him by talking, I stealthily untied the rope around the branch.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ he said, beginning to cry.
‘No I don’t, but everyone here is worried about you, and this is for your own good,’ I said, giving him a big shove off the branch.
He landed on the ground with the rope around his neck. Other than a little rope burn, he was unhurt. Later, we were able to find someone to help him and talk to him. But this bloke wasn’t done yet. About a week later, word got around that he had been drinking in the dorms. He was pissed as a parrot, drawing faces on the back of plastic chairs with a Nikko pen and writing my name below the faces. Using a baseball bat he then smashed the chairs to pieces. As I got to the dorm, there were bits of furniture everywhere. I tried to talk to him, but he came swinging at me with the bat. My instincts kicked in and I gave him a wakeup call, using my fists. It was the last straw for this bloke, who was in his early twenties. Soon after he was flown out to Darwin on one of the food-drop helicopters to get some help.
Once we finally got into our three months of training, I began to enjoy my time in the classroom. The curriculum covered various modules from basic welding and mechanical work, through to fencing and horsemanship skills. All areas would have been of value to anyone who wanted to be a ringer. While I would enjoy using those new skills in the years ahead, it was the time outside of class that I remember the most. They were good memories, mostly. One Saturday afternoon, just after getting my learner’s licence, I had borrowed a friend’s car to drive into Katherine to get some ‘refreshments’. Two of my mates came with me. At that time there were open speed limits in the Northern Territory, but still, I was travelling much too fast. Reaching 160 kilometres per hour in the Toyota Camry, I was showing off, being a dickhead. None of us had been drinking, but as I tried to negotiate a large sweeping bend, I dropped the front left wheel off the bitumen and onto the gravel. The car immediately started to vibrate heavily and the instinct from my mate in the front seat was to grab hold of the steering wheel, swinging us back across the other side of the road. As I punched his arm away, I tried to correct the car but in doing so we went into an uncontrollable spin. Rotation after rotation, we were hurtling down the bitumen until we were flung off the road and slammed into a mound of dirt, just missing a tree. Thick, black smoke filled the car as we all managed to jump out, dumbfounded to find everyone was OK.
Adrenaline running high, we began walking back over our black skid marks on the asphalt and tried to analyse what had happened. It was fairly clear we had done a 180-degree slide, then two full 360 spins, finishing with another 180 before we slid into the dirt. It was terrifying to think that I had been so careless with the lives of my two friends as well as my own. We could have easily become another road-death statistic. That experience certainly cured me for life from being a wanker behind the wheel. I would never be the bloke doing doughnuts or burnouts at parties; I knew the risks and the potential consequences. I didn’t tell my parents about the near-death experience until years later.
During my time at Katherine, I dipped my toe in the local rodeo circuit. I borrowed a saddle and rode in the open bronc ride in Darwin, placing second to local stockman and helicopter pilot Mark Sullivan, someone I would come to owe a great deal of gratitude to later in life. Most of the other students at the college all wanted to be cowboys and cowgirls, but few had my experience. My skill also meant at college I was asked to ride any horse with some buck. Up on a bit of a pedestal, I suppose, I was able to pretend to be a little cooler than I actually was.
Soon I was headed back to Suplejack after having graduated with my certificates and the accolade of best overall student in 1998. Again, I could see a shift in Dad’s attitude to me once I arrived home. He gave me a little more authority in decision-making, which made working there a lot more enjoyable. In the ‘Gospel According to Dad’, nobody is indispensable and if one person doesn’t want to work he will find someone else who does. He had seen that I wanted to work and I wanted to be involved, so he threw me a bone. We still weren’t real friendly but we were civil towards each other and were beginning to appreciate each other’s presence. Younger brother Brad also began dodging school and came out working with us. He was doing his high school studies through the NT Open Education Centre in Darwin, while Cameron and Loretta were enrolled in the Alice Springs School of the Air. Mum was their teacher but would often be struggling to keep them engaged with so many distractions on the station. It was a common problem on many cattle stations, as were delays in correspondence going back and forth. The mail plane came only once a month; after much campaigning, the plane came fortnightly and then finally weekly.
At the end of my second year, I was asked by a schoolfriend in Miles to partner her to our year’s valedictory. The wet season had arrived and typically most staff leave Top End cattle stations for two to three months while the rains fall. So jumping at the chance to catch up with my mates, I bought a Triton utility from Lilly who’d started working at the nearby Tanami Gold Mine, and drove back to Miles. Times had changed from when I had left, including the pecking order, but I wasn’t yet mature enough to accept it. I was seventeen, an adult (or so I thought), and I was trying to come back and walk proudly on my old stomping ground. There were a few down moments that I brought on myself by getting involved in some teenage scuffles, but by and large I had a good time. I particularly enjoyed catching up with Sarah, although at this time she had another boyfriend who was a little bloke, a bull rider. I didn’t like bull riders much, especially this bull rider, but Sarah, being a good judge of character at sixteen, must have seen something more in him. From what I’m told the relationship was nothing serious and it was a boyfriend/girlfriend holding hands situation. I tried making a line for Sarah but ended up causing a scene with the bull rider and his mates.
I copped a fair bit of flak along the way, but over those few months I did manage to steal Sarah’s heart and we started going out once again. I also got to know Sarah’s family a little better. They lived on their property Rossmore, eight kilometres out of Dulacca. She was the middle kid of three with an older brother, Luke, and a younger brother, Joel. From what I could tell her parents seemed to like me as our new relationship moved quickly and it wasn’t long before I found myself uncontrollably, madly in love.
7
FIRST BULL RIDE
I was tricked into my first bull ride, which would eventually open doors I had never imagined. At the time, I didn’t have the highest opinion of bull riders. They were stereotyped as rough blokes who did nothing but drink, fight and chase women. I had certainly seen my fair share of arrogant and condescending half-wits in my short time on the rodeo circuit. With my own faults and cockiness, I could have fitted into that crowd quite easily, but I was slowly learning there were better ways to behave, particularly out in public. Grandad and Dad had both been proud bronc riders and that’s just what I wanted to be. Visiting Sarah in Dulacca in the summer of 1998 gave me the c
hance to hit the rodeo. I was only there a few months but I certainly made the most of my ‘time off’.
Staying with Tiani on her place near Miles, I spent time between the old butchery I had previously worked in and on Sarah’s parents’ property. Her father, Graeme, had me out cutting timber and fencing, and I was glad to do anything to win their respect. I must have done an all right job, because they seemed happy enough to allow us to become more than just friends. At the same time I also managed to get a job breaking-in two horses for local rodeo announcer Pat Stains, a rugged, country bloke who loved a good laugh. He lived on a small property fifteen kilometres out of town called Pov-r-tee Park and often told the story of how Sarah would mysteriously appear sitting on the rail of the round yard in her school uniform, without anyone ever driving her out there. In fact, Sarah was dropped off at the highway by a friend after school and walked through the bush to the yards to spend the afternoon with me. I was enjoying training those horses for Pat. It was always rewarding to see all the hard work pay off at the end, the foundation training for the riders who will take on the horses. Of course, if the horse still bucked or played up, you hadn’t done a very good job. At one stage Pat came down to the yards and was watching me saddle up one of the horses for its first ride. As I was getting ready to jump on, he leant forward through the wooden rail.
‘You better put that rear girth on,’ he said, pointing to the second strap on the saddle.
‘Nah mate, it’s right. I’ll leave it off,’ I replied confidently. ‘If I tighten that strap it will make her too tight.’
As I gathered the reins, jammed my foot in the stirrup and threw my leg over the saddle, the horse was none too happy. It threw itself forward, kicking up its back legs and bucked like it was off to town. The saddle beneath me loosened and lurched forward, throwing me and the saddle straight over the horse’s head. I had ignored Pat’s advice and there I sat, covered in dust on the ground. I quickly picked myself up, regathered control of the horse and saddled him up again, this time making sure I put on the rear girth. While my ego took a little hit, it certainly gave Pat a hearty laugh. In the end he was very happy with his two freshly broken horses. While I was at Miles he also allowed me and my mate Wayne ‘Hillsy’ Hills to head out to his place a few times a week to practise calf roping on dummies that he had set up. We loved it out there and would regularly muck around long into the evening under lights, well after Pat had gone to bed.
Although I didn’t need much encouragement, Pat began pushing for me to go to various rodeos while I was back in Queensland, as he was heavily involved in the local circuit himself. He suggested I go with him to the weekend’s rodeo in Talwood, about 230 kilometres south of Miles. I jumped at the chance to ride, so I got my bronc saddle together, threw it in his car and, along with Hillsy, off we went on Friday afternoon. We pulled up at the rodeo grounds an hour or two before it started.
‘You boys jump out here and get your gear ready,’ Pat said with his usual cheer. ‘I’ll go and get your nominations sorted.’
I didn’t know anyone else there, besides Hillsy, and the nerves were starting to kick in as I wandered behind the chutes to look at the stock. I could see the bulls, bullocks and a few poddies but there were no horses. It was strange the horses hadn’t arrived yet, but I figured the contractor must be running late and would arrive soon. So to pass the time and calm my nerves, I pulled my bronc saddle out of my bag and warmed up my chaps with rosin. About an hour passed, but still there were no signs of the horses. Becoming more concerned, I walked around to find Pat and see what was happening. I found him having a beer with some of his mates.
‘Hey Pat, there’s no broncs here, mate. Where are they?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t I tell you? It’s a bull ride, mate, there are no broncs,’ he replied with a chuckle.
I couldn’t believe it. I had come all this way and even stood in front of all the bull riders preparing my saddle and there was no bronc section. They must have thought I was a bit of a fool. I didn’t really want to discuss the mix-up in front of Pat’s mates in case the whole crowd found out about my naivety. Pat was more than a bit of a character and I was convinced that he had purposely not told me there was no bronc ride just for a bit of fun.
‘Mate, it’s just a bull ride,’ he said, patting me on the back. ‘I’ve paid your noms and you’ve drawn a good bull in the second round.’
‘All I’ve got is a mongrel steer rope,’ I protested. ‘I’m not ready for a bull ride.’
‘You’ll be fine, no pulling out now,’ he reassured me.
Looking around the crowd, I could see no one I knew, so I figured I didn’t have much to lose. I had ridden bullocks and steers before but never a bull. It’s not good practice in the rodeo industry to borrow gear, but this time round I had to borrow Hillsy’s rope for the ride. My nerves were killing me as I climbed onto the bull that night. Time seemed to be in slow motion as I took in the noise from the crowd and controlled my breathing. From the second the gate swung open, everything just came naturally. I was locked into a great position and started making my moves; up and down and round and round I went, and I was finding it quite enjoyable. Somehow I managed to stay on and win the open bull ride, having never been on one before. I was ecstatic.
Having a few beers with Pat and Wayne on the way home from Talwood, I called home. It was 10.30 at night, but I wanted to tell Dad I had won the event. Not wanting to run up my mobile phone bill I hurriedly and excitedly told Dad what had happened. He seemed happy for me. After I hung up, Pat was curious about my phone call, thinking I was a little too excited.
‘You’re pretty stoked about winning that bull ride, hey?’ he asked.
‘Why wouldn’t I be? It’s the first bull I’ve ever been on!’ I shot back.
Pat always denied he set me up. He maintained he always assumed, me being ‘a boy from the scrub’, that I had ridden plenty of bulls in my time.
‘There’s a rodeo in Tara next weekend, are you coming?’ he asked when we got back to Miles.
‘Is there a bronc ride?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Sure there is,’ he said.
‘Well I’m there,’ I replied.
And I did go and get on a bronc, but not a bull; it wasn’t for me. Despite my win, I had no urge to ride a bull again. I remember my father’s mate Bruce Talbot telling me once that ‘the day I see a bloke saddle up a bull to go to work will be the day riding one for fun will make sense’. Anyway, Pat remained a good mate and supporter of mine and would always have the one line of solid advice for me.
‘If you want to soar like an eagle, don’t roost with turkeys,’ he would say, referring to some of the riff-raff that were part of the rodeo industry. Wayne Hills was also a good friend to me – someone I had long kicked around with, sharing a lot of memories. Sadly, his life was cut short when he was tragically killed in a tractor accident in March 2000.
The wet season was soon over and it was time I headed back to the Territory for another year as a ringer. After a sad goodbye to Sarah, off I went, straight back into the hard work at Suplejack. The two years the family had put in at the station were really starting to become obvious. More fences and yards had been built, and slowly we acquired more equipment to get the job done; eventually all the old sheds were refurbished. It was unbelievable just how much work Dad accomplished outside, while Mum kept the rest of the business going, including schooling the kids. Grandad had started the station and done it tough in the later years through drought and poor health, and now he had passed the baton to my parents to keep the place going forward. It was a big gamble for Mum and Dad to become involved, particularly giving up their business and bringing in the expensive equipment like a dozer and truck for possibly no return. But the reason Suplejack continued as a productive property is because of my parents’ hard work which began fifteen years ago.
Dad and I had picked up from where we’d left off, and although we weren’t best mates, there was a friendship slowly reforming. I
began to ask for his advice on general issues, mostly about my budding relationship with Sarah.
I Love You Sarey
I came back to Miles
To regain my spirit
I found a few girls