Valley of the White Gold

by Tony Parsons

  Hector McLeod was quite another matter. As his name suggested, he was of Scottish descent and the most admired man in the Half Moon. At a shade over six feet tall, with a beaky nose and hands like hams, he had a gruff exterior that hid a heart of gold. Hector was a straight-from-the-shoulder, hardworking woolgrower and innovator, and regarded as the opinion leader of not only the Half Moon but the entire district. When the veterinary pharmaceutical companies launched a new sheep product, their reps headed for Hector McLeod’s Glengarry property. Hector’s approval for a new product was the best guarantee of its widespread acceptance in the district. If Hector changed his sheep drench, you could bet pounds to peanuts that it wouldn’t take long for others to follow suit. And year after year, Hector’s sheep produced magnificent wool. But unlike John Stevens, Hector didn’t use Peppin-blood rams to achieve it; he used fine-wool rams. From his sandy-grey hair to the size of his feet, Hector McLeod was a contrast to Dan Stafford. He had been a major in the Second AIF and spoke with a deep, crusty voice, while what came out of Dan was rather slow, even drawly.

  It wouldn’t be gilding the lily to say that Hector McLeod rated second to God in Dan’s eyes. When Sir Walter Merriman was alive, Hector might have rated third, but it would have been a close-run thing. Sir Walter had died recently, in 1972, and his son, Bruce, was managing the great Merryville stud. Now, Dan looked to Hector when he had a problem. Not that Dan was one for chitchat but, in woolgrowing, there were always things to discuss. And when you had a neighbour with a head as wise as Hector’s, it was foolish not to make use of him.

  Glen Avon lay on one side of Mattai, and Hector’s Glengarry property adjoined it on the Cudgee or town side. (Cudgee was the nearest village, not to be confused with Mudgee, the main town of the district, nor Budgee Budgee, Cudgegong or Erudgere.) Although the McLeod family had been in the district a long time, Hector didn’t place great stock in society, and had never visited Melbourne for the Cup. He did, however, take an intelligent interest in events outside his own small community and was extremely well read. Hector looked at the big picture. If they wondered at all, perhaps the locals wondered just what Dan and Hector had in common; they were poles apart in so many ways. Dan had a narrow view of matters that occurred outside the district and was prone to offer simplistic solutions to even the weightiest problems. He would toss off one-liners with supreme indifference to the way they might be received. On Australian troops in Vietnam: ‘Shouldn’t ever have been there.’ On the Liberal Party: ‘If they were sheep, they’d be culls.’ He seldom read anything apart from the Mudgee Guardian and The Land.

  Hector recognised Dan as a good neighbour and acknowledged that he owned a top merino stud and arguably the best flock of superfine sheep in the Half Moon. Hector purchased his rams from Dan and he knew that Dan gave him the pick of the slightly stronger animals. Dan could always be relied on for help if it was needed. If he didn’t come himself, he would send Jim to lend a hand. Not that Hector needed help very often. He ran things too well and his son, Dougal, was a chip off the old block. Flora, Hector’s wife, was Dorothy Stafford’s closest friend in the Half Moon.

  There was one family in the valley that Dan and Jim referred to as ‘that silvertail lot’. This was the Masters family. Craig Masters was a descendant of squattocrats, but along the way the family had fallen on bad times and lost most of their money and properties. They had managed to retain ‘Craigieburn’, but had been in hock to the bank and wool firm for some time. To the amazement of their neighbours, though, they still managed to keep up appearances and were seen at just about every event on the social calendar considered mandatory for the squattocracy. Craig and Lisa, his wife, always had a horse at the picnic races and would usually be found at the Randwick yearling sales.

  ‘Those stuck-up Masters amaze me,’ Jim said disgustedly one day over lunch. He speared a piece of cold beef onto his fork and held it over his plate before continuing. ‘They’re at every dog and cat fight that’s going. I reckon Craig must pick up every bit of dead wool on his place, and I reckon he’d have a lot of it, to put together enough money to go to the places they do. He never uses any super and he buys our cheapest rams yet he makes out he’s Lord Muck. If ever there was a phoney bloke it’s Craig Masters. And Lisa is just the same. She’ll trip over and break her leg one day the way she keeps her nose in the air.’

  Dorothy was more charitably disposed towards the family. But that was her way. She always gave people the benefit of the doubt. ‘Don’t be too hard on them, Jim. It must be awfully difficult to try and adjust to their financial situation. Keeping up appearances is a big thing for some people,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘I realise all that, Mum, but what bugs me about Craig is the way he neglects his place. They still manage to have holidays. If they put the money they wasted on gadding about into a bit of super and bought better rams, maybe it would generate a bit more income. Craig is just a bad manager and he’s a lazy bloke. On top of that he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He thought he was a good cricketer too, but he couldn’t make the Mudgee team,’ Jim said vehemently.

  Dorothy looked at her son and smiled benevolently. Young people were so black and white, and thought they had all the answers. And Jim was just like his father in so many ways. He was slim and reasonably tall, with dark hair and grey eyes, and he had the same easy, light-stepping walk. But Dorothy was relieved that he was more liberal in his outlook than Dan and far better read, especially where sport was concerned. (A town wag who liked to make fun of some of the district’s ‘cockies’ once said that Jim wasn’t Einstein but he was brighter than his father, for which he could thank his mother.) He was also a much better conversationalist.

  One of the whackier inhabitants of the district was ‘Digger’ Lewis. He’d been wounded and shell-shocked in the Great War of 1914–18. He lived in a small weatherboard house on the smallest property in the valley. It was believed that he had a war pension, though nobody ever knew for sure. Digger grew a great lot of vegetables and had a fine collection of hens. If anyone ever needed eggs or a breeding rooster, they were always available from Digger. And wacky or otherwise, Digger maintained a small flock of fine-wool sheep, and it was said that every sheep in the flock would eat carrots and apples from Digger’s hand. Digger shore them with the blades and occasionally showed a fleece or two at the local show where he was liable to knock over the fleeces exhibited by the bigwigs. Digger also owned a red-and-tan kelpie called Doosem, who was generally considered to be brighter than his owner. Doosem was Digger’s best mate. The dog could do almost anything and, when Digger was blotto from whisky, often had to.

  During these times on the grog, Digger would rave on about the Huns and Pozieres and Bapaume, and about the ‘bloody awful shelling’.

  Just about everyone in the Half Moon was mindful of Digger’s welfare and there was hardly a day that someone didn’t drop in to see him. They would usually come away with a dozen brown eggs, so it wasn’t a wasted call.

  The land at the extreme end of the valley, where the hills were steeper and the ground was harder, belonged to Charlie Dillon. Charlie wasn’t a big-gun grazier like John Stevens and his property was nothing like Hector McLeod’s, but he made the most of it and he managed to produce some glorious superfine wool. If ever there was a family that merited the term ‘battlers’, it was the Dillons. Charlie’s forebears were Irish immigrants who arrived in Australia virtually penniless so they’d been battlers from day one. What they did possess was enormous energy, a huge capacity for hard work and the dream of owning their own property, which would have been impossible in Ireland. After several years of strenuous efforts they put together some capital and took up what land was available in the valley of the Half Moon.

  Over four generations, the Dillon property was enlarged to over 1700 acres. Because it was light-carrying country and the sheep that grazed on it did not cut big weights of wool, the property didn’t provide Charlie and Dolly with a really comfortable living. So Charlie augme
nted his income with shearing. He was acknowledged to be if not the best, then amongst the top flight of blade shearers in the country. This meant that he was keenly sought after by merino stud masters. They believed that blade-shorn sheep had an advantage over those shorn by the conventional power-driven handpiece because there was less ‘shock’ to the delicate wool follicles and so the new fleece grew marginally faster.

  It was generally conceded that Charlie Dillon knew as much about fine-wool sheep as anyone in the district. He was also very shrewd when it came to the purchase of a new ram or more ewes for his flock. Other fine-wool breeders watched Charlie closely when he attended the ram sales. They tried to identify which rams he might be after – but they never could. If Charlie bought a ram at a public auction, he’d have someone else bidding for him. Mostly, he selected his rams far from the public gaze. If Charlie took a liking to you, it was possible to pick up more knowledge of fine-wool sheep in half an hour than from most other people in a year. But if Charlie thought you weren’t up to much, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help you. In the course of his life Charlie had told quite a few men what he thought of them, sometimes causing considerable offence. What most strangers didn’t know was that in his early days Charlie had fought in the tents. Once, he had given a famous gloveman a very tough fight. It wasn’t that Charlie particularly liked fighting; he had taken it on to help him keep his property free of debt. Fighting, fencing, shearing, shoeing horses – it was all the same to Charlie Dillon.

  If Charlie really liked you, and this wasn’t a very frequent occurrence, you might be invited to visit him for a ‘drink o’ tea’ and to sample some of Dolly Dillon’s famous light-as-a-feather scones. You’d certainly be shown the many ribbons and trophies Charlie had won with his wool.

  Yes, they were a mixed lot, the woolgrowers in this valley. They were of English, Scottish and Irish ancestry, though some traced to aristocrats and others to ticket-of-leave settlers who had toiled prodigiously to grub out a living in a harsh environment. What could be said is that most of the families had produced beautiful-quality wool over a long period. But it was only after the wool boom of 1950, when the Korean War erupted, that most of them came into worthwhile money. Following that period of prosperity, there was a big slump in wool prices, and it was then that many growers throughout the country began to breed for increased cut of wool rather than quality. But the Half Mooners kept the faith and kept growing superfine wool.

  Later, years later, when the great wool-buying houses were instructed to purchase quality superfine wool – the best of the best, at almost any price – the woolgrowers of the Half Moon came into their own. For years they had been derided for growing ‘pretty’, uneconomic wool, but when some of this wool made thousands of cents per kilogram, their faith was amply rewarded.

  Chapter Seven

  The atmosphere at Mattai prior to Rod Cameron’s arrival was a mixture of anticipation and curiosity. Dan hoped that Rod would be as good as he was renowned to be; Dorothy hoped her husband would be happy with his new wool classer; Jim was excited at the prospect of learning from one of the finest classers and even more excited that he might be the Rod Cameron of famed sporting prowess; and Beth was intrigued at the thought of meeting this mysterious stranger. When he arrived an hour after lunch, the day before shearing was to begin, the men noted that his white Holden ute was fitted with a first-rate stock crate. Rod didn’t tell them why he drove such a vehicle and, although they were curious to know, it wasn’t bush manners to ask. Eventually, he might tell them.

  The second thing that stood out was that Rod was a very tall, broad-shouldered man. He wasn’t classically handsome but was certainly ruggedly good-looking. His brown hair was out of keeping with the popular style of the time, being reasonably short, wavy and neat. His eyes were a very dark grey and he had a cool, direct gaze. Both Dan and Jim were lean, tallish men but Rod seemed to tower over them. There was a tremendous presence about Rod Cameron that Dan noticed immediately.

  It still rankled with Dan that Rod had held out for more money to class his wool, and Rod noticed that his welcome was not the warmest he’d ever received.

  ‘G’day, you’d be Rod Cameron,’ Dan said by way of greeting. ‘You’re early.’

  Rod gave him a sharp glance. ‘I like to have a look at the shed to see if anything needs to be done before shearing actually starts.’

  ‘You won’t find anything out of place here. We’ve hosed the shed down and it’s all ready,’ Dan said firmly.

  ‘Everyone tells me the same thing. But I’ve got my own ideas, especially when it’s a superfine clip,’ Rod replied. ‘I’ve found bags of seed and oats and sheepskins in the bins the day before shearing.’

  ‘That’s not the case here. Where would you like to stay? Down here with us or up at the shed? There’s separate classers’ accommodation up there.’

  ‘I think it would be best for all concerned if I stayed at the shed. The meals fit in better to shed hours and it would be less trouble for your wife. I’m here to class your wool, not to give your wife more work,’ Rod said with a wry smile.

  ‘Just as you like,’ Dan said, a shade less frostily. ‘You go and get yourself settled in and I’ll meet you at the shed at four o’clock. How does that suit you?’

  ‘It suits me fine. I want to talk to you about sheep numbers and the order of shearing,’ Rod said.

  Dan nodded. Rod was on the ball. ‘You had lunch?’ he asked belatedly.

  ‘I had it in town, thanks. I met an old mate for a counter meal,’ Rod replied. ‘An old mate from Havilah,’ he added as an afterthought. That stopped Dan in his tracks. ‘I’ll see you a little later on, then.’

  ‘What was he like, dear?’ Dorothy asked as Dan came back into the house. She was sitting at the kitchen table, stringing green beans for their dinner that evening.

  ‘He’s not exactly what I expected,’ Dan said, scratching his head.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem like any man I’ve met in these parts. A real big, good-looking style of fellow. Seems to know his way around. Came early to check that the shed was clean enough for him. I hope he doesn’t charge me extra for that,’ Dan laughed. ‘He said he’ll stay in the cottage so he doesn’t put you out.’

  ‘That was considerate of him,’ Dorothy said. ‘It is a bit easier on us, but we should have him for a meal or two at weekends.’ And I’ll make sure I sit him next to Beth, she thought.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling that Jim was right about Cameron,’ Dan mused.

  ‘Are you? Why?’

  ‘I reckon he has to be the ex-sportsman Jim spoke about. That’s what he looks like. The sort of fellow you wouldn’t want to tangle with in a hurry. He’d walk right over you. Won’t Jim be pleased?’ Dan said with a grin.

  Rod was already at the shed when Dan drove up. He was dusting out the bins with a broom when Dan walked through the wool room.

  ‘Enough bins for you?’ Dan asked, confident that his setup would satisfy the wool classer.

  ‘There’s never enough bins for a super spinners’ clip. Fine wool means fine wool and you should never mix stronger wool with any of the finer types. It doesn’t matter whether it’s long or short or whatever. There’s too big a difference in the price,’ Rod said. He pointed to a big square in front of the more remote wool bins. ‘Is that space ever used for anything?’

  ‘We sometimes store odds and ends there but we don’t have to. Why?’ Dan asked.

  ‘I want to use it. Be back in a moment,’ Rod said and left Dan surveying the space.

  Rod was back in a few minutes carrying three wide rolls of white sheeting. Dan watched him unroll two of them on the shed floor. The third roll he tacked to the wall of the shed. ‘I’ll make a stack of the real top wool here and go through it at weekends and after the shed cuts out. That way we can spend more time making sure we get the bale weights right. I’ve got more sheeting in the ute that I use to cover the wool at night. It’s amazing just how much
dust a heap of wool will collect. Nobody is to touch that heap. It’s out of bounds. If I see anyone lie on it, I’ll screw his neck,’ he said darkly, before continuing, ‘You’ve got a tidy shed here. Everything is in great shape. And you’ve done a good job of the cleaning. Honestly, I don’t know how many times I’ve arrived at a shed and found rubbish in the bins. Mostly sheepskins. Sheepskins treated with arsenic and the yellow muck on the floor of the bins. How long did you say shearing takes? Was it three weeks?’

  ‘There or thereabouts. It depends on the weather,’ Dan said. Rod’s complimentary remarks about the shed made him feel good. ‘I could put an extra shearer on and speed things up but I like everyone to have plenty of time to handle the wool so that we’re not pushed at all,’ Dan explained.

  Rod nodded in understanding. ‘Very wise, too.’

  Next morning, Dan and Jim were up bright and early to watch their new classer in action. The shearing had begun. Jim was convinced that Rod was the ex-rugby sensation and determined to find out for sure at the earliest opportunity. When the big man shook hands with him, Jim felt his hand squeezed as if in a vice. ‘Boy, Hector McLeod is going to get a shock when he meets Rod,’ he said to his father later. McLeod was known far and wide for his crushing handshake.

  Rod seemed to read each fleece as it hit the wool table. He gave every piece one quick glance, tested it for length and strength, then away it went into a bin. The real top wool was dissected out of the fleece and thrown into a big basket. When the basket was full, it was tipped out onto the white sheeting. Above the various bins, front and back, Rod tacked pieces of masonite on which he printed his own descriptions of the lines of wool. He explained to Dan and Jim why he changed the previous descriptions. ‘You don’t let on which are your second or lower lines, so instead of using, say, Superfine AA for a second line, we’ll call it Superfine E. Your lower lines might be better than someone else’s top lines. Sir Walter Merriman wouldn’t allow you to use a lower brand description like AA. So we’ll call your usual Extra Super AA something different. It will be Extra Super E.’