The Hands

by Stephen Orr

  ‘Well, maybe it will come to that.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’

  Bill looked at Murray, then Higgs. The boss hardly ever said what he was thinking. ‘It was worse in those days, wasn’t it, Murray?’

  ‘You bet it was.’

  ‘How many bores back then?’

  ‘Not many.’ He looked at Clarke, unsure.

  ‘Kidman always moved his animals,’ Higgs said.

  ‘He could,’ Murray replied. ‘He owned half the country. We just got Bundeena.’ And he looked at each of them. ‘That’s all we got.’

  ‘More than us,’ Higgs said.

  He remembered why he didn’t like the man. ‘Yeah, but I bet you got a nice place somewhere.’

  ‘Double Bay … and a yacht.’

  Some of them laughed, and lit new cigarettes.

  He stood. ‘Right, I better get Trev, I suppose.’ As he went up the road he heard them laughing. ‘Prick,’ he mumbled, as he came across his son changing the wheel of the ute. ‘Is it flat?’ he asked.

  Trevor turned to him. ‘Worn.’

  ‘Bill wants to have a talk with you.’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  ‘October ten, he reckons.’

  Trevor didn’t seem to care. He took the printout from his top pocket, opened it and handed it to his father. ‘Got that this morning,’ he said.

  As you are no doubt aware we have recently purchased ‘Preston’, a property of 73,000 square kilometres lying along your west and north boundary …

  Murray looked up at his son. ‘It’s that same mob again.’

  Trevor nodded. ‘Read what it says.’

  Our group is attempting to consolidate holdings in your district. In the present economic climate, and considering the advantages of economies of scale …

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’ Murray asked.

  ‘Read.’

  ‘Why? You wanna sell to them bastards?’

  Trevor had been rehearsing his response. ‘We’ve got so much excess land.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We could sell a bit. Think of the money.’

  The details of our offer are outlined below. They are, of course, open to negotiation …

  Murray looked at his son. As he did he folded the sheet again and again until he was stopped by the seventh fold. ‘Not an inch,’ he said, defiantly.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Not a single grain of sand.’

  He knew that one foot would lead to a hundred, a thousand, the lot. He pushed the folded note against his son’s chest. ‘Bill wants to talk to you.’

  The next morning the team was up before dawn, rolling swags, emptying bladders, eating bacon and eggs Fay had brought down from the house. Black, sweet tea and the smell of deodorant on crusted armpits, powder in boots and more laughing around the glowing fire. Short, sharp scraps of conversation.

  Murray was there, handing out the sausages. ‘Excuse fingers.’ Figuring the more they ate the more they’d work. ‘Anybody hungry?’

  ‘What’s for lunch?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  The swags and boxes of gear were loaded onto the trucks. The Robinson hummed and groaned to life. Bill Clarke said a few words to Trevor before taking off. Harry and Aiden, waiting beside their trail bikes, watched him go. He’d come good, taking them both up the previous afternoon. An hour-long circuit around Bundeena—cattle (as he told Harry to note the GPS coordinates), a low glide above the railway line, the highway (as he hovered, and cars slowed, wondering what he was doing).

  The convoy—Trevor in his ute, the trucks, the boys, and a few other men on bikes—headed north. As they pulled away from the compound, Fay, Chris and Murray (who was going to fly back with Bill later) stood watching and waving. To Chris, the smell of diesel meant muster, the population of Bundeena tripling, more willing ears and weeks of chaos in the kitchen. Diesel meant an empty house, and a break from Murray.

  Half an hour up the road the convoy stopped. Trevor pulled up beside the lead vehicle. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Bill … the first mob,’ Chris Eccles, one of the new men, explained.

  Trevor took the radio and told Bill how far they’d come.

  ‘I can see you,’ the voice came back. ‘That’s as good as anywhere. I’ll start pushing them south.’

  Trevor searched the northern horizon. ‘Can you see him?’ he asked the others.

  ‘There he is,’ Eccles replied, pointing.

  ‘Right. We’re gonna set up here. You fellas get started, eh?’

  The trucks pulled off the road. Over the next thirty minutes they unloaded the panels, crush and crates of equipment they’d need for the first mob. Meanwhile, Trevor, in his ute, the boys and three of the crew on their own bikes, headed north.

  Trevor drove ahead of the others. He had a good feeling. After everything that had happened since the last muster this gathering would mark a new beginning. Things would improve. Money would flow in. The boys would settle, and learn to love Gaby.

  He came across Bill, flying low, sweeping arcs, encouraging the herd southwards. All they had to do was come around behind the mob and move them along the road. As they went, and as the boys criss-crossed on their bikes, he estimated there were eighty or ninety head. There were plenty of calves and slow-moving steers, their shoulders hunched, their pop-eyes watching the helicopter and bikes. Occasionally some of the mob would drift to the side, seeking quiet, or grass, but Harry would be there, calling to them, guiding them.

  He checked his temperature gauge. Running hot. Decided to go back. The others could handle the mob—they were quiet and content to keep moving. He moved towards the front of the herd. An animal ran off, breaking the flank—then a few more, trying their luck. He planted his foot, heading west into the desert. He knew he was faster, and they’d probably change their minds. He took a longer line, bouncing across the landscape, turning in on the animals to make his intentions clear.

  Then he saw a bike coming up beside him. It clipped the front of his ute and its rider tumbled across the sand and grass. The bike skidded and spun a few times. He braked hard, stopped in a cloud of dust and got out. Chris Eccles was walking towards him. ‘What were you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I was cutting them off.’

  ‘You nearly killed me.’

  ‘I was in front …’

  ‘Fuck.’ He just stood staring at him. ‘You were comin’ up the back.’

  ‘I moved.’

  The stray cattle had returned to the mob. Aiden, Harry and the others kept moving them south. As they went, they looked back at the pair and wondered what was going on.

  Eccles returned to his bike, still running, picked it up and said, ‘You came outa nowhere.’

  Half an hour later the yards were ready. Trevor, Bill and the others waited as the mob, controlled by Aiden on the left flank, and Eccles on the right, moved towards them. Trevor watched as his son guided the first few animals through the opening, moving back and forth, squeezing them in, never rushing, never calling, never worrying when a few heads turned as though they might break away.

  The yard was soon full. The animals bunched and pushed against the panels but within a few minutes they’d calmed and were looking about to see what it all meant.

  ‘Nice work,’ Trevor said to his sons, as the gates were closed and bolted.

  Harry and Aiden got off their bikes and climbed and sat high on the fence around the stock.

  ‘You did well,’ Eccles said to them.

  ‘Won’t all be that easy,’ Aiden replied.

  They stopped for tea and mud coffee and Harry gave them a demonstration of his whip work. When he sat down he asked, ‘Can anyone beat that?’

  Eccles said, ‘You’re doin’ well.’

  ‘I practise on my bottle tree.’

  ‘Right.’ He pointed to something hanging around Harry’s neck. ‘What’s that?’

  Harry showed him. ‘A hen’s tooth.’

  ‘Yeah? Where’d y
ou get it?’

  ‘I found it. Mum put it on a chain for me.’

  Trevor could remember finding the bloodied tooth in the yards and giving it to him.

  ‘It’s for good luck,’ he told them.

  ‘Does it work?’ Eccles asked.

  ‘I suppose.’

  Trevor had noticed him wearing it again in the months since Gaby had first visited. Prior to this he hadn’t worn it for a year, perhaps longer.

  ‘When I was in hospital,’ Harry told them, ‘5B had a show-and-tell morning. One day I showed them this.’ He displayed the tooth again, although he wouldn’t remove it from around his neck.

  ‘You told them it was a hen’s tooth?’ Eccles asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did they believe you?’

  Harry could remember the seven or eight faces, the gowns, the cold legs and feet. And one of the girls saying, ‘That’s a big tooth for a hen.’

  ‘It was a big hen.’

  ‘How did it fit in its mouth?’

  Shrugging.

  ‘It’d have to be a mouth the size of a cow.’

  He could remember thinking: the cattle yards, the blood, his father’s smile. ‘Hens have only got a few teeth,’ he’d told the girl.

  ‘No … none.’

  He could remember studying her face and disliking her immensely. What do you know? Do you live on a farm? As she gave him a sort of you-country-kids-are-so-stupid look.

  ‘So, what were you doing in hospital?’ Eccles asked.

  Silence.

  ‘We had a car accident,’ Trevor said.

  ‘Ah,’ Eccles said, looking at him. ‘I don’t think we should let you behind the wheel.’

  Bill Clarke just stared at him. His smile faded and his eyes settled on his mug of tea. The other men were silent.

  ‘I screwed up my leg,’ Harry said, patting it. ‘But it’s better now.’

  Higgsy, the mythical Susan, sat forward. ‘Hasn’t kept you off your bike?’

  ‘No.’

  Aiden was looking at his father. His eyes were saying, Aren’t you going to tell them? About Mum? The road marker? The paint? The kangaroo?

  Silence. Nothing but the cattle moving and shit slopping in the sand.

  Harry hid his tooth under his collar. ‘It’s not really a hen,’ he said, and this time none of them argued.

  Then Bill Clarke asked, ‘Where’s Banger?’

  Trevor emptied his tea into the sand. ‘Yanga. Too old. Sleeps all day.’

  ‘Pity. She was a good cattle dog.’ He shrugged. ‘Takes an old dog for a hard road, eh?’

  Trevor agreed. ‘Yeah … but she’d need a cracker up her arse.’

  Harry smiled. ‘Like Mrs Amery. She’s seventy, but she’s still teaching.’

  ‘Christ,’ Aiden said.

  They all looked at him.

  ‘I forgot to tell her we’d be absent.’

  Harry didn’t seem to care. ‘She’ll work it out.’

  ‘Aiden’s become Harry’s home supervisor,’ Trevor told them.

  ‘Ah, Herr Professor?’ Eccles said. He looked at Harry. ‘What’s he taught you?’

  Harry stopped to think. ‘Schreibe, was für Fächer du hast, was für Fächer du gern oder am liebsten hast, und was für Noten du gewöhnlich bekommst.’

  They all looked impressed. ‘Might come in useful one day,’ Higgs said.

  And then Bill Clarke stood up. ‘Righto, come on, let’s get these bastards done.’

  The mob was funnelled through a draft into two other pens: one for the steers, heifers and old cows (as Trevor carefully looked them over, aware he needed a heavy cull) and another for the calves. Higgs was in charge of separating them, opening and closing a spring-loaded gate that decided their fate. He sat on a fence operating a handle, hovering over the bottleneck like some sort of bovine god. If he worked too fast the other men, receiving the cattle in the yards, would call, ‘Wait up, Susan.’ He’d look at the next cow and say, ‘It’s not your lucky day, is it, old girl?’

  The cattle were becoming agitated. Dust rising, forming a talcum-cloud, spreading out and settling on their boots. Each of the yards had been supplied with a trough and each of these had been filled with water from a tank. The cattle were bunching, pushing, using their mass to gain proximity to the water.

  ‘Okay, keep ’em coming,’ someone called, and Susan started feeding the cattle through again.

  Trevor and Harry had set up for the big animals. The second pen, half full of heifers, cows and steers, had another draft where each of them could be vaccinated and drenched. From there, another gate, operated by Eccles, would separate the culls from the animals destined to return to the paddock. Harry was already set up, standing on a box, holding his drench gun, waiting. On the other side of the race, Trevor stood with a bottle of 5-in-1 vaccination hanging around his neck. From the bottle, a long tube fed into a syringe.

  They were ready. Two men entered the yard and pushed the cattle towards the draft. They moved, but then shied away. The men hit their rumps with lengths of rubber pipe. When the first went the others followed. Soon they were bunched, pushing harder along the race. A big steer moved forward between father and son. Harry slipped the drench gun into its mouth, pulled the trigger and felt the measured dose. Trevor reached behind its ear, grabbed a fold of skin, drove the needle home and injected. It jumped, but settled. ‘Looks like he needs a good feed,’ he said to his son.

  Harry picked up a piece of chalk resting on an old lump of timber. Made a mark. ‘Next.’

  Eccles opened the gate and the animals pushed through into the bigger of the two holding yards. It was aligned with the road so the trucks could back up to it. A loading ramp sat waiting. The first steer ran a small circuit around the yard. It worked the panels with its head but couldn’t move them.

  In the other yard, Aiden and Bill had started on the calves. Harry could smell the stench from the dehorner: keratin, flesh and hair. Bill’s hands were red and he had a bucket full of balls.

  Harry’s tally continued—his first group of five, ten, twenty. His trigger finger was sore.

  ‘Cull, keep, cull,’ his father’s voice droned.

  Sometimes Eccles would ask, ‘Sure you don’t want to keep that one?’

  ‘Cull.’

  Of the fifteen or so heifers in the keep paddock, one animal pushed its rump against a panel, realised it was loose and started forcing it.

  ‘Hold on,’ Eccles said, jumping down from his spot, putting his shoulder behind the panel and pushing it back into place.

  ‘Who did that?’ Trevor asked.

  ‘Buggered if I know.’

  Trevor had seen what a loose panel could do. Years ago. A hundred animals in the yard. A bull had pushed back on a fence and knocked it out. Within seconds there was a stampede around the trucks and cars, Murray running for his life, dropping his clipboard, almost tripping and falling. Later he’d asked, ‘Who put that fence up?’ Threatening to sack the idiot who’d nearly killed him. They’d had to return to the desert to start again. But this time the animals were spooked, running, fanning out in every direction.

  Soon Harry had marked off sixty-five. He wanted to ask for a break but dared not. No one else was tiring. He refused to be the first.

  ‘Cull, keep,’ his father said.

  The road train appeared, slowly moving along the track. Trevor looked up. ‘Just gonna tell him where to back in,’ he said to Eccles, before making for the road.

  Eccles didn’t need to be asked twice. He climbed down from his spot, lit a cigarette and stood watching Trevor talking to the truck driver.

  Harry, meanwhile, thought he’d get ahead of his dad. He worked his way along the draft, drenching each of the crammed-in animals. Half-way along he dropped the drench gun. It fell inside the race at the feet of a big cow. Without thinking, he climbed the panel and lowered himself between the steel mesh and a sweaty, head-high rump.

  The cow shifted. He couldn’t move. The other animals
pressed forward and he was trapped, half-kneeling, half-standing. He tried to push against the cow but it wouldn’t budge. Then, he could feel the pain on his arms, his torso, his legs. The pressure increased until he felt himself unable to breathe. He tried to call, but couldn’t.

  Aiden saw him and sprinted over. He climbed the panel and dropped into the race, taking him under the arms and pulling him up as Bill, hanging off the opposite panel, pushed the cow back with his foot until there was enough of a gap for Aiden to retrieve him.

  He took him around the chest and climbed out. Then he laid him in the sand and cradled his head in his lap. ‘What were you thinking?’ he said.

  Harry was still trying to get his breath.

  ‘You know you don’t do that.’ He turned him on his side, lifted his shirt and saw the red indentations from the mesh. ‘That’s gonna be sore.’

  Bill ran his hand across his back. ‘You won’t do that again.’

  ‘I didn’t think,’ Harry said.

  Trevor looked over and noticed the group. He came running. Saw his son on the ground, leaned over and noticed the indentations. ‘You went in?’

  ‘I dropped the drench gun.’

  Aiden was looking at his father. ‘Who was meant to be watching him?’

  Trevor knelt on both knees and took his son’s hand. ‘I can’t do six things at once.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ Harry said.

  ‘Shit happens,’ Bill Clarke added, sensing the accusation, noticing Aiden’s eyes. ‘He’s alright, and he’s learnt his lesson, haven’t you, Harry?’

  ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘We all do stupid things.’

  Trevor looked at Eccles. ‘Where were you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t look at me.’

  ‘You were meant to be—’

  ‘He’s your kid. I’m not here to babysit.’

  Bill moved between them. ‘Enough. What’s it matter? Shit happens. Lesson learnt, eh, Harry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Trevor was still looking at Eccles.

  ‘Get someone else if you want,’ the stockman said.

  Trevor turned to Aiden. ‘Back to work. And you,’ looking at Harry, ‘you can get the water on for smoko.’