Outback Station

by Aaron Fletcher

  While exercising her horse, Alexandra noticed the lack of good graze and raised the issue with David. She suggested that he and one of the jackaroos move the flock to another paddock, leaving the other one to take the cattle to graze and the pigs to forage in the forest. When he refused, she pointed out that she was perfectly healthy, having rarely even experienced morning nausea during her pregnancy. He continued to refuse, knowing that he would endure constant anxiety about her if he left.

  This time it was Alexandra who was dissatisfied,

  saying nothing more on the subject. David was acutely aware that she was a strong, healthy woman, that Mayrah Garrity would be with her when the baby was born, and that the sheep needed better graze to insure healthy lambs and a good wool clip. However, Alexandra was his very life, and he wanted to be with her.

  The first autumn rain came during the dark, early hours one morning, after a cool, clear day. Although the clouds moved in suddenly, the wind and the steady patter of raindrops on the hut awakened David. He dressed and pulled on his oilskins, then went out and built up the fire to keep the rain from extinguishing it.

  When he went back into the hut, rain was dripping through the roof onto the blankets, and Alexandra was feeling for her oilskins in the dark. David helped her find them and spread the oilskins over the blankets, then he put his own on top of them. He undressed and went back to bed, but the blankets were damp and Alexandra shivered as she nestled against him for warmth.

  At dawn, breakfast was miserable. Alexandra crouched beside the smoking fire in the rain to prepare porridge and tea, then she and David huddled together inside the dripping hut to eat. It was a familiar experience for him, because huts always leaked, and being cold and wet was a part of rainy weather, but he knew that Alexandra needed to be comfortable.

  That morning, David and Eulie worked on the hut. Even with layers of bark so thick that the frame began sagging, the steady rain found its way through the roof in a few places, but Eulie knew how to protect the fire from the rain when there was little wind. He planted thin poles around the fire with connecting sticks at the top of them to support a tilted roof of bark so the rain would run off one side.

  The next day, the rain continued and the ground around the hut was a quagmire of mud. David knew he had to do something. After weighing present needs against future plans, he came up with a solution. He sent Eulie to get two horses, then they hitched the team to a load of lumber beside the buildings and dragged it up the hill.

  When they took the second load of lumber to the plateau behind the hut, Alexandra came out. "Building a wooden house now is contrary to what we agreed to do, David," she told him.

  "Not the house that I have in mind, because it will become the kitchen and scullery at the rear of the house we'll eventually build. The interior walls won't support the roof, so I'll be able to pull them down. A stone house must have an interior frame of wood, and this will simply be a part of that frame when it has stone over it."

  Alexandra hesitated, weighing what he had said, then she smiled. "I'm very fortunate to be married to such an intelligent, ingenious man," she commented. "Hurry and get it built, David."

  David laughed as he and Eulie stacked the lumber with the first load as Alexandra returned to the hut. As the jackaroo led the horses away to bring more lumber, David paced off the full dimensions of the mansion that would one day stand on the plateau. When he decided where the kitchen and scullery would be, he gathered stones for a foundation.

  Only part of the foundation had been completed at the end of the day, but the prospect of having a dry, warm house made the clammy cold of the hut easier for David and Alexandra to endure. The discomfort also faded the next day when the rain stopped and the sky cleared. During the following days, the warmth of late summer returned, as the sun beamed down on the grasslands that were tinted bright green with new growth.

  The nights remained crisp, with the feel of a change in season in the air as work on the house progressed. Although this section would eventually be only part of the house, its proportions were substantial, divided into four rooms. When the floor and framework for the outside walls were completed, David began work on the fireplaces in two of the rooms. Lacking lime to make mortar, he used fine clay from a deposit down the creek to cement the stones, as he had done on the fireplace in the barracks.

  The fair weather continued while the clay was drying and being baked into a solid bond between the stones by roaring fires, then clouds moved in again. The rain lasted for two days, accompanied by gusty winds that stirred the bark on the hut and warned of more violent storms that would come during the following weeks. When the sky cleared once more, the sun had lost its intensity and late autumn had arrived.

  David devoted most of his time to working on the house, but he occasionally went out into the paddock to inspect it. With the new growth, the graze was adequate, but not abundant. The pasture was also becoming seriously damaged in places where the sheep had eaten the grass down to the roots before fresh sprouts had developed.

  It needed months of not being grazed to recover, but David dismissed it, still determined not to leave Alexandra. She worked on the house with him, drilling holes to peg boards into place and doing other light tasks. Working together on their house was one of the most enjoyable experiences of David's life, but it seemed as if winter storms would arrive before the house was finished.

  Early one afternoon, as Alexandra moved about and cleaned up wood shavings on the floor, she paused and looked into the distance. "Riders are coming down the track, David."

  David straightened up from trimming a board and looked. The only visitor he had been expecting was a messenger from Wayamba Station, hopefully with letters to Alexandra from her family. If all had gone well, the rider who had been sent to Sydney should be returning at any time. But instead of one rider, in the distance were five, leading three pack horses and moving down the track at a slow walk.

  "Who do you think they are, David?" Alexandra asked.

  "I have no idea," he replied musingly. "I know they aren't bushrangers, though, because they never travel in groups larger than two or three, and they don't move about in broad daylight where they can be seen." He turned to the edge of the plateau where Eulie was leading the horses up with another load of lumber, and shouted, ''Go put a saddle on one of those horses and bring it to the hut, Eulie! Hurry!"

  The jackaroo hastily unhitched the horses and ran back down the hill with them as David and Alexandra went to the hut. She asked if she should begin preparing a meal for the riders, and David shook his head firmly. "No, there's no need for that. We'll provide them with rations, which is customary, but they can cook for themselves at the barracks. At least we can accommodate visitors now."

  "That's true," Alexandra agreed, looking at the riders in the distance, then she sighed wistfully. "I do hope they've brought mail."

  "So do I, love. We'll know soon."

  She smiled and nodded, sighing again. A moment later, Eulie rode up, leading the saddled horse. David mounted it and rode down the hill. At the foot of the slope, he turned toward the track at a canter.

  On the rolling contours of the terrain, the men were lost from view most of the time. As he crossed a rise, the riders also on a high point in the track a mile away waved at him. David rode down through a swale, and a few minutes later, the men came into sight again a little more than a half mile away. As they shouted greetings, David waved back, recognizing the employees from Frank Williamson's station on the Nepean River.

  As he drew closer, he saw that the men were ragged, and their horses were weary and bony. Only two of the pack animals, carrying crates wrapped in canvas, were in good condition. Silas Doak and Ruel Blake had grown into men, while the other three appeared much the same. A wide, cheerful smile wreathed Kunmanara's dark face, and Daniel Corbett, the head stockman, was soberly reserved. Jimbob, the old cook, sat at an angle on his saddle to favor his bad leg, seemingly impervious to the passing years.

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bsp; The men greeted David warmly and with the respectful attitudes of workers toward a station owner. Daniel took an oilskin package from his coat pocket and handed it over. "There was some mail for your station at the postal office in Sydney, Mr. Kerrick," he said. "There are also some letters to the mistress from her family in that. Her clothes, books, and other belongings are in the boxes on those two pack horses there."

  "She'll be very glad to get them, particularly the letters. I take it that you met up with the rider from Wayamba Station, then?"

  Daniel nodded and explained as they rode down the track that Jimbob had been working at the inn in Sydney where the man from Wayamba Station had stayed. In talking with the man, Jimbob had found out about David and Alexandra, then had contacted Daniel. The head stockman had met Alexandra's brother, who had given him the letters from her family and her belongings, and the two horses to transport the crates to her.

  "Apparently you haven't been working for Frank Williamson for some time now," David commented. "Did he pass on, then?"

  "Yes, sir. Shortly afterward, his sons sold the station."

  Daniel related what he and the other men had been doing since the station had been sold. Two of the jackaroos had found good jobs at Camden Park, but the others had been unable to find employment that satisfied them. In addition, Daniel, Jimbob, and Kunmanara had longed to return to the outback, and Silas and Ruel wanted to accompany them.

  "So that's why we're here," Daniel summed up. "When I heard about your station, I got in touch with the others, and we all decided to come and see if we could work for you."

  "Dan, that might be the best thing that could happen for me in two or three years from now," David said. "But for now, I'm grazing only about ten thousand sheep, which doesn't justify very many employees."

  "We expected that," Daniel replied quickly, "and ten thousand is many more than we thought you'd have. If you can provide rations, we'll work for wages in arrears until you can pay us."

  They reined up at the hill, the men anxiously waiting to hear what David would say. "Well, we can certainly talk it over," he told them. "Right now, I'm sure you'd like a rest and a good meal. Pick out a wether from the flock to butcher, and I'll send some vegetables to the barracks."

  Satisfied by his reply, the men left the two pack horses with David and headed for the barracks. David ascended the hill, separating four letters to Alexandra from the others in the oilskin package. When he reached the hut and told her who the letters were from, she eagerly took them.

  As Eulie helped unload the four heavy crates from the pack horses, David told him to take a basket of vegetables to the barracks and to put the horses with the others.

  Alexandra sat beside the fire and pored over her letters, and David put on water to heat for tea, then looked at the other mail. It consisted of letters from wool brokers and supply factors soliciting business, reflecting that Tibooburra Station was becoming well-known in Sydney.

  When the water boiled, Kerrick prepared the tea and waited for Alexandra to finish reading her letters. They were obviously anything but heartening as her beautiful face reflected sorrow and disappointment as she scanned the lines. Only once did she smile, and then it was wistfully, accompanied by a pensive sigh.

  She folded the letters and told David as she drank her tea that two were from her grandmother and mother, who wished her well in her new life. "However," she added, "they appear to believe I've met with some terrible doom. My letter to them was very cheerful, but it seems they consider my life here a tragic fate. My brother's letter is less distressed, but he's very sad that we'll be so far apart. There is nothing from my father, nor any mention of him in the letters. We were often at odds, and it appears that he's now dismissed me entirely from his life."

  "I'm very sorry to hear that. Who is the other letter from?"

  "Amy Godwin, a maid in my father's household. She's discontented there and wants to come and work for us."

  "That could easily be arranged. She could come with the drays that bring supplies and the shearers, and I think it would be good for you to have another woman here with you, Alexandra."

  Depressed by her family's letters, Alexandra agreed absently and sipped her tea, looking into the fire. Then shrugging off her mood, she asked about the five men. David told her who they were and why they had come to the station.

  Eager to take her mind off the letters, Alexandra listened intently, interested in the men's offer. "The flock could be moved to better pasture immediately," she pointed out when David finished. "Also, it could be divided into two flocks that could be kept in paddocks indefinitely, which would eliminate the danger of losing sheep from moving them about."

  "That's true," David agreed. "There would be advantages to hiring the men, and we could probably provide rations for them. But we would have eight employees and ten thousand sheep, which isn't very sensible."

  "If we're ever to have more sheep, those ewes must have better graze so they'll give birth to strong lambs. I'm sure we can provide the rations. We have abundant vegetables, as well as fresh beef and pork on the hoof. We'll urgently need stockmen within a few years, and in the meantime, there's plenty of work to be done here at the home paddock."

  David liked the men and wanted to hire them, but he was inclined toward caution in expanding. Alexandra was more in favor of taking advantage of opportunities that promised future benefits, even if temporary imbalances occurred that jeopardized profits for a time. As they talked and the chill of the autumn evening settled in, she swayed him to her point of view.

  "Well, we'll try it, then," David mused, throwing wood onto the fire. "I'll have more help with the house, so it should be finished soon."

  "More importantly, the sheep will have better graze. They're our livelihood and should be our first concern."

  "No, you're my first concern, Alexandra," he said firmly. "I'll go down to the barracks and tell the men what they'll be doing."

  As he moved away from the fire, Alexandra began preparing dinner. He glanced back at her, seeing that her lovely face was melancholy again, and knew she was thinking about the letters once more. It troubled him deeply, his love making her pain his, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Sighing heavily, he went down the hill.

  At dawn the next morning, some three thousand of the sheep moved away toward the paddock to the southeast with Silas and Corley driving them. Ruel and Eulie followed the rest of the flock moving it toward the southwest paddock. As the sheep left, Daniel and Jimbob worked the house. Kunmanara took the horses, cattle, and the few wethers remaining at the home paddock to graze, along with the pigs to forage in the patches of forest for roots and plants. Later, when he returned, he helped work on the house.

  The work proceeded rapidly because both Daniel and Jimbob had experience as carpenters. During the evenings, the two men assembled shutters and doors by the light of the fire in the barracks. At their fire, David and Alexandra split blocks of wood into shingles for the roof and whittled out pegs to fasten the boards.

  More than skill, Kunmanara had a talent for working with wood, and in the barracks at night, he used limbs with curved forks to make the arms and legs of chairs and settles. After constructing the frames and scraping the wood down to a smooth finish with sandstone, he upholstered the furniture with layers of sheepskin.

  While the house neared completion, the furniture for it was stored in the supply warehouse. At dawn on a cold, windy May morning, dark clouds harbingered an early-winter storm that promised to be severe. The wind blew gustier as the morning passed and David and the men pegged down the last shingles on the roof and put the shutters on the windows. Then they brought the supplies from the hut to the house and carried up the furniture from the warehouse.

  Late in the day, David and Alexandra had moved into the warm, snug house. The storm struck while they were having dinner, rain pounding on the shingles and howling wind making the flames in the fireplace leap higher. After dinner, David removed the canvas from the crates t
hat Alexandra's brother had sent and opened them for her. She examined her belongings reminiscently then she put them away.

  Sitting beside the fire and smoking his pipe, David watched her as she moved about the room. Although she was heavily pregnant, her steps were still light. She took out snowy muslin undergarments and dresses in costly, colorful fabrics, filling chests and a clothes press that Kunmanara had made of hardwood. Next were books by the dozen, rapidly taking up the space on the shelves.

  As she almost dropped a book from a stack and then caught it, David sat up in his chair when she made the sudden move. "Are you certain you don't want my help?" he asked.

  "No, thank you," she replied, carrying the books to a shelf. "I've looked forward to doing this, and I prefer to do it myself. What I don't finish tonight, I'll do tomorrow."

  David built up the fire to make more light for her, then sat back again and smoked as he watched her. The shelves were filled with books when she finished taking them out of a crate, and she commented that they would make the evenings more enjoyable. David agreed, the lack of reading material the only disadvantage he had found in the outback. When she was through for the night, with one crate still full, the books, pictures, and china ornaments she had placed about had banished the stark, spartan atmosphere of the house, turning it into a home.

  The next morning, as David went to the barracks, he thought about how the work still to be done at the home paddock seemed endless. A cow calving in the wind and rain the night before emphasized that fact and determined the next project as the cow huddled in a corner of the pen, trying to protect the calf from the cold, driving rain. After raising a bark shelter for the cow and her offspring, David and the men prepared to build barns for the horses and cattle, and a shed for the pigs. As before, David paced off the dimensions of structures that would be large enough for the foreseeable future.