by Tony Parsons
Chapter Eleven
Catriona was very disappointed to learn that David MacLeod would not be coming to her birthday party. The tale of his feat on Yellow Rock had been magnified in the telling so that it had become almost legendary, like The Man from Snowy River. There was doubt about whether the Snowy River story had ever actually happened, but there was no such doubt about what David had done. The local newspaper had written up the story on its front page with a big picture of David included. That was the third time he had been featured in the local rag. The first was when he was guest whip-cracker for a visiting ‘Wild West’ show; the second, after he had won the Novice event at the local sheepdog trials. So it would have been a feather in Catriona’s cap to have him attend her party. She had told Susan Cartwright and some of her other girlfriends that he would be attending.
When Catriona asked David why he wasn’t coming, he had passed it off very casually by saying that his father had entered him for his first junior campdraft on that very day, and that he could not possibly disappoint him by pulling out. He did say that he would be coming to see her the day before the party as he had a present for her. This pleased Catriona a little, but did not make up for David missing the party itself.
David did not win the junior draft, although he did run a very creditable second. He was disappointed with the result, and it was small consolation to him that the boy who won was several years his senior. Andy told him after the event that no boy of his age could possibly know all there was to know about cattle and drafting, but David, with his innate stock-manship, realised quite clearly where he had lost the points that relegated him to second place.
Andy was delighted with his son’s performance. David was by far the youngest competitor and he had only come two points below the winning score. In Andy’s book that was a great first-up performance.
There were no sheepdog trials for David that year because Lad was too young for competition work. The MacLeods had heard that Angus Campbell’s imported border collie, Toss, had come out of quarantine and was due to enter the next local trial.
Shortly after Toss arrived at Inverlochy, Andrew received a phone call from Angus. ‘I’m wondering if I could bring my new dog up for you to have a look at, Andy. I’d value your opinion of him.’
‘Okay, Angus. Make it a Sunday, if you don’t mind. Let me know beforehand and I’ll have some sheep ready for you.’
Andrew put the phone down with a thoughtful look on his face. ‘That was Angus,’ he said to Anne. ‘He wants to bring his dog up here for me to look at. It sounds like he has some doubts about him.’
‘You may well be right,’ Anne agreed. ‘I happen to know that Angus has great respect for your judgement where dogs and horses are concerned.’
‘Ah, well, I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies. My whole outlook on life would be shattered if Angus Campbell considered me good for nothing.’
Anne smiled at his sarcasm. ‘Jane has also told me that Angus considers David to be the best horseman for his age he has ever seen.’
‘Does he now? Things are looking better and better.’
‘Don’t be cynical, Andy. Angus can’t help the way he is. Deep down he is quite a good man. You know he does a lot for the district.’
‘He can afford to. It’s easy to be benevolent when you’re in his position.’
Anne sighed. She had tried very hard to cultivate a harmonious relationship with Angus and Jane, yet feelings between them were strange. Angus would not invite them to social functions but he had no compunction in calling on Andy for advice about his animals.
‘David will be interested to see this imported dog,’ Andy said.
And David was. He found it hard to concentrate on his lessons for the remainder of the week, but that was nothing new. He always found it hard to concentrate because when he looked out of the window he could see the high country of High Peaks looming above the school. The splendour of that vista and the feelings it evoked completely overshadowed maths and English. He had read a great deal about the working-dogs of Britain and about the wizards who handled them, and the prospect of seeing one of these dogs excited him greatly. He had also seen border collies bred from imported stock but he had not yet seen a direct importation.
David was at his father’s elbow when Angus arrived that Sunday morning. To David’s dismay, Catriona was accompanying her father. She was sure to want to chatter on about something stupid and spoil the whole morning. He knew for a fact that Cat wasn’t the slightest bit interested in sheepdogs, so why did she have to tag along with her father? He looked appealingly towards his father, who caught the gesture and nodded.
‘Catriona, I think Anne would like to see you,’ Andrew said. ‘She has some idea for the school concert.’
Catriona looked long and hard at David, whose gaze was directed at the hill above the house where his father had placed three lively four-tooth wethers not much more than half an hour earlier. Years ago, Andrew had cleared the lower part of that hill, which was part of what they referred to as Jimmy’s Mountain, and had built a couple of trial obstacles, a bridge and a race. It was a good paddock in which to teach a dog to cast and not far from the house.
As Catriona disappeared into the house, Angus jumped his new dog from the back seat of the car.
David reckoned Toss was a fairly typical collie with a medium-length black and white coat and a fair bit of hair on his tail. One ear stood straight up and the other drooped.
Andrew pointed up the hill towards the sheep. They were about 400 yards distant, which was a fair enough cast for a flat-country dog but nothing for a real hill-country dog. Andrew knew that any decent border collie bred in Scotland should cast that distance without any trouble.
Angus cast Toss out on his right and the dog swept well out, ran up the hill and eventually came in right behind the three wethers. Toss stopped as he was supposed to, and the sheep turned and looked at him. He crept slowly towards them and they turned and bolted down the slope towards the trio of watchers. Angus left them and took up a position beside the race. After a little bit of trouble getting the wethers to the front of the obstacle, Toss positioned them a few yards out from the mouth of the race. The wethers broke and Toss gave them too much clearance. And no matter how many times the dog placed them outside the race, he could not hold them there; they always beat him round one side. This went on for several minutes before Angus walked across to the next obstacle, which was the bridge. Here again Toss had great trouble holding the lively wethers. He always seemed to be fractionally slow to anticipate and block them. Finally, with Toss puffing and blowing, Angus gave it away and called the dog to him. He walked back to where Andy and David were sitting on a log.
‘Well, Andy, what do you reckon?’
Andrew hesitated before answering, because no decent sheepdog person likes to be overly critical of another person’s dog, especially when that dog had been imported at great cost from the old country.
‘I reckon they don’t have merinos in Scotland, Angus. Toss casts well, and you would expect him to, coming from Scotland. The problem is that he’s not used to working lively sheep. Toss is what I would describe as a “late mover”. He moves after the sheep do. With really lively sheep, a dog needs to have good anticipation and block movement before it happens. I reckon that Toss has been worked on quiet, doughy sheep that probably fought a dog more than ran from it. You can see that he’s a strong dog, but he hasn’t got the idea of being in position quickly enough. He can’t drive and hold. Not many dogs can, only the very good ones.’
‘Can I do anything about it?’ Angus asked with a frown.
‘I am sorry to say that I doubt it. The dog is probably too set now. He’ll be a fair dog anywhere but on the obstacles. If you take my advice, you won’t work him in trials. Just try him as a sire. I suggest you mate him to a couple of lively bitches and see how his pups shape. Will he work a mob?’
‘He’s not too bad,’ Angus replied. ‘He’s better on a sm
all mob than a big one.’
‘The dog may never have seen a big mob. I don’t like late-moving dogs, but in his favour there’s a big difference working merinos after Scotch blackface. Toss would probably handle them quite well.’
‘I made a lot of enquiries,’ Angus said. ‘The dog was highly recommended.’
‘That may be so, but what we’ve got here is a different kettle of fish. The Brits set great store on walk-up strength; the American handlers refer to it as power. It’s important for a dog to be strong, but when you’re working merinos, especially in this range country, it’s also very important that they don’t get away from you and head back into the rough country. That can mean a lot of extra work. So a dog needs real good anticipation. The same thing applies to working lively sheep at a trial. I know that collie handlers like to give a lot of orders but I prefer a dog that has control of its sheep, knows what the sheep are going to do and is in position before they move. The great old kelpies worked like that and I have tried to keep that trait in my dogs. You’ve seen my dogs work so you know what I’m talking about.’
This was a long speech for Andy, who was known as a man of few words.
The advice was not wasted on Angus. He knew MacLeod better than most people. ‘I see what you mean. You’ve actually confirmed my own opinion. He’s a nice dog in himself, but it’s a big disappointment to bring a dog from the other side of the world, for a big outlay, and find he isn’t what you want,’ Campbell said.
‘That’s the risk you take when you import stock you haven’t seen. Don’t forget that a lot of border collies before Toss didn’t suit our conditions but some of them sired good dogs.’
Andy knew full well that he could have sold Angus a better dog than Toss for probably a third of what it cost to land the dog in Australia. The thing was that Angus would never buy a kelpie from him.
They went down the hill to the house for tea and freshly baked scones.
Across the table from David, Catriona sat with a look in her eyes that had been there since her accident. Anne caught a glance of it and a small smile passed over her lips.
‘I think you ought to take a little more notice of Catriona when she comes up here,’ Anne said to her son after Angus and Catriona had left.
‘Why, Mum? I see Catriona at school every day. She’s in my class. Besides, she’s a girl.’
‘I should remind you that your Aunt Kate and I were once girls. You don’t have any problem getting on with us.’
‘That’s different. You’re not silly and giggly like the girls at school.’
‘Catriona has never struck me as being silly. I think she’s very mature,’ Anne said.
‘You should see her when she’s with the other girls. She’s just as bad as the rest of them.’
‘You must confess that she is very pretty, though.’
‘So? Mum, I don’t want to talk about girls any more. I wish Mr Campbell wouldn’t bring her here.’
Later, Andrew took up the subject with Anne. ‘I don’t think you should try and push David towards Catriona. Not even now. The Campbells are nice enough people, but they move in another circle to us and I’m sure neither Angus nor Jane would wish to see Catriona keen on David. If he did get to like Catriona, it could cause a whole heap of trouble. Get the idea out of your head, Anne. David will find his own girl when the time comes, or she will find David.’
‘I don’t agree with you on this occasion, Andy. Even now you can see that Catriona has feelings for David.’
‘Rubbish. She’s only a kid. She thinks he is wonderful for saving her pony, that’s all. She is going off to school next year and she’ll come back a different girl. I say leave David be. He knows what he wants.’
For all his professed indifference to Catriona, David did have a soft spot for the little blonde girl from next door. The problem was that he had been reared by a tough bushman and he had grown up in the company of other hill-country horsemen and bushmen, all of whom were fairly hard characters. David realised from a very early age that it was not the thing to be seen in the company of girls, or even to discuss them. To gain the respect of these men, a fella had to stay close to the things that really mattered, like land and dogs and horses. But that did not blind him to the fact that Catriona was by far the prettiest girl at their school and probably in the whole district. Susan Cartwright had lovely dark hair and flashing eyes, but Catriona was a league above her. And there was something to be said for having the most beautiful girl in the district keen on you. Well, wanting to be mates, anyway.
Somehow, fate kept bringing the pair together. In the last month before Catriona and David were to leave the little school at the foot of the range, Catriona had a run-in with a boy in their class by the name of Stanley Masters. Stanley’s father was overseer of a big property on the Cassilis side of Inverlochy. Jack Masters was not a bad sort of fellow, except when he drank too much, and then he became quite obnoxious. He also fancied himself with women. Stanley was an obnoxious little boy, and David hated the sight of him. Stanley had a dirty mind and had been caught trying to peek on girls in the toilets. That episode earned him six of the best, and he was lucky not to have been expelled. However, his punishment did not deter him.
David realised from the outset that Stanley was different from the rest of the boys at school. He had taken off his trousers and exposed himself to a sixth-class girl who had made some comment about the physical differences between boys and girls. The girl in question never reported the incident, and, much as David disliked Stanley, he wasn’t going to dob him in.
There was only one boy who had any time for Stanley, and that was Wade Missen. All the other boys were more or less from farms and stations in the area, and most of them rode horses and played cricket and football for fun. But Stanley and Wade would sit together and watch the girls when they played. David had heard them discussing the girls’ legs and their budding breasts. Stanley was the stronger personality and Wade seemed to be dominated by him.
David was in a toilet cubicle one day when he heard Stanley and Wade come in. Stanley laughed and said quite clearly, ‘Catriona and Susan are down under the willow tree. I’m going to ask Catriona if I can have a look under her blouse.’
‘Jeez, Stanley. Maybe you’re taking a big risk. Catriona and Susan aren’t like Alice. What if they report you?’
‘I’ll say she started it. If you back me up, it would be our word against hers.’
‘What about Susan?’
‘I reckon she’ll be jake. I’ve seen her and Gladys giggling when I sit near them.’
Stanley and Wade left the toilet and David rushed to the door to watch them. Most of the children were sitting eating their lunches under the trees beside the schoolhouse. At the lower end of the school grounds there were some big kurrajong trees and a very large willow. The willow had its roots in a small creek that flowed into Half Moon Creek. The branches of the willow were so long and dense that anyone sitting on the bench under the tree could not be seen from the school building. It was a favourite place for secret games and discussions.
David watched Stanley and Wade walk quickly down towards the willow tree and then disappear. A strange feeling came over him and he felt his senses quicken. Then a surge of anger possessed him. Nobody, least of all a creep like Stanley Masters, was going to insult Catriona or lay a finger on her.
The willow tree was about fifty yards down a gentle slope from the toilets and David was behind it in a matter of seconds. He arrived in time to hear almost all of Stanley’s opening conversation.
‘… with you and Susan.’
‘I suppose so,’ Catriona answered. ‘What do you want, Stanley?’
‘Before school breaks up, I just thought I would tell you how pretty you are,’ Stanley said. ‘You, too, Susan.’
‘Are you after something, Stanley?’ Catriona asked.
‘You’ve got a great figure as well. Can I have a look at it?’
‘What did you say?’
�
�I said, “Can I have a look at your figure?” Just undo your top buttons. Here, give me a go.’
David looked through the branches of the willow and saw that Stanley had actually undone the top button of Catriona’s blouse and had started on the next one. Catriona let out a strangled scream, and when she tried to get up, Stanley pushed her back and thrust his hand down inside her blouse. Catriona screamed again and David waited no longer.
There would have been no argument among the children about David MacLeod being the strongest boy at school. His arms and shoulders had been toughened by axe work, as he had helped his father ring hundreds of acres of green timber. And his wrists, arms and shoulders had been further developed by years of practice with his whips. If this was not enough, David had been well schooled in boxing by Tim Sparkes. David remembered Tim’s advice very clearly: ‘Davie, if you have to fight, don’t mess around. Give the fellow a hard one in the breadbasket to soften him up. That should double him over and then you can whack him again.’
David followed Tim’s instructions to the letter. He arrived on the scene like a miniature express train and jerked Stanley around to face him. His first punch doubled the boy over and his second made his nose bleed. Wade’s jaw dropped open and then, seeing his mate in trouble, he jumped in to help. David’s first punch split Wade’s lip and his second was sure to give him a black eye. Wade was a coward at heart and he had no wish to end up like Stanley. He retreated through the willow and then ran as fast as he could for the principal’s office.
‘Sir, David MacLeod is belting up Stanley Masters. He hit me, too. Sir, you’ve got to come quick. He’s gone mad.’
Mr Carruthers guessed that Masters was probably getting his just desserts, but he could not tolerate fighting at school. He dropped what he was doing and followed Wade back to the willow. There he found David, unmarked, standing over Stanley, who looked in rather a bad way. Blood was streaming from the boy’s nose and one eye was beginning to close. Catriona and Susan were standing close by with white faces.