The pup was born under Jimmy Roberts’ wagon one day, way out on the Murranji Track. When Jimmy’s cattle mob reached Newcastle Waters, he gave the tiny pup to my father. The pup grew into a big, bully-looking white dog with a clear brown spot right in the centre of his back, so his name was pre-ordained.
Spot was a companionable fellow, always close by his Boss, who was ever willing to exhibit his clever tricks boastfully to anyone who cared to spare a moment. This dog was eerily intelligent. When old men of the local tribe wandered down from the camp to sit in a circle and talk awhile with my father, Spot sat in on the conversation, so to speak. He had the unnerving habit of staring hard at each man as he spoke, with an air of understanding all that was said.
If my father hadn’t drawn the old ones’ attention to Spot’s conversational alertness, all may have been well, but casually he said, ‘No more gamen now, this dog him savvy allabout nah,’ which translated to ‘No kidding now, this dog understands all of what you say!’ Uneasiness surfaced then, and although the words could never be spoken aloud, there came a foreboding, born of centuries of superstition, that possibly the old white dog wasn’t quite what he appeared to be.
The Aboriginals gave thought to which departed member of the tribe may have chosen to return his shade in this guise. Rumour ran in whispers that a relative of blind Bella’s it must be, for had not the white dog become properly coola (angry) when she was tormented by the piccaninnies? Ay-na-yah, everything pointed to Bella.
Bella was old and frail, her eyes two pure white marbles. She was led along by another old woman of the tribe, each holding opposite ends of a long stick, the usual method to lead the blind; in this way they progressed slowly and often to the store. The piccaninnies stole Bella’s food and teased her cruelly, running around her, snatching at her clothes. She would lash out wildly and shout furious abuse at them. Spot would rush in barking and snapping at her tormentors—perhaps the angry voices upset or excited him, or maybe he just disliked children.
Well aware of the aura that hovered about him, the piccaninnies rushed off in fright and made wide detours to avoid where he slept in the sun. The house lubras ceased shushing him rudely from the kitchen door, and tasty titbits were surreptitiously placed where they could easily be sniffed out. If he settled on their blankets in the sun, as was his wont, they no longer said a word, and let him be.
Life was all good for the old white dog. He had a love interest in a bitch that lived down the road at the saddler Archie Rogers’ place. When her litter arrived, Spot, trailing bullock guts from a recent kill, set off to Archie’s house, a good half-mile away. Archie told us that Spot gently deposited his offering at her feet with all the panache of presenting a bunch of roses. This was certainly unusual behaviour for a domestic dog.
Spot’s presence was unsettling for the old ones, and after much thought it was reluctantly decided that he be given to Ken to take bush and live in his stock camp. I last saw Spot heading off in good spirits with not a backward glance or any obvious thought of any tribal affiliations.
So from his birth in the pale dust of the Murranji, the old ghost dog journeyed to the lush tropical pandanus country of the wild Limmen River, where soon afterwards he was taken by a crocodile. One must ask: what knowledge could this relative of Bella’s, this Mudburra man of a dry stony inland, possibly have of big water and the dangers it holds?
CHAPTER 29
Hard Men Who Lived Hard Lives
The old Territory was a man’s land; it was hard country, could be a cruel one too. Living there meant observing a lifestyle different to one you could encounter anywhere else. ‘An education in human behaviour,’ my mother said.
Most were cynics, but not insensitive. They were contemptuous of cowards and trod carefully with their equals. Unsophisticated but wise, they were philosophers every one. They thought it essential to find humour in the most serious situations. In adversity they laughed, as only they could laugh, at themselves. They told tales of disaster and appalling mishap with thigh-slapping hilarity, and you found yourself smiling too.
Perhaps this is why some of the funniest tales to come out of the bush involve sad or unfunny incidents. Told with a twist of humour, they make light of life’s cruellest happenings. If a man can’t laugh at himself, he has no sense of perspective—and life would be unendurable, I think, in a harsh country.
My mother was often asked: ‘How do you cope out here, a woman alone with unruly men?’ I was there too, of course, but I was just a young girl, not in a position of responsibility. Perhaps being alone was the reason Mother managed so well; women were scarce and treated with great respect in any situation. However, she was also expected to maintain that respect; one misplaced step of unladylike behaviour would have been a fall from the pedestal, respect lost forever.
Once when a twenty-man pub brawl was in full swing on the road outside the hotel, a body hurtled in through closed doors, landing in a shower of splintered wood. Mother calmly demanded, ‘Eight pounds, please.’ The fight faltered to a stop and the warriors dug deep, paid up.
One would assume the fight was over, but with a few angry words, the odd insult, and without so much as an ‘After you, mate,’ they hurled themselves back into battle. No western movie could have done it better.
Each year Slippery Prendergast and his brothers, all drovers, came through the Ridge. Slippery was a short, chunky fella with the booming voice of a bronchial bullfrog—the result of many years’ bellowing in the dusty wake of his bullocks.
In camp, swags were unrolled as far from Slippery as possible, for he had a habit of whistling in his sleep—not an ordinary whistle, but that ‘Move along bullocks’ kind a drover uses through the teeth. This could be madly irritating to men camped with cattle at night, who sleep lightly, alert to every sound.
Mother always insisted that those drinkers still upright at closing time take responsibility for their fallen comrades—no bodies were to be left behind when the doors closed at 10 p.m.
But one night Slippery was overlooked and remained lying where he’d fallen, in a limp heap under a long table on the enclosed verandah. The doors were closed and he was locked inside, with only his loud snufflings and snortings leading us to where he lay. It proved too difficult to extricate him from under the permanently anchored table—his bulky frame was wedged tight. With the generator off, we had only torchlight. Mother said, ‘Oh, leave him there,’ and off we went to bed.
He gave his piercing whistle a few times. Then, just as we were falling asleep, a loud ‘Whoa bullocks!’ rent the air in that awful bullfrog voice and echoed throughout the iron building. All of this while he was in the deepest grog-induced sleep. Never were his mates allowed to leave him behind again.
To spend one’s annual holiday camped under the miserly shade of a Bullwaddy bush on hard red gravelled ground, opposite the Newcastle Waters Pub might not be the ultimate holiday destination to everyone, but to Chungaree Crouch it was. Each year just before the wet closed bush roads Chungaree appeared over the horizon. Then, with all the anticipation of settling into a glamorous resort, he unrolled his swag, lit a camp fire and presented his annual wages cheque at the pub bar with a cheery, ‘Tell me when it cuts out Missus’ before he proceeded with a wholehearted spree, joined by any ringers who happened by.
Chungaree, a white man, had always been known as Chungaree (‘mate’ in tribal talk) and had worked on Wave Hill Station for 22 years. He never ventured further east than Newcastle Waters; beyond that was ‘stranger’ country. The bitumen road was his boundary line.
Someone once sold Chungaree a motorcycle. He rode it for only a short time, never really made friends with it, and referred to it in stockman’s terms. Over rough ground it had him ‘grabbin’ for leather’, as with a rough horse, and it could take the bit in its teeth and bolt too. Chungaree and the motorcycle were not compatible and it was disposed of early in their relationship.
Chungaree was getting on in years, and with good intentions the man
ager of Wave Hill arranged for him to settle in an aged persons’ home in Katherine. Shortly after he moved into his new quarters the old fella returned home late one evening noisily drunk, reasoning that he was in town and that meant a night on the booze.
With two comely Aboriginal ladies, he loudly celebrated the beginnings of his new life of retirement. This behaviour was unheard of among the aged inmates in this establishment.
Chungaree had to go!
Next day, swag rolled, he was packed off on the first truck heading west back to Wave Hill—the country he knew best—to spend the rest of his days.
Dick Scobie of Hidden Valley Station was a regular drinker in the pub and a bit of a brawler sometimes too. A tall, fine-looking man, Dick once told me the tale of his only trip to a big city.
He’d been ‘courting’ an Adelaide girl of the Lutheran faith; many German immigrants had settled in South Australia and Lutheran churches proliferated there. His courtship had progressed to the stage where an introduction to his girlfriend’s family was due, so off to Adelaide she took him.
The crowds were unbelievable, the traffic frightened him and he clutched at her skirt as she swiftly disappeared around street corners. Alone and lost in a department store, he found an elevated spot beside ‘one of them gammon ladies with a dress on’—a plaster display mannequin—and gave his shrill bullocky whistle for rescue. In general, he found city life not to his taste: ‘No place for a ringer—never did see so many people in one place before.’
Then, on Sunday, off to the Lutheran church to join in the service and give praise to her Lord. He’d never been in a church before, but he told me he sang as loud as everyone else and had a thoroughly good time there.
‘Where did you ever learn any hymns, Dick?’ I asked.
‘Well mate, I didn’t know any hymns, so I sang “505 is the Brunette brand” good and loud, and everyone thought I was a proper good fella, and they never chucked me out!’
Cammy Cleary was one of the Territory’s best rough riders. A balance rider, loose and fluid in the saddle, he flowed with the motion of a horse. He was as dedicated a drinker at the pub on the Ridge as any other ringer.
Now Cammy had a dog called Whisky, who was pure white, very large and well known for his ferocity; any sudden movement toward his owner was strongly discouraged.
One night, after Cammy had spent hours at the bar, he staggered away, presumably to his camp across the road and into his swag to sleep it off.
Closing time came, drinkers dispersed into the night, doors were locked and Mother entered her bedroom, which was close to the bar—there to be confronted with two laughin’ side boots protruding from under her bed.
Together we took a boot each and made to remove the limp body attached, when suddenly Whisky appeared from under the low-hanging bedcover, aggressively stiff-legged and snarling a warning, very much in protective mode. Boots hurriedly dropped, we rushed for the door, which we safely slammed shut just as the dog launched himself against it.
We removalists retired to ponder the problem, which needed careful thought. With Cammy in the bar for the past few days, I knew Whisky hadn’t been fed in a while, so I suggested that a half-pound of raw liver attached to a broom handle might do the trick.
The bedroom doorknob was gently turned, the juicy, bloody liver carefully offered, a white nose appeared, and the lure was thrown far out onto the verandah, the famished dog close behind it. Mother and I made a speedy entry into the room, closed the door firmly, took up our grip on the boots again, then dragged the body laboriously out past the bar to the front door and quickly rolled it down a low step onto the gravel outside. Mission accomplished.
Next morning, sheepish and apologetic, Cammy felt he hadn’t fared too badly at the hands of these determined removalists—and his dog had been fed.
In the cow-towns across the stock routes and at the pubs along the way were many Irishmen who rode by, drank hard and threw themselves into any fight, whether it concerned them or not. It was said that they never knew when they were beaten. They had a roguish, ribald humour; were loud, boisterous, irrepressible and dominated any company in their bawdy, charming Irish way.
Mick Cussens was such a man. He had a swagger, was loud and brash—and was enthusiastically drinking himself into an early grave. Mick and his brother Bill had been droving since they were boys with their father, Sam, a reliable and respected Boss. They came with packhorse plant through the Murranji.
Everyone knew Mick—old Wirra-Warra. He’d once been an active man, adept at all things expected of a good ringer. But years of heavy drinking had taken a toll: he was dirty, seldom quiet, shouted incoherently about the place, rarely ate, and was never sober.
Unbeknown to my mother, who had little sympathy in this direction, Prentice came quietly to tell me that Mick was collapsed by the woodheap. We went down and found him there, unshaven and filthy; within himself he was as completely alone as a man could be.
I tried to feed him a little soup with a spoon; he couldn’t speak, looked right into my eyes and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.
The three of us sat there together on the woodheap in that ugly, hot, stony yard with the crows nosily irritated by our presence, sharing whatever strengths we had to share. An Aboriginal leper, advanced in his disease; a dying alcoholic, too young for death; a young girl in a harsh place, on a misguided mercy mission, acknowledging her complete failure to improve the situation in any way.
Mick’s brother took him away after laying him on his swag on the back of their truck. He died soon after in Camooweal, that haven of old drovers.
If a ghostly yelling and cursing in the night around the old pub is ever heard, it must surely be Mick reliving one of his wild binges.
And then there was Jack!
No one asked if you knew Jack Vitnell, or if you liked him; everyone knew him, and I never met anyone who disliked him. He wasn’t memorable in a worthy or honourable sort of way, for he was always up to some mild roguery and was totally irresponsible—but he was charismatic, unusually handsome, and always laughing his abandoned, loud, fruity laugh, which made you want to laugh too.
Jack wore his wide-brimmed cattleman’s hat at a rakish angle, and had that swaggering, crotch-hitching, just-rode-that-outlaw-bronc-that-couldn’t-be-ridden air about him.
He was a remarkable athlete and as entirely without fear as anyone I have ever known. He could ride a wildly bucking colt with an easy, flowing grace; ‘as if he wus sitten’ on a rockin’ horse’, as someone remarked. Once he fought his way out of a bar in town, locked five policemen in a ladies’ toilet and was a marked man ever after. (Truly, did the police have no sense of humour?)
Or was it entirely true that he’d done this? Perhaps it was just one of those tales that adhered to Jack—although he was certainly capable of it, and I know someone who swears they were an eye-witness.
Whenever a loud party was in progress, Jack was right in its midst. If you couldn’t see him, you could hear him, and with his departure from the bar, y’know, the gaiety was strangely diminished.
The usual ringer was somewhat reserved with strangers, but not Jack! When the occasional tourists came through the Ridge, he would set out to charm the ladies, telling them outrageous stories of his exploits. They would take his photograph and depart quite smitten with this handsome ‘cowboy’.
Late one night, long after the bar had closed, a party was in full swing out on the roadside. The grog supply had petered out and Jack proceeded with the unthinkable—to pound on the pub door and wake Mother in order to replenish their liquor stocks. That took a certain courage.
As Mother’s bedroom was close to the bar, Jack’s pounding woke her.
‘Go away!’ said she, to which he replied, ‘Please, Missus, gissus a bottle a rum, will ya?’
Mother: ‘No.’
Jack: ‘You’re a hard woman, Missus.’
Mother: ‘It’s men like you have made me hard.’
Jack: ‘Just one
bottle, Missus. Please.’
Mother: ‘Not before the bar opens tomorrow morning.’
Jack: ‘You should get married again, Missus. It would make you feel more kindly to us blokes when we’re thirsty and perishin’ for a drink.’
Mother: ‘Married again! You don’t put your finger in the lion’s mouth twice, my boy.’
Jack: ‘Umm-m.’
They kept it up through a sleepless night; Jack sitting on the pebbly ground outside the pub door, Mother inside in her bed.
Jack was used to getting whatever he wanted, and my mother was a very determined woman—and though they would never admit it, they enjoyed this repartee through the night. At exactly ten o’clock next morning, she opened the pub door and passed a bottle of rum to Jack. He was still sprawled on the ground outside, a little drunk and half-asleep, and had to admit defeat.
In the watering holes of the old Territory, Jack’s talents were slowly wasting away. Still quite young, he was found in his camp, where desperation for a drink had compelled him to swallow some awful stuff that proved lethal. He died alone, this handsome man who loved company and conviviality. Where a drink had been fun and made life agreeable, it had become a necessity.
Many in this country suffered the grim tragedies of thirst and fever, but alcohol and suicide were responsible for the untimely end of so many others who lived a bushman’s lonely life.
How sad to think of them all gone, now part of the past. Genteel society couldn’t accept them as they were; the Outback enfolded them without a glance into their backgrounds. In a sterner society, they would be branded drunks, eccentrics, ratbags. In the Territory back then, they were permitted to be themselves, and nobody looked askance at whatever oddities of behaviour they exhibited.
I found them impish—ribald, perhaps, but always full of good will. It seems to me that now there is only a small gap between the respectably dull and the quite objectionable, with no room between for the quaint and unconventional.
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