A Changing Land (9 page)

Matt Schipp walked the ewes along at a leisurely pace. He'd given Jack Dillard the run of things today and so far the young jackeroo was proving capable. Angling his backside into the saddle, Matt fidgeted around in the pocket of his oilskin for his rollies. His free hand found the papers and with a quick lick of his lips a thin oblong sheet was soon dangling from his mouth. He fumbled once again, removing the pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and manoeuvred a wad of the dried plant between his fingers. It had taken months for him to reach this stage of proceedings after the accident. Months of swearing and arguments and useless comments from useless doctors until eventually his woman had walked out, leaving behind a paltry eleven years of fair-to-middling memories. Matt dropped the reins for a moment while he used his four good fingers to roll the tobacco within the paper. Finally the roll-your-own dangled from his lips. He pushed his wide-brimmed hat up off his face and searched his pockets for his lighter.

‘Come behind, Whisky,' he called out to his dog as if he was addressing a naughty child. ‘You know better than to stir the old girls up.' Matt was pleased he'd only brought Whisky out today. There were another seven dogs tied up down the back of his yard and despite their pleading expressions, he'd known Whisky would be fresh enough to do the work of two dogs.

The short-haired border collie ran from where he'd been stalking the tail-end of the mob and headed back towards his master. The mob padded quietly onwards, their cloven hoofs leaving myriad tracks and raising dust in their wake. Ahead young Jack was wheeling a recalcitrant ewe back towards the mob. Having tried her luck by dashing off across the paddock, she was now experiencing the brunt of a young man on a good horse with a fast kelpie. The ewe twisted and turned in various directions, stopping occasionally to stamp irritably at the dog if it came too close, before attempting another path of escape. Finally she gave up, diving into the safety of the mob.

Matt took a long draw of his smoke, a curl of a white line tracing through the air as he exhaled. As if on cue his horse, a black gelding named Sugar, started off into a slow walk. Matt let himself be lulled by the steady gait, his eyes straying from left to right, automatically checking and rechecking the progress of the sheep in his care. They had left the Wangallon sheep yards at daybreak and walked due east, passing within a couple of kilometers of West Wangallon. Now it was time for smoko and they still had a good six clicks to go.

Tethering their horses in the shade, they unpacked their saddlebags and settled down for a break. Matt hollowed himself a nice little piece of dirt at the base of a leopardwood tree, which formed a good backrest, and watched as young Jack perched himself on a log. Soon they were drinking steaming black tea from a thermos with lumpy spoonfuls of sugar. Jack handed Matt a corned beef and pickle sandwich.

‘Doesn't get much better than this,' Matt said aloud. His teeth dug cleanly through the fresh bread, his tongue savouring the bitey onion of the pickle. It'd been near five hours since breakfast and Matt's stomach lived for regular meals. He was like a baby; five meals a day and a bottle at night.

‘So are they going to advertise for a new jackeroo then?' Jack asked, between slurps of tea. He knew the drill. He'd been at Wangallon for over twelve months, had always done what was required of him quickly and efficiently and if he didn't know or understand something, he asked.

Matt let the boy squirm a bit. A few years back and young Jack would have been a jackeroo for at least a couple more years, but the pastoral industry was changing and a kid with ability like this one couldn't be left doing menial tasks and spending every Friday in the station garden.

‘Thought you liked gardening?'

Jack's eyes narrowed slightly with concern. ‘Very funny,' he responded when Matt couldn't keep his top lip from stringing out into a smile. ‘I don't mind it. I like to see things grow. Used to help my mum a bit. And Sarah's real nice.' He slurped at his tea, scowling at the heat. ‘What was her grandfather like?'

‘Tough as bloody nails and damn smart.'

‘And Anthony started as a jackeroo?'

‘Hand-picked, they reckon, by old Angus himself.' The boy fell on his feet all right; Matt couldn't deny that. Not that Anthony wasn't capable.

Jack took a long slurp of his tea. ‘He seems really good at managing.'

‘He'll need to be.' Matt picked a string of meat from between his two front teeth. Somehow he didn't think Anthony's management capabilities would be restricted to Wangallon. He was living with a Gordon, one who probably wouldn't stay docile for much longer. She couldn't. It wasn't in her blood. Besides, he reckoned
the girl had pretty much done with the mourning of old Angus; she was starting to express a few opinions.

He himself had only agreed to work for Angus because he was old school. Properties like Wangallon couldn't go on into infinity unless owner and staff understood each other and Angus Gordon and Matt Schipp had understood each other. With a satisfied belch, he squared his shoulders against the knobbly bark supporting him and rubbed his shoulderblades contentedly.

‘Is it true Wangallon was built on stock theft?'

Matt peered out from underneath his hat. One thing he didn't believe in was repeating gossip. He flicked a good finger at a large black bull ant traversing the length of his jeans and considered the boy's question. ‘I'd say pretty much anything could have happened out here one hundred and forty years ago, Jack. The thing is …' he paused for emphasis, ‘we will never know how much is talk and how much is actual truth.'

‘It's just that everyone in Wangallon Town has a story.'

Matt pictured the general store, pub, single tennis court, hall and school. There were ten houses in its four streets. ‘I'll bet they do.'

By late lunch the ewes were holed up in their new paddock, camped from the day's heat under the nearest group of trees. Matt shut the twelve-foot gate after them, marvelling at how quickly they could settle. They rode back in tired silence. Jack occasionally whistling snippets from unrecognisable songs, in between talking to his kelpie, Rust, to get him to keep up.

‘You'll have to spend a bit more time with that horse of yours. Get him to wear young Rust there.' Matt looked over his shoulder at the tiring dog. In another half a click he'd be foot sore and straggling, ruined for a full day's work tomorrow.

Matt's own dog, Whisky, a surly collie with a grudging respect for Sugar borne of two skin splitting kicks to his muzzle, sat gingerly in front of Matt, his front paws extended in a gruesome lock across Matt's thigh.

Jack looked at Whisky's mournful expression.

‘Want to give your young mate a ride?' Matt asked Whisky roughly.

Minutes later, Whisky was walking alongside Sugar at a neat pace, his now alert gaze looking up to check on Rust, who was clamped close to Matt in a vice-like grip.

‘What's on tomorrow?' Jack asked, noticing that his dog had a distinctly human expression on his face that could only be described as being scared shitless.

‘We'll move the steers from the 4,000 acre road paddock onto the oats. I've got a couple of contractors coming out to give us a hand. Then we'll drive over to Boxer's Plains.'

Matt had been checking the feed situation on Boxer's Plains every Sunday for the past three weekends. The 20,000 acres had been stocked to the eyeballs for over six weeks and the feed would begin to cut out if the block wasn't destocked soon. He was a little surprised when his querying received an
it's under control
comment from Anthony. It may well be but on his reckoning they had a month before the country was chewed out. Matt's finger probed irritably at a hardened lump of wax in his ear. Every time he offered some management advice, Anthony was all over him like a fat lady at a buffet. And ever since their disagreement in the Wangallon kitchen and the early opening of the pit, their once cordial relationship had disintegrated into feigned politeness. Nothing worse than a young manager with an attitude and Matt had seen his share of them.

There were a couple of young people at the helm of one of the most well known pastoral properties in New South Wales and Matt had a suspicion that one of them had his own agenda. Cripes this was going to get interesting. At least the third owner of Wangallon hadn't shown his face yet. That in itself was a blessing. Matt walked his horse through the house gate en route to the stables.

‘I'm sure glad Sarah likes her cattle and sheep. I wouldn't like to be spending my time driving headers and tractors.' Jack
watched in amusement as Matt picked Rust up off the saddle by the scruff of his neck and dropped him on the ground. The dog landed securely on all four paws.

‘Me neither, Jack,' Matt replied.

Wangallon was built and would continue to thrive on stock. They still had a few thousand acres sown to oats every year to fatten their cattle and cull sheep and they sowed barley, which they crushed in a mill to feed out as a top-up supplement to the steers, but that was the extent of the farming operation. Some of their neighbours had embarked on carefully mapped-out land clearing exercises and had enjoyed the monetary benefits of big cash crops of wheat, barley and grain sorghum but, like any commodity, grain growing was subject to the vagrancies of both the weather and the marketplace. Farming was an expensive business and Wangallon had always made more out of grazing.

At the stables Matt unsaddled his horse and began brushing Sugar down with a curry comb. Sugar stood quietly like a woman at a beauty parlour getting her hair done.

‘I guess I'm a bit of a tree hugger, Matt,' Jack said almost shyly as he undid the girth strap on his own mount and dragged the saddle free.

Matt clapped the lad on his shoulder. ‘I know exactly what you mean. We're stockmen, not tractor jockeys.'

Sarah, Matt and Jack were unloading their horses from the float at the road paddock when a flashy white and yellow trailer pulled alongside them.

‘You're late,' Matt admonished as the two men walked towards them.

‘G'day. I'm Toby Williams.' The taller of the two shook Sarah's hand. He was slightly built with broad shoulders and budgerigar blue eyes. ‘And this is Pancake.'

‘Pancake,' Sarah repeated, unsure if he referred to his horse or the squat roly-poly man beside him.

‘Pancake,' the shorter man clarified, ‘on account of when I take me hat off, me hair's always squashed flat like a –'

‘Pancake,' Toby grinned, zipping up his jacket.

‘Okay then.' Sarah knew it was going to be one of those days.

Toby and Pancake opened a number of mesh dog cages and a bedraggled assortment of working dogs escaped. The horses reared and whinnied, the dogs barked and peed on every tyre they could find, twice, and then completed a number of quick dashes around both horse floats. Finally the entire crew settled into work mode. Sarah looked at Bullet, who stared back with a look of disdain. He never had taken much to working with strangers and was just as likely to bite first and bark later. Sarah waggled her finger at him to behave.

‘Knew your grandfather. Wily old bastard, Angus.' Toby lounged nonchalantly in his saddle, his right leg hooked up as if he were sitting in a chair.

‘Thanks.'

‘Now he was a grazier. Old school-like.' He gestured towards Matt. ‘Wasn't surprised when I heard he got the run of things down here. Reckon Angus had everything all sorted by the time he kicked the bucket and that's the way it should be if you've got any nous.' He gave Sarah a slow head-to-toe glance. ‘So how are you going being boss of Wangallon?'

Sarah experienced the unusual sensation of being mentally undressed. ‘It's great.' Her fingers pulled at the zip on her jacket until it reached her throat.

Toby's mouth crooked itself up at one corner until an unnerving grin gradually spread from his cheek to a fan of sun-created wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.

‘We'll split up.' Matt gave brief directions on how he wanted the paddock mustered. He pointed out a 30 acre clump of belah
trees that ran in a belt across the southern tip of the paddock that could easily hide a canny mob of steers, and gave directions for gateways. Before he'd finished his last sentence, Toby was already cantering away from them, Pancake and a menagerie of dogs in pursuit.

‘Where's Anthony?'

Sarah hunched her shoulders. He'd left the homestead early that morning without a word and was strangely quiet the night before over dinner. If she'd been in the mood for an argument she would have mentioned the accounting problem, but she knew him too well. Anthony's quiet mood was indicative of a problem and she wasn't going to add to his angst, at least not until tonight.