East of Outback (21 page)

Within moments, the mob was back again. Colin heard Joe’s foghorn voice call, “Stay put, Colin!” Colin stayed put, though the mob bore down hard upon him. The mare no longer ran free and happy with these sheep. Pot was jerking her this way and that, twisting and turning, threatening the sheep with mayhem beneath the horse’s clumsy feet. Colin yelled and waved his arms. The tumbling, bounding sea of wool angled away from him, veered away from Joe close beside him, and thundered into the chute to the holding pens.

“Tea time’s over!” Joe roared. “Get to work.”

Covered with dust and grinning radiantly, Hannah parked the truck by the shearing shed and clambered to the ground. She ran inside and was waiting on the shearing floor with a broom in her hand by the time Colin got inside.

Jackie Jump had already hazed a few dozen sheep into the small holding stanchions inside the shed. Carelessly he laid his black hands on the nearest wide-eyed ewe. In an instant she flipped onto her backside, her legs sticking straight out. Jackie dragged her out onto the floor in that inelegant position and ran his shears down the center of her belly. Colin was amazed that she did not struggle more.

Joe’s shears buzzed to life behind Colin, and then Pot Dabney’s and old, bearded Horace Hamm’s. Curtis Carew, thirty-five years a shearer, wrenched his ewe to a sitting position and went to work. Scrawny, weathered Curtis weighed at most a hundred and ten pounds; the sheep outweighed him by five stone.

Ray turned out his first clipped sheep. Already Mike was sharpening and oiling blades, tending the donkey engine that powered the shears, minding the creaky, complaining overhead belts. Colin watched, rapt. These men, so easy to label
riffraff
when they were swagging it, had become an efficient, closely-knit team.

“Don’t stand there like a stunned mullet, lad. Take this to the table.” Joe left his fleece on the floor and went for another sheep. Colin did not in the least feel like a part of this team.

Hannah seemed to. She was right there in her role as broomie boy, sweeping up the rapidly forming flecks and loose balls of wool. She absolutely glowed with enthusiasm.

Colin scooped up the fleece and tossed it onto the table at the end of the floor. Instantly a shed hand materialized at Colin’s side, spreading the fleece wide, expertly snatching away this wad of wool and that from the edges. Swiftly he folded it here and there and rolled it into a ball. The classer gave it a passing glance and tossed it into one of several bins, the first of the day’s harvest.

The shed hand scowled at Colin. “Where’s the next, lad?”

Colin jogged out onto the floor. He grabbed up Jackie’s and Curtis’s fleeces and ran to the table. He ran back again to fetch Horace’s fleece and Joe’s next.

“Tar boy!” barked Joe. Hannah dropped her broom. From the shoulder-high wall sill she snatched up an open can and with a paintbrush smeared black gooey salve on a cut in the sheep’s flank. Obviously, Joe had instructed her ahead of time as to her duties. He had not said a word to Colin.

Two more fleeces lay on the board. Colin was sweating now. He picked them up and walked them to the table.

Joe did not so much as appear warm. He announced loudly even as he worked, “With this drought, Mr. Clarke’s going to slaughter all his age-cast ewes or anything close, so keep them out separate. Stags, also.”

“Got a broken-mouth here,” Jackie called.

“Oughta throw away the concertinas, too,” muttered Curtis. He struggled with a particularly wrinkled old sheep between his knees.

In a daze, Colin gathered more fleeces to the table. Terminology flew about his ears, an alien language that meant nothing to a humble lad from Sydney with a knack for opening oyster shell. In moments the classer and shed hand would fling a fleece out across the table, trim it, roll it and toss it aside. Colin, the mindless rouseabout, ran, hard-pressed to keep up.

“Smoke-oh!” called Joe, and work ceased.

Hannah led the way out to the gum tree behind the shed and flopped down, looking utterly spent. “Colin, this is so grand!”

He collapsed near her in the shade and stretched out. The flies found his sweaty face instantly. “It’s work like you wouldn’t read about. We were crazy to join up with a mob of shearers. Daft.”

“Oh, no! It’s perfect. In school you read in history books and geography books about Australia’s primary industry, but it’s all just reading. Like the shearers’ strikes. Twenty-five years ago, in Barcaldine, remember? And they were doing just what we’re doing, except they didn’t get paid but a skerrick of what we’re earning. Same hard work. And now I can understand what the strikes were about, to work so hard like this and not earn a decent quid. And all the work that goes into wool. It’s not just something in the schoolbooks, you see? Suddenly it’s real.”

“It’s real, all right.” Colin drew his hat over his face to hold the flies at bay. He envied her enthusiasm. Why couldn’t more of it rub off on him?

“’Twas real then, too.” Ancient Horace Hamm settled down beside them in the shade. He sat cross-legged, building a sorry excuse of a cigarette from a pouch of tobacco and a yellow bit of paper. “Good for you, lass, to appreciate the sweat, blood and tears we paid for our privileges. Not many youngsters do.”

Hannah turned her head to stare at him. “You took part in the shearers’ strikes?”

“Ay-uh. Barcaldine. I was there. Shearing time’s midsummer there—January, February. The rainy months, up in Queensland. ‘Twas a thousand of us strikers there in March, refusing to cut without a contract, when they called the military in. Torchlight parades most every night, the army flexing its muscles and we shaking our fists. We had a strike headquarters in Ash Street, and we lived in a tent camp at Lagoon Creek. The military pitched their tents by the courthouse. Then the railway workers struck, and it was all gone to Hades in a handbasket from there.”

Hannah sat up wide-eyed, watching him. Colin knew for a fact that old Horace was cleaning up his language considerably in her presence.

Horace lit his cigarette. The paper flared into bright flame until the fire reached tobacco. Horace’s cigarettes, ample and bulging in the middle, left much to be desired at either end.

He continued, his voice a quiet drone muffled in memories. “The wallopers arrested the leaders. Then some pastoralists tried to bring in nonunion shearers; met them along the railway with bullock carts. A hundred of us rode out there to stop them. Lots of shots fired. What a brouhaha! Ah, ‘twas a heady time. We lost that skirmish, but we all sat down at the bargaining table come June and worked out a truce. I still recall one of them, a pastoralist named Frobel. Wise man—did a lot to smooth the waters. Funny, the people you remember. And a loud bloke named Sheldon. Worth putty, that Sheldon. But y’know, I can’t remember the names of my own mates in that adventure. Mind’s getting rickety.”

“It must have been terribly exciting!” Hannah beamed.

He chuckled. “We won in the end, I’d say. The pastoralists hire union shearers at a decent wage today. Times have changed, and for the better. Except the men are still the same.” He puffed on his acrid cigarette. “You, lass. Aren’t you frightened about being out here so far from home with these ruffians?”

She laughed. “Ruffians? Heavens no! Besides, we’re not so far from home anymore. Not like when we were clear over by Perth. No, I’m not frightened. I’m with Colin and God’s taking care of us.”

Colin pulled his hat off his face to stare at her. Was she making sport? No. She sat in casual repose, watching the dancing leaves overhead.

Horace stood up and wandered off.

Hannah drew her knees up and crossed her arms over them. “Colin, I’m so sorry Uncle Chris and Aunt Linnet weren’t in Adelaide. I would have loved to see them. London and Paris. Isn’t that something, to simply up and travel to Europe?”

I’m sorry, too, that they’re out of the country
, Colin thought.
I could turn you over to their care and be free of the responsibility of you. I didn’t ask you to join me
. But she had acted in love. Colin would refrain from speaking his thoughts out loud. “I’m sorry that cut near Adelaide fell through, too. If Joe had signed us up for that job, I’d have found out then what kind of work this is.”

She snapped her head around toward him, frowning. “You wouldn’t quit, would you? It’s not that bad. You’ll get used to it.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re pushing a broom. I’m running full out, like a chicken without a head.”

“Let’s get back to it, laddies,” Joe bellowed. “Don’t wanner disappoint all them sheep.” He led the way into the shed. By the time Colin got inside Joe had already shorn a ram, and was shouting, “Where’s the fleecy?” Colin was the fleecy. He picked up the ungainly wad of wool and toted it to the table. Onerous as opening shell used to be, at least you could do it sitting down.

Mr. Clarke appeared directly; his musterers had brought in several mobs of sheep. He stood about for most of a day, watching, obviously waiting for a chance to criticize. Eventually he went back to his government house and left Joe’s crew in peace, if all-out hard work be peace. They turned out the cobbler—the term for the last sheep to be shorn, Colin learned—six days after they signed on.

Mr. Clarke balked at giving Hannah pay equal to the men’s. Joe protested, threatening union action, and Mr. Clarke gave in. She had, after all, done a young man’s work, Joe fumed; Mr. Clarke was getting full value and then some. Colin stood back and watched. How much of Joe’s tirade was grounded injustice, and how much in an unhealthy interest in Hannah? He couldn’t tell.

“Which’ll it be, lads?” Joe asked, as he distributed pay all around. “The big town or the nearest pub?”

“Nearest pub now, big town tomorrow, then on to the next cut. Up in Shepparton, ain’t it?” Pot stuffed his money in his pocket with a flourish.

Joe nodded. “So be it. Pile in, lads.”

Colin saddled Max’s Lady and ran her up into the back. He didn’t bother to notice whether Max got in or not. He was crooked on that old dog anyway. The mutt barked at the sheep and stirred them up, making them all the harder to handle, never doing much of anything useful.

The rest of the crew took so long washing up, Colin found himself luxuriating up front in the seat for once, instead of bouncing around in the back. Joe climbed behind the wheel. Hannah hopped in beside Colin. They were off.

Joe should have been happy. The first cut of the season brought them a nice check. Why was he so quiet?

He smiled suddenly at Hannah. “So how do you like shearing, lass?”

“I love it.” She sobered. “Are we going to have to argue with the pastoralist every time I get paid?”

Joe grimaced. “No. Clarke’s so flooting worried about union trouble you can wear him down to get just about anything you want. He’s a softy, but every other pastoralist we work for will be tough. Arguing won’t work. We won’t be able to shout ‘em down to get you the pay you deserve. And you deserve it. You work hard as any man. You did a fine job.”

“Thank you. Who’s broomie boy when you don’t have a girl?”

“Some boy your age. But, you see, a pastoralist will hire a hundred boys on the shearing floor before he’ll give the time of day to a girl. It’s a man’s world there, lass. If you manage to earn five shillings a week this season, that’ll be a shilling I don’t know about.”

Colin scowled. “We’re saving up to get her back to Sydney. Won’t get far on five bob.”

The truck rattled into a sleepy little village. Colin noticed up ahead that it supported not one but two pubs, facing each other on alternate corners of the town’s only cross street.

“Stop, Joe!” Hannah bounced up and down in place, pointing. “That shop is still open!”

Joe guffawed loudly as he slammed on the brakes. “Women! They can’t stand the noise of two coins rubbing ‘gainst each other.”

“Thank you, Joe!” Hannah leaped to the ground even as Colin made a wild, lunging grab for her.

“No, Hannah! We’re saving our money, remember?”

An iron grip locked Colin’s arm in place. Joe didn’t sound hostile but he certainly sounded definite. “Now, that young lady worked hard for her money. It’s all hers, not yours, and she’ll spend it as she cares to. Understand?”

Colin understood perfectly. With dismay he watched Hannah disappear into a small draper’s shop.

The pub they entered offered rabbit on its menu, but everyone declined. Ray and Mike hung themselves on the bar for some serious drinking. Joe, Pot, Horace, Curtis, Jackie Jump and Colin crowded around the largest table in the place and ordered steaks. Steaks. Beef. Colin could hardly wait.

“So you’re the boofheads put a brush on the board!” a rather young man with slicked-back hair called to them from the bar.

Colin leaned toward Pot. “What’d he say?”

“We’re the idiots who put a girl in the shearing shed.”

Someone else cackled, “Smart, them shearers.”

As one, the men at Colin’s table rose. The sudden anger in their faces frightened him. Joe purred menacingly, “She’s a sister, and innocent. You’ll mind what you say.”

“Here, you blokes!” the bartender barked. “No trouble, or out you all go.”

About half the room glared back and forth at each other. Colin’s companions sat down again.

“Gotta expect some of that,” old Horace grumbled. “Letting Hannah work on the board is gunner draw some comment. Just ain’t done, you know.”

Colin glanced at Joe. “Even when she works as hard as any man?”

“That ain’t it, lad. She’s a sheila. Mosta the stations won’t let her near at all.”

“Mmm.” Maybe shearing was not the trade for them after all. But where else would they find work? “How far to the nearest large town?”

“Five miles. Bendigo.”

“Joe! Colin! Look!” Hannah’s soprano voice warbled. Colin twisted around. She approached the table, proudly wearing a new frock—straight lines, a waistless dress with a very feminine flounce at the bottom. The latest style. As she stepped in beside Colin he noticed she also wore new black shoes. They were definitely a woman’s shoe.

Pot waved his glass aloft. “We ordered steak all around, lass. What’ll you have?”