The Bark Cutters (37 page)

Jeremy waved his hand. ‘Hey, don't leave them yet, we all still have to eat. Wait until we get back from our trip and then we can look at getting a bigger place to share,' he suggested.

‘With a dark room,' Sarah added.

‘Sarah, you'll have to go back and tell Angus personally, you know.' Ronald didn't want to dampen the moment, however the fact remained that Sarah owed her grandfather a response in person.

Sarah looked at her father. Slight jowls gathered at his chin and sagged downwards to flesh out his neck. He hadn't yet developed the sunken look about his eyes that aged his own father, but the beginnings of disrepair were evident – more emotional than physical, Sarah decided. This was a mental ageing that she knew he could control if he wanted to; if he only had the strength to pull himself into the future.

‘Why can't you just telephone him?' Jeremy asked. He didn't want her back there. Father and daughter exchanged long knowing looks. He may as well have not been in the room.

‘I'll go in the morning, Dad,' She looked down at the gorgeous
ring on her finger, determined to block out tomorrow. ‘Can I just ring Shelley and Kate before we go out for dinner? They'll be so thrilled.'

‘Two bridesmaids.' Sue clapped her hands in delight. ‘How wonderful.'

The radio crackled loudly as the Toyota jarred along the dirt road. ‘Two thirds of the state has been drought declared.' Seated between Sarah and Angus, Shrapnel tried to rest his muzzle on the dash, his cold nose repeatedly striking empty air. Finally he growled in annoyance before resting his muzzle back on Angus's thigh. Through the closed window of the vehicle, Sarah watched as a steady wind carried the topsoil of country hundreds of kilometres from the west across the road in sheets. Having arrived on the coach from Brisbane at 10 p.m. the night before, Sarah had read the accounts in the newspaper of the pall of red dust hanging over Sydney. Now the choking dust, lifted high into the atmosphere by the arid conditions of Australia's red centre, dropped over their vehicle, the gloomy pall shrouding everything in sight.

Her grandfather worked down through the gears as they approached a stock ramp. She knew he would never have considered the possibility of a negative answer and she felt the
unforgiving stare of his violet eyes before they flickered back to the dirt track they had turned down.

‘Problem, girl?'

Sarah shook her head as they turned towards the cattle yards, her right hand moving to softly stroke her bare ring finger. It seemed easier to take the ring off until she was ready to tell him her news.

Four horses stood motionless under a clump of belah trees as they drove up and parked beside two bull-bar-engulfed utilities. The horses munched laconically in the heat, a row of saddles resting along a length of fallen timber only metres from where the animals grazed. A couple of motorbikes and three horse floats were parked a little further away while the metallic sheen of a helicopter made the whole picture look like a trade show. They walked to where the men lay camped under a shady tree, the smell of both horse and human sweat greeting Sarah as the camp stirred. The wind blew steadily in her face, grit and dust clawing its way into her clothes, up her nose and down her throat. She coughed, squinting against both glare and grit. Anthony, clad in filthy jeans and a faded green shirt, jumped to his feet as they approached, his grubby hand extending quickly to shake Angus'. She felt rather than saw Anthony touch the brim of his hat in her direction. She barely nodded, staring instead at the jackeroo, Colin, trying her best to give him a look of pure disdain, grateful for the six contract stock-workers calling out cheery hellos to her as they shook Angus's hand.

‘Boys,' Angus greeted them one by one. ‘Well, Mick, how did you go?'

‘Good. Some of the cattle were weak, but otherwise good,' Mick answered. ‘Couldn't find that mickey bull that went for you last year, Mr Gordon.' Mick heaped fresh tobacco into white paper and rolled the cigarette, his fingers leaving smears of dirt on the thin white paper as he lit it and took a deep drag. ‘Dead, no doubt.
Probably ran what little fat he had off himself and dropped dead. Stupid bastard.' Mick stopped abruptly and looked apologetically at Sarah. ‘Sorry. Mad bugger though, wasn't he, Anthony?'

Anthony agreed. ‘We were delayed, Angus. A lot of the steers were caught up in the far corner and we could only use the horses,' Anthony reported, though it seemed to him that his words sounded strained and not at all authoritative. ‘Luckily the dust storm didn't get really bad until about an hour ago.' He willed himself not to look in Sarah's direction, moving instead to stand by her side.

‘Be seeing you, boss,' Mick announced with a jaunty tip of his hat in Sarah's direction.

Anthony rolled his eyes.

‘Visibility okay?' Angus asked.

‘Yeah. No problems. Gotta get a move on. I'm due back in the Territory in five days.' Mick left the group with claps on his back from the surrounding men and walked quickly to what he called his ‘bird'. Everyone watched, admiring the smooth swirl of the blades as the neat two-seater flew straight up. It hovered for a minute, then, with technical precision, the nose of the helicopter dropped in salute, before disappearing over the line of trees and into a blur of dust.

‘Good trip, Sarah?' Anthony took a long look sideways at her, his mind returning to the passionate kiss so recently shared and Sarah's sudden outburst that night.

Sarah kept her eyes straight ahead. ‘Fine.'

‘Okay, you two. Save the bonding for later,' Angus huffed. ‘Who is knocking off and who is staying?'

Sarah listened half-heartedly as Anthony and her grandfather chose the men for the afternoon. Colin and another stationhand were sent back to Wangallon, having commenced the muster at 5 a.m. on horseback with Anthony. An unknown worker, employed only for the muster, also left.

‘Right. Anthony, that's five. Including me as supervisor,' Angus winked. ‘Let's get to it.'

Sarah sighed as she pulled off her heavy jumper and did up the buttons on her shirtsleeves. She had rather hoped for two quiet days at Wangallon, giving her time to talk to her grandfather and keeping as far away from Anthony as possible. It was after two. Trucks were coming at six o'clock to collect six hundred head. These had been drafted and separated into another yard, so at least that task was already accomplished.

‘There's only three hundred to be branded,' Anthony instructed as he crawled through the timber railings of the yard.

‘What?' Sarah followed him, her back scraping on the rough hewn timber above her. ‘In one afternoon?'

‘And the non-sale cattle have to be taken back to their paddocks before nightfall, so they can forage for food and water.'

‘Not by me,' Sarah said sullenly, suddenly suspicious of the grin on her grandfather's face.

‘He's pulling your leg, kiddo. There's only one hundred and thirty left to be branded by the looks of things. We can thank the drought for throwing the cow cycles out of whack!'

‘Great.'

Sarah stood halfway down the drafting race with a three-foot length of polythene pipe. Anthony was at the neck of the race and her grandfather at the swinging gate that would separate the cows from their calves. At the signal, Sarah took a step back to allow the race to fill. Out in the main body of the yards, the two remaining contractors herded the not-for-sale cattle into the deepest yard so they could begin walking them back to their paddock.

The majority of the animals were exhausted from the morning's long walk. But there were always a few waiting to cause havoc, reversing down the narrow drafting race, crashing into the railings and stirring those others weak from the drought. Within
forty minutes the calves had been drafted off and were in the pound yard ready to be forced back up the race in single file.

Sarah's legs were heavy as she drank thirstily from the large water container sitting atop a yard post.

‘You have lunch in town?' Anthony pointed to his esky. ‘If not there's some food in there.'

Angus grumbled as he accepted leftover sandwiches from Anthony's esky, biting into a corned beef and raw onion roll. Sarah settled for half a corned beef and pickle, scooping some of the thick layer of the relish out with her finger and flicking it to her feet. A dog was there instantly to sniff at the offering in the dirt.

They battled it out for another two hours. Sarah stood at the side of the crush. The bellowing calves, frantic to be reunited with their mothers, were pushed from the narrow race into the steel tray that positioned the kicking and shitting animals on their sides. It was an efficient process. Anthony tagged the struggling youngsters in one ear with large plastic ownership tags, then earmarked the other ear with a quick snip of the flesh. This first job done, the young bull calves were then castrated.

Sarah grasped the intertwined ‘G' branding iron. The iron, glowing red hot from a nearby fire, left a clear symbol of ownership in singed hair and skin. Sarah hated the stench, but it was the most efficient and least painful method. She lifted the iron in her right hand, placed her left boot on the animal's rump while Anthony held onto its tail. The job was over and the animal released before he knew what had happened.

Every so often, her grandfather stepped in to give her a break, but it was clear that he, too, was exhausted. She was debating what excuse she could use to get him to go back to the homestead, when Anthony spoke.

‘Angus, another hour and we'll be done. I'm quite happy to
finish up if you want to take the boys back.' He gestured to where two riders were appearing from the scrub, having taken a couple of hundred head back to their paddock. Anthony spoke with concern. ‘They're buggered, you know. Don't want to put them off the bush for good.'

‘Good point,' Sarah agreed. ‘I'll drive.'

‘Not a bad idea. Sarah, you'll have to stay and help Anthony.'

Sarah didn't bother to argue. She was tired and hungry, but somehow she didn't think her complaining would change much. ‘I'm not exactly accustomed to manual labour anymore. Bit out of condition, you know.'

Her grandfather gave her the same look he used when he hit a fly with his ancient swat in the kitchen at Wangallon.

Angus left the yards, Shrapnel nudging his right leg as he walked. He lit a cigarette, inhaling reverently. He knew every bird call, every nesting season, could sniff out a subtle weather change, the lair of a fox, discover where wild pigs nestled during the daylight hours and, when younger, get close enough to shine a light into a joey's eyes while it cocooned within its mother's pouch. And he knew young Sarah's mind was turning. Oh, he knew of Colin's behaviour, of the scene in the car park. A man needed someone to report on the gallivanting around the place, after all. What he didn't know, what he couldn't discover was what the argument consisted of. Lovers' quarrel? No. He shook his head. Well, as he'd often remarked to himself, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, especially if the trough is as consistently unclear as Sarah. This was a situation he couldn't control, despite the years of planning, of selecting Anthony specifically. Oh, he knew he couldn't make young people fall in love, but they had always got on so damn well. Shit! Perhaps he should have attempted some of his father's tactics, done a bit of culling, got rid of the stray Jeremy, that ever-present boil, as persistent as a bad case of haemorrhoids.

‘Lucky for you, old mate,' he said as his gnarled hand patted Shrapnel roughly on the head. ‘A man needs some sensible people about him.'

Shrapnel wagged his tail in agreement.

By dusk, the calves and cows were reunited, and the yard gate had been opened to let them escape into the cooling night. Sarah leaned against the wooden railings of the yard. The steel bucket at her feet held ear markers and a pocketknife in bloodied disinfectant. Removing the implements, she lifted the bucket, tossing the contents onto the still-glowing branding fire, making it sizzle loudly. Anthony was checking the cattle for transportation before tying the remaining dogs up in the back of his utility.

At the touch of a cattle dog, Sarah squatted down to pat the dusty animal, letting his wet snout rest on her filthy jeans. Suddenly darkness descended, and with it the noise and bustle of the day dwindled to nothingness. She was conscious of cold air biting through the cotton sleeves of her shirt. The night encroached eerily. For the first time she felt alien to the land, as if it did not want her. She shivered. Whatever lay out in the paddock knew she intended to sell part of Wangallon, Sarah felt it in her bones.

‘Sarah, I wanted to speak to you about …' Anthony had walked over to her.

Sarah busied herself with the steel bucket. She had managed to work beside him and not think. If only the trucks would come, then it would all be over. ‘Nothing to talk about, really.' She brushed her hands on her jeans. ‘I'm pleased we can still work together.' She walked to the utility, leaning into the back to lift the water container up and perch it precariously on the
side. Family interference aside, Wangallon still needed good management.

‘Let me help you.'

His skin touched hers momentarily as he tipped the container and he looked at her. Sarah cupped her hands and waited for him to pour water into them. She splashed the cold water on her face, shivering as it washed away some of the day's grime, then she drank heavily again. When she finished, she took a step back. Anthony was staring at her. Under his gaze, Sarah wiped the streaming water off her face and walked around the Toyota. She opened the vehicle door.

‘I want to talk to you. Sarah, bloody hell, can't we talk?' He touched her shoulder.

‘What's done is done.'

‘What's done?' Anthony shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Do you think you could talk a bit less cryptically?'

An air horn sounded. ‘The trucks are here,' Sarah replied. She could not bear his pretence any longer. Clearly Anthony and her grandfather had everything mapped out neatly between them. Anthony gets a lifelong management position on Wangallon, her grandfather ensures the Gordon name remains associated with the property.

‘Damn.' Anthony lingered only a second before climbing into his vehicle. He turned the ute towards the main road, leaving his headlights on high beam so the trucks could see the yards clearly.