A Changing Land (12 page)

Anthony returned with the mail, his signature slam of the back door reverberating through the house and causing Sarah to frown. He dropped the bundle on the edge of the oak desk and surprisingly gave her a light kiss on the top of her head. He was wearing a brown cable-knit jumper that made him look totally huggable.

‘How's the office secretary going this morning?'

Sarah dearly wished that she didn't have to wipe the smile off his face, especially when there hadn't been one there for quite a few days. Pulling the rubber band from the rolled up newspapers and envelopes, she sorted through the pile quickly.

He leant against the desk. ‘I'm sorry we argued.'

Sarah passed him the rural newspaper and gave a shrug. ‘It's inevitable, I guess. There will always be something happening that one of us doesn't agree with.'

Anthony rolled the paper back into a long tube and began tapping one end of it into the palm of his hand. ‘And? I can tell by that matter-of-fact tone that something else is wrong.'

‘I don't want us to have another argument …'

‘Which pretty much means we will.' His smile vanished, replaced by a flat look of defence.

‘I'm worried about Boxer's Plains. It's overstocked. We'll have to move some of them immediately. As it is we've probably lost carrying capacity over the winter. Those cattle will have to be the first to go on the route and –' A raised palm made her halt mid-sentence.

‘I did mention at dinner the other night that I was working on a project that would assist in helping Wangallon recover from the drought.'

‘I sort of remember,' although Sarah wondered what it had to do with overstocking.

‘Well, before you start running off about Boxer's, perhaps you could wait a couple of days. I'll have a better idea of the cost by then.'

‘Great, just great,' Sarah repeated, shuffling the mail like a deck of cards as Anthony walked out. She didn't like the sound of this cloak and dagger project, especially when he was sounding defensive. Here she was with sweaty palms and the dull thud of a coming headache and she was no further advanced. She looked disinterestedly at the mail. When the knock came at the back door, Matt Schipp's voice boomed loudly across her thoughts.

He stood with his hat in his hands, one riding boot resting on the step. Ferret, having limped to his side, rested his head on his boot. Matt gave him a pat. ‘You're a spoilt little bugger aren't you? Up here at the big house.'

Matt looked as if he'd already worked more than a full day and although it was only nearing eleven in the morning, Sarah speculated that he probably almost had.

‘Are you free to come out with me, Sarah?' His expression was unreadable, his voice quiet. ‘We have a problem.'

Hamish trotted the gelding up the gravel drive of Wangallon Homestead, wheeling the horse to the right and left. He was a stubborn animal. Even after castration and months of continuous riding, the horse chewed disconsolately on the bit and would move to a gallop as soon as the reins were loosened. At the paling gateway Hamish turned the animal back towards the direction of the house, fighting the gelding's inclination to break for the grassland beyond. The horse pawed the ground and reared on its hind legs, whinnying in annoyance. With one gloved hand on the reins, Hamish dug his knees into the animal's flanks and struck the horse on its rump with a short riding crop. ‘You damn recalcitrant.' Immediately the gelding yielded, trotting almost amiably back towards the house where Angus waited.

‘Up you get.'

Angus did as his father bid and, with a stirrup in the form of his father's hands, was hoisted atop his new horse. He grabbed the
reins tightly, pulled his knees in towards the gelding's flanks and waited for directions.

‘Well then,' Hamish gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head as the gelding's nostrils flared, ‘you've been complaining for days since you learnt he's to be yours. Let's see if you can handle him.'

Angus flicked the reins and the horse moved forward with an unsteady jolt. He grinned at his father, sat his bum squarely in the saddle and dug his heels in. The gelding snorted and pigrooted across the width of the gravel drive, and Angus was launched up into the air to land solidly on his backside.

‘Again,' Hamish commanded, ignoring the boy's look of wounded pride. ‘Think about what you did wrong.'

Angus climbed back into the saddle with his father's assistance and flicked the reins. The gelding stood stubbornly still.

‘Oh do be careful, Angus.' Claire watched from the verandah, her quilting dangling from her fingers.

Hamish held his right hand up for silence. Angus squeezed his knees against the gelding and was rewarded with a gentle trot. The boy was endowed with a good seat, Hamish noted, and a straight back without a hint of a slouch. Boy and horse began to trot around the perimeter of the garden. Hamish watched as his son relaxed into his mount's gait, the reins drooping, a barely perceptible slouch appearing in his lower back. Cupping his hands behind his back, Hamish readied for his son to receive another grounding. As if on cue Angus dropped one hand free of the reins in imitation of his father, dug his heels in and was quickly launched over the horse's head, his arms flailing in the wind. He landed with a thud to sprawl at the base of a bougainvillea hedge. The gelding snorted and kicked out its back legs before calming.

Claire ran down the steps of the verandah, clutching at her skirt. Hamish barred her path.

‘He is not a child, Claire, and you are not his father. Please tend to your domain and I will tend to mine.'

Claire frowned in annoyance and looked to where her young son walked gamely across to the gelding. He led the horse to the paling fence, climbed up on it and half-jumped half-pulled himself into the saddle. The horse immediately bucked him off. Claire shook her head at her son's determination. Angus brushed the dirt from his hands and approached the gelding once more.

‘He is as stubborn as his father,' Claire announced, as Angus led the horse back to where his parents waited.

Passing the reins to his father, Angus positioned himself to be helped once more. This time the gelding didn't even allow his young rider to be seated. Hamish extended his hand and pulled his son up off the ground. ‘We'll try in the yards tomorrow, Angus.' The boy's cheek was grazed and a layer of dirt and grass clung to his clothing. ‘Both hands on the reins at all times, no sudden movements, heels in. And keep those knees of yours gripped against his flanks. Lastly, make friends with him,' Hamish instructed.

Angus patted the gelding between the ears. ‘He's quiet enough now, Father.'

Father and son discussed the gelding's merits standing side by side, their hands clasped behind their backs. Hamish could only imagine how the boy's backside felt. By comparison he knew exactly his wife's temperament, her feet managing to make an inordinately loud noise on the verandah.

‘Wetherly is dining with us on the 27th,' he called over his shoulder. Claire halted on the doorstep, straightened her shoulders and then, lifting her skirts, walked softly indoors.

‘So then you managed to find your way back,' Hamish said between puffs of tobacco as Luke appeared around the corner of the homestead.

Luke ran his hands across the gelding's flanks, the horse sidestepping in response.

‘You should have been back earlier,' Hamish continued with a studied puff of his pipe. ‘Take the horse back to the stables, Angus.'

‘Yes, Father.' They watched Angus depart. He was limping slightly and, thinking himself out of sight, rubbed at his backside.

‘After months in the saddle I would have thought I'd earned some rest.' Luke undid the leather saddlebag strung across his shoulder. From it he retrieved a sheath of paper marked by rain, grime and saddle grease. He passed the bill of sale to his father. ‘Besides, I'm sure Jasperson reported on my whereabouts.'

‘The cattle were obviously in fair order. They fetched a good price, although you had some losses.' He scanned the paperwork with interest.

‘Unavoidable losses,' Luke was not interested in giving a detailed account of the trip. His father rarely asked for one. ‘They did well. Better than I expected.'

‘You always have erred more on the conservative side, Luke.'

‘Not everyone can survive on risk alone.' The silence between them signalled the beginning of the weeks ahead.

Hamish stroked his moustache thoughtfully. ‘How's your shoulder?'

Luke slung the saddlebag back over his shoulder. ‘I'd keep Angus away from that Aboriginal boy. I caught them fighting.'

‘Willy is Boxer's nephew,' Hamish explained, ‘and if Angus gets knocked about a bit, well, he'll just have to learn from it. As we all do. He's eight and he's not had the cosseting your own mother gave you.'

Rose could hardly be charged with being over protective of her children, Luke thought. His own childhood had been much like Angus's until he'd been all but orphaned through childhood illness, accident and his mother's death.

‘You better get yourself cleaned up. It is Christmas apparently.'

‘So I've been told.' So that was it, eight months droving and their conversation limited to a handful of minutes.

‘By the way, Luke, your grandmother died recently. She never woke from her sleep.'

‘I see. And the emporium?' An image of the George Street Emporium he'd visited recently sprang to mind. It was crowded with every conceivable object: hammers and pickaxes, through to sacks of foodstuffs, men's clothing and material for women's things. He'd been intrigued with a set of finely carved men: six tiny Chinamen with poles strung across their shoulders and buckets dangling from fine cord at the end. The owner of the emporium reckoned they'd been carved from ivory. But Luke hadn't settled for that, he'd purchased the tortoiseshell hair comb instead.

His father shrugged. ‘No doubt we will receive correspondence in that regard.'

Walking around the side of the house Luke paused to take a swig from the canvas waterbag that hung from a hook under the eaves of the meat house. It was freshly washed down. Clearly there had been a kill in celebration of Christmas. Black flies buzzed incessantly as water dripped from the large wooden chopping block, a hefty tree trunk four feet wide by three feet high. Butchers knives and buckets stood washed on a low wooden table and the tampered dirt floor showed semi-dried puddles of water. Over all came the pungent scent of chloride of lime.

‘Luke, Luke, Luke!'

Luke found himself caught up in a great hug by Lee and was soon following his pigtailed, bow-kneed form past the old man's large vegetable garden and into his hut. It was dark inside. Dark
enough for streaks of daylight to show through myriad unevenly joined planks of wood. Luke counted three candles burning wanly in makeshift holders, a broken china cup, a saucer, a mound of earth. Beyond that he could smell incense burning. He sat cross-legged on the floor. The flare of a match broke the almost other-worldly feel of the room. A deep chuckle followed.

‘Young fella come back, eh?'

Luke followed the voice to a male form sitting some feet away. It was Boxer. Lee turned the flame up on a kerosene lamp.

‘So this is where you old people get to when my father's calling,' said Luke.

Boxer coughed a little, drew a deep breath. ‘Special occasion, young fella come back.'

Luke accepted the small glass of watered down rum and threw the liquid down his throat. ‘And Mungo. He's a good stockman, Boxer.'

The old black coughed again. ‘Better be.'

As Luke's eyes grew accustomed to the light the hut came into focus. At the opposite end there was a handmade wooden chair, a bench holding cast iron cooking pots, small sacks of dried goods and a clutch of quails' eggs. Along one length was a narrow bed and across from it, Lee's altar. It was from here that the smell of incense originated. A streak of smoke rose into the air from a ceramic holder. It sat surrounded by a collection of small bowls holding offerings. On the wall behind, tacked up with two nails, hung a torn banner inscribed with Chinese characters.

‘My grandmother died,' Luke said slowly, drawing his eyes away from the remnants of Lee's lost culture. ‘You remember her, don't you, Lee? My mother's mother? She ran the emporium. What was she like?'

Lee's dark eyes were sunken as if beginning to withdraw from this world. ‘At Ridge Gully, yes, yes.' Lee was tempted to tell Luke
that the woman liked the pleasures of the flesh. That she paraded her daughter around like a bag of jewels until Master Hamish swallowed her up. ‘One should not speak of the ancestors,' he cautioned, dipping his finger into the murky contents of his glass and sucking at his dirty nail.

‘You have much sadness?' Boxer asked as he dragged heavily on his pipe.

‘No, not much,' Luke said truthfully. ‘I never met her.'

‘Her daughter was like a scared rabbit,' Boxer continued. ‘I remember; too pale, not strong enough for the spirits of this country.' Boxer sucked again on his pipe.

‘Not strong enough for many things,' Luke agreed, his finger flicking at an ant. ‘All my family are dead now, except for Hamish and Angus.'

‘And you,' Lee pointed his wiry finger directly at him.

‘Sure, I'm still around.' Luke got to his feet, marvelling at how old bones could sit cross-legged for hours on end when he could barely last a few minutes. ‘I admire your loyalty to my father, both of you.'

Lee bowed his head.

Boxer stared at him. ‘Mebbe it's easy to follow those who do not forgive. The Boss's path is undivided and for some there is strength in such a life. And remember,' he chewed on the thickness of his bottom lip, ‘the Boss is favoured by the old people,' he glanced skywards, ‘for he looks after mother earth who is home to us all. As for those who do not walk the earth now,' Boxer continued, ‘well perhaps they did not wish to do so; or mebbe Wangallon didn't want them.'

‘Come, come,' Lee bustled Luke from the hut. ‘You come back later.' Alone with Boxer, Lee hunched his shoulders, pulling a plug of tobacco from the pouch at his waist. ‘The boy thinks he is alone in the world, that all that were of blood to him are dead excepting his own father and the boy, Angus.' Lee stuffed his wooden pipe
with the tobacco, clamped it between the remains of his teeth and looked at Boxer. ‘He is not. There is another.' He sighed heavily. ‘There is always another.'

Boxer's wide forehead halved in size as the whites of his eyes increased.