Inherit the Sky (Lang Downs 1 ) (11 page)

“Don’t worry about my mother,” Caine said. “She doesn’t have a head for business. If we tell her everything is going fine with the station, she’ll accept that.”
“That doesn’t help when we can’t pay the bills,” Macklin reminded him.
“I’m not saying that,” Caine insisted. “I’m saying we can look at expenses and income and take a longer view than one quarter. I’ve got a degree in business. I know how to juggle these kinds of things. If we need to spend a little extra money now in order to make more money later, I’m not going to freak about a balance on the credit card. Or however you pay for things.”
“If you’re in this for the money, you may as well go home now,” Macklin said sharply. “Lang Downs isn’t some honey pot you can skim cash from all the time if you expect to keep it running more than a year or two.”
Caine’s eyes widened in surprise at the return of Macklin’s temper. He hadn’t intended his comment the way Macklin had taken it, but apparently money was a touchy subject, and his neutral statement had come across as critical. “As long as I can scrape together enough money for a weekend in Sydney once a year, I’ll have what I need,” Caine said. “Mom didn’t expect to inherit Lang Downs, so she isn’t expecting any income from it for her own retirement either. I want to continue my uncle’s legacy, maybe improve on it if there are ways to do that, but I want to honor him either way.”
“That’s what I want as well,” Macklin said, his voice softening enough to give Caine hope they could have this conversation without it ending in a shouting match.
“So what are the sources of income for the station?” Caine asked. If he understood that, he could maybe figure out the rest.
“Lamb and wool,” Macklin replied. “We sell the ram lambs and the ewe lambs we don’t keep to replenish our own stock after they’re weaned, usually in December, and we sell the wool in September.”
“Do you sell lamb or mutton at other times of the year?” Caine asked. “I mean, I realize lamb is a very specific designation as far as the age of the animal, but there’s year-round demand, so there has to be a way to meet that.”
“We don’t butcher here on the station unless it’s for our own use,” Macklin said. “Given how remote we are, we sell the stock to holding companies that handle all that, including housing the animals until it’s time for slaughter.”
Caine filed that away for future consideration. He would have to look into costs, but if they could take out the middleman, they might be able to earn some extra cash. “So how many lambs do we keep, and how many do we sell each year?”
“It varies depending on the winter and how many are born in the spring,” Macklin said evasively.
“Okay, how many did we keep and sell last year?” Caine pressed.
“It was a bit of a rough year,” Macklin said defensively, “even without Michael’s death. The winter was hard, and we lost more lambs and ewes than usual to the weather, so we didn’t sell as many in the spring.”
“Macklin, I’m not questioning your decisions,” Caine said gently. “I’m just trying to get a picture of the station.How bad is it?”
Macklin waited for so long to answer that Caine had decided he wouldn’t. “If we have a good breeding season and a mild winter, we’ll make it up next spring with extra lambs and plenty of wool, but if we have another winter like last winter, we’ll have to start dipping into the reserves.”
“Is there a mortgage on the property, or did Uncle Michael own it free and clear?” Caine asked.
“He owned it as far as I know,” Macklin replied. “Why?”
“Because the station itself is huge in terms of collateral,” Caine explained. “We could get a loan against the value of the station if we had to, not that I think it will come to that. Or we could look into some other ways to earn extra cash. Ecotourism or something like that. Give the tourist a real outback experience instead of the ones they get closer to Sydney.”
“We’re a working station, not some hobby farm,” Macklin protested.
“My point exactly,” Caine said. “We could provide the authentic experience other places can’t.”
Macklin didn’t look convinced. “I think I’d rather wait until we have no other choice.”
“And maybe that isn’t the right option,” Caine agreed, “but there may well be options Uncle Michael never considered. I just want us to keep an open mind to new possibilities.”

C
AINE spent the next several weeks going over the ledgers for the station, trying to get a better idea of the real financial and business situation. He hadn’t used the skills he’d learned in college in the mail room at Comcast, but he hadn’t forgotten everything either, and his personal interest in the success of the station gave him the motivation to work through the things that were outside his experience. He kept a running list of questions for Macklin. He had expected more resistance, given how reluctant Macklin had been to discuss the situation when it first came up, but the days ended peacefully on Macklin’s veranda, drinking a beer and discussing Caine’s questions and his understanding of the business side of the station. Caine chose to believe his obvious interest in the situation and his determination to keep Uncle Michael’s legacy intact swayed Macklin’s opinion in his favor.

“I’m not a legal expert,” Caine said a month later, when he finally felt like he had a picture of the station as a whole, “or an expert on sheep for that matter, but I’m pretty sure we qualify, or come close to qualifying, as an organic station. It might mean some time and expense to establish that up front, but if we can get that certification, we can charge a premium for the lambs and maybe even for the wool.”

“What would that entail?” Macklin asked warily.
“Here are the regulations,” Caine said, handing Macklin the sheaf of papers he’d printed off the Internet. “I marked the ones I wasn’t sure

about, but from what I could tell, we already do a lot of it. We’d have to make sure to buy organic hay if we don’t grow it ourselves. We’d have to make sure we’re dealing with disease issues the way they want

us to, but most of that—free range access, no pesticides, sufficient space when housed, natural breeding—is stuff we do already. It’s a three-year process from pre-conversion to Grade A organic, but there are certain things that can take less time than that, and benefits that can accrue even as we go through the certification process.”

“You’ve really done your homework on this,” Macklin said, skimming through the pages Caine had marked up.“I’m impressed. I’m not sure how I feel about the lack of vaccinations, but if we didn’t have that expense from the vet, we’d have some extra cash to buy organic hay and grain.”

“Could we grow extra hay or even grain here on the station?” Caine asked. “It would mean changing the grazing rotations and all that, but one thing was clear in all the research I did. The more we do in-house, the easier it is to maintain our certification once we get it because we aren’t relying on anyone else keeping their records in order.”

“I don’t know,” Macklin said. “It’s so easy to buy extra hay from Taylor or one of the other stations if they have any, or go in together for a big shipment if they don’t. We’d have to look at all the regulations for grazing and rotation and compare that with our available land.”

“I’m not saying no, pup,” Macklin said. “Just that I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it in those terms before. We’re moving the sheep down for the winter starting tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me for the next few days instead of staying cooped up in that office? You can get a feel for the way things work, and we can look at everything through the lens of an eventual organic certification. What do you say?”

“You really don’t mind if I go with you?” Caine asked excitedly. He hadn’t asked sooner because he knew how Macklin felt about his ignorance, and he needed to look into the business aspect anyway, even if he hadn’t come up with any new ideas besides the organic certification, so he’d know what to expect when it came time to start paying bills. That hadn’t made it any easier to spend the days inside, knowing everyone else was out working with the sheep.

“As long as you do what I tell you, when I tell you,” Macklin said. “I’ll answer any questions you have tomorrow after dinner, if you’re awake enough to talk with me after working all day, but when we’re out in the outback, there may not be time to talk, and not doing what I say could lead to you or an animal getting hurt, and I can’t have that.”

“I’ll do what you tell me,” Caine promised.
“Dress warmly,” Macklin added. “The wind is brutal outside the valley, and we won’t have time to bring you back once we get out there.”
“I will,” Caine said, finishing his beer and standing up to leave. “Thanks for the beer. What time should I be ready?”
“Kami will have breakfast ready at four thirty,” Macklin said. “We’ll ride out at five.If you don’t ride, you can drive one of the utes, but you won’t be as involved in the actual herding that way.”
“I can ride,” Caine replied. “Nothing fancy, but I can handle a horse. The one useful skill I have.”
“I don’t know,” Macklin said, holding up the papers in his hand. “If you’re right about this, I’d say you’ve got more than one useful skill.”
“Night,” Caine said with a smile, pushing down the fear that, if he was wrong, he’d lose Macklin’s respect entirely.
“Night,” Macklin said as Caine walked back toward his house.
He was excited about the chance to go with Macklin the next day. The evenings he had spent in the foreman’s company had served another purpose besides giving Caine a better understanding of the station’s finances. They’d cemented Caine’s fascination with the other man as well. Not that he actually expected to get the chance to do anything about it. Macklin was intensely private, steering the conversation away from anything remotely personal. Caine had no idea if the man had ever been married or in love or even seriously in lust. They said no man was an island, but Caine was pretty sure Macklin came close. The only time Caine saw any softening in that hard shell was with the station’s kids. The foreman always had a smile, a hand