Old Drumble (11 page)

“Not only that but, as we was bringing the steers down the coast, he disappears at Puru, north of Thames, and he doesn’t show up again till we’re coming past Totara Vineyards, several miles south of the town. I’ve just whipped into the vineyard and bought meself a bottle of Stanley Young Chan’s port wine to rub on the inside of me throat for the rheumatism, when Old Drumble catches up with us, and he looks a proper shambles.

“Would you believe it, the wicked old sinner, he’s done a pub crawl along Pohlen Street! Had a beer in every pub, he reckons, all eighty-six of them. Then he thinks for a while and croaks, ‘No, I counted a hundred and twenty.’”

“A hundred and twenty pubs!” said Jack.

“He’s lying!” said Andy. “There might have been a hundred and twenty pubs along Pohlen Street in the good old days when the Thames was flush with gold and kauri, but there’s nothing like that number now. All the same, Old Drumble’s had a skinful.

“Like I was saying, Jack, we gets to Pipiroa, and Old Drumble can’t bark, and no wonder. Not just with scoffing hot pumpkin out of the hangi, and then tipping all that booze down his gullet. That’s not all by a long shot. He’s been smoking, too, and tobacco’s harder on
a dog’s throat than hot pumpkin. Old Drumble’s got no show of stopping the river with his bark.”

“Did you swim the steers across?” Jack asked.

“That cloudburst up towards Ngatea,” said Andy, “it’s put the Piako over her banks, and the flood’s bringing down rafts of raupo and flax, whole floating patches of swamp.

“A cream can bobs past, a couple of kerosene tins, and a strainer post with a few sprags of wire still stapled on; a cowshed with a miserable-looking cocky sitting on its roof and reading the
Weekly News
goes by on the flood, turning slowly and heading for the Hauraki Gulf; somebody’s clothes-line sweeps down with its tea-tree prop and all the sheets and pillowslips still pegged on, and comes aground just below our feet.

“There’s no show of swimming them steers across till the flood goes down, and by then we’ll have missed the sales up in Auckland.

“ ‘If you hadn’t made a pig of yourself on hot pumpkin and tobacco,’ I tells Old Drumble, ‘you could have stopped the river with another thundering bark,’ but he’s not listening to a word I says.

“Instead, he climbs sort of gingerly down the bank and unpegs the sheets and pillowslips off the clothes-line. ‘Give us a hand,’ he croaks.’”

Andy nodded at Jack and said, “He rubs his sore throat and mouths at me, ‘Tear them sheets and pillowslips into
strips,’ and he trots over to the steers and orders them to pay attention.

“His voice is that hoarse, he can’t speak much above a whisper, but the steers can’t look away. Well, you know what it’s like when he puts his eye on you, eh?”

Jack nodded. “What did he say to the steers?”

“I can’t hear what he’s saying for the noise of the river,” said Andy, “and those half-wild steers, they’re pawing the ground and muttering; but, one by one, they drop their eyes before Old Drumble’s terrible stare, turn their ears forward and listen.”

“O
LD DRUMBLE TELLS THE STEERS
what they’ve got to do,” said Andy. “He shoves them into a long line, gives me the nod, and I go down it, blindfolding them with the torn-up strips of sheets and pillowslips. And, you know, they’re so scared of his eye, they just stand and let me do it!”

“Mum says steers can be pretty dangerous,” said Jack.

“They don’t dare try nothing on,” said Andy, “not with Old Drumble eyeing them.”

“But how’s he going to get them across the river blindfolded?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Andy.

“I’ll believe it!”

“I told you about the hawser they’ve taken across the river to winch the scow off the ferry?” Jack nodded.

“The first steer picks up the tip of Old Drumble’s tail between his teeth, the next one picks up that one’s tail
between his teeth, and so on down the line. Old Drumble takes the long tea-tree prop off the clothes-line between his choppers, gets it balanced, and steps out on the hawser like Blondin walking the tightrope over Niagara Falls. And, one by one, them blindfolded steers feel for the hawser with their feet and follow him out into mid-air.”

“Heck!”

“I said you wouldn’t believe me,” Andy told Jack.

“I believe you!” In his mind, Jack was looking at the extraordinary sight of Old Drumble leading the blindfolded steers across the tightrope.

“Yeah, well I notice Old Drumble’s taking good care not to look down: it’s a fair sort of drop into the river and, if he goes, the steers go, too.

“It’s not so bad for a man, of course, he’s only got two feet to worry about, but a dog’s got four: he’s got to concentrate hard to keep them all on the tightrope.”

“I never thought of—” Jack started to say.

“Think about it,” Andy told him.

“Out in the middle, under the weight of them heavy steers, the hawser curves down towards the water. One end of Old Drumble’s clothes-prop gets hooked in the branches of a gorse bush riding high on the flood. He takes one paw off the hawser, to get his balance, lifts another, and I yell to watch out, but me voice won’t carry over the noise of the water.

“I see Old Drumble lift a third paw off the hawser. Just
for a moment, he’s balancing on one foot, and scrabbling air with the other three. He’s in big trouble, and there’s nothing a man can do to help him. I holds me breath.”

“What did he do?”

“I sees him take his fourth paw off the hawser!”

“True?”

“True as I’m telling you this, I see that remarkable dog take half a dozen steps through mid-air, find the hawser again with his first paw, then he puts down the second, the third, and the fourth, and he’s got his balance. I lets out me breath, as he starts the long climb up the hawser to the opposite bank.”

“What about the steers?”

“Oh, them? They just mooch along behind him, blindfolded and holding on to the tail of the one in front of them; they can’t see anything, so why should they be worried?”

“Why should they be worried?” Jack repeated.

Andy called something to Young Nugget who gave a sharp bark. A handful of sheep rattled their dags and scampered after the rest.

“Next thing,” said Andy, “I see Old Drumble hopping down on the bank the other side, dropping the prop from between his jaws, and whipping the blindfolds off the steers as they file past. One by one, they spit out the tail of the one in front and step on to solid ground.”

“They all got across okay then?”

“The last one’s still on the hawser when his blindfold slips; he thinks he’s in mid-air, opens his mouth to give a shriek, and drops the tail of the steer in front of him.”

“Did he drown?”

“Lucky for him, he’s across and balancing on the hawser, just a couple of inches above the ground. He comes down a bit heavy-like, gets to his feet, and plunges bawling into the middle of the herd to escape Old Drumble’s terrible eye.”

“What about you, Andy? You’re still on the other side.”

“There’s a crowd of local hicks on the far side; they cheered Old Drumble and the steers when they got across, but I can tell they’re just waiting for me to make a fool of meself, trying to do a Blondin. Most of the jeering and jibing’s coming from a no-good push of young larrikins who’ve got nothing better to do than to hang around waiting for a bit of cheap entertainment at my expense.

“I thinks to meself, ‘I’ll be a bit too cunning for them yahoos,’ and I gives Old Drumble a whistle. He drops to it right off, picks up the tea-tree pole between his teeth, gets it balanced, and trots back along the hawser; he blindfolds me, and leads me across with the end of his tail in my mouth. I steps down on the road the other side of the Piako, take off the blindfold, and hand it to one of them young jokers.

“ ‘How about giving it a go yourself?’ I says to him, and
there’s no more chiacking from his mates.

“But that one young joker I give the blindfold to, he’s so embarrassed, he can’t keep his trap shut, and he lets out with a ‘Haw! Haw!’ The next minute, Old Drumble’s got him blindfolded, has the tip of his tail between the young joker’s teeth, leads him across the other side, and trots back, leaving him there.”

“Serves him right!” said Jack.

“Actually, I felt a bit sorry for him, no way back, and all his mates giving him a hard time. But Old Drumble’s got the steers moving, and we’re heading across the Plains for Waitakaruru.”

“What happened to the young joker on the other side of the river? ”

“He was too windy to try and walk the hawser on his own; he tramped to the Thames, worked his way up to Auckland on one of the mussel scows, and lit out for Australia. Best thing he could have done: his mates would have pointed the finger, never let him forget it.

“The grass came away good-oh after all that rain, so we took it easy, feeding and fattening the steers along the long acre all the way to Auckland, and arrived at the sales just in time to get the cocky the top price. You know, Jack, a lot of the skill in being a drover is in the timing.”

“You did all right, then?” Jack said. “I suppose you could say that.”

“What was wrong?”

“Just that, getting across the Piako on the hawser like that, I didn’t collect any flatties out of the river-bed, so we missed out on a feed that time.”

Jack nodded. “Still…”

“Now, this,” said Andy, “is about as far as your mother said you could go.”

To Jack’s astonishment, they were at the cemetery crossing already. On the main road, the other side of the railway lines, a lorry loaded with black sacks of basic slag slowed, took the turn-off, and disappeared between the barberry hedges that lined the road to Wardville.

Andy whistled, and Old Nell ran to the front of the mob and held them. Old Drumble ran back, offered Jack his paw to shake, and swapped places again with Old Nell.

Jack tried saying, “I’ll just come over the crossing.”

“ ‘Not a foot on those lines,’ I heard your mother say.” Andy shook his head, until his hat and waistcoat creaked. “It’d be worth more than me life, if your mother found I’d encouraged you to disobey her and cross the lines.” Andy gave a dry, leathery chuckle. “Besides, I’m not going to risk going without a feed of her ginger-nuts, next time I comes through Waharoa. We’ll be seeing you, Jack.”

Jack ran and climbed the cemetery gates. On top of one big, squared, white post, he stood and watched Old
Drumble look both ways up and down the railway lines, lead the mob across, and turn left on to the main road.

Old Drumble held the mob for a wagon to go by, then led them around the Wardville turn-off. His tail disappeared; the last of the mob vanished between the barberry hedges; Young Nugget, Old Nell, Andy, and Old Nosy disappeared.

On top of the post, Jack felt left behind, all on his own. He heard a crunch, and nearly fell off the post, looking around, expecting to see the sinister swagger.

“What are you staring at?” said a voice. “Hop on, or your mother will be taking our lunch off the table and giving it to the chooks.”

Jack slid down, scrambled up on the bar, his father’s arms around him, and felt safe.

“D
AD
,” J
ACK SAID
, “did you know, Old Drumble’s got a thundering loud bark?”

“He’s a handy dog, Old Drumble, so he might have a bit of huntaway in him as well as border collie. Mostly, though, I’ve noticed he uses his eye and keeps his bark to himself.” Jack’s father steered the bike around a pothole.

“If you hang on to the handlebars too hard,” he said, “you could have us both over. You’ll take the skin off your knees; I’ll take the knees out of my trousers; and that’ll be the last time your mother lets you go droving with Andy.

“I’ve heard Old Drumble bark on occasion,” he said, “a pretty dried-up sort of croak. Probably all the dust he’s swallowed.” Mr Jackman felt Jack loosen his excited grip on the handlebars and take a deep breath.

“Dad, Old Drumble burnt his throat eating hot
pumpkin straight out of a copper Maori, and he tried to cool it down by going on a pub crawl through Thames. He had a beer in every pub in Pohlen Street, all a hundred and twenty of them, and he smoked his head off, and that didn’t help his throat one bit.” Jack could hear his own voice racing.

“Old Drumble used to chew Havelock Dark Plug tobacco, because it said ‘Aromatic’ on the tin, but the sheep complained. They said Old Drumble’s teeth turned yellow, and his breath wasn’t all that aromatic either; they reckoned it stunk something rotten when he barked!”

“Did Andy tell you all this?” Jack’s father asked.

“Yes, so it must be true.” Jack looked at Mr Dickey’s hedge. “We saw a swagger over there under the hedge. Wearing sand-shoes without any laces, and no belt—just a tie.”

“Probably the same one I saw as I was leaving work. Poor devil, he looked down to it.”

“Andy told him he might get a job haymaking up the Hinuera Valley.”

Jack felt his father sigh. “Things are pretty tough,” he said, “from one end of the country to the other. I waved down one of Stan Goosman’s drivers and said he might give him a lift. I hope he did.”

“Dad, why’s that man a swagger?”

“There’s lots who can’t get jobs and take to the road,
trying to find work. Anyway, what’s all this about Old Drumble chewing tobacco?”

“Andy said he started off smoking the tobacco instead of chewing it, but he couldn’t grip the pipe properly. Dogs always have trouble with pipes because of their eye-teeth; so Old Drumble taught himself to roll the Havelock Dark, using raupo leaves for cigarette papers. He smoked it in all the Pohlen Street pubs, and Andy said that’s no good for a dog’s throat, specially not raupo leaves, ’cause they burn really hot.”