The Shearing Gun (4 page)

“Oh, but—”

I talked over him, not letting him object. “The only problem is you’re gonna have to sit in the middle. Buck always has the passenger seat and he’ll get really aggro if you take it. That door doesn’t work, anyways.”

I spun back to the Rover, opened the driver’s door, and whistled for my dog. He dashed forward, jumped into the car, and settled in his customary spot, with his head hanging out the missing passenger window. I then gestured to Elliot to climb into the middle seat, and to my surprise, he only hesitated for half a tick before following Buck in.

I clambered behind the wheel and started the engine. “Good thing you’re here, Doc. I have all sorts of trouble changing gears with my bum arm.” Land Rovers were not really made to sit three across the bench because the gearstick was smack-bang in the middle of the vehicle. That meant the stick ended up between the legs of the middle passenger, and I didn’t want my hands going anywhere near Elliot’s groin. “Chuck her in reverse,” I told him, and he fumbled a bit before she accepted the reverse gear.

The paddock where the shed was situated was pretty smooth, but I needed to head down the stock run, and that area was torn up from hundreds of hooves. We bumped down the hill, unable to do much more than hold on and let the car roll over the uneven surface. Whoever had fenced the property had done a pretty decent layout. Up near the house, there were four fenced crop paddocks of about forty acres each that had been cleared of both trees and rocks. A stock run, only about four meters wide, stretched in a dead-straight line between the fenced paddocks and led to the northern part of the property. Stock could be safely pushed up the run to the shed for shearing or transportation without having to move through the paddocks, where precious grain was growing.

The run was on a downward slope and ended at a small creek. We bumped down the lane and halted at the gate before the water. “Neutral, please,” I asked, as I braked and depressed the clutch. Elliot complied, and I pulled the handbrake, and hopped out to open the gate. Then we passed through, and the whole thing repeated while I closed the gate. I’d put in several large pipes and a bridge the first year I owned the property, so we passed over the creek without getting muddy. By the end of winter, the water would be up over the crude structure, and sometimes making the crossing meant using a bit of grunt in the car.

The northern paddock was a huge expanse—too rocky and hilly to crop—so the sheep spent their winters there while my crops grew. Then they would be rotated to the other paddocks when the grain was cut. We had to go over the rise and down the other side to get to the area I needed. The flock saw us coming and scattered farther into the paddock.

“How many sheep do you have?” Elliot asked.

“There’s about a hundred and sixty there in that mob,” I replied, nodding toward the scampering animals. “I have another fifty rams over in the next paddock, and there are eighty ewes over that next rise to the east. On the other side of the house, there are some special breeders—only twenty-eight of them. So I have over three hundred, all up. My dad and brother have property out near Lake King, and we run things together a lot. We truck the animals back and forth between the places as the feed in the paddocks dictates from year to year. Lake King is a lot drier than here. Some years they get hardly any rain, and I have to move things around and take some of Dad’s stock.”

Elliot nodded as we pulled up at the next gate and went through the routine—neutral, handbrake, open gate, drive forward, neutral, handbrake, close gate. I followed the fence line up the rocky hill before skirting around a large boulder and pulled to a halt where a tree had come down, snapping the fence. I nodded to the destruction and told Elliot, “This fence is between my rams and my best breeding ewes. The last thing I want is them getting into my ewes and knocking ’em up without permission.”

Elliot and Buck exited, and I went around the back to grab what I needed first—a chainsaw. I saw the man’s eyebrows rise and knew that I would enjoy the next hour. He was gonna be such a wuss.

I sat the chainsaw on a nearby rock and began explaining safety to him, then how to use the machine. To his credit he listened carefully and nodded; he even asked a question. Finally I allowed him to start the beast—although it took him several tries—and with our ears being deafened by the noise, I showed him where to start cutting.

He did an admirable job, cutting where I said and working around the girth of the tree. Luckily for us the main trunk was on our side of the fence and in a stable spot. The chainsaw buzzed on and on while I watched closely. It wasn’t an easy job, and I saw the sweat break out on Elliot’s brow as he worked. I watched his shoulders as he applied the chainsaw to the wood. He was scrawny but surprisingly strong. At last the chainsaw was nearly through, and I motioned for him to stop before he hit the dirt and blunted the bugger. He cut the motor with a sudden motion, leaving our ears ringing in the relative silence.

“Hold up,” I said. “Don’t cut all the way through or you’ll hit the dirt. That blade will come bouncing back and hit you and probably chop off your arm. Then I’d have to find a doctor somewhere, and I have it on good authority that at least one Doc in town is busy today.”

He grinned and swiped the beads of sweat from his eyes, leaving a dirty mark across his head. “So how do we do it?”

I liked his attitude. He immediately assumed we would be doing it together.

I jumped in the Rover and backed her around until she lined up. Then I gently drove forward and nudged the huge gum from the side with my bull-bar, trying to roll it. It wouldn’t turn over. I pointed to a large branch that was stopping it.

“Oi, Ell! Go saw that branch off at the trunk and pull it away from the tree.”

This time Elliot managed to start the chainsaw the first go. He planted his foot on the branch like I had shown him and attacked the tree. It only took about thirty seconds before it popped off the trunk and landed with a thud. With the Rover’s engine idling, I watched until he had pulled it about a meter away. Then I called, “Stand back, Quack! It should go over now, and we don’t want you flattened.”

As anticipated, the trunk rolled half a turn, and I kept my foot on the brake to stop it rolling back while Elliot sawed through the last of it. It didn’t take all that long. The branches on the other side of the fence, now free from the main trunk, spun back and settled in their initial position with a loud thump. With the chainsaw motor cut, I hollered to him again. “Hey, Quack. Good job. Now let me grab that steel cable out of the back and we can lay it on the ground where the tree was.”

I put the car in neutral and applied the handbrake. Together we laid out the cable. As I reversed the car, the tree resettled in its original spot, allowing Elliot to fasten the cable around it and attach it to the towing bar at the back of the Rover. Then I revved the engine and dragged the monster tree out of the way.

We unhitched the trunk and then dragged the other half by hand, since it was mostly leaves and branches. I was pleasantly surprised that Elliot gave it his all. He never complained or argued; he simply worked where I showed him.

I then had him help me remove the busted fence post and sink a new one. The wire was snapped and wrecked, so new fencing needed to be strung. I clipped the old wire, and he anticipated my needs and dragged it away. I held the tools and showed him how to string the new fence in, attaching it to the old and straining the wire to make it taut. By the end he was filthy, but proud of himself. I clapped him on the back. “Well done, Quack. We’ll make a farmer out of you yet, huh?”

He gathered up the tools and put them in the back for me. He teased me lightheartedly, “I’d be a farmer long before you’d make a doctor.”

“Aye,” I agreed with a grin. “It’d take a good century to make this noggin learn all the stuff you must know. Farming’s a lot easier than your job. That’s why there are only two docs in town and there are a couple hundred farmers.”

He climbed into the middle of the bench seat without prompting and regarded me with a puzzled look. “Then why the fencing lesson today unless you wanted to prove that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was?”

I turned the key and pressed in the clutch, waiting for him to put me in first gear before answering. “It wasn’t about proving you were smart or not. It was more about teaching you what we do as farmers. So when you get a guy in who requires stitching up because he tried to do a two-man job by himself, you won’t make him feel like a child for his stupidity. Because he knows it was wrong, but if he didn’t do that job right then, it could’ve meant losing a year’s worth of crop because the cattle got in the paddock. Farming’s a harsh business. We don’t have the luxury of waiting around until someone pops by to help us. We work our guts out. And that bull that just broke the leg of the guy in your clinic? He may be angry with the animal, but that bull is worth the money, because selling him next year will pay the mortgage for two months. And the guy who caught pneumonia because he worked twenty hours a day in the rain to get his crop in? Well, it was either that or walk away from the land his family has farmed for over a century.”

I stopped at the gate and jumped out to open it. He was waiting for me when I climbed back in. “Do you think I made you feel stupid?”

I was through the gate and back out to close it again before I answered him. “You didn’t make me feel stupid, but you didn’t listen to what I said. There’s no way that any man in this district could simply rest for eight weeks. So you need to be aware of that and change your medical advice. So why don’t you tell me not to lift with my arm, watch not to bang it, and that I’m going to need help over the next eight weeks? Give me painkillers because you know I’m going to need them, and tell me that I’ll be right to go back to full duties by the end of August. Can you see the difference, Doc?”

He looked thoughtful and nodded.

Chapter 4

I
T
WASN
’
T
until we were parked back in the shed that I remembered he wanted a chat. He had worked hard and deserved at least a coffee, so I invited him up to the house. I switched on the kettle and gathered cups.

“So what did you want to talk ’bout, Ell?” I asked him.

He’d sluiced his dirty face with water from the tank, so his hair was slightly damp, and a reddish dirt mark encircled his forehead where he’d missed with the water. He was either blushing or he’d caught the sun—probably the latter, since he didn’t have a hat.

“Oh. Yes.” He hesitated, shuffling in his chair a bit. His hand went up as if to adjust his tie. I held in my grin and tried to imagine the dirty man in front of me wearing a tie each day to work. “I actually came to apologize for any offense I caused you yesterday when you were in my offices.”

I poured in the milk and added boiling water to each cup. “You didn’t offend me, Doc. What are you talking about?”

He coughed and turned a brighter shade of red, confirming he actually was blushing and not just sunburnt. “I mean… ahh… sexually. Doctor Larsen is my supervisor, and I spoke with him yesterday about it. It was he who suggested I should come and personally apologize to clear up any misunderstandings you may have about the situation. I didn’t mention any names or anything, but I hinted that perhaps I had… looked… inappropriately at a patient.” He stumbled out the explanation, and I hid my smile by turning my back and throwing the teaspoon in the sink. I knew what he meant, but it was more fun to make him say it.

“You mean when you checked me out?” I plonked the coffee mug in front of him and fetched the biscuit tin from the cupboard.

“Yes.” He was all serious—as if he were in front of the courts or something. “I apologize profusely for my actions. It was extremely unprofessional and inappropriate. It was a single lapse in judgment and I am exceedingly embarrassed by my behavior. I hope you will forgive me for my bad conduct and don’t hold my… ahh… preferences against me. I promise it will never happen again.”

I offered him the tin and snitched an Anzac biscuit for myself. “I don’t care if you like blokes, Doc. I ain’t offended that you checked me out. But you should watch yourself a bit, ’specially around here. Us bushie blokes aren’t known for our accepting nature to those sort of things, you know?” Then the personal question came flying from my mouth. “Does Doc Larsen know you’re gay?”

He squirmed on his chair a bit, the flush remaining on his face. “Umm… no. I hadn’t actually planned on revealing my… ahh… sexuality to anyone around here.”

I nodded understandingly. “Yeah. That would probably be best. Now don’t go worrying about me, Doc. I’ll keep my mouth shut, now that I know.”

He visibly relaxed at my statement and took a bite out of his own biscuit. That puzzled look was back on his face, and it was cute. “You’re taking this rather well. Are you close to someone who is gay?”

It was only with huge willpower that I managed not to choke on my coffee. How did he define
close
? Should I tell him I’ve been so close to several gay guys that I’ve had my cock up their arse? It was a huge opportunity to share my own orientation with someone. If Elliot didn’t want everyone to know he was gay, he wouldn’t be prancing around telling them about me.