Texas (15 page)

The cook walked between her and the fire and poured some liquid into a mug and sat on the edge of a swag. Texas appeared and bent over, pouring tea from the billy on the ground. He straightened and moved to a seat on the other side of the fire.

She waited for him to acknowledge her but he turned towards the men.

‘Got everything you need?' the cook asked.

‘I think so,' she said, her hand fingering the outline of the torch.

Someone reached over to the long white branch that snaked away from the fire and pushed it in further so that the embers crumbled and sparks spat briefly. The flame licked the dry wood, brightening, and produced heat that all of a sudden she could feel.

‘Where's the toilet?' she whispered.

‘Mate . . . there's the old thunderbox out in that direction but I wouldn't recommend it. Better off just going out on the flat.'

That night, lying beneath a sky so immense that it was both exhilarating and alarming, finding it impossible to sleep, she wondered whether she would be able to explain to someone what it was like to step out into a place that was defined by different shades of darkness, with only a torch, with only a funnel of light sweeping the dirt in front of her. Before she went to bed she'd done as Cookie suggested. And when she thought she was far enough away from the camp she'd switched off the torch, and squatted beneath a sky studded with light, watching the men move in front of the fire, hoping that while she could see them, they couldn't see her. It was something she could never have imagined, like asking for water so that she could clean her teeth, and making a bed as the night breeze lifted the sheet before she had time to tuck it into the mattress.

She thought of the neon lights in the West End of London and

Texas the people below them, who never knew this great swathe of natural light, and she felt privileged and brave.

The day began in darkness. Someone ran an iron bar along the side of the shed and it woke her instantly. Then she heard the cook call out and more sounds drifted across the flat, horses snorting, and the clinking of metal bits and she felt as though she hadn't been asleep for very long at all. Around the fire it was much the same as the night before except there were fewer men since two of them were rounding up the horses. She was offered stew and tea, and while she nursed her mug, a line of light defined the edge of her world and then extended out, gradually revealing the dimensions and everything within it, and she was surprised by how normal it all looked. Wheel marks in the powdery dirt revealed which way they'd come the night before. The tracks led towards some yards about two hundred metres away which they must have driven past. She followed the men there when it was time to begin work.

II

The metal was still warm from the sun. She pushed the gate closed and the noise of the hinges grinding unsettled some black cockatoos roosting in the bare branches of a dead tree. They rose into the violet sky, calling,
krurr
,
krurr
, the sound fading as they flew off into the distance, tail feathers flashing red. She secured the gate by tying pieces of wire together that hung from the frame. Tommy was on his horse, holding the reins of her gelding.

‘You reckon we got all night,' he said impatiently.

She and Tommy had walked a small mob of cows and calves back to the paddock they had come from while the other men loaded steers onto a truck. They'd spent most of the day drafting cattle in the yards and it was about seven kilometres back to the camp. She took the reins from Tommy and tightened them around her horse's neck and swung up into the saddle.

The sun was a big red ellipse sitting sideways above the land to her left and it seemed to liquefy into ripples as it approached the earth.

They were riding across a treeless plain, like the black-soil plain John had pointed out during her last drive with him. She realised she didn't feel anything for him, not even disgust.

She was just glad that nothing more was said about it and she didn't have to see him very often. Susannah was difficult to understand and Laura wasn't sure whether she could trust her.

Even if she had been a little more approachable recently, Laura was careful to respect the differences between them. Laura knew her place. She just didn't expect it to be so well defined in the outback of Australia.

Tommy spurred his horse into a trot. She gathered up the reins and did the same. The windmill in the distance and the feathery tops of trees beside it were black silhouettes against the glow of the sinking sun. She thought of Texas, perched on the rail, his legs angled casually beneath him, squinting into the dust, calling out instructions. When something went wrong,

Texas when a cow was drafted in with the steers which meant the mob had to be run through the yards again, he called out and joked with the blokes. They always did what he asked. It was his eyes that drew her in the beginning, set above high sculpted cheekbones. She wondered what they saw when they looked away into the distance. Imagining his dry, hard lips pressed against hers: kissing the mouth that was framed by deep folds of skin. The horse changed pace and she sat deep into the seat of the saddle, the outline of the yards ahead. She gained on Tommy and urged her horse faster, calling out breathlessly over her shoulder, ‘Race you.'

The hooves of their horses thudded the ground that was uneven in places and she pulled up short of the horizontal rails of the yard. In the half-light she could see the shape of men moving between them. The truck had already left. She climbed off her horse, short of breath, and led it through the opening. Its flanks were heaving. A man was walking towards her. His face was featureless against the pale light of the sky. It was Texas.

‘What you thinking eh?'

Her smile slipped off her face.

‘That horse maybe break his leg, flying across the flat like that. Black soil you know. It got holes all through it, and he stumble, then you go and he go. Tommy, you know better eh?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Before you let them go, rub them down. Get the sweat off.'

She followed Tommy's lead and used the saddle blanket to rub the damp white marks from her horse's shoulders and neck. It stood patiently, more subdued than when she first climbed on it. The horses were released into a yard with the others. Her horse lowered its head as though sniffing the dirt, then knelt and rolled sideways and onto its back. Squirming and turning in the dirt, and then standing, shaking the dust, as another horse came up to nuzzle it. She hung the bridle on a post and climbed over the rails. Tommy was standing by the fence.

‘You staying there with the horses?'

‘Is he angry?'

She fell into step beside him as they walked towards the glow of Cookie's fire. The other men were already there. Tommy leant sideways and a long thread of spit fell to the ground.

He shrugged.

‘What you worried about anyway?' he said, glancing at her.

‘Nothing,' she said, moving away from him, towards the other side of the shed in the direction of her bed.

The air was cooling quickly. She placed her hat on her swag and found a jacket, her skin prickling with the strangeness of it all: the darkness descending and the bed out in the open, the sounds of cattle bellowing across the flat, the smell of a campfire, and Tommy's rudeness, but she was determined not to let any of it overwhelm her. The only way to manage it in her mind was to exist in the moment. Everything else was too far away.

They ate fresh steaks from the cow that was killed that afternoon. Cookie fried up some sweetbread as a treat for the men. Texas told her it was the best part of the beast, the

Texas pancreas and the thymus gland. He was sitting on the flour drum to her right.

‘Sorry about before,' she said to the side of his head.

He turned. ‘You ride better than when you were up at the station. When you were waving your bum in the air. If that horse stop or get spooked,' he made a noise through his teeth like a whistle, ‘you go like this,' making circular motions with his finger. ‘Sit back eh, with longer stirrups. That's the best way, eh Maxwell?'

Maxwell's features creased into a grin and he repeated, ‘Yeah, best way.'

She was conscious of the body beside her, the air in between. Sometimes he glanced sideways and his eye held a promise, but then it was gone and she thought she was mistaken. The same thing had happened the night before. She had lingered, after the others were gone, sharing a cigarette with Texas, but then he had stood up and said he'd see her in the morning. Tonight he hadn't said anything.

Cookie was on the other side of the fire, the last man left. The light flickering on his face as he stared into it, revealing spots of redness on his skin. He looked up.

‘You like that horse-riding lark?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I've always loved it.'

She was disappointed that Texas had gone but she wasn't going to let it show.

‘Them beasts they don't like me. I can see it in their eyes.'

She laughed. ‘You just got to show them who's boss.'

‘Never been much good at that,' he grinned. ‘They always know I'm a short arse.'

The fire spat sharply. Cookie stood up. ‘Sing out if you need any hot water or anything,' he added.

‘Thanks.'

She heard footsteps behind her and Texas returned to his seat.

‘Hey Cookie, you're not leaving us yet?' Texas was grinning.

‘Surprise, look. Hot stuff.'

He held up a small bottle of rum. Cookie let out a low whistle and sat down again.

‘Mate, where did you get that from?'

‘Truck driver. He's a beautiful good fella.'

‘Yeah I reckon,' said Cookie. He looked across at Laura. ‘You know this place's a dry camp. That bloody manager don't let you drink, except when you're up at the station. A can a night and then it's only bloody Gold.'

Texas tilted his head back and drank from the bottle. She saw the outline of his neck, the bare skin of his throat. He offered it to her. And after she drank, and it brought tears to her eyes, she took it over to Cookie. Texas was watching, and the rum hit the edge of her heart, bringing warmth.

‘I'll leave youse to it,' said Cookie.

Texas moved closer to Laura.

His mouth tasted like rum and tobacco and his swag was far out on the flat. The ground was hard and unyielding, and their skin slid together and the heat within them combined.

She lay on his arm and stared upwards, and the world curved around in a great arc from one side of the swag to the

Texas other and the moment became more than a memory, it was part of her.

III

Sitting astride a flighty chestnut filly, Laura looked down towards the timber that marked the meanderings of another river. Texas wasn't in sight. When she thought of him, her body reacted in the same way as if he was there, as though he had touched her. On the first day of mustering she was told to follow a small mob of cattle on her horse. More cattle were being driven towards her by the men. Suddenly she realised she was in the wrong place and it prevented them from bringing the two mobs together. Cattle had gone in every direction. Tommy hadn't let her forget it since. She was mortified, ashamed of not knowing where she should be, of getting in the way. It was an intense, sickening feeling low in her stomach, and it reminded her of that day she'd gone fox-hunting. Now she looked back, she wasn't sure why she had accepted Chloe's invitation. Her parents had been firmly against it. They were teachers at Mill Hill County High and had campaigned for years to have fox-hunting banned.

Chloe's father drove them in his leather-seated Range Rover up the M1, towing the horse float with Samson and Princess, as the yellow eyes of cars penetrated the thick fog that began to lift once they passed through Luton. Winter-bare trees emerged from the mist and flicked past the window. They left the motorway for a slip-road that wound through the Northamptonshire countryside where low cream-coloured walls crisscrossed the fields, and eventually they reached the village green where the hunt was gathering. Her horse sidestepped and started at the red jackets and leapt a little with the baying of the hounds and the sound of the huntsman's horn. Jodhpur-clad buttocks rose and fell to the trotting pace of the horses, and she followed, trying to control her horse, which was behaving badly, moving like a crab and sideswiping horses that tried to pass, attracting the ire of their riders. Chloe's blonde bobbing ponytail disappeared into the distance. She was wandering through the Northamptonshire laneways, hearing the horn and the hounds faint in the distance, her horse lengthening its stride; the riders were nowhere to be seen since they must have turned off at some point before she was able to see where they went. The sun broke weakly through and if she'd only known where she was, she might have begun to enjoy herself.

Sometime later when she had turned down a lane which she thought would cut back towards the village, the baying of hounds grew louder and then the master of the hunt clattered over the wall in front of her and through the open gateway into the opposite field. He turned back and gesticulated furiously towards her. She had longed to be somewhere else. And it was like that when the cattle had gone in different directions and she knew it was her fault. It was worse in some ways since the men, or Tommy in particular, seemed to have expected that she would do something like that anyway. Since then Tommy

Texas had decided he was her teacher, a role he seemed to relish and there was often a patronising edge to his help. But most of the time he preferred to tease and remind her of the moment when she got in the way. The other men were still wary of her but Jimmy had started calling her aunty. She thought he was Texas's cousin. He seemed to be too old to be his nephew. But she liked being called aunty. It made her feel included. When she asked Texas about it, he said it was because they were married, like kangaroo marriage.