Texas (16 page)

She'd replied lightly, ‘So that means you love me.' Wanting it to sound like a statement.

‘Yeah might be,' he grinned back. And he held his horse closer and leant across from his saddle to push the hair back from her face.

Tommy was from Queensland and he claimed to have ridden in every rodeo across the Top End, but Texas told her quietly that his old man was some mine engineer from Mt Isa and this was only his second mustering season. When they worked in the yards Tommy always insisted on riding the micky bulls that had just been cut out of the crush, and when she told him she thought he had an unfair advantage over the injured animals, he responded by slinging calves' testicles at her. He was fair and freckled and long in the arms and legs but he wasn't much taller than her. He copied the way the others talked, words running together and particular inflections. He also said
fucking
cunt
a lot.

She urged the little filly to follow the cattle down towards the river. The cattle had caught the smell of water and were starting to trot. Men were riding out on the wings of the mob.

She stuck to the tail end. It was safer there and all she had to do was keep the stragglers from falling behind, urging on the young calves, the bony-hipped cows and those blind in one eye or with cancer.

She and Tommy had ridden out that morning behind a small mob of coachers, the quiet cattle that would hopefully make the wilder ones easier to handle, while the more experienced stockmen had ridden off in different directions to hunt out more cattle. Texas apparently knew where to find them. He'd mustered this country before. The animals followed a fence line and Tommy rode the flank to stop them breaking away into the bush. Parrots chattered and squabbled and a flock would suddenly leave the branches of one tree to settle again in another. Little coloured birds ran across the ground, eventually taking off and flying in sharp formation to land again on the track further ahead. As the sun rose higher, it became warmer and the noise of the birds subsided except for the persistent call of a distant dove, although no matter which way Laura turned her head, she couldn't seem to work out where it was coming from. The grass was dry and sparse and the sand between the bushy shrubs was splattered with old manure and ridged and cratered with the cloven feet of cattle. Eventually the country opened out, lumpy with grass, and they left the fence behind them. The cattle spread apart, occasionally stopping to graze, and she let her horse have its head and it walked backwards and forwards behind the mob, turning without any urging. Dust swirled above the backs of the animals, and

Texas through the haze in the distance was a line of hills. Perhaps the homestead was on the other side; she thought of Susannah and John and decided that she was lucky to be with Texas. She wondered why Susannah stayed with John and then she remembered sitting with Susannah on the edge of the veranda, watching the children play. It was during one of her friendlier moments.

‘You know that song,
Stand by Your Man
?' Susannah had said, her eyes half closed to the sun. ‘It always reminds me of my mother.

‘She had this thing about women leaving their men. One time we were in the café in the main street of town and there was this woman, Nola, who played golf with Mum. She'd taken off with the men's captain, leaving her husband behind. Mum says, “Don't look now but it's that woman.” I said to her, “How do you know what her life was like? He could've treated her really badly.” She said, “That's no excuse; you've got to make an effort. Women these days, they only think of themselves. They don't think how their actions might affect those around them.''

‘She died, my mother. A bit over three years ago. She was fifty-nine.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Laura.

‘My mother wasn't a romantic.'

A cow and a calf and about five other animals trotted into the mob. Laura looked behind but there was no sign of the stockmen. Gradually more cattle joined them and then Jimmy appeared and so did Peter and then eventually the others, bringing with them a big piker bull with horns that curled menacingly into a fine point. Its head swung from side to side, watching every horse and its rider, and her horse stepped nervously, sensing the tension. As the mob moved forward, it stood still, and then it seemed to settle on Tommy, flicking dust with its front leg, jogging towards him. Tommy spurred his horse into a canter and swung around wide of the beast and the bull galloped off in the direction it came. Gary chased it but returned to the mob about ten minutes later.

Gary was from Broome and it was the first time he'd worked in the east Kimberley. His wife had come over to be with her family. Laura had had trouble shoeing one of her horses and he'd helped her. That's when he told her his wife was Peter's sister. Laura was glad he hadn't been able to turn the bull back in to the mob. It could be terrifying watching and waiting to see what it would do next. There had been other times when either Jimmy or Texas galloped after the animal. One of them would leap from his horse, holding the bull's tail, and when it turned to spear him with its horns, the man tugged on its tail until it toppled over and he quickly leapt to secure it with hobble straps, tying the front leg to the back. Using the small saw attached to his saddle, he'd hack off its horns. The battered creature was carefully released in the hope he'd be subdued by the pain and the presence of the mob, but sometimes the animal, blood draining black on each side of its head, trotted away from the other cattle, eyeing them all, and the men's horses would sidestep and bolt. Then they allowed it to retreat to the cover of the bush, telling each other they'd catch it the next time they mustered.

Texas Maxwell steered his horse alongside hers. ‘We water the cattle before dinner camp.'

He returned to the corner of the mob to her left; Tommy was on her right. The others had disappeared into the trees. Texas would be up the front leading them all. The horse quickened beneath her. Her singlet was sticking to her skin and she looked forward to crossing into the shade of the river trees and the cool grassy banks where there was water that wasn't a mirage. Cattle bellowed, tripping over clumps of grass and splashing through mud, and corellas left the treetops in a screeching white cloud. The banks were irregular and steep and in parts the grass was like lawn. Sometimes the bank fell away into a sandy cliff where the force of rushing water had carved its path during the wet and the roots of the paperbarks were violently exposed. She steadied her horse which had grown excited by the commotion, pulling up beneath a wide-girthed tree. She knew now to wait, to hang back a bit, to watch. They weren't far from the junction, the place where the two rivers met, which was where they'd camp tonight, after they'd yarded the cattle. The animals started to move up the sides of the far bank. She steered her horse forward and down into the water. It panicked a little in the soft mud and leapt across, almost landing on the back of one of the cattle and nearly unseating her in the process. Her horse took a long drink before it followed the last of them out onto the flat. The men were about five hundred metres away holding the mob, keeping them moving in on themselves, riding alongside the one that ventured out, steering it carefully back towards the others. They would have been much harder to hold earlier in the day, but after walking all morning they'd settled.

Just to the right of the mob was the stock-camp Toyota which Cookie had driven to meet them. There was a thin ribbon of smoke beside it. The billy would be on. It had been hours since she'd drunk at a small stream that hadn't been messed up by cattle. Texas rode towards her on a dun-coloured gelding.

‘You want to have first shift?'

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'll wait for the other fellas.'

‘I'll wait.'

He nodded and his horse moved sideways and their legs brushed together. His horse, responsive to its rider's touch, turned neatly away. Texas steered it towards the men, pausing to talk to each of them, and she forgot she was thirsty and found her energy renewed. She watched her section of the mob and every now and then she stepped forward to signal to the animal with its head turned towards her that it wasn't to try to get past her. Usually if one made the dash then others would follow. When she could see their tails she could relax, but when one of them eyed her beneath their horns, she felt the thick heat of adrenalin. Their hides were mostly blood red but there were others with splashes of white, and around their eyes was a pale-coloured ring which made them seem more threatening than perhaps they were. They were quite different from the small silky-skinned brahmans in the paddock near the homestead.

Tommy hoped that one of them would break away so he could chase them fast across the flat and wheel them back into the mob. She didn't think she was courageous enough to spur

Texas her horse into a flat gallop, pressing hard for it to catch up to the animal when often the big old wily bulls wouldn't turn anyway. The men had plenty of stories around the campfire each night of things gone wrong, of guts hanging out of their horses' stomachs, stitching them up with whatever they could find at the time. The cattle seemed to settle and she rested her horse beneath a red-flowering tree that offered a little shade and she thought of water and remembered the duck pond in the park at the end of the street in Mill Hill and the terrapins that colonised it and how they would climb out and sun themselves in rows on the broken branches that had fallen into the water.

Laura led her horse towards the vehicle, walking awkwardly, the inside of her jean legs stiff from sweat. The sun had begun to drop in the sky. The wind held its breath and the birds were silent, even the peaceful dove. Distant hills shimmered blue. Leaves on the nearby trees hung sparely and the shade was sparse. She dropped the reins around the metal bar on the front of the vehicle and passed beneath a tree. She took off her hat and the movement of air cooled her damp forehead. Cookie had placed a grill over white-hot coals and rib bones roasted and sizzled, the fat occasionally catching. The men who hadn't eaten yet were dismounting, their positions surrounding the mob taken by the others who had. They gathered in the shade away from the smoke and sat in the dirt with quart pots of tea and a rib bone each. Texas was beside her. He drew his knees up towards him and rested his elbows, holding the rib bone in both hands. The meat was charred and the fat melted. And although her face and hands were covered in grease, and bits stayed between her teeth, the meat was delicious. When they finished, the bones were thrown in the dirt behind them.

‘How's that horse you got?' Texas asked.

‘She seems pretty smart. Although when I started she jumped around a bit.'

He chuckled. ‘Yeah I saw you,' he said. ‘Your face, it was like this, eh?' He pulled an expression showing wide eyes and a tight mouth.

She laughed. Cookie who was sitting opposite them laughed too.

‘Young Tommy boy nearly got a horn up his ring,' said Cookie.

Texas snorted. ‘Yeah that got him moving.'

‘What happened to Gary?' she asked.

‘I think his horse stumbled or something. Reckoned he nearly come off near that old piker.'

The moment extended with the stillness of the afternoon.

The sound of the cicadas seemed more subdued. Her horse, like the others, rested a leg, eyes blinking closed, long strong ears seemingly tuned out until a match scratched the box and they flicked forward or twitched to unsettle a fly. Bridles jingled with the occasional movement. There was no other sound. She leant against the tree and around her men lay on their backs in the dirt, faces covered by hats, and the normal boundaries of time seemed to vanish.

She wondered sometimes at the value of this rest in the middle of the day. It made it so much harder to swing back

Texas up into the saddle, but once she was back there she forgot the stiffness, the feeling of grubbiness. She held the reins lightly in her hands, and her body fitted into the curve of the animal. Looking through the ears of the horse, she thought of Samson; she had sold her old horse to a girl from Cambridge. His stable would now be empty, or perhaps there was someone like her living in north London renting it, catching the 221 bus along the A1 to Frith Manor. They would buy their feed from the guy in the cowboy gear who drove a battered blue lorry that delivered on Tuesdays and take their horse over the cavaletti jumps in the nearby field or borrow a horse float for the drive to Arkley where there were areas of forest and undulating farmland. It was only at Arkley that the noise of traffic became a ceaseless murmur and she could dream of distances in Australia.

Cattle spread in the direction they were heading and the men returned to their positions. Tommy walked his horse beside her. They were at the back of the mob. She could only just make out through the dust the tall straight figure of Texas, leading the cattle.

‘How far to the yards?'

Tommy shrugged and spat over the side of his horse's head. ‘Maybe three, four mile.'

The country was changing. Becoming bushier.

‘They reckon there are wild pigs around here,' he continued.

She lightly touched the rein of her horse and it moved towards a steer that stood behind a shrub. It trotted forwards and disappeared into the mob. Tails flicked from side to side. And occasionally a micky bull clambered onto a cow.

‘You ever seen one?'

‘What?' she asked.

‘A pig, wild one.'

‘What do they look like?'

‘They're real mean eh? They got tusks on them like this.'

He made an elaborate gesture with his finger. ‘They chase you,' he added.

IV

Laura decided that when the men told their stories around the fire at night it was to reassure themselves that they'd survived.

They were talking about the breakaway cattle, the few that had got through the line of horses and riders when they were attempting to push them into the yards. A large bullock had leapt between her and Jimmy, the tip of its horn grazing her shoulder.