A Changing Land(16)

‘Well good, but what about the visits to Sydney? Why can’t you leave Anthony to mind the fort? He’s been running the place for long enough and he’s as obsessed with this pile of history as you are.’ If Sarah didn’t stop sawing there was only going to be a stump left. She touched her arm. ‘Well?’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Shelley. There are only a couple of months to go before we know the property is safe. Believe me, I’ve done my best not to think about Grandfather’s will since his death but with spring only a matter of months away I feel like I’m one of those bomb disposal experts who suddenly doesn’t know whether they should be cutting the red wire or the blue.’

‘I’m sorry. With all the time that’s elapsed I forgot about the inheritance debacle. What does Anthony say?’

‘Nothing. At least nothing helpful since we argued about it eighteen months ago. The morally correct thing is his standard answer. We haven’t talked about it since. Frankly it’s been easier for me to bury it and I’m still hopeful it will go away.’

Bullet rushed out the back gate. Matt and Anthony were trotting up the road on horseback. Sarah looked up, frowning. ‘Something’s wrong.’ She took off her gardening gloves and moved towards the men.

There was a dog lying across Matt’s lap; a ten-year-old kelpie christened Ferret, because of his habit of sticking his nose into everything. Anthony slid off his horse, took Ferret from Matt and both men strode up the back path.

Shelley looked at the blood dripping onto the cement path. There was a spreading stain of bloody wetness on Matt’s thigh and his face was set like cracked concrete.

‘He needs a vet,’ Shelley stated, hanging back from the rush to get the hurt animal inside.

‘Sarah, I need to set the leg. It’s busted. Plus he needs to be stitched up. He’s lost a lot of blood.’ Anthony’s face was creased in concern as he took the back steps in a single leap.

‘Righto.’





With the dog on the kitchen sink and water boiling, Sarah sterilised the needle while Anthony washed the wound with Pine O Cleen. Ferret whined softly, his eyes never leaving Matt, who, with Shelley’s help, was slicing a piece of thick plastic tubing lengthways.

‘What happened?’ Sarah asked as she mopped blood around Ferret’s wound while Anthony sewed stitches into the dog’s hind leg. The air was taut with unsaid words. Clearly Ferret’s accident hadn’t lead to any mutual bonding.

‘He jumped off my horse into some long grass,’ Matt answered. ‘Shouldn’t have had him on there what with his arthritis, but he loves it. Don’t you, old mate?’ Matt stroked Ferret between the ears.

Anthony glanced at Sarah. ‘Reckon that’s how he busted his leg. The cut came from the bore pig he was chasing. He’s got some buggered tendons here by the looks of it.’

Shelley peered over Anthony’s shoulder. ‘Are you a vet?’ She grimaced at the ooze of blood and stringy muscle.

Anthony frowned at her. ‘No, but I have a brain.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Damn pigs.’ Sarah rethreaded the needle. ‘The bloody lot of them should be culled. Sure you don’t want me to take him to the vet, Matt?’

Matt shook his head, his pale eyes glassy and tired-looking. ‘Tendons buggered in one leg, the other busted up. He’s as good as lame. The best I can do is tie the old fella up under a tree for a month or so and see how he heals.’

Anthony placed a thick smear of Rawleigh’s salve over the wound and then bandaged it up, smearing a globule of the gooey antiseptic on his jeans.

The broken leg was a far less messy affair. Matt held Ferret as Anthony gave the dog’s hind leg a rough yank. There was the click of bone and a whinny from Ferret. Then the dog was silent.

‘He’s dead,’ Shelley sniffed. The only dead thing she’d seen recently was a cockroach in her apartment. She experienced an urge to reach out her hand and poke the dog in the ribs. Instead she watched as the restraightened leg was bandaged. Matt then proceeded to slip the thick rubber tubing around the break. It was a snug contraption held in place with black electrical tape. ‘There you go, boy.’

Shelley was stunned when the dog lifted its head as if in gratitude.





With Ferret on the back porch wrapped in a blanket, the mess tidied in the kitchen and Sarah’s offer to care for Ferret accepted, Shelley was surprised when coffee was refused by both men.