Only Killers and Thieves(9)

The cattle they found wandering loose needed droving back down to the creek. Father and Arthur mustered them easily, one on each side, their horses positioned just so, walking them slowly forward, everything nice and calm. Tommy was always impressed by how simple it looked, when he knew it was anything but. Small details. Mostly reading the cattle, Father said. The last few years Tommy had been allowed to go out with the men on the main spring muster, but he’d done little more than make the tea and cook. That was how everyone started, Father had told him. That was how you learned.

Some of the cattle they found simply lying in the scrub, too weak and exhausted to stand. The dogs nipped around them, but even then they wouldn’t move: gaunt, with their legs tucked beneath them and tongues lolling, moaning pitifully when the horses came into view, might as well have been waiting to die.

“She’ll need lifting,” Father said, when they came across the first. He nodded at Tommy and Billy. “On you go, then, get her up. Billy’s got the sling.”

They looked at each other. “Just us two?” Tommy asked.

“Aye, just you two. Or did you reckon I’d forgotten about yesterday?”

“She’s only a littl’un,” Arthur said. “Doubt she weighs much more than you.”

Arthur was laughing as Tommy climbed down. He’d helped lift cattle before but never done it on his own. He walked around to join Billy, who was unstrapping the harness from his pack, a homemade sling of stained canvas with thin ropes through metal eyelets in each corner of the sheet.

“You know how to do this?” Tommy whispered.

“Course I do. So do you. Come on.”

They spread the sling on the ground beside the cow, Billy at the hindquarters, Tommy at the head, and worked it under her body with the ropes. The cow watched them warily, grumbling and shifting as they dragged the sling through. Tommy stood back, panting, but Billy was already passing his end of the harness back over the cow and tying off the ropes to pull it snug. Tommy copied him, glancing up at Father, who stared impassively down.

“I didn’t ask you to dress her, Tommy. Lift the bloody thing!”

They got a grip on the ropes and began pulling. The cow didn’t so much as flinch. Tommy’s hands slipped on the rope, his palms burned on the weave. Billy was struggling just the same; he wrapped the rope around his forearm, Tommy did likewise, both of them grunting and cursing, their boots sliding backward in the dirt. And still the cow didn’t move.

Tommy turned his back on her, hooked the rope over his shoulder like a horse pulling a dray. He lost his hat. The sun stung his eyes, sweat soaked his face, his hands were burning, and somewhere the dogs were barking, then suddenly Arthur was shouting, “Yes, boys! Lift her! Yes!” and there was movement behind them, the cow inching sideways through the dirt. Tommy glanced over his shoulder and saw her rock herself forward, then the hind legs straightened and she was tottering unsteadily to her feet. He dropped the rope and collapsed. Billy began cheering, Arthur too; even Father smiled. The boys untied the harness and the dogs got into the cow, making sure she kept her feet, and Tommy and Billy came together in a clumsy half embrace.

“Alright, that’ll do,” Father said. “Get it rolled and packed away. I doubt we’re done with it yet.”

They all took the ropes for the next one, and three more after that, and by the time they reached the creek they were driving two dozen head back into the main mob. If it could be called a mob: a smattering of moaning cattle strung out across the floodplain, desperately foraging for feed. The grain sacks piled on Jess were emptied in the troughs, but there was only so much grain to go around. Father watched the cattle bitterly. A kind of hatred in his eyes. Blaming them, almost. As if what had become of them was somehow their own fault.

The group took lunch by the creek, in the shade of the red gums that grew along its banks. Salted beef, bread and butter, but it was too hot for tea and there was no sense risking a fire. Bush this dry was like tinder. One spark and it went up.

After they’d eaten, they lay on the bank while the horses took a spell, and soon there were sounds of light snoring as one or another slept. Tommy lay looking up at the leaves, listening to the trickling creek and remembering the rains they used to get when he was young. When the flow became a torrent and the whole floodplain drowned—they’d have been six feet underwater, lying on this bank. Miles downstream, there was a waterhole called Wallabys, where the family went in the summertime to bathe. The river fed a waterfall spouting directly from the rock face, and the pool was often deep enough to dive. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but he’d loved it, the feeling of plunging into that pool, Mother clapping each dive from the side. How many years since they’d been there? When was the last time he swam?

Tommy rolled his head toward Father, sitting along the bank, his notebook open in his lap, staring across the creek. The land on the other side belonged to Sullivan: the creek marked the western boundary of Glendale. Father noticed Tommy watching, closed the notebook, put it away.

“I’ll bet you’re bushed after all that?” he asked him.

“I’m alright,” Tommy said. “Hands are a bit sore.”

“You did well. I didn’t reckon you’d lift her.”

“Showed you, then, didn’t we?” Tommy said, smiling. Father smiled too. There was a pause, then Tommy asked him, “So how bad is it? How many we lost?”