Four — Croc Bait and Frog Talk

The next morning breaks warm and still. Dick doesn’t fire up the generator until eight am on this, a Sunday. With a rattle of buckets Danielle and Peter set out to chase down Pumpkin and Daisy for the morning milking. I’m still weary from the long trip; with some difficulty I rouse myself into the new day. I throw a towel across my shoulder and shuffle to the bathroom. As I pass through the kitchen Charlie is putting butter and treacle on a steak sandwich. He’s moving with an alertness usually seen in the meat of the day. I find his energy oddly disruptive in the drowsy atmosphere.

On my return trip through the kitchen Danielle and Peter have finished milking and are distributing the bounty into plastic pitchers. Charlie is at the truck. I dress hurriedly and go into the kitchen, where, as I drain a full half-gallon of milk and crunch two thick slices of bread, I encounter an unfamiliar face.

“You’d be Dave. I’m Marlee,” the elder Henderson daughter says, extending her hand in business-like manner. Marlee is dressed in worn jeans and a green military-style long-sleeve shirt with prominent chest pockets. She’s slight if sturdy in stature, and though she would certainly qualify as attractive I read in her features more an aspect of strength than the softer beauty seen in her sister.

“Hi, Marlee. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I answer, then, “It’s a mighty fine caliber of morning toast y’all offer up around here.” I gesture towards my thick slice of rustic bread slathered in butter and molasses.

“Yeah, mummy does a right job of it. And you’ll do well to have a go at cutting it square next time, eh?” She holds up the loaf so I can see my asymmetrical hack. I offer a wan smile.

“Sorry.”

“No worries. You about ready? Let’s get outside.”

Marlee joins Charlie in the cab as the rest of us squat in the bed of the pickup. As we drive across the creek I get my first glimpse of the areas surrounding the homestead.

With its porch and small, fenced-off yard, Uncle Dick’s abode has the most conventional appearance of any home on the property. A few steps away a corrugated metal bungalow houses the power plant, an old diesel truck engine throbbing industrially. Around the powerhouse, an oil-soaked litter of rusted drums and discarded machinery is under assault from profuse grasses, Mother Nature’s attempt to reclaim the foreign articles as white blood cells attack a pathogen.

The great open-sided workshop is next, jammed with a gray and black jumble of rubber and metal. To its left a wooden corral snakes around a dilapidated building. The building had once been white but time has bleached the old abattoir to a grizzled gray.

Beyond the abbatoir sits a building with the look of a rundown motel, such as might be seen along depopulated stretches of Route 66. Several doors demarcate rooms along a repeating facade. This is the stockman’s quarters, though now Stumpie is the sole resident. At one end an open high-roofed structure is a-flutter with a collection of vividly-colored birds.

Past the workshop we enter Bull Rush paddock – open, green, flat, bordered by low hills. A two-lane track leads along a creek bed to its intersection with the wide Bullo River, whose dense load of silt gives a cinnamon color to the swift water. Slick featureless banks of mud rise gently from the river’s edge and run twenty or thirty feet uphill before giving way to tentative vegetation and a few scattered small trees.

The Henderson property is close to Bonaparte Gulf in the Timor Sea, making this river part of the tidal flow. Twice each day the waters rise and fall and the water flow reverses itself. Given the widely varying water levels the muddy banks remain wet, and slick as ice.

With water bottles and hand reels and tackle boxes in hand we squish barefoot through the fine crimson mud to the river’s edge. I’d expected conventional fishing poles so I’m curious to see how the hand lines work. Peter pulls a shiny lure out of the tackle box, attaches it to his line, holds the plastic “O” and winds the line around it with his left hand. With his right he spins several feet of line into a barbed propeller. At the right moment he releases the line. It arcs fifty feet into the muddy river, the line rolling easily off the ring. When the lure strikes the water Peter begins briskly drawing it in, hand over hand. My companions launch several spiky missiles with similar deadly intent. Whoosh, plop. Whoosh, plop. Our exertions are the sole interruptions upon the brown and red landscape and the broad fast-running but silent river.

When I feel I have the idea I unroll about four feet of line, attached a silver spoon, twirl it about with aplomb, and send it with hopeful gusto — straight up into the air. Whoosh, thunk. After it lands, the five of us retrace the footsteps we’d made scattering for cover from my aerial assault.

“We’re after fish today, Dave, not flesh,” Charlie says.

I sheepishly give it a second go. This effort is less vigorous but with far better timing on the release. My lure almost reaches the water’s edge. Whoosh. Splat. As I’m winding up for a third throw, I see Peter dash away. I assume he’s making sport of me so I conjure a defensive wisecrack to protect my dignity when I see the line in his hands has become taut. He backs away from the river as he retrieves his line, wrapping it around the large reel. Momentarily a very large fish slides out of the opaque water and flops in protest upon the muddy bank.

This barramundi is larger than I’d expected, perhaps twenty inches long and twelve or fifteen pounds. It’s silver and white, its coarse scales iridescent in the strong morning sun. Peter seizes the fish, extracts his lure, and drops the quarry into a large cooler we’ve brought for the purpose.

I reconvene my amateur efforts with fresh enthusiasm and before long my line is running twenty or thirty feet over the water. After each cast I pull the line in, taking care not to tangle it, then send it out again. On about my fourth or fifth cast I feel a strong knock on the line. A momentary pause, then the line runs through my hands. With the plastic “O” at my feet I clamp down on the line and prepare to pull the great fish in. A searing pain shoots up my arm. I release the line with the speed of someone who’s touched a live electric wire. The slack line at my feet rushes into the water, followed by the O ring. I try to stop it with my feet but miss. I step into the river and bend forward for one last grab, but as I (thank you, God) seize the plastic hoop the pain intensifies. I withdraw my hand and examine it. On each of my fingers the fishing line had sawed a clean and substantial cut. Blood mixes freely with the salt water as I stand calf deep in the murky water.

“Get the hell out of the water!” Charlie’s command reaches me as I stare at my wounds. I look up at him.

“Come on! Get out!” Danielle and Marlee repeat the order. They look worried. I step briskly back ashore.

“There are mobs of crocs in the water here,” Danielle explains. “We almost lost a dog here once.”

“And I don’t want to play tug-of-war with some twenty-footer today,” Marlee adds with an exaggerated smirk. Charlie is shaking his head. Peter laughs.

“We’ve got plenty of bait as it is, Dave. No need for you to offer yourself up like that,” Peter says.

I smile sheepishly. “What’s that about a dog?”

“We were doing some branding one day just up there,” Danielle points to where we’re parked, “and we had a big black dog named Barkeley who came down here for a drink when this bloody great croc–“

“A baby, I reckon,” Marlee interjects, “only about four or five feet long.”

“–grabs ‘im by the leg. Marlee and I run down and grab her head but we’re pretty young so we couldn’t pull her free. The croc tries to flip over but can’t in the mud. We’re tugging back and forth when Mummy comes running down the hill and clobbers the bastard over the head with a branding iron.”

Danielle evinces great conviction as she speaks but her tone has a charmingly self-effacing quality to it. Her dark full brows knit and loom over her large eyes and full expressive mouth. I notice her straight white teeth and momentarily wonder how far these folks travel for their dentist appointments.

“Christ, let’s have a look at your hand,” Marlee is speaking. “Wash that when we get home. Ask Mummy for some Medicreme and some Elastoplast to put over it.”

“Oh, it’s not too deep,” I say, “I’ll be all right.” I realize it is deep, of course, but I need to make some macho capital with this crew, show them what a city boy can and cannot take.

“The heck it will,” Marlee exclaims, putting on a theatrically indignant face. “In this environment everything goes septic quickly. Whenever you break the skin, no matter how small, always clean it. Always.”

Disagreement does not seem an option. Peter, meanwhile, had caught two more fish.

Within a short while we have all caught at least one of the large fish. When one gobbles my lure I hold tightly onto the spool and let it take the strain from the meaty river-dweller as I drag it from the opaque water. “Finally,” I think, “I’ve managed to do something useful around here.”

The tide rises along with the new day’s sun. With a half-dozen of the large fish in hand we collect our trophies, scale and gut them, then re-assemble in the pickup. I stand in back holding on to the solid frame rising from the front of the truck bed. Bull Rush spreads green and close-cropped under a gentle blue sky. The purple hills in the distance harbor the last traces of morning’s shadow. Animals graze in knots, still and reflective.

My own reflections on the surrounding beauty come suddenly to a violent end. Moving behind Danielle to pet Spike, Peter’s feisty fox terrier, I release both hands from the support bar of the bouncing vehicle and immediately regret my decision. In bewildering slow motion I take three or four ineffective corrective steps and crash over the tailgate. For what must have been a fleeting moment but which seemed long enough to debate several alternatives I hang from the metal tailgate, my left leg and right arm having snatched enough substance to break a complete collapse to the ground. The options I consider add up to nothing, I realize, as my inevitable end arrives with a thump. Charlie is just heeding Danielle’s cries to stop the truck as I hit the ground and roll several times.

Now, as a child I’d developed a way of surviving your standard juvenile crash-and-burn. How I’d come up with this is obscure; some kids simply get along well in life from the start while others have to strategize every step of the way. Me, I needed strategies. Somehow I discovered that if I said to myself “I’m all right!” while falling from the swing, or watching the huge defenseman line me up on the hockey rink, I might bounce off everything physics could contrive but would come out unharmed.

“I’m all right,” I think as I roll along in the scrub. “I’m all right.”

And, once again, I was. But my pride? Some acts are so amateurish they cause doubt about the possession of common sense, such as a rookie cop giving the chief’s wife a speeding ticket. Falling off the pickup on the first day at an agricultural job qualifies as the same caliber of stupid. Apparently I was not alone in that assessment; there was no deceiving myself that the laughs rocking the pickup as I sheepishly lifted myself back aboard were laughs with me, not at me.

Back at the homestead we deposit all but two of the fish in the freezer. Sara fillets these, and sets them aside for supper. Peter and Danielle go out to milk the cows, then return, strain the several gallons of milk, and refill the half gallon jugs, one of which I drain all by myself as I sit in an archway and watch the steady progress of the afternoon sun.

That evening I join Sara and the girls, Peter and Charlie for a fish dinner. The girls have both put on clean button-down shirts and have a freshly scrubbed glow about them. Peter and Charlie get involved in a technical discussion of guns, using names and numbers Chinese to me, who knows precious little about the subject. Marlee interjects herself into the conversation with a vigorous manner — forward, questioning, challenging. Danielle listens, intense and wondering. Sara occasionally throws in a wry aside.

With nothing to add and a minimum of interest I happily consume the fleshy flavorful fish and baked squash Sara has prepared. When I ask for another fish fillet I’m surprised to find the conversation turn my direction.

“Fill-ay?!” Marlee squawks. “Fill–ay! We aren’t having fill-ays, are we mummy?” Her eyes widen and nose wrinkles as she repeats my pronunciation in an exaggerated French manner.

“Yes, fillet,” I repeat with a quizzical look.

“Oh, very well. We’ll just let you have a fil-ay. Charles, please pass the young man a FILL-AY.” Marlee has gone from broad French to the Queen’s English, raising her brows and drawing the sides of her mouth sharply downward in an aristocratic mime. There is nothing retiring about this girl, even in the presence of a virtual stranger.

“Well, in America we say fill-ay, trying to capture, I suppose, the French nature of the word.”

Marlee cackles as Charlie interjects.

“Well, here in Australia we say fill-it, because that’s the way it’s spelled. F-I-L-L-E-T. Fill-it.” he says, with an air of finality.

“I see. Then what happened with the word ‘no’? It’s an ‘n’ and an ‘o’. Two letters. Yet you Aussies manage to turn it into about seven,” I say with a bemused smile. “Nnnnn…iiii…eeeee.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Charlie exclaims. “But I’ll tell you one thing; we damn sure don’t do things to sound like the bloody Frogs!”

After the laughter dies down Danielle speaks up.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow, Charlie?”

“Did you finish checking the fences in Bull Rush?” he asks her.

“I did.”

“Right. Then tomorrow we’ll cut out the brood mares. Dave, can you ride?” The big man says, turning my way.

“Oh, I’ve been on horseback a few times. I’m not real good though.”

That was putting it mildly. I’d been on trail nags in LA’s Griffith Park, maybe twice, astride spent beasts who’d plodded along the public track with all the vigor of a yawn.

“You’ll stick with Danielle tomorrow.” He turns to Danielle. “Who’s he riding?”

“I’m going to let him have Silibark. I’ll be on Blue Bob.”

“Are Rocket and Spartan in Colt Paddock?” Marlee quizzes Danielle, who answers yes. She seems in charge of the horses. “Also Fleetfoot, for Peter.”

“Good. Get them in early. It’s still plenty hot. I don’t want to be running around much after 10 o’clock.”

“I have to milk,” Danielle says.

“Peter and Dave can take care of that.” Marlee looks my way.

Danielle lets out a big laugh. “I don’t know about that. Dave’s hopeless. He’ll be tuggin’ on her teats till noon!”

“He’ll learn.” Charlie casts a direct look my way and offers a scant smile.

“Yeah,” Peter, who’s been busily eating, speaks up. “If the bloody cow doesn’t fall asleep on him!”

After dinner we retire to our rooms. Around nine thirty Uncle Dick shuts the power off and I wander outside before going to sleep. I’ve always enjoyed star-gazing, for the sheer wonder of it all but also for the consistent sense of place the night sky offers. Whether in Georgia or California or Hawaii the night sky wraps overhead like a familiar blanket. As I gaze into the undimmed night sky at Bullo I see a dome crowded with stars, thousands compared to the hundreds back home, but no familiar patterns, no shimmering friends to say hello to. I scan for anything which looks like a Southern Cross, the most prominent Southern Hemisphere constellation, but recognize nothing. The heavens are as foreign to me as the new world I’ve entered, and the obligations within it I’ve taken on.

The house is quiet, a dark island in a sea of insect noise. I’m anxious about the next day. I hadn’t expected to be on horseback so soon. I’d seen plenty of cowboys on horseback, sure, but as I stood on the other side of the globe from all I knew I sense that watching the Cartwright boys ride into town would prove about as useful to horseback riding as watching Wayne Gretzy play hockey would be to scoring a goal in the NHL. I mean, it looks easy enough…

Once in bed I fall into a restless sleep.

I’m running recklessly. Wanton stretches of bristly land speed by, clogged by four-legged beasts—dashing, dissolving, angry, frightened. I stop. Aggressive eyes find me, demanding answers. Lurking mobs wait with sinister intent. The eyes again, from my beast this time. “Who’s in charge?” they ask. I answer with my heels. Off again, through streaking galaxies of baked earth I climb. The eyes challenge, strong and broad, malice aforethought. Who’s the law? The limb approaches, chest high. A conspiracy—the eyes have it!

A dark figure looms.

“Dave! Come on mate. Milking time!” It’s Peter, standing at my door, dressed and ready to go. In a sober confusion I pull my clothes on and find my way outdoors, into the yet unbroken day. Peter is in the feed room filling two buckets with a granola mixture. I wonder whether I have time for breakfast before milking, perhaps a cup of coffee. I assume a nap is out of the question.

Peter’s instruction answers my question. “Dump these in the feed buckets. I’m going out to chase the girls up. Stand away from the milking area so you don’t make them bale up when they see you, okay?”

From within a hypnpompic haze I do as Peter instructs, and several minutes later we’re both seated beneath a cow. From Peter’s direction I hear furious spurts of milk ringing against the bucket bottom, then become lower pitched and more muted as the bucket fills. Unwilling to give in to my ineptitude I persevere, drawing a squirt every few seconds, though Pumpkin seems almost dry.

But I’m not giving in to the old bitty; she’s going to have to get used to my fingers. Christ; I’m certain they’re softer than any others which have been kneading her milk bag in recent memory. I tug industriously at the old girls teats, wetting my fingers in the bucket to keep the squeezing well lubricated. An especially artless tug—when I jerk or my fingers slip and pinch— is met with a sodden slap from Pumpkin’s filthy tail.

Peter finishes tapping out his splay-hipped charge, then spins around to drain Pumpkin as I filter the milk he’d gotten from Daisy. Several minutes later he joins me inside. We pour about seven liters of the warm liquid through a cheesecloth.

“Get the cloth wet or it’ll do no good,” Danielle had said, and I’d obeyed, even though the milk seemed to me to do a fine job of wetting the cloth on its own. Pointless exertions have never been a part of my mornings, but adapt I must.

By the time we’ve strained the milk and put it in the refrigerator Charlie is making his breakfast in the dark and stony kitchen. He’d cut two thick slices off the circular loaf of homemade bread, toasted them, then basted them with “mar-jar-een”. As Peter and I walk in, Charlie’s great hand holds a carving knife, poised to sever a healthy slice of roast beef. He lays a slab upon the bread before pouring golden syrup on top of the aggregation. He seems quite content without the salt, tomatoes, and—most importantly — the mayonnaise I’d be hankering for.

 

I instead head for the Weetabix. Perhaps the grainy mixture we’d just given the cows primed my appetite for a bowl of Quaker Natural. The closest thing Bullo offers is these oversized shredded wheats. I extract a bale, break it up, then pull a pitcher of last night’s milk from the nearest fridge. A thin crystalline sheet of ice covers the top of an inch-thick layer of sweet cream. I slosh a dollop of this delicious extract into my tea as Charlie and Peter have done already. For a fella who’s always liked his coffee light, this newly minted sweet cream is the perfect amendment. And the ice-cold whole milk below turns my Weetabix into a satisfying if rustic bowl of cereal.

The sun has not yet appeared above the horizon. Last night’s nervous excitement is still with me; it gives my customary morning grogginess an uncomfortable edge. Though Peter and Charlie grin and joke easily a seriousness dominates my mood. Mornings carry the gravity of weighty endeavors on any day, but this day promises unknowable challenges.

Danielle, Charlie tells us, is already out in the Toyota pushing the saddle horses from Colt Paddock (several dozen acres that serve as temporary grazing grounds) down a broad laneway bordered by stout barbed wire fencing. This laneway crosses a small creek, then narrows as it climbs a gently sloping bank.

Within several hundred yards it diminishes from perhaps seventy yards across to the twelve-foot width of a twisted iron gate that opens onto a wooden post-and-rail corral into which a pursuer can funnel the animals.

“You riding today, Dave?” Charlie’s question comes as a surprise.

“Yes. I mean, you said last night I am to be with Danielle, right?”

“You’ll probably want to put on some long pants and boots, if you have them then,” he says with no apparent irony in his voice.

I realize I’d pulled on some shorts and sneakers in my heavy-lidded first stumblings. No real surprise there; ‘planning’ and ‘four-thirty am’ are two concepts which never crossed paths in the world I’d left behind.