Sure enough, the cool morning seemed to arrive mere minutes after my head hit the pillow. Despite my early bedtime here was no sense of luxuriant snoozing. I hunkered half-asleep over a bowl of Weetabix, trying to get my internal engine started. I was sore from the previous day’s exertions. There was to be no pity party in my honor, however. There was nothing but to get moving when Danielle called me to help her push the brood mares from Colt into River Paddock.
This required moving the animals through a gate halfway down the laneway. Typically, one person blocked the animals from racing past the open gate while another urged them from behind. So as the morning sun opened its eyes below the horizon – even it wasn’t yet out of its bed – I found myself walking behind the group of spirited young mares. The mob sauntered ahead of me along the green strip, towards Dan’s blocking position, then descended into and through Homestead Creek.
With the last animal across I stood at the water’s edge. Danielle, needing as she did to maintain the block position, couldn’t pick up for me at the opposite bank as she’d done the day before. The horses milled about on the opposite side of the creek, awaiting my encouragement to move on.
This creek was ten feet wide, so jumping over was a dubious proposition. I would’ve liked to at least attempt to clear it, however, rather than simply wading in, but the sloppy bank prevented a good running start. And I had to continue pushing the horses. I considered taking off my boots but knew Danielle was unlikely to wait quietly while I indulged in such a dainty luxury. Feeling oppressed and irascible yet pushed by the irresistible force of necessity I waded into the thigh high water. It was midday before I noticed I was no longer squishing with every step.
Dan asked me to start the branding fire while the others sorted the horses into the several drafting yards. This pleased me; as an Eagle Scout I know something about building a fire. As an added bonus it gave me hope of drying my sopping jeans, at least. So as the sun slipped out from behind its nocturnal cover I honored it with a conflagration jumping and snatching at the sky. I stepped back, hands on my hips, admiring my pyrotechnic handiwork, reveling in the heat rising all around. When I deemed it necessary, which was often, I stoked the blaze with a worthy bough.
I don’t know what mechanism it is that allows a person as distracted as I to retain the capacity to sense something as subtle as another’s gaze. Yet as I stood admiring my efforts I became aware I was being watched. I turned to my left to find Charlie towering over my shoulder. His quizzical look went from me to my fire then back to me, where it stayed.
“Fixing to start a bushfire, are ya Dave?” He asked.
“A bush fire? No! Goodness, no. Just trying to make some good coals.”
He laughed, pretended to be relieved to hear I had no intention to burn down the entire operation.
“Oh, that’s good,” he said. “Go easier on the wood” Then, his humor past, “Much easier.”
With the horses ready to go and the fire still leaping gaudily we all strode to the workshop and loaded ourselves with branding irons and ropes. Uncle Dick was filing something in a vice; he seemed withdrawn—he scowled and looked at his hands during a brief conclave with Charlie.
Charlie took the day’s tools back to the yard and set the heads of the homemade branding irons in the fire. Marlee retrieved from the truck a box containing medical pliers, bandages and tapes, a clipboard with wrinkled pages, and a bottle of Pine-0 household cleaner.
“Be ready to move like lightning,” Marlee instructed me. “You bring us the brands, but don’t come into the round yard until we call you. We put a year brand on first, then will number the horse.” She looked at the list on her clipboard. “The first this year will be two seventy. So bring the year then the numbers two, seven, and zero. But not until we have the horse down. Got it?”
The first horse into the round yard was a dark filly. She circled anxiously, her eyes wide with fright. When Charlie stepped into the ring, carrying a rope, the youngster tried to leap through two of the lower rails, knocking her knees heavily. Stymied, she pranced away from the big man, who slid behind and to her side. As she jumped away, he lofted a loop around her head. She recoiled against the constraint, a cat on a leash.
From opposite sides of the yard Peter and Marlee both cast a looped rope onto the ground inside the round yard. Within moments the distraught animal had in her struggle stepped her front left and rear right hooves into the loops. As she did so, Peter and Marlee jerked their respective ropes tight around the horse’s hoof. Wrapping the stout lines twice around the rails they pulled the animal’s legs into the air, despite her powerful kicks. Perched now on two opposing legs she was primed to fall under the effect of Charlie’s pull from her right. Fall on her side she did, with a solid whump.
I raced to the branding irons after swinging the gate open into the round yard where I’d lined up the irons in numerical order. I found the “1”, “9” and “8” and carried them by their long handles to Charlie, who stood above the little filly’s shoulder. Danielle had thrown her leg over the horse’s neck and was holding its long face. She was leaning back, pulling the horse’s nose straight up in the air, which kept the animal from leveraging itself into a sitting position.
“Here’s the ‘1’!” I thrust the hot iron towards Charlie. “And here’s the ‘9’!”
“I don’t need the ‘1’! What’s the ‘1’ for?!” He said.
“For the year! Nineteen eighty-eight!”
“Bloody hell, mate, the ‘8’ will do! We’re not writing a bloody book on the bastard!”
Despite the urgency I heard Peter and Marlee chuckling as I bustled back to the fire.
I brought the ‘8’ and the ‘2’ and Charlie used them to sear the code into the thin skin on the animal’s front left shoulder. Smoke rose in a white mist as the metal took. It smelled burnt and meaty. I returned for the ‘7’ and ‘0’. Having tossed the used irons into the sand Charlie applied the final two to the animal. After applying the iron for an instant he’d raise it and examine the depth of the brand. Then he’d either reapply it for another instant, or drop it in satisfaction. I then returned the irons to the fire. The day was rapidly heating up, and the good coals I’d hoped for glowed in radiant waves. I was getting uncomfortable again inside my clothing and my wet boots, now loaded with sand.
When the newly branded horse was released it galloped into my yard. She turned my direction as she pranced through the gate but spooked and hopped away upon seeing me. I closed the gate and another dark filly raced in to meet the Hendersons. She was roped around the head, though she didn’t step as readily as the first into the snares on the ground. Once, she stepped her front left foot into Peter’s loop. As the wiry lad pulled, the frightened animal danced its right foot into the loop instead just as it closed. Peter relaxed his rope, and it kicked loose; he recast his line. Within the next two minutes this unhappy lass was on her side, branded, and released.
The third horse to peel away from its mates and surge into the round yard was a year old colt who (by definition) had never been castrated. A beautiful young stallion he was too. His burnt umber coat reflected copper in the nascent day as he scampered from gate to gate, only to find them all closed. He reared on his powerful hind legs, took two powerful strides, and launched himself at my gate. His broad torso struck the top metal rail with the solidity of a semi-truck, and he stumbled backwards, rebuffed.
I also stumbled backwards in my retreat from the gate, though not far enough to guarantee my safety had the latch not held. The freight train of horse and metal would’ve waffled me between the inflexible rails behind me and the ones launched my direction. By Grace, I’d hooked the chain properly, however, and my second day on Bullo River was not my last. It would’ve taken a much greater horse than the one at hand to break the hold. No matter. In that moment I became acutely aware of the forces I was to be working with that year, and the very real possibility of sudden disastrous injury. This plain fact proved itself true with the station machinery, the half-wild animals, or the setting itself–the unforgiving Australian outback.
Everyone kept quiet as the spunky colt paused with nostrils flared, its animated ears and eyes searching desperately for escape. Charlie moved deliberately to his gate and let himself into the round yard. The horse backed away from him in deepest suspicion. The big man walked forward, extending his arm. The horse skittered away. It circled clockwise. Charlie stood in the middle of the pen, following the horse’s movements, the loop in his left hand. The horse turned his head often as he trotted around the perimeter, wild for refuge. Charlie spun the rope alongside his body and cast. The heavy line fell against the animal’s neck, causing it to shudder and whinny.
With his eyes still on the pony Charlie addressed me with a quiet urgency.
“David, after we get him down you’ll need to come inside and get a rope around his back foot.” Marlee indicated the end of a rope curled at her feet. She picked up the looped end and laid it over a rail. “Watch when you’re putting it on, and don’t come inside until he’s down.”
I considered this new development as Charlie’s second throw sailed over the animal’s head. Marlee and Peter cast their loops upon the ground and after several failed tries each had the appropriate leg snared. While the first two horses we’d branded had been small—less than a year old and no more than five feet tall—this big fellow was full grown in stature if not bulk. He was one of the feisty ones who’d evaded the ordeal the year before. He’d not have encountered humans before, except as passing vehicles or figures on the horizon. Terrified, fierce, and wild, he fought the hemp binding him with all he had.
Danielle was closest to Peter, so she moved over to help him draw the rope holding the animal’s front left hoof around the rail. As Peter hopped into the ring to pull the rope unimpeded she took up the slack as it circled around the stout rail.
“David, get in here!” cried Marlee, whose body convulsed from the vibrations sent out rapid-fire by the horse’s awesome back leg. I scooted inside and along the rails to where she struggled.
“Pull! Pull!” She ordered. I reached for the rope with both hands. It whipped down hard and sharp against my knuckles. I winced.
“Grab it!” She repeated. I seized the churning rope and pulled. My hat flew off as the effort whiplashed my body. It was akin to snagging a whale on a fishhook.
I pulled in perhaps a foot of slack, which Marlee took up around the rail. I tugged, Peter tugged, and when two of the horse’s feet were in the air, Charlie tugged.
The indignant beast crashed to its side. Danielle leapt over its head, pulling it back towards her, then spoke to it in a soothing voice.
“David, get the rope!” Peter joined me as I grabbed the loop waiting on the rail. He took it from me, cried “Watch!”, then stepped towards the animals left rear foot. The beleaguered creature kicked with lethal force. Staying just out of range Peter bent forward and snagged the animal’s fetlock, then handed me the rope. I wrapped it around a rail and pulled with all I had against the animal’s mighty limb, extending it fully and thereby stabilizing it.
Charlie leaned over the bound and trembling animal from its back, razor knife in hand. Reaching down he kneaded the horse’s belly in search of its testicles. Unlike most male mammals, horses have no external sac containing its reproductive organs. He located one through the skin and pulled the testicle tight against the animal’s flank. Using a special blade designed for the purpose he cut a two inch slit and pulled the testicle outside the animal’s body. The gland was encased in a transparent membrane. Charlie gently cut this open, whereupon it retracted within. A noodly tube trailed from the testicle itself.
Peter handed Charlie the pliers I’d noticed earlier. Emasculators are designed to stymie blood loss while cutting the tube. Charlie hadn’t used this set before and didn’t trust them.
“A bit fancy, aren’t they?” He said to Marlee, who’d bought them the last time she’d been in Darwin.
“Let’s have a go, then,” he answered himself. With a crunch the clamp bit upon the tube, several inches below the testicle which came off in Charlie’s left hand. The horse whinnied as Charlie tossed the nugget in the sand. After squeezing the pliers for several more seconds Charlie released the severed tube. The waffled end bled only a little as it withdrew into its home cavity.
Charlie repeated the procedure with the other testicle, cutting a new slit, extracting the testicle, then mashing the organic ductwork in similar fashion. When both glands lay in the sand he cleaned the wound—by mopping the incision with a hand towel sopped in Pine-O.
The overall rustic nature of the operating theater was fascinating, but this final act flabbergasted me. Using household cleaner seemed so inappropriate for the job as to seem irresponsible. I wasn’t the least bit tempted to share this impression; I said nothing, assuming there was something redeemable about the choice which I didn’t know and wouldn’t understand. I simply let it remain part of the wonder of the morning.
At the conclusion of the countrified procedure I handed Peter my rope and ran through the sand to get the branding irons. Charlie applied his artistry and we released the horse which whinnied as he rolled to his feet and bolted through the open gate. I surveyed the remaining several dozen horses; many looked to be the size of this one who’d rattled my frame and rubbed dime size abrasions on my hands. This would be a long day—the first of a long summer.
And a long day it was, although the idiosyncratic drama of each new horse kept it from getting anything close to boring. The females were a blessing as they only required branding. The procedure involving males was unchanged; a bone-jarring struggle to get it on its side, the rope secured to contain the powerful and dangerous free leg, the country surgery, and the branding. My hands were raw and tender, the heat of the sun and the fire soaked me, and the sheer physicality of the job wore me to the nub.
It was interesting watching the character of each horse—whether brazen or bashful, scared or friendly—as expressed in their dark eyes and private dance. My workmates were equally impressive. The aspects of equine behavior and character they perceived were wonderfully nuanced, whether in judging a pedigree or reading a faint brand on a moving animal.
A crisis occurred when Charlie found in one young male an undescended second testicle. As Charlie searched deeper and deeper the poor beast’s intestines began peeking out of the four inch slit in its belly. Charlie cursed and held back the guts from the sand inches below. Like sausages in a press they kept sliding inexorably out of the wound. Marlee gave them a dose of Pine-O and sewed the incision shut while Charlie tried to hold the innards where they belong.
“Poor bastard. I must have broken the gut wall,” Charlie muttered. “Usually don’t make it when that happens.” Sadly, that was to be the animal’s fate. Two days later Charlie dispatched the doomed animal out on the airstrip with a single rifle shot.
One young colt vaulted over the top rail of the pen—a full six feet—only to land in a different enclosure.
“Christ Almighty—get that one to Princess Anne!” Danielle gasped.
Another tried the same feat but failed to clear the top rail, cracking the dried wood. We took a break to reinforce the compromised rail with a metal pole and some wire. One young filly, hearing mama call, launched herself between the second and third rail. This rail also broke.
Charlie smirked. “Great yard we have here.”
“Well, Charlie, it’s only about twenty-five years old,” responded Marlee.
“Shows it, too.”
My favorite diversion of the day was the long lunch we took between 11 o’clock and 1:30 PM.
“The horses will get overheated.” Charlie had said.
“Not to mention us.” I threw in.
“Not turning into a wimp on us, are you?” Marlee challenged with veiled humor.
“Not just yet, but I’m seriously considering it.” This comment of mine played well only with Peter.
The ample lunch and long nap left me in reasonable shape for resuming our labors. As we reentered the yard, the wary horses crowded together. Many had straw hanging out of their mouths, giving them the appearance of goofy equine hillbillies. Their eyes, however, sent a different message—the threatening darts of one whose territory has been broached.
Several minutes later we’d shifted the horses through the funneling process and one strong young colt raced into the round yard. That’s when another problem developed in the O.R. Charlie removed one of the young fellow’s testicles when a quizzical look crossed his face. He kneaded up and down its belly, then dipped his fingers inside the initial incision, where he gently searched about.
“Here, you have a look,” he said to Marlee. “I think he’s only got one.”
Marlee bent over the prostrate chestnut and with her much smaller hands, felt about.
“Does that happen often?” I asked.
“Occasionally. Usually he’s just got one pulled up, like that bugger this morning. But I couldn’t feel anything here.”
“What happens if you leave one in?”
“A proud stone, it’s called. Makes him act like a stallion. Causes troubles in the mob. Likely won’t be fertile though.”
“That’s a great name,” I laughed. Charlie looked at me with a blank expression.
“Is this it?” Marlee asked, looking up from her awkward position. Her hand squeezed a bulge in the horse’s skin.
“Let’s have a feel.” Charlie stooped over. “Doesn’t feel like anything to me,” he said, his face a picture of concentration. The aura of the earlier sad trouble still hung over the process. “I don’t think so. Let’s let him go. He’s not too old yet. If he’s acting up, we’ll take care of it next year.”
After we’d marked him with the Bullo brand, I saw a trickle of blood running down inside his thick hock as he returned to his pen.
The rest of the afternoon unfolded in an ever-increasing dusty haze. Caught, thrown, cut, branded. Reds, grays (flea-bitten and blues), roans, bays, chestnuts, browns, and, rarely, blacks.
The Henderson’s dialogue was fascinating, rich in equestrian terminology, referring to things that remained to me imperceptibly subtle. Danielle, especially, amazed me by announcing not only the name of each animal, if it had one—a stupendous feat of identification in itself, given how little direct contact she had with the individual horses—but the names of its mother as well. Given that she knew which mobs most of the horses ran with, she could make an intelligent guess on the father often.
Whereas I looked upon the milling group of animals and saw various shades of four-legged cut-out paper dolls, she looked and saw networks of friends, a community of complex relationships.
Later that night, after we’d finished the last of seventy-six horses, taken a dip in the sun-warmed pool, and consumed a vast meal, I mentioned to Danielle my admiration for her equine knowledge. I was hoping to get past the official face she’d presented thus far, self-effacing and officious as it was. I’d seen her beautiful white smile only a few times; I wanted to see it now.
“Oh, it’s no big deal when you’ve been watching them over time,” she said demurely.
“Oh yeah? Then how come Marlee or Charlie kept asking you? They’ve seen them around as much as you have.”
“They know I know these things.” I couldn’t make out whether she was being coy, humble, or evasive.
“Oh, I see. It’s just duty, huh?” I said with mock credulity.
“Yeah, I guess it is. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Just trying to give you a compliment. I was really impressed.”
“Ha!” She laughed, “That’s nice, but save it for when I do something actually impressive!”
“Well, I was truly impressed.”
“Oh, forget it.” She said, flashing the broad smile I’d been seeking.
Marlee had been sitting at the kitchen counter, reading an Australian movie fanzine left behind by some chopper pilots who’d passed through.
“Dave,” she called, “have you ever seen this bloke?” During dinner I’d been relating stories from my former life driving a limousine in Hollywood. “I reckon he’d do!”
Danielle and I walked over to where she was holding a photo of Tom Selleck.
“No, I never drove him. But I did see him backstage at the Golden Globes a couple of years ago as he walked past.”
“What is the Golden Globes?” Danielle asked.
“What are they? There are the awards handed out by the International Movie Critics Writers Association for excellence. You know-like the Oscars, or the Emmys.”
“The Oscars?” The girls said in unison.
“Yeah, the Oscars. The awards given for best picture, best director, that kind of thing.”
“Oh yeah. Michael Jackson won them a while back, right?”
“No. He won a Grammy. That’s for selling music.”
“Un-huh. They give a lot of them away, from the sound of it,” said Marlee with an attitude that conveyed a lower opinion of the Hollywood crowd than they hold of themselves.
“Look, there’s Cher,” I said, happy for the diversion, “I drove her a couple of times.”
“Who?” They said. I pointed at a woman in full voice wearing a mesh bodysuit. “Cher.”
“Oh,” said Danielle. “You mean Chair.”
“Well, her name is pronounced Cher, as in ‘share and share alike.’”
“But she doesn’t spell it ‘share’. She spells it C—H—E—R. Chair, as in cherry.”
“Or cherub,” said Marlee.
“Or cherish,” threw in her mother, who’d been reading a magazine nearby.
“Look,” I said, the futility of inevitable defeat rising within, “she may spell it C—H—E—R, but she says ‘share’. Sonny and Cher, not ‘sunny’ and ‘chair’.”
“Then she ought to spell it S—H—A—R,” said Danielle.
“But that would be shar, like in shark,” objected Marlee.
“That’s not bad,” put in Sara, “maybe she ought to change her name to shark. Acts like one, from what I hear.”
I bit my tongue and prayed there was no photo of Sade in the magazine.
“Who’s that guy she’s with?” asked Sara, who’d wandered over to investigate the controversial photo.
“That’s Greg Allman. He’s one of the Allman Brothers.”
“There’s more? Do they all look like him? What a specimen!”
“I don’t know, mummy. I’d take his hair,” said Marlee.
Mel Gibson’s handsome countenance gazed from the next page.
“Now there is a man!” exclaimed Marlee.
“Well, he is an Aussie, but I’ve heard he’s short. Only about 5’7”,” I informed the girls.
“How many centimeters is that? asked Danielle.
“Let’s see. Two and a half centimeters to one inch. Sixty-seven inches. That would be one hundred sixty-seven and a half centimeters.”
“Bloody hell!” Exclaimed Marlee. “What a shrimp! One hundred sixty-seven centimeters—that’s about Hunter’s height!” she hooted, referring to her beloved Rottweiler.
“Or mommies bustline!” cackled Danielle.
“Ha! You’re way ahead of me there, little one!” retorted mom.
Marlee, for the record, made it a well-rounded competition. Hard work and nature had formed three very shapely women.
Marlee turned the page. Various television series casts looked out from an article about ratings wars.
“So that’s Tony Danza,” I said. “He used to be on Taxi. I drove some friends of his to his wedding. And, let’s see, this is Bruce Willis. I used to drive him often. We were nose-to-nose one night over his treatment of the limo. And that woman is Cybill Shepherd. She was a big model a few years back. This is Bill Cosby. He’s a funny man. When my brother and I were small our mom took us to visit him on the set of his TV show. Drank a bunch of cranberry juice with him even though neither of us could stand the taste of it. And this is Michael J. Fox. He’s on Family Ties with Meredith Baxter Birney. She used to be married to David Birney from Love Story. And this is Mike Wallace, the journalist who once interviewed…”
A boisterous exclamation from Danielle interrupted my dissertation. “Christ Almighty!” she hooted, “You think I’m something for knowing a mob of horses. You bloody well know half the planet!”
Barking in Nutwood 