Twelve — Revenge of the Herds

With the fence finally serviceable we were ready for the second horse muster. It sounded like an easy enough operation as I listened to Charlie and Marlee spell it out. We would fan out along one edge of Rock Hole paddock, aggregate the horses along the opposite fence, then gently walk them along the fenceline to a gate leading into the yards.

With a pale orange stripe across the horizon hinting at the new day I rode with Danielle as we pushed the horses we’d be riding that day into the yard where our saddles waited. The sky above the dawn light dove through lilac into a deep purple, then into the ebbing black of night. Stars remained overhead. At one point, the flowing manes and pert ears of the horses running in front of the Toyota were silhouetted against the lilac, their warm breath a ghostly vapor in the cool dawn air.

The five of us saddled up and walked to Rock Hole. I felt part of a posse, each of us sitting tall in the saddle, our faces hidden by the brims of our hats, our bodies swaying to the easy gait of the horses. The rustle and squeak of leather mixed with the equine exhortations of our mounts as they accommodated their burdens. We entered Rock Hole after about a ten-minute walk, where Charlie offered one last admonition.

“Watch for each other. Don’t let yourself get ahead of the rest or you’re liable to stuff things up.”

We spread ourselves about a hundred feet apart, the fenceline to our backs. I was between Marlee to my left and Peter on my right. We began walking slowly into the scrub. I was eager to see some ’targets’, but a bit anxious as well. The last horse muster I’d played what was certainly a marginal role, but here I was a link in a very short chain, with an integral part to play. I’d gone riding the previous Sunday with Danielle so I was slightly more comfortable on the animal – I had posting down, at least – but I could still be taken off guard by a sudden turn or stop. Though I’d come to appreciate Silibark’s gentle nature I was well aware I was by no stretch a horseman.

Suddenly three tall figures moved in front of me, crossing from right to left. I looked to my right and saw Peter in the near distance. He motioned to the animals, and I indicated with a nod that I’d seen them. I looked to my left. Marlee had seen them, too. She was trotting at them, trying to get them running directly away from us. I tried to follow the three as they flashed between the obscuring trees. Marlee waved to me and I broke into a trot to follow her.

“Where’d they go?” She hissed as I drew close.

“I don’t know. I lost them.”

“There! On the right!” I followed her hand to see the trio. They had turned around and were trotting back past us about fifty yards away.

Marlee broke quickly into a canter. “Stand in your stirrups!” She called out. “It’s easier to maneuver in the scrub that way!” I did as she said as we wove our way through the stunted trees in an effort to cut off the three errant equines.

My heart raced with excitement. I seemed to be more in control in the standing position. Silibark responded more readily and it was easier to duck down to avoid the low branches. I just might be okay, I thought. The three reappeared on our left, heading the wrong direction. Marlee broke quickly to circle in front of them. I smiled as the three turned synchronously. They looked like the trained horses in a Ringling Brothers Circus.

She cried out, which got them running the proper direction. Suddenly a horse appeared behind us, running at full speed out of the scrub. Marlee and I wheeled our horses and tried to track it down. She chased it into the scrub and I followed her with my eyes. It was wonderful to watch her ride. She was an accomplished horsewoman who moved beautifully with her mount.

I cut the angle and followed her back into the scrub. I rode behind her to her right, ready to turn the horse if it came my way. I marveled at her speed making her way through the treacherous woods. All of a sudden something odd happened. I saw her sit upright, rise out of her seat, then re-seat herself back onto her horse, behind the saddle. She immediately scooted back where she belonged and pulled her horse up short. I joined her and saw that she was holding her hand across her chest and grimacing.

“What happened? Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes, I think so. I’m all right, but just barely. I caught a vine right across the chest,” she started to pull up her shirt to examine the area but thought better of it in my company. “Luckily it broke when it did. Another second and I’d have been sitting on the ground.” Just as quickly as it had happened she brushed it off. “Let’s go get those bloody horses. The mongrels need a bullet, most of them!”

We took off with renewed purpose, but soon found ourselves amidst a scene that looked like rush hour in Bangkok. Horses with and without riders were heading every which way, chaos and confusion being the only unifying element to the scene. It was impossible for me to figure out who was chasing what and which way anything was supposed to be going. I’d find an errant horse and begin pushing it what I assumed to be the proper direction when I’d be crossed by Danielle or Peter or Marlee trying to commandeer their own mob, going in the exact opposite direction. Bundy simply seemed amused, but Peter, who had started the day not feeling well, looked a shade deeper green every time I saw him, Danielle seemed increasingly aggravated, and Marlee increasingly intent. I’d heard Charlie a few times but never actually saw him. As for me, I simply became more and more confounded as we all crisscrossed each other in the woods.

After about thirty minutes of chaos I managed to drive one guy I’d been dogging for ten minutes onto the large flat along what I hoped was the target fenceline. The insides of my calves were rubbed raw from all the breakneck riding, but I was proud of myself – not so much for playing any kind of a significant role but for not getting thrown or proving completely inept. I’d actually done some pretty impressive riding. At one point I was chasing a large red filly when it hurtled down a steep creek bed and up the opposite bank. Without hesitation – thoroughly caught up in the intensity of the affair – I spurred my horse on. He launched himself down the eight-foot drop at full canter. I leaned way back as I’d seen young Jim Craig — the Man from Snowy River – do. I caught myself at the bottom, then leaned forward over the horse’s neck as we surged up the opposite bank. I felt for the moment like a bona fide pro, though I lost the horse I’d been chasing moments later in a patch of rubber plants.

When I emerged onto the meadow I could make out Charlie, Marlee, and Peter trotting behind a mob of perhaps twenty horses as they sauntered along the fenceline. I trotted towards them as Dan emerged from the woods a couple of hundred yards to my right. She approached me with great urgency.

“Slow down! You get that bastard galloping into the mob and they’ll all take off!” she cautioned in a stage whisper. We slowed to a walk as we neared the other riders and my colt joined the larger mob.

Danielle continued her instructions. “We’ll walk them up along the fence. Give us a hand until we get to the corner, then, when Charlie says, swing way wide, then ride ahead to open the gate. Go as fast as you can, then after it’s open go through and about a hundred meters up the fence line on your right so you can slide down and block the rear and close the gate after they’ve gone through. Don’t move or say a word as we approach the gate or you’ll spook the mob. Find a tree to stand behind, if you can. Got it?” I nodded apprehensively. Her words made sense, but there was much at Bullo which seemed absolutely clear in theory but absolutely opaque in practice.

We joined our compadres and walked the jumpy herd slowly up the fence line. Soon we reached the road, at which point Charlie motioned me away. I pealed discreetly off, steered a wide circle, then, full of purpose, pointed Silibark down the road towards the gate into our home paddock for the day. My calves stung terribly; I’d taken Danielle’s admonition to grip primarily with my legs seriously and my jeans had rubbed my soft skin bloody, more gnarly than any road rash or rug burn I’d ever experienced. Gritting my teeth, I spurred Silly through a canter into a full gallop. I hadn’t actually galloped before, but my growing confidence fooled me into thinking I could handle it. For a few moments I was exhilarated, watching the scenery speed by and feeling the animal surge beneath me. I leaned over Silly’s neck and hung on gamely with my screaming calves.

Without warning Silibark veered hard to the left. I was horrified to see a solid Ghost Gum directly in front of us, perhaps fifty feet distant. Silibark was moving at full speed. I reined to the left to avoid the tree, but I’d let my reins go slack; Silibark barely felt the command. It was too close for me to stop. Silibark aimed himself just left of the tree, where a primary branch jutted up at about 45° from the trunk, exactly at head level. As Silibark brushed against the tree I ducked my head to the left in an autonomic feint for survival. I felt my leg brush against the trunk, then felt my ear scratch against the branch as my shoulder slammed heavily into the unyielding wood. Had I not ducked at the last instant the branch would have caught me full in the throat. Were the branch growing at a 90 degree angle from the tree rather than slightly upward there would have been no way to avoid it whatsoever.

In slow-motion I flew from my horse, my feet mercifully not hanging up in the stirrups. “I’m all right!” I said to myself, “I’m all right!” I landed hard on my back, rolled a few times, then sprang to my feet in an act of reflexive optimism. My shoulder was numb, but my legs held, if shaking. I weakly walked towards Silly, who’d pulled up a short distance away and began casually munching grass.

“Here, old fellow.” My voice had a quaver. “We’re not done yet, old boy.”

Damn, I thought, I’m screwing this up. They’ll be coming along any second and I’m standing here, quivering in my boots. I put my foot in the stirrup, intending to swing my other leg over the horses’ back. My support leg turned to a noodle and I stumbled backwards onto my backside. I took a moment to collect myself, then mounted the horse on my second try. I felt nothing in my shoulder. I felt nothing anywhere in my body, sensed nothing clearly except the hollow echo of failure, or, perhaps, the thin veneer of mortality itself.

When we reached my destination I swung my leg off to dismount. Again, my knee gave out and I fell in a heap to the ground. My muscles were Jell-O, my stomach nauseous. I swung the gate open, walked a distance up the intersecting fence line, and waited. I looked in Silibark’s eyes, looking for any sign of malevolence, pity, empathy. I saw nothing. He chomped his bit and rotated his ears, oblivious to the doubts I had about him and the oblivion to which he had nearly consigned me.

As I waited, my shoulder began to grow sore. I pulled my shirt off to examine it. It was red with the imprint of contact. Sections were growing purple, the color of the sky that morning, I thought.

The rest of the operation came off without a hitch. I decided to keep the story of my misadventure to myself. These good people already had enough doubts about my competence; no need to stoke that fire. And, at the end of the day, I’d gotten my assigned task done and remained in one piece for tomorrow’s labors. I’d managed not to break any bones. If I had I would have been onboard the next vehicle out and my outback adventure would’ve been over. As it was, my shoulder was sore for the next several days and ugly for the next several weeks, but its function remained intact.

The same cannot be said for my poor calves. The first thing I noticed the next morning when the generator’s whir jolted me from my sleep was the stickly pain on the inside of my legs. A viscous scab had covered the abrasions that ran the length of both my calves. The scab cracked as I swung my feet onto the floor. I gingerly pulled my shorts on and limped outside with Peter to do the milking. I was surprised to see that he was moving stiffly in a similarly compromised state. The effort of rounding up Pumpkin and Daisy left my wounds wet with blood and lymph.

At the breakfast table Charlie laid out the day’s duties. Peter and I were to join him to begin a project involving water troughs in distant pastures. After breakfast we picked up Bundy and Bill before heading out onto the broad flat of Bull Rush. A metal storage tank stood in a distant corner of the plain, where the tree line edged onto the great flatness. The tank glinted an unnatural metallic color in the landscape. As we neared it I realized it was much larger than I expected, with the capacity to hold several thousand gallons. Nearby, a concrete trough sat full of water. The cows we’d scared upon approach gradually braved their way back to the water trough to resume drinking, lifting their sopping maws frequently to monitor our intentions.

An underground pipe led from the holding tank to the trough, which accounted for its water, but where did the thousands of gallons come from?

“There’s a pipe goes from the main bore to out here,” Charlie stooped to point out the connection where a plastic pipe curved out of the ground to join the metal length running up the side of the tank. Clear water spilled out of its top end. “It’s buried deep at this end, but about halfway to the bore it’s barely covered.” Charlie pointed out the line of bare ground which covered the pipe. “Horses keep kicking holes in it and it’s cracking in the sun. The whole lot is shot to hell. We need to pull it all up, keeping any sections which look okay.” Well down the line a windmill rose above the workshop, marking the main bore. From our vantage point the windmill resembled a lawn ornament. The distance was well over a mile.

We drove together a short distance to where the inadequate depth began. “Two of you start digging at this end. The others come back and start at the other end. Who’ll start here?”

“We will,” said Bundy quickly. As he retrieved a shovel and mattock from the back of the truck I remembered his first rule of station life regarding the boss’s presence. He was quick on his feet, I’ll give him that.

“Right. Dave and Peter will meet you halfway, about where it pops right out of the ground,” Charlie said.

“I reckon you’ll be waiting for a while,” said Bundy, eyeing the stretch of hardpacked dirt.

“Isn’t there a rule about that, Bundy? Something about half the work being done by half the work crew?” I asked, with a grin.

“Actually, it’s the first rule of station life, and I just broke it. Keep your mouth shut when there’s digging to be done.” Everyone laughed, including Charlie.

“So why didn’t you follow your own rule?” I teased.

“It’s early. Besides, Stumpie kept me up all night snoring. Then his dingo started to howling around 4 AM.”

“So you’re not quite yourself, eh?”

“Obviously not,” he said ruefully, jabbing the spade disconsolately into the hardpan earth.

We left them to their task and drove back towards the homestead. At the bore Charlie closed the valve at the head of the two-inch pipe leading to the Nutwood tank. “This time of year, the animals have other places to drink while we fix this, but come August-September this’ll be all they’ve got,” he said.

Using two heavy pipe wrenches he disassembled the plastic joint and pulled the pipe upwards. The first two feet of many broke easily through the earth.

“Most of this is pretty shallow. You should be able to pull it up. But take a shovel anyway. And try not to kink it. Some of it we’ll have to use again.”

“You’ve got some more coming in though, right?” asked Peter.

“Yeah. A truck will be here at the road, probably tomorrow night.”

Charlie left Peter and I to begin our chore. The first twenty feet or so easily unburied itself under the combined pull of the two of us. As soon as the line entered a stand of scrub the task became more difficult. Networks of roots held the layers of earth together above the pipe. While Peter pulled I cleared the roots with the mattock.

Our progress was steady. After two hours several hundred yards of black tubing snaked along the ground in our wake. We emerged from the scrub onto the hard-baked Bull Rush flat, slowing our progress significantly. So it was with considerable relief that we reached a depression which becomes a seasonal swamp during the wet. Here the pipe rose easily from the mire, with a sucking sound and covered in muck. Peter walked into the swamp without taking off his shoes or socks. When I made an obvious suggestion – “why don’t you take your shoes off” – he offered an equally sensible reply — “They’ll dry.”

So I strode into the warm water as well. It felt good on my abraded calves. Peter and I leapfrogged each other, coaxing the reluctant pipe from its murky bed. Though we were both quickly smeared with muck I channeled Peter’s nonchalance to quell my distaste. Hey, you’re a ringer now, I thought. It’ll wash off.

My next discovery was far more difficult to dismiss. I put my hand down to brush my sore calves and noticed they felt slimy. I was thunderstruck to see both large sores writhing with parasites.

“Aaaaaaargh!” I cried, “Leeches!”

My high-stepping sprint from the swamp was a reflex as dependable as that which pulls a finger from a hot stove. There was nothing considered, no deductive faculties whatsoever involved in my dash. It was a flat-out evolutionary flight from a ghastly enemy. It was me versus the leeches, and my battle plan was strictly gut-level stuff. With revulsion I clawed the parasites from my wounds. The fresh layers of exposed skin that came with them were no concern to me. I ripped them from my legs and flung them to the ground. At least a dozen of the vampires met their fate as I plucked and stomped them in a herky-jerky dance of primal Parasitic Agonistis.

Now, I’ve never been particularly squeamish. I’m not a huge fan of needles but I’ll buck up for the stick. I’ve played hockey my whole life. I loved dissecting critters in middle school science class, to the point of carrying interesting portions of frogs or tubeworms around in anticipation of finding just the right time and place for their reappearance. (Being a regrettably dorky lad that opportunity usually involved an admired female, and lunch.) But parasites crawling in my skin? No. Full stop. I’m not available for symbiosis. Any verminous translucent segmented monster which aspires to couple in indiscriminate liaison in the dark alleyways of my corpus is gonna find a ‘No Vacancy’ sign hanging above my doorstep.

At some point I settled my nerves enough to notice Peter. My stout Aussie friend was standing in the water, doing an aquatic version of my performance. He’d clear one leg, start on the other, then with a splash drop the second leg as the bloodsucking congress reconvened on the first.

“Look at ‘em!” he cried, his voice a pitiable mixture of hilarity and revulsion. “The bloody things are coming from a mile around! Look at ‘em!”

I walked to the water’s edge and saw the slimy sanguisuges squirming through the water towards his undefended legs from all directions. He ran from the bog and pulled the fluted bloodsuckers off his legs.

“Bloody hell, Dave! I reckoned you had a few roos loose in the top paddock, mate, ‘til I looked at me own legs! Bloody bastards!”

In the distance I noticed Bundy and Bill. They appeared to be leaning on their shovels, laughing hysterically. It occurred to me for the first time that Bundy’s quick response to Charlie earlier may have had a strategic component, after all.

Peter and I regained our composure by moving to the section of pipe past the swamp. But this was no more than a delaying action. After a short while Peter put his hand on my shoulder, eyed the bog, and confronted the unescapable truth.

“Dave, that pipe’s not gonna pull itself from the water. You ready, mate?”

I’d sooner have whacked myself in the noggin with a hammer than go back in those infested waters but, truly, we had no choice. There was no one we could turn to, no laborer at the local Home Depot or tradesman we could get on the phone to come do this job for us.

We pulled our socks high, grabbed the pipe, and moved into the water. Working like men possessed we drew the plastic out of the muck, splashing madly, not looking at our legs for fear of what we’d see. After several minutes of frantic activity we scurried from the bog, repeated our high-steppin’ purge, our peculiar pluck de deux, and the unpleasant job was behind us.