Dawn the next morning found Peter and me surfing through Bull Rush paddock, a wonky pile of fresh posts our surfboard, the flatbed truck a wave moving us slowly along the newly scraped fence line. At each posthole we’d roll one of the logs off the truck, leaving it staged to be planted later in the day.
Slowly we moved, our load lightening in sync with the day. When all forty posts were in place we bailed out from the truck and began the process of rolling the beached whales into position, tilting them into the holes, then refilling and packing the soil. From sun-up to sunrise for two days Peter and I worked at the task together, while Danielle worked with Bundy as a second crew.
Part of the reason it took so long, paradoxically, was the softness of the soil. Bull Rush had been a grassy lowlands for eons, meaning the loamy soil was loose and silty. If we’d been planting beans we couldn’t have asked for better soil, but when handling heavy logs around the crumbly edges of the holes there were some major aggravations. It wasn’t unusual to inadvertently fill the awaiting hole halfway up just rolling and rotating the log into position, the fat end hanging slightly over the hole, a six-foot crowbar leaning against the opposite wall as a guide. So we’d have to get on our knees and clear it again with the nose of a shovel blade. The deep but narrow holes made this a frustrating job; often we’d bump the handle on the way up and lose half our meager load.
There was one time we slid the post into place only to see that the hole had partially collapsed in the process, leaving this post a full foot higher than the rest. We could have left it as is if function alone were the only concern, but as it would have stood for decades as a monument to our ineptitude there was really no choice; Peter and I each bear hugged the post and with maximum awkwardness drew it out of the hole. Splinters weren’t a problem – the wood underneath the bark was smooth and cool – but the sheer dead weight of the log made it a real struggle. I didn’t realize just how comic we must have looked until I noticed Bundy and Danielle undoing a miscalculation of their own, faces pressed grimly alongside the post, knees bent, arms locked around the sturdy pole, grunting and struggling to erase the evidence of their goof.
I suppose it could be argued that we should have planted the pole, then later cut a foot off the top with a chainsaw. But that’s not the way we worked at Bullo River. The post was cut to a certain length, was meant to be buried to a certain depth, and the need to engage in five minutes of pole-wrasslin’ wasn’t going to get in the way of those prerogatives. That which constitutes ‘correct’, not ‘the easiest’, was the mark we were obliged to meet.
Once the posts were in the hole they needed to be sighted in line with the rest of the fence. I’d hold the post while the other walked down the line to sight it up. It seemed a bit ridiculous, really, to be trying to move the damn things an inch this way or that, then try to hold it perfectly still as the other rushed back to kick a flurry of soil into the hole. How much would an inch or even three really matter, I wondered, but such was the way things were done in my adopted world, and I had enough to wrestle with without taking on the structure of existence itself.
Refilling the holes might have made someone back home think it a new exercise fad, albeit minus the spandex. The compacting ramrod was an old friend by now, ten pounds of shoulder-wearying dead weight. Shovel and pound, pound and shovel; by sunset on our second day the boneworks of the fence stood shiny and new-fangled, a novelty rising under the gaze of those impassive distant hills who’d doubtless in their time seen vastly more substantial sights appear, fresh and sturdy, only to watch them degrade, falter, then disappear entirely.
The next day we began laying out the barbed wire. Dick had rigged a mechanism which made feeding the wire faster than doing it by hand. Like so many things at Bullo it was a hodgepodge of odds and ends; a short piece of railroad track, a few bits of pipe, and four automobile tire rims. He’d abra-cadabra-ed these disparate elements into a functional sculpture which clamped onto the pickup. On it we could load four compact rolls of the spiny wire and, with one person driving slowly and another trailing the truck in order to anchor the ends, all four strands could be rolled out at once.
As with all things Bullo there were definitely a few hazards to the setup. Firstly, the barbed wire itself, an unruly coiled weapon liable to jump into your flesh at any moment. Jeans and leather gloves provided protection, if not immunity, from its bite. Woe be unto him standing at one end of a strand if the other should be accidentally released. The wire was coiled tightly into rolls a thousand feet long. If the person monitoring the feeding process wasn’t paying attention and their end set free it would have snared in a too-close encounter of the thorned kind anything in its path.
After the wires were laid out, we began the time-consuming task of straining them up. Working in teams of two we moved up and down the fenceline, tying one end of each wire, tightening it from the other end, then securing the wire to each individual picket. We worked steadily in the broad quiet meadow. No machine noises could be heard; when Dick turned the generator on at 4 o’clock its low drone only served to remind me of how quiet the afternoon had been.
As we worked, I regularly raised my eyes to marvel at the valley surrounding me. In Los Angeles I often visit Mulholland Drive to view the city lights illuminating the mass of humanity below, spreading from horizon to horizon. Bull Rush paddock was itself about the same size as the LA basin – an area that holds eight million people, at least that many cats and dogs, 5,000 pubs and bars, and paved roadway equal to the distance to New York City and back. Here, in this valley, there were only nine of us humans, a couple miles of dirt track, our new fence, and several knots of cattle and horses lounging among the irregular stands of scrub trees. An entire valley, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles, less crowded than the line at the local Starbucks on Saturday morning.
The next day was a replay of the former: the same balmy weather, the same unmeasured hours amidst the loneliness. Yet there was one significant difference; as the sky faded to purple that evening we drove home past two miles of new barbed-wire fencing. Our sweat had brought us palpably closer to what I’d been looking forward to since arriving – the cattle muster itself.
I was wrong to think the fence finished, however. The gates had yet to be built, and a wing into Nutwood paddock needed to be constructed. I was disappointed when Charlie told me to join Danielle in building the wing, a continuation of the fence line which serves to lead the animals into the laneway. It wasn’t that I minded working with Danielle – she was a hard worker, good company, and easier on the eyes than any of the fellas. Gate building was a craft, however. Rails had to be notched and fitted, wires twisted to just the right tension, and all ends finished off artfully. This was real artful pioneer stuff, the opposite of the brainless picket-bashin’ and barbed-wire wrastlin’ involved in making the wing.
But it was to be wing-making and not gatecraft for me. Danielle and I loaded the King up yet again with the tangle of fencing materials and we headed out. A distinct advantage of this final segment is that we ran the fence from tree to tree, obviating the need for strainer posts. As we worked, a mass of dark clouds gathered suddenly, then wrung themselves dry upon our heads. Before we could find cover we were soaked by the large sopping drops. With our hats wilting over our eyes we continued, happy for the cool diversion, stared at by the lugubrious cattle, whose scant shelter among the scrub trees gave them little claim to superiority on the issue of keeping dry.
We soon finished, soaking wet but satisfied. The downpour lasted maybe ten minutes, but its moisture remained for hours in both the sodden air and our saturated clothing. Light bouncing off the untarnished metal made our fence stand out within this soft and muted landscape like a three-piece suit at Disneyland. The unusual late-season storm had moved on to the southern hills, where it boiled, gray and dark. To the east, a magnificent double rainbow arched over the washed landscape, reflecting my relief at finally finishing the fence and my bright anticipation of the upcoming muster.
Which was – I should have known — still one large task away. We needed to build a section of portable yard to extend the capacity of the wooden yard, should more animals be captured in the drive than anticipated. A yard too small would be a calamity. The surplus herd would balk at being overcrowded, then turn back into the vehicles and riders on horseback pushing them forward. This stampede would, at the very least, undo the entire day’s efforts as the thousand animals rushed back into the bush, putting every one of us stockmen in its path in great peril.
There was also some work to do to bring water from the main tank to the various pens. For weeks I’d heard warnings about building the portable yard; how it was certain to teach a city boy the meaning of real work. I was rather happy the time had finally arrived; I’d begun to be amused by Danielle and Marlee’s habit of talking about how difficult something was, then when the task was actually underway, they would talk about how REALLY hard the next task was to be. Beforehand, every single thing was sure to be a beast. During its execution? No lamentations, no suffering, no commiseration. Just tight-lipped labor, and talk of a difficult future.
They were correct–virtually every task at Bullo was physically demanding. I’d come to expect the rigor at the beginning of each day, accompanied by the girls’ increasingly amusing attempts to scare me at the magnitude of the difficulty.
“Aw, Dave, wait until you start humping yard panels. That’ll knock ya up, for sure!” Marlee promised one evening around the dinner table, using a favorite Aussie slang for working oneself to exhaustion. “Aye, you’ll be ready for bed by noon, I reckon,” Danielle added.
I simply smiled and bit my tongue nearly hard enough to make it bleed. The prospect of Charlie grinding me to cornmeal with his bare hands kept me from articulating any of the salacious wisecracks which leapt into my American mind at who in the immediate company I might wish to see in bed, knocked up.
“I’ll just do my best to keep up with you gals. That’s all I can promise,” I offered blandly.
The girls had it right, however. It was I who was knocked up the next day, though hitting the sack at noon was not an option. We set to work at daybreak adding a portable yard onto the newly refurbished permanent yard. The muster season required us to eventually assemble (then disassemble) five yard sites. This first was the simplest, given that it was just a short walk from the workshop where all the materials we needed were stored.
Peter backed the flatbed truck slowly through the mechanical litter of the salvage yard to where the several hundred panels of yard section were stacked against an old Bloodwood tree. Danielle guided him into position, rotating her hand slowly at the wrist, gauging the distance between the approaching truck and the panels.
“Whoa!” she cried. Peter set the parking brake with a ratcheting noise and hopped out of the cab. Before his feet hit the ground I’d leaned one of the panels upright.
“Well Dave, you’re pretty keen to get started,” said Marlee in a mocking tone. She was right; I was. “Save some energy; we’ve got hundreds of these to do.”
The portable yards are the heart of Top End station life. Within their confines cattle are sorted, branded, castrated, de-horned, and, critically, will be chosen those who’ll leave the station to become cash for ranchers and cashew beef for Asian diners.
Perhaps due to my enthusiasm for finishing this last obstacle before the muster, or perhaps because I was eager to show the girls I was up to the challenge, I threw the panels up to Peter with gusto. We’d soon built three stacks of thirty panels, dogged them down, and lumbered the short distance to the yard site.
Following the layout Charlie had dictated we slid the panels off the truck, one at a time, as Danielle drove along the circle of the outside pen. I’d imagined that circle alone would form the whole of the yard. But at one point, Marlee had Danielle turned the truck off and Peter slid a dozen panels into Bundy’s and my waiting hands. These formed the first of several dividers which broke the large circle into sections.
All these separate pens and gates made for more complexity than I’d expected. We spent the balance of the afternoon trying to fit together the various gates and gate frames and panels and half panels and master poles, all of which were connected by thick metal pins, similar in concept to those found in door hinges. Had everything been factory-built our work would have gone smoother. But the complexities of assembling the maze were magnified by the homespun imprecision with which the various components had been repaired time and again.
For example, each gate had only one frame in which its lugs would fit, allowing it to swing the proper direction. There were at least a dozen gates, visually similar but each functionally unique. Under Charlie’s direction, Uncle Dick had contrived what he called master poles–adapters, essentially; their plethora of lugs letting them join two, three, or even four yard components despite the differing lug patterns of the various elements. These clever poles were helpful, certainly, but just as the edge pieces on a jigsaw puzzle make for a nice starting point a good deal of head-scratching remains.
Finally, two long days later, the yard was virtually complete. Our final obstacle was moving the monstrously heavy head bale into place. This device holds cattle in place one at a time while they are branded. It needed to sit in a narrow runway we’d built as one radii projecting from the round yard which centered the acre-sized construction. This head bale is the kind of thing that, in ordinary lives, sits forever in one place, like a grand piano, or a decorative boulder. If they ever do need to be moved, we suburbanites tend to call in guys wearing coveralls with their names on them – usually names like Bubba or Alejandro – who possess the specific knowledge and tools required for moving mountains. All we at Bullo had to call upon were two overgrown crowbars and the brute strength of everyone within a fifty mile radius—which numbered seven.
The bale sat in the overgrowth of the wet season’s sproutings, where it had been deposited with finality at the end of the previous year’s muster season. The piece was about seven feet high and nine feet long, a metallic maze of reinforced piping and solid bars. An animal would be chased into the bale, past a one-way gate which would prevent it from backing out. Up front, a stockie stood ready to close the head bale around the animal’s neck as it nosed forward. Once constrained the animal could be ear-tagged, branded, de-horned, or castrated, as needed.
By the time the six of us had muscled the half-ton contrivance onto the flatbed Toyota, driven to the site, and levered it back onto the ground, with shouted directions and muttered oaths coming from all directions the entire time, darkness was upon us. Our day, and our yard, was complete.
Or so I thought.
It wasn’t until after two more days filled with detail work that the yard was ready for its enforced guests. Peter and I ran a water pipe to the yard site, cutting in on the Nutwood pipe we’d buried the past month. The girls pounded stays into the ground to keep the segmented pens from moving under the stock pressure. By Saturday it was finally, utterly, and completely, finished, standing at the end of our beautiful laneway, a metallic net ready to snare a thousand snorting beasts, none of them likely to be the least bit grateful for the shade or fresh water we’d arranged for their stay.
The yard represented something quite pleasing to me, however. At that point I’d been at Bullo over two months. Most of that time had been spent digging or hoisting or hauling. I had yet to touch a living cow other than Pumpkin or Daisy, two domestic matrons unlikely to give anyone much of an adrenaline rush. The wary beasts who’d been watching from a distance with their unwelcoming nonchalance were clearly a different breed than those domestic bovines, more akin to the sketchy neighbor back home, the one with the unkempt lawn and who’s only visitors are furtive bikers or the occasional police black-and-white.
I was anxious to get my hands dirty with the real purpose of my stay. I was ready to be a cowboy; to wrestle steers, brand calves, finish the day dusty and sore, the branding fire turning to coals as an incarnadine sunset spreads overhead. It’s undeniable that cowboys are putting out a consumer product, ultimately, and are no different in that perspective than, say, autoworkers. What sets the two occupations apart is the deep strain of pioneer lore which accompanies the first, and the fact that the cowboy’s raw materials have a will of their own, and a half ton of mass fronted by sharp horns to enforce that will. To do his or her job the stockman must bend the obstreperous cattle to his will. Doing so requires toned muscles and practical smarts and some understanding of what makes the creatures tick.
I was ready with the muscle and was gaining an appreciation for the sensible use of tools necessary in station life. What I was lacking was any knowledge of how cattle thought, and how they reacted when in close quarters with humans. The beginning of that education was what the muster promised, and after two grueling months of blue-collar labor I was beyond ready for class to begin.
Barking in Nutwood 