Published: 20 Sep 2021

The coming of the monsoon earlier in the year had carpeted the Gulf with the best stock fodder for years and now at the season end the grass was turning brown and beckoning for a burn-off, yet beneath this brown there was promise of another good season brought on by following rain, with the promise of more with a predicted cyclone season.

“Won’t have to handfeed this year,” Roy declared as a ribbon of ragged bitumen ran under the vehicle’s wheels. At last they had reached a notion of civilization.

Without warning Roy slowed and took a right turn, over a cattle grid then a second towards a large house high on stilts and standing proud against a late afternoon dust hazed sky.

“We’re here!” Roy exclaimed as he brought the land-rover to a stop at the base of a long flight of steps leading to a spacious verandah, partly enclosed in green lattice work.

“Where’s the town?” Travis asks his eyes everywhere but seeing nothing but trees and rocky hills.

“Town?” Roy asks.

“Bullock Creek,”

“There’s no town mate, except for the pub and a dozen or more empty houses, occasionally a few natives and old Jack Arnold,” Roy paused his enlightening, “disappointed?”

“Not really I assumed it was bigger.”

“Was once but the gold ran out – come on and help me unload.”

“You made it?” A deep voice came from behind as the two alighted from the vehicle.

“G’day mate.” Roy answered his tone akin to one talking to a new puppy. Roy offered his hand and the youth accepted it without displaying emotion of any kind.

“Hey Bradley, meet my Nephew Travis. He’s going to give you a hand around the place for a while.”

The two extended their greeting and stood back checking each other’s persona. Neither spoke, then once satisfied that there wasn’t any physical threat, they disengaged their examination of each other.

“As long as Travis understands who the boss is,” Bradley declared dryly while rummaging through the supplies, “coffee?” he growled.

“It’s there keep looking,” Roy assured.

Bradley found the tin then grunted his complaint, “I hate Maxwell House.”

“You can blame Trevor, he did the shopping.”

“Huh,”

“Bad mood today Mr. Cooper,” Roy asks.

“Na it’s that bloody stallion you brought up last time. Randy big bastard; probably fuck me if it had half the chance,”

“You’ve kept him away from the yearlings?” Roy asks while mounting the stairs carrying one of the supply boxes, followed close by Bradley and Travis with more.

“What’s Travis supposed to do?” Bradley asks ignoring Roy’s question while feeling his love for isolation diminishing.

“As you said ‘you’re the boss’ and it’s only until he finds his country legs then he’ll be off.” Roy entered the kitchen and placed his box on the table, “what’s for dinner?” he asks while investigating the contents of a large bubbling pot on the oversized kitchen wood range. He peered into the pot and breathed deeply from the aroma. It smelt good.

“Stew,” Bradley answered cheekily.

“It’s always stew, next visit I’ll have to bring you a recipe book.”

“Don’t bother I like stew.”

“What about you Travis can you cook?” Roy asks.

“I can boil a kettle and make toast.”

Bradley gently threw back his head with a gentle huff.

“I’m going to check the horses so you two get to know each other and Bradley show Travis his room.”

“Which one?”

“I’ll let you two work that out.”

With Roy gone Bradley became more talkative without giving away much about himself. He was somewhat taller than Travis and more muscular but lean, with an elongated face topped with military styled cropped light brown hair, while his green eyes gave notion he was more approachable than he actually was.

“Were you in the army?” Travis asks as Bradley showed him to a makeshift room at the end of the front verandah and as far away from his own as possible.

“This should do you, as for army I’m hardly older than you, how would I have had the time,” Bradley answered roughly making Travis feel somewhat silly for his question.

“Sorry it’s your short hair and I suppose I came to the wrong conclusion.”

“Don’t like long hair,” Bradley admitted, “only poofs have long hair,” he followed abruptly.

“My hair’s long,” Travis protested not wishing to be branded as homosexual on his first day.

“Fair enough; I’ll go and finish dinner, I hope you can play cards.”

“Yes but I’m not very good.”

“Just as well, except for drinking, there’s bugger all else to do around here, so don’t expect me to entertain you,” Bradley grumbled, more out of the loss of his solitude than the necessity to entertain. “Do you like music?” he added.

“Some,” Travis answered.

“Too bad, no electricity and no wireless; suppose I could sing for you.” Bradley added as he departed to the kitchen and his bubbling pots but paused with a further thought, “you said you can make toast?”

“I guess I can,”

“That will be fun watching.”

“Why so?”

“As I said no electricity, you have to toast in front of the stove’s firebox.”

“I’ve done that before,” Travis admitted remembering his time on Cumberland Downs and its large wood range.

“Cleaver little bugger,”

“I have lived in the country before.” Travis admitted.

“There is country and there is country,”

“I agree but I have lived rough.”

After dinner and under the glow from a kerosene lamp suspended from a ceiling beam, Roy and Bradley discussed business, while Travis listened but lacked interest in the general state of animal husbandry. Roy noticing his Nephew’s somewhat bored attitude brought him into the conversation.

“What do you think Travis?” Roy enquired while Bradley cleared away the kitchen table and produced a round of beers from the also kerosene powered refrigerator. They were cold and most welcome with the night’s heat.

“I’ll be alright, except I don’t know what I’m expected to do,” Travis answered yawning widely and stretching the day’s trip from his joints.

“Are we keeping you up?” asks Bradley, exhibiting his own rough brand of humour, which in time Travis would grow to love.

Travis didn’t answer.

“Bradley will show you around tomorrow. If you change your mind there’s a telephone at the pub and I’ll collect you,” Roy’s statement sounded parental, now gone was his usual carefree attitude, instead displaying what Travis believed to be an inbuilt fear of his brother’s edict, or more so Margaret, if he allowed anything to happen to Travis on his watch.

“I won’t,” Travis interrupted.

“Still if you do then call me, don’t just bear it because of some stupid Brown family pride,” Roy enforce, he paused then turning to Bradley continued, “Travis can cut one of the two year olds’ from the mob down at the Five-ways Paddock and have what gear he needs from the livery shed,” another pause, “okay?”

Bradley didn’t answer but a slight nod of his head gave Roy enough reason to believe his property manager understood not to hinder his Nephew.

Bradley Cooper was a most headstrong and pragmatic young man inclined to run his own programme. Yet if one could obtain conviction from him he would execute his work immaculately and to the letter. What did concern Roy was Bradley’s preference for isolation, which may be detrimental to Travis, who being accustomed to communal life was somewhat gregarious even if he was inclined to deny the fact.

“Well you two, I’ll be pushing off before sunup, I want to call in on Sid Fisher over at Einasleigh before returning home, so I’ll leave you to chat.” Roy excused before disappearing along the dark hall to his room at the rear of the house.

“I’m turning in as well, you can take the lamp.” Bradley offered and without further ceremony retired to his room, leaving Travis alone to reflect on his future and how he would accomplish life with Bradley and his wish for adventure.

From his room on the rambling house’s verandah, Travis felt close to the night’s wildlife. He lay without sleep, attempting to distinguish each night call from beast or bird, some he knew others amusingly strange. As he eventually spiralled into sleep he thought he heard the mournful resonance of a train’s whistle. Once twice it sounded then two more sharp calls giving sadness to the night.

Travis’ thoughts meandered back to his childhood; he was once again on Creek Run, where he often lay awake in anticipation for the Inlander passenger service on its way to or from Mt. Isa. To the young Travis it had appeared sad as it sounded warning at the crossing close by the homestead. Yet on the occasion he chanced to travel, it was a happy train, concluding it was the dark of night that made the train appear unhappy.

That was a lifetime previous, even before Cumberland Downs and its bright sky and cheerful days, before the gloom of boarding school and bullying playmates who demanded homogeny of attitude, or at least some pretence to conform to the way of the mob.

Memory came to Travis of his first day at the hostel. Before that day a dozen children seemed like a multitude, a school class was one long desk with four pupils and a school to sixth grade with but twenty, under the instruction of one teacher, being arts, the three R’s and all other curriculum. There were also geography lesions taken from walks in the bush, boomerang throwing coached by a local indigenous fellow or questionable age and a large schoolyard where some of the boys left their horses after riding in from adjoining properties.

At that time Travis lived in town, if a population of no more than two hundred could be considered a town but often rode to school, leaving his horse in the shade of a large mulberry tree, only to find his saddle spotted with purple juice after school. They were happy days with his three horses, two dogs, some bantam chickens and as much freedom a lad could want but as it is with all good times they tend to be finite.

That described the year during his parent’s stay in a small town on the Mt. Isa line called Torrens Creek but before that first year had finished and after his previous schooling by correspondence he was again travelling as his father had taken up management of Cumberland Downs in the heart of Queensland’s northern Gulf Country. He had hardly passed his sixth birthday before arriving in Herberton where he became a stranger amongst children.

Travis arrived at the hostel with his mother, who after speaking to the manager’s wife, stole away in sadness not wishing to bid farewell. He remembered vividly a quiet word between the woman and his mother and a gentle kiss to his forehead. He turned his attention but for a moment and on turning back she was gone, leaving him a confused little boy in an alien world, while never before separated from his parents for more than a few hours.

Once introduced to a number of boys, Travis was left to their devices feeling abandoned without explanation, without itinerary of expectation or a friend to turn to.

A small group of older boys silently gathered around Travis as if he was an exhibit in the zoo until one of the group found voice.

“New kid eh?’

“What grade are you in?” a second demanded.

“Two,” Travis nervously answered.

“You are in Foxie’s grade, you better watch out for him, he’ll biff ya’ that’s a certainty.”

“Got any allies?”

“Allies?” Travis confusingly repeated.

“Dinks, marbles you do play marbles?”

Travis lacked an answer so remained silent.

“What’s your name?” Another demanded.

“Brown,”

“Yea Brown but you must have a given name, we can’t call you Brownie until we know you better,” insisted a third.

“Travis,”

“What kinda’ dumb sissy name is that?” the voice came crude and threatening.

“Dunno,”

To Travis sissy was a quality he didn’t understand. Sissy wasn’t riding horses, viewing the slaughter and gutting of a bullock for the monthly kill, or running wild in the scrub without care or fear. Sissy could never be daring and his past days were full of dare.

Another voice, equally threatening and disregarding towards his confusion made what was to be a most unwelcoming suggestion, “hey Robby he needs to be initiated.”

“Initiate the new kid,” reverberated around the small locker room.

“Initiate, initiate;” the group of boys repeated as they manhandled Travis and literally carried him away towards the toilet block. Once there one of the boys urinated into the toilet bowl as others upended Travis and forced his head in the water then flushed the cistern. Travis held his breath not to take in water but could feel the flow forcing at his nostrils, there was more as a lad urinated into his hair, washed away with a second flushing.

Initiation completed he was once again left to his loneliness.

That afternoon a bugle sounded bringing the boys to meals. It was reveille played by a senior boy and a member of the school cadets. After their meal it was bedtime, Travis was shown to the dormitory and issued with a bunk but first was delivered with a most important question, “do you piss the bed?”

Travis appeared confused.

“He probably does better have a bottom bunk,” it was suggested.

“Better not piss the bed or it will be a plastic mackintosh for you,” another related.

Travis remained confused as he had never known anyone cursed with night involuntary urination.

“You can have the bunk under Spaceman but you have to fight him first.”

“Fight?” Travis repeated as a lad was pushed at him; “fight’s on,” another called as a number of boys made a circle all repeating in unison, “fight, fight -fight.”

Spaceman was a young lad of equal age who had some injury to his head or neck and wore a plaster cast to the shoulders with only his face free. Obviously Spaceman’s injury wasn’t too restricting if he could be expected to fight but he did at the time appear eager to comply. “Right show me your dukes,” Spaceman insisted while lifting his fists in readiness. If dukes were fists Travis left his by his side so his opponent instead took Travis around the neck and wrestled him to the floor.

The fight lasted all of two minutes where they wrestled about the floor and the iron bedposts collecting dust like two human mops. With no damaged done the two eventually became friends but that first day remained vivid in memory and often brought a shudder and there after any sounding of a bugle created remorse almost to tears.

Light’s out was called as a scurry of young bodies hurried to their bunks with warning from the light monitors to be quick and lively or get a clip around the ears. Lying in darkness in a strange frightening new world Travis silently contemplated what horrors would eventuate on the following day and there were many before he settled into what he called the dog pound.

“Wakie wakie;” Roy’s voice came through the open doorway of Travis’ first morning at Bullock Creek.

“I am awake the bloody birds made sure of that,” Travis grumbled.

“That’s the bush for you, besides growing up on stations you should remember what it is like.

“There appears to be more here than out west, especially the magpies and earlier the curlews screaming up a storm.”

“Not curlews mate, they are coastal birds,”

“Then what?”

“More likely a barking owl, there is one that likes the tree close to the gate, otherwise how did you sleep?”

“Good except I dreamt I heard a train,” Travis yawned and stretched.

“You did, that was the Forsayth night-goods train. It comes through here two nights a week, there is also a day service and often a cattle train taking bullocks to the Mareeba meat works but road transport takes most these days,” Roy explained,

“I didn’t realise we were so close to the line.”

“Almost on it,”

“I’m about to head off – again are you sure you want to stay?”

“Yes Roy I’ll be alright. I’m actually excited about it.”

It was true, although apprehensive on what was expected of him and somewhat wary of Bradley, he was eager to try his hand in the bush.

“Then I’ll see you in a few weeks, Bradley will fix your breakfast and tell you what’s doing – once again if you change your mind, there’s a telephone at the pub.” Roy lingered for a moment, repeated his farewell and was gone.

For a time Travis lay in with his ears tuned to the sounds of birds but it was the crows that brought the most memory, with their common sound as they called to each other where to find carrion. Back on Creek Run there was always a carcass for them to discover and if a sheep was ailing they would be upon it, to peck out its eyes while it lay helplessly bleating. Travis shook away the thought of crows and tuned in to a lone magpie, its song sweet and welcoming to the morning.

“Well,” Travis sighed, “best I get up and see what my first day has to offer.”

Gary’s stories are about life in Australia as a gay man. Your emails to him are the only payment he receives. Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Gary dot Conder at CastleRoland dot Net

28,640 views