Published: 9 Apr 2020

Introduction

Lewis Smith, after a loss that left him filled with grief, decided to escape the pain by going as far away as possible from a town that in some ways was responsible. What he didn’t realise, when it comes to emotional distress you can not leave it behind, it travels with you.

Although Lewis soon settled into work on a large cattle station he found the sadness remained but as time progressed he settled into a lifestyle that not only suited but allowed him to understand his grief.

Then as life was taking on a measure of normality his past returned but in such a way it not only stunned beyond all belief, but united his past to the present then into his future.

It was hard to believe that more than fourteen months had past since Will’s accident and Lewis Smith had taken the position of cowboy on Gilbert Downs station, leaving in its wake two Christmas’ and his twenty-first birthday, of which he had celebrated none. Nor had he returned to Mareeba during the stations down period over the Christmas breaks, preferring to remain working rather than envelope his still grieving persona in the stress that caused his departure from his adopted hometown.

Leaving Mareeba but two weeks after Will’s accident meant Lewis was able to place distance between him and a town that despised Will McKee and for no legitimate reason other than envy, a town where people wished to bring his friend down even at the expense of others.

One such person had been Lewis’ work mate, Trevor Davies, while working at Jack and Newell in Mareeba. Davies was a young man who had hate in spades and thought nothing of destroying the innocent to obtain his objective and leading towards Will McKee’s demise Lewis became collateral and would have been exposed in the same instance as McKee, except for the accident and Lewis’ departure.

By leaving Mareeba, Lewis believed he could commence his grieving in private while eventually placing Will in his heart as loving memories and advance but even now after such time, the scent of Will remained as strong as his silent grief. Sometimes at night he would wake with the feeling of Will’s strong arms around him, his heart beating in his ears while realising he remained alone and there was nothing but the expanse of darkness and the solitude of the outback night.

The travel that brought Lewis to Gilbert Downs, was as dark as a monsoon depression and now that travel was almost obliterated from his memory, except for the occasional recollection of the small communities along the rail route from Mareeba to Forsayth, the railhead to the gulf country and the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed that failed to dull the pain of loss.

Once established in his position he soon realised drinking didn’t help, more to point it increased his depression and emphasised his grief, therefore he put his time into work, having but the occasional drink during infrequent visits to town, or a glass to dull the mood in the privacy of his own company.

When Lewis accepted the position of cowboy he was plagued with doubt towards his ability to perform the necessary duties. It was true he could ride a horse and had the rudimentary knowledge on how to muster stock but that had been gleaned from his distant past as a child and fast becoming lost to memory.

What did surprise Lewis was how quickly it all returned, fitting hand in glove with his new lifestyle, while lowering him into a comfort he thought he would never again find. Besides the position of cowboy on an Australian cattle station was mainly house and yard duty, feeding the chickens, watering, chopping wood for the kitchen stoves, with the occasional muster, or stock work, depending on the availability of stock hands.

What made those first months bearable was there was little downtime from work, giving only one weekend in eight to attend to one’s external needs, such as visiting Georgetown, its pub or the occasional bush dance and race meeting. Station life was something akin to living at an oasis surrounded by many miles of sparse cattle country before reaching a neighbour.

In this country one could go half a year without having contact with those on the next station but there was always the fortnightly mail service and telephone. A single wire, sometimes strung from tree to tree along dusty bush tracks, having little reliability and often broken by falling branches or seasonal flooding. It crackled in electrical storms, failed in extended heat, while poles soon became food for a multitude of termites.

In the earlier months Lewis preferred to remain working than allow town life to once again bring back what he had buried from himself and his work mates, yet the position of cowboy on a cattle station did allow a good portion of the day to attend to one’s needs as it was more on call than active, leaving much time for contemplation.

There would be cook calling for eggs, firewood, or salted meat from the butcher shop, or the head stockman needing assistance with the night horses, preparing them for the following day’s muster; while the manager was a constant in the station’s cowboy’s daily routine.

Often Lewis found time to ride or attend to the fish trap he had set in the Gilbert River’s water holes, which during the dry were more akin to large puddles dotted along a dry sand riverbed like a string of dark stagnating pearls. Here what remained of the fresh water crayfish and fish life gathered in wait for the next wet and a chance to once again spawn, while nervously noting the disappearing water level and hiding from fresh water crocodiles and herons that constantly followed the ribbon of river in search of an easy feed.

Although stock horses were supplied, Lewis had purchased a mare from the station’s breeding stock for his own use. She was a roan of limited stature but had stamina well beyond her size. When it came to naming her his first inclination was Roany in honour of his mare he had as a boy on Dunluce Station west of Hughenden and later in Torrens Creek during his preschool years but fear of sounding childish amongst his fellow workers shied him from the idea, so when asked he said, just Horse, remembering his mother’s cat that was simply called Cat along with a parrot she called Bird and a dog. Well the dog was Spot and completely white without a single spot or blemish except for its black shiny nose. Winnie, Lewis’ mother had a well regarded laconic sense of humour and many believed Lewis was fortunate not to have been branded with the name Kid.

After his chores on Sundays Lewis would often take his mare bush, mostly along the dry bed of the Gilbert River and the sparsely wooded slopes beyond. This was his paradise, as the solitude strengthened him. Still the reason for his departure from Mareeba held place deep within and he knew this would always be so, while hoping eventually it may become a comfortable ache instead of the constant drain it was on any of life’s social advancement, often leaving him flat and despondent. Even so Lewis became most apt in concealing his mood from others and appeared to be a cheerful, well balanced young man.

It was on one such ride across the Gilbert Lewis discovered a small gully that was approachable only from the river’s side and when the river flooded it would become engulfed in the torrent, becoming a rocky islet in a surging current.

At one end of this secret gully stood a rise of granite boulders, each taller than the tallest man and piled by nature one on top of the other, allowing a narrow climb through the cairn towards a near flat top. This area was extensively marked with ancient aboriginal carvings and by design appeared to have not only been used in ancient times but quite recently.

Under an overhang there was a group of faded paintings, or to be more accurate outlines of undecipherable animals, ochre hands and stick men, now worn down to only visible when the sun was at such an angle to cast shadows but if one employed close scrutiny its age was obvious as were the images of kangaroo’s the stick men appeared to be hunting.

Amongst the scattering of ancient sacred native taboos and dreaming Lewis created a small monument to Will, placing at its base a log cabin tobacco tin containing a length of honey blond hair that had been cut from Will before he had been called up for National Service, not wishing the army hairdressers to get at his proud locks, also a faded photograph of Will being a rare remaining legacy of their friendship.

While at his monument Lewis could turn his inner pain into a manageable dull ache and during the time spent at his shrine he imagined Will to be beside him and sometimes thought he could hear his voice, a deep golden voice, bearing a touch of wit and mockery that came from the sap of youth, unaffected by the trials and disappointments of adulthood.

On one such day as he sat close by his shrine, his sight following the snaking of the river and with Will heavy on his mind, a light breeze carrying the heat of the afternoon came across the dry river bed. Within the breeze he heard Will’s voice, “Lewis it will work out,” Lewis quickly turned but found nothing but dancing leaves scurrying across the rocky surface, being caught in the zephyr as it twisted this way than that before fading, dropping all it collected back to the dry sunbaked earth.

“Will?” Lewis softly called after the disappearing zephyr but the voice was no more. He shuddered and allowed his imagination to gallop but quickly reined it back into his realm of scepticism. There was no voice, no spirit on the wind, no afterlife, Will was no more and all that remained was the pain of memory.

In the early months settling into Station life didn’t come easy for Lewis, finding the quiet and reflective disposition of cattlemen somewhat off-putting. Conversation was almost non-existing and most questions would be answered with simple affirmation or negativity, while if yes or no could not be presented then a simple head nod or silence would service, which could also represent disapproval, leaving Lewis’ somewhat gregarious character to flounder, creating in him the feeling of being excluded. Yet in general they did have one redeeming quality being, cattlemen were not judgemental and as long as one kept to a simple life avoiding the social airs of the town they accepted most.

So it was with Lewis but there was one facet of his life he did not share with his peers, that being his sexuality and his short time with Will McKee in Mareeba. He would go into lengthy renditions on his childhood back in Queensland’s mid-west, also his connections to Melbourne but Will was sacred and the time they had together was never divulged. As for his sexuality the loss of Will and the proceeding depression drove it so deep Lewis had become almost asexual.

During the main body of the station’s year, life moved slowly as if within a dream with only a handful of staff to share conversation. There was the manager, his wife, the cook and housemaid, a bookkeeper and two stock hands. It was during the times of the muster when life met its epoch, with an influx of ringers, black stock hands and their gins to help with kitchen and housework.

Jack Thompson the station’s manager was a tall lean man of few words but well respected across the wide north-west for his ability and fairness. His thinning dark brown hair was, during his wakening hours, covered by a large broad brimmed akubra hat, it size dwarfed his long thin face and small pale blue eyes, while his hipless frame struggled to prevent his moleskins from descending to his well worn Williams stock boots and jingling spurs.

Oddly Jack wore spurs but never while riding, his reasoning being he had too much respect for horseflesh to cut them up for no apparent reason but ego. As for the wearing of spurs, his justification being, he liked their jingling sound as he walked and reasoned the sound frightened away any snake that crossed his path. Snakes don’t have ears he was often corrected. Jack’s answer being, they hear well enough to get out of my way.

Jack’s wife Elizabeth was as close as the Queensland outback could achieve for glamour, being tall and slender with dark curled hair, always appearing to he freshly permed, while her countenance still held the peaches and cream complexion of a more temperate zone, in defiance of the harsh gulf climate. Elizabeth was British born from the counties but had lived in Australia long enough to have her perfect middleclass English accent flattened to an acceptable level.

Elizabeth had been hired as a governess for a family on a station west of Mt. Isa. While there she met Jack and an equal love and respect for horses united them in marriage, most being surprise she stuck with it, considering the chasm between England’s fair society and almost none in the gulf country.

The Thompson’s had two children a girl and a boy, who spent much of their time at school down the coast at Bundaberg with their paternal grandparents, only arriving home for school holidays while longing for their horses. The two were pleasant enough as children go but most rowdy and active and it was with trepidation the cook anticipated their return as they would arrive like a cyclonic wind destroying the simple harmony of her kitchen and quiet, demanding biscuits and cake and soft drinks that they were accustomed while away. None of which were easy come by so far from town but cook would do her best and make what represented cake with at least a fair dose of sugar to satisfy the sweetest tooth.

The cook, Joyce Marshall was a large woman with greying hair representing the colour and texture of steel-wool and a ruddy happy face. Joyce apparently hadn’t family, or if so, never spoke of any but did possess a sense of humour that could bring joy to any gathering. Joyce was a fair cook and had come recommended by the manager’s wife from Goodwood Station but never made measure when Elizabeth sent notes of demand to the kitchen for fancy confectionery when visitors called by.

It was Ivy Gooding the housemaid who brought most contentment in Lewis’ work day. Ivy was a slight, hard working honest woman in her early thirties, with an infectious smile, a kind word and a permanent ear to listen to one’s problems. She had sad eyes, with eyelids that drooped to cover half her sight, while in those steel grey eyes one could see many years of hardship.

Ivy was a single mother and had to take what work she could, to afford to keep her teenage son at boarding school in Herberton, a town back in the high Atherton Tablelands, being a town Lewis knew well, also its hostel but never mentioned his own time there, or that his mother once worked on Gilbert Downs and he had visited on two past holiday occasions.

Ivy was a quiet woman of few words but those she spoke were pertinent and held in high regard by those who knew her. Ivy and her son were from Melbourne, travelling to Queensland not long after his birth, to avoid the destructive attitude of a drunken husband and finding the climate and lifestyle agreeable, she stayed.

Ivy had love for Mareeba but had to take work in places that included keep to afford to educate young Wayne, which meant he could not live with her. Ivy found the separation of mother and son most stressful but often necessity becomes an unwanted bedfellow one can not avoid. Fortunately Jack Thompson, the manager, had given permission for Wayne to visit during school holidays, making a somewhat taxing separation a little more palatable. Separation of mother and son being the adhesive that drew Lewis to Ivy Gooding as in many ways it reflected his own upbringing and with the Melbourne connection uncanny, therefore friendship had to eventuate.

The remaining staff being two stock hands and the bookkeeper Stan Wilson an overweight private man, who lacked any love for country. Stan came west from somewhere along the Central Queensland Coast in retreat from a messy divorce and to avoid excess payment of alimony. Stan spent most of his downtime contemplating what could have been while seated on the front verandah of the bookkeeper’s house, located across the flat from the homestead and overlooking a long narrow Lagoon of red almost stagnant water.

The homestead had been built a short distance off the Gulf Development Road, a graded dirt track of corrugation that lazily wound from Georgetown to Croydon and then on to Normanton, which in the dry was a dust storm and during the wet impassable. Still it did carriage the occasional southern tourist and the fortnightly mail truck, which seemed to arrive with astounding regularity.

It was the canny travelling salesman who brought most excitement to the outback oasis of humanity: arriving in a flurry of dust from unknown places, with much noise and excited prologue. He would thus attempt to extract what little coinage that was available and once done would disappear back into the dust and distance, again becoming but speck on the horizon while supplying a promise to return with a greater variety on his next visit.

The head stockman Walter Drysdale, was a man past retirement age but as wiry as one half his years. He was thin, bald except for a tuft of grey hair above each elongated ear and except for one central broken incisor appeared to be toothless, although he did have enough behind to chew the toughest of steak and he loved his steak.

Walter had once been married but could not remember exactly when or who she was. The union had eventuated during a drunken stupor while still in his prime of life, to a half cast Aboriginal woman with a wilful temper and a taste for alcohol that could match any man.

When asked about the nuptials Walter would simply answer, “I dunno’, I was drunk at the time and except for a produced marriage licence I didn’t even know I was married to the black bitch.” Then when asked if they had issue, he would answer; “she did – she had a tribe of the little snotty nosed black crappers but I doubt any were mine.”

The only other permanent member of the station’s staff was a young man of Lewis’ own age and build. Bob Kelly was like most stockmen and as lacking in conversation but although he did have a developed sense of humour he seldom displayed it. A slight grin would suffice in acknowledgement of a joke or suggestion, even then it could be considered but a disapproving sneer depending on one’s point of view. Bob’s hair was short and as black as pitch, his eyes weak blue and smile permanent, while his humour often infantile. His laugh resembling a gatling gun and never altered and if a laugh could be counted in syllables, there was always the same count.

The Station provided a house for the head stockman and his family if there was any. This was situated close to that of the bookkeeper’s house besides the lagoon and a mirror image. Both stood on stilts high enough for one to walk upright underneath, with a set of stairs at the front and back, leading to a wide verandah at the front and the kitchen behind. Strung beneath from beam to beam was what could be considered a clothes line, a length of fencing wire with an assortment of pegs, a home for redback spiders and pathway for mice. Otherwise the space was but storage and in Lewis’ opinion a haven for snakes being a reason for not venturing there unless necessary demanded.

Both houses consisted of two bedrooms, a kitchen and a small sitting room off a short passage, with a shared long drop toilet to the rear but no washing facilities. If one wished to shower then you would need to run cold water from the tank or take a dip in the muddy waters of the Lagoon, or travel the distance across the dusty red flat to the homestead’s facilities. So with the heat and humidity by the time you had refreshed and returned back across the flat you felt as sweaty as before showering.

The men’s quarters were closer to the homestead, a row of small rudimentary rooms with corrugated walls, a door and for a window, push out flaps of corrugated iron held open with a stick. At best sweat boxes and if the weather turned cold, refrigerators, with the constant of dust leaking through every gap, as well as allowing entry to any small animal or insect that chanced to pass. On the occasion, fortunately rare, snakes would find a dark corner to hibernate. One such time a large eastern brown was found curled on the foot of a bed. The stockman who room it was collected his pay and left the same day, declaring it was safer to return to deep sea diving and sharks than be forever wondering what would share your bedding.

The furnishing consisted of an iron bed, chair and small cupboard but little more, then again stockmen in general had few possessions, mostly favourite tack, or leather belt that held sentiment, a change of clothes and going out best and a few western paperback novels, well read and dog-eared, stacked to a corner gathering silverfish and spider webbing, while waiting for the next occupant to discover. Like visiting snakes it was always wise to knock any novel against something solid, as redback spiders also enjoyed dark dry places and their bite could be fatal, if not most painful and lingering. This was as wise with boots and clothing.

There was a shower block close by that was unusually modern for such times, with tapped water and even on the occasion hot water, which would need to be preheated by stoking a wood burner, the donkey, before the partaking of one’s ablutions. This water would arrive scalding then slowly lower to tolerable but no matter how often you turned the taps it never regulated to choice.

Walter preferred to bunk in the ringer’s quarters as he didn’t like the solitude of the lagoon nor being close to the itinerant black hand’s during the muster season, who although there were quarters for them, preferred to camp along the lagoon in close proximity to the two cottages. Walter also protested their nightly entertainment reminded him too much of his short union with one of their lot and declared with much conviction that one night they would take to him in revenge for previous grievance. They are all bloody related, he would loudly remonstrate, brothers and sisters and aunties the blooming lot; you only have to curse one in Brisbane and the following week you are wearing a spear in Darwin, being his declaration on their tribal bonds.

Walter’s refusal of tenancy gave Lewis the opportunity to extend his solitude. Besides he loved being by the water, watching the wild life as it came down at dusk to drink, or lie awake at night after a rain storm, listening to the song of a multitude off frogs and night birds, or the thumping of kangaroo feet as they moved about the unfenced yard, eating what little grew in the red baked earth.

Stan had attempted to establish a vegetable patch beside his water tank to take advantage of a slow leak but as soon as anything sprouted through the baked soil it became food for the kangaroos and bandicoots, besides it took energy to water a garden and he wasn’t one to waste energy on frivolous undertakings.

Mind you young fellow, when old Walt retires, or finally falls of his perch, you may have to move out for the new head stockman. Jack Thompson had declared as Lewis eagerly gathered his meagre belongings and marched them down to the lagoon. It mattered not as all aspects of station life fitted into his acquired lifestyle as if in a dream, a dream that wasn’t his. One day he would awaken at the far end of depression and life would return to what it had been. That was his hope and one he had to believe to continue living but his reawakening would be lacking the fellowship of Will and that was the tugging which always brought him back to that day in Mareeba; a step forward a step back and returned to the same dismal realisation.

Mail day’s brought little relief for Lewis. It was one of his duties to collect the mail, locked in a canvas bag from the truck and deliver it to the manager, or if Jack wasn’t available, to his wife Elizabeth. Most of this correspondence was accounts from the station’s owners, The Australian Stockbreeder’s Association, or letters from Ivy’s son, complaining about the hostel food and his separation, or the Thompson’s children and their schooling somewhere down the Queensland coast.

On the rare occasion there would be correspondence for Lewis from his mother or grandparent’s in Melbourne. This day there were two. One was from Winnie, his mother, advising him she and John were leaving Mareeba to live in Yungaburra, while the second was from John Ashley in Sydney. This letter had found its way to Lewis’ mother arriving in time to be redirected before she left for the higher Tableland.

John Ashley had been a programme announcer on Radio Mareeba, who had taken advantage of Lewis in his last teenage year, as he had with a number of the Mareeba lads. All, including Lewis, were at least partly responsive but needed alcohol to accept Ashley’s advances. Even so the man was somewhat benign without aggressively forcing his issue but did well understand the command of no while pushing it to its limits, until – why not at least it is a release and feels more receptive than one’s own hand became decision, leading to, go ahead and I’ll sit here with hands clasped behind head and not remember the event come morning. Lewis also applied that theory but he did remember come the morning and did return for seconds. They always come back for the receipt, was Ashley’s adage and often for a third helping and further.

Youthful experimenting, some called it or horseplay but regardless of its label, Ashley was the predator and like that well known spider, sat in his web waiting for his prey to come to him, as except for work and shopping he rarely socialised. Still at the end of it all Ashley became a good friend, while in some ways a father figure to the young Lewis, guiding him through his sexuality and was a catalyst in Lewis’ relationship with Will McKee, who, as it was later realised, had been an earlier victim to Ashley’s advances but less accepting than Lewis, lashing out through guilt after the incident.

Ashley had left Mareeba to return to Sydney on the very day of Will’s accident while returning from Gordonvale, where he had been visiting his grandmother. Will and Lewis had decided they would leave Mareeba and take up residence in Melbourne, thus avoiding the situation of their relationship being discovered by family and friends but on his return his car failed a bend on the Kuranda range, fatally injuring Will, who died some hours later in the Cairns hospital.

Although Ashley wore his sexuality on his sleave and was high camp by his own description, he was once married and had children. He had remained married and on excellent terms with his wife after their separation and it was her ill health that took him back to Sydney. Alas since then she had passed away, leaving him in a large house and an empty void that, like Lewis, seemed impossible to fill.

Ashley heard of Will’s accident through one of Will’s acquaintances who visited him on his way south. So with the loss of his own wife Ashley believed he knew how Lewis felt. There was also suggestion that with such a big house and so many empty rooms, Lewis could come and live there. It was a kind offer but one Lewis could not commit to, as Ashley’s constant sexual innuendos would only inflame his loss, besides while remaining in the north he felt close to Will’s memory.

Lewis had folded both letters into his shirt pocket along with his intention not to answer Ashley’s correspondence. There wasn’t malice in the decision, only he was not ready to revisit that part of his past and felt may never be so. Besides Sydney was associated as a stepping stone to Melbourne and if living there he would feel as if he was a failure on both accounts.

On passing the big house Elizabeth called from the front garden appearing like a glove puppet above the top of a hedge row, her hair dishevelled with the slight breeze, while perspiration, not sweat, as finer women never sweat, beaded on her brow.

“Lewis, Jack want’s a word with you; he’s over at the store.” Elizabeth called across the top of the shrubby divide, her hands buried in pink latex gloves while holding a weeding fork and waving it about like some dangerous weapon in an attempt to distract the flies. With failure to do so she released a huff of annoyance and went about her gardening.

“Sure Mrs. Thompson I’m heading in that direction anyway.” Lewis answered

“Please call me Elizabeth, Missus Thompson makes me feel so old.” Elizabeth requested for the countless time.

“Sure Mrs, eh Elizabeth, I’ll go over and see what Jack wants.”

Noticing the woman’s struggle with a pile of pruning cuttings Lewis commented, “Leave them Mrs. Thompson, I’ll move them on my way back, I’m about to burn the pile over by the windmill anyway.”

“I can manage,” Elizabeth answered not wishing to feel totally useless in the garden but this wasn’t the English garden or her youth with its order and spring colour. It was hot and tropical and mainly dry but if water was introduced everything grew abundantly and soon became out of control. Elizabeth missed the fruiting trees of Sussex, peaches and pares and apricots. In place were lemon and pomegranate and carambola, even in one corner a guava but the birds and grubs had first serve on its ripening fruit. She didn’t begrudge the birds as she had once tried the fruit, firstly moving a grub aside but found it not to her liking. The lemons came handy as cook would make marmalade jam and lemon curd and when the children were up on their holidays it would be lemonade. Also of to one side when in season there would be a crop of rosellas for jam making, being a welcome distraction for the bulk bitter-sweet plum supplied by the company.

Elizabeth Thompson was some years younger than her husband Jack and only a number of years older than Lewis. Still Lewis had been brought up in the old school, where you call all married women by the title of missus, while permission to use ones first name from a woman such as Elizabeth Thompson did not sit well with him and on their very next encounter he had reverted to calling Elizabeth Mrs. Thompson, she therefore accepted defeat and the title.

The Station’s Store was a timber building with a wide verandah along its front, facing the road and lagoon. It had three rooms the middle room was the store itself with an office to the left and a saddlery to the right. At one end of the verandah and partitioned with lengths of timber along the decking was the stations supply of potatoes, onions and pumpkins, all spread across the verandah to prevent rot caused by humidity. Even then it was necessary to turn the potatoes often and remove those going to seed or developing mould.

Jack was in the office attending to stock logs and called as Lewis’ boots sounded on the verandah’s decking. Lewis answered and approached the office door, supporting himself on the door jams, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the strong sunlight, which also arrived in dusty shafts through ancient nail holes in the corrugated metal wall.

“You’re not too lonely down there at the Lagoon?” Jack asked without lifting his head from the journal he was working on.

“Na Jack I like the solitude, besides Stan is only a cooee away.”

“I don’t think it’s good for a young bloke like yourself to be alone all the time.”

“It suits me well Mr. Thompson.”

“Maybe,”

Jack thought for a moment then lifting his gaze from the journal, removed his hat and scratched at his thinning hair. “You should be getting out more, meeting girls and having a bit of fun; go into town with the men more often.” As Jack spoke Stan passed by the office door, “got a moment Jack, I want to run something by you.”

“With you in a minute Stan,”

“I’ll be over at the stockyard.”

“I have plenty of years left for all that Mr. Thompson.” Lewis answered assertively as the sound of Stan’s echoing boots faded from the verandah.

Jack replaced his hat and stretched his legs across the empty end of the well stacked writing desk, knocking a pile of papers to the floor to spread across the distance to where Lewis was standing. Lewis retrieved the papers and returned them neatly to where they had been but far enough away from Jack’s boots not to repeat the action.

“You know Lewis you’ve come to station life a little late.” Jack declared and dropped his pencil down to the desk top, watching it as it bounced and descend to the timber floor, to roll and came to rest against the wall within a gap between two well worn floor boards. Jack didn’t retrieve it instead turned back to Lewis he sighed, showing obvious signs of too many years following the cattle’s arses and smelling their shit.

“What do you mean by too late Mr. Thompson?” Lewis asked displaying confusion with his boss’s attitude, believing it maybe describing his work ethics.

“The day of the stockman is on the way out. Down south it’s all helicopters and motorbikes now,” Jack shook his head slowly as he bent to retrieve his rogue pencil, needing to ply it from the crack with a ruler, “can you ride a motorbike?” Jack asked.

“I reckon if you can ride a pushbike then it should be similar and I can ride a pushbike.” Lewis answered seriously, bringing a smile to Jack’s face.

“Well I reckon you could at that lad and if you would like to practice there’s an old British BSA over in the shed, I should think with a tank of petrol and a little tweaking you could get it going.” Jack stood from his desk, hitched his pants, which instantly fell back to their previous vicarious state, he left the office followed close behind by Lewis, both cast their gaze towards the building clouds on the north west horizon. They paused with the thought of rain, before recommenced their journey to the stockyard and the waiting Stan.

“I’m off down the coast tomorrow to pick up my kids,” Jack looked into the distance and sniffed at the air, “rain I reckon,” he stated. Lewis didn’t answer, “Did you know Ivy has a son at boarding school?” Jack asked.

“Yes.”

“Well he’s also coming up tomorrow for the mid year school break and I would like you to collect him from the train at Forsayth, you can use the short wheel based land-rover, I’ve already had Bob fill it and check the oil.”

“Sure.”

“Have you met Wayne?”

“Not as yet.”

“Another thing Lewis, the muster starts in a few weeks and there will be quite a few extra hands and some blacks,” Jack turned to Lewis and continued in a more serous tone, “there will also be a couple of gins to help in the kitchen, so I don’t want you or any of the men sniffing around them. The last thing I need is trouble with the department or the black help okay?”

“Yes Mr. Thompson.”

“Also I will need you for the muster as young Bob will be taking time to attend his brother’s wedding, is that mare of yours up to it?”

“She sure is.” Lewis proudly announced.

Jack turned to the north-west and the incoming weather, “yep it looks like rain;”

Lewis followed Jack’s sightline but could see nothing that suggested rain.”

“Ask Ivy for her son’s arrival details.” Jack departed for his meeting with Stan.

Lewis collected firewood and filled the kitchen’s wood bin. “Where is Ivy?” he asked cook while she sweated profusely over the kneading of bread dough while believing the little black insects dotting about the mixture gave it body and extra nourishment.

“She is in the laundry, not many eggs this morning?”

“The hens are getting past it, may need a new batch. I was talking with Mrs. Thompson about it only yesterday and she asked if there were any chickens.”

“Chickens?”

“Yes she remembered having chickens when she was a girl.”

“I guess there wouldn’t be,” Joyce answered realising a certain fact.

“I said so and she asked why, I said there wasn’t any rooter and she asked what that had to do with chickens.”

Joyce laughed and pushed even harder into the bread dough, “she is English you know.”

“Surely they have chickens in England?” Lewis suggested.

“Yes but the upper class would have servants,” Joyce answered displaying a measure of superiority.

“Anyway she realised eventually and said she would ask Jack to obtain a rooster.”

“Then they would all go clucky and sit on the eggs, there goes her boiled eggs for breakfast and little soldiers for the kids.”

“I mentioned that.”

“One sure way to get them active is to show them the axe,” Joyce suggested.

“Does that work?” Lewis asked unwittingly without placing the suggestion to common sense.

“Wouldn’t think so,”

“Jack asked me to collect Ivy’s son from the train.”

“Holiday time, the year goes by so quickly.” Joyce Marshall mused and pausing her kneading stared blankly through the kitchen window. She made a nondescript sound and recommenced pushing her frustrations into the dough.

“Do you know her son?” Lewis asked.

“Wayne, yes he was up last holiday but only for a few days.”

“Days?” Lewis asked knowing the difficulty in travelling and the time it took to get anywhere.

“Yes Jack picked him up while Wayne was on holiday in Mareeba and seeing Jack would only be home a number of days then returning to the coast, he gave the kid a surprise. Nice kid but does ask a lot of questions.”

“Strange I don’t remember him being here?” Lewis said believing it impossible for such a distraction to occur without his knowledge.

“It was the week you and the men were over at Freshwater, mending fences.”

“Oh,”

“Did Jack say anything about the fresh kill?” Joyce asked.

“Not to me,”

“Better be soon, with the muster only days away there will only be salted meat and you know how the men like their steak for breakfast.”

“And for lunch and dinner, I don’t much like salted meat,” Lewis admitted as Joyce finish the dough kneading and placed it aside to rise.

“There isn’t the refrigeration for fresh all the time; these kerosene refrigerators leak cold like water down the plug hole.”

“I’ll remind him later,”

“Corned beef and cabbage;” Joyce muttered as she appeared to drift into the distance through the open window.

“What was that?”

“Only something from a poem I once knew by a fellow named George Bilgere.”

“I don’t know that one but they forced us to learn all kinds of verse at school, it’s odd how most of the useless stuff remains in memory while that what may have been important has been forgotten.”

“Oh for a fresh cauliflower for a change and green beans, not out of a can, I wouldn’t even mind shelling a big pot of peas for a change, even if as a child I was made to do so and hated the work.”

“Walter tried to grow some down at the lagoon but the bandicoots quickly ate them. He put a makeshift fence around the garden, I said it wouldn’t do any good but he disagreed.” Lewis related.

“Did it work?”

“Nope the very next day they were gone, the bandicoots simply dug their way under the netting.”

“The muster,” Joyce said and put the kettle to boil, “you know what that means?

“More work for you I should think,” Lewis sympathised.

“More to get under my feet in the kitchen, there usually is a couple of black women to help around the house, if their activity can be described as help.” The kettle quickly returned to boil, “would you like a cuppa’?”

“If you’re making one, I have a few minutes to spare.”

“Coffee or tea, the coffee is only Bushels essence I’m afraid.”

“Tea please,”

“When I lived in Sydney I had freshly ground coffee for breakfast every morning.” Joyce admitted, her eyes gleaming with fond memories of long past times.

“I had a friend in Mareeba who came from Sydney, he also had fresh coffee beans and ground his own. I didn’t much like it.”

“What you didn’t like fresh coffee?”

“I found it bitter, I guess it has a acquired taste. You never speak much of your life down south.”

“It was a different time Lewis, almost a different life and one best forgotten. Now about my extra help, has Jack mentioned anything?”

“He did and said there would be.”

Lewis remembered past musters and the cheeky mannerisms of the black kitchen help but for the most of it he had been away with the muster.

“The last lot were of no use whatsoever, after explaining how to do things a dozen times I may have done the work myself.” Joyce complained.

Lewis finished his mug of tea. “The men were fine with the stock, best I find Ivy and find out about collecting her son from Forsayth.”

“I’ll have a job for you when you return. The second oven appears blocked and is sending smoke back into the kitchen and I will need it with the extra men to feed.

“The damper is more than likely stuck closed.” Lewis tried the damper lever and found it didn’t move. “That’s the problem; I can fix it now if you wish.”

“No rush, I won’t need it until the extra men arrive.”

“No time like the present, I’ll get some tools.”

Gary’s stories are all about what life in Australia was like for a homosexual man (mostly, before we used the term, “gay”). Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Gary dot Conder at CastleRoland dot Net

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