The Cattleman's Daughter Read online

  Emily turned her back and kept dancing. This was her life now. He was father to their children and she would help him honour that role, but from now on she was free to do what she liked. Right now she was simply dancing with her brother and her friends. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? That old doubt niggled. The fear slipped into her being again.

  When she turned around, Clancy was in the pub.

  ‘Good to see you, Em,’ he said. ‘You look great. Too good really, considering.’

  They could all tell he’d been drinking. Emily knew he must be in a bad way, driving a truck with any alcohol in his system meant instant disqualification of his licence. He must be ripped.

  ‘What do you want, Clancy?’

  ‘I can talk to you, can’t I? You’re still my wife.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I think you know it.’

  He flicked his head in Luke’s direction. ‘So this is your new fella, is it?’

  ‘Clancy,’ cautioned Emily, as if trying to calm a savage dog, ‘he’s not my fella.’

  Clancy looked at Luke through narrow eyes.

  ‘Have you fucked her yet?’

  Luke, shocked, pulled a face. ‘Mate, no! I’ve only just —’

  ‘Don’t you mate, me!’ Clancy lurched forward to Emily and shoved her violently against the wall. ‘Slut!’ The pain left Emily momentarily stunned.

  Bridie moved straight to Emily, dragging her away, while Luke and Sam pounced on Clancy from behind. Maddened by rum and misery, Clancy’s big limbs flailed the air. He broke free of Sam and swung about. Blindly, his fist connected with Luke’s face. A crack of pain and the scent of warm blood trickling from his nose stopped Luke in his tracks until he realised Clancy was coming at him again.

  ‘Get off him!’ roared Sam. Donna was there now, barking orders for them to stop, and three logging men, who’d been propping up the bar all night, rushed over, pulling Clancy away and out to the car park.

  Emily went straight to Luke, offering him serviettes to stem the bleeding while apologising over and over.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Luke, not looking her in the eye. ‘Just leave it. Okay? I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Emily said again. Luke turned away.

  Sam put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. ‘You right, mate?’

  Luke nodded. Breathing heavily, swiping blood from his nose, he got up. ‘I’ll catch you later, okay?’

  ‘Can I —’ began Emily.

  ‘No!’ Luke almost shouted and then he made his way out a side door to the cabin he had hired for the night. As he groggily crossed the grass in the beer garden, he felt the anger towards them simmering. He’d walked from his own horrible domestic dispute into another much uglier one. Sure, Emily seemed like a nice girl, a gorgeous one in fact, but maybe she and her mates, especially her bloke, were too rough for him. He remembered again Kelvin’s warning about getting too close to the locals. Now he understood. Locals equalled trouble. From now on it would be best if he kept his distance.

  Emily stood in the pub, torn, hardly able to believe such a great night had gone so horribly wrong. Should she go after Luke? She barely knew him. And he’d seemed so angry. Not that she could blame him. She felt her own anger towards Clancy rise in her.

  ‘Stuff this!’ she said, shoving aside a chair and rushing to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Bridie asked but Emily stormed out without replying. She was on a mission. She marched across the road to where some of the blokes were counselling Clancy. They were trying to figure out the easiest way of getting him and his truck back home to Brigalow without him raising hell again. He was slumped down on the step of his truck, his head in his hands. The alcohol that had fuelled his rage was now drowning his system into docility.

  Emily stood in front of Clancy, taking in how pathetic he looked. Because they had children together, she knew their bond was lifelong, no matter how much he’d hurt her. But she would no longer tolerate him treating her this way. Respond, she told herself. Don’t react.

  She put her hands on her hips and her eyes bored into him, forcing him to eventually look up at her.

  ‘Clancy, I know you’re hurting, too. But don’t you ever, ever turn up drunk again and treat me and my friends that way! For the sake of the girls and the sake of yourself, you’d better clean up your act.’

  Emily’s voice was strong, but calm. She channelled the energy of the stars above her and she radiated a power she had never known before. Then she turned and walked away, her head held high, her breath coming steadily.

  Nineteen

  ‘Geez!’ said Flo. ‘Everyone’s geed up at the ’G today!’

  From the Flanaghans’ horse truck, Emily looked at the amazing scene unfolding before them. The parkland surrounding the giant sports stadium that was the Melbourne Cricket Ground was filled with four-wheel drives, horsefloats, trucks, goosenecks and campers, and tethered to every tree or vehicle was a horse. Over five hundred riders had come to protest the grazing-ban legislation to be voted on in the coming weeks by the Victorian Government.

  But it wasn’t just mountain cattlemen who would converge on the steps of Parliament House. Other country organisations had jumped on board too, all wanting to voice their dissatisfaction about city-centric government policy. Hundreds upon hundreds of people would be marching on foot, following the cattlemen’s horses through the city streets to the state parliament building.

  ‘Sam will be glad to be missing this,’ Emily said to Flo as she helped Meg and Tilly onto their ponies. ‘It’s going to be bigger than Ben Hur! No doubt they would’ve asked him to sing and he doesn’t need the pressure right now.’

  ‘He was wise to stop home,’ Flo said. ‘He’s doing such a good job there, staying off that gunk he was on.’

  Next to her, Rod’s two-way radio crackled to life, announcing it was time to ride.

  ‘You right to go?’ Rod said, holding onto Meg’s lead rope and looking down at Emily from where he sat high on his big gelding, Redgum.

  ‘Almost,’ Emily said, shoving a spiral-bound government document into her saddlebag.

  ‘What’s that you got there?’ Flo asked.

  ‘Oh, just a little something I plan to hand-deliver to the boys and girls in parliament.’ Emily smiled. ‘It’s the Tassie legislation I was telling you about.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Flo. ‘The one that has scientists saying controlled grazing is good for the land?’

  ‘That’s the one. The Tassie government actually invites cattlemen to graze cattle in parts of the Cradle Mountain conservation area. If I can just get someone to look at it here. You never know, the buggers could actually end up asking us to graze our stock in the mountains to help manage them, not ban us from them!’

  ‘Well, good on you, girl,’ Flo said, settling her toey chestnut. ‘We gotta try everything. If today doesn’t sway a few minds, we could lose the whole bloody lot!’

  ‘How do you expect to hand that document over?’ Rod asked. ‘You know security will be tight and the organisers are pretty strict on everyone behaving their best.’

  ‘I’ll think of something, Dad,’ Emily said. ‘Trust me.’

  Out of the crowd of horses came a booming voice.

  ‘Let’s show the bastards!’ Internally Rod, Flo and Emily groaned. It was Uncle Bob. Evie’s words echoed in Emily’s head like a mantra.

  ‘It’s no use being self-righteous. Humility is the key. Don’t take the high ground. Take the positive, proactive ground. Sow seeds of thought in people’s minds that work in the land’s favour. This “us and them” mentality won’t get you, or the land, anywhere.’

  Bob sat heavily on his bay gelding, his big beer belly pushing out over the front of the stock-saddle. His nose was redder than ever. He fell in line next to Emily and Tilly.

  ‘Geez, woman, what have you done to yourself?’ he said, peering at Flo. ‘You’re not wearing make-up, are you? And you’ve dyed your hair?’

  Flo pulled her hat up
slightly and fluttered her eyelashes.

  ‘Brow shape and eyelash tint. Beauty in the Bush, my darlink.’ She blew Bob a kiss.

  ‘Be buggered. You trollop.’

  ‘She looks great, Uncle Bob, don’t you reckon?’ Emily said.

  ‘Scrubbed up better than I’ve seen her in a long time.’

  Flo leant forward and pulled her top lip down. ‘Bridie even did ol’ Flo’s mo!’

  They all laughed, Emily relishing the fact the family was all together, even though she knew Bob would get under everyone’s skin, as he always did. Like an army, they fell in step and joined the other riders who held Australian flags and placards, while others pulled their hats down low and rolled smokes in the light rain.

  Emily led Meg on Blossom, who was shampooed to a dazzling white, while Tilly sat well in the seat of a lively Jemma, keeping her cool. The weeks of riding alone up on the plains had brought a whole new level to the girls’ confidence and Emily was so proud to have her little ones there beside her. Ahead of them a large green-and-gold banner read ‘Mountain Cattlemen Care for the High Country’.

  The sound of the horses’ hooves fell like heavy rain as both shod and unshod hooves clopped against bitumen. Following the throng was a trailer with men and women armed with shovels. When a horse lifted its tail and spilled out a pile of dung, it was flung by the ‘poo crew’ into the heap on the trailer. A sign read ‘Mobile Parliament – Crap Fed in and Bad Decisions Made’.

  A call came from behind her.

  ‘Hey, Emily!’ shouted Baz Webberly.

  ‘G’day, Baz!’ she said, her face lighting up at the sight of him. ‘Thanks for bringing Snowgum home for me. Flo told me what a trouper you were.’

  Baz nodded in Flo’s direction.

  ‘She’s the trouper. Flo kept her going. Bugger me, it’s great to see you here, ain’t it, Flo?’

  Flo carried her head high, agreeing with a gentle smile.

  ‘Yep, they tell me I was dead,’ Emily said. ‘But I’m resurrected again. This is the second coming.’

  ‘Oooh! I never say no to a second coming!’ old Baz wheezed. ‘Your Auntie Flo knows that’s right, eh? Hey, Flo!’

  ‘Bugger off, Baz,’ said Flo, clearly loving his attention.

  Now the puzzle had come together, Emily thought. That explained why Flo was paying so much attention to how she looked. Flo and Baz were keen on each other!

  Emily smiled. Another good thing had come of her accident. She looked behind her. The street, lined with elms, their leaves turning from summer green to yellow, framed the crowd of horses and their riders as far as she could see. Horses of all colours, their coats wet from the rain, ears pricked, heads tossing against the bit or cast low, ears forward in curiosity as they all rode quietly forward.

  She laughed and pointed out to Rod a joker on a horse who had painted on its flank, ‘jobless horse’.

  ‘Makes you wonder what our horses will do if the bans come in,’ Rod said.

  ‘We’ll have to sell most of them, won’t we, Dad?’

  Rod shrugged. ‘No point keeping ’em if you’re not working them. Things change. Very few people nowadays have seen a truly work-fit horse or dog. Or for that matter, work-fit people. I think we’ve been left behind!’

  Emily nodded in agreement, thinking of the high plains and the old chaff house, the shingles a little worse for wear. The handle, hard to turn now, would’ve crushed many a tonne of grain for the horses and the house cows, the pigs and the goats. Back then it was a matter of survival.

  She looked up at the ornate facade of Flinders Street Station and across the road to modern Federation Square. The city was so vastly different from the quiet, unpretentious natural world on the high plains. But as she passed the boozers at Young and Jackson she realised that maybe they were all one and the same. Here, just like in Dargo, were honest, hard-working folk still holding fast to that laconic Australian humour that was drowning under the weight of bureaucracy and political correctness. Emily gave the fellas at the pub a smile. One wolf-whistled back and she blushed.

  On their way up Swanston Street they passed a row of police horses groomed to show condition. Their polished and gleaming gear was a contrast to the cattlemen’s horses with bridles plaited from hayband and scuffed and worn stock-saddles. As they rode past a coffee shop, Bob called out, ‘Can someone get us five hundred coffees? To go!’

  Then a woman on the footpath looked skyward and yelled out, ‘Sorry about the rain!’ Riders within earshot all turned to look. Didn’t she know that her water supply came from the farming lands surrounding Melbourne and that water levels had been critically low for months?

  A good-hearted old rider called to her, ‘Don’t you go apologising for rain now, pet. We love it and so might you!’

  As they waited the idle traffic lights chimed to each other across the street, alternating their call like bellbirds in a shady summertime grove. What a strange place this inner city was, Emily thought, devoid of nature, save for pigeons and sparrows. She wondered how Sam endured it, but then she heard Evie’s words, ‘Each to their own.’

  As they converged on Parliament House, politicians in dark suits and their staff began to emerge on the steps to watch the spectacle of two thousand protesters and hundreds upon hundreds of Akubra hats and horses.

  One by one, each cattleman speaker got to the podium. Some in tears as they talked of losing their heritage and access to the land. Others had fight in their words and finger-pointed to biased government scientific studies.

  Emily sat silently on Snowgum, her head bowed, her hat pulled low. She listened with fresh ears this time. She heard the passion in the cattlemen’s plea, but very few of them gave the reassurances the city people needed – that cattle in most cases benefited the environment. It was as basic as that. Emily knew that not all alpine areas were suited to grazing. She knew that in the old days, when the environment didn’t rate as highly, the mountains were grazed bare by stray cattle, horses, goats and all manner of domestic animals turned loose when the mines shut down.

  How could she show these people that, in her country, there was such a light stocking of animals on the sturdy sub-alpine soils that grazing was a help not a hindrance to the landscape’s health? But she had no scientific backing to prove it. Emily began to feel the familiar emotion of desperation creeping in. What could she do? How could she get the truth through to the people who made the decisions without them seeing the land for themselves?

  Suddenly she remembered the legislation she had in her saddlebag, written in government lingo. She dragged out the document from her saddlebag, found a pencil in her stockmen’s notebook and scrawled on the top, ‘Mr Premier, PLEASE, read this.’ She gazed up to the mighty steps of Parliament House. She felt a rush of blood.

  ‘You right to stay here?’ she said to Tilly and Meg, who nodded.

  Emily kicked Snowgum to a canter, wove around the barricades, and set the mare sailing over the temporary fence that separated the riders from the parliament. Security ran towards her as she urged Snowgum up the slippery steps.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss. You can’t come up here,’ one man said, stepping forward to grab at Snowgum’s reins.

  ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry, but this is for the premier.’ Emily held out the document. She was just metres from him. She looked up, locking her dark eyes onto his. She cast the premier a broad smile.

  ‘G’day!’ she called out. He nodded and returned a smile to the pretty young girl who rode so well. The premier stepped forward and took the document.

  ‘I’ll make sure I read it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and turned Snowgum to ride back down the steps. As she did a massive cheer went up, before a cluster of cameras and policemen engulfed her and Snowgum. The mare danced on her hooves as the crowd jostled around her.

  ‘What was it you delivered to the premier?’ one journalist called out.

  ‘Is it true you’re the cattleman’s daughter who fell from her horse earlier thi
s year?’ asked another.

  ‘What’s the message you gave the premier?’

  Emily looked at the media scrum and took a deep breath.

  ‘I gave him the way forward for sensible land management of the Alpine areas – unlike these blanket bans,’ she said.

  The journalist fired more questions at her, but now a policeman was standing beside her, looking frighteningly serious.

  ‘You’ll have to come with me, Miss,’ he said.

  Even as she was being led away for a stern dressing-down by the Victoria Police, Emily was happy. She knew that she had sown a seed, just like Evie had said, and could not one seed grow?

  Twenty

  The new Dargo VPP ranger put his hands on his hips and surveyed his riverside bush block just outside Dargo.

  ‘Paradise,’ Luke Bradshaw said to himself. Luke had bought the block on the spur of the moment earlier in the week, with the money his father had given him after the farm was sold. Until now, he’d no urge to spend it. But now Luke had a place of his own, it was like a weight had been lifted from him. He wondered how Cassy was getting on in Melbourne. Without the phone connected yet and his mobile out of range, there was no way Cassy could reach him. Perhaps he should give her a quick call from the Dargo pay phone. It was only fair. The last time he’d seen her she’d become increasingly hysterical over their separation.

  He scanned the river that wound in an ‘S’ shape for the length of the block, and pushed Cassy from his mind. He wanted to savour his twenty acres that ran up a steep hillside to a dam. His eyes settled on the shabby little cottage facing north-west towards the river.

  ‘Lick of paint,’ Luke said to himself optimistically. He’d paid bugger all for it. The land itself, despite the thick weeds, was brilliant; fertile riverside soil on the flats rising up to steep paddocks and bush-covered hills. Beside the house was a shed and, behind that, a good set of redgum horse-and-cattle yards from the days when the property was much bigger.

  Parked in the shed was a secondhand WB Holden ute. Luke knew he’d be supplied with a work vehicle, but after the confines of Melbourne and Cassy, freedom was high on Luke’s list of priorities and simply owning a ute made him feel free. He’d always wanted a WB. Like the house, the ute needed work, but also like the house, it had so much character.