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  Never had he heard a kind word or any praise from his old man. They were cattlemen. They were farmers. Nothing was said. As a young man, when Harry pushed the cattle too hard and they came tonguing into the yard with saliva stringing from the sides of their mouths and steam rising from their backs, Harry’s father turned his back in disgust. The natural stockmanship that could never be learned had skipped a generation. It wasn’t in Harry. His father made him feel he was an outsider in his own home, but he had nowhere else to go. Harry was the only son and his predetermined role in life was to take on the farm. It was just the way it was.

  Harry had watched Rebecca slam the house gate and stomp through the leafy green garden. She’d marched onto the verandah and disappeared inside the old house. Squinting, he had looked for her in her room on the second storey, then closed his eyes and sighed. What was it about his daughter that made him so angry? Why couldn’t he give her a chance?

  Suddenly he heard his dogs bark excitedly outside and he remembered the ewes in the yard. Harry rushed through the shed and out into the glaring sun.

  ‘Friggin’ dogs.’

  Like well-fed wolves the dogs toyed with the sheep simply for the sport of it. They worked the sheep back and forth until they were tight on the rail. Some of the weaker ones were down, smothered by the weighty push of the mob. Standing on his hind legs, Mardy mounted a sheep which was jammed against the rail. He gripped his white paws around its hips and thrust his puppyish pelvis towards it. His eyes glazed over with pleasure and his pink tongue dangled.

  As Harry came near, the older dogs dispersed, slinking through rails and out of sight. Young Mardy continued to thrust at the sheep.

  ‘Git out of it. Ya dirty mongrel!’ Grabbing a fistful of fur and puppy skin, Harry yanked the dog away from the sheep. The pup grovelled at Harry’s feet, wagging his tail frantically and widdling all over himself and Harry’s boots. Harry stooped and picked up Mardy by the scruff of his neck. He slammed the pup’s body into the ground so hard that his yelp was more like a strangled cry as the air was forced from his lungs.

  ‘Git out of that!’ he yelled and shook the dog again before tossing him over the yard fence like a split log on a wood heap. Mardy rolled twice in the dust, found his feet, then cowered and scampered away under the shadowy shearing shed, tail jammed up to his belly.

  Harry had still been shaking mad when he’d returned to the experting room to set the drench-guns up for the day. The white liquid had sped along the clear plastic pipe as he’d squeezed the nozzle of the gun. He’d set a higher dose as the ewes were looking heavy. Trying to ignore the fact his hands were shaking, he’d slung the drench pack over his back and just then heard the engine of Rebecca’s ute fire and turn over with a grumble. He’d glanced towards the entrance of the shed where the bright sun lay in a square on the wooden boards. Dumping the pack he’d moved to the doorway to look for the ute. All her dogs were on. Her swag too. The little white vehicle had buzzed over the house paddock grid and sped past where he was standing. As she’d fleeted by, Harry had seen her profile. Her jaw clenched tight, her pretty mouth twisted with anguish. Rebecca hadn’t even slowed at the second grid as she roared down the road with a trail of dust flying up into the air.

  She was leaving. She was really going. He didn’t think she would. Like his wife Frankie, he didn’t think she would. They were both such bright sparks, mother and daughter, both so full of laughter and ready for fun. They always had a joke to fill in the angry gaps Harry created in the huge broody homestead. Frankie and Bec had all the words. It was Frankie who always did the talking for her boys. Like an interpreter she would bridge the gap between Harry and Mick and Tom. On the day she left she ranted to him about his lack of love, and all the while, trapped in Harry’s mind, were words which would not come out. He’d wanted to say, ‘Don’t go, Frankie.’ He’d wanted to talk it through. He loved her. He would sell up for her. But the words wouldn’t come. The words never came. He just stood still and watched his wife drive away. On a grey Monday morning, she simply drove away and left him there. With the kids and the farm and the huge gaping hole that was his life. And of course, with the silence that remained.

  His fists clenched by his side, Harry’s body began to shake in slow waves. A hoarse expulsion of air from his lungs turned into shuddering sobs. He put a big hand to the splintery doorframe to steady himself and covered his eyes as if to ease the shame. The shame of hurting Rebecca so much. The shame of crushing his sons. He was losing his family. Losing his land. He slowly walked down the rickety shearing shed steps and sat on the bottom one with his head in his hands. From under the dark grating he saw two frightened brown eyes staring out at him. Gently he whispered, ‘Here pup. Come here Mardy. I’m sorry mate.’

  Mick and Tom sped towards the yards on the muddied four-wheel bike. From over Mick’s shoulder Tom could see his father halfway down the race, jammed thigh-deep in sheep. Mick parked the bike in the shade of a twisted old red gum and waited for Tom to get off the back. Tom could tell from the way his father handled the sheep that he was in a stinker of a mood.

  Head bowed, Tom walked towards the end of the race and bent to grab the plastic straps of a drench pack.

  ‘Getting through them, Dad?’

  ‘I’d be getting through them a lot faster if you two had got here sooner.’ Harry pushed the metal nozzle into the mouth of the sheep and gave it a shot of drench. Its teeth rattled against the gun as Harry roughly withdrew it and shuffled forward to reach for the muzzle of another ewe. He wouldn’t look at his son, but Tom had seen. He was too afraid to ask why his dad’s eyes were red and his face drawn and grey. He wanted to say, ‘What’s the matter, Dad?’ But you never said things like that to Harry. Tom could talk to him about the weather, or the river, or the price of wool and beef, but never feelings. Not with Harry.

  Tom slung the backpack onto his broad shoulders and went to the drafting gate end of the race to make a start on the ewes. It was hard to believe his father had been crying. It shocked Tom.

  Mick leaned against the rail, arms folded across his broad chest, not noticing his father’s mood. Mick had modelled himself on his father. He used his height and size to make his presence felt, not his words.

  ‘Where’s Bec? She could muster the next mob while I get started on the cultivating,’ Mick said.

  ‘She won’t be mustering today. Now get going. We’ll be through these by the time you get the next lot in.’

  Mick shrugged off his father’s gruffness and ambled towards the bike. Tom clenched his jaw. She’s been fighting with Dad again, Tom thought. Typical.

  Tom had to wait until after lunch to look for his sister. In the kitchen he pushed the dry crust into his mouth and stood up to leave. He looked over to his father and Mick.

  Mick was slouched at the massive wooden table which stood in the centre of the room. An old-fashioned cedar clock ticked loudly from a high mantlepiece behind him. The pendulum swung behind golden rushes painted on glass. Mick bit noisily into a carrot and chewed slowly as his eyes scanned the classified ads in the machinery section of the newspaper.

  Harry didn’t spend much time in the kitchen since Frankie had left for the city. He used to sit where Mick was sitting now. Instead, Harry spent his lunchtimes in the glass sunroom which had been added to one end of the kitchen. Frankie had insisted it be built to let some light into the old house. She’d demanded it when they were first married and it had at last been built when the children were in primary school and after Harry’s mother had died. The room was made of glass set in steel frames, with a large sliding door opening out into the leafy old garden. Over the years grapevines and wisteria had covered the structure, bringing the view of twisted green climbers, grapes and drooping purple flowers into the house.

  Tom looked at his father in there now. He remembered when he was a child sitting in a patch of sun in the brand-new room. He was home from school, sick with the chicken pox. Frankie had spread out big sheets of butcher’s pape
r and crayons onto the slate floor.

  ‘There you go, Tom. Have a go at these. You could find your calling. You never know.’ When Frankie came back in and saw the swirling colours of fish, an ocean garden and a castle under the sea, tears came to her eyes and she put her hand to her mouth.

  As a child Tom had always wondered why his drawings made his mother cry. Later, when he was much older, he realised that she was stunned by his artistic talent and at the same time devastated that his future would be determined by his father.

  That day, when Harry had screwed up his son’s drawings and shoved them in the woodstove, was the day Frankie had begun to loathe her husband’s need to dominate his children. It was the day she’d realised he would repeat the pattern of fatherhood that he had learned. It had filled her with a quiet, endless fear.

  Harry now lay back on a cane couch beneath the leafy ceiling. Rural newspapers, letters, bills and torn envelopes were scattered around him. A china plate covered in crumbs and a browning apple core sat next to a half-full mug of tea on the slate floor. His feet, clad in rough woollen socks, were crossed at the ankles, his brown arms folded over his slim stomach. An Australian Farm Journal magazine covered his face as he dozed.

  Tom stared at his silent brother and father. Peas in a pod. Since Frankie had left, the task of cleaning up the kitchen had fallen on Rebecca and Tom. Mick always seemed to worm his way out of anything to do with housework or stock work. But Bec and Tom liked it like that. They gave each other comfort. But sometimes in the dark, in his room, Tom pulled angrily at his hair. He wanted his mother back. He felt guilt over Rebecca. He leant on her to mother him. Some nights he cried for his mother, on other nights the anger towards her raged inside. Voices in his head. Angry, wailing voices.

  In the sunny kitchen, Tom sunk his teeth deep in the white flesh of an apple and shut the kitchen door behind him. He needed to find Rebecca.

  The concrete on the back step felt cool through his jeans as he sat and pulled his boots on. The ginger cat smudged its stripes against Tom’s back.

  ‘There are two places to find her when she’s cracked it like this,’ he said to the cat.

  ‘Come on, Ginge. Let’s go find her.’ He set off down the path. The cat sat and watched him walk through the garden gate and down an embankment towards the river.

  He expected to find her at the river, throwing sticks to her dogs. He visualised her small frame and long blonde wavy hair stuffed under a cap. He saw her in his mind standing there with a vague smile, tossing sticks into the slow-moving water. But this afternoon she wasn’t on the riverbank.

  He walked to the side of the house. A clump of peppertrees shaded a line of hollow logs. He remembered the fight Rebecca had had with their father over the kennels. She hadn’t wanted to put her dogs in the run with Harry’s pack of barking crossbred and inbred dogs. She’d wanted her dogs nearer the house so she could teach them to be quiet. Her father had said no and called her a dog snob, but she’d moved her dogs there anyway. At night Tom would sometimes hear her open her bedroom doors and step barefoot onto the verandah to speak gently to her three dogs.

  This afternoon at the kennels none of Bec’s kelpies danced on the end of their chains or whipped up clouds of dust with their tails. The chains lay in the dirt and a wind blew up and whispered in the dark pines which shut out the sun. Tom looked up at the house to the second-storey verandah and pictured his sister leaning with her elbows on the white wooden rails, her long hair blowing gently in the breeze. Without her dogs here, Tom knew she was gone. He could feel she had left Waters Meeting. It was the same cold feeling he’d had when his mother had gone. He jogged to the house and opened the heavy front door, tearing cobwebs away as the door swung open.

  In the musty dark of the jumbled office Tom quickly dialled his mother’s number. He glanced at the office door while he waited for an answer. If his dad caught him using the phone in the middle of the day to speak long-distance to his mother, he’d hit the roof. At last he heard his mother’s efficient but friendly voice on the answering machine.

  ‘Hi, you’ve called Dr Frankie Saunders, leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you. If it’s an animal emergency please call our North Road surgery on 87 34592 …’

  Tom waited for the beep.

  ‘Mum. Tom here. I think Dad and Bec have had another fight again. This time she’s taken all her dogs. She’s probably headed to your place so when she gets there tonight, give me a call. Thanks Mum. Bye.’

  Tom hung up and went back to the kitchen to take some chops out of the freezer for tea. Mick and Harry were still in the same position as when he’d left them. They said nothing and didn’t look up when he came into the room. Despite the glaringly bright day outside, Tom felt the darkness of the house wrap around him. It covered his shoulders and pressed down on the back of his neck. He shut the kitchen door quietly and climbed the stairs in the hallway.

  On his bed, Tom curled up and hugged his legs to his chest. ‘Stop it,’ he told himself sternly.

  CHAPTER 2

  The dogs in the back swayed and bumped against each other as the ute swept around a corner. The back wheels slid for a second on corrugated gravel and then regained their grip. Rebecca clasped her hands tighter around the steering wheel, her knuckles white.

  ‘Bastard!’ She thumped the dusty dash. Tiny particles flew into the air and hovered in the sunshine. Her head hurt from the anger. The initial tears, fear and panic had evolved into rage. Rage against her father. Against the divorce. Against his bloody arrogance. She wiped her face and nose with the sleeve of her old work shirt. Couldn’t he see that she’d only ever wanted to be at Waters Meeting?

  Her grandfather had recognised she was not only intensely interested in the farm but was also smart about farming. Savvy. He could see she had a head for business as she sat by him when he tallied the books. And in the paddock she had an incredible understanding of the sciences that went with nature. Every week she read the rural newspapers, and she devoured farm journals and stock magazines. And she always asked a stream of questions about everything.

  Then there was her ‘gift’. Her grandfather called it that. She had a natural affinity with animals. A talent to move a mob of sheep or a herd of cattle quietly and confidently. Dogs looked her in the eye and responded to her every command. Horses settled under her weight and pushed themselves for her when she asked them to work harder. She was gentle with cattle and sheep and understood their pecking orders and natural movements. As soon as she could ride, Rebecca couldn’t get enough stock work. At ten years of age she’d happily sit in the saddle from dusk till dawn. She loved to listen to her grandfather talk about each beast – the merits of eye pigmentation in Hereford cattle, the genetic traits most likely to be carried down the lines, like white faces, or horns.

  Her father, on the other hand, gained pleasure from cogs, rivets, pistons, hydraulics, nuts and bolts. He avoided stock work and volunteered for all the machinery jobs about the farm. He was a ‘shed man’. A ‘tool man’. A ‘diesel dick’ as the men in the pub would say. Harry’s father neither admired nor respected this fact about his son. Rebecca knew that. And right from the start Mick was like his father. As a young boy he tinkered endlessly in the shed. Bec remembered him with a spanner in his small hand, standing above the lawnmower with its insides spread across the ground.

  ‘What’s Dad gunna say?’ she’d said to her older brother as she kicked at the wheel of the mower.

  ‘Shut up, dick brain,’ Mick had said and smeared grease down her cheek. Sometimes when they were kids, Mick made Bec so mad her cheeks would flush red and she would jump on him from behind and pummel him with small closed fists. Tom would always come to Bec’s side and try to calm her and drag her away from Mick.

  But the one thing that they all shared was their love for the river. It seemed to bond the whole family together at times. In flood. In drought. In the good times. The long summer days of swimming. It held them together. A long watery thread
running through all their souls.

  Bec longed for the river now. She slowed the vehicle and pulled off the gravel road onto a grassy bank. She kicked open the creaking door of her ute and got out to unclip the dogs.

  ‘Hop off,’ she said, as all three kelpies launched themselves from the tray. Bec squeezed between the brown rusted wire of the sagging old fence. On the steep bank her Blundstone boots slipped and gripped on dry gum leaves. The dogs bounded ahead, sniffing, squatting and sneezing. Mossy stood and examined the air with an upturned nose while Dags and Stubby clattered and crashed in the nearby scrub. Rebecca was making her way to the river. Her river. The river that carried her name and on days like this, she thought, her soul.

  The Rebecca River was in surprisingly good health for an Australian river. Its clean free-flowing waters slipped over golden-brown boulders and past enormous rivergums. On its steeper banks young grey-blue wattles and dusty green ti-trees dipped their leaves into its coolness.

  The Saunders’ homestead overlooked the Rebecca River’s source, where two headwaters carved their way around a massive craggy mountain range. The Rebecca River opened up onto the rich river flats of Waters Meeting. There, the red and white hides of Herefords could be seen through open bush on the hillside, and prime lambs and merinos dotted black-soil river flats which sprouted green most of the year. But a few kilometres on, the mountains closed in again. The sheer rocks forced the river’s water to darken and race through steep gorges. Above Waters Meeting the reliable rain on the mountains gave birth to the river and controlled its many moods.

  One thing her father had right about farm management was the river. He loved it. The mountains isolated their property from other farming communities so weeds along the river’s banks were easier to control and eradicate than further downstream. Every year, armed with backpacks sloshing with spray, Bec, Tom and Mick were sent on search and destroy missions for blackberries.