Warrigal's Way (8 page)

“Just couldn't take any more of that filthy lingo,” Ted remarked.

“Geez brother, you're going bad when the only thing you can pull into the sack is a joe blake, and even that leaves before mornin',” ribbed Mike.

“Haven't you got some work, or are you hangin' around for a punch on the nose?” Hugh growled. “And look what you bastards done to my sleeping bag!”

I made myself scarce—he was in a kick-arse mood. He went back to his swag and threw the sleeping bag away. Did we buy one? Not on your Nellie, mate.

9

The boys started my schooling on the drive, and I wasn't too impressed with this learning. Mike was good—he got bored real quick, so I don't get much pushing off him. Hugh had too much to do, so Ted was the main man. I'd just got past the alphabet and was learning “rat” and “cat”, real hard stuff like that. He confused me with vowels, verbs, adjectives and other wonderful things that hurt my eyes and stuffed my brain. He burnt my ears with “Education is power. It can be a weapon. You don't want to be stupid, do you?” I didn't know I was, but I was getting education whether I wanted it or not.

We delivered the mob and did a few short jobs, and by now I had grown taller and put on half a stone in weight. I was up to Hugh's belt buckle now!

We were in Longreach in western Queensland waiting for a mob to take to Pentland—two hundred and fifty for Grascos. It was hard to believe, but I'd been with the boys for nearly a year, and my twelfth birthday was only two weeks away.

“I think I'll go into town, Ted,” I said. “Do you want anything?”

He said he didn't, but to keep an eye out for the boys and tell them tea would be at six. “I want you home by then too. Right?”

“Yeah, righto,” I said, going for my bridle. We were camped about two miles out of town, and stockmen and motor-bike riders have one thing in common—we never walk when we could ride. So I saddled up Shorty and went to town.

I had about three bob left of my last sub, and I was dreaming about a cold bottle of juicy orange and a block of Cadburys chocolate—ripper stuff that. Shorty suddenly shied to the left and I nearly fell off. I grabbed a big handful of mane and saddle, as this smartie town kid on a pushbike came back laughing.

“You wouldn't have thought you were so smart if he had kicked you in the gob,” I said. He was a cheeky looking kid, brown curly hair all over the place, bug eyes like a frog, and skinny, and his old man worked on the railway. He said he'd lend me his pushbike if I gave him a ride on my horse. Well, a chance to ride a bike didn't come along every day, and I was as keen as mustard to get my hands on it.

“Can you ride a bike?” Simon asked. “They can be pretty tricky.”

“Never been on one before,” I admitted. “But geez, man, it can't kick and it's got no teeth. How hard can it be?”

“We'll see when you leap aboard. Not as easy as it looks, first go,” said Simon wisely, but of course I was too stupid to listen.

“Here, give us that bike and I'll ride its spots off,” I said to Simon. I gave him Shorty's rein, cocky as all get-out. If some town kid can ride one of those things, it would be not trouble to me. Balance was nothing, I had that naturally. But there's two kinds of bike—free-wheelers and fixed wheelers—and of course Simon's bike had to be a fixed wheeler, which meant you had to keep pedalling. You couldn't stop, and the more you pedalled the faster you went. And of course the brakes ceased to exist about a year before I happened to climb aboard it. But being you, cocky,
and as thick as a brick, having no brakes was a minor thing, a mere bagatelle, not even noticed.

I held the bike by the handlebars, stood on the left-hand side, and admired the silver and blue lines, the prettiest thing I had seen in a long time. I grabbed it with both hands and sort of scootered for a bit, rising up and down on the pedals as the wheels went around. Seeing Simon ride off on Shorty was the goad I needed to mount this thing properly, and ride it to a standstill. I hate to admit this, but over the first fifty yards I was in difficulty, the ten yards after that, real trouble, beyond that, dire straits.

The corner to the main road was rushing to meet me and I had absolutely no idea what to do. I couldn't stop—no brakes—and I couldn't turn. Frozen in horror I could only watch as the corner got closer, and cars, trucks, trains, aeroplanes and rocket ships seemed to be spewing down the main road at three hundred miles an hour, and I was going to hurtle out into the middle of it. I was so scared I couldn't even close my eyes. About twenty feet from the corner I caught a blurr out of the corner of my eye. It was Simon. He rushed in and gave me a good push. I turned violently left and ended up in a tangle of fence pickets—me, the bike, yards of skin and buckets of blood, all mine. I got up feeling myself and spitting teeth. Other than losing two teeth, I broke my left wrist. I had to stuff Ted on one side and Hugh on the other, the doctor ripping up them and them ripping up me, searing my earholes, while the doctor wrapped this dirty big heap of plaster bandage from wrist to elbow.

You know, I went right off pushbikes after that. Same as Simon went off horses. Shorty threw him so high he reckoned he could count the sheets of tin on the pub roof, and he wasn't too keen on repeating the act. I had to wear that plaster for six weeks before I could take it off.

10

One time we were camped just outside of Charleville, waiting for a mob that wasn't quite ready. So we got into town quite a bit. On one occasion I went in with Mike and Ted, who went to the pub, and I got a real good biffing from the town bully. He was all over me like a heavy dose of the measles. Whenever I lifted my head he punched my nose. I had a fat lip and a dinner plate for a nose, and a black eye Joe Louis would have considered a good day's work. And hurt! Man, I invented hurt. There was usually a bully in each town around the bush. Fighting was manly, and each town had its pecking order, so if you were a stranger you fought the local champ to find your place in the pecking order. Anyway, this Oscar was about fifteen, and I think he had ten arms. I was beginning to wonder if I would see my thirteenth birthday. I think he just got sick of hitting me. I had never had a fight, except for the time the fat kid in Sydney tried to pinch my port, but I won that with my feet.

I was sponging my face with cold water, when Ted said to me, “No use lookin' glum, boy. It's high time you learned the finer arts of the knuckle.”

“The what?” I asked, puzzled.

“Boxing, you addle-brain bugger, like learning how.”

“Who's gunna teach me?” I asked, looking at him.

“Who do you think? I got my boxing blue in college.”

Now that fair had me scratching my head. What the hell was a boxing blue? I knew what a blue was. I had just had one. And I knew why they called it a blue too. That's the colour you went next day. But I thought I'd better not say anything, or the old scrag might get up me again.

Ted was sitting on a box at the back of the cook's trailer. He held his hand up, palm out. “Hit that,” he said. “Hard as you can.” So I made a fist and hit it. “No wonder he knocked your block off. Good Christ. Your punch is all wrong. You're not balanced. I could blow you over.” He got up off the box. “Stand like this.” He pushed and prodded me. “Yeah, that's right.” He pushed against my shoulder. “See that, that's better. You can't be pushed off your feet now, eh! eh!” He gave me some big pushes. “Now, close your fists and hold your arms like this,” he said, waving a fist around under my nose.

Hugh and Mike walked up from feeding the stock.

“You learnin' to dance, mate?” Mike asked me.

“Nah, Ted's teaching me to box.”

“What the hell do you want to learn to box for? You want to learn to blue. You come and see me after and I'll teach you some ringers tricks. You want to fix that smartie townie, don't ya?” he asked, looking fierce.

“Too bloody right,” I said, getting in the mood, forgetting the pain.

So an hour later Mike taught me to use elbows, backfist, and just a good old stamp on the toes. Oh, I nearly forgot a rake down the shin with a spur.

So with a head full of the deadly arts, and a few ringers tricks, the next day I went looking for Oscar again, and got a tremendous walloping three times worse than the first one. I never saw the first blow, just felt the exquisite pain as it landed on what was left of my nose. It hurt like stink and my eyes watered. Out of the four or five hundred he threw at me he landed with every one. But I got lucky. I think I hit
him once. He gave up in the finish and helped me up. “You know you can't fight for shit, but you're game,” he said. He put an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, I'll buy you a milkshake. You know, you're the only bugger who ever backed up to me. You ever learn to fight, do me a favour and don't pick me!”

I made a good friend that day and we parted mates. I tell you, it took a few painful lessons like that until I could hold my own, and as I got bigger and older I got picked on less. But then again, if you were a drover, and a stranger, there would be some Herbert townie with chips on his shoulder who would want to try you. It was easy to buy a blue in those smaller towns. You'd just look sideways and there would be some local who wanted to lairise for his mates or skite in front of the local girls. Most of it was just head-knocking, first to draw blood won, and you'd share a drink and become firm friends and mates evermore. There was a sort of ritual to it, especially at the dances. Unless you had been introduced to everybody, from the baby to her great-grandmother, you were in line for a fight.

No one liked drovers. We were too free, sort of like Aussie gypsies, and when we turned up the men closed ranks around the girls. With a townie they could wave a shotgun under his nose and name the day. But drovers were too slippery. They could be on their horse and gone, so they were not to be trusted.

I got a fat lip and a sore nose at a dance one night, but it was worth it. I ran into the local king of the kids outside the dance hall. “Snowy” was about fifteen or sixteen, and half a head taller than me. “Right,” he said, rapping me on the nose, “I fight all the strangers! What'cha think of that.”

I got a biffing of course. But at least it made life simple. You knew you had arrived at your place in the pecking order, the locals give you an “A” for trying, you weren't quite the strangers you had been, and if it costs a blood nose to make friends, that's not too much to pay.

Snow said that now we were mates I could dance with his sister Moira and his girlfriend's sister, Shirl. “I don't think they got boyfriends. Bit too ugly, I think. What do you reckon?”

I made two ladyfriends for life with my next remark. “Nah, they're not too bad, Snow. Quite pretty, I think. I reckon I seen worse than them around the bush.”

They both wanted to have the waltz with me, and Shirl won because Snow was her sister's boyfriend and Gail said she had to have the first dance. It didn't matter that I'd never danced a step before in my life. “Don't worry I'll show you,” she said, and she was quite happy with me walking all over her feet. I didn't mind giving her a cuddle either, although I was like a dog that chased cars. I had caught one and I didn't know what to do with it.

I did a foxtrot with Moira, which was like walking around, turning now and then, and keeping my feet out of her way. Then I did something called a three-step. There were two circles with girls on the inside and boys on the outside, and you dance with the girl you look at, then let her go and dance with the next in line. It was great fun. When the dance finished you escorted your partner back to her seat, and thanked her for the dance.

The MC might announce that the next dance is a “Snowball”, which meant that the ladies asked the men to dance. The music would start the race for the door, and the mums would have to try to wheel the mob or their daughters missed out. You have to dance with whichever sheila claims you. The other blokes never had to worry about dancing with the uglys. Like moths drawn to a candle flame they all headed for me. From nine to ninety, two left feet, underarm odour, bad breath, acne, buck teeth, braces, walking sticks. So after a while I was unusually fast at getting to the door.

Sometimes you'd get outside and run headfirst into the locals looking for someone to thump. “Hey you! Yeah, you, you mug lair. You tryin' to backdoor me with my woman?
Man orta deck you. I seen you givin' her a squeeze when you supposed to be dancing.”

You find you're looking at a local with a glint in his eye, and whether you danced with his lady or not was neither here nor there. This was a male ritual and there were certain rules that had to be strictly followed.

So you gave the stock answer. “Yeah! You and what army?” or, “You want time to go home and get your big brother, you week-old bucket of prawns?”

By this time most of the males in town have formed a circle around you, there is nowhere to go, this is it. Life wouldn't be worth living if you dodged off (turned coward) now you've set the rules.

The aggressor asks, “How do you want it, mug? Straight or all-in?” Straight meant fists only, like a boxing match, but with no rounds—it ended with either a knock-out or one of the contestants saying “enough”. All-in was boots, fists, teeth, anything goes, but that was pretty rare.

11

This time we had about four hundred Herefords for Lakes Creek Meatworks, and had brought them from just the other side of Jericho.

“We'll lay up here tonight,” said Hugh. “Good feed and water, and only about three miles to Dingo. We can go through early in the morning.”

“What's the chances of nippin' down the Dingo boozer?” asked Ted, licking his lips.

Mike's eyes lit up at the prospect. “Yeah, these are quiet buggers and it's gunna be a nice night.”

Hugh looked at them. “You know my views on that sort of thing when we're on the road.” You could see him thinking, and I was quite surprised when he said, “Alright Take the horses, and no bloody noise comin' back into camp. Hold on, you can take the Warrigal. He turned to me. “You go and keep a bloody eye on them, and take a couple of bull ropes—you might have to tie them into their saddles.”

I shot away and saddled up before he changed his mind. He didn't often let us loose on a drive, and I was rapt at the thought of going to the pub with the boys. I had grown quite a bit and filled out. I was just fourteen and about five foot seven, and seven and a half stone. Ted reckoned I was growing like a weed.

It was great riding down, joking and laughing, but my bubble burst when we got there. We dismounted, slipped the bits and put the nosebags on, slip-tied the reins to a ring on the veranda post, and I was getting ready to front up when Ted said, “Hey, whoa up, where the hell do you think you're goin? You can't go in there, you'll get us locked up. You're too young, mate. You keep nit on the horses.”

Geez, I thought, why am I not surprised? Keep an eye on the horses—I might as well be a bloody horse, stuck out here on the porch like a bloody cockatoo. Too bloody young? When the hell will I ever be old enough? Crikey, I'm fourteen. If I tried hard, I bet I could get away with sixteen. Crikey, how much older than that would you want to be?

I was sitting on the front step muttering all this to myself, having a great old hate session, really getting dark on the world, when suddenly this girl appeared out of the dark. Young, about eighteen to twenty I suppose. She was about as tall as me, pretty, with a pony tail, dark hair, earrings and a stony necklet thing. She had a tight white top on, showing well-shaped breasts which pleased my eye, and a short skirt, about two inches below the knee. With that and the shapely legs that I followed right down to the high heeled boots, I must admit she had my attention.

“Are you Warrigal?” she asked, and smiled at me, and a fifty-piece orchestra started playing, you know, like in the movies. I don't know why she had to ask me, as I was the only bugger on the porch.

“Yeah,” I sort of stammered. I didn't know much about girls then. I remember being worried for weeks about Marlene from Winton. She'd let me kiss her and put my hand on her bare tit, and I didn't want to go back to Winton in case she had a baby. A bit embarrassed I tore off my hat.

“Mike sent this bottle of lemonade out. Don't you drink?”

“No. Somebody's got to be sober to take that mob home.”

She laughed. “I finish my shift shortly. I'll come out and keep you company.”

With that she went back inside, and I didn't give it any more thought, although while she was there, I admit I was perving up her leg like a cat at the butcher shop window. I was squatting on the porch listening to everyone in the world but me having fun in the bar when I heard the voice again.

“Hello, you must be bored stiff by now.” Sure enough it was her.

She told me her name was Paula and that her dad worked for the works and jerks. We talked rubbish for a while, or she did. I listened.

“Do you have to stay here, or can we take a walk?” she asked.

“Nah, we can walk. The boys will be hours yet.”

It was a nice night, warm, and the sky was velvet black with the stars huge and glittering overhead. I stood up, and Paula stood and held my arm, and we strolled up the road. There was bugger all there in those days, hardly any traffic on the road. She told me she was eighteen and the pub was her first job, so I told her I was sixteen in the deepest voice I could find. She didn't seem to mind that I was younger than her.

We came to a couple of rocks, and as we went to sit she sort of tripped and landed in my arms. Our eyes were about an inch apart and she went misty eyed and kissed me. “Crikey!” I thought, I don't mind this, and kissed her back. She put her tongue in my mouth which stunned me a bit, but I thought if she wanted a baby that was her choice, although I was still a bit worried when we came apart.

“Let's go over there,” she said, pointing to a small grove of trees. I took my jacket off, and we lay down on it and started kissing again. We came up for air and I asked her, “Aren't you frightened of having a baby?”

She laughed. “You don't get babies from just kissing. She
went on. “You've never done it before then? Is this your first time?”

I had to admit I had never done anything else but kiss on the lips before, and thought that was it.

As the boys came out, she was kissing me goodnight and as we rode back to camp, I got a heap of borax off them, but good natured.

“Half the young buggers for miles around have been trying to get on to her, and you waltz her off under their noses, dirty young bugger,” laughed Mike.

“You know you got to do the decent thing and marry her,” said Ted.

Not bloody likely, I thought. But it worried me for a while.

I was still getting heaps off the boys next morning, and Hugh joined in. “I heard you kept a good eye out last night. I meant watch the boys. I'm gunna have to ring Rocky and tell them bloody Warrigal's comin', so hide your daughters.” He was laughing his head off, as I gave them all dark looks and denied every bit of it. But the hicky on my neck gave me away.

I was a bit embarrassed riding through town next morning. Paula was hanging out of the side window of the pub, waving her head off. I gave her a timid wave, then suddenly found the ground beside Shorty's mane quite interesting.

The boys were waving their hats to her and yahooing, giving me heaps. “Wanta rip up and say good mornin' to her, mate? Go on, we'll wait,” yelled Mike at the top of his voice, I wished I could disappear up Shorty's nostril.

Did I see her again? Too right I did, many times.