returning home to other stations or small towns. But Stilwater hadn’t been properly mustered in at least a decade, and the remnant cattle included cleanskin, or unbranded, bulls ten years old, cows twice as old still wobbling along, and a mess of calves, yearlings, young bulls, and heifers—many without tags or brands and almost all, not surprisingly, feral.
Miles Carver ran the mustering crew, a large bear of a man with black hair and a thick beard. He wore coarse work shirts—usually torn or smeared with cow slobber, manure, or blood—a big hat that drooped a little in front and back with a small roll up on the sides of the brim, and heavy stockman’s boots. He was from a small town on the eastern coast, where his father had raised horses and where most people knew him, knew of him, or knew his father. Thirty-seven years old that winter, he seemed to have a good heart, and he rode good horses: a tall black stallion named Snake, and a black gelding called Reb. The mustering contractors called him “the big fella.”
Miles used his mass and brute strength to muscle through work—throwing cows around, lifting fallen cattle up by the horns, and ramming his stallion into cattle to push them through gates. His pack of scrawny, motley, kelpie-cross dogs clung close to his horse’s hock and were keen at cow work. He called them by name—“Down Killer, sit Ruby, come Roo, sit Ruby”—and he sent them slinking around milling, charging, snorting cattle with a few whistles and verbal commands. He could signal one dog to drop on his belly in the dust, another to lunge at a cow’s throat, another two to surround a deviant calf, and three to come back to his horse, clucking at them in reward. As he rode, his horse arched his neck down under the bit and Miles’ big hands imperceptibly tensioned the reins until the stallion ducked his head further, moved off sideways with a subtle pressure from spurred heels, and—followed by the ghost shadows of dogs—stepped forward toward the mob of cattle.
Alongside his impressive pack, Miles mustered a few people he knew with several months open and dogs, horses, trucks, and motorbikes of their own. Together they hauled a caravan of gear up to Stilwater. Most of them knew each other and each other’s families and had worked together before, but it was still a mishmash of a crew, some experienced, a couple thrown in out of sympathy or on a gamble.
They set up camp at the end of the lagoon in an old portable tin building called a donga. Manufactured in the shape of an L and rested up on stilts, this structure had some ten rooms and a narrow walkway. The crew quickly filled it with swags and gear, which they hung from the railing of the narrow veranda that ran the length of the building. In front they parked their vehicles, trailers, and motorbikes, and unloaded spare batteries and fuel drums. Drying pants and work shirts hung from a wire strung between the veranda posts, and three blackened tin cans full of water for tea and coffee and dishes sat on a small fire that seemed to burn perpetually.
A short distance from the quarters, the crew tied their packs of dogs—more than thirty altogether—to old machines, tractors, trailers, fences, and vehicles. Every other day each animal received a small cup of dog food, a little water, and a few scraps of meat. A couple of curly-haired lap dogs ran around the camp as pets, but the rest of the mongrel lot stayed tied up unless there was cow work to be done or a couple feral bulls that just needed some chewing.
The sky glowed a shade of orange umber when Miles drove up to the station compound one morning. I was seated at the small table on the veranda with Angus and Ross, awaiting a list of chores for the day. Miles pulled out the chair opposite me and gave a brief “morning” to the table before he sat down. I had met him briefly before, but he didn’t acknowledge me. Lamplight threw shadows from his silver hat onto his face, darkening his black beard. Ross offered coffee, but he shook his head.
“What time you reckon the road trains’ll show?”
“Early, they’re coming up from Normanton.”
Miles waited a moment before he replied. “We should have ’em ready to load.” After another silence he said, “Maybe I could use an extra hand.” The crew had mustered two paddocks and had about a thousand cattle in holding, waiting to be drafted, branded, and shipped or released. When Miles needed an extra person or two, he borrowed them from the station.
I tried not to notice the look of relief that crossed Angus’ eyes; he’d be free of me for the day. While Wade often took Dustin with him on long station runs, Angus had been finding odd jobs for me around the compound.
“That’d be fine,” he replied.
Miles rose to leave and Angus nodded for me to follow. I climbed into the rattling yellow ute with its wire dog crates on the flatbed against the cab. Starting the truck and turning on the headlights, Miles said it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t know much, I could work the gates while they hassled the mess of livestock in the yards.
He gave me a ride down to the donga, where they had a fire going, water heating in billycans to wash the breakfast dishes in a makeshift sink, laundry strung up along the veranda, and dogs everywhere. There was one other woman, tall and blond, pulling on a pair of boots.
“My name is Victoria—you can call me Vic,” she said with a white smile. The rest rose from the cluttered table or moved in and out of the lamplight, gathering a few things, passing comments. We piled into several vehicles and headed up the road to the cattle yards.
That first day, I had a hard time remembering the names of the new crew in the melee of feral cattle as I tried to maintain my place at the gates. I knew livestock from childhood, how to handle them, move and manage and predict them, and a little of the Australian traditions of stock work. But that morning all I had learned blurred and disappeared in the noise and battle, and it was a struggle to stay upright and alive. Dust stirred so thick that every breath felt like a gritty drink. Cattle bawled and moaned, agitated and distressed. Calves separated from their mothers wailed in disbelief, loneliness, and fear. Mothers called back to locate them, to reassure them, to register their protest. The commotion made a pandemonium of sound, tones that filled the air and ears and overflowed into the brain and nervous system. Gates clanged and banged and the ringers called out, swearing, urging, answering, whooping. Cattle filled pens and smashed through fences, so many that they trampled the dirt and pummeled each other and the crew.
One of the ringers, Ivan, worked near me, slamming the sliding gate of the race—or chute—shut behind a line of heifers. He was working full force; dust coated his skinny legs and arms, and his angular face. I could see only that he had three tiny gold earrings in one ear, and that he wore a T-shirt, shorts, and a once-red ball cap. We were waiting for the road trains Angus had indicated would be arriving soon, the huge trucks hired to haul loads of cattle south to the meatworks.
Ivan took a break in a spare moment to lean against the pipes of the railing and said, “I wonder where that trucker is.” He smacked a young heifer through the rails with a battered piece of poly pipe.
“Had too much goey and just kept on going,” he barked, answering his own question with a jolting laugh.
Outback truckers often took methamphetamines to conquer the enormous distances.
“Or not enough,” I said.
From Normanton alone, it was 155 miles, four hours of potholes and bulldust. Beyond that, who knew how many hours to the next biggest town? Twenty, fifty, with a load of cattle that had to be unloaded along the way to water and feed, and then loaded again, many getting injured or dying en route.
Some cattle are still driven along by a crew of horsemen for weeks, or months, just as we did in the United States before barbed wire divided
