to understand and hopped off.
As the Land Cruiser climbed out of the creek, a blue, new model Volkswagen Beetle going in the opposite direction startled him as it passed within inches of his door mirror and disappeared into the dry creek bed he had just negotiated. He stopped, and as the dust cleared he saw the Volkswagen make it safely to the other side and keep going.
All he’d seen of the driver was sunglasses and a bright red baseball cap. He thought it was a girl or at least female. “Don’t think she saw me, Charlie; bet that creek bed rattled her,” he said to the dog who had now jumped back up on to the seat and was looking out of the back window as the little car disappeared in its own dust. “Gets more like bloody Hay Street every day; next thing you know we’ll have busloads of tourists wanting to experience the magic of the bush in summer.” Charlie pushed his nose under Angus’ arm and grunted in agreement. Angus scratched him behind the ears. Satisfied that his comments had been accepted the dog jumped back on to the floor and sighed again. “One more mill, old timer, and then back for a cold beer.” Charlie sighed again.
The last mill, the last watering point of the day, was about 200 metres off the road. Angus checked the water tank and it was full. The mill creaked in the afternoon breeze and with each rotation of the big fan it moved the pump rods up and down and the pump lifted more water from deep below ground and into the tank. Because the tank was full, an overflow pipe directed the water back down the bore.
Soon the sheep would be in for their drink at sundown and they would half empty the tank to quench their thirst. So, he calculated if the mill broke down when the tank was full there was two days’ water in reserve. If it broke down after the stock had watered, then there was only a day. Angus thought about that and casually wondered whether his life was half-full or half-empty and decided he didn’t know. The question was too much after a long day in the sun. Would the mill break down? He didn’t know. But then it could. Then again it never had and it was well maintained, so probably not.
Angus knew he had too many sheep on the one watering point and the tank wasn’t big enough. He knew, and that he really should move some sheep away or put in a second, mobile tank. But his best ewes and rams, what he called his ‘Commercial Stud’, were benefiting from the good feed in the river valley, and shearing was only about four maybe six weeks away if the shearers turned up on time; then he could split the mob and take some pressure off the watering point. His life, he reflected, was full of ifs.
He decided to take the easy way out, he would check the tank every couple of days; it was only a short drive from the homestead. If he got time he would bring out an extra tank. His decision nagged a little. Making too many easy decisions? Avoiding the obvious?
He unscrewed the plug out of the end of the trough and using a long-handled trough brush, scrubbed the trough clean, forcing the rubbish that had accumulated out through the plughole together with the dirty water. Charlie lay in the dirty water as it ran over the dry red soil and he grunted with pleasure.
Clean water flowed and when the trough was clean, Angus replaced the plug. Then for no reason that he could later recall, he decided to climb up the windmill tower, perhaps it had been to check the oil? The fan was about ten metres off the ground. As he climbed the ladder on the tower up to the fan he heard a vehicle. As he got to the small wooden platform just underneath the fan he again saw the blue Volkswagen, this time going in the opposite direction, the same direction as he was heading. It was still going hell for leather. He watched as it disappeared, hidden in the vortex of its own dust. The faint breeze had exhausted itself and the fine red dust hung in the air.
It was not all that unusual to see other vehicles on the road. Tourists, prospectors, government employees, shearing teams all used the road. What was unusual was to see a vehicle, a little Volkswagen, with apparently a female driver, charging up and down the road with the sun rapidly setting and the nearest petrol pump a one hundred and fifty kilometres away at Gascoyne Junction. And it was summer and hot, too hot for travellers. He just hoped that whoever it was had told someone where he or she was going.
He climbed down the mill and Charlie watched him and made sure he was going to the Land Cruiser before he left his cool spot in what was now mud. Satisfied that they were off again Charlie got up, shook himself and followed. Angus opened the passenger door and without being told Charlie jumped inside and lay on the floor. Wet and muddy, he knew the seat was off limits.
Back on the road the dust from the Volkswagen had mostly drifted away; traces of it still hung in the hollows. In just twenty kilometres he would be home, back to Bangalore. He thought about the Volkswagen and rather than make the call from his vehicle decided to ring the police station in Carnarvon when he got back to the homestead. He needed a beer. There was nothing he could do anyway. If whoever it was in the little car was lost, if they stayed on the main road they would finish up in Gascoyne Junction, if not tonight then in the morning. If they didn’t turn up by mid-day the next day then the police would make inquiries.
He looked north and saw clouds on the horizon, big thunderheads rising, catching the setting sun. It was still hot. A faint breeze had picked up again and it was now coming from the direction of the clouds; occasionally a stronger gust raised a bit of dust off the road. He looked down at the dog, “Might get a thunder storm Charlie, cool the place down a bit. God, I’m ready for a beer.” Charlie grunted.
Every time he drove off the road, over the cattle grid and into the driveway of his home, Bangalore Station, passed the now-faded sign that said ‘Bangalore Station-Circa 1880’, he thought of his great grandfather and the vision that he must have had over a hundred and thirty years before.
He never failed to marvel at the man’s foresight in those harsh pioneer days – days before cars, before phones, before anything really. Just days filled with hard work, family, horses, camels and sheep – but most of all planning for the future.
Big palm trees lined both sides of the narrow straight drive, their fronds nearly touching high overhead, providing instant shade for the weary traveller. The palms must have been collected at the coast, hauled by camel train for probably two weeks, carefully tended en route to keep their roots alive and then planted and watered by hand until they were established. No more than a metre high when they were planted, they now stood tall and proud and nearly ten metres high.
Over the years, they had withstood flood and drought and more than one cyclone. When his great grandfather died they were probably no more than a couple of metres high. Like everything else on Bangalore, what had been done in the early days had been done for the future.
The driveway forked about a hundred metres from the homestead and he took the left fork to take him round the back of the old house. Had he driven to the front he would have been welcomed by sweeping well-manicured lawns, rose beds and a small fountain standing in front of the five wide wooden steps leading to the four-metre wide veranda. Bangalore was an oasis in a hot and potentially hostile land.
The only building close to the back of the house was a bough shed, built to house the light horse carriages of another time; it now served as a three-vehicle carport. He reached over and opened the passenger door and Charlie jumped out and headed for the back door of the old house. He opened his own door, got out, took two canvas water bags off their clips behind the cab and followed his dog.
Angus could smell the cooking before he pulled open the flywire door. Alice, his housekeeper was standing at the sink in the big kitchen. A tall statuesque woman, now in her late sixties but looking twenty years younger, smiled at him. Her dark-brown skin contrasted with her perfect white teeth. Her grey hair was pulled back into a tight bun accentuating her long neck, her dark dress, as always, nearly touched the floor.
Alice’s great grandfather had been an Afghan camel driver, one of the famous cameleers, part of the folk law of the pioneering of the
