Top dog

Yep, it's official. Old Pete Rake is top dog. See the screenshot below? That shows 'The Outback Story - The Loves and Adventures of 'Tiger' Williams' sitting pretty at #1 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > Australian & Oceanian on Amazon.

The Red Steer

Of all the devastating and frightening occurrences of the Outback, the worst would be the fire. Even on the plains, the “Red Steer” rampages across the land with no favour. It can jump fire breaks, water courses, main roads and any other barrier put in its way.

In full fury, the grass fires create their own wind. It rises in swirls of fierce heat that sends embers floating on to areas that were thought protected.

Fire, one of the greatest discoveries by man, can and will turn on him in a frenzy of destruction causing death, to stock and humans alike, to fences, homes, or any combustible matter that is in its path. Fire has no conscience.

In the coastal Tee Tree areas I have seen the blue haze of gas build up ahead of a fire, and then the tops of these trees just explode some hundred meters ahead of the flame.

Floods and drought are at natures whim but fires can, and sometimes are, in the hands of some arsonist, who after the death count is taken into consideration, in the more urban areas of cities, should be charged with murder with a lethal weapon, one single flick of a cigarette out the window of a moving vehicle. One flick of a cigarette lighter or match. And that is the usual emotional thoughts of those that have been the victim of a rampaging fire.

The grass fire of the plains country is, most times, easier to control if it is caught in time, or if properties had carried out fire prevention methods before the fire season arrived. The fire season is usually after good rains, strong grass growth and a hot dry summer has filled the earth with tussocks of grass and leafed up the few trees and scrubs. It is these times that one looks to the sky for the thunder storm, lightening being one arsonist that cannot be caught.

Glass is another fire lighter, the careless bottle or container left around yards, and along side roads, acts as a hot house underneath where it lays, when the time is right it will cause ignition and the “Red Steer” runs again.

Fire breaks are an expense but it was, in my time, only an expense calculated against what the expense was in losses. If it was felt that losing one or two paddocks to fire was not a big problem, then little or no fire prevention or protection took place.

One property where I worked, they had experienced a fire that ran for two weeks, and covered an eighty-mile front at one stage, this was out from Aramac in Queensland. The next year prevention or protection was applied vigorously.

The fire break, in the plains country, if given the full treatment, consists of two tracks around the fence line in a paddock. The tracks had the scarifier plough dragged over them maybe twice. The tracks would then be dragged with metal wagon tyres, tied together and weighted down with logs, or forty-four gallon drums with Gidgee stones in them.

The cleared tracks, which would be about eight feet apart have an strip of grass between them, which is burnt off if fire is threatening. There is no point in burning good grass when unnecessary.

This allows a twenty-four foot fire break from which to back burn from, in the face of an oncoming fire; however with the unpredictable wind created by the fire, even these fire breaks can be jumped by the grass fires.

Man has little control over floods, rain, or drought. He cannot even predict the heat of summer to come, but fires, being a tool of man is often used foolishly.

Sheep will run around in a circle if they are frightened, and fires frightens all beasts. If these poor dumb animals cannot escape, they will run into the fire and perish.

There are stories of men and women being off fighting fires on a neighbours property only the hear that their own home has been burnt to the ground.

Of all the harshness of the Outback, the “Red Steer” is the worst. In times gone by it was used as a threat by some disgruntled traveller or station worker, who would rattle a box of matches in the face of the one he was threatening. No word had to be said, the threat was well indicated.

Up close and personal with Pete

The Outback Story - The Loves and Adventures of 'Tiger' Williams has been hovering in the top 10 eBooks on Amazon in the Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > Australian & Oceanian list, sliding up and down between spot 3 and 8 for the last month. Author Peter Rake has obviously done something right for his first novel to be doing so well. Perhaps this interview by Sylv Jenkins will shed some light on why Peter wrote the novel and how he went about it.

A really Nice Bloke

Because of the floods, just after the bush fires, and the shearers strike, and me' old truck breaking down, I was holed up in a little town on the outskirts of the Barcoo River.

The fires were put out by the floods and the floods had gone down ,the sandflies had all gone somewhere else and a bloke fixed me' truck, but I rather liked the place, so I stayed for a bit.

There wern't much to do during the day, and less during the night, but ifn ya' want a quiet holiday, this place is the place to place yer sef.

One thing that did keep the local population a bit on their toes, was the mass of killings. They called them serial killings, which I think this was because every time a serial come on the radio, there would be more killings.

In a small place like this, there weren't much selection in who was doing the doings. I was a suspect, but I  didn't think they had enough evidence. I would'a owned up just to break the monotony, but they wouldn't let me. The local Butcher, an expert in dealing with dead flesh, was a dead cert, until the police finally arrived in the place from down in the city somewhere. The word wuz that they couldn't find the place for some time, as the place had not been placed on any map any place.

Well they searched high and low, which is hard to do on the flat black soil plains, but they did search. Eventually they put Old Bill Williams in custody which stuck to his feet until he could hose it orf'.

No one could believe that Old Bill could ever possibly hurt anyone. I won't go so far as to say he wouldn't hurt a fly, 'casue we wuz all guilty of Blowie Homicide in some form or other.

We wuz all sitting on the verandah of the Pub, come Post office, come general sore, come Chinese laundry, come Black Smith, come Baker, come Pool Room Dance hall and Recreation centre and of course the prime suspect the Butcher, who used to sell heaps of his snags until the killings started.

The cops come up and interrupted our general conversations, without so much as one iota of concern for the intellectual discussions wot where taking place, in the place.

"Do any of youse  sheilas and blokes know Bill Williams or his AKA name Old Bill Williams?"

"Jist as well you cleared that up, or none of us would have known who you waz talkin' about."

"Well do ya?"

Mary McGillacudy, the owner of the haberdashery store, wot I forgot to mention, spoke up.

"Old Bill Williams could not have anything to do with these dastardly deeds, and anyway, the deaduns' were only tourists so what's all the fuss about...But not Old Bill, he was a kind hearted bloke, he worked hard, helped people, was always ready to tell a story and help an old lady across the street even tho' there ain't nothing on the 'tuther side of the street, in this place, So I reckon ya' got the wrong bloke, and, as most of the single women in this here place know, was a good bed warmer in the colder moment of winter, but don't say nuffin' about that or every one will want to get some...warmth, that is."

"Anyone else got an opinion?"

"Yeah! Me" I sez. "Ifn' we dont' get rid of this government we will all be broke before too long."

"About the killings..." and the copper mumbled summit that I missed hearing.

"Look," sed the publican, who wuz owed a fair bit of cash at the pub by Old Bill Williams the bloke in question, who wuz being questioned, "Ya' got the wrong bloke, I can tell ya' Old bill was as gentle as a lamb in a good stew...I must admit  that his visitors used to scream and carry on a bit, but apart from that, nuthin', he never disturbed no one."

Pete sees his name on Amazon again

Another short story of Peter Rake has made its way to Amazon. Actually this one is in the 'Fair Dinkum Yarns From the Australian View' but if you're too cheap to fork over $2.99 for the collection you can sample this one for $0.99. It's about Arthur. Some fictional conception of Pete's mind.

Poor old Arthur laments his life every day at the bar and dances with death in a bitter comedy farce which ultimately changes the course of his life. This is an original great Australian yarn told by best selling Amazon author, Peter Rake - as you might have guessed, since this is his blog!

Word count: 2900
Themes: Outback Australia, right of passage, comedy
What to expect: A ripper of a yarn, straight out of a 1960s Outback Queensland pub.
Setting: Outback Queensland pub

Published: 21 July 2013

 

Silence is Golden

Have you ever been in places that become so quiet that you can hear yourself thinking?

The Outback is like that. You don't notice it much through the day when your eyes are taking in activity, and your brain is interpreting what you have seen, but when night falls, and you have finished with the chores of say, feeding yourself, hobbling out the horse, rolling out your swag and rolling your last cigarette for the night, then the silence descends upon you.

No matter how hard you listen, and I do not think that a man can listen hard or soft, regardless of what his wife may think. No matter what you do, you do not hear anything. It is confusing to say you hear nothing, as that means that you hear something, but I am telling you that you do not hear anything at all in the Outback, nuffin'.

This only happens in certain places. It won't happen near a busy highway, it won't happen near a river or a creek, it won't happen if a pocket of trees are near, and it won't happen if you have the 'trannie' turned on. It will only happen in the middle of a vast paddock that has nothing but a sparse covering of grass, and the black soil plains to try to catch your attention, and the catch is that if it catches your attention, you need some help.

The silence is such that you will be drawn to putting your finger in your ear to try to remove the “plug” that has stopped you from hearing. You will hear the squish, squish of the finger as you rattle it around in your lug, and that will only confuse you, as you now consider how you can hear the finger but nothing else.

Married men can understand this phenomenon, as they relate it to the “Silent Treatment” often encountered in the marital home; however that is a pleasant occurrence, whereas the silence of the plains is a little strange, or should I say, stranger.

This massive silence, if silence has size, will be the overriding thought of the night. You will see a shadow, you think, and then you will realise that to see a shadow you have to have light, so whilst you are discounting that one a light will appear, or seem to appear, on what you would consider the horizon, or seem to be the horizon.

“Ah! Company,” you will say and frighten the dickens out of your self at the loudness in this dead silence, so you whisper “ah! Comapny”

However, it is not company, you know what it is but you will not admit it to yourself, so your mind takes over and admits it for you, "It is the Min-Min my scary little friend.” Only your own mind can insult you like this and get away with it.

You open the secondary part of your mind, the contradictory side, some say the female side – why, I don't know, but this side says, "Don't be silly, I do not believe in the Min-Min."

"Well why is it getting closer?"

"I don't know, I don't believe in the Min-Min."

"Why is it getting bigger?"

"I told you, I don't know."

Another part of your mind says, no wonder they call it the female side, but has to admit that the light is getting bigger and coming closer.

Then the Min-Min is gone, and you do what any sensible, well controlled and well balanced male would do, you jump to your feet and let out a roar and go running up to catch the horse so the two of you can go and stick your heads in some noise.

“Silence is Golden,” some fool said. All I can say is that whoever that was never sat out on the black soil plains in the dark of night and listened to........

More from the Haughty Kulturist

I was working on a place that was just above the Black Soil Plains. Well actually, most places out there are ABOVE, the plains, but this place had very fertile soil. However, as the case usually is, it lacked water.

We had a big wet season soon after I arrived there and we couldn't do much stock work as the black soil plains is very friendly and sticks to you like that stuff that sticks to blankets. If you should walk a few hundred yards, the mud, mixed with dry grass, would end up making you several inches taller before the weight became too heavy to drag along.

Yanyrate, the water was available in copious amounts, and in tanks as well so, I being an enterprising sort of bloke, I suggested that maybe I could grow a crop of watermelons on the slope below the dam. No not under the dam, below it on the slope.

There were a few bags of Q5 fertiliser in the shed which, when mixed with Diesel and plugged with half a stick of geli', could lift almost anything out of the ground, after you lit the wick, ifn' ya' know what I mean. It's also good bait for Yellow Belly.

I went into the 'Reach (Longreach) and bought a couple of packets of Queensland melons and headed back to the patch.

The soil was kind to me and it was just at the right moisture content to plant, so being a fairly clever sort of bloke, I planted.

A few months later I could look out from the verandah of the Ringer's quarters and see this lush green growth, with large round things scattered amongst it all, up on the slope. The melons were big, huge is more the description, and I was in the process of  hiring a back-hoe and a semi-trailer to get them to town, when the boss came over with a serious look on his face.

"Pete," he said, Pete was me name ya' see, that's why he said Pete.

"Wot's the problem?" sez I.

"Look, mate, I know ya' spent a lot of time on them melons, but I have to tell ya' that they have to be gotten rid of, soon."

"Gotten rid off?" sez I  incredulously, "Soon?" sez I, not giving any credit on this either.

"Yeah! It's like this ... Yesterdy' arvo' just on sunset, the cook was going over to get a bucket of milk from the cowboy, well, from the cows that the cowboy milked, when one of your  bloody melons broke away from the vine and rolled down the slope. It flattened the dairy, the cook and the bucket, and the cowboy as it went on to flatten the wife's Mercedies in the shed. So, I reckon that we better get the rest of them out of the place, hey?"

I could understand why the  boss had a serious look on his face. Seriously, I mean I was no dummie in the costs involved in running a property, and a good stainless steel milk bucket is not cheap.

Well, I sold one melon to a bloke down the road at a garage, who put it out the back, put in a few cots and a window or two and rented it out to the Truckies!

A few were scooped out and used in Longreach for in-ground swimming pools and the rest we rounded up and pushed out to the back paddock. As it turned out this was a good idea as tourists thought they were looking at the Olgas in the Territory and paid money to see the melon coloured rocks and wrote their graffitti all over 'em.

Fair Dinkum!  We got pictures ...  I think.

Peter Rake's 'Fair Dinkum Yarns From The Australian View' is available in print and eBook formats on Amazon.com

Nothing wrong with a good ego

It is good to have a bit of an ego, but it is 'more gooda' to have something that boosts that ego.

'The Outback Story, Life and Loves of Tiger Williams' has gone to #3 on the best seller list on Amazon. Now that is what I call a boost, yep, sure do!

I am working on two more stories; one is a follow on to Tiger Williams, and the characters are already establishing their part in the story. Another yarn, for teenagers, did not come easy to this old bugga, as it is a long time since I was of the age; however, now that I am in the swing of it, I am enjoying trying to think what the kids would like to read.

Any author is nothing without readers, because even if I do write the stories, it is you people that read those stories that make me proud ... and, I kid you not, rich.

You keep reading folks, and I will keep trying to entertain you.

Believe it or Not!

The first blood tranfusion recorded was given to a nine year old boy.  A pint of lamb's blood was delivered in an incision in the boys arm. The lad survived for several days.

The problem was, he only went to the doctor with a sore finger.

Believe it or Not!

The first contraceptive used by women was the rind of a lemon or orange cut in half. It was a diaphram of sorts.

It put a different spin on the wanton woman and the term Lemon Tart.

Believe it or Not!

The wind of the outback

Of all the climatic influences of the Outback it was the winds that bothered me the most.  Being in areas where the flat plains allowed howling westerlies in the summer,  and the cold southerlies in winter to cross the land and gain force just before it hit you with a slap on the back that you would imaging came from the  hand of some malignantly minded giant mad man; these were the  times that most bothered me.

All the living quarters had gauze wire mesh around them to keep out the flies and mozzies, and the westerlies resented this intrusion on its dust billowing, debris distributing, swirling, willy willy making journey across the Outback plains.

The morbid howling of the gauze as it tried to restrain the winds to no avail, would constantly hold one note so depressing one had to be very strong so as not to cut the bloody gauze wire out of the frames.

It would catch you unprepared, the wind, every evening, around sundown, it would subside, slowly, until it became a whisper, and a cool  breeze that changed you mind on its terror of the senses.  Then, just as your fists unclenched, your toes relaxed and you mind started to think about dream time,  the beast would rise up and scream through the wire in a last ditch stand to unsettle you completely.

Loosing you hat just as you tried to light a cigarette in the day time westerlies would  be a common matter, and the following 'rodeo' as your horse shied away from the flying Akubra, and your tobacco tin emptied into he wind,  would undoubtedly give the most miserable  of work mates a great laugh, but then again the westerlies had the ability to make many miserable.

The willy willys that would spiral upwards for a hundred feet or more, would attract the Kite Hawks that  sailed in the  updrafts catching the grasshoppers that had been taken aloft.  The dust lifted from these willy willys always seemed to end up either in your pot of tea, in your eyes and ears or as you found out later, all  over the clothes and belongings in your quarters when you got in at night.

These things were a test of  one's resolve, a test of faithfulness to the Outback, and as I was mostly told, 'If ya' survive a year you will survive forever, young fella'.

And so the westerlies blow, the Southern wind gusts, and winter falls on the land like a heavy hand.

Imaginations - A Writer's Friend

Imagination

Sometimes, as my body becomes aware of life, for which I am ever thankful,

My bleary eyes, my deadened brain hears the chattering die away.

Characters of the night all start to scatter, leaping from the bed, a rabble.

Those that do not run, find places in my imagination, and there they stay.

Settled, hiding until some word, some sight, something brings them to spy.

They do not haunt me, for they know my mood of the mornings;

They know I can be bright, they know me foreboding like a stormy sky;

They know I need their company, and are kind to me and fear the warnings.

Slowly I come to grips with rising, my bones creaking in protest,

Eyelids demanding to be shut, closed to the day, just a little longer.

Then one of my head riding mates speaks of things for me to investigate;

A challenge is laid, and I have to rise to meet it, to prove me stronger.

They will not let me rest if things have to be spoken, words written,

And they know my slowness, my weary head, and they take over.

Mechanical fingers hit the keys, letters appear, the bug has bitten.

Off we go, my characters of the night and me, more to discover.

Wonderful gifts us humans are blessed with, imagination, though folly-

Is more than an escape, it refreshes the brain, enlivens the mind;

Stirs the soul, solves problems that may exist, creates friends to love,

And shifts enemies to another place where once gone, you will never find.

Somewhere, whilst ever I remain on this mortal coil, this house of humans

I will find a great love, I will sense that I have been given a chance.

My imagination leads me to believe that there is some kindred spirit

That I may yet still hold in a loving, thought sharing, comforting dance.

Somewhere in this physical place there must be a life I could share,

To relegate the people of the night, my imaginations, to some other place

And a new, exciting game would begin, discoveries and moods to scale.

A different person, a woman of vast patience, able to love, a kissable face.

Maybe not, and I hear my mind folk cheer, they are my friends, they say.

These ones that I have made, these ones that are of my very fibre of life

They do take a toll for their existence, for they control the night until I wake.

Tell them to leave, to break the chain of memories, is not what I would really like.

Where else could I call upon such a rag-tag team of humoursome personalities?

Why would one not have friends that could make you laugh, tho' suffering pain?

Where would you find folk to come at your bidding, always ready to serve your needs?

For me, no other place but in my imagination, waiting release from the works of my brain.

The dog in the outback

The place of the dog in the outback, that great friend of man, was most recently centre-stage with the success of the movie Red Dog. Why do we relate so well to stories of mateship between a man (or woman) and their dog? Perhaps it's that we all want friendship. We want someone, or a dog, to choose us as their respected companion.

Dogs often feature in Peter's writing, and I happen to know he has two great doggie mates in his life at the moment.

In this story called simply 'The Pup', the harsh realities of a dog's potentially short life in the outback are explored:

"This particular 'day of rest' seemed to be much longer than others I remember, but I was well aware that the pup's life hinged on getting some indication of his worth as a working dog. Maybe, some would think, I could just take the pup out into the bush and leave him, much like some city folk do when their Christmas present pup becomes a bit of a problem. If I was silly enough to do that, and so increase the wild dog population, I would never be welcome, or find work, in the Outback again.   Something that I reckoned equal to an "Unforgivable Sin"... whatever that is. 

I was getting a bit nervous about this whole the responsibility that I had in a duty of care for being a dog owner. Was I going to be strong enough to fulfil the law of the bush and dispatch the pup, which is a polite way of saying shooting him, or would some miracle happen, and he would show signs of being worth the money and effort to suddenly become "Pup—The Wonder Dog". I didn't think so, but I did have one more try at proving his usefulness."

Available now on:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords

A free eBook from Pete this week

Grab your free copy here.

Really Fair Dinkum Stuff ... a bit more of a bit more

I 'spose that you are the type of personage that wants me to spell everything real proper. Okay, I'm sorry about the last attempt at 'Fiar'...Ya' didn't notice, Well! That'll do me.

Anyrate, I'm here to pass on some more about little Brucie Clermont Forterskew. There is nothing wrong in a little bit of littleness in someone that is not very towards the largish size, is there?

Brucie, has an uncle that was very fond of his little nephew. Flash Fred Forterskew the ferret f...f...fancier of the far western table lands in the downs country often took young Buricie out with him when he was rabbit hunting, when the rabbits were bad. Big bad ugly and very angry rabbits can play hell and heaps of havoc on ferrets, I am told.

So, when the ferrets balked at going down the hole, Flash Fred would call Brucie over and send him down to fetch the ferrets and to move the buck rabbits out of the hole, where flash Fred had Rodger a rough looking hound dawg that would put his front paw on a rabbit and hold it down until Flash Fred clouted it with a hard wood club. Well the dawg wouldn't let go the rabbit if he didn't give it a decent clout.

All right, I asked the same question me'sef', why didn't Flash Fred Forterskew the ferret f...f...fella' send little Brucie down the hole in the first place and save all this story tellin'?

Think about it; you know what kids are like with little furry bunnies. Brucie, like any kid, would stay down the hole for hours playing with the litters of kittens, which suprised me 'cause I thought they were after rabbits, not cats.

Really Fair Dinkum Stuff

Brucie Clermont Forterkew was a very spoilt and protected young bloke before he came to Boney Downs which was out from Aramac, which was out from Longreach as was the norm as most of these places in the Outback were out from somewhere or other.

Even the dunnies were outback in the Outback, thankfully, as it is not a real welcome to arrive at a place out from Winton, say, to find an outback dunny out front.

But I digress, which is rather a unusual matter in so far as story telling on my behalf, and as this story is not on my behalf, but on behalf of the story teller that told me the story - he often digresses.

Fer' instance, this bloke told me that Brucie was that spoilt his mother had a window put in her stomach so that Brucie could have a womb with a view. Of course, I thought that could very well be, as the advances in medical science had gone ahead in leaps and bounds, well, ever since they had been using kangaroos for guinea pigs to experiment with.

And talking about kangaroos, who can hold a new joey in the womb for a few months if a drought was on, or the brother or sister of the new little mite were still in occupation, this bloke told me that Brucie's mum was so frightened to let her babe out into the world, she held him up for several years, and only let him out when he was ready for high school. It was a bit tight, but Brucie wasn't any more than about five stone at that age, or seventy pound ifn' ya' still in the boonies.

When the doctor told her husband that he had to put in twenty-four stitches, he groaned, “Ya' gotta be joking, it only takes nine stitches to sew up a wheat bag.”

T'anyrate, Brucie ended up on Boney Downs, ready to become a big time manager or an overseer or summit. We reckoned that it would be summit that would win the day, as the overseer had to tie Brucie's shoes laces every morning, but, ya' know, I don't really believe that, I know for certain that the overseer couldn't even tie his own shoelaces and wore only riding boots that had no such things, and this was a good reason for thinking that Brucie would only learn summit, but not much, ifn' ya' know wot I mean.

We tried to get Brucie up onto a horse, but the ladder kept falling over, and it was only a Shetland pony anyway, finally, as it was up to the overseer to see that Brucie was properly trained,  he grabbed the lad by the scruff of the neck and flung him into his saddle bag, doing up the flap so the kid wouldn't fall out, and Brucie could tell his mummy, that night, that he had been out mustering with the men, all day. Stupid really, as you couldn't even put the kid down and get him to bark at the sheep.

I've got no reason to think that any of this is not Fair Dinkum, as I have told some stories that were like this, but in my case a lot more Fair Dinkum, that's why they all call me Truthful Pete, amongst other things.

I'm still in touch with this bloke, so if there are any more Fair Dinkum stories, I'll let ya' know, orrite?

[Want more Australian humor? Try Pete's short story, Notty: Targaroo's Disgrace Bar-fly, bludger and sneak-thief turned unlikely hero]

Q&A with Peter Rake on Book Goodies

Ever wondered how Pete comes up with the stories he does? What's his writing process? Does he talk to his characters? Find out in this interview on BookGoodies.com.

From Henry Lawson

One of our great Australian wordsmiths, Henry Lawson, had a special way of describing things that, if you had ever been in the Outback, you would understand immediately.

I quote from a compilation of Lawson's stories titled "Joe Wilson's Mates" and a story called "At Dead Dingo".

'Along, drowsy, half-hour passed - the sort of half-hour that is as long as an hour in places where days are as long as years, and years hold about as much as days do in other places.'

That, folks, explains the boredom of a long, lonely track, among other things in other places (pardon the wit).

What would an Outback blog be without a story about a dunny?

Entertainment at an Outback property in the mid fifties was often concocted by the practical joker, or by some event that caused enough excitement to have a good laugh and then a greater laugh in the pub at the retelling, with embellishments attached to that retelling.
There was no television to supply comedy skits. There was the occasional traveling show that told the same old jokes and performed the same old party tricks—that would raise a bit of a snigger because of the money it cost to go to one of those shows.
Best of all though was the completely unrehearsed happening that would cause gales of laughter for many days—happenings that you could not write a script for, and a happening that no one could possibly predict. This is one of those happenings …

A hole for a drop dunny that is three feet square, a bit under a meter and ten feet deep (three meters in modern currency of measuring stuff) will last a family of four for ten years. This being so, new holes had to be dug from time to time to replenish the availability of the station 'Library'.
On one particular station I was extradited from the painting gang to the dunny digging gang, as the painting of the Ringer's quarters could wait but nature is relentless in its call.
This drop dunny required a hole twice the size of the depth of the one mentioned for a family of four, so it was a sizable hole to dig, but the digging in this downs country had one most favourable condition—never was there rock to dig through, just clay.
The outhouses had been constructed by other stockmen who had been seconded to the job as we were. For this exercise there would be two, side by side dunnies, on this one hole.
The digging kept the gang in close proximity to the cook house, so there were side benefits as we would have a lavish smoko, midday meal and afternoon smoko as well as the night meal, so there was no rush in progress on the hole.
The work was also a welcome break to the usual day to day work on the station, and its progress was followed closely by all and sundry. The cook was the main 'sideline overseer' and his comments and directions were taken with little or no interest. However the cook did have one promise for us diggers—he was going to be the first one to use this facility, which would put him in a position of a claim to fame in years to come as the dunnies reached capacity,
“I wuz the first one to use these dunnies,” he could say.

The big day arrived; we had reached ground zero, or more to the lingo of the time, we had dun the job proper and the establishing of the new, galvanised sided dunnies were to be placed in position.
Logs were supplied to sit the dunnies upon. Sheets of tin were used to cover the area around the outer perimeter of the dunnies, and over any exposed holes and the clay was then back-filled over the tin and, with a cursory patting of the dirt the job was completed, right on the midday meal time, announced by a ringing of the large triangle of iron hanging outside the meal room door.
Cookie was very excited about his claim to fame and asked us if we had used the dunny yet. We promised him we hadn't and saw the relief on his face and the extra dessert in our plates.

What followed was the unexpected, the unscripted, the impossible event to guess.

After lunch there was one of those sudden 'skuds', as they were called, the rain storm on a sunny day that would drop inches of rain in a few minutes, and in this case, two inches (50mm) in twenty minutes (twenty minutes metric as well).
The Jackaroos housekeeper asked us as the time neared for afternoon smoko, “Have you seen the cook?” and as always some smart Alec said, “Yeah! He is that bloke wot cooks our tucker.”
It appeared that the cook had not been seen from a little while after lunch by anyone on the property.
A search party was organised. This was considered urgent as it was getting towards afternoon smoko time and eventually we arrived in the near vicinity of the new dunnies.
All that could be seen of the new outhouses was the top few metric feet, the rest had dropped the drop of these drop dunnies after the 'skud' struck; washed away the clay over the tin allowing the logs to role out from under the new facilities to plunge to almost the bottom of the hole.
“Help! Help!” came the plaintive cry of our chief chef.
After removing the roof of one of the dunnies we extracted the cook from the depth of muddy water in which he was immersed in and sent him off tho the kitchen.
Men rolling on the muddy clay-pan of the Outback, holding onto ribs and bellies that were in a fit of bursting from ribald laughter is a very laugh-producing sight in itself and of course is how we got our laughs in those good old days when we made our own fun, or waited for circumstance to provide that fun.
On threat from the cook, a threat that no man would care to challenge, we promised not to tell anyone about his drama ... well not until we got into town and the pub, that is.

Love or terror, it is still the Outback

Talking of the Outback and its perils draws me back to an experience I had working on a property out from Winton in the Central West. The owners, for some reason, let the property run down. The stock were poor and the fences had not been touched for repair for several years. The first day I started on this place I felt an atmosphere of despair from the boss, and it wasn't until some years later that I heard that he and his wife were breaking up and the property became the argument in settlement.

Of course that was not my concern, even if I had known about it at the time, I was hired as a stationhand when they seemed to expect a miracle worker.

The first morning the boss said to me, “Go and ride the fences in as many paddocks you can get through before dark and take some paper and a pencil with you to write down the fence condition as you go." Nothing else; no indication of where I would be likely to find broken fences, but he was the boss so I did as I was told.

Before I went, I went over to the cook house to get some damper, maybe some cold mutton and a bit of tea and sugar to keep the “worms” away during the day.  More depression as the Cook took almost half an hour before he appeared out from his room.

“Waddya want?” he growled, a scrawny, stumpy little bloke with dirty clothes and an appearance that he had not washed himself or his clothes for a long time. I had been given what he considered breakfast an hour ago, and he had fed the boss and overseer in the house and gone back to bed, which accounted for his grumpiness with me.

“I will be out all day and I was wondering if I could get some tea, sugar and maybe some damper and cold mutton?”

“Bloody young blokes, all they can think of is belly and what hangs from it.”

I knew that I was not going to last long on this place.

“Well are ya' going to get me some stuff or not?”

The miserable old coot came back with two slices of high-top bread, two slices of fatty mutton, and in his hand he held a mix of sugar and tea leaves.

"Where's ya saddle bag?” he mumbled.

Luckily I had a couple of small flour bags in my saddle bag and I took these in to the kitchen to find the food and tea dumped on the table. The cook had gone back to bed. I managed to scrape enough of the tealeaves and sugar together to make at least one quart-pot of tea. I looked around the kitchen to see if I could get a bit more tucker but would you believe every cupboard, and the refrigerator, had a solid lock on the doors. Ah well I thought, I will do this one bit of work for this boss and then get the mail truck to town in the morning, and they could stick their miserable property where it will do the most good.

It took me more than a hour to pick out a horse that I reckoned would be capable of a bit of work, and was still looking when the overseer came over and wanted to know why I wasn't out on the fences. I spoke to him about the condition of the horses and the poor bloke agreed with a sigh that seemed as though his world was ending.

“Come over with me, there are a couple of good stock horses over in the  stables that have been fed up and worked, you can take a pick form one of those.”

I didn't ask him why these horses were here while the others were starving and riddled with worms, with one of them with a weeping gash on its foreleg that looked at least a month old. When I asked him if he wanted me to do some work on the poor animal, his answer was, funnily enough, half expected.

“Na! I'm gunna take him up the creek later and put a bullet in his brain, the Boss won't spend any money on animals.”

So, full of glee and happiness at my new job on this bright and cheerful property - Yeah right - I rode out the gate on a horse that had that much oats and lucerne in its gut that it didn't stop fertilising the paddock for twenty minutes. And the smell! Even the flies hung back, but he did have a bit of go in him and I let him canter at his own pace for a couple of miles.

I should have taken a whole book instead of one scrap of paper. The fence line, including that part of fence that was a boundary, was a mess. My boss and the neighbour had been going at it for a couple of years about the boundary with the neighbour doing all of any of the repairs needed, but as cheaply as he could. There were holes under the fence every mile, some a lot closer, and diggings that left a tunnel for the pigs, dingoes, wild goats and station sheep to wander around the paddocks unchecked.

The first paddock was about ten mile around, making it around 6500 acres, and I reckoned that the horse would not be in real good condition, even with his feeding, as his muscles would shudder with use each time I pulled him back from a canter. No doubt, with a week's light work this horse would be in pretty good condition, but it had been standing and eating and wandering around a yard for the last month, and was like a primed up fighter with muscular dystrophy. It had plenty in the engine room, but the tyres were all flat.

We had finished the first paddock and had gone through a gate into what looked like it might be in a bit better condition. I could see a big Prickly Acacia and under its boughs the green that indicated water, probably a bore drain, I thought. The horse drank, and tried to drink some more, but I pulled back because it was only trying to fill the stomach that had been made a little hollow with the expulsion of all that good tucker.

Against my best instincts I kept the horse at a walk and continued up the fence line. I only went about a mile up and reckoned that I should get off this animal and give it a bit of a rest. I did, but I walked it around slowly as one would do a race horse after a big run, so as to let it cool down slowly. This horse had a good eye and was looking at me with a sort of apologetic look on its face, so I brushed the flies out of its eyes and talked to the animal, trying to reassure it, at the same time, trying to reassure myself.

We had come along the longest part of the previous paddock, and a mile or so into this one, so we were about fourteen mile from the station. My thoughts were with the horse now, the old boss could stuff his fence, I wouldn't be here tomorrow, and good riddance I reckoned.

I led the horse up to a taller gidgee tree and tried to find a bit of good grass for it to eat as it was starving for its feed bin back at the stables. The bore drain was only a hundred yards away and I resolved to take it over there for a feed when I had had a cuppa myself.

“Bugga it, horse, I think we might head home. You aren't in any condition to do a full days work, and to tell you the truth, I ain't either, not for this lousy property and its angry old men.” 

The horse agreed and settled down in the shade to have a bit of a nap.

As the afternoon wore on I led the horse more that riding it as we headed back towards the homestead. I had no intention of staying out until dark but I also had no desire to spend my last hours in the company of the miserable crew on this property. I doubted that I would be fed if I said I was quitting, and I only wanted to have a bit of a feed, a sleep and get onto the mail truck early in the morning.

We must have been heading home as the horse picked up its spirits, probably with the thought of the big feed that would be waiting for him at the stables. So I climbed into the saddle and let the horse move into a trot. I was standing in the irons and the distance was being covered at an easy rate. We headed due west, straight into the afternoon sun, and I had my head down out of the glare of the big round lump of fire in the heavens.

When I came too from the whack on the back of my head I was laying on my back, my rear end in the air and one leg up the side of the dog fence boundary. Five feet off the ground my boot and foot were inside a loop of wire that someone had put there away from roaming stock, a good idea gone seriously bad, bad for me that is. I had no chance of reaching up, pulling my body weight up to reach the wire, and what could I do if I could? My fingers were not pliers. I had nothing to cut the wire with other than the pair of fencing pliers in the saddlebag on the horse that was about a mile down the fence line, and still trotting.

I lay back and considered the predicament, I was still about ten miles from the station and I reckoned no one would come to look for me until well after dark, if at all. My foot didn't have the blood cut off with the wire as my R.M. Williams boot was good leather and the stirrup iron was also wrapped up in the wire, but I was effectively held captive like a sheep carcase hung up, one legged, of a killing gamble.

What could happen? I began to take the matter seriously, hanging like I was it would not be long before the crows and the carrion hawks would gather to watch proceedings, as I was not posing  much of a threat to them at this particular time. I could struggle and jerk around like a dingo in a trap,  which I did for a little while to no effect, or I could just lay there and wait for help; this was not very sensible either as I had no trust in the help that may or may not come.

My hat was still on my head as I landed, and it only left when I hit the ground hard, which knocked me out, for a time undetermined. I reached back over my head and felt the Akubra and pulled it forward, using it as a shade over my eyes while I took deep breaths to settle my nerves. I must have dozed off because I felt the nuzzle of the horse examining me with its soft and curious snout.

“Mate, me old mate,” I was very happy at the horses return, “Mate you came back?”

The horse lifted its head and looked back down the fence line towards home and the feed, but the reins trailed over my arm and I quietly took a hold of them, and the horse quickly submitted to its training and stayed quietly until I decided what to do.

I tried to get the horse to stand side on, but it kept getting a bit nervous when I also tried to pull myself up to reach the pliers in the saddle bag.  He pulled away each time, although I got to the point where I was actually hanging onto the saddle bag and was about to reach in for the pliers before he did a small side step that had me slam onto my back again.

It is not unusual for a man to start swearing at this type of thing as though swearing will fix the problem, but I felt fear, cold fear as my predicament reached deeply into my hopelessness, and I could not think of one swear word to yell.

“Oh well!” I moaned in my misery “I have had a reasonable life, short but reasonable. I would have liked to get married and have kids, maybe a property myself one day, at least I wouldn't let it get as run down as this lousy hell hole.”

The horse blew soft snuffles in my face and I reckoned it was thanking me for my kindness, as well as saying, 'sorry mate' I can't help you.'

I was guessing, and more than scared as the sun started to go below the horizon, and already the evening star shone in a still blue/grey sky. A large carrion hawk landed on the fence above my trapped foot, and I screamed at it “Chew that bloody wire if you want something to chew at.” I threw a handful of dirt at the beady-eyed, hooked beak gleaner of all torn flesh and it took off in a flurry of feathers as high-pitched whistle like squeals, and this startled the horse, and he lunged back, with me hanging tight to the reins, not knowing why, just not wanting the horse to leave me.  He pulled against the reins and I hung tight so that my body came up off the ground, which had me in readiness for the horrible thud as the reins broke or I let go.

Thud...wooof! Down I went flat on my back, the horse running backwards, and to my surprise, was dragging me after it. I let the horse go and it trotted off and settled down enough to stand still as I looked at the stirrup iron and my boot hanging on the fence, still. I jumped to my feet, one sore ankle but little else wrong, and I want you to promise you wont make a meal of this, but I went to that horse, that wonderful kind horse, and I kissed it full on its lips.

I was seventeen years of age, but the tears of relief cascaded down my face as I cogitated on the prospect of being dead, but saved by the thing that opened this Outback country up to the settlers, the graziers that let their land run down and became miserable at the fruits of their own making, but here I was, alive and young and with a story to tell at least.

I tried to tell that story back at the homestead but no one was interested, the Boss only wanted a report on the fence, the Overseer only wanted the horse back in the stable and fed, and I wouldn't even bother with the cook, if that was his title.

Early the next morning I went to the stables and patted the horse in a quiet good-bye, and he even lifted his head out of the feed trough to give me a bit of a nod and a gentle whinnie! Luckily I ended up heading down to the Barcoo River and took up work as a stationhand on Isis Downs, but that is another story …

[Peter Rakes Romance Adventure novel, The Outback Story - The Loves and Adventures of 'Tiger' Williams, is available now on Amazon]

For those that know the feeling

Steve and Lindy from the novel 'The Outback Story - The Loves and Adventures of 'Tiger' Williams'

On love

There is no greater gift than the one that freely comes

To give your love, and receive in return the same

To feel the warmth and comfort of your companion

The melding of heart and body, the exquisite pain

The joy of knowing the thrill of finding the magic

Soft caresses, the gentle touch, the passionate kiss

Neither man nor woman should pass this life alone

No soul on earth should be deprived of this

The early rush, the heady lust, the excitement

The subtle change where words are not needed

Feeling a oneness, a fulfilment of bonding hearts

Where the casual eye, the gentle touch is now heeded

A look that others see and they smile knowingly

Holding hands on a long and happy walk in the rain

Laughing together at things you once never saw

Not feeling, weariness or at times, any pain

This joyful love conquers the ills of the world

It causes differences to fade, selfishness die

It changes the very meaning of your life's existence

It brightly colours things that we see with the inner eye

Once you have felt this love it never goes away

Although partnerships dissolves for whatever reason

One strong, passionate love is always in your mind to recall

Your personal shield against a bitter lonely season