Short Story 'The Pup' - A Quote

Isis Downs

Isis Downs is a place that I spent some of my working life. This photo is from one of many that is around today.

The grass weeds growing on the yards is an indication of the new direction that Isis Downs has taken.  Now primarily a cattle station, in my time it was sheep, and the pointed hard hooves of thousands of sheep at shearing time would leave no weed unturned, so to speak.

It was a large property, 250 000 acres I recall at that time.  Apart from the shed it had three cottages,  one for the farmer, a full time mechanic and one for the local handyman. These blokes were married and had their spouses with them. There was, to the left of the picture of the shed, a 'ringers quarters' with about twelve single rooms for the workers and between the quarters and the kitchen meal room was a meat house.

Beside the kitchen and cook's quarters there stood the Jackaroo's cottage; there were no such thing as a Jillaroo in those days.

Between those buildings, and the horse yards, one could see the Big Boss's place, up in the distance, and in no-mans land, as far as the working class were considered.

A general store in the middle of the area, manned twice a week by the bookkeeper, supplied at a cost, tobacco, cordial, soap, toothpaste and even tooth brushes.  Purchases on the night would be booked to your account and taken out of your wage of sixteen pound sixteen shillings a week if you were a ringer or station-hand.

The stud ram yards were near the mechanic's workshop, and a drop dunny that I helped dig the hole for was in the middle of the open area.

These drop toilets were usually about ten feet deep, which had been calculated by a 'dunny expert' to last a family of four for ten years.

The famous red-back on the toilet seat was a common sight in these little sheds.  However they were expected and dealt with on sight.

There is an adventure that the cook had in this particular double dunny, which I will relate later.

People of that era c1957 included the Manager Bruce Johnston,  Overseer Ian McLennan and Stud Overseer Phil Cameron.  The ringers were Alan and Bede Baker, Joe Saunders, a boundary rider's son, his name was Neil Piddock, I think, a young bloke that had never seen an airplane up close until we took him to the Longreach Rodeo. And of course, yours truly.

Up at the main house Joycie Singsong and Felicity Daylight were the housemaids, both South Sea Islanders.

Names I don't remember: The one armed cook and his wife.  The cowboy or cow milker and general hand, a pommy named Jim.  Two older general hands in the ringers' quarters.  The Jackaroo's housemaid and that is about it, I think.

Good memories of more time ago that I care to remember.

As my publisher said, I must laugh a lot.  That is very true when I create a character,and have that character interact with other characters and start the thread of a story, probably based, very loosely, on something that actually happened.

Using a fair amount of dialog like I do, the characters come more alive than just talking about them in the third person narrative.

Notty was one such character that came alive as I wrote the story.  At first it was my intention to make him immensely disliked by the reader, but as the story progressed,  Notty became somewhat of a hero.

My greatest  joy in writing is to see the characters develop personalities, and at times push the story their way, and not in the manner I first intended.

If some reader should see a resemblance to an actual event in one of my yarns, they could well think, 'That's not that way it ended'.  So, bad luck, in my yarn it ended the way it ended.

The Hand Around Dog: A story in the making is about a designer dog of the Outback.

Long before the designer dogs of today, the labra-doodles, the bull terrier crosses with a Shitzu called a... use your imagination, came FRED a dog designed to do one thing efficiently, and  that was to kill.

Not one particular person owned Fred, and as needs arose, he would be passed around to different blokes to carry out a bit of pig hunting, or kangaroo culling, and to even  pull down a rogue bull or two.

Naturally, great consideration must go into the breeding of a versatile dog such as Fred and following is his Pedigree:

From The Hand Around Dog

"I have a bit of paper that explains Fred's breed lines ... Do ya' wanna' hear em?" Timmy O'Reily asked.

I averted my eyes from Fred, hoping that I wouldn't look him in his yellow and very mean eyes. Fred was not going to get any chance of making the excuse that I challenged him.

Every so often, Fred would test the high-tensile chain to see if it was still holding, and when he gave his best pull you could hear the 'ping' as the toughened steel reached a peak near its capability of tension withstanding.

"Ere' it is ... to start with he was the pup of an American Bull Baiting dog, or Pit Bull over a Rhodesian Ridgeback bitch and a pup from this mating was crossed with an Irish Wolf Hound ... "

There is no doubting the Irish Wolf Hound bit, as the Irish Wolf Hound's most recognisable attributes were on full show every Fred turned his back to us. Not unlike a postman carrying Mallee mail bags.

"Ya' Listenin'? snapped Timmy. "Then, accordin' to this paper, that Irish Wolf Hound cross pup, a bitch, was bred with a Great Dane, then a bitch from that litter was crossed with a big red Greyhound who looked like being a world beater until he had his leg broken by a rival owner. Now, the final touch, of  which Fred is a direct descendant, was a pup from that litter was crossed with brown hyena, just to give him jaw muscle".

"Sounds like the original breeders were serious about the result," was my knowledgeable comment, then another thought came to me, slowly "Do you reckon they got what they wanted in Fred?"

"How would I know, Pete? All I know is I got what I wanted, sumpin' to cull a few big roos out of the front paddock.

"All right Fred, " Timmy told the dog, "Settle back an' I'll bring ya' a couple of roos fer' supper."

I love the laconic expressions that seem to ,only, come from those true blue Australians of the Outback and in a more varied localized variety from folk of the cities.

A typical example is asking someone if they "Have lived here all their life" and they answer "Not yet".

I once said to a Gunnedah farmer, after a good fall of rain, "You would be happy now with all that recent rain".  His reply brought me down to earth.  "It only rained rain, it didn't rain grass".

Probably the best I have heard is a bloke in a pub, trying to get a free beer who accosted a new customer with a overly pleasant greeting, and said, "Are you staying for a beer, Mate".

The bloke said "Yeah, I might have time for a couple".

"Good" says the bar fly "Make mine a schooner".

With that the bloke looked at his watch and hurriedly came up with:  "I just forgot, I've gotta been down town in a couple of minutes,I'll catch up with you later", and off he went.

The usual disappointed look befell the hapless cadger as he sadly said, "I've know that bloke for forty years, and he ain't changed.  He is that tight that if he cut you a slice of bread there would only be one side in it".

We have got things moving now.  Most of the slow start is in line with my  learning curve, which is almost flat-lining.

I would like to discuss how others approach their story writing and I will talk about how I go about writing my stories.

So ,pull up a log, make yourself at my place and let's have a chat.

Old Pete

From Pete's head to Amazon

Just recently Pete and I were having fun imagining what one of his characters might have gotten up to after the end of his story. I could clearly picture her in my head. Pete responded:

"So there you are, you know one of my characters as if she is a real person in a real situation. How do you think I cope with a mob of 'em in me 'ead?"

I told him he probably laughs a lot.

Peter Rake has been telling stories to himself since mid-last century. After the heydays in outback Queensland were over, he started crafting them on paper. Now his stories, and one novel, will be published on Amazon Kindle by ePublisher, MetaPlume.