Without a Doubt Read online

  Fleur McDonald has lived and worked on farms for much of her life. After growing up in the small town of Orroroo in South Australia, she went jillarooing, eventually co-owning an 8000-acre property in regional Western Australia.

  Fleur likes to write about strong women overcoming adversity, drawing inspiration from her own experiences in rural Australia. She has two children, an energetic kelpie and a Jack Russell terrier.

  www.fleurmcdonald.com

  OTHER BOOKS

  Red Dust

  Blue Skies

  Purple Roads

  Silver Clouds

  Crimson Dawn

  Emerald Springs

  Indigo Storm

  Sapphire Falls

  The Missing Pieces of Us

  Suddenly One Summer

  Fool’s Gold

  Where the River Runs

  First published in 2019

  Copyright © Fleur McDonald 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 315 8

  eISBN 978 1 76087 112 3

  Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Cover design: Nada Backovic

  Cover photographs: © Simon Grosset / Alamy Stock Photo and Margie Hurwich / Arcangel Images

  To ‘The Cousins’

  And to DB who inspired and made this book happen—without you it would have never been possible

  And to those who are so very precious

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Chapter 1

  1999

  ‘I’ve got a mob of about fifty and there’s maybe thirty cleanskins.’

  The pilot’s voice crackled through the radio into the ear of Ash Bennett, aka Bulldust.

  ‘Left or right?’ Bulldust asked, looking up into the pinks and purples of the sunrise, trying to locate the chopper.

  A shadow passed over him and he realised the helicopter had come in from the left.

  Reefing on the handlebars of the motorbike, Bulldust kicked off and gunned the engine, directing the bike towards the towering hill in front of him.

  The roar of the engine filled his ears, making any communication between him and the pilot impossible. All he could do was watch the aerial dancing and follow the helicopter’s flight path. He wound his way through the termite mounds and tussocks of spinifex and Mitchell grass, letting his feet skim along the ground when he needed a little more balance.

  Peering up into the vivid blue sky, he spotted the chopper hovering over a creek line for a moment. It looked like Chris was trying to mob the cattle together, the way the chopper was ducking and diving.

  Bulldust sped up a little and rode down into the deep gully and onto the flat bed of a dry creek. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. He glanced over his shoulder; there was a red and white beast standing staring at him. It hadn’t been the bull which caught his attention first; rather the menacing horns, which looked like they were about a metre wide, from one tip to the other.

  Bulldust doubled back and rode in behind the old wily bull, trying to encourage him to join the mob. He watched him carefully, not wanting to have the horns anywhere near his body.

  Dust was rising over the treetops and above that was the chopper. It would be better if Chris could angle the helicopter this way—he could poke and prod and not worry about having to be gored. Not like he had been a couple of years ago after a mickey bull had chased the motorbike and he’d clambered up a tree. The branch had broken with the animal still waiting for him, and he’d spent two months in hospital after the horns had grazed his liver.

  He’d been very lucky.

  Now, though, Bulldust couldn’t raise Chris on the radio, so it was up to him to shift this beast. That’s what his team was known for—being able to muster the most difficult of cattle.

  The bull, still standing to attention, shook his head at him, then pawed at the ground, never taking his eyes from Bulldust, who read anger in the sharp jerky movements and kicked the bike into neutral. He bet this animal hadn’t ever come into the yards before.

  ‘You’ve got fucking cement in your hooves, haven’t you? Just don’t want to move.’ He reefed on the hand accelerator to give a couple of short, sharp revs, hoping to encourage the beast to shift. He’d worked with cattle all his life and he knew this one wasn’t going to do what he wanted. If anything, the bull would charge him. He had hate and fire in his eyes. ‘Gawn, get up there!’ he yelled as he slipped the stockwhip from over his shoulder.

  The bull let out a bellow and took a step towards Bulldust just as the whip crack rang out and bounced off the valley walls. The bull’s tail flicked in agitation.

  Bulldust flicked his wrist again. Another crack, as loud as a gun. Keeping his eyes on the animal, he took a couple of deep breaths; his heart was hammering hard and sweat trickled down the side of his face and neck. Blinking, he kept focused.

  Or he thought he was. When he looked again, the bull was moving. One tonne of rippling muscle and horns running straight at him.

  Instinctively Bulldust pulled up his foot and the bike jerked into gear. He let the clutch out with a jerk, all the while trying to use the whip again.

  The massive beast galloped surprisingly quickly, right towards where Bulldust had just been sitting on his bike. With his head down, the bull couldn’t see that his target had moved and he ran straight past, oblivious. Bulldust could feel the heat radiating from the animal and see the whites of his eyes as he rushed passed and disappeared into the bush.

  Bulldust took a couple of deep breaths, glad to have avoided an extremely dangerous situation. ‘Well, fuck you,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not looking for you today. Just your progeny. You can stay in the paddock.’

  With another glance at the sky to see where the chopper was, he headed for the animals that were going to make him money.

  Within a few minutes he saw a group of about fifty cows and calves. The calves were hanging alongside their mums, bellowing
above the noise of the chopper. Cleanskins. Where the money was.

  Taking a wide berth around them, he started to push them towards the main mob. Further to the north there was a set of portable yards. Yesterday they’d managed to find about a hundred shorthorn cross Brahman cattle with sixty cleanskin calves. They’d be able to move them easily and without any suspicion.

  The crew had camped at the waterhole overnight, starting the muster at first light. His most trusted team, all dressed in dust-covered jeans and plain shirts. They were under instruction not to wear bright colours. Not only did the cattle not like it, but he didn’t want them wearing anything that might attract attention. The brightly dyed shirts stockmen favoured these days weren’t for his lot. His bald head and long red beard usually created more than enough interest for them all.

  Today he was hoping to find another hundred or so cattle. He knew they were here; it was a matter of finding them in among the spinifex and Mitchell grasses and the rough terrain of rocky outcrops, hills and trees.

  If it had been summer, they could’ve set water traps—yards with water inside them; once the cattle went through the gates to drink, they couldn’t get out—but on the back end of a good season, when there was not only water lying in the paddocks but grass and feed galore, gathering up the cattle was a little more challenging.

  No matter the season, the Highwaymen Mustering mob knew that there was no chance of being caught today. Or any day in the next month or so. Not here on Kildell Holdings.

  The manager of this property had a gambling problem and wouldn’t be home. He’d be propping up the bar in the closest town of Nundrew, staring at the TAB screen and sipping on schooners until closing, when he’d make his way out onto the main street, walk to the local takeaway shop and order fish and chips before driving the one hundred kilometres home, slowly.

  Andrew Watson was the epitome of a bad manager and had been at Kildell Holdings for five years. The Highwaymen had mustered for him for all five of those years and had noticed his decline. A spiral down into the dark pit of hard work and loneliness, with no reward or recognition from his employers. That made for a certain restlessness and discord and inevitably the need for company, which included the warmth and laughter of a bar, beer and women who offered companionship for money. All of which made the property Andrew managed a prime target for the theft of cleanskin cattle.

  There was a sharp whistle and Archie, the pure-bred kelpie, emerged from the cloud of dust behind the cattle, barking at their heels as he rounded them towards the yards.

  ‘Heel! Heel!’ Bulldust called.

  The cattle, now wild-eyed at the sight of a dog, put their heads down and tried to charge him as they would a dingo. Archie was having none of that. With a snarl he launched himself towards the soft nose of the first beast, latching on for just a moment to show who was boss. Bellowing, the cow shook him off, turned and ran, with her tail in the air, shit streaming from her rear end. All he needed was the leader to turn and they would be in the yards in a few minutes flat.

  A good dog could make that happen and Archie was an excellent dog.

  ‘Heading towards you, Bill,’ Bulldust yelled into the mic on his shirt collar.

  ‘Got ’em. George and me’ll get ’em to the hessian. Rest of you right?’

  There was no time to answer because Chris called through to Bulldust and the urgency in his voice made him pull up and listen.

  ‘Mate, more cattle to your right. Approx two k away from you. Towards the western boundary. I’m going down to push them in your direction.’

  Bulldust turned his bike and headed out in a wide arc, following the chopper. The motorbike rumbled under his hands and he absorbed the impact of the bumps by loosening his arms and legs. The dust swirled about as he concentrated on nothing but the country, looking for the cattle and listening for instructions from Chris. The chopper’s bird’s-eye view made mustering so much simpler than it had been in the early days. Bulldust’s father had talked about riding horses along boundary fences and using Aboriginal trackers to find the cattle. Now a pilot was able to coordinate a muster from the air. Once he’d spotted the cattle, he’d put a call out over the radio and direct the team to them. Then the motorbikes and bull buggies would move out as instructed, find the cattle and start to circle them, mobbing them together.

  From the ground Bulldust would watch the chopper in an aerial dance—sometimes the tail would be only metres from the ground, and at other times the nose would be so close that Chris could have reached out his hand and touched the cattle if he hadn’t been hanging onto the controls so tightly.

  Initially, Bulldust hadn’t been able to find a chopper pilot. Everyone he’d contacted already had work or had said no.

  Shane had told him it wasn’t that surprising. ‘You’ve got a reputation.’

  Well, if he had a reputation for commanding loyalty, expecting the men to work hard and not taking shit from idiots, so be it. He didn’t care. What people thought of him had never concerned him.

  It had been years before when Bulldust had been leaning on the end of the bar, his hat and a beer alongside him, staring at a newcomer. He didn’t like newcomers.

  The stranger had wandered down the bar and sat alongside him. ‘What’s with your stickers?’

  Bulldust had looked at his fists. The left hand had B U L L and the right D U S T tattooed on them. His saying was: ‘You’re telling me bulldust, so I’m gonna knock it outta you.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Bulldust had asked, cracking his knuckles. Intimidation was something he did well.

  ‘Nothin’, just making conversation. Only two of us here so thought I’d be polite.’ The newcomer had raised his hands and walked back down the other end of the bar and sat on a stool with his back to him.

  That suited Bulldust. He’d drunk another two beers then asked the bartender if he’d heard of a chopper pilot who needed work.

  The blokes in the bar were always in the know, but this one didn’t have anyone in mind.

  He was beginning to get desperate. Not being able to muster would mean he would lose money, and he couldn’t afford that.

  ‘Pays to be polite,’ the newcomer had said from the other end of the bar.

  ‘What the fuck you would know?’ Bulldust had snarled as he’d picked up his hat and stood up. He knew he cut a threatening figure; that was how he kept his men dedicated to him.

  Standing at six foot five and weighing one hundred and fifteen kilos meant he packed a mean punch when he got pissed off. Bulldust had walked slowly and purposely down to the end of the bar, his thick neck tinged an angry red. ‘I asked you a question.’

  The newcomer had slowly stood up and tried to look him in the eye, but Bulldust had towered over him.

  ‘Because I’m a chopper pilot looking for work, but I guess I won’t be flying for you.’ The stranger had thrown a ten-dollar note on the bar for his drink and walked out into the glaring Queensland sun, then got into a Toyota ute and driven away.

  ‘Fuck,’ Bulldust had said, and jammed his hat on his head and walked out too.

  Three days later, the same two blokes were back in the pub and this time Bulldust was the one asking the questions.

  ‘Flown choppers in the top of Western Australia and Northern Territory,’ Chris had told him. ‘Been a ringer for six years before that.’

  To Bulldust that had been the most important piece of information. It meant the chopper pilot understood cattle, the way they worked and where they would hide. Chris had told him that he’d patiently worked his way up from the bottom of the stock camp to a bull buggy driver, to a motorbike rider and then on to a mustering team.

  Bulldust had hired him on the spot but it had been a long time before he’d trusted him enough to let him into the extracurricular activities of the Highwaymen.

  Chris was now one of his most dependable employees.

  ‘Mate, I reckon we’ve got as many as we’re goin’ to get today,’ Chris called over the two-way. ‘I
’ll come in behind this lot you’re on and give you a hand.’

  ‘Been over to the other side of the hill?’

  ‘Yeah, boss, and out into the Crown land. Can’t see any tracks or anything, so nothing’s been through the fence recently. This is them.’

  Bulldust didn’t answer; he was concentrating on a cow that had just calved. She was sizing him up to have a go at him.

  ‘Steady there, little lady,’ he muttered. ‘You can stay there, ’cause you’ll just slow us down.’ The calf looked only hours old and was still wobbly on his legs. Carefully he went out and around the cow, keeping an eye over his shoulder as he passed. It would be just like a new mum to come at him from behind. Their mothering instincts were strong, especially out here in the open country where they had to protect their young against wild dogs and pigs.

  He revved the bike and pulled away, listening as a round of yelling and encouragement erupted from George and Bill. They were bringing up one side, with the helicopter coming in from the other, as the tailenders ran into the hessian wings of the portable yards.

  Bulldust ditched his bike, as did Bill, and ran in behind the cattle to slam the gates before they realised they were trapped.

  The men gathered, covered in sweat and dust, slapping each other on the back for a job well done. A swirl of dust rose into the sky as Chris landed the helicopter in a nearby clearing. Within seconds the whomp, whomp, whomp stopped and the noise was replaced by the cattle bellowing and calling to find their calves from which they’d been separated on the run-in.

  ‘All good?’ George asked from the driver’s seat of the bull buggy.

  ‘Yeah, mate. Got ’em.’

  Bulldust took a long pull of water from his CamelBak and gave the thumbs-up to Chris. ‘Good job,’ he told them all.

  ‘Drafting now?’ Bill wanted to know.

  ‘Take ten. Have a bite to eat, I just need to track Larry down and find out where he is. Can’t let the cows outta the yards until we can load the calves on the truck.’ He wasn’t telling his crew anything they didn’t already know.

  Bulldust went to over to his ute, which was parked under a tree near the front of the yards. A trailer was hitched to the tow ball, and as soon as the truck was loaded they’d wheel their bikes into the trailer and head for the closest pub.