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  Lloyd was different, he was real big and strong, which made him handy, but Dad reckoned you had to watch him because he wasn’t too bright and he had a quick temper. He was newer to Timber Creek. He arrived not long before Jonny’s accident and was a Top Ender – that meant his parents lived somewhere up near Darwin. Our neighbours, the Crofts, who have a station fifty miles east of ours, had heard from a friend of a friend that Lloyd was looking for work and suggested Dad took him on. At the time Dad wasn’t sure about it. He didn’t like old Dick Croft sticking his beak into our affairs. Dad reckoned we were doing OK, but Mum said she reckoned Dad was working too hard and it would be good for Elliot to have a mate on the station. She reckoned it was lonely for Elliot. Dad agreed and said he didn’t want to lose Elliot, he reckoned he was worth his weight in gold. So Dad thought about it a bit, and after he met Lloyd, I guess he reckoned he’d be handy to have around. And then after Jonny’s accident, we were kind of a man down, so I reckon Dad was real glad he’d taken Lloyd on.

  The Crofts had been my family’s friends and neighbours for years and years. They ran a cattle station called Gold River, which was on the eastern side of our land. Emily once asked Dick why his granddad had called it that. He hesitated for a while and said, ‘Well, I guess my granddad was an optimist.’ Later Emily said, ‘Danny, what does an optimist do?’

  All the rivers near us had been dry for so long because of the drought, they were all a kind of gold colour like the rest of the desert. Maybe there’d been a drought back then too.

  My great-granddad bought Timber Creek Station after the last owner, Arthur Simpson, died in 1930. Ever since then, Dad said, there’d been Dawsons and Crofts working side-by-side to make a living off the desert. Before my granddad, Alex Dawson, died, he’d been good mates with Dick Croft. Dick was real nice, but he’d got lanky now, like someone had dressed a dead tree. He rattled, as though a pea had got stuck in his breath, and when he talked he wheezed like I did if I ran around the yards chasing a steer – only Dick didn’t have an inhaler to make it stop. I once asked Dick’s son, Greg, what was up with his dad; he just said: ‘Too many smokes.’

  Greg smoked. He was a real hoot. Once he told us this joke: What’s the difference between a gin and a dog shit? One eventually turns white and loses its smell. We all died. After Jonny’s funeral, Greg gave me a hat. It was real smart: leather. He said it was time I started dressing like a proper stockman. He’d picked it up in Alice when he’d met with his mates. They’d had a wild time. There’d been a fight and one of his mates had been banged up.

  Aunty Veronica, my mum’s sister, once said it was time Greg found himself a good woman. I dunno what for. Greg ran Gold River cattle station with his sister Mary’s husband, Ron. Dick was too old and crook to work much. He had a girlfriend called Penny who looked after him. He met her in a roadhouse. She was younger than Dick and had real yellow hair. Mum said it came out of a bottle. I dunno where Dick’s old wife Mavis was. No one really talked about her. Mum said Mavis ran off with some fella from Katherine when Greg and Mary were kids. That meant Dick had to run the station and look after them all by himself. Gold River was bigger than Timber Creek too. I guess Dick was real glad when he met Penny – it meant he didn’t have to do everything himself any more. When I said that to Dad, he nodded and said he reckoned Penny would put the smile back on any fella’s face.

  Greg’s sister, Mary, didn’t say much, but Mum reckoned she was real nice. And everyone liked her husband Ron. When they got married, the Crofts had a big barbecue. There was loads of food and a band. We all stayed up real late. Even Emily.

  The Crofts had been great after what happened with Jonny and everything, but they had their own cattle station to run and we couldn’t rely on them to help us all the time. I heard Mum saying to Dad how she was worried about how we were going to cope. She was talking about the future and how things were going to be different with the baby coming and no Jonny. I guess everyone had been waiting for Jonny to finish school and start work on the station. He was going to be Dad’s right-hand man. I felt sore about that – I knew I was younger and with me going to school in Alice, it meant I wouldn’t be around as much, but I still knew a lot about running the station. Part of me wanted to scream at them so they remembered I was there, and the other part of me wanted to never speak to them ever again. But then Mum said something that made me feel even worse. She said she needed an extra pair of hands to look after the house and the young ones. She never called Jonny or Sissy young when they were thirteen. She told Dad she needed a house girl and he said OK.

  Three

  HOUSE GIRL NEEDED. That’s what it said in big red letters on the piece of card Mum was writing. Underneath, she put: Job includes: cooking, cleaning, feeding chooks, pigs and calves, and looking after three children aged 7 to 14 on a Tanami Desert Cattle Station. Board and lodging provided. Fair rate of pay. If you’re interested, give us a call.

  Dad had said she should put a position vacant in the backpackers’ hostel at Alice Springs. He said, ‘One of those young Pommies might just be dumb enough to want to work for us.’ There are a lot of Pommies in Australia; travelling round, looking for work, and Dad reckoned you could pay them peanuts.

  I reckoned it was a dumb idea. If Sissy couldn’t go back to school, I thought she should help out more, then we wouldn’t have to hire a Pommie house girl. I didn’t want some Pommie living at the station, working for us. I didn’t want anyone new there, making everything feel strange. It was bad enough all the baby stuff without someone new as well.

  Mum had to take Sissy to the hospital in Alice because of the baby. She said Sissy needed to have a scan, so while she was there, she was going to put the job advert up on the notice board at a couple of backpackers’ – they were the places where the Pommies stayed. She reckoned one of them might read it and phone up.

  Because Timber Creek is a fair way from Alice, whenever anyone needs to go into town, they always have a list of things to get, and we always phone the Crofts to see if they need anything too. The list can include just about anything you can think of. There’s always food on it – fresh stuff we run out of first, like fruit and veggies, but there are other things, like spare tyres, parts for the generator, feed for the calves, worming tablets or bullets for the rifles. You name it.

  Normally me and Emily wouldn’t have had to go, but this time Mum reckoned we needed new shoes. I didn’t want to go shopping; I wanted to stay at the station with Dad and the fellas. Usually I’d have been given one of Jonny’s old pairs of boots to wear, but I dunno where his last pair went. I didn’t want to ask anyone about that. I told Mum my boots were OK. A shopping trip to Alice with a bunch of girls was the last thing I wanted. I said she could just bring me a pair back, but she reckoned they were too expensive to risk getting the wrong size. The only good thing about it was it meant we’d get a couple of days off school.

  While we were away, Bobbie had agreed to look after the house and the animals at the station. We had chooks, so we always had eggs; a few pigs for bacon; and the poddy calves that had been orphaned in the desert, we hand reared. They were all kept in sties, coops and pens around the edge of the station. The house was in the middle, with the yard at the back. At the front there was Mum’s garden. It was pretty big – you could play cricket in it. It had a lawn, which was a bit bald and burned by the sun and round the edge there were a few plants. Mum was real proud of them. She called them survivors on account of how they were still living despite the drought. We’d had hardly any rain for ages, so we couldn’t afford to use the hose to water the garden any more. Instead Mum tipped the dirty water from the washing-up bowl onto the ground.

  Mum had put the trailer on the back because we knew we would get too much stuff to fit it all inside the car. Driving all the way to town with a trailer on the back meant it’d take even longer than normal – at least four hours. Most of the journey was on the desert roads, which were just dirt tracks really. You don’t get onto the Stuart Highwa
y until you’re just a few miles from town.

  Sissy was oldest, so she got to ride in the front with Mum. I reckoned we should toss a coin, but before I could even get into an argument about it, Mum shouted at me, ‘Just be quiet and get in the back, will you?’ I tried to explain I hadn’t even done anything wrong, but Mum didn’t let me get my words out. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ she asked.

  Mum wasn’t like that before Jonny’s accident. We used to go places and do things. Sometimes we all went to Clear Water Dam to swim, or we all watched the TV together. Mum would wheel the TV into the dining room on a trolley so it sat at the opposite end of the table to Dad, like another person. It was something we always did on Sundays so we could watch this Pommie show called Last of the Summer Wine – it was one of our favourites. But after the accident, that didn’t happen any more. I guess no one wanted to laugh at the TV if Jonny couldn’t join in too.

  As we bounced along the dirt roads I watched the desert change from sandy ground, covered in tufts of spinifex grass, to rocky outcrops where everything was brown and orange and dry. After a while it changed again to patches of yellow earth between scruffy-looking witchetty bushes and gum trees. The sun was high as we overtook a big red kangaroo. It was all on its own and I wondered where it was going.

  Sissy had hardly said a word for what felt like weeks, but Emily made up for it. As we drove along, she must have asked a million questions about what the doctor would do to Sissy in hospital, what a scan was, how long it would take, if she’d have to have an operation and if she’d die. When she asked that, Mum stopped the car and turned round to talk to Emily. I thought about opening the door, jumping out and running away from them all, back to the station. I dunno what stopped me. As I kept my eyes fixed on the desert outside I listened to Mum telling Emily no one was going to die. ‘Sissy’s having a baby – the doctors just want to have a look and make sure the baby’s growing properly. That’s all.’

  I was sat behind Sissy and I watched a tear fall off her cheek and run down the seat belt. Crying again. My heart thumped and I thought my chest was going to explode, but I waited until the car started moving before I took my inhaler out of my pocket and sucked on it.

  As we hit the Stuart Highway, the sound of the tyres changed. They sounded lighter. I felt my chest loosen – like I could breathe again. As we cruised into Alice, it felt a bit like we were somewhere completely new. I’ve never been overseas, but I reckon it felt a bit like we were in another country. There were tourists everywhere. They were easy to spot with their shiny sunnies. They all seemed to be wearing white shorts, vests and thongs. There was the odd Blackfella bumming around too, begging or getting into the grog. As we drove out of town, past the creek, where the Blackfellas camped, I felt a bit excited. It’d been a while since we’d seen Aunty Ve – only once or maybe twice since the funeral.

  I liked Aunty Ve, but she looked kind of bad. Her head was the only normal bit of her body, it poked out like a cherry on top of the rest of her. Her body made a shape like a big tear. When she opened the door and walked down to the car, it looked like there were parts of her body that had a life of their own. They were moving in a different direction to the one she was going in. The thin dress she had on looked too weak for everything she had underneath it. She had swollen, flabby, scabby ankles, which overflowed from her shoes, as though her legs were melting into them like candle wax. As her breath heaved and sucked at the air, she pulled a hanky out from her dress sleeve and dabbed at the sweat on her face, like it was only in small patches. ‘Thank God for air con,’ she giggled in-between gasps. It was like she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Aunty Ve reckoned we had perfect timing because she had just taken some cakes out of the oven. It was funny because I don’t think I’d ever arrived at Aunty Ve’s when there wasn’t something real tasty just about to come out of the oven. She smiled and put her hand on Sissy’s face as she asked how she was. I reckoned Sissy would start to blub again, but she didn’t. She just shrugged. That’s when Aunty Ve said, ‘It’ll all be OK, you know?’

  When Mum and Sissy came back from the hospital they had a little black-and-white picture that was meant to be of the baby – but it was rubbish. Sissy showed it to Aunty Ve who said she thought it was marvellous – the first glimpse of the next generation. Mum showed it to me and Emily. She kept pointing to where she said the baby’s head was – but I reckoned she’d got it wrong. It was just a load of black and grey blobs – there was no way that was a picture of a baby. I told her I reckoned there must have been something wrong with the camera or they’d printed it wrong. They all laughed, but I knew Dad would agree with me when he saw it.

  After we had dinner, Mum, Sissy and Emily went to the supermarket to get all the food we needed, while Aunty Ve and me went to the backpackers’ to put the job advert on the notice board.

  Inside the backpackers’ there was a big mob of people coming and going with these big bags on their backs. There were some more watching TV in the next room and a few playing cards outside while they drank beer. I reckoned they were the Pommies Dad talked about. He said most of them were lazy bastards. I guess he was right, so it made me wonder why we wanted one to work for us.

  Aunty Ve stuck the job advert in the middle of the board, between an advert for a car someone was trying to sell and a notice asking for people to share a trip to Uluru – that’s what the Blackfellas call Ayers Rock.

  The next day, after we’d been to buy new shoes and stock up on a load of vehicle parts Dad had ordered, we said goodbye to Aunty Ve. She packed us off with enough cakes and food to keep us going for weeks, which was just as well because Sissy was hungry all the time. Mum reckoned it was because she was eating for two. Two big elephants, I guess.

  Four

  We were all eating dinner one night a few weeks later, when the phone rang. It was the cops. They’d found a baby camel and didn’t know what to do with it, so they’d phoned Dad to see if he had any ideas. Dad said he’d think about it and call them back. I dunno why, but as soon as I heard that, I shouted out that I’d have it. Dad raised his eyebrows and I thought I might be in trouble, but then he shrugged, looked at Mum and said, ‘Well, it might be good for him – a new pet.’ Mum shook her head and said, ‘No way – they have enough calves as it is. It’s a camel, not a toy.’

  Dad followed her into the kitchen and they had what sounded a bit like a row about it. When Dad came back on his own, he sat down at the table and looked straight at me. He said that if we did get the camel, it would be my responsibility, so I had to think hard about it. I said I wanted the camel. He shook his head and said I hadn’t really thought about it, not properly. He reckoned it was a big commitment. Much bigger than the poddies. He said that if I didn’t train the camel it’d be dangerous and it would have to be shot. He said we would talk again in the morning.

  As I lay in bed, I could hardly breathe. I was scared and excited all at once. I thought about what Jonny would do and wondered if he’d been watching from heaven – or maybe that’s just a story, like with the tooth fairy or Father Christmas. I dunno. The house creaked against the quiet. There was no one around, they were all in bed. I sat up and looked out of the window. It was real dark, there was no moon. I heard a cow somewhere in the distance as I threw off the doona and went into the dining room to touch Jonny’s picture. It was so late. As I looked at him I felt kind of happy, I guess. It had been ages since I’d felt happy about anything much. It was like I knew I was going to get the camel. Like it was already mine.

  As we ate breakfast I waited for Dad to ask me about the camel. I waited and waited. He talked to Elliot about a borehole that needed checking, he told Mum to take his ute to work so he could fix the oil pipe on the Ford, he asked Lloyd if he would go to Gum Tree Dam and look at the water level. The whole time I sat and waited. Dad tipped what I knew would be his last mouthful of coffee down his throat. That meant he was about to leave the table and go to work. I wanted to say something, but before I co
uld, Emily shouted out, ‘What about Danny’s camel?’ I didn’t know whether to hit her or smile at her. Dad looked at Mum and then at me. He said it depended on what I thought and if I wanted the responsibility. I looked him in the eye and said I reckoned I could handle it.

  Two days later, Bobbie let us all out of school early because the cops showed up with a horse trailer with that little camel inside. We knew they were coming, so all morning we’d been listening out for them. I reckon Bobbie had got real sick of it. She knew none of us really had our minds on her lesson.

  Dad came out from one of the sheds and shook the cop’s hand. Then the cop lowered the tailgate and there was this gangly-looking thing inside. Its head was way too big for the rest of its body and its legs were too long and too thin – I dunno how it managed to stand up. Its eyes were enormous and when it opened its mouth I was surprised by the noise it made, it was more like a sheep. I heard the cop say to Dad, ‘It’s only a baby, but it kicks like a bastard.’ I wasn’t scared. I took the rope, which was tied around its neck and fastened to a hook on the side. I unhooked it and carefully led him down the ramp. The cop said, ‘Be careful, son.’ I reckoned he didn’t know what he was talking about, until the little camel reared up and nearly knocked my head off.

  Dad grabbed the camel from me and kicked him real hard. He said I had to get a stick and flog him each time he reared up until I’d knocked it out of him. ‘You have to remember he’s real feral. You’ve got to show him who’s boss – you understand?’ I nodded.