Jessica (3 page)

To bag her haul, she must kill four more with her second shot. It's tricky stuff, she must judge it finely, so that when she fires the first shot at the two mulgas, the four snakes three feet to the left must already be in the process of rising. The blast from the second barrel must reach them at the height of their dance with their underjaws exposed to the birdshot.

Jessica knows she will have to shoot fast, empty the two barrels almost as if a single explosion. Six snakes must be left writhing in the grey river dust, too stupid to know they are already dead, taken care of in the name of the black hen and her stolen chicks.

She now sees the pattern she needs, sees it forming, the two large mulgas swaying high, then four more snakes to her left beginning to rise. Two Eastern browns and another mulga and a carpet snake, all of them hopefully contained within the sweep of a double-barrel shot.

In the one sure movement she swings the heavy shotgun up to her shoulder and fires, the second blast following almost instantly. The kick from the double explosion knocks her backwards into a large clump of scrub.

‘Bloody hell!' she yells, still holding onto the shotgun with its barrel now pointed into the heavens above. The galahs and cockatoos take to the air in a raucous pink and white mass. The cicadas go silent, their collective hum cut as though sliced cleanly with a sharp knife. The twin echoes of the shotgun blasts race across the river and over the flat country beyond to disappear over the horizon, sucked up into the dark maw of the approaching twilight.

Jessica reaches frantically into the pocket of her pinny for the spare cartridge. She grabs at it and grips it between her teeth, at the same time scrambling from the bush into clear ground, though she's still up to her knees in scrub. Panting with fear, she breaks the shotgun and expels the casings. A curl of gun smoke still issues from the hot breech. She drops the spent cartridges into her pocket, then takes the live cartridge from between her teeth and pushes it home, snapping the breech shut. Trying to stay calm she positions the butt of the shotgun between her feet and with both thumbs again pulls the hammer back. Her heart beats furiously, she can barely hear for the drumming sound it makes in her chest.

She knows what she's doing is almost useless. If she's killed the partner of one of the mulgas or Eastern browns now fleeing from the vibrations of the blast, it will come back for her. Or if she's in the way of a fleeing snake she'll be long bitten before she's got the bloody shotgun in place. She can hear Joe's words in her head: ‘A brown will hunt you down, stalk you all the way home. If it's cranky there'll be no stopping it. If you've shot one of them mongrels, always keep a fresh shot up the spout for its mate, girlie.'

Jessica forces back her fear and makes herself face the river bank, knowing there must be snakes all about her, expecting one to rear up at any moment. An Eastern brown strikes high in an S shape, and could come up out of the scrub to her left or right any second. She waits a few seconds longer, holding the shotgun at the ready, then she runs for the path up from the river. Reaching the path she begins the half-mile walk back to the homestead, trying to keep a steady pace, looking back over her shoulder every few moments. It is only when she is well away from the river and clear of the scrub, with open country about her, that Jessica slows down and she releases the hammer from the firing position so that it seats back into safety. Then she carefully lowers the shotgun, and brings her hand up to rub her painful right shoulder.

Jessica knows only too well what the kick from a twelve-bore feels like. She's padded her right shoulder with a cunningly fashioned pin-cushion contraption which has a looped tape sewn to one end and two tapes to the corners of the other. The loop fits around her neck with the two further tapes, one pulled under her armpit and tied to the other at the top of her shoulder. Tied in this manner the cushion fits snugly into the curve of her shoulder to protect her right breast and collarbone.

The kick from the first barrel must have pushed the padding up above her collarbone and she's received the second blast fair and square in her chest. In a week's time a purple patch of broken blood vessels the size of a man's hand will have spread across her right shoulder and breast.

‘Milking's gunna be a bugger,' she sighs ruefully, gingerly rubbing her damaged shoulder with the tips of her fingers. It could be worse, though, she could've broken her collarbone. If she had, Joe would call her a useless bludger trying to get out of her fair share. He'd want to know what she was doing with the shotgun. She couldn't lie to him. Couldn't lie anyway. Then he'd go mad about her going down to the river at sunset. ‘Revenge? What for? Six flamin' new-hatched chicks? Jesus Christ, girlie, you got pig shit for brains, eh?' He doesn't hit her now she's grown up, but Jessica knows he'd be well within his rights to do so if she told him about hunting the snakes with both barrels.

Anyway, Jessica's done what she said she would. For the moment she doesn't care what Joe thinks, or even about her bruised shoulder. ‘Gotcha, you slimy bastards!' she yells back in the direction of the river bank, where, in her mind's eye, the serpents lie twisting and writhing in their last dance by the river.

T
he six dead snakes will be easy pickings for the crows and the kookaburras in the morning.
In c
ountry where snake eats bird and bird eats snake, and snake eats snake and bird eats bird, nothing that hunts gets a free feed too often.

Jessica remembers how, when she was little and Joe killed a snake or a fox, or some other vermin, mostly rabbits, he'd call it a shotgun feed. ‘Everything lives off everything else, girlie. That's the way of the world. It's you or them. It's damned hard work getting enough tucker to feed your family.' He grinned and then continued, ‘So I give mother nature a bit of a helping hand, see, give ‘em a shotgun feed every once in a while and I reckon, in their own way, they're grateful to me.'

‘Not if you're the free feed!' Jessica remembers replying, pleased that she'd made her father laugh.

Joe's made regular attempts to tell Jessica about the dog-eat-dog world she lives in, to prepare her for a life which he describes as ‘a bloody nightmare most of the time'. She isn't too worried, though, despite his dire warnings. Joe has trained her well, teaching her everything he knows. Isn't that how things are measured? You can or you can't. If you can't you're a useless bastard. If you can, you'll just about do. That's how men judge things. You have to be their equal. Men always look to see if you're their equal. The only thing they fear is if you are better than they are. On the other hand, in her experience, nobody thinks you're much chop if you're the equal of any other woman.

But Jessica thinks she can see why life is tough for these men, for Joe. Her father is stubborn and set in his ways and she's beginning to think the mighty Joe Bergman might not be a very good farmer. He is seldom willing to listen to advice and always knows better than the experts. Mind you, that goes for most of the blokes who farm land settlements in the Riverina. Men in the bush are so busy playing at being God, at having dominion over all they see and touch, that they never listen to the natural voice of the land. Or anyone else's voice, fur that matter.

The government agricultural officer gives talks up at the experimental station about soil erosion and the need to keep hedges of box-leaf wattle or desert cassia as windbreaks on the margins of the paddocks and to leave some mulga scrub for the wildlife and to fertilise the soil. He talks about crop rotation and water conservation and other things Jessica thinks Joe ought to know about.

‘It's cattle and sheep with us, girlie. Land was always here, always will be. Don't need to bother yer head with them things,' Joe says stubbornly.

Jessica goes with Jack Thomas and some of the young blokes with half a brain in their heads to listen to the lectures. Now she's beginning to think there might be other, better ways of treating the land and using the river than just waging constant war against it, stripping it bare, ripping open its guts, hoping like hell the rains will come in time to save the winter wheat or the paddock of oats. But still Joe says those government bastards wouldn't know how to grow a cabbage in a bucket full of wet cow shit.

Jack Thomas has talked to her about irrigation, about the big canal at Yanco they've built that's going to change everything in the Riverina.

‘Imagine, Jessie,' Jack says, his blue eyes lighting up his sun-hardened face, ‘you're no longer dependent on the rain that never bloody comes. The soil's good, we know that from the land below the river — give it water and the desert blooms.'

Jessica likes that, the idea of the desert blooming, the black soil plains green as far as the eye can see. If Meg manages to snare Jack Thomas she'll have a good one, all right. Pity Jessica can't warn him about her cow-faced sister.

Jessica turns to take a last look back towards the deserted river bank. A soft haze of grey river dust still hangs in the air where the snakes danced. The orchestra of fowl and insect is back, the birds squabbling away in the river gums, each one trying to have the last word, using up the last rays of the sun to drive home their noisy arguments before darkness comes.

Jessica swings the shotgun up, holding it halfway down the barrel so that the weight of the stock rests on her good shoulder, and continues her walk home in the approaching dark, happy because there's no hurry tonight. No tea to endure with Hester and Meg looking on sour-faced and disapproving as she and Joe scoff down their dinner, too exhausted to talk. ‘Like pigs in a trough, those two!' Her mother says it so often that Joe now faithfully responds, ‘Oink, oink!'

Hester's Auntie Agnes died recently, and Joe has taken Hester and Meg into Whitton for the reading of her last will and testament. Jessica doesn't expect them back for four days. Hester hopes to benefit in terms of two Irish linen tablecloths and a few pieces of silver, this booty comprising Auntie Agnes's famous silver tea service which, Hester declares, will be the centrepiece of Meg's glory box when she marries young Jack.

Jessica laughs to herself. She's been mates with Jack for four years now, and all this time Hester and Meg have been plotting the marriage. She can't really see that they're any closer to it, though, tea set or no tea set.

Jessica first became friends with Jack Thomas at the age of fourteen, when Joe took her to Riverview Station at the start of the shearing season in early July of 1910.

Most of the small settlers who can manage the work head for the shearing shed at Riverview during the season. George Thomas's big sheep station carries eleven thousand merinos not counting the two thousand lambs towards the end of the season and the burly squatter takes on fourteen shearers to do the job. He'll give every local man who applies an hour without pay on the shearing board, each going full swing, to see if he's up to the tally the foreman's set for the season.

George Thomas doesn't believe in charity and if a local man can't reach a daily tally expected from a top contract shearer he's weeded out and sent packing. It's a popular laugh that by the end of the local trials Thomas has a couple of days' worth of free shearing to his credit. George Thomas has never been known to do anything where there wasn't a solid quid in it for him. Joe's taken young Jessica along with him to the cut, hoping that Mike Malloy the foreman will accept her to be trained as a rouseabout. If she gets the work, it's another income they'll be able to rely upon for eight weeks every year.

The start of the shearing season is always an anxious time for the small farmers who depend on those two months in the big shed to get them through. If George Thomas throws one of them out it'll mean a lean year for the family. Joe's never missed the cut, even though he is a good bit older than most of the local men. Now he's depending on his past record to persuade Mike Malloy to take Jessica on as a tar boy and sweeper, the first job a boy learns coming into a big shed.

Even though it was four years ago, Jessica can still recall almost everything about that first day. Big, tough old Joe, trying to look at ease, his taut muscles and awkward stance giving away how tense he was, how much he wanted her to succeed, but without him having to beg to get her the job. Standing in front of them was the foreman, a hard-looking man, though a little soft in the stomach and with a complexion scarred from childhood smallpox. His cheeks look purple and pink and raw and sore as he frowns slightly, listening to what Joe has to say. Then his first words: ‘Joe, I dunno, mate, it's pretty unusual.' Rubbing the side of his nose with his forefinger, ‘Shearin' shed ain't no place for a young girl, the men swearing an' all.'

Joe gives a little nervous laugh, at the same time wiping the palms of his sweaty hands down the side of his moleskins. ‘Won't be nothing she ain't heard from her old man.'

The foreman scratches his forehead just under the rim of his hat. ‘It ain't just her, the men ain't gunna feel, y'know, free to express themselves. Jeez mate, I dun no,' he repeats and then glances down at Jessica. ‘She ain't too big neither.'

Joe pushes Jessica forward. ‘She's just a brat yet. She can start as a tar boy, learn the trade. Don't need size for that, do you? She don't look no different to a boy and I'll wager she'll work harder than all of them little buggers.'

‘Yeah, but—'

‘Mr Malloy, what with the Wolseley engine and the wool press, there's such a racket going on she won't hear a flaming word unless they cup their hands and shout it down her earhole. It's just noise in there. If she does a good job they'll soon enough forget she's a girl and if she don't measure up she'll get the flick same as anyone else.' Jessica can sense Joe trying to keep calm, trying not to plead with the foreman. ‘Just give the girlie a chance to prove herself, Mr Malloy.'Mike Malloy looks at Joe. ‘Mate, I'd like to, we've worked together a long time, but I don't think it's within me authority t'hire a sheila. I'll need to ask Mr Thomas.' He frowns, thinking of something else. ‘What about when she's taking her dinner with the men?'

‘She'll manage, Mr Malloy, she'll be sitting right next to her daddy.'

The foreman laughs — it's a fair enough answer. Joe Bergman is still a big man and has earned a lot of respect with his fists in the past. There's not too many in the shed will truck with him even now he's getting to be an old bastard. Mike Malloy sighs. ‘I'll speak to the owner, Joe. That's all I can promise. Fair enough?'

Joe nods, though he's not too happy. Jessica knows that he didn't want to involve George Thomas.

They are kept waiting outside the tally clerk's office for two hours before the owner finally appears, Mike Malloy beside him. George Thomas is a smallish barrel of a man with a big gut and a very red face, and even with him wearing a hat you know he must be bald on top. He's dressed up to the nines, wearing riding boots, jodhpurs, a tweed jacket and tie. Jessica wonders if he's off to a meeting or the races or something until Joe tells her later that's how owners dress in the shearing season. ‘This your girl, Joe?' he asks, pointing a stubby finger at Jessica.

Joe touches the brim of his hat, too proud to lift it off his head altogether. ‘Afternoon Mr Thomas, sir,' he says and puts his big hand on Jessica's shoulder. ‘Jessica, this is Mr Thomas.'

George Thomas grunts, ignoring the greeting. ‘This isn't girl's work, Joe.' He turns to Jessica. ‘What do you know about sheep, eh?'

Jessica keeps her eyes on her boots, and answers shyly, ‘A bit, sir.'

‘A bit? A bit isn't enough, lass. Can you shear?' It's a cruel question, Jessica is plainly too small to handle a fully grown ewe. ‘If it's a lamb, sir,' she replies, looking up at George Thomas for the first time.

‘Hmm. Can you crutch? Tar? Sweep? Pick up and throw a fleece?'

‘The first three, sir. I reckon I'll be able to do the other when I've grow'd a bit and they've learned me.' Jessica holds George Thomas's eyes for a moment then looks down at her boots again. ‘She's a good worker,' Joe mumbles.

‘She's a cheeky young bugger,' the boss of Riverview Station replies. ‘Got all the answers. If you ask me, she's too clever for her own good.'

Joe stiffens, not knowing how to take the remark, but Thomas doesn't seem to notice. ‘Joe Bergman, you've been shearing in my shed for fifteen years and I've no quarrel with your work. I know you haven't a boy of your own to help, but .. .'

Joe cuts in quickly, ‘I wouldn't take a boy in her place, sir. The girl's a damn sight better than any lad her age.'

George Thomas is unimpressed. He's not the sort to take notice of other folks' opinions. ‘It's putting temptation in the way of the men, I don't like it.'Joe looks surprised — the idea that Jessica might be a temptation to men hasn't entered his head. ‘I'll be in the shed meself, Mr Thomas, keeping a sharp eye on her.' ‘Hummph!' George Thomas thinks a moment and then seems to make up his mind. ‘We'll put her in with Jack and young William Simon, it's their first full season on the shears.'

Joe smiles. ‘She'll do you proud, sir.'

The owner of Riverview now turns to Jessica. ‘You'll be the tar boy and sweep for the two lads. Jack's my son and he'll probably make a mess of things, always does, but young Billy's a good boy and he'll teach you or throw you out, one or the other, I don't much care which. I hope you know what you're doing, Joe,' he says, prodding him in the chest with his forefinger. ‘She'll get no special treatment, mind.'

‘Don't expect none, do we, Jessie?' Joe says, gripping her shoulder and trying to hide his pleasure.

‘Well, there's one you'll get right off, girl. You'll take your dinner at the big house with my girls, though I don't know that it's much of a favour at that.' He turns to Joe. ‘I don't want her eating with the men in the shearers' quarters.'

‘There's no need, Mr Thomas, we couldn't put your missus out. She can sit with me, we'll bring our own tucker,' Joe protests.

‘Like hell you will, Joe. The shearing shed's one thing, the shearers' quarters another. I don't want her eating there, it'll make the men jumpy.'

‘Too right,' Mike Malloy adds, ‘I said that me self.'

Joe shrugs, none too happy. ‘If you say so, Mr Thomas.'