The Never Boys

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Imprint Page

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

An Author's Cut

By the Same Author

Biography

Dying on the Nullarbor Plain, the final emergency flare burned down to a spluttering stub, leaving midnight once more to close on the saltbush and railway tracks. A pair of leather boots ran along the gravel until they were forced to a blind stop. Size nines, they hesitated, creaked with a curled toe, twisted slightly then continued forward after a replacement flare bounced behind the left heel. Before long, another hissed, then another until a new line of red signals traced the sleepers back to the police blockade.

Wearing a khaki uniform, sidearm and scribble of insects, the constable paused to search for the horizon. Again, he was amazed how shapeless the night looked out there. He breathed deeply. He smelt the dryness, the loam, the spear-grass and, faintly, the wildflowers. All pleasing, granted, but nothing compared to a soft bed, a straining fan and the soapy lavender of his wife's neck.

He slapped at a bloodsucker, missed, then turned towards the blockade of four-wheel drives parked across the tracks. Typical, he sighed, spotting the other constables, hats dipped below their eyes. Only their sergeant, fresh from the city, was alert though she might as well have been asleep. The only noise coming from the satellite phone was static.

A bored kick ricocheted a spent flare into the bluebush. It scared a pipit from nesting then an entire chorus of birds. But rather than their shrills drifting away, they were replaced by a sharper, more ominous sound: steel shaving steel.

The train!

At first it was just a constellation of headlights. But as the tracks and sleepers began to hum underfoot, he realised even standing this far away wouldn't be safe enough.

Four thousand tonnes of metal shrieked as the eastbound continental freighter tried to brake. Horns blasted and carriages shuddered as the first of two flares arced high and starburst over all eighteen hundred metres of its length. Panels, couplings, grates and bolts rattled and shook. Wheels sparked. Engines moaned. Hundreds of kilometres of momentum continued to push, war and skid. The satellite phone slammed down. Police snapped
awake. Doors
whumped
shut as the officers formed a haphazard line.

It wasn't going to stop. It wasn't going to stop!

Then death.

With one final shriek, the freighter collapsed less than thirty metres in front of the blockade. ‘Well?' the young sergeant yelled. ‘Go!'

Constables raced along both sides of the train, hooking on handrails and throwing open carriages. Shadows were frightened from corners at torchpoint, roofs scaled, tarpaulins skinned and coal hoppers banged. Dry ice spilled from refrigeration cars and rusty sea air from shipping containers. Only the sergeant held back. The two drivers yelled and argued with her until she threatened to have them both arrested. One sat, one stood. Crackling red embers bobbed in their mouths as they laughed at the raid. Let 'em learn the hard way. Freighters this size took twenty minutes to walk end to end, let alone search.

Binkle! Bink! Bink!

The cops stiffened. They ran to a triple deck wagon stacked with new cars, the sergeant arriving first. The constables pushed her for an answer until she stretched to full height to throw away the rusted peach tin. Nothing. Unless the kid had grown a tail.

Then there was a two-fingered whistle and a call of ‘Sarge!'

The constable hung one-handed from a carriage further along, excited about his find: food wrappers, drink bottles, AA batteries discarded like mouse scat, and by the door — a guitar case still cradling its instrument.

No order; none needed. The cops broke the blockade. Glassy-eyed creatures fled before their four-wheel drives as the hunt moved to the scrub and darkness pressed in on the freighter once again. All that was left were two red embers, still burning with contempt.

But the drivers weren't alone. Hidden in the saltbush, a safe distance away, a boy with long brown hair pushed himself off his stomach and ran into oblivion.

Wednesday afternoon ended with the smell of burning blue gums. It was just a whiff at first; lost among the spring winds twisting along the dry creeks from the Barossa Valley. But soon it grew denser and the skies above the Murray Plains turned orange. Further up the highway, a window fogged with faces as the unmistakable sound of a Country Fire Service siren wailed. Teaspoons bounced in a sink and the homestead's screen door slapped open. One look east confirmed everyone's fear and the owner yanked the tail of a fire bell. Suddenly, the veranda was thick with shearers and rouseabouts hopping into their boots and coveralls.

In all the rush, a teenage boy arrived at the sheep station unnoticed. His only acknowledgement of the fire came when a spotter plane swooped low and left him cringing. Physically, there wasn't a lot to him. He was sunstruck, slack-shouldered and languishing.
He had a lean build, flat chest, bony elbows, green eyes, four fresh piercings in his ears, a scratching of short bleached hair and a betrayal of thin dark stubble. His clothes were no better: his jeans grubby and his T-shirt stuck to him. A Walkman swung off his hip. Despite his mongrel appearance, the boy pushed towards the main house, barely side-stepping the procession of cars on their way out.

Shortly, it was clear who was in charge. A woman — middle-aged and bearish — shouted orders to the few men who remained. They were trying to calm the sheep, which were squeezed hard against the metal railings. She shouldered aside a luckless rouseabout, forced the merinos inside a shearing shed, then yelled for everyone to fill buckets. On the march, she reversed a ute into an old bluestone coach-house, then rushed behind the stables to calm the horses.

The boy followed her to the veranda, where she snapped the screen door on his greeting. Three hard knocks brought her back. She carried a white fire helmet in one hand and her volunteer jacket in the other.

‘Er, do you own this property?'

A raw orange 1971 XY Falcon GT stalled in front of the homestead. The woman pushed past him and
shouted at the driver. ‘Hayden! I thought I told you to park it across the creek!'

The young driver waved an apology then chucked a u-turn.

‘Do I what?' she said, stepping into her coveralls.

‘Do you own this property?'

‘In twenty minutes I might not own anything!'

Several fire engines howled along the Sturt Highway, their horns cutting through the traffic, smoke and ash. Again the boy seemed unaware of the urgency until the spotter plane circled a second time. But his questions weren't appreciated, nor was his time-wasting. The woman pulled her helmet on, then snapped, ‘Of course I do! Why do you care?'

‘I was passing through town an hour ago when I met this man —'

‘No stories. Just answers.'

‘One of the locals said I should come and talk to you —'

‘About what?'

‘— that you might be —'

A whinny, charging hoofs, then chaos.

A brown mare charged through an unlocked gate and dashed down the driveway. The woman jumped from the veranda, chased it on foot and came back for the ute.

‘— hiring people,' the boy called out, still standing in the same spot.

‘What?!'

‘Hiring people!'

The woman couldn't believe it. She kept running.

Three hours later, the last of the grass fire smouldered under the feet of the CFS volunteers. They moved along, hosing out embers and poking at the charred bodies of lizards and snakes. A short distance away, slumped against truck tyres and Eskies, the others gulped bottled water and ate Arnotts biscuits. Few talked but all were busting to go home.

Come nightfall, back at the station, soot washed from blistered hands as the nine o'clock news talked sombrely from a shower radio. A truck driver had escaped injury after crashing through a vineyard and a fire investigator confirmed what most of the volunteers had already guessed: arson.

Dawn lurched awake with far less activity. With the first shadows came the first hungering of a lamb. Honeyeaters returned to their bottlebrush as the ground bubbled with warm stones. It promised to be another melter; a perfect day for shearing. Wet wool meant no work. And no work meant no pay. With summer approaching, only a few contracts were left for the shearing gangs.

The station was one of the largest in the region. Tenacious and bitter like the five generations who had drenched its soil with spite, the land gave little to those who demanded a lot. Canola grew in one quarter; barley in another. Sheep roamed the rest. It was quintessentially Australian: green and gold, bristling with yellow crops and the weeds trying to kill them.

Central to the station was the nineteenth century bluestone homestead built on the foothills. It was skirted by a wide veranda and roofed by corrugated iron. To the rear and almost hidden in shadow, a trap-door opened into a cellar, while more prominently, a dunny had been renovated into a hothouse. Many of the old structures were intact, though. To the east were the holding yards, main gates and shearing shed. To the west, the stables, feeding troughs, corral and coach-house that had long served as a garage. The most notable landmark was the deep creek that split the property in half. It overflowed with eucalyptus leaves, roots and pepper trees. One bank cordoned off all the main buildings while on the other side grain bins, hay sheds and a deserted shearers' quarters were spaced apart.

All through the main homestead, ABC radio trumpeted the breakfast stirrings of the residents. A
sliced pear was placed on the window sill for the lorikeets while spaghetti and tomato sauce bubbled out the side of a toasted sandwich-maker. Heavy bare feet pounded along the wooden floorboards towards the front entrance where they halted. A hand pushed open the screen door and the first curse was dropped. The strange boy was back, sitting on the veranda's top step, headphones squealing in his ears and limp in the same sweaty clothes. Clothes that were pricked with straw almost certainly from the hayloft, the owner noted.

‘What are you doing here?'

The boy didn't answer. The only sound coming out of his head was hard rock music. Overshadowing him, the woman pulled the plugs from his ears and scared him down the steps, his Walkman clutched to his chest.

‘I asked you a question.'

‘Sorry?'

‘What are you doing on my property?'

‘I met you yesterday.'

‘I know that. But why are you back here at half-past six in the morning?'

‘I came about the job.'

‘What job?'

‘The job your neighbour told me about —'

‘Which neighbour?'

‘The one that way,' he pointed loosely. ‘I forget his name.'

The station owner didn't bother looking. She folded her muscled arms. ‘So what if I do?'

‘I'm interested in it.'

‘You look like you've never spent a day on a farm, let alone worked for one.'

‘Yes, I have.'

‘What as? A fence post?'

The boy reddened. ‘
No
.'

‘Then what?'

‘Y'know. Running errands, milking cows —'

‘This is a sheep station.'

‘Same difference.'

She snorted. ‘That proves you've never been on a farm.'

His face darkened as he glanced away to the Murray Plains. Crows pecked the distant blackened field. Sniffs of pungent ash still lingered. ‘Just give me a shot, okay?'

‘Why should I? You're not a local. What'd stop you from skipping out on me?'

‘My word?'

‘That's not worth a lot to someone who doesn't know you.'

The boy glared at her this time, stunned at her country hospitality. But she was unmoved. She settled against the doorframe and eyed his lack of belongings. ‘So where are you from?'

‘Queensland,' he growled.

That surprised her. ‘Long way to look for work.'

‘I'm backpacking.'

‘Where's your backpack, then?'

‘In a locker. I don't like carrying it all the time.'

‘How old are you?'

‘Nineteen.'

‘Sixteen more like it,' she huffed. ‘What's your story?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Runaway? Or cop trouble?'

‘Sorry?'

‘Are-you-a-runaway-or-are-you-in-trouble-with-the-police?'

‘Neither. Like I said, I'm just looking for work.'

Bending, she pulled on her boots then walked to the old coach-house, giving him no indication to follow.

‘So do you —?'

‘Do I what?'

‘Have a job or not?'

She swung open a large wooden door and
wheeled out a gas cylinder. The tractor needed repairing.

‘Yes, but I need a rouseabout — not some kid.'

‘I'm not a kid.'

‘Do you even know what a rousie does?'

‘They look after sheep, don't they?'

Again, a condescending laugh. ‘And ride horses and listen to country music, right?' A rush of blue flame flared from the nozzle of the oxy-welder. It wasn't the only one burning.

‘Are you going to give me the job or not?'

‘Give me one reason why I should.'

‘I don't know,' he said, wounded.

‘You “don't know”? What use are you, then?'

‘What do you want me to say?'

‘Something — anything — that would convince me you're worth the risk.'

‘Just forget about it, okay!'

He walked.

Each step grew angrier as he marched out the main gate. His feet were sore and his stomach acid but he couldn't tolerate that hag any longer. There had to be work elsewhere. And food.

The station owner watched him leave but gave him no more thought as she trained the oxy-welder on the tractor.

Twenty minutes later, as the welding cooled, she sensed the boy standing behind her again. She leaned over the wheel guard a moment longer before the boy choked off the gas.

‘What did you do that for?'

She twisted it on. He turned it off again.

‘Do that one more time and —'

‘Look, lady, all I'm asking for is your help. Someone stole my bag and wallet the other day. I don't have any money. I don't have any food. And I don't know anyone here. I desperately need this job so I can buy a meal and a bus ticket to Sydney. If you haven't got one, then fine. Tell me who does and I'll leave. Don't have a shot at me as well, okay!'

The woman breathed deeply then sighed slowly and thinly. ‘Finally,' she said. ‘That's the first honest thing I've heard from you.'

‘You're not exactly easy to talk to.'

‘And you're not exactly easy to trust.'

Flinching, he let her have her win. For now.

‘Okay, let's start again,' she said, pulling off her gloves. ‘But this time let's get the basics right. I'm Amanda Kaesler. And you are?'

‘An — er, Dan — er, Dean.'

‘Well, what is it? Anne? Dan? Or Dean?'

‘Dean. Just Dean.'

‘Show me your hands.'

‘My what?'

‘Hands. You know: the two things attached to your wrists.'

He raised them.

‘Not like that — like this.' Ms Kaesler grabbed him with her soil-rough fingers and almost gave him a Chinese burn. ‘These are the softest mitts I've ever felt. You've never done a hard day's work in your life.'

‘I have so.'

‘Washing dishes doesn't count.'

She let go and Dean clenched them by his side.

‘Wheel this back into the garage,' she ordered. He took the gas cylinder to the coach-house, then found Ms Kaesler sitting on the tractor. He waited by the rumbling engine but she was focused on writing on the back of a service manual.

‘Hello?' he yelled, convinced she'd drive away without a yes or no.

‘All right,' she answered, changing gears. ‘One day's work — no more. I need a rouseabout — an experienced one — but you'll have to do for now.'

‘What time do I start?'

‘What?!'

‘What-time-do-I-start?'

She checked her watch. ‘Thirty minutes. You'll
work four runs — each two hours long. First smoko's at nine-thirty. Lunch's at midday. Afternoon tea's at three. And knock-off's five-thirty.'

‘How about money? —
Mon-ey
!'

She killed the engine and leaned forward, almost insulted at its mention. ‘I pay the shearers per sheep and the rousies by the hour. This year it's thirty-eight bucks.'

Dean quickly did the maths. Three hundred dollars!

‘If you don't like the money or how this place is run — tough. If you don't like my attitude — get off my property. If you think the work's too hard — I'll kick you off myself. I look after my men here and I expect them to look after me. So don't come knocking on my door in an hour, crying that you've changed your mind. Do what the other rousies tell you and stay out of the shearers' way. Understand?'

‘Yes ma'am.'

‘And you can cut that out straightaway. It's Ms Kaesler or — as the men call me — the General.'

He nodded.

The tractor restarted and rolled forward. ‘I s'pose you haven't had breakfast either?' she shouted.

His stomach growled.

‘First smoko's at nine-thirty. You can eat then.'