The Shearing Gun (13 page)

Movement inside the house prompted me to look at my doorway. I never bothered pulling the curtains in my room because who expects a Peeping Tom out in the middle of the country? In the summer I would close them at night so the sun wouldn’t wake me at 4:00 a.m., but in the winter, I didn’t bother.

Moonlight streamed through the open curtains and illuminated Elliot’s bare legs and bright white briefs.

“Hank?”

“Yeah, mate?”

“Can I sleep in your bed?”

I cast my eyes heavenward in exasperation. I hoped God was watching all my good deeds.

“Sure, mate.” I reached across to flick the covers back on the other side of my queen-size bed, and Elliot scrambled in. I dropped my head on the pillow and closed my eyes, hoping I could return to sleep soon.

“Hank?”

“Yeah, mate?”

“Can you…? I just need some human contact. Can you cuddle me?”

I sighed silently and promised myself that I would’ve done the same for Neil or Middy.

I don’t think I was very convincing, even to myself. The bullshit was a bit too thick.

I turned toward Elliot and saw he was turned away from me, so I grabbed him around the waist to haul him into my big body. Our legs tangled, and my crotch nestled up against his bum, but he sighed in delight and went boneless.

It was nice.

“Go to sleep, Quackle. We both need to work tomorrow.”

I awoke the next morning at my usual 5:30 a.m. The sun hadn’t made a full appearance yet, but the skies were lightening, and it was freezing, as expected. However, this morning I had a toasty body in bed with me keeping me warm. I was tempted to turn over and get an extra hour’s sleep with Quackle, but then I started to wonder what would happen when he woke.

Would he be horny like I was most mornings? Would arousal overcome sense again? I turned my head and watched him sleep in the predawn light. He wasn’t gorgeous like Dom was, and I wondered how I would describe him to Jimmie if he asked.

Cute.

Yeah, cute.

Shit! I was in so much trouble!

I scuttled out of bed in fright and started my morning routine with as little noise as I could. I tossed scrunched up newspaper into the potbelly stove with a couple of handfuls of sticks collected from numerous trees around the property, then lit it up. While it got going, I filled the kettle and placed it on the flat cooking surface of the potbelly to boil. Buck came in, sat by the warming stove, and waited patiently for his breakfast. Some farmers no longer bothered about fires in the winter. It was a lot easier to switch on a heater and boil an electric kettle, but to me it was the rhythm of the bush. Wood was free, so a fire may’ve taken a bit longer to warm up the house, but it was worth it.

Instead of going back into the bedroom where I might accidently wake Elliot, I tiptoed into the laundry and looked through the pile of dirty clothes until I found some respectably cleanish clothes to wear for the day. I stripped off and hurried into my pants and shirt while shivering in the cold room. My jumper was in the kitchen, and I pulled it over my head and waited to warm through.

Still attempting to sneak around my own house, I chucked some split logs into the mouth of the potbelly and pulled out my pot for cooking porridge. I was pouring milk into the pot when a sleepy looking Elliot appeared at the doorway.

“Umm… morning,” he muttered and rubbed at his cold arms.

“Good morning,” I chirped. “I didn’t mean to wake you this early. You can go back to bed if you want.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I think I missed your body warmth and that’s what woke me. D’you know where my clothes are? I can’t remember getting undressed, and I think my nuts are turning blue.”

I chuckled and pointed to the second bedroom. “That’s where I undressed you last night.” I smiled and wondered whether he remembered saying the exact same thing to me when I’d woken in his hotel room after the fight with the bouncers. “They should be in there. You migrated to my bed around midnight.” He disappeared into the room, and I called out. “Do you want porridge or eggs for breakfast? Or both?”

“What are you having?” the reply wafted back.

“Both,” I told him.

He reappeared, once again covered, and smiled at me. “Porridge sounds good.”

I poured another cup of milk into the pot and motioned him forward. “Come stand over here, Quackle. It’s prob’ly about two degrees outside, and you’ll get frostbite on your butt if you linger over there.”

I stirred in the porridge, then asked him to make us both an instant coffee while I cracked eggs into a pan and put bread in the toaster. “So, you feeling better, Ell?”

He blushed and smiled slightly. “Yes, thank you. I’m really mortified about it, to tell you the truth. They teach you how to deal with it in medical school, but it just really got to me. I needed to run and hide, and you were the first person I thought of.”

I clapped him on the shoulder as I reached around him for the spatula. “It’s not a problem, Ell. I’m glad I could help. I’d like you to stay around town and be our doctor, so if you need my place as a bolt hole where you can chill out and say whatever you need to say, my door is always open.”

He sent me a shy grin as he stirred the beverages. “Thanks. I’m just glad that you’re the only one who knows I lost it last night.”

Shit!
“Oh. Yeah… umm… about that….”

He carefully put the teaspoon down and sagged, dropping his head back to look at the ceiling. “Okay. Damn. Who else knows?”

I flipped my three eggs over and couldn’t meet his eyes. “Neil, Gloria, and Doc Larsen.”

“What?” His exclamation was equal parts astonishment and disbelief.

The toast popped, so I chucked the steaming pieces on a plate and flipped my eggs on top. “Sorry, Ell. But you were passed out drunk, and I had no idea if you were on call or not. So I rang Gloria to ask who I
should
ask.”

“Uh huh. So what about Neil and George Larsen? How did they make it in the picture?”

I tried not to grin, but it didn’t work. “I didn’t know Gloria’s number, so I rang Neil. They’re sleeping together and think it’s some sort of big secret. I rang Neil, he let me speak to Gloria, and she rang Doc Larsen to find out who was on call. But Gloria will have my balls if she knows I told you about her and Neil—so mum’s the word on that. She won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

I spooned out the porridge, and we sat at the table and sprinkled the oats with sugar and milk before eating. “Huh. Gloria and Neil, then? I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, technically, you still shouldn’t know.” I finished my porridge and pulled my eggs over. With a liberal coating of salt and pepper, I cut them up and began demolishing them. I caught Elliot’s indulgent smile. “What?”

He picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Nothing. Just continue on. I’m just amazed at how much food you can put away. I know you hunky country boys need fuel and all, but it can be fascinating to see it in truth. You don’t have any extra fat on you, yet you eat triple my meal.”

I popped some more egg into my mouth and chewed. “And I don’t even have bacon this morning because I’ve run out. In the summer, when my potatoes come out of the ground, I usually make up hash browns as well.”

He looked up in surprise. “You
grow
your potatoes?”

I shook my head at him. “This is a farm, Quackle. That’s what farmers do—grow things.”

“But don’t potato farmers grow potatoes and sheep farmers grow sheep?”

I chuckled at his naïveté and glanced at the clock. It was nearly 6:00 a.m. “Come on. I’ll lend you a coat, and I’ll give you a quick tour of the rest of my farm you haven’t seen.”

I bundled him into a hat and coat before escorting him across the width of my backyard. Buck tagged along at our heels. The ground was wet with dew, and the sun hadn’t peeped above the horizon yet, so our breath was visible as we puffed out the frigid air. I was still wearing my sling, so I popped a glove on that hand since I couldn’t shove it in my pocket for warmth.

My backyard was a motley patch of grass and weeds with a Hills-Hoist rotary clothesline smack in the middle. At the end of the yard, there was a picket fence that had once been painted white, but now was a faded gray color, and a small gate. The path on the other side of the gate led to the chook pen, and I could see my girls out of their henhouse, their feathers all puffed up as they fought against the cold. They saw me, gave a chooky squawk, and came to the fence for breakfast.

“These are my girls,” I told Elliot. “I have six of them to lay me enough eggs. The Health Department may frown at me, but I eat about three or four eggs a day.”

I made Elliot make up the mash for their breakfast, saying that my shoulder hurt to help him along. His face told me he was not that gullible, but he happily followed my instructions like a city kid on a farm tour.

“Will there be any eggs?” he asked with what sounded suspiciously like excitement.

“Nah, mate. They’ll lay midmorning.”

With my chooks fed, I showed Elliot my veggie patch and pointed to the plants. “I have some potatoes in over there, and turnips and beetroot in that area. Not much grows here in winter, but in the spring it will give me plenty. Against that wall I have a tomato bush that’s getting just enough warmth to survive this time of year. In about six weeks’ time, I’ll be putting in tomatoes, cucumber, corn, carrots, capsicum, and beans. Down the side of the house, I’ll chuck a couple of pumpkin vines, and they can go mad over there.”

We wandered to the east where a second, smaller creek meandered through my property. At the bottom of the paddock, I pointed out the fruit trees. “Those four are oranges. They’re about ready to be picked. The previous owners put them in, along with a lemon tree, two apricots, a plum, and that mulberry tree over that way.”

My cows grazed among the trees, and Elliot asked, “Don’t they eat the trees?”

“I’ve found that the cows seem to leave them alone. The sheep will strip them if they can reach, though.” I turned him south, and we crossed the driveway, passing between the wires of the fences we encountered. “Come and see my special flock.”

My darlings were still huddled together under the trees in their pasture. They looked up without alarm as we approached. Elliot gawked at them in surprise.

“They’re brown!” he exclaimed.

I smiled. “Technically they’re known as black sheep, but yes they can come in shades of brown and gray as well. These are my melanian sheep. Some are Corriedale, some Corriedale crossed with Merino.”

We stopped about ten meters out from them. “Why do you have them?”

I shrugged. “Uncle Murray, mostly. But also because it interests me. Farmers hate black sheep with a passion, and as a shearer, I’ve hidden black wool many times. We have to throw it out and not infect the rest of the wool bale. The black gene is recessive and will only come out if there’s black in both parents. If you start getting black spots coming through on your lambs, you’re in trouble.”

“So why, then?”

“My Uncle Murray is a spinning fanatic. He spins his own wool, then knits up jumpers and scarves and hats for everyone he knows. That hat on your head is one of his.” Elliot pulled it off and examined it. It was a grayish color, but mottled as the thread changed from light gray to dark gray throughout the design. “Some spinners love black wool rather than white wool. Uncle Murray says he loves the different colors and never knowing what a finished piece will look like.”

“So you breed these for your uncle?”

“Yes. Do you remember when I told you that Dad kicked me out? Well, it was because he found out I was gay. Uncle Murray took me in and then gave me some money to buy this place. I didn’t want to accept the money as a gift, so he told me to breed him some black wool.”

“Black wool? Or gray?”

“That’s part of the fun. You never know what color you’re going to get when you put two parents together. I’m trying to develop a perfect spinning fleece. I’m working with my uncle and other members of the Melanian Sheep Breeders Society of Australia to sell the wool Uncle Murray doesn’t want. Color doesn’t matter as much as the fleece quality.” I pointed to a gray ewe with a black face. “That ewe there? That’s Trixie. She has great wool. But that stupid multicolored thing over there? That’s Nan, who has Merino in her, and Uncle Murray tells me her wool is too sticky for spinning. I had Nan covered by my best black ram last year—that big, pure black bastard at the back. In a couple of months, I’ll see if that lamb’s fleece is any good, and if not, then Nan will have to go.”

I saw Elliot looking at me but I couldn’t decipher the look on his face. “Which one is Nan’s lamb from last year?” he asked.

I cast my eyes over the twenty-eight sheep in the paddock until I spotted him. “There. The one that has a brown head, a white body, and a big brown spot on his back.”

“And what’s his name?”

I cast another look at Elliot and saw what I suspiciously thought was the glimmer of a smile. “Are you taking the piss out of me?”

The grin spread across his face. “I can’t believe you have names for them all. Go on, tell me now. What’s Nan’s son’s name?”

“Are you going to need a lesson in manners afterward?” I asked.

“Nope. I just know that I won’t sleep at night if I don’t know his name now,” he mocked.

I glared fiercely. “Hero. His name is Hero.”

Elliot laughed. “So how do you come up with the names?”

I sighed and kicked at the wet grass. The guy wasn’t going to let it go. I pointed out one of the rams. “See the big black ram at the back, with the horns? His name is Phantom. I bought him from a small operation, and they named him that because he’s all black. So I named his lambs after the comic strip
The Phantom
. He has offspring called Kitty and Walker, after the alias Kit Walker that the comic uses. Also Scully, after The Phantom’s hideout, The Skull Cave. And Devil and Hero after his pet wolf and horse.”

The guy was pissing himself laughing at me now. “What about the others?”

I huffed in annoyance. “My other ram over there is called Donnie. I named him that because I bought him off a guy called Bradman. So the ram is named after Donald Bradman. All of his offspring have names from cricketing greats: Chappell, Allie, Waugh, Merv, Lara, Rhani.”