The Shearing Gun (5 page)

But in the end I didn’t. I was a wuss. It was also none of his business. So I told him the truth without revealing the
whole
truth.

“My mother’s brother.”

My dad hated Uncle Murray and blamed him for my “perversion.” That was the word he used when he first found out.

“Oh. Does he live around here?”

I shook my head. “Nah. He used to live over Merredin way, working a parcel of land up there. Once it came out ’bout him bein’ gay ’n’ all, he was nearly killed by a group of guys who didn’t think that sort of thing was natural. ’Course this was all when I was a little tike. Uncle Murray lives in the city now. He lost his hearing in one ear and will probably get bad arthritis before he’s sixty from all the broken bones he had, but he’s a top bloke.”

I didn’t talk much about Uncle Murray, but I was really trying to warn Elliot to the dangers he faced if he couldn’t keep his eyes in his head. Sure this was the twenty-first century, and in some countries they had legalized gay marriage, but small-town Western Australia could have a mind of its own.

We finished up our coffees, and I walked the Doc to his car.

“Thanks for the help today, Doc. I really appreciated it.”

He smiled. “Anytime, Hank.”

I wanted to yank his chain a bit, so I replied, “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

Elliot laughed and I got tingles. I wasn’t supposed to be attracted to this guy. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked.

I smirked. “If you turn up tomorrow, you’ll find out. I start the morning at six, so eight would be fine for city fellas like you to arrive.”

He wasn’t daunted. “Mate, I’ve done hospital rotation. You can’t scare me off with early hours. I can be here at eight and help out—as long as we’re not going too far. I’m on call for emergencies.”

“That won’t be a problem. Just make sure you wear some better clothes tomorrow, hey?”

He looked down at his pants with a grimace, since they were now an orangey-brown color from the dirt and sweat. “I guess so,” was all he said. He started the car and waved as he drove away.

A
S
PROMISED
,
he turned up just before eight o’clock the next morning and was wearing black jeans and a dark blue shirt. He did his usual stroll-stride walk across the paddock to the shed, but this time didn’t bother with the gate. He slipped through the fence wires like I showed him yesterday.

“Morning, Hank!” he called cheerily, bending to give Buck a pat.

As he got closer, I took in his clothes and swore to myself.
Fucking Jesus! No fishing, remember Hank?

“What the hell are you wearing, Quack?” I groaned at him, rolling my eyes dramatically.

He looked down in consternation. “Jeans. T-shirt. Boots. Dark colors. Didn’t I get them right?”

I shook my head. “If those jeans get any tighter, they will be cutting off the circulation to your balls. In the farming industry we call them wethers—castrated males. Is that what you’re trying to do to yourself, mate? Who are you trying to impress out here? The ewes?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished to recall them, even before I saw the blush spread across his face.
Who are you trying to impress out here?
I was such a fuckhead. The guy had checked me out just a couple of days ago. If there was anyone he was trying to impress out here, it was me.

And the big problem was that I
was
impressed. Somehow my first impression of him as scrawny had been skewed. He wasn’t as big as the lads who worked alongside me, but that didn’t make him unattractive. He was just lean.

No fishing, Hank!

“Don’t worry, Doc. I’m sure that they’ll be fine. Now, do you need a cuppa before we start, or shall we dive into it?”

He wasn’t a talker, which was a bit of a relief after some guys I worked with. He was stronger than he looked too. I needed to construct a series of portable holding yards, and he helped bolt the frames together. I could carry them one-handed across the expanse, but you need two hands to hold one frame steady and slip in the next.

Using my good arm, I carried the frames to where Elliot stood—suddenly conscious of my bulging muscles as I lifted. I was wearing my long-sleeved shirt—but I had ripped the sleeves out the night before because they annoyed the shit out of me. My arms were bare and visible, and yes, I caught Elliot looking more than once.

After the yards were constructed, we jumped in the Rover and left to find the sheep.

“We’re going to be bringing in the rams today, so you’re gonna have to watch them,” I warned as I drove. “These fellas have mighty big horns on them and if they come at you, they’ll rip a hole in you, easy done. That scar you saw on my chest—that was from a horn. These guys are for breeding, so they’re plenty pumped up with testosterone. They’re strong and mean. I’ll have you drive the Rover and I’ll get out on foot with Buck. You just need to go really slow, slower than a walking pace, and funnel them into the run. Just watch out for my signal and don’t drive over any rocks.”

It sounded simple, right?

People who think sheep are dumb animals have never worked with them before. Sure they’re a herding animal, and once you get the leaders of the flock in the right direction, the others will follow, but they are also smart, wily, and stubborn. The problem was that they were in the far paddock. I needed to go around the long way to avoid bringing them through the northern pasture, and possibly losing them in my other mob.

The first part of the operation went fine. I went ahead of the car and opened the bottom gate. With me walking and Elliot driving, the fifty rams moved obligingly to the bottom of the paddock and through the opening. One fella thought to make a run for it up the fence line, but Buck put a stop to it and brought him back.

I waved Elliot on. “Keep pushing them slowly up this fence line, Ell. I’ll lock the gate and walk the creek edge to dissuade them from jumping over.”

The next gate was already open, and they moved into the paddock that I had previously ploughed for seeding. The last part of the operation was to get them to go through the top gate and into the run.

We moved up on them—Elliot to my left and Buck to my right. The rams stopped and looked at us, unsure what we wanted. They were big bastards that I had been breeding for years. Moving slowly, I waved my hat at them and yelled, “Come on, you buggers! Get moving. Keep going, Ell. That’s it. Steady now, Buck.”

A few rams stamped their feet at us, the first warning of a pissed-off sheep. Then one of the guys at the back made a break for it and soon had the others following him. “Fuck! Ell—cut them off!” I whistled, and Buck flew around, but we couldn’t save them. The flock was split and they streamed around us, reforming their group away from the gate I needed them to go through.

We tried again. Elliot looped back and pushed them along the fence line while Buck and I came at them from the right angle. They were spooked and watched the car, the dog, and the strange man who made whooping and hollering noises while throwing his arm and hat around.

“Slow!” I yelled at Elliot as the flock approached the gate. They stopped again, unsure which way to go, but determined not to go through that narrow opening. One put his head down and charged toward Buck, but my dog laughed at him in his doggie way, gave three sharp barks, and bared his teeth.

“Watch ’em, Quack!” I called, as they eyed off the gap between the car and the fence. Doc Elliot turned the wheel and cut them off, but they were too quick for the vehicle. “Dammit, Quack! Ell, get them!” I cursed as ten of them raced along the fence. The other forty saw the gap left between me and the car and took off. I stood back and let them pass, knowing that it was too late.

Elliot brought the car around and pulled up beside me while I glared at the wayward sheep. “Shit! Sorry about that. They’re faster than I thought,” he apologized through the open window.

I scratched at my sweaty hair and plonked my cap back on. “Nah. It’s not you. Them buggers aren’t scared of the car; that’s the problem.” I thumped the Rover once and grinned at my hapless helper. “Guess what, Quackle? You get to walk for a bit.”

The Doc looked at me with a wide stare. “What did you call me?”

I widened my grin and stared back unrepentantly. “Quackle? Just thought of it. Quack Elliot. Quack Ell. Quackle! Get it?”

He was shaking his head. “No way, mate. You are not calling me Quackle. I categorically refuse. Some of my friends back East call me Monty, and I’ll let you call me that if you want, but definitely not something that makes me sound like a little, fluffy, yellow creature.” He killed the engine and shoved at the driver’s door. I held it open while he got out.

“Whatever you say—Quackle,” I teased and walked away toward my rams. I heard him drop a couple of
fucks
behind me and mutter something about
payback
as he followed. I outweighed him by a good sixty pounds. What could he do to me?

We fanned out around the flock. This time I had Buck move up behind them while Elliot and I clapped and whistled to keep them against the fence. They stopped just before the gate like last time and eyed their options.

“Speak up!” I commanded Buck. He went into a barking frenzy, making lunges at their legs, pushing them forward. Waving my good arm wildly, I whistled and shouted, “Get the fuck through that gate, you bloody bastards, or I’m sending you all to the markets. No more nooky with the ladies for any of you!”

Ell laughed at me and tried his variation. He clapped his hands above his head and yelled, “Bloody well do what we want! I promise you I aced the class in autopsies and I have a real yearning to see the inside of some of you at the moment!”

I snorted, but the rams were smarter than I thought. They didn’t give a fuck about losing an eye to a rabid dog or being denied their jollies by a tanned farmer-cum-shearer, but they were terrified of a lean, mean doctor who promised to peek at their guts. They turned as one and dashed through the gap and into the run. I raced up and swung that gate closed behind them—with Buck still on their heels, barking.

I heard Elliot’s exclamation of “Yeah!” and looked over to see him with a goofy grin, doing a little dance in the middle of my paddock. The bloody wanker!

No fishing, Hank!

“Oi, Quackle! Get the Rover, will ya?”

The good Doc flipped me the bird and trotted to where he’d abandoned the car. He did a neat U-turn and brought her over to me. Buck had pushed the rams up the run, so I opened the gate and waved Elliot through. He halted on the other side of the gate while I locked it, and I grabbed the roof rack for balance and jumped on the side step next to him while he drove up the hill. Buck had done his job and pushed all the animals into the first enclosure. I whistled him back and closed the gate, leaving the animals penned inside.

Elliot parked and exited. He looked at me with a delighted smile. “So now what?”

“Smoko,” I told him. “Come on. Let’s head up the house for a cuppa. My best mate, Middy, will be here in a minute.”

We weren’t able to take the Rover any closer to the house while the sheep were in the top of the run, so we cut through the top of the paddock and up to the house. I brewed a black tea for myself and a white coffee for Elliot before we sat down on the front veranda with a packet of SAO biscuits. The house was situated on a bit of a hill. I loved the view. There were green paddocks and sparse trees as far as the eye could see.

Elliot settled back with his coffee and pointed off to the right. “Are they yours? I didn’t know you had cattle.”

I glanced at the twelve cows grazing in the paddock to the south. “Yeah. I was brought up in sheep country farther to the east, on the edge of Lake King where it’s drier. So that’s what I breed because I know them best. The crops are for a bit more income, and half of it is used to feed my own animals. But the region ’round here is also cattle. So I thought I’d diversify a bit and try a couple of cows. They’re a bit different to sheep, but I guess I have to learn somewhere.”

He nodded. “So why did you settle near Dumbleyung if you don’t know the area? Why not closer to home?”

Now wouldn’t that answer set him on his ear?
I tried to skirt the issue. “I had a fight with my dad when I was twenty. He threw me out, so I packed up and lived with Uncle Murray in Perth for a while. For about eight months of the year I could get nearly full-time work shearing, but it wasn’t enough for me. I needed to work the land. There was a lot of bad blood between us for a while there, Dad and me, but we slowly reconnected—mostly through my older brother, Paul.” I swallowed. I owed Paul a lot for that. “Uncle Murray had some money, so he gave it to me to start this place. Dad would’ve chucked a fit if I’d bought somewhere too close to Lake King, but two hundred kilometers is enough distance for him.”

Elliot smiled at the thought. Out in the bush, two hundred kilometers was commuting distance. I wondered if Ell considered himself bushie or townie, then realized I had fallen silent. Elliot looked at me encouragingly, waiting for the rest of my story.

“I looked up around Dongara way for a while, but it just wasn’t me, you know? The land is too different up that way, too red.” Dongara is located four hours due north of Perth, not even halfway to Pilbara country. “So then I found this place. The first year I was here, I put in a crop for hay—I kept half and was about to offer the other half on the open market, when Dad rang me out of the blue. He bought it from me, and I bought eighty head of sheep from him. Since then we’ve had a pretty steady truce. We don’t mention the fight, we take turns to ring each other once a week, and Dad gets first refusal at my excess.”

My tea was nearly gone, but Elliot nodded, seemingly engrossed in what I was saying and not even sipping his drink. “So what was the fight about?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered into my cup, and swallowed the last mouthful.

“Fair enough,” he agreed.

I looked at him, curious as to why a city bloke would be in the bush. “So what about you?” I asked. “Why are you here?”