Chapter 9

Time flies, they say.

Richard knew from school that Ovid wrote “omnia mutantur, nihil interit” (everything changes, nothing perishes Metamorphoses XV), where he later refers to “tempus edax rerum” (time the consumer of things). But what eats up the days, the weeks, the months? One of the Greeks wrote that everything flows. 1962 certainly flowed away. Like water or sand through your hands.

Jenna was pregnant again. Joyce would have a sibling before she was three. Ferd was married, but was not eager to make the Millers grandparents. Richard, though far from celibate, had no candidate for matrimony. He was reading about simple construction and about “herd building.”

Richard drove to Southport for the Queen’s Birthday in June. Sybil appeared to be more cheerful and the three of them had a warm long weekend with far too much food. Cat and Eddie were, apparently, returning to New York in September. Little else was said about them.

Stephen, Henry, Joshua, and Amos were in his mind, but there was no reasonable way for Richard to get to Mitchell. He’d agreed to serve for the two years.

But in the spring he was sent to the northeast paddock for several weeks: first to ride the fence, then to see whether there were any new calves and to try to move the stock towards uneaten areas. He spent most nights in an old drover’s shack. He took White’s Tree of Man with him. He’d read it before and had been captive to the way of life in the remote bush and the use White made of cultural myth and Australian folklore. He also had Voss, which was more recent, purchased in June in Southport.

Three weeks alone with a horse and one of the station’s dogs was interesting. Richard slept and ate, rode and herded, read and thought. He washed, but didn’t shave. He watched the birds and the animals. He spotted a goanna in a tree, inching towards a bird’s nest. He thought about Voss (Leichhardt), trying to cross the vastness of Australia. He’d never crossed Queensland – either east-west or north-south. Richard thought of Kim, asking himself who he was, what he was. But he knew his direction. Before Christmas he would leave Alpha, making a new home in Mitchell.

The pillars would be seasoned. One of the first things he’d have to do would be to bridge them and level the beams. The book from the US seemed to advise paired 2x6 beams. He’d try to get twelve footers. No one had ever levelled this shack. He knew he’d only levelled the guest houses by eye. That wouldn’t be good enough.

One day Willie turned up. “I’m here now. You get to go in.”

So Richard packed his two books and his clothes, patted the dog, and saddled up to ride in. He got to the house by dinner, but first took a shower and looked at himself in the mirror. He needed a haircut, and he’d ask Janey whether he should shave or let his whiskers grow.

“Musta bin lost inna outback!” was his greeting when he went for some food.

“Feed him quick, cookie! He’ll be crook soon!”

“Nice to know I’ve been missed.”

“Only by the sheilas.”

“I’ve decided to become a bushranger. Wanna join my gang?”

There was a minor roar and everyone went back to whatever they’d been talking about. In the morning Richard asked a very pregnant Janey to give him a haircut and asked her advice on facial hair.

“You’re too young to have a beard. I’d say shave it off. When you’re old ... in ten years or so ... you can ask your missus.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, yeah. Look at me. Not yet 35 an’ married twice.”

So Richard shaved it (very carefully). None of the hands gave him a hard time.

November was quite wet. Janey had a boy, named Frank, after George Francis Nicklin, the Premier of Queensland. He was happy not to be in the shack.

December was wet, too. Mr. Miller said that Emerald had had floods in ‘56 and that the railroad bridge in Alpha had been washed out around Christmas that year. But nothing bad since then. From the radio, he learned that Roma was getting a lot of rain, too. Presumably, Amos and his band had moved to slightly higher land. The creeks feeding the Maranoa had been known to flood – at least twice in the mid-50s. He wondered whether a weir on his creek would be good. He knew nothing about water management. The aborigines might well be far more knowledgeable.

He’d not phoned Southport for nearly a month, but he’d told them he was being sent to a distant drover’s shack. When he called he learned from Sybil that Cat and Eddie would be visiting early in the New Year, on their way to California where they would be attending the Academy Awards at the beginning of April. Horizon Pictures, in which Eddie’s father had invested and where Eddie had been working in London, had produced one of the nominees, in fact it had been nominated for an incredible number of awards.

He spoke briefly to Andy about his plans and how near Christmas was. He decided to celebrate the New Year at the station and get underway on the second.

The last month flew past. The rain abated, but the roads were reddish-brown sludge. It took nearly a half-hour to get to Alpha on Tuesday morning. Richard didn’t even try the road south from Jericho and the one from Barcaldine to Blackall to Tambo didn’t look much safer. He drove on to Longreach – taking well over four hours. He stopped at the first hotel he saw after turning off the Capricorn.

“Tough drivin’?” he was asked.

“Lots of sticky mud.”

“Dry south of here. Where you headin’?”

“Mitchell. The roads at Jericho an’ Blackall didn’t look welcomin’. I’ll wash up an’ come back down. I presume I can get dinner.”

“Course.”

The room was plain but clean; the dinner was ample. Richard had a pint and went to bed. In the morning he had chops and toast and got underway. He zipped past Stonehenge and was near Windorah before noon. A few miles later he crossed a very muddy and angry-looking Cooper Creek. Tired, he stopped in Quilpie and went on to Charleville for a third night on the road. But it was just over two hours to his “marker.” 1200 miles instead of 700! But what if he’d been stuck in the mud somewhere?

He pulled onto the right shoulder near his marked fencepost and sank in several inches when he got out. Not a good omen. He slogged to the fence and stepped over it, supporting himself on a vertical. It was just as muddy “inside” his station. He walked (slowly and carefully) to his house site. Even though it was but a few yards, the hillock wasn’t muddy. And to Richard’s surprise, there were fifty concrete pillars, each topped by a foot of bolt and a nut. To the eye, they appeared level. A major accomplishment!