Chapter 2

Gordy

I stretched my shoulders and turned the motor off. We were finally in Alice Springs.

Getting out of the car, late in the afternoon, I noticed something and told Weena to stand still. I squatted and looked in the dust.

"What's there?"

"An Odontomachus -- I didn't know there were any around here. Lots further north, some further south. Are you allergic to bites? Bee stings?"

"Allergic?" Weena looked at me.

"Folks can die from ant bites. I don't want to lose you ... yet." She punched me in the arm, not very hard. We looked at the map, worked out where the hotel we'd booked into was, got back into the Rover, and I drove there. While we were registering, Weena noticed a tallish bloke wearing a cowboy hat standing by the door, overlooking the hotel swimming pool. The poor bloke looked like he was lost.

Weena went over to him bold as brass and said: "Lose your dog, mate?"

"Well, ma'am. I don't rightly know what I lost. Sure as hell I don't know what I'm doin' here."

"Got a room?" Weena asked.

"Yep. The police got me one."

Weena got a strange look on her face, and then said, "Sounds like an interesting story." She paused for a moment, "OK. Listen. We're goin' up to our room, wash up, an' we'll meet you back here in about 15 or 20 minutes. Oh, yeah. I'm Weena and that's my husband, Gordy."

"Hi. I'm Charlie. You wouldn't have a big sister... ?"

We showered and Weena put on a blouse and jeans. We went back down to the lobby and there was Charlie. I had recognized by his accent that Charlie was a Yank, and had to wonder just what he was doing in Alice Springs. When we reached the lobby, this time, I greeted him. "You drink beer?"

"Ayup, been known to have a few, now and then."

"Let's sit in the bar and see if they've got anything worth drinking."

So we sat around a table and I looked at the list. "They've got Mathilda Bay and Billabong," I told Weena.

Charlie just looked at me. "They're both Western Australian," I remarked. "I'll just order, OK?"

"Ayup. I never heerd o' them. But that don't matter.'

"OK, Charlie," said Weena, "While Gordy's busy, tell us what's troubling you."

"Well, it ain't a much of a story."

"We've got time." Gordy came back, followed by a waiter with three large frosty glasses and three bottles.

"Down the hatch!"

Charlie tipped his beer bottle, ignoring the glass, and started his tale. "OK. Here goes. I met this guy at a stock meetin' in Atlanta. He said he was recruitin' and needed someone in Australia.

"Well, I ain't never been in Australia, so he got my interest. He sounded like he were interesting in hirin' me, an asked if I had a passport. I tol' him yep, since I needed one for buyin cattle on my last job."

"But what was the job? What do you do?" Interrupted Weena.

Charlie took another pull from the bottle and continued on, "Well, I punched cows most of my life. Ever since I was a kid, it seems I've lived my life on the back of one horse or another. But, mostly, I just punched cows.

"Oh, I guess I did that for eight, nine years until finally I got some sense in my head, and found me a job with the Border Patrol in Texas, Arizona an' New Mexico. Thought I'd get away from the damn horses, but no such luck. I must a rode ten thousand miles up and down the border. Did that fer 20 years. The gummint gives me a pension. It ain't enough to live on, though."

After Charlie paused in his tale, we all drained our beers and I signaled for three more.

Fresh beer in hand, Charlie continued with his story. "Anyways, the guy's name I talked with was Vincent. He tol' me he'd got nearly a thousand head of cattle here in Australia an' needed someone for a ramrod. And I have to say, he weren't not too shy about spending money. He paid me two weeks advance wages and bought me an

airline ticket to here too."

I asked the obvious question, "Why not an Aussie?"

Charlie grinned, took a tug on his beer and then responded. "He tol' me he was experimentin'. Well seems like he had more money than brains to me; said he wanted to raise Texas Longhorns. And he'd shipped a herd o'em to someplace north o' here and they were takin' a train to Alice Springs."