Diamonds and Dust by Sheryl McCorry

Author:Sheryl McCorry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781741981100
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

CHAPTER 11

The Blackest Day of My Life

The morning after our disagreement, Bob was up, showered and busy as always. Men like Bob have very good work habits and the occasional night on the grog or a blue with the wife makes no difference. The stockmen were holding a small mob of cattle out on the river. Bob would pick up the rogue bulls that were upsetting the herd. My plan was to stay at the homestead for a change.

I noticed that Kelly was hanging very close to his dad and wanted desperately to go out on the muster with the men. I had never let the children go out to a muster without me.

‘Kelly wants to go,’ Bob said, looking straight at me.

‘You know I don’t agree and I don’t want him to go,’ I replied. I was still upset over our argument, even if Bob was in an apologetic mood this morning. But Kelly had recently turned five, and I could see how much this meant to him. I gave in and let him go. I put my arms out, gave my boy a big hug and kiss, told him to be very careful and let him go. Kelly put on his bull strap, his Akubra hat and his new desert boots. He raised his beautiful blue eyes towards me, put his hand out and touched me.

‘Thank you, Mum!’ he shouted as he ran towards the truck.

I turned to Bob and made him promise not to let Kelly ride in the buggy while he ran bulls – he must stay in the truck with one of the young stockmen. Bob agreed. I waved goodbye, with Leisha by my side. We watched their dust as they roared through the homestead gate in the direction of the river camp.

At sundown, Katie, who worked in the house, sang out to me from the laundry shed.

‘Boss and Kelly boy coming, Missus.’

We ran to the front garden where we watched Bob pull up at the homestead gate. They were still some 250 metres from the house. I saw Kelly jump out to help his dad open the wire gate, and then help him drag it back against the fence. This told me the boys were following with the truck. From where I stood with Katie, it was almost like watching a long shot in a movie. The actors were performing on cue and everything was looking good. Had the scene been in close-up, I would have picked up the fatal flaw. Kelly had climbed up on the bull bar. The buggy drove through the gate but now I could see something was awfully wrong. I saw Bob get out of the buggy again. What was he doing? I stood there and watched as Bob picked Kelly up from the ground, lifted him into the buggy and raced to the house. Bob was in shock as he carried Kelly, unconscious, into the bed in the radio room. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, but I checked his pulse: it was terribly slow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.