The Feather and the Stone: A stunning Australian saga of courage, endurance and acceptance by Patricia Shaw

The Feather and the Stone: A stunning Australian saga of courage, endurance and acceptance by Patricia Shaw

Author:Patricia Shaw [Shaw, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780755389599
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2011-10-26T22:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER SEVEN

The station was now all dust and energy as whips cracked and horsemen galloped away to muster cattle from all over the property. Sibell was amazed at the work involved in preparing for a drive of this size.

‘Zack aims to take two thousand head,’ Maudie said, ‘so they’ll need plenty of horses. You can give me a hand rounding them up.’

‘Are they selling horses, too?’

‘No, they’re not bloody selling horses! The men need them! Four to a man: they won’t get far if they tire their nags.’

Before she had time to think about it, Sibell found herself working, too: up at dawn every morning, back on her horse and out there with Maudie, cutting out the horses Maudie chose, riding hard to avoid angry stallions who snapped at their mares’ rumps to chase them out of reach.

Maudie was everywhere, yelling at the men. ‘Get rid of those bloody Mexican hooks,’ she shouted at two of the stockmen. ‘You injure our horses I’ll skin you alive! Use our spurs or none at all.’

She ruled with the authority of experience and a tongue as biting as a whip. ‘You can pick your mounts from the stockyards and not before,’ she roared, when some of the drovers demanded to choose their own horses. ‘I say which ones are ready and which aren’t.’

Then, back in the sheds, she threw aside heavy leather saddle-packs. ‘Put those bloody things back. Who brought them out? English rubbish! You’re not going on a bloody picnic. Get our own canvas ones, give the poor bloody horses a break!’

On and on she went, with Sibell in tow, making certain all the horses were branded, then off to meet the mobs of cattle that were coming in to be assembled for the trail.

Day by day the huge herd of noisy, complaining cattle grew, until Zack came in with the last of them.

Sibell rode gingerly around the outskirts of the mobs, trying to be helpful, astonished and not a little nervous at Maudie’s reckless riding. She could lasso and rope a steer to a skidding halt as well as any of the men, and she shot, swerving through the trees, after runaways as if she were out on open plains. But while Sibell admired Maudie’s talents, her admiration was not reciprocated.

Sibell had made mistakes: she hadn’t latched a gate properly, and cattle had pushed free; she was incapable, it seemed, of hobbling horses, having failed at three attempts, frightened that these half-wild beasts would trample her; and she’d fallen off Merry twice, fortunately without injury. Her efforts irritated Maudie.

They were chalk and cheese, she knew, and she worried about the strange partnership that Zack had delegated to run the station in his absence. But still trying to be pleasant, she remarked to Maudie that it was good to see Zack had employed Aborigine drovers.

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Maudie sniffed. ‘They’ve got to learn to earn their keep just like the rest of us.’ Somehow, Sibell felt, that jibe was aimed at her, since Maudie had already made it plain she considered bookwork a waste of time.



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