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Post by Corowa on Nov 9, 2011 0:55:45 GMT
Dust rose up from the dry ground. The chestnut plunged stiff-legged beneath him, its ears back as white foam flew from its mouth. It brushed up against the stockyard fence, so that Tom swore and jammed his heels into its flanks. “Git out of it ya bastard!” he shouted, and reefed the horse back on its haunches.
The chestnut was fading fast. Tom spurred it on, slapping its sweating neck until it stumbled and almost went down. Beaten, it stood head down and panting, quiet as any old broken-down plug. Tom dismounted and the horse flinched forwards. The whites showed in its eyes, and it watched the stockman nervously.
“Whoa there. Steady on old boy.” He talked quietly, running a hand down the chestnut’s rump as the horse shook its head and snorted. The bit jingled, and its ears went back at the sound. Tom spat onto the ground, and started to loosen up the girth strap. The chestnut quivered at his touch, but knew better than to kick out.
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Post by Illu on Nov 9, 2011 9:21:20 GMT
It was the sound of a commotion that got his attention first. Frantic neighs and the pounding of hooves from one of the corrals. John paused in order to listen more closely, lowering the slightly blunted axe he'd been about to swing into some timber. What the hell was going on over there?
It wasn't until he heard a shout – muffled and annoyed but distinctly Tom's – that John was reassured everything was okay. Tom wasn't known for his diplomacy, and if they were being robbed or something he'd probably be hearing gunshots.
The axe collided with the wood with a dull thwack, splitting the aging timber in half. John tossed both halves onto the almost-completed firewood stack and hurried to finish off the rest so he could go investigate the noise. He wasn't the sort to leave anything half completed, and the wood pile found itself done in record time.
When John finally walked around the side of the hut, axe over one shoulder, the show appeared to be over. Tom was in the corral, riding the last of the fight out of one of his brumbies. John silently cursed, making his way down the uneven track.
"You could'a warned us, yanno," John said in a disapproving tone that wasn't entirely serious as he got closer to the fence. Screwing his face up against the sunlight, he stopped to eye the sight of the exhausted chestnut. Not a bad horse overall for a brumby, aside from the part where it was blatantly terrifed and close to collapse. "Now we can't make bets as ta how long you were gunna last." |
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Post by Corowa on Nov 9, 2011 11:11:06 GMT
Tom slid the damp blanket and heavy stock saddle off. Buckles chinked softly, and the horse sucked back, back humped, ready to bolt. Tom jerked its head down and it fidgeted nervously, stepping over smartly when he swatted at its rump with his hat. There were dark stains of sweat where the saddle had sat, and the chestnut’s flanks were rubbed raw from his spurs.
Tom tied the horse by the fence. It immediately pulled back, hitting the end of the rope with such force it was nearly thrown off its feet. Panicking, it leapt wildly, shaking its head, sitting back on its haunches. Tom turned away, disgusted. He couldn’t tolerate a horse that wouldn’t tie quietly. Better to let it hang itself and save him the time.
"You could'a warned us, yanno," he heard a voice say, and Tom glanced up sharply. He recognised the man as John Sterling, some plod out of Sydney who reckoned he was a stockman. "Now we can't make bets as ta how long you were gunna last,” the man went on, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“A bloody lot longer than you mate I can tell you that,” Tom said and shook his head. “Reckon all that time in the city has made you a touch soft. Think you’ve forgotten what it’s like having one of these scrubs going hell for leather under ya. Bout knocks the breath out of a man.”
He took off his hat and wiped his brow. A dry wind was blowing, but the air was heavy and still. It had been a tough couple of years, what with the drought down in Victoria and the price of wool and beef plummeting. It was enough to drive a man to drink.
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Post by Illu on Nov 24, 2011 11:30:02 GMT
Apparently sitting on the back of a furiously bucking brumby for God knows how long hadn’t done anything to stop Tom from being, well... Tom. Not that he could blame the man for this one; John knew what he’d said could be taken ambiguously, but oh well. It wasn't like Tom always went out of the way to be the most agreeable sort either.
“Or maybe yer just gettin’ old,” he countered lightly, before realising he didn’t actually have a clear idea of what Tom’s age even was. The high country was rough on both a man’s look and nature, so in all likelyhood the man probably wasn’t much older than himself. That was, assuming Tom even knew what his age was, which seemed to be a common thing the further you got from the city.
John stepped up to the fence at a respectful distance from the horse, axe still slung over one shoulder. “‘Sides, who’s ter say I wasn’t rooting for ya all the way? We could o’ make us a little extra change.” |
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Post by Corowa on Nov 24, 2011 21:35:37 GMT
“Mate, I haven’t met a horse this side of the Murray I couldn’t break,” Tom exclaimed dryly. He nodded in the direction of the chestnut colt. It stood quiet enough, but its eyes rolled white as it watched the two men, and Tom knew it would kick as soon as look at him.
“This one should be a good‘un once I’ve ridden the bucks out of him,” he said, arms stiff and aching from the effort of holding the colt back. He paused, and moved over to the colt. It turned its head to get a better look at the stockman, and its whole body quivered. Tom spoke quietly. He laid a hand on its shoulder. This was tolerated by the colt, trapped as it was by the rope.
There were a couple of raw patches on its withers where the saddle had rubbed, and Tom studied these with some concern. He’d have to get a liniment onto those. Wouldn’t do to have the colt to pull up sore because he’d been sloppy.
“He’s close to being beaten now,” Tom explained. “You see, he just doesn’t have the strength an older horse will.” The colt flinched at the sound of his voice. The rope pulled taut as it jibbed back. Tom stood patiently while the colt figured out that there was nowhere to go. It was a decent-looking horse. A bit too much mongrel blood for his taste, but a good horse nonetheless.
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Post by Illu on Nov 26, 2011 4:59:21 GMT
"I dunno mate, I heard those creamies could give a man a run for his money," John countered, his gaze drifting to the defeated chestnut in the pen. Not that the believed those myths. He'd heard them of course, there was hardly a stockman in this part of the country that hadn't. Cream brumbies, sure. Magic ghost ones that brought bad luck and couldn't be tamed by man? Not so much. Out here in a place like this stories were really all that could a man could entertain himself with, and in John’s opinion you'd be a damed fool to believe more than one of them, even if you weren't a miserable sceptic bastard like himself.
He had to agree about Tom's assessment of the horse though. You could definitely get worse when dealing with wild stock, but then, when dealing with an animal you were essentially getting for free, you couldn't exactly demand too much.
Although, speaking of...
"I swear I saw a thoroughbred the other day," John said, scowling as he tried to recall. "Just standin there in the trees while some of us rode past. Heard some folks swearing they saw some Arabs too down past Dead Horse Gap." He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe if it’s true it’ll do the wild stock some good.”
OoC: *coughhack* Illu is so subtle. |
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Post by Corowa on Nov 27, 2011 23:43:47 GMT
Tom leant over and spat onto the dusty ground. “Not surprising considering this bloody drought,” the stockman said with unusual fervour. “Hardly had any horses in for breaking this year. People just don’t have two bob to rub together.”
It made him feel crook, to think of all those men, decent, hard-working blokes, who had been forced off their land by the banks. Didn’t they understand a man couldn’t pay his mortgage if there wasn’t any rain for his crops or fodder for his stock? Tom shook his head. “Reckon they must be turning those horses loose in droves. No one can pay to feed ‘em anymore. Sight better than seeing ‘em starve I ‘spose.”
The chestnut colt had quietened some, and so Tom ducked out under the slip-rail fence. It was best to let the colt have a think about what had happened; give him a bit of time to get used to being tied. Tom straightened, and perfunctorily brushed the worst of the dust from his moleskins.
He went to lift the heavy stock saddle from the fence, but he paused, and shot a quick glance over at John instead. Normally the man would have ridden out by now to go check on the cattle. Tom wondered why he was still here at the hut. “Did you need a hand with anything, mate?” he asked politely. “Thought you would have been out checking on your stock after that big storm the other day.”
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