Blackpeak Station Read online

  She was woken from her lunchtime nap by a chorus of frenzied barking — the signal that work was about to get underway. Up on the top beat, Carr would bark his dogs up when he was ready, and each musterer down the hill would repeat the signal for the next man. They could, of course, have used their radios — but there were few enough of the old traditions left, and besides, you couldn’t accidentally switch your dogs off.

  Charlotte counted through another four hundred ewes during the afternoon, which, if Rex had managed about the same on the Rough Creek block, put them right on schedule for the three-day muster. The light was starting to fade as she began the long trek down. Jen, Matt and Owen, Glencairn’s other man, were waiting at the utes, their dogs sprawling exhausted in the grass. In the paddock in front of them, the day’s take grazed easily. The merinos were at their most docile at this time of year, used to people and dogs after months of feeding out and with no lambs at foot yet to fear for.

  Charlotte greeted the cold can of beer Matt handed her like a long-lost friend. She could see Carr and his dogs coming down the beat now, and she bet Rex wasn’t going to be far behind. He might be the oldest man on the hill, but he was as fit as any of them.

  ‘Pretty good day,’ observed Jen, propped up on one elbow on the back of the truck.

  ‘Yep.’ Charlotte grinned at Owen. ‘You’ll be home by Saturday at this rate.’

  Owen smiled back. ‘No hurry.’

  He probably meant it. It wasn’t just Rex’s reputation and Kath’s food that drew willing workers to Blackpeak these days — to some, a woman in charge of a station was still a bit of a novelty, Charlotte knew, and old-timers like Owen relished the chance to see what she was up to. Every day they worked with her and Jen had the makings of a good story.

  Touch wood, though, this season it would just be Zoe keeping the occupants of the Wrightsons tent amused at the next A&P show. Last night, Owen had nearly choked on his beer when she’d asked if she could help with pregnancy scanning the wethers.

  ‘What did I say?’ Zoe had appealed to the table, nonplussed.

  ‘Wethers are male,’ Jen had snapped, looking mortified.

  ‘Oh!’ Owen had wiped his eyes. ‘I would like to see you try, though, love.’

  Then, after dinner, Zoe had gotten on to Kath’s catering plan for the shearing gang. ‘But it’s all meat,’ she’d protested to the kitchen at large, looking the long list over.

  Staring at her, Owen had taken a long, slow swallow of beer. ‘Shearers don’t go too well on grass, love. Believe me, Carr’s tried.’

  Charlotte and Jen had exchanged a quick look of amusement — as much at Owen’s blissful ignorance of the other meaning of ‘grass’, which the odd shearer had in fact been known to go pretty well on, as at his joke — but Zoe had caught it and, instead of laughing Owen off, had chosen to turn sulky.

  ‘You shouldn’t eat red meat more than twice a week,’ she’d declared, her chin in the air.

  ‘You reckon? What’s a bloke supposed to eat the rest of the time, then?’

  ‘Vegetables.’

  ‘What — on their own?’

  ‘There are other proteins, you know. Actually, I try to cook vegan one night a week. Last Thursday I made pad thai with spinach and silken tofu. It was really good.’

  ‘Silk and what?’

  ‘It’s a sort of soya bean curd,’ Zoe had explained.

  Owen — and, to be honest, Rex, Kath, Matt and Charlotte herself — had stared at her in horror.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. It wouldn’t kill you to eat something different. Something healthy, instead of’ — Zoe had gestured angrily at the bones on the bench — ‘great slabs of dead animal three times a day.’

  There’d been a shocked silence, during which Owen had thoughtfully sipped his beer before declaring, ‘Love, there’s some things worse than dying.’

  Charlotte had had to laugh — everyone had done, even Jen, who’d presumably actually eaten the stuff Zoe was describing. Well, everyone except Zoe, who’d called it a night about then and taken herself off home.

  Poor Zoe. Remembering the look on her face, Charlotte shook her head, then sighed and stretched and finished her beer. That girl really didn’t know how to handle a hard time.

  Snarling and bickering erupted as Carr arrived with his dogs, and was quickly curtailed by a few choice words. By tomorrow, the pack order would be settled. The dogs, like their masters, were there to do a job and knew it.

  ‘That young header of yours is coming along,’ said Carr, earning himself a huge smile from Charlotte.

  ‘Yeah, she’s had a good day.’

  ‘About time you got here,’ teased Jen as Rex arrived, reaching into the chilly bin and handing him a beer.

  ‘You can take the top beat tomorrow, eh, and we’ll see how quickly you get down.’

  Everyone else had another beer to keep Rex company before they all piled into and onto the trucks and headed home. Kath and Zoe had dinner waiting for them. Thankfully there was no tofu in sight, and neither Charlotte nor anyone else, she thought, looking round, was disappointed by the meal.

  ‘Oh, Rob called for you, Charlie,’ Kath remembered, slicing into a giant lemon meringue pie.

  Charlotte squirmed. She hadn’t been avoiding Rob — not exactly. It was just so much easier to forget she had anything to worry about when he wasn’t there to remind her.

  ‘You’re angry with me,’ he’d said, as she’d got up to leave two hours before dawn on that freezing winter morning.

  ‘No,’ she’d told him. If she was angry with anyone, it was her father — how typical of him to make sure that nobody got what they wanted. ‘I just need to get home. I have to feed out. And do some thinking.’

  But she’d been thinking for over three weeks now and, short of winning the lottery, Charlotte still hadn’t come up with a plan. Maybe, she told herself, it would all just work out. Rob didn’t know Nick. And the station looked set for a bumper lambing. Higher birth weights, fatter lambs. There could be a fall in the dollar, a spike in the wool price. All that might buy her another year.

  She stretched her aching legs and looked around at Rex and Kath, Jen and Matt, the walls of the kitchen she’d known her whole life. It just didn’t seem possible that she might have to leave it.

  Saturday came, the end of the muster, and still the weather held. Two weeks without rain. The snow-melt had drained, and the river was low. Already, people were talking of drought, and Charlotte thanked God that Blackpeak was ready to shear — but if the drought came, it would be bad for the lambs and bad for the wool next year.

  Right now, however, there was grass enough on the irrigated flats, and the sheep were keen to stop and graze it. The musterers had to push hard to keep them moving across the paddocks to the yards. It was slow work, and it took its toll on muscles and on tempers. But in a few more hours it would all be done, and the shearing gang — due to arrive tonight — would take over in the morning. Watching the sea of woolly backs up ahead, Charlotte felt the glow of a job well done.

  Blackpeak had covered yards for a thousand sheep. The rest would wait their turn in the paddocks around the woolshed, and in another week, all five thousand would be shorn. After that, the in-lamb ewes would be set on the last of the winter feed and the best of the new grass — if it came — until they dropped their lambs and the summer months opened up the higher grazing. Their wool, meanwhile, would be pressed and baled and on its way to Christchurch for the sales. Just cause, Charlotte thought, for tonight’s little celebration.

  She’d given Rex the day off to organise the spit roast, and by the time Charlotte had showered and changed and got down to the shearers’ quarters that night, it was smelling pretty damn good. There was music blasting out of someone’s boom box and a knot of shearers around the keg. Charlotte looked around for a face she knew. Spotting Owen’s, she strolled over.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he teased, taking in her clean jeans and jumper.

  Jen joined them. ‘H
ey.’

  ‘Hey. Where’s Zoe?’

  ‘Still getting ready.’ Jen rolled her eyes.

  ‘Typical woman,’ said Owen, forgetting he was talking to two.

  ‘No such thing,’ muttered Jen, with an edge to her voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Never mind.’

  ‘Can I get you two ladies a drink?’

  ‘Sure can.’

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Charlotte asked when Owen had sloped off to the keg.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jen, defensive.

  ‘Did you and Zoe have a fight?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ Jen sighed heavily. ‘I’m becoming a redneck, apparently. All I care about is sheep.’

  ‘Well, she can’t say that,’ Charlotte grinned. ‘What about dogs and cattle?’

  ‘Don’t you laugh. You’re one too. In fact, if you really want to know, you’re worse than I am.’

  ‘Too right. So what brought all that on?’

  Jen grimaced. ‘You should have seen what she wanted to wear over here.’ She rolled her eyes again. ‘Red silk high heels. With bows. Can you imagine?’

  Charlotte could — she’d delivered the mail order box and been forced to stay and admire them. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I just suggested she should try and fit in a bit more. She went ballistic.’

  ‘Here you go, girls!’ Owen thrust two plastic cups at them. ‘Get that down you.’ He grinned at Jen. ‘So tell me about this bloke of yours, then.’

  ‘What?’ Jen looked startled.

  ‘Matt said you had some mystery man up north.’

  Charlotte started to giggle.

  ‘Was he having me on? Nah — a pretty girl like you can’t be single?’

  Jen raised her eyebrows and sipped her beer. ‘Looks like I am tonight.’

  Sunday morning dawned as fine and clear as the days before it, and in spite of any hangovers there might have been, the shearing got off to a flying start. Blackpeak’s regular gang was one of the best around, with South Island reps on the top three stands, and the rousies struggled to keep up as fleece after fleece hit the boards. Charlotte and Jen worked to keep the pens full. At the end of the day, a thousand sheep stood wool-less in the yards, expressions of vague surprise on their faces.

  The week passed in a blur of flying wool, sweating bodies and flashing brooms. By the end of Thursday, the gang was done and the beers came out again. They hadn’t missed a day. Friday morning came, the weary shearers packed up, and still — despite the storm forecast to lash the east coast — the high country skies were clear as a bell.

  Finally, around evening, a few clouds began to gather behind the hills. Charlotte, driving home from setting the dry ewes on higher pasture, watched the bank mount in her wing mirrors and breathed a sigh of relief. A good overnight shower on this warm soil and tomorrow the grass would be growing.

  The prospect ahead of the ute was less welcome. Zoe was coming for dinner tonight. Charlotte had invited her herself. A thank you for helping Kath cook for the shearers — help for which, it had occurred to Charlotte too late, Zoe might well expect to be paid. She was hoping to fob her off with a celebration roast and a bottle of Andrea’s best chardonnay.

  To her surprise, the evening went well. Everyone was relaxed. After two weeks of non-stop slog, they had the day off tomorrow. Asked to make things special, Kath had dusted off the formal dining room, got the silver out and put on some music instead of the news. The fireplace crackled, and the wine and stories flowed. When the plates were cleared, Charlotte even managed a little team-building speech before she presented Zoe with her bottle.

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ Zoe said, seeming genuinely touched. She eyed the cluster of emptying bottles on the table. ‘I’ll put it in the car right now so I don’t forget it.’

  Charlotte refilled Rex’s glass. ‘Here’s to a great year ahead.’

  They’d barely finished clinking glasses when Zoe, still clutching her wine, stuck her head back round the dining room door. Her eyes were shining. ‘Come and look, everyone!’ she breathed rapturously. ‘Everything’s white — it’s snowing!’

  They scrambled to the trucks through snow already calf-deep, fat flakes of it whirling from the sky to settle on their shoulders. Even as they went, it began to fall faster, sweeping horizontally now, carried on the rising wind.

  ‘Come on, come on!’ Charlotte banged the steering wheel as the Hilux refused to start.

  Even the dogs were slow to move, lying huddled in their kennels, looking out as surprised as anyone at the growing blizzard outside. In the bay shed behind, Charlotte could hear Rex trying to coax the ancient bulldozer into life, the starter motor whirring again and again before, at last, the engine turned.

  Rex headed out, blade down. Charlotte and Jen followed in his cleared track, snow swarming in their headlights. Charlotte could barely make out the silhouette of Matt standing on the back of the dozer up ahead, spotlighting the way.

  The wind was driving straight at them, and they had to stop and dig out the first gate. Not far past it, the bulldozer swerved and lurched to a halt again, and Charlotte, forced to brake, swore as the Hilux skidded. Rex and Matt leapt off, grabbing for their shovels. Charlotte and Jen followed. There were sheep lying on the track ahead, snow piled over their heads and backs, their eyes glowing in the spotlight. Quickly, they worked to dig the mob out, setting the groggy hoggets back on their feet on the packed snow behind the truck. They were doing the sheep no favour — the deep snow was an insulator — but they needed to clear the track down to the breeding ewes, and it was that or run them over.

  It took them a desperately slow and miserable hour to get as far as the next gate. Beyond it, the track dropped steeply off the terrace to the irrigated river flats, fording the river before reaching the gentle, north-facing slopes where the most valuable stock — the stud ewes and those carrying twins — were set on the last of the winter feed.

  ‘We’re at the top,’ Matt trudged back to yell through the window. In these near white-out conditions, it was hard to tell. The freezing wind blasted into Charlotte’s face, and she wondered grimly how far below zero it was — ten degrees now? Fifteen? Below his hood and beanie, Matt’s eyebrows were covered in ice, and his skin was blue. Even in all their best winter gear, there was only so long they could keep working out here.

  ‘You want to head down?’ Matt was saying.

  Charlotte hesitated. Even if Rex could find the track down — a big if — they could lose more stock than they saved trying to bring the ewes back across the river in this. While behind them, for the moment, they had a paddock full of hoggets and a clear track back to the covered yards — but it was filling in fast. She had to make a call.

  Her brain was foggy with exhaustion and cold. She tried to think quickly. The breeding ewes had been on the best feed the station could offer for five days now. Their north-facing block was in the lee of the storm. They had the thick belt of willow along the river to shelter in. The hoggets behind her had nothing — and it was only a day since they’d been shorn.

  ‘Get in,’ she yelled at Matt, sliding over, as a wave of hail slammed into the cab. ‘You and Rex take the truck — Jen and I’ll take the dozer back. Let’s get these hoggets into the yards.’

  It was three in the morning before they got back to the homestead — they’d been working for almost six hours. Torches and candles blazed in the kitchen. ‘Power’s out,’ said Kath cheerfully, ladling out soup from a monstrous pot on the wood stove.

  As Charlotte crawled into her cold bed, a deafening rattle of hail hit the front of the house. The wind had shifted to the north. Oh Christ. Surely it was just a rogue gust? If it held, the breeding ewes would be fully exposed to the teeth of the storm. But even as she tried to think what to do, her exhausted body called time, and Charlotte drifted under.

  The storm raged for three days. When it wa
s over, Blackpeak had lost nearly half of its breeding ewes — to the cold and to the old river willows that had toppled under the weight of the snow. The stud was all but wiped out — John Black’s vision for Blackpeak’s future, over seven years’ work, now rotting in the mud.

  Blackpeak’s future? Charlotte, taking stock of the damage, found it difficult to see one. They hadn’t been able to reach the wethers — their walking cash crop — on the higher block, but losses there had to be heavy. As for the remaining ewes, if they managed to lamb at all, birth weights would be down, and the stress of the cold and lack of feed would ruin next season’s wool.

  The day the power came back on, Charlotte got in from burying sheep to find seventeen messages blinking at her on the answer-machine. Rob, Nick, Andrea, Carr Fergusson, someone from Morning Report … Nick, Andrea, Rob … The phone started ringing. With a sigh, she picked up.

  ‘Thank God,’ came Rob’s voice. ‘I’ve been trying to call.’

  ‘Yeah — nobody’s been home much.’ For the last seventy-two hours, it had been all hands on deck, and they didn’t waste generator power on the digital phone.

  ‘You okay? How bad is it? Do you want me to come down?’

  She thought about it. ‘Actually, yes. I could do with a shoulder to cry on.’

  The next call was Nick. Charlotte gave him the figures, tired of repeating them already. For once, her brother was speechless.

  ‘Nearly half?’ came Nick’s voice at last. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  To her horror, Charlotte felt tears beginning to rise. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.’

  ‘Hey, don’t be stupid. It’s not your fault. Come on, Charles, don’t cry … we’ll work something out, I promise.’

  That just leaves Mum, she thought, after Nick had hung up. The phone rang again. Charlotte let it. She didn’t think she could make it through another call.