Billabong Bend Read online

  Sophie and Ric stood staring. ‘The river’s low,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever remember seeing it this low.’

  Sophie pointed across the turbid water. ‘Is that Poppi’s land? Why does it look so different? It looks . . . dead.’

  ‘Nothing a little love and care couldn’t fix,’ said Nina. ‘Maybe you can work on your grandfather?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Sophie lifted her chin. ‘Or maybe Dad could.’

  Nina was liking this kid more and more. ‘Come on, let’s go see the pecans.’

  ‘Only eight years old,’ said Nina as they wandered the neat rows of graceful nut trees, ‘and I’ll get my first full commercial crop this year, twenty-five kilos per tree I reckon.’

  ‘That’s good, right?’

  She punched Ric playfully on his upper arm. ‘Yes, it’s good. Some growers don’t manage that for a decade. And the market can’t get enough organic pecans, here or overseas.’

  ‘Organic,’ he said. ‘That sounds like a good lurk. Great marketing angle.’

  ‘It’s not an angle.’ Nina frowned. ‘I’ve joined a co-op of farmers based right here at Drover’s Flat. Organic sunflowers, canola, olives, beef – even wheat. Romano has a new line of Aussie pasta products. The Bush Tucker range. They buy all their durum wheat from one of our members.’

  ‘Any cotton farmers in your co-op?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No cotton farmers.’

  He picked up a stone and pitched it towards the river. ‘Maybe Donnalee should jump on the bandwagon.’

  ‘Organic isn’t just some buzzword you can slap on a label,’ she said. ‘It’s a huge process to get accreditation. Took me three years after stopping the chemicals, because it takes that long for traces to disappear. Inspectors examined my entire farming process and I have to keep detailed diaries. It’s hard work.’

  ‘Sounds like it.’ He tossed another stone with a restless energy. ‘Is it worth all that work?’

  ‘It’s so worth it,’ she said. ‘I want to team up with a few more growers to press our own label. Drover’s Flat olive oil. We could do the same with nuts. And just look around you. The whole farm looks healthier, doesn’t it? Despite the drought. Loads more birds and insects, a huge diversity of native plants, and it’s cheaper than buying poisons. Mulch and sub-surface watering keep the weeds down. Biological control for pests. We’ve got our own entomologist at the co-op.’ She grasped a low-hanging branch, pulled out her Bugs For Bugs mini-magnifier and handed it to him. ‘Look.’

  Ric inspected the offered leaf through the lens. ‘It’s a leaf. So what?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’ Nina was impatient for him to understand. ‘There. That little raft of eggs. Look.’ Ric squinted at the foliage obediently. ‘They’re green-vegetable bug eggs. See how they’re going black? That’s because of a parasitic wasp. It lays its eggs inside, and instead of hatching into bugs, they hatch into shiny little black wasps. If we’re lucky, we might see one.’ Ric pressed his lips together, nodding. ‘And there’s a tiny fly that does almost the same thing.’

  ‘A fly?’

  ‘Trichopoda giacomellii,’ she said slowly, glad her tongue didn’t trip her up. ‘It targets the larvae though, not the eggs. Amazing, isn’t it?’ Nina felt her face flush. She’d got carried away. Not everybody found parasitic flies as fascinating as she did, but there was no trace of boredom on Ric’s face.

  He peered at the leaf again. ‘So you don’t need pesticides?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s pretty clever. Can’t imagine Dad wanting to go organic though.’

  ‘No,’ said Nina. ‘I’m guessing Max doesn’t skimp in the chemical department.’ In her mind she could see his tractor combing the rows of cotton, she could taste the poison in the air.

  Her phone rang, making her jump. ‘Hi Lockie.’ Ric scowled and kicked at the dusty ground. ‘But I came to you last weekend. It’s your turn to come here . . .’ Ric glanced at her sideways. She lowered her voice and moved further away, feeling unaccountably guilty. ‘The river pumps are playing up. I can’t afford to be away overnight until they’re fixed.’

  Sophie ran over. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  ‘Lockie, I’ll ring you back.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Sophie asked again.

  ‘My boyfriend.’ She looked squarely at Ric. ‘That was my boyfriend on the phone.’ It was time to wind this visit up.

  At the front of the house, Ric kicked the tyre of the battered old station wagon. ‘What’s happening about your car?’ she asked. ‘The one that packed up in Moree?’

  ‘Not worth fixing.’ He wrenched open the back door.

  Sophie wrinkled her nose. ‘That car stinks of Poppi’s cigars.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ he said.

  ‘I want to sit in the front on the way home.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to hop over the seat. The front passenger door’s stuck.’

  Sophie took this as a challenge, and spent the next few minutes tugging at the door to no avail. Finally she gave up and climbed in. ‘It’s hot in here. Does this window work?’

  ‘Nothing in this car works,’ said Ric. ‘Except for the motor, and I wouldn’t take bets on that.’

  Nina waved them goodbye, a little surprised at the old bomb of a station wagon. Quite a contrast to the brand new machinery Max had bought last season. How was Donnalee Station travelling financially? she wondered. Jinx whined and licked her hand. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  Time to forget about Ric Bonelli.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘Come and look at the cotton,’ said Ric. ‘You don’t want to be staying here by yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Sophie curled up on the couch. She aimed the remote at the television, flicked through the channels and settled on a cartoon about talking pigs and spiders.

  Ric rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘So, what, you’ll watch telly all morning? That sounds pretty boring.’

  ‘Not as boring as looking at your stupid cotton.’ Sophie didn’t look up. ‘Just a heap of flat paddocks. Not even any trees.’

  ‘Leave her be, Ricardo.’ Max was beaming as he emerged from the kitchen with a tray. It was quite amazing how indulgent he was of his granddaughter. If Ric had ever spoken to an adult so disrespectfully he would have got the belt. ‘She wants to stay, so let her stay.’ Max put a glass of milk and a plate of raisins and dried figs beside her. She screwed up her face, but apparently knew better than to complain, and provoke the inevitable lecture about the health benefits of dried fruit.

  Ric hesitated. ‘How about we go into town when I get back? We can post that letter to your mum, buy ice-creams. Monday’s mobile library day. We could join you up?’

  She ignored him. Eventually Ric shrugged and followed Max out the back door. This would be his first proper tour of the station since he’d been back. He shielded his eyes from the glaring sky. The sun was a demon and already the truck’s cracked, vinyl seat was too hot to touch. Even the clumps of tough weeds along the track were wilting, shrinking back to their roots. They drove out past the sheds towards the river, clouds of dust boiling in their wake. Dust was everywhere. Any movement stirred it to life, whipping up fierce little willy-willies that raced away with the illusion of purpose. A mob of hungry Herefords followed the truck along the fence line, bellowing and raising a grey cloud.

  Ric gazed out the window, not knowing how to feel. Fifteen years since he’d worked on this farm, whose seasons and rhythms had once been second nature to him. Field after field slipped by, a green sea reaching all the way to the brilliant blue skyline. Nothing moved out there, nothing at all. Only his eye moved, following the lonely stands of cotton to the horizon. Ric felt no itch of recognition, no yearning to reconnect with this strange, flat world. Just a vague nervousness, a throwback to childhood. As soon as the shoots were out of the ground, a cotton grower’s anxiety grew along with them. You couldn’t breathe easy until the harvest was in.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Max.
‘Fine crop this year, eh? Best crop ever maybe.’ This at least was familiar. The gamble, the wild optimism about each new season – and the sinking disappointment that so often lurked around the corner. His mother’s voice came back to him, chastising his father after floods or wilt or caterpillars had devastated the cotton. ‘You may as well go to the casino and lose all our money that way. It would be quicker.’ There’d been good years too, and it had been easy to forget about the loss of last year’s crop, when spring rolled around again.

  Max stopped the truck. Ric climbed out, his boots kicking up dust as he walked. But when he crossed over into the field, over the levees framing the head ditch, the soil held his footprint and ridged in rich, dark clumps. His father’s eyes shone with pride. The lush green crop stood almost waist-high. A few creamy, hibiscus-like flowers showed among the broad three-pointed leaves – big, beautiful blooms whose full glory would last for only a day. Others had withered away to dark pink. Some already boasted the green, segmented seed pods that in a few months would ripen and burst open with cotton wool.

  Max gestured for Ric to follow. They picked their way carefully between the rows that had almost closed over to form a seamless green carpet. A little red flag fluttered on a stake a few rows in. ‘Have a look at this.’ Max reached down and gently fingered a young boll. ‘See?’

  Ric looked, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be seeing. His father’s eyes were eager, expectant. It was the same face Nina had worn when she’d shown him the eggs on the pecan leaf. Ric examined the little green boll, scouring his memory, trying to figure out exactly what was so exceptional about it. His father’s expression began to change from hope to disappointment, and then Ric had it.

  ‘Six segments – a six-lock boll.’ Knowledge came back to him in a rush. ‘A bad crop might only grow three- or four-lock bolls.’ He rested another one in the palm of his hand. ‘This is what we want. A five-lock boll. It shows the plants are healthy and the season’s been near-on perfect.’

  ‘And we get more cotton,’ said a delighted Max.

  Ric nodded. ‘And we get more cotton. But this’ – he pointed to the rare find – ‘I’ve never seen this before. This is really something.’

  ‘Once a cotton man, always a cotton man. It’s in your blood, eh, Ricardo?’

  Ric was pretty sure it wasn’t, but his father’s joy was infectious and he was pleased to have passed the test.

  ‘Cotton’s like a baby,’ said Max. ‘Got to keep it warm and safe, give it a drink, give it a feed. Cotton won’t leave you alone, and you can’t leave it alone. All the time you have to worry; it’s too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet. Look around you . . . Look at the plants. What do you see?’

  Ric sighed but did as he was asked. The cotton appeared to be thriving, but Max’s face suggested that all was not right. He carefully inspected the closest plant. ‘No sign of insect damage.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Max. ‘This year I fix the little bastards once and for all with a new spray, FirstStrike. Never have no more trouble.’

  Okay. Ric took a closer look. This field was perhaps a darker shade of green than the next one. A hot blast of wind caused the plants to clash together with a rushing, rustling sound. The leaves were the tiniest bit crinkled around the edges. ‘When was the last time you irrigated this paddock?’

  Max whistled approvingly. ‘Nine days ago.’

  ‘Well, you’d better water again by tomorrow,’ said Ric. ‘There’s another scorcher forecast for Friday and leaving it any longer will affect the yield.’

  ‘Spot on,’ said Max. ‘We’ll flood this paddock today. Father and son, working together like in the old days. What could be better?’

  Max was right. It would go a long way to cementing the tentative bond they were forming. On top of that, irrigating the paddocks had been Ric’s favourite farm task, way back when, a chance to get wet in the baking summer heat. He guessed his father remembered that.

  ‘What about Sophie?’ said Ric.

  ‘I’ll walk to the dam,’ said Max. ‘You take the truck, go back and ask her if she wants to help us. Tell her she can cool off with a swim.’

  Ric guessed that it would take more than a dip in a muddy pond to prise Sophie from the couch, but he went back anyway. She was exactly where he’d left her – eyes glazed over, staring at the screen. A goose was singing about friendship to a group of farmyard animals. He leaned over the back of the couch, and tapped her on the shoulder. A jar of tadpoles sat on the cushion beside her. ‘Where’d they come from?’

  ‘Poppi.’

  ‘Want to come for a swim?’

  She brightened. ‘Is there a pool at Drover’s Flat?’

  ‘I meant here,’ said Ric. ‘In the dam.’

  ‘You said we’d go into town when you got back.’

  So he had. He’d completely forgotten. ‘We’ll do it later,’ said Ric. ‘I have to help Poppi with some watering first.’

  Sophie shrugged, turned the fan up to full and returned to the telly. ‘Sure you don’t want to come for a swim? I don’t like leaving you here. Where’s your phone?’ She shrugged again. ‘Go get it.’ Sophie glared at him for a moment, then flounced off to her bedroom to get the phone. He checked that it was charged and had reception, then he put it on the coffee table in front of her. ‘Call me if you need me,’ he said. ‘And answer it if it rings, okay?’ The girl’s attention stayed defiantly glued to the screen. He shook his head, put on his hat and left.

  Ric gazed across the wide waters of the storage. This wasn’t what he remembered, not at all. The area of the original dam had been massively extended and was circled by a chain of additional ponds, each one almost as big as the original. It must have cost a fortune. There was that brand-new tractor too, and late-model pickers and boll buggies in the shed. Dad must be doing all right for himself.

  Max was watching him. ‘What do you think, Ricardo?’

  ‘That’s a lot of water,’ said Ric.

  ‘That’s a hell of a lot of water,’ said Max, his weather-beaten face cracking into a grin. ‘A hell of a lot of water, for the best bloody crop ever grown at Donnalee Station. Maybe the best in the whole district.’ His pride and excitement was palpable. ‘Mother nature and her droughts and her bugs?’ he said. ‘She can’t touch us now.’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Ric, still stunned by the massive reservoir stretched out before him. Cotton was a plant that loved long, hot summers like this one, with low humidity and a maximum amount of sunshine. The higher the average temperatures, the greater the yield. Trouble was, long hot summers usually meant water shortages. But not this summer. It looked like Max was right. This could be the most profitable crop to ever leave the farm gate. His thoughts travelled back to the river. Its shallow water and sluggish flows. Its dead trees and exposed banks. The contrast disturbed him.

  ‘The dream, Ricardo. Remember the dream?’ Ric waited, watching the passion rise in his father’s eyes. ‘To buy next door, convert it to cotton, double our land?’

  ‘I remember.’ His father had tried for years to buy Billabong Bend, but was always met with a brick wall. Like most riverine graziers, the Langleys were firmly opposed to the burgeoning local cotton industry, accusing the irrigators of sucking the Bunyip dry and diverting floodwaters into massive, unmetered storage dams. It was a debate that Ric had never taken the slightest interest in. He’d only been a kid back then, after all. But now, looking at the shining sea stretched out before him, he had to concede that the graziers might have a point.

  ‘Old man Langley died last year,’ said Max. ‘Just a matter of time now before the place comes on the market. Maybe we’ll get ourselves one of those new baler pickers for next season. Your cousin, Tony, he’s got one. Never seen anything like it. Don’t need no casual picking crew. Don’t need to waste your money on wages. Just one picker and one bale grab for the whole harvest. That picker does everything, measures everything – tyre pressure, bale moisture – just by f
licking a switch. Damn thing even steers itself.’

  Ric looked suitably impressed. ‘And Eva?’

  Max waved a dismissive hand. ‘She’s an old woman, not right in the head. She won’t hold on much longer. What do you think, Ricardo?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About expanding, setting up a new cotton farm? Stay here and work for me. Later on you have your own place, eh? You run Billabong. Make a good life for your daughter.’

  Ric kicked at the ground. ‘I’ve already told you, Dad, I’m not cut out for this kind of life.’

  Anger flared in his father’s eyes. ‘I give you a chance to make something of yourself and you throw it in my face.’ He checked himself and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Just think about it, okay?’

  Ric cracked his knuckles. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He had no desire to work with his father. He no longer felt the old love for these black soil plains. He was a miner now – a rigger, a driller, a blast operator. In his line of work, the land was something to blow up and cart away.

  Max pointed to the gate. ‘Do the honours, please, Ricardo.’

  Ric stepped onto the narrow raised metal platform over the water. A sharp wind gust almost stole his balance. He steadied himself, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, until he reached the rusty metal wheel at the end. There was a time when he could have run safely out there in the middle of a gale, without a second’s thought, agile as a monkey. He’d always loved turning that wheel. It was a godlike feeling, to release the vast energy lurking in the main dam, to control its blind, headlong rush to lower ground, to bend it to his will.

  Frothing brown water sank in a whirlpool beneath his feet, and gushed out through pipes on the other side of the dam wall, filling the dusty canal. It gobbled up the dry bed of cracked mud, carrying all before it. Dust and sticks and stones. A lizard, running for its life, was swept away. ‘You go ahead,’ yelled Max, over the rushing sound. ‘I’ll finish up here.’ Ric walked back along the supply channel and raised the sluice to let the water reach the ditch at the top of the field. The cotton was watered with lengths of long black poly pipe, overbank syphons, one self-priming hose for two rows of cotton. When the head ditch was full enough Ric lifted a syphon, unsure of the technique after all this time. He plunged one end into the water a few times until the check-valve kicked in, then tossed it over the little levee into the field. Yes. A stream of water, sucked from the head ditch, was pouring from the pipe and down the length of the rows.