Free Fresh Fields by Peter Kocan Page A

the neat room in the shearers’ quarters and go out and douse his head under the tap of the water tank. Then he’d sit on the little verandah of the quarters and look out at the morning sky and at the play of light across the hills and gullies. He would hear the birds’ calls and the baaahs of sheep. Then there’d be a good hearty breakfast about seven-thirty, with Clem and Gladys talking about local goings-on. They’d both been born in the district, and their parents before them, and they knew everything about everyone.
    There was always a program called
Country Calling
on the radio at breakfast time. The youth loved it when they gave the weather forecasts for the entire state and ran through the names of the various regions one by one. These names made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, for they were packed with possibilities. You didn’t know what the possibilities
were
, exactly—that was why the yearning was spiced with a slight touch of fear—but whatever they were, they were brought nearer just by hearing those names said aloud. The youth’s favourite of all was the High Plains. He imagined what a fine thing it would be to have it said of you, “Oh yes, he was a great Horseman. He rode the High Plains with Clem Currey!”
    After breakfast they would ride over to the other place to do the feeding and milking. Clem was teaching the youth how to milk. If you did it as expertly as Clem you got two lovely strong squirts of milk going into the bucket almost without any pause. At first the youth struggled to get any milk out at all. He was squeezing the teat with his whole fist rather than getting the downward ripple motion of the fingers. You could tell from the cow’s reaction if you were doing it wrong. She’d seem twitchy and irritated and would turn her head in the bails and look at you as if to say:
What’s the problem? What are you playing at?
But then the youth got the hang of the downward ripple and the milk began to flow. “Ya got a real knack for it,” Clem told him. “Just like the ridin’.”
    With the Coleses away the milk wasn’t needed for the homestead, so they gave it to the pigs.
    â€œI notice ya still a bit nervous round them pigs,” Clem remarked one morning.
    â€œYeah, a bit.”
    â€œYa need ta show ’em who’s boss,” said Clem.
    â€œHow?” asked the youth.
    â€œTry givin’ ’em a whack with that bloody great trowel ya got. They’re smart buggers, pigs. They’ll get the idea.”
    So the youth took to leaning over the fence and hitting them on the back with the trowel when they were crowding the trough and not giving him room to pour the mush. It worked. A whack or two with the flat of the trowel would make them flinch back long enough to let him pour cleanly. But the effect wore off in a day or so and they were back to crowding him. He tried using the edge of the trowel. It worked much better. A whack of the edge and a pig backed right off. And they didn’t lose their fear of it. After a few days of using the edge of the trowel he hardly had any more trouble and only needed to give a whack now and then, when a pig came within reach, just as a reminder.
    After nearly a fortnight the youth could manage the milking as well as the feeding, and felt more secure on horseback. He went by himself each morning to carry out the chores, then back to see what Clem was doing.
    The day might be taken up with fixing a fence, or repairing a saddle, or maybe taking the tractor and trailer out on the slopes to cut a load of firewood with a chainsaw. Clem did everything in his graceful style. Watching him, you’d never have guessed how tricky it was to work the tractor on the slopes or how dangerous a chainsaw could be.
    The youth understood that Clem never expected any machine to get the better of him, any more than he expected to meet a horse he couldn’t ride. It