The Call of the High Country Read online

  He thought about shearing the woolly straightaway, but knew that David would be back to see him take its wool off as soon as he had bolted down his lunch. He pushed the three sheep up the race and then went inside the shed and loaded up his handpiece. Yes, he would definitely enter David in the local trial. The locals would reckon he had gone off his rocker, but his boy would make them eat their words. What a joke it would be if a kid beat Angus Campbell. Wouldn’t he blow a gasket! Angus thought he was God Almighty where stock and dogs were concerned. In fact, he thought he was God Almighty where everything was concerned. But that was the Campbells. They thought they were better than anyone.

  For all his snobbish ways, Angus Campbell had his good points, as had his father before him. Old Angus senior had helped Andy in various ways, but he had never been his mate. And Angus junior would never be a mate either. Not in the way Wilf White was. You lived your life and you let Campbells live theirs. You helped out when you were needed, and sometimes the favours were returned. That was the way life was in the bush, and that was what made it so worthwhile. It could be a hard life, but the good things certainly made up for the hardships. Especially when you had a son like David. Yes, he reckoned he had been damned lucky the day he met David’s mother.

  Chapter One

  Merriwa was, by nature of its location, a place where people took a good deal of interest in other people’s affairs. Somebody had once described Merriwa as ‘landlocked’. Muswellbrook, three-quarters of an hour away by road, was the town’s closest large neighbour and it was the favoured place for a day’s shopping. Over the range there was the village of Willow Tree on the New England Highway, just a few miles on the Sydney side of Quirindi. Forty miles north of Quirindi was the city of Tamworth. To the north-west there was the village of Cassilis and from there the road led on to Coolah and the Warrumbungles. To the south-west lay the town of Mudgee, the second-oldest settled town west of the Blue Mountains, and north of it was Gulgong, with its narrow, crooked streets which were a reminder of the roaring days when the town was a magnet for people everywhere and ‘gold’ was the word on everyone’s lips.

  Back in the early days when Merriwa was a small hamlet off the beaten track, most of the surrounding countryside had been divided between two very large properties, Collaroy and Brindley Park. Little by little these properties were whittled away by settlement so that the area that was once occupied by two owners was now owned by scores of farmers and graziers.

  Like a lot of towns, Merriwa thrived on gossip. It was difficult to hide anything. So when Anne Gilmour had first arrived there it did not take long for the news of her to spread. Anne was, if not exactly beautiful, very nice looking and, according to those who made early contact with her, a bonzer girl into the bargain. Her posting at the local school was regarded as one of the major events of the postwar years.

  Everyone in the district knew that Andy MacLeod was working his guts out on High Peaks. So when news came that he was to marry the good-looking teacher, Anne Gilmour, it made quite an impact. A couple of the more prosperous young graziers reckoned they had the inside running with Anne. That might have been partly true for a while, but only until the night Anne met Andy at the local dance.

  The first time she had seen him, something turned over inside her. Andy was a big man, ruggedly good-looking, and there was an aura of strength about him. But for all his strong, silent image, Andy liked to dance – and he danced very well. He was light on his feet in the manner of all top horsemen, but Anne could feel the hardness of his shoulder muscles as he guided her about the dance floor. They danced together for most of the night, with nobody daring to cut in on Andy MacLeod.

  The following weekend there had been another dance, and when Andy didn’t turn up, Anne nearly made up her mind to leave the hall. She didn’t realise that Andy was a long way from Merriwa on a shearing job. She hadn’t yet learned the full story of Andrew MacLeod’s struggle to hold High Peaks. She had made some discreet enquiries – as discreetly as was possible in Merriwa – about the big quiet young man who was responsible for the strange emotions inside her, and had learned, in bush jargon, that Andy was a ‘battler’, a ‘gun’ shearer, a hell of a man in a fight, and a top bloke with a horse or a sheepdog. She also learned that Andy’s father had been a little too fond of whisky and had allowed the family property to sink into debt, and later had been killed while coming down off Yellow Rock on his horse.

  Anne came to learn of Andy MacLeod’s background by degrees. MacLeod himself was not a man to talk much, and most of her information came from Jane Campbell, who was wife to Young Angus.

  Nobody in the district – other than Angus Campbell, of course – was in a better position to discuss Andrew than Jane. Not only did the Campbell property adjoin High Peaks, but Andrew often shore the Inverlochy rams and handled the odd horse for them. He was also viewed by some as one of the most eligible bachelors in the district, simply because he was, to use Fiona Cartwright’s words, ‘such a hunk of man’.

  For upper-crust graziers like the Campbells, tennis was one of the main social pastimes. Most of the Merriwa set had splendid tennis courts. A few outsiders were admitted to join their social events, the most notable being local bank managers and their wives – even some of the top graziers had big overdrafts. The fact that Anne Gilmour was both attractive and single made her a prime subject for conversation at such gatherings.

  Not long after she had met Andrew at the local hop dance, Anne was invited to a tennis party at Inverlochy. This was considered something of an honour, and it signified that she had been given initial approval. The invitation might have been inspired by the fact that some of Anne’s pupils had carried home rave reports about their new teacher.

  During Anne’s first visit to Inverlochy, her mind was consumed with the image of Andy MacLeod. She had not seen him since the night of the dance and that fact had been gnawing away inside her when she accepted the invitation to Inverlochy. She knew that his property adjoined the Campbells’.

  After her first game of tennis, Anne sat down on a white cane chair in the shade of a massive jacaranda tree, looking up towards the range. The tops towered away into the distance, not as grandly or as high as the mountains of Europe and western Scotland she had seen on her memorable overseas trip, yet there was something wild and wonderful about the Australian mountain country.

  ‘A penny, Anne,’ Jane Campbell said, presenting her with a cold glass of lemonade.

  ‘I was thinking how grand the mountains are. There seems to be a kind of magic about high places.’

  ‘The mountains can be very dangerous too, Anne,’ Jane said as she sat down beside her.

  ‘Is yours the last property on the road, Jane?’ Anne asked, knowing full well it wasn’t. They had very quickly assumed first-name status and Jane was discovering that she liked Anne very much.

  ‘No, there are four properties up the road to our right, but the MacLeod place is the only one at the end of this road. Andrew MacLeod joins us a mile or so up, and then along our eastern boundary until you get to the White place. Wilfred White is a rather eccentric fellow who breeds thoroughbreds. Races them, too. His twin brother was killed in the war, and Wilfred was never the same again.’

  ‘Do you see much of Mr MacLeod?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Oh, now and again. Andy has been shearing our rams for some time and he handles all our horses.’

  ‘Does he? Someone was telling me he is a wizard with sheepdogs. I used to love watching the sheepdog trials at the Sydney Sheep Show.’ This was a slight exaggeration because she had been only once.

  Jane looked at her and put her fingers to her lips. ‘Shhh, I’ll let you in on a secret. Angus and Andrew are deadly rivals at the local sheepdog trials. Well, I’m not sure whether Andy looks at it in that light, but Angus sure enough does.’

  ‘How far is the house from here?’

  ‘About three miles. When you turn the bend you can see High Peaks homestead standing on a slight rise.’
>
  ‘Do you go up there very often?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I haven’t been there at all. I’ve never had any reason to go. Andy doesn’t entertain, you see. He’s not like that. He is not a social person. A real bushman, Angus says. Angus goes up there now and again. It’s a wild place and when it rains – rains a lot, I mean – the low-level bridge gets covered and High Peaks is cut off by road. Sometimes artists go there to paint. Apparently there are some wonderful views from up on top – that’s the highest part of the range up there. I said that mountains could be dangerous places and that’s true of High Peaks.’ Jane pointed to where one peak overshadowed all the rest. ‘That’s Yellow Rock. Andy’s father came off his horse there. I believe Andy climbed down the side to recover his father’s body. Angus and Grandfather Campbell were with him. It was the talk of the district. But that is Andrew. Pity he’s such a bushie.’

  ‘What do you mean, “bushie”?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Andy is hard. I think he would be hard on women, too. It’s the way he’s lived. He doesn’t realise there is more to life than work. Work is all he knows.’

  Jane Campbell was blonde and very pretty. She was also just starting to show her pregnancy. She was a tall young woman with lovely manners, which was to be expected of a person with her schooling.

  ‘When is the baby due?’ Anne asked.

  ‘In August. I am going back to Mother’s in Sydney before then. Angus is hoping the first one will be a boy. Carry on the line and all that. The Campbells go back a long way. It’s funny, you know, but back in Scotland the Campbells and the MacLeods were on opposite sides of the fence. The Campbells sided with the English and were hated by the Highland clans.’

  Jane went on to explain that Old Angus was the son of a Lowland Scot and, although not as tall and powerfully built as Andrew MacLeod, he was a man of formidable presence. Both he and his son, Young Angus, were of similar complexion, being a shade on the florid side. They had the same piercing light-blue eyes, and where the younger man had sandy, reddish hair, his father’s was now a silvery grey. Old Angus had a real parrot’s beak nose, which was less pronounced on his son. It was said of Old Angus that he still had the first penny he earned and that his bark was worse than his bite. It took some people a few years to discover that Old Angus had a softer side to his nature, but nobody took him lightly. Old Angus was chairman of the Pastures Protection Board and president of the local branch of the Country Party.

  Young Angus was a marginally softer man, and although a few years older than Andrew MacLeod, the two got along well enough. It was a rather peculiar relationship because although Young Angus considered himself top of the grazier pile, he had the greatest possible respect for Andy’s ability with sheepdogs and stock horses. He had never managed to beat MacLeod at a single trial, which was a source of mortification to him, as Angus believed he owned the best of everything. He couldn’t understand how his border collies got walloped by MacLeod’s kelpies every time he came up against Andy at a sheepdog trial.

  There had been many arguments over dogs between Andy and Angus in the past. Andy was a kelpie man through and through while Angus favoured the border collie, as his father had before him. Angus could never understand how a man with Andy’s Scottish lineage could prefer kelpies to collies, but could not very well criticise – at least not openly – a man who had beaten him so often and so convincingly. It would look like sour grapes.

  Angus was one of the most successful graziers in the whole Liverpool Plains region. He owned one of the best horned Hereford studs to be found anywhere, as good a flock of merino sheep as money and good sheep classers could make it, and three times the area of land owned by Andy MacLeod. Angus also owned a lot more good bottom land on which he could fatten cattle and run breeding ewes.

  As Jane told her all this, Anne began to warm to her. Fantastic a thought as it probably was, she hoped the two of them could share a neighbourly friendship.

  Her reverie was broken when Jane asked, ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Andrew MacLeod.’

  ‘Oh, only once. I had a few dances with him. He told me he had a property in the hills.’

  ‘I see,’ Jane said and gave Anne a quick smile. ‘I believe there are several young women, and one or two older ones, who wouldn’t mind dancing with Andy MacLeod.’

  ‘Is that so? And what does Mr MacLeod think of that?’

  ‘Andy is far from being a ladies’ man. My impression is that he doesn’t know they exist at all. I predict that he’d want someone very special. His mother was a rare gem, I believe. They lived up on High Peaks all through the war while Andrew’s father was overseas. She could do almost anything. She milked the cows and had a lovely vegetable garden. She was killed when her husband crashed his car into the creek. It was up there at the bridge. I am told Andy hardly spoke to his father again.’

  ‘It must be hard on him, having to cross that bridge all the time,’ Anne suggested.

  ‘I agree, but fortunately Andy is a very practical person. By the way, is he a good dancer?’

  ‘Very good indeed, but after all you’ve told me I find it a little strange that a man like that would go anywhere near a dance hall.’

  ‘A lot of hardworking men like to dance. Where else can they go to meet women? Andrew isn’t any different in that regard. He is one of those rare people who is good at almost everything he takes on. His mother taught him to dance when he was quite young,’ Jane said. Then, coming closer and whisper-ing in Anne’s ear, she added, ‘Just between you and me, I think Angus is rather jealous of Andy’s sheer ability, especially when it comes to sheepdogs.’

  ‘But I thought that Angus was the livestock king of the district.’

  Jane laughed in her musical, tinkly way. ‘Yes, but when you’ve spent a lot of money importing a dog from Scotland only to see it beaten by your neighbour’s homebred kelpies, it can affect you quite deeply,’ Jane said.

  ‘Well, well. That’s something I’ve learned today,’ Anne said and laughed.

  ‘What have you learned?’ Angus said, surprising her from behind.

  ‘That that peak up there is the highest point of the Great Dividing Range for a fair way north and south,’ Anne replied, thinking very quickly.

  ‘Yes, it is, and a dangerous place it is, too.’

  Anne made a mental vow that she would make it to the top of Yellow Rock even if she had to do it on foot – the most likely possibility anyway, as she had never ridden a horse. That was something she was going to have to correct.

  It had been a most enjoyable afternoon at Inverlochy, but it could have been so much better if only she had found some excuse to visit High Peaks. Anne sighed as she opened the door of her little car. She took a last lingering look at the tops, purple now, before she headed the Morris back towards town. He is up there in those wonderful hills; a little empire all to himself, she thought. The more she heard about Andrew MacLeod, the more he fascinated her. It seemed that he was perhaps the only real man she had ever met. Damn him, she thought. The yearning for him was still there. There had to be some way she could meet him again without compromising her reputation. There just had to be.

  Chapter Two

  It was a warm, steamy night and some of the men had drunk too much before coming to the dance. Johnny Miller was one of a few men who had beer in his car and would slip outside periodically. Normally he didn’t drink so much, but it was a hot night and he had a thirst up.

  Johnny was employed at the local post office when he wasn’t chasing young women in Muswellbrook and Mudgee. He was a good-looking young man with dark, wavy hair and blue eyes. Anne’s mother would have called them come-to-bed eyes. They had lit up the first time Anne Gilmour came into the post office. She was easily the best-looking woman he had ever seen in Merriwa. Only Angus Campbell’s missus came anywhere near her. Johnny had an enormous ego to go with his looks, and his many victories with women had imbued him with the belief that he was irresi
stible.

  Anne thought that Johnny looked quite presentable, but it only took her half a dance to discover what he was really after. They were near the back verandah of the hall when the music stopped and Johnny quickly had her through the door and outside. One hand came round and cupped a breast while he kissed her neck. She could smell the beer on his breath.

  ‘Johnny, stop it! Let me go.’

  Johnny’s ego ignored Anne’s words as he reached down and put one hand on her thigh. She was just about to kick him when she heard a deep voice coming from the direction of the doorway.

  ‘Let her go,’ it said.

  ‘Piss off and mind your own business,’ Johnny said, without even glancing to see who was speaking. He continued to bury his face in Anne’s hair and kiss her.

  The next moment, he felt a pair of hands like steel bands on his arms lift him bodily into the air. Despite his struggles he was powerless to do anything. He was carried down the back stairs and then sat down hard on the ground. Then a stream of water was being sprayed all over him.

  Johnny got to his feet with fists flailing, but there was nobody there to hit. He made out a large figure heading up the back stairs two or three at a time but he couldn’t see who it was. He raced after his assailant and was almost at the top of the stairs when the big man turned and looked at him. ‘Go home, Johnny. Go home before you get hurt,’ the deep voice advised.

  Johnny quailed. There were only a couple of men in the district who really frightened him and one of them was staring him straight in the face. Andrew MacLeod. Nobody in their right mind antagonised Andy MacLeod. There were less painful ways of committing suicide than at the hands of Big Andy.

  ‘Sorry, Andy. I didn’t know she was your girl,’ Johnny said meekly.