The Call of the High Country Page 5

  ‘Will you whip your wife if she won’t work?’ Kate asked even more audaciously.

  The big man grinned. Anne relaxed. Andrew could take a joke.

  ‘I don’t even whip my animals, Kate. And I wouldn’t expect my wife to be a slave. I’d just expect her to pull her weight.’

  ‘And what would you be offering her?’ Kate quickly replied.

  ‘Me, and this place, a place to call your own … and a good, clean life. The chance to build a decent future. Something to pass on to your children. Is that enough?’

  ‘I reckon it is,’ Kate said, and looked sideways at Anne. There was a prior claim on Andrew MacLeod and she realised she should say no more.

  As a thankyou for letting them stay, Anne and Kate made Andy a massive breakfast, which he ate with little effort before helping them carry their bags out to Anne’s car.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ Anne said.

  ‘And especially for the eel-bashing,’ Kate added as the car drove away.

  Andrew lifted his hand to his hat and walked back to the house.

  Kate sighed. ‘Now that is a real piece of man,’ she said as the Morris crossed the bridge over the creek. ‘And he certainly likes you.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Of course. I can tell just by the way he looks at you. Bet you ten bob he asks you to marry him.’

  ‘It would be worth losing ten bob for that,’ Anne said very softly.

  ‘You mean you like him enough to marry him?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I love the big devil,’ she confessed. ‘And it’s making me miserable. I have wanted him from the first night we met. I just wish to God he would make up his mind what he wants.’

  Chapter Three

  The following year was one of the happiest Anne Gilmour experienced in her life. Years later, as she looked back on this period, she realised that Andrew MacLeod had been a much wiser person than had been apparent at the time. She was so concerned that Andrew wasn’t really serious about her that she failed to realise he was actually preparing her for a life on High Peaks.

  While they continued to go to dances, more and more time was spent on High Peaks, out on the hills on horses. Anne found herself enjoying her greater mastery of the old mare. There were also many trips together to sheepdog trials and campdrafts, which are similar to sheepdog trials except a horse is used instead of a dog. In the dog trials, Andrew won the Maiden and Open Trial with a black and tan kelpie called Ned, and in the final of the Open, Ned was the only dog who penned his sheep. Angus Campbell ran fifth, and his dog didn’t even seem in the same class.

  The weekend after the trial, Andrew picked Anne up in his old truck and they headed out to Murrurundi for the Hunter River championship campdrafts. Anne was full of interest in the drafts, but at the end of the day she decided that the dog trials appealed to her more. She did like horses, but it seemed to her that there was more science in working a dog in trials.

  She said as much to Andrew on the way home.

  ‘You’re right, Anne,’ he said. ‘There’s more to dog trialling than campdrafting, and anyone who has ever tried the two would agree with you. An old hand once said to me that having two reins in your hand to control your horse is an easier option than trying to control a dog a hundred yards away. You can exert a positive influence on your horse by your own actions, but if you haven’t trained your dog well enough to be able to stop him at a distance, you won’t win a sheepdog trial.’

  The next time Anne went out to High Peaks she found a new grey gelding in the horse yard. ‘Where did you get this fellow, Andy?’ she asked immediately.

  ‘He was going to waste so I cut him out by shearing; got the horse in return for his value in labour,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re ready for a bit more horse than the old mare. He’s yours.’

  ‘What? You mean he’s really mine? A present?’

  ‘I reckon,’ Andy said.

  Anne turned around and couldn’t resist kissing him. ‘You’re so sweet,’ she said.

  ‘You just going to look at him all day or are you going to try him out?’

  ‘I reckon I’ll try him out,’ Anne said, imitating Andy’s deep voice and bush drawl.

  ‘Right. Get a saddle on him and let’s be off. The day is nearly done.’ It was only nine a.m. but by then Andy had usually put in a couple of hours’ work.

  ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir,’ she said, bowing her head in the fashion of an obedient servant. She was going to try taking the mickey out of him just to see how he would take it.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘That’s all right, Andy,’ she said softly. ‘I know you didn’t. If I thought you did I would tell you what you could do with your horse and with High Peaks. As it is, thank you very much. A few months ago I couldn’t even get on a horse and now I own one. I can’t thank you enough.’

  She named the gelding Turk, and in time she came to truly love him. He was a very calm horse with lovely manners and he could handle the hills just about as well as the homebred horses. On Turk, Anne could ride almost anywhere – except up Yellow Rock.

  The day she mastered Yellow Rock was memorable in many ways. It came about three months after Andy had presented her with Turk and marked the day she passed Andy’s test of horsemanship. At the time, there was no indication that this day would be different from any other. It was a delightful autumn morning with a crispness in the air that presaged the coming winter. The hills were green from the autumn rains and there was not a cloud in the sky.

  ‘Better pack for the day,’ Andrew said when they had finished breakfast. ‘It might be a long one.’

  Anne nodded. They were often out all day, especially when mustering for crutching and drenching. She could now handle these long days without a twinge in her body. Moreover, she could take one of Andy’s older dogs and muster sheep on her own. The sheep she collected would then be taken to Andy and together they would inspect them for flies or, alternatively, drive them down to the shearing shed.

  This time the day began very much as usual, except that when they reached the foot of Yellow Rock they did not ride to right or left of the big mountain. Andy looked across at her and smiled. Anne thought that when he smiled he was as handsome as any film star. ‘I reckon it’s time you tackled Yellow Rock,’ he said casually.

  Anne caught her breath and looked up at the side of the mountain. ‘If you say so, Andy,’ she said, with absolute faith in his judgement.

  ‘It’s not all that bad going until you hit the last third or so. Of course it’s not that easy either. But the real test is near the top. The track becomes very narrow and if you take a wrong step you can go over the side. What makes it worse is that the last part of the mountain is pretty thick with big carpet snakes. A lot of horses can’t handle snakes. It’s the only thing I am not sure of with your grey horse. When we get up a bit I’m going to put a rope round your waist. If the worst comes to the worst and the horse goes over the side, I’ll have hold of you. You’ll see why when we get up there. Still want to give it a try?’

  Anne nodded. She couldn’t possibly let on how scared she was really feeling. She sensed that this was Andy’s ultimate test of her.

  ‘Andy, I’d follow you to hell and back,’ she confessed. ‘Let’s do it.’

  He nodded and smiled again. ‘Good girl. Just do as I tell you and pay attention to your horse.’

  The first part of the climb was steep enough, although the track was reasonably wide. But the higher they climbed the narrower it became. It was much rougher, too, because they were climbing through a maze of broken rocks, some massive and some partly worn away by erosion. They also passed caves and dense pockets of scrub.

  After climbing for around half an hour they came to a small grassy clearing edged by scrub and stunted gums. Andrew dismounted and uncoiled the rope that was tied to his saddle. He looped the end and handed it up to her. ‘Put this over your head and round your waist,’ he said.

 
Anne did as he asked and he tied the rope so that it would not slip.

  ‘I want you to go first,’ he said. ‘That way I can watch you and I’ll have time to react. If you’re behind me, you could be over the edge before I have the chance to do anything.’

  ‘That’s comforting,’ she said nervously.

  ‘Keep a firm pressure on the reins, but if anything happens and you feel the horse going over, kick your feet out of the stirrups and leave the rest to me.’

  ‘It just gets better and better,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Want to turn back?’

  ‘Not on your sweet life … not if it kills me.’ God, the things a girl does for the love of a man, she thought.

  ‘Okay, away you go,’ he said.

  The grassy plateau gave way almost immediately to a grotesquely angled track that reared skywards and was perhaps three feet wide. The confusion of rocks became greater as they climbed.

  ‘Landslides,’ Andy called from behind, by way of explanation.

  Two dark-furred wallabies spun away from a tiny patch of grass beside the track and with wonderful agility jumped from boulder to boulder and disappeared into the labyrinth of rocks and caverns.

  Anne noticed there were lots of smashed trees and big splintered branches littered around them, and Andy, as if reading her thoughts, said, ‘Those trees were smashed by lightning. The ironstone rocks up here act like a magnet.’

  ‘Remind me never to be here during a storm,’ she said.

  The track dipped a little and then narrowed. The mountain plunged away to the left and just ahead Anne could see where there had obviously been a considerable landslide. Tons and tons of earth, shale and rocks had poured down off the uppermost section of the mountain and across the track. Over the years this had built up into a huge deposit across a steeply plunging gully.

  ‘We found my father just beyond that slide,’ Andy said.

  ‘You mean you went down there?’ she said, looking over her shoulder at him.

  ‘Don’t look back. Keep your eyes on the track. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m petrified, but I guess I’m okay.’

  ‘Once we get past this bit of track the going gets slightly better. The track turns back to the right.’

  ‘Andy, don’t tell me you can bring sheep down from here?’

  ‘I’ve taken a few down this way, but mostly we cut the fence into Wilf’s and take them down the hill to the bottom country and in through the lower gate.’

  ‘But there’s no grass up here.’

  ‘There is on the other face, and that’s where most of them feed. They come up here in the evening to camp.’

  ‘Whew,’ Anne breathed to herself. The words of the poem The Man from Snowy River kept coming back to her. She began to have some idea of what it would be like to ride the Monaro Range.

  Turk twitched his ears and looked to the right.

  ‘He’s smelling the snakes, Anne. Pull his head back and keep him pointed up the track.’

  Anne’s heart skipped a beat and then, almost miraculously, she found that they were over the very steep section of track and were turning away from the actual face of the mountain. She was now riding through a narrow gully that seemed to bisect the very peak itself. Water was trickling down the ravine and Turk lowered his head to drink.

  ‘Keep him going, Anne,’ Andy called.

  She nudged the grey and he responded immediately. They rode on through the gully until it widened into a very small clearing seemingly gouged out of the mountainside. There was no track there, only a steep slope of shale and rocks.

  ‘We’ll have to leave the horses here, Anne. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.’

  Andy was beside her knee and untying the rope from around her waist. He helped her out of the saddle. She had thought her legs were well conditioned for riding but they still shook as she felt the ground beneath her. They were unsteady from the continual pressure of having kept her legs tight against the horse as they had climbed.

  Andy collected the saddlebags and handed the empty billy to her. ‘There’s a spring behind that rock, Anne. Why don’t you fill the billy and then we’ll attack this slope?’

  Anne found a tiny spring bubbling clear water, which she used to fill the billy.

  As they set off, Andy cautioned her, ‘Don’t try to climb straight up the slope. Climb across. If you get into trouble, I’ll be right behind you.’

  It was with this security in mind that Anne managed to climb to the top. She could hardly believe she had made it there, right to the top of Yellow Rock. She pulled herself to her feet and looked around.

  ‘Wow,’ she said, with wonder in her voice.

  ‘It’s quite a view, isn’t it?’ Andy said as he came up to her.

  The immensity of the view stunned her. It was as if they were in another world, the only two people for miles around.

  To their right was another peak, equal in height to the one on which they stood, and farther away still was another big peak, showing darkly against the horizon. Andy caught Anne’s gaze and pointed. ‘That’s Mount Oxley. It’s four and a half thousand feet high,’ he said. ‘And right across there is Murrurundi and Wingen, where we went to the campdrafts. Now, if you look away to the left, you can see the homestead. It’s just a speck from here. And back behind us in that haze is Merriwa.’

  ‘Is that Wallaby Rocks across there?’ she asked.

  ‘It sure is. The boundary fence is between here and that peak. Wilf White owns all that country down through there. That’s his house there by the dark-green patch. It’s his lucerne paddock, see?’

  She nodded. ‘And one day you would like to add all that land to High Peaks?’

  ‘I sure would. It would make a very decent property then. Wilf’s lower country is pretty good and I could run more cattle and also make a fair bit of hay. I’m not geared to making hay on High Peaks because I haven’t the equipment to do it. Wilf has some farming plant and he’s got that fairly level bit of country, which I don’t have. Now, are you ready to eat?’

  ‘I’ve never been more ready in my life,’ she said.

  There were pieces of storm-hit trees even on the peak, and in his wonderfully dexterous bushman’s way Andy soon had a fire going and the billy boiling.

  ‘This is heaven,’ Anne said as she sat eating her sandwiches and sipping tea. ‘The view is absolutely unreal.’

  ‘Worth the effort?’

  ‘Oh, yes, worth the effort. Mind you, I wouldn’t want to do it every day of the week.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Today was just the right day for the climb, and Turk was a perfect gentleman. Lady wouldn’t have made it, would she?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Not now. She used to do it years ago when Mother would come up here on her own.’

  ‘I dips me lid to your mother,’ Anne said gravely.

  ‘You two would have got on very well,’ Andy said.

  He looked down into the valley of the White property for a few moments before turning back to her.

  ‘Have you ever thought about becoming Mrs Andrew MacLeod?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, once or twice,’ Anne said with a smile. If he had meant to surprise her, he had succeeded, but up there in that world beyond the world, could anything be surprising?

  ‘You have, eh? What do you think of the idea?’

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard you say that you love me. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said with surprising candour. ‘If what I feel about you is love, then I love you,’ he said. ‘You’re the only woman I’ve met who I want to have with me on High Peaks. I feel differently about everything when you’re with me. The place seems empty when you’re gone. If that’s not love then I don’t know what it is. I sure like you an awful lot.’

  ‘But you’ve never even kissed me, not even when I’ve kissed you.’

  ‘I didn’t want to risk losing you … didn’t want you to think I was someone like Johnny Miller.’

 
‘There was never any danger of me thinking that, big fella. You could have tried to kiss me any time you liked. You know a hell of a lot about the bush, but you know very little about women.’

  ‘Maybe you could teach me,’ he suggested.

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ she said.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll marry me?’

  ‘Does that mean you’re asking?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ask me properly.’

  ‘Ask you what?’

  ‘Ask me to marry you.’

  ‘Anne Gilmour, will you marry me?’

  ‘There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t too hard. So what do you say?’

  ‘Of course I’ll marry you. I’d nearly given up waiting for you to ask. Are you ready to kiss me now?’

  Andrew’s response was immediate and overwhelming. Anne felt herself being lifted off the ground so that her eyes were several inches higher than his and he gazed up at her. Then she was lowered until their lips met and she surrendered to his passionate kiss.

  ‘Wow, that was worth waiting for,’ she said afterwards, regaining her breath.

  Andrew held her crushed to him for an eternity until she took his hand and held it tightly. ‘Try it again,’ she said. So he did and it was even better the second time.

  ‘We are going to be very happy here on High Peaks, aren’t we, darling?’ she said.

  The look of joy on Andy’s face gave her the answer.

  A little later he sat with his arms around her while they surveyed their kingdom. Andrew had his back wedged against a large piece of rock. He was feeling very pleased with himself, having won the woman he had wanted since the first time he saw her, the woman he had thought might be out of his reach.

  ‘I wonder what it would be like to stay up here all night,’ Anne said with her lips close to his left ear.

  ‘Perhaps it would be a bit like looking down from heaven and watching one side of the world fade into darkness,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a thought,’ she said. ‘I’d like to try it sometime.’

  ‘Try what?’ he asked.