Texas Read Online Free PDF Page B

you.’
    She gathered the children to her. When they reached the truck, she got in first and the driver lifted her boys up to her.
    â€˜Don’t cry, Mummy,’ said Ned as he shifted on her lap.
    The driver settled into his seat.
    Ollie turned to her and said: ‘We’re hungry.’
    She thought about that as they left the yards, following the track as it looped around through bush and then back the way they’d come. Heading towards the pale rosy glow that softened the sharp edges of a land seemingly hacked into being with
    Texas a giant chisel and hammer. We’re hungry . Ollie, who spoke for himself and his twin, condemned always to being part of another instead of the singular I. She knew what that was like.
    After the truck driver showered he returned to her kitchen with two cans of beer. She glanced up quickly while stirring the pot of savoury mince. He had taken his swag out the back and across the small dry creek bed that separated the stockmen’s quarters from the homestead. The children were settled but John hadn’t returned. The driver, she remembered his name was Steve, sat at the table, ripping the top off his can with a familiarity she found disconcerting. She turned back to the pot, stirring, watching the peas and the small pieces of carrot tumble through the grey meat. He spoke and she jumped.
    â€˜I brought you a beer.’
    She suddenly panicked. What did he want? Her husband would be home soon.
    â€˜Not for me thanks,’ she muttered into the pot.
    The generator seemed to miss a beat and the light above her flickered as though it was going to go out. He started to whistle between his teeth. The light was strong again. She heard Ollie calling out to her.
    â€˜Excuse me.’
    She walked outside. Ollie was waiting at the door.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’
    The light coming from the sleep-out lit half his face. An eye was wide and dark like a pool.
    â€˜I’m scared, Mummy.’
    She looked at him, feeling the fluttering of the vessel in her throat as her heart trembled. God, what to say? To tell him that she was scared too, of the fog that seemed to have wrapped around her. The hands that held his were wet with fear. She lifted him into bed and tucked the covers tightly around him.
    She whispered a little rhyme that her mother had taught her:
    â€˜Diddle, diddle, dumpling . . .’ Those silly words connected her to another time, and they calmed her.
    When she returned to the kitchen John was standing under the light. It was the charming John. The one who stood with his feet slightly apart, hips thrust forward, moving his hands as though he was exercising his fingers while he talked. He offered Steve a Bundy and Coke and winked at her as she took her place at the stove. His hair was plastered flat at the sides and it made his face seem narrower and his eyes closer together.
    Dirt ringed his mouth and highlighted his teeth.
    IV
    John had taken the boys with him on a bore run. As she carried the heavy basket from the laundry to the clothes line she wondered if he was feeling guilty about the way he reacted when she turned up at the yards. A light breeze moved the threadbare sheets already on the line and the shadows beneath formed and re-formed. She had no idea what he was thinking but he’d been in a better mood since the truck left with a load
    Texas of steers for the meatworks. Over breakfast he’d explained how a helicopter muster worked. Cattle were ushered into yards through long wings of hessian that spanned out into the country like a funnel, channelling them into captivity. They were brought there by fear, the flapping hessian and the throb of the machine above.
    She thought of her marriage and remembered how her mother had called John good husband material when she met him for the first time. He wore an open-neck shirt and moleskins and he told her that he’d just sold his V8 ute and bought a four-wheel drive since he was planning