A line of emojis appeared on the screen of my phone. I deciphered them. Rooster…hospital…thumbs down…ambulance…old man…Then, a full sentence…Come.
A text from Peter. The emojis said it all. Me, the contemporary Champollion decipherer. My younger brother, always dispassionate, saved from inarticulateness by the equivalent of the modern-day Rosetta Stone.
We called him Roo not after kangaroo, but after the rooster. As a kid he would carry the top rooster everywhere until the day it needed to be dispatched. He then did so with the same emotion as a serial killer.
Everything, he saw as a joke; made most others visibly squirm; treated disaster as trite.
I hadn’t been back for years.
The dust that followed my car towards the property told me there were problems. This thirsty Brigalow country had been bulldoze-dragged years ago with the last part of the native forest just sitting like a ruffle collar round patches. The place needed more than one good year to make a come back. Its drastic demise required more than any euphemism defining climate change to return it to the pristine condition it once was.
Years ago when I suggested counter measures to avert disaster, the two of them could only yell “greenie” at me. I chose another path.
The house with its sheds and broken farm machinery sprawled across a low rise dotted with slender brigalow trees. A lone bottle tree whose curse emanated from its mindless branches sat leafless next to the verandah of the house. As I walked across the boards of the verandah the noise of my shoes spelled out home. My brother sitting back in the shadows didn’t move.
“Saw you comin’ in that flash piece. Jag is it? A pretend four-wheel drive. You better not get a flat out here. You’d have to put it on a tray back to Brisbane. Hey.”
I offered my hand. He held up a stubby and pointed to the other chair. Usually, Dad’s spot I gathered.
“Big effort to come back, with your busy life.”
Under his huge hat, the face was worse for wear. The burnt sinewy arms hung over the chair. One held the stubby; the other a thin, rolled cigarette. He drew back on it and spat across the verandah.
I looked down at the worn, vacant chair.
“Dad here!”
“Yeah! They brought him home. Nothing they can do for him. He’s no good. They wanted to keep him in. He was aggressive they said. Cops brought him home.”
“Is he in the back room?”
“Where else! In a hurry to get going again, hey?”
I walked past him to the slightly cooler darkness of the main room and through to the main bedroom. My mother had passed away years ago. The day they carried her out of the house, compassion went with her. I could still feel her arms around me. Her softness passed into me as strength. Now, I couldn’t feel anything in the room that reminded me of her.
Our father lay back in the bed. Clothes linen soiled; spread in a chaotic mess. He lay in the bed his head heavy and to one side. All the weight and muscle gone. Once a big man, now a shell. The oxygen bottle attached. A cigarette smouldered beside the bed. A fuse not quite attached. I moved towards him.
“Dad.”
He drew back as I reached out. He stayed in the silence and looked out the window as the mournful sounds of the Currawongs called in the evening.
“Took you a while to get here.”
“I didn’t know you were bad. Roo…”
Roo spat out.
“Don’t blame me! You…! Always an open door here.”
“Why didn’t you contact me direct? You could’ve got treatment in Brisbane.”
The sneer came from Roo. It was something else that separated us.
“What! And stay with you and your partner…pardner.”
Both of them laughed.
The old man coughed with a rattle that took some time to control. I moved forward, but he waved me away. He eventually found a way to breathe. He looked at me in a way that once made me cower.
Roo had it written all over his face.
“Not a saddle I’d want to slip into.”
The taunts had run their course with me.
“Michael died last year.”
The cough subsided. He stretched back, and with effort reminded me of an unforgiven past.
“Too late now. You made your choice when you left here.”
“I haven’t come here to drag up the past.”
Roo blew smoke all over the room and tipped his stubby to his lips. His tight grin barely made the words audible.
“You were happy to join your greenie mates and all their gay friends. A big bed for you all to lie in and do whatever you lot do.”
“Or argue with you.”
“You’d lose again.”
I looked out through the back window and then slowly back to Roo. He trotted out the well-worn euphemism.
“Just a bit of extreme weather.”
It was a bit hard to hide what the place looked like under a euphemism.
“It’ll come back again.”
My father’s arm fell down beside the bed.
“Not in time for me.”
“Bullshit dad! You’ll be up and about tomorra.”
Roo looked at me.
“Well, you’re just in time for the cull. Eastern Grey. Unprecedented numbers! They’re the sort of words you city lot use. You freak out over the slightest thing.”
I could sense the old ingrained contempt between country and city about to be trotted out.
“This’ll be the last year. Those animal liberationists have got the local Pollies scared shitless.”
“Covid brought about a few changes for everybody.”
“Not for us out here. We had to hold things together and feed you bastards.”
“Well, you were best to do it.”
“Aw! Don’t suck up to me, hot shot. You always made me out to be shit at things.”
“There was no intention.”
“Well, the sun’s dropping. By the time I get dad something to eat and rig everything up, it’ll be late enough.”
Dad wheezed heavily and fell back on the bed again.
“I don’t want anything to eat.”
“I’ll do you some soup.”
“Not tonight. I don’t need it.”
He looked at me. His wide eyes shone out of the hollows of his face.
Roo sized me up and down.
“You get out of those jazzy Jag clothes. Get ready to come out with me.”
“I don’t think I will, Roo. I’d like to stay with dad.”
“He wants you to man up. Surely, you can do that for him.”
*
My father looked at me. Without moving his head, he cast his eyes over me without a word. He picked up the smouldering cigarette from the ashtray, removed the oxygen tube and took a long drag. He coughed for some time, at the same time waving me away. He rolled over and looked towards the window.
When my father finished with anyone, they were finished. There was no more conversation. Roo broke the silence with a quick snort.
“Do as he wants you to do. Get some gear on. Your rifle’s still in the lock box.”
He pointed down the hall as he went into the kitchen. I went back into my father to speak to him, but he did not turn to me.
“See you later, Dad.”
I went into my old room, drew in all its smells of damp and lanolin, and changed into some old gear.
I heard the ping of the microwave from the kitchen as Roo made the soup. On the verandah, I sat on the edge of Dad’s chair. Roo arrived in the doorway.
“Don’t you look the part, pretty boy. Trucks just out there.”
We wandered out to one of the sheds where what passed as a truck with its broken mudguards and doors sat. The massive spotlight was set as if waiting for the night. Night when it came out here fell like a blanket on the day and was made as dark as the brightness of the stars allowed. It was pretty late by the time we headed out.
The ride out was some distance and even though I knew the way well, Roo made sure I felt every bump. It was near midnight by the time we pulled up. The heat of the truck offered little comfort to the now freezing conditions outside. We sat in silence as the truck cracked and cooled around us.
I had always avoided the culls when they came up. I could never rationalise the philosophy of a country that killed and ate their national symbols.
Roo knew what I was thinking.
“Man up! If we don’t do this there’ll be nothing left for the stock to feed off.”
What could I say?
“Then, what’ll you and your fancy mates be able to afford to eat.”
The millions who lived in the cities were by default part of the problem.
“This is where they’ll come past. Get up top.”
We climbed up on the tray.
“Where’s your bloody rifle?”
“I haven’t shot for a while. I’ll do…”
“Don’t be piss weak! This’ll probably be the last time you’ll ever do anything worthwhile for the old man.
Get back down and get it.”
I did as I had always done, appeased him.
“I’ll handle the light as well. Multi-tasker! I am”
Back on the top, it was quiet. Then came the whispering sound of the kangaroos as a mob moved through the low scrub heading for water. It was a distinct sound, but one you had to be alert to.
The light on the truck blazed. In the middle of its large beam the mob froze. Roo whistled to hold their attention. He fired away with precision while I half heartedly fired off centre. The mob had scattered through low shrub. In the past, with dad in the cabin of the truck, we would have chased them. It was over quickly.
“Come on! Get down! Check the damage.”
We drove slowly over through the kill. There were about eight does lying inert on the ground. No buck was there. They usually lead. Roo had let it through, knowing the does would continue to follow.
Separated from the others by some distance was one trying to get up. It had been shot in the hip. It sat on its haunches and struggled. It had been hit in the front paw as well.
“Looks like you were right. You have lost the knack.”
“I didn’t even shoot…”
“Bullshit! Here.”
He handed me a club. The paw had come up as if in a defensive move.
“About time you did something useful. Finish it!”
“I’m not doing that.”
“You’re gunna leave it in pain. You know what to do. Finish it!”
I did know what to do.
“Shit! Get on with it!”
The animal turned its head to look at me. Its eyes searched mine for kindness. Then, there was a look of forgiveness. As I went to hit it in the place I knew to be the most effective, it turned its face slightly away. Serene acceptance reflected in its wide, brown eyes. Through them, I watched the forest and woodlands disappear. I saw the native grasses and the lost wildflowers flashing past. I felt its faltering fleet-footedness. In the final moments, as the shine of its eyes faded, I was overwhelmed by a sense of its humility. It had drawn me into its world. My world fading with its.
I would be punished for my hypocrisy, but my responsibility for the wounds I caused forced my final act.
“Come on shake a leg. We’ve got to get these on the truck.”
I helped load them. I knew the night wasn’t finished as we had to skin them and hang them. Roo had a small business on the side.
“We’ve got to get back to Dad. He’ll be wanting his meds.”
We approached the house just as the sun came up. It silhouetted the brigalow trees and the bottle tree. The truck was struggling under its load, so Roo pulled up to let it recover. The house squatted in shadow and carried with it a certain silence.
Roo looked at me.
“He’s gone.” I breathed out in a way that surprised me and made me realise I had been holding my breath since I had arrived here. In spite of the possibility of this loss, within me there was a sense of serenity.
***
John Bradley has been a writer for nearly 55 years. His plays have been performed in Brisbane (La Boite Theatre, Princess Theatre) and other venues have won awards with ‘Irish Stew’ Published. His poetry has won awards in a host of competitions: ACU Poetry Competition, FAWQ Competition. He has been published and won awards as a writer of short stories with Hawkeye Publishing, Katherine Susan Pritchard Competition WA. His works have been broadcast on ABC podcasts “The Old Vdub”. He has enjoyed awards as a memoir writer; has been a film critic; has written and published travel articles. He was Head of an English Department, School Principal and presenter at Writers’ Festivals. He cares for the Heritage listed Caloundra Lighthouses where his children’s book The Little Lighthouse is sold to support the upkeep of the buildings.