Coming Rain by Stephen Daisley Read Free Book Online Page B

curling as he too snarled. A low growl coming from his throat.
    She had dark brown eyes, freckles and black hair cut unfashionably short. Cheeks
flushed brown red with blood and sun. Her father’s old, worn Akubra hat, hole in
the peak. It had come off her head and hung down her back by a cord. Waved a hand
in front of her face at the flies. Smiling yet as the gelding walked back three more
steps and began turning away from them. Touched his nose onto the upper jaw of the
mare on the lead. Nibbled at the halter brow strap.
    ‘We just having a bit of a wongi,’ her father said. ‘Bit of a chat here with the
boys.’ He turned to the shearers. ‘You remember my daughter Clara, Mr Hayes? The
image of her mother.’
    ‘I saw your truck coming Mr Hayes.’ She was almost shouting in her easy breathlessness.
‘Good to see you again.’ Pulled the white horse’s head to the off side as she spoke
to him.
    ‘Miss Drysdale,’ Painter said and smiled up at her. ‘My you have grown. Good to see
you. What are the horses you have there?’ He recalled her love of the animals.
    Clara waved again at the flies in front of her face. Glanced at Lew once, twice.
He could not take his eyes off her. Three times now she had looked at him.
    She looked back and pointed to the pregnant mare on the lead rope. ‘That is our shy
Pearl, she is in foal, well you can tell that by her look, and this is Tom, her half-brother
who we had to geld as a yearling. Uncontrollable otherwise.’ She leaned forward in
the saddle and patted Tom’s dappled white neck. ‘Remember that Dad?’
    The men all smiled up at her like they had heard something they didn’t need to and
were silent.
    Painter spoke to her and pointed to Lew with an open hand. ‘Miss Drysdale this is
Lewis McCleod.
    ‘Miss Drysdale,’ Lew said. ‘How do you do?’
    Her face lit and she blushed and looked to herself; at how her loose work shirt was
hanging off her. The jodhpurs tight on her thighs and a hole in the knee. The bloody
flies all over her. A million of them. ‘Hello there,’ she said with the sudden confidence
of boarding school. ‘Good thank you.’ Tom once again moving beneath her. ‘And yourself?’
    ‘I am fine thank you,’ Lew said.
    Painter watched them.
    Drysdale was leaning back. Raised a hand and spoke. ‘Clara, I was about to tell them
that we will be doing the roustabout and pressing work in the shed. There are no
shed hands coming.’
    She shook her head. ‘As well as mustering and penning? It won’t work Dad. You should
have got a shed hand or two. Goodness sake.’
    ‘We have been having troubles. But they are sent to try us are they not?’
    Clara looked at him as if he was losing his mind. ‘I would rather shed hands were
sent to help than troubles to try us. Or what about those awful bank managers. What
did you call them, Dad? The assassins of hope? Like a weather forecast, you said
they were. And we need to carry more sheep, Dad; have you seen the price of wool?
White gold.’
    Drysdale gave an uncomfortable laugh. Shot a quick look towards the shearers. ‘Well,’
he said, ‘I don’t know about that, girl.’
    Painter coughed. ‘We better get settled in then Mr Drysdale,’ he said. ‘We’ll get
over to the quarters?’
    Drysdale, nodding, was about to say something when Clara spoke up. ‘There must be
wild dogs, dingo about, I saw crows before, flying up and jumping like they do.’
    ‘Dog crows?’
    ‘Beyond the highway,’ she said. ‘Like they were following you almost.’
    They looked to where she pointed. ‘Gone now by the look.’ Tom walking backwards beneath
her.
    The land fell away to the red mile track and fence line. The Comet windmill and water
tanks. A flock of white cockatoos walking in a wide paddock behind the woolshed.
The earth, yellow and red brown and in places shimmering white to clear. A line of
trees marked the Great Eastern Highway about half a mile away. They watched as a
large articulated truck and