Broken Dreams (3 page)

After the shearing we returned to the Womals. All together we had twenty-four horses there, most of them young ones. Although I sure had my fair share of busters, quite often I managed to stay in the saddle when a horse started to buck. But that doesn't make such a good story! After my uncle and I had done all we could with the horses we returned them to their owners. Then it was time to move on.

We went back to town and got a job working racehorses. I used to have to get out of bed at five-thirty each morning, which nearly killed a lazy bugger like me, so that we could make an early start on the horses. In winter it was so cold that I used to have tears trickling down the side of my face and couldn't feel my fingers as I exercised each horse. You had to be crazy to work those racehorses in winter. As the weather warmed up things became easier.

One morning I was hung over with too much grog from the night before. The last place I wanted to be was out there, exercising those racehorses. However, I got to work, and finally there was only one horse left to ride. I caught that last horse and set off. Coming around the corner of the track, the horse shied at a pigeon sitting there. I wasn't sure if the horse had seen the fence to the left of me, so I loosened my grip on the reins. At the same moment the horse hit the fence and stopped dead. I was
gently thrown over the fence and landed on the broad of my back.

All the times I was thrown from horses I was never hurt too bad. I had horses fall over with me, I got thrown hard onto the ground, I even had horses rear over backwards. But I always managed to walk away unhurt.

I still lacked discipline. One night my mates Roy Cambarngo, Chong, Adrian Finlay and a few others decided to get on the grog. Since some of us were under-age and not able to drink at the pub, we decided to get a carton of stubbies and drive around in Ernie's taxi. Ernie charged us twenty cents to beep the horn, twenty cents to do a fish-hook, fifty cents to spin the wheels and a dollar to do a handbrake. By the end of the night we had fitted seventeen blokes in the taxi, with another one hanging off the roof rack.

My uncle and I spent a few months working the racehorses, and then I gave this job away, and we broke our partnership. But I shall never forget how Johnny Dodd taught me such a hell of a lot in such a short time.

There wasn't much work around Mitchell, so a bloke called Greg Pearce and I decided to head up to the Northern Territory. I felt, too, that I needed to get out of Mitchell for a while. Greg and I already had a job lined up in the Territory, at a station called Auvergne, two hundred kilometres out of Katherine.

We headed off by coach, waving to our mates as we pulled out of the bus depot. The trip to Mt Isa seemed to pass reasonably quickly, but when we got there we were told that the road was too wet for the bus to continue the journey. Passengers travelling to the Northern Territory would have to stay a few days in Mt Isa. Greg and I were in luck. I don't think we had a dollar between us, but one of the other passengers on the bus told us we could stay at his place. During the next few days we became accustomed to the scene at Mt Isa, but we were eager to get to our destination.

On the bus once more, we seemed to travel for hours
before the driver at last pulled up for lunch at a little outback pub. As Greg and I stepped off the bus, we were only too well aware of the stares of the local drinkers. To make things worse, there were thousands of grasshoppers. You had to be pretty watchful, especially if you were munching on a steak sandwich. If you felt something that was a bit crunchy and tasted bloody awful, then it paid not to swallow it. While we were there, one of the blokes grabbed a grasshopper and snuck up behind this girl. He put the grasshoper down the back of her t-shirt. The girl let out a
cooee
and boy, did she cut some capers—much to the delight of her tormentor and the onlookers drinking in the pub. These were wild boys, the type that make the bush proud. “If this is the Territory, take me home!” I told Greg.

Then we were back on the road. Greg and I spent a day and a night on the bus before we arrived at a place called Threeways, the junction where all the buses met and fuelled up before taking off in three different directions. Greg and I wanted to get on the bus for Katherine, and we caught what we hoped was the right one. Travelling along the highway, we weren't sure whether we were on the right bus or not. Greg was only fifteen, I was just a year older, and we were both really shy and didn't feel game enough to go on up and ask the driver if we were in fact on the way to Katherine. We sat there like two stuffed dummies—until I realised that if we were on the wrong bus, it was quite serious. Forgetting my shyness, I leapt out of my seat and went up to the driver. I was one happy bloke when he named Katherine as his destination.

We finally arrived at Katherine about ten o'clock next morning, and from the bus stop we were driven out to the airstrip, where we sat on our swags expecting someone to come along in a car or truck to take us the last two hundred kilometres of our journey. Suddenly a young,
skinny fellow approached us and asked our names. We told him. “You're the two boys I have to take out to Auvergne,” he said. “Come over and throw your gear into that little blue plane over there.”

Straight away I wanted to bail out. Flying was not for me! I was scared of heights—at home in Mitchell, even the house roof was too high for me. I felt safe firmly rooted to the ground. I had always wanted to go to New Zealand, but wouldn't travel by ship in case it sank in the sea, and I wouldn't travel by plane in case it fell out of the sky. And now Greg and I were expected to fly to Auvergne.

All Greg could say was, “I want the front seat!” He could have the whole bloody plane for all I cared. Somehow, getting up all my courage and with my poor old legs feeling like jelly, I managed to climb in the back. I still don't really know how the pilot and Greg between them conned me on board, and I can't recall very much about the flight—but I was sure glad to step out and feel the ground beneath my feet once more when we arrived! I couldn't get away from that little blue plane quick enough. “That Billy's a quiet boy,” said the pilot.

Auvergne was a big place, bigger than any station I'd known before. You could go ninety kilometres in one direction and still not reach the boundary. We soon settled in and began work with the horses. But that first week I nearly blew it. One morning, Greg and I went down to the horse yards on our own and started riding some of the young horses without supervision. As a result I got a smack on the jaw from the head stockman. Luckily for me, he couldn't hit real hard. I told him to stick his job. Feeling that I had made better starts in a new place, I went to get my gear, ready to leave—then the boss appeared and told me I still had my job. But I was removed from being with the horses to working in the house yard. I had to mow, rake the lawn and pick up fallen leaves. Talk about ruining a cowboy's reputation!

Then we were told we'd be working on a muster using helicopters. Before it started we had a free weekend and one of the ringers, a young bloke called Geoff Miller, took Greg and me to swim in the river. I dived in and swam about eighty metres to the other side, to sunbake on some rocks. As I lay in the sun I sang out to Geoff: “Hey, let's go fishing!”

“No fish here, mate—the crocs eat them all out,” Geoff replied.

Crocs!
Shit, I'd forgotten all about crocs being in the Territory. In Mitchell, the nearest thing to a crocodile would be a goanna. Lying on those rocks, I wasn't sure if I should risk swimming back to the other side of the river. Geoff had put the fear of God into me. I guess a real hero like me shouldn't mention my two kilometre jog upstream to the safety of shallow water. The crocs would have to wait a while if they planned to eat this Murry.

Two days later the muster was under way, with the cattle being rounded up by helicopter. The Auvergne cattle sighted men only twice a year. They were wild and toey. When a muster was completed, the blokes would have to pull down the portable yards they set up. These were made out of steel panels—they needed to be extra strong because some of those cattle were really wild, charging at men and the panels alike.

We'd give each mob some time to cool off after being rounded up before drafting began. Drafting took one or two days, depending on how many the helicopter had managed to muster. We branded the calves and put them back with their mothers. Bulls, bullocks and mad cattle were sent to the meatworks. All weaners were tailed out—they soon settled down to feed instead of running away.

At sixteen, I had no experience with such wild cattle. You learn from your mistakes. One day, as we were drafting a mob, I was working the dividing gate for the
cattle being sent to the meatworks. Leaning on the gate, I was laughing at this mad bullock that kept charging my mate. My back was turned towards the cattle in the yard. All of a sudden this other big bullock charged at me. I don't know what made me turn round, but I did—and just caught a glimpse of him coming straight towards me. I side-stepped, just in time and the bullock crashed into the gate right where I'd been standing. I might have needed a new pair of pants after that. I stood there, shaking. Two hours later I was still shaking.

After about three weeks, Greg and another stockman quit the job. We were being paid $100 a week minus tax. We started work at seven each morning and finished when the job was done, sometimes early, sometimes late. After each muster we had a few days off, and every Friday night there was a barbecue at the station, which was good. I liked the job—it brought me new experiences. To tell the truth, it was a job that turned boys into men.

While I was at Auvergne I rode a grey horse that was a bit of an outlaw; whenever I got on his back he would buck high and hard. But rough as that grey horse was, I never had any trouble staying in the saddle. At sixteen, I proved that I could ride a horse. I had matured over the past months, and the time I spent with my uncle had finally paid off.

I stuck this job out for a few more months. I'm not real sure why I left it in the end. But I had a girlfriend back in Mitchell, and at times I felt a bit homesick. Auvergne was in the middle of nowhere ... no grog, no women. So one weekend, when we were going to Katherine for the rodeo, I packed up my gear and put it in the car. I stayed in a motel at Katherine, and two days later caught the bus and came back to Queensland. I really liked the Northern Territory, though, and afterwards I was sorry I'd left. I always swore I would return there when I was a bit older, a bit tougher and a bit wiser.

At the end of the long journey home, I was more than happy when the bus stopped at Mitchell. I stepped off it and walked home. The first thing I did was to get my faithful horse, Four X. I jogged six kilometres out to the place where he was being kept, caught him and rode him back into town.

That Sunday was the last round of the football. I got a game that weekend, playing second row for the under-eighteen Mitchell Magpies. I played in the following six games, and we found ourselves in the grand final. I had never thought about playing in a grand final, let alone winning it. But win it we did!

Next day, the boys got on the grog to celebrate the win. We were doing a pub crawl, and Four X provided transport for Michael Cambarngo and myself to each pub we visited. To begin with we tied up Four X outside, but when we arrived at the Mitchell Hotel, Michael and I decided that Four X was doing such a top job he should join
us inside. So Michael opened the pub doors. I rode over to the bar and ordered “Two beers, please, one for me and one for my horse.” The barman kicked us out. “There was only one reason why we got kicked out of that pub,” I told Michael. “The bloody horse is under-age.”

A few weeks later, I found a job mustering on a place called Mount Elliott. I enjoyed working there. Two of my mates, Adrian Finlay and Angus Mitchell, were also at Mt Elliott. Adrian and I shared a room. One night, when I had just dozed off, I was suddenly woken by Adrian. He was sitting up in bed pointing at the roof and saying: “Dingoes, dingoes—quick, get me the gun!” Then he shook his head and said: “Too late, you mob of useless bastards, they're gone.” When I looked closely at Adrian, I saw that he was still asleep. When I asked him about the dingoes in the morning, he said he couldn't remember a thing about it.

We would stay at Mt Elliott for a few days at a time, and return to town each week after we were paid our wages. One night, as I was sitting in the Mitchell cafe around midnight, I was joined by my cousin Bodge Burns. We finished the carton together. I was drunk, and I don't think Bodge was much better. Anyway, we felt like a bit of excitement, and decided to break into the newsagent's. We climbed on the roof, broke a couple of louvres, and jumped down inside the shop. Bodge and I took anything we saw, filling two cardboard boxes with comics, magazines, tapes, and an assortment of other loot. Then we looked for a place to hide the stuff. We decided to push it up an old drain pipe, which turned out to be a dumb move in the end, since it was raining heavily that night. It was about five o'clock in the morning when I walked home.

Next day I felt terrible, and when I remembered what I'd done, I felt even worse. I wished to Christ it was all
just a dream. I had never stolen anything in my life. When I put my hand in my pants pocket, I still had $120 there out of my wages—I could have bought all that stuff! I really did regret that episode. I'd always been honest up till then. Once, on my way to school—I was in Grade Seven—I'd picked up a purse with over $200 in it. Later that day, the purse was returned to its owner, a lady with five children, who really needed that money. She gave me five dollars reward, which meant a great deal to me.

I sat at home, just waiting for the police to pick me up. I waited two days. The rain finally cleared out the drainpipe where Bodge and I had hidden the two boxes. Someone found all the stolen goods and reported it to the police, who soon tracked us down. Bodge and I went to court and received a fine and eighteen months probation.

I didn't go back to work at Mt Elliott after this, because I was pretty ashamed of what I'd done. I was
real
sorry to leave that job. At the station, I'd fallen in love with a little brown-and-white mare named Shellie. Nowadays, whenever I see a horse as pretty as Shellie, I usually sit down to write a poem.

At this time, life at home was not happy. My mother had another man in her life and he lived with us. He called himself “Weasey”. My father's death had broken everyone's heart and in the family we all experienced grief for the first time. My sisters took it tough, and my mother just fell to pieces. From that day she was never the same woman she had been when Dad was alive. Although I was sixteen, I felt somehow cheated by Weasey being in our house. He was okay when he was sober, but an old bastard when he was drunk. He and I locked horns more than once. When Weasey was drunk he would try to order everyone in the house about. At sixteen, I took orders from only one person in the family—my uncle, Johnny Dodd, whom I respected. I didn't understand how my mother could have betrayed us. This bloke
Weasey wasn't fit to tie my Dad's shoelaces, let alone take his place. He never asked you to do anything—he just gave those orders. One day he ordered me to go downstairs and pick up the rubbish in the yard. I walked down to the yard ... and I kept walking until I reached the cafe downtown. There was no way I would obey him.

In the end I moved my mattress and blankets outside and slept under a giant mulberry tree. I often felt a bit lonely in the middle of the night, so I'd go to the yard, bring up my horse Four X and tie him to the end of my bed with a tether rope. Whenever my old dog saw me getting out of bed to fetch Four X, he would start barking, and to stop everyone being woken up I'd get him from his kennel and tie him to my bed as well—much to his satisfaction.

One day, Weasey and I had a big blue downtown. He jumped out of his car and came at me swinging punches, so I gave him one on the jaw to keep him honest. He jumped back in the car and took off. I knew then it was time to leave home.

I moved into an old tin shed with my mate Alan Martin. We also had a boarder: Four X. Four X was only a young horse, and really hard to catch—so one night I decided to bring him into the shed alongside Alan and myself. Around midnight, I heard the sound of running water. “Gee, Billboy, why don't you go out to the toilet?” Alan complained.—“I thought it was you peeing on the floor,” I told Alan. When we turned around we found the culprit was Four X, of course. He wasn't toilet-trained, so we had to kick him out. It took me three days to find him after that, the cheeky mongrel. Our furniture in that tin shed consisted of two beds, four blankets, one mattress and a couch with a hole in it. When it rained most things got wet, but I enjoyed my stay there all the same.

It was now the end of 1982, and on New Year's Eve, Alan and I went out to celebrate with Michael Cambarngo in a little township nearby. During the evening, while we were drinking in a pub, I ran out of money and asked Michael for a loan of ten dollars. He told me that to get the ten dollars I had to go over and give a certain sheila a kiss for New Year. The only problem was that she was built like a brick shithouse—rumour had it that she had balls as well. However, I reckon ten dollars is worth about twenty dollars when you're broke, so I went over and gave her the kiss. She grabbed me in a bear hug and I disappeared into her big brown jacket. Then I tottered back to collect my ten dollars from Michael. He took one look at me and burst out laughing. “Run your finger along the end of your nose,” he said. I wiped my nose—my finger came away red. At first I thought it was the girl's lipstick, but in fact my nose was bleeding. That was the hardest ten dollars I have ever earned.

A week later, I was at a party in Mitchell when Michael had a fight with a bloke known as “Chocolate”. They both ended up on the ground, and I saw that Chocolate was putting in a bit of dirty fighting, so I picked up a plastic chair and donged him on the head. The chair just bounced off him and they kept on fighting. After it was all over, it was the chair that had come off worst; it had a broken leg. Michael is one of the toughest blokes I know.

Next day, I ran into Chocolate in the pub. He waited until I was fairly drunk before donging me on the head with a bar stool. My reaction was to throw my glass at Chocolate. The glass missed its target and hit this lady on the head—she had to get a few stitches, unfortunately. At closing time, it was her husband who ordered me outside for a fight. I was blind drunk as I shaped up. All I heard was the other bloke say: “Come on, you bastard!” I felt his fists crashing into my face, then I went down hard on the bitumen and fell into the gutter. Just as I was
getting up to my feet his boot came crashing into my stomach. One of my mates broke up the fight and carried me home. When I woke up in the old tin shed next morning there was dry blood on my pillow. The night before I'd been beaten physically; that morning I felt the pain of losing. Too much grog. When I was sober I was a quiet bloke and never let people get to me, though I could pug on a bit. But unfortunately for me, most of the times I got into a fight I was drunk.

After the fight I packed up my gear and moved to Brisbane for a while. There I ran into my cousin, Margaret Finlay. One night Margaret and her mates showed me a few night clubs, including a place called the Hacienda. Unknown to me, it was for gay people. I was just a country boy who never knew places like this existed. I was sitting down talking to one of the girls when I couldn't help noticing a guy wearing a suit and tie who kept staring at me. “I bet that bloke over there is a police detective, and he's on to me for being in a club under-age,” I told Margaret. I felt a bit nervous—but the next time I looked at him, the “detective” was kissing another bloke. I never hung around to see any more.

Later that night we had a second brush with the “police”, when we headed over to Musgrave Park. Margaret told me no one was allowed in the park after dark, so when we heard a siren that sounded like the police, we took off, running along the footpath. But it was only a big red fire truck that came speeding past us.

While I was in Brisbane, Margaret introduced me to a shy young Aboriginal girl from a small town called Murgon. Michelle Bligh was one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen. Looking at her in the pub that night, I thought she was even better looking than my beloved horses. During the next few months I saw a lot of Michelle, until she went off to Tewantin to do a course. I decided to follow her there, and at Tewantin I met up with my cousin
Bodge. A little later, Bodge and I set off to hitch-hike to Gympie one night. It was really dark; even though Bodge was walking right beside me I couldn't see him. To tell the truth, I was shit scared. We made it safely to Gympie, however, and after staying there a while I went back to Brisbane and eventually returned to Mitchell.

When I got back home I never forgot that little shy girl called Michelle. Maybe I never will. I'm not sure whether I fell in love with her—but if not, then it was the closest I have ever been to falling in love. It was time and distance that tore us apart.

It was 24th September 1983 when my luck ran out. That day, the sun shone brightly, reflecting off my olive-coloured skin, and because it was so hot I decided to go for a swim in the river. My brother Peter came along too, and a few of my mates. Instead of checking how deep the water was, I dived in—and paid the penalty. Anyone who reads this and doesn't take five minutes to check a water-hole for depth, sticks and logs deserves to have their arse kicked with a size ten boot. It can give you a lot of unnecessary hassles, take it from me. So please think hard about it. Anyway, I dived into the water and my head struck the hard bottom of the river. My body crumbled with the impact and I sank to the bottom with a broken neck.

I lay under the water, unable to move. If my brother hadn't been there I might well have drowned. It was Peter who pulled me out of the Maranoa River and dragged me to the bank. I lay on my back and looked up into the blue sky. I saw an eagle hawk up there, flying high. It looked so free, it felt no pain up in that bright blue sky.

I thought to myself, if I could just get to my feet then I would be okay. One of my mates helped me to sit up, but
when he let go of my head I felt a burning pain in the back of my neck. Oh boy, I felt sick with pain. So my mates laid me on the ground again. By this time my cousin, Wayne Dodd, had arrived. He rang the ambulance. Half an hour later I was on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, heading towards Mitchell Hospital. When I arrived, the talk seemed to centre on a “spinal unit” ... I had never heard of a spinal unit until that moment: To tell the truth, had I known that my neck was broken I would have been getting ready to die. In the bush I once saw a horse roll over backwards and hit its head on a rail. Its neck was broken and it died. After more discussion, it was decided that I would be transported by ambulance to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Brisbane.

24th September 1983, I screwed up for the last time.