GoGo Adventures (part5)

© Janet Lane, 2024. Image:  Horseyard, Gogo Station, ca. 1957-1958, State Library of W.A.

Next morning Gopher appeared soon after breakfast, he said he was fine, just a touch of the sun. I managed not to mention the putrid slimy water. Who knows. It was the last day of moving the horses, we should get them back to the station home yards before dark. Or even before lunch, said Harry, if we took the right track but not likely we’d find it. The 4WD dropped us off. We got the horses going. Usually I let Gopher guide us, after all he went in front always, while I winged and tailed, as he knew the way. But within half an hour of leaving the yards, the track veered sharply right. He took it and the horses followed.

“Hang on,” I called, that’s the wrong way.”

“No, it’s not I’ve gone this way dozens of times.”

No idea why but I was sure if we went straight ahead, we’d hit the main highway, then could walk along that until we got to the station gate.

“Sure, but there’s no gate,” explained Gopher, exasperated, “We can’t get through the fence, it’s a good fence.”

“Well there are faint tracks here, and who would go this way more than once if there was no gate?”

He ignored me and resumed going right.

“Well bye bye,” I called, “the horses and I are going this way.”

I headed them the faint, almost invisible track, talking a bit to the darlings who followed me. Nek minnit Gopher galloped up cracking his whip. Annoyed. Rightfully so, as the peasant of many names was being mutinous. And ignored him.

A few grumbled insults as it seemed the horses wouldn’t take any notice of him either. For the first time I was in the lead, and I stayed there. He galloped about grumbling and cracking the whip. The horses got edgy and prancy.

Lo and behold! A car whizzing past among the trees – must be the highway! And what’s this? A fence! And what’s this in the fence? A gate! Yes, a cocky gate but hey, a gate. I was so relieved I almost cried. It’s one thing to mutiny, but quite another if the reason turns out wrong. Phew! And only a few hundred metres from the stock yards.

Jumped off to open it. Fumbling with the wire that tightly held it to a wooden post, suddenly realised the post was infested with ants and they were stinging like fury. Hecko!

“Would you get the gate please? it’s too strong for me,” I called to him as I headed back to settle and gather the disconcerted horses, brushing off ants.  Gopher galloped up gallantly. He did weight lifting and truly was built like a big, extremely fit, muscular ox. Shoulders an axe-handle wide. Loved to show off his strength.

Soon he had it open and we got through onto the highway. The verges were beautifully wide, proper stock route wide. They preferred being off the sealed surface too, luckily. Gopher got the gate closed and galloped up to resume the lead.

“That bloody gatepost! It’s full of bloody ants!” he called as he passed, slapping himself madly, “the bad sort!”

“Oh no!” I called back, “so sorry!” Oh happy day! Yes I danced ten feet in the air, wicked. And nek minnit there was the station gate, we turned in, and nek minnit had them in the yards. Again, beautiful beautiful yards, designed for horses. And it wasn’t even lunch time! YAY!

By then Gopher’s ant bites caught up with him, he had to go for a lie down. Why not.

No-one about so I went for a lie down too. Nothing like a sauna – as one sweats so much that’s what a lie down is up there.  Have a shower, have a sauna in your own sweat getting clothed again.  I kept thinking about all those beautiful beautiful horses. How Ian would be so chuffed when he saw them. We had such a good choice – young ones, mares, good stallions. Mostly bays but a beautiful blue mare, some lovely greys and a buckskin. Wow. We’d got in well over a hundred head, and Ian was buying twenty. The aim was of course, breeding.

Got up from the unbearable sauna and walked up to the yards. Harry was looking over the horses.

“Some of these stallions need separating” I said, thinking I’d better do it. “Done,” he said. Blimey!

One evening at the yards on the way in, the old blind horse, a bay, and his half blind old mate, a handsome brown, were shot and dragged into the scrub with the 4WD. I was gutted. You can’t argue with a station management decision, in their mind it was for the best, and they were slowing us down too; which didn’t worry me. It was hard to bite my tongue but they knew how I felt. Will never forget those two gentle, kind old darlings. They were in superb condition, and both in their 30’s, they had had a lovely long retirement and didn’t have to suffer when both went blind. My fear then, was the men shooting little foals, particularly that tiny black, newly born when it all started, and her black pony dam. I’d have been perfectly happy for about four of the stallions, dangerous aggressive horses, and a couple of bad tempered or possibly just dangerously silly geldings were shot, as that was the rough and ready but successful method of culling in the old days for good temperament. After a few generations, it needed doing again.

I mentioned getting rid of those dangerous horses, as those stallions also beat up the good stallions badly trying to steal mares – a good stallion will defend but not do terrible damage to what is seen as a foe. But these aggressive stallions also kicked mares and foals – they were only about 5% of the entire mob, the other stallions and all the mares being exceptionally good natured.

But Harry laughed. “Best of the lot!” he said. Unreal. I walked down to the round yard – huge and covered – where he’d put one. I simply wanted to see if it would face up or what, now it was away from other horses which it usually spent its time savagely kicking and ripping up with its teeth, but didn’t have a second to wonder about it, for the horse, a solid sort of a light brown colour, charged like a maniac and at the last second spun and hit a rail with the full force of its hind legs. The rail didn’t give, but realising it had missed me it lashed out again, the hooves whistled past my head although I was a step away from the fence. Wow.

“Now I can’t see any reason to keep a horse like that,” I said. Harry said nothing but anyone could see that was a dangerous horse.

I looked over the other horses in the yard, the good stallions and mares and youngsters. Oh no!

“Where’s the little black mare – the pony, and her little foal?” I asked. God, WHY did I go for a lie down, why?! “Why?” asked Harry, “what use are they? Just ponies.”

“Well,” I said, and now it was a little hard not to sound tearful,” those two little things kept up the whole way. They were never last yet look how new that foal is. And they’ve both lost heaps of condition but how they kept going I’ll never know. They are survivors and tough. So tough! And extremely good natured. And I’m sure they’re Timor Ponies or darned close, they could go right back to George Grey’s Timors he left here. Sir George Grey to some. Although he was a bit of a tosser, who cares? He had some Timor Ponies and he went exploring, that’s quite gutsy. They would be perfect children’s ponies, it’s so hard to get a safe pony these days. Only a stupid cruel idiot would shoot them!” now I was getting a bit wound up. I really couldn’t see them anywhere.

“Now now,” said Harry, “I drafted them off and put them in the cooler.”

“I’m not looking at bodies,” I said, stubbornly stopping. Not caring if he called me Tabitha or a bloody nuisance or something worse. He was a fiend, the fiend of all fiends. I might burst into tears and that would never do, being weak in front of a fiend.

“A cooler,” patiently explained Harry, recalling I was Tasmanian after all, ”is a big yard off the main yard, where they get shade. If you don’t need them straight away – they can relax there. Keep cool. She’s happy – feed, water, shade. She and the foal have it to themselves. I’m keeping them for my grand-daughter.”

OMG. Why didn’t I know that a cooler was a cooling off yard? Almost burst into tears. Couldn’t talk. Yes, there they were, under shady little trees, Mum tiredly but determinedly tucking into grass. Foal having a lovely sleep, barely visible in the grass, by Mum. The cooler was about an acre. High yard fences all round. So wonderfully shaded. Well. Call me Deirdre but thank God. Harry was alright after all. A top sort. A good man who knew his ponies. “Thank you,” I said, “and if you ever change your mind, they would be easy to sell, in fact I’d buy them myself.”

“No chance.

Goodo. Well. Phew. God. They don’t eat ponies and foals and Harry is not a fiend at all, possibly a saint, yes. Time to make a mental halo for him. Time to look at the other horses anyway.

 “Pick out the ones you and Gopher want,” he said, “except the greys.”

“Except the greys?” There were, as it turned out, seventeen beautiful greys. “Yes, sold them already. They’ve being picked up this afternoon. You and Gopher can take them over to the trucking yard.”

God, a business man wastes no time! I was a bit shocked. The halo took on an aspect of brass, rather than gold. I thought unfair, after all we’d mustered them, and Harry said any horse left behind would be shot. But now some were sold before we could choose ours. Gopher hadn’t thought of that, dealing with a business man you need to have your deal worked out to the last detail. And he was laid up with, er, heat sickness.

Well. A shame but there were plenty of good ones left. I wasn’t a very good business person so needed to learn.

But now it got serious. The halo soon got frisbee-d far far away.

“Now, tell me which ones you want.”

I immediately pointed to a beautiful little nuggety deep red bay mare, extraordinary colour, perfect conformation. Looked about four or five. Good natured, after all I’d had plenty of time to observe them all.

“Nope. Keeping that one,” said Harry.

Thus it went on. After about a dozen of the best had been refused, I stopped. This was a farce. As far as I knew Gopher had a deal to get the twenty he wanted from the mob, after all we’d done the work getting them in and there were still plenty if the station wanted to keep a few breeders. It was obvious they no longer used horses so even that was dubious.

Was Harry denying every one I pointed out because I was female and he liked to denigrate women? Or what? I decided to stop saying which ones would be good for Ian. It was after all Gopher’s business as he arranged the whole thing, and being a man he could stand up to Harry. When he appeared, I left them to it rather than interfere.

It turned out Gopher was a walk over. After Harry denied most of the horses we’d first chosen he was left with some good ones, but a few would probably not have been a first pick. He did pick twenty out of these. After lunch we were to take seventeen of the mob to a neighbouring community, they’d bought them for the princely sum of $750 each. At that time you could pay half that sum for a good, young, broken in horse, and these were wildies of various ages. Someone really wanted them and that someone had plenty of money. At least they were saved from possibly being culled or sent to the meatworks. A good result but surprising anyone even knew we had them, the bush telegraph had been going overtime.

We separated the seventeen greys and loaded them onto a truck. At the other end, not far away, unloaded them and there were quite a few keen onlookers. One white man, grinning, who had apparently arranged it all, came over to shake hands. Harry and Gopher both managed to avoid his outstretched hand and pretended to see something that needed fixing on the truck. How rude!

I shook that man’s hand firmly and we had a bit of a chat, he really liked the horses which was good. Next thing Gopher called me over to the truck. I followed his broad back around to the other side.

“Hold your hands out!” he said urgently, in a low voice.

“Why?”

“You just shook hands with that fella and he has wet leprosy – the worst of the lot, it’s extremely contagious.”

Oh there is never an end to the delights and surprises of the Kimberley. Gopher shook up a bottle of coke a cola then poured the brown foaming stuff over my hands.  

“Best thing for killing leprosy” he said.

“And here’s me thinking it was good for nothing,” I murmured. Luckily there were more bottles, so I rinsed off with another. They could have warned me before I shook hands but I suppose it was too awkward. Ho hum. Later I read about wet leprosy. I might get it immediately, but might not get it for 20 years. Now over 20 years have passed, I seem to have escaped that terrible affliction which should be more strenuously eradicated in our country.

Anyway. Back to the station. Firstly, a long shower with plenty of soap and antiseptic. The heaven of plenty of water.

Among the horses Gopher had accepted were some geldings, which I was upset about as these were to be breeding horses. And two of them weren’t my cup of tea, one being unintelligent and inclined to panic, the other a tall rangy fellow of unknown age; both older, unbroken horses. Hmm.

There were two very good stallions, luckily we had the pick of the mob for those, the red stallion Ian named Kimberley King Leopold. He was outstanding. Superb temperament and conformation. Stood up and faced you in the yard, Gopher even carefully got a rope about his neck. He was a good size too, thankfully, not tall enough for Harry who liked horses built on the Olympic showjumper height and build. The other stallion Gopher really liked and called Bobby Two Socks, Ian called him Kimberley Prince Regent. Again, fabulous temperament and conformation. Both were the pick of the lot.

There was a beautiful little blue mare showing a lot of Timor ancestry, and her foal about 2 years old, a buckskin. Various mares of various ages. Gopher himself had bought the grey mare we’d (mostly me) ridden on the mustering trip and her foal of about 6 months. I hope they did him proud. They went down near Perth where he was based at that time.

Although the geldings were branded, the rest weren’t. So next day was putting them all through a race and branding. Horses must be branded to travel across tick control checkpoints, in this case going south. They had Harry’s brand and Gopher’s brand put on, which I thought unnecessary and egotistical as the breeder’s brand only should be on a horse in my opinion. But that’s just me.

This was traumatic for them of course. It was fire branding and expertly done by Gopher, in my opinion actually better than freeze branding. I did a few myself. The mad gelding as I called him, wasn’t aggressive but terrified of humans, and in the race he stamped backwards and forwards nonstop, in panic. He was huge – tall and stacked. Hmmm. Gopher thought Ian might like some gelding to ride as well as the breeders but am not certain that was the real reason for buying them, frankly. So overnight a rest, then load them onto a truck to go to Ian at Port Hedland.

Read the rest of the story: Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part6, Part7

• Section: Waler Tales