Broken Dreams Read Online Free Page B

talking to my mates Adrian Finlay and Wally Fuller. All of a sudden I heard a car pull up behind me and heard a woman’s voice: “You—Bill Dodd! I want to see you over at my place in an hour’s time or I’ll report you to the police.” She was the girl’s mother.
    So an hour later, Adrian and I rode over to the girl’s home to see what her mother wanted. Adrian filled me with confidence. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the windows just in case she pulls out a gun.” After that comment I was ready to bolt at the drop of a hat. If the girl’s mum shot off a gun the way she shot off her mouth, then Adrian and I were two dead coons.
    Out through the front door of the house came the woman, her mouth firing on all cylinders. (She first softened me up by telling me she could knock me out with a single punch.) She was giving me heaps. While I had put up with her ranting and raving, Adrian was killing himself with laughter. He thought it was a great joke. He made me smile every now and then, which made the girl’s mother snap: “If you think this is all a joke then you can come down to the police station right now.” I can tell you I was happy to get away from her alive.
    After that weekend, my uncle, JD, turned up at five o’clock on Monday morning to take me back into the bush. I was really pleased to get away, though at times I used to wonder what I was doing there, in the stillness and quietness. Sometimes I felt like a Queen Street cowboy, one of those blokes who comes out to the country from the city and gets all done up in cowboy gear when he hasn’t even seen a horse, let alone ridden one.
    At the Womals it was back to work. I went down to the horse yard and caught the Welsh mountain pony. After its few days off the little pony went really well, so I took off my saddle and decided to ride bareback. Everything went well until I rode past an old tin shed. Just as my pony and I walked around the corner of the shed, a big black chicken ran out from the dark shadows inside, and straight under the pony’s belly. The pony’s reaction was to take off and jump high in the air. I thought he was never going to come back to earth, and when he did—I left him. (Not by my own choice.) I picked myself up off the ground really quickly; I didn’t want my uncle to see that I’d been thrown yet again. But the first thing I heard was loud laughter, and I caught sight of a number of people looking at me from the shed windows. I picked up my sore ego and jumped back on the pony. I don’t know which of us had got the bigger fright—me, the pony or the chicken. By now, the workers in the shed had positioned themselves on the top rail of the fence, expecting more trouble to enjoy. They looked like a flock of prize parrots perched there. The little grey pony and I disappointed them. We continued on our way just as though nothing had happened. My uncle never said a word, just smiled to himself.
    Next day, he lined us both up for a few days’ work on another property. Our job was to muster about 1500 head of sheep for shearing. In the morning, much to my disgust, I was woken at five o’clock. I still felt half-asleep as I went down to the horse yards and caught a young bay mare that I had never had anything to do with before. I plonked on my saddle and tightened up the girth, then put one foot in the stirrup iron and climbed aboard. Everything seemed to be going well, but as I got down the road a bit I was in for a shock. The mare dropped her head and started to buck. I did not get very far down the road, and I was fully awake as I came into solid contactwith the hard ground. I was none too pleased when the station boss came over on his motor-bike and said: “Gee, son, you’ve got a graceful way of falling off!” After that I stayed awake on the big bay, but at the end of the day I was nearly caught off-guard again. Once more the