would begin to cut out if the block wasn’t destocked soon. He was a little surprised when his querying received an it’s under control comment from Anthony. It may well be but on his reckoning they had a month before the country was chewed out. Matt’s finger probed irritably at a hardened lump of wax in his ear. Every time he offered some management advice, Anthony was all over him like a fat lady at a buffet. And ever since their disagreement in the Wangallon kitchen and the early opening of the pit, their once cordial relationship had disintegrated into feigned politeness. Nothing worse than a young manager with an attitude and Matt had seen his share of them.
There were a couple of young people at the helm of one of the most well known pastoral properties in New South Wales and Matt had a suspicion that one of them had his own agenda. Cripes this was going to get interesting. At least the third owner of Wangallon hadn’t shown his face yet. That in itself was a blessing. Matt walked his horse through the house gate en route to the stables.
‘I’m sure glad Sarah likes her cattle and sheep. I wouldn’t like to be spending my time driving headers and tractors.’ Jack watched in amusement as Matt picked Rust up off the saddle by the scruff of his neck and dropped him on the ground. The dog landed securely on all four paws.
‘Me neither, Jack,’ Matt replied.
Wangallon was built and would continue to thrive on stock. They still had a few thousand acres sown to oats every year to fatten their cattle and cull sheep and they sowed barley, which they crushed in a mill to feed out as a top-up supplement to the steers, but that was the extent of the farming operation. Some of their neighbours had embarked on carefully mapped-out land clearing exercises and had enjoyed the monetary benefits of big cash crops of wheat, barley and grain sorghum but, like any commodity, grain growing was subject to the vagrancies of both the weather and the marketplace. Farming was an expensive business and Wangallon had always made more out of grazing.
At the stables Matt unsaddled his horse and began brushing Sugar down with a curry comb. Sugar stood quietly like a woman at a beauty parlour getting her hair done.
‘I guess I’m a bit of a tree hugger, Matt,’ Jack said almost shyly as he undid the girth strap on his own mount and dragged the saddle free.
Matt clapped the lad on his shoulder. ‘I know exactly what you mean. We’re stockmen, not tractor jockeys.’
Sarah, Matt and Jack were unloading their horses from the float at the road paddock when a flashy white and yellow trailer pulled alongside them.
‘You’re late,’ Matt admonished as the two men walked towards them.
‘G’day. I’m Toby Williams.’ The taller of the two shook Sarah’s hand. He was slightly built with broad shoulders and budgerigar blue eyes. ‘And this is Pancake.’
‘Pancake,’ Sarah repeated, unsure if he referred to his horse or the squat roly-poly man beside him.
‘Pancake,’ the shorter man clarified, ‘on account of when I take me hat off, me hair’s always squashed flat like a –’
‘Pancake,’ Toby grinned, zipping up his jacket.
‘Okay then.’ Sarah knew it was going to be one of those days.
Toby and Pancake opened a number of mesh dog cages and a bedraggled assortment of working dogs escaped. The horses reared and whinnied, the dogs barked and peed on every tyre they could find, twice, and then completed a number of quick dashes around both horse floats. Finally the entire crew settled into work mode. Sarah looked at Bullet, who stared back with a look of disdain. He never had taken much to working with strangers and was just as likely to bite first and bark later. Sarah waggled her finger at him to behave.
‘Knew your grandfather. Wily old bastard, Angus.’ Toby lounged nonchalantly in his saddle, his right leg hooked up as if he were sitting in a chair.
‘Thanks.’
‘Now he was a grazier. Old school-like.’ He gestured towards Matt. ‘Wasn’t surprised when I heard he got the run of things down here. Reckon Angus had everything all sorted by the time he kicked the bucket and that’s the way it should be if you’ve got any nous.’ He gave Sarah a slow head-to-toe glance. ‘So how are you going being boss of Wangallon?’
Sarah experienced the unusual sensation of being mentally undressed. ‘It’s great.’ Her fingers pulled