there numerous times, he said, waiting to prey on the wallabies that came down for a drink.
“Walk up quietly,” he murmured.
We did not see any crocodiles lying on the bank, so we climbed down to the water’s edge. He picked up a big stick in case of a sudden attack, though I wondered if it would only provide the beast with a bit of fiber in its lunch. I followed him to the seep, where he pointed out a carnivorous plant, lime green with sticky hairs exuding a droplet of sap, to which ants and bugs had become glued. He showed me a print in the mud—tail, body, nose, feet, and all—just under the high-tide line, with only the nose out of the water. I could see the entire story of the ambush pressed like hieroglyphs into wet clay. As soon as we had climbed the bank again and turned back to look, Stephen pointed to a crocodile that had lifted its head above the water. The croc followed us as we walked upstream along the high bank, keeping low in the murky water and surfacing one more time. Stephen called it a cheeky bastard. “Sly,” he said, “those crocs are sly.” I couldn’t believe we’d actually walked to the water.
He showed me a water hole, dammed to keep fresh water in and the inquisitive tide out. He said it had hundreds of crocs. We saw five or six lift their heads—just bulb eyes and nostrils above the water’s surface—and sink again. Long-stemmed, multiple-petalled white water lilies made the water hole seem like a Japanese tea garden, gum trees dropping long leaves toward the water, the setting serene. Then the outline of a crocodile head would appear and the water would seem suddenly murky and deadly. We headed back late in the day, churning up dust while the repeater, retransmitting a signal weakened by distance, announced itself over the CB radio.
As we neared the station compound, I asked Stephen how far we had driven.
“About two hundred kilometers.”
“Have we seen most of the station then?”
“Not even a corner.”
Stephen deposited me at the station compound with mild warning and encouragement: “They don’t get much drama out here, so they have to make their own; you’ll be fine.”
The Mustering Crew
AT THE BEGINNING OF FALL, just before I arrived, Angus had devised a plan to muster the entire station. He would start with the paddocks close to the house and bring all of the nearby cattle in to be worked—drafted, branded, vaccinated, and tick-dipped—at the house yards. This permanent set of pens for working and shipping cattle lay several miles up the road from the station compound. He would then send the mustering crew out to a middle set of yards, called Carter Yards, an hour or so away on a dirt track. They would commute from the compound each day with their motorbikes, vehicles, and horses, working the middle swath of the station. He would need a big cattle-hauling truck, called a road train, to bring the shippers—all of the cull cows, weanlings, orphan calves, steers, and old bulls—back to the station. Finally, he would send the mustering crew out to Soda Camp, a makeshift camp at the far northern reach of the station. A set of portable panels there could be made into an operable yard. The crew would have to move their camp entirely for the month or so he thought it would take them. He hoped that by the time they got out there the weanling calves, young steers, and cull cattle would be bringing in the needed income and the outlook would be favorable.
Angus found a mustering crew to begin the cow work and livestock inventory of the station—gathering, working, sorting, and shipping the cattle. A mustering crew sets up portable yards and camps and moves from paddock to paddock. They come in, they work the cattle, they leave. The head stockman of a mustering crew brings his own ringers and supplies them with food, petrol for their motorbikes, and horses, or horse feed if they bring their own. When they arrive, their world arrives with them: makeshift tents, strung-up tarps, forty-gallon drums of petrol and diesel, large stock trucks, packs of dogs, a herd of horses, motorbikes, four-wheelers, bull-catching vehicles, extra tires and wheels, long chains, short chains, saddles, guns, bridles, halters, catch ropes, bags of dog food, small generators, refrigerators, a portable sink, a portable washing machine, horse trailers—called floats—pots, pans, billycans, swags—bed rolls—unrolled on foam pads or rusty folding cots, spare batteries, truck parts, cans of fruit and vegetables, peanut butter, Vegemite, bags of white bread, and a folding table and chairs. All these items appear suddenly at the camp and then disappear when they move on. A cook usually comes along too.
On many stations, crews work with experienced efficiency, covering thousands of miles twice a year, living out with the heat and flies and remote expanses for months before returning home to other stations or small towns. But Stilwater hadn’t been properly mustered in at least a decade, and the remnant cattle included cleanskin, or unbranded, bulls ten years old, cows twice as old still wobbling along, and a mess of calves, yearlings, young bulls, and heifers—many without tags or brands and almost all, not surprisingly, feral.
Miles Carver ran the mustering crew, a large bear of a man with black hair and a thick beard. He wore coarse work shirts—usually torn or smeared with cow slobber, manure, or blood—a big hat that drooped a little in front and back with a small roll up on the sides of the brim, and heavy stockman’s boots. He was from a small town on the eastern coast, where his father had raised horses and where most people knew him, knew of him, or knew his father. Thirty-seven years old that winter, he seemed to have a good heart, and he rode good horses: a tall black stallion named Snake, and a black gelding called Reb. The mustering contractors called him “the big fella.”
Miles used his mass and brute strength to muscle through work—throwing cows around, lifting fallen cattle up by the horns, and ramming his stallion into cattle to push them through gates. His pack of scrawny, motley, kelpie-cross dogs clung close to his horse’s hock and were keen at cow work. He called them by name—“Down Killer, sit Ruby, come Roo, sit Ruby”—and he sent them slinking around milling, charging, snorting cattle with a few whistles and verbal commands. He could signal one dog to drop on his belly in the dust, another to lunge at a cow’s throat, another two to surround a deviant calf, and three to come back to his horse, clucking at them in reward. As he rode, his horse arched his neck down under the bit and Miles’ big hands imperceptibly tensioned the reins until the stallion ducked his head further, moved off sideways with a subtle pressure from spurred heels, and—followed by the ghost shadows of dogs—stepped forward toward the mob of cattle.
Alongside his impressive pack, Miles mustered a few people he knew with several months open and dogs, horses, trucks, and motorbikes of their own. Together they hauled a caravan of gear up to Stilwater. Most of them knew each other and each other’s families and had worked together before, but it was still a mishmash of a crew, some experienced, a couple thrown in out of sympathy or on a gamble.
They set up camp at the end of the lagoon in an old portable tin building called a donga. Manufactured in the shape of an L and rested up on stilts, this structure had some ten rooms and a narrow walkway. The crew quickly filled it with swags and gear, which they hung from the railing of the narrow veranda that ran the length of the building. In front they parked their vehicles, trailers, and motorbikes, and unloaded spare batteries and fuel drums. Drying pants and work shirts hung from a wire strung between the veranda posts, and three blackened tin cans full of water for tea and coffee and dishes sat on a small fire that seemed to burn perpetually.
A short distance from the quarters, the crew tied their packs of dogs—more than thirty altogether—to old machines, tractors, trailers, fences, and vehicles. Every other day each animal received a small cup of dog food, a little water, and a few scraps of meat. A couple of curly-haired lap dogs ran around the camp as pets, but the rest of the mongrel lot stayed tied up unless there was cow work to be