By EgmontGrigor2021
Chapter 1
Billy McGee (26), wearing a hoodie with the top pulled low, walked the main streets of the city with nothing better to do than to ease the current feeling of suffocating in living in a doss house -- and being alone.
That low-grade accommodation was all he could afford, having come from the north to try to find work and wishing to spend as frugally as possible until landing permanent work.
Gran had bequeathed him a small wad of money to cover initial living expenses, warning him before her death that the money would run out quicker than he expected because the city was an expensive place in which to live.
He didn't expect a miracle to happen, and yet it came near.
Billy was passing a Chinese restaurant when two grappling men burst through the doorway and on to the pavement, each with steak knife in hand, presumably with the intent to stab his opponent.
"Carl don't fight,' yelled the older combatant. "I'm your brother, attempting to help you."
"All I want is for you to come to your senses Carl and stay away from that McKenzie guy's woman," he panted. "It's my duty to warn you off, so don't take your frustration out on me. McKenzie's a mean bastard and if he finds out you're back hanging around her, he's likely to try to beat the brains out of you."
"Let him try," puffed the smaller brother in angry bravado.
Both men were tiring. Billy took the opportunity to slug the smaller guy unconscious with his fist and to kick the knife out of the hand of the muscular brother and drop him with a foot trip.
"What the fuck!"
"Leave it Rick," yelled a woman standing in a small group just inside the restaurant watching the scrap.
"He's stopped you two dickheads from seriously mauling each other. Stand and shake the stranger's hand and then assist Owen to his feet; he'll be wobbly."
Rick meekly shook Billy's hand and drawled, "Thanks, buddy."
The two men hauled Owen to his feet and he muttered, rubbing his jaw gingerly.
"What happened? Was I hit with a hammer?"
The woman who'd spoken earlier said, "This guy broke up the fight by knocking you out cold. Brilliant move. Come back inside everyone and Mister, you join us. Your meal and a couple of beers are on me as we're having my birthday shout that has been half-ruined by these two scrappers."
"Shake hands bros," said the woman and the guys followed orders.
She grabbed Billy by the hand and identified herself as Elizabeth shortened to Lizzy Bruce. She pulled him into the restaurant and enquired, "Do you talk?
"Yes, ma'am. My name is Billy McGee from up north and I've recently become a drifter."
Pushing Billy on to a chair, Lizzy told Rick to fetch another chair and to make Owen drink two glasses of water.
"You're not from the city, are you?"
"No, and may I ask how did you figure that out?"
"You speak with a slight drawl as if you live close to nature and you know how to speak politely to women; well, at least to me."
"You sounded bossy and spoke with authority. That deserves respect."
Lizzy laughed and asked was he for real.
"I think so. May I ask, are you Rick's wife."
She spluttered, collected herself, and said, "Married to that dickhead, absolutely not. I'm Rick and Owen's unmarried younger sister. I keep house for them and keep them in line so that our large block of land, still under sporadic development in the hills west of city, continues to be farmed at a profit to provide us with a reasonable life-style and with some of the money goes to keeping our parents in their choice of life-style in a retirement village overlooking a beach on the south-west coast."
"You sound like a good manager."
"You don't say," she said modestly.
Owen said, "How the fuck did you put my lights out so emphatically. Did you use knuckle-dusters?"
"No, all it takes is one clean punch, applied powerfully with timing."
"Bullshit, you're no bigger than me, though I have to admit you look wiry."
Sister, brothers and two other couples at the long table waited silently for the reply.
Billy, looking embarrassed, said they didn't want to know about him.
There was no response.
He sighed and said to stop him if his spiel became too boring.
"I was an only child. My parents drowned at sea when I was seven when their small fishing boat overturned in rough sea. I was raised by dad's parents. Granddad, a former professional boxer, ran a gym and much of my early life existed between school and the gym. During down times, he taught me to box and skip until I dropped and practice other stuff to develop strength and improve my hand and eye coordination."
"He wouldn't allow me to fight competitively because he retired from boxing due to becoming funny in the head from years of taking punches to the skull when out-boxed."
"He died rather early and gran and I moved to live with her youngest son. Uncle Jack had never married and ran a rural logging business. As I grew older, on days when I wasn't at high school, I learned to drive trucks, dozers (bulldozers), operate winches to haul logs over gullies and out of dense bush and so on."
"For recreation, Uncle Jack loved going out into miles of wild country, much of it sandhills and basically low fertile land covered with scrub and some stands of trees. He'd catch wild horses that he called Mustangs, although they weren't. They were just abandoned or escaped domestic horses that reverted to being wild horses. He'd cart two or three of them home to his small farm and tame them by hand-feeding them until they became docile enough to ride without too much bucking and they look for buyers."
"Soon I was working alongside him in that wildland skirting the beach where he kept a couple of former wild horses, Blackie and Meg that grazed and roamed with the wild horses but never wandered too far away from the end of the access track, where the holding yards were. Meg and Blackie would come to him as soon as they heard his truck rumbling over the sandhills. He kept two feed boxes for Blackie and Meg on legs with little roofs to keep the feed from the rain, to allow his horses to maintain themselves in better condition with top feed and when ridden could run down the wild horses."
"Uncle Jack would pick off wild ones to lasso and take to the holding pen that had a crude ramp for loading horses on to the truck."
"Uncle Jack was killed by a rolling log when I was eighteen. I ran the logging business of five or six men for five months until Gran managed to sell it and then we moved to town for eight years after his farm sold. Gran kept the truck for me and I continued living during school breaks in a tent in the wildlands catching wild horses and getting them rideable, using Uncle Jack's techniques, and selling them."
"Three weeks ago, Gran died after a short illness, and I abandoned the camp in the sandhills for good, gave the old truck away and came down here as I felt my life up north had ended. Gran left her assets to her extended family, leaving me with five hundred dollars with an attached note that she wanted me to carve out my own life, and that in starting out independently, being low on cash would make me work to gain my independence and find my preferred lifestyle."
The others, who'd finished eating, had listened in silence until Lizzy asked, "Where do you live now?"
"In a crummy but cheap boarding house."
Lizzy looked at Rick and he nodded, just as Billy's return of sweet and sour pork dish arrived.
"Come and live with us, Billy," she said.
"That's a kind offer, but I can't."
Lizzy said why not and Billy said he had to find work.
"That's what Lizzy is offering you," Rick said. "She's our farm manger. One of our horses has become unrideable, so there's your first job for pay. We have 4832 acres that are mostly undeveloped, and even much land developed into improved grazing is not adequately fenced. We are behind on maintenance that would provide you with work, but first we'd hire a trained guy to fell selected prime trees that you could trim and haul out the logs, using our old dozer, to stockpile the logs ready for collection by our local milling company."
"That sounds interesting."
Owen said, passing Billy another bottle of beer, "It better be more than interesting otherwise I'll have to punch you in the head to knock some sense into you."
They laughed and Billy asked could one of them collect him and his suitcase from Kate Smith's Boarding house in the morning, as he didn't possess wheels.
"I'll give Kate notice today that I'm moving out tomorrow. I'll have to buy boots, clothing and a hard hat."
Lizzy said, "Phone notice to your landlady from here that you are quitting tomorrow and after you settling up with her in the morning, I'll take you to the local store to get all farm equipment and work clothing you need, charging it to our farm account.
"Sounds good Lizzy and guys. Thanks."
* * *
Rick, Lizzy, Owen and Billy left for the farm in a black beaten-up Ford double cab pickup that had suffered over-use and neglect. Judging by the dents in the sides of the tray, it appeared to have been repeatedly over-loaded with boulders and the suspension appeared overdue for renewal.
"You two go in the back," Rick the driver said. "I want my brother beside me to keep an eye on him. Owen obviously took a heavy blow on the head and I need to watch that he's not hit by delayed concussion. Lizzy, you keep your hands to yourself."
Billy and Lizzy boarded the vehicle on separate sides and took their seats with the restricted leg room. Billy buckled up and Lizzy sat calmly and placed a hand heavily on to his thigh.
Billy sat still, staring at her hand, until she sighed, withdrew it, and buckled into her seat belt.
When the vehicle was being accelerated off noisily, she said quietly enough not to be heard by the driver and front-seat passenger, "I get lonely at the farm. When my siblings are not working, they are either drinking while playing cards, or drinking and listening to country music or are dozing or are drinking and watching violence TV programmes before going to bed."
Whispering, Billy chuckled and said, "Or perhaps they spend their free time reading comics. Have you been thinking it's likely we could get together for sex?"
She replied in the sexiest voiced he'd ever heard, "Yes, when can you take me?"
Billy had half-expected that pitch might be coming and was ready for it.
"You hit on me slowly and romantically and who knows what might happen," he said quietly.
