Firstly, many thanks to Hal1 and Todger65 for their editing skills and time taken to educate the author, correct and polish the story for all to enjoy.
Introduction: Breaking the Drought is a completely fictional story based in the wide-open spaces of Western Queensland in Australia. The cattle stations are measured in square kilometers with many stations extending into millions of acres each. I have penned it with a certain gentleness and vulnerability in contrast to the harshness of the drought in the story. I have posted a glossary at the end.
*****
Part One
Monica watched as the tail lights faded into the dust. Another asshole of a 'want-to-be-lover-turned-fighter' driving down the exit lane of her life. Shame, he wasn't a bad worker when he had his mind on the job. Yet he had objected to being told what to do this afternoon and suggested a good fuck instead. She declined, so he had called her a few choice names, stood over her and tried to punch her into submission.
She had kneed him savagely and dropped a work boot into his solar plexus as he fell. She stood over him and told him to pack his gear and leave. The worst guys usually came to work as station hands, got lazy and drunk in the dry camps, made her all sorts of suggestions and promises to help work the station, but apart from the occasional cowboy sex, she was as emotionally devoid as the station was of rain since the drought began.
In her early 40's, she was still single, however she was for all intents, married to the million and something hectare cattle property, Myimbarr Station. As far as premium partner material went, four to six permanent employees and the seasonal mustering contractors, weren't much to pick from. She hadn't had a holiday since leaving university to care for her Dad when a mustering pilot crashed with him on board. He died a few months later, leaving the station to his daughters.
Her sister wanted off the property as soon as she hit boarding school. She was now a latte sipping, world traveling research vet with the state government and had 3 kids with her handsome builder husband. Worlds away from Myimbarr Station and the solitary life remote cattle stations entailed.
She usually had a handful of employees through the year on graders, fencing, dam building and mechanical repairs. Most of the good ones were married or with long term partners, too young or inappropriate for some other reason. Some were running away from lives that haunted them elsewhere.
The singles and playboys came to work, but any work ethic the guys had before she turned them down usually disappeared like the pasture grass into the hot wind when she denied them access to her bedroom. She never had time to wonder if she were bi, gay or any one of the other selections she had heard of. Other station wives just thought she worked too hard, or wanted to be a spinster. For a handful with significant others known to stray, she was a possible threat to their partners fidelity.
Monica had concluded that most of the men she had make passes at her were just revolting, like the wild bulls that broke into the station cattle herds on occasion. She only ever seemed to go through the motions if she felt horny enough.
The guys got their rocks off and rarely looked after her needs. It was easier just to switch the biology off than to deal with petty, mini-dicked, misogynist jackaroos who were either all ego, after money, or to take over the station having predetermined she wasn't up to the task. Jillaroos rarely applied for the positions and if they did, generally came with a partner. She had caught herself checking out more than one of the girls on the rare occasion though.
Her father always expected that she would find a decent man to help her run the station eventually. She was well educated, but out here, life was pretty mainstream traditional, and a fancy education meant nothing. So far, half last season's lot wanted a fuck buddy or more drinking money. Some didn't like being told no either. She had decked a couple over the years.
Like most station raised girls, she could take care of herself. She even zip tied one would be knife wielding rapist in the back of the Toyota, drove with him in the tray six hours on the gravel roads and dumped him at Julia Creek police station naked except for a pink bow around his neck much to the locals' amusement. She was unequivocally not into non-consent. But for the time being, she needed a couple more jackaroos to help with bores and fences.
She sighed and slumped down on the ancient timber steps. The border collie who refused to ever do a days work with stock had somehow dodged a bullet years ago, and now lay his fluffy black and white head on her lap. His eyes never leaving hers. It was a scene repeated every few months as blokes fell for her and then did something stupid and left. He was a veteran at the routine. No other dog was allowed in the house except him.
House dog was also quite adept at reading her suitors, but she never seemed to take any notice. This time, she did. This time, she ruffled his ears and looked back into his eyes. He'd even growled and nipped at a couple of rough riders as they opportunistically grabbed Monica's toned butt or breasts, and been kicked by them savagely in the gut for expressing his canine opinion. The offending males were kicked off the station instantly. Not so much for grabbing her, but for kicking the dog. No one touched House dog.
"You knew, didn't you rat-bag. You knew he wasn't right in the head." The tears welled up. The drought was really starting to take its toll on her. It was a slow and insidious darkness creeping into her soul, reducing her to tears way too often lately. The dog licked her hand and crawled into her lap, and closed his brown eyes.
"Bloody lap dogs", she laughed through the frustrated tears and snot, unceremoniously pushed the dog off, filled his dinner bowl and turned the house lights off to go to her empty bed.
The following morning in the dark, she pulled on her worn leather boots over some old socks with holes in the toes, argued with the zipper in her jeans, brewed a coffee, and did battle jump starting the old fencing ute. She dropped the .222 rifle into the gun lock behind the seats where it always went. She hated using it, but lately, the cattle had dropped condition and were now becoming trapped in bogs where the dams used to be full of water.
She'd fenced most of the bigger turkeys nest dams, but the natural watercourses were problematic. It was more humane to shoot them, and then chain them out later with the bulldozer than let them die slowly and contaminate the precious surface water. It was still an economic nightmare. Each cow was worth thousands to the breeding program. House dog took his customary place in the tattered passenger seat while the working dogs all jumped up in the tray, barking in anticipation. It was going to be hot and dusty again, with no hope of rain in the forecasts for months yet.
Hours later, she had cut a load of drought feed for the weaners in the yards back at the homestead, fixed a fence line, pulled a mill water pump up to service it and patched the old donkey engine with a new glow plug and some pipe seal on the water tank. Afternoon jobs had been scheduled in the river paddock. Millions of gallons of water had flowed through Myimbarr Station every day for most of her life, but now she saw the old river gums sighing over dry beds and eroded banks.
Even the flocks of red tailed cockatoos had left weeks ago. The huge squawking clouds of corellas would be next as the food along the river dwindled. They were flying east to the dividing range she heard. She pulled the rattling Toyota to a standstill but left the engine running. She'd have to order a set of new batteries and starter motor, but it wasn't going to happen until after the muster when the first lot of cattle went to sale. She clambered down the bank and whistled the dogs down for a swim in last of the spring fed river billabongs and checked for bogged cattle.
Seeing none, she thought about the packed lunch in the portable fridge, but instead of eating she sat, stared and started crying as if nothing could turn the taps off. House dog nuzzled in again. Perhaps she should ring the health clinic and ask about some anti-depressants. Her version of hell, was her inability to hold herself together for more than a day.
The station with its millions of years of natural history would still be here millions of years long after she and her stock had broken down into basic elements. She was insignificant in the scheme of life out here. She wouldn't be missed. But there was something alive about the rocky escarpments, the spinifex plains, the saltbush and the riverbeds. The living seasons and the yearly cycles of life were her life support. She just really missed the idea of having someone to share it with.
A trio of working dogs suddenly started a cacophony of barking, alerted the others, dashed up out of the water, effortlessly flying up the bank and disappearing over the crest in a cloud of red, black and tan dogs misted in grey river dust. House dog pricked his ears and watched them energetically depart. They often took off after goannas, kangaroos and the odd wild dog. He sunk back down beside her. She was his everything and he stayed.
She thought she heard a helicopter above the chugging of the Toyotas diesel engine noisily idling without its muffler, but dismissed it. The new mustering pilot wasn't due until tomorrow. The last thing she wanted was to be social with some "cowboy-hero-pilot-legend-in-his-own-lunchbox" type. Most of the trusted contract and Royal Flying Doctor Service pilots knew where she stored fuel and paperwork at the homestead airstrip if they needed it. The hot afternoon breeze cooled across the water and steadied her emotions again.
Thirst and a sense of obligation eventually pulled her to her feet. She filled her battered hat with tepid water and had a quick rinse off before she climbed back up to the noisy ute on the track. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, crunched the recalcitrant gearbox into one of the remaining forward high range gears, drove down through the rocky crossing and stirred up the bull dust into huge rolling clouds along the tracks back to the homestead. Rumbling over the homestead grid, she saw the tail of an R22 mustering helicopter owned by mustering contractor she often used, Matt Kowsinsky.
It was parked on the remnant of homestead lawn she refused to let die. To let it die would be akin to giving in to this terrible drought. The helicopter parked on it seemed like an insult to her efforts to keep it alive however practical it may have been for the pilot. Grass doesn't grow without a lot of water. Love dies here she thought. Hell, even lust cannot seem to find a foothold in the past couple of years.
