Old Cockatoo

Old Cockatoo © C.J. Cronin

99,000 words

Copyright. Smashwords edition. ISBN: 9780980724578 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, C.J. Cronin, his agent, or a properly authorized officer bearing a written authority from C.J. Cronin to that end, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, internet article or on any form of multi-media book show.

For my mother,

Shirley Cronin.

Contents

Prologue

Book One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Book Two

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Book One Cont’d

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

Australia

Early August, 1914

DAVID McCALLISTER

The cicada’s pant was shrill, hostile. David awoke, shivering. He felt ill, barely resurrected. He rolled his head and looked at the billabong. Wearily, he smeared water across his face.

From the brush on the far bank he heard a scuffing sound. A male emu, handsomely plumed and magnificent, strutted to the water’s edge. The bird grazed delicately along the bank, in the same manner as one searches for pretty and complete shells by the sea.

David’s pupils dilated. He stiffened, watching, cat-like. He made his way stealthily around the water-hole perimeter.

Finally in position, he raised slowly to his haunches. The emu was only feet away. The idea of its fright tantalized him, made him stronger. It had only to turn and see that his eyes were burning, and that he meant to kill.

He waited, tasting the hunt.

The blue sky fell away behind Old Cockatoo, fell into eternity. Very still, he watched.

A grasshopper writhed, pinned by an emu claw. Head down, the bird bore witness. But its eyes iced still. It held its breath. It was listening.

David waited. The moment was near…any second....

The head rose. Lungs gasped. Wings lifted.

David charged. Their bodies collided with a deep, dull thud. The bird was wrenched off its feet. They pitched down the steep bank and plunged deep into the pond.

The bird thrashed, seeing the bank and heading for it.

David burst to the surface, seizing its neck. He mounted its back and forced its head under. The bird’s feet found bottom and carried them in tight circles as the water all around foamed.

They struggled hard, the emu desperately straining for air.

Heartbeats passed. Slowly the struggles weakened. At last, David felt a fat surge in the thick cord neck, felt the bubbles run up his arms and chest to the surface, ballooning around him.

Cautiously, he eased his legs.

Satisfied, he slid smoothly away. He waited for the corpse to be borne up, and imagined it glistening with weeds, the eyes turned blue and glassy.

Old Cockatoo’s wizened eyes creased shut in a thoughtful blink, and then rested without deliberation. Below, the emu looked like still, grey leaves in the water. David was drifting to the bank.

Old Cockatoo took to the air, called to him, and flew to the east.

David heard the call. His eyes caught the snow white body as it cut the blue air, all the way to the horizon.

MELLENEY McCALLISTER

A last breath, the emu dies, dies hard, unwanted, and nothing mourns. Old Cockatoo’s mind formed no question. He simply tasted the air as he flew with the breeze and looked down on the colours below.

One colour was Melleney, David’s elder brother, sitting alone on a weather-cracked form on the Wellington town station. He watched the retreating form of the town policeman, Sergeant Haynes.

As Haynes disappeared behind the station-master’s office Melleney blinked, breaking the stare. He looked at the ground. The look was empty, but not broken, more sullen than defeated. He looked at his hands hanging in the well of his lap and rolled his right wrist. Flies crawled over barely scabbed sores along his knuckles and, indifferently, he watched them dine on the wounds.

He was attractive, leathery-tough handsome, mid-twenties, although looking older from within. His right eye was discoloured at its corner and his left brow wept slightly from a just healed cut. A bruise ran down the cheek on the same side and became a welt which disappeared into the scrubbing brush bristles of his moustache and stubble.

He wore a heavy, dappled grey coat and broad bushman’s hat, the most elegant clothes such a man desired. Between his boots on the platform gravel sprawled a weather-beaten carpet bag, holding all else he owned.

Melleney glanced up at the platform clock. It was nearly seven. Below the clock the pull-down sign read: Next Train All Stations To Sydney. Beside this a small rusted frame, designed to house a departure time, was empty. It had never been used - the train to Sydney left at seven - a fact of life, like sun-up.

Melleney looked along the tracks to the northwest. The lines distorted to one somewhere through the shimmering haze.

Old Cockatoo caught Melleney’s face blinking out from beneath the hat, and called to him.

Melleney heard the call and followed his flight. He wondered if Old Cockatoo had thoughts at all, if he felt sorrow. The questions dissolved, melting to earth. Even so, he watched as Old Cockatoo flew by.

ANNA McCALLISTER

The countryside was beautiful. It was not a cruel world, but a gentle place.

Anna’s carriage moved leisurely along. She willed rather than ordered the mare toward John Hawthorne’s drive. They passed through a shallow creek, up the opposite bank, and beneath a crossbeam gateway marking the property line.

She looked around, trying to lock the day forever in her memory. Blue, blue sky, swept, brushed, and smeared with brilliant white lines of cloud, a fantasy of timelessness.

The coolness of the air over the water tantalized her lungs, quickened her heart. Her deep blue eyes, always calm, brimmed with hope. She looked eagerly for John and at last saw him stride onto the veranda of his homestead. He stepped into the low-angled light and watched her slow approach.

Anna’s sons, for whom she had lived and breathed her entire adult life, were forgotten. It was her time now, one of a handful of joyous moments in her life. She intended to eat the fruit long and lovingly, to kiss the man who gave it to her, a kiss, soft and full.

John moved down and halted the horse. Like young lovers first-entranced they stared at each other, afraid to mar the purity of the moment.

Old Cockatoo called as he settled in a tree nearby.

John looked his way and murmured, He’s very old, and looked back at Anna as he added, He understands about waiting.

Anna looked tenderly at him, loving him. Silently she thanked Heaven for him, thanked all manner of creation. He helped her down. Tears spilt from her eyes and he kissed them from her cheeks. Her shoulder nestled under his arm, her breast and hip melded to him with warmth. They looked down over the valley. From afar, a train whistle drifted in on the breeze; a long, ululating cry.

Old Cockatoo flew back to meet the call.

Back to ‘Contents’

BOOK ONE

One week earlier

Late July, 1914.

CHAPTER 1

Mini thermos whipped at rusty powder-dust, throwing handfuls in the air. A rugby league player, ball tucked under one arm, sprinted across the dustpan field. He was hotly pursued by opponents and desperately backed up by team-mates. Cornered, he attempted a side-step, but failed to avoid a rigid wall of men who quickly knocked him to the ground.

David took a ruck, a ‘settl’r’ as it was known, and his half-hearted charge was predictably short-lived. He played the ball and looked around, dust caking his mouth. He noted the score-board anxiously - WELLINGTON 16 MUDGEE 15. His brow knotted, and despite heavy limbs aching in the heat he hurried to keep up with play.

To one side of the field a small crowd watched tensely, two questions niggling their allegiances - Can we hold them out? Can we score in time?

On the opposite sideline there stood a lone figure, massive and still. Old Man McCallister was six six in height, a yard in width, and possessed of a chest that seemed impossibly deep. His vast frame resembled a broad, granite obelisk, unhindered by the wind, stark against the plain, a monument to past glories. His black eyes roved between scaly slits and lurked in the shadows of his heavy brow and wide-brim hat. Dwarfed by his hand, a beer bottle, contents guarded by a broad thumb, hung neglected.

On the other sideline a man waved fiercely at menacing flies and glared at the timekeeper. The look by nature of a cast in the man’s eye and his obvious irritability jolted the timekeeper from his enthrallment. He checked the clock, grasped a cow bell on the table before him, and watched the second hand move past the twelve, now into injury time, thirty seconds left to play.

Melleney, catching sight of the time-keeper, abandoned his position at centre-three-quarter and screamed for the ball. It was snapped back and in an ambitious field goal attempt he let loose a massive drop-kick from fifty yards out. To everyone’s surprise the kick made the distance and only narrowly missed the uprights. The opposition full-back sprinted hard but was unable to gather the ball before it rolled over the ‘dead ball’ line.

The timekeeper rang the bell and the ‘Ref’ blew the final whistle. The spectators reacted predictably - some gleefully tossing their hats in the air while others cursed behind lowered brims. The teams moved from the field, exchanging thick cotton jerseys and thereby marking the close of inter-town competition and the football season altogether.

*

Now utterly alone on his side of the field, Old Man McCallister lifted the bottle and drank slowly.

As it fell from his fingers the spectators were already in a distant field. Not moving, he stared at them. They were busily organizing camp fires and refreshments, all, to his apparent exclusion.

*

The President stood on an upturned crate and cleared his throat, Ah...If I could have your attention for just a minute.

A gentle ripple of silence penetrated the crowd, exposing two men, opposition supporters from Wellington and Mudgee, locked in debate over the rule for playing the ball forward. They heard nothing save their own voices.

The President frowned officiously, feeling he had the weight of the crowd behind him, Please, could I...

He was saved direct quarrel courtesy of a man nearby.

You blokes!

They grudgingly turned from each other and looked purse-lipped at the President.

He took a restrained bow, crank-starting his speech, Ah, ladies and gents, it is my pleasure as President to present this evening, to the captain of the winning side, the Bill Lander Memorial Shield.

He glanced about for the vice-president, who as town jeweller was responsible for the latest trophy engraving. Finally he found the man standing directly behind him. The vice-president smiled through rotten teeth and proffered the large shield.

The President sighed irritably but persevered, As one can easily see from the shield, Wellington has won the clash three times, and Mudgee, three times. So next year, that last little shield that’s bare at the bottom here, will no doubt be hotly contested. However, this year the trophy will stay with last year’s winners, the home side, the Wellington side, who were fortunate enough to run out winners in the great cliff-hanger we all witnessed this afternoon. So I’m now going to call on the Wellington captain, Melleney...ah, you there Melleney...?

Melleney, not captain due to popularity but because he was by far their best senior player, was gazing distractedly at a fire. He looked up with an expression of forced enthusiasm, waved, and came forward.

...Ah, on the Wellington captain, Melleney McCallister, to come forward and accept the shield.

*

At forty yards off, Old Man McCallister watched his eldest son accept the shield. He saw him shake the President’s hand, stand on the box, and begin to make a speech. He strained to listen but distance thwarted him and he shrugged drunkenly, telling himself he did not care. Even so he gave up only when the crowd applauded once more.

He raised a beer bottle to his lips. It was three-quarters full, but despite feeling bloated he kept drinking, forcing it down. Finally he lowered the bottle and looked at it. It was a smooth, bronze crystal in his hand. It glowed in the yellow light from distant fires - a kind friend, a terrible enemy.

He threw it down, smashing it against a rock, and looked at the crowd. The last seconds of applause were cut short and heads swung round.

The crowd’s sight was adjusted to the fireside and no one could see into the blackness. In any case, with their safety in numbers and festive spirits they were not concerned with intruders. Inquisitive looks sponsored speculation on the blacks daring to drink like whites and the overdue need to ban sales of alcohol to them.

Old Man McCallister sighed heavily, belched uncomfortably, and stumbled into the night.

Back to ‘Contents’

CHAPTER 2

The sun threw a grappling iron deep into the land. The first bullets of light thwacked through rust holes in the roof guttering and ricocheted off cracked window panes. The sun pressed for victory.

Briefly disrupting the skirmish, Old Cockatoo winged his way to a giant, dead ghost gum. Perching in the extremities of the lowest branch he faced the McCallister homestead. His claws sank deep into decaying bark and he rested back on scaly haunches.

The shadows running with the light betrayed the house’s true state, confessing the weatherboards were once painted white but now bore only blistered scabs, the remnants of better days.

At the rear a holding yard of rough-hewn fence posts and raw timber railings accommodated three horses. Attached were two more enclosures for the tuition of horses individually. The ground within was bare, for beneath a layer of sand years of pounding hooves had turned it to rock-hard impregnability. Coupling both areas was a subdivided shed of slab bark and roofing iron. Half was used for farriering, the other for grain storage and saddlery. Nearby, pigs roamed despondently over remnants of an abandoned vegetable patch, while predatory fowls scratched the same dust with meaningless resolve.

In the living room of the small house a baby grandfather clock ticked with hopeless inaccuracy, losing one second in ten. Irritated by its irrelevance Old Man McCallister would occasionally observe, "The sun keeps time for horsemen." The clock had belonged to Anna McCallister’s great aunt in her homeland of Wales. Despite her husband’s censure she persisted each new dawn in winding the wearied spring. This routine had its purpose; diluting another of her husband’s rulings, ‘Hard quarters for hard men’, into something akin to a home.

The same rough hand which had splice-nailed the clock shelf to the wall had also given the room its only decoration: a prize fighter’s belt, cracked dry, green with mold and pinned flat with a rusted nail. Above it was a faded photograph slightly fallen to one side. The photograph was of Old Man McCallister, much younger and in boxer’s garb. He posed with arms folded across his chest, the belt worn round his middle. A buckled strip of paper held the faded caption: British Bare Knuckles Champion. Heavyweight Division, 1889.

As irregular as the clock’s pace, a resonant snore gurgled through the house. Across a sagging double bed Old Man McCallister, fully clothed, sprawled in diagonal crucifixion.

In the adjoining sleepout Anna stood in pious silhouette amid diffused, golden light. She coiled her long, brown hair into a bun and pinned it tight. After straightening the bedding on a canvas stretcher, she moved to the bedroom doorway and without expression watched her husband sleep.

Across the hall in a room barely big enough for two rickety beds and a low-boy wardrobe, Melleney and David slept. They were naked on calico sheets, their only protection against the chill being one thin blanket apiece. David’s blanket was torn and moth-eaten, while Melleney’s bore the faded stamp of the P&O line, testifying its theft from an immigrant ship years before. Scattered across the floor were dusty clothes mixed with various tools of the horsebreaker’s employ; stock and lunging whips, riding boots, a harness David was mending.

David opened his eyes suddenly. He wondered if the sound of his own snoring had woken him but just as quickly realized the offender was his father across the hall. He squeezed his eyes shut to moisten them, and yawned.

After a moment he studied his brother’s face.

Melleney slept peacefully on.

Old Cockatoo screeched his raw, ear-splitting call.

With a resurrectional gasp Melleney awoke and caught his brother staring. David, however, did not waver, conveying an inner determination.

Gonna fight today, he stated, voice breaking mid-sentence.

Melleney stared back in silence, appearing more awake than he was.

I am, David insisted.

His brother finally exhaled through his nose and massaged his face.

Don’t be stupid.

Not anticipating that reply David thought about it for some time before answering, Why not? You did.

I had to.

Knowing there was some truth in that David hesitated, but then went stubbornly on, Still gonna.

"Your teeth," said Melleney, feigning indifference.

He shut his eyes and rolled away. A creak in the floorboards announced their mother’s approach.

David threatened and implored, Don’t tell mum.

The door swung wide on his last word and Anna entered. Both her sons looked round. As usual she gave no greeting but instead picked up their dirty clothes. Some time went by before she offered a word.

Win yesterday?

Mmm, Melleney replied.

Score one of them try things?

He studied her, wondering how she could grow up in Wales and not be fluent in rugby terms. His silence caught her attention and he nodded obediently.

She glanced inquiringly at David.

Kicked a field goal, he answered, applying for approval.

Like Melleney, his mother seldom reacted.

With your knee, corrected Melleney.

Anna jerked her head toward the master bedroom, And him?

Still went over, muttered David.

Usual, Melleney yawned, ignoring his brother and asserting indifference to his father.

Going to town with him?

Melleney deliberately looked at David. His brother’s forehead went tight.

Aw, yeah, Melleney muttered, a grin playing round his lips, have a look.

Anna picked up David’s shirt by his bed and as she straightened made a point of catching his eye, Better not hear about you fighting at Preston’s today, young David McCallister. Come home without your teeth and I’ll put you in the henhouse. S’where creatures without teeth belong.

Melleney did!

Melleney had to.

David wondered if she had been listening at the door.

Y’father said to cut that chaff before you go anywhere, she ordered, telling a lie she knew would not be challenged.

She slapped him lightly on the face with a shirt sleeve, making it clear she was showing the whip with full intention of using it. She kicked their boots from her path as she noisily left the room.

Feeling betrayed, David set his jaw and frowned, Still gonna, he said, quietness undermining conviction.

Melleney dropped his eyes to the considerable bulge in the blanket overlying David’s groin.

I’d get rid of that first, he advised, deadpan.

*

Old Man McCallister filled the doorway. He watched his sons as they worked. His fresh shirt hung undone, highlighting the cleft between flat, square plates of muscle on his chest.

He was an enigma – often abusive of his health yet appearing in a superb state of hardiness and brawn. He ate little for a big man, exercised only when he worked, which was seldom, and got drunk daily. He would be fifty-five in the spring but only a few strands of grey were apparent in his black hair. Although partially bald, he had been so from an early age and his massive skull had a healthy sheen over glossy, fine-grain skin. He was not classically handsome, but all agreed there was strong masculine appeal, a dominant, fascinating essence. The deep, permanent dimples running from his cheeks to the jaw edge enhanced the square brow and thick eyebrows, the combination of features exuding a slurry of strength, confidence and intelligence. As one admires a legendary elephant for sheer power and majesty, so too could one admire him. But similarly, he was a solitary creature, and dangerous.

He squinted into the sunlight. As the brightness triggered a throbbing in both temples he cursed his drinking. Scanning the horizon, he vaguely hoped for approaching clouds, saw none, and spat resentfully into the yard.

His eyes adjusting to the glare, he reached for his hat on a peg by the door and growled his first words of the day, Dave! Grab the mare!

*

The sun was high. Old Man McCallister, and Melleney and David, passed through the gate to the wagon rut running alongside the house.

Anna stood in the back doorway, her downcast air not swayed by David’s wave. As the youngest he had to shut the gate, and he always turned and waved. She watched the ritual, ignoring it, indifferent to any offence to her son.

Jammed by a single wooden peg a white rag fluttered from the wire of a notch-stake clothesline. With the men gone it was now the only thing at the homestead that moved. But as innocent as it appeared - a mere housewife’s device - it guarded hidden truths. It was an instrument of deception, a banner opposing repression, the signing of a secret life.

Like her husband, Anna was solitary by nature, so it was not seclusion dulling her blue eyes, but the dejection of unfulfilled love.

She turned and went inside. Futility had long replaced anger.

*

Looking like a medium-sized man astride a small mule, Old Man McCallister straddled his roan mare, the stirrups lengthened for his long legs. It was an unsolved mystery as to why he favoured such an unlikely mount, but also indicative of his character in that no one questioned him directly on the subject. Melleney, who was a medium-sized man, sat a tan quarterhorse. It was a square, rowdy-looking animal which had previously run with wild brumby stock. David, a mere inch shorter in stature than his father, towered over them both on an ink-black stallion measuring seventeen hands. When just a boy he had received it from the Fergusons of Crunberry Creek as payment for his first job of training. He was not, however, aware that John Hawthorne had made the gift possible by contributing half the purchase price. At the time John had seen the need to boost the boy’s self-esteem and was a generous man to those he liked.

David felt Melleney’s eyes upon him and looked round. Melleney nodded toward their father, ordering him to relay a previous confidence.

David remembered and obeyed, Dad. Billy Preston sent Melleney a note. Said he’d give you four quid to stay away this year and that that’s ten bob up on last year.

Old Man McCallister gave no indication he had heard. They covered a quarter mile in silence before he replied.

Is he going to fight?

David glanced at his brother, assuming the ‘he’ meant him.

He waited for Melleney to answer directly but there was only silence.

Unable to bear it further, he blurted, Well nobody knows he ever fought for Preston...

Shuddup, uttered Melleney.

He made further comment by looking away, sighing and shaking his head. David realized his blunder. Old Man McCallister was an odd sort, a man who would fight to his last for kith and kin yet daily tried to erode their pride and depress their existence. Experience had taught the family that particular information should be withheld or it would be used against them.

David looked apologetically at Melleney but found him gazing into the distance. His goodwill thwarted, David frowned and stared blankly at the roadway below.

Melleney, though, was gazing ahead for a reason. His practised eyes had detected slight movement in the bush. Looking again, he saw a rider partially concealed behind a tree, watching them.

Pretending to check the upper road as they neared the junction called Jacob’s Fork, Melleney’s head was inclined toward the high road, but his eyes were directed left, watching for the man. He guessed it to be John Hawthorne.

He checked his father, wondering if he had also noticed. The old mare plodded mechanically on, reins loose, his father’s head directly forward.

For a Scot, Old Man McCallister was as adept as any native bushman. He had lived half his life in the British Isles yet his bushcraft would often confound outback veterans. His senses were also perfect.

As they neared the rise where the roads met, Melleney observed that the dirt siding had been disturbed by a horse, moist earth still cresting the tracks. It begged the questions - why would anyone leave the road there? - and as it was obviously recent, where was that person now?

If Old Man McCallister found this of interest he gave no sign. Melleney became suspicious - a man who regularly tracked the wild horse would notice things like that.

They leaned forward as their horses pulled hard up the slope then relaxed on the even grade of the upper road. With John Hawthorne now well behind Melleney felt the tension ease.

He looked at David and guessed his brother was daydreaming. This sponsored the hopeful speculation that Old Man McCallister might be similarly preoccupied.

After all, he was only human.

Old Cockatoo’s mind drifted. Age fostered contempt for safety. He had been staring at them, not surprised by their appearance, watching without seeing. He now studied the biggest of them as they passed below.

When they had gone he pushed off to the air and set his wings in a glide down the valley.

As the wind buffeted his eyes, his mind once more began