Jason's Dunny

JASON'S DUNNY

a novel by

Colin Crump

Dedicated to Ginger

All characters appearing in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

eBook Edition: ISBN 978-1-370-13385-7

eBook edition converted and published by Intrepid Sparks, 2017

Print Edition: ISBN 978-0-473-25527-5

Print edition published 2013 by CP Books

Copyright © Colin Crump, 2013

Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Printed by The Copy Press, Nelson, New Zealand.

www.copypress.co.nz

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Floyd and Flint.

Chapter 2 - Floyd’s Crossing.

Chapter 3 - Sally.

Chapter 4 - Gypsy Joan.

Chapter 5 - Up and Running.

Chapter 6 - Jason.

Chapter 7 - Fish.

Chapter 8 - Sayonara.

Chapter 9 - The Old Glory Box.

Chapter 10 - Ginger.

Chapter 11 - A Tragedy and a Blessing.

Chapter 12 - Mistaken Identity.

Chapter 13 - Back on Track.

Chapter 14 - Jason's Dunny.

Chapter 15 - Rush Cutters Bay.

Chapter 16 - Wedding Blues.

Chapter 17 - Action at all stations.

Chapter 18 - Trials of Love and Money.

Chapter 19 - Busy Busy Times.

Chapter 20 - Life Goes On.

Epilogue

Afterword

About the Author

Other books by Colin Crump

Chapter 1

Floyd and Flint

Big Floyd took a slurp of coffee, laced with Napoleon Brandy, and pondered what he might do with the day. Apart from a packet of mining shares of doubtful value from his parents’ estate, the old farm cottage with its rickety barn and a half-acre was all he now owned. It wasn’t all bad – there was a view over the valley and, from the kitchen window, you could see a magnificent range of mountains that reached right into the clouds and when they were snow-capped under the early morning sun – well I guess that’s probably good enough company for anyone, he thought.

At seventy years old today, he reminisced on those three score years and ten. His wife Sarah, had passed on seven years ago at fifty years, yet her wardrobe, which he had brought to the cottage with him, was full of her clothes. Her riding boots, ladies’ saddle and bridle were neatly placed in the barn nearby. Even her favourite camera was there, sharing a peg with a worn-out drover’s oil skin coat. Her old walking boots, untouched since the day she herself laid them out ready for her next hike out with husband, friend and soul-mate.

Floyd so vividly recalled the life they had shared, the hard times running a thousand acres of tough terrain and twice as many sheep, and three kids just to keep you real busy when you’ve already had too much.

He thought back to that day when Sarah had gone in to town for her weekly shopping and kept an appointment with her doctor who passed on the results of med tests that had just come through the mail. It was all bad news and the three-month expectancy period was accurate almost to the day. A more saddened widower would be a rare find and Big Floyd moved on with tortured memories.

‘I guess birthdays do bring memories,’ he mused and slammed the door on any such further thoughts. Birthday or not, he was on his way. There was a suspicion that Heather, his number three daughter, might remember the date and possibly even call in with one of her fancy banana cakes; and perhaps there would be a phone call from one of the others or maybe something would be in the mail box, yes. So on the way out he decided, ‘I’ll just check out the box, might be a card from one of the grandchildren.’ There were five of them – all who had been so generously spoilt over the years with toys gifts, school fees, holidays, along with cash handouts for this, that and more of those. The mailbox held only the rural news. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow; it is rural delivery.

Back in the house, he pondered further as he took another slurp of coffee and added two sugars, muttering to himself all the while: ‘Well I sold the farm, paid the mortgages, bought them cars, paid their fines, maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did, fool that I am.’ He rinsed out the cup and strode out the door. No point in hanging about inside.

‘Come on, Flint,’ he called to the Border Collie cross that had been watching his every move, just waiting for the order. ‘Up you go.’

And Flint leapt up on the back of the ute ready for any excitement a man and his dog might find.

Floyd had packed a few dog biscuits for Flint and some more of the real variety for himself, a flask of coffee, a slice of last night’s roast to share with the dog and a couple of bottles of water and he threw all that on the front seat. When he went back to the cottage and returned with his old .303 hunting rifle, along with his camera and sheath knife, Flint recognised exactly what it was they were up to, and he was still jumping and barking as they drove off towards the high country on the west road out of town.

It was stinking hot and both man and dog sucked in the clean air as miles sped by and the tarseal eventually gave way to gravel. From rich farmland to average, then fading to poor; followed by undulating pastures to sharp uninviting scrub and then eventually on to native bush and rugged, unusable, uninviting ‘no man’s land’ – totally unforgiving territory without a doubt. Gravel then gave way to one-way track and Floyd pulled over. This was the spot that the rain had driven him away from on his last visit about four months ago. There was some sign of deer and it was a long time since he had bagged anything worthwhile.

As there was always a chance of meeting up with a ranger, or even a confrontation with the Marijuana boys who were known to travel long distances to plant their crops, he locked up the ute, slung the camera over his shoulders and with gun, knife and dog off he went where the road ended and the track was something you made as you went.

It was a real wilderness, with huge crevasses plunging down for a hundred metres or more. In this almost-drought, waterfalls were still flowing. Floyd wondered what it must be like when the rains came or the snow on the mountains began to thaw? It was all just a bit eerie. Scary, he thought. He stopped to listen to a nearby waterfall and just as well he did. One more step and he would not be coming back. The crevasse in front was massively deep but only about fifteen metres wide. Okay for a swing bridge, he mused. The other side seemed to be beckoning. He moved a few metres to one side, then to the other, and suddenly in a gap in the trees just over the gap there it was: a magnificent Wapiti cross, about three years old, standing proud with a full ten-pointer set of antlers – the best he had seen.

He dropped the old .303 and quickly readied his camera. After several clicks of the camera the stag turned and looked directly at big Floyd, shook his huge head of antlers in defiance, stamped one hoof, and was gone.

‘I could have got him. No doubt. He was only forty metres away, but what’s the use – I would never have been able to retrieve him from the other side,’ Floyd said to the dog with a chuckle.

The other side of the crevasse became a fixation. He somehow had to see what lay beyond.

Man and dog made their way back to the ute where they rested. The dog ate his biscuits and half of the leftover roast and Floyd re-nourished on biscuits and coffee. After a fag and a short rest, off they went again in the opposite direction. It was a good three kilometres through rough, steep and dangerous territory before a crossing was possible. Two huge trees had fallen over the crevasse, which was neither so deep nor wide at this point. The dog scampered across and Floyd followed. He edged himself across just one shuffle at a time and dropped to his hands and knees to make the final quarter. He was now worried that he might never find his way back, so he tore up part of his shirt and, with one bright red sleeve, marked the spot. He also hacked off several fronds from a punga tree and patterned out three arrows pointing in the direction he was heading. Unexpectedly the terrain became easier. There was less rock and more bush, more birds. A mob of feral goats with kids at foot passed by almost unnoticed while a wild pig ushered its litter away from Floyd who crouched and watched and hung on to Flint’s collar. ‘Don’t get excited, fella. Calm down. Calm down. This is not the time to get into a hunt.’

But the dog didn’t understand. He saw what they had come to find and he wanted to do what he was trained to do. He broke loose and was immediately onto the sow. She turned to face the dog to protect her litter. A bitter fight broke out and Floyd had no option but to reach for his knife and join in the foray. A second pig – an older and much larger animal sporting an open jaw with well sharpened tusks – took over the battle against Flint, while the sow and six screaming piglets scampered off down the trail.

There was a loud yelp – a cry of pain. And suddenly it was over. The pig dashed off into the bush and man and dog were alone. Flint was a mess, ripped from the lower neck and well down over the chest and into the gut. Blood was flowing and Floyd knew if this wasn’t stopped his dog would surely die; in any event, given where they were, it looked pretty much like the chances of Flint’s survival were extra slim.

‘Not today, not on my birthday!’

Floyd tore up the remaining sleeve and quickly leg-tied both of Flint’s front paws together and again as high as the torn rag would allow. The shoulder strap from the camera was used to tie the back feet to the front, which helped keep the wound closed. He then turned Flint on his side. The blood had stopped and Flint passed out. For a moment, Floyd thought he might have died. He laid the dog out on fern leaves and soft branches from a nearby bush where Flint remained, silent and still. They weren’t going anywhere tonight so a makeshift camp was set up, a fire was lit and, just before the darkness closed in, Floyd took a good look around the immediate area to cement his precise bearings. A trail just to the left indicated where the pigs had fled after the fight and Floyd figured that there should be up to an hour of light still available. He could see that Flint was asleep so he followed on down and then up a game trail that seemed to be well trafficked. As he turned further up hill, the trail became even steeper – he figured the summit couldn’t be that far away so on he went. A few minutes later the bush and boulders opened out into flattened areas that had been well eaten out, possibly by goats, then the view appeared, leaving him quite spellbound as he turned in every direction, taking it all in.

Stretching for miles, into the setting sun, was an enormous valley of forest and boulder-ridden streams. Forest fires and floods had left their scars of seasonal rampage on the overgrown surface below. In the far distance the forest gave way to light bush and washed-out scrub that had survived the previous flooding.

Over to the east, he could see a vast area, a thousand hectares or more, where the river turned and eventually wound its way through to the ocean, all surrounded by unusable, inaccessible, forgotten terrain. Darkness was sneaking in so, with a final scan of what was possibly the greatest view he had ever witnessed, he turned back to the camp where old Flint was where he had been left under Floyd’s jacket – quite warm, still alive. He made himself a rough bed from ferns and brush in the bushman’s style and the dreams of what he had found this day went on through the night.

At first light, the rifle and camera were tucked away under a rock ledge and the sling from the rifle was taken to help secure Flint to Floyd’s arms for the journey back. It was three hours of stop-rest and starts before they got back to the two logs over the crevasse. By then, rain clouds were gathering. The marker fronds were still there, but the torn-off sleeve was gone, probably stolen by the possums, Floyd guessed.

Getting across the two fallen trees was to be the worst part of the return journey. Sitting sideways on just one fallen log, holding Flint in his lap, Floyd worked his way inch by inch across by manoeuvring his buttocks. Rain started to fall.

By the time they finally did get across, Floyd’s trousers were worn right through and he had scratches so deep that he could feel blood trickling down his inner thighs. On they went and the going became worsened by heavy rain that pelted down in a rage.

‘Hold on, old chap,’ Floyd comforted as he approached the end of the trail and his old Nissan ute came into sight.

Flint was laid on the front seat with his head on Floyd’s lap and that’s how they arrived an hour and a half later at the vet’s surgery.

‘What’s happened here?’ asked Lyall the vet, a long-time friend.

Floyd explained, and the dog was immediately carried into the vet’s theatre.

‘Well there’s not much pulse. Lost a lot of blood. I’ll stitch him up, but you might still lose him.’

‘Just give him your best shot, Lyall. I’ll see you in the morning, but first I need to get my backside seen to at Doc Myers’s, so if you have any update on Flint, that’s where I’ll be,’ said Floyd and the treatment commenced.

Well Lyall did save the dog and Doctor Myers patched up Floyd’s ripped and torn parts and, almost as good, the mailbox contained four happy birthday cards from loved ones, not to mention four bottles of Cooper’s Creek Dry Red at the front door with love from Alan – his favourite son-in-law. Unfortunately a freshly made banana cake, although nicely boxed up, did not survive the extra day on the porch, but Floyd’s flock of free-range chooks laid quite well in the days that followed.

Chapter 2

Floyd’s Crossing

It was a full two weeks before Floyd’s backside recovered sufficiently to allow him to sit behind the wheel without wincing in aggravation with every bump in the road. It was also two weeks before Lyall phoned and told him it was okay to pick up the dog. They’d nearly lost him and he’d still need a few weeks yet to fully recover. The bill for Flint’s care was eleven hundred dollars and Floyd was none too happy about that and cursed his best friend with affection as he reached for his cash stash to settle the account with Lyall. ‘Bloody good vet, nevertheless!’ he muttered as he counted out the notes and neatly stuffed them into an envelope ready for Lyall, whom he knew loved to get paid in cash. Floyd was most grateful for all he had done.

The two weeks’ wait for the dog and bum to mend did not stop him from making several visits to the department of Lands and Survey, where he came in contact with an old codger called Trevor Cristal. He’d been with the department for over twenty years and was most helpful in pointing out the procedures and finding all the map references that Floyd asked for. He also let Floyd use the map room and take photocopies of the various details that he was researching. By the time Flint came home, Floyd already had quite a file on what he called the ‘New Territory’. He had learnt that the area he was interested in was ‘crown land’ and a ninety-nine year lease with a right to purchase was possible.

Trevor Cristal had been most informative: ‘Oh, and by the way, Mister, I did look up the old files on that block. It was re-surveyed about seventy years ago and a report states that this block was not suited to forestry or a national park and it went on to say that work on the access road was stopped and the land was classified as not suitable for farming, forestry or a public park. An earlier report revealed that some gold mining activity had taken place just after the Second World War and this too was abandoned due to inaccessibility.’

Floyd was in raptures with this information, but was cautious not to reveal too much enthusiasm as