Penguin Books Australia

Rebecca Saunders whistled to her dog.

'Mossy, go way back.'

In the glow of morning sunlight the little kelpie, light on her feet, seemed to float out around the mob of sheep in the holding paddock. All that could be heard was her chain jingling around her neck as she cantered and crouched on the dusty ground. The sheep huddled and turned their heads towards Mossy's motionless red and tan form. Bec turned to open the gate, knowing Mossy would bring the mob steadily into the yards. Unclipping the chain, she dragged the gate's creaking rusted frame across the dust and whistled Mossy to stalk towards the sheep. Rebecca watched the sea of ewes move slowly towards her, with the ram in their midst. He held his head high with his lip curled up. His horns spiralled pompously around his face like a barrister's wig. Bec frowned at him. His scrotum really bothered her. It had been on her mind most of the night.

She remembered her withered, wiry grandfather holding out his hands with his bony fingers curved around the air.

'Two full beer cans,' he had said. 'Two full beer cans.' That's what they're s'posed to feel like.' Her grandfather had lifted the weighty scrotum of one of his rams and jiggled the hefty sack in the palms of his hands.

'Here, girl, have a feel.'

So, how come, Bec thought to herself this morning, the ram which her father just paid $2000 for had one full beer can and one minibar bottle of gin for a scrotum? She shook her head as she closed the gate. If only her father had listened to her.

Walking briskly to the yards she wondered if she could persuade him to take the ram back. She pictured the tweed-coated stud ram breeder with the grey hairs growing wildly from the tip of his nose and lobes of his ears. She couldn't believe the man still spoke with a voice from the Mother Country.

'Yars, he's a fine upstanding sire,' the breeder had said as if chatting to the Queen. He'd folded his arms across his belly and jutted out his chin. 'Covered magnificently to the points, with a noble head.'

'Wanker,' she said out loud to the image in her head. If only they could take the dud ram back and spend the money on a performance-tested ram, one that was guaranteed to make an impact on the flock. But Rebecca knew her dad would never agree.

As she swung the splintery wooden gate open into the largest yard, she heard an outburst of barking and the rush of hooves raising dust.

'Bloody oath, Dad.' Bec shook her head, sighed and rolled her eyes.

Her father, Harry Saunders, was slipping through the wire fence yelling as he went, 'Mate, Spot, Mardy ... come behind! Get back in behind! You dogs! Mardy! Come here! Get out of that!'

His crew of motley dogs were working in a pack, singling out a sheep and chasing it to the fence, biting as they went. Little Mossy was doing her best to keep the mob together while the other dogs zoned in close to the sheep, causing chaos.

'Geez, Dad. Are you sure you need all those mongrel dogs? I almost had them yarded.' She put up her hands to shade her eyes from the sun and squinted at the circling mob. 'Useless!'

Her father, red in the face, was holding Mardy by the collar. The young pup's eyes were fixed on the sheep and his tongue lolled to the side of his mouth as he panted. So keen to work, Mardy was oblivious to the fact he was being choked.

'Don't you start, girl,' her father warned, pointing a finger at her. To prove her point Bec whistled gently and called softly, 'Mossy, come here to me.' Mossy turned one ear towards Bec, glanced at her, then trotted to her side. Rebecca turned her back to her father. She knew he hated the fact that her dogs worked so well for her, but at the same time she felt sadness for his untrained dogs.

'Yard the friggin' sheep yourself then,' she said under her breath.

'What did you say, girl? What did you say to me?' Ignoring him, she marched off to sort out the tangle of tubes and drench-guns, which lay in a pile on the floor of the shearing shed's grinding room.

A while later her father's large silhouette appeared in the doorway of the shed. His shadow spread across worn and weary floorboards.

'You know we really don't need you in the yards today, Bec,' the shape said. He moved into the dimly lit shed. 'Your brothers will be down after they've fixed the pump. They can do the drenching and I'll shift the stock.' He wouldn't look at his daughter's face.

'But, Dad, I told you, I've finished school ... I'm home to work. For good.' Rebecca heaved a twenty-litre drench drum onto the grinding room bench with a thud.

'Bec, you know there's not enough room for all three kids on the place. We've had this discussion before. No daughter of mine is going to make a socalled career out of farming. There's no future in it.'

'But farming's good enough for your sons?' Bec turned to look at him and stood with her hands on her hips.

Harry took off his sweat-stained hat and ran his fingers through his greying hair.

'That's different, Bec. The boys don't know anything else ... It's what they were raised to do ... The boys are capable of making a go of it here.'

'And I'm not?' Bec moved to meet his eyes.

'It's for your own good, Rebecca.' Looking away from her, he turned his attention to the drench-gun on the bench. 'Your best bet is to go do a teaching or nurs ing course, then you can marry a nice farmer who isn't up to his neck in debt or paying his way out of a bloody divorce and ... then you can —'

'Bulldust, Dad!' exploded Bec. 'Listen to you! Do you know how bloody sexist you sound? I was born here and I'm staying here ... I have just as much right to the farm as Mick and Tom.'

She threw down the cluster of tubes which were entwined around an empty drench pack. 'There's no way I'm going to become a nurse or a teacher so I can marry some conservative sexist pig who expects me to bake scones all day and join the CWA with his mum. Stuff that . . . and stuff what you think.'

'Don't you dare talk to me like that, girl.' Harry had his back to her and Bec could see his shoulders tense in anger as he pretended to adjust the dose on the drench-gun. Knowing she was pushing him, she moved closer.

'Dad. I'm not doing what you say. I'm not doing teaching. Or frigging nursing. How can you be so ... so ... bloody pigheaded. Chrissake, Dad! Mum's a vet, for crying out loud. You know all about career women who live on farms ... and the way they have to race about to please their husbands and families and then juggle their workload. Just because you couldn't handle Mum having a brain ... and a life, don't take it out on me!'

'Leave your mother out of this!' He turned to face his daughter. 'If you hadn't stuffed around so much with your dog training and horses and worked harder at school you could've got into vet science, Rebecca. It's your own fault.'

'But I never wanted to be a vet! All I've ever wanted was to come home here to Waters Meeting and get this farm running how it should be.'

'What's that s'posed to mean?' Harry slammed the drench-gun down on the oily wooden bench. 'Are you saying I don't run the place properly?'

'Anyone can see this farm's run in the Dark Ages. Mick and Tom are too afraid to ask you to look at the books. You're always threatening to kick them off the place if they don't toe the line. You don't know half the things they'd say to you if they had the guts ... like the fact that the new-beaut ram you've bought is a dud. They're scared of you. The same way you were scared of Grandad.'

At the mention of her grandad, Rebecca saw a muscle in her father's jaw flinch. She knew she should walk away now and go up to the house. But she continued.

'We're going down the gurgler, Dad, because you won't let go. So now I'm telling you. I'm not going to do teaching or nursing. I've enrolled in agricultural college next year and I'm going to get a degree in business and then come home and sort this mess out. I need a year's practical experience as a jillaroo before I go, which IT do here and now, on this place.'