Life on the Run

We headed out of town and drove for about thirty minutes when she pointed to a gate on the side of the road. "Turn there."

As I turned I noticed the sign on the gate, it read 'DALLEY HOMESTEAD' . "Is Dalley your surname?"

"Yes, the family has been here for four generations and the town was named after us, our property runs from the main road along this road for another fifty miles. We have a lot of land and very little to show for it, I think the term for it is 'asset rich, cash poor', although I don't know how rich our assets are right now."

"Now I'm beginning to understand why you're so sad about the decline in your family fortunes."

"I wouldn't be so down about it if it was a result of bad decisions on the family's part, but when it's a result of decisions made in some corporate boardroom by people who have no idea about this industry, it really hurts me, and if you think that I'm hurt, just wait until you meet my father."

This was beginning to make my problems look so insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Sure I'd been hurt by the scheming bitch, sure I'd spent a fair bit of money on her over the few months of our relationship, but that's a drop in the ocean compared to what was happening to this woman and her family.

We drove along this gravel road for some ten kilometres until we reached the homestead buildings. These consisted of the main house, constructed as so many homesteads were with wide verandas on all sides and a corrugated iron hip roof. It looked as if it would be cool under the blazing summer sun when the temperatures reached into the mid 40's (Celsius) for weeks at a time, several out-buildings including shearers quarters that would have housed probably twenty shearers and rouseabouts during the season.

A welcoming committee of two stepped from the veranda shade as we pulled up in front of the house. "By the way, just so you know, here I'm not Sandy, I'm Sandra, I hate it but I'm stuck with it."

"I'm Greg, I hate Gregory, Mathwin, just so you know."

"I already know that, I checked the register back at the motel." Her father came to her and hugged her, looking at me over her shoulder. "Dad, this is Greg, the man I was telling you about. He's staying at the motel for a couple of days, although why I don't know, and I thought that he might like to come out and meet you and Mum and maybe relax out here, it's better that that shit-hole of a motel."

"Pleased t' meetcha, call me Bob, and this is Merle." He introduced his wife. "Named after Merle Oberon, you know the Aussie the fillum star." I shook both of their hands and was invited in out of the heat.

It was cool, it was dark, the curtains filtered the shaded light from the verandas and it took a while before my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, we walked down the centre hallway to the huge kitchen where the table was spread with a large teapot and milk jug and a plate of freshly cooked scones. "Mum wins the scone competition at the CWA (Country Women's Association) branch each year, she's even won prizes at the big show (Sydney Royal Easter Show)." They were light and fluffy and took kindly to home-made apricot jam with a dollop of freshly whipped cream on top.

"These are great." I said as I helped myself to another. "I've never had any as good as these since my Grandmother died."

"Good cook was she, your Grandmother?"

"Yeah she was, we used to look forward to Christmas when I was a kid, she'd make the puddings in September and they'd hang in her kitchen until Christmas when she'd dole them out to the family, one pudding each. She kept a record of how much money was in each so we'd know if anyone swallowed a coin. Our family always found more coins in the pudding than she put in, it wasn't until years later we found out that Dad would slip a few extra into his helping."

After morning tea Bob and Sandy, (oops Sandra), took me for a guided tour of the outbuildings. There was the equipment shed that was dominated by a dis-used tractor, the seed drill and a combine harvester, all cover in a thickening film of dust. "I must get around to firing these up to see if they still run, you never know I might need them again." I could tell from his voice that he didn't believe that. We moved over to the shearing shed, it was a twenty stand job, that meant that in full flight there would have been twenty shearers working flat out getting the wool off the sheep, the rouseabouts would pick up the fleece and toss it onto the classing table where the wool classer wood check it out and pull out any dags or burrs before tossing it into the baling press. The floor boards and classing table were all shiny brown from the lanolin in the fleece, but the rest of the timbers were grey and cracked from drying out. It was a far cry from the glory days when the clatter of shears fought to drown the cries of 'tar-boy' from a shearer who'd nick a sheep, and the call of 'next' after a sheep had been shoved through the door at the back of the stand. A 'gun' shearer would get through over 200 sheep in a day and earn good money which he'd more than likely piss up at the local pub on his way to the next shed. It was a hard and back-breaking life, and the lifespan of a shearer wasn't all that long. "When I was a kid I stood here and watched Bluey Bolt shear 250 in one day, and that worked out to about a sheep every three minutes. He was a great bloke, but this was his last shed, he had a skin-full and rolled his car on the way to his next shed, four blokes died in that one."

I looked at Sandra and I could see the hurt in her eyes, it hurt her to see her father like this, dwelling on the past, the glory days before low wool prices and wide combs took the drama out of the industry. They were tough men back then, they worked hard and played even harder, and the only things that they ever complained about was the cocky (farmer), if he tried to screw them on the price, and the cook, it didn't matter how good the cook was, the shearers always complained. They ate the food, all of it, but still complained.

As we walked back to the house he tapped the side of the rainwater tank to check how full it was. "It'd better rain soon."

Sandra and I sat on this huge over-stuffed sofa in the living room, I'd just finished talking to George and he promised to speak to work and tell them that I would be taking a week or two's sick leave, and to get a guy he used, to check on Mignone and her bloke. He agreed that it sounded like a well tried scam, and would ask around to see if others had been taken in by them. "What are you thinking about?" Sandra asked when I'd finished my calls.

"I was remembering, a while ago I was watching 'Landline' on ABCTV and they had a bit about changes to broadacre farming that increased water efficiency and crop yields. I was thinking that I'd like to investigate this with the view to helping you and your family."

"But why would you do that? You hardly know us and it would cost you a lot of money with no guarantee of a return."

"I had an uncle who had a profitable farm and years ago he lost a lot of money due to a combination of a couple of bad years and the bank lending him a lot of money and hiking up the interest rates on the loan to the point where he couldn't repay them. The day after the clearance sale he shot himself. He had the same look on his face just before he did that that your father has now. I don't want to see your father go the same way as my uncle."

"But what can you do?"

I don't know yet, and I don't want to get your father's hopes up just yet so don't say anything to him. You do have a computer here, don't you?"

"It's an old clunker, it's still running Windows 95 I think, if that's any use to you you're welcome to use it."

"It'll do for a start, it does have an Internet connection doesn't it?"

"We have a satellite dish on the roof that connects us to the world."

"Good, that's a start." She led me to the room that had been used as the station office and there, under a cover was the relic of the technological age. She hit the power button and it wheezed into life, a password got us into the system and onto the Net. I 'Googled' a topic that I wanted to check out , and scrolled through the various sites and the information that they contained. A plan was forming. "Many years ago there was a long range weather forecaster that the farmers swore by, his name was Inigo Jones, and he based his long range forecasts on sunspot activities, planetary influences and local factors, he even worked out in the early part of last century, droughts could be predicted. He worked out that at certain times there was a lag effect involving the melting of Antarctic ice that delayed the release of water and drift ice into the Pacific Ocean, and the current that flowed up the west coast of South America and across to Australia, this is now known as the 'el Nino effect'. His work is still being carried on and the current long range forecaster, Hayden Walker, is boasting an 80% success rate."

"What does that mean for us?"

"It could be used, along with a new crop rotation policy to improve yields and gross margins, you never know this place could become viable again."

"That is if we can afford to grow anything, if the seed drill doesn't work we can't afford to buy a new one."

"There are contractors doing the work now that could reduce the original investment."

"But we don't have the sort of money that they would ask for." Sandra was sounding as frustrated as Bob was feeling.

"I would like to help out there."

"But why, what reason do you have for helping us?"

"Let's just say that I'm pissed off at my current life, I fell for the most obvious scam because I was vulnerable to it because of my life, my job that I tolerate but don't enjoy, and it has no purpose. What I need is a purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. My money is doing nothing other than keeping me alive, but that's not living. I need a reason to live and this could be that reason." I looked at her. "That and because you're the first woman in a long time that hasn't seen me as an opportunity to exploit."

"How do you know that that's not the reason that I brought you out here?"

"I don't. But I've been with you now for how long, three hours, and you haven't yet hit on me, tried to tell me that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, that you feel that there is a connection between us that means that we should be together for eternity. My instincts are telling me that you are for real and not a scammer, and I want to trust my instincts, plus you're easy on the eye in an outdoorsy kind of way that's refreshing after the primped and preened examples I've been confronted by recently."

"You say the nicest things to a girl you smooth talker you. What happens now?"

"We do a bit more research and see what crops up and I wait to hear from George."

Merle came into the room wiping her hands on her apron. "Lunch is served, come and get it." We followed her to the kitchen. Bob was already tucking in. Lunch consisted of freshly baked home-made bread, warm and crusty, sliced tomato, cheese and ham washed down with coffee. There was a cake for afters that looked as if it was freshly baked, she had been busy while we were working on the computer.

"What were you looking at on the computer?" Bob asked.

"Looking at farming methods, you know crop rotations and stuff like that."

"I don't know why you're bothered with that we can't afford to do anything about it, not any more." The despair was in his voice, he was almost beaten.

"I'm thinking of ways that I can help you out."

"Why would you want to do that?" He looked from Sandra to me. "What do you know about this girl?"

"About as much as you, this is news to me too."

"Let me assure you that I have only your best interests in mind."

He wasn't convinced. "I'm not going to make a decision on this straight away, I'm going to have to think it through, I've seen your type before, you come in waving money around promising the world and I end up with nothing."

"I don't expect you to take my word for it, if fact I'll have my Solicitor draw up a contract that sets it out in detail so that you can have no concerns."

"Huh! I trust Solicitors even less than I trust Bankers. I'd much prefer to work on a handshake agreement than any contract drawn up by one of those leeches, and just quietly I think that you do as well." Come to think of it, I did. "Before you get carried away with grandiose schemes I think you should have a proper look at this place and see for yourself whether it's worth wasting your money on."

We walked out to the shed and climbed into a battered Land Rover that looked as if it could have been one of the originals. It fired up straight away and we drove out into the threadbare paddocks. The only green appeared to be weeds and in the distance a flock of a couple of hundred sheep picked their way across a stubble field. "That's the last of the sheep. We used to run a couple of thousand on this property but the last drought saw the end to that. Ten bad seasons in a row and the bloody dingos taking what few lambs we got was enough to tell me that it was time to stop. I can't even give the land away now, no-one is interested in farming out here anymore unless you've got the money to buy up water licences that is and those of us that have been hardest hit can't afford what we have. Most of the guys around here have been selling their licences just to get some cash flow."

"The river over there," I pointed to the row of trees a hundred metres away, "surely there's some water in that?"

"Nah, the bugger's been sucked dry before it gets here. Farmers upstream don't give a toss about us that are struggling down here, and we now find that the Government's been buying up licences to maintain an environmental flow for the lower lakes and the Coorong. I don't blame those guys downstream for kicking up a fuss when you saw pictures of jetties high and dry."

"You paint a pretty dismal picture."

"Just telling it like it is, no point in beating about the bush, if you're smart you'll have already worked that out for yourself."

"I know that it's bad but I don't think that it's impossible, not with the right approach and the right farming methods. When I've finished looking into it I'll give you my opinion as to whether this is viable land. What you do with it is entirely up to you, I'll not force you in any way."

We drove back to the homestead in silence and Bob went off to feed the chooks that provided the eggs and occasional meat for the table. "What do you think?" Sandra asked.

"Like I said, it's not impossible but it will need a dramatic turn around to really test the viability. We have a lot of work to do."

She went off to help Merle with the dinner while I rang George to see how things stood back in town. "You were right, they've worked this scam before, many times and very successfully, they pick the right mark and go into action. By the way her husband, and he is, has never been to Afghanistan and has so far managed to avoid gaol, but with your evidence we can probably change that, when can I expect to see you back here?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest, I'm staying up here tonight and should be heading back in the morning."

"I'll expect you when you get back, we need to move on this soon or they might decide to cut and run."

I'd almost forgotten about life in the bush, and how, once dinner was over and the dishes done, it was usually off to bed. Bob and Merle made no fuss about Sandra and I sharing her bed, after all she was old enough to make her own decisions.

We climbed into her bed and she turned to me. "Greg, thank you for what you're trying to do, I hope that something'll come of it because Dad's had too many disappointments of late."

"So do I, believe me I won't get his hopes up, if it works out that it's not worth the effort then I'll tell him so."

She reached out and ran her hand over the stubble on my face and then she kissed me. "You're a good man and I can understand now how people can take advantage of you, you trust people too much, I could even be working a scam here myself, trying to get you to buy this property from Dad."

"That thought did cross my mind. If it's a viable proposition I was going to make him an offer for it, a fair price, and have him stay on to manage the place. Do you think that he'd go for that?"

"Probably, I can't see him wanting to stay here if he has no money, he'll take your offer if it's good enough." While she was speaking to me she undid the buttons on the front of the nightdress that she was wearing and exposed her breasts to my gaze. While they might not have been as large as Mignone's they were better shaped and all her. I reached out and caressed them. "Mmmm that feels so nice, it's been a long time since a man has touched them."

"I feel the need to touch them, they're cute." I touched a nipple with the tip of my tongue and she grabbed the back of my head and forced my mouth onto it. I suckled her breast and felt the nipple harden under my tongue.

I hadn't intended to get involved with another woman just yet, I was still hurting from the last one, but Sandra was so completely different from Mignone, she was unpretentious, she didn't need to primp and preen to look beautiful, she just did. But it was a different kind of beauty from Mignone's cosmetically enhanced looks which, I suspected, had seen the Botox needle on a number of occasions, her lips felt hard for starters, not like Sandra's soft lips that were touching mine. I could feel her scrabbling around under the sheets and her nightgown appeared and then disappeared as she tossed it over the foot of the bed. "Now you, I want you naked."

I was naked in no time and the fun began, with Mignone there was a certain amount of science involved, the right move at the right time, knowing when to boost my ego with words, knowing when to fake an orgasm, (yes she did, often) and knowing what to say when it was over. Years of practice must have gone into her lovemaking and while it had me convinced for a while that she loved me, I now knew that not to be so. Sandy was so natural and un-affected in her lovemaking that there was no way that she could be faking it, she said nothing the whole time that I was in her, just held me tightly and moved her body with mine, and when she came she stifled her cries by kissing me hard. I didn't need to hear her because the spasm that ran through her body and the gush of fluid from her pussy was evidence enough, and that could never be faked.

"I'm glad you let me seduce you, I needed that, it's been a long drought for me."

"To tell you the truth, it's been a long drought for me too. What I had with Mignone was nothing compared with what you have just given me. When I decided to come with you this morning my better judgement was screaming at me that I was a fucking fool to even contemplate a relationship so soon after my last disaster, but I ignored it, and I'm glad that I did. If I'd listened to me head I would have drifted along being too scared to even talk to another woman let alone this." My hand went to her pussy and her hips rose to meet it. "You are the best thing that's happened to me for a long time, in fact the best ever."

She grabbed my cock and tugged on it. "Come on, you wake up, pussy wants more of you." She stopped tugging and began stroking him gently and he responded to her kindness by slowly emerging from his stupor. Straddling me she pointed him in the right direction and began to ride him. My come from our previous efforts oozed from her pussy along with her pussy cream and my cock was enjoying the sensations that she created with her pussy. He wasn't quite premature with his ejaculation but I could hold out no longer, my hips jerked up and drove him in as far as he could go at the same time that she came. This time she didn't care if anyone heard her, it wasn't an ear piercing scream but it was loud enough that her parents would have heard it.