Chapter 5

Gordy

Weena led the three of us out of the bank and to a place a few doors down; we went in and took a table. Weena smiled, and then said she'd get some drinks and came back with three bottles of lemonade. "Charlie, do you know what's happened?" she asked as she set the drinks on the table.

"Pretty much," he replied. He took a drink, made a face and then continued on, "From what I can tell, he left money for me to make sure that the cattle would be taken care of."

"That's right, Charlie. Now finish that horrible soda." Weena patted his hand; Charlie again picked up the bottle and downed half of it.

"Tastes awful."

"It's supposed to. It's mostly sweet fizzy water. But the sugar is good for you. I'm sure you've had a good shakeup. So, rest here for a few minutes and Gordy and I can try to help you deal with what's going on."

Charlie took a smaller sip from the soda, and then said, "So that Henderson fella's got money fer me to take care o' them critters. That I understand purty good. From the sounds of it all, he might have left me more than enough to take care of 'em."

"Right. He and Reynolds will want you to sign some papers. And they'll probably give you a bunch of them. Gordy and I will help with whatever you need. Just let us know. Okay, Charlie?"

Weena was so calm and caring. I'd never heard her in "professional mode" before. It was really impressive. I took a pull on my soda – it was awful, but cool and wet. Charlie finished his. Weena barely took a sip. "Feel up to going back?" she asked.

"Ayup." Charlie looked better. He had some color again. "If'n he wants me to take care of them critters, I'd better go look at 'em."

Back at the bank, Henderson had a form to open an account – Weena was astute enough to realize that Charlie didn't have an address yet and cleverly had him put in 'care of' our address in Perth. They also had a plastic card for Charlie to use for cash. He said there'd be cheques in 24 hours (I bet there would be for $750,000!). I tossed in that we'd be by "the day after tomorrow."

Then Reynolds gave Charlie his passport, but "requested" that he stop by the station within the next week. And everybody shook hands with everybody else – Charlie caught himself and just gave Weena a hug. Finally, I asked Reynolds where the stock yards were and he gave instructions. And we left.

There was a cab stand right in front of the bank and I asked the driver whether he could take us to the stock yards by the railroad.

"Cain't see why not. Ain't no hard yakka."

"Hard yakka?" asked Charlie, as we piled into the cab and the driver pulled away from the curb.

"Hard work," said Weena. "Yakka's work."

Charlie just shook his head, and then mumbled, "It's gonna take a while for me to get used to all them funny words you all use."

Alice Springs is not that large, and it was only a short ride to the train yards. When we arrived, I paid the driver, and then asked how to get to our hotel from there. The driver gave me a card and told me to phone, and he'd come pick us up.

We should have been able to find the place by the smell. I guess I didn't realize how much manure nearly 600 head produce. The smell and bawling of the cattle didn't seem to bother Charlie at all. He was already wandering by the fences, mumbling as he walked.

I never realized just how big longhorn cattle were. They were large beasts with big horns – some bigger than others -- and a variety of coats, mostly brown or mottled. Some were near the fences, some near the watering troughs, some nuzzling the fodder.

A man came out of the office. "G'day. Help you folks?"

"Bloke over there just found out he owns the herd."

"Yep. Heard about Mr. Vincent. Seemed like an alright sort."

"We just came from meetin' with Reynolds. He seemed a bit fussed."

"Anythin' mor'n a drunk fusses Reynolds." He laughed. "Name's Stuart; come in when he's done lookin'"

Charlie seemed to spend a long time looking at the cattle. He would stop every now and then and take what appeared to be a long time inspecting one, or several of them.

Charlie was a couple of pens away – at one with only a few dozen longhorns in it -- when he turned to one of the kid jackeroos and asked: "You folks got any oats? Or some carrots?"

"What you wan', capt'n?"

"What you got to feed 'em besides hay?"

"Jes' wait, capt'n." And he ran off. I walked over – or began to walk over – but the kid was back with a tucker sack with something in it. He handed it to Charlie, who looked inside and laughed. "I'll be damned." He looked at the young man. "Thanks."

"Okeh, capt'n. You might be careful. That big'un hurt two boys already. The others ain't fren'ly, neither."

"Ayup. He's real purty feller. I'll see if'n he likes me." Charlie walked to the rail. He dug his hand into the tucker bag and came up with some grain. He held his hand flat and over the rail. The bull coughed a bit, not really a snort, and took a step. Charlie held still. Another step. I could see the moist muzzle. The bull made another low noise and took a final step. He stuck out his tongue and swiped Charlie's hand. "Was that okay? Want some more?" Charlie put his hand back in the bag, came up with more, and offered it. The bull looked at him. At his palm. Took another swipe. "I 'spoze you're the big boss o' all this, eh? So we'd best get along." Charlie brought up his empty hand and patted the muzzle. Then he just turned away, walked to me. He handed the near-empty bag to the boy who was just standin' there with his mouth open. "Now don't you go tryin' that."