loved it. Asked me for the recipe and where she could buy one of those “contraptions” to cook them in.’
‘You really can pick them, Aunty.’
Maggie looked sad. ‘Yes, I know, love. My Hughie, God bless his soul, always said I was a dreadful judge of character. But she sounded okay on the phone. A bit up herself, but she seemed to know her stuff.’
‘You still miss Uncle Hughie, don’t you?’ said Will, a gentle but concerned note in his voice. ‘Even after twenty years.’
Maggie nodded and blinked hard before turning her attention to Wes and the fire. The silence floating around them stretched out. Will adored his spirited and fiercely independent aunt but he barely remembered her husband Hugh.
A vague image came to him of a large but stooped man sitting near the honey-coloured stone fireplace at the homestead at Tindarra, cleaning his pipe. As a boy Will had been fascinated by the brightly coloured, fluffy pipe cleaners the old bloke used to poke and prod at the tobacco encrusted in the pipe’s stem. Hughie had a knack of turning those pipe cleaners into twisted wire animals, in varying shades of blue, green and red, delighting the child at his knee. Will was sure he still had one at home somewhere, probably tucked away in an obsolete corner of the kitchen dresser. It was a shame the couple hadn’t been able to have kids.
Maggie still ran Hughie’s place down the road from his own, and Will understood why she had stayed in the valley after her husband died despite having no children to raise and keep her company. Tindarra had a tendril-like spirit that twined itself through your body and buried runners deep within the very marrow of your bones.
For Will, the valley, which wove a pattern into the landscape with its golden pastures, lush river flats and soaring hills of grey-blue trees, lifted his soul into the very heart of the rugged mountains and held him hostage with a yearning to be there.
On his trip up north with Macca he hadn’t been gone three weeks before he found himself desperately longing for home; yearning to feel the sweet rush of mountain air hitting his face as he stepped outside at sunrise, hungering for the deep-scented tangy smells of the bush that were normally only a breath away.
The loud crack of a tree limb falling onto glowing coals and Maggie’s soft voice murmuring at his shoulder brought his thoughts back to the Nunkeri Plains. The smell and feel of Tindarra receded from Will’s mind, leaving a sense of loss in their wake.
‘Yes, I still miss Hugh. Especially on nights like this. Hughie used to love the Stockmen’s Muster. He used to say, there was nowhere else you could find such a mix of generations – grandparents, parents, teenagers and kids – having so much fun. There’s something here for everyone.’ She frowned. ‘This was one of the few places he could come and really enjoy himself with his mates, after he came back from that damned war. These mountains were his saviour, you know.’ Maggie sounded wistful rather than angry. She looked over at old Wes as a roar of laughter came from the other side of the fire. ‘Wes misses Catherine too.’
They both stopped and looked across at the diminutive man, standing with his back to them, his body reflected in the fire’s light. Will could just make out the red baling twine trailing from the belt loops holding up Wes’s ‘best’ work trousers, a stained and torn pair of khaki drill pants that had seen better days.
When Wesley’s wife Catherine had been alive the Ogilvies had lived on their big station at Ben Bullen Hills, two hours by sealed road from Tindarra via Burrindal. Then Catherine had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It had been too far from help on that Ben Bullen mountaintop for an old woman battling for her life, so the couple had moved down to Tindarra, buying a disused school block with its small miner’s cottage in dire need of a spruce-up. Across the rough mountain bush tracks, it only
‘You really can pick them, Aunty.’
Maggie looked sad. ‘Yes, I know, love. My Hughie, God bless his soul, always said I was a dreadful judge of character. But she sounded okay on the phone. A bit up herself, but she seemed to know her stuff.’
‘You still miss Uncle Hughie, don’t you?’ said Will, a gentle but concerned note in his voice. ‘Even after twenty years.’
Maggie nodded and blinked hard before turning her attention to Wes and the fire. The silence floating around them stretched out. Will adored his spirited and fiercely independent aunt but he barely remembered her husband Hugh.
A vague image came to him of a large but stooped man sitting near the honey-coloured stone fireplace at the homestead at Tindarra, cleaning his pipe. As a boy Will had been fascinated by the brightly coloured, fluffy pipe cleaners the old bloke used to poke and prod at the tobacco encrusted in the pipe’s stem. Hughie had a knack of turning those pipe cleaners into twisted wire animals, in varying shades of blue, green and red, delighting the child at his knee. Will was sure he still had one at home somewhere, probably tucked away in an obsolete corner of the kitchen dresser. It was a shame the couple hadn’t been able to have kids.
Maggie still ran Hughie’s place down the road from his own, and Will understood why she had stayed in the valley after her husband died despite having no children to raise and keep her company. Tindarra had a tendril-like spirit that twined itself through your body and buried runners deep within the very marrow of your bones.
For Will, the valley, which wove a pattern into the landscape with its golden pastures, lush river flats and soaring hills of grey-blue trees, lifted his soul into the very heart of the rugged mountains and held him hostage with a yearning to be there.
On his trip up north with Macca he hadn’t been gone three weeks before he found himself desperately longing for home; yearning to feel the sweet rush of mountain air hitting his face as he stepped outside at sunrise, hungering for the deep-scented tangy smells of the bush that were normally only a breath away.
The loud crack of a tree limb falling onto glowing coals and Maggie’s soft voice murmuring at his shoulder brought his thoughts back to the Nunkeri Plains. The smell and feel of Tindarra receded from Will’s mind, leaving a sense of loss in their wake.
‘Yes, I still miss Hugh. Especially on nights like this. Hughie used to love the Stockmen’s Muster. He used to say, there was nowhere else you could find such a mix of generations – grandparents, parents, teenagers and kids – having so much fun. There’s something here for everyone.’ She frowned. ‘This was one of the few places he could come and really enjoy himself with his mates, after he came back from that damned war. These mountains were his saviour, you know.’ Maggie sounded wistful rather than angry. She looked over at old Wes as a roar of laughter came from the other side of the fire. ‘Wes misses Catherine too.’
They both stopped and looked across at the diminutive man, standing with his back to them, his body reflected in the fire’s light. Will could just make out the red baling twine trailing from the belt loops holding up Wes’s ‘best’ work trousers, a stained and torn pair of khaki drill pants that had seen better days.
When Wesley’s wife Catherine had been alive the Ogilvies had lived on their big station at Ben Bullen Hills, two hours by sealed road from Tindarra via Burrindal. Then Catherine had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It had been too far from help on that Ben Bullen mountaintop for an old woman battling for her life, so the couple had moved down to Tindarra, buying a disused school block with its small miner’s cottage in dire need of a spruce-up. Across the rough mountain bush tracks, it only
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