When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald

himself alongside Randolph at deep square-leg in another game. Randolph said he only vaguely recalled the day but certainly he did – because of that serious, almost heartbreakingly earnest junior fieldsman in grubby whites, with the square dimple on the chin, and the way the dimple had smaller dimples in it.
    When the mail truck arrived there were other jackaroos on Eureka, newcomers spilling out and staring around, adjusting to the dusty space. Two gawky pulled-from-the-gutter misfits who wouldn’t last were caught entreating the mailman to take them back until Oakeshott cut in. The other two were stalwart sons of the land comfortable with starkness like Randolph and eager to be schooled by Oakeshott. Their names were Devitt and Poole. So they made a society but in later years whoever else was there in those last six months would slip from the surface of Randolph’s memory – he would see only Colts.
    They partnered at sheep work, one each side of a drafting race wrenching horned heads into line and shouting themselves into a rhythm of getting a queue of tightly pressed backs moving towards the gates. There Captain Oakeshott stood separating the spurned from the chosen, two-tooths from hoggets, ewes from wethers, wearing a grey dustcoat, a dented felt hat and smoking a pipe. Between Oakeshott and Randolph there was rarely a word exchanged; it was all speaking silences.
    Sheep were the essence, that’s why. Playing cricket was more just a trick, like the quandong seed Randolph rolled down the inside of his arm and produced in the open palm of his hand at smoko, or the tightrope walk he balanced in his dreams, thousands of feet above a deep blue sea.
    Randolph gushed to Colts about sheep.
    â€˜They’re only ground maggots,’ answered Colts.
    â€˜But sheep’s where things happen, success gets launched from the square of the yards, prizes are won. You take yourself to town for the Sheep Show and live it up at the Australia Hotel, and you’re the same all through. People know who you are, there’s no doubt in their minds. Sheep men with grime in their nostrils, mutton fat in their pores, they’re the big names, only a bit down from God.’
    â€˜That’s laying it on thick.’
    â€˜They have staples of greasy wool always tucked about them somewhere – in their pockets, between the pages of their notebooks, in their saddlebags and caught in the hairs on the backs of their hands. You should see them.’
    â€˜I might, one day,’ said Colts rather lazily, ‘when I’ve done everything else.’
    Randolph was intense, more than listening to himself, creating himself: ‘The best blokes, at the breeding end, can hardly ever do the same thing twice without surrendering a quality they’ve bred for the first time round. It makes it hard to peak with an animal on most points. Sturdy on four legs like a low heavy table, my father likes to breed, packed with crimped fleece, lava flows of dewlap under the chin. I’m looking for a bigger, plainer animal. I like Oakeshott’s Ironsides. That ram’s ready for Noah’s Ark come the second flood or Jesus of Nazareth, come the second coming – the Good Shepherd, they called him.’
    â€˜Get off your bike, Randolph.’
    â€˜Things have to add up. They’ve got to mean something.’
    Randolph rolled two cigarettes and passed one to Colts.
    â€˜Shit scared is how a bloke feels,’ said Colts, ‘but you can be who you are and still be the best.’
    Randolph looked at his young friend curiously.
    â€˜That’s Buckler,’ Colts admitted, colouring – the tags of the man who’d promised the world but abandoned him still coming to him. Defiance was what Colts had expressed when he agreed to Veronica’s plan and caught the mail truck to Eureka on the grounds that he’d find Buckler’s camp. Defiance was what he expressed being there when Buckler