LITMIR.BIZ

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absent-mindedly led the modern harvesting machine along the rough surface of the lane that tunnelled under the gums to a broad paddock that rested along the banks of the Grasstree Creek. As he reached the paddock the smell of diesel fumes and grease from the machines suddenly overpowered the other bush scents and brought him back to the job at hand. He climbed out of the jeep and opened a wide wire gate, and then he stood aside as the machine entered the wheatfield. Lennie walked to the side of the tractor and signalled to the driver.

      The man drew the machine to a halt and throttled back the diesel engine. ‘Get stuck into it Alan,’ Lennie called above the noise of the idling motor. ‘You can unload the grain down the other side near the lane; you have plenty of empty bags on the tray there. Someone will be along to relieve you about five this afternoon. A bloke named Noel Brinkley will turn up to sew the bags when you get a few off. He lives in that cottage you can see down at the end of the paddock across the lane.’

      The driver nodded and looked at the cottage through the morning haze as Lennie returned to the jeep and climbed nimbly into the driver’s seat. He gazed back at the harvester until the machine went to work, then he drove slowly back along the lane as dawn broke over the countryside, flooding the field with shafts of light that filtered through the branches of the tall trees. The sun was now above the treetops like a red orb on the horizon, the rays pierced through the haze, painting the landscape a rusty hue.

      Birds stirred in the trees as the machinery crept through the paddock of ripe wheat, harvesting the crop and noisily interrupting the silence of the bush. Alan Hale stared at the twisting spiral of the pick-up tray through the cloud of dust that rose around the harvester. The whirring cutters burrowed through the thick rows of crop, severing the pale stems and dispatching the swollen heads to the winding auger. The straw moved across the tray and disappeared into the bowels of the machine to be stripped of the grain.

      A neat line of barren trash fed from the rear of the harvester, marking its passage as it moved in relentless circles towards the centre of the field. It was just after dawn, but already the day was growing hot and humid, drawing beads of sweat on the young man’s brow. Early summer rain had delayed the harvest, and it was now past the middle of December as rain again threatened to stall the harvesting process. A bank of dark clouds hung low along the horizon and Hale wondered if they would get the crop off before the usual Christmas storms broke.

      Not that he really cared. This was just a job to him; he had little concern for the world outside the small cocoon he had built around himself over the years. He reflected on the long procession of foster parents, and his history of petty crime and frequent long periods in homes for ‘difficult boys.’ He had hated most of the foster parents, until Nanna Campbell. He had loved her. She was not old, as her name suggested, but young and pretty with a warm and caring nature that soon won his heart. Her husband was a brute, blaming her for their inability to produce children of their own, often beating her when he was on the drink.

      He frowned as he remembered the beatings, hating himself for allowing this train of thought to enter his mind again. The beatings had often included him, and he could cope with that, but he could not bear to see his foster mother abused because he had loved her dearly. This love bound him to his foster home, in spite of the beatings and the abuse, conditions that had driven him away from countless other places over the years. He lost count of the times he had run away from foster parents before Nanna Campbell came into his life.

      When his foster father was working away somewhere, leaving him alone with Nanna, these had been some of the best times of his life. She had showered him with love and attention, until he began to feel that he had at last found a mother and a home. His foster father was the only blot on the horizon. She would always try to rationalise her husband’s bad behaviour, although Hale never knew whom she sought to convince. ‘He can’t help what he is dear, and he works under a lot of pressure,’ she would say, ‘We must make the best of the life we are given.’

      But one day when he was about thirteen years old he found his foster father choking and raping Nanna Campbell after a bout of boozing. He had snapped then. He smiled grimly as he remembered the feeling of raw power and sweet revenge as he swung the cricket bat again and again against the man’s head, too late to save his foster mother’s life.

      His foster father got life in prison for his crime, and Hale was sent to the Westbrook farm home for boys, for five long years, though he could never understand why, because in his mind his only crime had been to try to save his foster mother. He had hated every one of those years and most of his fellow inmates as well. That was where he had learned to be an island, to live inside his own mind, away from the pain of the world. Now he was a drifter and a loner, never really trusting anyone, living in a very private world of his own. He had come to like the bush, preferring it to the city where he had grown up. At least in the country he had his own space, and people left him alone to hide in his ever-shrinking world of privacy.

      The hundreds of birds that had been stirred from their rest by the noise now followed the harvester, rummaging eagerly in the rows of expended stubble for any grain that had been missed by the machine. Magnificent white cockatoos waited noisily in the tall gums along the creek until the harvester had passed to the opposite side of the field, their fear of man and machine greater than their hunger until then. When the harvester had passed, they swooped in a white cloud on the rows of trash, fighting one another for the grain.

      The bright, red-crested rosellas and the glorious pink galahs were less timid; attacking the winnowed rows a few metres behind the noisy procession, stealing a march on their larger but less courageous cousins. The magpies, pee wees and butcherbirds were even more adventurous, diving low in front of the thrashing pick-up tray, or blatantly sitting on the machine itself. These meat eaters were not after the grain, but the millions of insects and mice that were disturbed by the harvesting process.

      Hale grinned at the frenzied feeding activity as he watched the food-chain demonstration in progress. He could relate to all kinds of animals, and these simple creatures had never let him down the way people had during his short, troubled life. He watched a butcherbird swoop gracefully, the sun on its wings as it swallowed one of the many beautiful multicoloured butterflies that rose like a rainbow in front of the advancing harvester.

      The old Ford tractor groaned under the load as it crawled along through the growing warmth of the Queensland summer day. Waves of heat rose from the engine and swept back across the machine and burned damply against the film of sweat on Hale’s face, the smell of diesel and hot oil heavy in his nostrils. Occasionally a thick patch of crop would increase the strain on the engine, drawing black puffs of smoke from the exhaust chimney as the motor choked on the load. The season had been good, the crop heavy, and a steady stream of plump grain poured into the storage hopper, requiring frequent stops to unload the grain into bags. By mid-morning neat triple lines of full bags were dotted across the harvested portion of the paddock at one end of the field, like rows of soldiers standing to attention, attesting to the bounty of the harvest.

      Hale stopped the harvester near the rows of full bags, and moved to the side of the machine to dispense the latest load. He drew the grain from the hopper through the twin bagging chutes, filling two bags at a time. As each bag filled he quickly removed it and stacked it against the regimented rows that stood in the dry field. Showers of dust rose about the bags as he worked; the fine powdered straw clung to his sweat-soaked skin, causing him to itch constantly. He tried to put the discomfort out of his mind, resisting an urge to run to the creek and plunge into the cool waters. Such an option was always open to him, but he reasoned that the dust and sweat would be even more intolerable afterwards by comparison.

      As he worked decanting the grain he looked up and saw a battered old Chevrolet truck draw to a halt in the lane at the end of the field. A tall, thin man left the vehicle and walked slowly through the stubble that littered the paddock. He was flanked by a tribe of children of various ages who had poured from the tray-back of the truck like sheep. Hale felt agitated around people and his pulse quickened as he watched the man approach. The old tractor continued to chug quietly as he filled the bags, as though in gratitude for the brief respite from its duties. He hoped the noise of

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