In the Shade of the Shady Tree: Stories of Wheatbelt Australia

the fable of the gravel pit

100 • the fable of the gravel pit When his neighbor “let him know,” he was furious. He even thought of “outing him,” as they say, but that would backfire, for sure. Damaging Samuel that way would only damage himself, though their interaction was thirty years ago. Times were more tolerant, true, but not where the wheat grew short and gnarled, and the sheep collected burrs in their wool, the blight of all shearers in the region. He and Samuel prided themselves on being tough men in a tough place, and it was best left that way. He reflected back to his brief marriage: Samuel had wanted her as well, for keeps, and truth was they’d shared her in the back of Samuel’s ute. Everyone knew about that—all their mates drank on it for weeks—but that was okay. Nothing weird about that. He still wasn’t sure why he married her—just so Samuel wouldn’t, maybe. Anyway, it only lasted a few years, and after the divorce he never heard from her again. He kept the property and she took the money. He had no resentment about that, and nor should he, he thought. Toodyay 101 t h e f a b l e o f t h e g r a v e l p i t Fair enough. But if she was still around, maybe she would have been a good bargaining chip. Samuel always listened to her. And now it was—in essence—two old bachelor farmers with adjoining properties, helping each other out when need be, but pretty much keeping to themselves, still embarrassed after all these years. Embarrassed that they had so enjoyed each other’s company, had wanted to scream and shout about how good it was. But that past was dead and buried. Samuel had rung and said, I want to let you know before you read it in the paper. I am opening a gravel pit, if I get council approval, and I expect I will, up on the hundred acres next to your two-hundred-acre paddock.You’ve gotta be joking! he replied.What else could he say?You mean you’re gunna dig up that bit of scrub? It’s the last bloody bit you’ve got on your whole damn place. This issue had separated them somewhat as young men—Samuel had cleared and cleared and extracted every bit of lifeblood from his farm, killing the soil with salinity in the end. This was why the gravel was to come. Getting low on funds. The next call he received from Samuel was somewhat more heated. I can’t believe you’ve done this, Samuel screamed into the phone.You old bastard. To think we were mates once. Okay, bring it on. It’s war! So, Samuel was threatening war.Well, he’d never understand the lengths he was prepared to go to get his own way. He wasn’t having any lousy gravel pit next to his farm. And that bit of bush was full of spider orchids and the rare Drummond’s gum. He’d always dreamed of making a corridor between the farms so the wildlife could move back and forth with ease—but he had to make do with roos jumping fences because Samuel was having none of that. It wasn’t personal, just a different way of doing business, he said. He wondered whatever he had seen in him. Half-thoughts and images came into his mind, of the perfect sculpted body, of his full-forward football body, but 102 j o h n k i n s e l l a he ditched those immediately as ridiculous clichés. Opposites attract, he was smart and sensitive enough to think, but never to say aloud. His wife had said to him once,You enjoyed watching Sam fuck me more than you enjoyed fucking me yourself. He always thought her a coarse woman. There’s nothing tough about being coarse, he thought. To her he said,That’s not becoming, and she laughed until she was bright red. So, Samuel was threatening war. He’d predicted that. Second-guessed him. He’d rung around, gone and seen old mates at the pub, even played a game of bowls with a couple of the older councillors. He would call on every ounce of respect he could muster. His family was...