I Miss Marilyn
Marilyn is ‘Pistol’s’ dog.
‘Pistol’ had brothers, and they had kids, sons and in our town there was a conglomeration of that one family, a great, then a grand, 9 parents, 41 children, 19 grand kids, 7 great grand kids.
Then they named the new suburb after a spider! A giant spider too, with rainbow stripes, longitudinally, not prevalent, thank the Lord said most, others swore, some did more, swore and shook their heads. ‘They’re making it up as they go along’ was the conclusion of everybody, nearly.
There was now 88000 acres, there had been over 100000 and still 100000 sheep, some bred on their land, and more invited in from parched areas on the southern slopes.
When one of the senior citizens (Pistol) had a successful operation they had a celebration in a hayshed and there was a queue for the toilets.
On that day, as a gesture of good will, and Catholicism, Mum told me I was cooking for the mob. The big lumps of meat, legs, of this and that, had been done by relatives. I was the bbq cook to offer an alternative to the hungry, choosey, picky amongst the throng, family mostly, and invited friends.
The bbq was a sheet of quarter inch steel, curved because of its own weight and width, with yarran logs for heat, and hot, and all of this at ankle level. You bent over to turn over those snags, up wind end of the plate mostly, with two net bags full of sliced onions elsewhere on the plate, them sizzling and browning after the sniffling caused by their slicing. I was in the company of Thel, 14, and whom I adored. We wore aprons, home made and unfortunately mine had an appendage low down and two bloated protuberances, together, higher up. You getting it?. Thel apron had none of the objects d’art, it couldn’t be the same, surely, for her, and the alternative to mine was discussed, but stopped. Thel wondered if I had the appendage version why the protuberances also? She was lucky.
There were three lines of tables, trestles in the form of a triangle, with chairs for all, 30 on the outside, 20 on the inside, table clothes, sheets from the hospital, cutlery from the ‘borrow’ shop, ‘rent a spoon’ it became, in fact almost everything came from that ‘rent a spoon’ place.
It went well. The sausages, onions, everything our responsibility was burnt to satisfaction. The carving of the other meat was done, the vegetables were baked as well, some were boiled, the gravies sat on our hot plate until ladled into pouring jugs.
There was a wide area of exclusion around the hot plate, but people congregated and watched, glass in hand, offered advice, ‘better turn that one 4th row, 3rd in, quick’ and it was better, for ensuing quietness, to do just that, point to determine which one, then turn that one when determined.
You served from the hot plate as well, pick up with tongs, plate underneath, over to the rope boundary, plonk it on their plate, next!
I didn’t get the speeches, they seemed to be castigating some bloke for being sick, telling a story of him being blown up almost during the war and because he didn’t go to God then, we still have him now, regrettably. Sadly funny I guess. Can’t, shouldn’t criticise dynamics in situations you don’t know about, Mum said.
There were cliques, sizeable gatherings of people connected to a central person, then almost a space until another group had formed also about a central identity. I didn’t know, and didn’t want to know if there were factions within the whole, not that day,
Thel finished and went off to her group. I stood the now cooled plate on one side and raked the embers into a bucket supplied and drowned them in the round water trough, then muddied that area where the fire had been with water from the same trough. The chairs were stacked for removal, and the trellis like wise. An older lady, seemingly from the organizing group asked me to assist her in folding the sheets from the table. The cutlery was assembled and counted and put into there holding buckets, unwashed as agreed.
The groups, cliques, thinned, and the spaces between got wider until there was 12-15 left, some of those with others, some single, like me.
The guest of honour, in his wheel chair, was on a dais, a special place for special people, and couldn’t move off it. We did. Move him, Thel and me. He was crying, ‘big day for me, mate, no worries’ he said.
Mum was talking, but was aware I had finished my chore, and looked at me. Then suddenly we were heading towards the car. Thel ran up and we talked, and Mum found somebody to talk to and looking back into the shed I saw the guest of honour slumped in his chair, just him.
‘How’s he getting in’ was asked and nobody seemed to know. Mum said we will stick around, wait and see about him. So it was me and Thel again. You know, how is school, do you know so and so, they’re my cousins (there were 5), doing Pony Club, tennis, all of which I could answer with good, no or yes. My conversation skill improves with age. I asked her about Pony Club and unfortunately that was horrible, terrible too.
Thel was leaving, as she did she squeezed my hand, and I haven’t spoken to her since.
It turned out we took the guest of honour back to hospital, aged care ward, by agreement.
I found it perplexing that he seemed to have been abandoned, somewhat, because his carer was going somewhere else before taking him back, as we did now, and Mum said not to worry about what other families do, that’s their business. Still.
That family figured quite prominent in my formative years. I was school mate and friend with one for a while, we were going to go to the same school in Sydney, Waverly, but that didn’t eventuate. My weekends as a teenager was spent with that family, my friend, his brothers and their Dad working on their agistment blocks just outside of town. Mostly it was sheep work, inoculating, and drafting off mobs which had been fattened to be returned to their owner paddocks as the grass improved at their home. With my friend and ‘Pistol’, learning to drive and use his machinery, an Oliver bulldozer and a D8 cable blade dozer, hours of gouging out tanks on his place down river from town, having ridden there and back on our bikes, with driving vehicles all day after that. During the week I worked at their milk deliveries in town in the late afternoon, after two hours at the printing works getting the town paper out to the masses. Fencing, irrigation, seeding, some ploughing, dam sinking.
As I said at the start, Marilyn was ‘Pistol’s dog. She was a drover but happy to let the others do the energetic things whereas she walked behind, sweeping, and the first into the shade when the drive paused. I went droving with them, her and ‘Pistol’. Me on a grey tractor to tow a caravan, and some trailers in turn, and the others on motorbikes. ‘Pistol’ came and went a couple of times each day, going ahead to pick the next camp, getting lunches ready, going to town for supplies then doing the 1st and 2nd stands, watching the sheep overnight. I left early, to go to footy practice in Orange. They were stud ewes and a foundation flock for when they started breeding again after a drought.
‘Pistol’ left hospital and moved back out to his shed on the Brewon where his machinery was parked. He was a drover and machinery operator after being a pastoralist with big acres for many years. He passed his property to his children who almost immediately on sold it for cotton. His living location was included in the land sale but he had applied for an exclusion of 64 acres which included about 300 yards of river frontage. The new owners had said okay, it was delayed through a government agency who decide these things.
On a Sunday he was found deceased in his ute on the main road near his place. It seemed he was heading home from somewhere, and drove to the wrong side, went off the road and struck a stump left by the road makers years ago. A stump hardened by the sun, and by the frequent grass fires, and stiffened because of girth and depth in the ground. It was judged an accident, perhaps a medical event, he had history, or a mechanical failure but how could you tell because the front of the vehicle was pretty well bent and buckled.
He had been in town the evening before and cleaned up his room at his brothers house. He had Marilyn then. He had a bed roll in the passengers seat. Inside the bedroll was his 30/30 rifle ordinarily, normally, always. Three opinions from three people suggested that..
As he left town that evening the empty jerry can flew off the ute as it topped the ramp over the levee on the edge of town. The jerry can, two of them, had been secured with chain and a lock. The lock was gone, the second jerry can was missing and not seen on the ground where the other one was. He stopped and collected the jerry can, and wandered around looking for the missing jerry can. He had Marilyn with him then because the sheep carter with his Commer semi stopped and they spoke and he saw the bedroll, and he saw Marilyn.
Then, from there to the crash site things remain not known. Especially, where was Marilyn. The rolled up bedroll was not in the vehicle either.
The old dog rode on the back. Inside the cabin was some food wrappings, some spent cartridges for a different calibre, some ammunition of a second calibre but no ammo for the 30/30.
Marilyn was not found, nor the rifle. The bedroll was distinctive in that it was rolled then wrapped in a yellow tarpaulin and that tarp had rope leads so that you wrapped then secured the wrap with the rope so that its shape stayed as you wanted. It was a yard or more wide and thick because of the sponge and the rolling up of that sponginess.
The bedroll, or a bedroll shaped bundle, wrapped in yellow tarpaulin was seen on the side verandah of a house in the town. Accumulations of property came and went from that property, old wood, car tyres, play equipment in recent weeks. The property collection there was growing, however, things of value for some and not others, some of it came from the tip outside the levee.
The bedroll, definitely belonging to ‘Pistol’ was found over the back of the rubbish tip a few days later.
The rifle has never been found. There was one spent cartridge found on the side of the road near the car crash site. I walked that area a few days later. I had pedaled out there with a friend on a Saturday. I was more concentrating on looking for Marilyn and did look through the tall grass and around the small scrubs but nothing. Hope she is ok.
The man with the house where the bedroll was seen said he found it at the crash site a day after the crash. He said the bedroll was outside the vehicle, on the grass, in the vicinity of the stump. It had been inside the cabin of the ute. There was no rifle there nor bullets for it. Other bullets, other calibre were in the vehicle after the crash. There was no vehicle at the crash scene then and when I went there
I told a Policeman, my footie coach, what I had done. Next weekend I went out to the tip and looked there. The rubbish is arranged in lines, windrows, and these seemed to have remained in place for a time. They burn a windrow every several months and while waiting for the fire everything rots,and stinks, in early summer sun. I don’t know what I expected I hoped I would find. It needed to be done it seemed.
There are a few discrepancies so far. The rifle was in the vehicle in the bedroll all the time ‘Pistol’ was in hospital. It was known by the family. Was it taken from there. Not securing the gun is small town practice for all sorts of reasons, being slack is like 7th on a list for that.
The expended cartridge at the crash scene. You’d want to think that this bullet was used to put old Marilyn out of her pain and misery after the crash. Or was there a loose expended cartridge case somewhere that got spilt out during the crash.
The bedroll. It was in the vehicle, and it was found outside the vehicle, it was found and collected several days later and it was held without notification, is that stealing by finding. The finder is a person who has history of doing just that, finders keepers.
‘Pistol’ died at the scene, couldn’t survive his injuries. The crash occurred several hours before he was found. He was seen in town at dusk, and found at 0330 by a nurse coming into work after being called in. It’s 18 miles out to the crash scene, so some minutes travel time from when he was seen. It’s a lonely road, not a main road, dirt and well made.
Please don’t let it be that somebody approached the crash scene, saw ‘Pistol’, saw Marilyn, shot Marilyn in mercy then took the rifle, and bullets, and continued on and away. Then didn’t tell anybody about the crash. That’s not how it happened, please, that’s not us out here.
I was a pall bearer at his funeral. It was the first time I wore a tie. A tie and a Barraba football jumper by request. I didn’t like it, being tied. It was from Barraba too.
I made Marilyns decorative collar at school. She wore it but preferred being dog naked I reckon, and was, collarless, more often. its blue, brown and pink.
A good bloke, religious.
Read more from Pestwac (Tony Moffat) HERE
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