Bella's Run by Margareta Osborn

out an audible sigh that floated into the night air above his tousled russet hair, heard by no-one who really counted. He had to get the place through this drought. So far he was doing okay; he’d de-stocked as much as he could afford to and was now only running a few steers he’d picked up cheaply. He had his new cropping regime sorted, and Bill had been able to see the first crop of lucerne cut before he died a couple of years ago. A stab to his guts reminded him how much he missed the old man. No, he shouldn’t be sitting in front of a huge bonfire on this grassy plain in the middle of nowhere drinking rum.

    Two hours before, Macca’s LandCruiser had poked its nose into the wide doorway of Will’s tumbledown workshop. Built by Will’s Uncle Bill, the workshop was a lean-to add-on to a machinery shed that had seen better days. Head down, butt up, Will was trying to extricate a buggered water pump from his ute’s engine bay. The vehicle was so old it really should have been replaced, the odometer already well into its second round. But there was no money for that kind of luxury up here in the mountains at the moment, with the drought clinching farms and lives within its deadly grip. The ute had finally died yesterday, a few kilometres from home, and had to be towed back with the tractor.
    ‘Comin’ to the Muster, O’Hara?’ Macca’s big voice had boomed out from inside the LandCruiser. Through the ute’s open windows Lee Kernaghan’s music was pouring out to thump around the old workshop walls and compete with Macca’s voice.
    ‘Nope.’ Will had pulled his head out from under the bonnet of his buggered vehicle. ‘I’ve got to get this water pump in and the old girl going by the end of the weekend. Got stuff to do, places to go, namely shopping in Burrindal before I run out of tucker.’
    Inside his ute, Macca reached across and turned down the CD player so he could be heard more easily. ‘Bugger the bloody old girl. And I’ll ferry you out some food. Come on, mate. Climb aboard. We’ve got some rum to drink. Girls to woo. Not to mention a bloody good horse race to watch, although if you want my view, the butts and boobs strutting around that plain are far better entertainment.’
    Will shook his head and bent back down under the bonnet.
    Sensing he’d need to be more persuasive, Macca opened his door and got out, all six-foot-three of him uncurling into a mountain of a man. With a head of thick, curly black hair, Bob Hawke-style eyebrows topping dark, brooding eyes and florid cheeks where blue-red veins ran amok just under the surface, Macca didn’t need much effort to look intimidating.

    ‘Don’t make me pick you up and stuff you into the passenger seat, Will. For crying out loud, you need a break. What better way to get away from this flaming drought than to hit the Nunkeri Muster for the weekend? I promise I’ll have you back here safe and sound tomorrow. You can spend the night with the water pump and the ute then. If you’re up to it, that is.’
    ‘That’s what I’m worried about, mate, the bloody up-to-it bit.’ Will poked his head out again, grinned and then grappled one-handed for another tool off the workbench beside him. ‘We’re too long in the tooth for getting hard on the piss, and I’ve got lucerne down waiting to be baled.’
    ‘Fuck the lucerne, O’Hara. And are you calling twenty-eight old ? This drought’s got you by the balls and quite frankly it’s about time something – or someone – took its place.’ Macca paused for a cheeky wink and waggled his eyebrows up and down. ‘That’s unless you want to saddle up a horse for a ride instead?’
    Will dived back under the bonnet.
    Macca fished into his pocket for the ever-present toothpick to jam into the side of his mouth. Chewing, he leaned up against the hoist, which was standing at right angles to the grainy cement floor. ‘Maybe you should have another go at riding in the Stockmen’s Challenge. Your ego