Blackpeak Station by Holly Ford

her.
    ‘You’re angry with me,’ he’d said, as she’d got up to leave two hours before dawn on that freezing winter morning.
    ‘No,’ she’d told him. If she was angry with anyone, it was her father — how typical of him to make sure that nobody got what they wanted. ‘I just need to get home. I have to feed out. And do some thinking.’
    But she’d been thinking for over three weeks now and, short of winning the lottery, Charlotte still hadn’t come up with a plan. Maybe, she told herself, it would all just work out. Rob didn’t know Nick. And the station looked set for a bumper lambing. Higher birth weights, fatter lambs. There could be a fall in the dollar, a spike in the wool price. All that might buy her another year.
    She stretched her aching legs and looked around at Rex and Kath, Jen and Matt, the walls of the kitchen she’d known her whole life. It just didn’t seem possible that she might have to leave it.
     
    Saturday came, the end of the muster, and still the weather held. Two weeks without rain. The snow-melt had drained, and the river was low. Already, people were talking of drought, and Charlotte thanked God that Blackpeak was ready to shear — but if the drought came, it would be bad for the lambs and bad for the wool next year.
    Right now, however, there was grass enough on the irrigated flats, and the sheep were keen to stop and graze it. The musterers had to push hard to keep them moving across the paddocks to the yards. It was slow work, and it took its toll on muscles and on tempers. But in a few more hours it would all be done, and the shearing gang — due to arrive tonight — would take over in the morning. Watching the sea of woolly backs up ahead, Charlotte felt the glow of a job well done.
    Blackpeak had covered yards for a thousand sheep. The rest would wait their turn in the paddocks around the woolshed, and in another week, all five thousand would be shorn. After that, the in-lamb ewes would be set on the last of the winter feed and the best of the new grass — if it came — until they dropped their lambs and the summer months opened up the higher grazing. Their wool, meanwhile, would be pressed and baled and on its way to Christchurch for the sales. Just cause, Charlotte thought, for tonight’s little celebration.
    She’d given Rex the day off to organise the spit roast, and by the time Charlotte had showered and changed and got down to the shearers’ quarters that night, it was smelling pretty damn good. There was music blasting out of someone’s boom box and a knot of shearers around the keg. Charlotte looked around for a face she knew. Spotting Owen’s, she strolled over.
    ‘Do I know you?’ he teased, taking in her clean jeans and jumper.
    Jen joined them. ‘Hey.’
    ‘Hey. Where’s Zoe?’
    ‘Still getting ready.’ Jen rolled her eyes.
    ‘Typical woman,’ said Owen, forgetting he was talking to two.
    ‘No such thing,’ muttered Jen, with an edge to her voice.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Oh, nothing. Never mind.’
    ‘Can I get you two ladies a drink?’
    ‘Sure can.’
    ‘What’s up with you?’ Charlotte asked when Owen had sloped off to the keg.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Jen, defensive.
    ‘Did you and Zoe have a fight?’
    ‘You could say that.’
    ‘Want to talk about it?’
    ‘Not particularly.’ Jen sighed heavily. ‘I’m becoming a redneck, apparently. All I care about is sheep.’
    ‘Well, she can’t say that,’ Charlotte grinned. ‘What about dogs and cattle?’
    ‘Don’t you laugh. You’re one too. In fact, if you really want to know, you’re worse than I am.’
    ‘Too right. So what brought all that on?’
    Jen grimaced. ‘You should have seen what she wanted to wear over here.’ She rolled her eyes again. ‘Red silk high heels. With bows. Can you imagine?’
    Charlotte could — she’d delivered the mail order box and been forced to stay and admire them. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I just
suggested
she should try and fit in a bit more.