Charlie Sutton

 

 

Travis and I sat at Greg Pietersen’s dining table along with Greg, his wife, Jenny, and Alan, Greg’s neighbour to the north.

I was Greg’s closest neighbour to the west, and over the years, Greg and Alan had become both friends and allies. They were the reason I was on the Board of the Territory’s Beef Farmers Association, and together the three of us were, apparently, the faces of Farming the Future in the Northern Territory.

Greg had been a mate to my old man too, and he’d been the one to come help look for Travis when Trav’d found himself lost overnight in the desert. So one phone call from him was all it took for Trav and me to be sittin’ there over a cuppa with our serious faces on.

“It’s bullshit,” Jenny said. “They can’t just do what they damn well please.”

Greg gave his wife a smile. “Seems the government can do what they please, love.”

I stared at the letter on the table while chewin’ on my lip, tryin’ to think.

“It doesn’t belong to anyone,” Alan added. “The Artesian Basin is an underground water supply that feeds half the Territory and Queensland into New South Wales, even South Australia. It’s not theirs to take.”

“The water don’t belong to anyone,” Greg agreed. “But the property they wanna run a pipeline through certainly does.”

No one spoke for a bit, while we all let our tempers simmer down and our thoughts settle into order. The thing was, I was really pissed about this. No, the bloody government hadn’t declared they’d just drop a few hundred kilometres of pipeline through Sutton Station, but they did tell Greg they’d put it through his place. And that was something I just couldn’t rightly let happen.

I would defend his property like it was my own.

“Have you spoken to Melville?” I asked. Melville owned property to the north of Greg, and he was no friend of mine.

Greg’s eyes met mine, and he shook his head in disgust. “The old bastard’s happy to sell it off. His kids don’t want his place, and he can’t work it like he should. I reckon he was as happy as a pig in the proverbial when he got his letter.”

I had to unclench my jaw so I could speak. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Greg’s nostrils flared. “I don’t want their bloody money, not a goddamn cent. What they’re proposin’ to pay us off with isn’t worth shit anyway.”

“Then we fight them,” Alan said. “In court. The Supreme Court if we have to.”

“They’ll just wait us out to bleed us dry,” Greg mumbled. I’d never seen him so resigned, like he was beat already. “They’ll be expecting that and’ll simply tie us up in red tape until we can’t afford to stay.”

I shook my head. “This ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot.” I tapped the table with my finger. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I let some pen-pushin’ government idiot tell me what they will and won’t do with my land, and I sure as shit won’t let ’em tell you what they’re gonna do with yours.”

Jenny squeezed Greg’s hand, and I gave her a smile. I could hear their boys playin’ in the room next door, and I could only imagine what trouble Milly was getting’ up to at home with Ma.

I lifted my chin and set my jaw. My mind was made up. “Jenny’s right,” I said. “It is bullshit, and they won’t do what they damn well please. This is our land, this is our kids’ land, and it’ll be over my dead body that they try and take anythin’ away from my daughter.”

Greg smiled properly for the first time all day. “There’s the Sutton I know.”

I noticed Trav then, staring out the window like he was a million miles away. He had that busy-thinkin’ line between his eyebrows. “Whatcha reckon, Trav? We’ll find some way to fight ’em, yeah?”

Trav looked right at me. “Absolutely. Oh, we’ll fight them all right.” Then he sat forward in his seat and stared right at me, his blue eyes as intense as I’d ever seen ’em. “Charlie, you remember the other week we were out fixing fences along the northwestern paddock? What did we see in that creek that I couldn’t find in no book?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I remember.” Then I clued in to what he was getting at, and I began smiling. I turned to Greg. “If we’re gonna fight these bastards, then we need to beat ’em at their own game. And I reckon Trav might’ve just figured out how.”