John Marsden - Incurable

Wow. That was as close as I ever want to be to death, I told myself, panting like mad and for the first time in my life wanting to hug a tree.

The gap between the next tree and me was a shambles of bushes and bark and a broken branch. A cow was floundering around in it, but the rest of the mob had avoided it so I scrambled through without much danger except that my breathing was still crazy. I’ve never had asthma but I got an idea then of how it would feel, the chest heaving without my being able to control it, the lungs begging for air but not getting any, the white lights going off in my brain as I waited for the oxygen to arrive.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to wait for the oxygen. I ran to the next tree, dodging the last few cattle as I went. I thought I was home free but a young steer came charging at a different angle to the others. He came out of nowhere. I didn’t see him till the last moment. I spun to try to get away but he caught me with his flank and knocked me sideways. I deliberately kept rolling as he thundered past. He wasn’t interested in me, just in the mindless fury of the stampede. His back hoof caught me and the blow seemed to echo through my head. There was a dull shocked feeling. I thought the left side of my skull had been caved in. I got on my hands and knees and shook my head. It seemed to still be there, although I didn’t shake too hard in case it flew off and I had to waste time looking for it in the undergrowth. With no eyes it would take a long time.

I did think I heard my teeth rattle, and I certainly felt them. Trying to ignore the pain and the instant headache, I got up and went on towards the motorbike. For a few minutes I wasn’t even sure why I was looking for it, but I knew it was something to do with cattle and by the time I’d found it my head was a bit clearer.

Really all this took only thirty seconds. Cattle were still blundering around on all sides but the main mob were well away. I could hear Gavin’s motorbike, the farm Yamaha, but not Homer’s Honda. The Yammie was going up towards the ridge. ‘Clever Gavin,’ I thought. ‘He’s going to swing them back north.’

If they ran into the fence I didn’t know what would happen. A fence wouldn’t stop a mob of stampeding cattle but it could cause a disaster. If the leaders went head-on into it and the fence wasn’t immediately flattened, if there was a pile-up with the first twenty or so, then another hundred or two ramming them, we’d have an instant abattoir. It wasn’t difficult to get a mental picture of a mob of cattle piled on top of each other, with broken legs, broken ribs, broken necks. Mr Young would be a little slow with the next agistment cheque if that happened.

My head still felt numb and strange as I got on the bike. I went flat-chat though. If Gavin could swing them to the north, I wanted to be in a position near the western fence so I could turn them again.

Riding through the night at high speed like that is pretty crazy. You can keep your Luna Parks and the Wild Mouse and the Shock Drop. I knew that sooner or later I’d be in the clear part of the paddock, where it’d be safer, but those first few minutes, going through scrub, making instant decisions every second, with a head that felt like an overripe pineapple, were on the wrong side of fun for me. There were no tracks but there was bracken, fallen branches, bark, a log here, a hole there, a wallaby trying to outgun the bike, a couple of bewildered-looking cattle suddenly looming up in the glare of the headlights. I never knew whether high-beam was a good idea or not on that bike, because with high-beam you can see further but you can’t see the ground immediately in front of you. I kept switching from low to high and back again.

The rain started coming in hard. ‘Like we haven’t got enough problems already,’ I thought. Tiny ferocious drops stung my face. More strange-looking cattle appeared. They looked strange to me because I wasn’t used to cattle who’d turned their back on humans. And they looked at me strangely, as if they didn’t seem to know who they were any more. I ignored them and raced on, squinting through the rain, trying to get into some clear space. I crossed a narrow bit of grass and suddenly nearly slammed into the mob. Above the rat-a-tat-tat of the motorbike I could hear the thump-thump-thump of their hooves on the earth, like there was a band playing at the Anlezarks’ place and the beat of the bass guitar was travelling through the ground from five k’s away.

The cattle were focused now. They must have been tired, although you wouldn’t think it to look at them. But all their energy was going into the stampede. They didn’t have the strength to bellow. They were rushing to nowhere but all their strength was needed for the race. Reminded me of some of the kids at school.

I had to trust Gavin to turn them. I waited till they had passed then gunned the bike up the hill. I was getting coldly wet. At the top of the hill I let the bike idle and tried to guess from the throbbing of the earth where they were going. The noise sharpened, seemed to rise a note, became louder. The throbbing of the bike and the ground were now synchronised. Gradually the beat of the cattle hooves got louder and stronger. I squared myself around a little on the bike, to face them, at the same time thinking how amazing it was that one average-size human could have the cheek to think she could have any influence on a mob of huge mad beasts coming straight at her.

Before I could think about that any more they were there, the leaders toiling up over the ridge, galumphing now instead of galloping. I strained to look at their eyes, hoping I’d see tiredness instead of madness, but they were still too far away and the rain made it impossible.

‘Well Ellie,’ I said out loud to the wind and to the wild air blowing over the ridge and to the million miles of heaven above and beyond me, ‘this is where you get steamrollered.’

I revved up the bike and started forwards. Not too fast or I’d be in the middle of the mob in a second and the leaders would just go, ‘What was that?’ and keep running. Not too slow or they’d go over the top of me and I’d be under their hooves and mashed into the mud. I flashed the headlights on and off. The four-wheeler doesn’t have a horn but I yelled a lot. I zigzagged in big zigzags, shouting and waving my hat. A wave of heat hit me. It shocked me, that they could generate heat like that. They were almost up to me, the leaders rolling relentlessly on, and I could see their eyes now, and they were anxious and lost and wanting to stomp me into the earth so they could go somewhere, they still didn’t know where.

‘Wake up, dear,’ the nurse said.

No, just kidding. I don’t know what it was that had run so hard through the blood of this mob, whether it was rage or fear or a desire for freedom or a force that has no word. I suspect it was the last one. But whatever it was, the charge up to the ridge from where Gavin and Homer had turned them was enough to slow them just a little and calm them just a little more. And my yelling and zigzagging and flashing lights turned them again. They ran along the western boundary of the paddock and soon the stragglers were standing with sides heaving and heads down, ignoring us three; the leaders lost their drive then, with no followers, and they fizzled out and wandered off into the scrub, snatching at grass as they went. They almost looked embarrassed.

We were puffing harder than the cattle, but we still had a lot of work ahead. I divided the paddock into three and we split up and went looking for injured beasts. The rain kept going, not spectacularly, quite light most of the time, but it was soaking and cold and got you down a bit.

While the other two were still looking I nicked off home, mainly because I needed the rifle, but I grabbed a loaf of bread and a jar of apricot jam and three cans of Coke as well. I could hear Marmie yelping with excitement and anxiety and loneliness from her pen — whenever she heard one of the bikes she went off big-time — but I had to be hard-hearted and ignore her. This was not a dog party. I went back to the paddock and met up with the other two and we had a picnic, trying to keep the bread dry under my Drizabone as I spread slice after slice and handed them around.