Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Frank
Title: That diamond mine can go to hell
People like to yap on about how the land don't kill you unless you're stupid.
Bullshit.
The land don't give a shit who you are. It'll swallow ya same as a snake swallows a mouse. Quick or slow, don't matter.
My old man learned that the hard way.
Jack Branson knew Koolaroo like it was part of his body. Knew every paddock. Every waterhole. Every bloody bent fence post. He was born on this dirt. Thought he'd die in his bed, old and cranky, with a whisky in his hand.
But the land had other plans.
The night he died, a storm rolled in from the west, one of those freak spring bastards that hit fast and hit mean.
Sky was green around the edges, thunder rumblin deep like somethin crawlin under the earth.
The kind of night you stay inside, drink rum, and hope the wind don't peel your roof clean off.
But Jack saddled his horse anyway. Said a mob of cattle was missin up near the old copper ridge. Said he'd be an hour or so. But he always said that. Me and Ma knew an hour could mean two, or more. Sometimes, days. We didn't worry none.
Wasn't even rainin when he left. Just that heavy, cracklin stillness that tells ya the world's about to turn inside out.
We never saw him alive again.
The storm hit hard and sudden. Lightnin tearin the sky to pieces.
His horse must a got spooked. Or maybe Jack cut too close to one of the old mine shafts.
That thing had been covered over by silt and grass for decades, timbers rotten as hell.
No one knew it was hollow underneath, like a rotten tooth.
Ground musta gave way. Swallowed man and horse whole. And just like that, my old man was dead.
We searched for him for weeks. Everyone helped. Even the Hendersons, before they became the pricks they are now. I rode day and night. Never even contemplatin that Dad was dead.
When I finally found him, his rotten body was under his dead horse. She lay twisted, and the reins were still looped around Jack's wrist like he'd tried to get her the hell off him. Proved he didn't die in the fall, too.
He would a died a slow death. Stuck in that mine shaft. Unable to move. I think about that sometimes, wonderin what I'd do if I was in that situation. But there ain't nothin you can do. Dad would a known it, too. Like I said, fuckin rotten way to die.
I hauled out his saddle and gun. Left everythin else there. Figured Koolaroo had decided how Dad would be buried. Just like those men who died in the mine when that detonation didn't go to plan, way back in the 1960s or somethin. Them bodies are there to stay, too.
Who am I to mess with that kinda plan?
I didn't sleep for days after I found him. Felt like I rode out lookin for my father, and somethin meaner came back home.
After that, I fenced the ridge off. Told everyone to stay the hell away. Didn't speak about the mine again. Not to Ma. Not to the neighbors. Not to the boys. That mine was dead, same as Jack, and I weren't diggin up either of em.
Then that dickhead Declan gets a bee up his ass about “economic diversity” or whatever the hell he called it and “untapped potential.” Wavin statistics around like they made him a man. Talked about the abandoned diamond mine like it was some shiny bloody opportunity Koolaroo was wastin.
Screw that. Koolaroo was cattle country. I told him he was wastin his time. Told him the land keeps its secrets buried for a reason.
But that boy never listens. So I taught him that lesson myself.
Sometimes, you gotta take matters into your own hands to get shit done.
And if the boy hates me for it, good.
Hate will keep ya alive longer than hope will.
Anyway.
That's it.
Frank Branson.