down the paddocks, moving from the concealment of one clump of river gums to another with the ease of a master.
The mustering team-Matt and his dog-cum-twins-were easy enough to find. The boys were whooping and yipping loud enough to wake the fishermen back in Bay Beach. Their targeted herd of cows was moving uneasily away from this unknown quantity, and by the time she reached the edge of the paddock where they were, Erin had a clear idea of what Matt was doing.
He was using the boys just like he’d use a working dog. Maybe they didn’t have as much finesse as Sadie possessed, but his team strategy was effective all the same.
It was simple, really. Matt would send the twins into the herd, whooping at the top of their lungs and effectively splitting it down the centre. Half the herd would move one way, and Matt would concentrate on keeping the half containing Cecil the bull packed tight into the fenced corner. Ignoring the rest, they then had a smaller herd to work with.
Once the herd was where Matt wanted, the twins moved in again to split a smaller herd. With each foray of yipping and yelling, they made the controlled group smaller.
And finally there was just Cecil, a confused-looking beast but a magnificent specimen of Hereford Bull all the same. He stood in his corner, a twin at each side and Matt before him. While Erin watched from her safe distance, Matt slipped a rope through the ring in the bull’s nose. The huge animal looked up at Matt in a resigned sort of way, and then he started plodding steadily toward the house before Matt so much as tugged on the rope.
He’d done this a thousand times before, his body language said, and while he might have tried his darndest to escape, now that he was cornered, like Matt had said, he was a real pussy cat.
So much so that Erin wasn’t surprised when Matt slipped the rope into Henry’s hand so he could lead him, and then scooped William up to ride on the bull’s broad back. The twins were so light the bull would hardly notice his burden.
He didn’t. Cecil plodded on without changing stride.
‘You ride halfway, and then swap with Henry,’ Matt told them, and from where she stood in the cluster of gums by the paddock’s boundary, Erin could see the twins’ collective shoulders expand a notch or six.
They’d be so proud of what they were doing!
All their attention was on the bull. Henry was leading the bull with the solemnity of an undertaker leading a funeral procession, and William was clinging on as if he expected Cecil to buck.
And, as she watched, Matt fell behind, then turned his head toward the trees where Erin was hiding, and he waved. And grinned.
Caught!
For a split second Erin hesitated, then she grinned and waved back. Drat the man, he had eyes in the back of his head.
She wasn’t wanted, though. She could see that. She left them to it, and went quietly back to the house.
She was a House Mother without charges, and it felt very peculiar indeed!
By the time they finished doing what they were doing, she was fed up with being a House Mother without charges. She desperately wanted to be part of it.
The urge to go out to the sheds was almost overwhelming. Instead somehow she made herself organise the boys’ clothing, make the beds, prepare another breakfast, talk to Sadie, talk to herself…
‘I’m going nuts,’ she told the dog. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at living alone.’
She’d been alone for three hours and it felt weird.
‘What are they doing out there?’
She didn’t know, and Sadie couldn’t help her. So they sat in the kitchen and waited, and it was hard to know which of them was more frustrated.
Finally they reappeared.
They were filthy! The twins were mud splattered, soaking wet and they were beaming from ear to ear. They stood at the back door and fought for the rights to tell her everything. All at once.
‘We’ve cleaned him and soaped him all over and now he shines and shines.’
‘He’s beautiful.’
‘I rode on his back.’
‘William squirted Matt with the hose but he didn’t mean to, and Matt didn’t mind…’
Then Matt appeared behind them, and he was just as filthy as the twins were-and his grin said he was just as happy with his morning’s work. He smiled at Erin and then looked doubtfully down at himself.
‘We’re a bit dirty to come in,’ he told her.
She nodded, trying not to laugh. They were all so pleased with themselves, but that mud…
‘I think you should stay outside,’ she told them.
‘Aw, Erin…’ Both twins howled a protest and then saw she was laughing. Their small faces relaxed and they took a tentative step over the threshold.
‘Stop this minute!’ She stopped them in their tracks, in a voice that Charlotte or Matt’s dead mother would be proud of. ‘Go not one inch further.’ Matt blinked. He hadn’t thought it of her.
And he was right. She wasn’t worried about her kitchen floor. She was concerned about something else.
‘Do you have a camera?’ she asked, and when he nodded she made him tell her where to find it.
‘Because you’re not getting rid of one spot of that gorgeous mud until I’ve documented this moment,’ she told them. ‘I want a photograph of you guys standing next to a beautiful Cecil so I can remember this moment for the rest of my life.’
It wasn’t just a memory for Erin.
She took the photograph from three different angles, with Matt standing proudly, one hand on each twins’ shoulder, and all beside Matt’s magnificent, gleaming bull, and she knew this photograph would be precious for many reasons.
The boys had so few memories. So few possessions.
If she took copies of this and framed it, it’d become as valued as Tigger the Tiger, she thought, and she finished taking the shot and raised her eyes to Matt in gratitude.
‘Thank you,’ she said and her words held a whole wealth of meaning.
He got it in one.
‘My pleasure,’ he told her and if his voice wasn’t quite steady it wasn’t for the want of trying.
Then they trooped through the kitchen, showered, the boys inspected and accepted and donned their new clothes and they breakfasted properly. They sat at Matt’s big kitchen table and wrapped themselves around bacon and eggs, and toast and cereal, while Erin watched with amazement at what they were demolishing. The boys were normally picky eaters. Now they ate and talked and ate and talked like there was no tomorrow.
And all the time Matt watched, like a benevolent genie who’d wrought this change with a wave of a magic wand.
They were great kids! he was thinking. The best!
‘Do you like your new clothes?’ Erin asked, and they nodded over slices of watermelon. Matt had done a vast grocery shop the day before, and he’d done them proud. He’d had to do a few things since he’d granted Mrs Gregory her holiday, but he was finding that he didn’t mind in the least. The house was the cosier for it.
It was also messier. Matt looked ruefully down at the tracks he and the twins had made across the kitchen floor which Mrs Gregory wouldn’t have tolerated to stay while she cooked breakfast. But it was definitely cosier.
Nice.
‘But we don’t like your clothes,’ Henry was telling Erin, and Matt agreed entirely.
‘What’s wrong with mine?’ Erin looked down at her beautifully fitting jeans and long-sleeved shirt. ‘They’re great.’
‘You wear dresses,’ Henry said stubbornly and William tilted his chin in agreement.
And Matt found himself with the kids. Yep, Erin wore dresses. She looked great in dresses, even the crimplene.
‘Go into town and buy yourself something decent,’ he growled. ‘Now. Today. I can look after the twins.’
