“Are we taking the horses?” Woody asked.
“No, we’ll walk,” Harold said. “The sheep are only in the home paddock.”
Woody was disappointed. He always liked riding, especially at night. He walked alongside Harold and threw sticks for the dogs. His favourite was Snowy, who was in fact black. He also had a soft spot for Skunk, a grey and white streaked dog who was permanently chained at the back of the house. Skunk was a sheep killer and was very rarely let off his leash.
Ten minutes later and they were at the home paddock. Harold unlocked the gate and they all went through, the dogs getting excited when they saw the hundred or so sheep in the distance.
They walked to a large tree in the centre of the field. The tree had no leaves and the branches were wrinkled and crooked like the fingers of an old man. Hanging from one of the branches was a large hook and the bottom of the trunk was stained with dried blood. Harold left his bucket by the tree and called out to the dogs.
“Get back! Get back! Fetch ’em up! Fetch ’em up!”
The dogs ran towards the herd, some going right and some going left. They got right behind the sheep and barked at them and nipped their legs. The herd moved slowly forward.
Harold and Woody waited by the tree. The sun was almost down and soon it would be dark. Woody lit the lantern and hung it from a branch.
“Just watch what I do this time,” Harold said, “and next time you can have a go yourself. Just give me the knives when I tell you.”
Woody had only been working on the farm for six months. He’d been down on his luck, sitting in a bar in town, wondering where to go to next, when he’d overheard a conversation about work. He’d walked the five miles to the Kerren Ranch and started work straight away. He was the only person the Cutters employed.
Woody watched as the sheep came nearer and soon they were surrounding the tree with no escape, the dogs keeping them in a neat circle.
Harold walked into the middle of them still calling to the dogs, but not so loudly now. He pushed and prodded, looking for the right sheep, then grabbed one round the neck and dragged it over to the tree.
“Okay, Woody,” he said.
Woody took one of the large carving knives from the bucket and gave it to him. Harold had the sheep lying backwards between his legs with his strong hands around its neck. He took the knife and started cutting into its throat. It made a crunching noise as it cut through the main arteries and Woody winced as he saw the blood coming out. It ran dark red down the sheep’s stomach and then as the knife went deeper it started to bubble in the deep cut and now and then a small fountain would squirt on to the ground. The sheep’s eyes stayed open for what seemed like a long time and then they shut and Harold let the body fall. It lay on the ground with the blood spreading into the ground, and then its back legs twitched and then the animal was still.
Harold wiped his bloody hands on a tuft of grass and went back to find another sheep. He killed this one the same way and then he told the dogs to back away. The sheep slowly wandered back to where they had been before, minus their two friends that lay at the foot of the tree.
Woody watched Harold go to work on the sheep. His arms were now covered with blood as he chopped off the two heads. Then he skinned the two animals by slitting open their bellies. The dogs were sniffing and looking anxiously, eager for the innards that Harold would eventually give them.
“Give me a hand here, Woody,” Harold said. Together they lifted the first sheep and hung it upside down from the hanging hook. Woody turned away from the smell as Harold cut out the stomach, bright green chewed grass falling from a split. He threw it to the dogs along with the intestines. The dogs gathered around hungrily and ripped the flesh to bits. Woody was disappointed to see Snowy joining in the fun.
Harold continued cleaning out the carcass and took it off the hook and laid it out on an old rug that was lying behind the tree. Then they hooked up the second sheep and Harold went to work again.
“It’s pretty easy,” he said, “once you get used to the smell. The smell’s the worst bit.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t smell too good,” Woody said.
They took down the second sheep when the carcass was clean and placed it alongside the other one on the rug. They also placed the two skins on there. Although they were bloody and dirty they would be put on the shed roof and later on when they were dried out and stiff, they would be sold.
They each took a corner of the rug and started pulling it and the sheep back towards the farm. It was slow going and Harold kept shouting at the dogs to move away as they were now getting interested in the good meat.
“I usually just kill one sheep,” Harold said, “but with you here I can pull an extra one back. When we’ve eaten this lot I’ll let you kill the next two.”
Great, Woody thought to himself. I’ll be looking forward to that.
When they were back at the farm they lifted the carcasses on to one of the water tanks where they would be out of reach of the dogs. They would stay there until morning when Harold would cut them into smaller chunks and his wife Molly would then put them into storage.
From a tap in the garden the two of them washed their hands and shook them dry. They stood in the kitchen light that came across the veranda. The dogs had crept back to their bushes and chairs to sleep.
“You can knock off now, Woody,” said Harold. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Woody said okay, and tried to smile, but the dead sheep smell was still with him. Harold sensed how he was feeling and grinned.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said, and patted him on the back.
Woody went back to his room, but before he reached it, he doubled over and puked in the bushes outside.
The next day Woody was back in the field fixing fences again. He was wearing a hat to keep the sun off his face. Just last year, on one of the other farms he’d worked on, he’d been digging a ditch all day and telling the time by looking at the sun. When he’d returned to his lodgings he’d had a terrible pain in his eyes, like someone had thrown sand in them. Much to the amusement of the other workers he’d spent the whole of the next day lying in a darkened room. They’d told him he had sunstroke. Eventually the pain had disappeared, but he’d learnt his lesson.
At lunchtime, Woody saw a horse approaching, and as it came nearer, he was pleased to see the rider was Harold’s daughter Jane. She was fifteen years old, pretty, with long blonde hair. She climbed down off her small horse, and carried over a bag of lunch for him.
“Hello,” Woody said shyly. “How are you?”
“Fine, Woody,” said Jane. “Have you recovered from last night?”
Woody decided to play it dumb. “Recovered from what?”
Jane handed him the bag of food. She was wearing a white dress with a flower pattern on it, a straw hat on her head. “The killing of the sheep. I heard you puking after.”
Woody felt embarrassed. Jane’s room was just behind his. He shrugged. “So I puked. So what?”
“You’ll never be a farmer if you can’t kill a sheep.”
“Who says I want to be a farmer?”
“What are you doing here if you don’t want to be a farmer?”
“I need the money. When I’ve saved a bit I’ll do something else. Like maybe rustle cattle. Or rob trains.”
Jane laughed. “Just keep dreaming, Woody. We all need our dreams. I have to get back. My dad said to come straight home.”
Woody watched Jane walk back to her horse and climb on. He looked down at the lunch bag and started opening it.
“Woody?”
He looked up and Jane was still sitting on her horse. Only now she had her skirt pulled high up on her thigh and she was rubbing her leg. “Do you think I have nice legs?” she asked.
Woody was so shocked he didn’t know what to say.
“If you kill a sheep for me, Woody, I’ll let you see more,” and then her dress fell back into place and she was riding away.