Incurable

Начало книги

When the cockies spread their wings and float from one branch to another they hang for a moment, like they’re caught in an eddy of air. Then they choose their landing pad and settle, with a squawk and a shrug of their shoulders. They go for a strut along the branch, their yellow crests flaring. If they had hands they’d beat their chests. They’re pretty smug. You can chase them off a fruit tree or a barley crop or the back of a wheat truck but you never defeat them: they’re the birds of defiance.

Against an overcast sky it’s shocking to see how white they are. They’re the whitest things in the world, not that there’s ever been a World Cup for whiteness. Not as far as I know.

We were moving a mob of cattle along a dirt road in the bush, over the ford where the winter water flows, through the gum trees, underneath the cockatoos screeching the neighbourhood news.

It was a big mob, three hundred head, cows and steers, and there were some big beasts among them. But they were in no hurry. I had plenty of time to look up at the cockies.

Читать дальше →