Rafael de Grenade

In my late-teens, early 20s, I had a romantic notion of moving to Australia to work on a cattle ranch. Life had other plans for me, and I never made it - thank goodness! Rafael de Grenade did make it and worked during the dry season on an expansive cattle ranch on the NW coast of Australia. Her memoir weaves a tale of the harsh, often brutal life, of the mostly hired hands attempting to wrestle a working cattle ranch back from an abandoned, isolated outback station. The work is unbelievably difficult, always short of supplies and provisions, proper tools and working vehicles, and requiring a mishmash of creative, spontaneous ingenuity. The mercy is rare and fleeting.

The author refrains from judgment of her fellow ranch hands (called musters), who risk death daily from wild bulls that they knock over with vehicles and wrestle to the ground, from poisonous snakes and crafty crocodiles, from accidents of all types, and sheer boredom. The shared experiences bind them into a loosely symbiotic force of nature that attempts to dominate enough of their environment to survive and get the job done.

Mercy and tenderness do arrive occasionally, often futilely, and yet, it shows through the brutality in odd ways: a lost "brumby" colt gently gathered into a truck and taken back to camp, only to be shot because it is too far gone; a muster bringing the author water and an orange because only beer is available to drink, which she doesn't; care for others' injuries; unexpected emotion for under nourished dogs who spend their days chained until it's time to drive; and, a quiet song to calves on a drive, keep moving or the dingos'll get you. Beautiful writing and nonstop action kept me up late at night until I finished it in the wee hours.… (meer)