Episode Details

The Rogue Prince

The evening breeze found him. Rolling down the valley, it perfumed itself with the eucalyptus before finding and flowing over his body like a lover. He had stopped fighting by now, for all his strength had not been able to unravel the belts that were wrapped around his hooves, the belts cut from the hides of his kin.

Now his sky-facing eye was filling with what would be his last view of the stars, as the ants and the flies tried to make sense of what was lying on the earth. He’d been born out here, without a vet. For a year, as he grew, he followed his mother, for eighteen months until fully developed. Once he’d stopped drinking her milk, she showed him where to find water, which plants were best to eat, and paths up the craggy mountains.

Once, these mountains had towered above the earth, but erosion had worn them down until this isolated range looked like the last of their broken bones. It was why there was no point in erecting fences, no point in growing crops, not that there was enough water out here for crops. No, the best use of this vast land was beef cattle.

Once a year, they’d round up all the cattle they could find, but since there was so much space, you didn’t even try to remain hidden. You could live and grow without ever knowing that another species, not only hunted you but farmed you. And he grew strong. So strong that other bulls steered clear of him, knowing that once a cow was in heat, he’d be a competitor. More than this, if no other young bull matched his brawn, then driven by the universe’s craving to replicate, he’d collect a herd of cows and defend his unfolding lineage until his strength gave out, and that was years away.

But now his cows were gone. Locked up in a corral, as he lay here a prisoner to all that didn’t make sense. His ears were primed to the dingoes who were feasting on the carcass the cattle musterers had left. He had no name, no tag, no brand, and if it wasn’t for me, writing this, the breeze, that was trying to soothe him, would be the only history book his existence was recorded in.

I was around the campfire then. All day, in Luke’s four-wheel drive buggy, wrapped in bull bars, until it looked like a Mad Max extra. It had been the most intense four-wheel driving I had ever experienced as these musters smashed through the scrub, attempting to steer the cattle towards the yards where the abattoir trucks would collect them. Most of the cattle were compliant. Keeping their calves close, they strolled down the landscape’s only dirt road, compliantly following one of the musterers on his buggy, as the other musterers, on their buggies, kept pace on all sides.

Perhaps some of the mothers had experienced this before, when they’d been rounded up and branded and tagged. Who knew. I did see one mother and her calf make a break for it. Together they charged up one of the broken mountains, only to be stopped by Luke and another musterer, who tore through the scrub to cut off their escape. Head up and panting, she took both buggies in, evaluated, then finally relented and trotted back to the herd, which was even further down their dusty last road.

In this quieter time, as we followed the compliant cattle, Luke told me that the reason they had to ‘roll the bulls,’ like the one we’d left prostrate on the dirt, was that they were a danger to the greater herd. They called them the Scrub Bulls, and when they discussed them, they did so with respect. Born unaware that man existed, these bulls could grow to maturity with no natural predator to challenge them. A horny prince of all they surveyed, their strong veins were pumped full of liberty, and they were unaware they were part of our food chain. And when they became aware that something was wrong, as these buggies appeared and attempted to round them up, not only would they fight, but any calf they had sired would also go down swinging. They would even attack the huge but placid bul