Page 8 - eMuse Vol.9 No.07_Neat

Red Jack

Part III

by Athony Hammill

The story of Hannah Glennon — a larger than life
wild west Queensland Woman

Annie was a rough stick, a “I’m the cook,” said Annie,
slim, wiry woman with a crown- who wasn’t looking her best
ing thatch of long red hair, usu- with disheveled hair, flour on
ally bundled up and sometimes her nose, and smoke in her eyes.
skewered with a stick. Never “Oh, are yer?” exclaimed
staying long at any one place,
dossing at a campfire like the Dan, taken aback. “Then I don’t
want to see him!” And shoul-
ordinary battler on the road,
she was a restless, roving spirit dering his swag again, he strode
down to the road.
who knew the wide spaces bet- A sketch of Red Jack
ter than most men. She would Annie was new in that part
tackle any kind of work at a then. An attractive sporting horse does. See the sparkle it and – neck finish, Annie won by
pinch, but her favourite jobs event at a shanty down the puts in his eye! He’d challenge half a head.
were droving and cooking. track, billed for the cutout, was anything on legs now. Puts the Her racing and her wander-
the magnet. An unknown horse spirit ’o speed in him.” ings ended at Mareeba, North
Droving was a convenience;
she got wages and her keep was entered for the double as Annie Doyle rode him her- Queensland, where she died in
A. Doyle’s ‘Cuddy’.
while travelling from one sport- self, and to the surprise of the 1902 .
ing place to another. She was as Annie’s offsider put it about crowd he donkey-licked the On 12 July 1898, as recorded
good with horses as any west- that Cuddy was a brumby that whole bunch in both races. As in his diary, Michael Durack was
erner, for she trained her own he had helped to run in from soon as the stakes were paid, briefly to cross paths with Han-
gallopers and rode them in rac- the wilds, and that couldn’t she strapped her pack on Cud- nah on the coach between Rich-
es, and she could wheel a scrub- head a donkey. dy and rode away. When the mond and Hughenden well east
ber with the best stockman. “But I’ve been kiddin’ the shearers looked around for the of Cloncurry on today’s Flinders
offsider, he, too, had departed.
Dressed like a man on the old girl that there’s nothing highway.
overland, she was addressed as around here that can beat him,” Besides competing at such She was thought to be work-
Jack by her cobbers and talked he added, “and she’s goin’ for meetings and at township rac- ing at Mt Devlin station at the
of as Red Jack. While she kept a plunge on him, if there’s any es, Annie was always eager to time. As she was turning 26 on
her fiery locks under hatches bettin.” make a match. Opportunities 18 July, she was possibly hop-
she passed easily for a man. There was plenty of it, and came her way in towns and ing for mail from her daughter
on droving trips, when fellows
At the shearing sheds, if she there were Calcutta sweeps were boasting about their prads Mary or others back in Clon-
could not get on as a cook, or that provided a prize of 50 and what they could do or had curry .
secure a job of wool-rolling or pounds in all for the winners of done. Some of these events Hannah had put her daugh-
dagpicking, she pitched her the two principal races. were run along bush tracks or ter Mary in the care of a convent
tent in the vicinity and did a bit The alleged brumby-bred cross a clear flat, during the in the Cloncurry area where she
of washing for the shearers. Cuddy jogged up before the drovers’ lunch hour. was working, but the fate of her
Any such attachment to the starting time, carrying the cook, Her most memorable race son George is unknown.
shed made her eligible to com- resplendent in riding pants and at Cloncurry, a match for ten On 3 May 1902 she gave
pete at the shearers’ races at boots, a white silk shirt, and a pounds with a Chinaman, who birth to her final child at Fis-
the cutout, which was her main green veil wound round her red thought he owned the cham- cherton, near Chillagoe, further
objective. mop to keep it together. pion of the west. The race – a north again and west of Cairns.
She was cooking at a shed Cuddy was an ugly moke, mile, with owners up – came off She named her child Ada Doyle,
near Winton when a freckle- whose drowsy look heartened on a Sunday, and all Cloncurry listing herself as Annie Glennon,
faced nugget with the brogue those who had wagered against turned out to see it . and the father simply as Doyle.
of Erin dropped his swag at the him. His preliminary was a pint John was a fair rider; he had Ada’s descendants today live at
hut. His front name was Dan of beer, administered by the served an apprenticeship as a Herberton, south of Mareeba,
and he was a woman hater. offsider from a bottle. boundary rider on the Barcoo; near Cairns .
Looking for a handout, he asked “Her ladyship doesn’t but he lacked Annie’s experi- Late in 1904, as Will Ogilvie
if he could see the cook. drink,” he remarked, “but her ence. After a desperate neck - the bush poet would say, death

8 eMuse July 2020