Saltbush Bills Second Flight - Analysis

A bush world where cunning beats ownership

Paterson’s central joke is also his central claim: in the Castlereagh country, power doesn’t belong securely to the people who own the land, but to the people who can move through it—talking fast, bluffing harder, and, if needed, staging a little violence. The opening lines make Saltbush Bill a kind of folk menace: his name and the fame travel ahead of him, and squatters already know his playbook—he’ll lose his way onto better grass, swear he has leave to pass, and if challenged he’ll fight all day so his sheep get through. The poem sets up a world where rules exist mostly as obstacles to be outwitted, and where reputation itself is a tool of droving.

Stingy Smith’s “bright idea” and the greed beneath it

Against Bill’s mobile cunning, Paterson places Stingy Smith, owner of Hard Times Hill, introduced literally sitting and praying—hoping for an early Spring—as if scarcity has shrunk his imagination into a single tight fist. Smith’s “bright idea” is outsourced violence: he spots a clean-shaved tramp (rare as a feathered frog) and immediately asks, Can you fight? The question isn’t about honor; it’s about protecting grass and saving money. Smith even offers legal cover—there isn’t a beak who would fine a man for hitting Saltbush Bill—so the poem quietly shows how local “justice” bends toward property owners’ grudges and convenience.

Violence as performance: Stiffener Joe sells his legend

The tramp’s long speech is a deliberate piece of self-mythmaking: he calls himself Stiffener Joe from the Rocks Brigade, claims he killed a man, and then delivers a professional’s lecture on how to win—left on the ribs, right on the jaw, wait for the opening sure as fate. It’s funny partly because Smith doesn’t actually listen; he cuts him off with the line about talking your man to death. But the deeper point is that the poem treats fighting the way it treats droving: as a craft full of rehearsed moves, practiced stories, and staged confidence. What looks like brute force is already theater.

The hinge: a real knockout that turns out to be a sham

The poem’s turn comes when the promised brawl arrives—and seems to deliver exactly what Smith paid for. The “fighting man” kicks Bill’s dog (a sharp, practical trigger in a rough code), they fight with only the thudding fists and the seconds’ muttered word, and then Bill went out, falling face down like a fallen tree. For a moment, the comedy tightens into fear: they think he must be killed, and the brandy-flask, the week of recovery, and Bill’s damaged jaw make the injury feel real. The key tension here is that the poem lets us believe in consequences—then uses those consequences as part of the con. The “seriousness” of the hurt becomes the best camouflage for the trick.

The second flight: getting the grass by getting the story

The title’s second flight isn’t just Bill moving sheep again; it’s Bill taking off with Smith’s certainty about how the world works. While Bill lies up, the travelling sheep went here and there wherever they liked to stray—exactly the nightmare Smith hired a fighter to prevent. Then the reveal snaps everything into place: the “fighter” is Tom Devine, Bill’s cook, coached in a fighting yard, the tale taught by rote. They shammed to fight, took the grass, and divided your five-pound note. Smith tried to buy force; Bill and Devine sell him a narrative. The con works because Smith wants it to be true: he wants a simple hired solution to a complex opponent, and he underestimates how easily a performance can satisfy that desire.

A bitter laugh that lasts: the teamsters’ wish

The closing scene widens the joke into folklore. Teamsters bogged to the axle-tree in black-soil plain mud—bullocks straining, dogs biting, men cursing—pause to moisten each hairy throat and say they wish they could swear like Stingy Smith when he read the note. It’s a hard, physical picture, and it ends not with Bill triumphant but with Smith’s humiliation becoming communal entertainment. Paterson’s tone lands on a very bush kind of moral: not a sermon against cheating, but a recognition that in this country, where mud, drought, and distance grind everyone down, the sharpest weapon might be the ability to be less gullible than the next man.