Stockman’s Stormcloud (Stockmen #3)

One

Present Day

Danger was the name of the game. It’s where the air crackled with heat and tension, as Dex’s muscles coiled like a tightly wound spring. The crowd’s cheers echoed in the night air, as he dodged and weaved away from his opponent’s bare knuckles. In the outback heat, sweat had their bare torsos glistening under the spotlights, created from the large circle of vehicles. Their boots dragged on the paddock’s dusty floor to churn a smoky haze into the air, as Dex’s opponent squared up to take another swing.

A set of knuckles barely grazed Dex’s cheek, which had lost feeling minutes ago.

Dex smirked, the kind of smirk that always upset his opponent. He loved playing mind games with rookies, and he’d been playing this game long enough to unleash a set of sharp snappy jabs and hooks.

Again, the crowd’s cheers reverberated across the empty paddock that made up their arena, with nothing but a sea of stars above.

Dex’s movements were a flurry of controlled chaos. Each punch calculated to perfection. Sweat glistened like teardrops from his hair, but the determination was now etched into every sinew of his body. Fuelled by raw grit, he danced out a furious storm of fists because he fought to win. Always.

As the seconds ticked away, the fight intensified into a ballet of brutality punctuated with grunts and punches. Just the way the organisers liked it: tease the crowd, while letting the rookie think he had a shot at the title. It was just a cover for one big dangerous game—the type of game Dex enjoyed.

But when the prick kept repeatedly jabbing at his ribs, it ticked Dex off. He unleashed his right-left jab combo and his roundhouse uppercut, clipping his opponent on the jaw to send him keeling over like some backwards Olympic platform diver, to land heavily in the dust, and out cold for the count.

‘ Winner! ’ The referee raised Dex’s arm to the many cheers as a crowd favourite.

And for his efforts, his hand got slapped with a wad of cash. He tucked it into an envelope, then slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. Not bad for a Thursday night’s payday.

Dex wiped the sweat from his brow, doing his best to hide the wince from the bruises already forming across his ribs.

At his black ute, he dropped the tailgate and dragged out his fighting bag. In this sport there were no fancy changing rooms, no coaches or managers, it was just a bunch of blokes meeting in a paddock for a chance to blow off steam and win some cash.

The scratchy towel was coarse against his skin as he wiped down the sweat from his torso. He gulped down a water bottle full of electrolytes, then pressed an icepack against his ribs.

‘Helluva fight, Dex.’ Charlie, the old stockman, swaggered towards him. ‘Here are your winnings. Didn’t know you can bet on yourself like that.’

‘There are no rules out here.’ Dex flicked through the thick wad of bills before sliding it into that fat envelope. Nice.

‘Charlie, can you strap this up for me?’ Dex held up a roll of white gauze, while pressing the icepack against his ribs that throbbed with fire.

‘Sure, I’ll have a crack.’ The old stockman poked back the brim of his Akubra and got to work. ‘I thought he had you on the ropes at one point.’

‘Amateur.’ He gritted his teeth as Charlie wrapped the bandage around his ribs.

‘I should get Bree to do this. She’s good at it.’

‘I’m not letting that redhead near me. I’d never hear the end of her lecture.’

‘Nah. Bree doesn’t mind fight nights.’ The old man tucked in the ends and gave a nod of the job done. ‘You should see that ice hockey she’s into, it’s brutal.’

‘I haven’t watched TV in months.’ Not since his television had been claimed by his two-year-old nephew.

Dex swallowed a handful of pills for the pain, slipped on a T-shirt, and then assessed his knuckles. They were good. But one of his eyebrows throbbed, and he could feel warm blood trickling with the sweat down his cheek. Again, he used the towel to mop up the mess. ‘Did you make any money?’

‘I bet on the other bloke.’

‘Really?’ That eyebrow smarted as he arched it at the old man.

‘Gotcha.’ Charlie laughed. ‘I didn’t clean up like Bree did.’

He closed the tailgate, wincing at the sharp stabbing pain in his ribs. ‘Bree’s here?’

‘Over there. Selling her gin.’ Charlie pointed to the vast dark paddock where assorted vehicles had gathered.

‘Does Bree sell her gin often?’ This car park was more notorious than the fights for black market deals, but he hadn’t expected Bree, the woman who drank gin by the jugful, to be here.

Charlie shrugged. ‘When Bree’s got extra, she’ll sell some. I know she’s got a list of regular customers. Says it all goes to the kitty for her holiday money.’

It was easy spotting Bree’s sickly, bright lemon Kombi van, where she’d set up a boot sale, among the other vehicles selling home-grown tobacco or car parts, where you never asked questions.

It was quite the turnout tonight—which meant more winnings for him.

It was also kind of nice that Bree and Charlie had come to see him fight. None of his brothers ever came, and he’d stopped asking them a while back. ‘Why didn’t you get a lift in with Bree?’

‘Bree’s still ticked at me for giving Policeman Porter the go-ahead to reopen the murder case. I noticed you didn’t say much about the situation.’

‘Not my business.’ Dex shrugged, only to wince again at the sharp pain in his ribs.

‘You must have an opinion, lad? I only asked coz you’ve got four brothers. I reckon you could relate.’

Dex sighed as he locked the back tray cover of his beloved sleek black ute. ‘I think if your brother is wanted for murder, he might have left his car out there in the Stoneys as a decoy.’ The recent discovery of the car, they called Pandora, had the old man searching for his brother, Harry, who’d been missing for over sixty years.

If Dex disappeared, would his brothers come searching for him?

‘Ya make a valid point, lad. Still, it’s in the hands of the coppers now.’

‘At the risk of putting your brother in prison?’

‘See, that’s where I reckon Bree’s wrong.’ Charlie wagged his stubby finger. ‘My brother didn’t have it in him to do that murder. And I believe in Policeman Porter and his new-fangled technology to find something to prove my brother’s innocence, so Harry can come out of hiding and come home. I’ve got to trust the coppers on this one.’

‘Talking about cops, let’s bolt before they get wind we’re here.’ As he sat in the driver’s seat, Dex grunted from the searing pain ripping through his chest. It made the simple act of drawing air a battle.

It wasn’t just the pain, it was the relentless pressure like a vice squeezing his lungs, thieving his oxygen. Every inhale was a sharp, stabbing ache, and even the shallowest breath felt like he was rolling in a field of broken glass .

When Dex strapped on his seatbelt, it put pressure on the icepack, sending a lightning bolt of heated agony to radiate throughout his side. It had him gritting his teeth.

‘Are you okay, Dex?’ Charlie adjusted his hat with its hatband made from the crocodile that had dared to bite him. His many sun-hardened crinkles blended around the eyes of a stockman who’d been around a long time. ‘Tell me straight, lad.’

‘It’s my ribs.’ They shouldn’t be hurting this much. ‘The painkillers will kick in shortly.’ They always did.

Taking short breaths, he pushed through the pain and put his prize ute into gear. He was used to living with pain, so this was nothing.

‘Want me to drive?’

‘Hell, no. No one but me drives my baby.’

They drove through the tiny sleeping town of Elsie Creek, then onto the desolate outback highway where there were no other lights except the stars above.

A few kilometres past a whole load of nothing, they turned off the bitumen highway to start the trek on dirt roads highlighted by his bank of spotlights.

But the further they drove inland, the rougher the road got. When they hit the dip for the floodway known as Leviathan Creek, his ribs punched him with such a severe hot white pain he struggled to breathe. ‘What the flip!’

The car swerved in the dust.

‘Pull over, mate,’ Charlie urged.

Dex lifted his foot off the accelerator, to pull his ute to the side of the dirt road.

Dex struggled to get out of the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll just walk it off for a bit.’ Like he normally did. But that razorblade-burn kept stabbing into his side every time he tried to take a deep breath. ‘That prick got a rib.’

‘You reckon he broke it?’ Charlie leaned against the side of the ute watching Dex like he was a stockhorse in the sale yards. ‘You’re walking like it’s broken.’

‘No. I’ve had plenty of broken ribs before, but this…’ This pa in was unlike anything he’d ever encountered. ‘I’ll just take more pills.’ Sweat leached out of him, dripping off his nose as his dark hair hung across his eyes.

Leviathan Creek was dry, with the cool air refreshing, on the only road to Elsie Creek Station. He was so close to home. ‘Next time I’m grading the driveway, I’ll be sure to fix this bit of road.’

‘Maybe you lot should see about making a bridge one year,’ said Charlie. ‘Then you’d never get flooded in during the wet season.’

‘Just add it to the board of stuff to do.’ They hadn’t done a wet season yet, having only bought the station six months ago. Now he was keen to dump the cash in his pocket with Ryder to pay for his share of the mortgage.

Dex was struggling to open the back tray to grab his painkillers, when a set of spotlights landed on him.

‘Oh no.’ What sort of hell was this?

Bree’s monstrous yellow Kombi van rattled like an old sewing machine, with her music blaring, as she pulled up beside them. He hated that van.

Bree jumped out. ‘What’s wrong, Pop?’

‘Lad’s not well.’ Charlie pointed at Dex’s ribs.

Dex tried to back away from the witch. Even if it was a shock to see her out of her blacksmith’s apron, and in a dress, he did not want the redhead near him. ‘I’m not in the mood for one of your lectures.’

‘Just show me.’

‘No. I’m fine.’

‘Dex, don’t be a dick. You’ve just dropped ten shades of white in front of me, and you’re sweating profusely, which means you’re suffering with extreme pain. Especially if you’ve parked your baby out here on the road like that.’

‘I—I…’ He didn’t have the strength to fight the woman he battled with daily for sport. But as he went to lift his shirt, he lost his balance.

‘I’ve got you, buddy.’ Bree held him, and he let her. He just didn’t have any fight left in him .

‘Pop, open the back of the Kombi.’ Bree was a take charge kind of girl, who Dex normally fought against, but he was helpless now.

The pain made it hard to breathe, and he was seeing stars that were nothing like the stars crowding the blackest of skies overhead. ‘I hate your vehicle. It’s a disgrace to cars.’

‘It’s not a car, but a van, and it has a bed in the back you can lie on.’ Bree helped him to the back of her Kombi van.

‘Are you taking me home?’

Bree laughed.

‘I hate that laugh.’ And he hated how helpless he felt.

‘You sleep on a swag, on a camp bed, inside a tent in a broken shack. You’re a smart lad. What do you think? Or did they bash your brains around a bit?’

‘Please… I…’

‘I know.’ Bree gave his shoulder a tender squeeze. ‘It was a good fight. I won a stack on you.’

‘You did?’ Somehow, a surge of pride kicked in, dialling back on the pain, but only for a second.

With Bree’s help he lay down on the thick, soft mattress. He floated on the damn thing. She then rummaged around in the van’s fridge and produced a cold cloth she wiped over his face.

‘That is so good.’ He covered his entire face. ‘I could do with one of your ice baths.’ His whole body was on fire.

‘Where does it hurt?’

‘Ribs.’

‘That bloke kept jabbing him in the ribs, he did,’ said Charlie, hovering by the back door.

‘I saw, Pop. He deserved the uppercut that planted him on his arse. Amirite, Dex?’

Dex managed a grin of sorts. He had a fan club.

‘Pop, lock up Dex’s car and jump in.’

‘You can’t leave my car here.’

‘Want me to drive it home?’ Charlie asked.

‘No, I…’ He hissed at the pain, as Bree removed the icepack and swapped it for a new one .

The lights flashed on his ute as the locks were activated. He was left with no choice.

‘Hide this.’ He handed Bree his fat envelope of cash and his wallet. And he never did that, because he didn’t trust women. He’d lost faith in them a long time ago, deciding there was nothing good in a woman, swearing to never trust their kind again.

Yet here he was, putting his trust in one. He really must be sick.

‘Don’t worry, Dex. We’ll take care of you,’ said Bree.

Helpless to stop her, he lay back inside the yellow Kombi he’d sworn he’d never get into, to get whisked away to the hospital. This was not how he’d planned to end his fight night as the outback’s undefeated bare-knuckle champion.