Stockman’s Stormcloud (Stockmen #3)

Ten

The next day, Dex woke to the sound of a horse galloping hard towards the cottage. He lifted his head as the aged stockman swaggered towards the front door. ‘Charlie?’

‘Morning, lad.’ Charlie opened the front door and hollered, ‘What you stormin’ in like that for, kid? Did you forget the stable is out back.’

Bree walked inside carrying a hessian sack. ‘I checked the red claw and cherabin pots this morning. Good haul.’ She opened her damp hessian sack, filled with giant freshwater prawns and crayfish.

‘Where do you score these?’ The crustaceans were huge. But the struggle was real, trying to get his arse off the large comfy couch without upsetting his ribs.

‘We’ve got spots all through Scary Forest.’ Charlie took the sack of goodies to the sink. ‘Nothing beats a feed of red claw on fresh bread and butter, with salt and vinegar. No need to fancy up what’s already fancy.’

Bree removed her riding gloves, still wearing the radio harness and her stockwhip as if she’d been droving. ‘You should have seen the jennies I put back. They were bigger. Perfect time, right before the full moon.’

‘Pfft, witchy nonsense,’ muttered Dex as he tried to inhale without a fuss. ‘Why did you throw the females back?’ He loved a good feed of red claw.

‘To keep breeding so they can keep feeding us. Duh.’ Bree shook her head, filling up her water bottle at the filtered cooler.

‘What’s got you hightailing it here, where your horse is eating my flamin’ flowers ?’ Charlie scowled through the open doorway, pointing at the horse reaching over the front fence. ‘ Oi! Black Hand. Stop that, or you’ll end up as glue if you’re not careful.’

The black stallion paused, ears twitching, to then coyly pretend to sniff at the rambling roses.

‘Carked-it’s back.’

‘No way.’ The scowl fell from Charlie’s face as he turned to Bree. ‘Where?’

‘He had a go at us at the watering hole, where I was contemplating throwing a line in for the fish.’

‘Excuse me?’ Dex finally found the energy to stand from the extremely comfy couch, only to make it three steps across to the dining table. Fishing, yabbying, and horseback riding all before dawn—he wanted in.

But what made the skin on the back of his neck crawl with heat was the idea that Bree had been in danger. She may be that friend you’d love to hate, but she was a friend to a man who rarely made friends. And there were only three things you never messed with in Dex’s world: his family, his friends, and his home.

His hands curled into fists as the fire churned in his gut. Only for his ribs to cut him in half, pushing against his lungs leaving him with nothing more than hot air. He hated this.

‘Since when are you polite?’ Bree arched her eyebrows at him.

‘Only while I’m crashing on your couch.’ Especially while in a vulnerable state, given the effort it took to plonk himself down on a dining room chair like a defenceless child. Come on, he was a fighter, not a wimp. ‘Who is Carked-it? And are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Seriously?’ He understood Bree was tough as nails, and was quite capable of fighting her own battles, but she was a mate. ‘You said something had a go at you. What? Because we’ve got crocodiles and buffalo out here.’

‘Good guess, it was a snapping handbag living up to its name.’

‘Did you shoot it?’ Because the redhead had shotguns stashed all over the station, and slept with one, while he slept on the couch next to their whopping big gun safe.

‘I tried. But that swamp puppy submerged fast before I did any damage.’

‘Carked-it’s this old saltie who’s been around for about fifty years, I reckon,’ explained Charlie. ‘Which waterhole were you at, kid?’

‘I was coming back from Station Dog Cemetery way to check our cherabin pots at Spear Grass Creek—’

‘I don’t know where these places are.’ Dex scowled at the caretakers. It annoyed him that they knew more about his cattle station than he did. As did the squeeze on his ribs. And the lack of air.

‘Good to see his cranky highness is returning. I miss my sparring partner. Got no one to give lip to.’ Bree patted his shoulder as she put a glass of water in front of him, then grabbed his pills from the fridge.

Charlie then brought over a cup of tea for Dex, complete with toast and vegemite. All the while, he sat at the table scowling at his hosts.

Charlie spread out a map of the station he kept among his piles of paperwork. ‘That there is Spear Grass Creek. She runs off Cattleman’s Keep and runs into part of Emu Plains.’

Charlie’s map was older than the map his brothers had up at the farmhouse. This one had notches and names pencilled in with numbers, he guessed were for bores, billabongs and paddocks.

‘Are you talking about the escarpment that fills Starvation Dam?’ Dex had helped rebuild that dam, and they’d just finished fighting with the government over water rights to keep it. A gift from their eastern neighbour, Leo, over the lithium mine he wanted to start.

‘Correct. But Starvation Dam is on the far east side of the escarpment.’ Charlie tapped on the map. ‘On this side of Cattleman’s Keep, it feeds into three watering holes called Station Dog Cemetery, Bullock’s Bath, and Dog Chain’s Dipper.’

‘Who came up with these names?’ Dex sipped from his tea mug, wincing at the strength of the tea.

‘Listen, lad, each of these places has a story, named by stockmen who loved this country. Not some snot-nosed politician who never got his hands dirty, calling streets after places that got no meaning.’

Dex wished he could keep quiet. But he couldn’t. Bree was right, he was getting better if he could bite back. ‘Why don’t you educate me?’ He had nothing better to do.

‘Station Dog Cemetery is, well…’ Charlie dropped his head, looking at his granddaughter.

‘It’s a proper cemetery as a testimony to Elsie Creek Station’s muster dogs.’ Bree tenderly patted her grandfather’s shoulder as she explained, ‘It was created by the station’s first overseer, who loved his dog, and it’s a beautiful spot on the hill overlooking the waterhole and the Mitchell grass plains. All our working dogs would have loved it.’

Dex now wished he’d just shut his trap. Everyone knew Bree had buried their station dogs who’d been poisoned by that prick, Leo, from next door.

Yeah, they won the lottery with their loser of a neighbour. Not only had that prick tried to steal their water, but one of Leo’s cronies had tried to poison Cap’s dogs at the local campdraft, over a month ago. It was a low act, messing with a man’s dogs like that. And Leo was overdue a date with Dex’s fists—but not while he was confined to Bree’s couch, learning to hold his breath like a toddler learning to swim.

Which reminded him to have a quiet word to his little brother, Ash, about his nephew getting swimming lessons and to start lessons on crocodile safety, too. He hadn’t seen his nephew since the fight, which was a week today.

A week to recover.

No way. This wasn’t right. He was fitter than that, and he’d never been this slow to recover.

‘Anyhoodle, they renamed Bullock’s Bath for me,’ said Charlie as he tapped on the large map, drawing Dex out his headspace. ‘Darcie changed it.’

‘Why?’

Again, the old man peered up at Bree to speak for him.

‘Bullock’s Bath is where they buried Buckshot.’ Bree pointed to a large framed black-and-white photo of a big bucking bull with a cowboy riding him.

It took him a moment to register as his eyes flared. ‘Is that you, Charlie?’

The old stockman barely nodded at the picture. ‘I won the championship three times on Buckshot, and I was the only rider to ever last the distance on that beast. But in the end, Buckshot beat me. That tosser’s horns gored me, ducking and twisting his head up and down, tearin’ my guts up something fierce.’

‘What happened to the bull?’

‘I emptied my entire savings to save that there bucking bull,’ said Charlie, facing the image of himself.

‘I would’ve made it eat lead after that. Much cheaper.’

‘Buckshot was looking at a bullet for what he’d done to me, for sure.’ Charlie gave a snort of sorts as he dragged his chair out from the table. ‘But as he’d made me retire from rodeoing, I was repaying him that same courtesy and brought that beast home.’

‘Why?’

‘Coz that’s the game of rodeoing, lad. You’d know from the world of bare-knuckle fighting, that sometimes you’ll end up with that bull messing you up with their horns and Buckshot bloody well did.’ The old man lifted his shirt, exposing a jagged mess of scars across his stomach and chest.

Dex gripped his ribs, forcing his lungs to behave. They were nothing compared to the mess on Charlie’s chest.

‘But I survived, and I won a lot of dosh riding that bugger. Bloody big sook he was in the end, too. Buckshot loved my wife, for sure. And, my beautiful Bea adored him, talking to him like a child, scolding him for pinching her flowers, like that flamin’ horse is doing now. Bree! ’ Charlie pointed to the open front door, where the sky was shifting to a hazy mushroom pink.

‘I’m going, Pop.’ She slung on her hat. ‘But we need to do something about Carked-it. Today. He has to go, again.’

‘What do you mean, go again ?’ Dex asked.

‘We’ve trapped Carked-it before, with the help of the old park ranger, who took him somewhere where they said he wouldn’t come back. Fat lot of good that did, because he’s back like a boomerang muddying up the billabongs. Oh, and did I mention the part where he’s taking their cattle .’ She pointed to Dex.

And that meant money to Dex. ‘Where?’

‘Carked-it pulled down a steer by One More No More Corner.’ She approached the map spread across the dining table. ‘There, by Dog Chain’s Dipper. We can set a trap there. Then we’ll ask Ryder to drop that snapping handbag off in his fancy helicopter on the other side of Wait-a-while Waters.’

Dex could only raise his eyebrows at these unknown destinations that made up the station he owned with his brothers.

‘Sounds like a plan, kid. I’ll put our supper on ice for later.’

‘I’ll unsaddle the horse and meet you by the back shed. I’ll get the Razorback and grab the croc trap, the big one. That prick’s almost six metres now.’

‘No way.’ That was a monster.

‘But seeing as you’re here, Dex, you get to share the good news with your brothers about that lost steer. Back soon.’

‘We don’t have steers over there.’ Because they’d bought a cattle station with very little cattle.

‘Sure, you do, Stormcloud. You’re just looking in the wrong place.’

He narrowed his eyes at the cunning redhead. ‘How many more cattle have you two hidden?’

The last herd Charlie and Bree had hidden had been over a thousand head tucked away in Wombat Flats, now getting fat in two paddocks.

As per usual Bree said nothing. She just pinched a piece of toast from her grandfather’s plate, and was out the door, slamming the wrought-iron gate behind her, before effortlessly hoisting herself up into the saddle and riding away.

Dex wanted to ride horses again, too.

He was wide awake and alert now, with a mind that needed to do something. He hated his injury, and the stupid hassle of taking one breath. It was like scalding razor blades pressing against his lungs that refused to expand, stopping him.

Charlie got to work in the kitchen, tucking the crays away in the fridge, flicking on the kettle, dragging out his old, dented thermos and a large water container, then started loading up snacks into the cooler.

Dex stood to stretch, but the white-hot pain in his ribs stopped him.

At the open front door, between the many flowers Charlie had growing in his front garden, Dex struggled to spot the farmhouse. He hadn’t seen his brothers since Ryder had driven him back from the hospital, after they waved off their parents at the town’s airstrip that was conveniently right next door to the bush hospital.

He hated feeling powerless like this, unable to get out there because of his lungs.

Normally, he’d be up at the farmhouse, sipping coffee with his brothers at the table on the front porch to discuss their plans for that day. He missed coffee. They didn’t have any in this house because of Charlie’s heart condition.

Gripping the side of the couch, he forced through the pain to push his lungs to fill up and hold one breath. Each time, they expanded a little further, even if it was like pushing against a mattress holding an elephant, stabbing him with burning spearheads. But he was up and standing.

‘Oi, lad, you’d better get ready. ’

Dex peered back at the old man. ‘Won’t Bree tell me off?’ Like that annoying big sister.

‘It’ll do you the world of good to get a bit of sun. But, if we’re going in the Razorback, you’ll wanna take your painkillers, lad.’ Charlie plonked his pills down on the table. ‘Coz, there’s nothing like going on a crocodile hunt to get the blood pumping. You in?’