Stockman’s Stormcloud (Stockmen #3)

Twenty-two

Through the stethoscope, Sophie listened to his chest as Dex’s lungs expanded and contracted. He was over using that dumb tank.

‘All done.’ Sophie stepped away, taking her warm and enticing scent with her.

Dex lowered his shirt, watching the back door, waiting for Bree to come inside, hoping she’d cooled down by now. ‘So, is it good?’

Sophie put the stethoscope away into her medical pack, nodding as she scribbled notes on the tablet.

He put his hand over hers holding the slim stylus pen. ‘Sophie, I don’t want just a nod.’

‘I was just going to show you the comparisons.’ She held up the tablet’s screen, using her stylus as a pointer. ‘This graph shows your breathing pattern when you first came into the hospital. Comparing to the now, you can see there’s been a tremendous improvement.’ It was a huge curve in the right direction.

Didn’t that make him breathe better.

‘But I still want you to use the oxygen tank, for at least one more day. Please.’

He may have struggled this morning, but as the day progressed, and the angrier he got, the more he was determined to ditch those tanks and go hunt for his missing cattle.

‘You haven’t been taking all your meds, have you?’ She shook the small pill bottles standing on the kitchen bench near the fridge, while her cat lay on the couch watching them.

‘I don’t need the painkillers.’ He only took vitamins when he was training. Already feeling the jittery sensation in his muscles, as a good sign to start training again.

‘You need to finish this course of antibiotics and steroids. They’re to ensure you’ll have no complications with your lungs’ recovery. It’s really important that you follow the tapering dose for the steroids so that you don’t have any side effects.’

That made him stop rocking on his boot heels.

In all his years as a professional fighter, not once did he use any form of steroids. Even if his sport was illegal, many other fighters used plenty of performance enhancing drugs, but Dex had remained pure. ‘How many days do I have left on those pills?’ He wanted to be healthy again.

‘Five.’

And he’d be counting down those days, too. ‘What happens then?’

‘You won’t need my visits, as soon as you stop using those tanks.’

He didn’t like the sound of that. Even if he was ready to return those oxygen tanks today, and donate Bree’s oxygen cart to the hospital, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Nurse Kitty just yet.

‘I’ll make you an appointment to see the doctor in a few days.’

The back screen door opened, and Charlie and Bree strolled inside, as a vehicle started out the front of the cottage. Dex peered through the window to spot Lenny driving away.

It was showtime.

‘Where did you come from, Charlie?’ Dex hadn’t heard the Razorback.

‘Round the back, Bree radioed me in. Have you finished your check-up, lad?’ Charlie asked, while sliding his hat onto the long hat rack that took up the entire wall of coats, hats, leather aprons, stockwhips and rope.

‘We’re done,’ replied Sophie.

No, we are not done! He scowled at his nurse.

‘What’s going on?’ Charlie put his thermos and a roll of maps on the kitchen bench. ‘Are we really being accused of being a couple of poddy dodgers?’

‘What?’ Sophie asked.

‘Dirty mongrel duffers,’ Charlie sneered as he spoke.

Again, Sophie shrugged her shoulders, looking at Dex for the answer.

‘Cattle rustlers.’ The word also made Dex’s blood boil, just like Charlie’s. ‘For the record, I’m sticking up for you guys. We knew you were out fossicking with Lenny.’

‘I said they weren’t accusing you, Pop.’ Bree placed two plastic containers on the bench, dumping her large leather witchy sack that doubled as a handbag. ‘Oh, look, it’s the nurse. And she has a cat.’ She gave a wicked grin at Dex. ‘Now I get the name Nurse K—’

‘Be nice, Bree.’

‘Why? Are you going to have a go at me, too?’

‘Ryder was wrong.’

‘Oh hell, yeah.’ Bree even chuckled. ‘That man is so wrong on so many levels.’

Something wasn’t right. Dex was expecting Bree to be chopping wood, shouting, or something. Her calmness was spooky.

Charlie gawked at Bree. ‘I hope you walloped him for that.’

‘Bree slapped him, hard.’ It had to have stung, leaving the handprint from a strong blacksmith on his brother’s cheek. Dex’s smile fell. ‘I have to ask, Bree. Where were you?’

‘You know where.’

‘You dropped me off at two, then…’

Sophie gasped, staring up at Dex as if he’d done something wrong. What for? His relationship with Bree was purely platonic. He’d told Sophie this many times already.

‘I went and saw a mate.’ Bree lifted the lid on one of the plastic containers she’d arrived with, unleashing a rich vanilla aroma in the air. It was filled with cupcakes, where she offered the sweet treats to Charlie. ‘If you must know—and as I would have told Ryder, if he had bothered to ask me nicely—I was at Lucy’s place.’

‘Who gets visitors that early in the morning?’ Was that where Bree hid her still?

‘They work bakers’ hours.’

‘The Station Hand’s daughter runs the food van in town at the train station. Good tucker, too,’ explained Charlie, plucking up a cupcake. ‘They make the best stockman’s brekkie for all the ringers loading the cattle for the train.’ Charlie paused to wolf down his cupcake. ‘Gawd, these are good. You should eat one, missy.’ He grabbed a napkin and a cupcake, pushing it into Sophie’s hands. ‘I’ll put the billy on.’

‘Let’s begin shall we…’ Bree raised her cupcake in the air. ‘We are all gathered here today to join these four types of sugars in the holy art of cupcake making. May our cholesterol and blood pressure remain steady for another day.’ Bree bit into her frosted cupcake, her eyes rolling with pleasure.

Sophie’s brow ruffled at Bree’s cupcake blessings. The first time Dex had heard Bree say it, he thought it was weird, too.

But he had more important things to deal with. ‘Are you telling me you had a baking session at four in the morning? And that it went all day?’

Bree dropped a hand on one hip, as if bored with their conversation. ‘If you must know my business, I make organic cooking oils for Lucy’s store, using Lucy’s bush herbs, that they grow on their family property. We sell them in her online store, that is branded as The Station Hand’s Daughter .’

‘Oh, I’ve seen that logo. It’s on the side of the food van at the Train Station Bakery.’ With her half-eaten cupcake, Sophie licked the cream from her fingertips.

It was enough for Dex to stop and watch Sophie lick her fingers clean. Oh no, they most certainly were not done with her nurse visits.

‘I’d eat there daily if I could,’ said sweet, sweet Nurse Kitty, with her pink tongue licking her shiny lips. ‘Especially the quiches and cheesecakes. The banana cheesecake is the best, but my hips would hate me if I ate that too often.’

There was nothing wrong with Sophie’s figure, it was perfect, just as it was.

Sophie then glanced at Bree’s curvy figure. ‘Jenny, our head nurse, makes the doctors take their cakes over to the police station when we’re on diets, or we’d be the size of houses.’

‘I know.’ Bree tapped her hips, while grinning at Sophie in an attempt at humour to connect with the nurse in some friendly way.

Except Sophie sniffed, turning away from Bree.

Bree’s eyes flared wider at Dex.

Aww, come on! There was no way he was getting into the middle of those two women, not when he needed to know where Bree had been all night as if to save her reputation by finding out her alibi. Which was the most foreign thing he’d ever done for a female. ‘Bree? You were saying?’

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned a hip against the kitchen bench. ‘This morning, I gave Lucy the bad news that, because of a technical glitch from my end, there will be no more distilling from me.’

He nodded, completely understanding why.

‘Why are you giving it up, kid? That’s not like you to turn down work.’

‘We were only doing it as a trial, Pop. We didn’t expect it to be so popular.’

‘So, what did they say?’

‘Lucy and her family have decided to build their own distilling operation in one of their sheds. They already dry and package their own bush herbs and have decided to extend their operations.’ Bree pulled out the notebook from her witchy bag. ‘I spent all morning designing plans to build them a still suitable for both cooking oils, and one to capture the essences from some of their bush herb range.’

Charlie nodded. ‘Did you help them bake this morning, too? ’

‘I helped make these cupcakes with Lucy’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, when the others went to work. Lizzie was baking for the school fundraiser.’ Bree peeled back the lid of the second plastic container, much larger than the first, showing a whole stash of cupcakes. Their rich smell and bright creamy colours were a temptation, even for a man who didn’t touch sweets. ‘Pop, we bought these for the school, and gave them a cash donation.’

‘Sweet.’ The old man chuckled, dusting off his fingertips to pinch another one.

‘So, Dex, your brother can call the Station Hand, his wife Queen Elizabeth, his daughter Lucy, and their full-time artist-in-residence Homeless Hank.’ Bree ticked the names off her fingertips. ‘Oh, and that includes Elsie Creek’s new fire chief, who is Lucy’s lover, as my alibi.’

Bree shifted around the kitchen bench to lift the lid on the cake box Lenny had delivered earlier this morning. It made Dex realise it would’ve been around the same time Bree was visiting the Station Hand’s family.

‘Oh, are these cupcakes from Lenny?’

‘Yeah, he delivered them this morning,’ said Charlie.

‘Wow, we’re really having a cupcake party today. And Lenny’s are the best.’ Bree selected one of the chocolate cupcakes and bit into it calmly, as if nothing had happened. But Bree could be cunning and cool in situations, making her unpredictable and dangerous. ‘Did you find anything fossicking, Pop?’

‘Nah. Not much.’

Bree packed a stack of her school fundraising cupcakes into another container. ‘Here, Sophie, you can you take these back to the hospital. Tell your wonderful boss it’s not diet day today. Jenny can thank me later. I was going to share them with the Riggs brothers, but that bridge has been burned.’ And there it was, that temper dangerously simmering, as she glared at Dex with fierce green eyes.

Holy flip! Bree was furious.

‘Ryder was wrong,’ Dex said, hoping to calm down the redhead.

‘But he also did a fabulous job of reminding me that we don’t work for you .’

Flipping hell.

‘Pop, who owns the Razorback?’ Bree asked with her mean green eyes aimed at Dex. Her anger was so potent, Dex stepped back from the kitchen bench in case she took a swing.

‘Well, let me see…’ Charlie poured boiling water into the teapot, and put on the lid. ‘Me and Darcie bought it back in 1984 off this bloke in the pub, who’d originally won it over a game of poker at another station. Then a month later, I won it in a poker game at the stockman’s shack. It ran out of rego soon after that, not that it mattered, it never left the place. Then in 1985, we cut the roof off the thing to become a bull catcher where my granddaughter’s been modifying it with upgrades ever since she could touch the pedals to drive it. Why do you ask?’

‘Dex? Why don’t you explain it to my grandfather. But before you do, can you remember reading, in this station’s contract of sale, this little caveat that said: the property of the caretaker shall remain the property of the caretaker to be used solely by the caretaker .’

Dex hated his big brother right now. He’d always sided with his family over friends, but this was different. ‘Ryder will apologise when I’m done with him. He had no right to accuse you, Bree.’

‘Your brother, Ryder, said he’d kill you in one punch.’ Sophie’s fear was real, gripping his arm as if scared for him. No one feared for him, not like this. Wait, he’d seen the fear on Bree’s face just before they knocked him out.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Charlie plonked the mugs onto the kitchen bench. ‘It’s not like you, Dex, to be tiptoeing around Bree, who looks like she’s about to blow her stack that no one will recover from. Will someone tell me what’s going on?’

‘I told you, Pop, Ryder Riggs accused me of stealing their cattle. ’

‘Bloody drongo. That man’s really gone and ticked you off. I can see it.’ Charlie gave his granddaughter’s shoulder a tender squeeze. ‘Before you plot that fella’s torturous demise, why don’t we cool our heels a bit, while you, lad, tell us how many cattle got stolen by them grubby cattle duffers?’ Charlie gave them all a cup of tea and headed towards the dining table. ‘Oh, we have a cat, do we?’

‘It’s mine. Mr Purrington.’ Sophie looked so out of place. But she was still here.

Dex had forgotten the cat was here. He narrowed his eyes at Bree, hoping she wasn't going to use it as crab bait.

‘I’ve always wanted a cat.’ Charlie picked up the ginger cat from the couch and gave it a scratch. ‘Aren’t you a friendly fella? Hey, it’s the hospital cat, right?’

‘It is,’ replied Dex. ‘Sophie says he’s a therapy cat.’

‘That’s just a fancy name for friendly cat. This little fella comes and sits with me when I have my check-ups.’ Charlie carried the cat to the table, where he dragged out one of his maps of the station and tickled the cat’s ears. The cat purred like a motorboat. ‘Show us where you mob lost your cattle.’

‘We didn’t lose them, Charlie.’ That anger flared in his chest at what those cattle rustlers had done. ‘There. Back block.’ Dex tapped the spot on the map. ‘They used some side track.’

‘And that’d be the ol’ stock route that leads you to Drinkastubbie Downs.’ Charlie traced down the side of the map.

‘I’m sorry. What did you call it?’ Sophie asked.

‘Drinkastubbie Downs. Believe me, girlie, we downed a few stubbies there, too.’ Charlie chuckled behind his tea mug before taking a sip.

Sophie tugged on Dex’s arm. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Beer. In stubbie bottles.’

‘Oh. Right, sorry. I’m new to all of this.’ Sophie hid her blush behind her tea mug.

Bree rolled her eyes at Dex. ‘Pop, why don’t you explain it to the tourist? ’

‘I’d love to.’ Charlie brushed down the cupcake crumbs from his shirt, sitting higher in his seat, to resume scratching the cat. ‘Drinkastubbie Downs was named by the stockmen who regularly used that stock camp set near an old well. It’s where we’d start the long walk, mustering cattle from the back of Wait-a-while Waters, then down to the drafting yards.’ Charlie gave a dreamy smile. ‘There’s nothing like seeing that long line of cattle, nose to tail, stretching for miles to make any stockman sigh and smile.’

Dex leaned back in his seat. He’d seen it plenty of times as a stockman. As a cattle station owner, he’d love that sight more—if what little cattle they had didn’t get pinched!

‘You could almost call Drinkastubbie Downs an outstation.’

Bree huffed. ‘You can’t call a well, a fire pit, and a pile of old beer cans an outstation, Pop. It’s a stock camp.’ It was eerie how cool and controlled Bree seemed, when he knew how angry she was underneath.

‘Anyhoodle, on account of the watering well, there was a gentleman’s agreement allowing Bonny Plains Station and Sandlot Station, which the youngest Riggs brother owns, to use the place as a halfway point on the stock route, until they built the new roads.’

‘Who owns the stock route now?’

‘You mob do. It’s always been a part of Elsie Creek Station. Back then we got on with all our neighbours.’

Dex met Bree’s eyes across the kitchen counter. She had to be thinking the same thing: was this another one of Leo’s attempts at destroying them?

‘You know,’ said Charlie, shaking his head, ‘stealing grown cattle is the worst crime because it involves changing earmarks with a knife and brands with a running iron.’

‘Didn’t you have Ash’s special tech tags on some of them?’ Bree asked.

‘That’s how we knew they were gone. What we worked out is that they removed their ear tags before driving them off the property between four and six this morning. They were quick, because Ash and Ryder flew out in the chopper and traced his cattle tags to this spot where they’d dumped them.’ Dex pointed to the map.

‘And that’s Drinkastubbie Downs,’ said Charlie.

Bree peered over her grandfather’s shoulder to the map. ‘They must have mustered them in yesterday to de-tag overnight, which means setting up fences—’

‘How come no one heard them?’ Sophie asked.

‘It’s a two-hour drive on a wallaby track to get there,’ said Bree. ‘Can you hear what’s going on at the hospital where you work? It’s roughly the same distance.’

‘I didn’t realise this place was so big.’ Sophie sheepishly tucked her fair hair behind her ear.

Dex stroked her back. That’s right, he was consoling a female who had done nothing wrong. Sophie was only here for him. And he liked that.

‘You didn’t go out there and check, Dex?’ Charlie asked.

‘Believe me, I wanted to.’

But Sophie, his sweet Sophie, squeezed his arm. ‘You’re still recovering, Dex. Be patient with yourself.’ She was too nice for someone like him.

‘How much cattle did they nick?’ Charlie asked, tickling the cat’s chin.

‘Eighty.’

‘Which means they had a road train,’ said Bree. ‘I’m guessing they’d have three double trailers for cattle, with the fourth trailer saved for their fencing gear and muster bikes or horses.’

‘They had bikes. Ash and Ryder found their tracks, and the road train’s,’ said Dex. The problem was road trains hauling cattle in this outback region was so common, it’d blend in easily.

Charlie arched an eyebrow. ‘Sheesh, no wonder Ryder blew his stack. That haul would be worth—’

‘Almost a million dollars.’ Bree grabbed her phone from the desk. ‘Pop, go fuel up the Razorback. And from here on out, the Razorback gets parked in our back shed, just like it used to. I’ll bring up Pandora, too.’

‘Aw come on, Bree. Ryder will apologise shortly. He always does once he cools down.’

Bree was fuming so much, there was a heated glare in her eyes that was positively lethal. ‘Charlie is retired and I’m only here for Charlie. We don’t work for the Riggs brothers.’

‘Listen, kid, I know you’re mad at ‘em, but all of them boys have been good to an old man like me.’

‘Really? What about how much free work we’ve done for them on this station, like droving that herd away from Carked-it. Remember, we don’t own this land, Pop.’

‘I know that, kid.’

‘And look at how much good we’ve done for them, eh?’ Bree pointed to the couch that Dex had lived on this past week.

Dex’s stomach clenched as another new fire smouldered in his chest. Bree and Charlie had been there for Dex at one of the worst moments of his life. The caretakers had been there for his family multiple times that they’d become family, in the short time they’d lived at this station. Yet, he felt like he was being pulled apart in a tug of war, stuck in the middle between friends and family. And in his world, Dex didn’t make friends, not when his family always came first—especially when their livelihood was at stake like their stolen cattle.

Bree leaned in closer to her grandfather, gritting her teeth as if to tether her anger, while pointing at the front door. ‘But you didn’t see their faces, the way they were looking at me when I got accused out there. Ryder only said what they were all thinking, but he was the only one who had the guts to ask if I stole those cattle.’

Sophie dropped her head, to fiddle with her tea mug, as if hiding her guilt. Did Sophie think Bree was guilty, too?

Charlie scowled at Dex. ‘You didn’t?’

‘Hey, not me.’ Dex held his hands up. ‘I know what you were doing, Bree. I didn’t tell them anything. But you should tell Ryder.’

‘Ryder can go to hell.’ Bree tossed the rest of her tea into the sink, slamming her mug on the counter. ‘Pop, I’ll get changed and grab our guns. Bring your cuppa and snacks. I’ll meet you at the Razorback, after I make a few phone calls.’

‘You’re not calling him, kid. Please say you forgot his number.’

‘I have to, Pop. They’ve accused me of stealing their cattle. And don’t you have a vet inspection to get to, Dex?’ Bree slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.

Charlie started swearing under his breath as he jammed food and drinks into a cooler and poured the rest of the hot tea from the tea pot into two travel mugs.

‘Who is Bree calling?’ Dex asked Charlie.

With a heavy head, Charlie slung on his hat by the back door. ‘The devil, son. She’s calling the devil.’