Six
Ash stumbled through the creaky front door, blinking at daylight while slipping on the T-shirt he’d plucked from the bedroom floor. Yesterday was a nightmare. Had to be.
‘Morning.’ Like every morning since they’d moved in, Ash found his brothers watching the sunrise from the table on the front porch, where the smell of rich, aromatic coffee greeted him. He dropped into the chair he’d claimed as his own, as Cap slid over a coffee cup. ‘Smells strong.’
‘It is. We all need it after last night.’
‘Oh, man, tell me yesterday was just a nightmare.’ Ash roughly scrubbed his palms over his face. Then he glanced back and there was the kid, seated inside a fly-netted contraption, playing with some toys.
‘You can thank Cap for feeding Mason,’ said Dex.
‘And it was Dex who set up the toys.’ Cap grinned.
‘I don’t believe it. You, Dex?’
‘I’m not doing it every day.’ Dex pointed at Ash. ‘He’s your responsibility.’
‘I’m thinking of doing a DNA test.’ Ash didn’t sign up for this, so best to do it now and not get too attached.
‘Save yourself some money, daddy,’ said Dex, scrolling through his phone. ‘Mum emailed us some photos this morning. This one in particular … It’s you at the same age as Mason. You’re the spitting image of each other.’ He slid the phone across the table.
‘I could have told you that,’ mumbled Ryder in his deep voice. ‘I remember you at that age and when that photo was taken, too. It was Mum’s new Kodak camera that came in the post with a bunch of knitting wool.’
‘Yeah, well, Mum wants lots of photos to add to the wall,’ said Dex.
Ash frowned at the phone’s screen. Their family-photo-loving mother had put two images side by side. One was of Mason only yesterday, the other photo he recognised from the wall of photos at his parents’ place. The resemblance was uncanny.
‘Morning, all.’ Charlie, the old caretaker, approached. ‘How’d you sleep?’ He grinned, with a sparkle in his grey eyes, as the men grumbled.
‘Coffee, Charlie?’ Cap asked.
‘As much as I’d like to, the caffeine makes my ticker race too much.’ Charlie patted over his heart. ‘Well, Ash, you ready to go?’
‘Go where?’ Ash slurped on his coffee. It was thick and creamy, coating his tongue as the perfect kickstart to the day. Slipping on his boots, he vaguely remembered he had to go shopping. ‘The shops don’t open for hours.’
‘The troughs, lad.’
‘Huh?’ Ash’s eyebrows rose over his cup. ‘But—’ He pointed at the toddler, having a fat time with some blocks.
‘The kid can come too. I used to give my beautiful Bea a break and take my baby girl out with me whenever I was boundary ridin’. The rock in the saddle, or vehicle, puts them to sleep every time. Bree said the baby seat will fit the Razorback, no problems.’ Charlie’s boots, with their thick Cuban heels, clomped up the porch steps. He squatted before the small boy inside the playpen. ‘Well, look at you. You’re a Riggs all right. Got that same nose and eyes, he has … You know what you have here, lads?’ Charlie tossed his thumb at the boy. ‘You’ve got your first cowboy at the station.’
‘He’s not a cowboy,’ Ash muttered.
Charlie grinned, adjusting his big hat. ‘Traditionally, Northern Territory cowboys were what we called young boys who’d start learning the trade as junior station hands. Then they’d graduate to stockmen. Jackeroos were usually sons of cattle station owners. Boys sick of their dads telling them what to do back home, so they’d get sent to work somewhere else for a bit.’
‘So, that’d make Mason a junior jackeroo, cause I’m a station owner?’ It was better than calling the kid a cowboy, which was an insult to a stockman.
‘Whatever you call him, he’s your legacy, and he needs a hillbilly hood.’
‘A what?’
‘Charlie means a hat,’ said Cap.
‘As an old-timer, I’m not gonna tell you what to wear on your noggin, that’s a personal thing, for sure. But back in the day, you could tell where someone came from just by the way they bashed their hat, like you mob do.’ Charlie pointed at the brothers. ‘There’s a Territory style to you, Ash. Same with Dex, but with a touch of Queenslander. Cap, you did time in WA and a lot of sheep in South Australia, I reckon. And Ryder, you were in the military.’
‘You can tell all that by a man’s hat?’ Ash adjusted his own well-bashed hat that he’d picked up in Katherine years ago.
‘If you’ve been in the game long enough, like I have, sure. Where did the little fella come from?’ Charlie narrowed his eyes at the boy holding up one of his blocks.
‘South.’
‘Yeah, Bree said he’s got that southerner’s skin. Guess that’s why she gave me her special brand of sunscreen to put on the kid.’ He tapped his work shirt pocket. ‘But you get this billy lid a hat, slop on the sunscreen, and his skin will toughen up in no time. Well, enough chinwaggin’, where’s this baby seat at? Stop looking, I found it.’ Charlie pulled the child’s booster seat from the pile of baby junk. ‘Back in the day, if they didn’t sit still, we’d strap them to the seat with rope. So, someone must be making money outta these fandangle contraptions.’
‘Before you go, Charlie…’ Ryder cleared his throat. ‘Bree told us about the threats to try and force you to sell this station.’
Charlie paused on the front porch steps, his hand gripping the baby seat, as he scowled at the dirt. ‘I told her not to say anything. It stopped once you lot bought the place.’
Ryder’s chair scraped across the floorboards as he approached the old caretaker. ‘Did they wreck the dam?’
‘Can’t prove nothing.’ Charlie squinted at the small, swirling willy-willy of dust dancing over the dry paddock. ‘All I know was that it was working fine one day, then the next its sides were torn down, along with our fences, with a stack of tyre tracks coming from the eastern firebreak. Bree and I were busy busting our butts fighting this bushfire. It started on the same day, over on the other side of the property.’
‘Sounds like they’d done that as a diversion,’ said Ryder, as Dex’s scowl deepened.
‘It was.’ Charlie slowly shook his head, staring at his boots as he spoke. ‘We had to do a back-burn to stop it from taking off, which meant sacrificing the crops we were getting ready to harvest. That boss of theirs was clever.’
‘How?’ Cap asked.
‘Coz in one day, they’d left us with no food or water for the cattle to get us through the Dry.’
‘What did you do?’ asked the animal-saving Cap.
‘Bree sat in the saddle for months, playing drover with that herd down the long paddock until the rains came, then she brought ‘em home.’ Charlie nodded to the open country towards the rising sun. ‘It’s that same mob of scrubbers you lot put in that paddock you finished re-fencing. You’ll find more scattered along the plains, where they’ve got plenty of scrub feed to keep ‘em happy. The rest, well…’
‘How many cattle did this station run?’ Ryder asked.
‘In her prime, Elsie Creek Station could hold fifty thousand head. When I became head stockman we kept it to twenty-five to thirty thousand head to not overrun the place, right up until Darcie left us.’
‘Where did they all go?’
‘When Darcie’s son learned he couldn’t sell the place without my okay, he went and hired this mob of contract musterers to come in and sell the stock.’ Charlie scowled as he readjusted his hat. ‘But don’t you worry none. I picked out a herd before they stripped the place bare.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Down at Wombat Flats. You can’t take no vehicles through there, that’s sure-footed stockhorse country.’
‘Why did you take them there?’ Cap asked.
‘Coz we knew no fancy mustering mob would dare go there. But don’t you worry none, it’s a place where the cattle are safe, for sure.’
Ryder narrowed his eyes at the caretaker. ‘Are they still there?’
‘Yep.’ Charlie gave a firm nod. ‘Last count, I reckon you’ve got a thousand head of self-sustaining stock. Bree and me have been babying that herd for a year now. Couldn’t have done it without Bree.’
Ash arched an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know Bree was a stockwoman?’
‘She won’t admit it, but I needed the help, and she only did it for me. Good kid, that one. She’s afraid of nothin’ and never backs down from a fight. Like the time that bloke had me in a chokehold, Bree fair shot him in the bum, she did.’ The wrinkles around Charlie’s eyes deepened as he chuckled.
Cap spluttered over his coffee cup. ‘Bree said it was a warning shot.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Bree warned them the next shot would be at their heads. You should’ve seen them two bullies skedaddle after that. Which is what we should be doing, Ash. Now grab the billy lid and let’s go.’
‘But…’ Ash had barely finished his coffee, let alone had breakfast.
‘Stop your sookin’. You’re a single dad now. How ya gonna feed the bugger if you don’t get paid? I’ll put this kid-carrying contraption in the Razorback.’ Charlie carted the child’s car seat away.
‘What do I take?’ Ash didn’t have a clue what a baby needed.
Ryder passed him a large bag. ‘You’ll find change of clothes, some snacks, and his special kiddies cup.’
‘Cup. Drink.’ The boy held his hand out for the cup. ‘Ta.’
Ryder nodded with approval at the toddler’s manners. ‘Don’t forget to go to the supermarket and find that kid a nanny later today.’
‘Yeah, right? You seriously can’t expect me to pluck some nanny off the supermarket shelf.’ Ash remembered he needed to get the boy some medicine.
‘When Ash gets back, we should use his drone to check out the property, especially around the house,’ suggested Cap.
‘Good idea.’ Ryder reached up to the exposed beams on the verandah’s roof and pulled down a large paper roll. It was the station’s map, that Ryder used coffee cups to sit on each corner to keep the map flat on the table. ‘I’ve got some solar cameras in one of the boxes somewhere. We can start setting them up. Cap, which of your dogs would be a good guard dog for the homestead?’
‘The shepherd.’
Ash hoisted the bag onto his shoulder, with the kid to his chest. ‘Can’t I stay and help with the security?’
‘Sure. After you’ve finished the troughs with Charlie because what cattle we do have needs water. We didn’t do it yesterday, and we know those troughs are dodgy, and none of us want Bree on our backs for letting Charlie do it on his own,’ said Ryder. ‘But while you’re working the troughs, make a list of what needs to be repaired.’
‘We’re going solar with the bores, right?’ That was Ash’s idea.
Ryder patted Ash’s shoulder. ‘That’s why you’re doing the troughs. You know what to look for.’
‘Does that mean you listened to me?’
‘We heard a teeny tiny ramble of something,’ teased Dex, rubbing his index finger over his thumb as if rolling an imaginary grain of rice.
An engine roared to life from the shed. It was the beefy bull catcher, the Razorback.
Dex nodded towards the shed. ‘Are you going to risk your life and limbs letting Charlie drive?’
‘Not a chance.’ Loaded with a boy and it’s luggage, Ash dashed across the compound, with his brothers chuckling behind him.
The kid squinted at the bright sunlight, with a giggle that was stinking cute. But his skin was so pale and shiny under the harsh outback sun.
He removed his own hat to shade the child. ‘If you’re going to stick around, you need a hat. Every stockman needs a hat. Or should we call you a junior jackeroo? JJ?’
‘J-J?’ Mason squinted his eyes as if getting his mind around the word. ‘J-J.’
No way. The kid beamed at Ash like he was the sun, the stars, and the moon. No one looked at Ash like that.
But the burden of owning a station and now a small child was too much to carry at once. With twenty-seven days to go, he would just look at this like a babysitting gig. Then his life could go back to normal.