Thirteen
Wearing thick goggles for his drone, Ash flicked the dials on the handheld console, and his favourite toy was up and in the air. Sounding like a swarm of bees, it followed the red dusty track to the fence line where the view was simply epic . It was like something straight out of a Hollywood movie, where he was the cameraman panning for the perfect shot.
He steered the drone to swoop low between the gaps of the metal gates. Spun it around to dance over the barbed wire fence, then dashed across to check over the cattle milling around the large bale of hay.
‘Oi!’
Ash lifted his goggles to find Ryder, covered in red clay from fixing the dam, glaring at him. They were all filthy, but the job was done. ‘Why aren’t you out checking those troughs?’
‘I am.’ He slipped his goggles back on. ‘I’m saving fuel by using the drone. Stop stressing. If I need to clean them, I’ll add it to my list.’ He steered the drone along the dusty paddocks to the water tank. ‘Tank’s full on the northern edge of Emu Plains. Hey, do we get to name any of the places on this station? Jonathan and Mandy are naming their paddocks at Sandlot Station.’
‘We have names for the paddocks already. Where’s your kid?’
Ash shrugged as he steered the drone, grinning at the roos running from the noise as it skimmed over treetops and headed for the next trough. ‘He’d be with…’
‘Harper.’
‘Yeah.’ Sweet little Harper. He didn’t know what came over him last night, to stalk her like that, especially when they’d agreed on her terms of employment as the nanny. But she was also a female who’d taunted him in her nightgown last night, alone in the dark.
He had to have another shower—a cold one—after their encounter in the kitchen last night.
But he’d make sure to leave the pantry light on at night from now on, so Harper never had to stumble around in the dark again. He even found some water bottles, which he’d left inside the fridge for her to find, too.
‘Have you seen your son today?’ Ryder’s voice was like cold steel, grating through Ash’s thoughts.
‘Nah. You told me to do the troughs, so I’m doing the troughs.’
‘I also asked you for that list about the troughs.’
‘I’m getting there.’ He was lucky they only had a few troughs to check, because they didn’t have that many cattle. Then he caught a plume of dust rising on the corner of the camera lens. He steered the drone around to discover it was a four-wheel drive coming down the track. ‘Hey, Ryder, we’ve got a car coming.’
‘Who?’
‘No one I know.’
‘I’ll check the cameras are working.’ Ryder’s heavy boot tread moved to the porch table where Dex was throwing back a beer as he rocked in his chair, while Cap sorted out water buckets for the dogs. ‘Cap, it’s testing time for Sarge. We’ve got an incoming car.’
The thick dog chain rattled and clanged as it hit the cement, with the lethal-looking shepherd whining with eagerness to be free.
‘Where’s Mason?’ Cap asked.
Ash shrugged. Harper was right, he was avoiding Mason. But every time he saw the boy an invisible weight crushed his shoulders, making it hard to breathe. Only twenty-four days to go.
Sarge leaped off the verandah and started barking. He was a mean-looking dog with a deep bark.
‘We can presume the boy is with the nanny.’ Ryder picked up his tablet and tapped on the screen. ‘It’s a driver only. Not a cop.’
‘It’s got some government emblem on the sides.’ Ash focused on the small screen in the centre of his handheld controls. He steered his drone to follow the car down their driveway that was as long and straight as an airstrip, filled with deep pockets of bulldust and jagged rivets washed out from the wet season.
‘Hey, can that grader fix the driveway?’ He remembered how Harper’s car had struggled when she’d first arrived. He’d made sure she had her fancy car parked in the shed to protect it from the sun, right next to his ute.
‘The grader would level that driveway like butter. But one job at a time, brother.’ Dex leaned in closer to Ryder, watching his tablet, while Cap watched over his dogs, especially Sarge, who stood in a tough stance in the centre, bristling with muscles. ‘Can you tell what department the car is from?’
‘Nah.’ Ash worked the drone’s dials to zoom in for a closer look. ‘It’s got government plates, too.’
‘Take that drone higher and see if there are any other cars in the area,’ commanded Ryder, sounding like an army sergeant. Ryder had never said what his rank was, or ever talked about his time in the military. He didn’t talk much about anything other than work, rarely sleeping. But without Ryder, they’d never have this place.
‘Will do, boss.’ Ash grinned, pulling back the dials and increased the speed on the drone and it powered over the property. He could hear it now, the bee-like sound growing louder as the drone gave him a superb view of the entire homestead. ‘No way! Did you know there’s a massive vegetable garden at the back of the caretaker’s cottage? And a pizza oven and an outdoor TV.’
‘VISITORS!’ Charlie’s voice carried over from the long shed that stretched out from behind the caretaker’s cottage. The place was deceiving, with that corrugated fence running along two sides.
‘ We know, Charlie. ’ Ryder waved to the elderly caretaker. ‘Charlie is going to give himself a heart attack if he keeps running like that.’
‘Hey, I found the kid.’ Ash smiled at the image projected through the goggles. ‘He’s with Harper and Bree…’ He sighed at the sight of Harper, in her summer dress, shading her eyes as she pointed at the drone, saying something to Bree. Harper was so pretty with her dark hair shimmering like water. Zooming in on the camera lens he panned over her figure.
Then something caught his eye.
‘Oh, no. Bree just pulled out a rifle with a scope.’ He steered the drone out of there fast, while ripping off his goggles to shout from the corner of the verandah. ‘Don’t shoot the drone, Bree! It’s mine.’
Dex chuckled. ‘I’d really like that woman if she didn’t scare me so much.’
Between the barking dogs, the drone’s noisy whirl, it was chaos when the troop carrier arrived.
Cap approached the vehicle, holding on to Sarge’s collar. ‘Can I help you, mate?’
‘I’m a government courier with a delivery for the owners of Elsie Creek Station.’ He held out a large manila envelope.
Ash zoomed the drone’s camera towards the back of the vehicle to find it full of open office crates holding assorted manila envelopes.
‘That’d be me.’ Cap took the envelope.
‘Have a nice day.’ The courier turned the vehicle around and headed back the way it came.
‘What is it?’ Dex asked as Cap ripped open the envelope.
‘You should lock that front gate.’ Charlie huffed and puffed, dragging his boots up the porch.
‘We need to fix it first. And I think we should only lock it when no one is home.’ Ryder tapped away on his tablet. ‘But I’m adding the repairs to the list.’
‘You’re sounding like me, Ryder.’ Ash grinned as he steered the drone high to watch the courier’s dust trail, leading to the main road.
‘No freaking way.’ Cap scowled at the paperwork.
Dex snatched the letter. ‘What the flip! Those mothers—’ He let off a load of expletives.
‘What’s going on?’ Ryder put the tablet back on the table.
Ash landed the drone safely on the dead grass. Scooping it up, he went to join his brothers as they gathered at the table.
‘We’ve been served for water violations and ordered to produce an environmental impact study on the property.’ Dex passed the paperwork to Ryder.
‘What?’ Ash asked.
Charlie pushed back the brim of his hat. ‘You fixed the dam, that’s what.’
‘Now we know why they wrecked it.’ Dex scowled. ‘It’s for the mine.’
‘There is no mine on this side of the highway,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s one on the other side of the highway. But not this side. It’s all cattle country out here.’
‘Well, according to this letter from the government, we’re encroaching on the water rights of some mining lease.’ Ryder dropped the paperwork onto the table and tapped away on his tablet. ‘It’s a new lithium mining lease.’
‘What’s that, a new gold?’ Charlie asked.
‘They use lithium for lithium-ion batteries,’ explained Ash. ‘You’ll find those batteries in nearly all of today’s tech, from phones, computers, electric toothbrushes and power tools, even electric cars. Almost everything that can get recharged has a lithium battery, like Ryder’s tablet there, and my drone.’
‘Please tell me we don’t have a mine setting up shop at our back door?’ Cap dropped into his seat, as the fear grew in his eyes. ‘Mines destroy the land, poison the water, they create a horrible impact on the environment, and on the wildlife—’
‘Calm down, Cap.’ Ryder dragged out his phone. ‘I’ll make a few phone calls and see what we can do.’
‘Well, brothers, we only have a few weeks to comply. Or we’ll be copping fines up to one million dollars or two-thousand dollars. Per. Day.’ Dex tapped on the paperwork.
‘For our own water? You’re kidding.’ Ash snatched up the letter and tried to make sense of the mumbo jumbo. He didn’t read government documents, he read instructions for tech tools. Not this. But he understood it was official, with a very threatening undertone to show they meant business.
‘So now we know who wrecked the dam,’ said Dex. ‘And they’re coming for us.’