Chapter 33 #2
‘Think about it, Montrose. A road train load of wild stock in good nick isn’t what you’d expect to find on a deserted cattle station.’ Not here. And he’d been over this property a few times now.
He crouched at the water’s edge, rinsing the mud from the rifle stock, letting the cool water soak into the grain while his thoughts spun harder than he liked.
Dixby Downs. It all circled back to this place. But what was the connection?
Because that wasn’t just a mob of brumbies wandering in by chance. And Amara’s horse? No way did it belong out here. Yet they all seemed well fed.
‘So, what’s with the rifle? Did someone drop it while hunting?’
‘I don’t think so. Not with this rifle.’ Porter slowly turned the rifle over in the rising light. It was old and heavy. It wasn’t the kind you could buy from a shop, but one that was passed down as an inheritance or given as a gift.
The muzzle was warped—slightly crushed on one side. He ran his thumb along the dented edge, rough and sharp. ‘Hey, does that bend at the tip look like it was crushed? Or bashed against something solid, like it was used as a hammer?’
She peered over his shoulder. ‘Reminds me of the rifle my father destroyed in a rage one day. He bashed it against the low stone fences we had.’
‘Why?’
‘Dad got angry it wouldn’t fire… By then, I’d already hidden all the bullets. He was so drunk he never even checked if it was loaded.’
‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that.’
She shrugged, turning her attention back to the horse, leaning on him to keep the weight off her ankle. ‘Your past makes you who you are today… or something I’d read off a fortune cookie.’
It was enough to lighten the mood some.
He inspected the rifle again. It was plausible that if it got bashed against these rocks, where someone had decided to just leave the damaged rifle here.
Although, it was a good place, where no one would find it.
He ran his fingers along the cracked steel, brushing at the caked mud, until his thumb caught on something—a groove etched into the barrel, faint but unmistakable.
He held it to the light.
Engraving.
Just a few simple words:
Property of Sawyer ‘Seery’ Dixby.
His spine went cold. Siri—but not the way he’d thought it was spelled.
Something clicked.
His case file for the missing overseer had outlined the demise of Dixby Downs station.
Among the many images, an autopsy photo of Rohan Dixby had showed an odd-shaped wound that sat high on the back of the skull, something that was very similar to the distinctive curved depression on the tip of the rifle he was currently holding. ‘Over-seer… Seery.’
‘What did you say?’ Amara hobbled to stand beside him. She read the words slowly, eyes widening. ‘Is Seery…’
‘Sawyer,’ Porter finished. ‘The missing overseer. Only, he’s not missing—he’s been hiding in plain sight.’
‘Are you sure it’s him? In the photo—’
‘What, the bloke with the chipmunk cheeks, triple chin, bleached-blond mop, and the attitude of a rich kid blowing up Daddy’s money?’ Porter had memorised that photo. Hell, the entire case was burned into the back of his brain.
‘We missed it.’
But he shouldn’t have. Although… ‘Sawyer’s dropped a heap of weight. Shaved the beard and cropped his dark hair. That photo in the file—it’s dated. Back when Seery thought peroxide and bad life choices made him invincible.’
Porter glanced towards the scrub, his chest tight now with the onset of rage. ‘That photo showed a man-child who thought he was untouchable. Who we met? That Sawyer was something the bush chewed up and spat out.’
Amara folded her arms. ‘The guy who tried to kill us, you mean?’
He frowned harder, thinking it through.
Sawyer had that rangy, worn-in look. Like the outback had scraped off all the soft edges—which this hostile environment had a habit of doing so easily.
‘He didn’t act like someone missing, did he? It was more like he didn’t want to be found. Which explains why he wanted us out of the picture. We saw him.’
‘I see you now, Sawyer,’ she whispered, repeating Tilly’s words.
Porter looked down at the crushed barrel again. ‘Tilly keeps all her firearms registered. This one can be traced. And if I’m right about what I saw in the coroner’s report…’
He paused, jaw tightening as the pieces fell into place. ‘Tilly’s husband died from blunt-force trauma. A skull fracture. No shots were fired. And where he was found, there were plenty of rocks near the body to create the suspicion that it was the rocks that had done the damage.’
‘Rocks in his head.’ Again, she repeated Tilly’s words.
‘Yeah… But Tilly always said that her husband never left the house without his hat, and it was sitting in his ute...’ It’s what made Tilly suspicious about her husband’s death, refusing to accept it was an accident.
‘Now we have this,’ he said, holding up the rifle, ‘I’d bet my badge that this fits the pattern from the autopsy photo.’
The truth hung there, suspended in the rising heat. This wasn’t just a rifle—it had to be the murder weapon.
Porter stood, eyes on the horizon. No fences. No roads. Just a rifle that was possibly tied to a murder and a hell of a lot of questions he needed to answer. ‘Break’s over. Let’s move, town’s not getting any closer.’