Chapter 37
Thirty-seven
Finn’s troopy bounced along the rough track, its meaty tyres chewing through the bulldust, as the old girl rattled like she might shake apart.
Porter braced a hand on the dash, squinting through the bug-smeared windscreen.
‘Look—tyre marks.’ He jabbed a finger towards the faint tracks veering off-road, weaving between scattered holes. ‘I know they belong to that Ram.’ Porter had that tyre’s tread pattern imprinted on his brain, from chasing ghosts.
Only now this ghost was real, and not too far ahead.
Dust rose behind them as Stone’s chopper swept wide across the brutal sunlight. Porter cracked the window, allowing the scents of dry grass and diesel to fill the cab, when he noticed something unusual on the land. ‘Slow down. This isn’t just scrub, it looks freshly dug out.’
Finn pulled up the troopy, engine idling, as the red rocky outcrop known as Tilly’s Crown loomed ahead.
Porter scrambled out to crouch beside the nearest hole. It was wide, shallow, and messy. ‘They’re empty.’
‘You reckon he’s out here digging for gold?’
Porter didn’t want to think about how Sawyer had nearly buried them alive.
But then it clicked.
The pickaxe and tin buckets he’d seen in the back of the Ram, the shovel he’d felt hit the back of his head.
‘It’s for the Deed.’ Porter turned, his eyes sweeping the landscape, realising he was standing in a field of holes, all leading towards the base of the hill.
‘To what?’
‘The land deed to Dixby Downs station. Apparently, Rohan Dixby buried them somewhere…’ He peered around.
‘When I was doing my research on this place, a few of the retired stockmen at the Lodge told me that Rohan had renamed that hill Tilly’s Crown.
It’s where he proposed to Tilly—said he felt like a king when he took in the view from the top.
’ And Porter understood the value of that special place among the earth and sky.
He was lucky he had a few. Amara’s mother, she chose one as her final resting place.
Porter pointed to the mound rising from the sunburnt land. ‘That hill of rock is the centre of this station. And if Rohan Dixby buried the deed to Dixby Downs, this would be the place.’
Shading his hand over his eyes, he took in the hill that was nothing more than a dome of red rock that jutted out of the scrub like a jagged-edged crown.
Wind-scoured and sunbaked, a scattering of spindly gums clung along its upper ridges.
The rock face shimmered in the heat, its deep crevices casting shadows etched by water trails and time.
At its base stood towering ghost gums—and something else, tucked in like a tick.
‘There’s a caravan hidden under that tarp. ’
Finn lifted his binoculars. ‘Perfect for someone wanting to stay mobile if he’s been hiding from people.’
‘Rumour has it Sawyer’s on the run from people he owes money to.’
‘Must be big dollars.’
‘His mother, Tilly, said he was trying to sell the place to pay back the debt. But with the deed missing that wouldn’t be possible.’
‘Explains the digging.’ Finn lowered his binoculars and nodded. ‘I see your Ram. It’s parked up on the other side of that caravan. Let’s go.’
Porter climbed back into his seat, reaching for a water bottle. Was that four or five, now? ‘How do you want to play this? He would’ve seen our dust by now.’
‘Yeah—but I bet he doesn’t know this is a cop car. And I don’t look like no cop.’
Not with all that heavy ink covering Finn’s hands and neck.
‘You know, I’ve heard Izzy say you look like you’d run a drug cartel.’ Porter grinned over the lip of his water bottle, tugging out the shiny foiled sheet of pills tucked into the middle console. Paracetamol.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’ Porter swallowed a couple of pills, ignoring the glare from Finn—guessing they were part of Amara’s stash to keep her grumpy boss functioning.
Finn slammed his troopy into gear. ‘We’ll act like a couple of gold prospectors. Or land surveyors, doing a job for the owner.’
‘Sawyer’s seen me before, remember? Shovel to the back of the head to bury me alive.’ And Porter wanted some payback.
‘Got a spare sidepiece in the glovebox. Arm up, duck down, and get ready to run.’ Finn snatched up the mic and keyed the radio.
‘Marcus, hold back and swing left. We’re coming up on a concealed caravan, and our red Ram, at the base of the hill.
Come in slow to not stir up the dust. We don’t want to spook him. ’
The radio crackled and Marcus’s voice came over the speakers. ‘Copy that. I see the van.’
Finn glanced skyward. ‘Stone, give us a break from the rotor wash. Pull back for now. We’ll call you in if he bolts or as soon as we have him.’
‘Roger that,’ Stone replied, his chopper already veering off.
Finn hung the mic back on the dash and looked at Porter. ‘Let’s go meet our digger.’
The trip was short and slow, the troopy easing to a stop behind a low-lying cluster of scrub and rubble, heavy with foliage to conceal the vehicle’s bottom half.
Dust hung thick in the heat, swirling like smoke. As the engine ticked, the only other sound was the faint whir of Stone’s chopper banking west.
Porter squinted through the haze. ‘Looks quiet.’
Finn rested his forearms on the wheel, scanning ahead. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’
‘With my luck of late?’ Porter huffed as he slapped the mag home and racked the slide like it was his own gun. Locked and loaded. I’ll see you soon, Seery.
‘There he is. On the rise to the far right…’ Finn’s lips twitched, but his eyes stayed sharp. ‘I’ll go in slow. Hear what this Seery’s got to say before you scare him into the next territory.’
Porter cracked his neck, settling down into position. ‘I’m not normally the scary one.’ But today, he’d make an exception.
Sawyer stood on a small rise, leaning on a shovel. Red dust and sweat streaked his long-sleeved stockman’s shirt. His pale blue eyes were shaded by the hat brim, but they were the same eyes as his mother’s, trying to size up the situation—just like Tilly.
Finn left his stockman’s hat on the dash, sleeves rolled higher, exposing ink and muscle all on full display.
He stepped out of the troopy like a bloke who’d settle things with fists before words. Prison did that to a man. Left a mark you couldn’t always see, but it followed him like dust on his boots.
It had Sawyer’s attention, creating enough of a distraction for Porter to move out of the troopy. Staying low, smooth and silent, he crouched behind the bull bar, looking for the perfect place to back up Finn.
As Finn’s boots crunched over the dusty gravel, Sawyer stiffened. Still leaning against the shovel, but now both hands gripped the handle as he squinted into the light.
‘You Rickson’s guy?’ Sawyer called down. ‘Come to collect.’
‘Depends. Are you gonna make my job easy? Or do I play prospector and start digging around like a blind wombat looking for gold?’ Finn jerked a thumb towards the scattered holes in the opposite direction, allowing Porter to move. ‘Hell, even an echidna would’ve given up by now.’
Sawyer swallowed. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I was getting the money together. Just needed more time. But then that flamin’ horse got sold from under me. I was owed that one, but then it got auctioned!’
‘Livestock auction?’
‘Yeah, wasn’t meant to be there that long when I dropped it off. But it ended up on the list and got sold.’ He jabbed the shovel into the dirt beside him. ‘Took me a week to find it again. Bloody hassle it was.’
Well, that’d explain Tempest’s situation. Porter, paused, low and silent, having crept along the far side, listening to every word.
‘You’ve got it back now?’ Finn was cool as hell, no doubt from his experience as an undercover cop.
Sawyer nodded eagerly. ‘Yeah-yeah. I’m just waiting on the pick-up.
It should settle the score, right?’ He was sweating now.
‘You tell Rickson that. I’ll have a chunk of change for him as soon as the Stock Agent brings in the truck.
And that horse, it’s a pretty one too…’ Sawyer exhaled heavily, full of nerves as he wiped off his sweaty brow.
‘Sounds like you want to keep it.’
‘Nah. Not when them idiots had him down as Lot 728 in the livestock auction.’ Sawyer let out a dry, bitter laugh. ‘Should’ve known to steer clear of that flamin’ number. It’s like fate kicking me in the guts all over again.’
‘Why?’ Finn asked, taking that step closer.
Sawyer shifted, as if suddenly uncomfortable now. ‘728—seventy-two thousand, eight hundred. That’s what I owed Rickson after he doubled the interest on me for being late on that payment.’
But Sawyer then paused.
So too did Porter, as the air seemed to hold still like a hellish oven kicking into high range.
‘Wait…’ Sawyer’s eyes narrowed at Finn. ‘You’re asking why?’
Finn lifted one brow, slow and deliberate.
Sawyer stepped back instinctively, dragging his shovel with him. ‘You don’t work for Rickson, do you?’
Finn didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Sawyer’s eyes darted to the caravan, the tarp, troopy, and the ridge. Then he ran.
Porter exploded from cover. Dust flew as he launched forward, boots hammering the dirt.
‘Move in!’ Finn barked into his radio. ‘Suspect is fleeing. I repeat, Move in!’
Sawyer had barely cleared five metres before Porter tackled him from behind, bringing him down hard into the dirt with a bone-jarring thud.
They rolled across the rubble with limbs tangling and boots kicking—until Porter reared back and drove a fist into Sawyer’s gut.
‘That’s for hitting me over the head with a shovel,’ he growled, slamming another punch into Sawyer’s ribs. ‘That’s for scaring the hell out of Amara, burying her car, and stealing her horse.’
He hit him again—straight in the jaw. ‘No one upsets that woman on my watch.’
‘Porter!’ Finn’s voice cut through the moment like a blade. ‘That’s enough. He’s down.’
Porter’s chest heaved, fighting for control against that primal instinct to punish the man who’d dared hurt Amara on so many levels.