Chapter 37 #2
But he was a lawman, too. He believed the law would bring them the right kind of justice.
Wiping his bloody knuckles across Sawyer’s heaving chest, Porter grabbed him by the shirt to drag the cretin upright. ‘You’re under arrest, arsehole, for attempted murder, assaulting police and a shovel-load of other charges.’
And then both officers realised at the same time—
‘No cuffs.’
Finn swore under his breath. ‘The constable always keeps hers on her vest and usually hands them to me. You’ve got yours?’
Porter shook his head. ‘Mine are back at the station, with the rest of my uniform.’
‘We’ll make do. Find something to tie his damn hands until backup gets here.’ Finn scanned the camp and spotted a stash of feed bags and blue hay bale twine. ‘There. That’ll do.’
Porter grabbed a coil, yanked it free, and looped it tight around Sawyer’s wrists. ‘Don’t move.’ He gave the knot an extra pull, not caring if he cut off Sawyer’s circulation. ‘I don’t trust this twine.’
‘It’s only temporary. Marcus will have cuffs or something.’
They hauled Sawyer like a sack, with the toes of his boots dragging through the dirt, and dropped him in the shade against the side of the caravan.
The chopper landed with a thud of rotors and red dust. Stone was crouched over, wearing his Federal Stock Squad vest, as he jogged towards them, while signalling at Romy to wait in the chopper.
Marcus rolled up in the police ute, door banging shut as he strode over and pointed at the dirt holes punched through the earth like a minefield. ‘What’s he digging for?’
‘The title to a twenty-two-million-dollar station,’ said Porter as he glared at Sawyer.
‘Your mother told me what the place was worth, and lots of stories about you. Tilly never believed you were dead. But we can see you’ve been using this station for your own personal gain—while your mother’s been hiding in town for her own safety. ’
Sawyer chuckled as he shuffled sideways, like a crab, squatting in the dirt. ‘You think this is about land? This is about survival. My father left me with nothing but debts and enemies when he died.’
‘You killed your own father,’ Porter said flatly. ‘I know you did. I found the rifle you used, too.’
‘Bull.’
‘Old rifle in the mud by the waterhole. Got your name engraved on it and everything. It’s why we’re here… Go on, be a man and admit it.’
‘Fine.’ He stuck out his grubby chin. ‘That old bastard had it coming. He should’ve just signed off on the loan—cleared my debt.
But no. He just rambled on about how this land hadn’t carried a mortgage in generations.
The Dixby family legacy... So what was I to him, then?
’ Sawyer shook his head, with a bitter snarl curling his lip.
‘I was just the overseer who didn’t have a say in anything.
The head stockman carried more weight than me around here. ’
Sawyer then peered around with his face screwed up as if smelling something foul.
‘There wasn’t even a bloody will,’ he muttered.
‘Not that I saw. Everything just defaulted to Mum—the wife. She walked away with the lot. Moved into town like the bloody queen and left the station to rot. She was the one who shut the gates and locked me out.’
Porter snorted. ‘Mate, you were the one playing ghost. You made out to the world you were the one missing.’
Sawyer shifted on the dirt, wrists flexing in the zip ties. ‘Missing? No. I was working. This land’s mine—I just needed proof.’
Porter didn’t buy it. Seery hadn’t just gone bush to dig holes, he’d been hiding. Most likely from debt collectors, the kind who’d happily fill those holes for him.
Sawyer’s gaze focused on the ground, head slowly shaking. ‘But if I’d found that deed, this land would’ve been mine. I’d then sell it to pay back debts, and leave.’
‘What about your mother?’ Porter liked Tilly.
‘What about her?’ Sawyer’s voice held no remorse. Even with his lip swelling, with blood drying from his nose, he was as cold as his light blue eyes.
Finn briskly asked, ‘And the horse—Lot 728? You stole it to trade off the debt?’
‘It was never meant to go to auction. Red was supposed to intercept it—swap the ID and reroute it, like we did with all the other stock. But someone put it on the auction list.’
Finn froze. ‘As in Grady Red Galloway? The Stock Agent?’
Sawyer gave a slow, greasy smile. ‘Yeah Don’t get too happy, Red’s just the middleman. But he’s as crooked a stock agent as you’ll ever get. How you lot never noticed, shows you how good he is.’ He beamed up at them like a spoiled brat, expecting some adult to pat him on the head.
‘So I’m guessing if Red is that clever,’ said Finn, ‘he’d have his arse well and truly covered, where he’ll just let you take the fall.
It’ll be your word against his—and with the evidence we have against you, Sawyer, it’ll all fall on you.
That’s enough for an early retirement in a comfy six-by-nine concrete room with bars for that cosy window view. ’
That wiped off the smile off Sawyer’s face.
‘That’s how the game is played. Your work for Red—’
Sawyer scowled. ‘Only coz Red made a deal with Rickson over my debt, just so I’d play Red’s game.’
‘Which is?’
‘As overseer. Babysitting Red’s livestock, with him only giving me enough to drip-feed Rickson’s interest rates…
But then that horse, Lot 728, it was gonna pay it all off.
’ Sawyer sighed, shaking his head, his shoulders rolling, with hands still tied behind his back.
‘But I should have known it was too good a story. Not when Red needs me here… That mongrel sold me out. Told him so at that smancy ball. He was mad at me for stealing that horse back—said it belonged to a cop.’
Porter’s hands curled tight, the anger flaring in his chest. He sneered as he said through gritted teeth, ‘Yeah, it did.’
Marcus dropped a heavy hand on Porter’s shoulder, pulling him back behind him where Porter paced the dirt to reel in his temper.
‘I may be Red’s puppet, but there’s someone higher up pulling Red’s strings.’ Sawyer gave a greasy sneer, the chuckle just as oily.
‘Do you know their name?’ Finn crouched before the cretin.
Sawyer laughed. ‘Oh, I’ve said enough, don’t you think, mate?
You want more, well it’s not for free. No, siree.
Dead men don’t tell secrets with that mob, you know.
Look what they did to Dane Carter. To that Renzo fella, too.
And if that techie, Bastion, didn’t decide to dance with the crocodiles, he would’ve been next. ’
All names that Porter remembered through Amara, when she talked about the Stock Squad cases as he carried her across the outback.
The Rough Stock Case had Dane Carter and Renzo involved in stealing prime rodeo animals for genetic materials.
The Cold Stock Case was all about stolen crocodiles that involved the vet-technician Bastion.
All three men were linked to stolen genetic material from highly prized animals. All three now dead.
‘You knew Bastion?’ called out Stone.
‘The techie, yeah. Did the genetic stuff. Embryos, DNA, semen and whatnot, all in them fancy high-tech canisters.’
‘Were they cold?’ Stone asked. ‘Cryogenic canisters?’
‘Yeah. That’s what I heard ‘em call it. They looked like smaller welder’s gas bottles.’
‘How many?’
‘Heaps of ‘em.’ Sawyer shrugged. ‘But you’d have to ask Bastion—oops. You can’t.’
Porter wasn’t sure what was going on with the Stock Squad, but the look on Stone and Finn’s face said it all. It was big.
‘If you want me to talk, well, I need a helluva lot of assurances that I doubt you’ll be able to cover.’
‘See this…’ Finn held out his federal badge. ‘This gives me licence to do a lot of things, but at this stage, you’re not walking out of here, Sawyer.’
‘No, but I might be running.’ Sawyer’s wrists snapped forward—the twine cut clean by a small, jagged shard of glass from a smashed beer bottle that flashed in his grip.
‘Dammit!’ They’d missed it.
Porter lunged for him, but slippery Sawyer rolled underneath the caravan to burst out the far side, kicking up red dust as he vanished into the rocks.
‘Go go go!’ Marcus shouted and everyone scrambled.
Porter’s dress boots skidded on loose gravel as he bolted after Sawyer, chasing him into a crack within the hill itself. A narrow corridor with walls of cool stone, so steep they hid the sun.
The shade deepened like a tunnel as it hugged the narrow track, slick with algae and moss growing along the drip line.
He slipped—slammed his knee on a rock, catching himself on a slab of sandstone, with his knuckles scraping and his fingers desperate for a hold.
It was worse than being on ice with no skates.
But he kept going.
The tunnel twisted as he chased after the echoing footfalls ahead, where he saw daylight.
Porter burst through the gap into a wash of brutal sunshine but hit the slope wrong. His boots skidded on loose rock, and he slammed into the ground, shoulder-first. Sharp pain speared through his arms as he rolled over gravel and dry grass in a dress shirt that had seen better days.
He landed hard, with the wind knocked clean out of him.
His sunburnt skin screamed against the scratches while dirt and stones embedded into his skin.
At the base of his skull, the dull throb he’d been ignoring since Sawyer’s shovel cracked him, flared into a full-blown roar.
Bleeding again, he was now seeing stars.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to black out.
Even so, he didn’t stop. He rolled over to his knees, as the familiar sounds of a quad bike kicked over.
The engine soon bellowed to life, and Sawyer spun the rear tyres in Porter’s direction.
A spray of gravel and grit exploded across Porter’s face and chest, completely blinding him as he rolled to shield himself.
By the time Porter rolled over to blink furiously from the sunlight that was still too sharp for his eyes—Sawyer was gone.
Dammit.
Porter wiped the scraps of what was a left of his shirt’s sleeve across his face, and spat dirt, forcing his vision to focus—
And froze.
Ahead of him stood a group of portable holding yards, with a camouflaged shade over the top, to hide it from the air, holding more than just some prime cattle.
Banteng.
No doubt a goldmine on hooves.
Finn’s boots crunched on the gravel behind him, as he spoke over the radio, ‘Stone, take Porter back to town to grab Craig and the Hellhound—we’ll need our best trackers on the job. Sawyer’s on the run, and we’ve got a paddock full of evidence soaking up some sun.’
Porter didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Sawyer could run—but Porter was damn well going to chase him to the ends of the Territory if that’s what it took. He was not done with Sawyer Dixby.