Kim tried to process what she’d heard. ‘The sheep . . . did they die straight away?’
Taj shook his head, and held out two empty shell casings. ‘I found these on the ground a hundred metres away, near a faint set of tyre tracks.’
Kim blanched as the full horror hit her. Pity and anger vied for top place. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We have to tell Mel.’
When they arrived at the She-Oak Springs homestead, an unfamiliar Land Rover was parked outside, and Mel’s car was nowhere to be seen. Snow’s barking summoned a woman from the house. She was a few years older than Mel, but the family resemblance was plain: same dark curly hair, same round cheeks. ‘Mel’s away for a while. I’m Nicole, her sister.’
‘It’s very important that I reach her.’ Kim spotted Todd and Grace watching from the back door, and waved.
‘Have you tried her phone?’
Kim nodded. ‘She’s not answering.’
A shadow passed over Nicole’s face. ‘And you are?’
‘Kim Sullivan from next door.’
Her eyes hardened. ‘So you’re the crazy woman from Sydney, who set dingoes loose next to a sheep station.’
Kim took a step backwards. ‘Please, I have to talk to Mel.’
‘You’ve done quite enough damage to my sister already. Mel’s had a hard time this year, what with Geoff leaving and everything. The one bright spot was this new friend who’d moved in next door, with kids the same age. She talked about you all the time, admired you, trusted you – and then you go and stab her in the back.’
‘You’ve got it wrong. Dingoes didn’t kill her sheep.’
‘Like hell they didn’t.’ Nicole’s nostrils flared with anger, and she was suddenly in Kim’s face. ‘You and your mangy dingoes should be shot. Now get the fuck out of here, and take Muhammad with you.’
Taj gently took her arm. ‘Come. This won’t help.’
Nicole sneered. ‘That’s right. Better listen to your muzzie friend.’ She was so close Kim could feel spittle on her cheek.
‘Come,’ Taj urged again.
This time Kim allowed herself to be led away. The barrage of hostility had left her shaken, adding to the dark pit in her stomach when she thought of the sheep slowly dying.
‘I can’t believe she’s Mel’s sister,’ she said once they were safely in the car.
Taj put the ute in gear. ‘Nicole is different to Mel. Her mind is closed. Once she makes it up, she will not be swayed by facts, or truth, or reason.’ His tone was solemn, like he was delivering a much broader wisdom. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
How did he bear it? Muhammad. Muzzie.
‘We should tell nobody about the sheep being shot,’ he said. ‘Not until we can talk to Mel. If she hears it from somebody else, without the evidence or the first-hand account of what I found – she will not believe it.’
‘What about Ben?’
The muscle in his jaw twitched again.
‘Nobody.’
Kim studied his face in profile. Dark, watchful eyes that missed nothing. Unruly hair sweeping back from a high forehead. A square, striking face, full of strength. Inscrutable. That scar. For all their old conversations, which she still missed, in some ways Taj remained as enigmatic as on the day they first met.
‘I bloody well hope Mel doesn’t stay away for too long. I don’t know how long I can stomach living next door to her sister.’
‘I will be away too,’ said Taj. ‘A fencing job north of Taree.’
‘How long?’
‘Two weeks, maybe less. When I get back, we’ll convince Mel together that the dingoes are not a threat.’
Two weeks.
Kim forced a smile she did not feel.
CHAPTER 33
Taj returned to Wolf Hall more concerned than he cared to admit. An article in the paper was a very bad idea, even a balanced account. For every convert, there’d be ten more readers who still saw dingoes as public enemy number one and would want to wage a war against them. A government order to cull the pack was a very real threat.
The maremmas greeted him, tails aloft, soft eyes gleaming. Saber, more aloof than the females, soon returned to his sentry position by the door. Taj knelt down to give Ava and Bibi a hug – both of them pregnant, but not showing yet. They would give birth in the spring. Carla’s pups had sold quickly, and he already had bookings for these new litters, some from interstate. Taj only permitted pups to go to farmers and the demand was strong – elsewhere. Only one pup had sold so far in Tingo. If dingoes and farmers were going to coexist locally, livestock guardian dogs should be part of the mix.
He fed the chickens, collected eggs, and picked some salad greens from the garden. On the way back, he stowed his fencing tools into the ute: wire spinner, strainers, post drivers and ring-lock mesh. The dingoes had been tracking west along a ridgeline into Ben’s place, and he planned to fence off their main access point before leaving for Taree in the morning. Not that they posed a danger to Ben’s full-grown cattle. It was more that Ben posed a danger to them.
Taj prepared a plate of boiled eggs and thick slices of homemade bread for lunch. He didn’t have much of an appetite. The situation with the dingoes wasn’t the only thing bothering him. It wasn’t even at the top of the list. That honour went to Kim, and her growing attachment to Ben Steele. Taj didn’t trust him. He cared for Kim, more than he’d thought it possible to care for a woman again, and he was determined to protect her.
He glanced at the small, framed photo on the wall – a laughing fair-haired woman, with mischief in her eyes. He hadn’t protected Camila. That failure had left him lost and broken for years. He’d cut himself off from friends and family, leaving Nuristan to work with the Australian forces in their fight against the Taliban. High-functioning by day, surrendering to private demons at night. By the time he reached Australia, he’d grown numb: immune to loneliness, and the bigotry and prejudice that sometimes came his way. Compared to the pain of losing Camila, nothing could hurt him. Better to be a log or rock and feel nothing.
Her death still haunted him, poisoning his dreams. Yet here in Tingo, he was healing, slowly coming back to life. He had his animals. He had the wild forests. He had the grand beauty of his adopted mountain home, and the respect and acceptance of the community. Tingo had rescued him, and it could do the same for Kim, if she let it.
Kim. The image of her lovely face and serious blue eyes was never far from his thoughts. Although she didn’t know it, they shared something profound, something he’d recognised in her that first day. They’d both lost parts of themselves. She’d suffered like him, grieved like him, hated like him. Her children had suffered too. Jake, stubborn and proud, full of misguided bitterness. Abbey, elfin and ethereal, too wise for her years. Taj had been drawn to her from the start. If Camila had lived, their child would be the same age.
His admiration for Kim had grown stronger as he came to know her. Here was a woman, beautiful inside and out, who had no idea how special she was. A woman who challenged expectations and acted in defiance of convention. A champion of the wild, supporting the dingo project when nobody else would. He’d never met anyone quite like her, and she deserved better than Ben Steele. The bond growing between them disturbed him beyond measure.
Taj had lived with wild animals for so long he’d developed a sixth sense for danger. Only once had it failed him. Sometimes it was mere intuition, an urge to trust his hunches. Sometimes it came as a visceral spasm, a snake slithering deep in his gut, and it had saved his life more than once. Warning him before a deadly avalanche took out the bridge he was about to ski across. Warning him before armed bandits attacked him on a mountain road. And he’d felt the same belly-clench on that first day, when Ben introduced him to Kim.
His misgivings had strengthened as Ben ever so slowly moved in on her. Using his good looks and charm to ingratiate himself into Kim’s life. Taking advantage of her loneliness. Targeting Jake and his need. Taj had made some discreet enquiries about Ben. There were rumo
urs of dodgy real estate practices: kickbacks, under-quoting, dummy bidders and exorbitant up-front expenses. But nothing concrete.
Ben had no police record. He wasn’t secretly married, although he’d left behind a string of broken hearts. There were no stories about a gambling problem, or drink or drugs. No evidence that Ben was a threat other than the fact that he was a player, the kind of man who found any beautiful, hard-to-get woman an intriguing challenge. At night, Taj could see Kim’s house shining across the valley. Sometimes he’d sit outside with his last coffee before bed, drawn by the light on the hill, waiting for it to go out. His insides twisting at the thought that Ben might be there when it did. His mind drawing troubling pictures.
Was he on a futile witch-hunt, motivated as much by jealousy as anything else? Taj had begun to think so, begun to think that his sixth sense was playing him false. Until that morning, when he received a fascinating text from Hakim. If what his friend said was true, it meant Ben might be dodgy in a way he’d never dreamed of. Taj pushed his half-eaten plate of food away. There was a lot to do before leaving tomorrow. But first he’d head up to the ridge country and build a bloody big fence between Journey’s End and Ben’s land.
It took Taj a week of backbreaking labour to finish the contract fencing job that should have taken two. At last he was free to follow up on that damning text.
His ute rattled into the lumberyard where Hakim worked, the three maremmas on the tray at the back, barking wildly. Valley Saw Mill was a smallish concern: a main mill shed where the sawyers worked, machinery and storage sheds, drying kiln and manager’s office. Taj had seen bigger operations in Nuristan.
He took a look around, savouring the sweet, spicy smell of sap and sawn wood. For a small mill, they held a lot of inventory. Vast stacks of raw logs, all different grades and sizes, stood ready for processing. Further afield lay racks of milled lumber, and piles of woodchips and sawdust. The largest logs were on the left, gnarled forest giants of impressive girth. No plantation trees there.
Taj approached a big-bellied man, who was loading a massive log onto his forklift. ‘Hakim? He’ll be on morning smoko in a minute.’ Taj followed him across to the main shed, where the man dropped the log on the mill, expertly positioning it at the best angle.
An ear-muffed Hakim, who was adjusting logs on the hydraulic saw, looked up and grinned. Then he set the mill to work, squaring off the log, and cutting it into three big beams. The forklift set about moving the milled timber.
Hakim wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘Better than working down a stinking hole, eh?’
The two of them spent a few minutes catching up, then Hakim fetched a thermos of Turkish coffee to share. Taj took a sip of the thick brown brew. ‘So, mister ex-policeman, tell me what you’ve found out about our friend?’
Hakim looked around to make sure nobody was near. ‘To buy trees, the mill needs proof that landholders have the right approvals.’
He took some photocopied forms from his wallet. The first one was a log purchase order from Valley Saw Mill, Widow Road, Poweltown. Under Name of Vendor Landowner it read Ben Steele. PVP/Council Approval Number – PNF-PVP-03903. Then it listed the address of the logged property, species and volume of trees, harvesting area, docket numbers and a seriously impressive purchase price. It was dated a month ago.
‘This form’s dodgy.’ Hakim leaned over. ‘See here, where it says spotted gum and blackbutt? That’s bullshit. Saw the trucks come in myself. They were something different. I’ve never seen logs that size.’
Hakim lit a cigarette. ‘And this Mandanga address on the order doesn’t match the one on the truck-driver’s ticket.’ He showed Ben a crumpled delivery docket: same date, same reference number, same landholder, but showing the pick-up address as Wombat Road, Yarram. ‘Found this in the bin, and then did some snooping. The docket on file’s been doctored.’
‘When did the trees come in? Can I take a look?’
Hakim shook his head. ‘They were processed three weeks ago.’
Taj studied the documents. There was only one conclusion. Ben and the mill were in cahoots, using false addresses and approval numbers on purchase orders for illegally harvested logs. A slow grin spread across his face. ‘You haven’t lost your touch. This is gold.’
Hakim let out a great belly laugh, and slapped him on the back. ‘There could be more where that came from, my friend. Ben Steele is the listed landowner on half-a-dozen more orders.’
‘Could you get hold of them?’
‘No worries.’
‘You might lose your job.’
Hakim shrugged. ‘Plenty of other jobs for me. The bosses all love me. They say Aussies are lazy buggers.’
Armed with this new information, Taj set out to see for himself. First he would visit the property listed on the purchase order, in Mandanga, an hour’s drive north-east of the mill. This was where the logs had purportedly come from. The approval number was legitimate. He’d found it via the online public register, and the location seemed to match. Was Hakim wrong?
Taj arrived at the address before lunch. A crooked gate, and an unremarkable stretch of woodland, dominated by spotted gum and blackbutt, the very species listed on the purchase order. He let the dogs loose, jumped the gate and went for a walk. A few hundred metres in, he came to a logging coupe. Regrowth grew tall here. Friendly yellow robins flitted at his feet. An echidna was demolishing a broad bull ant mound, and the understorey of acacias, palms and cycads was beginning to make a comeback.
Taj spent a few hours exploring. Wherever he went, it was the same. This land hadn’t been logged in several years, which meant the purchase order Hakim showed him was wrong. No consignment of timber had left here last month for the Valley Saw Mill. So where had the logs come from?
Taj whistled the dogs, returning to the car with a spring in his step. Lovely Carla, always so full of joy, leaped up and tugged at his shirt, causing the truck driver’s delivery docket to fall from his pocket. She seized it, tail awag, and deposited it in his hand. ‘Clever Carla.’ He checked the address. ‘Wombat Road, Yarram, here we come.’
The two-hour trip to Yarram took them on a winding journey up the Great Escarpment. As they negotiated the narrow, poorly-graded roads, eucalypt woodlands gave way to pockets of rainforest, which grew more extensive as they climbed. Hairpin bends offered spectacular views across the range. Taj was in his element.
He took an obscure turn-off, driving slowly, concerned the place might be hard to find. But he was wrong: 300 Wombat Road was hard to miss. A broad, bulldozed section swathed through the forest to his right, splintering tallowwood and spindly tea-tree alike. The old stock fence had been ploughed into the ground. The tread of giant tractor tyres had gouged the damp soil into strange, geometric shapes.
Taj parked the car, called the dogs, and followed the mud trail through the rainforest: soaring stands of corkwood, sassafras and booyong, with a smattering of majestic yellow carabeen. This was standard for logging coupes – a buffer zone left standing to shield the destruction from the road. He rounded a kink in the track and stopped dead.
Taj had been prepared for the sight, but it was still heartbreaking. A splintered bombsite of woody debris, churned earth and shattered roots. Levelled pedestals of giant trees, broad as billiard tables, dotted the devastated scene. He’d seen this type of destruction before in Nuristan. Rebel loggers tearing down ancient stands of oak and pine, exposing fragile soils to winter storms, decimating the wildlife and causing farms to be washed away.
Taj spent most of the afternoon exploring the clear-fell, taking notes and photographs, estimating the number of hectares logged. It was eerily quiet. No musical birds in the upper canopy. No wind in the trees, or calling frogs. Just a vast, silent space.
The damage was recent and tallied well with his timeline. Old-growth trees like these were worth a fortune, hard to come by, and large enough to mill big-dollar items like overhead beams for homes, fireplace mantels and solid slabs for high-end conferenc
e tables. This was Ben Steele’s land. It shouldn’t be hard to prove that Hakim’s mysterious logs had come from here, not Mandanga, and that Ben had no approval to harvest them.
Taj took a last look at the dead place where an ancient Gondwanan rainforest had once reigned for thousands of years. Kim needed to know.
CHAPTER 34
‘Time to go.’ Kim popped mandarins into the kids’ lunch boxes. First day of third term, the beginning of their final six months in Tingo. Already she was feeling nostalgic. It was hard to imagine going back to Sydney, but that’s where her work was, and it was time to start planning. She’d need to rent a house with a big backyard for Dusty, and choose a new school for Jake. Daisy hadn’t been happy with Campbelltown High and had switched Stuart to a small, independent college nearby. That could be the perfect choice.
Kim had changed her mind about selling up. She owed Journey’s End too much. It would be a holiday house for now, and later on, who knew? Maybe a permanent home in Tingo was on the cards. They were all so happy here, and Jake was a different boy.
Abbey was more problematic. She remained implacably set against Ben. It would make moving forward difficult, but that’s what Kim wanted to do – move forward with Ben, however slowly, despite Kim moving back to Sydney. See where it led. This time at Journey’s End had changed Kim, helped her see Connor’s death differently. The rainforest on her doorstep burst with an abundance of life, yet death was never far away. Death, decay and rebirth – the circle of life confronted her every day. One thing she knew for sure now – she would not be defined by grief. She wanted to live.
Jake came into the kitchen, dressed and ready in plenty of time. Eager for school. Kim took a photo of her smiling son. What a difference from the sad, angry child of six months ago. ‘Will Todd be there? I haven’t seen him for ages.’
‘I think Todd and Nikki will both be there,’ she said, ‘although Mel’s still away.’ Kim popped a fun-size pack of smarties in the lunch boxes, gave Abbey a hurry-up, and glanced out the window. Another perfect winter’s day, with a sky blue enough to swim around in. She was looking forward to today in every respect but one. Del’s article would be out.
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