Heart of the Outback

by Lynne Wilding

  Thinking of the flight ahead he decided on an extra hearty breakfast to fortify himself so he added two extra rashers of bacon and a third slice of toast to his plate. “Takeoff time is zero nine hundred hours.”

  Hearing his terse tone, Natalie’s mouth tightened slightly and her gaze ran over him with clinical precision. Heeled boots, jeans, a lightweight checked shirt rolled up above the elbows. Typical jackeroo garb, but she also knew he could dress differently, smartly, when the occasion arose. It was the coldness in his eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw that amused and at the same irritated the hell out of her. He was an unforgiving bastard, that was for sure. So they’d had a major difference of opinion. It hadn’t been the first time they’d disagreed on something but when, in the past, they’d forgiven and forgotten, today after many weeks they remained alienated.

  Natalie arched an eyebrow at him. “That’s aviation talk for 9 a.m., isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, just try to be ready,” he said sourly. “You know CJ hates to be kept waiting.”

  A silent Shellie, hearing the harsh edge in Les’ voice, tried to remember him as she’d first met him: a sixteen-year-old who had turned up at the homestead begging for a job. Tall and skinny, clothes worn and patched, the station hands had joked that a strong puff of wind would blow him over. An unwanted, unloved, damned stray cat. That’s what CJ had said about him. But in some indefinable way Les had struck a sympathetic chord with her hard-nosed brother, and CJ had given the teenager a chance to prove himself. Les had.

  Ten years older than Richard Ambrose, Les had also become his and Natalie’s unofficial brother and it was he, not CJ, who had taught Richard all he’d needed to know about raising and driving cattle and running a station as large as Murrundi Downs. The two had camped out and had gotten drunk together, even holidayed overseas together and unashamedly been best friends, in spite of the age gap or the difference in their circumstances.

  A loner by nature, Shellie recalled when Les had fallen in love with the first girl who’d given him a kindly smile. His marriage to Nancy O’Shea had been a disaster. CJ built a small cottage for Les and his wife to live in, at the back of the homestead, but Nancy couldn’t adjust to the harshness of life on the land. Two years and many arguments later, she and their baby son, Mark, had left to live in Brisbane. The resulting divorce had been amicable. Nancy had happily remarried but Shellie knew that Les missed his son. He saw him as often as he could and, occasionally, Mark came to the station for school holidays. Since the divorce Les had devoted himself to becoming CJ’s right-hand man, his CEO, and now he knew as much about CJ’s business empire as CJ did.

  Les had taken Richard’s death hard and afterwards he seemed different, harder, less patient, especially towards Natalie.

  “Speaking of waiting,” Shellie muttered a little crossly, “if CJ doesn’t hurry up and appear for breakfast, I’ll have to reheat everything.”

  “You spoil him,” Natalie said. “I doubt you’d bother reheating breakfast for Les or me, but when CJ says jump,” she added slyly, “you ask ‘how high’?”

  “Cute, but not very original,” Les grunted from across the table. He folded yesterday’s newspaper back and continued to read as he munched his way through his enormous breakfast.

  “There he is.” Natalie pointed towards the hedge on the far side of the pool as CJ came into view. Her gaze narrowed, and focused totally on him as he approached the verandah.

  At fifty-nine CJ cut an impressive figure. Not overly tall and with his hair thinning and greying, he nevertheless walked with the gait of a man who had supreme confidence in himself. He wore locally made embossed cowboy boots — something of a trademark with him — and off-white moleskins held up by a plaited leather belt with a pewter buckle. A hand-tailored, crisply ironed blue denim shirt showed the breadth of his shoulders and chest, making him look the archetypal man on the land.

  CJ was the only man Natalie deWitt-Ambrose feared. Not physically but for the power he could wield. Over the years he had accumulated great wealth and power from his own hard work and her mother’s inheritance. She’d watched him break politicians who’d opposed him, undercut tenders to get what he wanted; he had dealt with criminal elements and generally wreaked economic havoc on others to get his own way. Success had come to him like a dutiful magnet and Australian as well as international businessmen and companies courted him with due reverence. He was what her friend, journalist Trish Pentano, called a financial enigma of mega-watt proportions. She smiled smugly to herself as he sat beside her at the table. One day all that CJ Ambrose owned would be hers.

  “How’s everyone this morning?” CJ asked with unusual affability. Since Richard’s death he had had to force himself to be pleasant and civil, even to these three people who were closest to him.

  “Fine,” Shellie said as she poured him a cup of coffee.

  “Great,” Les Westcott answered. He folded the newspaper in half and put it on the cane coffee table so that he could give CJ his full attention. “I’ve been to the bunkhouse and given the crews their orders for the next few days. That new foreman, Mike Hunter, seems to know his stuff. Gets on well with the men too.”

  “Good. What about Lisa in the office? Did you tell her I wanted the report on that Hong Kong deal faxed to me as soon as it comes through?”

  “Sure did. It should be at the Hilton by the time we reach Cairns.”

  “I’m coming to Cairns too, CJ,” Natalie put in with a defiant glare at Les.

  “That’s fine.” CJ paused to look his stepdaughter up and down. He frowned. “Natalie, haven’t I said before that you should come to the table dressed. Swimmers and a see-through robe aren’t appropriate.”

  “Usually I do get dressed, but this morning Shellie brought breakfast out early, just after I’d finished my swim. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

  “Well, I mind. What if we had guests? Business people?”

  She made a moue and smiled at him. “Maybe you’d cut the deal faster. Most businessmen are susceptible to a pretty woman, you know,” she said cheekily.

  “Is that how you do your business deals,” Les questioned, “in a bikini and robe? No wonder you’re so successful.”

  CJ’s frown deepened. “Don’t start, you two.”

  Like Shellie and the considerable complement of staff that made up Murrundi Downs station, CJ was aware of the tension between Les and Natalie. He didn’t know the cause or need the aggravation, not after losing Richard. Somehow, with Richard around to act as a buffer and a natural peacemaker, the two had managed to get on. Both strong personalities, without the gentler influence of his son, their true natures were coming out.

  Shellie began to fuss, rattling the plates as she put the used ones back on the tray. “I’ll go warm the eggs up.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m not hungry. Fresh toast will do,” CJ told her curtly. He gave his sister a sharp look, and wondered if she’d been tippling. It was unusual for her to get stuck into the grog this early in the morning, but having Natalie around tended to make her more nervous than usual. He knew that his sister rarely got drunk, but by midafternoon these days one expected her to have a glow up. She’d never gotten over her husband Peter leaving her for a younger, more beautiful woman, so CJ’d brought her here when Brenda’s cancer had got too much to handle and she had stayed on. Though he secretly admitted to a certain fondness for his only sibling, her weakness, as he called it, often made him respond sharply to her.

  Dismissing the irritation of his sister from his mind, he clapped his hands for attention. “You know, we’ve all been in the doldrums since Richard…” there was no need to finish the sentence. “I’ve been thinking lately that the property needs sprucing up. We’re running out of space here. When Brenda designed the house she didn’t allow for entertaining important dignitaries, foreign businessmen or,” he glanced at Natalie, “half-a-dozen friends at a time. And, frankly, I’m getting tired of running around to business meetings in Cairns and Brisbane.”


  “What do you mean? You want to pull the house down and build another?” Les asked. This was the first spark of interest in anything from CJ for weeks. He recognised the particular gleam in his eyes. Thank God, he was coming out of his grief.

  “No. I want to do some additions to the main house but I’m thinking of building a mini conference centre here, complete with accommodation. Top inclusions, state of the art electronic technology. That sort of thing. Then I can have interstate and international business people come to me. We’ve got the Lear jet and the airstrip to fly them in and, after the business is done, we’ll show them some outback hospitality. I reckon they’ll eat it up and,” his features turned crafty, “we’ll clinch the business side of things faster.”

  “Build it. Where?” Natalie asked, her eyebrow arching at what she considered an odd idea. A conference centre at Murrundi Downs. CJ was losing it, for sure.

  “We’ve plenty of land. About two hundred and fifty thousand square kilometres of it.” He turned to Les. “When we’re in Cairns I want you to check out a few architects there, and Brisbane too. We’ll fly them up and they can give us a design and a price.”

  Les beamed. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Shellie smoothed her lightweight frock over her stomach and didn’t say anything, but she thought about her brother’s new project. To her all it meant was more work. Jesus Christ, wasn’t there a limit?

  The man tipped the brim of his hat forward to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun while he waited. A liberal coating of insect repellent on his face and arms kept most of the annoying buggers at bay. Resting on his haunches in the shade afforded by the police department’s four-wheel drive, Sergeant Steve Parrish took a notebook out of his shirt pocket. He opened it and read again what had been taken down by Constable Smith on 28 February, 1996, the date of Richard Ambrose’s death.

  Accidental death had been the coroner’s finding but as he read the constable’s notes, taken in a rush, his imagination filled in the gaps. Trampled to death. What a bloody awful way to die. God knows, during his time in the force, first in NSW and now in Queensland, he’d seen more variations on ways to die than one would have thought possible. He could even feel a glimmer of pity for CJ Ambrose, but felt far more for his son with whom he’d had a passing acquaintanceship.

  Brown eyes studied the harsh country around him. A line of short gums and scrubby bushes grew around the edge of the waterhole and along the flat where the water went underground. He’d heard that if one was desperate one could dig down, maybe a metre or two and find running water. He hoped he’d never have to. When he’d first been appointed to the Mt Isa station, the country and the weather had been difficult to get used to. Policing here was a world removed from the homicide and narcotics squad in Sydney. But the realities — death — were just as harsh.

  For the umpteenth time that day his left hand reached into his back pocket for the packet of cigarettes usually there, only to remember that last week he had decided to quit. Damn, he ached for a bloody cigarette, something to do to pass the time. He closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket. Nothing to do but wait.

  In the distance a horse and rider approached. Steve glanced down at his watch. Ten to three. Right on time. He shook his head in silent admiration. How did the blacks do it? Billy Wontow said he’d be here at three o’clock and he would be. He figured that the man didn’t wear a watch or listen to a radio but he could tell what time it was, with precision, from the movement of the sun across the sky. A neat trick, that was for sure.

  “How’s it going, Steve?” Billy called as he reined in next to the four-wheel drive.

  “Bloody hot, even if it is winter.”

  Billy grinned at him. “Pretty nice if you ask me.” He dismounted, threw the horse’s reins loosely over the vehicle’s bull bars and rested on his haunches beside the larger man. “Don’t like coming to this place no more.” Dark eyes studied the waterhole and surrounding land. “Bad spirits here now, since …”

  “I understand, mate. We both know what the coroner’s findings were but I just want to go over it again —”

  “Did that with Constable Smith. Twice,” Billy said matter-of-factly with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “I know. I’ll feel happier about closing Richard’s file if we go over it one last time. Where was the campfire? Could you show me?”

  Billy squinted. He stood up and took a good look around. “Not much left to see. Cattle ran over everything. Almost got me too, the buggers.” He walked around for a while kicking at stones, moving the earth with his booted foot. “Here,” he dropped to one knee. “Charred tree branch. Been moved by the stampede though. Reckon the fire was about here.” He moved again, closer to the waterhole and planted the charred stick in the red earth.

  Steve Parrish followed him, reading from the notebook. “Richard got on his horse first, right?”

  “I didn’t have time to saddle mine. Just had the bridle. Got on and took off around the far side of the mob. Might have been able to stop ’em if it wasn’t for the third shot. That made ’em all crazy.”

  “Did you see Richard go down?”

  “No. Could hardly see anything for the dust. I knew something bad had happened when there was no sign the cattle had turned away from the water. Had to scramble out of the way, up the rise on the hill, or I’d been a goner too.”

  Steve Parrish made a note in his own book and then chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pen. Obviously, the catalyst for the stampede had been the rifle shots but exhaustive questioning around town and on adjoining properties had proved fruitless. No-one had seen or heard of any strangers or tourists on hunting trips.

  “Can you recall the timing of the shots? How far apart they were?”

  “You kidding me, aren’t you?” Billy’s dark features expressed his derision at the question. “Richard and I were scrambling to turn the mob, then just to stay alive. No bloody way I can remember how far apart the shots came.”

  Steve smiled. It had been a dumb question but he’d had to ask it in an attempt to satisfy his own curiosity. “Okay. The direction of the shots? North, south, east, west?”

  Billy shook his head in exasperation. “Jeez, you’re asking a lot of a bloke’s memory.” Then he went very still. He closed his eyes and his right hand came up to stroke his forehead. For maybe half a minute he stood like a sentinel, unaware of the man near him, oblivious to the insects buzzing around his face. “West. Maybe south-west.”

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as a bloke who was scared shitless could be,” he quipped back with a grin. “What you want to know all this for? The young boss is gone, the old boss is getting used to him not being around. You not gonna stir up trouble, are you?”

  “Just doing my job, Billy, that’s all.”

  Steve could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising and knew it had nothing to do with the weather. Something didn’t feel right. He pulled his hat off and ran his fingers through black, neatly cut hair. Was he being overly suspicious for no logical reason? Circumstances and the coroner’s report pointed to the stampede and Richard’s death being an unfortunate accident. And who — if one took the opposite point of view that it was planned — would want Richard Ambrose dead? As far as he knew the young man hadn’t had an enemy in the world.

  Steve Parrish had thirteen years police training and experience behind him. Ten years in the NSW Police Service during which time he’d risen to the rank of detective sergeant and served in a variety of squads, including homicide, narcotics, vice and police rescue. He’d transferred to Queensland and had worked for three years at Mt Isa, where he was now one of the station’s most senior officers.

  “You finished with me, Steve?” Billy shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Don’t like this place.”

  “Yes. Thanks for your cooperation, Billy.” He shook his hand and put his hat back on.

  “You going now?”

  “Not yet. I’m goin
g to walk up to the top of the western ridge.”

  “Why you wanta do that?” Billy’s curiosity got the better of him.

  Steve wasn’t sure. “It’s the highest place to view the waterhole.”

  Billy shook his head uncomprehendingly. “Okay, Steve. See you around. Maybe you come out to Murrundi soon.”

  “Maybe. Thanks, Billy.”

  He watched the stockman swing into the saddle and ride away then he turned towards the western slope. By the time Steve walked up the incline covered with loose rocks, low growing bluebush and saltbush and the odd termite hill, he regretted his decision to get to the top. Sweat glistened on his forehead below the line of his hat, and damp stains under the armpits of his fawn police shirt had formed. Still, the view was better, in fact, perfect.

  Looking down he could see the waterhole, and because there’d been no rain or strong winds to erase anything, a multitude of cattle tracks sparking off in about six directions. How they’d scattered after they’d been spooked could be clearly seen. Yes, all very straightforward.

  Curious, he began to wander about, checking the view of the waterhole from several different positions. The ground was dry and hard, with sproutings of acacias and mulga scrub, and the few spindly eucalypts afforded little shade from the sun. His gaze dropped to the earth and in a long dried up puddle he saw the impression of a horseshoe. Interesting. Billy Wontow hadn’t ridden in from the west, Murrundi Downs station lay due south. But someone had, and a while ago. And then … a chance kick of a rock unearthed what he had been subconsciously looking for. Something caught the sunlight and glinted up at him.