Dave continued to stare as the tiny black eyes looked back at him and the tongue flicked in and out. Gradually it started to move away, one large clawed foot in front of the other, leaving deep indentations in the red soil. The tail slowly drifted from side to side as it swaggered along.
It would’ve been so great if Melinda had been able to see that, he thought. Then it struck him. Melinda wouldn’t have wanted to see it. She would’ve jumped and squealed and clambered up onto the back of the ute. That was if he’d been able to get her out into the bush in the first place. He’d tried a few times to organise a camping trip with her, but she’d always made excuses not to go.
Dave stood up and grabbed a bottle of water out of the esky, gulping at the liquid, then he poured some over his head and went back to the axe.
‘Are you a real bushie?’
He didn’t know where the question came from. It just appeared in his mind.
‘What if someone asks?’
The question was a good one.
Deciding he needed to brush up on a few skills, he followed the trail of the goanna, tracking it.
He walked alongside the tracks, noticing the way the claws sunk into the soil and left a deeper mark than the pad. The tail also left an S-shaped mark, so while the goanna was on dirt he was easy to track; not so easy when he went over heavily barked terrain. Dave had to stop and look carefully at the leaves and bark to see if he could work out if they’d been shifted in a way that looked like a swish from a tail. In one spot he could work it out, but from that point he couldn’t. He had to give up and go to the closest patch of dirt to see if he could pick up the trail.
Twenty minutes later he saw the large goanna again and he stopped, pleased with himself. ‘Well, look at that,’ he whispered.
The goanna must’ve heard him because he stopped the swagger and looked around. Beady, black eyes on Dave.
Tongue flicking in and out. This time it must’ve sensed danger because he looked away and, like a rabbit, it ran speedily under a bush. Dave followed and saw it come out the other side and straight up a tree.
Dave laughed. ‘You win, mate. I probably couldn’t track you up there.’
Turning, he decided it was time to head back to camp and chop some more wood. Then he realised he didn’t know where he was. A tiny bit of fear ran through him before he told himself off.
Deadpan face, deadpan stare. No emotion. Don’t let anything get to you, he reminded himself, but this time added, Show no fear.
Trouble was, out here all the trees looked the same. Tall spindly gimlet trees and grey saltbush and other low shrubby bushes Dave hadn’t learned the names of yet. He wondered what part of Queensland he would be going to and if he should brush up on some of the names of grasses and trees. Probably not; he didn’t want to look too prepared.
Looking around, he found the sun and walked towards it. The sun had been at his back when he’d left the camp. He kept his eyes on the ground, looking for his own tracks … and found them. It was easy to get back to camp after that.
He remembered his grandfather telling him once, ‘Lad, if you ever get lost in a paddock, you walk in a straight line until you find a fence. Follow the fence and you’ll find a gateway somewhere.’ Good advice, Dave thought as he picked up his axe again. Except, what did you do when you found the gateway?
‘Follow the road from there, you goose!’ His grandfather’s voice sounded so real, Dave wanted to look over his shoulder.
Instead he raised the axe and brought it down on the next log.
By the time the sun started to sink and there was a faint chill in the air, Dave’s arms ached and his shoulders were stinging from the amount of sun they’d seen that day.
He gathered dried grass and small sticks for a fire and enough large timber to last him for the night, then grabbed his swag from the ute and chucked it on the ground. Lowering himself onto the dirt, he leaned up against the swag and stared into the fire. Tonight he didn’t want to think. He’d done enough of that during the day.
A few little bush budgies flitted through the trees and he guessed there must be water close by. He wondered if there would be dingos out this way. He assumed so, because in one of the conversations he’d had with Spencer, he’d mentioned a lot of the stations around here had begun as sheep stations. As the years had gone on and dry seasons had forced the dogs down from the north and as they’d arrived around Barrabine, they’d killed. Sheep were easy pickings. Every time there was a sheep loss, the farmer lost money so, in time, there had become fewer and fewer sheep; they’d been replaced with cattle. Grown cattle weren’t as easy to attack.
Thinking about the stations had reminded him of Dylan from Strictly Agricultural. He hoped Dylan had spoken to the owner of Narandrah Springs about his cattle straying onto mining land.
Throwing another log on the fire and grabbing another beer, he decided to go for a walk, even though his body was screaming. Hopefully that would lessen the stiffness he would feel in the morning.
This time he got out his hand-held GPS and a torch and went out confidently.
The GPS told him he’d walked 4.2 kilometres to the north. He’d seen nothing of interest; just a wedgetail eagle soaring right at last light and the tracks of another goanna. He was about to turn around when he came across a pile of fresh cattle shit.
‘Bloody hell, the cattle must still be out here,’ Dave said out loud. He knew the mining companies hated it when cattle strayed onto their land. Caused all sorts of problems with occ health and safety.
He’d have to get Spencer to follow that up when he went back home. Get him to talk to the owner.
Not home any more, he reminded himself. You’re a drifter.
He walked a bit further, hoping to see a few cattle camped up under trees so he could check out the brand and earmark. Then he caught the whiff of something dead.
He flashed his torch around, trying to locate where the smell might be coming from.
There. A dead cow.
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he said into the silence. ‘Better than a human body.’ He looked for an earmark and realised there wasn’t one. Flashing the torch over the bloated carcass, he looked for some other identifying marking.
There it was. A brand on the hip.
‘That’s not a WA brand,’ Dave muttered to himself. He knew from his time on the farm that a WA brand was two letters and one number.
What he could see on the hide looked like an upturned horseshoe with the letters SA inside.
Wishing he had his camera with him so he could take a photo, he committed the brand to memory and walked back to his camp.
Chapter 22
Dave helped Bec build a sandcastle on the beach. ‘Put the sand in the bucket. That’s right. Pat it down. Pat, pat, pat.’
‘Pat, pat, pat.’ Bec copied what Dave was doing.
‘Turn it upside down … Look! A castle!’
‘Durn I udown. Ook! Astle!’ Her two-year-old language made Dave’s heart melt.
‘That’s a beautiful castle, sweetie,’ he told her.
It was his sixth visit to Bunbury in the past six months. During the first visit, both Bec and Melinda had come out with him. They’d gone to a playground and then to a café for lunch. Later, Melinda had dropped Bec back to her parents and Dave had waited in the car until she’d come out again, dressed for dinner.
‘Come on,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve booked us into a hotel for the night. It’s my favourite. You’ll love it!’
Why did she have a favourite hotel? Dave had wondered. But it really hadn’t mattered to him—he’d been glad just to be sitting alongside her and smelling her familiar scent.
He’d taken her hand and told her he missed her. Melinda had squeezed his back and said nothing.
Later that night they’d made love and Dave had had a tiny bit of hope that things could go back to normal.
The second visit hadn’t been as easy. Their conversation had been stilted. Melinda had asked about his bea
rd and shaven head and he had told her lies rather than explain: ‘Needed a change once you left.’
She’d mentioned Jaye again—in among other friends’ names but he’d heard it there.
The third one had been worse. Melinda had met him at the door, dressed to go out, and Dave had assumed she was coming with him. She hadn’t been. Melinda had thrust Bec over, complete with nappy bag, stroller and snacks, and said she’d see them at six in time for Bec’s night-time routine.
By the fourth one it had been only Bec and Dave spending time together.
Now, looking out to sea, he could see the telltale signs of rain coming their way.
‘Jump on the castle?’ he said, getting up and dusting off his jeans. He took her hand and together they jumped.
‘Astle bang!’ Bec said as it crumbled underneath her tiny feet.
‘All fall down!’ Dave fell to the ground and kicked his legs up in the air.
‘All all own!’ Bec copied him, all the time giggling.
‘Come on, let’s go and get a hot chocolate,’ he said. ‘It’s going to rain soon.’
He gathered up their things and took her hand to lead her across the sand back to the ute.
Bec climbed up into the back and he strapped her in the car seat.
‘Daddy has to go away for a while, sweetie,’ he told her. ‘I’m doing a very important job for the police.’
Bec chewed on the plastic toy next to her seat. Melinda had told him that Bec was teething again and she liked to gnaw on things.
Dave felt a lump rise in his throat. ‘I have to go, you see. I don’t want to leave you, but I have to go.’
‘Daddy!’
‘Yeah, I’m your daddy.’
Dave drove to their usual café and parked out the front. Melinda’s car was there already and she stepped out, smiling.
He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw her. She was still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on. In the six months she’d been back in Bunbury, she’d joined a gym and begun working out. Her toned legs and tight arse caught the eyes of many men as she walked. Dave had seen it often when they’d been together. He’d loved seeing men give her attention when she had been totally his. Now it made him jealous.
Today, she was dressed in jeans, knee-high boots and a blue jumper with a white scarf at her neck. He was glad to see she was still wearing her wedding rings.
It took everything in his power not to run to her and sweep her into his arms. Instead he smiled back and went around to unstrap Bec from the car.
‘I was going to order but I thought the coffees would go cold in this wind.’ Her hair whipped around her face and she tried to gather it in one hand to keep it away.
‘That’s okay. They won’t take long,’ he told her. ‘Shall we?’
They settled themselves at a window table and the waitress brought a high chair for Bec. Melinda handed her a teething rusk and smiled at her before fixing her gaze on Dave.
‘I can’t get used to you with a beard and no hair,’ she said. ‘Your beard has really grown since I saw you last. It looks sort of sexy in a bad boy type of way.’
He grinned. ‘Do you like bad boys?’ He wanted to flirt with her and make her laugh.
Melinda chuckled. ‘I think you know that. That’s why you and I hooked up.’
Dave got serious. ‘Do you still like bad boys?’ He was struggling with this new Melinda. She’d been cold as ice the last couple of visit and now here she was, flirting with him in a café, while their daughter sat alongside them. What could be more perfect? And strange. He wanted to trust what he was seeing, but it was hard.
‘Oh, Dave.’ The smile vanished from her face. ‘Of course I do. You in particular. But we’re very different.’
‘I thought that was what was good about us.’
‘It is.’
At least she’d used ‘is’ rather than ‘was’.
‘What’s going on with you, Mel? You’re hot and cold and I can’t keep up.’ This was the new Dave. The straight-shooting Dave. The one who didn’t rely on anyone and wouldn’t admit he loved anyone but his daughter.
‘I could ask you the same thing. Shaved head, beard. I’m sure your eye colour isn’t the same either.’
‘You’re right. And that’s the reason I wanted you to come today. I need to tell you something.’
The waitress chose that moment to bring their drinks. Dave dropped his head so she wouldn’t get a look at his face.
‘What’s going on?’ Melinda asked, eyeing him closely.
‘Mummy!’ Bec threw her rusk on the floor but neither of them moved to pick it up. ‘Mummy, mummy, mummy! More!’
‘Shush, Bec.’ Melinda fished in the nappy bag and pulled out another one.
‘I have to go away for a while,’ Dave said.
‘What do you mean? Where to? Why?’ Melinda’s eyes were wide and fearful and she pulled back from the table, crossing her arms.
‘I’ve been asked to do a job and I have to leave the state. I can’t tell you where or what it is, and I’m not going to be able to talk to you for the time I’m gone.’ He kept his voice low and even. ‘If you need me, get in contact with Spencer, he’ll know where I am.’
‘You’re leaving us? The job’s more important?’ Her voice was flat.
Deadpan face, deadpan stare. No emotion. Don’t let anything get to you. Don’t show fear.
‘If I remember correctly, you were the one who left me.’ He looked at her and Melinda leaned back even further.
‘What about your daughter? She won’t remember you! What about me?’
‘I only see her once a month as it is! And it’s only going to be for a short time. As soon as I’m back, I’ll be in contact.’ Her eyes suddenly widened and she gasped. ‘You’re going undercover. That’s what this is all about. New hairstyle, physique, eye colour. You’ve been working towards this for ages and you’re just telling us now? Oh my god!’
‘Yeah, I am. And, Mel, I can’t tell you any more than that.’
‘What if something happens to you?’
‘This is no different to me going out to work every day and maybe being injured or killed while on duty. It sounds worse than it is.’ He tried to play down the danger of the situation. ‘And you know the police force will look after you if something happens to me. It’s what you’ve lived with every day since we’ve been married. No different.’ He knew it sounded harsh, but every single person married to a copper knew what the risks were.
‘I want you to look after us, not the police force.’ Her voice was soft and frightened. ‘To be here.’
‘You haven’t shown me that, Mel. What are you thinking? Or wanting? You’ve been different this trip.’
Melinda played with her coffee cup. ‘I don’t know. I miss you. I love it here.’ She looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I do love it. I love the beach and being with my friends.’ Her voice became quieter. ‘My family.’
He nodded.
‘Would you …’ She broke off. ‘Would you come to Bunbury and live here?’
‘Oh, sweetheart. You know I can’t at the moment. Let me do this job and I promise I will look at it after that. Will you wait? Please wait.’
Melinda didn’t answer, but she reached out her hands.
Dave took them in his and brought them up to his mouth to kiss them. He looked at them entwined together. Hers pale and slim. Nails well manicured and skin moisturised. They looked foreign in his own dark brown hands with the scabs and cuts over them from where he’d slipped with the shovel or the crowbar.
He hoped they weren’t so foreign to one another now that their marriage couldn’t be salvaged.
‘Will you do something for me?’ he asked, his voice husky with emotion.
‘What?’
‘Will you stay tonight with me? Take Bec back to your parents and stay tonight.’
She hesitated.
‘Please.’
He ran his fingers over her face, trying to commit every feature to memory. As he kissed her, he wanted to remember how she tasted and felt.
Her lips soft and hands running down his back.
As he entered her, her moan made him want to rush. But he didn’t. He withdrew and entered her again slowly, and when he was deep inside her he gently let his body down and hugged her to him.
Afterwards, she asked questions, but he had no answers. None that he could give.
‘Just trust me, Mel, please.’
Finally she fell asleep and he watched her, stroking her hair for an age, wishing things could be different.
Before dawn he quietly got up and dressed.
With a final kiss he put on his weathered hat, embroidered with the Farm Weekly logo, pulled it down over his eyes and shrugged into a worn leather jacket. He propped a letter on the table where she’d see it when she woke, and closed the door behind him.
Chapter 23
It was Dave’s last night in Barrabine, although no one except he and Spencer knew why. His colleagues at the police station thought he’d been given a transfer.
They were at Dave’s house, sitting at the kitchen table. The furniture and photos had been packed up and sent to Melinda in Bunbury, and all that was left were two chairs, the table and the tiny photo of Bec that Dave kept tucked in his wallet. Spencer had given the okay for him to take it because it was part of his story and helped to give credence to his anger and sadness.
On the floor lay a battered swag covered in red dust and oil stains. It was his bed for tonight and the foreseeable future.
Waiting for him in Brisbane was a new life and a beat-up Yamaha Excess 1100 motorbike. He could feel his arse getting sore just thinking about the miles he was going to have to travel on that bike.
There were four empty cans of beer on the table and another two full ones in front of each man. In between them were two yellow Western Australian numberplates he was to fix to his bike when he was given it—more authenticity. And a Western Australian driver’s licence.
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