by Karen Wood
Zoe clutched her towel a little tighter, not knowing what to think. Just when she thought she had her head sorted out. ‘Your dad stole our cattle,’ she said, matter of fact. ‘He’d been doing it for months.’
‘I know,’ Caitlin said in a tiny voice. Her arms clenched around the bundle of clothes.
‘You stole Scotty from me too.’
‘We broke up anyway,’ she said.
Zoe rolled her eyes.
Tahnee reached in and grabbed at the pile in Caitlin’s arms. ‘My shoes, thank you very much,’ she said in a crisp, sing-song voice.
‘Please don’t ring the police,’ Caitlin said. ‘He’ll lose everything.’
Was she kidding?
Caitlin looked at her with tears in her eyes. ‘Dad’s always done it. It’s all he knows. Mum turned a blind eye. So I did too.’
‘I was your best friend. I was injured, and you just racked off and left me.’
‘I didn’t know you’d fallen off, I swear. I didn’t hear about that until later that night. Tracey rang me and told me. I felt so bad.’
‘Yeah, I bet you did,’ said Zoe.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well, if you weren’t so busy racing off my boyfriend, you would have.’ What did Caitlin want – sympathy? ‘You knew your father was stealing my dad’s cattle, didn’t you?’
‘Not really, but I kind of guessed.’
‘How many did he steal?’
She gave a vague shrug.
‘Why us? That’s what I don’t understand, Caity. Why steal from your friends?’
‘He always knew when you were mustering.’
‘Because you told him.’
She looked down. ‘Don’t you have to tell your parents where you’re going and what you’re doing?’ Caitlin pushed the pile of clothes into Zoe’s lap. Tears streamed down her face. ‘Mum and I are moving out. We’re going up north to start fresh.’
‘Goodbye, Caitlin.’ Zoe turned to the wall and began stuffing the clothes into her bag so she didn’t have to watch Caitlin leave. Dad’s carkeys fell out of one of the pockets and she scooped them up from the floor.
After a short while Tahnee spoke. ‘I was gonna kick your butt if you fell for that load of garbage.’
Zoe wiped the back of her hand over her eyes.
Tahnee walked over, took the corner of her towel and dabbed it gently at Zoe’s tears. ‘No more of these,’ she said. ‘Save these for the people you love.’
Zoe smiled and nodded.
‘Let’s put our dancing shoes on!’ Tahnee grinned.
When Zoe and Tahnee got back to the truck, a police car was parked next to it. A small crowd had gathered; everyone from the event organisers to police officers to nosey neighbours.
A man in uniform stepped down and held out his hand for Zoe to shake. ‘How you going, Zoe?’
‘Good,’ she said, taking in the scene.
‘Can we have a quick chat?’
Zoe looked to her dad.
‘We could go over to the office building,’ he answered.
They found a quiet space at a table amongst the event officials. Score-keepers sat at their laptops, adding up points and shuffling through reams of papers, transferring data into spreadsheets. Trophy rugs and sashes were sorted and ready for presentation the next day. Other people counted money and ticked off sheets.
The two officers sat down and listened while Zoe, Josh, Tahnee and Mike told their story. Then they were asked to write out individual statements.
‘We’ll leave the cattle here overnight, but in the morning they’ll be seized,’ explained the officer. ‘We’ll have to take them to a holding yard and keep them there there until ownership can be established.’ ‘How will you do that without ear-tags?’ asked her father. ‘Their brands have been altered too.’
‘We can do DNA tests,’ the officer assured him. ‘If they trace back to a particular bloodline or property, we’ll find out.’
‘And the other ones?’ asked her dad. ‘I’m missing nearly a hundred head.’
‘We’ll locate the owners of the property and talk to them first. Then we’ll inspect all the stock. Charges can be laid once we can confirm the owner or owners. If that’s you, then you’ll get them back.’
Dad nodded, seemingly satisfied.
‘I don’t like your chances of getting those earlier bullocks back, though. They would have gone straight to slaughter. The duffers can transport them a long way in a short time and they turn them over quickly before they get caught,’ the officer said. ‘But they often hold onto the breeding stock and keep them producing, sell the offspring.’
‘Detective Senior Constable Percy from the rural crime unit will be out in the morning,’ said the officer, rising from his seat and shaking Dad’s hand.
When the officers left, Dad grabbed the closest person and started dancing around the small office building. Deb, who was adding up scores from the cross-country course that day, squealed with laughter as he waltzed her out the door and danced her all the way to the party tent.
Zoe went with Mike in the back of the police car to retrieve the station wagon.
When she got back, she found Josh under the large marquee watching the band. He was freshly showered and wore a thick hand-knitted jumper that made her instantly want to hug him. The band had wound down to slow songs and he rested his chin lightly on top of her head while she put her cheek against his chest, closing her eyes and letting him move her around the dance floor.
Her phone rang suddenly in her pocket and she jolted.
The shock of it made Josh burst with laughter. ‘Let me get it.’ He put his hand into her back pocket and she felt the phone slip out.
It continued to chime loudly. Josh’s face was mixed with humour and apology as he held it out in front of her. ‘Want to answer it?’
Zoe glared at it, wanting to throw it in the nearby fire barrel. It would be Scotty with some stupid excuse to talk to her. And no way did she want to talk to him right now. It continued ringing in Josh’s hand, loud and shrill and demanding. Talk about a mood-killer.
She grudgingly took it from Josh’s hand and checked who it was from. ‘Scotty.’
Josh snorted and she felt the whole mood change. He looked annoyed.
She was about to hang up, but thought better of it. She wanted to tell him to rack off for good. She tapped on the screen and put it to her ear. ‘What do you want?’
‘I only just found out what happened,’ he said. ‘Zoe, I didn’t know that Mr Bowers was stealing your cattle. Nor did my dad. He just provided agistment, that’s all.’
Zoe felt exhausted. ‘Save it for the police, Scotty,’ she said. ‘I really don’t care if you knew or not.’
She ended the call with the tap of a button and spent a moment deleting his number from her contact list. ‘How do I block him?’ she said to Josh.
He took the phone from her, tapped for a moment or two and then slid the phone into her pocket again.
They danced until the band had finished and packed away guitars, then walked back to where Mike snored in his swag alongside several curled-up dogs.
‘See you in the morning?’ Josh said.
She nodded and kissed him. He gave her a long, lingering kiss back, his hands holding her neck, thumbs running over her ears. Oh Lordy. His kisses . . .
Zoe flopped onto her swag and watched him walk away. The night stilled around her and she vaguely wondered where her dad was as she fell into a heavy slumber.
20
In the morning Zoe made her way around the makeshift camp at a lazy pace, boiling a small camp stove on the tailgate of the station wagon and making a cup of hot tea with too much sugar.
Dad was nowhere to be seen and she wondered if he had headed out to the cattle property with the police. With the tea steaming in her hands, she made her way to the horse yards to feed Blackjack and then find Josh. As she turned into the aisle, she immediately bristled when she saw Scotty standing outside Blackjack’
s yard. This guy just never gives up!
‘Hey,’ he said.
She pushed past him and opened Blackjack’s stable door.
‘You’re so unforgiving,’ he said.
Zoe didn’t answer.
‘Caitlin lied to me too, you know.’
‘You chose to be with her,’ said Zoe. No way was she falling for his victim crap.
‘I wish everything was back to how it used to be.’ He leaned over the stable door while she collected Jacky’s water bucket and empty hay bag.
‘I’d rather be dragged by a horse, trampled by a hundred head of cattle and left to die in the back country,’ she said. ‘Now will you please leave me alone?’
In the distance she could hear the announcer calling for entries for another round of dog high jump.
Josh appeared from around the corner with Spiderman on a lead. ‘Did you hear that? There’s another thousand bucks on offer.’
Zoe walked up to Josh and planted a long, slow kiss on his lips. ‘Let’s go put some entries in.’
Josh gave Scotty a look and then kissed her again. She grinned into his kiss and he grinned back. She wasn’t sure at what point Scotty got the message and slunk away.
The hangover of Josh’s kiss stayed with her all the way across the showgrounds. She half-ran, half-floated, not wanting to let go of that blissfully surreal feeling of being in his arms. She reached the nominations office, breathless and giddy, unable to tame the smile on her face and was astonished to see her own expression mirrored in the person before her.
‘Dad?’
He looked as deliriously happy as she felt. Something was going on here. ‘What are you doing in there?’
He stood hunched over in the teeny little building underneath the judges’ platform. With the secretary. Debbie, she noticed, faced the other way and got busy with some papers. Zoe looked from one of them to the other, awkwardness creeping over her.
‘What’s up?’ smiled her father.
‘Ummm . . .’
He tilted his head questioningly at her.
‘Ahhh, nothing,’ she answered. ‘Just want to enter the dog jumping again, ahh . . . if that’s okay . . .’
Her dad turned to Debbie, who was still busy with her papers. ‘That okay?’
Debbie waved a hand without looking up. ‘Sure, kid, just write it down.’
Zoe took a pen, scratched out some entries and hit up her dad for some money. ‘It’s five bucks per dog,’ she said.
He pulled out his wallet and slapped two fivers on top.
‘Got some money for lunch?’ He pulled out a tenner. This was unheard-of!
She decided to test her luck. ‘There’re some nice dog collars at one of the stands. I was thinking Frankie needs a new one . . .’
‘Don’t push it.’ Her dad waved her away. ‘Nick off,’ he mouthed silently.
Holy cattle duffers; her Dad had got himself a girlfriend! How weird was that? Agh! Weird and wrong!
But OMG, so cool!
Dad was back from the dead. And he was living in her world.
Dad has a girlfriend . . .
Zoe shuddered, not wanting to put any more thought into it. Meanwhile Deb’s phone rang. After a brief conversation, she turned to Dad. ‘The stock squad are here. They’re at the yards.’
Zoe walked back across the grounds. As she passed the cattle yards, she saw the twelve black cows being loaded up a ramp and into a different truck. Two officers, in jeans, blue shirts and Akubra hats, talked to a couple of the stockmen. Her father joined them.
At the jump area, people gathered with their dogs. The wall was set to 2.5 metres. Josh, holding both dogs on leads, looked around searchingly. She waved madly and when his eyes caught hers, he winked; a happy, playful, breathtakingly hot and heart-stoppingly gorgeous wink.
She winked back and ran down to join him.
21
Zoe woke to the brash squawking of baby magpies outside her bedroom window. It was only six in the morning and already they were harping for a feed. Half-asleep and still in a state of dreaminess, she rolled over, hugged her pillow and cast a glance around her room.
On the wall opposite, a broad purple sash hung proudly on the wall. Frankie had set a local high-jump record. How cool was that.
She held her pillow closer and grinned crazily to herself as she remembered them calling her up to get the thousand-dollar cheque.
‘In first place is Frankenstein,’ announced a calm gravelly voice.
Josh had lifted her off her feet in a big squeeze.
Zoe blushed again as she remembered it and her eyes flickered to the pale blue sash hanging above the purple one. Spiderman had come second and Josh had given the sash to her.
Meanwhile, her dad, with Pete and Fred, had accompanied the police and found nearly eighty more black cattle and some sheep on the property next to the dam. These animals were also trucked to the holding yard and would stay there until their rightful owners could be established. Ranges Pastoral Company was co-operating with the investigations and deep down, Zoe hoped that Scotty had told the truth when he said his dad knew nothing about the thefts.
After giving it some thought, she felt sorry for Caitlin. What sort of a father preyed on the friends of his own kid? She couldn’t imagine having a dad she couldn’t trust. She wondered where Caity would end up and if she would ever be happy.
Zoe thought of the growing lump in her mum’s belly and for the first time in a long while she felt excited about going to visit. She couldn’t wait to spend some of her winnings on cute little baby clothes for her new sibling. She so hoped that it would be a girl.
And that somehow Dad would find the money to pay Mum out without having to sell the farm.
She flung the curtains open and peered out the window. Frankie wagged his tail from his brand-new forty-four-gallon drum out by the shed.
In the kitchen, Mike and Dad sat opposite each other eating in silence. Mike shovelled spoonfuls of Weetbix into his mouth while her dad chewed thoughtfully on Vegemite toast.
‘Morning,’ she mumbled.
‘Morning,’ they mumbled back.
Zoe regarded them a moment longer – the men of Hillanaroo, in their faded flannelette shirts and creosote-stained jeans – and then she pulled up a chair next to them. She popped two slices of bread into the toaster.
Her dad pushed the Vegemite towards her without looking up from his Diesel Power magazine and she reached over and took the knife from his plate without asking.
It was nice sitting in comfortable quietness with them, eating toast and looking at the glossy pictures of tractor engines and pump motors over her dad’s shoulder.
‘You’ve got an appointment at the copshop this afternoon,’ he said. ‘They want to interview you again about your accident. Now that you remember more about it.’
Zoe nodded.
The phone rang and Dad snatched it off the wall. ‘Yep.’
He was quiet for a long time while he listened to whoever was talking on the other end of the line. Zoe watched a smile pull at one corner of his mouth, then his eyes flickered to her. He laughed out loud. ‘Thanks, mate.’
He hung up and shook his head, looking like someone who’d just won the lottery.
‘What?’ Mike and Zoe both chorused.
‘They found the ear-tags,’ he answered. ‘Hundreds of them; in a bag of rubbish in one of those old shipping containers. Some of them trace back to Hillanaroo.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll get compensated for all of them. Cattle prices are booming after all the rain. I’ll be able to pay your mum out.’
‘That’s great, Dad!’ Zoe beamed.
Dad banged his fist triumphantly on the kitchen table and laughed again.
‘What about Scotty’s dad?’ asked Zoe.
‘He had a proper lease agreement with Mr Bowers. Seems he had nothing to do with it.’ He shrugged. ‘Looks as though he’s off the hook.’
Zoe nodded, relieved. Somehow, it lessened the hurt.
Dad stood up and took his plate to the sink. ‘You right to get those last few sheep into the yards this arvo?’
‘Yep,’ she replied through a mouthful of toast.
‘There are some nice ewes among them, I was thinking you might like to keep a few of them, start your own small flock. We’ll run some new fences, make a paddock for you.’
Zoe’s heart jumped. ‘I’d love to.’ Her own flock. Wow!
Her dad nodded, as if it was a deal. ‘You right to let the dogs off?’
‘Yup.’
‘There’s a new one in the shed, let it off too.’
‘A new one?’
Her dad left the kitchen without explaining.
Zoe watched him pull on his boots by the front door. A new dog? That was the last thing they needed. ‘Is it in Queenie’s drum?’ It didn’t seem right that another dog should sleep in Queenie’s drum.
‘It can live in the house if you want,’ he said indifferently, and without another glance, he was out the door, with the screen banging shut behind him.
Live in the house??? Had he lost his senses?
Zoe hurriedly dressed, took the milk bottles from the laundry for the lambs and skipped up to the shed. Her own flock! Her own little stake in Hillanaroo! The idea had never occurred to her before. The horses nickered as she walked past, demanding breakfast. In distant paddocks, the sound of crooning cattle harmonised with the carolling birds. Her feet crunched over the gravel path to the big shed.
In the house paddock her dad straddled the quad bike. A mobile phone went off and Zoe automatically clutched at her pockets. They were empty. She’d left hers in her room. She watched, stunned while her dad pulled a small device from his jacket pocket and put it to his ear, a soft smile touching the corners of his eyes before he turned away and spoke quietly.
Her dad hated mobile phones, reckoned they were nothing but a distraction.
She shook her head. Not now that he had a girlfriend. She continued on to the shed and when she slid the big door open she took a step backwards.
Josh sat on top of Queenie’s barrel with a wriggling bundle of white held against his chest and a ridiculously huge grin on his face. Zoe’s jaw dropped.
