Rising dust, p.12
Rising Dust, page 12
Today, as they took off, the body on the beach was a distant memory. Bob had taken statements about it last night and now Dave couldn’t wait to get started on the sheep investigation. It was the first time in months he’d looked forward to something and he guessed last night with Shannon was responsible for that.
Still, he couldn’t help the self-condemnation that knocked into him every time he thought of their love-making. It wasn’t warranted, he reminded himself. He needed to get over it. For all he knew, Mel might have a new bloke anyway. When she’d left him the first time, they’d still been stationed at Barrabine. It hadn’t taken long for a man’s name to start to filter through their conversations and Dave had never been sure whether there was something going on between them, or if they really were ‘just friends’ like she’d told him.
Today the sky was a vivid clear blue and the colours of the wildflowers stretched out like a patchwork quilt across the red soil. From his viewpoint in the sky, Dave saw the beauty in the heavily stoned country; olive-coloured trees and bushes dotting the landscape and white-trunked gums lining the river.
As the plane banked and started to fly east, Dave caught sight of the beach he and Shannon had been on last night. Today there were a few people walking along it and a couple more swimming.
Good thing they hadn’t been there last night, he thought, with a secret smile. He remembered the feeling of the water caressing them and their bodies moving together. He kept his face turned towards the window so no one could see his grin.
In the distance, the continuous calm of the ocean stretched out until the blues merged together to become one.
He depressed the button and spoke into the mic. ‘How far as the crow flies to DoubleM Station from here?’
Mac showed him the map which was sitting on his lap and traced the flight line with his finger. ‘Only about eighty k,’ he said.
Bob leaned through the seats and pointed to the north. ‘Can we fly along the edge of that bushland?’ he asked. ‘Bit lower than we are. Is that the crown land or station lease country?’
Mac fiddled with a couple of the controls and the plane dipped slightly. ‘Fifteen hundred feet okay?’ he asked.
‘Lower if you can,’ Bob said.
‘I’m not a bloody crop-dusting pilot,’ Mac retorted, but reduced the power and angled the nose slightly towards the ground. ‘One thousand feet,’ he told them. ‘No lower.’ Once the plane was cruising, he looked down at the map. ‘Right, crown land starts here.’ He pointed to a spot on the map.
‘And we are?’ Bob asked.
‘Here. Just about to overfly the boundary. This is Corbett Station Stay.’ Mac outlined the station, then circled the spot where they were flying.
The country drained towards a waterhole in the middle of the scrubland, which doubled as crown land, and there was a clearing where drovers and Indigenous people would have camped in times gone by. It looked to Dave as if there had been a trough made out of stones, so it was easier for the stock to get water.
‘Circle back over the waterhole, please, Mac,’ Dave said, still peering out. ‘Bob, did you bring the glasses?’
Bob handed him the binoculars and Dave put them to his eyes, hoping to see something of use, but the landscape seemed empty, save for a few roos leaning over the water, having a drink.
‘Too high to see any vehicle traces,’ he said to Bob.
‘No, I can’t,’ Mac said, pre-empting Bob’s request to descend further again. ‘I haven’t flown in a muster, I’m just a vanilla pilot.’
Dave laughed.
‘Come on, son,’ Bob said. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’
‘It’s in not dying!’ Mac swung the controls back to the west and they started towards DoubleM Station. ‘The crown land stretches in between Corbett Station Stay and DoubleM. There’s about twenty thousand acres, all bushland. Look up there.’ Mac pointed into the distance, where the country broke out from bushland into sweeping, wide plains, devoid of bush and trees. The rangelands were covered in grasses. ‘That’s where the boundary starts.’ They followed along the fence line while both Bob and Dave looked out either side.
‘Can see sheep here,’ Bob called out.
‘I’ve got a mob this side,’ Dave said. He grabbed the binoculars and zoomed in. The sheep had heard the noise of the plane and started at the loud, droning sound.
Instead of grazing quietly, they were now streaming across the paddock, stretched out in a long line. They knew the country well, as they ducked and dived around bushes and rocks. Up the hills and into the deep gullies. Trying to get away from the noise they couldn’t see. Long dark shadows from the hills made them impossible to keep in sight until they came out the other side.
Even from the air, Dave could see the sheep pads, the paths that the mob would use daily, winding through the scrub down to the river where they could drink. They were only about thirty centimetres wide, but carved deeply into the dirt from the constant use. Sheep rarely took another path once they had a track sorted.
The sun was reflecting off a windmill further to the south, where another trough and tank stood. The outline of the fences was clear, too, graded wide tracts of land, running in a straight line with droppers and steel posts appearing like dots against the red soil. They were still too high in the air to see any light tracks made from vehicles or sheep that had only passed that way once.
One thing was clear—Mick was right. The only way off his station was through the front gate, which went right past his house. From the air there weren’t any hidden or less used tracks that led off through the bush or boundary. The river system had sheer cliffs and the hills that surrounded the places were too stony and upright at the top to be able to get over. If those sheep had been stolen on a truck, or even walked out by people on horseback, they’d gone out the front gate.
‘Mate, I think we’d better head back,’ Mac’s voice came through the headphones and Dave turned around to ask why. They were getting some good info from above!
Mac was pointing to a large bank of cloud to the west, coming in over the sea. ‘Don’t like the look of that.’ He put a call in to the traffic control tower and asked for a weather update. ‘Squally storms forecast to hit in two hours,’ he relayed to them. ‘Bugger, it was clear when I got the forecast last night. It’s so bloody unpredictable up here. Should’ve trusted my gut and got off the ground early with Shannon rather than doing this.’
‘Seen it happen before,’ Bob said. ‘Clear skies one hour and then we’re swimming for our lives the next. Go on with you then, son. Head for home.’
Mac flashed him the thumbs up and turned the controls back towards where they’d come from. Dave checked his watch and saw they’d been airborne for forty-five minutes—and seen a lot of country in that time.
He had a better sense of the topography now, and of what roads were there and not there on the map. And if he ever had to set up road blocks, he’d know where to go.
Back on the ground, Bob and Dave compared their notes, while Mac refilled the plane.
‘I reckon we should go for a look around Corbett Station,’ Dave said. ‘Head out for a drive and see what we can see. This place has three tracks that people can come in and out of, without going through the station area here. I saw them from the air, but they’re marked here, too.’ He tapped on the map they had open between them, lying on the bonnet of the troopy.
‘I’d like to chat to Brody first,’ Bob said, ‘then we can do what you’re suggesting. But let’s get Shannon and Mac off the ground first.’
As he spoke a lightning flash opened the sky to the west of where they were standing. In the distance the ominous sound of rumbling started.
‘Ah, shit,’ said Mac as he pulled the fuel nozzle out of the fuel tank on the wing and looked up at the sky. ‘Surely not.’
Furious black clouds stood out against the blue sky, and they were moving quickly. They all watched as the clouds continued to roll in and then Dave felt a large plop of rain on his head. He could hear heavier rain drumming on the earth, in the distance as the storm made its way towards them. A deep hollow sound.
Shannon walked around the plane, with a bag in her hand. ‘Guys, I don’t think we’re going anywhere,’ she said, her voice strained. Dave knew she really wanted to get the body back to Perth and start work on it as soon as she could. ‘I’m going to leave the body in the coolroom for the time being,’ she said. ‘Mac, we won’t get off the ground in this will—’
The last of her words were drowned out by another thunder roll and the sound of rain pelting to the ground a distance from them; the storm was moving closer by the second.
The pummelling rain looked like it was coming down from the sky in a grey sheet of water, even blocking out their view of the homestead. The trees started to bend in the wind.
‘Run!’ yelled Bob. ‘Under cover! Now.’
Shannon and Bob took off at breakneck speed, while Dave helped Mac drag the Avgas drum back into the shed; when the water hit them it felt to Dave like someone was throwing small rocks at him.
‘Holy hell,’ Mac yelled, staring in amazement at the water sheeting across the land. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘What?’
The sound of the rain on the shed’s tin roof was deafening. Dave hadn’t seen anything like this before—oh, he’d heard about these freak storms that blew up out of nowhere in the north of the state, but he’d never experienced one.
What was clear to him was that the power of nature was enormous and not to be messed with. He moved a little closer to Shannon and sought her eyes, but they were glued to the outside, in awe of the force of the rain.
Outside, the gutters on the shed overflowed, the water heaving onto the ground and running inside the shed in deep rivers.
‘I reckon we’re stuck,’ Shannon said to Dave.
‘For a while,’ he agreed.
Out of the grey shroud of rain, Brody appeared on his motorbike, soaked to the skin. He roared inside the shed, trying to wipe the water streaming down his face away. The action was futile because his hands and clothes were as wet as his face was.
Kicking the stand down, he got off and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get rid of the excess water before heading over to a cupboard, where he pulled out a couple of rags and wiped them across his face, then rubbed them through his hair.
‘Well, then, that should put a stop to any more campers coming or going,’ he said as he took off his shirt and hung it over the handles of the bike. ‘And hopefully any rumours about finding bodies out here. No one will be able to get in or out for a while.’
The warmth of the air was surprising because the rain had been freezing against Dave’s skin when he’d been out in it.
‘River will come up?’ Bob asked.
‘Yeah, depending on how long this goes on for, might take a few days before anyone can get across it.’ He walked to the entrance and looked out. ‘Even then you’ll need a four-wheel drive. The water will lay there for a bit.’
‘How long could this rain go on?’ Shannon asked, following him.
‘Couple hours, maybe. When storms hit so strongly like this, there’s usually a shitload of water but it doesn’t last for long. This country is pretty well drained and the water runs off into the river system.’
A strong gust of wind rattled the shed and the plane’s wings wobbled.
‘I need to tie the plane down,’ Mac said.
‘Wouldn’t be going out there, mate,’ Brody advised. ‘There’s lightning around. Saw a tree split in two during the last storm we had like this. And it killed a few cows back when we had them. I found them afterwards. These types of weather systems are bloody dangerous.’
Mac stared at him. ‘Lightning hit some cows? How did you know?’
‘I don’t think it hit ’em, because there weren’t any burn marks on the carcasses, but there were three all touching each other, right near a fence. I reckon the electricity came out from the fence and got them that way. One of them had a burn on the hoof, but that was all. Nothing else would have killed them like that.’
Mac’s eyes were wide. There was no way the pilot was from farming stock.
Dave took note that Brody was solid in his knowledge of the land. He might be young, but he knew and understood what was going on.
Which could put him in the prime position to steal stock.
Or not.
He knew Mick had stopped short of accusing Brody, but he’d also said he wasn’t a patch on his father. Didn’t seem that way to Dave.
Dave glanced over at Bob and saw he’d noted the same thing.
Filing the piece of knowledge away, he remembered Mick’s comments about tourism. Maybe he was more than annoyed that Corbett’s were running a station stay.
‘But the plane,’ Mac said, standing like a runner at the start of a race. ‘It needs to be safe.’
Bob moved to stop him. ‘You can’t mate. It’s too dangerous. We can replace a plane, but we can’t replace you.’
Again, the wind swept around the shed, sounding like a train, and the rain continued to fall. The road was now underwater and rivulets were forming across the yard. Visibility was down to about ten metres.
Brody let out a heavy sigh. ‘Bloody hell, love the rain but the worst thing about this is that I’m going to have to pump out the mongrel septic tanks again.’ He looked over at Dave. ‘The joys of being a station stay.’
Shannon raised her eyebrows as if she hadn’t thought about that before. ‘What happens if there is an emergency?’ she asked. ‘If someone needs medical attention or the like?’
Brody shrugged, reaching for a new rag, trying to stem the dripping coming from his hair. ‘We gotta try to make sure that doesn’t happen. The strip will be too slippery for a day or two, so no one will be able to get in or out that way. Same with the road. I guess if it was imperative we needed help, one of us would take a bike and try to get through, but the river will be running a banker by now, I reckon.’ He turned to Mac. ‘That means,’ he translated, ‘that the water will be at the top of the river bank and could overflow out onto the flood plains. And the current is really strong when it’s like that. Bloody dangerous. Wouldn’t take too much to get swept away.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘The phone might be working, but probably not. And the internet most likely will have been knocked out. The satellites don’t seem to like any sort of weather! If it’s cloudy it runs slow; if it’s hot, it drops out; if it’s raining, well, it’s pot luck then!’
‘So, we’re completely cut off from the rest of the world?’
‘I guess, if you put it like that, we are,’ Brody said.
CHAPTER 14
The storm blew itself out three hours later, and by then, all of them had risked running back to their rooms. Brody had headed to the homestead to check on his mum.
Dave had wanted to question Brody, but Bob told him to leave it. They were going to have plenty of time now.
Bob, Dave and Shannon were sitting in the camp kitchen, steaming cups of tea at their side, watching the clouds blow across the sky. What had been black clouds were now a dirty grey but they were lit with brilliance by a rainbow that seemed to come from one low cloud and stretch across the sky until it hit the beach in the other direction.
In his mind, Dave sung the song about the colours of the rainbow that he used to sing to Bec whenever he saw one and she was with him. He tapped his fingers on the table in time to the tune in his head. Bec would have loved seeing this rainbow; she’d been fascinated by them from a very young age, pointing to them every time she saw one. Dave didn’t know how Alice would react; he’d never been with her when there was a rainbow around.
Swallowing hard, Dave tried to forget about Mel and his kids and looked out of the door, wanting to find something else to focus on.
Sunlight lit the land and the wind dropped until there was no evidence there had even been a storm, except for deep puddles. Deep gouges crossed the roads and camp sites, and heavily laden leaves drooped with the weight of the water.
‘How does it even do that?’ Shannon asked in wonder. ‘So full on and then nothing.’
‘Madness, isn’t it?’ Dave’s voice was soft. ‘But wonderful.’
‘Geez, you two have gone soft in the head,’ Bob said with a snort. ‘Going to make our life a pain in the arse now. We’ve got a body in the coolroom in case you’d forgotten. We won’t be able to get back to DoubleM Station to do a check around now, or any of the other neighbours. Won’t be able to have a look around here either. We’re going to be stuck here, twiddling our thumbs for more than a couple of days, mark my words.’
‘I wasn’t forgetting the body, Bob,’ Shannon said softly. ‘Getting him to Perth ASAP would be my preference. And a storm like that? Well, I’ve just never seen anything so intense.’
‘Is your hangover still bothering you?’ Dave asked.
Bob shot him a frustrated stare, so Dave changed the subject.
‘Hopefully, this won’t hold us up too much. I reckon we should be able to get up to the northern part of this station for a look around. It appeared a lot sandier up there than around here. I’ll check with Brody. I can take a motorbike if you don’t want to.’
Bob seemed to relax and leaned forward. ‘Son, I for one will not be digging any vehicle out of a bog. If it means we spend a few extra days up here, then so be it.’ He nodded as if he’d put a full stop on his sentence and there was to be no argument. ‘Like I said earlier, we’re going to have plenty of time.’
‘Well, obvious I know, but I’m stuck here, too,’ Shannon said. ‘God knows what amount of work I’ll find when I get back.’ She jiggled her knee up and down. ‘Still, the boss will be filling in for me so,’ shrugging, she smiled at Bob, ‘what can you do?’
