Page 41 of Stockman's Stormcloud

‘Lemme see…’ Charlie leaned back in his seat, rubbing his jawline as he stared at the ceiling. ‘I remember it was the year when the Indigenous got the right to vote. Robert Menzies was prime minister, and the Northern Territory wasn’t a territory but still part of South Australia.’ Charlie sat forward, leaning his forearms on the table. ‘And just before Harry disappeared in November, we’d listened to Essendon beat Carlton in the VFL on the radio. I won a stack onEven Stevensin the Melbourne Cup. Australia won thirty-eight gold medals in the Commonwealth Games in Perth. And that sweet girl, Marilyn Monroe, died of a drug overdose, so they say. I still reckon she was murdered, you know.’

‘Nothing wrong with your memory, then.’ Porter gave a grin.

‘Nah, just the ticker.’ Charlie patted at his heart. ‘I remember we had a terrible drought that year, too.’

‘Drought? In the top end.’ Dex didn’t believe it, considering it rained six months of the year.

‘Two years in a row we had weak wet seasons, in between a couple of long dry seasons. We were lucky Darcie’s old man had a stack of turkey nests set to get us through. Then he had us redoing Starvation Dam and we’d make new bores every year after that. It’s why we have seventy-odd bores now. I’ve got a map here that I’d give to the bore runners.’ Charlie rummaged through his paperwork. ‘There.’ It was another map of the station, showing a lot of X marks with a number to represent the bores, and dotted lines for main tracks. ‘Which reminds me to get you your map, lad. I’ll get Bree to copy this one, too.’

Dex nodded as he leaned in closer to the map.

‘What do you mean by turkey nests?’ Porter asked.

‘Short-term reservoirs to catch the wet season rains.’ Dex then asked Charlie, ‘they didn’t turn into mosquito swamps?’

‘Nah. They kept us going, but. Unlike some of the neighbours, who were selling off stock at sawdust prices toget them through. But in a time of drought, you’ll get a lot of hot heads.’

‘That’s no excuse for murder,’ mumbled Porter, clicking his pen.

Charlie leaned in closer to the cop. ‘Have you seen what happens in a drought, lad? The soil gets as hard as concrete, where it’ll crack open like it’d been left in the oven too long. Nothing grows. All you see is a sky of scavenger birds, and a haze of heat across the horizon where everyone is begging for shade… But then when the rains did finally come, all that water ran off like it had landed on Teflon. None of it soaked into the soil like you’d expect. Let’s hope Cap’s regeneration thingy stops all that.’

‘It will. I have faith in my brothers.’ All of Dex’s brothers had a special talent. Ash with his patented tech tools. Cap with his regenerative projects, native nursery, and muster dogs. Ryder was the bank and the business brains. Which left Dex scrambling for a unique way to make a positive impact on this station. He needed to be something more than play as the grader driver.

It’s why he pushed himself so much with the bare-knuckle fights for the hefty payouts. Dex wanted to own his quarter share of the place, to have equal voting rights, especially against Ryder. Dex did not want his big brother as his boss. No one was his boss.

Charlie spread out the black-and-white images across the table as if creating a collage. ‘Harry had worked for us before, but then he decided to go off and play football, while doing line work for the Post Office. He set up the telephone lines in this place. But with the drought the work dried up, so Harry came back to crash on my couch to work the muster.’

‘Hold on…’ Porter flicked back through his notebook. ‘You told me that Harry worked for the telephone company.’

‘Yeah, that’s right. The Post Office was the telephone company. They didn’t separate the telco company until 1975.’ Charlie sighed, cupping his tea mug in two hands to take a shaky sip. ‘That’s what bothered me the most, you know. Inever understood why Harry never left me a message. With his know-how of both the telegraph and the telephones, Harry knew how to get a message to me. But he never did.’

‘Maybe Harry didn’t want to get you involved,’ suggested Dex. ‘Especially if he killed that man and ran off with his wife.’

‘Did you know they were a couple?’ Porter shifted the images of Harry and Penelope to lay them side by side across the table. ‘All of the other witness statements claim that no one knew about the affair.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘I was out mustering with Darcie when his old man came out and told us Jack had been murdered and that my brother had run off with Penelope. I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Was it possible for your brother to have an affair with this woman without anyone knowing about it?’

‘Well, Harry was always a bit of a flirt. I did hear him call herPena few times, and I pulled him up on that. She was alwaysMrs Priceto us. Jack would’ve thumped us if we didn’t show his wife respect.’

‘You didn’t think anything of it then?’

‘No. I wasn’t my brother’s babysitter, when I spent most of my time with my best mate, Darcie where we’d go out hunting or fishing a lot. Harry could’ve snuck out and seen Penelope whenever her husband wasn’t around. As head stockman, Jack was always first in the saddle, ready to ride at dawn, and the last one in at sunset.’

‘Just not a good husband, by the sounds of it,’ mumbled Porter as he scribbled down his notes.

‘Look, I didn’t know their business.’ Charlie frowned at the policeman. ‘Back then, it was none of our business of what happened between a husband and his wife, and like I said, mate, it was law.’

‘I know, Charlie.’ Porter patted the old man’s shoulder, instantly defusing his bitter mood. ‘Would your brother had hid the affair from you on purpose? Knowing you wouldn’t approve.’

‘Probably.’ The old man shrugged. ‘Havin’ a pretty woman on a cattle station was a rarity back in those days. I know I had to bop a few cocky ringers flirtin’ with my wife, in my time. But Darcie and I avoided Mrs Penelope Price. We were young, and I valued my job. And like I said, Jack Price ruled with iron fists. But he was well-respected as head stockman on this station. In fact, Jack helped me learn to rodeo. He set up a ring for breaking in brumbies, to teach us technique. Together Jack and I built this special rodeo rocker we kept under the trees.’ The aged rodeo champion shared a heavy sigh. ‘I never went back to an Elsie Creek rodeo after Jack passed…’

‘Charlie, if your brother hid the affair from you, how many other secrets did he hide?’ Dex understood the power of keeping secrets, considering he had plenty of his own that he shared with no one, especially with his brothers. But he was pretty sure Ryder had his fair share of secrets, too.

‘I’m guessing Harry had a few.’ Porter shuffled the papers together and closed the police file. ‘But I’d like to check out the crime scene.’

Fourteen

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