Page 24 of Rough Stock

‘Well, you’d better keep playing passenger princess if you expect to ride in that thing.’

‘Oi?’ He was getting sick of that name, and she knew it by the sweet and rare sound of her giggle.

Quick, call the fun police, peoples. Isobel Callahan was giggling as she skipped towards the bull catcher. It was a miracle seeing her like this that it made his heart bloom like some rare flower that only flowered once a year at midnight.

‘Will you be okay back there, missy?’ Ginny asked Izzy who was scrambling onto the back tray in her fancy lawyer trousers and suspenders.

‘I’m fine.’ Izzy’s smile was wide with excitement. She tugged her ponytail tighter, then took a firm grip on the headboard’s rail, ready to fly.

‘Haven’t you got a hat?’

‘It’s on our shopping list.’ Craig slowly eased into the passenger seat. ‘We just thought we’d come see you first.’ Even if he wanted to ride on the back with Izzy and share that excited energy with her, his ribs and leg weren’t ready to play that game, not today.Two weeks to go.

‘Talking about shopping…’ Behind the steering wheel, Ginny started up the beast with a cloud of diesel smoke. ‘Can I get a couple more of your bull ropes there, Craig?’

‘Didn’t I just give you some?’

‘You know how Frank gets. He gave one to his nephew as a prezzie.’

‘But I made them for your sons.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m doubling up on my order for a baker’s dozen. I’ll pay you for it.’

‘Sure, I guess so.’ Craig tried to remember if he had enough supplies at home. At least it’d give him something to do, as he was sick of being housebound. Which is probably why he was taking this long detour home today. Craig wasn’t a cop, he was a stockman. But he could at least try and help Finn.

‘Can you tell me what happened?’ Craig asked Ginny, as she drove through the paddocks in their rough-and-ready bull catcher that needed a serious overhaul of its suspension.

In the back, Izzy looked so wild and free. She was stunning to watch with the wind in her hair and her smile never dimming.

‘Well, them mongrels did something to our security cameras.’ Ginny pointed to the tall poles set at regular intervals, the camera’s solar panels catching the sunlight. ‘Frank put the screens in the kitchen, so we could watch our livestock from the dinner table, but we saw nothing. Our sons even got some special ones that set off alarms if anyone gets too close. But they never did.’ Ginny gripped the steering wheel tightly as they tore through the paddock, forcing Craig to clutch his ribs with each jolt over the grassy tufts and uneven mounds.

Izzy squeezed his shoulder, helping him stay in place.

‘Oh, blimey, I’m sorry, lad. I forgot Wraith gave you a cowboy cuddle.’ Ginny steered back onto the track. It wasn’t much smoother.

‘All good, Ginny…’ Craig tried to breathe past the pain. But when Izzy tapped his shoulder, holding out his painkillers and a water bottle she had stashed in her handbag, he could’ve kissed her right then and there. ‘Thank you.’

He swallowed the pills and washed them down. ‘If you had cameras set, how did they get the cattle?’

‘Me sons reckoned they put the cameras on a loop. Don’t know how.’

‘They’d tape it, then replay it through the lines,’ said Izzy casually over their heads. ‘Hackers do it all the time. They can tape, cut, and edit it to turn one minute of playing time into an hour and you wouldn’t know they’d done it.’

‘That’s what must’ve happened.’ Ginny nodded at Izzy, then said to Craig, ‘I like her. Why’ve you gotta play around with them others in town when you’ve got yourself a smart cookie like her?’

Good question. Once, he thought he had a good answer for that—but now he wasn’t so sure. And he wasn’t going to get into it with Ginny. ‘When did you realise Wraith was gone?’

‘Yesterday morning. We lost Wraith, two special breeding heifers, and half a dozen bull calves. Wraith’s progeny. All gone. Them mongrels knew what to take, too.’ Ginny pulled up on a hill that gave them a grand view of the fenced network of paddocks.

‘What do you mean?’ In the back, Izzy crouched down to listen.

‘Can you tell the difference in the stock we’ve got out there, missy?’ Ginny pointed to the paddock, where white and brown-coated cattle scattered over the grasses like salt sprinkled on a dinner plate of vegetables.

‘No.’

‘Well, them mongrel duffers could. They took the best of the rough stock we had. Especially Wraith and his sons. And those two ladies they got, they were the daughters of two champion bulls. We’d just finished quarantining them and were getting ready for them to meet Wraith. The thing was, the stolen stock were in five different paddocks. And we still don’t know which direction the mongrels came onto the property.’

‘I do.’ Craig unfolded from the passenger seat, and with his crutch under his arm, he hobbled into the field. ‘Look, tracks.’ He pointed to the crushed dirt. ‘You don’t do quads, do you?’

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