‘We’ll give it another hour,’ says Mathew. Another precious hour of wasted time, if he’s made the wrong decision.

  They go on without speaking—Billy ahead and Mathew behind, crackling through the saltbush. The trail keeps on with its tricks, but Mathew can’t bring himself to give it up, even when they’ve gone longer than an hour. Then Virnu stops abruptly. Billy dismounts, inspects something, points. There, beside a witchetty bush covered in scratchy yellow flowers, sits a pair of boots. Mathew dismounts to see for himself, and yes, they are, they’re Denny’s boots, with the laces missing.

  Mathew is reminded of an early morning in his childhood when a man came to the door with the news that Mathew’s father, drunk, had fallen into a dyke and drowned. Little Mathew wondered: if no one had been home to hear the man’s news, would that mean his father hadn’t fallen into the dyke? Adult Mathew would like not to be at home to the news that Denny’s boots are sitting empty beside a witchetty bush in the middle of the Willochra Plain. They’ve been set down tidily, just as at night they’re always lined up beside the bed Denny shares with Ada and Noella.

  ‘Why would he take his boots off?’ Mathew says, thinking that without his boots, Denny seems—if this is possible—substantially more defenceless.

  ‘Could be they hurt his feet,’ says Billy. They both know Denny hates wearing boots. Mathew is sympathetic to this, but shoes are one of the many minor battles he has ceded in his marriage: genteel Mary believes children should always wear them.

  Mathew runs a finger over the empty eyelets of one boot. ‘He can’t manage the knots on his own. Can he manage the knots?’

  Billy shakes his head.

  ‘No,’ Mathew agrees. ‘But he has his knife. He’s cut the laces out.’

  Or, Mathew thinks, someone else has untied them for him, then taken them for some reason, and left the boots here. What would make them decide that Denny wouldn’t be needing anything on his feet? To mask his rising panic, Mathew squats close to the boots. An ant explores the left one’s tongue. He had them resoled last year and really they’re in fair condition.

  ‘The tracks keep on,’ Billy says.

  ‘And we’ll follow.’ Mathew picks up Denny’s boots, shakes them free of ants, and stows them in his saddlebag. It’s better when they’re out of sight. In the saddlebag, they can’t conjure quite so readily the exact size of Denny’s feet.

  From this point, the trail leaves off its meandering: it heads with purpose towards the western ranges. Mathew would like to move faster, and he’d like to be out ahead, but Billy is much better at following the tracks, so Billy sets the pace. Mathew dislikes this—it makes him feel as if Billy’s colluding with the man they’re trailing. What kind of man snatches a child, puts him on a horse, and leads him into the ranges? Discarding his boots, but keeping the laces? What kind of man allows that to happen to his son?

  On the western edge of the plain, the ground begins to rise and the native pines to thicken. Billy and Mathew pass beneath she-oaks threaded with orange mistletoe and the seamed webs of orb spiders; a wind starts up and, blowing through the she-oaks, it sounds like the sea coming down off the ranges. The men ride in the shadow of the western cliffs. Rocks scatter underfoot, grey and plum and dun. They join a creek that’s cut its way through a gap in a cliff—the trail follows the creek, and Billy and Mathew follow the trail. It leads them into the long, narrow valley that separates the first ridge of hills from the second. They’re in the roots of the ranges now, and the plain is hidden from them—Mathew thinks of a heavy stone rolling and unrolling from the entrance to an ancient tomb. They’re inside the tomb, and the stone has been rolled across the entrance. The sky above the valley is narrow and far. The tracks keep on beneath the valley walls, which ripple with their stripes of green, grey, red and white, like the flank of some ludicrous animal. Deep inside the tomb, Mathew starts calling Denny’s name, and Billy joins him.

  Further down the valley, they find a waterhole with one straight white gum growing out of it. There’s some light left in the day, but the horses are exhausted, so Mathew agrees to stop. The water’s low, but it’s fresh and cold.

  ‘What range is this?’ he asks, looking at the broad cliffs rising above them. ‘The Axam Range?’

  ‘Yep,’ says Billy.

  Because they’re looking up at the hills, they both see the smudge of smoke that begins to rise from a high, pale bluff: someone, presumably the man they’re following, has just lit a campfire in the Axam Range. Seeing the smoke, Mathew understands that finding Denny is going to mean climbing into the hills. Mathew’s body doesn’t know hills. It knows flat land, wet land, and the black-frost wind coming straight from Russia over the fens.

  ‘The very devil,’ he says, but he feels a thrill run through him. There’s a swarming in his limbs—he’s ready to climb, fight, uproot trees, tear down mountains. ‘Right then,’ he says. ‘All right. We’ll have to leave the horses.’

  Mathew tethers Bonfire, all the while shifting from foot to foot. He reaches up to scratch Bonfire’s withers and says, ‘We’ve got him now, girl.’ They’ll find Denny tonight and Mathew will have him home by early morning. And after that: the Shires, the carting, the mortgage, the wheat, and Mary will be pleased with him. He already sees Denny at the table: eating with his mouth open, trying to keep his elbows by his sides, and giggling when he hears his father burp.

  When he steps away from Bonfire, Mathew sees that Billy hasn’t tethered Virnu. He feels a surge of fury but finds himself laughing. ‘Well?’ he says. ‘Do you plan to stand there like a sack of wet feathers?’

  But Billy doesn’t move towards his horse. He jerks his head at the Axam Range and says, ‘I can’t go up there.’

  Mathew glances at the darkening scrub, then back at Billy, who looks unsure of himself.

  Mathew says, ‘It’s not so steep,’ but Billy doesn’t answer. Mathew says, ‘There’s an hour left of decent light. And we’ll see the fire in the dark.’

  Billy says, ‘I can’t be on that country.’

  Mathew looks at the hills, as if by studying them he’ll understand why Billy is talking so back to front.

  ‘It’s law,’ says Billy.

  ‘What law?’ Mathew shifts on his feet. His limbs are ready for action.

  ‘Old law,’ says Billy.

  So he means what Mathew feels most comfortable referring to as ‘blackfellow business’. Mathew says, ‘Now’s not the time.’ He understands and appreciates the laws of property; every inch of the fen he grew up on was parcelled out, and you always knew just whose sod you stood on. But no one would begrudge a trespasser looking for his lost son. And Billy isn’t even talking property—he’s talking religion, which Mathew takes seriously, but thinks of as negotiable. He’s accepted his sinful nature; along with it comes grace. There are always bargains to be made with God.

  ‘All right, what happens?’ Mathew demands. ‘If you climb this hill, what happens? You’re struck by lightning?’

  Billy shakes his head.

  Mathew can hardly breathe for rage and disbelief. He’s protected this man for years—shielded him from George Axam’s dislike when they worked together at Thalassa, and hired him away to safety when the Undelcarra lease came through. ‘I order you,’ says Mathew. ‘What about that? You come up there with me, or there’s an end to your job.’

  Billy says, ‘I can’t.’ He no longer seems unsure.

  ‘All right, it’s law,’ says Mathew. He can hear the wheedling tone in his voice; it disgusts him. But he’ll beg for Denny if he has to: for Denny’s bootless feet. ‘It’s law. But who’s to see? I’m not telling anyone. Who’ll know? You’ll know, I’ll know. Not another soul.’

  Billy says, ‘It’s dangerous. For you, for me, for Denny.’

  ‘Dangerous how?’

  Billy shakes his head; why won’t he just explain? Mathew can’t talk him out of something he won’t defend. It’s hurting Billy, too—Mathew can see that. Billy loves Denny and wants to find him. This, suddenly, is the greatest insult of all: that this man has the gall to love Mathew’s son. Mathew could kill him for it. He could snap Billy’s neck. He takes a step closer and says, ‘I’m asking one more time.’

  Billy bows his head with regret, and this gesture is intolerable. Mathew flies at him, wrestling him to the ground. Mathew’s whole weight falls on Billy’s chest—Billy wheezes, winded, and Mathew strikes beneath his chin, driving up with his elbow. Mathew can fight this way, too: not in their usual mannerly, upright style, but brutally. His father taught him by example. This is the kind of fighting that produced his cauliflower ear, that gave him a reputation on the fens and sent him slinking off to South Australia. Billy’s body feels breakable beneath him. Ungrateful Billy—ugly, ungrateful, disloyal, stubborn Billy—he’ll beat Billy’s face to pulp. I’m stronger, thinks Mathew. Stronger and younger, and Denny is my son.

  But Billy is faster, and he’s moving. He rolls Mathew until he’s lying on his back and digs a knee into his chest, pinning him to the ground. Mathew has never seen Billy look so determined. And he’s stronger, somehow, unlike in all those fights they’ve had before, which Mathew now realises Billy must have lost on purpose. Billy is holding Mathew down so that all he can do is hit against his sides, trying to shove him off. What if Denny were here to see this? What if Mary were here to see it? The disgrace of being bested, and so quickly, by a black man, and an older one at that. He’s crying, but not with pain—with surprise and anger. He cranes his neck to bite Billy’s arm but, before he can, Billy strikes at Mathew’s nostrils with the heel of his hand, hard and upwards, as if he’d like to shear the nose clean off.

  Mathew feels the pain now. His nose is on fire, his eyes sting with sweat, and the distant sky is tilting. He tries to lift his head, but Billy stops him—gently. Then the stone rolls shut at the entrance to the tomb, and Mathew is inside it, in the dark.

  The boy slept for most of the day in the shade of the acacia tree, and when he woke, the hills had come closer. His breath smelled awful, as if something were creeping up his throat and had nearly reached the dryness of his mouth. He lay beneath the tree until the arrival of a lizard with a blunt head and thick tail. The lizard opened its surprising mouth and hissed at the boy, so he stood up and began to walk again, looking for shelter from the sun. There would be shelter in the ranges. He moved slowly towards them, and when he was too tired he sat down, sometimes on the prickly ground and once on a downed tree trunk with thick, evenly spaced knots in it that reminded him of the teats of a sow. There used to be a sow at home, until Dad killed it and Mam made sausages, bacon, salt pork and blood pudding. Sitting on the tree-sow, Denny saw the tracks of horses. He didn’t know how many, but more than one. They were heading towards the ranges, so he followed them—that’s how he found two more murky puddles, which he drank from.

  Soon afterwards, the boy saw smoke go up in a thin line from a fold in the closest hills. Just imagining the sight of a person brought on a messy sob. He thought of hands above a campfire and the hands became his mother’s. So he ran until he grew tired, which didn’t take long. Then he walked, and as he came near to the smoke—the fire itself was hidden from him, in a gorge—he grew nervous and stood leaning against a rock near the gorge’s entrance, thinking about what to do. Every time he tried to fasten on a thought it flew away. It was easier to think if he closed his eyes, so he closed them for a long time. When he opened them again he could see someone standing not far away. The someone hadn’t seen him. It stood with its back to the gorge, and it was naked, with burning arms crossed over its burning chest, watching the setting sun. It looked as if it were made of the sun: it was big and gold and bright, and there was no shadow behind it. The sky was very red. The boy watched until the sun went below the horizon and the sky turned an even deeper red. Then the someone lifted its arms and raised its face into the redness.

  The boy waited until the someone went back into the gorge. There was enough light left, and the cooler air helped calm the boy’s mind. He climbed the rocky slope—he had always been a good climber, although today his legs were shaky—and he found a secure place from which he could look down into the gorge, which had a waterhole in it. Now he could see a campfire, and a lady beside it. The lady looked more ordinary than the someone. She wore a loose white shift that showed her knees. She worked over the fire, and the smell of the food she cooked rose to the boy and hurt his throat. When she called out, the someone appeared, dressed now and looking like a man. But he couldn’t completely hide the sun that was inside him: he leaned down to the waterhole, dipped his hands, and when he shook the water off them, each drop turned red. Serving the food, the lady looked as if she were standing in the fire, as if its heat was nothing to her. The boy saw no sign of the horses that had made the tracks, and wondered if they’d been a trick.

  The boy watched the man and lady eat. Afterwards, she went to the side of the gorge, hitched her skirt and squatted, then stood and kicked sand over the spot. The man put more wood on the fire. They covered themselves with blankets and spoke together. The boy, crouching cold in the dark, waited for the gods to fall asleep before going down to drink and look for food.

  THIRD NIGHT

  Sergeant Foster is proud of his pipe, which was imported from London, is made of seasoned Mediterranean briar, and has an ebony mouthpiece. He takes pleasure in objects of quality, believing them essential to a worthwhile life. There should be great satisfaction for him, then, in sitting by a campfire in the Druid Range at the end of a long day of searching, in pulling out this handsome pipe, in smoking his strong Syrian tobacco with a practised pucker, and in thinking over the possible subject of his next book. Ordinarily, Foster relishes nights like this one: a waxing gibbous moon, cloudless, windless, chilly but far from frost, a light dew, sparks floating from the fire, and every inhalation fragrant with smoke, sweat, horse and leather. Foster has every reason to feel content, and therefore no excuse not to. But he’s dissatisfied.

  The fact is, he insisted on this north-easterly direction while only ninety per cent sure of it himself, largely because the Wallace girl was being difficult. In addition, Jimmy Possum—his native tracker, the one who won’t be parted from his cloak—is sulking because he’s been spoken to severely. There were, indeed, footprints leading up to the flat rock, but no clear prints leading away from it. There was a trail of some kind, however, which Jimmy followed, but the local man who reported the first tracks grew impatient—tracking can be a slow business—and went out ahead of Jimmy on horseback. The local did not, as far as Foster could tell, disturb the trail, but Jimmy was offended, the local man was offended, and the other local man took his neighbour’s part. Words were exchanged. The trail, which Jimmy eventually returned to with a moody nonchalance, ran out in a rocky creek bed and Jimmy claimed not to be able to pick it up again.

  Finally, the sky turned red and the sun went down and here they are, having made tense camp around a fire built large enough to attract attention, in the hope that the boy might see it and seek them out. Jimmy didn’t seem to like the idea of attracting attention, which is, Foster thinks as he smokes by the fire, typical of natives; their every word and act is directed by some dreadful superstition. The local men produced a supply of rum and offered it around, and Foster refused for both himself and Jimmy. The men objected to this refusal on Jimmy’s behalf, grew boisterous, then maudlin, and are now asleep and snoring—one with a courteous squeal, and the other like a church organ. Foster perches, disgruntled, in the front pew.

  Jimmy sits beyond the fire, smoking cheap tobacco from a clay pipe. Foster worries about Jimmy’s mood—he worries about both his trackers. He pays for their uniforms out of his own pocket. He knows their wives, their favourite foods, that Copper Bob is colourblind, that Jimmy loves a pun. Copper Bob claims to have learned from his elders how to weave vast, fine nets that can catch hundreds of fish, which seems unlikely. Jimmy’s left arm is useless, but with a stockwhip in his right, he can break the back of a snake hidden in the grasses. Foster knows his boys and he’s good to them. After all, he wants them to stay with him.

  Foster, from his place beside the fire, notes the vigorous glow of Jimmy’s bowl and is irritated with the man for not knowing how to smoke pipe tobacco at a proper pace. Aside from this glow, Jimmy is invisible, as if he’s finally succeeded in merging with his cloak. But where Jimmy’s forehead must be there is, sometimes, a glaze of light on the darkness, as he raises and lowers his head. Foster thinks, I should have forced that bloody cloak off him at Thalassa and sold the damn thing to the Axam woman.

  Foster has ordered Jimmy to keep watch, but he’ll stay awake a while longer himself, just to be sure. He knows you can’t be too careful, even in these peaceful districts. It isn’t that he fears attack from hostile natives (this hasn’t been frontier territory for thirty years), but he’s wary of being caught up in one of their tribal wars: someone desecrates a sacred site; someone carries off the wrong woman; some arcane, bloody, complicated law is broken and a whole family is wiped out. He’s heard of bands of men spending years hunting, picking off their quarry one by one, and returning to their tribe as avenging heroes. Foster’s other tracker, Copper Bob, saw his own father killed in the night by no one at all. By a movement in the branches. Well, it’s to be expected, Foster thinks—any old bastard is going to have offended someone in the course of his long life. These people follow unwritten laws, which makes them unpredictable. As a result, they can’t be trusted.