Mary reaches the top of the hill and leans with one hand against the cypress pine. Its lowest branches are just above her head. The moon is fat but not yet full and Mary stands beneath it, thinking of the strawberry birthmark on the back of Denny’s knee. She really did crave strawberries while she carried Denny, and Mathew had done all that he could to get them for her. How to make it clear to Mathew that she knows he’s doing his best? Even so, there comes a point at which everything stops.

  Mary’s breathing is uneven and her heart beats in her aching ear. Her boy is alone in the dark, frightened and wanting her, with a stolen blanket and bare feet. He needs a light to guide him home. She lifts the chimney of the lamp and holds the flame to the thick foliage of the cypress pine. Its needles smoke and kindle, but don’t take. Of course they don’t: it rained today, for which she should be grateful; rain, to a farmer’s wife, is always heaven-sent. It’s the Lord working out His purposes. Mary removes her apron, drenches it in oil from the lamp, and bundles it among the branches. Then she lights the apron. It burns, the needles catch, and fire takes hold of the tree.

  The burning tree is visible for almost eleven miles. Inge Schmidt sees it from the upper verandah of the Sheaf of Wheat Hotel, and raises the alarm in town.

  Robert Manning, out with his local search party, sees the fire in the distance but can’t tell that it’s on a hill. His first thought is that his house is burning with Minna inside it.

  Minna, driving the buggy, doesn’t see the fire until Karl looks back along the road and points it out to her. He feels a clenching in his gut. Here, finally, is his pillar of fire. Here’s the sun come back to laugh at him. He’s lost the boy, and he’ll never paint the sunset. He puts one hand on Minna’s thigh. Minna assumes it’s a bonfire, and is delighted by it. It feels like a correspondence—as if something in the world is answering something inside of her. She whips the horses to make them run.

  Mathew is too far away to see the fire—he won’t hear of it until late the following afternoon when he reaches town with his first load of wool.

  The fire isn’t visible from Thalassa, where the shearers drink rum and play euchre in the bachelors’ hall. At the house, George frets, Bolingbroke coughs, and Bear, walking past the dining room and seeing his mother sitting by the orchestrion, thinks to ask her if she’s feeling quite well. Joanna says, ‘Of course I am.’

  Billy sets up a cot beside Jimmy’s in the harness room and settles down to smoke, pulling Henry’s coat up to his chin. Jimmy is asleep, but earlier he laughed while Billy imitated Foster, even though the laughing must have caused him pain. He makes strange movements in his sleep, as if someone is throwing him a rope that he can’t catch.

  Cissy, riding June, is also too far from home to see the fire on the hill. She sees a different fire: a campfire beside the road between Thalassa and Fairly, and, next to the campfire, a dray, a bullock team and three men. One of the men is the driver of the dray—she recognises him as the man who drove them all to Thalassa the night before. He sits by the fire, smokes, and looks both sullen and embarrassed. Cissy slows her horse. One of the men lies asleep on the ground beneath a blanket; his hair is light, and she isn’t immediately sure, but yes—it’s Mr Daniels, with his head on a folded jacket. It’s always Mr Daniels. And beside him is Sergeant Foster, sitting on the ground. It must be his jacket that’s beneath the vicar’s head, because Foster is in shirtsleeves. He looks happy. Cissy pulls back on June’s reins and is surprised to feel the horse obey her.

  Cissy looks down at Mr Daniels, then at Sergeant Foster, and says, ‘What happened? Wasn’t he in bed?’

  Foster grins. ‘He ran off from the house. I followed him.’

  Cissy is grudgingly impressed. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s been shot,’ says Foster.

  Cissy looks at the fair head showing above the blanket. There’s more colour in Mr Daniels’ face than there was this morning. She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Who shot him?’

  ‘I did,’ says the gloomy driver. ‘Nicked his shoulder. He showed up out of nowhere and scared me half to death.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he see the doctor?’ Cissy asks. ‘Again?’

  Sergeant Foster says, ‘I’ve bound the wound, he’s in no danger. Just feeling the shock.’

  Foster stands and comes over to June. His manner is jovial and obliging, as if Cissy is an old acquaintance and, if not his equal, then at least a member of the same wide congregation.

  ‘He’s in police custody,’ Foster says. ‘The minute he comes to, I’ll arrest him for the abduction of your brother.’

  ‘He didn’t abduct my brother,’ says Cissy. One look at the minister’s flushed, silly, gentle face should confirm that fact.

  Foster gives an indulgent chuckle. He thumps June’s flank, says, ‘Walk on,’ and June, suddenly utterly docile, obeys him.

  Cissy could object. The vicar is, after all, her responsibility. She has saved his life, fed him, cleaned him, and heard him talk in his sleep. She turns in the saddle and observes how cosy they all look by the fire: the bullocks, the driver with his pipe, and Foster returning to his seat by Mr Daniels’ head. They already look very far away. She could make a fuss on the vicar’s behalf, but she chooses not to. She’ll go home to bring them news, then do what she always meant to: find her brother.

  In the house at Undelcarra, Ada is the first to see the burning tree. She notices a flicker through the window and runs outside with a cry. Her sisters follow her. The fire is contained on top of the hill—it’s well beyond the safety of the gate, but Ada knows how quickly fire can spread. And Mam is up there still. At Ada’s side, Lotta stumbles, and Joy catches and rights her. They all stand, stricken, looking at the hill.

  Bess runs through and past them, calling, ‘Mary! Mary!’ She fears she’s made one calamitous mistake and now will have to go on making it. Muriel Deniston emerges from the house making hushing sounds of comfort and regret. Noella runs to her and grips her hand. Bess turns to the sisters, shouting, ‘Water! Pails! Water!’ She climbs over the low garden fence, tearing her skirts, and starts running up the hill. She can see Mary walking near the fire, which roars above the cypress pine. Tongues of flame taste the air around the tree, burning seedpods fly into the grass. Bess, in her panic, thinks of Moses and the burning bush, but can’t remember the proper name for it; the term that occurs to her instead is ‘God-struck’.

  Mary paces by the God-struck tree. She’s shouting Denny’s name inside her head, and the tree is her shout made visible in the world. Has Denny heard it?

  Yes, the boy heard it. Seeing the burning tree, he understood that the gods had reached Mam first and brought the sun down to the hill.

  NOTES OF THE AUSTRALIAN WRITER

  Get this down, Foster. Whether or not we find the body of the boy, there’s a book in this. Set the scene: a desperate search beneath the scorching sun. Emphasise the size and fairness of the boy. Mention, more than once, the strawberry-shaped birthmark on the back of his knee. Heroism of the father. Quiet dignity of the mother. The bloodied handkerchief and the boots are gifts! The vicar, driven to madness and murder by the desert, wandering the night like a wretched ghost. Wherever there’s a desert, there’s a man sent mad by it. A man such as this Daniels, a little cock-ant, pale and skinny, all ribs and prick like a drover’s dog, straight off the boat and sent up to the north country, which scares him silly. Yes! Wandering the Wilderness, by Sergeant Stephen Foster. Under the Desert Sun. In a Desert Land, by Stephen Foster.

  But not only a book about the shit-stained vicar. No, include dramatic accounts, based on true facts, of all the men who weren’t strong enough in mind or heart or body for the cruelty of the Australian bush. The true story of Henry Axam, with his temple and his music machine, riding full pelt into a raging creek as if he could handle it—a peacock like Henry Axam, not fit to carry offal to a bear. The befuddlement of the blue blood who comes out to the colonies and finds himself on a level with every other man. A lord heads out bush, and what is he lord of? Nothing but sheep, flies, blacks, wife. If he encounters any force of nature (viz. a flooding creek), he must assert himself. And thus, and hence, and accordingly, into the valley of Death rode Henry Axam.

  I must have a hundred stories of desert madness. Think, Foster, think. The Naked Prophet of Bedunda Run. The whole family who just up and left—stew cooking on the stove—and walked out into the bush without food or water. A chapter on the deaths at Evers Creek: husband kills wife because wife kills children, or so he claimed. All he’d say was, ‘It just seemed for the best.’ The surveyor in the tea-tree, stretched like Christ. Every damn explorer. There’s almost too much for one book.

  Discuss causes. Isolation, solitude, distance from anywhere that looks like home. Sunstroke bringing down fine officers, nostalgia turning proud men into hypochondriacs. For the fairer sex, prolonged lactation in a dry climate. Excessive masturbation in the homesick—why not? This book will tell the truth to the city folk, who think it’s all boiling billies and the Milky Way. This is bloody country for those who aren’t prepared—the weak, the nervous. The true pioneers, true children of the bush, are always masters of themselves.

  And end with this: the raving minister bleeding in the night, and I keep vigil. This is the climax of the drama, the great set piece: the lowing of the bullocks, the sparks and embers of the fire, the deep dark night and the sky full of twinkling stars, the lonely road, the officer waiting to bring the murderer to justice. The sound of a mopoke in the lonely night. The aroma of a good pipe, smoked well. The sergeant’s jacket keeps the vicar’s head out of the dust. The sergeant’s horse makes quiet sounds. Get it all down, Foster. This book is your reward for years of waiting. Wings heard in the darkness, beyond the light of the fire. Everything known contained in the light of the fire; beyond it, the whole vast, empty country, ready, after years of waiting, for us to love her in her wildness. The bleeding vicar, the watchful officer, the long and lonely vigil in the night. End with this.

  SIXTH NIGHT, STILL

  The night isn’t over. Cissy thinks it must be, riding into Fairly, but the hotels are still open. She doesn’t look at the ladies’ entrance of the Imperial, afraid of seeing Miss McNeil; and, further on, she doesn’t look at Minna’s house. If she did, she might see two figures in the dark of the verandah: Minna unlocking the front door with Karl standing close behind her. On the edge of town, Cissy does see a smudge of fire in the distance, but doesn’t connect it to home until she’s passing the house with the donkey, hears a voice addressing her, and is startled into thinking that the donkey has spoken. The voice comes again, and turns out to belong to the woman who lives in the house, the seamstress: she’s climbed the peach tree and, half hidden in its branches, she calls out to Cissy, ‘You’re a Wallace, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ says Cissy, slowing June, but the woman in the tree says, ‘Don’t stop—it’s your house on fire. Go, go.’

  Cissy leans forwards in the saddle and urges June on with her heels. The horse speeds up, just as she’s been told to, and goes flying down the road. Cissy holds tight, sure that June will throw her. But the horse, who’s been so silly, is steady now—she likes a road, as Billy said she did. Closer to Undelcarra, Cissy sees that the fire is higher than the house—it’s on the hill, the bulk of which is burning. Above it, the sky is lightened by the smoke.

  Nearer the house, Cissy sees horses in the yard and people moving. They’re rushing to and fro, between the house and hill. As Cissy reaches the gate, amazed to have arrived so quickly, she sees that men are running to pumps and tanks and troughs with pails and bags, collecting water, and running back to throw it on the hill. She recognises Constable Manning—Robert. But no, they aren’t all men. There’s Joy, carrying the washtub full of water—how heavy it must be! Joy carries it all alone and, nearing the hill, throws its contents onto the fire. And there’s Ada and Noella by the hollow tree, stamping out embers that have drifted from the blaze. Men with shovels dig a ditch—the dirt fills pails and boxes and is also thrown onto the fire. And Cissy, watching as she secures June, her hands trembling so badly that she finds her fingers hard to use, sees another person dashing about in skirts and thinks it’s Mam. But, running towards her, Cissy sees that it isn’t Mam—it’s a younger woman Cissy doesn’t recognise, who calls out orders in an English accent, who shouts and points, whose dark hair is falling loose, who’s stripped down to her petticoats, and whose face is streaked with soot.

  Cissy reaches Ada and Noella. A spot fire has begun in their patch of ground and they’ve drawn away from it with shrunken faces. Without much thought, Cissy steps out of her skirt and uses it to smother the blaze. From this point on, Cissy is everywhere: on all sides of the hill, with tubs and pails, wielding a shovel, tossing dirt and water. White ash drifts down, and Cissy recites, Full knee-deep lies the winter snow. Her body works as if the poem, rather than her heart, propels her blood. She sees Mam working at the pump, drawing up water. She sees Lotta at the window, crying with her face against the pane. She sees an unfamiliar old woman carrying packs and baskets onto the verandah. She sees Robert with bare arms, whipping at the fire with wet sheets, Mopsy snapping at his heels.

  And everywhere she goes, she sees the magnificent woman in her petticoats, fast and strong. As they work together, beating back the fire, it feels to Cissy as if the fire is theirs—hers and this woman’s; that they have power over it; that they will never grow tired and never let it reach the house. She will turn out to be partly right: they will grow tired, but the fire won’t reach the house. Cissy fights beside the woman, who is—and Cissy doesn’t know it yet—the Swedish painter’s wife, and also the heart’s decision, the amazed arrival, the headlong fall.

  Tal sees the fire from where he walks east of the Wilparra road. He’s carrying a blanket. He found it in a creek bed earlier this afternoon, along with a set of tracks belonging to a child: a bootless child, moving slowly, dragging its left foot slightly. Tal is an excellent tracker. He knows the plain’s particulars and also its entirety, so that he can see it as the moon would, looking down, and also as a mouse would, running through the saltbush. But even he can’t track reliably in the dark; he has resigned himself to waiting until dawn. It’s then he sees the fire, which looks like the sort someone would light to warn of an arrival. Walking towards it, he sees the silhouette of a child. The boy is close, then closer—now the boy is here, in his own patch of stink. Tal looks down; the boy looks up. The boy has cried so hard he’s forgotten how to do it.

  ‘Can you stand?’ Tal asks.

  If the boy tries to stand, Tal can’t detect it. Tal picks him up and holds the boy across his body, as he would a lamb. Then he runs towards the burning hill.

  STATEMENT OF THE ENGLISH ARTIST

  E. RAPP, known as ‘Bess’, stands charged before the undersigned, Justice of the Court of Both Private and Public Opinion, for that she, the said E. Rapp, wilfully did prolong and make use of the suffering of others in order to facilitate the execution of her art. This charge is read to the accused and to the witnesses for the prosecution (some of whom are living, some dead, and some not yet born). The accused is now addressed by me as follows:–

  Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything in answer to the charge?

  Whereupon E. Rapp says as follows:–

  ‘The execution of my art’ has an unfortunate ring to it, don’t you think? I never intended harm. However: yes, I freely admit my guilt and throw myself upon your mercy. Yes, I made use of a thing that wasn’t mine. I didn’t ask for it; when it came to me, in the manner of a birthright, I simply didn’t resist. In fairness, however, I also didn’t take the boy from his home, or lead him over the plain, remove his boots, set him in the sun, or deliberately lure him with apples. But, those things having happened, I kept him with me longer than I might have, knowing I could make use of him. It was a timely opportunity, nothing more.

  I intend, your Honour, to write and illustrate a book for children in which a boy of this child’s age and appearance loses his way in the Australian desert and is rescued by a wallaby. Based on the days I spent in Denny Wallace’s company, I have preliminary sketches for at least two-thirds of the illustrations. Once complete, I’ll send the manuscript to London, where I hope it will be accepted by a publisher, printed and distributed, and sold for at least three shillings per copy. Sales of the book will allow the purchase of a property in Melbourne, pay for a buggy, horses, a gardener and a maid, and fund my husband’s first Australian exhibition, the success of which will bring in further funds. These will in turn make possible other plans and other funds, which will beget more plans; and so on, in the haphazard way that people of our kind earn money when we don’t receive it from our families.

  In addition, the book will reflect the beauty of the country, so that when uncles give it to their nephews in damp, dull London, those boys will dream of the Australian colonies; eventually they’ll emigrate and become useful members of this fair-weathered society.

  In addition, the book’s natural themes will inspire nostalgic sentiment that may, some years from now, save the specific species of wallaby in its pages—Petrogale petri—from sure extinction (at present, it is over-hunted for its attractive pelt).

  In conclusion, the book will serve the personal and public good, at very little cost.

  Yes, your Honour, I will outline the cost: a needless day’s extension, or perhaps two, of a family’s uncertainty and distress. One burned hillside. The terror of a boy, apparently unconvinced that we would truly take him home, which prompted him to run out alone into the rain. Each additional bruise and blister he acquired on that extra day. Also, one should note, his discovery of time. But I can’t be blamed for all of that—it’s the natural way of things. All children encounter time, some earlier than others; it’s melancholy, yes, but unavoidable.