Tommy didn’t need convincing, would have trusted anything that man said. Hard going as it had been, he’d been true to hisword, sharing his water and the rations off his mules; if they hadn’t met the drover there was no doubt they’d both be dead.He didn’t know what Arthur had been thinking, blindly bringing them west, then blaming Tommy for their troubles, like theywere his fault. But this was Jack’s living, he did it every year. He described it like poetry: waking with the sunrise, livingoff the land, the constant back-and-forth tussle with the mob. It sounded perfect to Tommy. Close to the life he’d alwaysimagined for himself but had never quite known how to get.
They deposited the cattle into the rail yard pens and while Jack spoke with the agent, got their money, filled out forms, Tommy considered the town. He’d never seen anything like this place. As if they were no longer in Australia at all. More accurately it was two towns, a black and white side, bisected by the railway tracks. The usual fare on the white side: hotels and drinking holes, a post office, a general store; cattlemen and teamsters, railwaymen, women talking in shop doorways, children running about. But across the tracks was a marketplace filled with dark-skinned men with long beards and strange toweling wrapped round their heads. They sat at tables smoking ornate contraptions and hawked their wares in an alien tongue. Tommy had never seen an Afghan before, wondered what kind of native this was. Their tents spread out over the flatland beyond, and in their cattle yards were not cattle but immense bent-necked beasts: camels, humpbacked and bandy-legged, being unloaded of their cargo in the red wash of the sun.
“You want to try riding one,” Jack Kerrigan said, appearing at Tommy’s side. “They take a bit of mounting, but they’re notactually as uncomfortable as they look.”
“Stick to the horse, I reckon.”
“Very wise, young Bobby. Very wise.”
He still wasn’t used to it, this name he’d taken on. A few times now Jack had spoken and he’d missed it, had to pretend hewas lost in thought. Arthur hadn’t slipped once yet, called him Bobby from the start. On those rare occasions they’d beentalking, that is, which for the most part they had not.
They stabled the horses and headed for a hotel: the best in town, Jack said. He got them three rooms with baths, ordered hotwater; blacks weren’t usually welcome but Jack paid up front and had a word. Years now he’d been coming here. Could hardlymove for people saying hello. Tommy noticed how they greeted him, the smiles and handshakes, the winks some of the women gave.Jack introduced Tommy everywhere, like he was his new best mate, meaning people then shook Tommy’s hand and clapped him onthe back also, and those same women who’d winked at Jack winked at him too.
He’d never had a bath like it. Emerged a new man, reborn.
He was half-dressed and almost finished shaving when there came a gentle tapping at the door. He opened it expecting Jack, instead found Arthur standing there, his hair still damp from bathing, droplets glistening in his beard. Tommy went back to the mirror. Arthur came in and closed the door.
“Some place this, eh?” Tommy said, meaning both the hotel and town.
“We can’t stay here.”
“Why? What d’you mean? What’s the problem?”
“They’re just as likely to know us here as anywhere. We need to be heading south, Tommy. Changing your name won’t do buggerall.”
“How will they know us? How?”
“Well, for a start they’ll have the telegraph. All it takes is that boyfriend of yours to tell ’em how we met—it’s not muchof a leap from there.”
“He promised not to say anything.”
“Stake your life on that, would you?”
“I would, actually, yeah.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and turned away.
“You know,” Tommy said, pointing with the straight razor, “all he’s ever done is look out for us. He saved our lives backthere. Paid us exactly what he said he would, even got you your own room. You’d be yon side of them tracks if it wasn’t forhim—wouldn’t hurt to show some bloody thanks.”
Arthur snorted, shook his head. “Quite the pair, aren’t you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s like the last five years never happened, Tommy. Or the fourteen before that. You seem to forget where you’ve come from,and where you’d be without me, or does it not work that way round?”
Tommy finished with the razor. He put it down and toweled off and faced Arthur front-on, and for probably the first time ever felt he was his equal, a man. He sighed, relented a little, said, “Look, we’ve been through hell together these past few months, you must be feeling it the same as me. I can’t head straight back out there—besides, Jack says there’s more droving work if we want it, before the season ends. The pay’s good, we’re in the middle of nowhere, nobody’ll find us out here. With money we can start a new life properly. Otherwise we’ll just keep running, nothing in our pockets but sand.”
Arthur shook his head. “Bloke acts like I’m his fucking boy.”
“He doesn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Oh, you reckon?”
“What have you got against him, Arthur? What’s he ever done?”
“Fellas like that, Tommy, they only want you when it suits ’em. He’ll get bored soon enough and then where will you be? Thestate you were in when I found you . . .”
“How long are you going to keep throwing that at me? You’re always telling me it’s time to grow up, move on, then when I doyou pull me right back down
