Katherine inhaled and slow-blinked. “Not as a business partner, Billy, for goodness’ sake. You can have whatever you need.Men, cattle, horses . . . John ruined your family, it’s the least you deserve. What I’m asking is—”
“Not all of us he didn’t. I’m still around.”
“What I’m asking is, where do I fit in these plans?”
Billy shifted in the wingback. “Like I said, I’ll get up when I can.”
“Well, lucky me.”
“What, then? What do you want? Aren’t you getting married anyhow?”
“You know I’m not.”
Katherine put her glass on a side table and came to kneel by Billy’s chair. She laid a hand on his arm. “Look, I know whatit means to you, turning Glendale around. But is that all you want from life? Is there really nothing else?”
Billy didn’t answer her. Staring into his drink.
“I can’t hold them off forever, Billy. The crows have been circling this place since John died. I’ll need a husband eventually. It shouldn’t matter but it does.”
“So hitch yourself to that plank out there, if it bothers you so much.”
“And wouldn’t that bother you?”
“’Course it bloody would.”
Her hand slid free. She backed away and perched on the edge of her chair again. “Do something about it, then. You could runthe two stations as one.”
Already he was shaking his head. “I need to get Glendale going on its own.”
“Why? Because your father couldn’t? What does that prove?”
“That’s just how it is.”
“And how long will all this take?”
He shrugged. “Couple of years, maybe. Depends on the rains.”
“A couple of years, Billy?”
“I’m not asking you to wait.”
“So what are you asking?”
“Like you said: cattle, supplies, I might need—”
“Have you even been listening to a word I’ve said?”
“—a proper deed, I reckon. Your old man’s out there now saying the land ain’t even mine!”
Billy’s anger withered under her gaze. A wall clock counted the silence until eventually Katherine stirred and said, “Well,at least now I know where I stand with you: a means to a bloody deed.”
“Don’t be like that now.”
“How else can I be?” she said, her voice faltering. “I’m offering you everything and you’re breaking my heart, and what’sworse is I don’t think you even know you’re doing it.”
She rounded the desk and sat down, picked up her pen and dipped it, her face flushed and her eyes watery, the pen tremblingfaintly in her hand. She spoke without looking at him: “I’ve work to do.”
“I didn’t mean it how you took it. It came out all wrong.”
“I’ll send word to Joe. Take whatever you need.”
“Katie, please.”
“I’m busy, I said.”
There was a knock at the door. It opened and her father was standing there, asking, “So, what’s this business that’s so important?Anything I need to know?”
“Billy’s moving back to Glendale, setting up on his own. We’re sorry to lose him, but I think it’s for the best. I’ve toldhim the land is his and we’ll get him started with anything he needs. Joe can take care of the arrangements.”
Wilson Drummond scowled as he processed this news, but the way Katherine had said it gave him little chance to object. Sheflicked her eyes to Billy then went back to her work, and for a moment Billy sat there gripping his whiskey tumbler and staringat her, before lurching to his feet and making for the door. Drummond jumped aside to let him pass, and Billy slammed thetumbler so hard on the table that the lemon slice was still bobbing long after he’d left the room.
Chapter 2
Tommy McBride
Four hundred miles south of Bewley, near the border with New South Wales, dawn filtered through the dusty bunkhouse of a sheepstation called Barren Downs. Men rising groggily from their swags and cot beds, groaning and hacking, pulling on their clothesand boots. The door opened, raw sunlight breaking the gloom, as one of them stepped outside and pissed loudly against thewall. The others called him a filthy bastard. He told them to go to hell. Low laughter, muted chattering, suddenly brokenby a cry from across the room. It was the new boy, Tommy McBride, tossing in his bedroll, moaning in his dreams; someone yelledfor him to shut the fuck up. Irritably they went on dressing, then filed out into the morning sun, the station overseer thelast to leave. A tall, wiry Tasmanian by the name of Cal Burns, he stood rolling a cigarette in the aisle. Licked it, litit, plucked a string of loose tobacco from his lip, watching Tommy sleep. The hell he was dreaming about, Burns didn’t know.Boy writhed like a whore in heat. And not for the first time, either. Burns shook his head. It had been a mistake ever settinghim on. Him and his blackboy both.
“Wakey-wakey, you crazy bastard. Rise and fucking shine.”
Burns tapped the ash from his cigarette over Tommy’s face, nudged him with his boot cap, then outright kicked him in the gut. Tommy woke, gasping. Wrenched from the smoke-filled crater: ash swirling, boots suckered, the wounded crawling through the slurry, the dead piled into mounds. He’d heard a gunshot, felt the blood spatter on his face; now he jerked onto his elbow and looked up to find Noone laughing over him, those ghostly pale eyes, only the voice when he spoke didn’t belong to Noone at all: “I thought I already warned you to cut that mad shit out.”
Burns crushed his cigarette, left the bunkhouse, boots clipping the wooden boards, and steadily Tommy realized where he was.He wiped his face, relief washing through him, cast off his tangled bedroll and began dressing. Blue-eyed, fair-haired andfreckled, boyish for nineteen, but the years had put a thickness in his shoulders and arms. He pulled on his boots quickly,then hurried out of the barn.
Last into breakfast, Tommy collected his oats, bread, and tea, and amid the bustle of the dining hall looked for somewhereto sit. There were no empty places. Nobody offered to make room. He knew how his dreams unsettled them; yes, they came lessfrequently these days, but in places like this once was often enough. Superstitious
