“Somewhere hilly, then. Rain and hills, that’s what we’re after.”
Richardson glanced at Arthur—that curious mention of “we”—and folded his hands on the desk. “You will need funds to set downby way of a deposit, of course. Which you have, I’m assuming, the pair of you? A letter of credit perhaps?”
He was taking the piss, Tommy realized. “I don’t trust shinplasters,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
Tommy stood and opened his holdall and shook out the contents onto the desk: bundles of banknotes, his entire life savings,plus the little Arthur had insisted on putting in. “That do you?” Tommy asked, and the land man flushed. Curtly, he noddedand reached behind him to a bureau, ran his finger over the handwritten labels and slid out one of the drawers to reveal amound of tightly rolled plans. He shuffled through them until he found what he was looking for, fetched it out and went toput it on the desk but the money was still piled there. Tommy stuffed it back into his bag; Richardson unfurled the map andweighted it down.
“Now then,” he said, snapping on a pair of fold-out reading spectacles, his finger tracing the map, tapping each locationas he spoke. “Let me see. Here we are in Melbourne. Gippsland is less than a week’s ride east. Or there is the train line,which might prove useful to you, if it’s livestock you’re looking to graze. There’s plenty of land still available, at a veryreasonable rate, and there are areas that are hilly, like you asked for. It also gets the rain. These crosses are the plots,I have another plan with more detail, a smaller scale, showing the topography and suchlike, let’s see if there are any thatinterest you. If so, I can have my agent meet you out there and you can take a look in person for yourselves, how does allthat sound?”
Tommy and Arthur glanced at each other.
“That works,” Tommy said.
* * *
They stood at the top of the hillside, their backs to the gully below, looking over a plateau of rolling pasture that witha signature could be theirs. Behind them the land agent waited idly on the east-west track that bisected the gully they wouldalso own. There was a creek at the bottom, he had told them, flowing all the way into town, while up here the ground was moistand rich, a sponge for the rainwater that fell in the faraway hills and trickled down to the creek through these fields. Itwas as perfect a spot for grazing as Tommy had ever seen. The cattle wouldn’t know itself. They could build the first houseright here where they stood, then later a second one out back somewhere so they wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves. Halfan hour into town, Melbourne far enough away, Queensland even farther—hell, they were about as far south as the land wenthere, almost at the sea. Tommy could even picture the fence lines, the hedgerows and trees that would serve as natural breakingpoints, though he mostly planned on letting the cattle roam. No more droving: they could take them to market on the trains.And he’d really never seen grass like it. Sink a well into this hillside, water would spout like an oil field. He had a verygood feeling. By the look of him, Arthur had the same.
“Well? What do you reckon?” Tommy asked.
“I reckon she’ll do us just fine.”
“I was thinking one house here and another—”
“Over there by them trees.”
“Exactly.”
Arthur was pointing. “Paddocks, yards, stables.”
“It’ll take a bit of work, mind. Getting it all built.”
He shook his head. “Mate, it won’t feel nothing like work if it’s ours.”
Not since Glendale—and even then, only barely—had Tommy been able to call anywhere his own. Arthur was no different. Probablyhe was worse. All their lives they’d run and hid and grafted for someone else’s gain, now finally here was a chance to planttheir feet in the soil and say this, right here, this is mine, I have earned it, I am home.
Chapter 29
Reverend Bean
Through the dust-blown desert they ambled, one man armed with a rifle, the other a knife and spear. Hunters, though with nothingto show for it yet, chatting while they walked, laughing now and then, until one spotted the carrion birds squabbling overa carcass part-buried in the dirt. He tapped his friend on the arm, pointed with the rifle-end. Warily they approached. Atthe last minute the birds hopped clear and a thick blanket of flies rose into the air. The men stepped nearer and stood lookingat the body lying facedown in the earth. A man, naked, chunks of him missing where he’d been gorged and pecked and gnawed.Whitefella, by the look of him, though the skin was blackened by sun and rot. The spear-carrier crouched and poked the bellywith the spear tip, then between them using their weapons they rolled the body onto its back. Arms limp and heavy. The legstwisted one over the next. The head flopped toward them and they saw what was left of the face. Empty eye sockets, a swollentongueless mouth, raw slabs of rotting flesh where the ears should have been. Ruefully they looked at him a moment until onecracked a joke and they both laughed. They moved on. The birds hopped back over and went on eating, and the flies descendedagain.
Part III
1906
Nine years later
Chapter 30
Katherine and Billy McBride
From her bedroom window Katherine watched the guests arriving, trundling up the track in their carriages and buggies, theMonteiths in their new motorcar, black-and-chrome, glinting in the evening sun. Bradley Monteith brought it spluttering toa halt at the bottom of the steps and waved to the gathering crowd. Off came his goggles. A cheeky honk of the horn. He leapedfrom the car and began parading it to the onlookers, while in the passenger seat his wife, Evelyn, sat motionless, as if dumbstruckby the drive. She too was wearing goggles, and a shawl to protect her dress, but when she removed
