from within the roughness of bark, like skin. He has a wiry beard and a narrow, bony chest, which carries a number of scars thick with age. A possum skin coat, the fur next to his skin, is dragged over one shoulder. Behind the trio a freshly speared bullock kicks its last amid the trees. Luke draws his forefinger tight against the rifle’s trigger, lifts the weapon very slowly. He is ready to shoot. Mungo climbs down from his horse and lifts his empty hands towards the trio. The two renegades carry nullanullas. One blow could crack a man’s head. Luke knows he and Mungo are in a precarious position. Yet his old friend is talking softly and taking a step towards the warrior with the raised spear.
The black answers with a string of unintelligible words, his eyes a yellow white pricked by brown. He points at Luke as if he were a leper, the horizontal crack of his mouth spitting anger. Luke would rather shoot the man dead. They are wasting time and his gut tells him that this is one black that should be put down. Mungo is still talking when the spear is raised and thrown. Luke manages to fire off a single round at one of the renegades, then his flesh is pierced and he is thrown back out of his saddle as Joseph rears in fright.
In the kitchen Sarah made coffee for three, strong and black, adding milk and sugar to soften the bite of her own cupful. She couldn’t imagine Shelley showing herself for at least an hour, so Sarah decided to wait to have breakfast with her. On the old pine kitchen table she placed a notepad and pen, a blue and white bowl filled with apples and mandarins and waited for Matt Schipp, Wangallon’s head stockman, to knock at the back door. The kitchen wall clock struck 7.15 a.m. exactly as Matt’s thick knuckles struck the doorframe. By the time Matt was seated, coffee in hand and his signature laconic grin in place, Anthony was already halfway through a crunchy red apple.
‘I was about to ask Matt –’ Sarah began, after they’d all commented on the fine morning.
‘Can we just discuss a couple of staff issues first, Sarah?’ Anthony interrupted, biting the core of the apple in half and devouring it in two bites.
Sarah leant back in the wooden chair. Clearly it hadn’t been a question.
‘I was hoping young Jack was ready for a step up the ladder.’
‘He is,’ Matt answered, swallowing a good mouthful of his coffee. ‘Good kid. Listens well, takes advice.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Sarah agreed. Only last week she had complimented the young jackeroo on the fine job he’d done with the garden. She would be sorry to see him go, even if he was only asked to spend one workday a week giving her a helping hand. ‘Perhaps he could come and help once a fortnight –’
‘Take him out with you next time, Matt.’ Anthony spoke over Sarah. ‘Maybe put him in charge of moving that next mob of ewes.’ He reached across the table for another apple. ‘I can’t promote the kid and then send him back into the garden, Sarah.’
Matt looked from Anthony to Sarah, before reaching for a mandarin. His blunt, perpetually saddle-oil-stained fingernails mangled both the skin of the mandarin and the soft flesh of the fruit.
‘I had a look at that fence over at West Wangallon,’ Anthony continued. ‘It must be nearly fifty years old. I thought we could make it one of our winter projects.’
‘Matt doesn’t do fencing.’ Sarah winked conspiratorially at their head stockman. Her grandfather hired Matt just before his death and his continued employment on Wangallon hinged on the verbal promise that he would only ever work with stock. Anthony frowned. ‘Matt knows you don’t get to pick and choose your jobs in the bush, Sarah.’
‘I’ll send one of the boys over to check the fence,’ Matt offered peaceably, while effectively extricating himself from the job. ‘I’m thinking we’ll need to open the silage pit in a fortnight, start feeding the cows. The early oats we planted will last the steers out until sale time, but we can’t risk shortening their fattening time by adding to their numbers. Probably be worthwhile selling a couple of hundred of those late weaners. And now would be the time to do a pregnancy test, then cull any cows not in calf. As for the sheep –’