his tongue. ‘It is better than nothing,’ she assured them.
Lee returned with a green-tinged poultice that he pushed deep into the wound, layering it over the top and binding it with narrow strips of rag.
Angus reached out a hand and rested it on Lee’s shoulder. ‘Can you save my father?’
‘I will try,’ Lee sniffed.
Mrs Stackland appeared with steaming water. Into it Lee mixed various herbs that he retrieved from the pockets of his tunic, stirring the concoction with a long yellow fingernail. Luke turned up his nose at the stink of it.
‘I cannot say if he will last,’ Lee admitted as he held the stinking brew under Hamish’s nose. ‘Very much blood gone and the flesh is going bad. Maybe if younger …’
Hamish woke, coughing at the steaming concoction. Before he could attempt speech Lee managed to get most of the contents down his throat.
‘Vely good,’ Lee grinned.
Hamish pushed the bowl away weakly. ‘Tastes like shit,’ he growled softly. He eyes looked groggily about the room. ‘Take me outside, Luke.’
‘No, Hamish, you are too ill,’ Claire protested.
‘Luke?’
Between them Luke and Lee half-dragged and half-carried Hamish out onto the verandah. They sat him down gently, placing his legs on a wicker chair. Hamish stared at the evening star risen above the hedge and remembered the stars so very long ago that had guided him to Australia and then from the goldfields northwards. ‘Sit,’ he waved his hand tiredly as, one by one, Luke, Angus and Claire sat in a half-circle around him. ‘You too, old friend.’ Hamish extended his hand to Lee. ‘You too. You must forget about what has happened,’ he said through stilted breaths. ‘Purchase Crawford’s block and change the name of it to Boxer’s Plains.’
Luke nodded.
‘You are the custodians of Wangallon now. You must protect her, honour her for she has fed you and clothed you and honoured you by demanding your tenacity. Wangallon is the home of the Gordons in this new country and you must fight to keep her. You are all a part of her future as I am now of her past. Don’t desert her,’ he looked at Claire for a long moment. ‘Don’t resent her. Luke and Angus, you most of all must love her. Love her like a man has loved no other and marry well.’ Hamish clutched at Angus’s arms. ‘Until you marry and produce an heir you are the very last of us.’
Angus touched his leg. ‘But Father –’
‘Protect her with your life, as I have done. Protect the right of the Gordons to be treated as equals in a new land and look after those who have died and lay buried within her soil, for they have earned your respect.’ Hamish held out his hand to Claire. ‘If I have loved this land too much –’ his fingers squeezed hers – ‘forgive me.’
‘But Father,’ Angus cried, ‘you can’t go. What will we do? What will I do without you?’
Hamish ruffled the hair on his young son’s head. ‘Why, Angus, you shall take my place. You will run Wangallon and your brother, Luke, will help you.’
Luke gave a single solemn nod.
Angus rested his head against his father’s chest and sobbed.
‘Remember, boy, it is better to have lived for something than to die for nothing.’
Hamish watched the moon rise, a shaft of pure light illuminating the garden and extending outwards across his beloved property. He could hear the whistling of the rising wind through the grasses and the myriad sounds of a night growing active with scurrying creatures. He was certain there was a fox at the end of the garden and Hamish experienced a rush of desire to follow the animal out into the timber-draped landscape. He longed to walk away from the homestead and into the moonlit night, if only they would let him go.
It was surprising, this strength of his family. They were like myriad hands holding him still. Hamish faltered, momentarily confused. There was something coursing through his veins, something he’d refused to acknowledge during his lifetime for fear of pain. He gazed upon the faces of those he cared for most in the world and found himself agonising over his leaving. It was the strangest of sensations, yet his body, having failed him like any other mortal man’s, now ached for the most intangible of needs: their love. He drifted somewhere between dusk and dawn, considered returning to the cluster of people on the verandah, however the shadows of his forefathers were calling and he could