spittle that landed to sit foaming in the dirt.
Bullet was waiting at the back steps when Anthony arrived home. Surprisingly the dog actually stayed still long enough for a brief pat on the head. Ferret gave a melancholy whine.
‘Missing her, aren’t you, mate?’ Anthony commented, scraping his boots off at the back steps.
As if on cue Bullet looked down the back path. Satisfied that his mistress was not following, he ambled back to the rainwater tank and lay down beside Ferret, a half-chewed boot between them.
‘I’ll tell her you want her home.’
Bullet answered with a snappish bark.
Inside Anthony washed his hands, wondering if Sarah would be back at the serviced apartment where she was staying. He was half-inclined to jump on the next plane to Sydney. He hadn’t been to the big smoke for a while and there was nothing like a motel room for rekindling a love affair. He didn’t need to agree with her decision to fight Jim Macken, but he guessed a little support might make Sarah more amenable towards the land development. In the office he checked dates in the station diary, noting down flight times from the faxed listing the airline circulated every year. He was about to contact the travel agent when the telephone rang.
‘Hey, I was just thinking about you. Must be ESP. How’s everything going?’
‘Okay,’ Sarah said with little enthusiasm. ‘Looks like I might owe you an apology. Frank reckons we probably will have to sell.’
Anthony knew it was a bitter blow for her. ‘I’m sorry. So you’re coming home?’
Sarah sighed. ‘No. I need to see Dad. Tell him about everything.’
‘Oh.’ So much for the trip to Sydney. Anthony flipped the diary closed. ‘Good. I don’t see any benefit in keeping him out of the loop when he caused the problem.’
‘That’s a bit blunt, isn’t it?’
Her voice was tight. Anthony knew he was doing the right thing by deciding to halt the development in the short term. If only she knew how dogmatic she was acting and how oversensitive she sounded. ‘Sarah, I’ve decided to –’
‘If you haven’t stopped the Boxer’s Plains development, Anthony, I want you to immediately. The bank won’t support us. I’ve just spoken to them. They might agree to increasing the overdraft to tidy up anything owing to the contractors – other than that we’re on our own.’
‘I see.’ He scrunched the airline schedule in his left hand.
‘Do you? I can’t believe you didn’t do any budget projections to present to the bank.’ The line was silent. ‘The solicitor agrees that you’ll have to forget about this development of yours.’ Sarah took a breath. She had a foreboding feeling that she was sounding like Anthony’s boss and not his partner and fiancée. ‘Anthony? Hello? Anthony, are you there?’ She looked blankly at the receiver, the line was dead. ‘Damn it.’ Anthony had never hung up on her before.
McKenzie didn’t want to bother Mr Gordon, however intrigue was getting the better of him; that and an empty stomach. Having ridden from Crawford Corner in a flurry of excitement, they soon slowed. The better part of two hours was spent meandering through a grass paddock, after which they trailed the course of the river until midafternoon. McKenzie itched from the heat. When he scratched his hairy arm, dirt caked up under his nails. His stomach was rumbling terribly and his water was near gone. The horses stepped nimbly over fallen logs and then, without warning, they were splashing across a river sluggish from lack of rain. The horses drank for long minutes, slurping up gallons of the brown water, their whiskered nostrils quivering against the liquid.
Oozing mud sucked at their horses as they reached the opposite bank. Then they were urging the horses up the sandy slope and through a path of stringy saplings. A goanna ambling across their path took flight as they approached and scurried quickly up a tree. McKenzie watched the prehistoric beast’s progress. The blacks called them overland trout; reckoned they were good eating. Once or twice he’d tracked a goanna when he was near starving. If you were lucky and the lizard crossed loose dirt, its clawed feet and thick tail left visible impressions. He’d never tasted one though. Never been bitten by one either. The rotting flesh between their teeth left ulcerated, festering sores. Looking back over his shoulder, McKenzie’s imagined feed disappeared as the trees merged and closed in behind him. He figured there would have been a fair chance of hitting him