‘Never know what’s leached into it. Might have picked up some mercury from the rocks and that’s very bad for you.’

The boy stared blankly at him.

‘It could have kept Martin going . . .’ said Arthur. ‘If he got this far’ went unsaid.

After a swift glance around, Arthur turned on his heels to continue onwards, as if afraid that if he stood still for any length of time someone might persuade him to stop.

As he went, the others followed, a sad group of wanderers following Moses across a vicious wasteland, Arthur’s heavy steps crushing the scorched earth beneath him as if he were punishing it for taking his son, trying to torture the rock into giving up its secrets. He won all the minor battles, the dry, crusted dirt disintegrating beneath the tread of his boots, but the war was gradually being lost.

A cry went up. A scream really. Chandler felt hope and fear. Hope that it was over, that they had found Martin even if it were only his desiccated corpse. He could call in the choppers and transport them all out of here inside a couple of hours.

Scrabbling through some shrubs he found the source of the cries, the Murray River teenager, with his fresh face and lack of fear, the kid who wanted to be a bushman in the future. When Chandler had warned him that work as a bushman was rare, and for those of vast experience, the young man had waved it off with the revelation that he had learned to track people in school, following a different person every day, learning to follow from a distance. He had never been caught. Chandler didn’t have the heart to explain to him that what he was describing were the skills of a stalker rather than a bushman.

As Chandler arrived on the scene the teenager was dancing around wildly, hands ripping at the white stuff glued to his body. It was immediately obvious to Chandler what had happened. He had blindly walked into a massive undisturbed spider’s web and was trying to rip it away before whoever spun it exacted revenge.

‘Get it off me,’ he screamed, countering the efforts to help by dancing away from the hands that tried to pull the sticky silk from him.

‘Stand still,’ said Chandler, pulling a wad of tacky web from him.

‘Is it on me?’

‘You’re supposed to be a bushman,’ said Chandler. ‘Calm down.’