‘How did you get to Government House?’

She met his eyes this time. ‘A kind lady in a hat with flowers on it came to Ma’s house and took me by the hand. That night I was locked in the storeroom with bars on its windows, and every night for the next three years too.’

She nodded at her husband, who was disconnecting the rope and rag ‘fence’ that kept the cattle together. ‘McKenzie saved me. He was a butcher back then, delivering meat every morning. One day he said something to me in my own tongue — speaks it real bad, but it was the first time I had heard words like that since they’d taken me away. I cried. And then he said, “Want me to get you out of here?”’

‘And you just left?’

‘No. I was a fool. I left later.’ There was more she wasn’t telling him, didn’t want to tell him. He wouldn’t ask.

‘What did your mother think about you working there?’

‘She’d gone, when I got a chance to go back,’ said Mrs McKenzie. ‘And my brother and sister too.’

Dead? Sent to work somewhere else, for nothing but their rations? On a reservation? There was almost certainly no way to find out. He already understood that once those who had taken this land assigned its people new names, those were the ones they were expected to keep, their former ones forgotten or, at any rate, not recorded.

‘You think you’re getting paid for sitting on your backside?’ asked McKenzie.

Clancy stood. ‘You’re not paying me.’

‘Did I say that? You was the one who talked about working just for your food. Show you’re worth it and you’ll get your cut when we sell this lot. Here.’ He handed Clancy an axe. ‘Tiger will show you what to do with it.’

He and Tiger rode ahead that day, and most days after that. After ten minutes, Tiger stopped. ‘Here,’ he said. He pointed to a tree, not a gum or wattle, fat trunked, thick leaves. ‘Cut out as many of the leaves as you can — not the whole branches, just the ends where the leaves are. We gotta find more as we go. Cut them too.’

‘Why?’

‘Cattle like ’em. Get fat on ’em too.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to cut down one whole tree for them?’

Tiger looked at him as if he’d grown donkey ears. ‘And not have any leaves to cut next time we comes this way?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Clancy. He hobbled Big Red and began to cut as Tiger slashed at another tree. By the time he heard the cattle ambling towards them, the dogs padding silently behind or at the sides, keeping them in a single herd, they had half a dozen untidy heaps. The cattle sped up slightly to get to them.