‘What?’ Rose found her voice was trembling too.

‘We’re safe. There were three of them, and only two of us, and now there’s none of them. Now you know you can stay safe.’

‘Yes, safe.’

‘Drink your tea,’ said Mrs McKenzie. ‘We’ll get rid of the bodies first, then wash away the blood.’

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Food grubs, bad grubs

Four or five fat wood grubs will feed a man for a day. Look for piles of sawdust below the trees to see where the larvae have been digging in. Use a thin stick to poke them out. Cook on a hot rock before eating. Do not eat caterpillars from leaves, unless you know those leaves can be eaten, or the caterpillar may kill you.

CHARTERS TOWERS, 1886

CLANCY

They rode away from the cattle sale, the cheque in McKenzie’s pocket. ‘Best get most of this banked,’ McKenzie said. ‘Bank of New South Wales got a branch here.’

‘Make mine cash,’ said Tiger.

McKenzie raised an eyebrow at Clancy. ‘How about you?’

‘Bank of New South Wales.’ It was the most common bank throughout the colonies and the largest. ‘But I said I’d work without pay.’

‘And I’m the boss, not you. Five of us, five equal shares, less what I paid for the beasts and the stores.’

‘Thank you.’ It was generous. More than generous, giving drovers as much as the boss, especially one as young as Rose.

McKenzie grinned at Clancy, as the latter carefully shaved before saddling Big Red. ‘I’ll be keeping enough cash to see us by. Don’t reckon on going to another bank for a while. I’d better get working on the wife’s list. Goin’ to get her some dainties too. Crystallised ginger — the Chinee do bonzer ginger up this way. And a new dress too.’

Clancy looked at him surprised. ‘But she doesn’t wear dresses.’

‘Too right she does, sometimes. She likes them real pretty. When we ride south to get another mob together, we’ll stay a week or two at a mate’s place, down on the border.’

McKenzie seemed to take it for granted Clancy would stay with them. ‘He’s got a property there — sugar cane, not cattle, and bananas and pineapples. He married a lass from the islands — hundreds of ’em, maybe thousands, were shipped here to work the sugar cane, most not knowing they weren’t never going back either. You’ll see every colour on his place, black, white and everything in between. They’ve got a church there and even a preacher who visits on Sundays. That’s where the wife and I were married.’

Clancy had wondered about that.

‘Always a dance on Friday nights,’ said McKenzie reminiscently. ‘I buy the wife a new dress before we visit there, so she can show it off. She keeps her second best in the saddlebags,’ he added. ‘And turns the old ones into shirts or sheets or rags.’