Finally, inspired, he asked Moonrise Billy, the only native among the shearers — and so fast with the shears he could be gun too, except Moonrise was wise enough to know that a white crew might accept him, but not if he could beat them all. Moonlight shore the rams instead — one stray clip with the shears might mean the end of a bloodline — which was why the worker must be more skilled, more careful. It paid more too but, best of all, it was much slower.

‘I need a plant,’ he said to Moonrise as they squatted in the thin shade of a red gum during smoko.

‘Plenty plants around here, Boss.’ Moonrise spoke ‘native’, though Clancy suspected his English vocabulary was probably better than any of the other shearers’, except perhaps himself.

‘I want one for my sister, for Christmas. She and her husband are interested in plants. Do you know of an unusual one, one that probably hasn’t been seen by white men before?’

‘Where they live?’

‘Up along the King George River.’ Clancy was aware too that this would not be the name the river’s last owners had given it, but like the people around Overflow, the natives there had been resettled down towards the coast, except for those who had white employers with enough influence to keep them on the land that once was theirs.

Moonrise Billy picked a dried bracken stem, chewed the end of it, then spat it out. ‘Might know one,’ he said. ‘She a good woman, your sister?’

‘The best,’ said Clancy.

‘Goodo then,’ said Moonrise.

Two weeks later, the shed was finished and the crew stopped at the first pub they came to. Clancy brought Moonrise’s beer out to where he sat against a gum tree — natives weren’t allowed in most shanties, but this crew at least made sure their mate had both a beer and company. Moonrise nodded his thanks, took a gulp of the warm dark liquid, then pulled a twist of brown paper from his pocket. ‘This do you?’ he asked.

Clancy unwrapped it. It was a branch of what looked like a small shrub, spindly leafed and dull, with the tiniest of flowers that had once been white, perhaps, or even no colour at all. It was possibly the least interesting plant he had ever seen.

‘You think they’ll like it?’ he asked dubiously.

Moonrise shrugged. ‘You wanted one they didn’t know. Won’t know that one. Tell ’em it grows round here, but only flowers in the hottest years. No seed till the year before the rains.’

‘Is it good for anything?’

Moonrise laughed. ‘Have to ask it, won’t you?’ He drained his beer and held out the tankard for a refill.

Chapter 45

Chapter 45

From the Notebooks of Maria Fitzharris