‘I see. Maybe it’s worth checking out all the same. What else do you have to do this morning, Tilly? Do you fancy guiding me out there? It’s just past eight, so there’s plenty of time. We could scrounge a bit of wood first, and you aren’t going anywhere without a vehicle, are you?’

‘Nope. I either catch a lift back with someone leaving, or wait here all day for Matt.’ Anticipation stirred in Tilly. ‘I’d love to go with you. There’s only the pump and the wood left to do, and the day is mine.’

‘Good.’ He took the two mugs and his breakfast plate, rinsed them off with the remaining tea in the billy and set them aside. ‘Let’s get started then. Oh, and bring your lunch, it could take a while.’

Chapter Nineteen

Firewood could only be collected beyond a five-kilometre radius of the camp, which meant they had to drive to find it.

‘And we only put out a day’s supply at a time,’ Tilly explained, dusting off her hands, ‘so I think that’ll be plenty. Of course, the sensible thing, if the WPA was starting the place from scratch, would be to have the rangers actually living at the camp. It would save all this ferrying of stuff to and fro.’

‘So when did Binboona switch from cattle station to protectorate?’ Connor asked.

‘Oh, twenty-five years ago at least – maybe longer.’ Tilly frowned. ‘I know they took the cattle off in sixty-eight and started ripping down some of the fences a couple of years after that, but the camp wouldn’t have opened immediately. And when it did, the staff would have been operating from the homestead – because it was there, I guess. It mightn’t be exactly where you’d want it, but the company wouldn’t put itself to the expense of building more accommodation. I know Sophie’s always on about keeping costs down.’

‘It’s an expensive world,’ Connor agreed, tossing a rope across the load of firewood and tying it off on the siderail. ‘Especially out here – distance, freight . . . Right. Got your lunch? Shall we go then?’

They drove east with the morning sun glinting on the windscreen and warming the cab. Tilly donned sunglasses and shed her jacket, enchanted by the crisp newness of the day. The tracks of Matt’s vehicle stood up in tiny patterned rills on the road, and the leaves of trees shone in the sunlight. Viewed through her dark lenses, the sky had a purple tinge and the wildlife they saw – a feeding wallaby, one ear lopped back to his surroundings, a skein of ibis rising above the timber, a plains turkey-cock with his throat bladder enlarged – looked like exotic cut-outs against a painted background.