He slowly made his way through the bustling city, awed by the new buildings and the sense of purpose in the people around him. It was daunting to be free after so many years of following orders and being under the lash, and he was disconcerted by the traffic noise and the swirl of people hurrying past him. The city had changed during his absence – but then so had he – and now he was a stranger, invisible to those around him, a thin shadowy figure spared not even a glance.

Their lack of curiosity didn’t touch him as he continued on his way, for his heart and his mind were focused on a place far from here – a place where the silence is broken only by the sough of the wind in the eucalyptus – where the enormous sky stretches above endless plains of rich red earth and scrubby pastures, and the clear, bright light falls on the old wallaby tracks that would eventually lead him home.

*

The deep rumbles of thunder rolled over the Outback plains, the sky darkening with roiling clouds as forks of lighting flashed over the hills, reflected in the depleted rivers and billabongs. The heat was intense, the very air electric with the powerful storm that was building to the south-west of Morgan’s Reach. And, as the desperate farmers looked up at those threatening skies from their parched land, they prayed that this time the storm would break and that after three long years of waiting the rains would finally come.

Morgan’s Reach exists only because of the natural spring that flows even in the driest years. The tiny settlement of less than twenty dwellings lies deep in the Queensland Outback, far from the highway at the end of a meandering dirt track. The main street is half a mile long and wide enough to accommodate a team of oxen, but it leads only to the cattle trails and ancient Aboriginal and animal tracks that traverse the surrounding bush. There are no signposts to Morgan’s Reach, for the people who live and work on the vast sheep and cattle stations that surround it know where it is and, because of its geography, it remains hidden from outsiders unless they have business there.

Rebecca Jackson’s grandfather, Rhys Morgan, was a doctor of medicine, explorer, adventurer, benefactor and eccentric who stumbled across this remote oasis back in 1889. Having discovered what he considered to be the perfect location for a bush hospital, he’d celebrated his fortieth birthday by digging the foundations of the hospital and giving the settlement his name. All he needed then was a wife.