“I’ll tell you a worse story than ‘The Megarrity’ if you’ll shut up for a bit!” said Gary.

Trish said something awful, but back inside the truck I was happy not to talk. Although it was poor posture, I leaned against the door, letting the jolts jar my teeth, and watched the blur of the road, listening to Gary Damson. Even later, after everything, when I tried to piece together the tale, I was never sure how much of it he intended to be true.

GARY’S STORY

THE SAWMILL

Once there was a boy called …

“Gary?” suggested Trish.

Let’s say he was called Jack. Boys in fairy tales always are. Twelve years old and too small for it. Certain the world was withholding something. Burned to freckles except for his feet inside his boots and his skinny chest beneath his shirt, pale as a fish belly. His dad was a contractor—they moved about, but he had lived around Inglewell all his life, and if he’d paid more attention to the stories he’d heard, he’d have known better.

His old uncle—well, not precisely an uncle, but a cousin of sorts—knocked on the door of the caravan one day (this was just before Jack’s mum inherited some land). “Jack,” he said, furtively. “I’ve got a job for you.”

Jack’s mother would have asked, “Davy Spicer, is this something dangerous?” Although she was born a Spicer, she didn’t approve of Uncle Davy. But she was working at the library—there used to be one at Carter’s Crossing on Tuesdays—so Jack asked, “How much?”

“As much as you’re worth,” said his uncle. “Get down here.”

I—Jack jumped into the long grass around the caravan. His uncle cuffed the back of his head, not quite affectionately, and they climbed into Uncle Davy’s low-slung Holden Kingswood WB. The best ute in the world.

It was a long drive, but where isn’t? They went by back roads and across paddocks. Jack climbed up and down, opening sagging wire gates. His uncle said, “Just leave them. They’re no friends of ours.” But Jack knew that much about the world—he levered each one closed again.

They ran out of tracks. Wattle saplings whipped the ute’s bullbar, dragged under and sprang up again. Then Uncle Davy stopped at a fence, properly built, with a metal gate in it. On the other side, tangled with glittering box and old ironbark, was a crowd of cypress pines, dark save for the blue-green buds of their pinecones. There was a dent in the trees that might have been the start of a track.

“Get on with it,” said his uncle.