The clouds rolled in and the snowflakes thickened. Gabriel Tait had never seen such volumes of whiteness in his life, falling silently from the sky, tiny feathers of snow, covering everything. It was beautiful.

He looked over at the O’Farrell brothers and they were watching the snow, too.

‘When was the last time you ever saw him up here?’ Gabriel Tait said.

The older brother, Wilson, squinted up into the sky and patted his horse on the neck. He was tall and rangy, with bluestone eyes in a dark, sooty face. He ignored the question and nudged his horse on.

‘Oh, been a while,’ said Joseph O’Farrell, who was nothing like his brother. He was shorter, had a cottage pie body, and a natural, easy warmth. He clicked his tongue, gave on the reins and followed. ‘Years,’ he said over his shoulder to Tait.

They rode over to the hut. Rough planks of lichen-patched wood, a shingle roof, animal skins nailed over a window space to the right of the door, the bottom corner loose and flapping. They skirted around to the right. In the rear there was a small, low awning attached to the hut, walled off on two sides with more timber planks.

They put the horses in and the brothers slipped off the bridles and unsaddled them, then Joseph hooked on their nosebags for a chew. They picked up a rail (a narrow tree trunk, axe-trimmed) and slotted it into a couple of brackets either side of the opening. The wind had eased off but the snow kept falling.

‘Better be some firewood,’ Wilson O’Farrell said.

‘We’ll have a look,’ Joseph said.

His brother walked back around to the front of the hut, carrying a rifle and the sack that had hung from his pommel.

Joseph tapped Tait on the shoulder. ‘Come on, give us a hand.’

There was a woodpile a little way from the hut.

‘It’s all wet,’ Tait said, feeling colder just looking at it.

‘Choice cuts underneath.’

They picked up an armful of wood each, made their way back to the hut.

‘He hasn’t been here for a long time,’ Tait said.

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Joseph O’Farrell said. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s not around.’

Tait looked at him, confused. He couldn’t read the tone. The brothers had spoken to him like that the whole way, smiling underneath every word, nothing ever certain about what they were saying.

Joseph O’Farrell saw the annoyed look on Tait’s face and stopped. ‘You wanted to see where he lived, right? Well, this is it.’ He opened a gloved palm to the falling snow. ‘And looks like we’re staying the bloody night now, too.’

They took the firewood into the hut.

LOVE IS SACRIFICE

At school, everybody thought Evangeline Langridge had airs and graces.

‘Just because her father owns a newspaper,’ they said. ‘Who cares?’