Of the vet, Ned saw only a tall, trousered woman emerging from the surgery, watching as Jackbird’s father dumped the dead kelpie into the tray of the utility. On the way home the body slid with each corner, thumping into the sides of the tray with fleshy weight. It was this memory that came to Ned clearest: the sound of the dog’s corpse smacking at the metal, and how much it had troubled him to see Jackbird crying beside him in the cab. How he’d looked away from his friend, stared hard at the gums rushing past the window.

~

Ned and the mare approached the vet’s house. It was an old cottage built with large sandstone blocks. A rust-hazed corrugated iron extension had been tacked onto the back. He wasn’t sure how to approach—the front door, as manners dictated, or through the rear of the property, which made more sense with a horse in tow. The mare huffed at his side.

‘Help you?’

The vet had walked out from behind the iron extension. Ned didn’t fully recognise her, but she was tall and grey and wore battered trousers, and that’s all he remembered about the woman he’d seen the day the kelpie had died.

He raised a hand. ‘Good morning.’

‘It is.’

Ned pointed at the horse’s bad leg. ‘She’s got a limp.’

‘Does she now.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Ned wasn’t sure what the vet meant until she raised a finger and ran it back and forth through the air. He pulled on the bridle, leading the mare up the road, then took her back. When the vet remained silent he did it again, and again, labouring the mare over the gravel.

‘Better bring her through.’

When he turned, the vet was walking around the extension, her back to him. He followed, coaxing the mare along.

Behind the house was a dense garden, plotted with darksoiled patches of vegetables. Asymmetrical paths curled through the leafy beds. Tomato vines climbed a far lattice. Where the garden ended the bush appeared, thick and insistent, a mix of she-oaks, black gums and ferns, rising up the slope to form a greenish amphitheatre. The stream he remembered from his previous visit zigzagged through the trees.

To the left of the garden was an open shed, packed with what Ned assumed were items of veterinary equipment, as well as ordinary tools and gardening paraphernalia. The vet was standing beside it, on the only patch of unworked dirt in the yard. She beckoned him, impatience in the snap of her wrist. He led the horse to her side and unfastened the crate, placing it on the ground beside a shock of carrot sprouts.