The cow was yanked forward with ugly strength. Ned let go. Let himself float. After a moment he began paddling back to the shallows, where his horse was waiting for him. A loyalty he felt he did not deserve. He looked to the crossing, and saw that the rider had dragged the cow out of the depths. It was standing on firm sand, shaking and huffing. Ned mounted, rode over. Saw that he’d tied the rope too tight. Saw how it had torn a long, red burn into the cow’s neck, from the top of its leg to the base of its head. Parted fur matted on the flesh. Blood oozed from the wound.

The rider looked over at him, a pallid smile on her face. ‘Bit of fun.’ She turned her horse, kept a hold of the rope. ‘We better catch up.’

They took the crossing slowly: the other rider going first, gently pulling on the rope, as Ned and his horse stayed at the cow’s back, cajoling it forward. Somehow the animal managed it. On the other side it stumbled, and Ned thought it was going to collapse. But the sound of the herd was in the air, and perhaps a scent of clearer air, of fresh vegetation. The cow found new strength.

Half an hour later they came out of the shallows and onto the beach. They followed the herd’s tracks over a path in the scrub, over the yellow dunes, and joined their fellow riders and the cattle on a wide plain of high green grass.

~

Ned knew he was tired, knew his mood was bad. But still he felt cheated. The verdant island he’d imagined was, in reality, a dull disc of pasture. No shady groves of trees, no fresh streams of leaping fish, just an unsheltered paddock. Trees once must have grown here: trees torn from the land by remorseless industry. And when he looked back to where they’d come from, the rest of the coastline had lost its wild character, its romance. Its coarseness was no longer beautiful, but rough and uninviting. He looked for the cow he’d saved, looked for its stripe of opened flesh. Couldn’t find it.

After taking a short rest, he and the other stock workers rode back across the river, leaving the herd behind to feed. By the time they reached camp it was nearly dark. Someone got a fire going. A barbecue spat lamb fat. There was beer. Ned inhaled a bottle and looked around for the rider who’d come to his aid earlier. When he couldn’t find her, he crawled into his swag.