BY THE TIME Ned had his boat on the river the summer was at its peak. All the creeks were dry, the troughs parched, the ponds empty. Moisture had steamed off even the moss. Rain was needed, but none came. Possums fell from trees, wallabies folded into piles of heavy fur. All this hot flesh summoned scavengers. The nights rang with the screams of feeding devils, and the daylight skies were dotted with hawks, more appearing each day, scanning the valley for the summer’s latest victim, so many hawks and eagles as well, wedge-tailed eagles as big as mastiffs, and under the clouds of these circling raptors Callie finally steeled her body, steeled her mind, raised her shotgun and squeezed the trigger.

The barrel exploded in her grip. The stock flew backwards, smashing into the shoulder she had braced for the impact. But the recoil was stronger than she’d expected, strong enough to kick the ball of her arm clean out of its socket.

Ned heard about it from Maggie, who’d taken some of her old schoolbooks to Callie that morning, thinking they might still be on the curriculum. She told Ned outside the house, while he was digging dirt out of the tread of his boots with a screwdriver.

‘Completely dislocated it. Lots of bruising. She’s in pain.’ Maggie indicated her own shoulder. Circled a large patch of her shirt.

Ned put down the screwdriver. ‘Is she in hospital?’

‘At home. The doctor’s been.’

Ned imagined the horse-kick of the impact. Pictured Callie lying in the paddock, exposed to the sun, shadowed only by high wings.

‘Did she hit it?’

Maggie’s face scrunched. ‘Hit what?’

‘The hawk.’

‘I didn’t ask.’ She made to leave, but stopped in the doorway. ‘You better go see her.’

There was a particularly stubborn piece of grit in the heel of Ned’s left boot. He’d been working at it for what felt like ten minutes before his sister had arrived. Now he turned the screwdriver back on it, levering and wrenching.

Maggie rubbed at her eyes. ‘Dad’s right.’ She left him on the porch, flakes of dirt falling onto burning cement. ‘The things you don’t know.’

~

Ned washed, scrubbed, dried himself. What he should do next came to him over a pile of soap bubbles. It was obvious, unavoidable. A course of action that wasn’t so much a choice as a necessity.

His boots were now free of clinging chunks, so when he walked next door he felt fast and light, even with a heavy object in his arms. Jackbird and his father were in the paddock, and his mother was chopping green wood in preparation for a winter that felt impossible to imagine in the roar of summer, but would eventually arrive with frost and darkness. Ned waved to her. Let himself into the house.