I picked this place, me tiny plot of land, just by looking at a map laid out on Archie Wilson’s table. He didn’t think I could read a map. Didn’t know I could see the curving blue line meant a river running through it, giving plenty water to slake the thirst of human, beast and crop alike. See that the river was running through a land thick with forest, with rocks in need of clearing, giving me wood and stone for the building of things. For the making of a home, a place to rest me far-travelling bones. And I sensed he was going to try sell me a barren place that had no life to it. So I pretended I was going to use luck to show the way. I closed me eyes, put me finger down, plonking right in the middle of it.

‘Parcel 39,’ Archie Wilson said. ‘The county of Argyle, in the southern end. You don’t want that. It’s one of the “unsettled” parcels,’ he told me.

‘You mean …?’

‘Not many people live around there.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Had enough of people round me.’

‘It will take a good many days travel to get there. And the nearest town, let me see, is at least half a day’s ride away,’ Wilson said, shaking him head, trying to make me play the little game again. Guide me finger to a different place, once he realised I picked a juicy plot and a wealthier customer might pay much more for it. ‘Cost you ten pounds for grazing rights, if you planning on bringing in cattle.’

I hadn’t thought that far, but when him said it, cattle sounded like a good idea.

‘What route must I take to get there?’ I asked.

‘Ahh …’ him said, as he pulled out another map with a twinkle in him eye, and I could see him trying to talk me out of buying again. ‘The plot isn’t close to other plots. It’s way out along the Great South Road,’ and I looked in close following his finger along a track. ‘First, you keep going as far as you can, about twenty miles. Then you keep your eyes open, look for a signpost saying Mullins Creek.’ And he wrote it down and I said it many times to help me remember.

‘Go down a ways, pass the ravine. See here is the ravine,’ pointing to a few ragged lines on either side the track him finger was following. ‘Then take the first track you come to, veering off to the left. You’ll know if you’ve taken the right one, if after a few miles you see a broken windmill painted red.’

‘Red? Blood-red?’

Him nodded. ‘Yes, red. Keep going until you come to the plot with a marker on it saying 39.’

What if Wilson was bluffing? What if there is no land, no farms, no homesteads, nothing but bush out along a dusty road?