He had barely spoken words, holding his shotgun up and steady, when this larger bloke turned to him, raising his own instinctually at the sound. He knew the intent to fire in this big man’s stance and so fired himself. Hit him in the neck. He was thrown back immediately and fell onto his arse into the mud near the kid, splattering all nearby. Seated with his legs out like a child. Vernon dropped his shotgun. Big man was holding his throat and staring hard at his boots, his face puffing up red with concentration, as though concentrating on his wound would stop it from being. Vernon stepped forwards and let the man see him. His face all angry, like his neck was on fire. Vernon watched as he coughed and spluttered. It wasn’t long before the life left his limbs completely and they fell from his neck, the wound pumping dark ink in the night. His head went sagging onto his stomach, the big gorilla, his two hands now palm up in the muck. His head down like he was praying. What was left of his neck. Vernon took another step. The kid with his arm still up. This body now joining him in death. The maker of his death beside him in it. A grave the same colour as excrement, darker in the moonlight.

He heard a shout from the bush a distance from him. ‘Dad?’ He thought at first it was Brendan, but it didn’t sound like him. Vernon stayed quite still, relishing the breeze after the din of the shotguns. He stood studying what he had done. When the voice came again he stepped out, sure now of the owner.

‘Caleb?’

He had to yell it. There was no response for a moment and then his son’s voice once more. ‘Dad?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m here,’ he shouted. ‘With Brendan. You alright?’

‘Yeah. I’m alright. Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.’

‘What happened?’

‘The big fella is down. And Sidney.’

He heard the sound of a wounded animal, a grunting through the trees. Must have been Brendan. He stepped over Sidney’s body and saw that the back of the head was black, merged with the muck surrounding it. Like he had been born without a skull. He clambered through the bush in the direction of his son. His wife’s voice shouted something from their tent.

‘Brendan’s hit,’ Caleb said. ‘In the leg.’

‘Alright. Hang on,’ he yelled. Vernon prowled his way through bush, his old bones struggling, his ribs stinging where Wornkin had kicked him. He pushed on.

He passed some trees and kept going and then there kneeling besides a breathing lump in the mud was his son. Caleb looked up at him and then back down at Brendan. Vernon walked up and clapped his son on the shoulder.

‘You run off, did you?’

Caleb nodded. ‘Not sure how his leg is. He’s upset about his brother.’

Vernon watched Brendan’s chest moving up and down. This man’s loss had been his salvation. Sidney. Gave his whole life to save a man he barely knew. Gave up on the time he could have spent being a father to his little girl, all the joy he would have taken in her. Her going to school, him tending to her scraped knees. He had given up all of it. To save him. Vernon looked at his son. Understood deeply now what he had given up. Knew, too, he wasn’t willing to give up any more. He watched Brendan’s body, the way the flannelette shirt stretched as the chest rose and fell.