The coach lurched forward again, resuming its leisurely pace.

‘You didn’t answer my husband’s question. Did you fight in the war, Mr Hunt?’ Mrs Russell said.

No point in prevaricating. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘For the South?’ she continued, adding, ‘I always hoped the South would win. Such smart uniforms.’

As Caleb struggled to find an appropriate response, Mr Russell cut in. ‘My dear, the reasons for such a war are complex. Far too difficult for you to be bothering your head about. Now leave Mr Hunt in peace.’

Mrs Russell opened her mouth again, but Caleb turned to the window. He leaned his elbow on the sill, eyes drawn to the passing scenery, and allowed the scent of gums and the chatter of unknown birds to distract him from memories he’d tried to forget.

Caleb had faced charging cavalry, survived barrages of Minié balls, known cold and starvation and other deprivation, but nothing had prepared him for the descent into the Maiden’s Creek valley.

They had made good time and after a brief stop at the rest house on the Thompson River, the driver had chosen to push on. After they crossed the river, the track had wound upward through increasingly denuded forest. Rough tracks ran off from it, some with signboards nailed to posts and trees bearing roughly painted names like Morning Star, Whitsunday and Growler’s Gulch. Most of the signs were largely illegible, either from the hand that had painted them or the ravages of weather.

They followed along a ridge a mile or so before the track became a series of roughly cut switchbacks descending down into the valley, barely wide enough for a single horse let alone a coach, even a small one. The absence of vegetation afforded Caleb a clear view of the sickening drop falling away below the track. One false move and they would be over, tumbling to their deaths long before they reached the creek below.

The harrowing ride did not seem to concern his fellow passengers, evidently having full confidence in the driver and being used to the road. Burrell urged his horses down the track with a combination of endearments, expletives, coos and clicks.

‘They call this descent Little John’s Sleigh Ride,’ Penrose said.

‘And who was Little John?’ Caleb asked to distract himself as the coach swung around another hairpin bend, the wheels slipping on the dust as the horses scrabbled to maintain their grip on the road.

‘John Miller was the prospector who found the first gold in Maiden’s Creek back in sixty-four. I met him a couple of times. The nickname is what you might call ironic—he must have been six feet five in his stockings,’ Russell answered.

‘What became of him?’

‘Like so many successful prospectors, Miller drank his good fortune away and was last heard of heading for Queensland.’

‘At least he didn’t die on this road,’ Caleb said.