I explained: my curiosity, the man at the door, the MWU, Bob in his little kitchen. ‘First time I heard much about him.’

‘Well, maybe there’s a reason for that. You weren’t there. You don’t know.’

‘Know more now.’

‘Don’t be smart.’

Peter was busy with a crossword; Ernie with the road, slowing every few kilometres for cattle grates, or the beasts themselves, sniffing the verge.

‘He reckoned he was a good worker.’

‘He was.’

‘Told me how when I was born he brought me to this building site, showed me to everyone. I never knew that.’

Pop turned to me and said, ‘Everything’s done for a reason. You didn’t see what he was capable of. Think about how your mother feels.’

This is how it had always ended: the censored photos, and memories.

‘It’s all in the past.’

‘It was Dad, at the door.’

‘Bullshit. Yer mother explained.’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘How do you know?’

Pause. Rubber on road, and a click in the back wheel.

‘Who was it then?’

‘Coulda been a million people.’

I, too, don’t like things staying hidden, I thought. You search; I search. You need to know, and so do I. ‘Maybe the letter was fake?’

‘Enough!’

At eleven am we made camp. A stick fire, the billy boiling beside the highway, and Peter opening the biscuits. ‘Why’d we get gingernut?’ As we worked, Pop paced up and down the highway. Ernie poured the tea and said, ‘Carn, Doug.’

But he wasn’t listening. Up and back, smoothing his hands on his pants, mumbling to himself.

‘Lasseter died looking,’ I said. ‘He tried to convince everyone but …’ It didn’t need saying.

Pop took the new directions from his pocket and studied them.

‘How we going?’ Peter called.

But he just kept pacing. A truck hurtled past, only a metre from where he walked, and the dust blew up around him.

Ern said, ‘He must be onto something. Maybe not like Lasseter said, but something. A chunk, big as your fist.’

‘You reckon?’ I asked.

Pop returned to the car, took his map from the glove box and came over to us. ‘I just worked it out.’

He tore the map into pieces and threw them into the fire. Peter sat forward, tried to brush them out, but then looked at Pop, and stopped.

Pop shredded his new directions, and tossed them to the wind. ‘I worked it out.’

‘What?’ Ernie asked.

But he just stood looking at the desert, turning a circle, his mouth wide open. ‘It’s not meant to be found,’ he said.

‘The gold?’ Ernie asked.

‘That too.’ He turned, walked to the car and got in the driver’s seat. ‘Come on, you lot. We can get lunch back in Coober Pedy.’

We drove back to town in silence. To Port Augusta. Home.

Each of the timbers burned beautifully. The roof, with its exposed wooden frame; the pine floorboards, crackling in the mid-morning sun. As the fire brigade unwound hoses, the Year Eights ran screaming, and White and the other teachers tried to hold the cheering students back.