CHAPTER 21

In the shade, the man crouches, breath still as glass. The crow watches on from a twisted gum branch; the bush will always shelter someone who gives it all his secrets. It observes as the horses approach and the hidden man taps out the steady beat of their hooves on the soil. Leaves shift under his fingers. Loose dust breaks free and spirals upward with the hot wind. Slowly the man lowers his body to the earth—his chest, belly, and thighs all flat against the soil. With quick, silent movements he pulls deadfall over his trousers, thorns snagging his shirt and tearing the fabric open as the men on horseback close steadily in.

When they are just a few yards away, the pursuers come to a halt. The white man takes a canteen into his hands and tips his head backward, pink tongue extended. The horses snort in hot complaint and the hidden man holds his breath in the leaves. The tracker leans away from his saddle and spits a thick gob of brown sputum into the dirt. The flies claim it immediately. The hidden man waits. The crow waits too—until eventually, with an impatient scuff of hooves, the pursuers move off into the old bloodwood trees. When they are nothing but a mutter of dust in the distance, the man slowly unfolds from his shady hiding place. He stands and with a quick eye to the sky continues, unnoticed for now.