CHAPTER 43 
Two weeks later
As she walks, wheeling rosellas turn rose pink against the sky. The air above the mudflats is less sluggish now the rains have finally come. Beyond them, in the distance, the sea inhales and exhales like a beast.
When she reaches the dune, she sits and pushes her fingers into the sand. It is cooler under the surface and she pulls out her hands to let the sand flow from her palms. She remembers clearly that moment, years ago, with Balarri. How the clouds had sat engorged on the horizon, the sky blotchy like bruised flesh. There’s a familiar dryness in her mouth. She’s not sure she will ever be rid of it now. But she will make it her duty to wait for her friend, wherever he may be. She has still heard nothing of Parker’s quest. She has begun to ask around about Winters’s family too, although she has not yet been able to locate any. She will always hold that discomfort inside her. Sorrow for a boy coaxed to make a sacrifice that can never be repaid.
As she makes her way back to town, thunder tumbles from the sky. In the distance she pictures the Brahminy kites poised on mangrove branches and skippers writhing across the mud in their strange sort of ecstasy. She watches birds, bright as pins with their long, sharp bills, stalking the flats on stringy legs, searching for worms as the world keeps slowly turning.
On the fringes of town the smells and sounds whip around her. She takes a breath, tips her face to the sky, and allows herself a brief moment of calm. It’s sliced in half by a whistle.
“Brightwell!” Min stands in the middle of the road, beaming. She’s carrying buckets from the soaks and drops them in the shade before making her way toward her.
“Just… wandering about, are you?” Her tone is only mildly mocking. “What on earth are you doing?”
“I was just—paying my respects to somebody.”
Min raises her eyebrows but doesn’t push it.
They stand inspecting each other for a while, saying nothing, but their tight smiles speak of shyness.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Min finally says.
“Axel’s already told me.” Eliza speaks quickly and raises her palm. “There’s really no need to explain. It’s wonderful news.”
“I feel I do need to explain.”
“Please be assured that you do not. I couldn’t be happier for you both.”
Min tilts her head; Eliza can see the amusement in her eyes.
“Look,” Min says, “I know I wasn’t his first choice.” Eliza begins to hold her hand up again. “And, well, if we’re honest, he’s not mine either.” Eliza closes her eyes and they both laugh. “But he’s kind and handsome and gentle—and he’d never lay a finger on a woman.”
Eliza shakes her head. “Never.”
“He can give me something I wouldn’t have been granted otherwise.” Min reaches for Eliza’s hand. “I can leave this place; see parts of the world I’ve only ever dreamed about. All those places we used to talk about, Eliza? And I know what you’ll say—you’ll say, “You don’t need a man to do that.” But I do need a man to get what I’ve always truly desired. That’s the truth. I want children—you know that’s all I’ve ever really wanted—plus, this man seems willing to look beyond the things I have had to do in order to get by here. As he likes to remind us.” They chuckle. “And the money I’ve saved will help us settle down somewhere… else. Somewhere different.”
Eliza tries to push away the idea of Min and Axel leaving. She may never see them again. But her friend deserves this happiness.
She pulls Min’s hand to her chest. “You could not wish for a purer sou—”
The clatter of wheels comes tearing down the road.
They leap into the shadows as the dray bombs past, carrying on its bed a wooden pallet and the enormous body of a dead crocodile.
They frown, make the silent decision to follow it down the way, and watch as it turns into a side street where it is met by a waiting group of men. She can see Doctor Blithe and a handful of troopers, Snider–Enfields balanced neatly against their thighs. They’re gathered outside the Chinese butcher’s.
Eliza and Min glance quickly at each other as the butcher emerges in his leather apron and elbow gloves. He nods a quiet greeting and raises his hand to show a cleaver.
They watch in astonished silence as the men heave the crocodile off the pallet. It takes eight of them to lift its weight and maneuver it onto the hook on the wall. It hangs there, swaying gently like a pendulum. The beast is simply enormous, its body swollen and stretched in all angles from the inside. Eliza feels her pulse thicken. Min puts her fingers over her eyes, then parts them.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” they hear Blithe call. “Quick now or we’ll draw a crowd, chop-chop.” She can already see curious shopkeepers poking their heads out of their porchways.
The butcher strides back into the shop, then returns with a footstool that he places underneath the crocodile. He steps onto it and with a single fluid motion, like peeling a piece of fruit, he slits open the animal’s belly and a body sluices out.
Well, part of a body at least: the top half, Eliza can discern, for it is still clad in blue.
The men raise their forearms to their noses and peer down at the grisly corpse. It’s a man—that much Eliza can tell from this distance—and she watches as a trooper takes his boot and pushes the chin slowly upward. The corpse’s eyes are fixed open, and as the head tilts back they lock onto Eliza’s with chilling finality. Her breath catches. She half-expects those eyes to blink. She sees the rest of him now: the cruel nostrils, the heavy brow, skin tough as a bootstrap. Parker.
“That’s that, then,” Blithe announces through his elbow. “I think I can safely pronounce him dead, wouldn’t you say so, chaps?”
“Poor sod,” some of the troopers mutter, but others are already walking away. The shopkeepers have returned to their business.
“Hold on a jot,” one of the men says. “What’s that sticking out his chest?”
He bends toward the torso, shielding his nose with his shirtsleeve. With the other hand he reaches for Parker’s jacket, just above the heart. He wiggles something loose, then comes away with a small, hard object in his fingers. He holds it close to his face to inspect it, then with a click of the tongue he tosses it aside. It skitters toward where Eliza and Min wait in the shadows. Eliza looks down at the thing nudging the toe of her boot. Its form is unmistakable: the sharp, bloodied head of a spear.