Blood runs down the many trunks of a Wimmera Mallee-box into the sandy soil beneath. From there it will be drawn down into the lignotuber and stored along with precious water gathered from stemflow and deep roots.

The desert is a guardian. Of secrets. Of stories adapted to drought.

Close by, in a clearing punctured by the late afternoon sun, three men gather wood. They stack it in lengths, then crossways, strong enough to bear weight. As they work, the air is so oppressive that one raises a hand to his throat to make sure nothing constricts it.

A girl watches them, barely hidden by the thin trunks of a White Mallee. Arms gripped around her bony knees, she holds her breath to avoid detection, though the howl of the Northwind is louder than any human voice.

The tallest man strikes a match and the tinder sparks to life. His cuff is hemmed in blood, already drying to the colour of iron-rich soil, his rifle beside him loaded and cocked. The wind severs a branch with a loud snap. The man’s eyes dart towards the Wimmera Mallee-box, but there is no movement there. Shaking his head, he returns to his task. The job is almost done.

High in the canopy, a White-plumed Honeyeater sounds the alarm.

There are many sounds, but some last longer than others: the crack of gunshot, a cry, a thud, a resounding silence that continues to echo in the quivering membranes of the honeyeater’s ear and the hollows of stringybarks. Reverberate through the desert and the grasslands and the fields of ripening wheat.

Nothing is forgotten, all is held.

The Northwind strengthens. It rips at the treetops and distorts the flight paths of birds, the heat of the fire so intense the man steps back and shields his face with his arm. Beside the Wimmera Mallee-box lies a woman’s body, contorted in the lunging shade, the bullet hole in her neck the size of a thumbnail. There are two more bodies, further back, but the tall man will need the help of the others to drag them to the pyre.

An arm’s length from the woman, Flesh Flies swarm the nostrils of a Western Grey Kangaroo, and the wound that exposes the white bone of its ribs. The flies have begun to lay their eggs. Soon they will hatch and the maggots will burrow noisily through the cooling meat until the skin appears once more alive. The kangaroo will be carried back and butchered for the dogs that will pull at their chains, the meat too flyblown for human consumption, its slaughtering an alibi for the stains on the men’s clothes.

Blood is blood.

Two of the men walk in the direction of the bodies. The honeyeater tracks their movement, its call picked up by the Northwind and carried deeper into the desert, where the girl presses her cheek against a trunk. From here she can see the blaze that has escaped its frame and the plumes of smoke that will act as a screen.

Embers rise up like a swarm of bees and travel across country. Still burning, they land at the girl’s feet as she begins to run, though it is not fire that she fears.

The honeyeater once more sounds its warning.

But it is too late now.

Forever too late.