King Edward had lost the tracks that were scoured off the hills by rain. They rode a day in the direction the tracks had last gone, but there was no more sign. They rode three days to the northwest and turned off towards a town.

There were no gaslights. They rode along a street of wind-scarred houses between stone country and a desert plain. Nixon spat tobacco. The Skillington boy’s eyes were open wide.

‘What a red fucking hell!’

‘It’s not so bad,’ said Nixon. ‘See the washing on lines? People here have money enough to have two or three sets of clothes. Further west you won’t see that – a man with only one shirt or woman with one dress doesn’t wash it much. But you’ll see cook-smoke. Further west and north you won’t even see that. People beyond here don’t light fires for fear of what the smoke might draw down on them.’

‘Thieves?’

‘And worse.’

The Skillington boy stared across the tumbledowns. The lines and their rags.

‘A revolver with a stock that holds together,’ said Nixon, ‘and a chamber that turns. A shot gun with a bolt that pulls easy. These would be good acquisitions. You should be thankful King Edward stays up at night.’

The Skillington boy looked at the black boy. Then down at his saddle-holstered shotgun and swallowed.

‘Just let the fuckers try!’

‘We won’t be long here,’ said Nixon. ‘There is a former priest I’m told lives here who I want to see.’

The priest had not seen the riders come. He was asleep in his chair. At the shouting of his name he ran inside. Nixon drew his revolver.

‘Halt!’

The priest pressed his face to a window then scuttled across his corridor.

Nixon and his men sat on their horses and waited. He called the priest’s name again and the priest came to the veranda.

Nixon put his revolver in the rib holster inside his coat.

‘How is it with you, McMahon?’

‘Who are ye? And what business have ye comin armed upon an innocent man at evening?’

‘For an innocent man, you have a guilty way of running when ordered to halt.’

‘Armed men coming to my door at evening rouses my nerves.’

Nixon saw a girl go between rooms in the corridor. The priest looked behind him then back to the riders and squinted.

Nixon thought the priest was trying to decide if and to what degree they were enemies. It would be impossible to recognise all the fathers and brothers of the girls in the towns where the priest had lived.

The priest squinted into the dying light.

‘Do I know ye, sir?’

‘No. But I reckon you know the men I seek.’

‘Aye, and who might that be?’

‘Jim and Paddy Kenniff. And the men who ride with them.’

‘I know the boys. I knew them.’

‘They’re not boys. They’re men of thirty-odd years. And criminals.’

‘Aye, I’ve heard all about that too. But I don’t have much to tell ye. They were only boys when I knew em. I never saw em as men.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Aye. And it’s a fifty-mile ride from here to collect a newspaper – so I can’t even tell ye the gossip.’

Nixon nodded. Looked back down the dark road. The priest spoke,

‘That distance is why so many out here have grown savage – generations who’ve never known the line God drew between good and evil.’

Nixon smiled.

‘Agreed.’

McMahon looked at the black man in faded native police issue. Few things in this country inspired the fear that uniform did.

‘I’ll guess you’re some kind of lawman, yet that one looks as much like a lawman as a wolf with a fleece thrown over its back looks like a sheep.’

Nixon grinned.

‘The uniform? He only wears it when he’s cold.’

‘Your tracker?’

‘Yes. And he tracked the Kenniff gang to here. Near to here. Though I didn’t need him for that.’

‘I don’t know what he’s told you. Or what you know about trackin. But if he thinks he can tell one man’s horse from another he’s lied to you. Many a scalpin party goes by here.’

‘Not like this one.’

‘How is that?’

‘Cut fences a few hundred yards off good stock routes. Fresh fires in the rocks up bridle paths. Dead horses with altered brands. Brands of places who’ve recently lost horses.’

‘Like I say –’

‘Yes. I heard what you said. But which way did they ride?’

‘You have a tracker. You could go into the ranges following tracks – there’ll be plenty of them – and see how you get on. Or ride onto the sand plains. You’ll survive if you know where the water lies.’

Nixon laughed. He motioned for the boy and King Edward to dismount.

They tied the horses to the veranda railing.

All three walked onto the veranda. Nixon sat on the only chair and the other two on the stairs. The priest stood in the doorway.

‘Jim and Paddy Kenniff were good boys as I remember it.’

Nixon nodded and rolled and lit a cigarette.

‘They say Jim lay with his cousin. That she was pregnant by him and that’s why she died. Cause they were family. But you know what it’s like. Being alone. Really alone. I mean not just without a woman, but without a civilisation. Like here.’ He leant back in his chair and looked into the dark of the house where he knew a girl was hiding.

‘You can come out, child.’

But she did not come.

Nixon looked onto the plain. There was not a light on the horizon. ‘Like you say, full of men in ignorance of their duty both to God and Man. You can give them stripes with the horsewhip. Sometimes they change a little out of fear. But that is not to take the law into your heart.’

Nixon drew on his cigarette and breathed hard of the cooling air.

The priest spoke.

‘Do you mean, sir, to wait here for men I haven’t seen in twenty years?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even if the Kenniff gang were here, why would they return?’

‘They might. I’ve seen their tracks double back. Whether that’s a trick, I don’t know. Anyway, my horses need rest and water. And if he has gone into that out there,’ he flicked his cigarette at the western plain, ‘then I have time … Father.’

‘You have no love of the priesthood, do you, lad?’

‘On the contrary, you purvey a kind of law. That is better than no law. But let me tell you something, old man. The King of England owns this world because of his power. And you are here at the pleasure of that power. I know who you are. And I know with all your book-learning behind you that you fancy yourself superior to an unschooled man like me.’

The priest sighed and sat down on the floor beside the door.

Nixon smiled.

‘Well here is something for your wisdom to take in – your days remaining are few. If you give the Kenniffs up now – tell me where they are and where they’re going – where they’ve sold horses and to who – and what men ride with them – then you will be left alone. And you will remain under the protection of the government. You can ask for a nurse if you are sick. You can appeal to a policeman if you are robbed. But if you withhold, you will be put in prison.’

The priest laughed.

‘You go chasin the men you are chasin and you could be dead within a week.’

‘A week, you say?’

The priest shook his head.

‘You’re chasing ghosts now that it’s rained. You could have passed them in the timber, and with the run-off there will be no tracks.’

‘Then we might as well sleep here tonight. My men will go inside and help you cook.’

‘The savage too?’

‘He’s good with a knife.’