A fork-tailed kite circled cattle stuck in a dam. The troop horses were weary and half-starved from travelling over drought-stricken country.

They rode into a town lit by gaslight. Swagmen and hawkers sat along the edges of the road and there was the smell of woodsmoke. In a barroom were a half-dozen soldiers destined for the Karoo, recruited that day by the moustachioed general who stood amid them. At the far end of the barroom was a two-up game.

Most of the town had come out tonight because of the general and because a cinematograph had had its first show.

Nixon addressed the people. He asked them to come forward if they had seen or heard anything of the Kenniff gang.

The barroom that had been full of noise was silent. All eyes turned to him.

‘Listen to reason, people. Jim Kenniff is dangerous. Dangerous to you and your families. To every good thing you expect life to contain.’

And yet they were silent.

‘Men lie in unmarked graves because of him.’

A man shouted from the wall.

‘Jim Kenniff is dead.’

‘Aye, I heard that one too. But I do not yet believe it. And if he is alive, he will be seeking help. Horses. On some night not long I think from now he may come to you. Maybe he will send one of his men. A stranger may come to any one of you with plenty to say about their cause.’

‘Like you?’

Laughter.

‘Better talk than mine. And money also. Before you agree to help him, I want you to remember this public house the way it looks now, but with ash where the door should be. The roof burned out so the rain and wind comes in.’

He had seen that. A house in Arcadia Valley. An Irish gang herded the family into the yard and burned everything that would burn. Then they pulled apart the man’s yards and scattered his horses. Nixon was called out in the morning. He saw the blackened walls. The roof collapsed and the beams still smoking, and the people standing shivering in what clothes they had on when they fled the house, the look in their eyes saying, Why were you not here yesterday? What good are you?

He sat down at the bar and no one came near him.