Finally, Monday morning. The town yawned itself awake, and Ross was already standing at the brass-handled doors of Goldsborough Mort & Co., looking as if he’d been waiting there since Federation. The clock struck nine with a sense of ceremony that the rest of Echuca didn’t share. He stepped inside to find that the world of commerce smelled faintly of tobacco, ink, and smugness.

Indeed, it was a vision, scary and surreal, as Ross slowly opened his eyes. The room swam into focus, whitewashed walls glaring, faint scent of antiseptic pricking at his senses, and the persistent beeping of something that probably wasn’t a church bell.

“Good afternoon…hellooo…”

Ross muttered under his breath, certain he was still trapped in some fevered dream or nightmarish sequel to his droving adventures.

The first man Ross met who knew sheep the way a gambler knows odds was named Arthur “Blue” McInnes, though his hair hadn’t been blue for thirty years. It was the washed-out silver of an old coin and framed a face that looked like it had been carved out of leather, then left on a fence post for a few seasons.

Ross found him at the Echuca stockyards late on a Wednesday afternoon, sitting astride a gate, smoking a cigarette that had gone out halfway and never been relit. He wasn’t watching the sheep so much as judging them, the way a priest sizes up a congregation and knows who’s sinned before the first hymn.