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bath and bed herself. The bath she would have, she decided; bed would have to
wait a little longer. She would never sleep if she did not do what she could
for the injured convict.
    With the day’s grime washed from her skin, she felt a little
better. Winding her hair into its customary knot, she glanced longingly at her
nightrail before resolutely donning the clothes that she had packed for the
morrow. Not for anything would she wear the filthy garments she had just
discarded, but she certainly couldn’t parade through a public inn in her
night clothes, much as she might long for their soft comfort against her sun-
and dust-abraided skin. Liza was soundly asleep in the one large bed; Sarah
listened intently to her light breathing for a moment, then bent and blew out
the candle. Although she would need a light, she was too much of a
grazier’s daughter to take a lit candle into a stable. And the stable was
where the convicts were bedded down for the night.
    Percival and her father would be in the inn’s taproom,
drinking and spinning yarns with the other men at Yancy’s place that
night. They would violently disapprove of what she was planning to do, so Sarah
had no intention of letting them find her out. Accordingly, she made her way
down the stairs past the taproom with extreme caution, her hands clutching the
small medical kit that accompanied every bush-wise Australian on journeys of
any length. The accidents that could occur in the bush were many and varied,
from snakebite to sunstroke to a broken limb. Only fools challenged the
unforgiving miles of sun-baked wilderness unprepared.
    Sarah was thankful that the moon was up as she crossed the yard
toward the stable. Its silvery light made the night almost as light as day, but
far cooler. She shivered in her sleeveless dress of tan calico. The garment was
as unfashionable as the skirt and shirtwaist she had worn earlier, but it was
also as serviceable. Sarah, seeing no reason to emphasize her plainness with
fine feathers that could only make her appear ridiculous, chose colors that
rarely showed dirt.
    The stable was dark with eerily shifting shadows. Sarah hesitated
for a moment in the wide, open doorway. The convicts would be securely chained,
so, if she was careful, they could do her no harm. But it was always possible
that some other, unfettered man lurked in the darkness. . . .
    Chiding herself for an overactive imagination that was
uncharacteristic of her—she was usually practical to the point where it
drove Liza and Lydia to fits of screaming irritation—Sarah resolutely
stepped forward. She had come out tonight to do a job, and she would do it.
    The first several stalls she passed housed horses. Then came the
bullocks. Companionable beasts, they were penned together, munching contentedly
at mangers of straw. In the last two stalls were the convicts. Three in one,
chained securely and sleeping, judging by their resonant snores. And in the
other, the man she sought: even in the gloom, his bloodied back turned
uppermost as he lay sprawled in the straw, his height and clearly defined
muscles were unmistakable. Another, smaller man was chained with him, huddled
in a ball in a far corner of the stall. From their steady breathing, she knew
both men were sound asleep.
    Sarah hesitated again before entering the stall, her nerve nearly
failing her. The man was a convict, after all, and reputedly a dangerous one.
What business did she have even getting near him? Then he moved, and moaned, a
piteous sound that tugged at her conscience. He was a human being. And in pain.
    Slowly, moving carefully so as not to drop the box she carried and
wake the sleeping men, Sarah entered the stall. She knew that the convict would
wake when she put the healing unguent on his raw back. But she wanted to delay
the moment as long as possible. Which was silly, she told herself. He was not
going to hurt her. She had come to help him.
    Kneeling