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without the bacon, it was a good breakfast. Biddy toasted the bread on a long twisted-wire fork, and her father fried up eggs in the pan.
    Mum came back from saddling the horses. ‘Yoohoo! This smells good enough to eat! Oh, you are eating it.’
    â€˜Very funny, Mum. Yours is there next to the fire,’ said Biddy. ‘How are the horses this morning?’
    â€˜Good, mmmnn, good. I like the way you’ve plaited their manes. Very fancy. Did Irene teach you that?’
    Biddy screwed up her nose. ‘What plaits? I haven’t been plaiting them. Ask Dad. I just got up.’

Joycie knew how to live off the land, but she and Joe would have had a lean time without their extra supplies. As long as Joycie could remember, Mad Dan had lived at the southern end of the headland. He was an old hermit, terrified of people, who’d built a shack for himself years ago. When Joycie and her brother were little kids they made up a song about him— Dan Dan the dirty man, washed his face in a frying pan —and their father had sent them to bed hungry for being so mean.
    Pops was one of the few who had ever seen him, and when he was the ranger he always left the storeroom unlocked for the old fellow to help himself to supplies. Nobody ever talked about it, even now, but everyone knew that part of the ranger’s job was to leave the store open for Dan. That was how the system worked.
    Joycie just helped herself from the same store. When Joe was a baby and she had to carry him all day to get there, it was hard, but later it became good fun. ‘Wanna go to the store, Jozz?’ Joe would say. ‘There’s no sugar left.’
    It was where they got their clothes from, too. When Joycie had fled the town, she’d packed some toddler’s clothes for Joe, but nothing bigger. She never dreamed they’d be on their own for all these years, so as he grew she had to cut down and alter shirts and trousers of her own to fit him. They looked funny but they were comfortable and warm.
    Joycie lined their jackets with rabbit skins and made fur-lined moccasins to wear in the winter. Joe had never worn shoes, and Joycie hadn’t for years. Their feet were so calloused and tough they didn’t really look like feet; they were more like hooves. When the weather was cold, it was a pleasure to pull on their soft, furry boots.
    Over the years Joycie mended and darned and put patches on patches, but eventually their clothes just wore away. The store was the only place they could turn to.
    â€˜Poor old Dan,’ laughed Joycie as she pulled on a pair of the ranger’s work pants. ‘They’ll reckon he’s getting greedy.’
    On these visits they’d lie on the hill behind the buildings and watch for a long time to make sure the ranger was away. If his dog was unchained they never went in, and it was a long walk home empty-handed. But if the dog was on the chain it meant the ranger was gone, and they would climb down to collect their supplies. Powdered milk, tea, flour, sugar, matches—nobody seemed to notice that a bit more was disappearing. The first time the dog saw them he went mad, barking like an idiot. After that Joycie always made sure she had a fresh piece of rabbit for him, and he became their friend, fawning and slobbering.
    â€˜I’d love a dog,’ Joe said one day, looking into his yellow eyes, ‘even a dopey one like this.’
    Joycie frowned. ‘You can’t have a dog. It’s just you and me, Joe. Just you and me.’

Outside the cave, wind and rain slashed through the bush. Joe lay in the hammock watching the shadows of the fire flicker across Joycie’s face. He was carving a piece of cuttlefish, powdering the soft white shell with his fingers, but with no purpose. His mother was sick. She’d had pains before, but not like this one today. She’d collapsed onto the big driftwood bed this morning and not got up again. All afternoon