(From The Harrowing, Book IV, Fine by Morning.) Two miles north of the homestead, Joseph Rossie and Melly’s oldest boy pushed and pulled at a cow stuck bellowing between rocks in a gully. Her half-grown calf raged back and forth along the bank above them, untethered because both stockmen had their hands and ropes fully occupied with its mother. The wind suddenly got up and its eerie booming voice along the vertical sides of the gully added bass-notes to the cries of beasts and men.

Joseph had warily noted a small dead gidyea on the lip of the gully. He knew it had no roots, but a gidyea trunk didn’t rot. It stood like a column of stone directly above the struggling cow. The man and the boy managed to pull the cow’s head up and Joseph took up the tension on the rope around her horns, turning it twice around his hands and holding the free end down under one boot to stop it whipping in the wind. The cow bellowed in terror as she felt the rocks shift beneath her hooves. Her frantic calf blundered into the dead gidyea up behind Joseph. A hundred-pound log glanced across his shoulders and slammed his face onto the nearer horn, which punched through his left eye and deep into his brain.

(From Tessa, Book VII, Fine by Morning.) She looked around for allies. She sat on the steps overlooking the schoolyard, assessing the possibilities.

A tall, ugly boy in a cricket hat that should have been compost years ago stood in front of her. You the sheila sent the Boyd sluts packin’?

Tessa straightened up and gave him a look that belonged to the millionaire’s girlfriend in Buster Keaton’s The Navigator. Why? Are you having trouble with anyone?

He laughed, spitting through a wide gap in his teeth. Me, trouble? Nah. They stared at each other, the unprepossessing boy standing barefoot in the dust and the winsome little girl sitting toes together.

Would you like to join my gang? she said. Your gang? He was stunned by her self-confidence.

I’m putting a gang together. Only asking the best fighters to join.But you’re a girl. You’d only get girls.

I want the best fighters. Pass the word, will you? He turned to dash off and bomb his classmates with the news, then hesitated. Who’s in orready? 

None of the Boyds! She gave a dismissive waft of her hand. He went.

(From Renee, Book III, Fine by Morning.) Outdoors the air was so crisp and the sky so clear she began to run with the sheer pleasure of escape. Down to the billabong then along its edge watching terrapin and yabbies living their brief lives and kingfishers swooping on absent-minded perch. At the furthest end she skirted the swampy ground and walked to a low rise facing north-west. Below was a wide pool of spun gold. She walked down to see what it could be.

Many thousands of delicate, light-as-air, spent seed-heads of tall grasses had settled gently into a depression in the paddock.  Even in the breezeless air a few of them stirred in the red-gold afternoon sunlight. As she walked nearer, great skeins of spider-web wafting overhead caught the sunlight, too, and enclosed her in a cocoon of golden threads. Stooping, she untied the boots and left them beside her hat. Walked into the golden pond like a skater, sliding her feet on the cool grass at the bottom. The movement sent the grass-heads slowly tumbling around her. Holding out her arms, she began to whirl on her toes, momentum drawing the shimmering spindles into a column of gold around her. She laughed aloud and hummed a melody she’d never heard before.

Henry, heading home alone days earlier than he’d expected, saw the shining willy-willy and changed course to take a closer look.  He’d often seen spent seed-heads of grass tumbling along fencelines, reflecting sunlight that turned them into miniature whirlygigs.

He saw her. A pulse beat in his throat as he dismounted and walked slowly towards the woman in her tower of gold. He stood still at the edge until at last she saw him, stopped, lowered her arms but not her eyes.

(From Arthur, Book VI, Fine by Morning.) The old hands at the homestead had told him how a lone dingo would come up on a man sleeping and tear his throat out. No one could actually name a victim, but everyone assured the youngster it was often the fate of jackeroos alone on outstations.

The third night, he gazed into his fire long after the ghost-eyes had gone. Fear made him sick but he knew he must kill this stealthy death-bringer - one loner stalking another. He would prove to the man waiting within him that he was as strong, as resourceful, as brave as the heroes in his boys’ annual. He took blanket and rifle to the clifftop above the trough line. That morning he had seen fresh tracks that showed dogs drank there before the cattle arrived. They favoured the trough furthest from the well. He stretched prone and sighted his rifle to a point six inches above the end of the trough. As his sight grew sharper in the starlight he fixed each inanimate object around the watering place. After an hour’s vigil he cautiously eased his wrists and elbows. His blood pulsed in both ears as a shadow moved from the scrubline across the sand towards the trough. He squeezed the trigger.

Yelped screams drowned the echo of the shot and he leapt up exulting, then fell in a heap on limbs too cold and stiff to hold him upright. First blood! He shouted his triumph up to the starry Cross that had turned over as the horizon paled.

First blood! The bush no longer held any fear he could not conquer. He fell instantly asleep rolled in his blanket on the stone.