Jo had a hard time keeping Lizzie focused. On the face of it, Jo thought, it was to be expected. Lizzie was only six years old, tired and worried about her family, and every few minutes, the little girl's eyes strayed to the wilderness beyond the west paddock gate, as though her need to make sure that Eliot and Hardison were okay would make them appear as though by magic.

But Lizzie did enjoy helping Jo feed the dozen brood mares that Wapanjara owned. The animals were due to foal within the next week or two, and Jo kept her busy leading each mare into the yard for a feed and a quick check to see how they were progressing.

She told the child each horse's name and about the foal's sire, and explained that the foals would eventually become sought-after working stock horses. If Lizzie was still at Wapanjara when the foals arrived, Jo said, then she would get to name one of them.

"Really?" Lizzie said, eyes bright with pleasure. "Can Eliot help?"

Jo nodded, even as her heart clenched with concern for the man she regarded as a son.

"Of course he can, sweetie. Alec too."

Lizzie nodded, and even as she held the lead rope of a big grey mare, huge-bellied and due to foal within the next day or so, her eyes strayed beyond the yard and towards the west paddock, studying the stunted mulgas and stringybarks, the grass and termite mounds stretching into the haze of a hot spring day. Nothing moved.

Lizzie sighed. She patted the mare's neck, and the animal lipped gently at her fingers, hoping for more scratchies.

She turned and looked up at the water tower, and there was Parker, sitting sprawled on her chair under the sun-brolly, munching on a handful of grapes. The thief was, to all intents and purposes, relaxing in the sun, but Lizzie knew Parker's keen vision was sweeping the homestead.

All she could hear was the occasional lowing of cattle coming in to drink at the big troughs just beyond the yards and within the paddock boundary. Here and there were the calls of galahs and lorikeets and she suddenly heard 'boo-book … boo-book' from a little mopoke, the tiny owl trying to sleep but now hassled by a pair of magpies, their fluting calls shimmering through the clear air.

Lizzie checked the paddock again, and seeing no sign of her family, disconsolately turned back to the big mare, who was happy to receive the attentions of this small human who gave such nice hugs and scratches.

Jo watched and fretted and smiled reassuringly, and checked the west paddock as often as Lizzie, and her heart sank at the emptiness of the landscape.

"It's … it's a good job … we're not up in Arnhem Land …" Eliot ground out as he hung onto Hardison, every step Gertie took jarring his side and his head.

"That right?" Hardison murmured, trying hard to make out the faint track Gertie was following in the bush. He just fervently hoped the big camel knew where she was going, because Eliot had become less and less helpful over the past hour. "How come?"

Eliot let out a low chuckle.

"Ever heard … ever heard of mangrove worms?"

Hardison grimaced.

"Hell no! Sounds disgustin', Eliot. Jeez. The crap you know …"

Eliot flinched as pain hit him hard and his head swam, but he smiled grimly.

"Big, long grey things … live in the mangrove trees. Good tucker," he added.

"You eat 'em?" Hardison cringed internally. He though pemmican had been bad enough when it came to survival food.

"Yeah … it's like eatin' a foot-long slimy grey piece of snot. It … it don't taste like much, but it … it'll keep you alive," Eliot explained.

"Dear God, Eliot … I tell you now, I am never comin' back to Australia! Well, not unless it's Sydney, with cars, an' street lights, an' … an' … cell phones, an'-"

Eliot suddenly shifted sideways.

Hardison felt his friend's grip slacken, and Eliot sagged and fell bonelessly from Gertie's saddle before the hacker could do a damn' thing about it.

"Eliot! Oh, no–no-you-don't, you ass-hole … koosh, Gertie … koosh!"

And Hardison was out of the saddle before Gertie had properly sat down. He crouched beside Eliot, who lay sprawled on his back, blinking hazily in the bright light of this hot day.

"I … I fell off Gertie," he mumbled vaguely. "Side … side hurts …"

"Of course it hurts, you moron!" Hardison babbled as he checked his friend's wounds, and he gritted his teeth in annoyance as he saw the fresh stain of blood on the bandage around Eliot's ribs. "Damn-damn-damn …"

"S'okay …" Eliot said, waving a hand in Hardison's general direction. "I … I'll be fine … we can't be far from home now … few miles, maybe …"

Gertie stretched her neck out and laid her great head beside Eliot, her prehensile lips nibbling at his shoulder, her concern evident by the pathetic little squeaks she gave. Eliot rolled his head to squint at her, and he gave a wobbly smile.

"Hey now, pretty girl … 'm okay, I promise … ow! Dammit, Hardison!" he cursed as Hardison eased a folded gauze pad from their pack beneath the bandage to try and stop the bleeding. There were no more pressure bandages, so he had to improvise.

"Well, maybe next time you'll think twice about fallin' off a camel, Eliot, huh?" Hardison griped, managing to work the pad into place. "Dumb-ass," he added under his breath. Finished with the bandage, he held up three fingers in front of Eliot.

"Okay, Spencer … how many fingers'm I holdin' up?"

Eliot scrunched up his face in an attempt to focus.

"What fingers?" he croaked.

"Shit. Well, that's just great!" Hardison muttered, worried. "Okay, you fool, up you get … we gotta get home an' I have to figure a way of keepin' you on Gertie 'cause I sure as hell ain't carryin' your sorry ass!"

"I … I c'n walk –"

"Eliot … you can't even sit up on your own, man!" Hardison tried to be as gentle as he could as he lifted Eliot to his feet and half-walked, half-carried him over to Gertie and eased him into the saddle. "Okay … now listen … hey – Eliot! You listenin' to me?"

Eliot peered at him hazily.

"Yeah … I hear you …"

Hardison thought the situation through for a second before continuing.

"Right … here's what we're gonna do, alright? Eliot? Okay?"

"Uh-huh …" Eliot sounded befuddled.

"You're head's all screwed up, an' you got a fever, an' we have to get home an' let Jo clean you up, so … you ride Gertie an' I'll walk. So … I'm gonna tie you to the saddle."

Eliot let out a 'pffff' and grinned.

"I can … I can ride a damn' camel, Hardison," he scoffed and then tilted dangerously sideways.

Hardison propped Eliot back on the saddle and unclipped one of Gertie's reins. Within minutes he had Eliot anchored to the central cantle with the pack on the seat in front of him.

"If you feel as though you're gonna fall let me know, will ya? Lean forward an' rest on the pack … just let Gertie an' me look out for you, El." Hardison patted Eliot's good shoulder, and helped the wounded hitter lean his body and head on the pack, cushioned by the soft blanket from Gertie's saddle. Eliot sighed with relief as the position took the pressure off his ribs and eased the pain in his head. It took no effort now to stay in the saddle as long as he kept his feet in the stirrups. "Okay?" Hardison asked, taking his hands away to see if Eliot could balance on his own.

"Yep," Eliot whispered into the blanket. All he wanted to do was sleep and feel no pain.

"So … hang on … Gertie's gonna stand up, an' then we can go home."

"Sure … sure …" Eliot muttered to himself more than to Hardison.

Hardison took a deep breath. It was now or never. He grasped Gertie's remaining rope rein.

"Gertie … hut-hut!" he ordered.

And Gertie, still giving out tiny squeaky grunts of concern, rose to her feet, and Hardison could have sworn she did so as gently as she possibly could.

Hardison patted her on the neck.

"Good girl … you're a good girl …" he crooned, and Gertie whiffled at his short-cropped hair. "You okay up there El?"

"I'll live," came the muffled reply.

"That's cool, bro. So … let's go home."

And with Eliot now safe and secure on Gertie's back and Hardison looking forward to an uncomfortable hike through the bush where there were snakes, and lizards and goddamn stuff that bit and stung, they headed along the faint track that led to Wapanjara and safety.

Parker enjoyed sitting on top of the water tower. On her first full day at Wapanjara she had asked Jo for some ribbon, and she had systematically fastened red ribbons –neatly tied into fetching bows - around all of the acid-weakened joints of the frame so she didn't have to keep checking, and Jo and Soapy had thought the ribbons charming. Effie had grunted and raised an eyebrow, but declared the ribbons useful.

So, she sat comfortably in her chair, the balmy breeze riffling her hair, and watched out for her two errant team members while also keeping an eye on the stranger loitering in the stringybarks.

Opening her chill-box, Parker lifted out a donut. Effie made excellent donuts – Eliot's recipe, Parker knew. She had Eliot's scope, and she studied the figure on the hill. She only saw a vague shape most of the time, but the stranger wasn't trying to hide, just stay out of the heat and sun. She saw the roan horse's tail swish in the shade. It took her a moment or two to seek out the figure of the watcher. The person was small … child-like small, and Parker remembered that the person Eliot though was his assailant was a Mongolian woman, Khenbish Hadan. But Parker couldn't tell if the stranger was male or female.

She took another bite of her donut. The watcher was sitting on a rock, cross-legged, facial features shadowed by a stockman's hat. Parker grinned. The watcher was looking right back at her. She waved cheerily at the figure on the rock and pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then at the watcher. The stranger didn't move.

"That's right …" Parker murmured to herself, "I'm watching you watching me, and now you know it. You and your icky horse," she added. "Now you just stay there, so I can keep an eye on you, dumb-ass."

And finishing her donut, she took a swig of Effie's home-made lemonade and settled down to wait.

The sun was high in the sky with not a cast shadow in sight, and Lizzie was just about asleep on her feet. Jo had noticed that the child was flagging, and had fed and checked the last two mares herself, making Lizzie sit in the shelter of the big water trough beside the barn.

"Alright, young lady," she said as she turned the last mare out into the small paddock beside the barn, "let's find somewhere shady to sit and eat lunch, and then it's to bed with you, y'hear? You can hardly see straight."

Lizzie turned bleary eyes to this kind, gentle lady whom she had decided was her new grandparent, and shook her head.

"Not until my Eliot's home, Grandma Jo. And Alec. 'Cause Eliot's –"

"-hurt, yes, so you said," Jo finished, and felt a sudden lurch of fear as she said it. She lifted the basket which contained their little picnic and took Lizzie's hand. "C'mon, then. We'll find somewhere nice to eat where we can keep a lookout and you can also have a little nap. Does that work?"

Lizzie rubbed her eyes, thought about it, and then nodded reluctantly.

"You'll watch for them?"

Jo nodded.

"I will. I promise."

And Lizzie knew she would, because Eliot belonged to Jo just as much as he belonged to Lizzie and her family, and Eliot always kept his promises. So, it made sense, Lizzie thought, that Jo would do the same.

So they wandered over to the ground where the land rose in front of the yards and the road from Wapanjara headed up the incline towards the stand of stringybarks, and sat on the ground beneath the shade of an old gum tree which marked the boundary of the homestead. There, Lizzie discovered, she had an even better view of the west paddock as it stretched into the distance, and she sat down with her back against the ancient tree and helped Jo unpack the basket.

The house was only a couple of hundred yards away, and she could see her parents on the veranda with Grandpa Soapy, looking through piles of old bits of paper and talking very seriously about something.

She checked Parker. Yes … there she was, sitting on the water tower, looking through Eliot's scope at the stranger who was watching them from the stringybarks high above them. This person, whoever they were, made Lizzie angry. She knew her daddy thought the watcher was the one who had wounded Eliot in the fight, and nobody … nobody … was allowed to do that.

She took a plastic mug filled with lemonade from Jo and drank it gratefully. Feeding horses was thirsty work, and she could hear the tractor's rumble from the back of the homestead where Charlie and Kip had begun stacking bales of fodder.

Jo sat down beside her and munched on a sandwich, and Lizzie took one for herself, taking a bite of the delicious bread lathered with ham and tomatoes and Eliot's homemade mayonnaise. She felt better with a little food in her, and she peered into the basket to see what else she could eat. She was about to lift out some figs when something caught the corner of her eye.

Lizzie frowned as she peered at the expanse of the west paddock. She took another sip of the cold lemonade and swallowed it, studying the bush spread out before her. Glancing down, she grasped the figs. She must have been mistaken … there had been nothing there. But as she munched one of the figs, she glanced back at the paddock.

And deep in the shimmering haze of midday, there among a clump of termite mounds and white drifts of bindi-eye, something moved. Something big, brown and camel-shaped.

Lizzie took a sudden, sharp intake of breath. And then she dropped her food, stood up and began to run.

Alec Hardison was very, very tired. He plodded on beside Gertie, listening to the scuff of her big, flat feet over the dusty track. He carried a stick he had cut from a mulga, because only an hour earlier he had stopped to relieve himself and come face to face with a large brown snake as he stood behind a tree. He didn't know which one of them was more agitated, and the snake – all six or so feet of it – slithered off into the undergrowth, leaving Hardison frightened out of his wits and now without any inclination to pee in the bushes.

Eliot, only half-conscious and feverish, had grinned as Hardison babbled on about the snake. He had somewhat gleefully informed the hacker that the thing was a western brown snake – a somewhat unimaginative name, Hardison thought – and that while it was highly venomous, it was a shy snake, Eliot said, whose aboriginal name – 'Gwardar' - meant 'go the long way around.'

Hardison had not been convinced. He was sure the beast was hatching plans to return and bite him for the sheer hell of it, so now he carried a stick.

"Are … are we there yet?" Eliot murmured yet again from his slumped place on Gertie.

Hardison, who knew damn well that Eliot was doing this just to annoy him, scowled.

"Don't make me come up there, Spencer. Y'hear me? An' no, we're not there yet!"

They walked on for another twenty minutes or so. Hardison wiped the sweat from his face and neck with his handkerchief, and damn, but his feet hurt. He hung onto a stirrup leather and let Gertie have her head, knowing now the big camel had some sort of homing instinct as the dromedary had a determined aura about her as she strode along the faint track.

Hardison lifted his hat and shaded his eyes as he walked, gazing into the midday haze, the horizon shimmering in the heat. He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus, but he brought Gertie to a halt so that he could stop the blurring caused by every jarring footstep.

"Why … why're we stoppin'?" Eliot asked painfully. "Are we –"

Hardison smiled then, a white, even smile full of joy. In the distance he could make out buildings and yards, and there, in the centre, was a water tower adorned with red ribbons.

He rested a hand on Eliot's leg and patted it.

"Yeah, man," he said, voice warm with relief. "We've made it."

And even as he said it, he saw a tiny figure running towards him in the heat haze, arms flailing and curly hair flying.

Lizzie was coming to bring them home.

She flew into his arms, and Hardison lifted her, holding Lizzie close and hard, feeling the tremble of her small body and hearing the sob in her throat.

"You're safe … you're safe …" she whispered into his neck, burrowing into him, trying to reassure herself that Hardison was living and breathing and safely home.

"S'alright, baby-girl … it's alright … we're here …"

And peering past Lizzie's arm he saw more figures running towards them, and he closed his eyes for a moment, relishing the feeling of the nightmare being almost over.

"Eliot?"

Hardison felt Lizzie lean back in his arms and reach out for Eliot, her sudden, sharp intake of breath making her body hitch.

"Eliot!" she cried, and she touched his limp hand where it hung down Gertie's side.

Eliot, sprawled on Gertie's back, heard his best girl's voice through the fog in his head, and his heart calmed, and little fingers clutched his.

"Don' … don' worry, 'Lizbeth Grace … I … I'll be fine …"

Hazy, dull blue eyes opened and studied her, and she took in the raw gash above his ear and the blood-sodden bandages around his ribs through the unbuttoned shirt. She held his hand, feeling the heat in him, and she knew then he was very sick.

"I told them," she wailed, "I told them you were hurt … " and she looked at Hardison, eyes full of tears. "You're both hurt!"

"Nah, baby-girl, I'm fine, so don't you worry. We'll be good as new … both of us. Now … c'mon … we gotta get Eliot home an' patched up, an' then you can tell us all about it, okay?"

And then Jo and Parker were there, fussing and organising and Nate was reaching out for Lizzie. But she refused to be separated from Eliot so her father lifted his heavy six-year-old daughter onto his shoulders so she could be beside him as Soapy caught up with them, ribs protesting. Sophie checked Hardison, and as a family they walked Gertie out of the west paddock and swung the gate shut behind them, with Lizzie hanging onto Eliot's hand and fretting about the blood soaking down his side and pants leg from the still-bleeding hole in his side.

"What the hell happened?" Soapy ground out as Charlie and Kip met them at the front of the house, Effie standing with Buster at the top of the veranda steps.

Hardison kooshed Gertie down and many hands reached out to hold Eliot, and he moaned as he shifted in the saddle. Lizzie whimpered as she heard the sound, and Nate lifted her from his shoulders and she bustled forward to stand beside Eliot as Sophie and Charlie untied the rope holding Eliot in the saddle.

"He's shot, Soapy … some bastard shot him!" Hardison hissed quietly so Lizzie couldn't hear. "We got to the bore, and we were doin' okay and some asshole shot him an' then shot Bomber an' …" Hardison's chest heaved as the memory hit him, and he knuckled tears from his eyes.

"Soapy, love … can you help here?" Jo asked, cradling Eliot's head as they lifted him from the saddle.

"Some mongrel shot my boy?" Effie growled, fury in every word. "By God, I'll – I'll … " and then she took a deep breath as she saw Eliot eased from the saddle and laid onto his back on the ground. "Bloody young boofhead's bleeding again," she said softly. "I'll clear the kitchen table, Missus," she said, and turning on her heel, headed back up the veranda steps as fast as her bunions would let her.

Lizzie was sticking to Eliot like a limpet. She knelt beside him as Jo checked him quickly, and Eliot lifted his hand to ruffle her curls.

"Hey, 'Lizbeth Grace …" he slurred. God, his head hurt, and his side was a mass of agony, but he was safe now with his family and 'Lizbeth Grace was beside him and –

"You got shot!" Lizzie snapped, fury oozing from her, "You got shot and you're bleeding and I knew you were hurt and … and you bashed your head and you're all … all beat up and –"

"Lizzie darling," Sophie interrupted, "let's get Eliot inside so Parker and Jo can take care of him, okay?"

Lizzie turned hurt eyes to her mother.

"I told you he was sick, Mama!"

Sophie felt a pang of guilt, even though she knew the decision they had taken to wait was the right one.

"I know, Lizzie … I know. But right now he needs us, so come on – off you go and keep the doors open so we can get Eliot inside, and then we can see how hurt he is. And yes, before you ask, you can stay with him for a little bit until Grandma Jo says we all have to leave while she cleans him up." She said soothingly, even as Nate gave her a look which said Lizzie wasn't to be so easily placated.

"'Lizbeth Grace …" Eliot gasped as he was gently lifted by his family, and Lizzie stowed away her anger and walked with him as he was carried up the step and into the house which he thought of as his home.

But as Parker turned away to run to Oggie and retrieve the big medikit from its storage bin, she looked up at the stringybarks.

The watcher was gone.

To be continued …