The morning sat heavy on Black Cattle Co., the kind of late-spring stillness that pressed the dust down and made every sound carry. Bryce Black lifted the post driver and drove the last star post into the ground, the ring of steel on steel bouncing off the ridgeline and fading into the paddocks beyond.
He straightened, rolled his shoulders and wiped the back of one gloved hand across his forehead.
The fence line stretched out behind him, a long scar of new wire and fresh posts cutting through the neglected boundary. Three hundred metres done. Maybe four hundred to go before the corner where the land dropped toward the creek.
He’d been at it since first light, and the sun had climbed past mid-morning without asking his permission.
Bryce pulled the water bottle from his pack and drank, looking back across Black Cattle Co.
Cattle had been running on the place for years, but nobody had lived there. The paddocks had been used, the yards had done their job, and the old hay shed still stood where it always had. Everything else was basic. Fences repaired when they failed. Tracks just good enough to get a ute through. Nothing built for someone intending to call the place home.
That part was changing.
His caravan sat near the hay shed, building materials stacked beneath a tarp beside it. The cabin was still mostly a collection of timber, iron and measurements in his head, but the footings were marked and the first delivery was due Thursday.
Until then, the caravan was enough.
He finished the water and tucked the bottle back into his pack, then walked the fence line to check his work. The posts were true, the wire tensioned properly, the joins wrapped and tied off.
He’d grown up doing this sort of work. Fencing, repairs, making do with whatever was available. If something broke, you learned how it worked and fixed it.
The sound of an engine made him look up.
A battered white ute came bumping down the track from Ironstone, trailing a plume of dust. It pulled up at the boundary gate and the driver killed the engine.
A man climbed out—mid-forties, broad-shouldered, salt-and-pepper hair, plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
He lifted a hand in greeting and walked over carrying two beers by the necks in one fist.
“G’day,” the man said. “You must be Bryce.”
Bryce set the post driver down and pulled off his gloves. “That’s me.”
“Grant Stone.” He reached across the fence. “Neighbour. Well—nearest neighbour, anyway.”
Bryce shook his hand. Grant’s grip was firm and calloused.
“Good to meet you.”
Grant held up the beers. “Brought you these. Figured you’ve been out here long enough to earn one.”
Bryce glanced at the sun. “Bit early, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Grant looked skyward as though the question had genuinely never occurred to him. “Suppose it is.”
He rested one beer on the fence post and opened the other.
“But you’ve been at this since before breakfast by the look of it. Besides, it’s a social beer. Different rules.”
Bryce couldn’t argue with that logic, such as it was. He took the offered beer.
“Thanks.”
Grant drank and looked along the boundary.
“You’ve been busy. This section’s been ordinary for a while. I’ve been meaning to get onto it.”
“It’s the boundary,” Bryce said. “My fence as much as yours.”
“Half of it is.” Grant grinned. “Which means you don’t have to do it alone.”
Bryce took a sip.
“I’m used to working alone.”
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
Grant looked toward the post driver, then the wire strainers, then Bryce.
“Just so we’re clear, me offering to help doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.”
Bryce glanced at him.
“You came down here to help repair a fence.”
“I came down here with beer. That’s a completely different skill set.”
The corner of Bryce’s mouth moved.
Grant pointed at the line. “Tell me what to hold and I can probably manage that much.”
“You ever strained wire?”
“No.”
“Driven a post?”
“Poorly.”
“Used fencing pliers?”
Grant considered it. “Define used.”
Bryce gave him the pliers.
“Hold these.”
“That I can do.”
They worked.
Or, more accurately, Bryce worked while Grant talked and followed instructions.
Grant asked where Bryce had come from, what he planned to do with the cattle place, how big the cabin would be, whether he intended to stay permanently, and at least three questions Bryce forgot before he had time to answer them.
But he did listen.
And when Bryce told him to hold something, Grant held it.
By midday they had reached the next run of posts.
Grant was holding the wire while Bryce checked the alignment when another vehicle came down from Ironstone.
Elara climbed out first. Saige followed with a water container and a bag of food.
Bryce recognised Elara from across the boundary that morning.
Up close, she looked exactly like someone who had already worked half a day.
Grant straightened.
“Perfect timing.”
Elara looked at the beer sitting beside his tools.
“It’s barely lunchtime.”
“Social beer.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
“It is now.”
Saige looked at Bryce. “He makes rules up when they’re convenient.”
“So I’m learning.”
That earned him the beginning of a grin.
Grant gestured between them.
“Elara, Bryce. Bryce, Elara. And that menace is Saige.”
“I’m fifteen,” Saige said. “Not a menace.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Elara ignored both of them and held out her hand.
“Elara Stone. Thanks for starting on this. I’ve been asking Grant to get onto it for months.”
Bryce shook her hand.
“Needed doing.”
“It did.”
No fuss. No apology for the state of it. Just agreement.
Saige handed Bryce a bottle of water and opened the food bag.
“Mum reckoned if Dad came over with beer and nothing else, you’d both forget lunch.”
“I brought sustenance,” Grant protested.
“You brought alcohol.”
“Liquid grain.”
Elara looked at Bryce. “You see what I live with.”
They ate in the narrow shade beside the ute—sandwiches, fruit and whatever Saige had packed without asking anyone.
Then Bryce stood and went back to the fence.
Elara followed.
“What do you need?”
He pointed to the next post.
“Hold that while I sight the line.”
She did.
No questions. No attempt to second-guess him.
Bryce adjusted the post.
“Little toward you.”
Elara moved it.
“Back a fraction.”
She corrected it before he finished the sentence.
“There.”
He tamped the soil around the base.
Grant arrived carrying the wire strainers.
“Where do you want these?”
Bryce pointed.
Grant put them down.
Saige watched the exchange and snorted.
“What?”
“Nothing, Dad.”
“What?”
“You’re very good at carrying things.”
“I have many talents.”
Elara laughed.
Bryce looked down before anyone noticed he was smiling.
The afternoon settled into a rhythm.
Grant talked. Saige carried tools, fetched water and argued with her father. Elara worked wherever Bryce pointed her, although after a while he stopped needing to point.
She could see when he was about to tension the wire and already had it clear.
When he moved to the next post, she moved with him.
When he reached for the pliers, they were in her hand.
Neither commented on it.
By late afternoon, the damaged section looked less like a neglected boundary and more like a fence again.
Grant stood back with his hands on his hips.
“Well. That’s considerably better than anything I would’ve done.”
“That’s because you didn’t do much,” Saige said.
“I supervised.”
“You drank beer.”
“Supervision is thirsty work.”
Elara gathered the empty bottles and food wrappers.
“We should let him finish.”
Grant looked at Bryce.
“You coming over for dinner?”
Bryce shook his head. “Still got a bit to do here.”
“What time?”
Bryce looked at him.
“What?”
“What time will you be finished?”
“I wasn’t—”
“Six-thirty?”
“Grant,” Elara said.
“What? He has to eat.”
“I have food.”
Grant looked toward the caravan.
“You have camp food.”
“It’s still food.”
“Six-thirty.”
Bryce gave him a flat look.
Grant smiled as though the matter had been settled by mutual agreement.
“Elara’s doing roast lamb.”
“I am?”
“You are now.”
Elara stared at him.
Saige laughed.
Bryce looked between the three of them and realised that refusing was apparently going to require more effort than attending.
“I might be late.”
Grant started toward the ute.
“Then we’ll keep it warm.”
“That wasn’t a yes.”
“Six-thirty, Bryce.”
Elara shook her head, but there was amusement in it now.
“Come if you want. Ignore him if you don’t.”
Grant opened the ute door.
“Don’t ignore me.”
Bryce picked up the post driver.
“I’ll see how I go.”
Grant grinned.
“See you tonight.”
The ute headed back toward Ironstone, leaving Bryce alone beside the repaired fence.
He looked along the line they had finished together.
Then toward the caravan, the hay shed and the stack of timber waiting for him.
He was used to working alone.
Apparently his neighbours had other ideas.