David felt a hand shove him forward, and he turned to see the station owner's son standing over him.

"I know who it is," Jocko said, his annoying whine somehow even worse than normal. "It's Big Joe. If you reckon it's a big guy, he's the one. He'll be heading back for his pop."

David waited for the man to finish talking, a technique he'd seen John use time and time again to great effect with the white fellas, and then he turned back to continue his tracking. The blackbirds had taken a fairly broad path to the riverbed, probably to help cover their tracks better, but this Big Joe fella was taking a more direct path home. One that involved a great deal more of the rainforest. It should have made it easier to follow him, but David was having trouble.

"Are you fucking listening to me?" asked Jocko, his pitch raising even higher. "You don't need to fucking track the cunt, we know where he's going." Jocko looked around and saw he was getting no help from anyone else. "Oh for fuck's sake," he said, and he shoved David to one side as he marched to the front of the pack.

David nimbly regained his feet without leaving the game trail they were following, and he quickly raced forward and grabbed Jocko by the shoulder.

Jocko whirled around, his hand balled into a fist, and he raised it up to hit the kid. "Get your filthy fuckin' hands off me," he snarled.

David stayed calm, let go of the white fella's shoulder and pointed at something lying just before Jocko's bootfall. Jocko followed David’s finger to a snake, yelped and leapt away in fright.

The group, still stopped awaiting the resolution of the conflict, flinched at the noise, but a voice at the back of the pack piped up. "Don't worry, limp dick, it's dead," said Anna, not bothering to contain her glee at Jocko’s reaction.

The group quietly chuckled as Jocko looked back and saw the serpent still lying there on the trail. It was a little forced, but the message was clear enough that even David got it. Nobody liked Jocko.

"I don't fuck about with snakes," Jocko grumbled, his head bowed in shame.

John strode forward and grabbed what the Gubs called a "Brown Snake" behind the head. A "Brown Snake" could be any number of the things. The only thing they shared in common was that they were some sort of brown, and they were deadly. This one was a pale brown with a yellow-ish belly, and even holding it up high its tail lay curled on the ground. It had to be at least eight-foot long. He could feel a break behind the head of the thing—something had snapped its spine—and when he looked closer, he saw a bright green covering the beast’s fangs.

John held the snake head out to the rest of his party, showing the fangs. "That's not normal," he said.

The group peered closely to see what John was talking about, but even in the dense shade of the forest, the bright green stood out. The group looked at one another quizzically.

"That's poison, isn't it?" Frederick asked flatly. "Poison's greener than grass, right?"

John hadn't ever heard that one, and he shook his head. "Snake poison's not green," he replied matter-of-factly. "I've seen it. Comes out white, like cow's milk."

Jocko barked a laugh. "Shows what you know," he sneered. "It's not white. It's black. Turns the skin black at the bite. A rot, that black skin, a rot anywhere it touches." He gestured at David as he spoke, clearly still smarting from being grabbed before.

John didn't care if the gub talked shit about him, but the kid was off limits. He mentally calculated the fallout of pinning Jocko down and pressing the fangs into the cunt's eyeball. Before John finished his arithmetic, Terrence interjected.

"It's venom, actually," the older man stated firmly. "It's only poison when you eat or drink it. Venom is injected, poison is ingested."

It was like a bucket of water being dumped on a smouldering ember, extinguishing any chance of a fire with extreme prejudice. The party stared at Terrence, incredulous.

"Yeah, good note," Frederick said slowly. "But that doesn't explain what the fuck happened here. If venom is black or white or fuckin' invisible, why's this snake got bright green on its fangs?"

"I haven't the foggiest," Terrence replied. Frederick threw his hands up in dismay in response.

"The Guwin-gan," said Anna after a moment. "It found the Guwin-gan. Or the Guwin-gan found it."

"The monster?" Terrence asked, replying before Frederick could hit her for speaking. "You mentioned it before."

"Yeah, that's right. The spirit of these lands. It's got your man," Anna said, a mean tinge to her voice. "You should…"

"We should what, bitch?" Frederick said, stepping towards her with his backhand cocked again.

She can’t win, John thought, amused. She'll get hit if she speaks, and hit when she stops. He interjected, though John didn't care much if she got hit either way. "She's talking about the Yaut-way,” he said, pronouncing it quickly.

"Yowie?" Terrence replied, trying the word out himself.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah." Close enough, John figured. "She was gonna tell us to give up our chase. The Yaut-way is nature's justice. An old Dreamtime story about a being that roams the bush, killing killers. It sees a snake eat a baby wallaby, it kills the snake. That sort of thing."

"What the fuck does that have to do with the green?" Frederick asked, still standing over Anna, his hand an opening and closing fist.

"That's how the stories go about the Yaut-way. It shows up every few generations to end all wars. It either is a big fella, or it takes over a big fella and makes him bigger, or… every spot has its own version. But the stories always go the same. Someone—usually the Elder's enemy—will try to fight the thing. They'll get a good hit in, and they'll bleed it green. And then the Yaut-way will heal and kill them. And the smart ones know to just stop fighting."

John looked at Anna, and he almost admired her gumption. "She trailed off because she thinks she can get away once this spirit of the bush comes to get us."

Anna smirked back at him, but it was short lived as Frederick's hand wiped it clean. She spat blood at the ground before him in defiance, but she quickly shied away when he lifted his arm again.

Suddenly, John's view of the pair was obscured by Jocko.

"We're not fucking giving up chase because of some black cunt bedtime story," Jocko snarled. "You cunts will do anything to get out of-"

"We're not quitting on anything, of course" Terrence said firmly, stepping between Jocko and John. "Maybe we should break for supper though."

"We can't stop now," Jocko said, his snarl reverted to a whine for Terrence. "We have the trail!"

"No, we'll make a quick camp here, I think," Terrence said. "After all, we know where he's going, right? If our job is to get a Kanaka back to your station, well, he might just do that job for us."

David whipped together a quick meal in the hastily put-together fire for the group. Nothing special: some wheat flour, some water and a bit of salt let him make a quick bush bread. Damper, the white fellas called it. A lot easier to make than real bush bread, but not as filling. They had a bit of dried mutton that David rehydrated in a small ceramic plate. He didn't adjust his measurements to accommodate the girl. She could starve for all he cared.

David kept the dough thin to speed up the cooking time, and he wrapped it around sticks that he stabbed into the ground to speed up the process. The meat hydrated on its own, while every 15 seconds or so David would rotate one of the sticks to let another section of it get some heat.

Captain Gifford stared at the flames from one side while this all happened. "You know," the old man said thoughtfully, "I was working for the Company in India before the British took over, and I remember there was one province there where we had a lot of trouble with snakes. Terrible snakes, those, they rear up to waist high and their heads fan out wide just before they strike. Not like the ones in this god-forgotten hellhole, which'll kill you without so much as a how-do-you-do."

Everyone not busy doing something turned and looked at the grizzled veteran as he spoke.

"But we were having a terrible time with these snakes," Captain Gifford continued. "Cobras, they were called. Men and women and children were all getting bitten while harvesting the tea, and it was terrible for our production lines. One chap—not me, sadly—had a grand idea. 'What if we pay a bounty on the snakes?' he said. 'A pittance, but it will keep them on the look out for the things.'

"So we did. We paid a bounty on any snakes that got brought in. They weren't worth much beyond the decrease in efficiency. A few pairs of boots were made, but the reptiles were mostly being thrown into a fire. And it worked for a while. There were fewer bites, production increased. The bounty worked."

Captain Gifford took a deep drink from a flask he kept on his hip, one separate from his canteen, and the group waited patiently for him to continue.

"But after about two years of this, we realised the increase in production was being outstripped by the money we were paying in snake bounties. They were turning in so many snakes that it was no longer economically viable. So we grabbed one of these little brown fellows and we asked him. 'Where are you getting all these snakes from?' After a few good smacks he gave up the game.

"You see, we weren't paying them to hunt snakes. We were paying them to turn snakes in. These clever little bastards worked this out, and they figured why hunt the snakes when they could breed them and turn them in for a fraction of the effort."

David chuckled as he handed a stick with cooked damper on it to the old man. Captain Gifford and Mister Harney always got theirs first. He'd learnt that the hard way.

"You saying we should breed Kanakas to turn in?" Mister Harney said as he accepted his portion of bread and meat.

"Ah, well, there's another part to the story now, isn't there," Captain Gifford replied as he carefully unwrapped the bread from its stick, steam rising from it as he did. "Because once we found out those crafty devils were exploiting our generous bounty program, we shut it down. And the Coolies, well, you'll never guess what they did next."

Captain Gifford paused and looked around the camp. Waiting for an answer. David ducked when the old man's eyes found him.

"They let the snakes go," John said loudly when it was clear nobody else had one. "And there were even more snake bites than when you started."

Captain Gifford barked out a short laugh, clapping his hand across his mouth to trap his food from escaping. "Very good, John," he said around a mouthful of bread and mutton. "How did you know?"

"It's what I would have done," John replied with a big smile, "To fuck with you white pricks."

Silence hung heavy in the air around the small fire as John's words sank in for everyone. Captain Gifford's smile disappeared as he and John held one another's eye line, each daring the other to look away first. As claustrophobic as the bush was, nothing weighed heavier on David than moments like these.

Mister Harney broke the silence. "You fucking would, you little prick," he bellowed with a laugh. Captain Gifford broke into a smile then, one that didn't reach his eyes, and the old man stood up to the sound of the camp chattering again.

"If I could beg your pardons," he said, gesturing to Mister Harney and Jocko.

Jocko, not the sole subject of ire for once, felt emboldened to join in on the fun. "Where the fuck's he going?"

"He's off to go take a shit," Mister Harney chuckled back. "He does this every day."

"Can't shit near the commonfolk," John added, to Mister Harney's enthusiastic nodding.

"Yeah, he was a noble back in merry old England or something, before he shipped out here," Mister Harney continued.

"Noble or not, he oughta be careful out in the bush here," Jocko said, an air of genuine concern in his voice.

David handed Jimmy one of the last two breads, and he held the other for himself.

"Who knows what might get him out there, hey Davey?" Jimmy said quietly as he stuffed wet mutton into the hole the stick left in his bread. "Maybe the magical dog-snake."