Two strangers reach an opal mining town in outback Queensland, searching for a stepdaughter and a son who have mysteriously disappeared. There is a heavy, guilty feel to the hot, parched-dry town. Mercy Given and Old Jess (Everyone calls her Old Silence) watch from Ma and Bill Beresford’s store. On the verandah of Bernie’s Last Chance, the drinkers wait to take stock of the foreigners, before they return to their cattle properties or their sheep stations or to their stake-outs in the opal fields. Duke Prophet crosses the street from The Living Word Gospel Hall. Young Alice Godwin whimpers.
Until the arrival of the cult messiah Oyster.
