‘Why would he kidnap Danny?’ Maidment asked.
‘That’s between me and him. We are wasting precious minutes standing here arguing. Please release my friends,’ Adelaide said.
Maidment nodded. ‘See to it, O’Grady.’
O’Grady hefted a ring of keys from a drawer behind the counter and stomped through the rear door to the cells.
As a rumpled Netty rushed through the door, Amos clasped her to him like a ragdoll. Caleb went straight to Adelaide and, heedless of the crowd around them, caught her in his arms.
‘Thank God you’re safe,’ he said and kissed her hair, his thumb caressing the back of her neck.
She leaned against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. She wanted someone to tell her everything would be all right. That Danny was not out there in the bush with a man who knew nothing about the dangers of bushfires, a man who had lost any right to call himself the boy’s father.
At this last thought, a choking sob escaped and she pushed herself free of him. ‘Richard has Danny—we’ve no time to lose. They’re on the Aberfeldy road heading straight into the fire. Caleb, I need your help.’
Caleb swore and, with his arm around her shoulder, they turned for the door.
Behind them, Maidment protested. ‘Wait. We need the doctor here.’
Caleb turned to the sergeant. ‘Sorry, Maidment. This is more important. I’ll be back later.’
Maidment ran a hand across his red-rimmed eyes. ‘I can’t stop you if you’re heading out to find them,’ he said. ‘I can only caution you to be careful. In this wind, the fire’s moving fast.’
Caleb nodded and clapped the man on the shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ Outside on the street, he turned to Amos. ‘Burrell, can you organise a horse? Adelaide, go back to the post office and wait for me. I just have to fetch something.’
She met his eyes. ‘Your revolver?’
He nodded.
Caleb found Adelaide pacing her parlour floor, dressed in her riding clothes.
‘What took you so long?’
‘I had to remember where I hid the ammunition for the Colt,’ he replied and her gaze dropped to the weapon.
She grasped his sleeve. ‘Let’s go. Amos is waiting at the livery stable.’
‘Adelaide, you’re not coming with me,’ he said. ‘I can handle Barnwell—’
‘Danny’s my son. If anything—anything—happens to him and I’m not there, my own life will not be worth living.’ Her eyes blazed and to emphasise her point, she pushed him in the chest with both hands.
He took a step back. ‘Very well. I won’t argue with you.’
She tossed him a large handkerchief.
‘Tie that round your neck. You’ll need it if we’re riding into smoke. You can wet it and tie it over your nose and mouth.’
Caleb gathered up the food and water bottles Netty had put out for them. Adelaide slapped a broad-brimmed felt hat onto her head and they hurried to the livery stable where Amos waited with the horses. The stench of burning now covered the town and smoke rose high into the sky. The two horses, Adelaide’s bay and Caleb’s grey, sensed the unease in the air, fidgeting in Amos’s firm grasp, their ears swivelling and nostrils flaring.
‘Want me to come?’ Amos asked.
Caleb hesitated. He knew little more than Barnwell when it came to bushfires and he had never been further north than the Blue Sailor gold mine, about ten miles out of Maiden’s Creek.
He shook his head. ‘You’re needed here, Burrell.’
‘I know the country between here and Aberfeldy,’ Adelaide said.
‘She does too. I’d trust ’er.’ Amos grinned at Adelaide.
Adelaide swung unaided into her saddle and Caleb mounted Shadow. Amos packed the saddlebag with the food and water bottles, checked the girths one more time and looked up at them both. ‘Good luck,’ he said.
As they kicked the horses forward, Caleb looked at Adelaide, her lips pressed tight and her eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead, a road suddenly filled with people.
The crowd parted and the two lonely riders passed through, headed north on the Aberfeldy Road into the teeth of a raging bushfire.
Thirty-Four
When they were clear of the town, Adelaide put her heels to her horse, anxious to close as much distance as she could between herself and Danny. She heard, but ignored, Caleb’s call for her to slow and he cantered up beside her.
‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Are you mad? You’ll wear the horse out before we’ve got five miles.’
Reluctantly she brought her mare back to a walk and they rode on in silence. In her mind, Adelaide traced the road before them. There were a few side tracks into the more remote mines but she felt sure Richard would stick to the main track.
‘If they get through to Aberfeldy before the fire cuts the road,’ she said, ‘we’ve lost them.’
‘You know this country,’ Caleb said. ‘Is there anywhere they could shelter?’
She shrugged. ‘Some abandoned mine workings on the Aberfeldy River but Danny wouldn’t know that. He’s never …’ A lump caught in her throat. ‘He’s never been a confident enough rider to bring out on this road.’
He reached across and laid a hand on her knee. ‘Adelaide, we will find them.’
‘I wish I had your confidence,’ she said.
Past the turn off to the Blue Sailor mine, the track wound up from the valley through thick forest. The slope of the hill fell away through bracken and ferns and stands of tall mountain ash to the left side of the track. The wind tossed the trees, bringing with it the smell of destruction.
After an hour and a half, the track began to descend, winding towards a thickly vegetated valley. It turned a bend and they crossed the Aberfeldy River. In its summer torpor it drizzled around the rocks and boulders that marked its course but in winter, as Adelaide had discovered on one of her excursions, it turned into a raging, uncrossable torrent. Adelaide paused at a deeper pool to allow the horses to drink. She dismounted and soaked the handkerchief she had tied around her neck in the pool. Caleb followed her lead.
Above the sighing of the wind in the trees came another sound: the roaring of an angry beast tearing at the bars of its cage.
‘That’s the fire?’ Caleb asked.
She nodded. ‘Surely they can’t have got much further?’ She swung back into the saddle. The mare laid her ears back, snorting as Adelaide kicked her on. ‘She knows we’re going in the wrong direction,’ Adelaide said. She leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. ‘It’s all right, girl. Not much further.’
The track started to climb again, winding up to the next ridge. Above the wind and the distant roar of the fire, Adelaide caught something else, the faint nicker of a horse. For a moment she thought she’d imagined it but her horse had heard it too. Her ears pricked up and she gave an answering whinny. The other horse replied, closer now.
Adelaide rose in her stirrups, scanning the road ahead. Then she pulled her handkerchief up over her nose and mouth and pressed forward, the horse baulking beneath her, its instinct to flee fire fighting with its training to obey its rider. She put her heels to her horse and it finally broke into a trot and then a canter. Caleb followed, the horses surefooted on the uneven track.
At the top of the ridge, Adelaide drew rein. Danny’s pony stood just off the road, its reins tangled in a fallen tree. Caleb was off his horse in an instant, handing the reins to Adelaide.
The little beast shied back as he approached, whickering in alarm. He held out his hand and made a soft cooing noise. Being well and truly caught, the little horse had no choice but to let him approach. He stroked its nose and whispered in its ear and the pony calmed, allowing him to untangle the reins and lead it over to Adelaide.
‘They can’t be too far,’ Caleb said. ‘I’ll lead the pony.’
The horses put their heads down, ears pinned back as Adelaide and Caleb pushed on into the smoke. Around them the bush came alive with the crashing of wallabies and other small animals esc
aping the red devil that chased them from the peace and security of their bush homes.
They reached the ridge, the track leading them straight on. Here the smoke grew thicker. She could never turn back but they had reached the point where to go on meant certain death.
Caleb pointed and Adelaide’s heart leaped as the faint shadow of a horse loomed through the smoke coming towards them. She would have put her heels to her own horse if Caleb had not caught her reins. She turned on him, angry words springing to her lips, but he put his finger to the scarf that covered his mouth and shook his head.
‘Slowly, Adelaide,’ he said quietly. ‘We don’t want Barnwell putting spurs to the horse and heading straight back into the fire in the mistaken belief he can reach Aberfeldy.’
They dropped back and Caleb tethered his horse and the pony to a tree branch and slipped down over the ridge, working his way in parallel to the track to come out ahead of Richard.
Adelaide waited until he was out of sight and dismounted from her own beast.
Holding the reins in her left hand, she walked up the track to meet the horse and riders. Lighted embers were falling around them, igniting the dry undergrowth and setting the tops of the gums ablaze and the smoke was making her eyes water.
Richard had Danny in front of him and the horse they rode jittered and fought the restraining hand on its bridle. Like their own beasts, it knew it was in a bad place and wanted to be away from the smoke and burning.
She called Richard’s name and he started, jerking the horse’s head back. He turned so he was side on to her, his eyes going from her to the track northward from where he had come.
‘Mama!’ Danny screamed and started to slide sideways in a bid to dismount, but Richard caught his collar and hauled him back.
Adelaide raised her right hand. ‘Let him go, Richard. The fire will be on us shortly. I don’t particularly care if you kill yourself but you’re not taking my son.’
Richard licked his dry, cracked lips and glanced back in the direction of Aberfeldy again.
‘Stay where you are, and let us pass,’ Richard said. His voice cracked and he coughed as he showed her what he held in his hand—a small pistol. Adelaide took a step and Richard pressed the weapon to Danny’s neck.
‘He’s your son!’ she screamed. ‘What father draws a weapon on his child?’
‘Get out of the way, Adelaide.’
Richard pressed the weapon a little harder into Danny’s flesh and the boy whimpered.
‘Throw that weapon down, Barnwell.’ Caleb stood barely ten feet from Richard, his Colt drawn.
‘Richard!’ Adelaide’s voice rose. ‘We are all going to die if we stay here. For the love of God, let Danny go.’
Richard coughed and looked from Caleb to Adelaide.
‘I’m so sorry, Daniel,’ he said, ‘but I have to go on alone.’
He flung the pistol he held into the bush and let go his grip on Danny. The boy slithered out of his grasp, hitting the ground in a crouch. As Danny ran into his mother’s outstretched arms, Richard kicked his horse. The animal went down on its haunches before springing forward. The sudden movement startled Adelaide’s mare and she jerked the reins from her hands, and turned, following Richard’s horse back in the direction of Maiden’s Creek.
Caleb swore and set off at a run after Richard, Adelaide and Danny following.
As they rounded the bend, the place where Caleb had left the pony and his horse was now empty, the branch to which Caleb had tied their reins broken on the ground.
Caleb swore and grabbed Adelaide’s hand. ‘Got to get down to the river.’
Behind them, the fire roared as it reached the ridge.
Caleb led them down the track to the river, through the thickening smoke. Every breath had become an effort and his eyes watered. If they could reach the watercourse before the fire, they stood a chance.
But the fire had already outflanked them, leaping the water and surging up the slope ahead of them, cutting off their escape route to Maiden’s’ Creek.
‘Caleb.’ Adelaide sounded hoarse. ‘There are mine workings upstream.’
Desperate wallabies and other wildlife shot from the bush, also looking for respite along the river as Caleb, Adelaide and Danny splashed through the shallow water, making their way upstream to the place where an irregular pile of rocks formed a rough dam. Below the dam, the river course had cut a deeper hole and they tumbled into the cold water. Caleb wrapped Adelaide and Danny in his arms, pulling them down as the fire roared and ranted above them, denied the precious prize of three human lives.
Caleb raised his head, lungs bursting, gasping in the putrid air. Above him the great mountain ash tossed their fiery crowns, but the worst of the firestorm had passed and was racing up the hill in the direction of Maiden’s Creek. He stumbled out of the waterhole and held out a hand to Adelaide and Danny. The three of them stood dripping in the riverbed, as trees and bush on either bank smouldered.
Caleb shook his hair, sending a shower of water into Adelaide’s face. She wiped her eyes and, despite the situation, laughed.
‘I don’t know what you have to laugh about,’ Caleb said. ‘We’re ten miles from Maiden’s Creek with a raging bushfire between us and the town and no horses.’
‘We’re alive,’ Adelaide said.
‘I hope the horses are all right,’ Danny said.
‘Horses know what’s good for them. They’ll have headed straight to their stables,’ Caleb said with more confidence than he felt. Even a horse at full flight would be hard put to outrun that fire. If they had not reached the river in time, they too would be dead.
Danny scrambled onto the shore just as a tree came crashing down, its top still ablaze. Adelaide screamed but Danny had jumped clear. Caleb held out his hand and helped Adelaide to pick a careful way to the dry, tumbled pebbles of the shore.
The boy began pulling at some scrubby bushes above the high-water mark.
‘There’s an old mine here,’ he said. ‘Looks like a rockfall blocking the entrance.’
‘Danny, be careful. It may not be safe. You know what old mines are like,’ Adelaide said as the boy crawled into the opening of the adit.
Danny pulled at the broken rocks to widen the opening to the adit. ‘I think we can get in now,’ he said, turning to the two bedraggled figures behind him. ‘Just one more rock—’ He gave a sharp cry, pulling back his right hand and jumping to his feet.
‘Danny!’ Adelaide screamed as she caught the flick of a dark brown tail disappearing under another pile of rocks.
The boy stood transfixed, his mouth open in a silent scream, his right hand clutched to his chest.
Caleb was by his side. ‘Give me your hand.’
Danny, his eyes wide in horror, complied, and Caleb’s breath stopped at the sight of the two puncture marks, clearly discernible despite the mud that smeared Danny’s hand. He remembered the tiger snake that had attacked his boot and the cold hand of fear tightened around his heart. ‘Did you see it?’ he asked, forcing his voice to remain neutral.
‘Yes. It was a tiger snake,’ Danny said between white lips. ‘Not a big one.’
‘That’s good,’ Caleb said, and helped the boy to the ground. ‘I want you to lie down and be very, very still.’ He looked at Adelaide. She stared back at him, her eyes wide with horror. She knew, they both knew, what the bite of a tiger snake could do to a small boy. He held out his hand to her. ‘Adelaide, your belt, please.’
Adelaide pulled the narrow leather belt from her trousers, bunching the loose fabric in one hand as Caleb wound the leather strap tightly around Danny’s forearm, using a stick to tighten the ligature.
‘A knife,’ he muttered, more to himself.
‘In my satchel,’ Danny said.
Caleb took the bag from around Danny’s shoulders and unbuckled it. The bag contained an assortment of odds and ends, some of which could be useful. He found a length of light rope, a better tourniquet than the belt, which he tossed back to Adelaide
.
‘Danny, hold your hand very still. Adelaide, can you help hold it steady?’
He rested Danny’s hand on a large, flat rock and Adelaide held the boy’s wrist. Caleb glanced at her terrified face then opened the knife and made several small cuts over the fang marks. Danny flinched and cried out but his mother held him still. Taking a deep breath, Caleb bent his head and sucked.
Fighting back the nausea at the acrid tang of blood in his mouth, Caleb turned his head and spat. Adelaide released her grip on Danny and ran down to the river, scooping up water in her hat. It tasted of mud and worse but Caleb rinsed his mouth and sucked and spat again. Danny whimpered and jerked his hand back but Adelaide had it held firmly.
‘Good boy. Now I need you to keep very still,’ Caleb said.
Danny complied, his eyes round with fear as Caleb stood up and looked around. The worst of the initial firestorm had passed but, here and there, scrubby bushes and undergrowth still burned. He gathered a pile of dry tinder and ignited it from one of the spot fires. Keeping his back to the boy, he laid the knife in the embers until it glowed red hot.
He turned back to Danny. ‘Now, this is going to hurt,’ he said. ‘Close your eyes real tight and your mother will be holding your good hand.’
Danny stared at him. The boy’s eyes were already unnaturally bright as the poison began to take effect. ‘You’re not going to cut my hand off?’ the boy whimpered.
Caleb allowed himself the luxury of a smile. ‘No. Now close your eyes.’
Danny obeyed, his mouth a thin line and his face screwed up in anticipation.
Caleb drew out the heated knife and without hesitation applied the flat of the blade to the wound.
Danny screamed, bucking against his mother’s grasp. She held him down as Caleb removed the knife, revealing the red raw burn of the cauterisation. Adelaide drew an audible breath and Caleb looked up,
Adelaide’s stricken eyes said the words she could not voice. Don’t let him die.
‘Your scarf, Adelaide.’
She handed him the scarf from around her neck and he took his off too, binding Danny’s hand as best he could.
The Postmistress Page 28