Dead birds littered the road along with smouldering wallabies and possums. Some, still alive, hulked their bodies along painfully. Their suffering was so tangible Luke felt the hurried knock of his heart, and sweat pouring from his body. The smoke made it hard to breathe, but so, too, did his fear.
There were patches of unburned bush. A fireball could swing with the wind and travel back to devour him in those patches of dry deadwood and grasses. He was still so new to this country and realised he had been stupid to come – but how could he leave Emily alone up here?
Through the smoke he saw the VPP sign to the Mayford track. He swerved the vehicle as best he could with the water load on and lumped his way over the ridged track. So stuffy was the air in the cab, he pulled his T-shirt from beneath his overalls up over his nose and mouth. He squinted along the track, beginning to lose hope of ever finding her.
Luke travelled slowly in this way for nearly forty minutes, the panic in him rising. At last in the gloom he saw a smattering of cow dung. It was a clue that raised such hope and relief in him he almost cried. He knew she would be there with the cows. The dung was fresh and the country that he travelled through was Park land. But what if it was just a stray cow that had pushed through the fence?
As he began to cave in to doubt, suddenly there she was in a clearing. Emily Flanaghan. She was standing beside a new fence that until a moment ago had divided the Park from her family’s cattle run. The gleaming wires were flung back against the grass. Six strands of silver, like broken guitar strings. Behind her stood her mare, dancing nervously from where she was tied, flicking her charcoal tail against her flanks of snowdrift white, and next to her, Bonus, laden with knapsacks, moving about but obviously lame in the offside rear leg.
To the right, a mob of glossy, white-faced cows and calves spotted him and lowed, as if pleading for help. He looked again to Emily, who was smiling at him in amazement. Luke jumped out of the Cruiser, his strong legs propelling him quickly over the tussocky plain between them. Crying with relief, she ran to him. Together they embraced. Kissing each other, tasting the sweat, the tears and the soot.
‘Luke! You can’t be here!’ Emily held his face and gazed deep into his eyes. She was so relieved and yet so horrified to see him here in the mountains that were engulfed in flames. It felt so wonderful to hold him, but it came with the horrific realisation that it was not just her life at risk now, but also his. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here!’ she said.
‘I know! Come on,’ he said, taking her hand, starting to lead her towards the Parks vehicle. She pulled her hand away.
‘But, Luke, I’m not leaving my girls,’ she said, gesturing towards her cattle. ‘And I’m not leaving Snowgum or Bonus.’
‘Are you crazy?’ he said. ‘Emily! You’ve cut the fence. Let them go. They’ll find a way out on the tracks.’
She shook her head.
‘Not through that mess they won’t,’ she said and he knew instantly what she meant. He looked with shame at the long rank grasses and weeds that had grown up on the Parks side of the fence since winter.
‘Emily, I can’t let you —’
‘Can’t let me what, Luke? Damage Parks property? Take cattle onto a restricted area?’
‘No. I can’t let you go.’
‘Well, nor can I! You have to come with me,’ she said. ‘You’re crazy to go that way. I reckon we’ve got half an hour before the hottest fire from hell hits. I’m telling you, if you go that way, via the road and the ridge, you’re fried!’
‘But where is there to go from here?’ He looked about at the wall of trees and grasses.
‘A special place,’ she said.
‘Emily,’ he cautioned.
‘Luke, you’ve got to trust me. If you go in the vehicle via the road, you’re dead.’
She jogged over to Bonus and took one of the water packs off him.
‘Here, spray this over me.’
Luke pumped the spray unit and together they showered each other with water, wetting their clothing. They sprayed the horses too and gave Rousie a quick drink out of Emily’s hat. Then Emily gathered up Snowgum’s reins and lobbed up onto the grey. The mare swished her tail and bowed her head, keen to move on, away from the onslaught of the furnace-like wind. Emily grabbed Bonus’s lead rope and let rip a piercing whistle to her kelpie.
‘Bonus is lame. You’ll have to dink with me.’ She held out her hand to Luke. He looked from her to the vehicle that had the fire unit on it.
‘Safer to go this way,’ she said looking into his warm, dark-chocolate eyes. She saw beyond the fear that shone in them. In his eyes was love. Pure love. He took her hand and electricity pulsed through in their touch. He swung up behind her.
Her quick-footed dog was soon round the cows and calves. Small blackened twigs were falling all around them now. Ash drifted down, sticking to their wet skin. Then a furious wind hit them full force at their backs. It whipped Luke’s hat from his head, and flung it away into a patch of thick young dogwoods. The cattle were panting as they crashed through the bush, hot tongues hanging out so far they looked like a butcher’s shop display. The heat, the stress and the smell of the fire caused them to roll their eyes in panic.
Fireballs ignited and exploded on the tinder-dry ground. Where the grasses were grazed on the cattlemen’s side, the flames only trickled along, but on the Parks side they leapt and noisily licked at seed heads whipping wildly in the wind, then jumped from the mid-story dogwoods and began to climb the trunks of the trees, their burning bark falling like liquid flames.
‘Hang on,’ Emily said over her shoulder as she urged Snowgum down the mountainside. She had unclipped the lead on the gelding who was now following, his nose pressed near the tail of the mare.
Luke tightened his arms around Emily, feeling comfort from being so near to her, but the fear still pulsed through them all; horse, humans, dog and beast. Emily steered the mare from the road to an unseen bridle path. Visibility was very poor and Luke was amazed Emily knew where to turn. He sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness that he had doubted this girl and her connection with the land. She was an amazing rider, a true bushwoman, and he felt her strong body flexing to the jolts as the horse moved over the rough terrain.
He berated himself for listening to the VPP stories about the cattlemen. This girl, for one, was incredible. He listened to her talk to Snowgum as they dropped down through the scrub on a southerly slope, the mare responding to her calm, gentle voice.
Externally Emily seemed in control, but internally, adrenaline coursed through her body. Her eyes stung, her chest burned, both she and Luke were coughing in dry, rasping gasps, the pain in their lungs intense. Snowgum was breathless too, her sides heaved against their legs and blood was coming from her nostrils. Ahead of them in a dark haze, the cattle half-slid down the slope, Rousie hunting the ones that tried to veer off in a different direction. He was overheating too, and Emily was terrified he’d cramp and she’d have to carry him.
She spoke encouraging words to the dog and was relieved to see him respond with a small flicker of his tail. She was relying heavily on Rousie to get the cattle down. He’d turn to look back at her every now and then, as if to tell her this was madness. She urged him on. She knew that it was madness, that she shouldn’t have gone back to search for the cattle. But there was no turning back from this now.
Suddenly the mare slipped and lurched sideways, righting herself just as quickly. Luke clung with his legs and held onto Emily’s slim waist, only just staying on. To the left, a large limb cracked, loud as a shotgun, and banged to the ground. The mare shied violently but again the riders stuck.
The trees whirled madly about and more ash showered down. Embers stung their skin like wasps. They could hear a roaring behind them. Fire or wind, they weren’t sure, but there was no looking back. The mare called out in a shuddering whinny, her black eyes rimmed white with fear. A choking dryness to the smoke-filled air starved them of breath and their eyes stung and watered.
>
Ahead of them, the cows were trotting and half sliding down the track, bumbling through bushes. The froth about their mouths trailed down to the dry ground. The day was becoming as black as midnight, Emily relying on her animals’ intuition to guide her down the mountainside.
At last the vegetation began to thicken and change. The greenness brought on by damper soil emerged around them. The slope levelled off and soon they were pushing their way though thick ti-tree. Here, the world felt slightly cooler and the air clearer. They ducked their heads to avoid the scratching fingers of the ti-tree.
With relief, they emerged on the other side into a clearing. Emily pulled up her horse and watched as the cows and calves splashed into the shallows of the river. They began to draw water in great, lengthy draughts. Rousie lay in the shallows, panting and lapping at the water. Emily flicked her leg forward over her horse’s neck and slid to the ground, letting Snowgum drink. Luke looked down at her.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Oh, we’re not out of it yet,’ she said. ‘We could still boil alive in these shallows. We have to take the cattle up further. There’s a big rock island there. We’ll have to swim them. If Rousie can hold them on there, they might just make it if the fire jumps the river.’
‘And us?’ he said. ‘Do we get in the river?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I have a better plan. C’mon. There’s no time. You’ll have to walk upstream. I’m going to need my horse for this.’
And she was riding again, splashing into the shallow, fast-running river, swinging her stockwhip about her head, letting fly with a loud crack.
‘Get up, girls!’ she called and soon the cows and calves were stumbling upstream. It seemed to take so long. The air was easier to breathe near the dampness of the river, but it was dark as night in the gully, and fear still drove them on.
Emily was transported back to the night at Wonnangatta and the terror she and Luke had felt when they’d heard the ghost horses galloping past. Now she realised it had been some kind of warning. A future projection of what had been coming in their lives.
She urged the cattle on, and most of them now plunged into the wide, deeper pool. Rousie was swimming too, barking in the water as best he could at the stragglers. At last the final cow and calf heaved themselves up onto the island the river held at its heart. A giant old willow had taken root there many years before, offering a green canopy of shelter, but the cows still bustled and called out beneath the terrifying blacked-out sun.
The heat was intense. Emily and Luke turned towards a thundering roar high above them on the mountaintop, interspersed with explosive cracks as tree trunks succumbed to the inferno raging on the ridge above them. They stood transfixed as spot fires began to ignite all about them and the oxygen was stolen from the air. The mare threw her head and clashed her hooves on the river stones as the fire hunted wallabies, possums, lizards, snakes and other bush creatures to the riverbank. More fearful of fire than humans, a wallaby darted right under Snowgum’s belly, its breath quick with panic and its docile brown eyes alert with terror. Bonus stuck close to the mare, too fearful to trot away.
‘C’mon,’ Emily shouted at Luke as she hitched Snowgum’s reins and Bonus’s lead to the willow tree. She undid the knapsack from the saddle pack, slinging it on the riverbank with a heavy thud. ‘You have to get wet,’ she told Luke.
She led him into the shallows and as she took his hand, he felt his own hands shaking uncontrollably. He was almost blind from the smoke.
‘After this we’re going into a fire bunker, okay?’
‘Yep,’ Luke croaked, amazed that there was a fire bunker here in this remote river-bend. He wanted to ask her about it. But no sound came. He could barely speak, barely swallow. Emily pulled him towards her.
Frighteningly warm water rose up over his clothing and, close to blind in the smoke and the darkness, he began to panic. But then he felt Emily’s quiet, steady hands on either side of his face as she gently dragged him under water. He felt like he was in the presence of an angel. As the fire front hit the ridge directly above them and began to race downhill towards them, its terrifying roar was muffled as they both plunged underwater.
In the mountain stream, Emily pressed a last kiss to Luke’s blistered lips before they surfaced to burning bark and leaves hitting the water with a fizz. Smoke curled over rock and ripples. Luke gulped at the thick, poisoned air and found himself coughing uncontrollably as they stumbled blindly from the river, Emily grabbing up the water pack.
All the while he felt Emily’s hand leading him. Choking in the smoke, they half crawled up an embankment, the soil hot under their palms, the screech of green gumleaves burning above their heads. He heard Emily grunting with effort as she tore away old grasses, rocks and tin. Then she ushered him into the dark quiet space of a fire bunker, which had once been a Flanaghan goldmine.
It smelt of cold earth, of worms, of death and decay. But it was cool and the air, though musty, was easier to breathe.
Luke couldn’t speak. All he could do was lie on the cool, hard earth trying to drag tiny breaths into his bleeding lungs. His body was stinging in agony where embers had burned him like cigarettes.
‘Here,’ Emily said. ‘Drink.’ She placed the nozzle of the back pack into his hands and he felt a trickle of water pass over his lips, but he could not swallow.
‘The horses,’ she said. ‘I’m going to hobble them in the river. I’ll be back.’
Luke tried to lift his head to protest but he felt a giddy rush and simply had to lie in the darkness.
‘Emily,’ he whispered, knowing she would be back soon in his arms. ‘Emily Flanaghan.’ Then he passed out.
Forty
A sudden noise in the pitch-black bunker jolted Luke awake. His head throbbed with pain. His mouth was so dry and his tongue so swollen he could barely swallow. He reached blindly for the nozzle of the spray pack, his hands grappling helplessly in the darkness. He knew from the silence that the fire had passed, but how long had they lain here?
‘Emily?’ he croaked, conjuring her face in his mind, reaching out to the darkness to hold her. ‘Are you okay?’ A joy came to him, knowing they had survived and they would be together. ‘You are the most beautiful cattleman I’ve ever met.’
She didn’t answer. Maybe she hadn’t heard him? He heard the tin being tugged open at the door. A strange, gentle light touched his eyelids.
‘Emily? Emily?’ Luke stretched his blistered and blackened fingers and felt around on the bare earth for her, then he reached out towards the light.
‘It’s all right,’ came a man’s voice. ‘We’ve got you, buddy.’ Luke felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘Can you see?’
He shook his head. ‘Emily? Where is she? Emily!’
He began to scramble about on all fours, terror wrenching his heart, his mind crazy with questions.
‘Mate, there’s no one else in here. You are one lucky bastard, though.’
‘But … Emily?’
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ the rescue worker said as he shone the torch around the cavernous den. He could see an old mine shaft, boarded up long ago. ‘There’s no one else here.’
Through searing pain, Luke tried to open his eyes. With blurred vision, he could only just make out the fluoro overalls and hard hats of the SES men who crouched down next to him. Outside the bunker, the blackened world looked as if an atomic bomb had hit. A crash of a falling tree prompted the sudden burst of rising embers from the charred landscape. The pain was too great. Luke had to shut his eyes again.
‘C’mon, we’ve got to get you out of here. It’s dangerous for us all.’
‘But Emily? Emily?’ Luke yelled, until his voice again gave way to just a croak. ‘The cattle!’
‘Cattle?’ the rescue worker said, barely able to make sense of Luke’s speech.
As the men radioed out that their three-day search was over – the ranger had been found and needed medical help – Luke became angry. They must’ve been flo
wn in from another region, with no idea Emily might be in the area, let alone that she was missing. How could the rescue be so uncoordinated, Luke wondered? They’d been instructed to find the government employee but not the cattleman.
‘But, Emily. The cattle,’ he tried again. It hurt to talk, but a fury was rising in him.
‘There’s no cattle here, mate. This is Park land now. The cattlemen were kicked off it. This must’ve been a cattleman’s mine and fire bunker. How the hell did you find it? We only found you because your vehicle’s burnt to a crisp up top and the track and ventilation shaft that sticks up outta the ground stands out like dog’s balls now it’s all burnt.’
Luke sat up, ready to roar, but no sound came. He was giddy.
‘Settle, mate. You’re in shock. Calm yourself. The medicos will be here with something good for you in just a little while.’
What the worker didn’t want to tell Luke was that there was no sign of the cattleman’s daughter. He didn’t like to say that the fire that had just destroyed a million acres of Park land was so hot, no man could discern if the fine white ash now blowing in the wind was that of cow, horse or human. White dust, like the powder of angels’ wings, taking flight over vast areas of charred mountain wilderness.
On the chopper ride out, Luke pressed his fingertips at the cool cotton pads that covered his eyes. He felt the pain of trying to shed tears from eyes that had none. As they flew over the black-faced mountainside, he didn’t see the big metal VPP sign hanging twisted and blackened. He didn’t see the burnt matchstick trees, seared from top to bottom.
Lingering flames still burned on the breeze-side of the tree trunks and in the guts of hollow stumps. But Luke didn’t see them. He didn’t see the way the fire had crawled to a stop within metres of the Flanaghan homestead, as if God had had some hand in this giant unreasonable plan. He didn’t see the rubble of the old hotel, which had been Evie’s leafy green haven. She too was gone. To ash and dust? No one knew. The only colour in the garden now was the striped tape of the coroner’s investigators.
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