The Cattleman's Daughter

by Rachael Treasure

  What Luke did see in his mind’s eye was the bravest, most beautiful girl he’d ever known. A girl on a ghost-grey horse, standing in a thicket of snowgums. The land was written on her palms and fingertips and, he knew now, the land had been written in her heart.

  As the chopper landed on the Dargo oval in a cloud of dust and ash, Luke heard the paramedics groan at the sight of the media hovering nearby.

  ‘They all want the scoop on the ranger who went to rescue the cattleman’s daughter. I’m sorry, mate,’ said the pilot.

  Through his puffy eyes Luke could make out the cluster of journalists and a sombre group of people watching in silence as they wheeled him into a waiting ambulance to take him to the bush hospital. He knew that if they’d found him and Emily alive, there’d be whoops of joy. But his homecoming was so weighted down by the tragedy of losing Emily he wished he’d been taken by the fire too.

  They settled him into a hospital bed in a room that faced the main street. Through the curtains he could see the nurses shooing away the pack of reporters, who hung about like hyenas on the scavenge.

  He looked up at the ceiling while a nurse checked his vital signs. He recoiled from the woman’s cool touch on his stinging skin. The only human touch he wanted was Emily’s. He thought of their night in the Dargo homestead, by the fire, when Emily had told him about her mother dying in this very hospital. And now Emily was gone too. Seeing his distress, the nurse fussed over him with extra gentle care.

  The sun had faded to just a small patch at the foot of Luke’s hospital bed when Flo led Rod into the ward. The old cattleman was bent over and almost shuffled. It was a shock to see this tall proud father so broken by grief.

  Behind them, Bridie and Sam ushered Tilly and Meg into the room. Luke could see they’d all been crying. Emily’s wild-haired, smiley children were now pale-faced and silent. Their eyes were full of fear and confusion. They were lost without their cheerful, busy mother. Luke’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of them.

  Rod came over to him and drew Luke up in a hug. The two men held each other, both unafraid to cry for Emily. Their bodies shook. The hearts of those who watched twisted in agony.

  There was a whole life ahead of them, without Emily.

  Rod pulled back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for going to look for my daughter.’

  Luke, his face contorted, shook his head violently.

  ‘It was my fault. I should’ve made her stay. But I …’

  Rod put a hand on his arm, and Luke could feel he carried the same strong energy within him that Emily had.

  ‘You can’t make Emily do anything she doesn’t want to do.’

  Luke smiled, comforted by Rod talking about her in the present tense.

  Once they saw Luke’s smile, the girls clambered up on Luke’s bed, holding him tightly.

  ‘Don’t go, Luke,’ Tilly said.

  ‘No, don’t go. Mummy thinks you’re really, really nice,’ Meg said. ‘She wants you to stay with us.’

  And at that point Luke’s heart broke for Emily Flanaghan’s daughters.

  Forty-one

  The next morning, when Donna from the pub began to scream, Kate downed what she was doing in the general store and ran out to see what was wrong. The old men on the bench seat muttered that Donna had clean gone off her rocker. They watched her standing with her hands held up to her face, frozen in the middle of the main street, gazing towards the river and yelling, ‘Oh my God!’ over and over.

  Donna’s cries rang out, the sound making it to the Beauty in the Bush cottage along the way. There, Rod, Flo, Bob, Bridie and Sam were quietly going about the strained business of organising memorial services for Emily and Evie, while Meg and Tilly sat numbly watching Play School.

  For the past few days Bob and Sam had been trying to contact Evie’s family, but it was as if she had no past, no contacts. They could find no traces of her previous life. Nor could the media, who were hounding them, looking for something more on the old lady who’d died in the fires. It was as if Evie had blown in from nowhere. And since no body had been found in the debris of her house, it was as if she’d just blown right out again.

  With all the leads on the stories of the two missing fire victims going cold, the city journalists were packing their gear into the boots of their cars at the motel when they heard Donna’s screams.

  As the Flanaghan family ran down the main street to Donna, they followed her gaze across the river to the winding Lower Dargo Road. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

  There, at the bridge, rode Emily, swinging her stockwhip over her head. The crack rang out as the lead cow gingerly walked onto the wooden bridge. In front of Emily, twenty-five footsore, scorched and blistered cows and calves took their agonising last steps homeward.

  Emily was crying through her swollen, stinging eyes as she made her way towards the crossroads at the pub and the store. Her clothes were singed rags, her eyelashes burnt and gone, her lips blistered, her Akubra hat, once cream, was now mottled black with holes where embers had smoked. Snowgum, head down but ears cast forward, let out an exhausted whicker, her lips blistered red and weeping. Emily sat bareback on the mare leading a hollow-gutted Bonus, his pack saddle hanging over his back as he limped along.

  Tilly and Meg sprinted towards her. Rod, Flo, Bob, Bridie and Sam all followed, calling out with joy and disbelief. They ran right through the herd towards Emily, dispersing the cows. Relieved to no longer be driven, the beasts began to browse the rich green grass of the Dargo Hotel beer garden. Rousie, footsore, flopped down in a patch of long green grass, his job done.

  A frenzy erupted around Emily. She was covered with burns, bruises, scrapes, blisters, sunburn and cuts, but she felt no pain as she swept her precious girls into her arms. She held them to her and felt their tears of relief and joy on her face.

  Tilly and Meg breathed in the smell of their mother. She smelt scary and wonderful all at once. She smelt of fear and fire and long days and nights in the bush. She smelt of dogs and horses and cattle. But she also smelt of home and of love.

  Then Rod was hugging her, Flo and Bob too, and Sam and Bridie, with beaming faces of joy. As they all clustered around her, firing questions, they didn’t notice Meg slip away. Nobody saw how the little girl ran towards the bush hospital as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Luke was up from his hospital bed. He was dressed. He was leaving, going back to his bush block to begin a life without Emily. He could barely imagine how he was going to do it. As he pulled on his boots he looked up, surprised to see Meg standing in the doorway, framed in golden light from the corridor.

  ‘Hello. What are you doing here?’ Luke said softly.

  She held out her hand.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said, her big, brown eyes the mirror of her mother’s, looking up at him with urgency.

  Luke frowned, but took her hand.

  ‘Hurry!’ Meg said, as she trotted down the main street towards the pub with Luke in tow.

  Luke saw the cattle first, singed and footsore, ambling about the lawn behind the pub. Then, on the fringes of a crowd of townspeople, he saw Kate from the store holding two horses. A chestnut and a grey. Emily’s horses! His heart began to race. Meg squeezed his hand as she looked up and smiled at him. Then he knew. He knew at the heart of that crowd he would find Emily. Emily was alive!

  He swooped Meg up and carried her over, pushing through the people, and stood before Emily, breathless. He set Meg down, cupped Emily’s face tenderly with his hands and looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘You!’ he said.

  ‘Yes, me.’

  He stooped down and kissed her so gently, so lightly, like a butterfly passing over her skin. Her lips were red-raw, her skin burnt and blistered. But she was alive. She was here with him.

  They held each other, and Emily felt more butterflies tumble and turn inside her.

  Their peace was shattered as the media stormed them, cameras flashing in their faces, microph
ones pressed far too close. The thrill of the scoop stripping away any kind of courtesy as the journalists fired questions in a frenzy.

  ‘How did you survive?’

  ‘How long have you been travelling like this?’

  ‘Did you think you were going to die?’

  ‘Do you have a message for the Victorian Government on alpine management and fires?’

  Emily turned to the city media pack and, as best she could with her stinging eyes, looked down the barrel of one of the cameras.

  ‘You don’t need me to deliver a message. It’s written all around us, in what’s left of the land and the wildlife.’

  As she turned and stepped into the warmth of her family, and Luke’s arms, Emily wasn’t to know that her image and her message was about to be beamed to the world.

  As they walked along the main street Emily felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. ‘I think we’d better get you to the hospital.’

  Emily shook her head.

  ‘No way, Dad! No more hospitals! I’ll stick with Evie’s remedies.’

  The family looked at each other, their faces falling. Someone had to tell Emily. But Emily caught their looks and smiled sadly.

  ‘I know she’s gone.’ Again she felt her family fold in around her with love.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just know,’ Emily said.

  Settled on Bridie’s couch, Emily watched as her family rushed to fill a bath for her and fetch her drinks and food. In the back garden Luke and Sam were tending to the horses, who now stood resting beneath a shady walnut tree. Bob was offering Rousie a fat steak on the porch.

  Meg and Tilly sat with her on the couch and Emily draped her aching arms over them, just as Evie had done on the day of the fires. Emily rested her head against them alternately, breathing in their smell, kissing them over and over with her painful swollen lips.

  ‘What happened, Mummy?’ Tilly asked.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Emily said. ‘Let’s just say I’m having a bad run with trees!’

  ‘Tell us, please,’ Tilly prompted again.

  ‘Not today, darling. One day soon I’ll tell you. Just give Mummy a rest now.’

  Emily lay back and shut her eyes, conjuring up the vision of the giant burning gum that had crashed down in the winds gusting through the river bed. She had been about to hobble the horses and lead them into the deep hole of the river bed before returning to the bunker. But as she picked herself up from where she had fallen, Emily found the sparks, smoke and dust of the falling tree had blinded her.

  Thankfully, when the tree fell, the horses had shied but not bolted. She grappled to find Snowgum, and held tight to her reins. She knew she had to stay with them. Blinded, she had no way of finding Luke. Shivering from the memory, she opened her eyes and reached for Meg and Tilly’s hands.

  ‘Thank God I’m home!’

  ‘Bath for madame,’ came Bridie’s singsong voice as she held out a robe.

  In the steaming tub, as she washed the soot from her tender skin, Emily’s hands shook. The shock was settling in. She could still feel the fire around her and her conviction that she would surely die. She had clambered up on Snowgum and the mare had set off at a jog amidst the roar of the fire in the mountains above. At first Emily panicked, trying to rein Snowgum towards the deeper hole, but the mare resisted. Eventually she heard a voice in her head saying ‘trust’. She let Snowgum have her head.

  She could hear Bonus limping along behind them in the river bed, calling out madly if he fell behind. Her lips were so parched she couldn’t whistle Rousie – she had no idea where he was. She had lain flat to Snowgum’s neck as she trotted along the river bed, water splashing cool on Emily’s legs as the fire raged above them. Low-cast branches scratched her back. Falling embers burned her skin.

  Emily had no idea how long they travelled like that. She just felt Snowgum moving beneath her as she pressed her face into the mare’s hot, sweating neck. She could smell her damp Akubra smouldering and hear Snowgum grunt with effort as she stumbled over boulders in the river bed. Emily clung so tightly to the reins her fingers curled and cramped as if in a death-grip.

  Gradually the bush around them quietened. The wind settled. Still, Emily could not see. The mare stopped and dropped her head. She heard Bonus come to stand beside her and let out a slow snort. He too was easing himself down for a rest. When the horses began to doze, Emily knew they were safe.

  Still blinded and lost, Emily knew Snowgum would eventually take her home. She tried to call Rousie but her throat was so swollen she could not speak. Soon, though, in the deadly hush of the burned bush, she heard a crack, a crash, a splash, then miraculously a woof. Rousie was bringing the cattle along to her! Emily could hear them crossing the river. Goosebumps trailed from her legs up to her scalp.

  ‘Good boy,’ she croaked. ‘Good boy.’

  Then in her mind, she began to call up her girls, ‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!’ Her beautiful, beautiful cows were with her still.

  Bridie knocked and came into the bathroom.

  ‘Okay?’

  Emily nodded as Bridie tenderly pressed a cool cotton pad on her eyes.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She settled back into the bath.

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’ came Bridie’s voice, sounding strangely far away in the tiny steamy bathroom.

  Emily shook her head.

  She didn’t want to recall out loud how she had slid from Snowgum at the riverside and stooped to wash her face. The water was thick with ash and she could only just peer out from her swollen eyes. As she bent over the river and swirled gluggy grey-and-white powder, a pattern formed. Curious, Emily stared at it. She gasped when she saw the image. It was Evie’s face. She reeled backwards, slumping to the ground with the sudden, horrible realisation that Evie was gone.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Emily’s voice cracked. ‘Oh, God, Evie, no.’

  She had hunkered on the riverbank in a ball and howled. Rousie had come and lain next to her and she had pulled him to her and held him for comfort.

  In the cottage, Emily sat in a fluffy white robe after her bath, her family all around her, Luke by her side, when their conversation was interrupted by a sudden burst of wind. It blew the door open with a terrific bang, sending Bridie’s cat tumbling from the couch and Muff barking at the leaves that skittered over the lawn.

  ‘What was that?’ Sam said.

  ‘It was just Evie,’ said Meg. All eyes turned to the little girl as she nonchalantly continued to eat cashews from a bowl. ‘Evie and Jesus Christ.’

  Epilogue

  At the mountain cattlemen’s get-together at Rose River, Luke and Emily lay sweltering in the afternoon heat of their two-room dome tent as they watched insects crawl on the roof. Luke interlaced his fingers with Emily’s and looked into her eyes happily. She sighed, enjoying their siesta, listening to the constant thrum of a generator nearby and the giggles of Meg and Tilly who lay beside them.

  In the river next to the tent, kids screamed and splashed. They heard the deep plop of a heavy rock as it was tossed and swallowed up in the swimming hole. Then the generator coughed itself out of diesel and the silence that followed was blissful.

  On the other side of the tent, they could hear Snowgum and Bonus chewing chaff steadily, squealing every now and then as they hunted the girls’ pesky ponies away from their tucker.

  Above the tent, birds moved busily in the leaves of the riverside gums and the river bubbled over rocks beside them.

  Rolling over onto their stomachs, Emily and Luke looked out through the gauze from their tiny shell of privacy as riders on fit stockhorses ambled past, pausing to offer their horses a drink at designated spots along the river. Some horses had kids on ponies in tow, like little round dinghies trailing behind bigger boats. One big black stockhorse was so impressively fit and sleek, Emily’s gaze lingered on him and the rider.

  ‘Do you wish you were in the race tomorrow?’ Luke
said.

  Emily shook her head. ‘Not at all. I’d rather spend the Cattlemen’s with you!’ She nuzzled into him.

  Emily thought back over her day. For the first time ever, Luke had set up a VPP display for the two-day get-together. It was not so much an information booth as a place where information could be freely exchanged.

  Old, bent-kneed cattlemen shuffled up to tell Parks staff about bothersome patches of weeds. Could something be done? Young men came forward to report sightings of deer in areas they’d never been seen in before. Others came to say they worried about the lack of burning along rivers, where delicate populations of galaxias that lived in the shade could be at risk. Could a cool burn be arranged? After some initial prickliness, both sides had begun to listen to what each had to say.

  Luke and Emily were on the stall the entire day. Meg and Tilly came and went on their ponies, begging money for ice-cream or chips, with their little entourage of friends in tow. And as the day wore on, Emily could see excitement building at the potential of a new partnership.

  A year ago, this exchange would not have been possible. But the devastation of the fires had forced a rethink. Old mindsets had to go. Already a contract was on its way from the VPP to employ Emily and another high-country family to graze cattle in the Wonnangatta National Park for fuel reduction. The mountain cattlemen had also been asked to be part of grazing trials on some of the burnt country as it recovered.

  The turnaround in attitudes was incredible and happening so fast. But Emily knew she was being guided from above. As she dozed in the tent she daydreamed of Evie. Evie had talked about death and how souls and love were eternal. She’d said death was not such a final thing as people would have you believe. Wasn’t that what Emily herself had found a year ago, when she had left this earth? She was jolted awake by Tilly. ‘Mummy! Look!’