by Kathryn Hore
When he finally leaves, I wait for the dust to settle completely before I unlock the shed.
He steps out into the sun and sniffs the air like an animal. I wonder what he makes of the lingering scent of old tobacco and cracked leather. He seems distracted all afternoon, even restless as I brush his hair. His fingers beat a quick tattoo on my bare knee. I wonder if he didn’t appreciate being locked in the shed, or if he didn’t like the presence of another man.
But then she steps out of the smoke-haze of the dim, twilight bush.
She is not piebald, and she is not large and strong. She is short, and timid, her skin an even olive tone, eyes wide and darting. She leaves tiny grass fires in her wake.
If he was a brumby before the fire, then I can only think she must have been a wallaby.
She’s good with her hands. The shed with the generator was knocked out early on, damaged but not razed. It only takes a moment of my tinkering for her to get the idea. Sooner than I could believe possible, she’s up to her elbows in machinery. Two days later, and the lights are on. I don’t even know where she got the parts.
Wallaby is only the beginning.
They come as a trickle at first, and usually in the twilight, when the remnant smoke obscures their passage and the world is both day and night. I open the shed to them all, and their heat, their dripping flame. My wild horse moves into the house. He sleeps on the ensuite tiles, right by my bedroom door.
Short stocky wombat digs a new vegetable patch, while skinny lamb helps lay irrigation. My wild horse and a thickly set bull drag what’s left of the pump out of the dam, which wallaby immediately sets to repairing. An emu girl with long legs, long arms, and sharp eyes rebuilds my clothesline.
I follow them around with the kitchen fire extinguisher and wet towels. I plant the first seedlings myself, with my own cool fingers, and fertilise them with ash.
#
The first new fire starts a fortnight after the big one. Takes out a stockyard on the large station on the other side of town, and a poor penned-in flock unable to escape. It’s small, because there’s not much left to burn, so I suppose you have to be thankful for that.
‘Thing is,’ the old Jimmy drawls, as he sips his tea and takes in my quickly growing veggie patch with ogling eyes. ‘They reckon it was deliberately lit.’
I suck a sharp breath. ‘Who could be so stupid?’ He’s not allowed inside the house, where my brumby waits perched on the edge of the bathtub for him to leave.
‘Dunno if I agree,’ he says. ‘Electrical storm that night, could as easily been that. No rain, lightning strike. Not the first one I’ve seen.’ He gazes with longing at the empty table. The tea’s weak and there’s no cake.
‘I have to go into town,’ I say.
‘Been too busy to do any baking, I imagine.’
I don’t answer. I will have to go soon. My pantry is bare, the children who shuffle restless and sparking inside the locked shed are getting hungry. But I dread the thought.
How can I leave him?
That afternoon, five sheep women appear at the fence. They shiver and flame and mew, not taking to the garden or the chores. All they do is huddle in a tight fearful knot. I set up sprinklers at their feet to douse the flames, because they will not be coaxed into the shed.
Maybe it is their sounds that wake me. I drag myself from my light sheets. The fan beats a regular drum above my head, slow and peaceful like imaginary rain. A few bleary steps to the window, and I look out.
My fire children aren’t sleeping on the cool cement like I expected. Instead, they surround the shivering sheep women, and seem to be assessing them. A tight ring of scrutiny and fizzling fire. Don’t know what they’re looking for, or what decides them, but the decision is palpable. The sheep can’t stay. Slowly, like a fiery tide, the children push the sheep out of the yard. There is no violence in the action, just pressure. The sheep women trip and stumble back. They bleat and beg, but are ignored.
‘What…’ I reach a hand out the open window, open my mouth to call them. What are they doing?
Then he is there. He places a damp hand on my arm. He’s dripping water from the tap. It’s already starting to steam, but for now, he is cool enough to touch. He wraps strong arms around my shoulders, soaking my nightie until it clings to my flushed skin. I can’t help myself, and lean back against him. He smells like horse and man.
The sheep are pushed over the fence and out into the bush. The others glance at the house, for only an instant, before following.
My wild horse turns me away from the window and takes me back to bed. He lies me down and rests beside me, his face so close to mine, arm draped across my chest. I realise he’s run himself a bath of cold water, and he rises from the bed to dip his body into it, so the mattress does not catch alight. I lie between the cool wet sheets and the hot weight of his body and call him Mark, because I do not know his true name.
The next morning, there are tiny singes on the sheets, small and round like cigarette burns. The children are up and already making repairs with the first light, and there is no hint that the sheep were ever here.
#
You okay, mum? Haven’t heard from you in ages. Give us a call when you get this, won’t you?
Love you.
Today, I have to go into town. I haven’t had a proper meal in two days, and there’s no fucking toilet paper. It’s the loo paper that clinches it, really. There are just some things you can’t go without.
I put a stop to work on an array of solar panels that are springing up on my roof, so I can lock the fire children in the shed. Everyone. Even him. It’s a bit of a squeeze. Two calves and a whole clutch of rabbits have arrived over the past few days. Most of them sit with their knees drawn up, silent eyes resentful as I close the door. My wild horse just stands, in the centre, and watches me.
Takes three goes to start the car. The drive to town through ruined roads and blackened bush is surreal. I almost lose my way twice. Nothing looks the same. It’s quiet in town. Seems the fire spread this far, further than I’d realised. Two houses on the edge flattened. A general heaviness in the air that has nothing to do with smoke. There are fewer cars parked on the curb, fewer people drinking out the front of the pub. I tug my hat down low, shake my sleeves loose so they cover my arms, nod to old Jimmy with a VB in his hand, and head into the IGA.
Air con hits me like a fist in the chest. Awful stuff. I gather as fast I can. Toilet paper. White bread. Vegemite.
‘Judy?’
Damn it.
‘It is! Judy, thank goodness.’
I turn and paste on the smile.
Karen runs the supply and antiques. She sells farm equipment, old and new. The shiny and useful stuff that come with warrantees, and the rusty things teetering between valuable collectible and useless junk.
‘G’day.’ I shift my grip on the basket. Her eyes are taking everything in, from the mud on my boots to the five jars of vegemite and the small tower of bread. ‘How’d you fare, Karen?’
She nods. Short cropped hair grey at the roots, flowers on her shirt, long nails painted red. ‘Did okay, did okay. Got to the backyard fence but didn’t get much further. Others ain’t so lucky.’ A pause. ‘You?’
‘House still standing,’ I say.
‘Better than that!’ she says, and my stomach drops. Here it comes. ‘Heard you were doing much better than that! Jimmy says the place is looking spic and span, like back when Mark was alive.’
I knew the old bastard had been gossiping. They always do.
‘Who’ve you got working for you?’ Young Anthony, with his two scrawny girls loitering at his feet, reaches past me to grab the milk. Doesn’t meet my eye. His lips are pressed into a sour line. ‘If you found some good help, you should send them round. Share the love, Judy.’
I mumble something and push on, not really paying much attention to what I throw into the basket now. It’s always the way. Doesn’t matter how remote you are or how small a thing, these people wi
ll know about it.
But Karen can’t leave well enough alone. ‘Not everyone’s so lucky,’ she says. Doesn’t seem to be actually buying anything, just buzzing like a fly around my head. ‘There’s been more fires, you know? Not out where you are, but closer to town. Every couple of nights, one flares up. Can’t tell where it will hit. No rhyme or reason. The Davidsons lost a silo. The Marsons’ shearing shed went up in a blaze. People are scared, Judy.’
I remember what Jimmy said about lightning strikes. ‘Deliberately lit?’ I ask.
‘Not everyone’s got time to be planting lettuce, you know. Cops have even been called.’
The girl on the register is young, surly, and pierced. She won’t stay round this place for long. When I hand her the money, she notices the burns on my wrist.
‘Shit,’ she hisses. ‘Did you get caught in the fire?’
I shake my arm so the sleeves cover them. ‘I’m fine.’
The burns were an accident, of course. My brumby can't help the fire within him, and no amount of water will keep him cool for long.
‘Think you should see a doctor for that,’ the girl says, as she dumps coins into my hands.
‘She’ll be right.’ I try another smile. Not sure it works.
Karen follows me to the car. ‘You sure, Judy?’ No longer a busybody, she actually sounds like she cares. I remember the bad days, years ago, when it looked like the drought would never let up. Her son-in-law — what was his name again? — hanged himself when they couldn’t pay the bills. I held her hand but she wouldn’t cry.
Mark refused to go to the funeral. He just muttered darkly, about people who were too weak to live on the land, and drank too much. Some nights, I’d have to lock myself in the bathroom.
Country women are supposed to stick together. If we don’t look after each other, who will?
But I can’t tell her about my brumby, can I?
‘Of course, I am.’ I throw the groceries in the boot. ‘Been doing this on my own for long enough. I know what I can take.’
She nods, and her face is pinched and squinting. ‘Just be careful, out there. On your own.’
We worry about you, mum. Out there all on your own.
I hesitate. ‘Actually,’ I say, as she turns to go. ‘There is something you could do for me.’
A smile.
‘Could you open the shop for a moment? I’m out of bullets.’
I arrive home in the twilight, and the shed door is wide open. My children wait by the side of the road, features hidden in shadow and eyes reflecting the glow of the headlights. They escort me through the gate, back to the carport. Isolated spot fires crackle in the lawn.
I make them sandwiches all night, because I can’t bring myself to sleep.
#
I wake to the smell of smoke in the distance, the smudge of red on the horizon. His weight on me is hot and comforting but crushing the air from my lungs, both at once. I try to move but he holds my arms and kisses my face and it burns, but I kiss him back.
‘Mark,’ I call him, as the smoke wafts in through the open window.
It’s just not safe anymore! We have a granny flat out back. It’s quiet here. You won’t even hear the traffic. Kate’ll come pick you up. Please, mum, won’t you think about it?
At dawn, the fire children return, climbing the fence, not even trying to hide. They’ve brought more with them — black cockatoos with red coloured streaks in their long dark hair. They screech and they scream as they tear down the old gums in the back paddock, bare hands stronger than chainsaw or axe.
Every night, before he takes me to bed, I watch them climb the fence and leave. Every morning, the scent of smoke carries the promise of death in it, and loss, as they return.
Cops come to the door and I can barely face them. No way there’d be an arsonist round here. Fire’s not a toy round here.
‘Worst season we’ve ever seen.’ The older of the two looks grave, serious. ‘Freak grassfire got out of control last night, took out the caravan park. You know the one by the river, just outta town? Killed an old lady, pensioner, all on her own.’ He glances around. ‘You best be careful too.’
‘Nice place you’ve got, missus.’ The young cop, hardly a man, shields his eyes with the flat of his hand as surveys the garden, the new water tank, the solar panels, the extension out back. ‘Can’t imagine you looking after it all by yourself.’
The cops don’t see the children, hidden in the shadows of the still blackened bush, eyes like embers.
They bleed out into the sunlight as the cops leave. Standing on the verandah, I survey them all. ‘That’s enough,’ I whisper, and the bush is silent. ‘You have to go.’
The fire children stare at me with no indication that they have understood.
‘You have to stop doing this! Stop working here. I don’t need you anymore. Stop lighting fires. You’re hurting people. We’re done. That’s enough. Thank you. Now go.’
They pay me no mind, and return to work.
His hands on my arms are hot and dry. They burn right through to the skin. ‘Tell them they have to go!’ I cry as he turns me around and guides me inside.
He holds me, because it is what I need of him. The children fill my yard and clutter the house and work hard, and it has not been this way for so many years. But as I lie beneath his weight and smell smoke, I cannot help but think of the price.
#
I draw the rifle from its locked case, and gather my replenished ammunition. I pull on my gloves and my boots, tuck the mask in my pocket, take water and a vegemite sandwich. This is the way I have always done it, for many summers. At first, with Mark, who first taught me how to shoot. And recently, all alone.
The fire children do not seem to notice me leave, do not so much as pause in their work. The rabbits have started making an in-ground pool.
Enough is enough.
Only my wild horse watches, from the bedroom window, as I set out. I do not look back.
Their bodies are not as hard to find as I suspected. Perhaps that’s the way it works, perhaps they need to be close.
The cockatoos are little more than puffs of ash and feathers, twitching with weakened breaths. Almost seems a pity to waste a bullet on them. The rabbits weren’t wild. They were white and fat and obviously someone’s precious pets, back legs kicking feebly. One by one, I put them out of their misery. Wallaby. Wombat. Emu. Cattle. Goat. A couple of dogs, a single cat. Even a lizard or two. Bullet between the eyes and ears, quick, clean, honed from years of practice.
Finally, I return to the brumby herd.
It’s not safe there, all alone. Aren’t you lonely, mum? Aren’t you just a little bit scared?
I was never lonely out here.
When I return, the house is empty and quiet again. I lie on sheets still faintly damp and cradle the single remaining bullet in my hand.
SAVIOUR
Mark McAuliffe
By late afternoon, Neil was beginning to feel the burn. After an early dinner from the nearby takeaway, all he wanted to do was sit back, have a beer, just relax and watch the cricket highlights. Shit, it was his holiday too, wasn’t it?
‘He’s late,’ Kim said.
‘Call him.’
‘I did. Must have it switched off.’
‘Yeah, well... don’t worry about it. He’ll be fine.’
‘I told him to be back by five. It’s already fifteen minutes after.’
‘So?’
‘So... he’s late.’
He wasn’t going to win. Seventeen years of marriage had taught him that. A few minutes later, he was pushing himself out of his chair.
‘All right. All right! Enough!’
He went back to the beach. There was a lot less people there since he’d left just over an hour ago, and those who had braved it up until now were starting to shake out their towels, pack up their gear. No wonder, the storm clouds were rolling in fast from the far horizon. The weather report did say it could be a big one.
&nbs
p; Maybe she was right to be worried.
Not that he’d ever admit it to her.
His light polyester shirt felt like hell against his sunburnt skin. His tender thighs forced him to walk bow-legged, made him look like a bloody idiot. He knew where Paul would be, over by Atlantis, at the northern end. A long frigging walk.
Little shit, more trouble than he’s worth.
An unworthy thought and he immediately regretted it. He was in a bad mood, that was all, brought on by his annoyance by their choice for a holiday destination this year.
At first, it had seemed a good idea. Money had been a bit tight recently, what with the new car and rising school fees, so when that telemarketer had called with an offer of great deals at the new resort on the Gold Coast, they’d jumped at the chance. The perfect solution. Sorted.
Yet he had started to regret the decision from the moment he’d arrived. To be honest, he’d had a few misgivings before then, but, what with such enthusiasm from the wife and kids, how could he say no?
Millennium Beach. He even hated the name, thought up by slick salespeople to inspire hope for a more caring future. So futile. A complete holiday community, built from scratch upon the ruins of past human stupidity. An attempt to shore up the thin scrap of all that was left of a coast claimed by rising tides, not to mention recoup the enormous losses to the tourism industry these last few decades.
No expense spared in either the construction or the advertising; all those flashy prime time commercials announcing a new cooperative between the state government and big business.
That slogan: Come and see what you could have missed! What idiot came up with that one? And what kind of dickheads did it take to give it the final nod of approval?
An enormous feat of engineering, he had to give them that. A whole new moulded shoreline. Imported sand. New species of plants, grown in a lab. Dunes sculpted by dozers, placed strategically to specific instructions, built just right. Shops and resorts laid with plans tried and tested in the United States and Europe, fitted together like one massive jigsaw.