Chapter 20
Mackenzie
What the hell was with the Drysdales pushing me away? It wasn’t enough that I slept in my own bed last night, but now Charlie was trying to stop me from coming with her to search the nearby forests for heat-affected animals?
A girl could start feeling rejected.
“You don’t need another set of hands?” I said, keeping my tone light. “If I’ll just get in your way—”
“Didn’t say that,” she replied, then stared off in the distance. “It’s just… This is the tough part, Mackenzie. Finding distressed animals is hard on you emotionally.”
That slight waver in her voice was somewhat reassuring. Troy had shut me down hard, pushing me away, but that tiny note of vulnerability was all I needed to hear.
“Then I’m with you,” I said. “Even if it’s just for moral support.”
I didn’t know what I’d signed up for until we got out into the forest.
Going around to the water stations we’d created, I got out and emptied, cleaned and refilled containers, not really understanding what the issue was until we found him.
“Here’s one.”
I was jolted forward in the seat as Charlie slammed her foot on the brake, then was out of the car in seconds.
She’d talked me through what to do if we found dehydrated animals, so I grabbed a kidney dish, some water and followed her.
Walking through the trees, I’d never have seen the koala.
He was a grey lump in amongst a whole lot of white trunks and greyish-green leaves, so he was almost invisible. Not to Charlie, though.
“Hey, fella…” she crooned, getting in closer, and that should’ve been enough to have a wild koala clawing his way up the trunks in his haste to get away from us. Instead his head hung on his shoulders, his eyes filmy and unfocussed. “You’re not doing too good, are you?”
“Is he alright?” That question was ridiculous, but I just blurted it out. After spending my life wanting to see a koala in the flesh, seeing one so ill broke my heart. “He just needs some water, right?”
Charlie asked if I was up for it and this was why. My hands shook as I poured water into the kidney dish, ready to hand it over, as she inspected the animal. Taking the water, she held it up to the animal, but apart from a tentative lick, he was largely unresponsive.
“Do we give him the bottle of water?” I asked, forgetting everything she taught me. “Put it to his lips? He’s dehydrated and—”
“That will result in him aspirating the water and getting a lung infection.”
Charlie was completely calm. Eerily so as she tipped the water out onto the ground and then grabbed the carrier I’d brought with us. Reaching inside, she pulled out a blanket and began placing it around the koala.
“Won’t that just make him hotter?” Why the hell was I getting so worked up?
I knew what she was going to say. That koalas find people super stressful to be around and reducing what he could see would help the animal remain calm.
That shock was just as big a killer of animals as injuries and dog attacks.
“I mean…” Flicking my hands, I paced back and forth, trying to regain composure.
“We’re helping him get less stressed about transporting him to the vet.
” I glanced at her. “That’s where we’re going, right? Now, to the vet, now.”
“To the vet’s now,” she confirmed with a nod, helping the koala into the carrier and then locking the wire door before walking over to the car. “It’s OK. We’re OK, Mackenzie.”
“But it’s not, is it?” All of the knowledge she’d imparted was academic until just this moment. “Like you said, some koalas die from heat exhaustion.” My sight blurred as I looked down at the carrier, but I blinked the tears away before they could form. “He might—”
“Will get the best possible care at the vet’s,” she said firmly, putting the carrier on the back seat and then securing it before putting a call through to the surgery.
“He’s not looking too bad,” the vet said when she got the koala out of the carrier. The animal made a raucous sound of displeasure. “Some signs of heat distress, but he doesn’t look too far gone.”
That’s what I needed to hear. A sigh came rushing out of me. My hands were shoved in my pockets lest they reveal just how relieved I was.
“We’ll put him on a drip. See if we can get him to perk up,” the vet continued.
“And not release him until after the fires.” If I was all nervous tension, Charlie was laser focus. “Doc, he can’t go out into the forest—”
“He’ll be released after the bloody heat wave is over,” the vet assured us. “Now, let’s get our patient comfortable…”
“We’re going out again, right?” I asked Charlie as we walked outside. “Charlie?”
She stopped and squinted as she stared at me, then smiled. Just a little thing, but it helped.
“You get it.”
“Get what?” With a sharp shake of my head, I forged on.
“That there’s a whole damn forest out there, baking in the hot sun and all those animals…
” You didn’t see a lot of wildlife when you drove through the trees, but tracks, chewed leaves and animal scat made clear plenty lived there.
“How are they going to survive the next week? Charlie?”
I hadn’t given her a chance to answer, so she climbed into the car, forcing me to do the same.
“The way they have for thousands of years,” she said, turning the engine over.
“A lot of kangaroos will cluster around the watering holes, for as long as they remain full, and that can bring the wild dogs.” A glance my way, she looked me up and down, as if gauging if I could cope with this information.
“They’re often the biggest threat to our wildlife.
Native animals have evolved to deal with the heat.
” Peering through the windscreen, she shook her head at the relentless sun.
“Though not as hot or as long. But feral dogs? They are a more recent thing, and so the animals don’t have a lot of defences against them. ”
“So we need to do something about that, too. I know Aussies don’t have the same gun culture, but surely—”
“Can’t hunt wild dogs,” she replied, easing the car out onto the road. “They’ve interbred with native dingoes and so they’re protected.”
“Then how…? What…?” Flopping back in my seat, I watched the roads flash by. “So what do we do?”
“Same thing we’ve done thus far,” she said, driving down the road and towards the forest. “Look for injured or stressed animals and bring them in if they’re too far gone to leave.
” Her eyes slid my way for just a second.
“I can drop you back to the farm. There’s a lot of work that needs doing at the shelter. ”
“No.” I straightened up, feeling something go quiet inside me. “If filling up water bowls and finding hurt animals is all we can do, then I’ll be right there with you.”
“Knew you were the right person for the job,” she said with a wink, then flicked on the indicator to alert anyone behind us that we were heading down the dirt track that led into the forest. “Now hold on, because this road is bumpy.”
Hours later, when the moon was high, we walked away from the vet’s for the last time. Several koalas, a dull and listless looking kangaroo joey and a baby possum that had been abandoned had been delivered into the hands of the team for them to care for.
“We should go out again,” I said, eyeing the dark sky.
“Mackenzie…” Charlie replied with a sigh.
“You’ve got spotlights on the car,” I said. “Or I could hold one up and we can do another sweep of the forest.”
“This is the thing about being a wildlife carer,” she said, the car engine idling, but not moving forward. “Australia is a tough country. Tough on people, tough on wildlife, but all you can do is help the animals you can. Right now, that means feeding the critters that depend on us at the rescue.”
“Shit, it’s past feeding time!” I gasped, because our schedule had completely slipped my mind.
“It is, so we need to go and sort that out, then…” She yawned so hard her jaw cracked. “Get ourselves some food. Thank Christ you cooked that big pot of chilli, otherwise it’d be toast for dinner.”
When we arrived back at the farm, Nugget greeted us by bunting his head on the rescue gate.
“I know, I know, you stubborn little prick,” she said as she stomped over, letting him through the gate. Following her inside was a relief of sorts. Here we could control the air moisture; how much water remained in the leaves of the trees. The animals were safe, contained.
But that was not the long term future any of them wanted.
The idea of the rescue was to get the animals strong enough, well enough, to release them back into the wild. I picked up my knife and started chopping, feeling like that was at least a small step towards that goal.
“OK, a long, cold shower and then bed…” Charlie groaned as we staggered inside. The kitchen sink had a pile of neatly washed dishes drying on one side, which told us the guys had grabbed dinner and gone again.
All but one.
“Shit, Troy must be in the shower.” The sound of water coming through the walls had Charlie and I looking at each other.
“Looks like I’m braving the shower block down at the worker’s shed.
G’night, Mackenzie, and…” She paused halfway down the hallway.
“If you just want to stay by the rescue tomorrow, I’ll understand. ”
“Can’t put me off that easy.” My smile was pure bravado, because I knew I’d dream of those dull-eyed, listless animals tonight, but instead of someone coming to the rescue, they’d linger, unseen, unhelped. “I’ll be up bright and early, ready to help.”
“Your blood’s worth bottling,” she said, and I was left to ponder what the hell that meant as she walked off.
Leaving me to face the bathroom door.
Troy gave me the brush off yesterday. Tired, hot, he didn’t have time for a summer fling and that made sense.
So why did my hand reach for the doorknob, twisting it open?
Perhaps because some part of me knew I’d see this.
Troy, sitting naked on the floor, his head hanging down as the water washed over him.
The same impulse that had me reaching out to listless koalas had me opening the shower cubicle door.
“Hey.” He sounded so very tired as he looked up at me. “You don’t…”
“Don’t have to,” I agreed when I peeled my clothes off and slipped into the shower. “But I want to.” Picking up the shampoo, I started to lather it up. “You washed my hair last time. Now I’ll do yours.”