Chapter 22
Mackenzie
“Mom, this is Roo.”
Days later, I cradled the little joey in my arms as it suckled contentedly on his bottle. Mixing up the time zones again, I thought I had more time to finish the little kangaroo’s feeding before I’d FaceTime with my mother.
“Oh my goodness…” Mom’s hands went to her face.
“He’s just darling! Like you sent me all those photos.
” I’d ensured a steady stream were emailed to her to placate her fears.
“But it’s different actually seeing an actual baby kangaroo.
Is this another one of those poor creatures affected by the heat? ”
“Mother was hit by a car.” I could say that without getting so emotional now. “He just came in a few days ago.”
A few days of raking through the forest, ferrying animals to the vet.
A few days of tension rising in the house along with the temperature.
It wasn’t just the fact that you could barely sleep, it was so hot at night.
Sleep deprivation didn’t help, but neither did the damn northerly winds.
Blowing hot and hard, it felt like they converted the land into a convection oven and we were slowly baking inside.
Sweat trickled down my spine, forcing the thin fabric to stick to me.
Holding the joey wasn’t helping, but I refused to let go.
“The poor little thing,” she sighed. “Why aren’t Australians more careful on the roads?”
“Kangaroo are like deer, Mom,” I explained, because I’d felt the same sense of outrage when I saw my first car crash casualty.
“Some crazy instinct has them jumping out in front of cars with no warning. The people that hit Roo’s mom stopped and made sure he was taken to a vet.
Their car was a complete mess afterwards. ”
“Oh, well, that’s—”
“Mackenzie!” My name was a muffled shout coming from outside my door. It was pulled open seconds later, and Troy came storming in. “There you are.” He didn’t even glance at the phone, focussed entirely on me. “The CFS has called. Us boys are heading out to fight a fire.”
“Troy—” I hissed, wanting to end this call before my mother caught the details.
“You’re staying here, alright?” His hands went to my shoulders, and he bent down, staring into my eyes and willing me to understand. “There’s no going out to the forest today.”
“I know.”
Charlie had already had a blunt conversation about this with me. Helping wildlife was all well and good when there were no bushfires around, but now the heat had spiked dramatically, we needed to stay put, prepared to protect the farm and the rescue.
“I’ll be back.” That intent look of his, I needed to see it. He believed what he was saying utterly, which helped me feel the same way. “Hopefully by dinner time. You and Charlie…” A hard swallow had the anxiety curling tighter in my belly. “You know what to do. Stick to the plan.”
Without another word, he pressed a kiss to my forehead, then strode back out again, leaving me to face the music.
“Fire?” I could hear the hysterical edge in my mother’s voice, but then her hand went to her heart. “There’s a wildfire burning around you, Mackenzie?”
“Mom—”
“You need to get out, now.” Her eyes creased as she glanced down at Roo. “Take the baby and get out of that place. Head to the city if you need to. You must—”
“Mom.” Her shuddering breath kept pace with mine. The only person who hated wildfires as much as me was my mother. “I’ve got this. We’ve got this.”
“What’s the CFS?” she asked, unwilling to be redirected. “What plan, Mackenzie?”
I could tell her. Everyone had sat around the table once the real heat started and gone over the bushfire plan in detail.
That we tried to keep everything damp that we could, but that water supply could be cut off without a moment’s notice.
Polyethylene water tanks could melt. The surge in demand as too many people fought to save their homes could result in low pressure, or worse.
Pumping stations, pipes, and infrastructure could fail if the fire damaged the wrong area.
But I didn’t.
“Mom, it’s just like home.”
That didn’t help at all. I noted the way Mom clutched at her chest, frowning slightly because she’d never done that before, but then she started firing off questions.
“Are you watching the emergency report?” she asked, not waiting for a response. “Are the firefighters on their way?” When she looked off screen, I knew it was at her laptop. “Where abouts are you again? I’ll see if I can get the emergency reports here in the States. Mackenzie—”
“Mom, we know what we need to do.” I got up off the bed, setting Roo’s bottle down, and the little joey hopped after me. “We’ve just gotta put the plan in place, so that means I need to go.”
“Call me.” She ground that out, looking far too pale. “Mackenzie, tonight, or the next morning, whatever it is on Australian time. I don’t care. I just need you to call me.”
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t be scared. We’ve got this and I love you.”
But that advice fell on deaf ears. Probably because my heart started pounding as I left the room, meeting Charlie in the dining room. If I couldn’t stay calm, how the hell did I expect Mom too?
“Roof sprinklers—” I said.
“Already on,” she replied in clipped tones. “Garden is trimmed back and as soaked as we can get it.”
She had more to say, but I stared out the front door because the first waft of smoke came blowing into the house.
“That—” I said, my voice taking on the same shrill edge as my mom’s.
“Is miles away,” she said in an artificially calm tone. “This is scary, but I’ve been through it every summer of my life and we always come out the other side.” Her hands went to my shoulders. “It’s not too late to head to the city if that’s what you want to do, but you need to do that now.”
“No way.” With a shake of my head and a smile, I made for the front door. “So we’re going to start the misters in the rescue?”
Roo followed us part the way out of the house, then went perfectly still.
Those silky grey ears swivelled and her whole body quivered as she scented the air.
Wild animals hadn’t survived for so long in Australia without being sensitive to weather changes, so I picked her up and carried her towards the rescue.
She’d be safer there than out on her own in the bush.
Nugget had other ideas.
On seeing Charlie, the wombat made a beeline away from the rescue, but she scooped him up in her arms, carrying all thirty-five kilos of struggling macropod over to the door.
Inside, she dumped him down onto his feet, the beast making huffy sounds of disgust at being locked up.
I let Roo join the other kangaroo joeys as Charlie and I worked as a team.
Turning the sprinklers on, making sure to dampen everything and everyone within the rescue.
To keep the animals like koalas hydrated, but also to hopefully deter any stray embers that might float our way.
That knowledge was all academic, up until now.
Looking around the refuge as we started to organise ourselves, I saw it in a whole other light. Before it was a haven, but as acrid smoke wafted our way, it was hard not to see it as a cage we were all locked into. The two-way radio at Charlie’s side crackled as she moved about the space.
“Fire at the Simpson place,” someone said. “Extra teams en route. Gotta stop it in its tracks before it hits the big forest.”
“Getting close,” another voice said. “Got three tankers…”
“We’ll be fine.” She stopped before me, staring into my eyes. “Now remember, we need to stay calm.”
“The animals sense our fear,” I repeated back to her, remembering the advice she’d given me and sure enough, the kangaroos were all poised and ready to bolt. Paws were clutched to their chests, ears twitching as they tried to make sense of what they were feeling. “We stay calm, they stay calm.”
I saw the sense in it, but it was hard. Training to use the firefighting equipment on the farm was an academic thing until now. The guys would fight the fire where it was currently raging, but we’d be the last defence if it got through.
“Clean out water bowls,” I told myself. “Toss out uneaten food.”
“Good girl.”
Once we’d moved through all the jobs needed, we came to a stop in the middle of the refuge and looked around.
“How we doing, Scotty?” Charlie asked down the radio.
The Scotsman had stayed behind and was riding across the farm, keeping an eye out for spot fires.
“Hot as Satan’s bawbag,” he replied in his usual drawl. “Too dry by half, but no sign of fires right now. Can’t say the same for the Simpson place.”
That was a farm several properties over and while I didn’t know the people, I felt a pang of sympathy. You didn’t need a personal connection to someone to not want them to lose everything in a wildfire.
“Simpson’s top paddock is going up!” another voice came through the radio. That crackle, that sharp cry had my heart racing that much faster.
“And I’ve gotta go.” Charlie shot me a lopsided smile.
“Need to jump on the bike. Too many paddocks for Scotty to keep an eye on them all,” she said.
“Got your radio?” I held up the device, making a show of turning it on.
“Keep it on you at all times and…” She didn’t want to meet my eyes but with effort, she did just that. “If I tell you to make a run for it…?”
This was the condition I’d agreed to, to stay on the farm.
If anyone in the family said I needed to head into town where it was safer, I had to do it without question.
I’d agreed without thinking, because it all sounded very reasonable, but right now I felt a reluctance.
Nugget barrelled over, eyeing the two of us, as if sensing my thoughts.
“I’ll get in the car and head straight to town,” I repeated back. “After checking the CFS map to see which is the safest route.” It was only then I dared glance around the refuge. “But what about—?”