Chapter 24
Troy
I bloody hated bushfires.
Earlier that day, me and my brothers jumped out of the car the minute we reached the Country Fire Service station. Striding towards the shed, we joined the cluster of local volunteers clustered around Jamie Kennedy, the incident controller for the day.
“Where’s the fire?” I asked, not bothering with niceties.
“Troy.” Jamie nodded to me, then Billy and Bronson. “Most of the crew is at the big one in the forest, but another’s started at the Simpson’s place. One of the paddocks has gone up and we need to get out there, stop the fire before it can spread to other properties.”
Including ours.
For once I was glad the Argyles were our neighbours. They kept the soil moisture high with all the watering they did of their grass. Keeping their horses in fodder year round would help protect our own place.
“Have the Simpsons been evacuated?” I asked.
The way Jamie’s lips thinned, then his eyes creased told me I would not like the answer.
“Old man Simpson wants to stay and defend.”
“Silly old goat…” I muttered, shaking my head.
Ned Simpson and his wife, Kate, had to be pushing seventy at least. Why the hell he’d put his wife in danger like that…
? It felt like my heart stopped for a second, before remembering how to beat.
Leaving Mackenzie at home had taken real effort, going against every damn instinct I had.
My heart wanted me to stay right by her side, throwing her in the car and driving away from the farm, anything, the minute danger reared its ugly head.
Instead, I was here, making sure the district was safe.
“Everyone move out now,” Jamie continued, then started giving orders about which man was going in which truck as we headed out towards the fire.
“Let’s get this done!”
Billy jumped out of the back of the truck he was travelling in before it even came to a stop, yanking on his firefighting jacket seconds later. His grin, the wild look in his eyes had me growling.
“Get your head in the game,” I snapped, heading over to the back of the truck and starting to uncoil the hoses.
Bronson was already there doing the exact same thing and when he nodded at me, his grim expression was what I needed to see.
I’d been a member of the CFS since I was a kid, riding with Dad when he answered the call, and working at the station as a cadet.
When he and all the other men returned after fighting a fire, I’d stared at their grimy faces, saw the flash of their white teeth as they smiled.
Heroes, every single one of them, that’s what I’d thought at the time, but now I knew differently.
Just men and women who knew that the only way to survive an Australian summer was to be willing to fight for a land we loved.
I clapped Bronson on the shoulder as we both ran forward, ready to face down the wall of flames.
God, how I hated bushfires.
Hot, hotter still as the sun beat down on backs covered by thick firefighting uniforms, the fire was like a greedy animal, devouring everything in its wake.
A quick glance around showed me just how many paddocks had already gone up.
Thankfully, there was no stock trapped there, because the dry, yellow grass had transformed into a blackened wasteland.
We just had to make sure that the rest of the farm didn’t go up as well.
Someone yelled that the water was being turned on. My muscle memory kicked in, making sure my grip was correct, my legs, my body braced for the rush of water down the hose. Pulling the bale up, releasing the water, was a relief of sorts, right up until the stream came out.
Each burst of water seemed too thin, too weak to do a damn thing about the fire, but I remembered my training. Dad by my side, hand on my shoulder, telling me what to do.
“Aim for the ground, son. Douse the fire at its roots and the land around it. Deprive it of heat, oxygen, everything that feeds it.”
My brows drew down hard, because the memory wasn’t a welcome thing anymore.
Couldn’t go thinking about my father, not when I had a job to do.
A glance sideways and I saw Bronson was standing a way off from me, Billy to the left.
Dad might not be the hero we needed, but us Drysdale men would step up and fill that gap.
“Spot fire by the trees!” someone yelled.
I dragged my eyes away from the dying grass fire regretfully. Every drop in the flames made my heart beat harder, truer. Embers had wafted over to a stand of gum trees, only to land in the thick leaf litter below, which was exactly the thing I did not want to see.
“On it!” I shouted back, legs and heart pounding as I pulled back, running the hose over to the trees.
Just in time to see the flames erupt.
Licking the trunk, chewing through the long strands of too-dry bark, the flames moved too fast to believe. With a blink, I started forward and so did my brothers.
“Billy—”
“I know!”
His stream hit higher up the trunk, trying to soak the heat stressed tree trunk, right as I doused the leaf litter, in an attempt to stop the fire from spreading. Bronson focussed on the flames themselves. Watching the flames die was a relief, but of course, that wasn’t the end of it.
“Canopy!” I shouted.
Fire was like a disease, infecting the body of the land with little provocation.
Dousing the flames didn’t stop tiny embers flying through the air, whipped up by the wild winds, only to set something else alight.
These big old gum trees had stood here for years, so many years, but the lack of rains in the last few years meant they dropped leaves and branches everywhere in an attempt to survive.
That raised the fuel load, but also meant the tree itself was vulnerable, with little internal moisture to protect itself from the flames.
Which meant we needed to step in.
“On it!” Billy shouted, and that’s when he made a near fatal mistake.
Gum trees in Australia can grow into massive things. Year after year, the dense wood accumulated, growing into trees whose branches raked the sky. Cutting them down was a bitch of a job. The wood seemed determined to challenge even the most overpowered chainsaw, let alone an axe.
But they had one insidious habit.
Widow makers, that’s what some of the early British settlers called them. Going to sleep in the shade of these massive trees, some never woke up. Gum trees drop heavy boughs with little warning, crushing anyone and anything under it.
And my brother was about to become its next victim.
That crack, it had my eyes jerking up, just in time to see a branch sag slightly. Fire ignored, I tore forward when I saw who was under it.
“Billy…!”
My hand was on the back of his jacket and I was jerking him backwards with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. A shout, a glare my way and my brother was about to snap something at me, right as the bough hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
“Fuck…”
Heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, but not knowing where it was supposed to go, I just stood there. Billy stared at me and I stared right back. He was a bee’s dick from becoming a bloody smear on the ground and I did not, could not, find a way to conceptualise that.
“Fire’s not out!” Bronson shouted and that had us turning around.
Mind on the job, I thought furiously, directing the water stream, but it didn’t work.
My brain was way too good at coming up with other scenarios, ones where I wasn’t there to step in and stop my brother from doing something stupid.
Trying my best to shove them to one side, I forced myself to focus on the fire.
The heat, the ferocious crackle, the sounds of the resin in the trees’ trunks exploding helped me keep my eye on the prize.
But those worries laid in wait like feral dogs, ready to jump out and nip at my heels the minute the immediate threat was neutralised.
“Thanks, mate.” Old man Simpson was at the gate, a pale looking Kate clutching a garden hose behind him. Why the hell he’d put her through this, I’d never know.
Or maybe I did.
Charlie, Scotty, they were still back at home and so was Mackenzie. My teeth ground together so hard I was sure they would crack, right as Simpson went around the crowd of volunteer fire fighters, thanking them for their hard work.
“Come and have a beer,” he said. “It’s the least we can do.”
“I need to get back.” Jamie looked my way, then nodded, because while everyone else was filing into the Simpson house, I knew where I needed to be. “The farm…”
“Yeah, right, of course, mate,” Jamie said, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks for helping out.”
“Billy.” My brother looked up from where Kate was handing him a beer can. “You and Bronson can grab a lift home?”
People volunteered to drive them back, because that’s what our community did.
Helping each other was the only way to survive.
Turning my back on the impromptu party was no great hardship, because once the immediate danger was over, the other possibilities pushed themselves forward, willing me to consider them.
Charlie, Scotty, the stock, the farm, but once I’d run through the list of things I was supposed to care about, I landed here.
Mackenzie.
Her, sitting on the bed with one of the joeys in her arms. The way her eyes went wide, her skin too pale, then her nod when I told her what was happening.
My heart wanted to believe there was real concern there.
Probably because the minute the heat wave was announced, all I wanted to do was get Mackenzie the hell out of here.
I couldn’t stand the worry that ate at my guts.
Bushfires happened with little warning and God knew where they’d start and where they’d finish.
I’d seen houses burned to the ground, paddocks of stock decimated, their shrill screams still haunting me.
I did not want my girl near any of that.
Now the fire was out, I was free to put the pedal to the metal.
The car hurtled down the road, getting me closer and closer to the farm, but not fast enough.
The sight of our boundary fences, of Wally’s field, of the house was a welcome one, but not what I needed.
Throwing myself out of the car, I strode over to the rescue and wrenched open the door, sure I’d see Mackenzie sitting there with all the animals clustered around her.
Because we’d talked about this.
The plan was she was going to stay with the rescue animals until she was given the all clear or an order to evacuate was in place.
The only way I could get through all of this was if I knew exactly where she was.
So stepping into the rescue and seeing cages, animals, the food bench and not one person had my heart dropping through the floor.
“Mackenzie?” I said, hoping she was off cleaning a cage or something. “Mackenzie?” Joeys hopped out of the brush, took one look at me and dismissed me as a possible food source, before going back to where they were doing. “Mackenzie!”
My voice rang out across the compound, but no one answered and that wasn’t right.
We had a plan.
She would stay safe. The animals would stay safe. Charlie and Scotty would protect the farm and I’d… With a shake of my head, I made for the house, hoping, praying that’s where Mackenzie was.
Blank walls and an empty room greeted me when I barged into her bedroom. Not even Bruce, the damn huntsman spider, was there to greet me. Scouring every room including my own didn’t help me either.
“Charlie?” I said down the radio when I pressed down the button. “Scotty?”
“Here, boss,” came the Scotsman crackly reply.
“Have you seen Mackenzie anywhere?”
“Nope. Just headed over to the hay shed to check the new bales. Want me to go and look for her?”
“Nah, I’ve got this,” I replied, trying my damnedest to keep the concern out of my voice.
Except I didn’t. As I walked outside and stared at the familiar sights of the farm, I had no bloody idea where my girl was, and that was a problem.
Hours later, I stepped out of the shower and then threw on some clothes.
Barely noticed the sandwich maker sizzling, because I’d spent the last few hours stewing.
I’d rung Mackenzie, and Charlie, and when they didn’t answer, I started calling around places in town, hoping someone had caught sight of the two of them.
The vet’s had.
They reported that the girls had brought in some injured wildlife to the triage centre that was set up in the town hall.
Been out in the forest, walking between burnt out trees, unaware that a ground fire could start all over again with the barest of provocation.
I pulled the toasties out of the machine and tossed them onto the chopping board, then sliced them in half with more vehemence than needed. Then I heard the door open.
Striding out into the dining room was a relief of sorts, but only momentarily.
The boys stopped chatting for a second, going silent when they saw my expression.
Standing there, taking in every sooty mark, the state of their boots, something rushed up inside me, ready to burn me to cinders.
It tried to push me forward, into Mackenzie’s arms, but that temper of mine got in the way.
Glaring at the two of them, my hands went to my hips.
“Where the hell have you two been?” I snapped.