Romancing the Girl Read online

  Aimee and Joey shared a grimace.

  “How bad is it?” Danny asked as they all moved outside in a jog.

  They paused as the horizon glowed at them ominously.

  “Bad,” Aimee said, voicing their thoughts. With an unspoken command, they all ran to their tasks.

  Justine, dressed and looked adorably rumpled from sleep, caught Aimee as she ran across the yards to the machinery shed. “I want to come with you,” she said.

  The breath escaped Aimee’s lungs in a rush of fear. “No. Not happening.”

  “But I can help.”

  “Jac, I can’t have you near the fire.” Aimee’s eyes found the horizon. “If it’s as bad as I think it is, I don’t even want you here. Get Aaron, get your things and go into town.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Aimee huffed out a rush of air. “You must.”

  “No. Not unless you leave with us. If I can’t come and help, then I’m waiting right here.” Justine emphasised her words with a sharp point at the ground at her feet.

  “Promise me you’ll be ready to flee if you have to. Sally will know if it’s too dangerous to stay. Don’t fight her. Promise me.”

  “Then be here if we have to leave, because I’m not going anywhere without you. I promise you that.”

  “Jac—”

  “I love you, you stubborn farm girl. I’m not going to leave you to burn.”

  “Aimee!” Joey yelled at her from the sheds.

  Aimee gave Justine an exasperated shake of her head. “I’ll come back,” she promised before kissing her soundly and running to the sheds.

  ***

  Gav and Danny were starting up two bulldozers as Joey and Aimee took the water truck north. Followed by two other vehicles driven by station hands and full of equipment they’d need, they reached the crest of the low hills that afforded them a view of the land to the north.

  “God,” Aimee said in a low whisper.

  Joey gritted his teeth. “Start praying, Aimee.”

  The fire extended in a broad band through the dried grass and low shrubby acacia bushes. Channelling into a ‘V’, it ate up easy ground and was burning towards the thick vegetation of the valley cutting a path through the hills.

  Joey picked up the radio handset. “Danny, mate?”

  “Yeah, Joe?”

  “It’s big, mate. The north paddock is on fire and it’s heading for Huntsman Gap. We need to stop it there.”

  Aimee nodded, silently agreeing. The fire had a clear shot through the rest of the paddocks to the river from that point. Crawling up the hills, however, it would soon run out of fuel as rock and bare soil adorned each of these particular crests. The backs of fleeing sheep could be seen from their slightly elevated vantage point, and Aimee wished she had Kite with her. The flock was headed for a barbed-wire fence that they would no doubt mow down in their panic. Injured sheep was something she didn’t want to see happen. She eyed the panting dog on the seat beside her. Her shadow, Mitsy, could save the day.

  “I’m taking a ute,” Aimee announced, jumping from the cab of the water truck and running to the two cars waiting behind them.

  “Wait,” Joey said, following her. “What are you thinking?” he asked, genuinely wanting to understand his sister’s plan.

  “I’m taking Mitsy and getting the flock out of there.”

  Joey nodded. “Take them west.”

  Aimee blinked. “East.”

  “The wind is supposed to swing around from the west later. You’ll be leaving them in the path of the fire if you go east.”

  “West takes us to the Bowl.”

  “And away from the fire.”

  The Bowl, so named because it was surrounded on three sides by the rocky peaks of low hills, was a large plain of tilled soil currently fallow with thick grass and waiting to be sown with sorghum. The tough rows of sorghum yet to be planted was a crop that was meant to feed the sheep through winter in case of drought, or to sell on to other farmers. Aimee let the fact it was yet to be planted slide.

  “You’re sure?” Aimee asked Joey.

  “Yes.”

  Instinct told her otherwise, but this wasn’t the moment to start an argument. “Okay then.” Aimee whistled for her four-legged companion and bumped her way down into the valley towards the sheep. Already they had begun to gather against the sharp wire, and the strain on the fence was growing. Sheep baaed in pain as the weight of the mob pushed those closest into the wire. “Mitsy, go,” Aimee said, releasing her dog as she slowed. With a series of whistles, the panicked sheep were reluctant to follow the orders of a dog and its master. Smoke billowed thick in the wind, and Aimee could taste the ash in the air.

  She could see the flame from here as it flickered and licked at trees and air. It was close. Too close.

  Continuing to shout and whistle at her border collie, Mitsy began to nip at the hindquarters of the stubborn woollen animals and for once, Aimee didn’t bother to correct her methods. Panicked animals were hard to encourage, and with well-placed bites, the sheep began to shift along the fence to the west. Driving ahead as Mitsy spurred them onwards, she opened the gate and used the car as a barricade. Sheep, running and scared, came at her. Relying on their self-preservation, she nevertheless braced herself in case they trampled her. The forerunners turned sharply through the gate at the last minute, and behind them, the flock followed with the occasional sheep hitting her legs. The last of the flock leapt and bleated while Mitsy nipped at its leg. Jumping and hitting Aimee square in the chest, she was driven backwards against the car, and her breath expelled in a rush.

  Winded, and uncertain her recently healed ribs fared well under the weight of the sheep, she climbed back into the car and drove after Mitsy, for once not bothering to close the gate behind her. Slowly, they guided the sheep west and out of the path of the fire. She looked up at the ridge seeing the other four-wheel drive parked beside the water truck as it overlooked the valley. She hoped Joey could contain the flames before they escaped the narrow valley.

  ***

  Seeing Aimee get knocked down in the dull light of the fire glow had made Joey wince. His sister, ever resilient, got off the ground and continued after the flock now rushing away from the fire. Silently wishing her luck, he turned to Johnno and Mike. “Get the hose on,” Joey told Johnno. “Mike, shovel.” Grabbing the UHF radio again, he spoke into the handset. “Danny, how far off are you?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “Roger.” Joey put down the radio and sighed. Twenty minutes was going to be too long. A gust of hot air rushed over him to prove the point. The fresh oxygen fanned the flames below and they flickered brighter. “Mike, follow me.”

  Grabbing a shovel and a steel rake, the two men scrambled down the sparsely vegetated rocky slope and rushed to the fence line where Aimee had been. Berating himself for not getting the fire lines bulldozed along each fence line months ago, he studied the layout of the land in front of him.

  The valley, which was more of an undulation in the hills, was thirty metres wide at this end. Behind him, a vast plain of thick trees and grass leading up to the dense trees blanketing the dry creeks around the homestead.

  “Okay, start clearing along the fence line, and up to the rocks.” Joey pointed to the outcrop of rocks on each side of the valley.

  Mike nodded and got to it. It was hard, but desperate work, and it was taking longer than it should have. They needed the dozers, and they needed them now. Progress to the fire path was slow, and twenty minutes had provided enough time for the fire to practically be on top of them with no bulldozers in sight. Johnno had given up on dousing the fire from above and was now in the middle of the cleared ground spraying the flames only five metres away.

  Mike and Joey threw dirt on each newly kindled tuft of dry grass, but their efforts proved hopeless. The fire raged and burned to the sides, eating up the fuel it found at the entrance to the valley.

  “We need to move back,” Joey shouted over the roar of f
lame that started to trickle to the sides, knowing if they didn’t move now, they’d be stuck.

  Joey climbed onto the water truck that Johnno drove out of the paddock through the gate Aimee had left open for them.

  “Mike, get the ute,” he said. “Danny, where are you?” Joey barked into the radio.

  “Five minutes away.”

  “The fire broke through Huntsman Gap.”

  Silence.

  Joey’s mind raced. They couldn’t contain this here. That opportunity had come and gone, and as the water truck continued to slowly move away from the fire front, he wracked his mind for ideas. “Ironwood Stock Route,” he said.

  Johnno looked over at him. “You sure?”

  Joey nodded. “It’s long enough and wide enough.” Into the mike, he said, “Danny, turn back. Get into the stock route and clear it as you drive.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Get to the nearest bore, Johnno, we need water.”

  ***

  As Joey and the station hands tried to put a gap of bare soil in the path of the fire, Aimee slowly made her way across kilometres of dry fields. The darkness of the night was absolute out of the path of the glowing fire. The moonless sky did little to assist her plight, and she knew with certainty that they’d lost some of the flock on the way. The spotlights on the four-wheel drive helped to a point, and Mitsy was doing her damnedest to get the unruly sheep under control.

  Constantly looking behind her, her heart dropped when the glow refused to dim. “Come on, Joey,” she muttered.

  “Danny, where are you?” came through the radio.

  “Five minutes away.”

  “The fire broke through Huntsman Gap.”

  “No,” Aimee said on a breath. Thinking fast, she picked up the mike to suggest the stock route and heard her brother’s voice again.

  “Danny, turn back. Get into the stock route and clear it as you drive.”

  “Roger that.”

  Aimee nodded. If they moved fast and the wind stayed fickle and gusty, they stood a chance, but would lose a lot of good grazing ground. It was a small price to pay to keep the flames away from the flock and homestead.

  Concentrating once again on the sheep she was moving, she whistled to Mitsy to gather up a straying group and slowly, they trekked west. The crackle of the radio keeping her company.

  “Gav and I are moving northeast from the bottom of Lone Gum Paddock. Where are you, Joe?”

  “The other end at the bore. Johnno and I are going to douse the fringes.”

  “Danny, it’s halfway across Lone Gum. I think we have two hours, tops.”

  “Two?”

  Aimee shook her head. It was moving quickly. Too quickly.

  “Mike, come back.”

  “Copy you, Joe.”

  “What’s your position?”

  “Two clicks west of the gate.” No further information came through the radio. If her reckoning was right, Mike was two kilometres in her direction, meaning the fire had a mind of its own. It was travelling in all directions despite the northerly gusts. Granted, it was moving south faster than it was moving in the other directions. Looking at her odometer, she reckoned she’d travelled five kilometres in the hour since she left the fire front. A check in her rear vision mirror showed the glow only a few kilometres behind her.

  With a deep breath and a silent prayer, she continued on her task and kept an ear on the radio chatter.

  “Joe,” Sally’s voice said a little while later. “Joe, you copy?”

  “Go ahead, Sal.”

  “I called George, see if he has some guys available. He’s got fires in his stockyards, but is sending over two blokes.”

  “Roger that. Send them to the stock route to find Danny.”

  “The rural fire service has guys out around Roper Creek. The storm set off more than fifty bushfires. They’re waiting on reinforcements from Condobolin, Parkes and a truck from West Wylong. All the rural firies have been called in. Most are at a fire near Roper Creek.”

  “Roger that, Sal.”

  “Come in, Joe,” Sally said as the sky in the east began to lighten.

  Aimee swallowed hard when the lighter sky revealed something she didn’t want to see.

  “Yeah, Sal?” Joey replied five minutes later.

  “There’s a storm building out over the plains. A big one.”

  “How big?”

  “The bureau has a severe weather warning out for it.”

  “Shit. Mike. Come in.”

  “I’m already moving,” Mike said.

  Aimee grimaced. She could see the darkened clouds in front of her contrasting against the backdrop of the lightening sky. Stopping her car, she climbed out and waited. The air was still, but her fears were recognised an instant later. A trickle of wind blew directly behind her, making a path towards the storm. The rapid uprising of air and decrease in pressure generated a gradient that the air rushed to fill. As the winds slowly picked up to balance out the storm in front of her, so did they bring the smell of smoke.

  “Aimee, you copy?”

  She dove into the car to grab the mike. “I heard, Joe.”

  “Move.”

  She nodded to the radio. She had no intention of staying here to let the winds racing towards the storm bring with them fire and ash determined to burn her.

  “On it. Heading south.”

  ***

  “What does that mean?” Justine asked Sally as the woman went pale.

  “It means the wind is going to change.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Aimee was sent the wrong way.”

  “She’s in the path of the fire?”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to tell which way the wind will shift, but it’s possible it’ll turn west. She’ll be fine. She’s got warning and is already moving.”

  “Show me where she is,” Justine asked, looking at the map of the station and surrounding properties that was spread out on the desk. Sally had marked the area of fire with pegs and the map was littered with them.

  “Around here,” Sally said, pointing to the west of the fire.

  “That looks so close.”

  Sally nodded. The scale didn’t help. “Danny and Gav are here,” she said, moving two coloured rocks she had found in Caroline’s room. “Joe and Johnno are here, and Mike is joining them from here.” They both stared at the map and the little pieces for a few heartbeats.

  “What can we do?” Justine asked again.

  “We get them something to eat and drink,” Sally said, leaving the study and heading for the kitchen. With the sun rising, and the guys having been out there for a couple of hours already, it was time to replenish them.

  “Morning,” Amber said, walking into the kitchen as Sally and Justine finished packing thermoses of coffee and containers of sandwiches. “You’re all up early. What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Fire. Everyone is out fighting it.”

  Amber’s eyes widened. “Are they okay?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Sal, come in,” the radio crackled with the sound of Joey’ voice coming down the hall. Sally, followed by Justine and Amber, walked into the study.

  Crossing the room to the desk, Sally said, “Go ahead, Joe.”

  “Winds turning easterly. Confirm wind predictions for the remainder of the day.”

  “Will do. Give me five.”

  “Roger that.”

  “What does that mean?” Amber asked.

  Sally held up a finger and looked at the fax sent through five minutes ago. The rural fire service was keeping all the properties up-to-date with the weather details. “Joe, wind predictions are northerly at thirty to thirty-five kilometres an hour, gusting up to fifty.”

  “Roger that. Danny, you copy?”

  “Yeah, Joe.”

  “Finish the stock route. Send Gav back to clear the route to the west.”

  “Copy that.”

  Amber looked at Sally for an explanation. “They’re trying to
put in a firebreak to hold the fire up. There’s a storm to the west that’s generating easterly winds and widening the fire front. Gav is going to create a firebreak to the west of the one they’re making to the east.”

  Amber blinked at her. “Can we expect injuries?” she asked after a few minutes of map studying.

  “Blisters, usually,” Sally answered, thinking back to the handful of times they had fought bushfires over the years. She remembered from her parent’s retelling The fires in seventy-six were the worst. The entire property had been rendered into ash and charcoal. Everything since had been classified on a scale of puny and hardly worth putting out. Nearly forty decade’s worth of fuel littered the gullies and hills, and Sally knew the firebreaks on the pastureland had only just begun to be re-dozed. None to the north had been reached yet according to the map on the wall showing recent fire prevention actions.

  Sally looked at Amber. The show and his impending fatherhood had distracted Joey. Still, Danny should have taken up any slack as manager. Of course, his imploding marriage had done what it did to Sally. Rendered her depressed and barely able to function with the basics. More than one person had asked her if Danny was all right over the past few months as his work ethic faded off. She had smiled and assured them he was just getting old. If only people around her knew how hard she was fighting to keep it together. How desperate she was to maintain a façade for the kids and workers alike. Only behind closed doors had she let herself fall.

  “Sally? Are you okay?” Justine asked.

  “Huh?”

  Justine reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. When had she started crying? “Sorry. Tired.”

  Justine frowned at her, but didn’t pursue the conversation.

  “How about we get these guys some food?”

  Nodding, Justine said, “How?”

  “Bike. It’s fastest.”

  “Okay, I’ll go.”

  “What? No? I will. I know where everything is.”

  “You also know how to operate all of this,” Justine said, sweeping her hand at the room full of radios, maps and whirring faxes.

  “Why don’t you both go? I’ll man this fort and mind the kids,” Amber said, rubbing a hand unconsciously over her still-flat stomach.