by Justin D'Ath
‘I’m trying to help,’ I cried in frustration.
Einstein’s words came back to me, and I asked: ‘You don’t want to be barbecued, do you, Chainsaw?’
I know I certainly didn’t. How far away was the fire? The hot northerly wind was growing stronger. With it came the unmistakeable smell of smoke. A faint blue haze drifted through the trees.
Back on the road, Susie suddenly raised her head. A wallaby darted past, but the mare took no notice. She was intent on something else, further up the road. Her nostrils flared, her ears poked forward. I listened too. What was that drumming sound?
Hooves. Galloping hooves.
With a great thundering rush, a herd of horses flew by. There was about a dozen of them. A motley collection of browns, greys, brindles and pintos. Brumbies! Nan had told me there was a herd of the legendary wild horses still living in the mountains. For years she and Pop had wanted to catch and tame them. They didn’t stand a chance. Brumbies are too elusive. Will-o’-the wisps, Nan called them. Today, the bushfire had flushed them out.
‘Susie,’ I yelled, charging through the trees. ‘Come back!’
Nan’s little mare was running after the brumbies. By the time I reached the road, she was galloping behind them, reins and stirrups flying. I shouted again. It was no use. The wild horses’ panic had infected her. All I could do was stand and watch as Susie and the brumbies faded into the drifting blue smoke like will-o’-the-wisps.
12
ONE WAY OUT
After Susie and the wild brumbies had gone, I became aware of a hot, throbbing sensation in my foot. I looked down.
At first I could not fully grasp what my eyes were telling me. Red paint. Why was I standing in a puddle of red paint?
That isn’t paint, the little voice in my head informed me. That’s …
I didn’t pass out; I simply sat down very quickly in the middle of the dirt road.
… blood.
It was my right foot – the one without a boot. Very carefully, I peeled off the remains of the sock. There wasn’t much of it left, just a ragged flap of filthy wet wool. My foot was a mess; there was blood all over it, with a thick layer of dirt stuck to that. I dabbed gingerly at the underside with the ruined sock, cleaning the gunk away. The blood was coming from a deep gash in my heel, oozing out like runny tomato sauce. This time I very nearly did pass out.
Pull yourself together, the little voice in my head commanded. There’s a bushfire coming. If you don’t act quickly, you’ll wind up barbecued.
I needed something to tie around my foot so that I could walk on it. Something to stop the flow of blood. A bandage of some kind. I looked at the sock. It was useless, but it gave me an idea. Wrenching the boot off my left foot, I whipped off the good sock and wrapped it twice around my right heel. Then I tied the ends together on top of my foot like a fat shoelace. It didn’t work. The weave of the wool was too loose and the blood started soaking through almost immediately.
I was beginning to tremble. Shock was setting in. It was hard to think clearly. Hard to concentrate on anything but my rising panic. I was going to die. The fire was going to get me. Or I’d bleed to death. Either way, I was history.
Then I remembered Pop’s shirt. Even though it was summer, Nan had insisted I wear one of Pop’s long-sleeved farmer’s shirts. ‘To keep the sun off,’ she reckoned. The sun was the least of my problems now. It had all but disappeared behind the mass of thick smoke that rolled overhead like thunderclouds, transforming the early afternoon into an eerie brown twilight.
With fumbly fingers I unbuttoned the shirt. Sorry Pop, I thought, biting through the hem on one shoulder and ripping out the sleeve. I tied it around my foot. It seemed to stop the blood.
I put the ripped shirt and my boot back on. Then I stood up and gingerly tested my foot. It hurt when I put my heel down, but I could walk on my toes without too much pain. I limped down the slope towards the truck. A short distance from the road, I passed the splintered stump of a small sapling. The truck had sheared it off at ground level, leaving several tall spikes of wood sticking up like long narrow teeth. One of the spikes glistened wetly with blood. I gave it a wide berth. I couldn’t afford any more accidents. Now that Susie had run off and I could hardly walk, there was only one way out of this mess.
I had to ride Chainsaw.
13
1,2,3 …
Bulls are colour blind. So it doesn’t matter what colour rag you wave at them; blue is just as good as red. It’s the waving that makes them mad.
‘Yaaah! Yaaah! Yaaah!’ I yelled, jiggling Einstein’s blue denim jacket in Chainsaw’s face. ‘Chase it, you big wuss!’
I’m not actually as brave, or as stupid, as that makes me sound. I wasn’t in front of Chainsaw while I jiggled the jacket in his face. The jacket was dangling from the end of a long stick, and I was standing off to one side of the ramp. If Chainsaw went for me, I could dive under the truck. I hoped that wouldn’t happen. My plan was to make him mad enough to chase the jacket down the ramp. After that, I hoped he and I could settle our differences. My life depended on it. Because of my injured foot, Chainsaw was my ticket out of there. I couldn’t make it on my own.
First I had to get the stubborn old bull out of the truck. But he wasn’t cooperating.
‘Chainsaw, come on!’ I yelled in frustration.
Time was running out. Although I couldn’t see the fire, I could hear it: a distant, low roar, like the ocean breaking on a rocky coastline. The wind was scorching hot and filled with smoke and ash and falling cinders. Flocks of birds flew screeching overhead. Another wallaby went crashing through the ferns behind me.
‘Yaaah! Yaaah! Yaaah!’ I flopped the jacket so close to the bull that it snagged on one of his big blunt horns.
That got a reaction. Chainsaw jerked his nose skyward, dragging the jacket off the end of the stick. It fell across his eyes. The bull snorted and shook his head from side to side, but the jacket was caught on his horns and he couldn’t dislodge it. Bellowing with rage, Chainsaw swung blindly around and slammed into the side of the truck with such force that the vehicle rocked on its springs. Wood splinters scattered all around me. I fell backwards into a clump of ferns. Lying on the ground, I could no longer see into the truck. But I could see Chainsaw. His big ugly head, now without its blue denim hood, stood out against the smoky sky almost directly above me. He had punched his head right through the side of the truck!
Chainsaw rolled one big eye down to look at me. Snot dangled from his nose. His breathing was heavy. From inside the truck came the clatter and scrape of hooves as the bull tried to drag his head back through the hole. One of the broken slats poked out slightly and its splintered end jabbed into Chainsaw’s neck like the barb of a fish hook. The more he pulled backwards, the more it dug in. He was stuck.
I couldn’t get close enough to free Chainsaw from the headlock he’d got himself into. Every time I reached to grab the broken slat, he went totally berko, bellowing and stamping and threshing his head about like a hooked barramundi. The whole truck creaked and shook. After two or three attempts, I gave up. There were flecks of blood on Chainsaw’s neck where the wooden barb was digging into him. He was going to kill himself.
‘Settle down, big guy,’ I said, using my remaining sleeve to wipe a mixture of sweat and drool off my forehead. ‘You’re just making it worse for yourself.’
Worse for both of us. A small spot fire had started in a clump of ferns fifty metres along the creek. It was only a matter of minutes before the flames reached the truck. I would have to make a run for it. Now that I’d seen how psycho Chainsaw was, I knew I could never ride him. If all those professional rodeo riders couldn’t ride him, what chance did I have? I was only a boy with no rodeo experience. I hadn’t even ridden a horse until five days ago. If I was going to escape the bushfire, I would have to make it on my own, regardless of my injured foot. I couldn’t outrun the flames, but I might be able find some place to give me shelter. A cave perhaps. Or
I could lie in the creek and use a reed like a snorkel to breathe through while the firefront swept over me. I hobbled down to have a look. At this point, the creek wasn’t deep enough but if I followed it downstream …
I looked back over my shoulder. Chainsaw’s ugly head poked out of the truck’s side like a hunter’s trophy on a wall. I couldn’t leave him there. He would be totally helpless when the fire came. I had to get him out.
Swinging myself clumsily up onto the ramp, I limped into the cattle-pen. Chainsaw heard me behind him and renewed his efforts to get free. His big hooves knocked and slid on the wooden floor. He let out another loud angry bellow.
‘Chill out!’ I cried, keeping clear of his flailing hooves. ‘I’m trying to help you.’
Chainsaw seemed to fill the whole truck. He might have been smaller than Kosciusko Rex, but up close he looked massive. Did I really want to do this? With nowhere to retreat to in the back of the truck, I could end up squashed like a bug on a windscreen.
Using the slats as ladder rungs, I clambered awkwardly up the truck’s side. It was easy to squash the toes of my bandaged foot into the narrow gaps, but the boot on my left foot kept slipping. I had to concentrate or I’d fall. Once I was high enough, I worked myself along until I was directly above the struggling animal. It was a frightening view. Chainsaw looked like a dinosaur. The white clay had rubbed off in places, exposing patches of scarred leathery hide speckled with thick black bristles. I inched my way down until my legs straddled his massive shoulders without actually touching him. Sweat dribbled into my eyes. My heart was quaking right off the Richter scale. Carefully placing the sole of my boot against the wooden barb that pressed into Chainsaw’s neck, I pushed with all my might.
Three things happened almost simultaneously:
The wood broke.
Chainsaw dragged his head out of the hole.
I slipped and fell.
14
CRASH TEST DUMMY
I hadn’t meant to ride Chainsaw. My plan was to free him from the headlock he’d got himself into, then clamber out over the side of the truck. I was sure the old bull would work out how to go down the ramp when the fire got close enough. But when I found myself sitting on Chainsaw’s neck, with my hands gripping his huge handlebar horns, I had no choice but to hang on and hope for the best.
Riding Susie with a wasp in her ear was a walk in the park compared to this. It was like being caught in a tornado. Round and round we went, bucking, twisting, jolting, crashing into the truck’s sides, spinning, spinning, spinning … flying. Yes, flying. I’d lost my grip on Chainsaw’s horns. My feet went cartwheeling across the smoky sky above me. I saw a blur of trees, ferns, the ramp, then one of Chainsaw’s huge hooves coming down like a battering-ram.
Crunch!
The pain was like an explosion in my left foot. I nearly blacked out. But I fought to stay conscious, knowing my life depended on it. I rolled out of the way as Chainsaw thundered past down the ramp. Biting back a howl of agony, I stood up. My left foot was killing me. I couldn’t put any weight on it. But I’d worry about that later. Right now my only concern was Chainsaw. If he came after me I was history.
Balancing on the toes of my right foot, I turned to see where he was. I sighed with relief. The old bull was headed in the opposite direction, trailing the rope behind him as he trotted off along the creek into the blue smoke.
‘Don’t come back!’ I called after him. Then I collapsed bum-first on the ramp to take a look at my foot.
The pain was a deep, throbbing ache. My boot felt tight, as if I’d suddenly outgrown it. Gingerly, I eased the boot off. It was so painful I nearly blacked out again. Already the bridge of my foot was turning red and purple. It was visibly swollen. I didn’t need an X-ray to know it was broken.
I tossed the useless boot into the ferns beside the ramp. One foot spiked, the other one broken. I’m stuffed, I thought.
Something beeped inside my head.
And now I was hearing things. I watched a scruffy brown wombat go lolloping past without giving me so much as a sideways glance. Two crimson parrots flew screeching through the smoke. The fire was very close. I should have been trying to get away, like the wombat and the parrots, but I couldn’t walk. What was I going to do?
I heard the beeping noise again. It was barely audible above the muffled roar of the approaching fire. Slowly I turned my head. The sound seemed to be coming from the truck, inside the cattle-pen.
Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.
A mobile phone?
I crawled up the ramp on my hands and knees. A pile of denim lay in the middle of the filthy floor. It was Einstein’s jacket, and it was ringing.
The phone was in one of the press-stud pockets. It was tiny and hardly weighed anything. No wonder I hadn’t noticed it earlier. Chainsaw must have stood on it, or crushed it against the wall of the truck when he had the jacket on his head. The LCD screen was broken, the keypad had fallen off. Yet the tiny phone still worked! It trilled and vibrated in my hand like an oversized cricket. I pressed a fingernail into the recess where the talk button should have been.
‘Adam, did you get it?’ a man’s voice said faintly in my ear.
My first inclination was to tell the caller who I was and to send a helicopter to rescue me. Then I realised who I was talking to. Adam must be Einstein’s real name, and this was one of his friends. He wasn’t likely to help me.
‘Adam, are you there?’ the caller asked.
It’s hard to explain why I impersonated Einstein. I guess I couldn’t accept that my number was up. Things certainly looked bad but, in the back of my mind, I knew there must be a way to get out of this mess. And when I escaped, I was going to bring the Jindabyne Rustlers to justice.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ I said, making my voice deep.
‘Did you get it?’
‘Are you talking about the bull?’ I asked.
‘Of course I’m talking about the bull. Did you get it?’
‘Yeah, we got it, no worries.’
‘Why haven’t you called?’ the man asked. ‘Mr Cameron’s getting jittery.’
I had to think quickly. The caller was obviously another member of the Jindabyne Rustlers gang. Mr Cameron must have been their boss. If I went on pretending to be Adam, I could find out more about them. ‘There wasn’t any signal in the mountains,’ I said in my Einstein voice. ‘Where are you calling from?’
‘Blue Horizon Downs. I’ve been here for nearly an hour. Mr Cameron wants to know when you’ll get here.’
Blue Horizon Downs. It sounded like the name of a farm. ‘We should be there soon,’ I said.
There was a pause. ‘You sound strange,’ the man said.
I spoke through my cupped hand and left gaps in what I was saying, as if the signal was dropping out. ‘Yeah, you’re breaking up … too. Need … tell you … important. Give me … Cameron’s landline number … call you … from phone box.’
I heard voices in the background. Then the man came back on the phone and gave me Mr Cameron’s number. It was easy to remember because it ended in three fours.
Gotcha! I thought, and ended the call.
Now I had two names (three, if you counted Pig-eyes), as well as the name of a farm and a phone number. All I had to do was give the information to the police and I’d be twenty thousand dollars richer!
But all the money in the world wasn’t going to help me escape the bushfire. Einstein’s phone had no keypad so I couldn’t dial out. I tossed it aside and picked up the denim jacket. A blast of boiling wind swirled into the truck. It seemed ridiculous to be putting on a jacket when it was so hot, but in a bushfire you’re supposed to wear heavy clothes. I buttoned it up to the collar.
I was hopping to the ramp when Einstein’s phone started beeping again. I glanced back where I’d dropped it. It was probably just his friend again. I was in a hurry – the fire sounded close – but what if it was someone else? What if it was someone who could help me? I hopped back towards the beepin
g phone.
And that’s what saved my life.
There was a loud whoosh, a gust of hot air on my back, and suddenly the truck’s interior lit up as bright as a beach on a sunny day. My shadow rushed to meet me as I tumbled forward on the heat blast, like a crash test dummy. I hit the floor hard and crawled on my belly to the front of the cattle-pen. Behind me, a wall of yellow flame completely filled the doorway.
The firefront had arrived. I was trapped!
15
SELF-PRESERVATION IS A POWERFUL INSTINCT
I cowered against the metal wall at the front of the cattle-pen, as far away from the leaping flames as possible. It wasn’t far enough. The unprotected skin on my face and hands stung from the fierce heat. My eyeballs felt scorched. There was no air. The breath was being sucked from my lungs as if by a giant vacuum cleaner. I was suffocating.
Beside me on the filthy floor, the phone was still beeping. I didn’t care who was on the other end. I grabbed it and jabbed a fingernail into the hole where the talk button used to be.
‘Help me!’ I gasped. ‘My name is Sam Fox and I’m trapped in a truck near Copperhead Spur. There’s a bushfire all around me!’
For a few seconds there was nothing. Just the whisper and crackle of flames. Then I heard a familiar deep voice in my ear.
‘Tough luck, kid. You shouldn’t have stuck your nose in where it wasn’t wanted.’
It was Einstein, or Adam, as I knew him now. He and Pig-eyes must have made it safely to Mr Cameron’s and worked out I had his phone.
I was gasping for air. It was almost impossible to talk. ‘Can’t you help me?’ I whispered.
‘How am I supposed to help you?’
