Matt began his story. ‘In 1887, the richest bloke in Hills End was a man named Henry Abbott.’
‘Any relation?’ asked Sarah.
‘I’m afraid so. Abbott pretty much owned the town. He owned the richest farmland, the most valuable timber, the most profitable businesses – and he owned the goldmine. One day an earthquake caused the mine to flood. Underground streams run deep around here. Dozens drowned, but a young miner known as Adam McCleod rescued seven men, including Henry Abbott’s own son.’
A possum crept from a crevice above them and darted into the darkness, startling Sarah. She moved closer to Matt.
‘Even though Adam was badly hurt himself, he collected as many injured men as he could, hauled them into a mine car, and ran them through rockfalls and rising water to the main shaft. They escaped just in time. Adam was the town hero.’
‘What’s that got to do with this cave?’ asked Sarah.
‘Well, apparently Adam wasn’t who he said he was. He was really an escaped convict named Luke Tyler, jailed for assaulting none other than Henry Abbott himself, years before.’ Sarah raised her perfect brows. ‘It gets better. Not long after that, Luke murdered Henry Abbott. Set his dog on him, so the story goes. Then Luke and the dog took off. The police hunted them down to this cave, but since Luke was such a hero, nobody wanted to shoot him.’
‘He’d just murdered a man.’
‘Maybe so, but apparently people hated Henry Abbott and were glad he was dead. So the local sergeant went into this cave and tried to get Luke to surrender. A few minutes later the police outside heard an explosion. The sergeant raced out, running for his life. Said a demon came out of the walls and attacked him. Then the back of the cave collapsed.’ Matt paused for effect, aware of Sarah’s rapt attention. ‘No trace of Luke or his dog was ever found.’ Matt pointed to the roof. ‘Legend says those rock paintings mark a door to the spirit world, and that the two of them passed through. Whenever the earth trembles, Hills End locals call it the Abbott curse.’
Sarah looked around uneasily. ‘What’s on that plaque?’ Matt shone the torch down and she knelt to read the words etched in stone-set brass. ‘In loving memory of Luke Tyler and his loyal dog Bear. My heart is forever yours. Bluebell.’ Sarah tilted her head, trailing fingers over the cold brass. ‘Who put this here?’
‘Nobody knows.’ Matt peered into the murky depths of the cave, almost saw the desperate young man, almost felt the shudder of the cave collapse. Then, the ground beneath him really did shift. He grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Aftershock.’ They darted for daylight, followed by a cloud of dust.
‘That’s pretty creepy,’ said Sarah, gasping for breath. ‘… just after that story.’
Matt looked up. Threatening grey clouds were gathering fast, piling high in the sky. His phone rang, a crowing cock. ‘Matt here. Pallawarra? I can be there by five.’ He put his phone back in his pocket. ‘There’s trouble in the Tuggerah. We’d better head back.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ve had just about enough of your Australian bush for one day.’
The road home offered unparalleled views of the forest in breathtaking sweeps from the crest of the cliff. Sarah stared out the window until the forest closed back around them. She looked in the glove box, found a copy of the local newspaper and started to read. Time slipped away.
‘Is it true,’ asked Sarah, ‘that people don’t need permits for logging?’
‘A uniquely Tasmanian idea, courtesy of my father. You need a permit to put up a new letterbox, but if your land is declared a private timber reserve, you don’t need a permit for anything. Not for clear-felling, access roads, firebombing …’
‘Firebombing? Why on earth would somebody firebomb their own place?’
‘It’s all the rage around here. First they woodchip the trees, then they drop a sort of napalm from helicopters and burn what’s left. To top it off, they drop poisoned carrots to finish off the wildlife.’
‘It sounds like war,’ said Sarah.
‘That’s exactly what it is.’
A pause. ‘Can I come with you to the Tuggerah.’
Matt turned to look at her. Dark hair escaping from its clasp, face and clothes smudged with dirt. She looked more alive than he’d seen her. ‘Okay, but don’t get in the way.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of the war.’
Sarah reached into her bag, extracted a lunch box and passed him a ham sandwich. Penny didn’t buy ham. He’d forgotten how good it tasted.
They passed Binburra and turned left at Kingston Track. Their way dipped deep into the valley, crossed the wooden bridge over the dark, swift-running Charon River and led to a fork in the road. The left track climbed back to the park. They took the right fork leading down to the vast Tuggerah valley, whose forests stretched south for five hundred kilometres. Binburra’s jagged quartzite peaks, iced with snow, stood in firm command of this place – a place little changed for fifty million years. Mountain ash, Eucalyptus regnans, ruled the mixed, temperate rainforest. The Tuggerah lay within a mountainous ring of World Heritage national parks, but it didn’t share their protected status – it was classed as public land, nothing more. And now Matt’s father had the go-ahead from Premier Logan to move industrial-scale woodchipping operations into the valley.
Matt had watched the decision polarise the previously peaceful Hills End community. Local sawmillers objected to the new clear-fell policy. It destroyed the precious rainforest understorey, which took hundreds of years to reach commercial size: celery top and Huon pine, sassafras, leatherwood, myrtle, native olive and cheesewood. Mountain ash trees regenerated quickly after fire, but the pockets of rainforest nestled at their feet did not. The last jungles of Gondwanaland were fast disappearing, along with people’s livelihoods.
And it wasn’t just the millers who were up in arms. Local furniture and instrument makers, wood-turners, sculptors and shingle splitters – all their jobs depended on sustainable harvesting of the Tuggerah and the few remaining places like her. They viewed with despair the neat rows of pine and eucalypt monoculture – the green deserts – that replaced the rainforest. Conversely, loggers and truck drivers like Uncle Ray saw these specialty timber workers as turncoats, betraying their own and throwing their lot in with the hated greenies. Matt loathed how his father had set worker against worker, friend against friend, brother against brother. Fraser had a lot to answer for.
Sarah craned her neck out the open window. ‘Stop the car,’ she said, pulling Matt out of his worries. He killed the motor in the middle of the track and they got out. There was something deeply primeval in the air.
‘So this is the Tuggerah.’ Sarah slowly spun around, taking it in. ‘It’s magnificent.’
Matt smiled. ‘I thought you’d had enough of the Australian bush.’ He’d seen it before, the effect this place had on first-timers. Like a fine piece of music or poetry, it moved people in profound and unusual ways. Matt pointed to a little seedling, weaving skywards from beneath leaf litter by the side of the road. ‘A baby myrtle. It could live for a thousand years.’
Mist held them in a moist embrace. Filtered song, twitters, whistles and chirps betrayed invisible birds in the upper canopy: parrots and pardalotes, currawongs and cockatoos. Whipbirds whistled in stereo. Golden fungi and green moss clothed fallen logs on the forest floor, while orchids and ferns burst high on branches. Mountain ash trunks towered so high, their canopies were lost in the clouds.
‘The tallest flowering trees in the world,’ said Matt.
Sarah stared skywards for the longest time. ‘I’m an ape in an earth odyssey.’ She trailed her finger along a tree’s rough bark. ‘I should dance naked around the monolith.’
‘You should get back in the car,’ said Matt with a smile. ‘Let’s go.’
Sarah gasped when they rounded the next bend. To the left, the same soaring stands of ash interspersed with tree ferns and shady southern sassafras. But to the right? A splintered bombsite of woody debris, churned earth and shattered roots. Levelled pedestals of giant trees, broad as billiard tables, dotted the devastated scene.
‘Look,’ said Sarah. ‘What’s that?’
A pale animal, about the size of a small dog, crouched on a stump near the road. Matt stopped the car and they picked their way towards it through the carnage. The dazed creature didn’t move. Its long whiskers and large ears were covered in mud, as was its blond coat. Its furry flaxen tail hung limp.
‘A golden brush-tailed possum,’ said Matt. ‘A big one.’
‘He’s beautiful,’ said Sarah. ‘Why is he just sitting there?’
‘He’s in shock.’ Matt kicked the broad stump. Sweet sherry-scented water still bled from its heart. ‘This would have been his home tree. He shouldn’t even be awake in daylight, but his hollow is gone. His whole bloody forest is gone.’
‘We have to help.’
Matt swept his arm wide, indicating the ruin all around. ‘Possums are territorial. I can’t relocate a traumatised old male like him. I’ve tried it before. They never survive.’
Sarah stroked the possum’s soft head. It was too far gone to care, barely noticing her touch. ‘What will happen to him?’
‘If we do nothing? He’ll sit there until he dies, or burn when they torch the place.’ Sarah kept stroking the traumatised animal until Matt took her small hand in his. ‘We have to go. Get back in the car.’
Sarah stared at the motionless possum. She looked like she might cry.
‘Please – get back in the car.’
‘I thought you were going to help him.’
‘I am.’ Matt waited a little longer. When Sarah showed no sign of leaving, he went to the jeep and returned with a rifle. Matt briefly raised the animal by its bushy tail, confirming it was male, then shot it in the head. The possum toppled from the stump to rest on a bed of withered leaves. Matt covered it with a screen of myrtle branches.
Sarah had turned pale.
‘It was the kindest thing,’ he said.
Back at the jeep, the sound of approaching machinery ripped through the silence. A yellow bulldozer roared into view and pulled up behind them. A sticker on the window said Fertilise the forest. Bulldoze in a greenie. A burly man with a bushy grey beard and a sour expression leaned down from the cabin. ‘Do you think you own the road, Matt? Get out of my way.’
‘What a charming man,’ said Sarah.
‘That’s Ray, Penny’s uncle. Not exactly my greatest fan.’ Matt pulled the jeep aside to let the dozer pass, acutely aware that Ray’s rescued devil, Lazarus, lay dead in the back.
Ray glared at Sarah suspiciously as he pulled alongside them. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Dr Deville. A scientist from UCLA.’
Ray snorted like he didn’t believe it. ‘How’s Pen? I haven’t seen her this week.’
‘She’s fine, Ray. You heading for the coupe?’
‘What does it look like?’ Ray gunned the engine. The dozer lurched off down the rutted road with Matt following behind in escort.