Jed pulled Sam into the bedroom so they could argue away from Scarlett and shut the door, to the annoyance of Maxi, who hadn’t made it inside in time.
Scarlett would be listening outside the door, of course, but at least this way she could not stick her oar in. Jed heard Maxi’s claws click on the hall floor as she passed back to the kitchen. She would not eat from the table — she had been well trained by Matilda — but drooling above a dish of moussaka to breathe in what was possibly the best ever aroma apart from a three-week-old dead sheep did not count.
Jed put her hands on her hips. ‘Of course you’re going.’
‘Darling, the baby is due any time now . . .’
‘First babies are always late. And, if not, all I have to do is call Bushfire Control and they’ll get the tanker on the radio. Borrow Flinty’s car and you can be back here in forty minutes. Plus, Sam, that’s not the point. Even if I was in labour now, you’d need to go.’
‘You don’t want me with you? Not to be there when our baby is born?’
‘Of course I do, idiot. More than anything. But this is . . .’ She stopped, unable to find words that didn’t sound so sentimental that they were meaningless. Our land. Our people. The heart of our lives. Things worth fighting for, whether against enemy or bushfire . . .
And, amazingly, he understood. Or, rather, of course he understood because he was Sam, her husband, and that was why she had married him and not just because she’d never have to worry about repairing the roof again. Or because when he touched her . . .
‘Promise me two things then,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll head into town if there’s fire anywhere within twenty kilometres. Doesn’t matter which direction it’s coming from.’
‘I promise. I’m not stupid, darling.’
‘I know you’re not. Just . . . a bit too confident and sure that you can cope all by yourself sometimes.’
She wanted to say she had managed brilliantly by herself so far, but it wouldn’t have been true. She had been turning into a living ghost when old Fred found her by the billabong. It had taken him, Tommy, Matilda, Scarlett, Nancy and all the extended clan, blood relatives and not, to make her real and alive again.
‘What’s the second thing?’
‘You let them know at the bushfire shed as soon as you feel anything. No waiting till contractions are twenty minutes apart or anything like that. Fire or no fire, I’ll be heading back.’
‘It’s a deal. I . . . I do want you with me. Sam . . . you will take care of yourself, won’t you?’
‘I don’t take risks,’ said Sam. And it was true. Sam might do risky things, like climb on roofs, but he did them carefully. He kissed her forehead, then her lips, then held her as she held him.
A horn sounded outside. The tanker.
‘I’ve got your sandwiches,’ called Scarlett.
‘Multigrain bread again?’
‘Of course.’
Jed grinned. The last time she’d been at a fire with Sam and they’d pulled out multigrain sandwiches for lunch, Ram Mullins had called it muesli bread. ‘I’ve seen everything now. Blinking muesli bread.’ He’d probably make the same joke this time.
‘And an apple pie from the freezer for later,’ added Scarlett.
‘Thanks,’ he called. Though Rocky Valley CWA would have prepared more food than you could poke a stick at. It was people on the outskirts of cities who so often failed to realise that bushfire fighters needed to eat and drink, and sleep somewhere other than under the fire truck.
Jed held him again, suddenly bereft. But he would be safe. Sam McAlpine knew how to look after himself in a bushfire. Suddenly it was as if the nightmare had descended again: she was alone in the dark, Dribble burned, Sam gone, Scarlett . . .
Knocking on the door. ‘Hurry up with the clinch, you two. Sam, you’re wanted.’
‘Very wanted,’ said Jed quietly. ‘One good thing about having a baby due,’ she added, trying for levity, ‘they can’t keep you away for three weeks like they did last time. The Bulge isn’t going to be that late.’
Sam kissed her again, quickly.
Then he was gone.
Wind was joy to fire, rocketing it to new fuel, swirling embers into spot fires that became small dancing whirlwinds, carrying debris even further. The hot air above the flames fed the wind, and kept it fed. The fire surged, leaving blackened sheep and kangaroos, already swelling in death, fur singed and shiny fleshed, in its wake.
The flames almost sounded like laughter as a tree crashed, sending a rain of sparks into the waiting dryness of bark and trees and tussocks, into paddocks where sheep stood, helpless.