Scrublands(31)

Ten minutes later, he gets to the turn-off where the fire crew gathered the day before. The dirt track winds off north-west into the bush, past a motley collection of mailboxes. To the right of the track, the bush is black and smouldering, to the left it is largely untouched. This is where the firefighters controlled the flank of the fire. He stops the car, takes some photos with his phone, then resumes his journey.

Soon, the bush is burnt out on both sides of the track, and he wonders if it’s wise to be out here alone; he tries to reassure himself that there’s nothing left to burn. The smoke is all around him, swirling. The night before, at the club, someone told him that the mulga scrub could smoulder for weeks, even months, that the roots could burn away underground with little sign of it above ground. The only thing that would put the fire out once and for all would be soaking rain and plenty of it. Martin glances up at the pallid sky; the Second Coming seems more likely than a cloudburst. The fire has stripped the woodlands of any vestiges of shade; black stumps stand smoking, devoid of foliage.

He reaches the cattle grid. One pole stands untouched, the bleached skull intact. The other pole is nothing but a blackened stump, skull nowhere to be seen. He realises this is the way to Codger’s place—he’s taken a wrong turn—but he climbs out to photograph the crossing. The smell hits him immediately; a barbecue gone wrong. He sees what he didn’t see from the car: cattle carcasses trapped against the fence line, burnt and bloating in the sun, flies swarming. He walks towards them, thinking to sanitise the pile of death by photographing it, but his stomach revolts and he throws up into the sand and ash. He retreats towards the car, vomits again, and climbs back into his air-conditioned sanctuary. He rinses his mouth with water from the bottle, spits out the door, executes a three-point turn with great care, not wanting to get stuck here, of all places. His headache, subdued by the sleep at the Black Dog, is back and insistent.

He locates the fork in the road that leads to Snouch’s place, Springfields. He drives slowly, carefully, along the track Robbie had navigated at such speed less than twenty-four hours before. There is evidence of the progress of the fire crew that extricated them; a fallen tree chainsawed and dragged from the road. The landscape is monochromatic: black stumps, grey smoke, white ash. Even the sky, with its wash of smoke, is more grey than blue.

Martin arrives at Snouch’s homestead, or what remains of it. Off to the right are the embankments of the dam and a metal machinery shed, unaffected by the maelstrom, but elsewhere is a scene of devastation. He parks close by the burnt-out carcasses of the police four-wheel drive and Snouch’s old Holden, its charred chassis still held aloft by a jack. The house is a smoking ruin: the stone steps stand, as do three brick chimneys, their fireplaces exposed to the elements. The brick and stone walls largely remain, testament to their solidity, although some sections have crumbled and collapsed. A scene from a war.

Martin walks the perimeter. There is an iron stove towards the rear, in the kitchen where Martin, Robbie and Snouch made their initial stand, but anything that isn’t steel or stone or brick has been incinerated. Pieces of curled and twisted corrugated-iron roofing lie scattered about, some inside the confines of the ruin, some distributed randomly around the yard, the confetti of the apocalypse. There is the sound of the wind and the rattling of corrugated iron; apart from that the day is silent.

‘Snouch?’ yells Martin, walking back towards the machinery shed.

He finds him inside, spanner in hand, leaning into the innards of an old Mercedes, its bonnet up. The car is at least forty years old, but its deep blue paint is in good repair. The tyres are flat.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ Snouch straightens, hand feeling his lower back as he stretches.

‘How are you?’ asks Martin.

‘Pretty fucking ordinary, to tell you the truth. Got any water on you?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’ Martin goes to his car, returns with three large bottles of mineral water, gives them to Snouch.

‘Thanks,’ says Snouch, opening a bottle and slugging down half of it. ‘Thanks. That’s better. Dam’s full of ash.’

‘Nice car.’

‘Will be if I can get it going.’

‘How long since you’ve driven it?’

‘Dunno. Thirty years. It was my father’s. He died five years ago.’

‘Well, you’ll need help then. Battery will be shot. It’ll need new engine oil, same for the gearbox and diff, I’d imagine. New tyres.’

‘Yeah. I know. I was just killing time. Waiting for someone to show up. Don’t have any tobacco, do you?’

‘No. Don’t smoke.’

‘No one fucken does anymore.’

The two men move away from the car. Snouch sits on the rim of a tractor tyre; Martin pulls up an old wooden fruit crate. Snouch takes another slug of water. He’s still wearing the clothes he was wearing the day before and reeks of smoke and body odour. His face is blackened and grimy, his eyes red and streaked. He looks awful.

‘Thanks for coming out.’

‘No problem.’

Martin again wonders how old Snouch is; it’s difficult to determine. He looks like he’s in his sixties, but fighting the fire he’d moved with the assurance of a much younger man.

‘What will you do now?’ Martin asks.

‘Dunno. Camp out until the insurance comes through.’