Firestorm Read online

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Also Available

  New York • London

  © 2013 Tamara McKinley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to Permissions c/o Quercus Publishing Inc., 31 West 57th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019, or to [email protected].

  e-ISBN 978-1-62365-561-7

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  Tamara McKinley is the author of more than eleven novels. She was born in Tasmania, but now lives in Sussex and Cornwall and writes full time. Her novels are both contemporary and historical, following the lives of Australian pioneers and those who came after them.

  Also by Tamara McKinley,

  available for purchase in ebook

  Matilda’s Last Waltz

  Jacaranda Vines

  Windflowers

  Summer Lightning

  Dreamscapes

  Long before the white man came to Australia, the Aborigines understood the importance of fire, for it cleanses and clears away the debris of old vegetation to regenerate, propagate and nurture the circle of new life in the bushlands of the Outback.

  And yet, when a firestorm threatens an isolated and perhaps divided community, it brings not only devastation and fear, but binds those people in one purpose – to overcome and survive. In the aftermath of such a fire comes the chance to set aside old enmities, past regrets and sadness and to begin rebuilding their lives and nurture what matters most. For in the ashes of the past lie the dormant seeds of new beginnings, and hope for a future unclouded by what had come before.

  1

  Brisbane, 1946

  He knew he must cut a strange, solitary figure in the ill-fitting suit someone had kindly given him, but he had money in his pocket and army discharge papers in his kitbag. To all intents and purposes, he was a free man.

  But it wasn’t just the glare on the water that brought the tears to his eyes as he looked out across the Brisbane River, and as they rolled down his thin face he unashamedly let them fall. He’d waited so long to return home to Australia, had held the scents, sights and sounds in his head and heart like a sweet promise to sustain him throughout the horrors of jungle warfare and the privations of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. But he’d found no redemption in this homecoming, for despite the long months of care in the hospital, he was still haunted by his experiences, and now had to face a new battle against another, far more invincible enemy.

  He was thirty-four, and had seen things no man should ever see – had survived the worst of man’s inhumanity, only to discover that his weakened, battered body had been invaded by cancer and that he was going to die anyway. The irony of his situation hit him hard, and he raged silently against the cruelty of Fate as he dashed away the tears and struggled for composure.

  Once he felt ready to face the world again, he hoisted the kitbag over his bony shoulder, turned his back on the river and headed for the train station. He’d discharged himself from the hospital this morning against doctor’s orders, but he had a feeling the surgeon understood his need to use whatever time was left to him to embrace this momentary freedom and seek some kind of peace.

  He slowly made his way through the bustling city, awed by the new buildings and the sense of purpose in the people around him. It was daunting to be free after so many years of following orders and being under the lash, and he was disconcerted by the traffic noise and the swirl of people hurrying past him. The city had changed during his absence – but then so had he – and now he was a stranger, invisible to those around him, a thin shadowy figure spared not even a glance.

  Their lack of curiosity didn’t touch him as he continued on his way, for his heart and his mind were focused on a place far from here – a place where the silence is broken only by the sough of the wind in the eucalyptus – where the enormous sky stretches above endless plains of rich red earth and scrubby pastures, and the clear, bright light falls on the old wallaby tracks that would eventually lead him home.

  *

  The deep rumbles of thunder rolled over the Outback plains, the sky darkening with roiling clouds as forks of lighting flashed over the hills, reflected in the depleted rivers and billabongs. The heat was intense, the very air electric with the powerful storm that was building to the south-west of Morgan’s Reach. And, as the desperate farmers looked up at those threatening skies from their parched land, they prayed that this time the storm would break and that after three long years of waiting the rains would finally come.

  Morgan’s Reach exists only because of the natural spring that flows even in the driest years. The tiny settlement of less than twenty dwellings lies deep in the Queensland Outback, far from the highway at the end of a meandering dirt track. The main street is half a mile long and wide enough to accommodate a team of oxen, but it leads only to the cattle trails and ancient Aboriginal and animal tracks that traverse the surrounding bush. There are no signposts to Morgan’s Reach, for the people who live and work on the vast sheep and cattle stations that surround it know where it is and, because of its geography, it remains hidden from outsiders unless they have business there.

  Rebecca Jackson’s grandfather, Rhys Morgan, was a doctor of medicine, explorer, adventurer, benefactor and eccentric who stumbled across this remote oasis back in 1889. Having discovered what he considered to be the perfect location for a bush hospital, he’d celebrated his fortieth birthday by digging the foundations of the hospital and giving the settlement his name. All he needed then was a wife.

  Gwyneth Davies was twenty and feeling stifled by her parents’ ever-pressing desire to see her married off to a man they thought could elevate their position in Brisbane society. Her resolve was beginning to weaken when she literally bumped into Rhys Morgan on the boardwalk outside the drapers’ shop. In the time it had taken to gather up her packages and accept his offer of a cup of tea in a nearby cafe, Gwyneth had fallen in love.

  Despite her genteel upbringing, Gwyneth was of tough Welsh stock, and not easily daunted by the prospect of living out her life in the back of beyond and, with this exciting, driven man at her side, she knew she was in for an adventure.

  Yet
she was a woman of strong opinions, and when she caught her first glimpse of the brushwood and tin hovel her new husband expected her to live in, she’d made it very clear that she had no intentions of doing so. Rhys, rather awestruck by this forceful young woman he’d married, quickly realised that if he was to keep her, he must build her a proper home. Gwyneth had overseen the work with a judicious eye to detail, and when she was satisfied that it suited her she’d moved in the furniture she’d brought with her, rolled up her sleeves and got on with her new and challenging life.

  Over the decades that followed, Gwyneth worked at Rhys’s side, tending the sick and comforting the dying. She endured the flies and the dust in this most primitive of surroundings, and learned to survive fire, flood, heat and drought as she raised her six children and bullied the School Board into sending a teacher to the small school she’d had built in the centre of town.

  Rhys had become close to three of his grandchildren, Millicent, Rebecca and Terence, and had lived long enough to meet his great-grandson, Danny. He’d reached the grand age of ninety when in the spring of 1939 he finally succumbed to the harsh environment and the pressures of his far-flung practice. Gwyneth had lost not only a husband, but her dearest, closest friend, and she mourned him still. Yet she gave thanks that he’d gone in peace, safe in the knowledge that his eldest son, Hugh, would carry on his lifetime’s work, and that Hugh’s wife, Jane, and daughter, Rebecca, would be at his side.

  The bush hospital had changed since those very early days, and the facilities it offered now were far more sophisticated. In place of the old tumbledown shack there was a single-storey wooden building that stood back from the road in a large plot, its deep verandas and green painted shutters offering shade on the hottest of days and a view down the dirt track that eventually met the main highway. There was a single ward, an isolation room, a consulting room with a small operating theatre tucked behind it in case of emergencies, a kitchen and a proper indoor bathroom and lavatory. The medical stores were kept under lock and key behind a sturdy door, and the two-way radio was linked to the one in the homestead next door where Rebecca and her nine-year-old son, Danny, now lived with her parents.

  Rebecca had closed all the shutters to keep out the fierce noonday sun, so the ward was dim and should have been relatively cool. But the squeaking ceiling fan wasn’t doing much to alleviate the heat and, as she walked down the ward to check on her six patients, she made a mental note to get it oiled before it drove everyone mad.

  Her starched apron crackled as she moved quietly past the beds in her rubber-soled shoes. It was unusual to have every bed occupied, but none of the cases had been serious enough for the Flying Doctor to whisk them away to the main hospital in Brisbane, and most of them would go home the following day. Satisfied that they were comfortable after their lunch, she left them to doze and went out onto the veranda.

  The heat shimmered on the wide dirt road and the air was still and heavy, laced with a tang of copper that heralded an electric storm. Eucalyptus trees wilted by the depleted waterhole, and the birds were silent as the sun beat down on the corrugated iron roofs and patches of yellowing grass. There had been no rain worth mentioning for over three years now, and the likelihood of fire was growing by the day as the farmers on the outlying cattle and sheep stations struggled to feed and water their dwindling stock.

  Rebecca unfastened the top button of her blue-and-white striped dress, thankful she didn’t wear starched collars and cuffs as she’d had to during her training in Sydney. She checked the watch pinned to her apron bib, glanced up at the dark clouds gathering to the west and then surveyed the deserted road that ran through the small settlement. There was no sign of Danny, even though she’d told him in no uncertain terms to be back here by twelve. At this rate, she thought darkly, he was in danger of missing out on his birthday party tomorrow.

  She chewed her lip, fretful at the memory of how he’d refused to listen to her this morning when she’d tried to explain yet again that his father, Adam, was dead and that there was no hope of his ever returning – and how he’d stomped off, slamming the screen door behind him. Her son’s habit of disappearing into the bush was worrying – not least because of the reason he kept doing it. She had hoped that now he’d started at boarding school in Brisbane he’d grow out of this obsession and realise it was a childish fantasy born of a deep longing – but it seemed that nothing had changed, and that this school holiday would follow the same pattern as all the others.

  Rebecca had thought long and hard about how to deal with Danny – had even driven the sixty miles north to Killigarth Station to seek advice from her best friend, Amy Blake. Their circumstances were very similar, for Amy was a war widow too, her husband John killed in Malaya just like Adam. She lived with her parents on their cattle station so, like Rebecca, had the love and support of her family to help her through the painful mourning period and to raise her son, George, who was the same age as Danny. But even the wise and gentle Amy couldn’t help, and it made Rebecca feel very alone sometimes.

  Impatient that she was beginning to feel sorry for herself, Rebecca left the shade of the veranda, pushed through the outer screen door and went down the steps and into the glare of the sun. She was used to the vagaries of the Outback weather, for she’d been born and raised in Morgan’s Reach and had spent nearly every one of her thirty years here, but it was sad to see how badly her mother’s lovely garden had been ravaged by the long drought.

  She crossed the dying lawn, noted her father’s old utility was parked by the homestead steps and pushed through the fly-screen doors that sheltered the veranda and the house. Nothing much had changed since her childhood, for the furniture had always been battered, the curtains and rugs faded by the sun, but it was home – a refuge she and Danny had returned to when it was clear that Adam would not be coming back from the war.

  Her parents, Hugh and Jane, were sitting in the shabby kitchen, the remains of their hasty lunch scattered on the table. Hugh looked exhausted, with dark shadows under his eyes, but Jane looked as cool and elegant as ever in her nurse’s uniform

  ‘Have you seen Danny?’ Rebecca asked.

  Hugh shook his head. ‘I’ve only just got back from Warratah Station, and didn’t pass him on the track. Why? You lost him again?’

  Rebecca nodded and headed back to the door. ‘I’ll go and see if he’s with Gran,’ she said.

  ‘You worry too much over that boy,’ said Hugh through a vast yawn. ‘He’ll be ten tomorrow, and he knows his way around the bush.’

  Rebecca and her mother exchanged knowing looks, for they shared the same worry over Danny – and it had very little to do with his familiarity with the bush and its dangers. ‘That’s as maybe,’ she replied, ‘but he’s running wild, and it’s time he learned to do as he’s told.’

  She left the homestead and crossed the deserted main street to the house on the corner. Granny Gwyn lived in a neat one-storey wooden stilt-house which faced the hospital but backed onto the bush, and Danny loved going over there to help look after Gwyneth’s menagerie of sick and abandoned animals, and to listen to her many stories about the old days. If he wasn’t there, then she’d have to go and see Sarah at the native shacks on the far side of the town to see if her son, Billy Blue, had disappeared too. The pair of them were always going off together, and she wouldn’t mind betting they were up to some mischief or other.

  As she was about to unlatch the gate she heard the unmistakable roar of a fast-moving truck. Turning, she realised it was Ben Freeman, the local fire chief, and as he screeched to a halt beside her he covered her in a cloud of dust.

  Despite her pleasure at seeing him, she greeted him with a frown. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she muttered, trying to shake the worst of the dirt from her apron and dress. ‘These were clean on this morning, and now I’m going to have to change before I go back on the ward.’

  ‘Sorry, Becky,’ he drawled as he swung out of the utility and ambled over to her.

  He didn’t look
a bit sorry – not with that stupid grin on his face. But it was a grin that made her heart flutter and sent a thrill right through her, so she supposed she would have to forgive him. ‘What’s the rush anyway?’ she asked, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked from the boots and moleskins, past the check shirt straining across the broad chest and up to his face.

  ‘I wanted to catch you on your lunch break,’ he replied, his very blue eyes regarding her from beneath the broad brim of his bush hat. ‘I wondered if you and Danny might like to come up to my place for some tucker this evening?’

  ‘That would be good, Ben, but Danny’s gone walkabout again, and when I do find him, he’ll be confined to his room for the rest of the day.’ She smiled up at him to soften her refusal. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps another time?’

  He tucked his hands into the pockets of his moleskins as he leaned against the utility and crossed his long legs at the ankle. ‘I reckon I can wait a while longer,’ he said softly, ‘but it’s been almost a year, Becky. I was hoping we could make it a more permanent arrangement between us.’

  She let him take her hand and draw her towards him. ‘We will, Ben, I promise,’ she replied. ‘But Danny has to get used to the idea, and he’s not ready yet. Please be patient.’

  ‘I’ll try, Becky, but it ain’t easy,’ he murmured.

  His eyes were mesmerising as he gazed down at her and she could see the fine lines across the tanned flesh of his face. At thirty-five, Ben was a handsome man, and the knowledge that he loved her and wanted to marry her and take on Danny made her feel a warmth that had little to do with the blazing sun.

  ‘I’m sure we could manage a few quiet minutes together while Danny’s party’s in full swing tomorrow,’ she said softly. ‘And then there are the picnic races next month. Perhaps we could all go and make a day of it?’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be good. Want me to pick you up?’

  She thought about it and then shook her head. ‘It’s probably better if we meet you there.’