The policeman leaned on the front of his car. There was nowhere else to sit – the town had turned to ash.

The young kindergarten teacher seemed close to tears. There were black marks on her clothes. 'I don't know what else I can tell you,' she said.

He spun his phone around to show her. 'Is this the man?"

The screen showed an image from a security camera mounted high; a shadowy figure in a long dirty coat, with a shapeless hat pulled over his eyes.

'He had a coat like that,' said the young woman. 'And the hat. It was kind of weird, on such a hot day.'

'Did you speak to him? Get his name?'

The teacher shook her head. 'Sorry.'

The policeman sighed. 'What do you remember about him?'

Leafless, blackened trees on the hills around stood silently. There was no birdsong.

The teacher rubbed her eyes. 'Someone said they saw him walking into town, not hitching, just walking.

'Who was that?'

'One of the firies from out of town. I think he's in hospital now.'

The woman shivered in spite of the warm morning sun.

'When was this?'

'Before... the fire. We weren't expecting it to come this way. The wind changed, and then...'

Smoke rose gently into the air from the cindered town, swirled into eddies by a fire truck as it passed slowly by. Tears returned to the teacher's eyes.

The policeman pressed on.

'How did the stranger end up on the roof?'

'I don't know. He was just there, somehow.'

The teacher's eyes drifted past the emergency tape and down the street to the glass-fronted kindergarten, the only structure still standing in the little town. She pointed, her hand a little shaky.

'When the fire came around us, he had two big hoses going up there, full bore. There was another man, but he passed out from the smoke. I was trying to stop the children panicking.'

'What did the stranger look like?'

'His skin looked kind of dark. He was dirty though. Maybe it was that.'

'Did he say anything?'

The woman shook her head. 'The fire was roaring. There were balls of flame, screaming kids, you couldn't breathe... It's impossible to explain.'

'Try.'

The teacher took a breath. 'Most of the local fellas were trapped in the next valley. Both trucks. The bushfire leapt straight over them. We were on our own. If that stranger hadn't done what he did...' She shuddered.

'What did he do?'

'He defended the kindergarten. He was like... a soldier. When the second wind change hit, the fire came back a different way. We'd already lost the town water, and we were relying on the backup pump, but it ran out of fuel. Someone must have siphoned it.'

'The stranger siphoned it?'

'No! You don't get it. That man went through the flames to refill the generator. He got it going again, somehow. I don't know how he didn't burn to death. The heat was unbelievable. That fire it just... kept coming. He stayed up there until dawn. '

'Then what happened?'

'I went to talk to him, but he was gone.'

'Gone?'

'When I got up on the roof, I could see him way up the road already, walking out of town. No one had a chance to even thank him. He saved our lives, all those kids.'

The policeman looked awkward.

'I guess they want to give him a bravery award,' said the young teacher. 'Is that what this is about?'

'I'm afraid not,' said the policeman.

The teacher searched his eyes. 'Why do you want him then, that stranger?'

The policeman sighed, then gestured vaguely to the blackened hills. 'Two days ago, up there, we think he killed a man.'

***

I wrote this story in April 2020. Artwork created with Midjourney AI.

0 comments

Not Stopping – Reflections on the Road

Watching Charlie Sexton Over The Years

What's in a hat?

No Brakes

Dying for a Shot

See all posts from David Lowe