Rural Fiction with all the Heart

Hughey Chalmers was that kind of guy. The town’s favourite butcher—well, technically the only one, but that’s beside the point—and the best friend anyone could ask for. The one who’d walk through fire to help you. The number one lieutenant of the Forest Gully Fire Brigade. Oh, and the one who offered a smile, willingly, freely. Every bloody time.

Ross Harrison swallowed against the sharp lump in his throat. He ran a slow hand over his clean-shaven face, the deep breath he’d been clasping within his lungs steadily seeping from his lips. His eyes opened and closed with weariness as he stared at an old photo on his phone, catapulting him back to a day that refused to leave him alone.

Gus Stevens pulled up at the end of his driveway, forcefully winding down his manual side window and ignoring the way the glass made the rubber seals turn inwards. The hot wind blowing in from the north hit with force, making him recoil. Those winds were never good. But then again, it didn’t have to be a fiery day for danger to rear its unforgiving head.

Charlotte Redding cringed against the icy wind lashing her hair into her face like a whip. She clutched her jacket tight to her chest and looked about. A loose piece of corrugated iron slapped the side wall of her old tack room. The chill of Pleurisy Plains—as the old-timers of the Western District used to call it—was living up to its formidable reputation, and her heart thudded as memories came shooting back.

Panicked bleating cut through the evening air as Poppy Fletcher waded knee-deep into George O’Sullivan’s dam, her gumboots clinging to the stinky mud with each step. Face set, she lunged for the trapped sheep.