East of Outback (39 page)

He parked it where he’d parked before, and looked over at Sam who was looking straight ahead in silence. He called to the children, “Start back where the box was and work out this way.”

Mary Aileen put Smoke down and held her leash expectantly. “Go find your baby!” But the cat didn’t seem to have a clear vision of the task. She wandered about at random sniffing the grass.

Sam had gotten out now and was searching the bushes. She straightened and walked over to Cole. “We have about twenty minutes of light left, you think? That kitten could be ten feet away and we wouldn’t see it. It
would
be the black one that wandered off.”

He nodded grimly. “How good is their sense of smell?”

“I have no idea. Smoke can smell keenly, but I don’t know about kittens.”

“Let’s search the slope again. It possibly followed our scent out that way.

Mary Aileen stared ahead distraught. At the top of her lungs she was calling, “Topsy! Tahhhp-seee!”

“That’s silly, ‘Leen! Kittens don’t come when you call them by name.” Edan continued out to the point where they had gathered to observe the fire.

She scowled at him. “You certainly don’t care if I try, do you?” She stopped for a bit then called again, “Tahhhpseee!” She walked farther out. “Tahhhp-seee!”

Sloan glanced at Sam. Tears glistened in the waning light as she shook her head. “Too many things out here in the bush are looking for a meed.”

“I’m afraid so.” Sloan paused, listening to Mary Aileen’s tortured call. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come back here.”

“Of course we had to come back and look, just to know we did all we could.”

Sloan had no idea how to tackle this impossible task. Rather than look for a small black kitten in the gathering dusk, he ought to be looking for a way to let Mary Aileen down gently when night fell and they abandoned the search.

But Mary Aileen was running toward him, sobbing so steadily she could barely breathe. She clutched a black kitten to her breast.

A sweeping wave of relief flowed over him; Cole would never have thought he could generate such strong feelings over a kitten. “Let’s go home.” He wrapped an arm around his daughter and headed for the car.

“Wait, Papa!” Edan was still out beyond the breast of the slope. “Papa!”

“Now, what?” Sloan left Mary Aileen and walked back out to the open slope. The weariness of the day was catching up to him, or was it all the burdens he carried lately? “Come on, Edan.”

“Papa. Someone’s out there. I heard them call.”

“It’s a wonga, Edan. A wonga pigeon way off somewhere, or some other bird. Let’s go home.”

“No. I’m sure it’s a person. Papa, please.” There he stood, so very small and fragile. Sloan hesitated. Edan wheeled around and shouted at the top of his lungs. Silence. ‘There! See?” he cried triumphantly.

“It’s probably your echo. I didn’t hear anything.”

“You didn’t hear the baby rock warblers, either.”

Sloan had to admit the lad had a point there. Against his better judgment, against reason, he decided to go along with the lad. “Okay. We’ll go downhill a little farther. Just a little.”

On the open hillside opposite, Sloan saw a movement. A dark little form came down the far slope, slipping and staggering. A very tiny voice rose above the subtle sounds of the summer evening. That voice . . . The very small person stumbled and began to run toward them.

“Papa! I think that’s—”

But Sloan wasn’t listening. He cast aside thirty years and any other burden that might slow him. With the full strength of youth he raced down into the vale and up the other side.

She was running to him. She was here! She was here!

He seized that forlorn little form and pressed it tightly against his heart as he dropped to his knees. He rocked back and forth while the child sobbed and he sobbed. His heart swelled so much it choked off any power of prayer he once enjoyed. Thanks burgeoned hopelessly beyond words and he could think of nothing adequate to say to God.

She was filthy—dirty, tear-streaked, smudged with soot. Soot?! She encountered that bushfire! She survived that fire. While he casually surveyed the smoke from a cold, safe distance, his little Hannah was. . . . He could not cease kissing the filthy cheek. Her dirt soiled his clothes and he could not cease holding her tight against him. Hannah!

Hannah’s desperate embrace loosened. “Colin.”

“Where?”

She twisted and pointed vaguely uphill.

“There’s your mum.” With the greatest reluctance he set her free.

Sloan jogged up the slope. He paused for a bit in the gloaming, to catch his breath. He could toss aside thirty years for a few minutes, perhaps, but not forever. Sweat poured from his face and soaked his shirt. “Colin?” He bellowed it to the stars. “Son?”

The sheer, unimaginable size of this miracle absolutely overwhelmed him.
Hannah
. In a place none of them had ever gone before, convening at the same moment. . . . Out of all Australia, after all these bitter months. . . .

“Son! Colin!”

Sloan sucked in air, startled, as a rock-wallaby shot straight up out of a boulder field and zig-zagged away over the rocks. Bats flitted about in the clear sky of evening. Night creatures were replacing those of the day. In its third quarter, the moon would provide no light once the sun was gone. Sloan wouldn’t be able to see anything.

Deep in the dusky forest far ahead, a barely discernible tree seemed to move, straight and tall. It stopped. It extended an arm and leaned heavily against another tree. Momentarily rested, it moved again with halting steps.

Sloan ran uphill as far as his tortured lungs would allow. Involuntarily he slowed to a hasty, anxious walk, gulping air. The tree took human form then, coughed long and hard, and stumbled forward.

He was back. He had grown. He wasn’t just bigger. Not just older. It was more than that. Much more.

Still rushing forward, Sloan reached out. He stretched his arms as far as they would go, and his son, his son tumbled into them.

“Papa,” he whispered hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”

His son. His son
.

“Welcome home.”

SANDY DENGLER is a freelance writer whose wide range of books has a strong record in the Christian bookselling market. Twenty-six published books over the last nine years include juvenile historical novels, biographies, and adult historical romances. She has a master’s degree in natural sciences and her husband is a national park ranger. They make their home in Ashford, Washington, and their family includes two grown daughters.