FIRE HAWK.
Big John was a bad man, a killer. His killing ground was a vast portion of the Northern Territory, where he ran his cattle. There he shot kangaroos, feral pigs and dingoes but that was just the start of it. The kangaroos and pigs he fed to his dogs and station hands. The dingoes he strung on his fences to warn other dingoes not to hunt his calves. Dingoes never hunted his calves anyway but when he could, Big John liked to justify his taste for slaughter.
Like when he cleared the flying foxes out of the trees near the homestead. Why? Because they made a noise. That wasn’t really why he did it though, the bats were far enough from the homestead that their cheerful chattering never bothered anyone. No, he did it for fun. In fact he enjoyed his bat slaughter so much he rode 10k to another colony in a fig grove and slaughtered them too.
Flying foxes were so easy, snoozing in their trees. Big John made it interesting by seeing if he could drop multiples with one bullet. He liked it best when he’d panicked them enough for the whole colony to burst from the trees. Then he could drop them out of the sky.
Big John wasn’t actually big. He was 5 foot 9 of gristle, a wiry waste of a man. He told his station hands to call him Big John in a bid to impress his authority over them. “That’s Big John to you fella.” He was convinced they laughed at him behind his back, which they most certainly did when he demanded they call him Big John.
John was a small man in every way and his insecurity fed his need for slaughter, for the rush he got from dominating nature. This need to act the big man failed him badly when he went too far at the Burrundie pub one time. He was gleefully describing the explosion of feathers when you took out an emu with a shotgun, the way they’d crash and tumble when you dropped them on the run. Emus are harmless clowns and one of the stockmen at the bar took a dim view of their murder. He dropped Big John with one punch. They dragged his prone form outside, woke him with a bucket of water and told him to fuck off.
Big John’s mania for slaughter reached a peak with his attack on the birds. The station included a spring that fed an expanse of permanent wetland. In the dry season this wetland was a haven for the local wildlife and Big John set about thinning them out. In the mysterious way these things spread through nature, the animals soon grew cautious near the water. They’d dash out for a quick drink, then melt back into the scrub. This until the crack of big John’s gun was heard, then no animal would show for the rest of the day.
The birds however, were careless. On a Sunday Big John liked to set himself up on a shady bank, with beer and a good supply of ammunition. He’d spend the afternoon there, packing up when the sun sank over the mass of corpses drifting about on the now quiet lake.
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The fire hawk watched Big John from his resting place atop a rising thermal. If Big John looked up all he’d see was a black dot in the sky. The eyes of that black dot however, easily identified the hawk feather in Big John’s hat. A feather that had once had adorned the fire hawk’s wife.
Big John’s grandfather built the original homestead in the shadow of a huge rock outcrop, rising out of the plane. The homestead was one of the reasons the fire hawk built his nest here, high up on the cliffs. The cluster of storehouses, kitchen and bakery provided a convenient food source for rodents. The coming and going of these rodents provided equally convenient pickings for a nesting hawk. The fire hawk used this fact as a selling point to win his mate. This seeming boon however, came at a deadly cost.
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Big John mounted up and headed out, unaware he was followed. He travelled west intending to check the fences there, a half days ride. The fire hawk drifted along behind, riding the thermals that rose from the overheated grasslands.
It was coming to the end of the dry season and the land was begging for water, or fire. For 50,000 years or more the indigenous folk of Australia had managed this land with fire. In the dry season, when the grass got so high that fire was a danger too great, aboriginal folk would manage the threat with selective burns. This had a dual benefit. It created a buffer against the catastrophic burns that would otherwise devastate their country, and it would provide a flush of fresh green grass much favoured by the game that fed the tribes.
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To the west the rising banks of cumulus cloud caught the fire hawks eye. He noted Big John’s location and direction, then wheeled off to investigate the tension building on the horizon. These huge cloud builds, white and grey tumbles, ominous black anvils, marked the turning of the seasons. The wet season would soon erupt. This was the season of greatest fire danger as the dry heat of the plains met the cool air rolling in from the sea. This tension called forth the Wanjina, who announced their presence with mighty rumbles and flashes of lightning. A lightning strike to a tree in the midst of bone dry waist high grass, spelled disaster. This was the situation the indigenous folk had kept in check with their strategic burns. Without their management of the land, the epic fires that now would rage across the outback could be seen from space.
Big John took note of the drift of smoke to the west, where he was heading. He gambled the clouds would soon burst and douse whatever was burning there. And if not he’d simply turn around, safe in the knowledge his horse could easily outrun a grass fire.
The fire hawk reached the source of the smoke. For now it was a lazy blaze, drifting south and east through the grass. High above he crossed the fire front, observed the smouldering remains of occasional trees. Satisfied with what he saw he wheeled around and back to Big John.
The wind was picking up now, carrying the smell of smoke from the west, spooking Big John’s mare. Orange flickers showed beneath the thickening smoke on the horizon and Big John knew it was time to head for home. The fire hawk though, had other plans. As Big John turned his mount around the fire hawk dropped out of the sky, a long swooping dive. He levelled off, came in from behind and dug his talons in the back of big John’s head. The shock ran through Big John and into the mare, who baulked. Now the hawk came at the mares eyes, flapping inches from her face. Terrified she rose up, threw Big John to the ground and bolted for home. Satisfied, the fire hawk left him there, returning to the expanding fire front.
Now the fire hawk revealed his inheritance, the instinct for fire his ancestors had passed down to him. No one knows who first hunted with fire. Did the fire hawks ancestors learn the trick from the ancient aboriginal tribes who set fires and hunted the flushed out game? Or did the first folk learn the trick from fire hawks, seen dropping burning twigs into grass in advance of a fire to feast on escaping lizards and rodents?
The fire hawk once again crossed the front of the fire. He flew to a smouldering tree, alone on the burnt out plane. He surveyed the ground till he saw what he needed, lightly touching down to grab the unburnt end of a still smouldering twig. He rose, crossed the fire front once more and returned to where he left the stranded man. The wind was up now, fanning the blaze that chased Big John.
The fire hawk picked his spot, directly ahead of where the dead man ran. He dropped the smouldering twig, fanned it with his wings. To Big John’s horror the grass in front of him erupted in flames. He wheeled around to the north and ran for his life for a gap in the burn. The fire hawk responded with a suitable match, lighting up the man’s last chance of escape.
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It was over quick. They never did find the remains, picked clean by crows, magpies, butcher birds and the rest who gathered to feast on Big John’s delicious roasted flesh. The pigs broke his bones for the baked marrow and the big wet drowned what was left.
Fire Hawk Art Print by Heather Morstad.