Author: Rachael Treasure
Read by: Miranda Nation

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Anyone who knows Rachael Treasure's writing knows that she writes a ripper short story - full of warmth and heart and humour and with characters as lively and lovable as Rachael herself. Although many try to, no one can replicate that special, original 'Treasure take' on the world that comes through in all her rural stories, long and short. You will laugh and smile your way through this collection, which includes the favourite stories 'The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare' and 'The Evolution of Sadie Smith', as well as some earlier works - and most importantly, a number of entirely new stories. All the stories have rural settings but they aren't all romances. There will be 'something for everyone' in this book. A must-have addition to any library for all those Rachael Treasure fans out there, as well as a perfect Christmas gift for young and old. Sell yours Books » Fiction & Literature » General The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare By Rachael Treasure RRP $29.99 $20.51 Save $9.48 (32%) Free shipping Australia wide Fast shipping available from our warehouse Ships within 24 hours from local supplier Order now for Christmas delivery Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 Register or sign-in to rate and get recommendations. Format: Paperback, 256 pages Release Date: 03 October 2011 The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare by Rachael Treasure Anyone who knows Rachael Treasure's writing knows that she writes a ripper short story - full of warmth and heart and humour and with characters as lively and lovable as Rachael herself. Although many try to, no one can replicate that special, original 'Treasure take' on the world that comes through in all her rural stories, long and short. You will laugh and smile your way through this collection, which includes the favourite stories 'The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare' and 'The Evolution of Sadie Smith', as well as some earlier works - and most importantly, a number of entirely new stories. All the stories have rural settings but they aren't all romances. There will be 'something for everyone' in this book. A must-have addition to any library for all those Rachael Treasure fans out there, as well as a perfect Christmas gift for young and old.

About the Author

Rachael Treasure's first novel, Jillaroo, published in 2002, has grown to become one of Australia's iconic works of fiction.

The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare

'Hang on,' the young woman said over her shoulder as she urged the silver-dapple mare down the mountainside. The park ranger's arms tightened about her waist as the horse slipped over the dry shale. The girl and the ranger looked from beneath their hat brims towards the gully below, where the red hides of the cows and calves bustled through the flint-grey bush. Unsettled and alert, the cows sniffed at the smoke-scented air. Above them, through the treetops, the sun hung like a giant orange ball in the dull choking haze. A fervent gust of wind stole the ranger's hat and flung it away into the thick dogwoods. He gestured to it, but the girl rode on.

The smell of smoke became a taste. It wrapped itself around their tongues so that it was hard to swallow. The mare had blood in her nostrils from exertion and the ranger could feel the horse's strained lungs pushing hotly, in and out, against his legs. He felt his own heart bang loudly in his rib cage. Yes, he was afraid of the hurtling fire behind them, but also giddy at being pressed so close to the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

He'd felt that same hurried knock of his heart just an hour ago when he'd first seen her. He'd caught her with her mob of stray cattle in the national park. She'd nonchalantly waved a pair of old wire cutters in his direction as his four-wheel drive lumped its way over the ridged track towards her. She was standing by the new fence that had until a moment ago divided the park from her family's cattle run. Now the gleaming wires were flung back against the grass. Six strands of silver, like broken guitar strings. The girl's gentle smile was hidden beneath the shadow of her hat. The filtered sunlight caught the perfect lushness of her lips as she let rip a piercing whistle to her kelpie dog.

As the ranger switched off the engine, he took in her angular, slender body and the way her long dark hair was tied with a crimson ribbon wound several times around her thick ponytail. Her tanned hands loosely held the reins of her ghost-grey horse. The mare danced nervously in the smoke haze, flicking her charcoal tail against her snowdrift-white flanks. In the stuffy four-wheel drive cab the ranger jabbed the CB radio silent. Reports had said the fire was 100 kilometres to the east, then fifty, then thirty. Until he'd seen the girl, he'd been on his way out of the mountains, gunning it in search of the main gravel road, too proud to admit he was lost. But there she was in the middle of the smoke-hazed snow gums. A stunning girl in jeans and a sweat-soaked, pale-blue shirt and a big Akubra hat. A girl who was breaking the law by putting cattle into the park. He looked at the glossy mud-fat cows and their white-faced elfin calves that bunched nervously on the snowgrass that covered the cattlemen's side of the run. As he reefed the door open and got out, the girl looked down to her boots, kicked at a tuft of poa grass. Then she watched as the ranger's long, strong legs ate up the tussocked plain between them. His shoulders were set wide, like he'd swing an axe well.

She kept smiling.

'Hello,' she said.

'You okay?' the ranger replied with a quizzical tilt of his head. He found the girl's calmness unsettling given her circumstances. Here she was, not just caught with cattle on the park but with a fierce fire racing across the range towards them.

'You know that's a Parks fence,' he said, pointing at the cut wires.

She nodded.

'You know that's a cattlemen's track,' she said gesturing to the vehicle on the road. The pristine expanse of sub-alpine snow gum plains had been in the cattlemen's care for 170 years. But a few years before, with the stroke of a pen in a far-away city parliament and a line drawn on a map, everything had changed for the cattlemen and the land. A fence had been put up, and on the northern side the thick rank grasses and weeds were now whispering in the gusty wind, calling forth the fire. The ranger knew the girl must have been one of the cattlemen families fenced out of the mountain spurs and gullies she lived for. He felt sorry for her, but he had to go by the rules. He cast a sympathetic look at her.

'You know you could be up for prosecution, damaging Parks property and bringing livestock into this area.'

The girl shrugged. She nodded towards the Blue Rag Range and the towering column of smoke that rose from it.

'When the fellas in the city made that rule, and strung the fence up, they weren't looking into the face of that.'

From where they stood, the tumble of smoke belied the hunger and speed of the fire that had been burning for weeks now. Over the past few mild-weathered days it had dawdled, slowly chewing up the long kangaroo grasses and gnawing on the bleached skeletons of snow-felled trees. But now, with the temperature rising into the forties and the wind madly whipping across the crusted earth towards them, they both knew it would not be long before the fire from hell arrived, burning more fiercely than they could imagine.

'I reckon we've got half an hour, if that,' she said. 'I've been waiting for you. You'd better come with me.'

'Waiting for me?'

'I heard you,' she said, nodding towards the vehicle. 'We'd better hurry.'

The ranger looked at her pretty hazel eyes. He felt an odd pull from her. Something he couldn't explain. He tore his gaze away just as an angry hot gust hurled itself against them.

'I can't consent to you taking cattle into a national park.'

'It's only a national park on paper. To me it's land. And a way out. Should I just leave them here to die?'

The ranger cast his eyes over the cows. They were now panting, not just from the heat, but also from the stress of the approaching fire.

'Where are you taking them?'

'Down our old tracks . . . into Mayden. There's a place there in the Little Dingo River. The fire might just jump it and we'll be right.' The girl gathered her reins and swung up onto the grey. The mare swished her tail and bowed her head, keen to move on, away from the onslaught of the furnace-like wind.

'You coming?' She held out her hand. 'Safer to go this way than the ridge line.'

The girl looked down at the ranger and saw that his eyes were as rich and dark as chocolate, and his kind, handsome face was framed by dark curls.

'Coming?' she said again, but the ranger shook his head.

'I'll get out by the road. It should be you coming with me, but I can't force you.' The girl frowned at him.

'No, you can't. And I'm not leaving my girls,' she said, raising her hand towards the cattle, mobbed up by her quick-footed dog. 'I know we'll be right – once we get through the worst of the overgrown country.' She collected her reins and her mare danced on black hooves marked like frozen river ripples. 'It's you I'm worried about,' she said. 'Main road's that way,' she said, nodding towards the fringe of trees on the plain.

As he watched her spin the mare around, the ranger called out, 'I can't force you to come in the vehicle, can I?'

A gentle look of amusement from the girl.

'No, you can't.'

'I'll let the authorities know where you've gone. But it's your choice to stay,' he said.

She cast him that spellbinding smile again and he watched as she and the dog pushed the cows into the dense grasses that had reached their seed-filled fronds higher than the cows. He strode back towards his vehicle, feeling suddenly frighteningly alone. When he turned and looked over the wavering hot-as-hell plain towards the old stock route, the girl and the grey-flecked horse were gone. But he could still hear her piercing whistle rising up from the blustering treetops.

He turned the ignition. The vehicle gave one lethargic chug and then died. He heard the tick of small twigs and bark falling on the roof, drifting down in warm thermal eddies. The bush around him eerily silent now. Calm before the storm. He tried the radio. Dead. Sweat dripped down from his brow. He got out, rolled his sleeves higher, and heaved the bonnet up. Fear began to rumble in him. A furious wind roared through the treetops, hitting him full force, taking his breath. The first fireballs of bark landed and exploded on the tinder-dry ground. Fine black slivers of ash drifted down and landed on the white bonnet of the vehicle. He thought of the girl and spun round to scan the treeline in the hope of following her.

And there she was, just metres away, galloping towards him, then sliding her horse to a halt as if she had flown to him.

'You coming now?' she said, breathing hard, holding out her hand. 'Get on.'

When he fitted his palm into hers he felt an energy like never before and a strength as she pulled him onto the back of her horse. As he gingerly put his arms around her, relief and comfort washed over him. She set the mare at a loping canter back towards the treeline and the cattle below. By now smoke was draping itself in the treetops and settling over the landscape like a sinister mountain mist. Small splashes of fire began to spread and the wind gave the flame wings.

And that's how it had come to pass. Here was a girl with a park ranger on her horse, driving cattle down the steep mountain ridge, with a fire at their backs.

'Are you sure we'll be safe going this way?'

The girl glanced over her shoulder at him.

'My granddad always said fires burn more slowly downhill. If we'd gone via the road on the ridge, we'd be fried. Plus there's water down here. And, what's better, an old fire bunker. Dug out by my uncle Jack.'

'How do you know?'

Over the roaring wind, the girl explained that she had been just six when her father had first taken her there. She'd trailed behind him on her skewbald pony. He had shown her the cavern, carved into the belly of the hillside, like a wombat burrow. Every year or so the family would come back to make sure the bunker was still sturdy.

'Getting down there's the trick – especially now the tracks are nearly overgrown. When I was little, I used to hold my breath down the steep pinches, the way you're doing now,' she said. 'But I used to love this spur and the river below, where there's a deep pool with a flat rock island at its heart.'

'Are you sure this is the right way?' The ranger squinted at the confusion of limbs and leaves and the thickets of tall grass ahead of them.

'Sure as sure,' she said. She took one hand from the reins and held it up in front of him.

'The layout of this country is imprinted here. The mountains are the contours of my fingerprints. The rivers are the lines in my palms.' The ranger took in the strangeness of the girl's words and the way she spoke. Almost dreamily. He absorbed the delicacy of her hand despite it being hardened by work and smeared with sweat and dirt. He felt his body jolt against hers as they descended the steep zigzagging narrow track and he wondered whether he had made the right decision in coming with her. Suddenly the mare slipped and lurched sideways down the bank before righting herself. He wrapped his arms around the girl more tightly.

'And if you're wrong about the fire?' he asked.

That calm, angelic smile again.

'We'll become ash and be blown away in the wind. You could be a snow gum and I could be an orchid – part of this beauty. Not a bad way to go.'

'You reckon?' the ranger said. 'I'm not sure I find your words that comforting. I'd sooner live to tell my grandchildren this story, years from now.' He felt the girl laughing and he wondered at her absolute confidence. The smoke was so thick and the roar of the wind so loud and vicious that the ranger fell silent for a time

'Who are you?' he asked eventually, for the fire seemed further away even though a thick blanket of smoke wrapped the landscape.

She paused for what seemed a long time. 'I'm Emily-Claire.'

'An unusual name, but a pretty one,' he said. 'Aren't you going to ask my name?'

'I know who you are,' she said.

To the left a large limb cracked as loud as a shotgun and fell to the ground. The mare leapt to one side, the riders only just hanging on. The trees whorled madly about and more ash showered down. They could hear a roaring behind them. Fire or wind, they weren't sure. The mare called out in a shuddering whinny, her black eyes rimmed white with fear. A choking dryness in the smoke-filled air starved them of breath and their eyes stung and watered.

Ahead of them the cows were trotting and half-sliding down the track. Bumbling through bushes, hot tongues hanging out so far they looked like a butcher's shop display. The froth about their mouths trailed down to the dry ground. Behind their hocks trotted the kelpie. The dog glanced nervously back at the girl.

At last the vegetation began to thicken and change. The greenness brought on by damper soil surrounded them. The slope levelled off, and soon the horse, cows and calves were pushing their way through thick ti-tree and the world felt slightly cooler. They ducked their heads to avoid the scratching fingers of trees, and the ranger felt Emily-Claire's body hot against his. With relief they emerged on the other side into a clearing next to the river. Emily-Claire pulled up her horse and watched as the cows and calves splashed into the shallows and began to draw water in great lengthy draughts.

'We'll swim the cattle onto that rock island there and my dog will hold them. Okay?'

The ranger nodded. What could he say? He was clearly in the hands of a young woman who knew this land far better than he did.

By the time they'd pushed the cows and calves onto the river island the blacked-out sun had turned day into night. A terrible thundering roar was accompanied by explosive cracks as tree trunks succumbed to the inferno raging on the mountain ridge above them. They watched in awe and horror as spot fires began to ignite all around them. The mare threw her head and clashed her hooves on river stones. Wallabies, possums, lizards, snakes and other creatures of the bush all converged on the riverbank and some ventured into the shallows. More fearful of fire than humans, each animal's breath was quick with panic and their eyes filled with fear. Emily-Claire seemed not to notice. She was focused on calming her horse.

'Stand up, girl,' she said, laying her hand on the mare's neck. She unleashed the girth and hauled off the saddle. Then she ripped the leather belt from her waist and the surcingle from the saddle. She strapped them around the mare's fetlocks.

'What are you doing?' the ranger asked.

'Hobbling her. To stop her bolting.'

As Emily-Claire tugged on the leather straps, the ranger noticed how steady she was in her actions. His own hands shook uncontrollably. She led the loping mare into the river up to her wither, and talked soothingly to the trembling horse all the while.

'Come on,' she said, turning back to the ranger, who stood paralysed with fear on the river island as the cattle bellowed in slow mournful moans. Some splashed into the shallows, their eyes rolling in terror as flames licked at the steep riverbanks on both sides of the Little Dingo, but fenced in by fire, they soon turned back to the main mob.

They watched as a giant tree nearby ignited into a raging fireball and heat seared their faces. The ranger felt Emily-Claire's hand reach for his. She led him into the river. Her eyes were warm, her voice calm.

'We should get as wet as we can before we go into the bunker. Okay?'

She pulled him towards her. Cool water rose up over his clothing. Then Emily-Claire's arms were around his neck. As the fire front crested the ridge top and began to race down towards them, she pulled him under and pressed a kiss to his lips in the dark wet bliss of the river. When he came up, burning bark and leaves hit the water with a fizz and smoke curled itself over rocks and ripples. He gulped at the thick poisoned air and found himself coughing uncontrollably. Bent over and spluttering, he let Emily-Claire lead him from the water.

He wanted to ask her if she was sure they should leave the river. But he couldn't speak. He could barely see. He could only hear the screeching of green leaves burning, the thundering inferno. She led him into the undergrowth, and through blurred, streaming eyes he watched her tear away old grasses, rock and tin. She ushered him into the dark quiet of the fire bunker. Then a piercing whistle and he felt her wet dog brush past him in the darkness. He lay with his face pressed against the damp soil of the bunker, while the girl pulled the sheet of tin across the opening. The ranger hoped the girl was sheltering them within the safety of the earth and not burying them alive.

In the darkness, with the muffled bellows of cattle rising to them from the river nearby, he managed to speak.

'Say your name for me again. It sounds so nice coming from you.'

He felt her arms and body wrap around him. Her voice was soft in his ear.

'Emily-Claire,' she said. 'It's a combination of my great-great-grandmother's and my great-grandmother's names. Emily built a hut down here with her husband during the gold mining days and had eleven children. And Claire, her daughter, secured the lease for the cattle runs.'

He shut his stinging eyes and felt her fingers trailing through his dark curls. At last they seemed safe. In the pitch blackness, he smelt the damp life of the cool cavernous earth that was held fast by tree roots. Gratefulness surged for the girl who held him. The girl who had saved his life.

He cupped her face with his hands.

'So pretty,' he whispered. 'Emily-Claire.' And then he kissed her deeply on her lips as the fire raged overhead.

When he woke, head throbbing with pain, an unearthly stillness greeted him. He still couldn't open his eyes, they stung too much, but he knew the silence meant the fire had passed, and they were safe.

'Emily-Claire,' he said, conjuring her face in his mind, 'you are the most beautiful cattleman I've ever met.' She didn't reply; he only heard the sheet of tin being tugged away from the cave mouth. A strange gentle light kissed his eyelids.

'Emily-Claire. The. Most. Beautiful. Cattleman,' the ranger said again, stretching his fingers towards the light.

'I'm no cattleman, mate,' said a gruff voice, 'and you are the luckiest bugger I've ever seen.'

The ranger blinked his eyes open. Through searing pain, he made out two soot-smeared emergency workers in orange overalls and hard hats crouching down, peering into the bunker. Beyond him came the occasional crash of a falling tree and the sudden burst of bright embers rising from the blackened landscape.

'We only found you 'cause the ventilation shaft sticks up out of the ground and stands out like dog's balls now it's all burnt. Found your vehicle fried to a crisp up top and thought you were a goner. It was the old cattlemen said you might be here. But how'd you know to come here, mate?'

The ranger sat up suddenly, searching the dim bunker.

'Where is she?'

The men frowned at each other.

'Who?'

'The girl. Where's the girl?'

'Girl?'

'Emily-Claire,' he said, 'the cattleman's daughter. Has she gone to see if the cattle and her horse made it?'

The men looked at each other as if confused.

'Cattle? No cattle round here, mate – not since the government bans came in. And you'd be hard pressed to find a cattleman. They've all but gone from here too. Place was a damn-sight better off when they were here looking after it, if you ask me. You should see it out there. A fire hotter than hell.'

The other rescue worker cranked the top off a water bottle and handed it to the ranger, then got straight on the radio to tell the medicos to get down there fast as the ranger was in shock and delirious. As they settled the ranger back down, the first rescue worker talked on.

'Some say one of the cattlemen's daughters got lost up here a few years back. Said she was going after strays the year they were kicked off the land and never made it back. But the locals knew she wouldn't get lost. They reckon she was cut up so bad about the bans, she came up here and took her own life. Galloped her grey mare off a cliff into Hell's Hollow. Reckon the place is haunted now, they say. 'Course it's all rumour. Eh, mate?'

'Grey mare?' The ranger's heart pounded and his head felt like flames were exploding within.

On the chopper ride out the ranger watched as they lifted past the black-faced mountainside. Burnt matchstick trees, cremated from top to bottom, smouldered as far as the eye could see. Millions of acres seared too hot. The blackness was lit occasionally by lingering flames that still burned on the breeze-side of tree trunks and in the guts of hollow stumps.

The ranger pressed cool cotton pads onto his eyes and felt stinging tears roll over his blistered cheeks. And in his mind, he saw a beautiful girl on a ghost-grey horse, standing in a thicket of snow gums. The land was written on her palms and fingertips and, he now knew, the land had also been written in her heart.