Johnny Walker's Sausage Roll and the Fledgling

There's a man we call Johnny Walker because he walks the highway everyday into the little town. He swings his arms as he walks, always dressed the same; dark clothing, a backpack and peaked cap. He lives in the forest some where only he knows, ten kilometres or so from the shops. His living in a tent in an unknown location tends to stress the authorities out a bit but the general consensus is that he is better off here than on the streets of Perth.

It was a weird day in the fire tower yesterday. Smoke from the bushfires stymied any chance of me spotting a new one. Once the southerly came in and cleared some of the smoke, low cloud descended and I could only see for about twenty kilometres. A long, frustrating day!

As the sun slid down, I went into town for supplies and saw John, striding towards me, waving me down. We always stop to have a chat, quick snippets of life, how we are feeling today. John doesn't do eye contact but once that is comfortably established, he is a great conversationalist.

'Hey lovely Sarah!' John said. 'Would you like a sausage roll? Got a heap half price from the servo.' He brandished a few brown paper bags at me.

'It's a long way to the top, John, so yes please,' I said and he handed me a bag with a sausage roll and a bonus cheddar kranski.

On the Broke track, the long gravel road through the karri forests to my home, I was again stymied. (Yes, it's a stymie kinda day and also I like that word. It's almost onomatopoeic.Try saying it slowly, out loud.)

 Karri trees drop their enormous limbs without warning, often when warm weather suddenly cools and the resins in their joints contract. This one happened probably only an hour or so before I got there. The scene was a mess, from twigs and leaves to logs half a metre wide. It was six o'clock. Long day and all I wanted to do was get home.

What beekeepers call the 'karri flow' is on at the moment. It's a phenomena that happens every seven or eight years. The trees burst into bloom and the smell is amazing, like the air is laden with honey and memory. Normally you can't see the flowers because they are sixty metres above us but as I started pulling away branches, the source of that scent became obvious. One more leafy and perfumed branch later, I uncovered a crime scene: Three fluffy chicks lay scattered about what was once their roost.

 

By then, I'd already been on the phone to my boss about the tree. It is a fire road after all and crew are using it every day when heading out to the bush fire. Plus, yeah, I just wanted to get home and I couldn't move those logs myself. The problem was that it was six thirty on a Friday afternoon and all the shire roads mob were going into relaxation or limp mode. It seemed intractable.

'But I have chicks!' I said on the phone and like a movie, the three chicks began to recover from their momentous fall and start chirping and moving about. 'Oh my God, they are alive!'

 

'Okay, keep them warm and when you get home, give them some sugar water,' my boss said. So ... how do I get home with a recalcitrant karri limb playing door bitch? Boss pulled some strings and an hour later, headlights threaded through the trees as one of the fire crew  on stand by turned up with a chainsaw and towing chain.

It was quite dark by the time we'd finished piling the branches onto the sides of the road. I beckoned the fire fighter over to the tail lights of his truck. 'Check this out,' I said, holding the brown paper bag.

'It's a ... sausage roll?' He asked, peering into the bag. 'What am I looking at? A sausage roll?'

'Look closer, there's three little chicks in there.'

He did and said, 'Wow! Where did you find them?' When I showed him the spot where these fledglings had fallen to earth, he said, 'Good spot! I guess sausage rolls are not part of their normal diet. Mixing it up a bit are you?'

'Boss told me to keep them warm. This *on special and then donated* sausage roll is still sort of warm, so I thought it might be a nice place for them.'

Two of the chicks died overnight. The violent crashing down of their home was just too much. But the third (the one in my hand) cheeped and moved about on the hot water bottle and gave out a tenacious 'I will survive' vibe. I fed it lemon barley cordial from a pipette and my dog hovered about, no doubt anxious about hierarchical matters.

Today, I was rained off the tower which was quite excellent, given the bushfires, and drove seventy kilometres to meet a wild bird carer. We met in the car park of a roadhouse and I handed over the tiny featherless chick to her. 'It's pooing! That's a good sign,' she said. The last I've heard is that the little trauma baby had a good feed and is going well.

So, next time I see Johnny Walker, I'll tell him that he did good by giving me that brown paper bag with the warmish sausage roll inside. It may well have saved a life.

PS ate the kranski