I nodded. “I think the mother and other joey left or died. I don’t know, but these two were all that was there. I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to interfere, but Rosemary wouldn’t let me leave them.”
Paul looked down at the dog and smiled. “Always liked your dog, Jack.” Then Paul looked at me again. He offered me his free hand, which I shook. “You did real good, thank you. We’ll get these two checked over by the vet and cared for until they can be released.”
I was getting teary again. “Thank you.”
Jack put his arm around me and pulled me against him. “Did you save the butterflies?”
“I hope so.” I looked up at him. “I need to leave for Launceston. Now.”
Remmy was somehow now holding a cup of tea and a sandwich. She handed them both to me. “Eat.”
I took them gratefully. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was… Jack went to the Defender and opened the back door. Remmy, Rosemary, and I followed him. There were papers and equipment and books and stuff everywhere. But the two tubs were the most important.
“I collected ants and some live butterflies,” I said, speaking around my mouthful of food.
Then Jack opened the rear passenger door to reveal the entire Bursaria shrub. “And this?”
“I had to improvise.”
Remmy laughed, then looked closer to the floor of the Defender. “Are they ants? Oh God, there’s ants everywhere.”
“They don’t bite,” Jack and I said in unison, making us all smile.
“What kind of butterflies are they?” Paul asked.
“Well, they don’t have a name…,” I said, finishing my tea. “They’re a new species.”
He stared at me. “Wow. Now I can see why you risked your life to save them.”
I nodded, and Jack sighed. I realised this whole me-almost-dying and him-almost-dying-to-save-me might be somewhat of a bone of contention. I frowned. “I am sorry.”
He put his hand around my neck and pulled me close. He didn’t seem to care it was in front of everyone, so neither did I. I looked up at him. “I need to get the butterflies and eggs to Professor Tillman. He’ll have the equipment to save them.”
Jack nodded. “I’ll drive.”
Just then, the clouds opened and rain poured from the sky and people cheered and hugged one another around us. Paul took the joeys, Remmy took Rosemary and ran for cover, and I climbed into the front passenger seat. Jack was already behind the wheel and he leaned over, grabbed my face, and kissed me hard. The windows were all obscured by rain and I doubted anyone saw. I didn’t care if they did. “Thank God you’re okay,” he whispered before putting the Defender into first and driving out of Scottsdale.
*
The drive to Launceston started off quiet. The seriousness of what I’d done, how I’d put both our lives in danger, was starting to weigh on me. “I really am sorry,” I said quietly. “But I had to try.”
Jack’s hands squeezed the steering wheel. “I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t found you…”
I nodded slowly. “I know.”
“Do you?” he asked seriously.
“Yes. I would have died and Rosemary too because I’d put her in danger as well. She had no choice where I took her, and I’m sorry.”
Jack looked at me for a long moment and shook his head. “I’m talking about you. You, Lawson. I’m not sure what I’d do if…” He swallowed hard and left the rest of his sentence unsaid.
I held out my hand for his, and when he grabbed hold, I threaded our fingers and squeezed his palm. “Thank you for saving my life today.” I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. His hands were blackened and dirty, but I didn’t care. I kissed them again. “Thank you.”
“Just promise me you won’t do it again.”
I thought about that and licked my lips. “I can’t promise because I can’t say with certainty that I won’t be put in a similar circumstance. If I were to have to choose―”
“Lawson,” he interrupted sternly. “The correct answer is I promise.”
“I was going to say, if I were ever in a position again where I had to choose between my life and that of a defenceless animal, well, that’s really not a choice.”
“Thank you.”
I looked out the window because I was very certain we were thinking different outcomes.
He sighed, long and loud. “You’d choose the animal, wouldn’t you?”
I quickly turned to look at him. “Well, there are many varying factors in this scenario, and I can’t hypothesise to one conclusion…”
He started to smile, and I stopped talking. “What?” he asked.
“Why are you smiling at me?”
“Because you’re adorable. Incredibly frustrating, possibly infuriating, but completely adorable.”
I huffed and sank back in the seat. Still holding his hand, I lifted it to press the back of his hand to my cheek. “And you’re kind of wonderful.”
*
We pulled up at the address Professor Tillman had given me when I’d called to let him know what had happened.
He met us out the front of his house, where I made introductions. It was an older style weatherboard home with perfectly maintained gardens, and a single glass butterfly graced the wall by the front door. “Welcome,” he said. “Looks like you’ve both had quite an adventure this morning. Saw it all on the news.”
“Yes, quite.” And we were a mess. I was covered in dirt and mud from the gully embankment, and Jack was still wearing his soot-covered RFS overalls. I opened the back door to the Defender and handed the professor the lighter tub. I handed Jack the heavier one, filled with a shovel full of Notoncus ant nest. I grabbed the shrub from the back seat.
“Come this way,” Professor Tillman said.
We followed him around the side of his home to what looked like a garden hot house, but I smiled when I saw it. “Oh, this is magnificent.”
The professor basically had his own butterfly house in his backyard.
“It’s not bad,” he said modestly, walking inside first.
I dumped the tub with the Bursaria shrub in it by the inside of the door, with Jack one step behind me. The professor slid the tub onto a workbench, and slowly took the lid off. He gently lifted out one of the offcuts of shrub and turned it over. There was one butterfly on it, and it spread its wings in greeting.
The professor laughed. “Well, hello to you too.”
As it turned out, only four survived. The bottom of the tub was a graveyard for five fully grown butterflies. My heart sank. “I tried to save them all,” I mumbled.
Jack rubbed my back. His gentle, wordless reassurance meant so much.
“There are eggs in the roots of the shrub,” I said. “Hopefully they survived.”
The professor beamed. “You did a remarkable thing today.” He went over to the shrub and squatted down beside it. He inspected the mass of roots and dirt and ants for a long minute before he looked up and smiled. “I think you saved the entire order of species, son.”
After we’d secured the four remaining butterflies into a holding tank and the eggs had been safely relocated into hatching nets, it was afternoon. I could barely keep my eyes open. After a day of such adrenaline, I was starting to crash.