Authors: Meredith Webber,Alison Roberts
‘Boy, that’s a comforting thing to be telling a patient,’ Kate remarked, fitting a strap across Jack’s chest. ‘Less likely to foul the winch ropes! And just how often does this service have trouble with winch ropes?’
‘Never in my time,’ Hamish reassured Jack, then he smiled again at Kate. ‘But I believe when it does happen, it’s usually on the third lift.’
‘Great! Might have known!’ she said, poking Jack’s arm with her finger. ‘Told you my life was worse than yours.’
Hamish studied her for a moment, and saw the small even teeth once again nibbling at the corner of her lower lip as she fastened the straps on the stretcher. She must be scared stiff, but she was dealing with it her way—with teasing humour. He wasn’t exactly unconcerned himself. Dangling on the end of a winch rope, all three of them in turn would make perfect targets for a man with a rifle.
Hamish could tell himself any shooting at this stage would bring the full might of the Queensland police into the gorge, so the man called Todd would be stupid to take aim at any of them.
But believing it was harder.
How badly did Todd want to protect his secret?
How far would he go?
I
N THE END
, the airlift was completed safely, though delayed for several hours, Rex insisting the three on the ground remain in their cave until the rescue helicopter from Townsville arrived with armed police. Two of this contingent, carrying serious ‘don’t mess with us’ rifles, were lowered to the ground to escort Jack, Hamish and Kate to the retrieval area. The second helicopter then flew surveillance while Hamish, the patient and finally Kate were winched aboard the Crocodile Creek chopper.
‘Now everyone in the whole world knows I’m in trouble,’ Jack muttered to Kate an hour later, as he was lifted from the helicopter at Crocodile Creek, TV news cameras capturing the scene.
‘I doubt the
whole
world will know,’ Kate retorted. ‘North Queensland maybe, if it’s a slow news day, but this kind of footage never makes the national news. They’re taking it for a local station.’
‘Big deal,’ Jack grumbled. ‘Both my mother’s brothers are locals.’
He closed his eyes as he had done back in the cave, and Kate, tired as she was, felt a wave of sympathy for him. She took his hand. ‘It will be OK,’ she promised. ‘We’ll work it out. You’re not on your own, you know. Even if your family is upset with you, Hamish and I will stick by you.’
Having made this promise on Hamish’s behalf, she glanced
around. The man in question had spoken briefly to the two orderlies who’d met the chopper, then walked away. Ah, there he was—over on the edge of the gathered crowd, squatting down so he could speak in confidence to a man in a wheelchair.
Still holding Jack’s hand, she was moving further and further away from the pair, and as they approached the hospital she felt a sense of … Surely it wasn’t loss? No way. She hardly knew the man, so why should he stick around? Escort her into the hospital? Introduce her around?
Because he seemed so nice, that’s why.
You don’t need nice, she reminded herself, dredging up a smile for a good-looking man with burnt red curls who was coming towards them now.
‘You must be Kate!’ the man said, holding out his hand towards her, though she knew most of his attention was on Jack. ‘I’m Cal Jamieson, the surgeon who’ll be digging the bullet out of your patient’s leg.’
He introduced himself to Jack and gave directions for the orderlies to take him into the emergency department first. The men wheeled their charge onto a wide veranda, turning right and entering through a door into a long, bright room, with curtains hanging from ceiling racks to divide off cubicles.
Kate undid the straps and the orderlies lifted Jack onto an examination table.
‘We’ll take a good look at it here,’ Cal explained to Jack, then he looked across at Kate. ‘You can stay if you want—meet some of the staff—but I imagine a shower and a sleep might be more of a priority.’
‘Is that a tactful way of telling me I’m on the nose?’ Kate lifted her arm and sniffed at her T-shirt. Not too bad, considering.
Cal laughed.
‘Definitely not. I just know how those overnighters can be.’
‘Stay with me, Kate.’ Jack decided for her. ‘You promised.’
‘I didn’t promise to stay with you for ever and ever,’ she told
him firmly. ‘But just for now, I will. Until Dr Jamieson puts you under for the op. Then I’ll go home and shower and be back when you wake up. That’s if I’m not rostered on duty.’
‘I think they’ll let you have the rest of today to yourself,’ Cal said. ‘And here’s someone who can confirm that. Jill Shaw, Director of Nursing, meet Kate Winship, new nurse and local heroine.’
‘I’m not a heroine!’
Kate’s protest cut across Jill’s quiet, ‘How do you do, and a belated welcome to Crocodile Creek.’
Jill held out her hand, and as Kate shook it she sensed a quiet strength in the older woman. Here was someone, she knew immediately, who would stand firm in crises, and who would be there for her staff should they ever need her.
‘We were giving you today to settle in,’ she said, confirming Cal’s words. ‘And tomorrow we thought you might like to go on the clinic run to Wygera, so you can see a bit of the countryside and meet some of the people out there.’
Kate opened her mouth to ask about this place, but Jill was already bent over Jack, talking quietly to him. Did she know him?
‘Uncle Charles’ll kill me!’ Jack protested, and Kate realised Hamish’s surmises had been correct.
‘Don’t overdo the drama,’ Jill said, but she was smiling fondly at the young man. ‘Besides, his job is to save people from death, not cause it. You’re in trouble, yes, but Charles and Philip will both stand by you. You should know that.’
‘Charles might, but Philip certainly won’t,’ Jack muttered.
‘I think we should get this bullet out of your leg and worry about who kills who later,’ Cal said. He nodded towards a young woman who’d wheeled an X-ray machine into the room. ‘Right thigh, top and side views. Everyone out.’
Kate gave Jack’s hand an extra squeeze and left the cubicle.
‘He’s really worried about the repercussions of whatever he’s been up to,’ she said to Jill.
‘He should be,’ Jill replied, frowning in the direction of the wounded young man. ‘Hamish radioed Charles from the helicopter. Cattle duffing—if that’s what he’s been involved in—is a serious business up here—anywhere in outback Australia really. The sentences and fines have recently been increased. Oh, here’s Charles now.’
Kate looked around to find the man in the wheelchair had silently joined them.
‘I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude,’ he said. He, too, held out his hand. ‘Charles Wetherby.’
‘Kate Winship,’ Kate replied. ‘And no gratitude required. I was only doing my job.’
‘And doing it very well, from what I hear,’ Charles told her, a warm smile lighting up his craggy face. ‘Thanks, Kate. I haven’t seen much of young Jack lately, but as a kid he often holidayed up here and I’m very fond of him. I didn’t know he was at Wetherby Downs let alone that he’d fallen out with Philip and left. Silly young ass—he should have known he could come here. I’d have found him another job somewhere in the area.’
‘He might have thought you’d side with your brother.’ Hamish’s voice made Kate look up to find he’d come in through another door and was standing behind Jill. Kate smiled at him, then realised she shouldn’t have. Not that smiles meant anything. Not hers, nor the warm, friendly one Hamish bestowed on her in return. ‘Now, Kate, shouldn’t you have returned to your unpacking and settling in?’
‘I promised Jack I’d stay until he goes to Theatre,’ Kate told him, and Charles laughed.
‘I notice Jill’s standing guard over him as well. The young rascal wormed his way into her heart when he was a kid, always heading for her place if he was in trouble with me or his grandmother.’
Kate wished Jack could hear the affection in Charles’s voice
as he spoke of his nephew. Jack’s fears he’d be disinherited were obviously baseless. She was relieved for him, of course, but somehow it made her own aloneness more acute.
And her desire to find her father even stronger—her father and perhaps some other family. Both her parents—the ones she’d known—had been only children, in their forties when they had taken Kate in, so though she’d known and loved her mother’s father, there were no other relatives.
‘The wound’s infected but the X-rays don’t show any nasty surprises, apart from a groove along part of his femur and some serious blood pooling further up around his hip.’ Cal appeared from the curtained cubicle to deliver his good news. ‘I want to get the clotting time down in his blood. I’ve got cryoprecipitate running into him now in a rapid infusion, and I’ll give Alix more blood to test when that’s done. I spoke to a haematologist after Hamish radioed in and described the patient, and Charles confirmed it was his nephew. The haematologist says minor surgery is OK once we get the blood-clotting factors up to thirty per cent of normal. The cryoprecipitate should do that.’
‘Do you want us to thaw some FFP just in case?’ Charles asked, and Kate realised just how sophisticated this country hospital was, to have fresh frozen plasma on hand.
Cal thought for a moment.
‘It’s such a waste to thaw it if we don’t need it within twenty-four hours. What’s thawing time?’
‘Twenty minutes.’
An attractive young woman with a long plait of dark hair swinging down her back answered the question as she came briskly into the room. She nodded at Kate then turned to Cal.
‘His clotting time is up to fifty per cent of normal. You can go ahead.’
‘Thanks, Alix.’
Cal disappeared back behind the curtain.
‘Alix, this is Kate. Kate Winship, meet our pathologist, Alix Armstrong.’
‘Hi,’ Alix said. ‘You’ve had an exciting introduction to Crocodile Creek. I’d love to hear about the gorge some time, but right now I need to talk to Cal about what he’ll need in Theatre.’
‘Alix is bush-crazy,’ Charles explained to Kate. ‘All her time off is spent bush-walking. She’s serious about wanting to hear about the gorge.’
Kate shivered, memories of the echoing gunshot sending icy tentacles along her spine.
Had Hamish noticed, that he put his hand lightly on her shoulder?
‘I’d better go in and see Jack before he goes to Theatre,’ she said, moving away from Hamish as swiftly as she could, but Charles was before her, shifting the curtain aside and wheeling silently towards the bed. He reached out and touched Jack’s cheek with the back of his hand.
‘Silly young fool,’ he said gruffly, and Kate swallowed hard. It wasn’t that she begrudged Jack this familial affection, just that once again it emphasised her own lack.
She took Jack’s hand, promised to see him later and left the cubicle, assuring herself it was lack of sleep and a letdown after the tension of the night that was making her so stupidly sentimental.
A small boy who looked just like Cal was sitting on the top step when she arrived back at the house. Beside him, spreadeagled like a fireside rug, was the weirdest dog Kate had ever seen. Part cocker spaniel and part something spotty, she guessed, greeting both boy and dog with a smile.
‘Hello, I’m Kate. Who are you two?’
‘I’m CJ and this is Rudolph, and his nose isn’t red because he’s not called after a reindeer but after a dancing man. I’m hiding.’
‘I thought you might be,’ Kate said easily. ‘From anyone in particular?’
‘I’m supposed to be at that stupid child-care place, but Rudolph followed me and sat outside so I decided to take him home, and he won’t stay home on his own so I’m here, too.’
‘Of course,’ Kate said, not understanding much of the conversation. ‘Do you think the people who mind you at the child-care place will be worried?’
‘They won’t notice ‘cos they don’t know me ‘cos I’m new. Or they might think I’m sick.’
‘Well, that’s OK, then,’ Kate said, climbing the steps and sitting beside the pair.
Rudolph raised his dopey head and soft brown eyes looked deep into hers, then he dropped his head onto her leg and went back to sleep. Going to child care and back must have been a tiring business.
‘I’m waiting for Hamish, he’ll know what to do.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Kate agreed. This was obviously a job for Robin rather than Batman.
Fortunately, the top of Hamish’s dark head appeared above the foliage in the garden, and the dog, perhaps sensing his presence, woke up, then loped off down the steps, the huge grin on his canine face making him look even dopier.
The boy followed the dog, disappearing round a bend in the path then reappearing on Hamish’s shoulders, the dog lolloping around his legs.
‘You’ve met CJ, then?’ Hamish greeted her, and Kate nodded. ‘He’s absconded from child care again,’ Hamish continued, apparently unperturbed by the child’s delinquency.
He set CJ back down on the top step, then sat himself down in the space between the child and Kate. Rudolph found this unacceptable and proceeded to spread himself over all three of them.
‘Off! Sit!’ Hamish ordered, and the dog looked at him in surprise, then, to Kate’s astonishment, obeyed.
‘I’ve been teaching him to sit, like you told me,’ CJ said, giving the dog a big hug and kiss. ‘He’s a very clever dog, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is,’ Hamish told him. ‘It’s just a pity he’s going to have to go and live somewhere else.’
‘But he can’t go somewhere else to live,’ CJ protested. ‘He’s
my
dog!’
He gathered an armful of dog to his chest as he spoke, and glared at Hamish over the spotty head.
Hamish nodded.
‘He is, but if he keeps causing trouble, like making you run away from child care, your mom will just have to give him away.’
Silence, and Kate, who thought Hamish’s chiding had been unnecessarily harsh, reached around behind his back to pat CJ on the arm.
‘They laugh at me.’
The whispered words were barely audible, but understandable enough to make Kate’s stomach clench.
Hamish, however, seemed unmoved.
‘Who?’
‘Some of the kids. They say I talk funny.’
‘Bloody kids,’ Kate muttered under her breath. OK, so CJ appeared to have a slight American accent, but did that make him so different? At child-care level? What age would the kids be? Four? Five at the most?
‘Of course you do—that’s because you’re half-American—and it’s not funny, it’s just an accent, like mine is. But kids love to pick on anyone who seems different. The trick is to ignore them and eventually they’ll get tired of it and pick on someone else.’
‘Then that someone will be sad,’ CJ pointed out, and Kate glanced at Hamish, wondering how he’d handle that one.
‘Why don’t you make your difference count?’ he suggested, ignoring the bit Kate had wondered about. ‘Think of all the great things that have come from the United States of America—spaceships and astronauts and all the movies those
kids at school go to see, not to mention most of the television they watch, and X-Boxes and video games.’
‘Could I tell them my father was an astronaut?’ he asked, and Kate looked at the burnt red curls and raised her eyebrows at Hamish.
‘It’s complicated,’ Hamish said in an aside to her, before tackling CJ’s question.
‘I wouldn’t tell a lie,’ he said mildly. ‘Lies are hard because you have to remember what you said the first time you told it, and then they grow bigger and bigger and it all gets very complicated. But you could tell them that you’re going to be an astronaut when you grow up, and you could take spaceship stuff along to child care to show them.’