The Shearing Gun (3 page)

I shrugged my good shoulder. “That’s well and good, Doc, but there isn’t anyone else to do everything. I can get my brother to come across for a weekend and do the seeding, and a few mates to help out with the big jobs, but the place needs more’n that or else all the stock will die. I’ve been carrying stuff one-handed and trying not to use it, but you’re gonna have to give me a break on the other stuff.”

He puffed and glowered at me like my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Brady. You know, that exasperated, I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-you, flamin’ heck, type of sigh? Finally he shook his head and pointed to the examination table tucked in behind the door of his room. “Jump up there, and I’ll check to see if the bone has moved.”

He instructed me to remove the blue sling from my arm, and my arm from my shirt, so he could see my body. He helped me tug off the straps and even undid two buttons for me when I struggled. It was a little disconcerting to be removing my clothes with him standing so close. The problem was that I couldn’t simply take the sore arm out of the shirt—my good arm had to go first and then the material threaded around my left shoulder so I didn’t have to lift it. So Elliot gently helped.

Working the land and shearing had made me fit, if a little top-heavy. My arms and chest were broad and deeply muscled from the physical lifestyle I led, and my waist rather small. A lot of older guys who farm start to get a pudgy stomach once they begin to rely on the younger generation and machinery to do the hard stuff. I was only twenty-five and spent my days hunched over struggling sheep while I cut the wool from their backs. You can’t have a beer gut if you’re going to be doing that all day. Shearing sheds were usually damn hot too, so a singlet was my uniform. No farmer’s tan for me.

I’ve been told before—by the lily-white gay lads I meet up with in the big smoke—that my body is droolworthy. But I can’t see it. I’m deeply tanned and will probably end up with skin cancer sometime in the future. My muscles are big—but not those pumped-up gym rocks I see the models in the queer magazines sporting. Nah, I’ve just got working-man muscles, about the same as every other guy in the district.

My one vanity, though? No chest hair. There is plenty of the dark stuff under my arms and below my belt, but it hasn’t formed on my upper chest. It just grew that way. I’m kind of glad that I’m not a gorilla, like some. My features are nothing special—two eyes, two ears, a nose and mouth—so I do like it when I step into one of them gay nightclubs in the city with my top two buttons open on my one good shirt, and have them little boys all sigh.

One lad at footy suggested that the reason I had no chest hair was because I was a girl and waxed my chest. My fist and a personal best of twenty goals that game told him different.

With my shirt off, I watched Doc Elliot out of the corner of my eye for any reaction. In the last five days, I had convinced myself that I had been hallucinating when I saw him check me out on Sunday. So I watched him closely to see if I could see anything. Not that I really cared one way or the other. Not that I would do anything about it even if he was that-way inclined. “No fishing in my backyard” was the rule I went by.

Doc Elliot seemed entirely professional. He kept his eyes and fingers on my shoulder, never once doing anything inappropriate.

“The bone is still sound,” he pronounced. “So you need to watch it and come back to see me in three weeks—sooner if it starts hurting more than a dull throb, or if there’s a bone protruding.”

He helped me back on with my wrinkled shirt but stepped away to allow me to do up the buttons myself. I didn’t bother with them and just strapped the sling around my arm again.

“So is that it?” I asked, jumping down from the table.

“Yes. Are you going to rest it?”

“Prob’ly not,” I told him cheerfully.

He sighed at me again, and his eyes flicked down at my open shirt. “Do you need help doing up the buttons, Hank?”

“Nah,” I refused. “It gives ’em something to look at, right?”

I meant it as a throwaway line, nothing serious, but Elliot’s eyes dropped to the inches of skin displayed by my open shirt, then, to my utter surprise, they went lower and checked out my flat stomach and belt buckle. And other parts.

“Huh.” The single exclamation of astonishment fell from my mouth before I could check it. I was stunned that I was right about him. It wasn’t judgment at all—people in glass houses shouldn’t really be picking up any stones, let alone hurling them about. But the guy flushed red, took an extra step back, and lifted his hand as if to adjust his tie, but found he wasn’t wearing one. He cleared his throat and looked at his computer.

He didn’t seem to know what to say, and I was danged if I knew either. So, I reached for the door handle. “See ya ’round, Doc.”

I beat a hasty retreat and banged the door behind me as I fled.

Chapter 3

I
T
WOULD
be a blow to the guy’s ego if he realized that I completely forgot about the whole incident after that. As I said, “no fishing in my backyard,” so it didn’t matter to me. I went home and completed my chores the best I could. The only time he crossed my mind was when my arm hurt really bad. Most of the time, I cursed Big D and his family, though some of the time it was Elliot, even if it wasn’t his fault at all.

So I was bumming around, cursing certain members of the MacDonald clan while I heaved some tools into the back of my farm vehicle, when Buck started barking his head off. There is no relationship more sacred on the land than that between a man and his dog. Buck was a good one too. He rarely left my side, never disobeyed, and could read the stock’s mind like they were talking to him. He wasn’t a trained sheepdog or cattle dog like some blokes had; he was just a dog who did as he was told. He hadn’t been taught to herd, but if I whistled and yelled, “Buck! Get that damn ewe over there!” he would tear across the paddock and push the wayward animal back into the flock.

I immediately stopped what I was doing to see what had my dog riled up. There was an unfamiliar white vehicle making its way up the winding driveway, avoiding the bigger puddles by pressing up the grassed edges. Smoothing the driveway was a job I’d planned to do that week—damn this stupid arm! The minute I spotted the vehicle, Buck stopped his racket. He might be part boxer, part kelpie, and a bit of greyhound somewhere along the way. But whatever was his breeding, they’d got it right with him. He knew my body language, and now that I was alert to the danger, he sat his butt on the ground, ears pricked forward, and waited for my reaction.

I finished packing up my tools and chucked the water bottle in the car before the vehicle made it to the top of the driveway and parked neatly under the gum tree near the house. When I saw Elliot’s long legs swing out of the vehicle and the guy emerge in his citified trousers, I stepped into the shadows and tried to analyze my feelings at seeing him on my property. Of course, I could recognize the feelings of surprise and curiosity. I never expected a personal visit from the Doc and wondered why he had sought me out. I was also a little uncomfortable and guilty, because he’d told me to take it easy, and here I was up the shed blatantly disobeying. But I think mixed in the emotions was a little bit of apprehension. Had he somehow worked out I was gay and come to confront me? Had I given myself away? Was he looking for some booty?

Obviously, I would never find out by lingering in the corner of the shed. When the Doc made for the house to go in search of me, I gave a strong whistle and waved broadly over my head so he could see me. It was a good one hundred meters from the house to the shed, and he had to go through a gate to reach me. My dad may’ve cocked me one over the head and told me it was bad manners to make a visitor tramp across the paddock in his poncy shoes, but if this
was
a booty call, I didn’t want to be anywhere near the house.

“Stay,” I commanded Buck and he obeyed, wriggling in excitement on the spot. His brown tail swished through the dirt as he held still, instead of going to greet the strange person who may have a pat or two for him. My body language gave off no vibes of fear, so he wasn’t afraid of the Doc.

I returned to the shed and grabbed an extra pair of pliers and a hammer I didn’t really need, so it looked like I was doing something and not just watching him make his way toward me. He fumbled a bit with the opening of the gate, and I rolled my eyes where he couldn’t see. A bloke from the bush would’ve scaled the gate with a single jump or made through the fence to one side. I checked carefully to make sure he latched the gate again. One of the Golden Rules in the bush is—if you open a gate, you close it behind you. Wherever Doc Elliot was from—I wasn’t sure if they had taught him that.

From the corner of my eye, I watched him head toward me. He had a sexy walk, I had to admit—this kind of loose-hipped, stroll-stride thing going on. If he had been walking toward me in a dark nightclub, I would’ve been turned on. However, since we were in my backyard, where no fishing was allowed, I was a bit disconcerted—not aroused exactly, but not unaffected.

While he strode up, I chucked the tools in the back of the car, slammed the rear doors, and fastened them closed with the piece of wire I had welded to one side. My farm vehicle was older than me, a Land Rover with the rear seats removed, two windows missing, and made up mostly of rust and dirt. I didn’t dare wash the thing in case it disintegrated before my eyes. I kept the engine purring, though, and it hadn’t let me down yet. Elliot was now within hailing distance, so I leaned against the side and called out to him, “Hey, Doc Elliot! What brings you out all this way?”

Buck shuffled a little way toward Elliot, still on his butt, and with his tail windmilling madly. But he was now in front of me, eagerly looking for a friendly hand. I saw Elliot give him a bit of a wary look and wide berth while he ignored my unspoken, subtle question of “What the hell are you doing here?”

“He’s okay,” I told him, indicating the dog almost shivering with enthusiasm. “He won’t bite unless I give the command. He just wants a pat.”

With a nervous and timid smile, the Doc held out his hand to Buck and clicked his fingers once. Buck was across the distance in a flash, his tongue lolling in ecstasy as Elliot scratched him gently behind the ears. I watched as a full-blown grin stretched across the man’s face as he stroked and the dog responded with glee.

I found my own lips involuntarily curved up in a smile. I wasn’t sure what the heck he wanted from me, but if he took joy in my dog, he made me happy too.

“Not used to dogs, eh?” I asked curiously.

He flashed me a chagrined-looking smile and replied, “My mother had a dog when I was growing up. The thing was a white poodle. Mum used to take her once a week to have her fur clipped and her toenails painted pink.”

I grimaced at the image, and he laughed his agreement. He gave Buck a final pat and straightened, looking me in the face without expression. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say. I’d already asked him what he was doing here, and he’d ignored me. Was I supposed to ask again? I swallowed and tapped my fingers nervously against my thigh.

“So—?” I began.

His stare was making me uncomfortable, but finally he sighed and scratched his head. “Hank, I was wondering if we could have a coffee and a bit of a chat?”

Coffee meant going up to the house and putting the kettle on to boil, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. “Umm….” I cast around for something to say, but then I remembered what I was doing before he arrived. I greedily clutched at the excuse. “Can’t. There’s a fence down in the northern paddock, and I don’t want the stock to find it. I have to go and patch it before they get through.”

He frowned and pointedly looked at the blue sling on my arm. The thing was now filthy dirty with dust, and oil, and some other unmentionable stains. “You’re not going to try and do it with your arm, are you?”

I adjusted the baseball cap on my head and gave him a cheeky grin. “Nope! I was just waiting for some sucker to come along to lend me a hand, and guess who turned up?”

He blinked rapidly and blushed. If I were a romantic soul, I would say he looked adorable with that red flush across his cheeks. But I’m not romantic and I don’t fish. “Look, Hank,” he said. “I really don’t know anything about….”

“No problem. I’ll teach you, Doc. If you’re gonna live out here in the bush, you need to know a thing or two ’bout what your patients do for a living. Besides, doesn’t it go against all your doctor ethics, knowing that if you don’t help me now, I’ll just do it by myself and prob’ly hurt myself more?”

I laid it on a bit thick, but he took the bait. “Of course I can give you a hand, but I really wanted to have a bit of a word with you….” He trailed off.

“Great! You can talk while I drive. In you jump.”

He still had on his light colored pants, but I figured I was doing him a favor. If he got them stained enough, he’d throw them out and invest in some more appropriate clothes. His boots were more suited to hiking than farming, but they would protect his feet from thorns, rocks, and snakes.