AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hmm…
* * *
The morning dawned fearsomely bright with the promise of a still day, light winds forecast for the afternoon.
With any luck, they’d be home by afternoon, Marty decided, but would that be all good?
Carrie had phoned to invite him to lunch and insisted he come after the training session, however late that might be.
‘I’ve asked Ned and Emma and the boys, but I guess she’ll be out with you, being hauled up and down in your practising. But do come.’
Because you don’t really want to be with just Ned for too long, or because you’re doing a bit of unsubtle match-making between Emma and me? Marty wondered.
Surely not? Carrie knew his views on commitment and marriage and she’d be the first to realise that Emma needed both.
But the sun was bright and he left all thoughts of later behind as he headed out to the base. Shane had agreed they could use his property and Marty would fly all the staff out there, then share the hovering duties with Matt.
Mark, Dave and Emma all arrived at the same time, only minutes after he’d driven in, Matt arriving close behind them.
‘Okay, flight suits and helmets on, all of you,’ he said, and heard Emma groan.
‘Problem?’ he asked, smiling at the grimace on her face.
‘Only that I look like a balloon in a flight suit,’ she muttered. ‘One of those balloons clowns tie into funny shapes at kids’ parties. It’s okay for you tall people, but for us vertically challenged, it’s not much fun.’
He grinned at her, but had to turn away to hide laughter when he saw what she meant. The suits did come in two sizes—small and large—but he knew they were for small and large men, not for diminutive women. With the ends of the legs and arms rolled up, and the belt cinched tight, she did kind of resemble a tied balloon.
‘And why am I the only doctor here?’ she demanded, obviously still grumpy.
‘You’re the only one with winch training. The others need to do the full course and somehow the hospital administration can’t seem to find the time to send even one of the other ER doctors down to Sydney for it. It’s probably why they were so happy to get you. Mac’s trained, so we’ve used him in emergencies, particularly if the incident is over towards Wetherby.’
‘Hmph,’ was the reply to that, but as she’d now added her helmet and was looking like a little mushroom, Marty busied himself with the chopper.
No way was he going to tangle with a grumpy mushroom!
‘We’re going to a property out of town, with a good gully,’ he explained when they were all ready. ‘I’ll land you as close as I possibly can, then you’ll have to walk in—’
‘Or roll in Emma’s case,’ Dave said, and Emma laughed and punched him lightly on the arm.
They had the makings of a really good team, Marty realised, pleased to be distracted from images of a laughing mushroom.
‘I was going to say, so you can get some idea of the lie of the land. Dave and Mark can stay with me, and Mark can do the first fast response drop when you find a good spot. Matt’ll sort out the order for the rest of the practice.’
Once in the air, Dave gave Matt the co-ordinates of the gully, and Marty watched as Matt tapped them into his GPS. Ten minutes’ flying and he could see Shane’s big four-wheel drive parked beside a dam. He landed close by, introduced his crew—Emma pulling off her helmet rather self-consciously he thought.
‘Okay,’ Matt said, ‘let’s go, kids. Dave, you act as winch man for Mark, and, Dave, you can do it for me later.’
Emma and Shane followed Matt into the gully, Shane walking beside Emma, who tried desperately to pretend this was just a nice little bushwalk. But the thought of the winch, added to her embarrassment of the unflattering flight suit, was making it difficult to follow Shane’s polite conversation.
Though she did learn he kept a thousand head of cattle on his property, mostly breeding cows. The calves he sold off as weaners at about eight months for other people to fatten into steers.
At least that’s what she figured from a long, slow conversation that included calving percentages, heifers kept to replace breeding cows, and the problems of getting recalcitrant cattle into cattle trucks.
Matt had signalled to the aircraft and Mark was already on his way down on the winch wire.
‘You’re up first,’ Matt told Emma, and although she’d volunteered to go first, now the time had come she rather wished she hadn’t.
Nonsense, she told herself. You’ve done it dozens of times—you’re good at it.
Mark had reached the ground and unsnapped his harness, handing it to Emma.
‘You needn’t go right into the aircraft. Just strap yourself in, signal you’re ready for the winch and Dave will lift you as far as the skids, then drop you back down. Hopefully you’ll stay clear of the trees.’
