The Cattleman's Special Delivery. Barbara Hannay

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      Dread settled uncomfortably in his gut as he pulled over. A small sedan had plunged nose-down into a rocky gully.

      He knew the vehicle hadn’t been there an hour or two earlier, and chances were he was the first person to come across it. Grim-faced, he grabbed a torch from the glovebox and slipped his satellite phone into his coat pocket.

      The night was moonless and black and wind threw rain into his face as he negotiated the slippery bank. The car’s front passenger door hung open, the seat empty. Flashing the torch over the sides and bottom of the gully, Reece hoped he wasn’t about to find a body flung from the crash. He couldn’t see anyone outside the car, but when he edged closer to the wreckage he found the figure of a man slumped over the steering wheel.

      Scrambling around the vehicle, he dragged the driver’s door open, released the seat belt and felt for a pulse in the man’s neck.

      No luck.

      He tried the wrist. Still no sign of life.

      Sickened, he wrenched open the back passenger door, shoved a suitcase from the back seat into the rain, leaned in and lowered the driver’s seat backwards into a reclining position. It would be hours before help could arrive, so saving this guy was up to him. Struggling to get beside the body in the cramped space, he began to apply CPR.

      Come on, mate, let’s get this heart of yours firing.

      Reece had only done this on dummies before, so he was by no means experienced, but he was glad the training came back to him now as he repeated the cycle over and over—fifteen compressions and two slow breaths.

      He wasn’t sure how long he worked before he heard the woman’s cry coming from some distance away. The thin sound floated faintly through the rain, and for a split second he thought that perhaps he’d imagined the sound, a trick of the wind. But then he heard it again. Louder.

      ‘Help, someone, please!’

      Definitely a woman. She had to be the passenger, surely.

      He grabbed his sat phone and punched in numbers for the district’s one and only cop, praying there’d be an answer. To his relief the response was instant and he’d never been more pleased to hear the sergeant’s gravel-rough voice.

      ‘Mick, Reece Weston here. There’s been an accident out near the turn off to my place—Warringa. A small sedan’s hit a kangaroo and gone off the road. I’ve been trying CPR on the driver, but I’m not having much luck, I’m afraid. No signs of life. And now there’s someone else calling for help. I’m going to check it out.’

      ‘OK, Reece. I’ll alert the ambulance at Dirranbilla, and come straight out. But you know it’ll take me a couple of hours. And the ambos could be even longer. Actually, with all this rain, they might have trouble getting through. The creeks are rising.’

      Reece let out a soft curse as he disconnected. Times like this, he had to ask why his forebears had settled in one of the remotest parts of Australia. He flashed his torch up and down the gully again, then scrambled onto the road and cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Where are you?’ he called.

      ‘On a track off the road. Please … help!’

      The only track around here led into his homestead. The woman must have scrambled from the car in a bid to reach help for the driver. She sounded both scared and in pain.

      Rain needled his face as he started to run, the beam of his torch bouncing ahead down the track, lighting muddy puddles and drenched grass and the slim trunks of gum trees. Rounding a bend, he found the woman huddled in the rain, sagged against a timber fencepost.

      He flashed the torch over her and caught her pale, frightened face in its beam. Her hair was long and hanging in wet strings to her shoulders. Her arms were slender and as pale as her face, and she was holding something …

      A step or two closer, he realised she was supporting the huge bulge of her heavily pregnant belly.

      He was shocked to a standstill.

      The man arrived just as the pain came again, huge and cruel, gripping Jess with a vice-like force. She tried to breathe with it, the way she’d been taught at antenatal classes, but no amount of breathing could bring her relief. She was too horrified and too scared. She wasn’t supposed to be in labour now. Not three weeks early, not on the edge of a bush track in the rain and in the middle of nowhere. Not with Alan scarily unconscious and unable to help her.

      The man stepped closer. She couldn’t see him very well, but he seemed to be tall and dark-haired. Not old.

      ‘Are you hurt?’

      She shook her head, but had to wait till the contraction eased before she could answer. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said at last. ‘But I’m afraid my labour’s started.’

      He made a despairing sound. No doubt he wondered what the hell she was doing out here in an advanced state of pregnancy. She felt obliged to justify her predicament. ‘My husband needs help. I was trying to find a homestead.’

      By now his hand was at her elbow supporting her. Despite the rain, his skin was warm and she could feel the roughness of his work-toughened palm. She sensed she could trust him. She had no choice really.

      ‘Alan’s unconscious,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t revive him, and then the pains started when I had to climb up the rocks to the road.’ She gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I couldn’t use my mobile. There’s no network. But he needs an ambulance.’

      ‘I saw him,’ her rescuer said gently. He had brown eyes, as dark as black coffee, and he was watching her now with a worried frown. ‘I’ve rung the local police and help is on the way. But, for the moment, I think you need to look after yourself and your little one.’

      Jess’s response was swallowed by a gasp as another contraction gripped her, then consumed her, driving every other thought from her head.

      ‘Here, lean on me.’ The stranger slipped his arm around her shoulders, steadying her against his solid chest.

      Just having him there seemed to help.

      ‘Thanks,’ she said shyly when the pain was over.

      ‘Look, you can’t stay here.’ Her good Samaritan slipped off his canvas coat and put it around her shoulders. ‘This will at least keep the rain off you until I get you into the truck.’ His voice was deep and kind. ‘Can you wait here while I fetch it? I’ll be as quick as I can.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ She remembered to add, ‘Thank you.’

      He was gone then, but he was as good as his word, and in no time the truck’s headlights lit up the track. The door creaked a little as he opened it and swung down, his long legs seeming to stretch for ever. Before Jess knew quite what was happening, he’d scooped her up into his arms.

      At first she was too overawed by his strength to protest, but she quickly came to her senses. ‘For heaven’s sake. I’m the size of a whale. I’ll break your back.’

      ‘Don’t fuss. I’m not letting you climb up into this truck. There you go.’ With a grunt he deposited her carefully on the front seat. ‘We won’t worry about the seat belt. I’ll СКАЧАТЬ