High Country Hero

by Ford, Holly

  ‘Who’s Ralph?’ Francine’s horrified eyes raked the mangled vehicle. ‘Is there somebody else in the car? George, were you travelling with somebody else?’

  ‘He means the dog,’ Lennie guessed. ‘Ralph is your dog, right George? He’s fine, I’ve got him right here.’

  ‘Ralph.’ The driver’s face relaxed as Lennie manoeuvred the nervous setter into his field of view. ‘It’s okay mate. You’re coming too. Right?’

  ‘Never mind about the dog,’ Francine shouted. ‘The police will take good care of it when they get here.’

  ‘No.’ George tried to reach out for Ralph. ‘You can’t leave him down here. You can’t leave him on his own.’

  ‘George, we need to get you to hospital right now.’ Francine harnessed the stretcher to her side. ‘We’ve got another rescue helicopter coming to pick you up. We don’t have time to deal with a dog.’

  ‘Don’t let them do this.’ The driver’s desperate eyes found Lennie’s. ‘Don’t let them take me without Ralph. He’ll get lost. He’ll die out here. You can’t…’

  Lennie looked up at Francine. The paramedic shook her head. ‘We’re flying heavy as it is,’ she said.

  ‘George, I’ll stay here with Ralph.’ Lennie touched her hand to the stretcher. ‘I’ll look after him until the police can get here.’

  Francine gave her a withering look. ‘You sure you want to do that?’

  ‘Positive.’ Lennie fixed her eyes on George’s. ‘I’ll take good care of Ralph, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to him.’

  Francine was already giving Steve the thumbs up.

  ‘You’ll make sure he gets home?’ George begged.

  ‘I’ll make sure he gets home,’ Lennie yelled.

  Holding Ralph tightly, she watched Francine and the stretcher ascend. As Steve and Francine worked their patient aboard, Lennie looked around at the vast, empty hills, their sides pocked with snow. The road directly above her was out of view, the bend George had failed to take lost to sight. The gully was locked deep in a shadow that probably wouldn’t lift until spring, and the rotor wash was icy.

  Lennie suppressed a shiver. The fire service and the police would be here any minute. Wouldn’t they? She hugged Ralph a little closer, trying not to dwell on the carnage around her, the horror inside the float. Even without it, this would be a bleak spot.

  High above, Steve gave her a thumbs-up from the skid. Keeping her other hand to Ralph’s collar, Lennie returned it. Steve stepped into the cabin, and she watched him slide the door to.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she told Ralph. ‘You and I’ll climb up to the road. We just have to wait a bit longer, that’s all. We’ll be out of here soon.’ Shivering too, the dog pressed himself to her body. Fixing a smile to her face she knew no one could see, Lennie waited for the helicopter to fly off.

  It stayed right where it was.

  What the hell were they doing up there? She shielded her eyes against the whirlwind of debris the rotor was raising. Seconds ticked by. The helicopter continued to hover. Surely it couldn’t take this long to fix a stretcher in place. Was there something wrong?

  Peering up as best she could, Lennie watched in confusion. After what felt just short of forever, the rear door slid open again. Catching the winch, Steve gave her a jaunty wave. In a few seconds more, Francine was back on the line. Lennie wrapped an arm round Ralph’s chest, redoubling her grip on his collar as he let out a high-pitched bark at the figure descending. She looked at the ground around her. Had they forgotten something?

  Landing neatly on the slope, Francine unclipped her harness. ‘The pilot says we’re taking the dog,’ she said gruffly, avoiding Lennie’s eyes as she reached for Ralph’s collar. ‘Steve wants you up first.’ Her mouth hardened as she stared at Ralph. ‘I’ll bring it.’

  •

  On the tarmac at Mountain Rescue Base, a larger rescue helicopter was waiting for them.

  ‘We’re transferring you to a different ride, mate,’ the new intensive care paramedic told George, as he and Francine traded stretchers. ‘We’re going to fly you straight to Dunedin Hospital, okay? Your wife’s going to meet you there.’

  As they rolled George away, he said something Lennie couldn’t quite catch.

  ‘Yep,’ the paramedic said, ‘your daughter’s on her way. She’s going to pick up your dog.’

  Beside Lennie, the local police sergeant clipped a rope to the shivering setter’s collar. ‘I’ll take him back to the station. The daughter’s meeting us there. What’s his name?’

  ‘Ralph,’ Lennie told him.

  ‘Ralph.’ The policeman gave the dog’s head a pat. ‘It’s been quite a day, eh Ralph? Come on, mate, you come along with us. Yeah, good boy.’

  As he led the dog away, Lennie turned. Behind her, Steve and Mitch were rolling the helicopter trolley back, Megan walking alongside them. Lennie pushed her hands through her hair. It had been quite a day, alright. Unsure what to do next, she followed the rest of the crew into the hangar.

  ‘Here.’ Megan helped her find her way out of the harness. ‘I can take that. Thanks for your help out there.’

  ‘No problem.’ Lennie smiled quickly, not really listening. Across the hangar, Mitch was hanging his helmet up. As their eyes met, his warming with that familiar gleam of bone-dry humour, something inside her snapped.

  It took Lennie just three strides to reach him. Seizing the open collar of his overalls, she kissed him on the mouth. Mitch’s arms closed around her, pressing her tight to his chest, his fingers in her tangled hair.

  As a round of applause went up, the rest of the world shifted back into focus. Mitch was half-laughing, still holding her close, his forehead to hers, his breath on her cheek. When they looked at each other, he had the smile on his face it had broken Lennie’s heart to think she’d never see again. He ran a strand of her hair through his fingers, pulling it gently. ‘You want to get out of here?’

  Lennie nodded. For the umpteenth time in thirty minutes, she felt as if she might be about to cry.

  Mitch’s hand resting in the small of her back, she walked out of the hangar. She was walking without thinking, conscious of nothing but being next to him. Wheels spinning in neutral, her brain disengaged, Lennie found herself getting into the passenger seat of the R22.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Mitch said quietly. The little helicopter’s engine was off, its blades still, his hands resting on his knees.

  Lennie put her hand over his. Mitch looked at her, his eyes more than usually dark.

  ‘Take me home,’ she said.

  ‘Back to Jim’s?’

  She was so focused on the movement of his mouth, she could barely process the words. ‘Your home,’ she said.

  They made the short flight to Broken Creek in silence, Mitch careful not to look at her again, Lennie hyperconscious of every move of his body and hers. In front of an open shed, the Land Cruiser stood waiting on the grass. Landing beside it, Mitch shut the helicopter down. Lennie watched the shadows of the rotor blades slow.

  As he walked around to her door, she climbed out to meet him.

  ‘Lennie—’

  She put her hand to his chest, her palm across his heart, the other rising over the muscles of his neck, sinking into his hair as she brought his mouth to hers. The kiss travelled through her, the force of it rising. Her hands were moving over Mitch’s body the same way his were moving over hers, unzipping his overalls, opening his shirt, seeking out each other’s skin.

  ‘We should probably talk about this.’ Mitch pushed down the shoulder strap of her bra.

  ‘Yeah.’ She sank her hand down his abs. ‘We probably should.’ Right at this moment, Lennie had just one thing to say to him and she had a feeling her body was communicating it pretty well to the hand now sweeping aside her G-string. Working open the buttons, she freed his rock-hard erection from his jeans.

  ‘Jesus.’ Mitch pushed her back against the fuselage. As his mouth came down on hers again, his fingers opening her labia, Le
nnie echoed the sentiment.

  ‘I could talk later,’ he offered, a smile in his roughening voice.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ The hard tip of his erection was gliding over her swelling clitoris. ‘Later’s good.’

  God. He was inside her, taking control of her body again, metal under her back. Lennie dug her fingers into his shoulders, oblivious to everything but how hard he was, how deep…

  Mitch’s hands were lifting her. Lennie was briefly aware of the tray of the Land Cruiser biting into her thighs before she lost the last track of where she was, of time, of anything beyond the ocean of feeling carrying her body towards its crest, and when it finally broke, and broke, crashing down in a whitewater vortex that wiped her mind, she barely knew whether she’d been there for minutes or hours. Floating, pleasure washing through her with every move Mitch made, she caught up with his quickening rhythm, arching back for him, watching him come. As his breathing settled, he drew her up, pressing her to his chest, his lips on hers, his hand stroking the length of her hair.

  Lennie rested her forehead against his neck, the thump of his heart beneath her own. Very gradually, she became aware of the cold mountain air. Mitch pulled the jacket back around her shoulders. When she looked up at him he was smiling that smile again.

  ‘I’m not quite sure how I should follow that up,’ he said. ‘Do I offer you a coffee?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lennie laughed. ‘I don’t really want you to move. But I guess we could actually go to your house.’

  ‘What, you mean get in the front of the ute?’

  ‘It’s a thought.’

  ‘Come on.’ He lifted her down. ‘I think it’s this way.’

  Twenty-five

  From the sofa in the living room of the cottage, Lennie watched Mitch cautiously as he got the fire going. All joking aside, what was he going to do now? Bolt again? Had anything changed?

  Maybe they really should have talked first. Not that she was even going to bother pretending she could regret what had just happened, but…As the euphoria of simply being with him began to ebb, Lennie tried to work out what the hell it meant. Should she try to file this afternoon under goodbye? A sweeter memory to torture herself with as she sat on a plane to Chicago? If Mitch took her back to Kimpton now, before it all went wrong for him, if she never saw him again, could she hold on to this moment as…happy? Almost—almost—perfect?

  The logs in the fireplace caught. Mitch sat down on the other end of the sofa, elbows on his knees, his body turned towards her. Lennie swallowed. It was too late. Already, the smile had left his eyes.

  ‘You’re waiting for me to say something,’ he said. ‘About what happens now. And I can’t.’

  The two words drove into her chest like nails.

  Seeing their impact, Mitch frowned. ‘I can’t because I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I don’t know either.’ With a deep breath, Lennie decided to take a chance on the truth. ‘All I know is that I was in a car accident the other week and—’

  ‘You were what? When?’

  ‘Last weekend,’ she told him impatiently. ‘It was totally fine. The point is, I was sliding towards the edge of a cliff and—’

  ‘Jesus, Lennie—’

  She held up her hand. ‘And…all I could think about was you.’

  His eyes softened.

  ‘No,’ Lennie said. ‘Not like that. Not in a good way. I was thinking about how bad lifting my dead body out of Snake Gully was going to be for you, and that I’d never get a chance to explain to you why I was all dressed up in a car with Benji Cooper.’

  ‘Lennie.’ Mitch shook his head. ‘I don’t give a fuck about Benji Cooper.’

  ‘The point,’ she said firmly, ‘is that I don’t give a fuck about Benji Cooper.’ She felt a stab of guilt. ‘I mean, he’s my friend and everything, but you…you…’ She bit her lip. ‘You’re something else. Something I need in my life. I know I’m not the person you wanted to be with, I know I can never be Emily, but maybe—’

  ‘That’s not it,’ Mitch said. He looked away. ‘That’s not how I feel.’

  Lennie watched his profile, his forehead knotted with difficulty, the long cheek muscle working. Behind him, the sky outside the windows was fading to black.

  ‘I loved Emily,’ he said quietly. ‘But I don’t know if things would have worked out for the two of us when we got out. The shit that was happening there, it was changing us both. Ems had some stuff going on—internal stuff—that I didn’t really get back then.’ He rubbed his palm against his jaw. ‘I guess I can understand it a lot better now.’

  Lennie waited, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. So much hurt had been done. To so many people.

  ‘When you’re here,’ Mitch said at last, ‘when you’re with me, it’s different. But when you’re not, when I think about being with you, it’s like I’m leaving her down there all over again.’

  Lennie pressed her hands to her face, holding in the tears.

  ‘I get to go on,’ he said. ‘Ems doesn’t. It isn’t fair.’

  She nodded.

  A long stretch of silence passed.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mitch said.

  ‘For what?’

  He sighed. ‘For not telling me she’d want me to be happy.’

  ‘I didn’t know her,’ Lennie said. ‘I have no idea what she’d want.’ She started to reach out, but it didn’t seem right to touch him just then. She dropped her hand back to her knee.

  ‘Lately, though,’ Mitch said. ‘Sometimes—more and more—I’m starting to feel like…’ He frowned again. ‘I guess whatever you believe, Ems isn’t still down there. There’s nothing of her in Afghanistan now. She got out. They all got out. I don’t know how much it means, but in the end…’ He stopped.

  ‘They’re home?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mitch took a breath, still studying the floor between his feet. ‘They’re home. We didn’t leave anybody behind.’

  Again, they sat in silence, Lennie hugging her drawn-up legs, a log snapping in the hearth, the glow of the fire the only light in the room. Without looking at her, Mitch reached an arm across the distance between them. She took his hand.

  ‘If you need time,’ she said, ‘if you need space, I can give you that. You don’t have to run. You don’t have to shut me out completely.’

  ‘You want to know the honest truth?’

  Did she? Lennie braced herself, waiting.

  ‘I wish to god I could shut you out.’ Mitch leaned back against the sofa cushions. ‘The trouble is, you’re already in.’

  Lennie felt her mouth twitch into a half smile.

  ‘I don’t want to feel this way about anybody,’ he said. ‘But it’s too late. I do. So I guess—’ in the darkness, she sensed rather than saw the gleam in his eyes ‘—I’d better get used to it.’

  As Mitch turned her hand in his, she tried to remember the space she’d just promised to give him. This was probably about the time she should offer to leave. Except she didn’t have any actual means of doing that by herself…

  ‘Can you stay?’ Mitch looked at her. ‘Tonight, I mean?’ He paused. ‘I can fly you back first thing in the morning.’

  Lennie nodded. Leaning forward, she slipped under his arm, wrapping her own around him. Thinking of the Central Vets truck still sitting at Mountain Rescue base, she hid a smile against his chest as it crossed her mind briefly to wish that Mitch had a more discreet method of transport. Above her head, he sighed.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

  ‘Lifting your body out of Snake Gully.’

  Ah, shit. ‘I’m sorry.’ She kissed his neck. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘I’m thinking I wouldn’t have felt any better doing it because I hadn’t seen you for a while.’ Mitch’s voice was wry. ‘So basically, I’m fucked either way.’ He checked his watch. ‘I just got off call. You want a whisky?’

  •

  Beyond the glass, the light of the rising moon
was glinting on the fresh snow on the Alps, the features of the hills below clear to see. Mitch stood motionless at the bedroom window, watching the night for a second or two before he drew the curtain across. Moving to the side of the bed, he switched on the lamp. As he did so, Lennie’s gaze fell on the empty tabletop below. The photograph of Mitch and Emily was gone. Looking up, Lennie found Mitch watching her, an indecipherable expression on his shadowed face.

  ‘Did you take that picture away just now?’ she asked him carefully.

  He shook his head. ‘A couple of weeks ago.’

  She let out her breath. ‘Please don’t ever feel,’ she began.

  ‘It’s still here,’ he said. ‘I haven’t put it away. It’s just in a different room now, that’s all.’

  He walked around the bed towards her. Maybe it was the whisky, but the whole evening had started to take on a dreamy, slow-motion feel, as though if either of them moved too fast it might vanish around them. The sort of dream you could never get back to.

  Lennie raised her face to his kiss.

  He held her lightly, his fingertips moving over her shoulderblades. Lowering her head, she pressed her cheek to his shirt, breathing him in as her hands worked the first buttons open, feeling his muscles brace and flex as he drew it over his head, stroking his back as he turned to pull down the duvet.

  Mitch removed each layer of her clothing with care, stripping her to her skin before he drew her onto the sheet beside him. Holding each other on the cold cotton, melting into each other’s warmth, neither of them spoke. Mitch stretched out an arm and flicked off the light. In the darkness, all Lennie could feel was his body around her, his hand stroking her ribs, his pulse against her lips.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had gone by, at what point in the night it was, when she was crying out for him again, a sleepy desire that flared into bliss and glowed back down to embers, Mitch’s hand on her thigh, his forearm between her breasts, their bodies joined.

  When Lennie’s eyes opened again, it was to the glare of electric light. Mitch was sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, the shirt and jeans she’d removed from him the previous night back on. She groaned. ‘What time is it?’