by Holly Ford
‘If I get up there now while it’s still safe to fly,’ Nate said, ‘I could have him back before then.’
‘And what if you don’t find him? What if you can’t bring him back? What then?’
‘If I’m not back in an hour, call Ash’s dad.’ Nate pulled his boots on. ‘He’s the Mountain Rescue pilot. Tell him I’m flying up there – if he sees the Robbie on the ground, it means I’ve found Mitch.’
‘That’s not the only reason it could be on the ground.’
‘Look.’ He held her eyes. ‘I’ve been flying the Robbie around these hills for twenty years. I’ve got the hours. I just never bothered with the paperwork, that’s all. I’m telling you, it’s safe. I fly with Mitch all the time. I’m not going to crash, I swear.’
Jesus Christ. ‘Nate, wait,’ she called out, as he headed down the steps.
‘Just tell them you couldn’t stop me.’ Opening the door of the ute, he glanced back at her. ‘It’s true.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Tess said firmly. ‘We should take some more gear. Food, something warm. If Mitch is up there, he’s going to be cold, and he’s going to be hungry.’
Nate hesitated. ‘Okay,’ he admitted, bounding back up to the house. ‘Let’s make it fast.’
In the kitchen, Tess picked up the phone.
‘What are you doing?’ riffling cupboards, Nate looked over at her sharply.
‘I’m telling Stan that we’re going up to Luff’s. He can call Ash’s dad if we’re not back in an hour.’
‘We?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No,’ Nate said firmly, ‘you’re not.’
Willing Stan to pick up, Tess listened to the phone ring. ‘We’ll stand a better chance of finding him with two pairs of eyes up there.’
‘I’m not taking a passenger.’
She watched his face, considering. ‘Why not?’
There was a very slight pause. ‘There’ll be no room for Mitch.’ He reached a flask down from the top shelf.
‘I can walk back.’
‘No.’
‘What if Mitch is somewhere you can’t put the chopper down? You’re going to need help. You can’t do this by yourself.’
‘Look,’ he said, his voice low, ‘it’s been a while since I flew solo, okay?’
Tess sighed. Yeah, that’s what she thought. ‘All the more reason for you to be concentrating on the controls,’ she said, ‘not looking for somebody on the ground.’
Nate shook his head in frustration.
‘If it’s safe for you,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s safe for me.’ Seeking out his eyes, Tess held them. ‘Is it safe?’
He stared at her for a second. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s safe.’
She tapped her fingers on the bench. Come on, Stan.
‘It’s going to be cold going up.’ Nate eyed her shirt and jeans.
‘I’ve got plenty of gear in the – Stan!’ She turned her back on Nate as the homestead’s phone was picked up at last. ‘Listen, we’ve got a problem …’
•
In the passenger seat of the Mazda two minutes later, her daypack at her feet and a sleeping bag clutched to her chest, Tess stared through the windscreen at the cloud creeping down the side valleys.
‘I should have done something last night when Mitch didn’t show. I should have driven down there then.’
‘Hey,’ Nate said, his eyes on the road ahead, ‘at least you noticed he was gone. I’m supposed to be his best mate.’
‘You weren’t to know.’
‘It’s my job,’ he said, ‘to know where they are.’
Actually, it was hers. But now didn’t seem a good time to contradict him.
Pulling up outside the helicopter’s shed, Nate glanced over at her. ‘How much do you weigh?’
‘What?’
‘I need to work out how much fuel we can carry.’
It wasn’t until the ground was racing by three metres under their skids that Tess had time to think about being afraid. She liked helicopters, but Jesus, this one was small. It felt like going a hundred miles an hour in a bottle cap. Were they supposed to be this low? The doors were off, and the noise was intense. She leaned in a little, away from the yawning gap. At least it had stopped raining.
‘Watch out for the centre lever,’ Nate said sharply in her headphones. ‘Touch that and we’ll roll.’
Jamming her elbows against her ribs, Tess closed her eyes briefly. She was insane to be doing this. They both were. She could see the coroner’s report now … As they began to gain some height, at last, to go with their speed, she stole a look across the bubble at Nate. His sunglasses were hiding his eyes, but he seemed calm enough, his hand on the lever beside her steady. Nate doesn’t lose. She hadn’t seen him fail at anything yet. Please, God – Tess risked another look down – let today not be the day that changed.
By the time they flew over Mitch’s truck, her jitters had settled and she no longer had to swallow a scream every time the wind chucked the Robbie out of its path. She peered down at the ute. ‘Should we take a look?’
‘He’s not there.’ Nate had descended a bit, but he wasn’t slowing down. ‘If he was, we’d see the dogs.’
They climbed again, following the rise of the spur towards the ever-lowering ceiling of cloud.
‘He would have walked up this way,’ Nate said, ‘to the top of the spur, then crossed the scree to get onto the bluffs. From there it’s an hour or so more into Luff’s.’
Across a couple of kilometres of shingle scree, its high beginnings already lost to the cloud that seemed to be moving faster than they were, Tess could see the bluffs rising fifty metres or more from the tumble of rocks, a few thin scraps of cloud caught on their sheer sides like – like fallen men. She swallowed. This was where she’d sent him. And not thought to check that he’d come back.
Nate was flying low over the scree, following the line a walker would take, a gentle climb across its shifting face to come out on top of the bluffs on the other side. An easy enough crossing to make for a guy who knew this country. Easy, until something went wrong. Tess scanned the slippery rock falls below, looking for anything, a flash of colour, a hill stick, some shape that didn’t belong. There was nothing.
The closer they got to the bluffs, the sicker she felt, a cold twist in her gut that had nothing to do with the turbulent air. A fall down the scree would smash you up pretty good, but a fall from there … She forced herself to search the debris at the base of the cliffs. What had seemed from a distance to be a solid wall was actually fissured, erosion carving steep, narrow gullies into the rock, scrub starting to colonise the pulverised stone at their base.
‘There!’ Tess pointed.
Nate swung the Robbie around with an abruptness that threatened to throw her out of her seat. ‘Tell me where.’
‘In the gully. Nine o’clock.’
‘I don’t see it.’
No, neither did she, anymore. ‘I saw something move.’ Tess stared down into the shadows. ‘I think it was a dog.’
‘I can’t get down there. It’s too narrow.’ Turning the helicopter again, Nate flew slowly up the gully, studying the ground. As a thin mist drifted under the skids, Tess looked up. Their rotor blades were starting to skim the cloud. By the time Nate set down, it was circling around them, the open tussock land on top of the bluffs swirling in and out of focus. Through her headphones, she heard what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief as he shut the Robbie down, but in a moment more another sound had wiped it from her mind. The rotors were winding down, and over their slowing clatter she could start to make out the noise that matched what she thought she’d seen – a huntaway barking fit to split the sky.
Nate was already on the ground. ‘You get the gear,’ he ordered, jacking open the seat. ‘I’ll tie the blades.’
The scramble down the short rock face into the gully went by in a blur. Halfway down, she spotted a flash of red. Oh god. Tess pulled it out of the crevice in which it had jammed. A water
bottle. The aluminium was dented to hell. She looked at Nate.
‘Bring that,’ he said. ‘We might need it.’
They hadn’t long hit the shingle below when Mitch’s heading dog rocketed up, circling them quickly before disappearing back the way it had come.
Finding his balance, Nate cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Mitch!’
They looked at each other, then away, as nothing but echoes drifted back. Further down the slope, out of sight, the barking started again. Wordlessly they headed towards it, hope turning to lead in Tess’s chest.
The scree was narrowing, the running rock fresh and slippery as hell, the cliffs above them rising higher. Abruptly, the gully opened again, and ahead, a boulder the size of a car split the flow of the rock fall. To either side of it, the main channels of the scree plunged away too steeply to be seen.
The barking was coming from behind the rock. As they made their way down, the heading dog darted out again, a huntaway hobbling behind it, still in full voice, its tan muzzle stretching skywards.
In the lee of the boulder, a colony of scrub was making a decent fist of clinging to the stones, and at its edge, half under the low canopy, Mitch’s battered body lay sprawled. The dogs settled back, standing guard. He was missing a boot, the thermal leggings he’d been wearing under his shorts half ripped off. His left leg lay twisted in towards his body, the toes touching his right ankle at an angle that made Tess press her hand to her mouth and turn away.
‘Mitch.’ Nate was already beside him, gently cradling the point of his jaw, feeling for the pulse that wouldn’t be there. ‘Mitch, come on. Wake up, mate.’
Unable to watch, she turned away again, hugging her ribs, too sick and numb to do anything else.
‘Hey. Nate.’
Nearly losing her footing, Tess whirled to see Mitch struggle up onto his elbows. His eyes moved from Nate’s face to hers. ‘You brought Mum,’ he continued, matter-of-factly.
‘O-kay, mate.’ Nate sounded somewhere between laughter and tears. ‘Let’s get you warmed up.’ Easing off Mitch’s ruined shirt, he pulled his own over his head and wrapped it around Mitch’s body.
Tess fumbled with her pack, dragging the sleeping bag out as she hurried to help. It wasn’t until the two men in front of her began to blur that she even realised she was crying.
‘I was trying to get my thermals on.’ Mitch sounded apologetic. ‘I don’t know what happened then.’
‘I think you might have passed out, mate.’ Nate unzipped the sleeping bag. ‘Let’s see if we can get this under you, get you up off the ground.’
Tess looked at Mitch’s legs again. The missing boot, she saw now, was there beside him, along with his open pack. He’d managed to get his good leg into the thermals boot and all, but the left had defeated him, and he’d only been able to pull the leggings up as far as his knees.
‘It got dark,’ Mitch said.
‘Yeah, mate, it did.’ Nate paused. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ He looked over at Tess. ‘You’re going to have to help me lift him.’
‘Nate.’ Tess nodded down. ‘His leg.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I want you to lift.’
She shook her head. ‘The hip might be dislocated.’
‘You think?’ he said acidly.
Tess sighed. ‘If we move him we could damage the nerves.’
‘If he doesn’t start warming up soon, that’s not going to matter too much.’
‘Nate,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s going to hurt like hell.’
‘I know.’ He met her eyes. ‘I’m going to lift his shoulders and slide him up onto the bag. You brace the leg. Steady as you can. On my count. Okay?’
Mitch’s scream made her want to vomit.
‘There we go.’ Nate’s voice was shaking. ‘There we go, mate. You’re all good now. Let’s get you wrapped up.’ He was still holding Mitch. Pulling the sleeping bag up to wrap them both, he closed his arms around him. ‘There we go.’
Carefully, Tess brought the sides of the bag over Mitch’s legs. Reaching into her pack, she ripped the emergency blanket out of its wrapper and tucked it over the top. Mitch wasn’t moving.
‘Are we going home now?’
She let out her breath at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t lost consciousness after all.
‘Soon, mate.’
Tess reached into her pack again. ‘Here.’ Pulling out a block of chocolate, she broke off a row. ‘You must be hungry.’
Mitch didn’t look up. ‘Not really. I just had lunch.’
‘Do us a favour’ – Nate reached for the block – ‘and eat it anyway, okay?’
Mitch’s knuckles were skinned, his hands bloody with more cuts than she could count, but none of them looked more than superficial. Still chewing, he broke off another chunk of chocolate. ‘Maybe I am hungry.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Tess opened the thermos and tipped a packet of soup into the mug. ‘I’m working up the second course.’ Stirring the mug with the empty sachet, she looked over Mitch’s pack. It was shredded down to the waterproof liner, the buckles smashed, the front pockets ripped away. It had probably saved his life. And it was still holding its contents. Handing the soup to Nate, Tess went through them. The first thing she found was a beanie.
‘Yeah,’ Mitch said, as Nate pulled it over his head. ‘I probably should have started with that.’ Already, he was looking brighter.
‘Finish your soup,’ she smiled, shaking his bush shirt out. ‘Then we’ll get you into some more clothes.’ Digging deeper, she discovered half a bag of what had been biscuits – smashed – a pair of dry socks, a torch – also smashed – and, lurking at the very bottom of the pack, another emergency blanket.
Getting Mitch into more clothes didn’t turn out to be easy. Every time they jarred his hip, she felt like screaming herself, but apart from a few sharp, grunting intakes of breath, Mitch stayed silent. Worried he might be starting to lose sensation, Tess checked his face. No. He was feeling it all right. By the time they’d got him wrapped up again, he was shivering. So was she. Nate’s face, as he sat, very still, with Mitch back in his arms, was grey below his tan.
Having got another sachet of soup into Mitch, she sat back on her heels and looked around them. Now what? There was no way they were going to get Mitch back up to the Robbie, even if – Tess eyed the thick cloud now masking the top of the gully – they could fly. And they sure as hell couldn’t take him down. The scree was practically vertical from here. She looked back at Mitch. He was motionless again, his eyes closed. Nate’s were watching her.
Tess leaned closer, checking Mitch’s face. ‘Is he unconscious?’
‘He’s asleep.’
Was there a difference? ‘We should try to keep him awake.’
‘His breathing’s good,’ Nate said quietly. ‘And his heart rate has come up. I can feel it. We can let him rest for a bit. He’s better off out of it.’
Dredging up her last first-aid course, Tess thought about checking the leg for a femoral pulse, then thought again. If it wasn’t there, what exactly was she planning to do about it?
‘One of us,’ Nate said, ‘should walk out.’
One of them? He didn’t look like he was going anywhere. ‘What, three’s a crowd?’
‘You could go get us some help.’
‘It’s already on its way.’ Stan would be calling Mountain Rescue right about now. ‘Me walking out isn’t going to get it here any faster.’
‘It looks like the wind’s dropped up there.’ He glanced up at the settling cloud. In the gully itself, there was barely a breeze – another reason Mitch was alive. ‘If this weather doesn’t lift, they won’t be flying in. A land search won’t see the Robbie.’
‘Give it up.’ The only way Mitch was getting out of here was on the end of a helicopter winch, and Nate knew it as well as she did. ‘I’m not leaving you here by yourself.’
There was a silence. The dogs, creeping back to Mitch’s side, eyed the biscuit bag hungrily. Shit. She should
have fed Harry’s.
‘Can you take over here?’ Nate said. ‘I’m going to climb back up to the Robbie. There’s a tarp and some more rope under the seat. I’ll see if I can rig something up over us before we get any more rain.’
Tess nodded. No point pretending he didn’t move better over this country than she did. Nate opened up the sleeping bag. She slid in beside him, taking Mitch’s weight as, carefully, they swapped places. Settling back against her, Mitch groaned.
‘Shh.’ She took the sides of the bag from Nate, wrapping Mitch up close. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’
‘Ems?’
‘I’m here.’ As Mitch burrowed his face into her neck, she lowered her cheek to his temple. ‘Everybody’s here.’ Briefly, she touched her lips to his skin. Tess had no idea who Ems might be, but she had a feeling that’s what she might have done. She glanced up at Nate. ‘Go. I’ve got this.’
By the time he came back, she was half asleep herself. Nate’s hand on her cheek woke her fully. Opening her eyes, she looked straight into his. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, trying not to jolt Mitch.
‘Checking to see if you’re warm. I don’t need two patients.’ Suddenly, his smile sparked up. ‘What did you think I was doing?’
Tess chose not to dignify that with a reply. She was warm enough to blush, apparently.
‘I found another emergency blanket under the tarp.’ Nate laid it down beside her.
‘It’s pretty cosy in here as it is.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It looks it.’
‘Nate?’ Mitch stirred in her arms, then gasped at the pain. ‘What’s happening? Where am I?’
‘Don’t try to move, mate.’ Nate put a hand to Mitch’s chest. ‘You’re still in the gully. You’re hurt.’
‘You’re going to be okay,’ Tess said. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
‘Tess?’ Mitch twisted his neck towards her. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I came with Nate.’ She relaxed her grip on him a little.
Mitch thought for a few seconds. ‘Were you both here before?’
‘We’ve been here for a while,’ Nate told him. ‘You were pretty cold when we found you. We’ve been trying to warm you up.’