Her Outback Protector

“Not as sorry as I am,” he said.

“What happened to her?” She spoke as gently as she could, fearing she was about to be rebuffed.

“I think we’ll just leave it,” he said.

CHAPTER TWO

HE TOOK her on a journey that filled her with fascination. The landscape beneath them was so vast, so timeless in character Sandra found herself awestruck. The first hellish minutes, just as she expected, had been taken up with fighting down her fears. She would never be cured of them. Not just of helicopters. In a chopper one couldn’t look out on a fixed wing, causing not only in her, but in many people the sickening sensation the aircraft might simply drop out of the sky. She feared all aircraft. She’d been battling that particular phobia since she was a child and the family Cessna had taken a nosedive into the McDonnell ranges, not far from Moondai, with her father strapped into the pilot’s seat. That was the start of it.

He did it, Sandy. Your uncle Lloyd. He caused it to happen. He’d know how. He was always jealous of your father. He couldn’t let him inherit.

Some words are scorched into the memory as were some scenes, like her mother sobbing out accusations…

He did it, Sandy. He couldn’t let your father inherit.

So where did that leave her, her grandfather’s heiress, all these years later? No way was she sitting pretty. Just like her father she was a target. But unlike her trusting father she had learned the hard way to always be on red alert. It helped too to have backup. Small wonder she’d decided, very sensibly, to shift her overseer into the homestead for a time. Daniel Carson had an aura that made a woman feel safe. She suspected there was more than a hint of Sir Galahad about him. She even liked the way he stared down at her from his towering height, though occasionally it had made her feel like toppling backwards.

He was an excellent pilot. He was handling the helicopter with such confidence and skill she was actually approaching a state of euphoria, where she believed nothing bad could possibly happen. Phobias were only there to be licked! The ride was so smooth! She gave herself up fully to the pleasure and excitement of the flight.

The immensity, the primeval nature and the remoteness of the landscape, lit by the brilliance of a tropical sun left an indelible imprint on the mind. This was a land unchanged in aeons. It appeared far more splendid than she remembered as a child. Of course there was no better way to see it than from a helicopter with its three-dimensional visual effects. She felt as free as a bird, wheeling, skimming, darting across the glorious cobalt sky.

Great inundated flood plains glittered below them. She stared out eagerly. Rivers extended wall to wall in numerous spectacular gorges. Such places were inaccessible in the Wet. They could only be seen as she was seeing them, from the air. A foaming white waterfall was coming up on the right. It crashed over the towering stone escarpment, throwing up a white haze like a great curtain. In contrast, the walls of the canyon glowed like a furnace, a throbbing orange-red streaked with bands of iridescent yellow and pink. Millions of litres of water were being delivered into the turbulent stream below, although the rains had abated some weeks back.

Gradually as the inundated land began to settle there would be an abundant harvest. The animals and the birds would begin to breed. Wildflowers would open out, going to work to form a prolific ground cover over the warm, receptive earth. All the varieties of palms and pandanus would put out new fronds. The golden and crimson grevilleas would bloom, the hibiscus and gardenia would spread their scent and colour across a background of lush greens. Mere words couldn’t prepare a visitor to the Top End for the sight. Suddenly after years in the city, Sandra felt the tremendous pull of the great living Outback. The Outback had fashioned her. She had been happily content as a child. Maybe she could be again?

Beneath her mile after mile of lagoons filled to the brim with beautiful waterlilies swept by. She knew the species: the sacred lily of Buddha, the red lotus, the pink and the white and the cream, and the giant blue waterlily with flowers that grew a foot across. The master of the waterways was down there, too. One could never forget that. The powerful salt water crocodile. She shuddered at the very thought. Moondai in the Red Centre was a long way from the crocs though according to the magnificent aboriginal rock drawings on the station they had inhabited the fabled inland sea of prehistory.

Daniel turned his handsome head to smile at her with a real depth of pleasure in his eyes. She smiled back, both of them in perfect accord; both captive to the space, the vast distances, the sunlight and the colours, the incomparable beauty of nature. Here was the very spirit of the bush. The air was so clear, it was like liquid crystal. By now, Sandra was so enthralled she’d completely forgotten how initially she had wanted to turn back. She felt happily content to fly with Daniel, an almost telepathic communication between them. It struck her he was really her kind of person. One knew these things right away.

It dawned on her very gradually their air speed was slowing. Steamy heat was rising from the waterlogged soil.

“Everything okay?” She turned to him, an alarmed croak in her voice.

His profile was set in stone. “We’re losing power. Sit tight.”

Instantly Sandra jerked back in her seat. Panic surged through her chest, near driving the breath from her lungs. All illusions of safety were abruptly shattered. Her worst nightmares appeared to be coming true. They were in trouble. Didn’t trouble follow her around? The helicopter was losing power and altitude. She craned her head. Beneath them lay a forest of paperbarks with their slender trunks standing in who knows how many feet of water. At least she could swim. She thought of the crocs. Their bodies would provide a nice feed. Troubled though her life had been she felt a sharp nostalgia for it. She wanted a future!

Okay, time to pray. What was the point, a dissenting little voice said. Her most fervent prayers hadn’t saved Nikki from a tragically early death. She would pray all the same. She couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of God. Maybe her time was up? Hers and Daniel Carson’s. Maybe that was why he didn’t feel like a stranger? They were going to die together.

She was suddenly indignant. There had been enough trouble in her life. She deserved a break. She couldn’t submit to her fate without paying strict attention to their plight. Not that she could do anything, basically, but try to help Daniel spot a place to set the chopper down.

Sandra stared fixedly at the magnificent landscape beneath them that had abruptly turned hostile. Daniel would have no other option but to force land.

Tell him something he doesn’t know.

But where? The vast terrain was covered in glittering swamps with a canopy of trees growing so close together if they were monkeys they could scamper across it. She even had a fevered thought if the worst came to the worst, they could bail out, land in the water then if they were lucky spring up a tree with a prehistoric monster snapping at their heels.

If there was one thing Daniel had learned it was to stay cool under pressure. Even immense pressure like this. They were a few kilometres into a big, flooded paperbark swamp. The manifold pressure had dropped off and he was losing power and RPM. Air speed was declining as well. He knew the girl was only too aware of it and the consequent danger, though he was so focused on what he was doing he dared not turn his head to look at her or even speak.

Seventy knots to sixty and bleeding off fast. No matter how he wished otherwise he had Alexandra Kingston with him. A girl whose father had been killed in a plane crash.

He couldn’t lose another second. He used his radio to report a mayday, giving his bearings. What could be causing this failure? He scanned the control panel which was going haywire. Something was screwing the system. The helicopter was regularly serviced as a matter of course. Only he flew it. And Berne.

He stared down, the muscles of his face rigid. There were huge paperbarks all around them fringed on the outer perimeter by pandanus.

Fifty knots.

God almighty! Was this the way it was going to end? A life span limited to a few decades? What a bloody mess. Adrenaline kicked in, flushing through his system. He was a good pilot, wasn’t he? A very good pilot. Now was not the time to be modest. He was lucky as well, which was almost as good. He had the girl with him and she deserved a life. They had to survive. He had to land the chopper safely even if he clipped the rotors which was a strong probability. He could sense the girl beside him was sitting rigid with fear, but she wasn’t screaming. Thank God for that! Many would be yelling their heads off at this point, when they were on the brink of a crash. She was, in fact, pointing frantically to a pocket handkerchief-sized clearing at the same time he spotted it coming up.

He lined the chopper up. The clearing was shaped like a playing field with its boundaries set at one end by a stand of pandanus, at the other by four paperbarks, their foliage iridescent in the sunlight.

Hell he almost loved her. She was far from stupid and she had kept her head. He had to applaud that.

Okay. It was now or never!

The swamp was rising to meet them with crocs in it for sure. Didn’t you just love them? He had to judge the tips of the branches of the trees by centimetres. He could feel the tremendous rush of adrenaline through his body, even the thrill of extreme danger. Paradoxically it gave him a weird feeling of excitement as well as fear; a buoyancy he had experienced before in tight situations.

Ten metres above the water, the surface was quivering and shimmering like a sea of sequins, then it churned into waves by the strong down draught. He couldn’t run the chopper on in case the skids got hooked onto the arched root system of the trees. If that happened, the chopper would flip over. A rotor tip only had to clip those trees. He could hear a hissing sound clearly. The clearing seemed to be lit up, preternaturally brilliant. It could signal the end but he took it as a good omen. He hovered, shutting everything out of his mind but the need to set the machine down safely. The will to survive transcended fear…all the blades were at the same pitch…

That’s it. Hold it still. Praise the Lord!

At the last moment, Sandra shut her eyes, her small hands clenched into fists. Death was always waiting in the wings. She didn’t want to see it coming. If she was going to die she was going to die. There was not much anyone could do about fate. But if anyone could save the situation this guy might. Sweat was pouring off her yet her blood was running ice. They could drop like a stone. The chopper would be hurled around like a piece of debris before it went up in flames… It only needed one false move.

Though she waited in limbo for the moment of impact and probable annihilation, the chopper seemed to come down in ultra slow motion as the rotor blades set up a whirlwind. The machine didn’t hit the water, rather it seemed to Sandra’s bemused mind it came down as lightly as a brolga on its tippy toes. She felt the skids sink and held her breath in case the probing skids got caught up in the trees’ root systems and tossed the fragile aircraft around like a child’s toy. Dread paralysed her limbs. This was a nightmare!

Only slowly, so slowly, the skids settled on the swamp bed.

She couldn’t believe it!

Sandra’s eyes flew open. The chopper was bobbing on the surface of the swamp, the body surrounded by streams of bubbles. There was a gurgle of water somewhere but they were stable.

Eureka!

The aircraft gave a groan that was almost human. Daniel killed the engine. The beating rotors, main and tail, gradually stopped their thundering.

All was still.

Sandra couldn’t even turn to face him. Whole moments passed while her racing heartbeats slowed to normal. Then she turned to him whooping triumphantly, unaware her face was milk-white with shock. “Carson, you have to be the coolest cat on the planet!”

“Supernatural!” he agreed wryly, tasting blood on his bottom lip.

They hit an exultant high-five.

“Which reminds me, you idiot! You could have killed us.”

“I look on it more as a truly great save.” Daniel stared at the control panel. “The person I should really kill is whoever’s been tinkering with the chopper.”

“What are you saying?” She heard the shrill note in her voice.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Daniel backed off, removing his earphones and unbuckling his seat belt. “I have to get out and take a look. You stay here.”

The very idea made her break out in a sweat. “You didn’t think I was just going to jump in? There must be crocs in there.”

He shook his head almost casually. “The water around us isn’t deep. It’s already begun to subside. Nevertheless we could become waterlogged even supposing I can fix whatever problem we have. The good thing is we’re not far out of Darwin. Air Rescue will scramble another chopper in no time. I’ll send you back with them. You’ll have to be winched up. I’ll stay with the chopper until we can get it airborne.”

“So who’s going to pinch it around here?” She resorted to sarcasm, not wanting to let him out of her sight. “The crocs? And don’t tell me they’re not lurking out there in among the reeds because I happen to know differently. I was born in the Territory, remember?”

“The desert, sweetheart,” he jeered, not even aware in the stress of the moment he had called her that. “The Red Centre is completely different to the Top End. Desert and tropics, both in the Territory. Moondai might as well be a million miles away from the crocs.”

“And I couldn’t be happier about that,” she retorted. “But shouldn’t you stay put? You could come to a grim and gruesome end. I think I’d hate that.”

He merely shrugged. “You don’t happen to know how to handle a rifle?” He sounded extremely doubtful.

Sandra snorted. “Do I ever! My dad taught me how to handle a gun. I’m sure I remember. It’s like learning to ride a horse.”

Daniel studied her in amazement. “He must have started you off early?”

“Because I wanted to learn,” she replied tartly. “Bernie could shoot. I had to be able to shoot too in case he planned a little accident. Grandpop used to think becoming a good shot was character building. So what do you want me to do?’

He frowned. “I’m going to make a full circuit of the chopper. It’s a miracle we didn’t sustain any damage to the main rotor. We’re centimetres from the trees. What I want you to do, if you feel up to it, is cover me just in case we have a nosey visitor. Just don’t shoot me, okay? Want to have a run through first?’

She unbuckled her belt and stood up though her legs were still wobbly. “Might be an idea. Where’s the rifle?”

He moved to collect it from where it was stashed, broke it open to load it, snapped the action shut, then passed it to her. “Think you know what you’re doing?”

“I’d prefer a dirty great cannon,” she muttered, making her own checks and feeling it all coming back. “But I do know which end of this thing shoots.” She swung up the rifle and took aim through the chopper’s reinforced forward windshield. “If there really is a croc out there where do I shoot him? Right between the eyes? They’ve got tiny brains haven’t they?”

“I’ve never had the pleasure of finding out. Just don’t miss or it will come right after me.”

“Then me.” She slicked stray tendrils off her forehead.

“I’m ready if you are.”

“Then let’s do it!’ he said.

He plunged straight down into the water which only a week before would have been over his head. “Fuselage appears to be unscathed,” he called to her eventually, his eyes scanning the waxed, glinting sides. “I want to check the shafts of the tail rotor. Keep your eyes peeled for ripples in the water.”

“Struth, what’s with you? Of course I will. We’re dinner otherwise. They’re there. I know they’re there.”

“Yeah? Well I’m the guy in the water.” Daniel moved about near soundlessly in the swamp stirring up the mud on the bed so the shining water turned dark and murky. Sandra followed him from one side of the helicopter to the other, her keen young eyes focused on the surface.

“Skids are in a web of roots and vegetation,” he yelled to her. “That’s the danger. They’ll have to be cleared.”

“I bet there are leeches in there?” Her voice was level, her face pale but resolute.

“Too right. The little buggers are stuck to my legs.”

“Oh how vile! You can’t do anything, can you?” she called.

His voice came back to her sounding perfectly in control.

“I’m going to use my old faithful Swiss Army knife. I have to clear that vegetation. Just cover me.”

She watched him plunge beneath the muddied waters coming up with coils of vines and gnarled roots that he tossed away across the swamp.

Only now could she smell the stomach-turning odour of mud and rotting vegetation. “Finish soon, Daniel,” she begged him. Her whole body was vibrating with tension and the rifle felt very heavy.

“Doing my best!” he grunted and plunged again.

A brilliant sun burned down on the small clearing, the paperbarks and pandanus standing all around like sentinels. Sandra had never felt so exposed in her life.

Hurry, hurry, Daniel.

She saw his sodden dark head decorated with trails of luminescent green slime emerge at the very moment she spotted thirty feet beyond him an arrowhead of ripples across the stagnant surface of the swamp. Then at the apex of the triangle nostrils and behind that twin blackish bulges about twenty-two to twenty-three centimetres apart.

Eyes, that glinted gold!

She was so panicked for a moment she felt she might pass out. It was coming at surprising speed for such a great cumbersome creature. It was surging towards the challenger in its territory ready to dismember it limb from limb and stash the feast for a week later.

Horror was as sharp as a drill. “Get out!” she yelled. “Daniel, get out. It’s a croc.”

His lean, muscular body shot out of the water, his strong arms lunging at the body of the helicopter towards the open cockpit, hauling himself up.

Sandra took aim down the sights of the handsome bolt action rifle which had been fitted with a small telescope to make distant targets appear closer. Her whole face was pinched tight with control while she waited for the precise moment the giant reptile’s brain, situated midway between the eyes, would be dead centre in her range. God help them if the action jammed!

Now!

She held her nerve. Her finger that had been holding steady on the trigger, squeezed… The butt plate kicked back into her shoulder as the firing pin struck the rear end of the cartridge.

The noise was deafening in the torrid, preternatural quiet of the swamp.

“I’ve killed it. I think I’ve killed it.” Her voice was ragged. There were runnels of sweat running down her face. “Did I?” she called to him for confirmation, “or did I just nick it?” Now the crisis was over she was shivering. “I should have had an M16.”

“Sorry, they belong to the armed forces.” Swamp water was streaming off him, as he stood within the chopper, his boots oozing mud. Leeches were feasting off him. “No worries, you got him all right,” he assured her. “Didn’t you see his yellow belly as he rolled?”

“Hell I’m good!” she congratulated herself. “I hope he’s not just playing dead? Maybe he wants both of us to think so until it’s time to make a leap into the cabin.”

He shook his head. “What do you want, a tooth for a trophy? You got him, Sandra. Good and proper. I would never have guessed you could shoot so well. You turned into Annie Oakley right before my eyes.”

She staggered away to sit down. “Who’s Annie Oakley anyway? One of your girlfriends?”

He moved to the edge of the doorway, beginning to remove the brown and black leeches with the help of his Swiss Army knife. “Hell, Ms Kingston, none of my girlfriends can shoot like you. You could give a lot of guys lessons. Annie Oakley, for your information, was a famous American markswoman. Supposedly Buffalo Bill’s girlfriend though I believe she married someone else.”

“Maybe it was a sore point she could shoot better. Uugh!” she shuddered, watching him remove the bloodsuckers with no show of revulsion. “How’s this for adventure? What are you going to do to top it?”

A lock of wet raven hair flopped over one eye. He tossed his head to dislodge it. “I could carry you on my shoulders across the swamp?”

“No thanks.”

“Changed your mind about going back with me?”

She hugged herself, rocking back and forth. “What do you reckon went wrong?”

“Too early to say.” One leg was clear.

“You seemed pretty sure it was tinkering before?”

He kept silent, concentrating on the sickening task to hand.

“Do you mind answering?”

“Maybe I was a little too quick off the mark back there. The chopper will be checked out. Accidents happen all the time.”

“There’s nothing Uncle Lloyd and Bernie would like more than to see me dead,” she said.

And I’d be a bonus, Daniel thought.

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