Her Outback Protector

“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.