Top-Notch Doc, Outback Bride

‘The police keep most missing-person files open, though, don’t they?’ Kellie said. ‘I’ve seen a few news stories about old cases that have been solved, using DNA to match perpetrators to crimes.’

‘That’s true,’ Ruth said, ‘but out here there isn’t the manpower to do any more than maintain law and order. Doctors aren’t the only people who resist remote country appointments— police are pretty thin on the ground out here, too.’

Kellie met the older woman’s brown eyes. ‘You don’t believe she’s dead, do you?’ she asked.

Ruth held her gaze for several moments. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I feel it in here.’ She placed a hand over her heart. ‘She’s out there somewhere, I just know it.’

Kellie felt deeply for the poor woman. She had a pretty clear idea of the process of denial—she had witnessed it in her father for the last six years. He still acted as if her mother was going to walk in the door. He even occasionally spoke of her in the present tense, which made the job of getting on with his life so much harder for him and his family, not to mention Aunty Kate.

‘Well, I must let you settle in,’ Ruth said a few minutes later after they had finished the tea. ‘It’s an isolated place out here—but it’s not an unfriendly one.’

‘I’m very glad to hear that,’ Kellie said with genuine feeling. ‘This is a leap into the unknown for me. I’m right out of my comfort zone but I need the challenge right now.’

‘Well, it will certainly be challenging, it always is when the unexpected happens in places as far out as this,’ Ruth said as she gathered up her bag. ‘But Matthew McNaught is a very capable doctor. He’s experienced and caring. I am sure you’ll enjoy working with him, especially once you get to know him. This last weekend was a tough one for him. It’ll take him a few days to get back to normal.’

‘I think we’ll get along just fine,’ she said to the older woman with a smile. ‘In any case, I’ve got a week up my sleeve to get a feel for the place. I kind of figured it would be wise not to rush headlong into a close community like this.’

‘You might not have any choice, my dear,’ Ruth said with a sombre look. ‘Things can happen out here in a blink of an eye.’

Soon after Ruth left Kellie decided to walk the short distance to the pub. She had always enjoyed male company and while the pub looked nothing like the family-friendly bistros she was used to, she didn’t see any harm in getting to know some of the locals in a relaxed and casual atmosphere.

She was barely in the door before Bluey, the man with the broken arm, came ambling over. ‘What would you like to drink, Doc?’

Kellie smiled so as not to offend him. ‘It’s fine, really. I’ll get my own.’

‘Nah,’ he drawled as he winked at his two mates. ‘It’s been a long time since I bought a pretty lady a drink. Don’t spoil it for me. What’ll you have?’

Kellie agreed to have a lemonade, lime and bitters and sat at the table with Bluey and his cronies, who turned out to be two other farmers looking as though they had spent many a long day in the sun.

‘So what brings a nice girl like you out to a place like this?’ Jeff, the oldest of the three, asked.

‘I saw Tim Montgomery’s advertisement in the AustralianMedical Journal and thought it would be a great chance to do my bit for the bush,’ she answered. ‘A house, a car and a job all rolled into one sounded too good to miss.’

‘It sounds too good to be true, right, Jeff?’ Bluey said with a gap-toothed grin.

Kellie wasn’t sure what he meant and didn’t have time to ask as just then she heard a commotion from behind the counter of the pub.

‘Quick, call the doctor!’ a female voice shrieked. ‘I think I’ve cut off my finger!’

Kellie leapt to her feet and approached the bar. ‘Can I help?’ she asked. ‘I’m a doctor.’

The face of Bruce, the barman, was ashen as the woman was clutching a blood-soaked teatowel to her right hand. ‘It looks pretty bad,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’d better call Matt McNaught.’

Kellie stood her ground. ‘By the time Dr McNaught gets here I could at least stem the bleeding and assess the damage.’

‘Good point, but I’ll give him a call in any case. He’ll know what to do, you being new in town and all,’ Bruce said, and lifted a section of the bar to allow her access to where the woman was sitting visibly shaking as she cradled her hand against her chest.

Kellie introduced herself to the woman, Julie Smithton, who told her she had been using a sharp knife to cut up some lemons when the knife had slipped and cut through the top of her finger.

‘Let me have a look at the damage,’ Kellie said, gently taking the woman’s hand in hers. She carefully unpeeled the teatowel to find a deep laceration across the palmar surface, indicating there was a possibility the flexor tendon could be severed.

‘Have I cut it off?’ Julie asked in a thread-like voice.

Kellie smiled reassuringly. ‘No, Julie, you haven’t. The finger’s completely intact. But it looks like you might have damaged a tendon. Do you think you can try and bend your finger, like this?’ She demonstrated the action of moving her index finger up and down in a wave-like action.

Julie gingerly lifted her hand but even though she was clearly trying to move her finger there was no flexion response. ‘I can’t do it,’ she cried.

‘It’s all right,’ Kellie said gently. ‘It’s something that can be easily fixed with a bit of microsurgery. You’ll be back to normal in no time.’

Julie’s eyes flared in fear. ‘Microsurgery?’

‘Yes,’ Kellie said. ‘It’s done by a plastic surgeon, but it will soon be—’

‘But can’t Dr McNaught do it?’ Julie asked. ‘I don’t want to travel all the way to Brisbane. I’ve got three kids.’

‘Who’s looking after them now?’ Kellie asked.

Julie lowered her eyes. ‘They’re on their own at the house,’ she mumbled. ‘They’re not little kids any more. I guess they might be all right for a day or so.’

‘What about their father?’ Kellie asked. ‘Couldn’t he look after them?’

A dark, embittered look came into the young woman’s eyes. ‘He left us close to three years ago. Got himself a new family now in Charleville, last I heard.’

Kellie looked at the woman’s prematurely lined and weather-beaten face and wondered how old she was. She wasn’t sure but she didn’t think she was that old, but clearly the strain of bringing up three children on her own had taken its toll, not to mention the unforgiving outback climate.

‘You’ll only be in hospital a few days, five at the most,’ Kellie said. Turning to the hovering Bruce, she asked, ‘Do you have a first-aid kit here, Bruce? My doctor’s bag is back at the cottage. And I’ll need the number of the flying doctor service. I left the card Dr McNaught gave me with all the contact numbers on it back at the cottage.’

Once the call had been made Julie asked to be taken to her house to see her kids and organise things before the flying doctor arrived.

‘I’ll take you,’ Bluey offered as he came to where they were gathered.

‘Yeah, right,’ Julie said with a look of disdain. ‘You’re exactly what I need right now, a broken-armed drunk to come to my rescue in a beat-up hulk of a car.’

Bluey looked affronted. ‘I’m no drunk, Jules. I’ve only had two light stubbies. Sure, there’s a spot of rust or two in the old Holden, but I can drive it with one arm tied behind my back…’ he grinned and added, ‘or my front.’

‘What’s going on?’ Matt’s voice sounded deep and controlled as he came in, carrying a doctor’s bag in one hand.

‘Julie has a lacerated flexor tendon and I’ve organised transport to Brisbane with the flying doctor service,’ Kellie informed him. ‘I called them and they’re only half an hour away on another trip from the station out at Gunnawanda Gully.’

Matt took Kellie aside and, looking down at her seriously asked, ‘I notice you have blood on your hands,’ he said. ‘Do you realise you should be wearing gloves? You could put yourself at risk of infection.’

Kellie felt a little tremor of unease pass through her. ‘I didn’t have my doctor’s bag with me,’ she said. ‘I simply responded to a call for help and acted accordingly.’

‘There’s no point putting yourself at risk,’ he admonished her. ‘Once you had established it wasn’t a life-threatening injury you should have taken universal precautions. You should have called me and met me at the clinic where we could have explored the wound, gloved up at the very least.’

‘I realise that but—’

‘Furthermore, if it turns out Mrs Smithton doesn’t have a tendon injury, you would have wasted thousands of dollars of community money, getting an air ambulance out here for nothing.’