Hope's Road by Margareta Osborn Page A

propped to the side, looking up at his father.
    â€˜Are you hit?’
    â€˜Shot, do ya mean? Nah, it’s the rabbit. I’ve got it here in me hand. Mr McCauley’s not good though. I can’t hear his heart.’
    â€˜Mate, you won’t hear it properly in his back. Can you move? Can you get off him?’
    â€˜Yeah, I was just trying to see if he was dead. Thought if I laid on him I might hear what was going on inside. But I think he’s alive. He was moving his hands a bit before and groaning.’
    A noise came from the direction of the dish mop. Hunter could hear it now the ambulance had turned off its siren. He leaned down to catch what the old man was saying.
    â€˜Get the little bugger off-a-me,’ mumbled Joe. ‘Can’t bloody breathe!’
    Hunter pulled his son off the old bloke’s back real quick, the dead animal which had been squashed between the two bodies coming away with them. Blood, guts and fur were everywhere. All over the boy. All over Joe. But that wasn’t what was holding Travis’s attention. There was more blood here than could just be attributed to the damned rabbit.
    Joe tried to roll over. Fell back face down. ‘I can’t,’ the old man mumbled. ‘Hurts.’
    â€˜Just stay there, Joe. The ambos will be here in a sec.’
    â€˜What’s he done?’ Tammy was leaning over Trav’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Billy? Crikey, you had me scared! Crap, that’s a huge cut on the old bloke’s head. Can you hear me, Joe?’
    Joe could hear her all right. Those dulcet tones he’d never thought would drift around his ears again. So beautifully pitched, with the lilt of huskiness curling at the end of the sentence. ‘Mae?’
    â€˜Good Lord, he thinks I’m my grandmother.’ The voice sounded surprised.
    Joe couldn’t work out why. It was Mae, wasn’t it?
    â€˜Tammy, move over. The ambo’s here. He’s wanting to get through to Joe.’ That was Travis Hunter. Funny, in the few times he’d spoken to the bloke, he’d never heard him sound so agitated and stressed. The man was usually like a refrigerator. Solid and cool.
    â€˜Sorry. Here let me help you with that case. Trav, do you want to go check on Billy? The other paramedic’s over there. I’ll stay here and answer this one’s questions.’
    There she was again, Mae. No. The man called her Tammy. Who the fuck was Tammy?
    â€˜And you are?’ the ambulance officer asked.
    â€˜I’m – well, I’m actually his niece, but he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t like people. Especially family.’
    Aha, so that’s who she was. Of course! Tammy from that place. How the hell did she get up on top of his hill? The bloody cheek of her! Mae . . . no . . . Tammy was talking some more to someone with a calm, male voice. Then there were cool hands on the back of his head, over his body, thoroughly checking here, there and everywhere.
    â€˜We’re just going to examine you a bit more before we turn you over, Mr . . . ?’
    â€˜McCauley. Joe McCauley.’ Her again. So Mae remembered him, even after all these years? Damn it, it wasn’t Mae. Tammy. It was Tammy .
    â€˜Is he going to the hospital at Narree? Geez, he’s not going to like that. Is he going to be okay?’
    Of course I’m bloody well okay, thought Joe. Just a little bump on my head. Can’t move me left leg either, but I’m not telling you lot that. I’m fine. You can just sit me up and then bugger off, all of you.
    â€˜Yes, I suppose I can get some clothes and stuff sorted for him. As I said he’s practically a hermit. Will he be there a while?
    What? Leave home? Go to town ? No way. Who did this Tammy woman think she was? Be buggered if she was just going to step in and take over! He tried to roll onto his back but firm male hands