Free Cross Off by Peter Corris Page A

towel which he had spread on the ground. There had been no sound from where the assailant had fired for a couple of minutes and Dunlop judged that he had gone. Blood was oozing from Ava's damaged side and running more freely from the deep slash in her arm. Flies were buzzing around the dripping blood.
    'I have to get help.'
    'Don't leave me, Luke. Please don't leave me. He might come back. God. Oh Christ, it hurts. Am I going to die?'
    'No, but . . .'
    A soft murmuring sound came from behind them. Dunlop spun around, raised the pistol. A tall, thin Aborigine, wearing shorts and a singlet, stood at the edge of the scrub.
    'Heard shootin',' he said. 'She in a bad way?'
    'Yes. Could you call an ambulance, please?'
    'My missus is a nurse. Hang on, I'll get her.'
    The man vanished. Dunlop used his swimming trunks to wipe sweat from Ava's face, swollen and blotched where she'd been hit. Her breath was coming in soft puffs as she went into shock.
    'Hang on. Help's coming.' He tore his shirt into strips and tied a tourniquet above the arm wound. The blood flow slowed. He brushed away the flies trying to get at the lacerations.
    'Dry. Need a drink.'
    'Coming. Hang on.' Dunlop ground his teeth with impatience. He realised he was still gripping his .38 and he put it back in the shopping bag so as not to alarm the nurse.
    'Where
are
you?' he groaned.
    'Here, mate. She's here.' The tall Aborigine was accompanied by a younger, lighter-skinned woman wearing shorts and a khaki army shirt. She opened a canvas bag as she pushed Dunlop aside and knelt down.
    'How bad?' Dunlop said.
    The woman didn't reply. She took swabs, a syringe and a rubber-capped bottle from the bag and snapped her fingers. The man flattened the grass near her hand and put a piece of bark down. The woman laid the things on it, adding gauze, scissors, a tube of cream. She lifted Ava's closed right eyelid, nodded and prepared an injection which she administered to the undamaged arm. She cleaned the wounds and applied cream and a powder. She taped a dressing to the ugly tear above the ribs and some clamps to the slash. Then she lightly bound up the arm. She covered Ava's bruised thighs and crotch with Dunlop's trunks.
    'Good tourniquet,' she said. 'She'll be all right I reckon. Got to get her to the clinic, but. I'll stay with her. You blokes go and phone.'
    Dunlop picked up the bag containing his gun and followed the Aborigine into the bush, struggling to keep up with him as the man strode along a path that barely existed. Dunlop glanced at his watch. It was one thirty-five and the ferry would have left.
    Dennis Tate was lucky. His blind meander through the scrub with his balls aching and his kidneys throbbing had brought him out on a rise from which he could see a road and the roofs of the town buildings. His strength was ebbing fast but his vision cleared a little. He hung on by an effort of will, forcing himself to move, to straighten his clothes, smooth his tangled hair with his fingers. His laugh when he saw that his fly was undone was almost hysterical. He blundered down the road, turned a corner and came to a tiny shop with faded signs and flyblown plastic strips hanging in the doorway. Tate snatched two cans of Coca-Cola from the shelf, threw the shopkeeper a five dollar note and drank the liquid warm as he walked towards the town. When he tossed the second can into the grass his strength was almost back to normal. He had time to catch the boat if he hurried. He walked faster, glad that he had recalled what the old diabetic man in the hospital bed next to his had said: 'Don't piss around with barley sugar and that, mate, if you get a real bad hypo. Slam a can of Coke into you. That'll do the trick.'
    Tate had time for a quick check of his appearancein the hotel toilet before he boarded the ferry. His sweat-soaked shirt had dried out. There was very little blood on him, mostly on his shirt. He sponged it with water and a wad of toilet paper. Messy-looking, but not