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Wiri seethed against the indignity of being dangled over a hole by a group of volunteer firemen.
Shame reddened his cheeks and raised his heart rate enough to alarm the paramedics, who monitored his vitals on the way across the bumpy paddock. Humiliation flooded his veins, reminding him of the time Logan rescued him from a mob of stampeding cattle during a muster. He’d yanked him up by the waistband of his jeans and slapped him over the horn of his saddle like a sack of grain. The stock men laughed about it for months. Seline made the current situation worse.
“Oh, my goodness!” she wailed. She leaned across the ambulance to speak to him and he squirmed against her heightened sense of drama. “I ran down to the road to direct the fire engine.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Water had plastered her red fringe to her forehead. “Then the lightning started and the torrential rain. I didn’t even think about the tank filling.” Her breath stuck in her chest and a paramedic slipped a foil blanket around her soaked shoulders. “Mum sent me over to see if you wanted us to bring lunch.” Her eyes widened. “She’s gone with Vaughan. He’s hurt real bad.” Her voice wavered, but an intensity entered her eyes as though she hid deeper emotions.
Wiri’s watch vibrated on his left wrist. He screwed his head sideways to see the screen flash to life. ‘Message sent,’ it told him. Then the light winked out, and the watch died. Shower proof but not drown-proof.
Wiri groaned and stopped fighting the restriction of the collar. The paramedic lifted a syringe filled with clear fluid. “Don’t move around, Wiremu,” he said, his tone kind. “We’ll get you up to the hospital and they’ll see what damage you’ve done to yourself.” His words suggested Wiri had intentionally sealed himself inside a water tank below ground and thrown himself around just for kicks. His pulse rate rose again and the steady clip-clop of the monitor measuring it flashed as though surprised.
The clear liquid warmed the site where the cannula entered the vein in the back of his right hand. Wiri felt it snake up his arm and his view of the ambulance blurred. “Phone,” he heard himself murmur. “Phoe.”
“What’s he saying?” Something soft swished across his cheek and the scent of floral conditioner filled his nostrils.
“Sit back, miss.” The paramedic rebuked her in an authoritative tone. “He won’t make much sense for a while. I need to keep him still until we get to the Waikato hospital.”
“He’s asking for someone called Fiona.” Seline’s words contained an element of pique. “That must be his girlfriend.”
“That’s not you, then?” A cold spray hit Wiri’s damaged fingers, and he tried to recoil them, finding himself unable to work the joints. The drug made his muscles and tendons release their hold on his joints. He floated free like a bag of empty skin in his mind. The image repulsed him and he commanded his body to curl into a ball. It disobeyed, and his mind panicked.
A cool hand laid across his forehead and his imaginary image of Phoenix leaned over him, her stone-coloured irises dancing in her beautiful face. “You’ll be okay now,” she promised. He relaxed as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. He forced himself to focus on the delightful curve of her lips and the way her black curls sneaked past her shoulder. They lapped against his chest with the movement of the vehicle over the rough ground. His fingers ached as the paramedic splinted the bones and wrapped a bandage around the ragged skin.
“I love you,” he whispered, his heart filling with an elation he’d never experienced.
Her expression morphed into one of surprise and Wiri gaped as Phoenix became Seline. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed in confusion. But her blue irises danced with danger and Wiri shuttered his gaze with hastily closed eyelids. The swearwords which loosed inside his head would have shocked Hana to her core. When laughter reverberated around the interior of the ambulance, he realised he’d said them aloud.
***
Wiri dropped into consciousness with the force of a slap. One second he floated with Phoenix in the warm waves of the Tasman and the next, he stared at a white tiled ceiling covered in fly crap. A single overhead strip-light flickered like a strobe. He tilted his head to the side, relieved to find the restrictive collar gone. He commanded his left hand to rise and this time, it obeyed. A ridiculous white bandage covered the middle finger like something from a cartoon. Logan’s stock men would have laughed up a lung at the sight of the foul gesture it created, separating the fingers on either side of it into a fan.
Disgusted, Wiri used his other hand to tug at it. But the medic who wrapped enough gauze around the wound to pack an artery had stuck tape to his knuckle with something akin to super glue. The activity of his right hand dislodged the cannula someone had pushed into his vein and the pipe connected to it dropped below the correct level. The clear fluid changed colour as the pipe filled with his blood.
A breeze ruffled the patterned curtain surrounding Wiri’s cubicle and voices issued from beyond its fabric wall. He tilted his head to find himself wearing a hospital gown. Closing his eyes against the horror of strange hands undressing him, he prayed it wasn’t Seline who’d removed his boxer shorts. He imagined trying to explain that to Phoenix and a blurred memory surfaced of him telling Seline he loved her.
Swearing, he pushed himself onto his right elbow, breathing through a dart of pain which shot from his tail bone into his spine. He pushed off the waffle patterned blanket and sheet covering his lower half, grimacing at the grit and dirt collected between the downy hair covering his shins. The tube running from a drip by the bed hung lower and filled with more blood. Wiri scrabbled at it with his left hand, the cartoon finger rendering the action impossible.
By the time the curtain swished back and a nurse entered, Wiri had stripped off the white bandage and disconnected the drip. “Stop!” she said, her tone filled with horror as his index finger and thumb closed around the nub of the cannula. Quick steps took her to the side of his bed.
The fabric of her blue scrubs brushed against his elbow as she bent to retrieve the pipe leaking pink fluid onto the tiled floor. “Just wait, Mr Kingii,” she said, her rubber shoes squeaking against the tiles. “Please don’t undo all my good work.”
“Sorry.” Wiri’s throat croaked as he spoke. He brushed his lips with the back of his left hand, finding them cracked and painful. Blowing out a ragged breath, he dipped forward to look at the floor, discovering the action took the pressure off his spine.
A ruffled piece of pink fabric held the nurse’s blonde hair back from her face in a neat bun. She smiled at Wiri and her lips flattened into a line. “I get it,” she soothed. Deft fingers lifted his right wrist and placed his hand over his thigh. “You can leave after you’ve seen the doctor.”
Wiri shook his head and winced at the ache at the back of his skull. “I need to get out of here,” he croaked. He tried to lift his right hand to worry at the site of the pain and the nurse tapped it before setting it back on his thigh.
“Let me take this out first,” she said. She epitomised the definition of competence as she removed the cannula from the back of his hand and pressed a sticking plaster over the tiny hole. Her fingers moved through a series of processes with the ease of experience.
“What’s wrong with my head?” As soon as she released his hand, Wiri pressed his fingers over a piece of fabric covering the sore spot. His eyes widened at the stubble on either side of it. “You shaved my hair!”
His shocked expression drew a laugh from the nurse. She tapped his shoulder, her lips fighting not to make his mortification worse. “It’ll grow back,” she soothed. “Keep it dry and clean for a few days. The doctor put in four stitches and some medical glue.”
Wiri groaned and contemplated removing the gauze. His fingers picked at the tape, but the nurse’s narrowing eyes forced him to drop his hand. Around Hana’s age, she infused him with a sense of safety created by her maternalism. She jerked her head towards his fingers. White strips covered the black stitches knotted across a cut which ran from knuckle to knuckle. A red line snaked around his finger to end at a black point on his nail. “Don’t pick those off,” she warned, raising her right eyebrow. Wiri saw how grey flecked the blonde as she dipped to inspect the wound.
He allowed her to raise his hand, forcing himself to relax against her grip. Her breath coasted across the skin and she nodded once before releasing it. His hand felt heavy without her support, and it crashed down against the mattress. She froze and stared at him, her lips straightening into a line. “I might get the doctor to look at you again,” she stated, her tone serious. “They x-rayed your spine and there’s nothing broken, but you might have nerve damage.”
Wiri shook his head, and the gown rode up above his knees as he slipped from the bed to the tiles. His toes delayed their obedience, refusing to bend on cue, and he crashed onto his heels without control. He groaned as his tail bone hit the metal bed frame and his toes slipped forward until they contacted the nurse’s rubber shoes. Wiri’s humiliation deepened as she grabbed him beneath the armpits and hoisted him back to a sitting position. “Wait there!” she commanded. “I’m fetching the doctor.” The curtain swished open, and another nurse stuck her face through the gap.
“Can you give me a hand?”
Wiri’s nurse nodded before turning her attention back to him. “There’s a cop waiting to see you.” She forced him to accept her help, to set his legs back on the mattress. He looked away as she raised the sides of the bed and squeaked away on her sensible soles to assist her colleague.
“Are you decent?” Jet’s face appeared around the edge of the curtain. He glanced at the thunder in Wiri’s eyes and winced. “Oh. Sorry.”
Wiri exhaled. He shoved his elbow at the bed rail. “They’re treating me like a child,” he grumbled. He frowned at the casual tee shirt and jacket covering Jet’s upper body. Shifting sideways, he spotted jeans and trainers. A frown set deep lines into his forehead as he lifted his left wrist and cursed at his dead watch. “What’s the time?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you at work?”
Jet glanced at his wrist and wrinkled his nose. “It’s just after eleven.”
Wiri blinked. His sense of time wrapped the hours around themselves and met him on their circuitous way back through his mind. He shrugged, the action hurting his spine. “In the morning?” His memory flicked back to his cooler bag and the sandwiches he’d took such trouble over making.
“At night.” Jet pursed his lips. “Leilah is still here with Vaughan. She asked me to bring you some stuff.” He hoisted a cloth shopping bag. Bulges pressed through the fabric. “I went through your bag. Hope that’s okay? Just grabbed the basics.”
“Yeah.” Wiri exhaled. “You’re not the first.”
“What?” Jet frowned and cocked his head.
“Nothing.” Wiri opened and closed the fingers of his right hand. “Quick, help me with this bed rail. I need to get out of here before the nurse comes back.”
Jet winced and backed away as though he thought Wiri contagious. “Na, man. Don’t do that.”
Wiri ground his teeth and his grey eyes flashed in warning. “Unless you want a ringside view of my ass when I crawl over this kiddy rail, then help me!” he growled. “I’m not joking!”
The busyness of the hospital played to Wiri’s advantage as laboured movements got him out of the gown and into his clothes. The nurse didn’t return as beeping alarms and the demands of a wailing woman in the next cubicle occupied her attention. Jet slumped into a plastic visitor’s chair and read emails on his phone. He refused to assist other than to put down the safety rail on the bed.
“Help me fasten my jeans,” Wiri pleaded after the fifth attempt to push the buttons through the holes.
Jet swore at him and waved off his request. “I don’t think so.” His casual tone grated on Wiri’s nerves. “Imagine the headlines, dude. Local cop caught feeling patient’s nads on hospital ward.”
“Fine.” Wiri slipped a clean tee shirt from the bag and wrestled his sore head through the neck. “Pity you didn’t think I’d need underwear because I’m gonna flash at everyone walking towards us.” He spun in a circle, hoping to find the clothes he’d arrived in. “Can you see my boots anywhere?”
Jet rose with a sigh and opened the cabinet next to the bed. He hauled out a transparent plastic bag containing a jumble of soaked items. Pointing at Wiri’s boots on the bottom, he grimaced. “I didn’t think to bring shoes, either. Can you wear these?” He parted the lip of the plastic and recoiled at the smell from its interior. “Yuk! You might need to bin this stuff.”
Wiri straightened the bedding and sent a silent apology to the nurse for his lack of appreciation for her craft. “I’ll go barefoot,” he declared. He glared at Jet. “And commando, so thanks for that. Where’s your car?”
Jet blinked back at him. “I don’t have one.”
Wiri closed his eyes against an image of himself sitting on a night bus, barefoot, with his fly undone. Temper flared in his chest, momentarily dispelling the various pain signals which occupied his brain. “How did you get here?” he asked with a sigh.
“I used your truck.” He winked at him and hoisted the bag. “Delightful ride Mr Du Rose.”
“Shut up!” Wiri released a ragged breath. “That’s the other reason we need to get out of here. Someone told them I was Wiremu Kingii. They won’t find me on any of their medical systems.” He exhaled and rubbed his good hand over his ribcage. “She said something about a cop waiting to see me. Is that you?”
Jet grinned back at him as he peeked through a gap in the curtains. Grey water dripped from a corner of the bag, leaving a trail behind him as he sneaked between the fluttering edges of fabric. “No,” he replied. “I said I was your flat mate.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And that, my friend, is why nothing good comes from lying.” He jerked his head at Wiri to follow, his shoulders shaking with a low, irritating chuckle.
