Chapter 16

Mitchell’s Creek, Sunny Corner, New South Wales, Australia:16

“Fuck!” I exclaimed. “Sorry Sister.”

Jim asked, “It’s for real?”

“I have to identify the body.” Agony personified.

“Who said?”

“Head Nursing Sister.”

“Agnes Jenkins,” Jim knew her. He snapped his fingers and held out his hand. Automatically, I put the phone in his hand.

“Agnes?” He asked.

“Jim? James Mac?”

“Yes, Agnes.” He queried, “Abbie’s dead?”

“James, while it is tragic, mortality in New South Wales is between six and seven per one hundred thousand births. She was just too small for a normal birth and she was delayed getting to the hospital.”

“Delayed?”

“One of our locals is an Australian,” she said it like it was all in caps and quotes.

“I see ... one of those guys.” Jim said, “Australia is for Australians.”

“And she is ... was ... dark and oriental. It probably didn’t make a difference ... she was just to small for a normal delivery. We couldn’t stop the bleeding ... it was massive,” she explained. “You’re a few hours away ... are you leaving soon?”

“About fifteen minutes ... hold on ... make it 30 ... we have a flat,” Jim said.

I turned and looked at the truck ... yup ... right rear. Changing it gave me something to do.

While that was going on, Jim and the miner and his herd loaded $18,070,000.00US, twenty three and a half million AU, worth of gold ... a half tonUS ... one thousand pounds or four hundred fifty four kilos in the back of my truck ... plus all our gear. It was going to be a very slow trip home ... and Jim drove.

He didn’t trust me ... I didn’t trust me ... I’d have wrecked us for sure.

Mr. Miner volunteered the heavy lifter to transport the gold to Bathurst ... but ... remembering the last time ... no thanks.

“G’day mate,” our cow faced friends all said.

“Day-ee,” we both said.

“We’ll be on our way soon,” said the head fellow. “We have our mineral. We can get home.”

There are forms of politeness that must be followed, no matter what the situation is. Finally, we shook hands all round and commenced. The trip to Sunny Corner was very slow ... we had one flat and another would be expensive and very time consuming ... we would have to be fetched. In Sunny Corner we bought and had mounted a new tire ... the old one was well and truly fucked.

I was moped. Not worthy company.

It took a while for the shock to wear off and I knew the ordeal was just beginning. I was single ... again ... and I wasn’t going to like it.

Wait! They said SINGLE FATHER.

“Jim?”

“What?”

“Can I have my phone back?”

“Who are you going to call?”

“Not Ghostbusters ... that’s for sure. The miner said I was a single father. I need to call the hospital. Thanks.”

“Hit the Redial,” Jim said. He’d noticed I was looking at the phone like it was an object from outer space.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Agnes Jenkins.”

“I’ll hold.”

“Listen to this, Jim.” I held the phone up to his ear.

“Oh my god.”

“Worst Holding music ever.”

“That’s awful!”