Read Online Inherit the Sky (Lang Downs 1 ) by Ariel Tachna - Free Book Online

forgot the gloves he still had on his belt from earlier, and one of the barbs jabbed deeply into his palm as he tossed the wire on the ground. He bit his lip to silence the curses that wanted to pour out, sure Macklin and the other jackaroos would never have done something so stupid. He shut the rear door and climbed back in the passenger side, remembering to go to the left side rather than the right. As soon as Macklin started the Jeep and pulled out of the yard, Caine let out the curse of pain he’d been holding back.
    “Fuck.”
“What now?” Macklin asked, his face still hard.
“Nothing,” Caine replied, cradling his hand against his chest.
    “Let’s get out of here, okay?”
“Nothing I’d like better, pup,” Macklin said, not looking in
Caine’s direction. “You handled yourself well back there. Taylor’s men
are an unruly bunch of idiots. I don’t know how he puts up with them.” “All I did was keep my mouth shut,” Caine replied.
“With that lot, that’s the best thing you could have done.” Caine shook his head and let it go. His hand had started to throb,
making him a little sick to his stomach. He rested his head against the
    seat and closed his eyes, trying the same breathing exercises his speech therapist had taught him to help calm his stutter. He opened his eyes when he felt the Jeep slow, unbuckling his seatbelt so he could open the gate. The movement made his hand hurt worse, and he cursed again.
    “What’s the matter?” Macklin asked, turning to look at Caine this time.
“I hurt my hand,” Caine admitted. “When I grabbed the barbed wire back there.”
“Let me see,” Macklin demanded.
Caine held out his hand to reveal the puncture in the center of his palm.
Macklin shook his head. “Wear gloves next time. I only have a basic first aid kit in the car. I’ll patch it up as best I can, and then we’ll have a real go at it when we get to the station.”
Caine wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that, but then he liked the thought of it getting infected even less.
“When was your last tetanus shot?”
“A c-couple of months ago,” Caine replied. “I made sure everything was up to date before I came here.”
“That’s good at least,” Macklin said, opening the glove compartment above Caine’s knees and pulling out a first aid kit. “The doc comes to the station twice a year unless he has to fly in for an emergency. We try to avoid that.”
“I’m sure,” Caine replied. Macklin pulled out a tube of some kind of ointment, some alcohol wipes that made Caine shudder just at the sight of them, and a small bandage.
Caine bit his lip again as Macklin scrubbed at the wound until it bled slightly, not wanting to let on how much it hurt. “The blood will clean out the wound,” Macklin explained as he put cream on the spot and then covered it. “Keep it covered until it’s completely healed. It’s easy for cuts to get infected out here and hard to get the medicine to clear it up.”
Caine nodded, his fingers tingling as Macklin held them. “I didn’t buy gloves in Boorowa.”
“We’ll find a pair for you,” Macklin said. “We keep plenty of gloves on the station because we go through so many pairs. The leather might have a better chance against barbed wire than your skin, but it gets torn up too.”
“My hand didn’t stand a chance,” Caine said, pulling back now that Macklin had finished with the bandage. “I’ll get the gate.”
He hopped out before Macklin could tell him not to because of his hand. Yes, it hurt some when he had to use both hands to lift the gate enough to start it swinging, but he didn’t want Macklin thinking he couldn’t pull his own weight. The Jeep drove through, and Caine latched the gate behind him, noticing as he did that the latch was loose.
“That gate didn’t close very well,” he told Macklin when he got back in.
“Not our problem,” Macklin said. “It’s Taylor’s property on both sides of the fence. He has the gate to