“Paula, are you there?” Dan’s voice crackled from the radio. Paula jumped and the one hand holding the wheel pulled right, sending her car in that direction. She corrected and braked as she felt the car slide on the gravelled road.

“Paula?”

The car slid to a stop in the middle of the road and Paula took a deep breath to calm her thudding heart. She picked up the radio handpiece and noticed the tremble in her fingers.

“Yes, Dan. I’m nearly there,” she said.

“I can’t see you. I’m in the furthest paddock from the main gate.”

“Okay.”

“Where the water tank is.”

“Okay, I’ll be there soon.”

Paula hung up and eased the car forward. Just when she thought she knew her way around, the local countryside conspired to unsettle her. She reached the crossroads again and turned left. In the corner of the paddock, through the trees, she could see their truck. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d come to the crossroads the first time. Not far along, she recognised the gate into Harvey’s place. She followed the track along the fence line, driving past huge bales of hay, and made her way to the next paddock.

Dan was fiddling around with something in the back of the tray top when she finally pulled up beside him. She popped the boot, got out of the car and was buffeted by the strengthening wind. Her eyes itched.

“Sorry, Dan, I took a wrong…”

“Doesn’t matter,” he cut in and strode over to the boot. “I can’t spray anyway. Wind’s too strong. Could be for the best. I haven’t got the chemical yet and I might not spray it at all.”

Paula thought of the afternoon she’d just wasted driving into town. She felt hot and tired but she could see the tension in Dan’s movements. His day had obviously been more trying than hers.

“Why did you think you needed to spray?” she asked softly.

He pulled the things from the boot of her car. “Rust,” he said over his shoulder.

Paula watched him stack the parts next to the spray unit. Rust was something that affected metals. She looked across the swaying crop to the distant trees.

Dan shut the boot and stood beside her. “The agronomist noticed a small patch. This wheat might be the only crop to break even this year. Couldn’t afford to lose it at the best of times but especially not this year.”

Paula wanted to ask what rust had to do with wheat but Dan was already moving towards the tray top, then he stopped and looked back.

“Can you drive your car over to the truck? I need to load some hay.”

He had turned and was in the tray top before Paula could reply. She drove along the edge of the paddocks back to where she’d seen the truck.