Death is Forever

looked startled, then laughed aloud. “That bad, huh?”
    “Worse.”
    He started the Rover and followed the track as it veered away from the flats, heading toward an unknown destination. Only when Erin looked back did she realize that the land was slowly rising. Just as slowly, it was becoming more uneven.
    With no warning they crested a rise and found themselves driving between low, roughly parallel ridges that poked sluggishly from the ground. Stunted gum and acacia reappeared, along with an occasional bizarre boab tree. Spinifex grew more thickly, though never to a point Erin would describe as lush.
    She straightened in her seat and looked longingly at the lacy skirts of shade beneath the trees.
    “We’ll stop up ahead,” Cole said, following her glance.
    “The government map doesn’t show much, but the land rises about five hundred feet more. There’s a gorge I want to check out. It’s on the boundary between a sandstone district and a limestone district.”
    “Is that in the whatsit drainage?”
    He smiled. “Karst. No. That’s farther in.”
    “No caves, huh?”
    “Not that I know of, but I’ve never explored the area. The last time I went to Dog Four, I came in another way.”
    She looked at him curiously. “When were you last in the Kimberley?”
    “A while back.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m a prospector.”
    “Did you ever find anything?”
    “I’ve found my share,” he said, dividing his attention between the increasingly rough track and a part of the Kimberley he’d never seen before.
    “Any diamonds?” she asked.
    “Some.”
    “Gold?”
    “Here and there.”
    Her mouth flattened. “You know, each time the topic of you and the Kimberley comes up, you either change the subject or clam up.”
    “Look. I’ve got my hands full driving and at the same time trying to guess what kind of strata are beneath the surface. Is there something you really want to know about me and the Kimberley,” he said, “or are you just feeling chatty?”
    She slipped his khaki shirt from beneath her butt and used the hem to mop her face. “How did you get Abe’s diamonds and the will?”
    “A little late to be suspicious of me, isn’t it?”
    “Better late than—”
    “—never,” he interrupted sardonically. He flexed his hands on the wheel and thought of Uncle Li’s thin neck. “Everybody who ever pegged out a lease in Western Australia spent some time on Abe’s station. He was as close as the Kimberley came to a Renaissance man. Miner, scholar, stockman, spy. You name it, he’s done it.”
    “Spy?” she asked in disbelief.
    “Must run in the family.”
    She refused to be sidetracked. “If you knew that about Abe, you must have known him very well.”
    “Is that an accusation or a question?”
    “Take your pick.”
    There was an electric silence before Cole spoke. “One year we sat out an early wet together.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
    “You didn’t ask.” Cole gave Erin a swift, intense look. “Abe’s dead. What we did or didn’t do doesn’t affect what I’m doing now. Nothing I did in the past affects us now. So instead of being suspicious of the one man in the Kimberley who’s on your side, worry about the diamond cartel’s latest entry into the sweepstakes—Jason Street.”
    “Are you worried about him?”
    “I’d be a fool if I wasn’t.”
    “Is that why we left the station?”
    “One of the reasons.” Cole shrugged. “But it will only buy us a day or two. Street knows the Kimberley better than any other white man alive. The Aborigines all but worship him the same way they did Abe. Fear, not love.”
    She looked out over the empty land. “Well, we’ve got a lot of country to get lost in.”
    “There are only so many waterholes. Street knows every one of them. What he doesn’t know, the Aborigines will tell him. Sooner or later he’ll find us. Sooner, most likely.”
    “Then why are we out in this bloody oven?”
    “Because out here, everyone we meet is an enemy. At the station I couldn’t be sure. Hesitation can kill you.” He turned and looked at her. “I could have you on an airplane out of here in fourteen hours. Still want to go diamond hunting?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think the ice chest full of film is in the sun.”
    Erin made a startled sound and turned in the seat. The reflective cloth she had put over the ice chest had slipped. She pulled the silvery cloth back in place.
    “The ice will melt sooner or