Death is Forever

goanna he’d shot. Despite the endless humidity and daily cups of exotically flavored water, their bodies were drying out hour by hour, breath by breath.
    Between black shapes of clouds, cold white points of starlight gleamed. Occasional strokes of heat lightning lanced through clouds that didn’t thin as much as usual as the night wore on. Despite the scattered stars, moon, and lightning, the night seemed darker than any she’d ever endured and longer than the longest winter above the Arctic Circle.
    A sheet of lightning ran from top to bottom of the towering cloud formations along the horizon.
    In the sudden, stark flash of light, she caught a glimpse of Cole. He’d turned and was holding out his hand to her. His expression was as dark as the clouds and the night.
    When she took his hand, he drew her close. He knew if they sat down they would sleep, wasting vital hours. So they stood quietly together, holding one another, resting in the only way they trusted themselves to.
    Distant lightning flickered and flashed. The fitful rumble of thunder that followed was more felt than heard.
    “With a little luck,” he said in a raspy voice, “it will rain in a day or two.”
    She nodded, because it was too much effort to talk.
    After a moment he pressed his cheek against hers and released her. He checked the compass, scanned the surroundings in the uncertain illumination of lightning, and headed toward a ridge that was either near and low or distant and steep. Whichever, it lay across their path to the Gibb River Road.
    The ridge seemed no closer when the sky in the east began to slide from black toward gray. Cole stood and waited for Erin to come up beside him. He pulled the canteen from his belt, took two swallows, and handed it to her.
    “Last one is for you,” he said.
    “No.”
    Cole took the water himself, then pulled her close for the kind of kiss he hadn’t given her since Windsor station. When her lips parted, he gently gave her the water she’d refused to take from his canteen. Startled, she had no choice but to swallow. He laughed softly and kissed her until they both forgot their thirst for a few sweet moments. Then he held her like it was the last time.
    Just as he released her, dawn came up in a silent, seething violence of light. The sun exploded through half-formed clouds. Within seconds the earth was transformed into a place of startling distances, rich colors, and vivid textures.
    “To hell with diamonds,” she whispered slowly, looking at the glorious, timeless transformation of night into day. “I’d trade everything for a camera and some unexposed film.”
    He smiled slightly through dry lips. “I believe you would.” He ran his palms over her tangled mahogany hair, pushing it away from her heat-flushed face. “Diamonds are to me what film is to you, the key to another world. But if I had Abe’s diamond mine right now, I’d trade it for film and give it to you.”
    He saw the shock in her expression, felt it in the movement of her body as she pulled away to look at him.
    “You mean that, don’t you?” she whispered.
    “I always say what I mean.” He pulled Erin closer, shielding her brilliant green eyes from the sun. “Discovering Arctic Odyssey made me feel like I’d just found a diamond mine—full of adrenaline and awe, alive all the way to the soles of my feet.”
    For a few moments more he held her, then stepped back. “Keep your eyes open for birds or a clump of lush vegetation. This is karst country. Water must have collected in cracks or deep limestone potholes or even in a cave or two. All we have to do is find where—and pray that nothing found it before us.”
    But no water appeared.
    Two hours after dawn, Erin and Cole lay in the shade of the thin blanket stretched between two spindly trees, watching waves of heat rise off the land. The water in the canteen was almost hot. It tasted strongly of the gum leaves that had given it up. Yet the liquid felt wonderful sliding down Erin’s parched throat.
    As she drank, he studied the dark clouds that were streaming in from the Indian Ocean, thunderheads clawing toward the sun while their massive, slate-colored bottoms dragged ever nearer to earth.
    “So close and yet so damned far away,” he said hoarsely.
    He measured the wild, thick river of clouds that was already fanning across the sky, breaking into separate storm cells as air currents tore it apart.
    Finally he forced himself to look away from the distant,