Death is Forever

itself. Nothing is left but the barest bones of what once was an awesome piece of living nature. When you’re digging for diamonds, you’re digging up a grave.”
    “Lovely thought,” she said beneath her breath.
    Cole reached for another transparency and drew it onto the top of the stacked maps. This time Erin didn’t flinch when his arms brushed the sides of her breasts.
    “Since nothing volcanic shows on the surface,” he said, keeping his arms around her, “we have to look down below.”
    “How?”
    “This map outlines stations, mining claims, and mineral reserves in the Kimberley. The stations are green, active claims and reserves are red, lapsed claims and reserves are blue.”
    She made a sound of dismay as she saw the network of overlapping lines. “There’s nothing left of the Kimberley. Somebody’s been over every inch of it already.”
    “They’ve staked out claims and then abandoned them.”
    “Because there was nothing there,” she said unhappily.
    His arms tightened, shifting her subtly on his lap, allowing him to brush his lips against her soft hair. “I don’t need virgin land to find pay dirt, because most men are no damn good at what they do.”
    The warmth of Cole’s breath against her neck made Erin shiver. It was pleasure rather than fear that rippled over her skin, pleasure that made her lean more fully against him.
    He smiled, caressed her again, and went on speaking in a deep, slow voice, as though he had nothing more on his mind than maps.
    “Most of Abe’s claims were worked over in the 1920s by men looking for gold. When they didn’t find anything worthwhile, they abandoned the claims. Since then no one has been there except an occasional jackeroo or a walkabout Aborigine.”
    She stared at the piled maps, seeing lines and designs and colors and more lines and designs. And no answers at all.
    “The problem isn’t that the plateau is too well known,” Cole said, pulling another transparency out and lining it up with the underlying maps, caressing Erin with every motion, every breath. “The problem is that we don’t know nearly enough.”
    She tried to speak, but couldn’t. His strength, his heat, his very breath surrounded her.
    Yet all she could think about was getting closer.
    “This transparency shows what kind of plants grow,” he said, allowing his lips to linger against her neck. “Plants change with elevation, rainfall, and soil. They can tell you whether limestone or sandstone or volcanic rock is underneath the soil.”
    He moved another transparency onto the pile. He took a lot of time stacking it, for each movement of his arms caressed another soft curve of Erin’s body.
    “This shows roads, trails, dams, airstrips, towns, houses, windmills, microwave relays, and whatever else man has added to the landscape. Look at it, honey. Look at it real carefully.”
    As he spoke, he released her from his touch. She stared at the final transparency, trying to gather thoughts scattered by the unexpected splinters of pleasure that had pierced her with every brush of his body against hers. Gradually she realized that the final map had the least marks of any map on the pile.
    Man had touched Western Australia only lightly, and the Kimberley barely at all.
    “In that pile is everything we know about the Kimberley,” Cole said. “Put your hand over a part of the map. Any part.”
    Puzzled, she did as he asked.
    “You have a few thousand square miles under your hand,” he said. “Lift it and tell me what we know about that piece of land.”
    She moved her hand aside, looking at the transparency and then at the key that ran down the side.
    “No paved roads,” she said. “One graded road, and a few station roads that are little better than wild-animal trails. Five station houses.” She leaned closer. “Three of them are abandoned. A handful of windmills.” She leaned forward even further, looking through the top map to the one just beneath. Again she looked at the color key on the map’s margin. “Lowland grasses, spinifex, scrub gum.”
    Cole lifted the top two transparencies, letting her see the ones underneath more easily.
    “Parts of three stations,” she continued. “About seven mineral claims sort of in a line.” She bent lower. “The claims run along a river,” she said, reading through to the topographic map. “Well, some of the year it’s a river. The rest of the time it’s dry. Dashed lines, right?”
    “Right. Go on.”
    Frowning,