Death is Forever

sending the Rover off the track and toward the cliff. He dodged the big trees even as he downshifted, letting the Rover skid and wallow just at the edge of going out of control. The trees closed in behind the vehicle, shielding it from the road. The ragged, deeply indented cliff face loomed with startling suddenness.
    He braked sharply and shut off the ignition.
    “Get a box of shells from my kit,” he said, grabbing the shotgun from her as he got out. “Run along the cliff face until I catch up. Move!”
    A fitful wind slowly swept away the dust thrown up by the Rover’s frantic passage. Erin ran as fast as she could through the soft, sandy soil along the cliff face. Within seconds she was sweating from her scalp to the soles of her feet. After a minute she felt like she was breathing molten lead. By the time Cole caught up and pulled her into another narrow opening in the cliff, she felt wrung out and used up.
    “I brushed out—tire tracks,” he said, breathing hard. “Stay down—out of sight.”
    She handed him the shotgun shells and nodded, too winded to speak.
    He turned and measured the rough, water-pitted rock that loomed around them. Without a word he hung the shotgun down his back from the leather sling and began climbing. He tested hand- and footholds carefully, pulling himself upward with the easy, unhurried rhythm of a man accustomed to climbing. In thirty seconds, he was high enough to have a view of the road. He wedged himself into a shaded crevice, unslung the shotgun, and waited.
    Five minutes after he’d positioned himself, a dust cloud bloomed along the road. The erratic breeze from the gorge scattered the dust quickly. Absolutely motionless, partially concealed within the dense shade thrown by the cliff itself, Cole waited.
    A vehicle shot into sight.
    Cole could see only that the driver was alone and the car was a Japanese knockoff of a Jeep. Without a flicker of hesitation the boxy, enclosed vehicle roared past the point where Cole had turned the Rover into the trees.
    Cole glanced at his watch and started counting. The next ten minutes would tell Cole whether his gamble had paid off, or whether he would have to stalk the man, kill him, and bury him in the sand—if the man didn’t kill him first.
    Erin heard the vehicle pass by even though she couldn’t see it. She looked up the rock walls to the blinding blue sky and saw Cole wedged into a black slit. The predatory tension in his body was all the warning she needed. She flattened against the rough stone and waited.
    And waited.
    And waited some more, the land so quiet she swore she could hear herself sweat.
    Finally Cole came back down the cliff. “He went by without a look.”
    “Thank God.”
    “It’s not over yet. We’re going back to the Gibb River Road. From there we’ll have to cut overland to the Great Northern Highway again. Right now the bastard is between us and Abe’s station. Assuming he has enough gas to get there—”
    “Do we?” she interrupted.
    “No,” Cole said, and kept on talking. “When he figures out he’s lost us, he has a choice. He can go on a shitty little dirt track to Abe’s station and wait for us there, or he can cut down to the paved road and hope he beats us to Fitzroy Crossing.”
    “What’s at Fitzroy Crossing?”
    “The only gas station for three hundred miles. We’ll just make it.”

23
Near Fitzroy Crossing
    Cole and Erin found the Great Northern Highway in late afternoon, unsure whether they were ahead of or behind their pursuer. Cole ran the Rover up to its top speed and held it there. After the rough, unpaved spur road, the Great Northern’s sealed surface seemed eerily quiet, almost unreal, no hissing of grit pelting over the frame and spinning away from the tires in red turmoil.
    The land was flat again. Pale-barked baoboabs loomed above the much smaller gums like goblins rising from a shallow, dusty, light-green sea. The highway’s single lane had more traffic than the Gibb River Road. They met an oncoming vehicle about every twenty minutes. Most of the traffic was cars or small trucks. Occasionally a diesel hauling three freight trailers behind would come howling down on the Rover.
    The first time Erin saw one coming, she made a sound of disbelief. “What in God’s name is that?”
    “A roadtrain.”
    “A roadtrain,” she said. “I repeat. What in God’s name is that?”
    “A truck hauling three trailers.” He lifted his foot from the accelerator, bringing