Color Of Blood

by Keith Yocum

  “But do you think about him sometimes? Do you wonder what life would have been like if he had lived? You know, things like that?”

  Judy swiveled her head and looked at Dennis.

  “Where did that question come from?” she said.

  “I just wondered,” he said quietly. “Not a big deal.”

  She was quiet for a few seconds.

  “Actually, I do think about him when I look at Mum’s photos. He looks so dashing in his uniform. I have dreams about him.”

  “You do? What kind of dreams?”

  “Why are you so curious?”

  “I don’t know. I wonder what that must be like, to not know what your father was really like.”

  “Well, in my dream—it’s a recurring dream really—he’s got his army uniform on, and he’s hugging me good-bye. In the dream, I guess I’m about five or six years old, which of course doesn’t make any sense, but in this dream he just says, ‘Good-bye, Judy. Ta.’”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes. Not very interesting, is it? But in the dream I always feel so bloody sad when he says ‘Ta.’ It almost wakes me up.”

  Dennis looked out the side window.

  “How about your father?” Judy asked. “Is he still alive?”

  “No, he’s completely dead, and the less I think about him, the better.”

  “Oh.” Judy stared straight ahead at the bleached-out bitumen highway.

  ***

  The geological changes were subtle at first—less foliage and more patches of exposed reddish-brown soil. Farm houses and sheep stations grew sparser until, almost as if a curtain had been raised on a theatrical set change, the land turned barren and unpopulated.

  A thin sheen of dust covered the car, and Judy used the windshield wipers now and then to clear it. She said the Great Northern Highway ran north to the coast at Port Hedland and Darwin but warned that leaving the highway would mean traveling on dirt roads at slower speeds.

  By the time they stopped in Mt. Magnet for a bathroom break and something to eat in the local pub, Dennis felt like he was driving over the surface of Mars. The ground was uniformly a dull red-ochre with sporadic clumps of forlorn bushes and white-blond grasses. Although they had the Cruiser’s air conditioner running, Dennis could feel the heat through the windshield. Stepping outside the car in the old mining town, he was assaulted by the heat and took several gulps of furnace-like hot air.

  “Let’s get inside,” she said.

  The pub was small but air conditioned. They sat at the bar and ordered sandwiches and soft drinks. Only one other patron, a weathered old-timer perhaps in his seventies, was in the room. The male bartender had long hair tied back in a ponytail and was garrulous to the point of being overbearing. Dennis had the feeling the bartender was starved for conversation.

  Judy, to Dennis’s surprise, manufactured a story about how she and her American boyfriend were on holiday, driving to Darwin. Dennis smiled at the boyfriend part.

  He ordered an egg-salad sandwich and noticed it came with the crust cut off. He grimaced at the first bite and pried it apart. Each slice of bread was covered with butter.

  “What’s wrong?” Judy asked.

  “It’s butter,” he said.

  “Of course it is,” she said.

  “Where’s the mayonnaise?”

  “That’s a Yank thing,” she said. “Just eat. It’s good for you.”

  And he did eat it. Judy noticed that the more abrupt and commanding she was with Dennis, the more likely he was to obey. It thrilled her in some inexplicable way to see this tough, abrasive, veteran investigator do what she told him.

  While eating he took a sideways glance at her, noting how she flicked her hair over her shoulder so it wouldn’t fall in her plate. From the side he could see how ageless her face looked and how her eyes sparkled in the glare from the window.

  “Dennis, what are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You are such a bewildering man.”

  “Of course I am.”

  They left the pub, but not without scanning the parched and cracked bitumen parking lot. There was only a single ancient Toyota pick-up truck parked under a small tree, and on the other side of the parking lot underneath a gray-and-white barked eucalyptus tree milled a group of black people.

  Driving back to the highway, Dennis said, “Were those Aboriginals?”

  “Yes.”

  “They looked poor.”

  “Because they are poor.”

  “What do they do out here?”

  “Do?”

  “Do they work? Go to school? Or just sit under that tree?”

  “Well, some work, some go to school, and others just sit under a tree all day.”

  “In Perth I saw a few of them near a park, but they were always just scooting by at the periphery, almost like ghosts,” he said.

  “Are you making a social comment of some sort?”

  “No, not really; I was just wondering. It’s just that I didn’t see a single Aboriginal working behind a counter in a coffee shop in Perth, or even shopping in a store, for that matter.”

  “It’s a complicated situation,” she said.

  “But do they hold jobs in offices and stores?” he asked.

  “Some do. Many live in settlements far away from the city. The cultural differences are huge. And even when they do work at stations or farms, the males just take off sometimes and disappear for a while. They go walkabout.”

  “Walkabout?”

  “Yes, just wander off into the bush,” she said.

  “What do they do on a walkabout?” he asked.

  “They wander.”

  “I saw a pile of empty bottles near those people back there.”

  “And yes, some are alcoholics,” she said. “But I gather you Yanks didn’t do much better with your Indians.”

  “We call them Native Americans. And yes, we screwed them pretty good. But at least we gave them casinos.”

  “No comment.”

  They drove again in silence until Dennis said, “Can they still live off the land like their ancestors?”

  “Yes, some can. They can survive in the worst droughts. Amazing, really. We joke sometimes that in a hundred years, as the Earth heats up, the only people that will be able to live in Australia will be Aboriginals. God knows we white fellas can’t live here without endless supplies of fresh water and air conditioning.”

  ***

  Judy had tired of driving, and they switched after another hour. On the long, straight highway, Judy would sometimes remind Dennis to remain on the proper side of the road.

  “You’re doing it again,” she would say.

  “Yep, got it,” and he would slowly inch over to the left side of the road.

  The only company they had on the road was the occasional huge tandem trailer and a rogue passenger car. Dennis kept the speed at around 130 kilometers per hour, which Judy said was about eighty miles per hour. Nevertheless some cars overtook them from behind like Exocet missiles and soared past them on the right, leaving a thin trail of red dust.

  The landscape became uniformly forbidding, with worn hills breaking the surface in the distance like frozen waves on a red sea.

  “Who lives out here?” Dennis asked at one point.

  “No one really,” she said. “To be honest, I’ve never been this far on the Northern Highway. It’s bleaker than I imagined.”

  “But we haven’t even seen a house, much less a town, in the last couple of hours,” he said. “Are there really people living here?”

  “Yes, of course. We should be in Meekatharra in a couple of hours. These towns serve the mining and farming interests in the area and are the seat of regional government.”

  “But it’s so desolate,” he said. “If we were to break down right now, I don’t know how long we’d have to sit and bake in this car until someone came along to help us.”

  “It wouldn’t be that bad. There’s enough traffic on the North
ern Highway to help us out. It’s when you get off the paved highway that it gets dicey. And of course mobile phones don’t work so well out here, except in the towns.”

  “But that’s where we’re headed, Judy, into the desert to look for our mining operation.”

  “It’s your mining operation,” she said, “not mine. I’m just along for the ride.”

  ***

  They spent the night in the Royal Mail Hotel in Meekatharra, another dusty town of tree-lined streets that appeared out of the desert like an accident. After dinner in the pub, they watched TV in their room. Judy tried to explain the rules of cricket as they watched a Test match against the Pakistani national team, but Dennis grew bored quickly. They made love almost as an afterthought: not the furious, alcohol-fueled passion of previous nights but a tender foray just as thrilling.

  Judy listened to Dennis’s light snoring for a while before she fell into a fitful dream. In the dream her husband Phillip had suddenly moved back into their house, even though they had already divorced. Phillip acted imperious and nonchalant in the dream, which did nothing but infuriate her. Judy woke after only an hour and had trouble falling back asleep.

  After a while Dennis stirred, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close. Within minutes she was sound asleep.

  Chapter 30

  They pulled into Newton by 1:00 p.m.

  “It looks just like Meekatharra,” Dennis said. “Are you sure this one-horse desert town isn’t the same one we just left? Did we circle back by accident?”

  “Very funny, Yank. I’m sure there are towns like this in Texas, or whatever your big, flat, marvelously ugly States are.”

  They checked in and Dennis, to Judy’s surprise, signed in as Dennis Smith.

  They ate at the bar in the pub, and Judy leaned over at one point and asked, “Who is Dennis Smith?”

  “Oh, I have three different credit cards; the Agency only knows about two of them. Or that’s what I’m hoping, anyway. And I have a fake US Passport for Dennis Smith. Found a guy in Bangkok three years ago who would do it for five thousand bucks. This guy could make a fake passport for sixty-three countries. Incredible. I did it on a lark, and I’m glad I did now.”

  Tired from all of the driving, Dennis looked forward to a quick meal and a couple of drinks. To his disappointment, Judy started up a spirited conversation with the female bartender, dusting off her American-boyfriend tale. At one point Dennis visited the men’s room and then stepped outside the pub, where he was instantly assaulted by the heat. He guessed the temperature had fallen to about ninety-five degrees as the evening came on. The few stores strung out on the main street were closed; a traffic light blinked forlornly nearby, but no vehicles of any sort moved about. Two young boys on bicycles flew by in a mad rush, one of them grunting “G’day” to Dennis.

  Entering the air-conditioned pub, he sauntered up next to Judy, and before he could pry her away from the animated conversation with the bartender, Judy grabbed his arm.

  “Dear,” she said, “Maggie here says there are only a few mining operations right close to Newton, but none are worth visiting. She also said there’s a mysterious operation southeast of here—right, Maggie?”

  Maggie and Judy giggled conspiratorially.

  “Very hush-hush,” Maggie said.

  “Hush-hush,” Judy repeated, looking at Dennis.

  “What does that mean?” Dennis asked.

  “It means secret, like a missile base, right, Maggie?”

  “Oh, I’d say more secret than that, dearie,” Maggie said. “It’s been going on for at least a year, if not longer.”

  “What makes the mine so secret?” Dennis asked.

  “Maggie says that no locals work there; they have their own landing strip, and workers and supplies are flown directly into the mine. They have guards, right, Maggie?”

  Dennis sat down on his stool, and Judy pinched him on his thigh. He patted her hand under the bar.

  “But what do they do there?” Dennis asked.

  “Oh, heaven knows,” Maggie said, “could be anything. But they’re not very friendly, I can tell you that. The Farrar twins were driving that way on four-wheelers and were just riding up and down the fence line when these fellers in big vehicles came out of nowhere and sent them on their way. Quite frightening, I gather. But we’re used to odd behavior out here, if you don’t mind me saying, and we don’t bother those folks, and they don’t bother us.”

  ***

  Back in their little hotel room, Judy squealed.

  “God, Judy,” Dennis said, shaking his head. “That was amazing. You did it!”

  “Well, I can’t believe how it just fell into place,” she said.

  He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her hard, lingering at the end until he needed to breathe.

  “Jesus,” he said, “sometimes I feel like a high-school kid around you.”

  “And what’s so distasteful about that?”

  “Nothing at all; it’s just a little strange for an old, burned-out guy like me.”

  “I keep telling you you’re not old and you’re certainly not burned out. Quit saying that, Dennis.”

  He smiled and kissed her again.

  Judy’s buoyant mood quickly turned dark as she realized what had just happened: the bartender confirmed Judy’s worst fear that Dennis’s trip into the outback was based on reality.

  He pulled out their maps and notes and spread them on the bed. Judy glanced out hotel-room window into the black night of Newton, Western Australia.

  “Dennis, I have to return to Perth the day after tomorrow,” she said. “Simon’s back in school and he begged me to attend a play he has a small part in. I promised him last week.”

  “That’s fine,” Dennis said. “I’d feel a whole lot better if you weren’t here.”

  “You’d be lost without me right now,” she said. “You haven’t the faintest idea about the bush.”

  “You make it sound like we’re on Mars.”

  “Worse, actually,” she said.

  “Let’s see how things go tomorrow,” he said. “My guess is that’s all I’ll need. Just one day.”

  ***

  They planned their foray into the outback like a troop of Boy Scouts; they compared Google Earth printouts and an Australian road directory. Judy was certain she could approximate the area they saw circled on the map Dennis got from Langley.

  “We drive down this dirt track here. My guess is that damn thing is out there,” Dennis said, pointing to an area southeast of Newton.

  They had breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and huge fat thumbs of Australian breakfast sausage. Judy had lathered herself with sunblock, but Dennis declined.

  “We’re not getting out of the car, so why should we put that on?”

  “It’s the bush, Dennis,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen.” Judy also made sure they filled a five-gallon plastic water container in the back of the vehicle. She wore shorts, a white blouse, and took along a wide-brim hat that she folded in her purse.

  Chapter 31

  Dennis was troubled by the barren landscape as they followed a well-worn dirt road away from Newton.

  Numerous dirt roads around Newton seemed to crisscross the rugged red-brown landscape like a spider’s web. Dennis had thought, at least from the Google Earth maps, the primary driving routes into the desert would be obvious.

  At ground level it was not clear which track to take. Even on what looked like a heavily traveled dirt road, many parallel tracks wove through the primary road like strands of a rope.

  They pulled over and reviewed the maps again. After several minutes of discussion they agreed to keep following the current track as it moved southeast.

  Judy felt stupid for not bringing a hand-held GPS; she had thought of virtually everything else.

  After an hour of driving through the dusty tire tracks, Judy turned to Dennis.

  “Dennis, please don’t be angry, but this doesn’t seem like a good idea.
We’re getting deeper into the bush, and we’ve only seen two hand-drawn signs pointing to a sheep station that may no longer exist. It seems even more desolate than I expected. It’s really dangerous out here. If we blow a tire or overheat the engine, they might not find us for a while.”

  “I can certainly take you back, if you like,” he said. “You know it was never my idea to bring you out here.”

  “No, Dennis,” she persisted. “I’m talking about you as well. Let’s just turn around and rethink this thing. Remember, these blokes don’t want to be discovered. You said so yourself. We could get lost out here. I think it’s even more dangerous if you’re by yourself. You don’t seem to appreciate the desolation here.”

  Dennis slowed the vehicle to a stop. The dust trail following them briefly covered the LandCruiser in a murky, maroon veil.

  “Judy, I can’t just quit. Not now. We’re very close to this thing. Why don’t I just turn around and drop you off at the hotel? I’ll be back later today.”

  She sighed and looked out the tinted passenger-side window.

  “Fine. Let’s keep going. Besides, you’re helpless by yourself out here.”

  Dennis drove off again.

  ***

  After two hours of driving, Dennis had more or less picked up the knack for driving at a relatively high speed of forty-five miles per hour. He quickly learned to slow down at the bottom of a dip in the trail where they’d fishtail through a deep silt-sand mixture.

  They continued farther into the desert, passing identical scraggy bushes and mounds of spinifex grass balls and spires. At one point, Judy pointed ahead to a low dust cloud that seemed to be getting closer.

  Twenty minutes later, as if it were an apparition, a small, dust-coated pick-up truck roared past them in the opposite direction heading, presumably, for Newton. The Aboriginal driver honked his horn, waved, and was gone, spewing an outback dust trail in his wake.

  Dennis tried to pay attention to visual markers: a low rise of weather-worn hills to the north, a strange outcropping of brown stone nearly straight ahead.

  At one point, Judy yelped with glee when she saw two emus fifty yards from the road. “I’ve never seen one in the wild,” she said. “Just in the zoo.”