Color Of Blood

by Keith Yocum

  The tall, ostrichlike birds stared idly as they drove by.

  “You don’t get out much, do you?” Dennis said.

  “Oh, stop it. How many American bison have you seen in the wild?”

  “Um, let me count. One, two, um, three. Actually, none.” Dennis laughed.

  “Very funny, Yank.”

  Dennis couldn’t help but notice strange bits of flotsam and jetsam tossed to the side of the track, including car batteries, a rusting car fender, two empty and nearly oxidized fifty-five-gallon barrels, and the occasional degraded beer or soft-drink can.

  After forty-five minutes Dennis stopped, and they consulted their hodgepodge of road maps and Google Earth printouts.

  “I think we should have found something by now,” Dennis said. “There’s nothing here but dirt. We’ll need to turn around soon to get back by sunset.”

  Judy reached into her bag in the back seat and pulled out a set of binoculars. Without saying a word she got out of the car, went around to the front, climbed gingerly onto the hot hood, and scanned 360 degrees of the horizon. Dennis turned off the car and got out to talk to her and was again stunned by the heat. Looking up at her, he shielded his eyes from the sun.

  “See anything?”

  “Not much. Just a little bump or something there.” She pointed about thirty degrees to the left.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know. Could be a man-made structure—or a rock outcropping. Should we check it out?”

  “Sure,” Dennis said. “I see what you meant about being prepared out here. If this car breaks down, we’re in trouble.”

  They continued driving down the track. Both drained their water bottles.

  After another twenty minutes, on the left side of the road they saw a four-foot-high barbed-wire fence. Every twenty feet or so, small white metal signs stated: Keep Out—Private Property.

  Judy noticed the fence was not engineered to keep game in or out; there were two strands of barbed wire on the metal star posts. The top strand was about two feet from the other strand. A kangaroo could easily jump the fence, a dingo could slip through the strands, and a human could step through effortlessly. The fence seemed to simply be a warning for humans not to enter.

  Dennis pulled the LandCruiser off the track into the bush to his left and followed the fence line into desert, perpendicular to the dirt track. He wove delicately around and over clumps of spinifex. They could see nothing inside the fence line except more desert.

  Judy convinced Dennis to stop. She climbed onto the hood again and this time hustled gingerly onto the roof. Dennis got out and walked over to the fence.

  “Nothing outside the fence, nothing inside the fence,” he said. “Plenty of nothing.”

  “Dennis, you should see this,” Judy said.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest.”

  Dennis scampered up the hood of the vehicle, its warmth adding to the stultifying atmosphere.

  With the roof of the Cruiser indenting slightly from their weight, Dennis spread his legs so that his weight was over the sturdier edges. He took the binoculars and looked in the direction Judy had pointed.

  In the distance, perhaps a mile into the fenced-off area, he could see a thin sheen of whitish dust and several large mounds of grayish soil. Scanning to his right, he could just make out the top of a corrugated metal roof.

  “Some kind of operation out there,” he said, returning the binoculars. “Looks like a mining operation. This could be were our boys are.”

  They climbed down the Cruiser, their palms burning from the vehicle’s heat. Dennis quickly turned on the engine and shoved the air conditioner on high. He noticed Judy’s cheeks were a soft pink.

  “You OK?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “You look hot. Your face is red.”

  “Well, it’s bloody hot out there, Dennis,” she said.

  They retraced their path back to the dirt track and stopped. The sun was now on the other side of its arc, and Dennis guessed they had about five hours of sunlight left. He had a little more than half a tank of gas.

  “Dennis, now that we might have found your mystery mine, I assume we can go? Aren’t you satisfied?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Let’s drive down a little farther to see if we can find an entrance.”

  Judy sighed.

  “I know,” he said. “Just a little longer.”

  They drove for almost twenty minutes without finding an entrance: just a never-ending barbed-wire fence with dust-covered white warning signs.

  The longer they drove down the track, the more alarmed Judy became. She could not understand what internal mechanism or passion drove this man, and while she was perfectly happy to overlook his obsession, her training and well-honed sense of menace told her Dennis was crossing over from a kind of demilitarized zone into a war zone. They were getting farther from Newton as the sun moved behind them toward the western horizon.

  “How’s the petrol?” she said.

  “Half a tank,” he said. “And we have a five-gallon backup that you made us purchase.”

  She took a deep breath, busy formulating how she was going to demand that Dennis turn around, when she saw it.

  Chapter 32

  The entrance on the left side of the road was a primitive affair: a long, hinged gate anchored on both sides by creosote-saturated wood poles. Extending across the forty-foot entrance was a metal-tube gate with cross-buck supports. A large metallic sign in the middle of the gate stated: Private Property—Do Not Enter.

  Dennis took Judy’s binoculars and rolled down his window, peering at the track leading into the property. He could see nothing but desert.

  “Can we leave now?” Judy said. “I really don’t like this place.”

  “Sure,” Dennis said. “We can’t do anything except drive through the entrance.”

  “We’re not doing that,” Judy said.

  Dennis laughed. “Of course not: at least not now.”

  He turned around in front of the entrance and gave it a final look. She glanced back into the fenced-off area and noticed a small dust cloud, perhaps a quarter mile inside the fence line.

  “Dennis,” she said, grabbing his wrist and pointing at the dust trail.

  “Interesting; we have visitors.”

  “Start driving,” she said. “If they want to talk to us, they’ll have to chase us down.”

  “I’d just as well not have a conversation with these folks right now, though I admit to being curious.”

  “Dennis!” Judy said, her voice rising. “Please start driving.”

  And he did, picking up speed so that he was doing forty-five miles per hour down the track, occasionally fishtailing through sandy gullies. Looking in his rearview mirror, he could see nothing but the huge, billowy, orange-red dust trail in his wake. After fifteen minutes of driving, he relaxed his grip on the steering wheel.

  Reaching over, he patted Judy on her knee.

  “It’s OK,” he said. “We’ll be back in Newton before the sun sets, and we’ll have a cold drink in the pub.”

  The hulking white Chevrolet Suburban emerged from the dust cloud behind them as if it had been shot from a canon. Its tinted windows made it impossible for Dennis to see who was inside.

  Judy screamed sharply as the first Suburban roared by on the left. A second identical Suburban slid in behind them. Dennis was disoriented when the first vehicle pulled in front, immersing them in a dense fog of dust. He saw brake lights and found himself slowing to a crawl as the vehicle in front slowed.

  They were wedged between two enormous white Suburbans in the middle of one of the most isolated areas of the world. They sat in their LandCruiser as the dust dissipated. None of the vehicles moved, and no one exited.

  “What are they doing?” Judy whispered, as if they could hear her.

  “I suspect they’re talking to each other by radio, trying to figure out how to handle us.”


  “Well, we’re not going to bloody sit here all day; let’s just drive around them,” she said.

  “They’d just run us down again,” he said. “There’s nowhere to hide or run to. So I’m guessing this is what Garder stumbled upon.”

  “Look,” Judy said, pointing to her side mirror.

  A man stepped out of the vehicle behind them and walked to Dennis’s side of the car. He was wearing khaki-colored shorts, boots, and a plain khaki short-sleeve shirt. He sported a red logo-less baseball cap and a pair of dark aviator sunglasses. His physique seemed unnaturally well defined, as if he spent every waking moment in a gym with weights. He had a full, reddish-brown beard.

  Dennis wound down his window as the man approached.

  “Hi,” the man said. “Can we help you with anything? You seem lost.”

  His accent was Midwestern United States.

  “Yes,” Judy blurted out, leaning into Dennis’s chest. “We thought there was a natural cave out here. At least it seemed that way on our maps.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, carefully scanning the inside of their Cruiser. “No natural caves out here.”

  “Well, so it seems,” she said. “Thanks for helping us.”

  “You should be careful out here,” he said. “It’s dangerous to get lost.”

  “So where did you guys come from?” Dennis said. “We didn’t see any buildings out here.”

  The man stared down at Dennis while the baked air flooded the car’s interior.

  “From nearby,” the man said.

  “Yeah, you sure came out of nowhere,” Dennis said.

  “Drive carefully,” the man said. “You still have a long way to go.”

  He turned and walked back to the car. Both Suburbans made simultaneous turns and left them in a cloud.

  “Dennis! Why did you do that?! He might have thought you were an Aussie until you opened your mouth. And the way you asked him where he was from was idiotic. You were challenging him, for God’s sake!”

  “They know exactly who I am,” he said. “They’re not surprised to find me out here.”

  “That’s preposterous,” she said.

  “Not really,” he said picking up speed toward Newton again. They drove directly into the orange sun that illuminated the inside of the Cruiser like a searchlight. “Massey probably put out an alert. That old bastard knows I’m up to something out here. And if they really do have Garder, well, the kid probably told them what he told me. But to be honest, I don’t think they really have Garder in custody. I think they were looking for an excuse to keep me away from here.”

  The disturbing thing about Dennis, Judy realized, was that the closer they got to the mystery facility, the more brazen and confrontational he got. Almost like he was picking a fight.

  All the way back through the deeply shadowed desert, she debated whether to leave him as soon as they got back to Newton. It would be the prudent thing to do.

  ***

  They ate dinner in the pub, and Dennis chatted on as if nothing had happened. Every time Judy mentioned “those brooding, white American vehicles,” Dennis would just laugh and wave it off.

  “Forget about those goons.”

  The pub was much busier than Dennis had expected, with half the tables and part of the bar full with a hodgepodge of eaters and drinkers. Judy had introduced Dennis to Emu Bitter, a West Australian beer. To her astonishment, he ordered another one.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink beer,” she said.

  He laughed. “Well, I don’t think I had been a wine drinker until you came along. And out here, beer sure goes down better than wine or single-malt scotch.”

  Halfway through dinner, Dennis visited the bathroom. On his way back to the table, his attention was drawn to two men having dinner on the other side of the room. The men did not speak and showed an exaggerated attention to their meal. One of the men had moved his chair to have a full view of the bar.

  Sitting down next to Judy, he said matter-of-factly, “Well, several of our charming visitors followed us to Newton. There are two agents back there. Please don’t look,” he warned as he nonchalantly grabbed her forearm.

  “How can you be sure?” she said.

  “God, I’ve spent most of my adult life around these guys. I could almost smell them. They’re tailing us, trying to figure out what we’re doing.”

  “Dennis, do you think they’ll do anything to us?”

  “Hell, we haven’t done anything to warrant action on their part. Still, I’m glad you’re flying out tomorrow afternoon. I’ll finish up with those bozos out in the desert by myself.”

  “Finish up?” Judy asked. “What in God’s name are you talking about? Finish what up? You’re not going out there again, certainly.”

  “Of course I am; I still don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “Who cares what they’re doing? My God, Dennis, you sound like such a bloody madman sometimes.”

  After dinner they fell back to their room and watched TV. Judy used one of Dennis’s disposable mobile phones and called Simon at school. They chatted about the upcoming athletics competition and avoided any mention of his father.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

  As the evening wore on, Judy turned off the TV and read a magazine, while Dennis read a book. Judy deliberately avoided talking about what she was going to do the following morning. It was foolish for her to try to dissuade Dennis from going back into the desert. He was absolutely obsessed with his mission and appeared not the least concerned with his own personal safety.

  Judy could not forget the image of those white vehicles roaring out of the desert to accost them. Was he tragically underestimating his foe’s capacity for violence?

  Most worrisome to her was her attraction to Dennis. She did not want anything to happen to this man who, besides Simon, was the only bright light in her life right now. She had slowly, but entirely, given in to her desire to possess him. It had only happened once to her before, with Phillip. Now she felt like she wanted to own Dennis, but she could not possess a man she would never see again.

  Judy finished her magazine and looked at him. He appeared ensconced in his book.

  “Dennis, what are you reading?”

  “A book of poetry,” he said.

  She thought he was teasing, but he quickly closed the hardcover and placed his open hand on top of it.

  “Pardon me?” she asked.

  “What?” he said.

  “What kind of poetry book?”

  “War poetry,” he said.

  “That’s the type of poetry that Garder liked to read, yes? World War I poets.”

  “Yes,” he said. “The poems are interesting.”

  “Dennis Cunningham,” she said, “you are such a man of mystery.”

  “I’m not as mysterious as you think,” he said.

  She laughed and walked over to the small reading table, looking down at him.

  “My flight is at three thirty,” she said. “I’m going to stay in the room until you return from your silly foray into the bush. I assume you’ll fly back with me and leave the rental at the airport?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m not ready to say good-bye to my mad Yank quite yet,” she said. “You’ll be careful out there, won’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m going to try to take some pictures if I can get close enough. That’s all.”

  He pulled her close to him in the chair and rested the left side of his face on her stomach. She gently rubbed his bristly hair, the action reminding her faintly of doing the same thing to a younger Simon.

  That night Judy fell asleep faster than Dennis. His mind wandered as he listened to her short, labored breathing.

  Chapter 33

  After refueling, he drove down the parched track, barely noticing the lunar-like landscape that had mesmerized him earlier. His mind wandered as he kept his foot pressed on the accelerator. He passed two vehicles: an ancient, rusting Land Rover, and lat
er, a pickup truck that was traveling so fast it blinded him in the resulting storm of dust, pebbles, and fine red sand.

  He was surprised how quickly he came to the corner of the fence that demarcated the off-limits area. This time, instead of continuing down to the entrance, he put the vehicle into four-wheel drive and turned left into the desert, following the barbed-wire fence line perpendicular to the road. He drove carefully, keeping the fence to his right, circumventing huge tufts of spinifex and forlorn, desiccated shrubs. He was determined to avoid creating a dust cloud that would give his position away. He planned to penetrate the fence line on foot, perhaps half a mile in, sleuthing his way closer to the operations buildings to get a clear view through binoculars.

  It was unlikely, he reasoned, that with nearly a thousand acres on this god-forsaken outpost, they could guard every square inch of fence line. He had not been followed by the two agents at the pub the previous night; the view in his rear view mirror was clear from the start.

  After twenty minutes of tortuous driving over and around small obstacles, Dennis saw a rectangular red warning light flash on the dashboard and he braked. He reached for the car’s manual in the glove box. As he did so, a second warning light in the shape of a thermometer came on.

  “Shit,” he said.

  The engine hiccupped violently and stopped.

  ***

  Judy watched TV for a while and then read a newspaper. She entertained a glimmer of hope that Dennis would change his mind and return to the hotel early. She paced around the room and finally sat and leafed absently through a magazine. Stop worrying, she thought. Dennis seems to always land on his feet, so just relax.

  Then she heard a man laughing outside her door.

  “Judy, come on now. You were right,” he said, and he knocked twice.

  She rushed to the door and yanked it open.

  He held a bottle of cold champagne in his left hand, which is why she didn’t see what was in his right hand.

  ***

  The vehicle reeked of burning metal and plastic. He stood outside in the heat. It felt like he was standing behind a jet engine with warm air swirling around him, burning his skin and causing him to gasp slightly. He squinted into the bleak landscape and felt a twinge of panic that trickled across his chest and settled in his abdomen.