Desert Flame

by Janine Grey

Around her the air and landscape shimmered as though she was moving through a time travel portal into a foreign realm. The stark landscape blurred around the edges and she blinked, then realised there was nothing wrong with her eyesight. It was simply heat haze.

  Intensifying her focus on the road, Eliza did her best to calm her mind, not wanting to pre-empt what she might find. If something was amiss, she would need all her wits about her.

  The ute seemed to move sluggishly through the heavy air but, finally, she arrived at Ruin Flat. She pulled the vehicle into the sparse shade of a tree, seeing immediately that Fin’s Land Rover was missing. Where was he? The only place she could figure was Lightning Ridge. Maybe that was why he’d been calling her, to tell her that he had to duck away from the mine.

  Relieved that he was just running an errand and not lying injured at the bottom of the mine, Eliza got out of the car to stretch her legs. The sun scorched her neck and she wished she’d brought sunscreen and a hat. Fin had slung a tarp over the makeshift kitchen so she ducked under cover. Spying the tin box he kept his opal pieces in, she opened it. He hadn’t sold any of them yet. In fact, he’d added two more opals with freckles of deep pinkish red. Fin had his heart set on a large black opal with red fire, but she actually preferred the blue tones. Against the black, the blue seemed almost electric, alive.

  She put them back, noting that once again, clutter dominated the bench. She should just leave it, but the neat freak in her wouldn’t allow it. Sighing, she began to restore order to the chaos. If she and Fin ever moved in together, there would be some serious changes – and she wouldn’t be the one making them, she vowed.

  When the kitchen area was shipshape, she ducked into his tent and dragged out the sleeping bag. After draping it over two chairs to air, she picked up his pile of dirty clothes and took them to her car. She’d run them through the washer when she got back. It wasn’t maid service, she told herself. How hard was it to switch on a machine and then hang a few shirts out to dry?

  At least he treated his tools well. Lined up neatly near the mine shaft, they looked clean and in good condition. God, she hoped he found the opal he needed. He had to find it. Everything depended on it. At first she’d thought him bull-headed, stubborn in the extreme. But looked at another way, he was desperate to provide for his mother.

  Filled with admiration for him, she knew she would do anything to help Fin achieve his goal. When she saw him, she would talk to him again about getting help in. Even if he didn’t want an explosives specialist, it would be more efficient to work in tandem with another miner. He could do other work up top if the space below was prohibitively small for two people.

  With the camp looking as tidy as she could make it, she pulled out her phone in case any calls had slipped her by. She stared blankly at the empty screen before she realised that, of course, she had no reception. Sighing, she put it away. There was nothing else she could do here. Even though she wasn’t looking forward to the long, hot drive back to town, it was time to head back. The time on the road would help her. She had to work out what she was going to say to the police, so as to avoid sounding like a fruit-loop who’d simply put a hot iron on a delicate dress.

  Walking back to her car, Eliza caught a momentary flash of light from the corner of her eye. Almost as quickly it was gone. Probably just a trick of the light or the sun catching on a fragment of broken glass. But her worry about Fin had lingered enough to send her walking towards the flash, just to be sure he wasn’t out there injured and desperately attempting to attract her attention.

  She scrambled over loose rocks, looking for the source of the light. Coming to a halt, she shook her head. There was nothing there. Maybe she was going crazy. She was about to return to camp when she heard the sound of stones falling, as though someone had dislodged them. Then came a sound, like a muttered curse stifled.

  ‘Hello? Fin?’

  Everything was silent but for the low, thick thrum of the blistering hot air.

  ‘Is anybody there?’

  She scrambled forward, skidding on the unsteady surface. Nothing . . . but wait! Was that a shadow behind a small rocky outcrop?

  Coming to a halt, she waited, listening intently and then she heard it – the sound of heavy breathing.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ she said. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’

  A moment later there was movement, and a tall, heavy-set man rose from behind the outcrop. He was red faced and angry looking. Large patches of sweat dampened the underarms of a shirt that strained across a barrel chest.

  ‘Why couldn’t you just stay away?’ he snarled. ‘If you’d just kept your fucking nose out of it —’

  He bit off whatever came next but the resentful tone of his voice was enough to send Eliza into retreat. She backed up a step or two, staying calm but regarding him warily.

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Who are you? Where’s Fin?’

  He didn’t respond, but scrambled towards her, arms windmilling as his feet slipped.

  ‘How should I know?’ He spoke as if she was to blame for something. ‘All I know is everything was coming together and then you had to stuff it up. Why couldn’t you just keep out of it?’

  Eliza struggled to make sense of what he was saying, but one thing was clear. He knew who she was.

  ‘Where’s Fin?’ she asked again, feeling panic snake down her spine. She took a slow step back, and then another. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  The man’s face contorted into a half-smile, half-grimace.

  Then he launched himself towards her.

  CHAPTER 17

  Eliza turned and ran for her car. She could hear the man behind her, yelling at her, telling her to stop, that he was sorry and just wanted to talk. But she didn’t believe him. She knew she had to put distance between herself and him but she couldn’t leave either, not until she was sure Fin wasn’t lying unconscious at the bottom of the mine or out in the blazing heat. In desperation, she looked at her phone again, hoping that by some miracle she had reception but of course she didn’t.

  Ducking down by the car before he could spot her, she watched the man walk into camp, kicking aside anything in his way.

  ‘I’m a reasonable man, but you don’t want to piss me off,’ he warned from afar.

  Why? She thought. What will you do? She really didn’t want to know.

  ‘Where’s Fin?’ she called instead, poised to move if he came any closer.

  ‘Why should I know?’

  So he knew Fin, or of him. ‘I don’t know. You might have done something to him.’

  The man grunted out a laugh.

  She tried a new tack. ‘What do you want? Are you after opal? He only has small pieces. Take them if you want. They’re on the bench.’

  He just smirked. ‘Keep the rocks.’

  ‘What then?’ she inched around the back of the car as his footsteps grew nearer. ‘I can’t give you what you want unless you tell me what it is.’

  ‘All I want is to talk.’

  She could hear in his voice the effort he was making to sound calm and reassuring.

  ‘Come on out so we can talk, sort this out.’

  She started to ask what he wanted to talk about when inspiration struck. ‘So it was you! You broke into my house this morning. Did you follow me here?’

  Even as she asked the question, she knew that couldn’t be right. She would have seen the car. ‘No, you were here already. You thought I’d be preoccupied with the break-in. You’d already dealt with me, and then it was Fin’s turn. Is that right? But why?’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Let me explain face to face. We’ll make a cup of tea and have a chat. I’m sure we can sort this out. You want that, don’t you?’

  Eliza would have laughed if she hadn’t been so scared. She rubbed her sweating hands against her thighs and tried to concentrate. What did he have against Fin? Was this to do with MineCorp? From what Fin had said it was done and dusted and he’d lost. Why would M
ineCorp want to resurrect it?

  She heard a sound, and had to force the scream in her throat back down. When she dared to peek out, she saw him edging closer, sweat gleaming on his forehead and upper lip.

  ‘Why don’t you just go?’ she yelled, standing up, ready to run. ‘He’s not here.’

  Her mind raced to join the dots and the result was terrifying. She could only pray she was wrong, but she had to know.

  ‘Did you have something to do with the ladder?’

  He stared at her calmly.

  ‘Oh my God, you did. You tampered with the ladder into the mine. You could have killed Fin!’

  The conversation with Mick replayed in her mind.

  ‘What about the old man who used to work around here, did you have something to do with his disappearance? And the killing of wildlife?’ The words tumbled out wildly as she tried to make sense of it all.

  The twin thoughts that Fin’s fellow miner might have been executed and that she was confronting a stone-cold killer sent her panic levels soaring.

  He stepped forward, hands up. ‘Let’s just calm down, lady, and no one will get hurt.’

  A shaking breath was all that emerged from her throat. She couldn’t think; she had no plan. It was fight or flight, and she didn’t like her chances taking on a man at least thirty kilos heavier.

  He was on the other side of the car now and she figured she had just enough time to get the door open, scramble inside and lock it before he got around the car, assuming that he didn’t come in the passenger side. She would drive to a high point and hope to God for mobile reception so she could call for help.

  Eliza slid her hand into her shorts pocket for her keys and froze. They weren’t there, or in her other pocket. And then it dawned on her. She’d left them on Fin’s workbench.

  Ducking low again, she heard him move around towards her. Knowing she had only a moment to react, she leapt up and sprinted across the open camp towards the table, the mine, the tent, the tarp. She had to get the keys and put something between them, fast. But he had anticipated her move and was right behind her.

  She froze.

  ‘Just go,’ she told him in a shaking voice. ‘I won’t say anything. Just go.’

  His thick shiny lips moved in a travesty of a smile. ‘But you would say something, wouldn’t you? I know your type. You’d run straight to the cops.’

  Eliza denied it, but she could see he wasn’t convinced. He closed the gap, crowding Eliza close to the opening of the mine shaft. She had nowhere left to go unless she took a chance and bolted past him. His eyes followed hers.

  ‘Don’t try it,’ he told her. ‘You won’t make it.’

  She had to do something, she thought desperately, as her eyes alighted on Fin’s pickaxe, leaning against the machine that Fin used to wash the opal rock he brought up. But the man was between her and it, and he knew it, moving ever so casually towards the instrument.

  Eliza’s scream died on her lips as he picked it up, weighing it in his hands.

  ‘Too late,’ he said.

  Eliza took another step back and came up hard against the hand-grip at the top of the ladder. With all other options closed off, she had no choice. Taking a deep breath and moving like lightning, she scrambled onto the ladder and climbed down into the darkness.

  *

  Half an hour ago, Leonard Twomey had had a grin as wide as a watermelon. There was no one at Ruin Flat; McLeod’s vehicle was gone. He had just what he wanted – a window of opportunity to sabotage the joint and get the hell out.

  McLeod had even left him with the means to do it, thanks to the small package of explosives Twomey discovered in a crate. It was going to be far easier than he’d ever anticipated. All he had to do was rig it up right and the mine would cave in. There’d be nothing McLeod could do except sell the place to Bannister, perhaps even for a significantly reduced price from what had originally been offered. That would have to be worth a fucking bonus.

  Then, out of the blue, the woman had showed up. Luckily he’d had the smarts to park his ute away from the mine in case McLeod came back, so it was just a matter of lying low until she realised her man wasn’t there and left. He had no idea how she’d spotted him, but she had and now he was left with the choice of getting the hell out or dealing with the situation. Confrontation wasn’t his kind of thing. But Bannister wouldn’t give a rat’s about that. He’d just want the job done.

  It crossed Len’s mind that he could stick to his original plan – just rig the explosives at the top of the mine – and kill two birds with one stone. But he baulked at cold-blooded murder, especially of a woman. He didn’t want that on his conscience, and neither did he want to go on the run. There was only so much interest the police would take in an explosion at a small opal mine. But murder? They would take that very seriously.

  No, somehow he needed to get her to Bannister, who had the kind of ruthless psychopaths on his payroll who knew how to deal with inconvenient people. That was a far better option. Bannister would send people to collect her, which meant that whatever they did to her would be on Bannister’s conscience – not that the bastard had one – and not Twomey’s.

  She wasn’t going anywhere. Right now she was a rat in a trap down there in the dark.

  This could still work. He just needed to get her into the boot of his car, set the mine to blow and get out before McLeod showed up. It would work. He had to make it work.

  Because if it didn’t, Bannister’s boys wouldn’t be coming for the woman, they’d be coming for him.

  *

  Inky blackness all around her, Eliza felt as though she was suffocating from terror. Pressed close against the ladder and looking towards the small square of light above, she heard the clang of metal as the heavyset man began his descent. At most, she had seconds to do something.

  Her foot hit solid ground. Groping along the wall, she tried to feel her way in the gloom, wishing she’d had the time and wits to grab a helmet so she had some light. From her visits, Eliza knew that the mine branched out into three tunnels at different levels. She figured that she could hide in one of them and hope the man went into one of the others, giving her time to get back up the ladder and away.

  For a long moment, she stood in the dark trying to work out which level she would instinctively choose. The first one, which she was in, seemed most obvious, she figured, which meant she would go to the lowest and hide in the shadows until the coast was clear. At the very least, the man would have to investigate the upper two before he got to the last, which would give her precious time to work out what to do.

  Whatever she did, she needed to hurry. She could hear the clank of heavy feet on the ladder.

  As fast as she could, she descended the ladder until she reached the lowest level. With the fingers of her right hand brushing the wall, she groped her way five metres along the tunnel. Her heart lurched when she tripped over something in the dark. Gasping as she nearly went down, she curled her fingers into the wall and regained her balance. Slowly she leant down until her left hand brushed the obstacle. Immediately, she realised what it was.

  Thank God.

  She lifted the hard hat to eye level. Fin’s tendency to drop and leave could be her saviour.

  Keen to illuminate the level, she switched on the helmet lamp before she thought to shield the light. Immediately it filled the space around her with a halo of yellow-green. Swearing under her breath, she shut it off but not before she heard the man shout triumphantly.

  ‘I know where you are, bitch! Now you come quietly or I can’t promise you won’t get hurt.’

  He was only three or four metres behind her now. She had to get away, but running blind she’d twist an ankle or crash into a wall. Refusing to let panic get the better of her, she moved as fast as she safely could but she didn’t seem to be making much ground.

  Eliza’s breathing was ragged as she rounded a shallow bend in the tunnel. Was it the fatal combination of darkness and her imagination, or was the level g
etting narrower and lower? She didn’t think she’d explored this far along when she’d been with Fin.

  ‘I’ve had fucking enough of this!’ The man rushed her, reaching out to grab her with one hand. His other held a lighter, its tiny flame his only light. The vast shadow he cast was almost more terrifying than he was.

  ‘You’re coming with me!’

  Eliza thought she felt his spit on her face he was so close and only her reaction in lurching away from him saved her.

  There was a clank and the lighter flame went out. He must have dropped it because he swore. In the darkness, she heard him fumble.

  ‘There’s nowhere to go, you silly bitch. Do the sensible thing and come quietly. Some people want to talk to you, that’s all!’

  Eliza almost screamed in panic. Oh God, he was right. There was nowhere to go, yet she pushed forward, barely two metres out of his reach, her head half turned to look over her shoulder to see how close he was. He’d found the lighter again and was flicking it on, cursing as it failed to light. The next second she hit the wall so hard with her shoulder that she felt the impact all the way down her arm.

  This time, she did scream in pain and panic, half collapsing to the ground in agony. He barked out a chilly laugh.

  With no time to waste, Eliza pushed aside the throb in her arm. She had two choices. One meant a confrontation with the man, the other meant pressing on deeper into the level, if she could find a way. Flicking on the helmet light because there was now no reason not to, she held it up. Her heart sank. It was the end of the road.

  Then she dropped the light lower and realised she had a glimmer of hope. It looked like the level continued but to get any further she’d have to crawl. As she’d thought, the level had been getting more confined, and ahead it was so small a grown man would struggle to fit. Her pulse raced. With any luck, the man wouldn’t be able to follow her.

  The light on the helmet flickered in her hand just as he approached, the pickaxe swinging loosely in his hand. Any moment, he could lift and strike. She had no choice.

  Swallowing the scream that wanted to burst from her throat, she ducked down into the crawl space just as the light on her helmet died.