Color of Blood(90)
“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 Northern 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.