Rainbow Fire

by Emilie Richards

  * * *

  SERGEANT NEWBERRY LIFTED the snake from Kelsey's bag and lovingly ran his thin fingers against its scales. "Quite a nice specimen," he said. "A meter and a half, at least. Even longer, perhaps. I can measure it for you."

  "I don't really care how long it is," she said, suppressing a shudder. She wasn't sure which was slimier, the snake or the man. "I'd just like to know what it was, and if it was deadly."

  He smiled a smile the snake would have smiled if it could have. "You don't know what it is?"

  "I don't."

  "First tell me how you came by it."

  "Dillon killed it." She saw little reason to go into the whole story, but she thought he ought to know some of it. He was, after all, the law in Coober Pedy. "In his dugout."

  "Peculiar place for a death adder."

  Kelsey was sure her face had blanched as white as the papers littering the sergeant's desk. "Death adder?"

  "Desert death adder. Not quite as deadly as our taipan, but then, our taipan's one of the top two in the world." He sounded pleased, as if Australia had just placed in the reptile Olympics. "See this tidy little tail?" He shook it playfully back and forth. "The adder wriggles this when it's hungry, and other smaller reptiles and mammals mistake it for an insect. They become his meal instead."

  Kelsey's shudder wouldn't be repressed this time. "Please." She took a deep breath. "Do me a big favor. Will you check its fangs? Are they intact? Could he have bitten someone? Killed someone?"

  Obligingly the sergeant spread the snake's jaw. "Nothing amiss here. He could have done some damage, that's for certain. Ward smashed his head beaut, didn't he? Use a shovel?"

  "A foot."

  The sergeant frowned. "He stepped on it?"

  Kelsey felt much as she had the day she had trudged through the Coober Pedy sun. "He was wearing boots."

  Sergeant Newberry turned the snake's mouth toward Kelsey for her to view. "See the length of those fangs?" he asked gleefully. "Longer than boot leather is thick, I'll wager. Ward could easily have ended up beside your father. Or dead."

  She shut her eyes and wished the snake would come back to life and swallow the police officer's finger. "You really don't like Dillon Ward, do you?"

  The sergeant tried to pull a cloak of professionalism around him. "Whether I like him or not has nothing to do with my suspicions."

  Kelsey wondered if he believed his own words. She knew she didn't. "Will you dispose of the snake for me, please?"

  "Right-o."

  She nodded and said a perfunctory thank-you. Only when she was outside in the sunshine did she let shame replace her revulsion.

  Shame stayed with her through a long, restless night. Shame stayed with her at breakfast and through the remainder of the morning. Dillon didn't come to pick her up to go to the Rainbow Fire, but then, Kelsey hadn't expected him to. What had he gotten from his relationship with her that would make him want to continue it?

  Kelsey could have gotten out to the mine on her own, but when Dillon didn't appear, she decided to wait a day. Trust had followed on the heels of shame, and now she knew she didn't have to stand over Dillon every moment. The man had risked his life for her; he had saved her father's life. What other proof did she need that she could depend on him to be honest?

  She skipped lunch, still uncertain about finances. By one, she was so tired of the motel walls that she braved the midday sunshine.

  Drawn to the Opal Showcase in hopes of seeing Melanie, she headed to the other end of town. The hottest sun she ever remembered had made a joke of her sunscreen by the time she arrived. Kelsey realized she was going to have to purchase a hat just to keep the sun from frying her brain. Mentally she subtracted the amount from her ready cash and crossed one more day off her stay in Australia.

  One more day unless she took Dillon up on his offer. If the offer still existed.

  "Melly?" Kelsey ducked through the door of the Showcase and descended several steps. The shop was built halfway into a hill, with the lavender light of fluorescent bulbs the only adornment on the natural stone walls. But then, the shop didn't need adornment. It had Melanie.

  She stood behind a glass showcase filled with Coober Pedy's raison d'etre. "Welcome." Melanie playfully threw Kelsey a kiss. "To the final stages of greed fever."

  "Greed fever?" Today Melanie was dressed in a denim prairie skirt and a white camisole spangled with silver sequins. Her hair was covered with a showy blond wig. Kelsey admired the effect.

  "A virtual epidemic. Here and Wall Street. No difference."

  "Wall Street is cooler."

  "And oh so much more boring."

  Kelsey thought of yesterday's encounter of the serpent kind. "There's nothing boring about Coober Pedy," she agreed.

  "So what are you doing here? Shopping for opals? I can give you the best deal in town."

  "I'd love some. But I'm on a budget. I just came to look."

  Melanie gestured to the showcase. "Look your fill."

  "They're all so beautiful."

  "You've been down in Dillon's mine, haven't you?"

  Kelsey nodded.

  "Hard to believe these beautiful stones come from a place like that, isn't it?"

  "Impossible," Kelsey murmured, admiring one particularly large opal that had been set as a brooch in gold filigree.

  "We've got something else you'd find fascinating." Melanie lifted a hinged section of the counter and invited Kelsey back. "You've met Gary at the motel, haven't you?"

  Kelsey tried to remember. "I don't know. I don't think so. An older woman has always been at the desk when I've needed something."

  "Then you've got a treat in store for you." Melanie lifted her eyes toward the heavens, as if seeking strength.

  Kelsey followed Melanie through what looked like a storage area into a workroom. Sitting at a small table was a man wearing a dark canvas apron and what looked like motorcycle goggles. The machine he was bending over whined with the nerve-tightening cadence of a dentist's drill.

  Melanie waited until he straightened and turned off his machine. "Gary? I wanted you to meet Kelsey Donovan, Jake's daughter. She's a guest at the motel."

  Gary removed his goggles, and Kelsey saw immediately why Melanie had stayed in Coober Pedy. Gary had the good looks of a young Steve McQueen and a smile that could turn a woman inside out. The face and smile were crowned by prematurely silver hair that was thick and beautifully cut.

  "Hello, Kelsey." He stood, stretching kinks from a long, lean body as he did. "A pleasure to meet you."

  Kelsey extended her hand and murmured her own greeting.

  "I wanted to show Kelsey the latest addition to your fossil collection. Would you mind?" Melanie asked.

  Gary's smile was polite. "Not at all." He stretched again, then made his way to a locked cabinet, pulling a sizeable ring of keys from his pocket to unlock it. He slid a tray off a shelf and brought it over for Kelsey to admire.

  Kelsey had expected almost anything except what she saw. "An opal shell?"

  Gary nodded. "A bivalve mollusk, ancient relative of a mussel. We call this a solid shell because the opal's made an internal mold of the specimen. Sometimes we find skin shells, opal that's filled space left when shells dissolved out in the bleaching process."

  "How old is this?" Kelsey marveled at the flashes of color from the material lapping over the shell from its secret home inside.

  "The age of opal is considered to be Late Tertiary, Miocene or Pliocene."

  Kelsey looked up and smiled. "That means?"

  "Roughly? Anywhere from fourteen to twenty-six million years ago."

  "That sort of puts us in perspective, doesn't it?"

  "I've told Gary to bury me in an opal mine somewhere when I die. My fondest wish is to have my bones preserved in opal," Melanie said, moving to Gary's side to take his arm.

  Kelsey just caught the flicker of annoyance that crossed Gary's face before he covered it with a smile. "Did Melly tell you about my collection?"

>   "I didn't," Melanie answered before Kelsey could.

  "That's a surprise, Melly, love. I've never known you, to keep silent about anything before."

  If Melanie felt chastised, she didn't show it. "Gary collects opalized fossils, among other things. He's a regular museum."

  "Then this isn't a rarity?" Kelsey asked.

  Gary lifted the tray. "Rare enough, but the miners here bring me specimens when they find them, so I've got a rather nice assortment."

  "Gary, maybe Kelsey would like to see what you're doing, since she's new here. Then we'll leave you alone." Melanie squeezed Gary's arm, then released him.

  "Have you learned much about opal, Kelsey?" Gary asked as he returned the tray and locked the cabinet door.

  "I've been down in my father's mine, but that's all."

  "I'll be glad to show you what I'm doing." He turned to Melanie, and his voice changed subtly. "Shouldn't you be out front, Melly, love? I'd like to have some opals left to sell."

  Melanie laughed. "The way you have the cases wired, Gary, love, there's no way anyone is going to break into them without all of Coober Pedy knowing." She held up her hands to ward off his answer. "But I'm going, I'm going."

  Gary waited until Melanie was gone. "When I woke up this morning, her hair was black," he said, almost to himself.

  Kelsey felt a peculiar urge to stand up for her new friend. Patriotism, she supposed, mixed with the sisters-all cry of feminism. "Melly's made me feel at home here."

  "She has that ability, doesn't she?" He shrugged. "Come see what I was doing."

  For the next half hour Gary lectured as he cut and ground opal while Kelsey watched. He showed her how large stones were cut to more manageable size, since no one wanted to wear a heavy rock, even a beautiful heavy rock, around their necks. Then he demonstrated the use of the grinding machine, gluing a small piece of opal to a dob stick with sealing wax, then grinding it down until it was a perfect oval.

  "The trick is to take out the impurities, sand and such," Gary explained, "without losing much of the stone." He held up the nearly finished product, removing his goggles with the other hand. "When this is just the way I want it, it goes to the polishing wheel, where we use chemicals to help take out the grinding marks. Then I'll assess it."

  "You assess by weight?"

  "Weight, color, clarity." Gary held the stone to the light as he talked. "The most valuable opal is black. We don't mine that here, although Mintabie, not far away, has some. Good black opal from Lightning Ridge in New South Wales sell for five thousand to eleven thousand dollars a carat."

  Kelsey whistled softly. Gary had artist's fingers, and he caressed the stone as he turned it so that color flashed in radiant hues.

  "Here in Coober Pedy, most of our opal's lesser quality but more plentiful. The clearer the opal, the more valuable, but we look at other factors, too. Red-fire opal is more valuable than green, which is more valuable than blue. Harlequin opal, opal where the color shows up in patches, is more valuable than pin-fire opal where the color shows up in tiny specks."

  Gary's voice was prayerful in its intensity. Kelsey suspected he was a man fascinated with his work. Possibly obsessed. "I saw a lot of black opal in the showcase outside, and it didn't seem terribly expensive."

  "That's not black opal, not really. Those pieces are what we call triplets. We glue thin opal slices to a dark base. That way the colors of the opal are captured and controlled. They don't diffuse. Then we cap off the stone with a crystal quartz cabochon, and we have a lovely piece of jewelry at a fraction of the price of a black opal cabochon. Depending on the quality of the opal, the triplet can be fairly inexpensive or worth a great deal."

  Kelsey remembered Dillon saying that most of the Rainbow Fire's opal had gone for triplets. Now she understood. "There's not much money for the miners in that, is there?"

  Gary's voice lost its dreamlike quality. "Don't let this place fool you, Kelsey. Everyone here lives on a dream. Coober Pedy gets two, maybe three good hits a year. No more than that."

  "What's a good hit?"

  "Something over the three hundred thousand dollar mark. Maybe three percent of our miners make a good income, another three make reasonable wages. And then there's the rest. . ."

  Kelsey remembered dilapidated doors shoved against holes in hillsides. She imagined she knew what group those miners belonged in. Suddenly she wanted Gary to confirm what Dillon had told her about the Rainbow Fire's productivity.

  "My father," she began. "Where did he fit in that breakdown?"

  Gary rubbed the opal against the sleeve of his shirt as he talked. "Your father's luck has never really been steady. Sometimes he's successful, sometimes he's not. He struggled, but Jake's a fighter. He always hung in until things got better."

  Kelsey hoped that Jake was going to carry that fight into his hospital room. Her phone call with his doctor that morning had revealed that Jake had made little progress. Sensing Gary's impatience to get back to work, she held out her hand. "I won't take up any more of your time. You've given me a good introduction. I'm beginning to understand what this is all about."

  His handshake was warm and strong. "Let me know when you understand it all. I'm not certain I understand it myself."

  Back in the showroom Kelsey waited for Melanie to release the lock on the counter. After Melanie's remark about security alarms, she wasn't taking any chances by doing it herself.

  "What do you think?" Melanie reached into the case and brought out a tiny opal triplet on a silver stickpin. "You can't live here and not own an opal. This will start your own collection."

  Kelsey was touched. "It's lovely."

  "I thought the green in the stone would go nicely with your skin and hair. Put it on."

  Kelsey slid the pin through the lapel of her blouse. "How does it look?"

  "Wonderful. Now you're official."

  "Officially what?"

  "A victim of greed fever." Melanie reached over the counter and straightened the pin. "Did you like Gary?"

  Kelsey was reserving judgment, as she always did, but she wasn't going to tell Melanie that. "He's very nice."

  "I'm not sure that's the word I'd use." Melanie stepped back. "Charming, though, isn't he? I can't seem to do without him."

  For a moment Kelsey could think of no man but Dillon. There had never been a man in her life she couldn't do without. In fact, there had been very few men in her life at all. And not one of them had affected her like the man who had kissed her last night. Right before he saved her life.

  "Kelsey?"

  Kelsey's head snapped up. "Do you understand men, Melly?"

  "Better than I'd like to."

  "What would you do if you had treated one badly and wanted to make amends?"

  Melanie considered the question. "I'd take him to bed."

  Kelsey considered her answer. "Short of that?"

  "You could always say you were sorry. Are we talking about Dillon?"

  Kelsey realized she was asking for advice. She never asked for advice because it was just one more way of putting yourself in another person's debt. And it was one more way of sacrificing privacy. Now she had done both, and she didn't even care. "Suspicion is a destructive thing, isn't it?"

  "A little can be healthy."

  "Only if it's not misplaced."

  "Invite him out to dinner, tell him you're sorry, and let nature take its course."

  Kelsey thought the first two ideas had merit, although the thought of humbling herself and spending money at the same time filled her with horror. "Good advice," she said, wishing she didn't have to take it.

  "Glad I could help."

  They chatted for a few moments until a small busload of tourists flooded the showroom with enthusiasm and cash. After another thank-you Kelsey went back into the sunshine and wished her next encounter with Dillon was already over. She ignored the small voice inside her that insisted her encounters with Dillon were just beginning.

  * * *

  THAT NIG
HT ANNA served Kelsey lasagna that surpassed her pizza—if such a thing were possible. Then she sat across the table from her, leaning on her elbows and watching intently as Kelsey chewed her first bite. "Well?"

  Kelsey rolled her eyes blissfully. "Why on earth are you in the middle of the outback cooking your heart out?"

  "You like it?"

  "I like it."

  Anna slapped the table. "I knew you would. I make the best lasagna in Coober Pedy. You come and eat my lasagna every Wednesday, and you'll grow fat and happy here. Like me."

  Kelsey stopped chewing. Three Wednesdays of Anna's lasagna probably wouldn't deposit more than an ounce or two on her slender body. She suspected Anna had something more long range in mind. "I'm only going to be here a few weeks."

  Anna pulled a mimeographed menu out of her apron pocket. "I made a list of reasons why you should stay." She shoved it under Kelsey's plate. On the back of today's specials was a list, painstakingly copied in the most beautiful script Kelsey had ever seen. "The first reason, that's a selfish one. That thing you do..."

  "Karate?"

  Anna nodded. "It's a good thing. My little boy, Giorgio, he wants to learn it. He watches that movie all the time."

  Kelsey was beginning to understand. "The Karate Kid?"

  Anna nodded. "Giorgio, he watches it every chance he gets on our video recorder. He goes around the house scrubbing the air with one hand, wiping with the other, but the other kids, they still pick on him at school."

  Kelsey hid a smile. "You know, Anna, karate's not really like that. You have to study hard, and it's a lot of work."

  "You don't live in the outback if you don't like work. If you don't like work you go live by the beach somewhere and let coconuts fall on your head. Finish your lasagna." Anna reached across to Kelsey's plate and broke a breadstick in half, buttering it lavishly and handing it to Kelsey to eat.

  Obligingly Kelsey took a bite. "Anna, I owe Dillon a dinner. If I bring him here tomorrow, will you make us some of this lasagna?"

  "Ravioli. Dillon is a good man. He needs a good woman." Anna seemed to think that was the more important issue. She put her finger on the list. "Number two." Kelsey leaned back in her chair, suppressing a smile. "Now how do you know I'm a good woman?"