The cracked windshield of Jake's truck was coated with a layer of dirt that blocked the finer details Kelsey might have used for identification. And, not surprisingly, the windshield wipers didn't work. She supposed that wasn't a problem Jake would have worried about in country that received five inches of rain in a good year. But it was a problem she had to worry about now.
The wind picked up as she drove, rattling the side panels of the truck and forcing her to grip the steering wheel with all her strength. When the dirt on the windshield built to unmanageable levels, she pulled to the side of the road and got out to wipe it with her hands, grimacing as the wind coated her with a new layer to add to the dust that had blown in through the truck windows.
She was back in the truck and out on the road again before she realized that she had only streaked the dirt, not removed it. She slowed her pace, leaning forward to peer through the deepening haze for the turnoff to the mine field where the Rainbow Fire was located.
Something large blew past her on a swirling gust of wind. She slammed on the brakes and swerved. The object stopped, turned in her direction to give her a soulful, nonverbal lecture, then hopped on.
"A kangaroo." Now why should that surprise her? She was in Australia, after all. In the middle of the outback. In a dust storm. "Terrific, Kelsey," she muttered. She shifted gears and revved the motor, fully intending to pull back onto the road. The motor revved and the gears ground, but the truck didn't move. She made her second exit from the cab, going around to the back to see what kind of trouble she had gotten herself into.
One wheel was firmly on the road, the other was in a hole, a natural depression that had grown deeper from the spinning tire. By the time she had scoured the area for rocks to fill the hole, her skin felt as if it were an inch deep in dust, and her hair was as stiff as a wire brush. The wind continued to grow stronger, whirling in cyclone-like gusts that picked up dust and debris and sent it spinning through the air. Visibility decreased as the wind increased, and even though Kelsey was able to get the pickup back on the road, she questioned the wisdom of trying to find the Rainbow Fire.
The problem was that she wasn't absolutely certain how to find her way back to Coober Pedy, either. She had made several turns, turns that had been uncomplicated and obvious when she had made them with Dillon. Now, with visibility decreasing, she wasn't sure she could find them again.
Stubborn pride had gotten her into this. She only hoped she had some redeeming quality to get her out of it.
Sensing that she was closer to the mine than to town, she decided to push on. She traveled in low gear, hitting every bump and rut in the road and stopping often to hand wipe the windshield. Her misgivings grew with the shrieking of the wind, until both were at the highest pitch.
Perhaps it was the wind, or perhaps her own fears, that masked the rumbling on the road behind her. Whichever it was, the rumbling had become a loud roar before Kelsey recognized the sound of danger. The road beneath her shook in warning, and the clouds of dust behind her parted like the Red Sea to reveal the largest semi she had ever seen bearing down on the pickup.
She wrenched the wheel sharply to the left and braced herself for impact. The flopping tailgate of the pickup caught the blow, sending it careening out of control over the side of the road into a wide ditch that culminated at the base of a hill. The semi roared on, hidden once more by thick, red clouds.
Kelsey rested her forehead against the steering wheel and forced herself not to cry. Her hands shook as she lifted them to rub her eyes. She waited for the jolt of pain that would tell her that she was injured, but it didn't come. Somehow, miraculously, she was alive and unharmed.
When she could manage, she sat straighter and peered through the dense, dry fog. She could see the outline of the hill that had halted the pickup's mad rush to safety. She had stopped just short of the face, and the antique front fender of the pickup was lodged against a soft plateau of dirt leading up to the side of the hill. Shuddering, she tried not to imagine what would have happened if the truck had plowed full speed into the hillside. She had been saved, both by the slow speed she had been traveling and the dirt that had absorbed the impact. Too, although she couldn't thank the semi driver for much, he had obviously swerved as soon as he had seen her. And although he hadn't stopped to hear words of gratitude, his quick reflexes, along with hers, had probably saved her life.
Dust blew in the window openings until there was no benefit to being inside the cab. Kelsey recovered most of her self-control before she opened the door and got out to inspect the damage to the pickup. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be too much. The fender was bent beyond recognition, and the right front tire was quickly going flat, but nothing else seemed to be damaged except that the tailgate was gone, probably riding the wind to Timbuktu, or the Australian equivalent. With a tow chain, she and Dillon could pull the pickup back a few feet to where the ground was flat enough to change the tire, and, if she were lucky, she could probably be on her way again.
Except that Dillon wasn't there. In fact, he might never be there, because he might never find her. There was still no guarantee she had been traveling on the right road.
New fear replaced the residue left from the accident. Dust coated Kelsey's throat and plugged her nostrils. Each breath tickled her lungs with talcum-fine particles. How long did a dust storm last? Minutes? Hours? The wind swirling past her threatened to lift her off her feet and deposit her in the land of Oz. Except that the Aussies claimed this was Oz. Which left her little hope for respite.
Forcing herself to be calm, she stood beside the dubious shelter of the cab and considered her options. She could get back inside the pickup and wait for the end of the storm, an end that might take hours or, worse, days. Or she could go back out to the road and wait for a rescue that might happen momentarily. Or next week sometime.
Her choice seemed clear, although she wasn't sure just how long she would last by the roadside. The wind might be whirling, but it did little to subdue the fierce heat of the outback summer afternoon. The sun was a brilliant spot in the haze above her. She wouldn't want to make bets on which force of nature was going to defeat her first: heat, dehydration, or dust cutting off the very air she was struggling to breathe.
There was little she could do about the first two problems, but with what ingenuity she could summon, she fished out a rag that had been stuffed in a gaping hole in the front seat and dipped it in the rust-tinged water of the radiator, tying it across her face, bandit-style, to help block the dust from her mouth and lungs. Then she made her way to the roadside, clinging to the dead branches of a mulga tree to anchor herself against the wind.
She had lost track of time in her struggle to find the Rainbow Fire, but as the sky slowly darkened, she knew the day wasn't ending. Instead, as if in answer to her unspoken prayer, dust was slowly blocking the sun. She couldn't even guess how far above her the storm reached, but the encroaching darkness began to dull the sun's fury. At least she had one less problem to contend with.
Unfortunately the darkness brought its own problems. Visibility decreased even farther, until she wasn't able to scan more than a few yards in any direction. If someone else was insane enough to be out on the road, there was a good chance they might not see her.
Kelsey concentrated on every sound. She hadn't paid close enough attention when she was driving, and she had suffered the consequences. Now she listened for every changing nuance. The shifting cadences of the wind became the focus of all her considerable energy. She held herself rigid against its force, straining to hear beyond it for the rumble of an engine, the honk of a horn, the blessed sound of a human shout. Dillon's shout.
She had no idea how long she had braced herself in the branches of the mulga when she heard the first whimper of an engine over the wind's screams. At first she wasn't sure it was real. She wanted so badly for the sound to be a car or truck that she wondered if she were imagining it. The wind picked up in fierce gusts that threatened to lift both he
r and the mulga tree, and for a moment all she could do was fight to maintain her hold.
Seconds later, a faint lull reassured her. The hum of the engine was unmistakable, although the changing wind made it impossible to tell which direction it was coming from. But it was coming. With luck she would be on her way soon, protected from the dust and the wind by some Australian good Samaritan.
At the next lull, she shouted, lifting the rag that protected most of her face. The wind picked up again, tossing her words to the four corners of the earth, but the engine was louder now, moving closer. She shouted again and was confident that this time her shout could have been heard. The purr grew louder, and she felt the first real stirrings of gratitude. She hadn't let herself dwell on the full ramifications of her predicament, but now she did. She was lucky to have survived the brush with the semi; she was doubly lucky to be rescued from the dust storm. Perhaps the next time she was about to encounter danger, she might think twice about ignoring good advice.
She shouted again, waving one arm, although she couldn't see anything through the haze in either direction. "Hello! Can you hear me? It's Kelsey Donovan!"
The sound of the engine died. At first she couldn't believe it. Perhaps the wind had picked up, masking the rumble momentarily. She strained to hear over the wind's roar, but there was nothing.
"Hello! Is anybody out there?" she shouted. There was no sound except the wind. She shouted again, and then a third time.
She couldn't believe it. Apparently the truck had turned off, perhaps taking a side road to a mine, or a house in the middle of nowhere. She hadn't been heard; she hadn't been seen. She was alone again, with dust driving into every pore of her body.
She shouted once more, expecting no response.
A faint click, almost masked by the wind's fury, was the answer she hadn't expected.
She strained to hear more, but nothing followed the click. She struggled to think what it could have been. The sound was familiar, yet out of place in the storm. Protecting her eyes, she struggled to peer through the rust-colored haze as she shouted one last time.
"Is anybody out there?"
There was no answering shout. No repeated click. No engine's hum. Only the unmistakable whine of a bullet as it passed over her head to cleanly pierce the rust-colored haze and split the wood of the mulga tree.
* * *
DILLON THOROUGHLY EXAMINED the Rainbow Fire for booby traps. Nothing was evident, but he couldn't shake the feeling that someone else had been in the mine today, just as he couldn't shake his growing feeling that something was wrong with Kelsey.
They had known each other only days, yet he felt a bond that surpassed any he had ever known with a woman. He understood her in a way that had nothing to do with days or years, but everything to do with soul and spirit. He understood her well enough to know that the strong, courageous woman she had become still nurtured the tiny seed of a girl, frightened and alone. Her extreme neatness stemmed from a child's need to make sense and order out of a life controlled by uncaring adults. Her displays of strength and courage were a way of striking a blow for that girl, and she was capable of acting without considering all the consequences.
He hoped he was wrong. He hoped that Kelsey was back in Coober Pedy, waiting for him to return. He knew Dimitri well enough to realize that Jake's ute probably hadn't been ready on time. He also knew Dimitri well enough to believe that he would watch out for Kelsey, if Kelsey let him.
Dillon finished up his examination and started back to the main shaft. He was anxious to head back to town just to be certain things were all right. At the shaft, his fears were enhanced. Fine red particles floated down from the air above. The particles danced in the generator-powered light like fairy dust.
Dillon had seen the wind pick up and the dust blow as he had driven toward the Rainbow Fire. But wind and dust weren't unusual in outback South Australia. He had been too preoccupied to consider the worst case scenario. Now he did. Coober Pedy was in the throes of a dust storm, and Kelsey was out in the middle of it.
All other possibilities fled from his mind. He held his watch to the light. It was almost quarter past three. If Kelsey had set out for the mine, she would be here by now. Perhaps Dimitri had coaxed her to stay in town and not try the trip, but with painful perception, he knew the truth. No words of caution would have kept Kelsey from starting toward the mine.
But something or someone had kept her from getting here.
The ladder was slick with dust, but Dillon held on grimly, taking the steps two at a time. At the top his mouth went dry at the scene before him. Everything in his limited field of vision was covered with bull dust—the fine red particles that Jake had once laughingly called outback snow. The landscape had been transformed into a caricature of itself. Blowers and tunneling machines were grim, twisted sculptures against a rust-shaded horizon. His ute was a red-velvet throne.
He held tightly to the top rung of the ladder and listened to the wind howl. He had seen storms like this last for hours. Once he had watched dust blanket Coober Pedy for days. He had spent those days inside, alone, wondering why he lived in such a place. Now he wished that loneliness was all he had to worry about. It was much worse knowing that Kelsey was out in the storm somewhere.
And he knew she was. He could feel the certainty growing as the wind did.
Fighting to maintain his balance, he hoisted himself over the top of the shaft to the ground. In seconds he had fastened a sheet of iron to the shaft with a set of new locks he had brought with him. Not that he expected the locks to keep anyone out. But they would be visible proof to the intruder that Dillon knew someone had been in the mine. He was involved in a war of nerves, and he didn't intend to ignore either his offense or defense.
He had made the trip to and from the Rainbow Fire so many times that he could drive it blindfolded, but today he drove cautiously, his narrowed gaze sweeping back and forth across the limited field of vision for signs of Jake's antiquated ute. He sensed rather than heard the rumble of a road train coming toward him, and he pulled to the edge of the road to let it pass, cursing softly as it did. He was all too familiar with the huge truck tractors pulling two and sometimes three, fifty-meter trailers behind them. Outback towns existed because the road trains transported goods to and from them, but that didn't make it easier to swallow the bushranger tactics of the drivers who stopped for no one and nothing in their race to their next destination. He hoped Kelsey hadn't encountered this one.
Back on the road, he continued his search until he reached Coober Pedy. The town was newly awash in dust, and its residents had gone home to hole up, lowering vent caps and sealing doorways until their dugouts were cozy fortresses against the storm. Dillon didn't even try the garage. He drove straight to Dimitri's dugout. In a moment he was banging on the door.
Just out of the shower, Dimitri came to the door still toweling his hair dry. He took one look at Dillon and shook his head slowly, sending droplets of water bouncing across his foyer floor. "She's right stubborn, that one. Left here at three o'clock to go out to the mine."
Dillon looked at his watch. That had been forty-five minutes before. "You're sure about the time?"
''Abso-bloody-lutely.''
Dillon didn't even ask why Dimitri hadn't stopped Kelsey. He knew. "She didn't make it there. And I didn't see her on the way back."
"I'll ring your dugout."
Dillon waited in the foyer while Dimitri made the call. Dust caked every inch of his body and coated every hair. Dimitri's dugout was spotlessly clean.
Dimitri returned and shook his head. "Let me get my oilskin."
Dillon wasn't too proud to accept help when Kelsey's life might depend on it. "I'll start on ahead."
"I'll crisscross the back roads."
"Right-o. Just don't get yourself lost."
Dimitri snorted. "And don't you do anything foolish, my friend. The little one's as much trouble as her father."
"More trouble." Dillon took the time to spare
one brief smile. "More fun, too."
Back in his ute, Dillon followed the road out of Coober Pedy. The dust was so thick that he couldn't see Dimitri behind him, but he knew he was there by the sound of his ute's engine, just as he knew when Dimitri diverged on a side road that led to a small community of dugouts. Dillon didn't think that Kelsey would have mistaken the turnoff for the correct one, even if the dust was blanketing all landmarks. But this was no time to second guess her. In a storm like this one, anything was possible.
Where was she? Dillon wished he would climb into Kelsey's head and hear the thoughts that had brought her out into the middle of a howling outback storm. Was it a case of a fool rushing in? Was she once again testing herself to see if she had grown strong enough to withstand anything and anyone? Or had it been a simple error in judgment?
No matter. Kelsey was out here somewhere, and he had to find her. He slowed his pace, peering into the almost impenetrable veil of dust for any signs, no matter how small, that someone had recently passed this way.
* * *
KELSEY'S ONLY HOPE was that the storm wouldn't ease.
She had no time to dwell on the irony. Flattening herself against the sandstone hill that had demolished Jake's fender, she sidestepped slowly, peering through dust-reddened eyes into the fury of the storm. There was no sign of life in the swirling dust clouds, just as there had been no sign earlier. But there was a bullet lodged in the dead wood of a roadside mulga to prove that she was not alone.
Someone was stalking her, and her only defense lay in the thickness of the dust and her own silence. She moved slowly, with the lithe, spare movements that had taken her years to perfect. Not so much as a rock moved beneath her feet, and not so much as a breath was audible. Her body was under strict control, even if her mind was racing with fear.
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