July - The Blotter Magazine

faster now and corkscrewed acrosstheir original path. When the spurintersected a paved road, dustytread marks headed toward theStuart Highway, the only pavednorth-south road through theTerritory. The pair could pick fromdozens of unmarked byways. Theartifacts would disappear.Ian pushed the Land Roverto its limit. Although the old truckhandled beautifully in the bush, itwas as sluggish as a fly in winter.The needle was still climbing whenIan saw the red SUV parked besidethe highway. If he pulled over, themen would surely notice when hefollowed them later.The Toyota, a new modelfree of dents or scrapes, faced theroad. The younger man smirkedand the lines around his mouthtwisted. Again Ian was struck bythe elder’s expression. Whitepipeclay severed his forehead andchin, and his face was a jigsaw ofviolence.“So you’ve seen me,” Ianmurmured, “and I’ve seen you.”He adjusted the rearview mirrorbut couldn’t make out the tagnumber.A roadhouse a quarterhouraway was a convenient placeto watch for the men but theynever appeared. It was possiblethey had turned east toward thecoast. More likely they had dodgedoff into the bush. As night coveredthe sky, Ian had plenty of time toconsider his next action.He didn’t need a fraction ofit. The kangaroos could wait.* * *Thousands of kilometersto the east, Gabriel Branch loadedthe last of his bags into the hatchback.At six feet tall, Gabe barelyfit behind the wheel even with theseat pushed all the way back. Butthe rear compartment was roomyenough to hold all his diving gear,and the hatch was easier to usethan a station wagon. He squeezedin and steered for the coastal highwayout of Townsville.The next few days wouldbe spent an hour or so south on theWhitsunday Islands. In the fortyfiveyears Gabe had lived inQueensland, he rarely traveledmore than a hundred kilometersinland. The neighbors never quiteunderstood why his vacations didn’ttake advantage of the expansivedesert at their back doors.They didn’t understandthe...complications of Gabe’s life.Oh, they knew about Aboriginalland rights issues that had consumedthe media for decades now,and had heard about the childrenadopted by white families in aneffort to assimilate the race. Butthey didn’t know what it was liketo be caught by those issues againsttheir will. Only a biracialAborigine who had been assimilatedat the age of three could tellthem that. And Gabe wasn’t talking.Nor was he interested indrawing attention. Black faceswere scarce in Australia, so hestuck close to the coastal cities thathosted international travelers in alltheir rainbow colors. He blendedin better there and no one askedmany questions about his background.Even if they had, theywould have been met with silence.Silence had kept his life onthe smooth, orderly track heworked so hard to create. Lastweek he had hit a bump—a bigbump—in his relationship with aJamaican woman. Chance hadn’tJuly 2007been in the country more than afew years. But she had some definiteideas about how much Gabeshould say about his experiencesand how loudly his voice shouldsound.They had fought about itmore of late. He supposed it wasthe same with all couples, as ifmoney or household chores orwork schedules were the cause oftheir problems instead of a symptom.Whatever the real reason,Gabe and Chance had split up lastweek. Ostensibly the separationwas temporary, just a little breathingand thinking room, but Gabeknew where that would lead.If Ian had been available,Gabe would have talked thingsover with him. In fifteen years offriendship, the men had seen eachother through a number ofbreakups. None had been as seriousas Chance, though, and Gabewished Ian would call. He alreadypage 5