Authors: Keith Yocum
Dennis walked around to the back of the Cruiser and opened the hatch. He was relieved to see the large containers of water and gasoline. There was the small yellow plastic outback survival toolkit Judy had taken out of her car. He opened it to find several cheap, forged tools, a roll of black electrical tape, two safety flares, a folded, silver thermal blanket and tire-patch kit.
He returned to the front seat and looked for the hood release, hearing it pop as he tugged on it. When he lifted the hood, he was forced to turn away from the light-gray, pungent smoke.
He had no idea what to look for, but in desperation, he fiddled with a few areas of the engine, eventually burning the tips of three fingers when he touched the engine manifold.
“Shit!” he yelled, blowing on his fingers.
He went around and sat back inside the car, taking a swig of water from a liter water bottle.
The heat was already making him feel listless, and he debated the merits of walking all the way back to the road. He would need to wait until the sun advanced through its arc, since it was almost directly overhead. It was his only choice, really. Staying in the Cruiser for an extended time was not much of an option.
Judy had mentioned in passing that stranded outback motorists are warned not to leave their vehicles, but Dennis gathered that rule applied to drivers on a well-traveled track. It certainly wouldn’t apply to stupid Americans who had driven away from a well-traveled track. Dennis would have to walk back to the main track—it was as simple as that.
He turned the ignition one more time, but it would not catch. At least there was still a charge in the car battery. He lowered all four windows, rested his head on the headrest and closed his eyes. Earlier some flies had appeared out of nowhere and buzzed around his face. Now they settled on him, and he started a relentless and aggravating battle to chase them away from his nose, mouth, and ears.
After nearly an hour of waiting and chasing flies, he wondered whether he should cross the fence line and do what he originally intended to do: eavesdrop on the operation and take some pictures. He thought long and hard about it but could not seem to muster the energy or enthusiasm. The desert heat seemed to be extracting not only his energy but also his will.
Dennis spent the next thirty minutes alternately sitting and lying down in the stifling Cruiser, waiting for the sun to move lower so he could cross over the fence and walk toward the facility. At one point he walked over and stared into the compound. The land inside the wire looked just like the desert outside the wire. Even if he tried to find the operations buildings, there was no telling how far he would need to go.
Fatigued and frustrated, he shuffled the twenty feet or so back to the Cruiser, his head bent down, watching the red dust puff as he traversed the short distance.
That’s why he didn’t notice the man standing next to his car. When Dennis looked up, he barked in alarm, and had to reach out to steady himself against the rear fender.
“G’day,” the man said, smiling broadly.
Dennis had never seen a man with skin that black. The whites of his eyes and teeth contrasted sharply with his skin color. His thick, black, wavy hair fell over his ears. The man seemed to be in his twenties and was wearing nothing but a pair of maroon Adidas soccer shorts and a faded purple singlet. He was barefoot and carried a long stick that seemed to have some kind of spear point at the end. The man also had a small blond-brown dog with him. The dog did not seem to like Dennis—he maintained a steady, low-grade growl.
“You broke down?” the man asked, smiling broadly again.
“Um, yes. A couple of hours ago. Don’t know what’s wrong.”
“You a long way from the track.”
“I know,” Dennis said. “Got lost.”
“My name’s Jimmy.”
“I’m Dennis.”
Dennis realized he had left his pistol in the car under the driver’s seat, and he wondered if he could discreetly retrieve it. He had no idea what to expect from this man and was suspicious about how they had managed to intersect in the middle of the desert. Dennis started to walk to the open car door. The dog growled more aggressively.
“No worries about the dog,” Jimmy said, grinning. “He just don’t like whitefellas. What’s wrong with the Cruiser?”
“It just stopped.”
“Run out of petrol?”
“No, got plenty of that.”
“Battery dead?”
“No, the engine turns over.”
“Want me to take a look?”
“Sure; do you know something about cars?”
“A bit.”
The man went to the open hood, rested his long shaft against the car and proceeded to poke around, grabbing a wire here and there.
“Start the engine,” he said, so Dennis turned the ignition. The engine turned over strongly but never caught.
“Battery’s right,” Jimmy said, almost to himself.
Dennis reached down and grabbed the pistol under the seat and jammed it into the small of his back, covering it with his shirttail. He got out of the car and stood next to the man as he toyed with the engine. The dog kept up a steady, low growl.
Jimmy reached over and started to loosen the radiator cap.
“Stand back,” he warned as he gingerly pushed down and turned the cap.
Nothing happened.
He timorously flipped the cap off.
Looking down into the radiator Jimmy said, “You got no radiator fluid, mate. This bloody thing is dry.”
“It can’t be,” Dennis said. “I drove out here from Newton, and I didn’t see anything steaming over.”
“You got no fluid, mate,” Jimmy repeated. “Look for yourself.”
Dennis peered into the opening and could see the top-most piece of a metal grid, but not a drop of the tinted fluid.
“Where’d it go?” Dennis said.
“This is a new car,” Jimmy said, “shouldn’t have a leak. You must have run over something.”
“I don’t think so,” Dennis said.
Jimmy disappeared under the car, apparently oblivious to crawling around under the motor in the heat. Dennis stood off to the side while Jimmy’s dog studied him closely. The dog wisely moved into the shade of the car, and Dennis thought he’d do the same.
“Do you mind if I sit down inside the car?” Dennis yelled.
“No,” Jimmy grunted.
Dennis sat in the car, panting slightly from the heat, mesmerized a little by this stranger who emerged out of the red dust like an ebony ghost. Oddly, his guest was as convivial and helpful as a Ritz doorman. The entire day was too strange and taxing, so he sat there, following the lead of Jimmy’s dog, and stayed out of the sun.
“Ha!” Jimmy finally yelled.
Dennis got out of the car, brushing a dozen or so flies away from his face.
“Did you find something?”
There was a puff of dust as Jimmy emerged from under the Cruiser’s engine, his singlet covered with a red, powdery coating. Little bits of gravel stuck to his hair.
“Somebody been playing with you, mate,” he said, grinning, holding a white object the shape of a fountain pen.
“What the hell is that?”
“Don’t know,” Jimmy said, dangling the small, tubular object by an eighteen-inch length of wire. “It was stuck to your frame below the engine. Not part of the car. Never seen anything like that. Held on by a magnet, I reckon.”
“That’s what caused my engine to stop?”
“No, you got a hole in the radiator hose.”
“Well that’s pretty stupid,” Dennis said. “Shouldn’t happen to a new car. Maybe I did run over something.”
“Not likely,” Jimmy said, handing the strange device to Dennis. “Someone might have drilled a hole.”
“A hole?”
“Hole drilled in the water hose where it bends. The radiator fluid’s under pressure when the engine’s on, right?”
“Sure,” Dennis said, though he had no idea radiator fluid was under pressure.
“And the fluid just pissed itself out onto the track while you was driving. If the hole was in a different place, it would have sprayed on the engine block, and you would have seen steam, I reckon.”
Through the stultifying heat, the irritating flies, and the growling dog, Dennis felt a chill.
“You think someone drilled it on purpose so I would break down out here?”
“I didn’t drill no hole,” Jimmy said.
“No, I didn’t say you drilled the hole, but maybe someone else did?”
“Could be,” Jimmy said.
“Shit,” Dennis said, looking at the white plastic device in his hand. He turned it over and could find no writing on it. He pulled a latch on the side of the tube and it popped open. Two AA batteries sprang out. Dennis saw a tiny circuit board with very small printing. He tried several different angles and could not make out the writing.
“Jimmy,” he said, handing it over to him, “can you tell me what those words say?”
Jimmy squinted in the sunlight. “I can’t read so good, mate.”
“I think it’s a GPS.”
“Could be,” Jimmy said.
Dennis scanned the horizon. He could see no vehicle dust trails. He turned back to his visitor.
“What are you doing out here, Jimmy?”
“Walkin’,” he said.
“I can see that, but why are you here right now? How did you know I was here in the middle of nowhere?”
“I didn’t know you was here, mate,” he said, smiling. “Though I think Snippy might have smelled you.”
“You just walk right out in the desert sometimes? Just like that?”
“Yeah,” he said grinning, “sometimes. Other times I just stay in town and get pissed with me mates.”
Dennis stared long and hard at his visitor.
“Can you help me get out of here?”
“Got any tools? Water?”
Dennis showed him the plastic toolbox and the large water container in the back. Jimmy took out a Phillips screwdriver and began to pull back the carpet lining of the LandCruiser.
“What are you doing?” Dennis asked.
“Lookin’,” Jimmy said. He pulled out the jack and tire iron and put them aside.
After several minutes of poking around, Jimmy said, “Ah,” and loosened a small screw. Grabbing the roll of black electrical tape, the newfound screw, and the Phillips screwdriver, Jimmy went to the front and crawled under the engine. Snippy stayed in the shade of the car, blinking away the flies and staring at Dennis.
Jimmy emerged after ten minutes, poured water into the radiator, and told Dennis to start the engine.
“What did you do with the screw?” Dennis asked.
“Screwed the little bugger in that hole—just the right size—an’ I taped the whole thing up. Should hold, I reckon. Start the engine, Denny. Let’s see if she starts.”
Dennis tried several times but to no avail; the engine would not catch.
“Let me try,” Jimmy said. “Hope you haven’t thrown a rod, mate. It’s a long walk back.”
By stomping on the gas pedal and cranking the engine, Jimmy finally got it to spew into life. Even Dennis knew it sounded terrible, coughing and sputtering a cloud of gray smoke from the exhaust.
But it started.
With the engine running, Jimmy crawled back underneath and stayed there for several minutes. Snippy stared suspiciously at Dennis and growled once or twice for good measure.
“Looks right,” Jimmy said, standing up, “but I think ya mates are comin’.”
Dennis turned around and looked down the fence line toward the main track. He could see nothing.
“You sure?” he asked Jimmy.
“Mind if I climb up?” Jimmy asked.
“Go right ahead.”
Jimmy climbed up onto the hood and balanced himself on the roof, looking back toward the main track. Snippy stood up and looked quizzically at his master; then his ears twitched, and he turned to look back toward the track.
Jimmy stared for a while and then said simply, “Four-wheelers.”
“What?” Dennis said.
“Four-wheelers: two of ’em. Comin’ this way pretty bloody fast.”
“Shit,” Dennis said. “Jimmy, is there another way out of here back to Newton?”
Scampering down, Jimmy grabbed his stick and pointed north across the gently undulating moonscape in the opposite direction of the approaching vehicles. “There’s a track up there. Go straight, and you’ll find it. Take it west to Newton.”
Dennis stood next to the open driver’s side door, his right hand resting on the inside door handle while he looked at Jimmy, who stood in front of the Cruiser.
The sound of a pebble hitting the open car door startled Dennis; that sound was followed almost immediately by an audible ‘pop’ from far away. Confused, Dennis looked at the open door and saw a hole the diameter of a pencil eraser on the inside of the Cruiser’s vinyl upholstery.
Curious, he bent closer to the hole and was startled to feel an impact next to his right foot that sprayed red sand onto his pants.
“Bloody oath!” Jimmy yelled. “Them buggers are shootin’.”
Dennis could make out two men sitting on ATVs two hundred yards away on a small rise pointing something at him. He felt a whoosh, like an angry bee, rush past his face.
“Shit!” Dennis said, ducking into the car. “Jimmy, get in; you’ll never outrun them.”
Jimmy hesitated, then ran around and grabbed the passenger door handle and jumped in, Snippy settling nervously on his lap.
Dennis heard another round hit the back of the Cruiser.
“Go!” Jimmy yelled.
Dennis took off with a roar, bounding directly over humps of small spinifex and dodging others.
Inexplicably, Jimmy started fiddling with the temperature controls.
“Need to turn on the heat,” he said.
“The heat?”
“We jus’ got water, no radiator fluid. Water don’t work. The heater pulls heat outa the engine. Otherwise might boil.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Dennis shouted, looking out the back window at the dust trail behind them.
“No, mate.” Sure enough, as if the heat, the flies, and the dust were not bad enough, they drove off-road through the desert with the car heater on full blast.
Jimmy kept facing backward as Dennis navigated the desert.
After ten minutes of driving slalom through the spinifex mounds, Jimmy said, “Denny, don’t think we can outrun them.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re goin’ to catch us before we get to the track.”