style="font-size:15px;"> “Hell, no!”
“Nothing bad’s going to happen to you,” Marley assured her. “I’ve been Outback hundreds of times. Admittedly most of my experience has been with the fresh-water variety.”
Rosie groaned. “Don’t West Australians keep them as pets? We’re talking the saltwater variety, Dr. Marley. The ones that take you down into a death roll and shove you under a log until they’re ready to party. Whichever way you look at it, saltwater crocodiles are part of your package.”
“But you look like the adventurous type,” Marley joked. “Anyway, maybe you can get Chase Banfield himself to play great white hunter. He must know his own property like the back of his hand.”
At those words, Rosie pounced. “Isn’t that proof there’s nothing there?”
For the first time doubt sprang into Marley’s eyes, yet he plowed on. “A huge slice of it is jungle. He doesn’t know where to look for the site. Three Moons is vast. Some ten thousand square kilometers. Fifty thousand or more Brahmin-based cattle roam the open savannahs and the hill country. There’s a farming project, as well, forage sorghum, different varieties of hay. That kind of thing. I’m no farmer.”
“Neither, apparently, was Porter Banfield.” Rosie pushed glinting wisps of hair from her temples. “Not a cattleman, either. Which might account for a lot of Chase Banfield’s problems,” she added perceptively. “From the little knowledge I gained when I was up there, Three Moons station some ten years ago was almost at the point of collapse.”
“Well, that’s far from the case now,” Marley said irritably. “I understand it’s back to full production.”
“So Chase Banfield is no slouch,” Rosie offered with admiration.
“Apparently not,” Marley responded, unsmiling. “Porter may have been a failure in some areas, but he knows his ancient history. The pyramid exists, although it’s covered with eons of vegetation, hidden away in the back country. Lonely, isolated, scary country.”
“Where you want to go trekking?” Humor sparkled in Rosie’s eyes.
“I’d go trekking in hell if I could unearth an ancient civilization,” Marley returned bluntly. “What I want to know is whether you’re prepared to help me make my discovery.”
“Porter Banfield’s discovery, surely.”
Marley didn’t so much as blink. “He’s had his cache for a while. He might be something of an Egyptologist, but he doesn’t have the expertise to excavate anything, let alone an ancient ruin. Wise man, he knows his limitations. It takes an archaeologist of my training to successfully carry out a project like that. What I’m asking of you is a pact of mutual trust. If you can get to Banfield, persuade him to sanction our plan to uncover this ancient village, it might turn out to be the greatest assignment you’ll ever have. To be part of an exploration group that would prove once and for all that there was an ancient Egyptian presence in Australia! Think of it. A fact, not just an interesting possibility.” Fire welled up in his eyes.
“You’re really serious about all this, aren’t you.”
“Oh, yes.” Marley nodded. “And you will be, too, once you feel that necklace touching your skin.”
CHAPTER TWO
MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND MILES away in tropical North Queensland, Chase Banfield, prince among his fellows, sat in the surprisingly opulent cattlemen’s club, enjoying a cold beer. It was the end of a long hard day. He’d made the trek from his cattle station, Three Moons, into the small rain-forest township of Isis. Now he just wanted to sit and relax before going into the town center to the pub, where he planned to stay overnight. Like most fervent hopes, it was about to be dashed. He’d barely been at the club ten minutes when Mick Dempsey lurched onto the veranda, swirling the drink in his tumbler, making the ice cubes rattle.
Chase shook off his initial dismay and waved an acknowledging hand. Dempsey, a big man who, until the untimely death of his wife, Bridget, a few years earlier, had been one of the most popular members of the cattlemen’s club, was now much diminished, his black-Irish good looks eaten away by grief and the bottle. He was bone-thin, and his bush shirt and jeans hung on him, though to his credit his clothes were always clean. But when he was sozzled, which was pretty much all the time, he could be harrowing company. Even for Banfield, who had a lot of sympathy for the man. It was just that he had precious little free time these days to unwind. Three Moons, in his family since the mid-1880s took all his energy, and God knows he’d grown as tough as old boots. Now Mick was heading straight for him, ignoring the scatter of members at the other tables, who stepped up the intensity of their conversations as Mick hove unsteadily into sight.
For a split second, Banfield considered getting up, making an excuse and going on his way, but pity and genuine affection kept him in place. Mick knew all about the savage pain of grief. Most significantly, Mick had been a close friend of his father’s since boyhood. Both heirs to vast cattle stations. Both frontiersmen. Things like that counted.
A sad shadow of Mick’s once-famous grin crossed his face. He thrust out his huge hand, looking at Banfield with unfeigned pleasure. “Chase, m’boy! This is great! Hardly ever see you these days.”
Banfield hooked out a chair for the older man, at the same time half rising and gripping Dempsey’s outstretched hand. “How’s it going, Mick?”
Mick sank down gratefully, eyes filmed over. Such a big forlorn man with enough black mustache to stuff a sofa, Banfield thought, torn between sympathy and a desire to bawl Mick out. Mick was smiling wanly, nursing his neat whiskey, at least the fifth since he’d come in on that torrid afternoon. “Same as always, son. I continue in my fashion.”
Chase tossed off his ice-cold beer, then set the glass down on the table. “You’ve dug yourself into a pit, Mick. You have to climb out of it.”
“Easier said than done, my boy.” Mick shook his heavy dark head, still thickly thatched though the once-gleaming blue-black curls were grizzled.
“I don’t dispute that. But you can do it. There’s help at hand.”
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Mick intoned. “I was someone, wasn’t I, in another life? Before I lost my girl. That shattered me. Showed me for what I really am. A hollow stick.”
“Listen to me, Mick—”
“Goddammit, Chase, you know it’s true.” Mick slumped in his chair, looking much older than his years. Fifty-eight, the same age as Lew Banfield, Chase’s father, had he lived.
“You’re better than this, Mick,” Banfield said quietly. “None of us likes to see what’s happened to you.”
“I’m not a fighter like you, mate. You’re a real stayer. I know I need help. I know I’ve got friends like you I can count on, but life doesn’t mean a monkey’s without my girl. She was everything to me. My better half. No question. I tried for a while. Maybe if the kids had stuck around, but neither of them liked the life. Bridget held us all together.”
“She was a fine woman, Mick, a good woman.” Banfield understood how he felt. “Why she had to die so young, I don’t know. Don’t ask questions. There aren’t any answers.”
“You’d know,
