A Darker Shade of Black: Dark Divider, #1

Chapter 1

It was to be a day of damage, a day of pain and anger, and a day of broken vows. But Daniel didn’t know that when he parked the John Deere tractor, its fuel gauge on the red line. A beautiful spring morning was rising, but for Daniel it was to be the worst day of his life. He just hadn’t reached that point yet.

Daniel allowed the turbo-charged motor two minutes to cool down at a rumbling idle, in which time he walked around the planter checking the tires and the planting boots. He kicked the crust from the surface of the rich soil, dark moisture showing in the scuff mark.

He looked up at the sun-drenched morning horizon and at his house, a seventy year old Queenslander, standing proud on the rolling plain. Farming was a sea change for Daniel but not for Debra. He’d left a short but stellar law career in Brisbane to come west to Wandoan, in Queensland’s Central Highlands, to go grain and cattle farming. For Debra it was a step back into the old family life. Deb’s father, Eric, had owned the farm and Eric’s father had owned it before him.

Now after the death of Eric, Daniel was the farmer, and he loved it.

He climbed up into the cab and switched off the motor and then jumped down and started walking across to the edge of the paddock toward his faithful old Holden ute, a battered twenty-year-old vehicle they’d inherited with the farm.

The black, turbo-diesel Sahara parked next to the weatherboard house was a surprise addition when he arrived back that fateful morning. For a second there was suspicion, then reason overcame that first ridiculous notion. He wearily pushed open the timber screen door and kicked off his boots next to the laundry tub. It had been a huge night and the planting was almost finished. Later in the day he would fuel the tractor and plant the rest of the grain sorghum, but first he needed breakfast and a few hours’ sleep.

Debra was sitting at the paper strewn dining room table with a large dark-haired man who was dressed in a suit and tie, strange attire for seven in the morning. The man rose with an expectant look on his face. It was not a look of greeting, more of wary caution, there was no smile. Daniel took a momentary dislike to the man, but then he had never liked insurance salesmen.

Morning, honey, Daniel said, waiting.

Debra was slow to rise, a hesitancy unlike her. Ah, Daniel, do you remember Milos? She asked.

Daniel took a closer look at the man’s tight unsmiling face. Greyish olive skin, almost colorless grey eyes, an expensively cut suit emphasizing the width of his shoulders. He didn’t like the man he decided. No, can’t say I remember. When did we meet, Milos?

Milos stepped from behind the table and offered his hand. Daniel shook it, concerned at the restrained power hidden in that handshake. Nearly twenty years ago, Mister Sarcher, in fact at six twenty-three this evening it will be exactly twenty years since we first met. God willing, we shall never meet again. The contract is due. The man’s accent was strange, the words very formal with an inflection Daniel had never heard before. Daniel assumed he must be European.

Oh, what contract is that?

The one we entered into, as to compensation for the children. A twenty-year span, at the end of which you will receive payment in full, and we will leave you in peace.

That’s nice, Daniel said, thinking that finally one of Deb’s policies was coming due. Probably one of the children’s scholarships they had been paying into for what seemed like an interminably long time. You need me, Deb? I’ll be in the kitchen getting some breakfast.

No, Danny, you go on, she said turning back to the saturnine Milos.

As he made his way to the kitchen Daniel heard the creak of timber as the man eased back into the dining chair. The mutter of conversation started again but was soon drowned by the sizzling of bacon in the pan.

It was strange that Debra had someone in so early in the day. And why had she seemed so stricken? He knew she wasn’t cheating on him. Debra knew when he’d be home, so cheating definitely wasn’t it.

Daniel was tired. Exhausted was probably a better description. He’d been on the tractor since midday the previous day, pushing himself in his dogged manner to get the job done, utilizing to the full the precious moisture in the soil. He sat at the kitchen table eating his meal, not interested in joining the others in the dining room. He didn’t welcome company and conversation, he was too tired for that, and it looked as if Debra had serious bookwork to attend to.

Debra did all the office work on the farm while he did the outside work, and only she really knew how the money worked. She paid the bills, sent out the accounts for payment and balanced the books. It was Debra who visited the bankers on most occasions for loans and she knew to the finest detail how the loans would be repaid, so now it made little sense to Daniel that she shouldn’t be the one negotiating with the slick looking salesman in the dining room.

They still talked quietly. He poked his head around the corner briefly, Just going up for a shower. You need me, love? he called.

No, Danny, we’re fine, she said in a soft voice.

Daniel walked up the stairs in deep thought. Debra rarely called him Danny, only at the most intimate of moments, and why so quiet? Where was his confident bride of twenty-five years?

He soon forgot his concerns in the heat of the shower and was beginning to relax by the time he dropped onto the soft bed. A warm November wind rustled the curtains and he dropped quickly into sleep. At the margins of consciousness, he heard the slamming of doors and the sound as the big Landcruiser drove off down the dirt road to the bitumen. He barely registered Debra’s footsteps on the stairs, the soft weight on the edge of the bed, her hand on his shoulder.

He drifted into a world of dreams. Somewhere in those dreams Debra was crying.

He slept far longer than he’d intended. It was late in the afternoon when he finally woke with cloudy memories of another dream. Milos had been there in that dark and disturbing dream, one that held a horrible old familiarity. In it he’d been powerless, a fuddle of unwelcomed action.

Daniel walked downstairs to the living room; the sun was sinking into a scarlet sheet of high cloud on the western horizon. For a long while he looked out the window at the beauty of the sky then realized that Debra was sitting in the lounge watching him. She looked strangely vulnerable; normally she would have met him with a bright and cheerful greeting.

Hey what’s up, Debs? he called to her.

Everything, she said morosely. Daniel walked over to her and sat in the lounge beside her. It was so totally out of sorts for her. Only on a few occasions did he recall her so down.

What’s wrong, love? he asked.

I’ve really stuffed up this time, Danny. I’m sorry, the tears started down her face and he realized she’d been crying for a while. He placed his arm around her shoulder and she buried her face in his shirt. The sobs racked her slender body and he held her tighter. It was bad and he didn’t know why.

When her crying subsided, he held her away and asked, What is it?

I’ve done something terrible, something I should have told you about a long time ago.

What? The contract for the kids?

It’s more than just a contract for the kids, much more than that, Danny. I’m sorry. She broke into tears again and it took a long time for her to talk again. He didn’t ask any more questions, she spoke simply.

Milos came here twenty years ago. You signed something you shouldn’t have. He’s come to take what is his, and pay you for the trouble. It isn’t fair.

But what? Is it something for the kids schooling?

"No, not our kids."

Then whose? Daniel asked with a sinking feeling, he could see the despair in her eyes.

Mine and Milos’, she said.

Somewhere, far off, Daniel could hear a roaring. It was crazy. He’d lived his entire adult life with this woman.

"What are you talking about, you’re my wife?

And his, she said sadly.

That’s impossible. What are you saying?

It’s true, love. Sad, wicked... true, she said desperately.

But you can’t have, he tried to reason with her. When are you supposed to have married him, when are you supposed to have had his children? I’ve been with you all of our twenty-five years.

It’s too hard to explain, there’s too little time, Daniel. It was a different time, a different place, but it happened.

Tell me how? he demanded, aghast at her crazy revelation.

He came for me; between our four children I bore him another three, out of time out of place. He forced me, I had to do it you understand, please understand. Her beautiful face was filled with the unbearable sadness; he felt the deepest darkest despair. His mind, normally so lawyer sharp, felt only numbness. He hadn’t seen the madness in her before, nor did it seem so now. But she was mad.

Explain it to me, he demanded, voice hard and urgent, trying to draw her out.

It’s too late now, I have to go.

No! he groaned, his face red, not hearing the knock at the door.

Debra stood, slipping her hand from his desperate grasp. He stood and followed, she opened the door.

Mother God’s grace be with you, Milos gasped as he struggled in with a heavy wooden chest in his arms. He dumped the box on the old kitchen table, it groaned with the weight.

The contract is official, he said glancing meaningfully at the clock on the kitchen wall. Involuntarily Daniel glanced across; the hands of the clock stood at twenty-five past six. He felt an unfathomable dread; it was as if he were reliving the weird nightmare that had dogged his sleep.

What contract? he choked.

Yours and mine, we go, with the grace of Mother God. Milos turned to Debra. Daniel saw her suck in a breath and pull back her shoulders as she looked up at the insurance salesman.

I am ready.

No way, Daniel said. This is not fucking on. Not on your life. Who do you think you are? He stepped between Debra and Milos.

I am sorry, Daniel Sarcher, my wife strikes a hard bargain but you have been paid in full. Now I think we must leave.

Get out, Daniel said in a voice filled with menace.

I have been polite, God forgive me, Milos said as he smacked Daniel to the ground with the back of his hand.

Daniel lay, stunned. It felt worse than when the young mare had kicked him in the head two years earlier. He tasted blood on his lip and a strange smell in his nostrils. Debra’s hand was on his shoulder as she knelt beside him.

I am so sorry, Danny. We have to go. I will always love you and I will always remember our time together. Say goodbye to the children for me. She kissed him lightly on the forehead and he heard her walking across the floor. The door shut quietly and the Landcruiser motor started outside. He sat there on the floor bleeding and crying as the vehicle drove around the house and down the front drive.

Chapter 2

Daniel shakily got to his feet. He looked out the window and down the road at the taillights of the black Landcruiser. It went through the gate and he was stunned to see it turn left, away from the highway and onto the road heading to the State Forest. He bolted through the door, pulling on his work boots, no time for socks.

The old Holden ute started with an ill-concealed lack of grace and he rammed the shift into first and shot the vehicle around in a spray of gravel, the pump action shotgun sliding across the seat toward him. He pushed the gun back and pulled the stick into second, accelerating toward the boundary gate. He could see the lights of the cruiser as it crested the long hill.

He had no doubts he would catch them. But what then? He looked at the brutal Mossberg 12-gauge pump beside him. Could he use it? He jammed the accelerator hard and shot sideways onto the gravel road, the old motor bellowing mightily; the ute hadn’t been used that way in a long time.

Milos Constant quickly realized he was being pursued and the big Toyota started to pull away. Daniel was sure he could match it with the other car; that was unless the driver decided to go into the scrub. He had only fuelled the ute up the afternoon before and he knew there would be a time when the Landcruiser would have to stop and they would talk it over.

In the dust and the darkness, he almost lost control as the road fell away in front of him. He had forgotten about the creek and saw the red taillights of the cruiser alarmingly close ahead of him. Milos pulled away as Daniel fishtailed into loose gravel on the side of the road and almost missed the bridge. Something thumped under the old car as he ran up the edge of the timber side rail but he managed to correct back onto the road.

He drove more carefully from then on, keeping back, breathing dust, but maintaining the contact with the red tail lights ahead.  He had no idea where they were after a while. They were climbing into rugged timbered country but still he followed for kilometer after kilometer. Then all of a sudden, the red taillights disappeared and he jammed on the brakes, skidding into clear air.

Where was the cruiser?

Then off to the side he saw the headlights, climbing through the trees, shining over piles of jumbled rock. Daniel wondered where the hell he was, and where the hell Constant was going with Debra.

He reversed quickly back but waited long precious minutes while the thick white dust cleared to see where the cruiser had left the road. He finally found the tracks crossing the graded gutter and drove the ute up into the soft dry loam, rear wheels spinning and scrabbling.

The worst had happened. Constant had gone bush and Daniel didn’t like the look of the track. The wheel marks were indistinct; it wasn’t even a bush track. The four-wheel drive had climbed up over small logs, and hard rough rock littered the way.

Soon Daniel knew he had no alternative, he wasn’t going any further. If it meant wrecking the ute to find them he would have gone on but the practical mind of a Queensland farmer told him that it just wasn’t going to happen.

He pounded the steering wheel, lights illuminating the jagged rock slope ahead. He knew then that things were really bad. The heavy realization that she wasn’t coming back was beginning to sink home. And most shocking of all was the idea that she had gone willingly.

Daniel sat for over half an hour, engine running, lights on. Only when the warning light came on to tell him the radiator was close to boiling did he rev the engine and start to reverse out of that mad track. He scraped the rear of the vehicle on a small tree and then ripped off the passenger rear vision mirror on the same tree. He was past caring. It took him twenty minutes to back out onto the dirt forestry road.

He stopped there again for more useless minutes, half across the road, thinking. Only when the lights of a truck appeared over the rise from the Wandoan end did he move off, slowly, heading for home. On the way back he made special note of road signs and landmarks, he was determined to come back in daylight and track his wife and her abductor.

It took over an hour to make the return journey; he’d had no idea he’d driven so far. Milos and Debra must have been somewhere in the forests above Chinchilla.

The house was in darkness when he stopped the utility at the kitchen door. He stumbled in and flicked on the light. He saw the chest on the table and grabbed a handle intending to hurl the thing to the floor. He succeeded in nearly dislocating his shoulder and making the old table groan alarmingly. The box was impossibly heavy.

Daniel grabbed both handles and attempted to pick up the chest as Milos had. He couldn’t move it. He staggered against the table and the old legs began to fold under with the weight and the big iron bound box crashed gracelessly to the floor. Daniel looked at in amazement. The thing had broken a hole through the linoleum and the floorboards and was jammed against a floor bearer.

He leaned down and flipped open the two catches and nervously raised the lid. He expected resistance but the thing opened easily, far too easily he thought in hindsight. If Milos had wanted, he could have booby-trapped the thing and gotten rid of the problem of an enraged husband.

The sight of so much raw gold stunned him. He picked up a piece of the fine quartz-laced wire gold. In the chest was a fortune in precious metal and Daniel knew it well. His father was once a gold prospector and he’d instilled in his son an appreciation of the value of the precious metal. In the chest was tens of millions, probably more.

He squatted there, stunned at all that had happened that day, then all of a sudden, his reserve snapped. The rage began to build. Who was that bastard? Did he think a box of trinkets would buy his wife? A whole truckload wouldn’t go close. He slammed the lid closed and clicked the locks down.

A bargain hadn’t been reached.

He didn’t sleep that night. Daniel had a lot to learn about his wife and he was willing to bet the clues lay in the house somewhere. He spent an hour or more flicking through photo albums, crying sometimes at the beauty of his wife, looked at photos of their children, so far away, not knowing what was happening. Daniel needed someone to share his pain, but there was nobody.

Martin, dark and lean, their oldest lived in Brisbane working full time as a motor mechanic. Sally, blonde and beautiful was at university in Toowoomba, she was two years younger than Martin. The next was Trys, lean and dark like his brother, in senior grade and boarding at Nudgee College at Sandgate in Brisbane. Jocelyn was the youngest, a willowy, freckled red-head in grade ten at Lourdes Hill in Brisbane. Daniel had never felt so alone in his life.

He sat looking at photos of Debra, flicking through a book devoted to her. Suddenly his eye was drawn to something, something he’d never seen before. Two of the photos had been taken only days apart if the dates penciled below in Debra’s tight hand were anything to go by, but Debra looked different in both. In the later one her breasts looked fuller, and if he wasn’t mistaken she had moisture on her blouse as if from a leaking breast.

The date didn’t make sense. One thing he remembered well about Debra’s breastfeeding was that she only ever breastfed for three months. No child was an exception and all four had been weaned just before the end of the third month. Daniel had advised her to keep it up, but she was adamant, the children had received their benefit and she wanted her breasts back.

The tiny word printed next to the photo made no sense. It read ‘Elandros’. The date on the photo was four months after the birth of Martin. The photo beside it taken days earlier showed a slimmer woman and if Daniel wasn’t mistaken, Debra had much shorter hair, impossibly shorter hair.

What the hell? Daniel said and peeled back the plastic film holding the photos. He peeled off the shot of the lactating Debra and turned it over and was stunned to see the neatly spaced printing filling the back of the card. She didn’t address the writing to anyone but Daniel had no doubt it was meant for him.

It read: ‘This is me, the night I returned from Elandros. Our daughter Cassandra is now exactly three months of age as per the contract. It is not turning out as I thought it would. I find that I am torn between two worlds. God forgive me.’

Daniel was stunned anew and began to search for more of the messages. Eventually in a pile of demolished photo albums he’d found two more. The second was dated four months after the birth of Sally and announced Debra’s safe return from Elandros and the arrival of three months old Karos. Daniel didn’t know if Karos was boy or girl but the name sounded masculine. The third return from Elandros, wherever that was, was exactly four months after the arrival of Tristan and announced yet again a birth, this time of Gwyneth.

Debra had penned a message on both pictures. The second was similar to the first, expressing a growing love for the mysterious Elandros, but the last was totally different in