Chapter 2 — Across the Burning Country

By morning, the river had risen.

Bellwater was cut off from the nearest town.

The rain had transformed the dry earth into rivers of mud, washing away fences and destroying the only road south.

Eleanor wanted answers.

Daniel wanted them alive.

Neither plan was easy.

“We leave today,” Daniel said.

“Where?”

“North.”

“That’s where the map leads.”

He looked at her.

“Exactly.”

They rode for two days across a country Eleanor had never imagined existed.

Red cliffs rose from the plains.

Waterfalls appeared where there had been nothing but stone.

At night, the stars covered the sky like scattered diamonds.

Eleanor slowly began to understand why her husband had loved this place despite everything.

It was harsh.

Beautiful.

And impossible to own.

On the third morning, they found an abandoned camp.

There were ashes in the fire.

Fresh footprints.

And a child’s wooden carving lying in the dirt.

Eleanor picked it up.

“Who made this?”

Daniel didn’t answer immediately.

“Someone who knows these lands better than either of us.”

A voice came from behind them.

“Then perhaps you should stop following maps.”

They turned.

A young Aboriginal woman stood beneath a gum tree.

Her name was Mara.

The name from the notebook.

She knew Eleanor’s husband.

But she also knew something far more dangerous.

Victor Harrow had been searching for the valley because beneath its surface was an enormous underground water system.

If controlled, it could transform the region.

The cattle company wanted it.

But the valley was sacred to Mara’s people.

And Eleanor’s husband had discovered documents proving that Victor intended to seize the land through fraudulent claims.

“He knew what they were doing,” Mara said.

“Why didn’t he stop them?”

“He tried.”

Eleanor lowered her eyes.

For the first time, she realized that her husband had not simply disappeared into another life.

He had been fighting a battle she had never known existed.

That evening, Mara showed them the entrance to the valley.

A narrow passage opened between two cliffs.

Inside, water flowed beneath the stone.

Clear.

Cold.

Ancient.

Eleanor stared at it.

“This could save thousands of people.”

“Yes,” Mara said.

“And destroy everything around it if the wrong people control it.”

Before Eleanor could answer, a rifle cracked outside.

Daniel pulled her behind a rock.

Victor’s men had found them.

There were too many.

Daniel grabbed Eleanor’s hand.

“Run.”

They escaped through a narrow canyon while bullets struck the rocks around them.

But Daniel was hit in the shoulder.

Eleanor refused to leave him.

Together, they reached a cave above the valley.

For the first time, there was no anger between them.

Only fear.

Daniel looked at her.

“You should go back.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You don’t understand what you’re risking.”

“I came here because my husband left me a mystery.”

She tightened the bandage around his shoulder.

“Now I think I understand why.”

Daniel smiled faintly.

“What?”

“He wanted someone stubborn enough to finish what he started.”

Outside, the men were searching the valley.

But Victor had made one mistake.

He believed Eleanor wanted to protect her husband’s property.

She didn’t.

She wanted to protect the people who had lived there long before the property had ever belonged to anyone.

The next morning, Eleanor walked out of the cave carrying the documents.

Victor was waiting.

“You can’t win,” he told her.

Eleanor looked across the valley.

“Maybe.”

Then she held up the papers.

“But you won’t own it.”

Thunder rolled across the mountains.

The wet season had begun in earnest.

And the valley was about to change forever.