A little run-down cabin stood achingly unstable next to a little gorge in the heart of the Queensland west on the east-coast of Australia. It was unbearably hot most days, and rarely rained, but the gorge was supplied with constant water through the underground springs. Leading up to the cabin was a windy dirt-road that looked like it had never been used. Shrubs and trees of varying olive, red, grey and brown hues surrounded the emcampment, and wheaten-coloured grass stood in straggles around the various pieces of metalic items that littered the "yard". It would have been a pretty allotment, if only the cabin had been attended to instead of being shoddily patched up, and if the yard had been cultivated rather than being allowed to overgrow and having rubbish dumped therein. But all in all, it had a dim and creepy feeling to it, made all-the-more-so enhanced by the worn red mountain constantly bearing down on the only "civilisation" for many, many kilometres.

How many kilometres, the dark headed young man didn't know. He didn't even know exactly what a kilometre was, just that it seemed to take forever to get to the closest town. Six hours by 4WD to be exact, and much, much longer he expected if he were to ever try to walk. He had tried once, to walk that dirt track he knew would lead to town, but he'd given up after four hours and his father had driven up next to him hollering for him to jump in the back. The welts covering his back after that escapade from the hiding when he got home. Father with electric cord in hand, raining in seemingly-never-ending lashes across his back, legs, head, hands and face. He didn't try that again.

The times he'd gone into town he could count on just one hand. The last time was when he was nine and had been made to sit in the back of the 4WD under the stifling mid to late afternoon sun outside the local pub whilst his father drank VB beer and shouted some naive young tourist a few before convincing him to ride home and try his hand at prospecting the "overwhelming quantities of gold" hidden under their land. Of course, the very intoxicated tourist would never have swallowed that tale under more sober conditions, but in his druken state, he enthused excitedly of a magical gold-mine and the generous prospector who was more than willing to share his secret and riches. And slipping the bartender an envelope with a wink of the eye and a nod, the young boy's father escorted the naive tourist to the 4WD, where his son waited patiently.

"Blaine, you fu... wonderful boy! This is Johan, from Holland, he's going to come stay with us for a couple of days, aren't you Johan?" the hairy-nosed stocky-statured man addressed both his son and the tourist.
"Hiiiii!!! I'm Johan, vhat a vonderful leetle boy you hafffe. I ish sho exshited to gets shome golds nuggetsh youse knowsh! Do youshe ever goes goldsh, what do youshe call it? Gold pullingsh? Goldsh gettinsh?" the tourist questioned in a slur of excited babble.
"Gold-digging!", the father interjected, "You'll be coming gold-digging with me and my son here! Nothing like the fu... fantastic outback to make you rich as that bloke Bill Gates! Isn't that right Blaine?"
Blaine stared at his father through his wild unkept hair, wondering why his father would compare their life to that of the rich folk. Eating out of tin plates and chipped unmatching sets of bowls on large tin cans at their shoddily built plank/chip-board table certainly did not compare at all with those pictures of luxurious tables and pristine bone-white plate sets he'd seen in the various crumpled up yellowing catalogues in their outhouse. But his father gave him a glare, and he nodded furiously to avoid the inevitable onslaught of anger that no doubt would result if he didn't agree with his father's statement.
And so he sat there, listening to the tourist jabber on about gold-digging and riches and prospecting whilst continuously drinking from the cans of beer that his father was being unusually generous with. He watched Johan splutter vomit down his chin and over the front of his clothes, and then saw him pass-out slouched on the front passenger seat as they made the long bumpy winding trip home.

Blaine couldn't help but feel the excitement that the tourist had bubbling-over about gold-digging. He'd never heard anyone talk about gold-digging in that manner before. To think that there had been gold under their property all that time and he hadn't even known about it? Why hadn't his father mentioned it before, he wondered. Maybe this was the start to a new life? Maybe they would become like rich folks in the city and live in a brick house and have a real toilet like that white one in the pub? Maybe he would get to go to school and meet other real children?

He was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by the 4WD quickly pulling over to the side of the dusty road. There was not a light in sight anywhere, and the sky was clouded over, so not a star could be seen in the sky. His father grabbed a roll of duct tape that lay on the dashboard, jumped out of the car, and walked over to the passenger door. He wrenched it open and grabbed Johan's hands, taping his wrists together, and did the same with his feet, and finally taped around the tourist's chest and the seat so that he was firmly entrenched in the chair. Blaine watched in horror, hand over mouth as Johan began to stir, whimpering in confusion, yelping out slurred cries of help. His father jumped back in, and they took off once again at 100km/hr down the winding track to their cabin, with not a word uttered.

Blaine sat confused and distressed. He was too afraid of his father to ask why the sudden hostility towards Johan, whom he'd assumed had been a friend of his father's. And he felt terrified for the young man, for confinement via duct tape meant only one thing: Johan was one of the "wicked ones" and therefore would be taken to the shed out the back.

But the tourist wasn't like the others. He smelt like sweat and vomit and that odd city-smell, that he'd encountered only once before when he had been very small and had met Mr. Standman who sold cooking oil by the barrel; who wore that long black tie and whose short black hair stood up like porcupine's quills. And the tourist seemed to have so much life, and innocence, and a catching sense of enthusiasm towards life, that none of the other "wicked ones" had ever expressed. Then again, Blaine had never known before how the "wicked ones" had gotten into the shed. They had always just "been" there, cries heard in the middle of the night like some dog crying after a Brown snake bite. And it dawned on him that they had never just "appeared" in the shed out the back like he'd imagined, but rather that his father must've captured each one in a similar way; all tourists come for the gold-digging.

He was confused and saddened, for Blaine had grown to like Johan in the hours he'd spent jovially babbling before passing out. And he wondered how much of the "gold-digging" story had been true. Would they still become rich, he wondered, and get to live in a brick house with flowers behind white-picketed fences? Or was it all lies, told to entice the tourist back to the cabin? He watched the young man's baby-face wrinkled up every now and again in concern only to relax into passed-out stupour as they neared their encampment, wondering what had Johan done to make him so wicked? Why did he need to die? And he wondered if he, Blaine Anderson, would ever accidently step over that imaginary line that separated the good from the wicked?

And that day which had started out for that nine year old boy as one of adventure and excitement, turned into one of despair, as he helped his father carry the tourist into the shed out the back, and acceptance when he went inside to his mother where his dinner of a steaming stew lay waiting for him. Of all the times he'd been to town, that had been his last, ten long years ago. Thereafter, his father had made his trips alone. And the tourists kept coming.

That was until 10 years later with the appearance of the young chestnut haired American.