Marie's brother-in-law Graham noodled the slag heaps every day. He took me with him one day in the company car he'd driven out to Coober Pedy for his vacation. Bumping over the fields, he was careful to avoid open shafts, particularly as he had already knocked off the tailpipe on a rock.

"But I'm on vacation," he sighed expansively as he parked, "and can't much be bothered about the little things." 

We clambered a miniature mountain of slag. The dust was incredibly fine and we sunk past our knees. Every now and again, we'd slide backward in a powdery avalanche.

Our equipment was basic: sunglasses to protect the eyes, a filter mask to protect the lungs, and a pan with a wire mesh bottom. Scooping up a dish of dirt, we swirled the grit into the wind and examined the remains for the brittle heat of color. Like gold mining without the water!

We worked separate piles to stay clear of each other's billowing dust streams. The solitary work, the wind like a rustling animal, and the panorama of empty plains made it clear why Graham spent his vacations noodling. The opal was just a bonus, a souvenir.

We returned to the house looking as if we had been dipped in flour. Everything had turned stark white...clothes, shoes, hair and hands.

Graham stored my pickings in a jar filled with water. Large pieces of potch and opal will crack if allowed to dry, and the water accentuated the lustrous bars of lime and candied apple.

Coober Pedy's exquisite crystal fire opal was so enchanting people had shifted and sifted the earth for decades around the area. The town's name was rumored to be a local tribal phrase meaning "white man down hole." 

And all that long history, all that intense labor, all that cruel desire driving men underground had been distilled into an old honey jar. The grit in my sinuses and under my nails were the only evidence of opal's true cost.