After burying Dedu deep in the sand and covering him with stones, the caravan continued down the main wadi and around the red mountain. User was very quiet, speaking only when spoken to. The drovers went on with their tasks, as silent as the explorer. The loss of their incessant chatter and easy smiles, the empty space where the guide once had trod, affected everyone, and much of the time no sound could be heard but the braying of a donkey, a hoof striking a stone, or a smattering of curses when the sand was especially soft, making walking difficult.
Like everyone else, Bak walked in silence, weighted down by Dedu’s death. He could not understand why the guide had had to die. True, his death fit a pattern of sorts. Minnakht was an explorer, as was the man who had vanished almost a year earlier. The man slain north of Kaine looked to be a soldier, an archer, perhaps a man who patrolled the desert. Bak smiled grimly at himself, acknowledging a guess stretched to fit the known facts.
Dedu had served as a guide, as Nefertem’s father had, and both had traveled with explorers. Unlike the tribal chief’s parent, Dedu had not led any men or caravans through the desert for many years. What could have happened in the nine short days he had been with User that had made him a target for death?
As the sun dropped behind the red mountain, leaving the eastern slopes in shadow and the surrounding heights bathed in the hot glow of late afternoon, clouds enveloped the tops of its craggy pinnacles. Senna and the nomad drovers grew wary, constantly looking toward the hidden peaks. User mumbled something about rain.
Dusk deepened the shadows. The breeze lost its heat. The faraway roll of thunder could be heard and long spindly fin gers of lightning flickered through the clouds, reaching out to the peaks hidden among them. User suggested they look for higher ground on which they could spend the night should the wadi be inundated by floodwaters.
Bak, who had long ago witnessed a desert storm while hunting in the broken landscape west of Waset, knew the power of the torrents that infrequently filled the dry water courses, washing away everything in their path. He had also seen the wadis on the southern frontier filled with racing wa ter from storms so far away that not a cloud could be seen. He sent Nebre and Kaha on ahead to scout the hillsides and the tiny feeder wadis, telling them to seek a safe haven.
The clouds dropped lower over the mountain, enveloping the slopes below the pinnacles. The flashes of lightning drew closer, so bright they blinded the men trudging along the wadi.
The thunder was loud enough to awaken those who dwelt in the netherworld. The donkeys grew uneasy and threatened to bolt. Minmose and Rona strove to calm Bak’s string of ani mals, while Amonmose, Nebenkemet, and even Ani and
Wensu stepped in to help the drovers control User’s string.
While the gods were rampaging over the mountain, the sky above and to the south and east was twilight bright and empty of clouds. None but the moon and the most brilliant stars could outshine the firmament. The wadi was filled with an eerie yellowish glow, which drained the landscape of its reddish color. The air smelled different, clean and damp.
User, walking with Bak near the head of the caravan, pointed to three gazelles ascending a hillside farther to the north. “They fear a flood. They’re climbing to safety.”
“If my men don’t find a safe place soon, we’d better follow their example and drive the donkeys up into the rocks.”
“These storms don’t usually last for long, but they can drop a significant amount of water. With no soil or sand to absorb it, huge quantities can race down the mountainside, carrying away boulders as large as a house.”
Not to mention men and animals, Bak thought, shuddering.
The storm ended as quickly as it had begun. The lightning and thunder faded away. The clouds fragmented and scat tered, leaving a silhouette of the mountain displayed against a flaming sunset sky. The features of its pinnacles were lost in the deep shadow of dusk. The donkeys grew calmer, but their ears remained cocked and alert. Whether they sensed a threat or could feel the men’s unease, no one knew.
The lord Re entered the netherworld and darkness fell.
The moon glowed its brightest and stars lit up the sky, allow ing the men to see a surprising distance ahead. Bak and User were watching two gazelles, a mother and her young, climb a steep, rocky slope when Nebre and Kaha appeared around a bend in the wadi. The Medjays hurried up the watercourse to meet the caravan.
“We found a place to camp, sir,” Nebre said. “A wide, flat shelf too high for floodwaters to reach. It offers plenty of space for all of us, men and animals.”
“How far away?” User asked.
“At the pace you’re traveling, it’s almost an hour’s walk down this wadi. And there’s no clear path up to the shelf.
We may have to unload the donkeys to get them up the slope.”
“Nothing closer?”
“No, sir.”
“The gazelle have been climbing to higher ground for al most an hour,” Bak pointed out.
“We saw a few, and a couple of ibex.” Kaha, looking none too happy, eyed the mountain, a dark mass looming above the wadi to the northwest. “We can climb up into the rocks at any point along the way, but getting the donkeys to safety wouldn’t be easy. If water comes racing down this wadi, we wouldn’t have time to unload them.”
“We must push them harder,” Bak said, “and tell the men in the back to close ranks. We don’t want the caravan spread out should we have to save ourselves.”
Looking grim, User swung around and walked back along the row of animals.
Thanking the lord Amon that the explorer was proving far less difficult than he had originally seemed, Bak walked with the Medjays back to his sergeant. “You must take our don keys on ahead, Psuro. Kaha will show you the place where we’ll camp. The two of you must find the best paths up to the shelf and clear them of obstacles if need be. The rest of us must stay behind to keep User’s caravan moving.”
“What of Senna?”
Bak eyed the nomad guide leading the caravan. “You won’t need him. We will.”
“We’re about two-thirds of the way to the shelf where we’ll camp,” Nebre said, eyeing a large monolithic rock pro jecting from the wadi floor.
Bak accepted the statement as fact. While on the southern frontier, his Medjays had learned from the desert tribesmen to use such formations and other less obvious natural forms to find their way across the desert.
Nebre paused, raised a hand for silence, and listened.
Bak heard it, too, a faroff roaring sound. “A landslide?”
“You might call it that.” User scowled at the mountain towering off to their left. “That’s water rushing down a slope, carrying rocks and boulders with it.”
Feeling the worm of fear creep up his spine, Bak tried to sound hopeful. “It sounds too far north to flood this wadi.”
“The mountain must be draining in that direction. The first rains fell there, I’d wager.”
“Would the rain have traveled with the lightning as it came this way?”
User gave him a grim smile. “You never know what the gods intend, Lieutenant, but I’d not be surprised to see water before sunrise.”
“Pull him up!” Amonmose yelled and slapped the donkey hard on the flank.
Nebenkemet, standing at the animal’s head, holding a rope that had been tied around its neck and forequarters in a fash ion Bak thought exceedingly clever, literally hoisted it up the steep, narrow gap between two boulders.
While the craftsman urged the donkey on up the hill to the shelf where Minmose and Psuro waited to unload the sup plies it carried, Bak went to the next animal in line. There he found Ani standing a couple paces up an incline covered with loose rock chips, tugging ineffectually on a donkey’s halter.
The animal’s two front hooves were on the slope, but it re fused to climb farther on the treacherous surface. Bak whacked it on the flank and shoved. With a furious bray, the creature lunged up the slope, sending rocks clattering down behind it. Ani scurried out of its way and hurried along be side it, guiding it to the shelf.
Bak helped Rona coax a donkey up a steeper but more sta ble path and waited to help Wensu follow with another ani mal. He and User had decided not to unload the donkeys except as a last resort. They had to assume their time was limited, and they did not have enough men to carry the heavy water jars and other supplies and, at the same time, urge the tired and stubborn creatures up the difficult slope.
“How many more?” User called from above.
Bak glanced back at the animals yet to be urged to safer ground. “Four.”
Nebenkemet plunged down the slope. Sweat poured from him as he stopped beside the first donkey in line and began to tie the rope around it so he could haul it up the gap while the other men urged the remaining animals up the easier paths.
Catching the halter of the second donkey, Nebre urged it up a sloping rock along which, six or eight cubits above the wadi floor, a diagonal channel filled with sand made an easy path to the shelf. Just below the channel, the animal’s hooves slid on the granite and it fell to its knees. Amonmose climbed up to help pull it erect.
Wensu started down the hillside to get another donkey.
Bak heard what at first sounded like a child rolling rocks around the inside of a pottery bowl. To the southwest, some where up the dry watercourse. The sound became a faraway rumble, which steadily grew louder.
“Go back, Wensu!” he yelled. He grabbed the rope halter of the third donkey and flung it at Kaha. “The water’s coming!”
Terrified by the sound, which had grown ominous enough to frighten the lord Set himself, the donkey bolted, practi cally dragging the Medjay up the slope. A wide-eyed Wensu met him part way, let him pass, and stood in the one spot as if turned to stone. Amonmose and Nebre got their donkey on its feet and urged the frightened animal onto and up the diago nal path.
Flinging a quick look up the wadi, Nebenkemet tied the fi nal knot and hurried to the head of the donkey he meant to haul upward. Bak slapped it hard on the flank, getting it started, and swung around to grab the halter of the last ani mal. The creature, terrified by the rumble of rocks, which had swelled to a dreadful roar, swung away from his hand. Bak caught the strap holding the water jars in place, halting its flight. The donkey flung its head and kicked out, trying to break free. Staying well clear of those mean little hooves,
Bak dragged it to the slope up which Kaha had gone. Amon mose met him, managed to catch the halter, and began to pull the animal upward.
Bak glanced up the wadi and saw, coming around a bend, a wall of water taller than he was, gulping up rocks and boul ders, dead brush and trees. Its roar was horrendous. The don key, white-eyed with fear and braying wildly, fighting to free itself of Amonmose’s grip, blocked his path. He slapped it hard, hoping to get it moving. It kicked out, forcing him to duck onto the slope covered with rock chips.
Senna came down the incline above him, half-running, half-sliding on the loose surface. To slow his headlong plunge, he grabbed hold of a projecting crag, his feet slid out from under him, and he kicked Bak into the wadi.
Bak fell against the wall of water so hard it knocked the breath from him, and he thought his back was broken. The flood sucked him up, tumbled him like the rocks and debris around him, and swept him downstream. The rumble of the rushing water and rolling, twisting rocks was deafening, the sand swirling around him blinding. Trying not to breathe, forced to close his eyes, he was caught up in dead brush and pelted by rocks, chunks of wood, and the lord Amon only knew what else. He was too shocked, too paralyzed by fear, to think. Unable to tell up from down, one side from another, he curled into a ball, trying to spare his face and chest from the battering, and let the current carry him downstream.
Along with a craving for air, the will to live rushed through him. He recalled falling against the wall of water, the trememdous impact. Could he save himself?
Praying to the lord Amon that his back was not broken, he uncurled his body and stretched full length. He was sore but uninjured. Vastly relieved, he looked as best he could through the swirling sand. What he had thought was the wadi floor below was brighter than the water above. Pushing away the dead, spiny limb of an acacia, he rolled over and fought his way toward the light. He broke the surface, gulped air, and took in some gritty water with it. Coughing, he tried to see over the roiling surface, searching for the nearest land.
The leading edge of the flood had passed on down the wadi, which was filled with swift-moving, turbulent water from wall to wall as far as he could see. Each small wave glistened in the moonlight, a gleaming silver shard that shat tered as fast as it formed. Stones rumbled over the floor of the wadi beneath him, driven by the water, while brush and trees, dead lizards and birds and insects, were swept downstream on or near the surface.
He was about twenty paces from a hill that looked much like the one on which the caravan had found shelter. He was not surprised to find this slope empty of life. At the speed he was moving, he had to have been swept a considerable dis tance downstream.
Twenty paces to dry ground. An easy swim at the best of times. An intimidating expanse with the surface so rough and the current so strong, with so much debris floating around him and so many rocks and boulders tumbling below him, their clatter muted by the water to an ominous growl. With no other choice, he set out, swimming diagonally across the cur rent. He could and he would save himself.
A large water jar bobbed past him, caught in the limbs of a dead bush. It had to be one of the vessels the caravan had brought into the desert. It reminded him of that wretched donkey. And of Amonmose. They had surely been swept away as he had been.
Praying they, too, had survived, thanking the gods for so bright a moon and starlight, he looked around, searching for donkey and man. Fifteen or so paces back and about halfway between him and the shore, he spotted the donkey, its muzzle held above the dirty, choppy swells. The jars and supplies were gone from its back and it was swimming with the cur rent. Would its burden have come loose without the help of a man? Promising himself to wring the creature’s neck if it had brought about the merchant’s demise, he scanned the choppy water around the beast. He thought he saw a human head on the far side, but could not be sure.
Praying he had found Amonmose-or Senna; he had for gotten how close the nomad guide had been to the wadi floor-he swam across the raging waters to intercept the donkey. He fought the pull of the current, the tumbling debris and brush. He could see that the initial force of the flood had lessened, but not enough to ease his journey. Slowly he ap proached the animal. The filthy and sometimes foaming swells marred his view, preventing him from verifying whether or not he had seen a man.
As he drew close, the donkey flung its head and thrashed around, afraid of what must have seemed to it another of many threats to its safety. Bak let the current carry them on a parallel course, giving his tired muscles a rest, and spoke to the creature, trying to reassure it.
“Lieutenant?” Amonmose, peering over the donkey’s back, had to yell to make himself heard. “I thank the gods. I thought never to see you again.”
Bak swam closer to the donkey and clutched its brushlike mane. “When I thought of you and this wretched beast…”
He gave the trader a rueful smile. “I must admit I feared the worst.”
“If I hadn’t been holding onto him when the water struck,
I’d not be here now. I’m not much of a swimmer.”
“I’m surprised you both didn’t drown.”
“He fought me and for a while I feared he’d fling me away.
But I held on tight. I knew I’d never reach safety in these un 158
Lauren Haney tamed waters without help.” The need to speak loudly failed to check Amonmose’s garrulous tongue. “Fortunately, as afraid as I was, I had the good sense to unload him. He was having trouble staying afloat with those big jars on his back.
He must’ve realized I’d helped him. He grew more sedate and let me stay with him, clinging to his neck.”
Bak nudged the donkey toward the nearest hillside, a steep slope of rough and broken rocks. “We may not be able to get ashore right away, but at least we’ll be close if we find a likely place.” Or if we get desperate, he thought.
“Where are we, do you know?” Amonmose asked.
The hill looked no different than any of the others. The moonlight had stolen away the reddish color of the land scape, turning the rocks gray and the intervening spaces black. He had no idea how fast they were moving or how long they had been in the water.
“Not so far, I pray, that the caravan won’t come upon us early tomorrow.” Thinking to lighten the situation, he said with an exaggerated sadness. “I fear our fellow travelers will eat the remaining grouse, Amonmose, leaving none for us.”
The trader flung a very wet but wry smile across the back of the donkey. “One thing we know for a fact: we won’t suf fer from thirst.”
“The donkey’s tiring,” Amonmose called. “If the truth be told, so am I.”
“We can’t give up yet.” Bak, as exhausted as his compan ions, eyed the hill they were sweeping past. He had begun to swim ahead, looking for a place where they could climb out of the wadi.
Thus far, every hillside had been so rough and craggy that it had been virtually impossible to seek safety on its slope.
His greatest fear was not the land they could see, but the rocks that lay below the water’s surface. After the donkey’s valiant struggle to swim along with them, supporting Amon mose to an ever increasing extent, he dreaded the thought that it might break a leg and have to be slain.
Several times, he had swum toward the shore, feeling with his feet the surface below. Each time he had found hidden ob stacles too rugged and sharp-edged to allow the donkey to reach higher ground. And each time he had had to bolster his will to carry on. The speed and force of the water was abat ing, but so was his strength. According to the passage of the moon, they had been caught up in the flood less than half an hour, but it seemed to him forever.
Dreading the thought that they would have to risk the don key’s legs, he beseeched the gods to look upon them with fa vor. No sooner had he uttered the plea than he spotted a steep-sided cut that split apart a ridge to the east. Praying sand had blown up the defile, covering any rocks on its floor, he fought the swift waters sweeping past its mouth and swam into a narrow, calm bay. Within moments he felt sand be neath his feet. Blessed sand. As he waded farther into the cut, the water level dropped from his shoulders to his waist to his knees. A few paces ahead, he saw dry sand.
He could not have found a better refuge.
He heard the sharp bleat of a goat. Looking toward the end of the cut, he saw in the moonlight four adults with their young. They must have sought safety in the defile when the wadi flooded.
He waded back into deeper water and swam quickly to ward the wadi. He had to catch Amonmose and the donkey before the floodwaters swept them past the cut. He, the trader, and the donkey were all too tired to fight the current for long. As he feared, they had drifted on by, but not far. He thought he had the strength to get them back-if they had the strength to help.
“I found a good, safe place to stop,” Bak called, swimming to the donkey’s head. He caught its halter and turned it against the current. It fought him, not wanting to swim counter to the flow, but was too tired to resist for long.
Amonmose saw Bak urging the creature upstream and shook his head. “I can’t fight the water any longer.”
Bak had never seen him look so tired and worn, or sound so dispirited. “Grab the donkey’s mane close to his withers, stroke with one arm, and paddle your feet.” As Amonmose clutched the donkey, Bak felt the animal falter. “Don’t make him carry your weight,” he said sharply. “Swim! It’s not far.”
Amonmose summoned a last burst of energy and obeyed.
With Bak urging on man and donkey-and himself, if the truth be told-they fought the current back to the cut and swam into the still water inside.
When Bak stood up to test the water’s depth, it reached to his shoulders. Amonmose stared like a man not sure he could believe in their salvation and also stood erect. Bak waded forward, pulling the exhausted donkey until it stumbled to its feet. There it dug its hooves into the sand and refused to move another step.
“We can’t leave the wretched beast here,” he grumbled. “It needs to dry off, to get warm.”
As if in a daze, Amonmose plodded around behind the an imal and shoved it forward while Bak pulled. When all four hooves were on dry sand, he let go of the halter, dropped to his knees, muttered a few words of thanks to the lord Amon, and rolled onto the warm sand to rest. Beyond the donkey’s trembling legs, he saw Amonmose collapse. His eyes closed and he slept.
Bak heard a sharp, strident word and someone poked his shoulder. He opened his eyes to sunlight, glimpsed a small face above him. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looked at the boy peering at him, then sat up slowly, testing his weary muscles. The child quickly backed away as if afraid. A smile failed to reassure him.
Amonmose lay where he had fallen, but the donkey was gone. And so was the water. Bak stared down the cut. Its sandy floor was exposed all the way to the wadi. That, too, had been drained of much of its water. For long stretches, the sand was a mottled damp and dry. In other places, large shallow pools mirrored the sky above. He glanced at the boy and smiled.
What the gods gave, they took away, sometimes very fast.
His thoughts turned to his Medjays and the caravan. He re membered the last few men and animals he had seen strug gling up the hillside. He thought they had been high enough to escape the flood. Of them all, Senna was the most likely to have been caught up by the raging waters. Bak prayed such was not the case. The guide’s one act of carelessness might well have cost Bak and therefore Amonmose their lives, but no man should have to face death because he brought about an accident. If losing his footing had indeed been an accident.
User was a rational man who knew the caravan must con tinue to the next well. In the extremely unlikely event that he chose not to press on, Psuro and the other Medjays would surely continue down the wadi to look for the missing men.
The likelihood of another flood was minuscule. The sun had barely risen above the peaks to the east. They must be well on their way.
Both Bak and Amonmose tried to talk to the boy. He could speak no tongue but his own. He sat at a distance, too shy or afraid to come near, and watched them with wide, cu rious eyes.
“When the caravan comes, we must give him some food,”
Amonmose said.
“Also a gift. He didn’t save us, but he cared for the donkey while we slept.”
After a long silence, Amonmose said, “I don’t recall ever being so hungry.” He patted his substantial stomach. “I fear
I’ll waste away to nothing.”
“We’ve plenty of fresh water,” Bak said, smiling.
“I can’t bear the thought of it.” Amonmose eyed a long scratch on his arm, which he had gotten when becoming en tangled in the branch of an acacia. “That Senna. I’d willingly slay him at the slightest provocation.”
“He didn’t mean to push me into the water.”
“With your help, I might’ve been able to get the donkey higher up the hill. The chance was slim, I know, but it was a possibility. Without you, we were both lost to the flood.”
Bak remembered how hard he had hit the water and he doubted a dozen men could have saved any of the three of them. “Senna may’ve been carried off, as we were.”
“He didn’t have to kick you.”
“He was sliding on the rocks, out of control.”
The trader looked unconvinced. “User told me the day he joined our caravan that he was not to be trusted.”
“I agree that he shouldn’t have let Minnakht go off with two strangers, but if Minnakht insisted, what could he do?”
“How can you be sure Senna didn’t slay him? Or that man at the well north of Kaine? How do you know he didn’t slay
Dedu?”
“He was on the trail with my men and me when the man at the well was slain. As for the night Dedu was slain, at least one of us would’ve heard him if he’d left our camp.”
“User told me you didn’t entirely trust him. Now you’re defending him.”
“As you well know, I’m a police officer. I must not make hasty judgments.”
“Grant me this: it’s possible that Senna deliberately pushed you into the flood.”
Bak laid a hand on the trader’s shoulder. “Don’t fret,
Amonmose. I’ll never again turn my back to him.”