Sahara Crosswind (2 page)

“Poor Jake,” she said, and reached over to touch his sleeve. “So much you have done for Pierre and me, and for Patrique. And now, when you need us most, we are so caught up in ourselves we scarcely speak to you.”

“I really don't mind all that much,” he said truthfully. In the distance, a whirling beacon of dust rose from the cloud's mass, lifting higher and higher, a fragile tower turned ruby red by the sun's final rays. “You and Pierre have years of catching up to do, not to mention an invalid to watch over. Besides, there's a lot to take in here.”

“You like the desert,” she observed.

“It's a world I never imagined existed,” he said, “not in my wildest dreams.”

“All the tribe are speaking of you,” Jasmyn told him. “How a stranger has come and drinks in their world with his eyes. How he seeks to learn everything he can, do all he can, be as much a part of the tribe as he can.”

She rose to her feet. “Come, Jake. We must break camp and walk by moonlight for the cliffs.”

The children were whimpering with fatigue when they arrived at the first great outcropping four hours later. By then the tribe had been walking with few stops for a day and much of a night. Omar pushed them as hard as he could, barking his worry at everyone, rushing back and forth, trying to ensure that neither animal nor tribesman was lost in the headlong rush for safety.

Suddenly one of the outriders hallooed from atop his camel and pointed skyward with his great, silver-clad rifle. Jake looked up with the others and watched open-mouthed as a coiling tendril of shadow drifted overhead. One moment all was clarity and a sea of silver stars. The next, a silent menace blotted out half the universe.

Omar's shouted instructions required no translation. Jake raced with the others toward the cliffs, which jutted out into the sand like giant sharp-edged buttresses. As they approached, Jake realized that the cliff face was pocketed with shallow, bowl-shaped caves. Eons of wind and sand had hollowed the sandstone into a series of natural chambers.

While the children formed a natural paddock for the bleating animals, Jake and all the other adults raced to raise three goat's-hair tents abutting a trio of neighboring caves. It was hard working by torchlight, men and women snapping in frantic haste and shouting words he could not understand. But by then he had grown accustomed to the task, pulling the heavy ropes taut and hammering down the ironwood stakes as long as his thigh. So he ignored the others as best
he could and simply went about his chores, feeling the fitful breeze blow gritty breaths against his face and hands.

A great cry arose from several voices at once, and the entire tribe held its breath. In the distance Jake heard a sound that raised the hairs on the nape of his neck, a basso moaning that died away, then mounted to a force that left the ropes under his hand trembling in fearful anticipation.

At that the tribe doubled its already frenetic haste. Jake joined with the other men to mount a fourth tent, this one as a simple protective flap over a cave farther down the cliffside. The camels had both forelegs and back legs hobbled, then were tied in a long string to a series of stakes hammered deep into the earth just inside this protective awning.

The other three tents were joined side by side, fronting onto a trio of caves set close together in the cliff. The sheep and goats bleated in panic as they were herded into the left-hand tent, the one fronting the largest cave. By the time the double flaps were dropped and tied securely into place, the wind was growling about them.

Jake allowed himself to be herded into the middle tent, which was crowded with milling bodies. Normally they had twice the number of tents, and none used by animals, but there had been neither time nor nearby caves to set up more. Jake helped where he could as the others sorted themselves into family groupings. Lamps were lit and hung from supporting ropes. Carpets were unrolled to form a comfortably padded floor. A shallow hole was dug at the tent's center, rocks found and set in a circle, coals laid, a cooking fire started, a tea canister set in place.

Everyone paused to listen as the first great blast descended upon them, buffeting the tents with sandy fists. All eyes and ears searched the unseen spaces to either side, then gradually relaxed when it was decided that all the tents were holding well.

Within an hour the camp had settled into family groupings. Jake found himself a corner at the back of the cave, eased
down on a pile of carpets woven in desert colors, and gave in to exhaustion.

The tribe slept a day and a night and into the next day, taking in sleep and storing it as they did water at the wells. Trips outside were battles against the wind and sand, and nobody went far, or for very long. Jake spent many hours dozing in solitude.

Once a waking routine was resumed, Jake visited occasionally in the third tent with Pierre and Jasmyn. But Pierre's twin brother Patrique, still weak and sick from his stay in the brutal Telouet dungeon, required much of their attention, and what was left they preferred to lavish upon each other. Their tent contained the old and infirm, the families with the very young or the very sick, as well as the unmarried women, and in quiet desert ways Jake was urged not to linger.

Jake found himself making numerous trips with Omar to check on the animals. The tribe's children spent most of their waking time there, filling the odoriferous tent with their delighted laughter. The newborn lambs were little bundles of black and white fluff. The animals frisked about, bleating their high-pitched cries, jumping and spinning in midair. Jake watched the children as much as he did the animals, marveling at how contented they were with the simplest of entertainments. They rarely cried or fought or whined, despite a life that was harsh by any measure. And here they were, cooped up in a tent with over a hundred milling animals, not a toy or a book between them, utterly content.

Jake found himself thinking that he, too, could be content in this sand-bounded desert world if only Sally were here with him. But the pain of missing her, which had dulled to an inner ache during the course of rescuing Patrique, now throbbed into anguish during the long hours of waiting.

When he dozed, he could see her clearly. Sally tall and lithe, cool and confident behind her desk in Badenburg. Sally strong and tender, kneeling to comfort one of the impoverished orphans the war had left scattered in its wake. Sally
beautiful in the candlelight, her auburn hair gleaming. Sally sad but determined, telling him about her orders. Telling him goodbye.

And then he would wake to the reality of sand and wind and children and animals and Sally would be gone once more.

It was around noon of the third day that disaster struck.

By then, Jake had almost grown accustomed to the wind's continual growl. He was caked from head to foot with grit, and his hair felt like a used paintbrush that had been left to dry in the sun. But he watched the others and saw how they ignored what they could not alter, and he resolved to try and do the same. By the third day, the dry crunchy feeling of his skin seemed almost as natural as the thundering gusts that shook their tent from time to time.

The change came without warning. Jake sat cross-legged in what had come to be his corner, trying to concentrate as two men laid out a complicated game of rocks and shells on a board design drawn in the sand. He nodded as though he understood as they pointed at each rock or shell in turn, then gave lengthy explanations. Clearly they had decided that his lack of Arabic could be overcome by shouting, because their explanations were as gentle as artillery barrages. Jake found the game totally incomprehensible, but since they were tugging at his sleeve with one hand and fondling their daggers with the other, he tried to pay attention. He felt like his mask of wide-eyed interest had become glued in place.

Suddenly the wind's pitch rose to a horrendous shriek. The flickering lamps shook as the tent's guide ropes threatened to give. A terrific blast fought its way through the double flaps over the portal, blew out all the lamps, lifted up a great fistful of coals from the central fire, and flung them haphazardly about the room.

The tent went berserk.

Screams and shrieks competed against the wind's overpowering noise. The cramped space was instantly filled with
jumping, whirling bodies, tumbling onto one another, tripping and falling onto yet more coals. Jake struggled out from under one writhing body, only to see the robe of a man next to him shoot up in flames. He tackled the man, tore up a carpet, and flung it together with his own body over the flames. Only when the fire was out and he raised to his knees did he realize the man he had saved was Omar.

Before the tribal chieftain could speak, another blast of wind split the night. In its midst came another sound, an explosive ripping followed by animal screams. Omar's eyes opened wide in the dim light and he shouted words Jake did not need to understand. The animals' tent had collapsed.

Somehow he managed to struggle across the mass of teeming bodies behind Omar and push himself through the tent's portals. Immediately the wind grappled with him, searching with harsh gritty fingers to pluck him up and hurl him against the cliffside. There was neither night nor day nor left nor right, only the golden-brown swirling mass that flung itself at him with such force that it threatened to rip the skin from his face.

Out of nowhere appeared a great looming shadow, one dusty brown shade darker than the storm itself. The shadow passed, to be followed immediately by another, and yet a third. When the fourth shadow appeared, Jake did not hesitate or think. He reached and found himself grasping at the sand-sodden hairs of a camel's neck. Somehow a string of camels had broken free of both their hobbles and their stakes.

The pelt ran through his fingers until he came to the thick harness guide rope. He grabbed hold and allowed himself to be flung from a standing start to a pace so fast that his feet scarcely touched the ground. With his free hand he reached blindly and felt a second rope trailing down from the camel's hump, the leader used to lash down the loads. Without thinking of the risk, he took two further great strides and flung himself up onto the camel's back.

The panicked beast was too busy running blind to bother with him. Jake struggled and managed to raise himself up
and into the lumpy fold between the beast's double humps. He struggled against the jouncing gait that slammed him up and down and threatened to dislodge him with every step. Working his feet through the ropes running around and under the camel, he pulled his cape down far over his face and hung on for dear life.

Chapter Three

Although he did not ever really sleep, still Jake had a sense of awakening to the hush and the heat.

The wind and the camel's bruising gait had buffeted him to an aching numbness. Jake had been unable to unmask his face or hold his eyes open against the storm's blistering force. He had ridden scrunched over, his face pressed close to the camel's hide so that his hood was kept in place, blind to all but his growing pain. The jouncing, panic-stricken race to nowhere had bruised him from head to toe. Jake had hung on with the grim determination of one who knew his only hope of safety lay in not being tossed off. The enforced blindness and the relentless wind and the jolting ride had gradually melded together, until time had lost all meaning and Jake had been swallowed by a welcome nothingness.

Then he opened his eyes to a brilliant desert sun.

After three days of howling storm, the stillness was frighteningly alien. Jake struggled upright, wiped his eyelids with an inner sleeve, blinked, squinted, and laughed a hoarse croak.

The seven camels all wore remnants of their hobbles around their ankles. They were linked by halters, and dragged the uprooted staves as they cropped at meager desert shrub. The scene was so calm and normal it was funny, despite the fact that the cliffs were a distant smudge line on the horizon.

The camel upon which Jake sat was the only one with two humps. All the others had the more common single hump. Jake inspected them, doubted if he would have been able to keep his hold upon one of those.

He ran his hand tentatively down his camel's neck, fearful that at any moment the animal would recognize him for the novice he was and attack him with those great yellow teeth it was using on the shrub. But the camel paid him no mind. Jake snagged the rope attached to one of the staves, pulled it
toward him, and grasped the wood. He leaned back as far as he could and tapped behind the camel's rear leg while trying to copy the “tch-tch” sound he had heard from the drovers.

Obediently the camel lowered itself in the slow rocking motion of a boat on high seas. When it was fully down on its knees, he croaked another laugh. Jake Burnes, camel driver.

With the motions of an old man, Jake half clambered, half slid down onto the ground. Keeping a very firm hold on the guide rope, he struggled up from his knees. Every muscle, every bone, every joint groaned in protest. His first few steps were little shuffling motions. His throat was too dry to permit much sound, so he had to make do with little ahs of agony.

Had the camels decided to desert him then, there would have been nothing he could do about it. But they remained motionless, save for the constant scrunch-scrunching of those grinding jaws on the dry scrub.

Jake shuffled up to the next camel, touched the back of its leg, tch-tched a second time, and marveled as the great beast obediently buckled down to its knees. Now that the storm was over and they had run through their panic, they seemed almost to welcome a semblance of their normal routine. He moved to a third camel and was met with the same dutiful response.

With the line now anchored by three settled camels, Jake began reshaping the line. First he untied the remaining staves so that they could not tangle about the camels' legs. Then he unleashed one halter at a time, leading the camels back and retying them so that the double-humped camel was placed in front.

After moving the three still-standing animals, he approached the center kneeling beast. Touching the stave to its side as he had seen the herders do, he gave a sharp “hup, hup,” then jumped back as the neck swiveled around and the animal let out a deep, yellow-toothed groan. His heart in his mouth, Jake stepped forward, touched the side a second time, and hupped as loud as his dry throat could manage.
The camel groaned another loud protest, but this time it lurched upright. Jake led it around and tied it in line, then did the same with the second kneeling animal. By then all six standing beasts were groaning in unison and stamping their pie-shaped flat hooves on the dusty earth.