Sahara Crosswind (8 page)

He jerked. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I sleep far too much. It comes and goes like the wind. You're going out on watch, yes? I want to come with you.”

“I'm not sure—”

“Please, my friend. Let me share your sunrise.”

Jake helped him rise and dress, then with one hand holding his rifle and the other steadying Patrique, they made their way out of camp. Awkwardly they climbed a nearby rise. When Jake had settled Patrique near the peak, he descended to the camp and returned with two glasses and the pot of watch tea. They sat and sipped in silence for a time until Patrique spoke. “I have seen you walk out while the camp was still sleeping and seen you return after the sunrise. Your face changes while you are away.”

Jake hid his embarrassment behind noisy sips of his tea that cooled the liquid as he swallowed. “You've been watching me?”

“Not intentionally. But I often find it hardest to sleep around dawn.” Patrique paused to sip from his own glass. “Pierre has told me of your faith. I hear in his voice how it has given him strength. But I
see
it most clearly in your face, when you return from watching the sunrise.”

Patrique lifted his gaze toward the star-flecked heavens. “There were times of great despair in that dungeon, Jake. I felt as though the darkness would crush my very soul. That day, when I heard a voice call out my name, I thought at
first it was death come for me. I thought the tragedy of my imprisonment had given me the power to hear what should always remain hidden.”

Jake sipped quietly and shivered from more than just the night's lingering chill.

“But the voice came from above,” Patrique went on. “From the only place where light entered into my dark hole. And then I knew. I was hearing an angel. An angel with the voice of my brother. Even after I knew it was real, and my nightmare might indeed come to an end, still I knew that the angels had been at work. I knew that it would take the power of heaven to pierce the darkness that enslaved me with chains upon my heart as well as my limbs. So I was not surprised when Pierre began speaking of this new power in his life. I had already seen it at work, you see. I had already sensed this power at work.”

He turned to look at Jake. “So tell me, friend of my brother. What is carried upon the sunrise that leaves you with the power shining from your face?”

“I couldn't put it into words,” Jake replied, ashamed by his inadequacy.

“Then show me,” Patrique quietly implored. “Please.”

Jake nodded once, closed his eyes in a moment's prayer, then turned his face toward the awakening east. Patrique followed his example, sitting in utter silence there beside him, his eyes searching in the gradually strengthening light for that which remained unseen.

Little by little the silence drew into their souls, stilling their mind, opening them to the quietest of sounds. Breaths of dawn wind puffed about them, whispering gentle secrets. Sand shifted and cascaded, an animal bleated, a loose fold on one of the tents flapped open and closed. The light strengthened, and with it the sense of sharing more than that which was seen with the eyes. The veil of night lifted enough to reveal an ocean of softly undulating sand waves stretching into the horizon. All was still and silent and timeless.

Jake reached into his pocket for his Bible, found his place, and read the next verse from John's gospel, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin. And the slave abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

He stopped, lifted his gaze, and heard Patrique murmur to the horizon, “Free.”

Jake reached over, clasped Patrique's shoulder, bowed his head, and spoke the words resounding through his silent mind and heart.

Chapter Nine

Two days later they arrived at the oasis of Raggah, a broad lake sheltered by a veritable forest of palms. When he crested the final rise and the lake came into view, Jake stopped and gaped with the others, mesmerized by the sight. In the space of three weeks, he had forgotten how beautiful so much water could be.

Swaths of green stretched down two neighboring gullies, marking the track of streams that broke through the rock and delivered their precious load overland. Amidst the trees and brush raced a wealth of wildlife—ostriches, hyenas, gazelles, monkeys. Butterflies by the millions scoured the lake's surface, feeding upon the water flowers and the blooming reeds that lined one bank. After days in the barren sand, Jake had difficulty taking in this sudden wealth of life.

Across the lake from them rose a city as yellow as the barren earth that surrounded it. The Atlas Mountains rose majestic and ocher in the background. This was the first real town Jake had seen in what felt like a lifetime. Jake was not sure he liked it. He was amazed by how his perspective had changed. When he had first left the city for the desert, he had felt he was leaving all civilization behind. Now, as he left the desert for the city, he felt as though the joys of living were soon to be lost, the beauty of life recaged, and his world filled with meaningless clamor.

Omar and Jasmyn climbed the rise to stand behind him. “Raggah is a place of great glory,” Omar said, looking out over the city. “And like all such places, a home to much tragedy. It was here that the lords of the western deserts ruled the trade routes of the northern and western Saharas. Gold, ivory, myrrh, frankincense, salt, slaves—all traders paid tribute to the rulers of Raggah.”

He pointed out over the cloudless distance. “From that
citadel they held life-and-death power over the local tribes. The chieftains were all-powerful, ruthless, and often cruel. When the great drought drove the Tuareg into this city, Raggah and the chieftains devoured their souls. Now the French have restricted their evil, but only to a point. Their cruelty is not ended, only held in check, like a vicious dog on the Frenchmen's chain. Be careful here.”

“Don't worry.”

Still Omar stood and gazed out over the city. “To my people I give the wisdom of the desert and the wealth of my camels. People in towns such as these live for money. That is not our way. That is the hunger that never ends, the thirst that is never quenched no matter how deeply they draw from the well. No, money is for those who have chosen to live as the blind.”

Jake stood and looked out over the city and felt the words settle to the very depths of his soul.

“We hold the wealth of blood,” Omar said quietly. “By this we mean the good name of our tribe. It means we treat our animals well, we pass on the tribe's wisdom and lore to our children, we show the desert hospitality to all. It is a wealth that lasts and does not blind one to the power of the day.”

He turned and faced Jake square on. “I have thought long on your words of our walk together. I have decided that our two who beg to learn will go to the Christian school. They will study the knowledge of which you have spoken. They will return and teach our people the meaning of this Christian love and Christian peace.”

“You do me a great honor,” Jake said, humbled by the man's gift of trust. “I will hope and pray that your decision brings new and eternal wealth to your tribe.”

“This also do I hope. Come,” Omar said. “Let us descend and make camp.”

Travel-weary caravans from a dozen different locations took rest along the lake's shoreline. As they walked the long path skirting the oasis, Omar intoned each name in turn. “They are of the Al Moyda'at. And those the M'Barek, a
good people and our friends for many generations. And on the other side, the Mahmoudi. They are not to be trusted. Beyond them the Tebbeh from the reaches far to the south, here to trade their gold for salt and wares.”

Each camp was carefully guarded, showing fierce hostility to most who passed or looked their way. At one camp a man strode forth, bowed and spoke and gestured for the chieftain to join him. Jake walked on with the rest of the tribe, drawing the desert hood down farther to shield his eyes, and watched as Omar respectfully declined the invitation.

They kept themselves hidden from prying eyes by making camp at the lake's far side. At dusk a pearly glow settled over the city. From the city's ancient mosque, the muezzin called the faithful to the day's final prayer.

As night gathered, fires glowed the entire length of the lake and glimmered along the distant city's walls. Their glow and the sunset burnished the lake to a coppery sheen. Fishermen glided gracefully across this brilliant surface, poling themselves in slender boats as long as the surrounding trees were tall. Jake spent the cool hour watching these fisherfolk, two polers working bow and stern, while from amidships three others fanned out nets, tossing and pulling them in with motions older than written history.

While the evening meal was being prepared, Jake and Pierre brought Omar to the lakeside, and through Jasmyn explained the plan. He heard them out in silence, then stared out over the darkening lake. Finally he said, “For several days it has been clear that your brother is not up to the journey. But I did not feel it my place to speak first.”

“It's the only idea we have had,” Jake said, speaking for them all. “But if you have a better one, we would like to hear it.”

Omar examined him. “How can you be sure that the French are not after him as well?”

“Even if they are, it will be for Patrique and not for us,” Jake replied, hoping that what he said was true.

“It is doubtful,” Pierre added, “that the traitor could order a hunt for Patrique through official French channels without revealing his plot.”

“We are hoping that the people who ordered us to proceed northward will be watching for anything like that,” Jake explained.

Omar pondered their words long and hard before the call came to gather for the evening meal. Rising to his feet, the chieftain said, “I can see no danger in this plan that another plan would not also contain, and I have no other idea as sound as this one. We shall think on it further this night and see what the dawn brings before deciding.”

Patrique was feeling fit enough to join them for the evening meal, but his eyes glittered feverishly in the firelight. Watching him, Jake knew at some deep level that tonight marked an ending. Come what may, this portion of his journey and his life was over. Jake looked about the campfire, studying each of the faces he had come to know so well, trying to etch the power of the memory and his feelings upon his very soul.

He sat and ate as the others did, dipping into the communal pot using only his right hand, the action totally natural now. He accepted a goatskin, drank, passed it on. He listened to words he could not understand, seated in the dust at the very frontier of civilization, surrounded by men and women who could neither read nor write, and felt himself to be the richest man on earth.

Abruptly Pierre stood, helped Jasmyn to her feet, and motioned for Jake to join them. He raised his hands for silence, then said through her, “I have told this to Omar, but I wish to also speak these words to all the tribe. It is only because of the help you have given that my brother is here and alive today. The tribe of Al-Masoud has placed upon me a debt that can never be repaid.”

“Hear, hear,” Patrique said hoarsely.

“Although much of my time and energy has gone to caring for my brother, still I have learned much from my time with
you,” Pierre went on. “One such lesson is that questions are rarely asked about what is considered private or personal. Still, I think you may like to hear how we came to be with you.”

An appreciative murmur rose around the fire. Pierre looked at Jake and asked, “Shall you start, or shall I?”

“You're doing fine so far.”

Pierre began with the cries of the young Lilliana Goss through the wires of the detention camp—in mistaking Pierre for his missing twin Patrique, she had set the whole saga in motion. Pierre carried them through the search for his brother in Marseille, took them along on the hot, dusty train ride to Madrid and Gibraltar, then told how Jake had saved his life both in a smugglers' cafe and again on a boulevard in Gibraltar.

The tribesmen showed themselves to be a marvelous audience. They drank in the story with the rapt attention of a people raised on stories, a folk bereft of books and film or any entertainment save what they made for themselves.

Pierre, too, became caught up in the telling, filling the spaces created by Jasmyn's translations by using his wiry body and expressive face to describe the things of which he spoke. Quietly Jake lowered himself down on his haunches so that he too could enjoy watching his friend act out the spectacle of two terrified assassins tied to hospital beds in a Gibraltar cave, with great Barbary apes glowering and screaming down at them. Jake took great pleasure in joining their delighted roar of approval.

But the desert people's strongest reactions were saved for the scenes that took place in Telouet, for here was a place they knew. When Pierre threw himself into a parody of Jake's saluting the diminutive official Hareesh Yohari, the entire camp howled. They silenced only long enough to hear of how Jasmyn had directed the search to the palace dungeon. But when Patrique stood on shaky legs to display the festering scars remaining on his wrists and ankles from the dungeon's
chains, they roared like a pack of hungry lions. All had seen or heard of Patrique's injuries by then, yet now the story lived for them.

Pierre next described Jake's attempt to pull out the dungeon's window bars by means of ropes attached to the sultan's antique Rolls Royce. At that point, one of the elders became so excited that he sprang to his feet, grasped Pierre's robes, and began shaking the grinning Frenchman back and forth, jabbering at the top of his voice.

Omar himself had to stand and lead the old man back to his place before Pierre could describe the grand finale, which occurred when Jake finally lost his temper and crashed the car into the palace walls. The image of him throwing caution and silence to the wind and using a Rolls Royce as a battering ram against the palace wall had the audience rolling about the fire in helpless convulsions. And they laughed even harder at the notion of hundreds of sleepy traders being transformed into pole vaulters and high divers as a car suddenly flew down an otherwise empty street, before the sultan's own guards saluted Jake and Pierre as they drove through the gates and off to freedom and safety.