The Count of the Sahara (8 page)

Chapter 6

Hassi Khalifa, Algeria

October 15, 1925

When Chapuis knocked on his door a little before six, Alonzo was already awake. He tried not to wake Brad and Martini as he asked, “Louis, what’s going on?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you, ‘Lonzo. Come on.”

“What is it?” the American asked groggily.

“That’s why they call it a surprise, come on. And be quiet. Oh, and bring a coat, it’s colder than a whore’s heart this morning.”

Twenty minutes, and one small very insufficient cup of coffee later, the two men stood at the base of a large boulder just outside the village. On the north side, a deep hole tunneled deep beneath the striated stone. This early in the morning, it looked even more insignificant than it would most other times. Pond was getting irritated with Chapuis’ mysterious attitude.

“I’ll bite. What am I looking at?” The guide gave him an indulgent smile, dipped his hand in a puddle and smeared the water across the lower edge of the rock and shone his electric torch on the wet spot. Barely discernible, three lines formed an arrow aimed at an even fainter circle with four lines emerging from it.

Pond looked closer and whistled. “No, really?”

Louis eagerly nodded. “I asked someone last night if there were any stories about this place. I knew most of them, but then they mentioned this rock. Everybody knows about it, but nobody cares much.”

He bent down and picked up a stone, darker than the rest of the shards and gravel, and held it out to Pond whose eyes widened. Only someone with a well trained eye would appreciate this as he could. It was a projectile head, probably a spear tip, crudely but effectively chipped by hand and stone a long, long time ago.

“Who knows about this?”

“Besides you and me? Everyone around here but no one who matters. Reygasse knows about the site but hasn’t pissed on it yet because he doesn’t think it’s worthwhile. Not enough shiny things for him, and the drawings are too faint to bring in tourists.”

Pond only half listened as he ran his hands through the gravel. He squatted as low as he could without actually sitting in the muddy water that pooled around their feet. Without a torch of his own, it was more a symbolic gesture than an attempt to see very much. “How deep?”

“Deep enough to eat and sleep in, maybe skin your catch.”

Eagerly, Alonzo ran his fingers through the gravel, where he found another sharp stone, this one definitely an arrowhead. He also found the telltale tiny shards of flint that indicated the weapons had been fashioned here, not just brought from somewhere else. This had once been a full-fledged hunting camp. Flint told a lot of stories, if you knew what you were looking at, and even as a graduate student, Pond had a far better eye than most.

Louis stood up wiping the grime from his hands. “When we’re done, it might be worth coming back. Probably a lot of good work to be done here, and you can get a decent cup of coffee and sleep indoors every night.”

Pond wasn’t sure proximity to the village was much of a selling point, but he nodded. “Sure might. Merci, Louis. Thanks so much.” The anthropologist in him itched to grab his tools and start digging, but he knew there was no time. It took weeks, maybe a lifetime to search, catalogue and really analyze a site like this properly. The best he could do in the next month and a half was collect the best scraps for the Logan Museum, and create a wish list of potential digs for the Santa Clauses in Beloit to grant.

“Not at all. And the Count will probably give you a discount on the digging rights.”

Pond froze in place. “What do you mean?”

“Next year. You know. When this is all over, Reygasse is going to give de Prorok the rights for this corner of Algeria. All the permits will go through him. That should be a good deal for you and the Museum, no?” He paused. “Oh, Christ, you didn’t know. I just thought… well, you’re partners and all...”

Pond just shook his head. No, he had no idea. He wondered if Dr. Collie and the big shots back in Beloit knew about this. The excitement of the morning’s discovery dissipated like fog in a stiff breeze.

“We should go back,” the guide suggested.

“Yeah. Time’s awasting.” Pond put the two flint relics in his pocket, and they walked back to the inn in silence.

They were back at their lodgings in plenty of time to warm up and help pack for the easy straight run to Touggart. The clouds were lighter today, although still gray, and Pond thought the cold wind felt more like the Dakotas than the Sahara.

They left Hassi Khalifa a bit later than planned, but it was such a short, straight run to the next town where Reygasse’s friends were planning a big banquet nobody really cared much. They gave the rain a chance to blow through, then set out again.

As usual, Martini and Lucky Strike played caboose to the train of cars. Soon enough, Pond noticed, there was a lot of room between the cars, and finally the other two vehicles couldn’t be seen at all. Cautiously, he broached the subject to Martini, who had woken up in a foul mood, which didn’t help the coherence of his French. “Why are we going so much slower than the others?”

Martini sucked the long hairs of his moustache. “Monsewer Pond. We no go slow. They go fast.”

“Shouldn’t we go fast, too?” he offered.

“You wanta run out of gas again? Twenty-five. We go twenty-five alla the time. Save fuel, get inna no trouble.”

“Let the man do his job, Lonnie.” Pond fumed. Tyrrell’s advice always seemed to be to let people do their jobs. But what if they didn’t do them? What then? He idly wondered if Brad had always had that attitude, and if so, how the Tyrrell knit company ever made its millions. He peered ahead, unable to see anything but the occasional puddle or tread mark in the road ahead.

Finally, he lay back, pulled out some paper and began composing another letter to Dorothy, describing yesterday’s foolishness with the truck, and hoping it sounded amusing instead of whiney. He thought he had an excellent sense of humor about things, but it didn’t seem to be appreciated by everyone equally.

Lost in his work, he was jolted to attention by Martini shouting, “Porco Vacca!” and Lucky Strike nosed into a sudden halt. Brad stopped blowing his harmonica and craned around the back of the driver’s head. The driver pounded his palm on the steering wheel. “Ah… ah…. What I tell you Monsewer Pond?”

Up ahead, Hot Dog, the pride of France’s glorious
Société des Automobiles Renault,
and the state of the art in desert travel was buried to the axles of its rear eight precisely engineered pneumatic tires in gooey muck. Sandy, driven by the company’s very best chauffeur/
ingénieur was twenty feet further down the road, sat mired almost as deeply.

Caid Belaid stood at the dry edge of the swampy roadbed frantically waving and shouting, “Don’t come any closer. We’re stuck.”

They were, indeed, stuck. The rains the last few days had washed what little real topsoil there had been into the deepest dips and valleys of the road, turning the dirt into a slurping, sucking sponge, capturing whatever dared cross it like a mosquito in amber.

As Martini, Tyrrell and Pond approached the other vehicles, de Prorok high-stepped towards them, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Damned worst luck, isn’t it?”

Pond wasn’t a firm believer in luck, but didn’t intend to hash it out here. “Can we tow you out?”

The Count looked a bit abashed. “Well, actually, that’s how Sandy got into this pickle. We got through fine, then Chaix got caught. The winch is on Hot Dog there, and we thought, oh, we’ll just brace our car, and when the winch tightens…. It kind of sucked us in, instead. Now we’re both stuck. Damned bad luck.”

“It’s not luck. What idiot thought up that idea?”

“Well it wasn’t me was it, Pond? Bloody professional drivers are supposed to know what they’re doing. Apparently the Sahara desert is nothing like the streets of Paris. Who’d have guessed?”

“Well, I suppose we’d better help if we ever want dinner tonight,” Pond said, stripping off his coat and immediately missing its warmth. Grabbing spades meant for more careful digging, the Americans, Martini and de Prorok joined the occupants of the lead vehicles in the slop.

Byron noticed that everyone, including Denny and a very unhappy, shivering Barth, dug frantically, and futilely, with the small archaeological tools. For a moment, he thought he was seeing things. An Arab was digging with them, alternately shoveling and swearing in perfect French. The strange sight was actually Maurice Reygasse, who’d thrown the cape on in an attempt to keep his uniform presentable for their arrival in Touggart.

For hours they dug, slipped, smoked and cursed. At first the oaths were directed at Escande for leading them into the quagmire. Then they blamed, in turn, the Renault Brothers, the idiot who thought twelve tires a good idea, the Count, Chapuis (for not alerting them to the danger in time) and then, since mudslides weren’t high on the list of common desert perils, they settled on God himself. The less pious among them cursed with gusto, the rest under their breath on the off chance God was listening and made things worse.

At last, Martini drove off the road and circled around to the relatively dry road ahead, getting close enough to haul Sandy back onto terra firma. Then Martini managed to link enough rope and chain for both vehicles to haul Hot Dog out of the mud and onto the road bed.

The rain had stopped, and the sun finally elbowed its way through the clouds, although far too low on the horizon for comfort. The daylight was almost gone, and they were still over two hours to Touggart where baths, a warm bed, and a full blown feast awaited them. Pond heard a stomach growl, and guessed—correctly—it was Barth.

Caid Belaid squinted into the sun. “Maybe we should spend the night in Stil, and go on in the morning.

“What’s in Stil?” Byron wanted to know.

“Not a damn thing,” Chapuis spoke up. “There’s no hotel, it’s a water station for the railroad. Just a water tank and a poor excuse for a market. We might be able to camp for the night and scrounge dinner.”

Reygasse shook his head emphatically. Byron looked at him. Stripped of his burnoose, his uniform was actually clean from the knees up. The Marshall kept repeating, “No, no. We have to push on.”

“Maurice, it might be for the best,” De Prorok offered mildly.

“Absolutely not. First of all, we have people waiting for us in Touggart, and they’ll be worried. Our hosts have been cooking for us. And these are people you don’t want to disappoint.” Reygasse directed that last statement directly at Byron, who took his meaning.

Chapuis coughed. “Messieurs, if I may, it’s getting close to dark…”

“Yes it is, Chapuis, that happens at night. Especially when you’re not prepared for the road you’re on. The faster we get on the road, the sooner we’ll be there, no?” Reygasse looked to Byron for support he wasn’t yet prepared to give.

“What do the rest of you think?” Byron really hoped they’d reach consensus so he wouldn’t have to cast the deciding vote.

Belaid, Chapuis and the Americans were in favor of spending the night at Stil and pressing on in the morning. On hearing, “spend the night outdoors,” Barth and Denny immediately sided with the Marshall. Of course it would bloody be up to me, he thought. He sighed and voted with the New York Times. Best to push on.

“Dark be damned,” he said, clapping his hands. “We’ve earned a hot meal and a soft rack, and both those things await us in Touggart. Let’s go. Louis, why don’t you and Hot Dog take the lead?”

After all the rain a glorious sunset taunted them as they headed off to the southeast. After about ten minutes, they passed the hamlet of Stil. Byron cupped his hand over his eyes to see the water tower, a couple of date palms and a few dilapidated houses. Reygasse is right, probably worth skipping he thought.

The ground was mostly hard-packed sand now, making traction reliable and travel much safer. As the bumps became less jarring, their speed increased. He watched Escande confidently navigate. He wondered how he could tell the difference between the official track of the road, and the desert floor. That’s what separates professionals from the rest of us. Sooner than expected, night fell and everything was coated in thick inky blackness.

After an hour, de Prorok became seriously concerned. Chapuis’ plan had been to follow the railroad tracks, which was fine providing one could actually see the tracks in question. Instead the only thing they could make out in the direct glow of the headlights was ten to twenty yards of rock and scrub brush.

Ten minutes after he began to worry the caravan came to a halt. They were, exactly as he feared, completely lost, and had been for about thirty minutes.

The Count heard everyone’s opinion then nodded. “Nothing for it, then. We’ll backtrack to Stil and spend the night.” Reygasse began to protest, but the Count held up his hand. “End of discussion.” Both Pond and Reygasse appeared thunderstruck, but the Count had made a decision, one he sounded like he would actually stand by.

“Signor Martini. Allez-vous.” They turned the cars around, Lucky Strike in the lead this time, and headed back even slower than they’d come, desperately keeping the faint tire tracks framed in the weak headlights. At last they heard the comforting ca-chunk of rubber on real road bed, and a few minutes later they saw the welcoming fires of Stil.