Just Deserts (18 page)

“A little sore, but it isn't my knees that are the problem … I gotta run.”

He spun around and quickly ran back in the direction he'd just come from, disappearing behind a dune.

“What's wrong with him?” I asked Kajsa.

“I think that goat he ate last night isn't agreeing with him,” she said. “He's not doing well at all.”

“Really?”

“That's his fifth trip behind the dunes. He looks awful, and when I offered him some food he just ran off, gagging.”

“Andy turned down food?” Connor asked as he walked over. “That's serious.”

“Maybe he's just making room for more food. He
did eat most of a whole goat by himself last night,” I offered.

“I wonder if he's going to be able to walk today,” Kajsa said.

That thought hadn't even occurred to me. I couldn't imagine anything stopping Andy, especially not a little roasted goat … okay, a lot of roasted goat. Those Terminator movies would have been far less exciting if all they'd had to do was feed the cyborg some goat meat.
I'll be back … but first I have to use the washroom
.

This was not good. We'd already lost a half-day's travel time.

“Where's Larson?” I asked Kajsa.

“Filling the water containers,” she said, pointing to the trough.

I walked over. He seemed so intent on what he was doing that he didn't notice me until I was practically standing over him.

He looked up. “This is one of my favourite places in the world. I think I could stay here forever,” he said.

“That's good for you, but it doesn't work for me. I can't afford to waste any more time here.”

“Time cannot be wasted or saved or spent, it simply is,” he stated.

“And I'd rather be sailing,” I said.

He looked confused.

“My other car is a Porsche.”

“I don't understand,” he said.

“If you can read this, you're too close.”

He looked more confused. It was nice that he was the one who was confused for a change.

“I still don't understand what you're saying.”

“I'm quoting my favourite bumper stickers,” I said. “Isn't that what you were doing when you said that garbage about time not being wasted or saved? I assumed you got that from a bumper sticker. Oh, I forgot, no bumpers around here, so maybe it was on the side of a camel.”

He didn't react, not even with a change in expression. Very Zenlike.

“Maybe time can't be saved or spent,” I continued, “but money can. If I don't get to Tunis on time, then I lose money, right?”

“That was your father's idea, an incentive to keep you moving.”

“Well, I want to get moving, and I couldn't yesterday because of those nomads making a meal for us.”

“A very good meal,” he said.

“Yeah, tell that to Andy. And speaking of Andy, if he can't walk today because he's too sick, am I going to be penalized for that as well?”

“You are a member of a team.”

“Like I've said, I didn't sign up for any of this, including all that crap about us being a team. Just
because I'm forced to occupy the same piece of ground with other people doesn't mean that I'm on the same team, or that I even like them.”

“If any member of the team couldn't travel, we would all have to wait,” he said.

“And like I keep saying, I'm not part of any team. You should do what you promised my father and be my guide and get me there on time!”

“I'm not leaving anybody behind, but if you wish, I could speak to your father and explain it wasn't your fault that you couldn't get there on time.”

“You really
don't
know my father at all,” I scoffed. “With him, a deal is a deal. He's not going to renegotiate. That's not the way he does business.”

“But this isn't about business. This is about something so much more important.”

“Wrong again. For my father
nothing
is more important than business!” I didn't need to say
including me,
because I think we already knew that. “So what's it going to be? Are we leaving or aren't we?”

“We're leaving. All of us together, at whatever speed the least of us can manage,” he said.

“Great. You might as well stick a gun to my head and rob me that way.”

“No one is going to rob you,” he said. “I'll give you one more bumper sticker quote.
If you wish to move quickly, go alone. If you
—”

“Are you telling me to go out there by myself?”

“Listen for the whole saying.
If you wish to move quickly, go alone. If you wish to go far, go together
.”

“I need to travel quickly
and
far, so what's your response to that?” I demanded.

He didn't answer. I guess he didn't have another bumper sticker saying to throw at me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I CAME TO THE CREST
of the hill and looked back, waiting for them to appear over the last rise before I descended this one. The terrain was hardscrabble, with scrub plants, lots of rock, hard-baked sand that left only partial tracks, and hills. My visions of a desert being flat had long since been abandoned. There were lots and lots of ups and downs.

It was hard on the legs and lungs to climb, but not that much easier on the legs on the way down. I'd never imagined down being a problem, but it was. The pressure points inside my shoes against my feet made the old blisters painful and created new ones. And my stride was different again today. A different stride led to different blisters.

There was a slight breeze, but like everything in the desert, it was boiling hot. It didn't so much cool as complete the cooking process. And there wasn't a cloud in the entire sky to offer even the hope of shade. Not one puff of white in the whole brilliant blue sky to hide behind.

I looked at my watch. It was just after ten and we'd been walking for a little more than three hours. We hadn't moved fast, but we had kept moving.

“Come on, hurry up,” I muttered to myself. Talking to myself was not a good sign.

I rummaged around in my pocket and pulled out two oranges. One was a recent addition—I'd pulled it out of our food supplies just before we left. The other was my good friend L'Orange. In some ways he was my best friend on this trip. At least he wasn't the one making demands on me or holding me back, making me stand here in the hot sun waiting instead of moving forward. L'Orange was a
true
friend.

I guess I
could
have moved forward. It wasn't like we were tied together by rope, and I did know where we were going. Larson had told me that we'd be following behind the nomads and their herds for the first half of our journey today. It was a little unnerving to be out of sight of the others, though. I wasn't going to walk beside them, but it was good to at least see them. On the plus side, I could still see the tracks of my nomadic guides. Maybe the ground was harder now, but there were still tracks. Big clear camel tracks. They were my guides.

Then the rest of them appeared over the rise and I felt a sudden sense of release and relief. One, two, three and then all four came into sight. They were just four little darker dots on the landscape. If I
hadn't known who they were, it would have been impossible to identify them from this distance. But I could tell which was which. Connor and Kajsa were slightly in the lead, walking side by side, and Andy and Larson were behind.

They were moving slowly, following in my tracks as I had followed in the tracks of the nomads and their livestock.

Part of me was resentful that I had to keep waiting for them to appear. Another part was quite proud. I
wasn't
proud that I was crossing the desert—that was just stupid—but I was proud that I was showing them up, at least for the day.

For the first couple of hours, before the terrain had changed and before I'd opened up a sizeable lead, I'd watched as they made frequent stops—both for Andy and for Kajsa. But still, I had to give them all my grudging admiration. Andy—who'd looked like he was either dead or at least wanted to be—kept going. I chuckled:
dead man walking
. I had to think that, in some small way, I was even a little bit responsible for him moving at all. I knew it bothered Andy that some no-training screw-up like me was ahead of him, and that had to be what was driving him, making him keep moving forward even when he probably shouldn't have been.

And then there were Kajsa and Connor. They'd taken some of the load from Andy's pack, so he was
carrying less weight and they were carrying more. I could have offered to take some as well, but I didn't. I wasn't part of their team, and doing that would have made it seem like I was. Although I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would have helped Connor or even Kajsa.

I figured this looked good on the Terminator. If you eat a whole goat, you'd better expect to have some problems. Revenge of the goat.

They started descending the rise and I decided it was time for me to get moving again. The next stop, after which the nomads were going to take a different route from us, was an abandoned settlement that Larson had described to me. It was still at least two hours away, but I knew that when I got there I'd have a chance to sit in the shade for a while. Who knows, I thought, I might even have a nap while I was waiting for them to follow.

I walked down the hill and they vanished from view. I had a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety as I walked down. It was the same feeling I'd had on the first night when I left them behind at the fire and went over the dune to relieve myself. But I had no reason to be anxious now. I had tracks to follow. It was all good. I'd just keep saying that to myself until I started to believe it.

I slipped L'Orange back into my pocket. I didn't want him to see what was going to happen next with
the other orange. It wasn't going to be pretty, but it certainly was going to be tasty.

WITH THE EXCEPTION
of the occasional lizard and one big scorpion, I hadn't seen any other life form for almost two hours. It was noon, and the sun was at its highest point. We were supposed to be at the ruins before this, but here I was still walking, still in the sun, still not sitting down in the shade. All this waiting for Kajsa and Andy, a few minutes here and a few minutes there, had eaten into our time and put us behind schedule. Finally I'd made a decision not to wait any longer. I needed shade and rest and water more than I needed to see them behind me. Besides, it didn't matter what was behind me as long as I had what was in front of me—the trail leading me forward.

Over the past thirty minutes, as the distance had grown between me and the others, the trail had been easier to follow. It wasn't even a challenge to pick up the tracks anymore. I figured it had to do with the ground becoming more sandy and soft, and gaining ground on the nomads and their herds. Again, not a source of pride, but definitely an accomplishment.

I put my head down and started walking again. I didn't care about my feet hurting or my legs being sore. The only way to relieve either was to keep
taking steps, one after the other, until I got to a place where I didn't have to move anymore for a long time. I felt the slight rise of the hill in my legs and lungs, but I wasn't going to listen to what they were telling me. A few more steps and I'd get to the top of another hill. And then, unbelievably, there were camels on the other side! I hadn't just gained ground, I'd caught up with them!

I looked around for Mohammad or any of the others … or goats … or motorcycles … I guess these were just some of their camels, but where were
they
? And then I had another thought, one I almost couldn't allow myself to think about. These camels weren't part of the nomads' herd. These were wild camels, and I was following their tracks—tracks that had led me into the middle of the desert … the middle of nowhere … by myself … alone.

As I stood there, trying to think, the camels moved off, disappearing behind an outcrop of rock and sand. I had to fight the urge to run after them so that at least I wouldn't be alone. But the part of me that was still trying to make sense of everything knew that was just plain insane. And I was reassured to know that I wasn't fully insane … yet. I told myself to think it through. I was here because I'd followed their tracks. If I'd followed them in one direction to get lost, I could just as easily follow them back in the other direction to get found. Okay, it was going to take a
lot more time, and it meant that I'd be walking in the wrong direction, but there was nothing I could do about it and certainly no need to panic. Well, at least not yet. There'd be plenty of time for that later.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I PULLED OUT
the last two things in my pack—the sleeping bag and the headlamp. Everything else, item by item, had been discarded over the passing hours. I couldn't even imagine how far I'd travelled, first following the tracks of that herd of camels, and then finding more tracks and more tracks, and then, once the wind kicked up, not having any tracks to follow whatsoever.

The sun was starting to set. I was both relieved and terrified: grateful for the shadows I could hide in and afraid of what the night would bring. The only reason I'd kept the two items I had was the night. I needed that headlamp; to be in the dark alone would have been suffocating. And the sleeping bag would be my only protection from the cold and elements. The desert was nothing but extremes—way too hot during the day and way too cold at night. I had thoughts of wrapping myself in the nylon and going to sleep, and either waking up someplace else … or simply not waking up. Had
it come to that already, that I was thinking about dying?

I'd been rationing my water as best I could, trying not to drink more than half a litre each hour. I'd had three litres when I got lost, and that was almost six hours ago. I tipped back the bottle and the last few drops trickled into my mouth. That was it. That was it for all my water. I dropped the bottle into the sand.