Nan Ryan (33 page)

Squinting against the heat and the glare, she saw nothing but a great sea of golden sand stretching endlessly in every direction. Her heart kicked against her breast. How long, she wondered fearfully, would she survive if she didn’t find the oasis? She had drained the last of the water from the aluminum canteen more than an hour ago and was now agonizingly thirsty.

She was also worried about Toz. The heavily lathered saffron stallion was wheezing and blowing, his great head sagging low as he trudged dutifully through the deep, scorching sands.

Scant moments later a small smile came to Temple’s parched lips when she spotted—in the near distance—the distinct shape of tall, skinny palms rising black against the blue of the sky. The map she’d drawn in her mind had not let her down. Cool water and deep shade waited just ahead.

“See it, boy?” she said, patting the tired stallion’s sweat-streaked neck. “Look, Toz, water. All you can drink. Just a few more steps now. A few more yards and then you can rest.”

The stallion’s ears pricked and his head rose. He scented the water and anxiously picked up his pace. Soon Temple felt the welcome shade on her hot, flushed face as Toz cantered under the sheltering palms.

The minute her booted feet touched the ground, Temple removed the bit from Toz’s mouth. The big steed whinnied and trembled and nudged her out of the way as she struggled to slip out of her long robe.

“No!” she warned, stepping in front of him and out of the robe. “Wait your turn.”

He whickered pitifully, nudged her shoulder, and lowered his head to the well as Temple fell to her knees. Slapping Toz’s face away, she buried her own in the cool clear water, drinking thirstily. When she’d had her fill, she sat back on her heels, wiped her mouth, and before she could say, “It’s all yours,” the stallion’s dusty muzzle was in the water and he was swilling loudly, greedily.

When both horse and rider had slaked their thirst, Temple unsaddled Toz and placed the saddle against the slender trunk of a palm. She folded her white robe into a pillow and placed it atop the saddle. She took off her boots and stretched out on her back, resting her head on the saddle. She nibbled on a fig but had no real appetite. She laughed and opened her palm when Toz, cropping grass beside her, stuck his muzzle against her wrist and sniffed. He ate the figs in one bite, then returned to the grass.

Temple sighed, closed her burning eyes, and told herself she must get some rest for the long night of travel ahead. But as tired as she was, sleep eluded her. It wasn’t the fear of what lay ahead that kept her awake. It was the loss of what lay behind. The knowledge that she would never again see the only man she’d ever loved.

Her eyes opened and filled with a mist of tears.

It was over.

Nothing left but the memories. Memories of the early morning rides together in the matchless glory of the desert dawn. Memories of the last unforgettable ride together in the silver radiance of the moonlight.

A pain so intense it was physical pierced Temple’s heart. She had been given a brief glimpse of the happiness that could never be hers.
He
was not hers. She would never see him again. Would never hear that beloved voice softly murmuring
chérie
as he held her in his strong arms in the hot darkness. Would never watch him light a cigarette and hold it in his long, tapered fingers while he gazed at her through the thick black lashes that curved down on his high olive cheekbones.

In the midst of reflecting sadly on how much she would miss the Sheik and his desert village, Temple realized that she hadn’t missed her fashionable world of amusing parties, gossip, and mingling with nobility. Hadn’t missed the constant round of balls, dinners, and theaters. Always another soiree, another club, another suitor.

How carelessly she had stepped on hearts without a twinge of pity or regret. How selfishly she had moved through the gilded days of her youth, thinking only of herself, searching endlessly for adventure and excitement, reaching continuously for the brass ring in an utterly hedonistic pursuit of personal pleasure.
Never
had she enriched another’s life.

Temple began to smile wistfully even as the hot tears ran down her cheeks.

Now she knew what she had been searching for all those empty years. She had solved the mystery here in the hot Arabian deserts with the handsome Sheik. And if she never again felt as the Sheik had made her feel, if she never found another whom she could love half as much, it did not matter.

It did not matter that he had never loved her.

What did matter was that she loved him, and she was a better person for having loved him.

She had always thought there was something missing in her. That she was incapable of loving another human being more than she loved herself. She was relieved to know that she was wrong. She loved Sharif more. She loved him so much, she resolved she would never tell the authorities—or anyone else—what had happened.

With any luck she would reach Baghdad well before her scheduled date of arrival, and no one would ever be the wiser. No one need ever know that she had been abducted and had spent her entire desert tour as the Sheik’s captive.

Resolute in her loyalty and happy she could protect the man she loved, Temple finally managed to drift off to sleep.

She awakened with a start at sunset. It took only moments to fill the canteen, saddle Toz, and depart. She rode through the darkness until the moon rose full and white to light her way. She sang to keep herself company, and when she grew hoarse and could no longer sing, she studied the brilliant stars above, picking out the various constellations.

With her head tilted back and her eyes on the heavens, it occurred to her that the same bright stars and full white moon on which she gazed shone down on the Sheik’s peaceful desert village.

It made her feel a little less lonely.

Twenty-four hours into her journey Temple wondered how far she had gone. Tariz had once told her the bedouins could travel up to sixty miles a day on a camel. Surely she and Toz had gone that far.

Today seemed even hotter than yesterday, and Temple felt as if she had been in the saddle, riding across the pitiless Arabian wastelands, for an eternity. As if she were the only one left in the world and was doomed to ride these shifting dunes forever.

All morning the heat had been intense, but now, with the approach of noon, it was suffocating. Temple lifted a hand to blot away the moisture on her shiny forehead and realized she had been doing so every few minutes for the past hour. Sighing wearily, she swept the horizon with squinting eyes. She saw nothing through the shimmering haze except the wide expanse of sand rolling toward the north like lazy waves on a torpid brown sea. Her shoulders slumping, her brow perspiring, she turned her head, gazed at the repetitious landscape, and saw, far off to the south, a strange-looking dark line where the sky met the dunes.

For a long moment she stared intently, wondering if it was sand stirred up by a caravan that had just gone out of sight. Or one about to come into sight. She watched until she could no longer see anything and decided her eyes had been playing tricks on her.

On she rode.

She was dozing in the saddle when a sudden gust of wind, like a blast from an opened furnace door, slammed her in the face. Just then a loud peal of thunder boomed, shattering the stillness. Toz snorted and quivered, then lunged jerkily forward, clearly excited.

“What?” Temple asked the anxious horse. “What is it, Toz?”

Whinnying loudly, the stallion went into a gallop as Temple looked nervously over her shoulder. The strange streak she’d seen on the southern horizon was wider, blacker, moving swiftly northward.

Oh, God, no. The
schmaal!
The fast-moving Arabian sandstorm was headed straight at her!

Temple dug her heels into Toz’s flanks as a bright flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. The nervous mount, spurred on by fear, raced across the sands at a headlong gallop. Sensing the steed’s anxiety, Temple leaned low over his neck and spoke to him in soothing tones while she patted his withers.

The storm was rapidly moving closer.

The sky was turning pewter. Hot gusts of wind became more frequent, whipping up the sands in spiraling, eddying circles. Blinded by the stinging sands and struggling to remain mounted against a wind so forceful that even the eighteen-hundred-pound Toz was reeling, Temple tried to yank her billowing white robe closer around her. She spat out a mouthful of sand and labored to pull the folds of her kaffiyeh higher over her nose.

Into the spinning whirlwinds the stallion raced, and in no time Temple lost her bearings. She no longer knew in which direction Toz galloped, could no longer distinguish sky from land. Day turned to night as whirling clouds of gritty dust obliterated everything and the roar of the storm intensified. Temple could see nothing in the blackness, could hear nothing above the howling winds, but she could feel the mighty stallion trembling beneath her gripping knees, knew that he was as terrified as she.

The wind-driven sands were stinging her face like tiny needles, and her gloves and the long leather reins were wet with mud. Ever-strengthening gusts of wind were threatening to tear her from the saddle, and if that happened, she would be lost. So she kept her knees tight against the stallion’s ribs and clung tenaciously to the reins, praying Toz would not stumble and unseat her.

Eyes shut tight against the blowing sands, Temple felt the rains begin. She opened her eyes and looked out as the cloudburst came in sheets of blinding rain. She hung her head and hunched her shoulders forward. The wind drove the rain mixed with sand into her face and pummeled her body.

It was over almost before it began, leaving her soaked to the skin and Toz’s big body caked with sand.

With the passing of the rain, the wind abated slightly, and Temple spotted, through the still swirling sands, the outline of a structure. She yanked on the reins, turning the stallion about, changing direction.

In moments Toz reached the shelter, which was nothing more than the crumbling masonry walls of a small hut built beside a dry well.

Temple leapt from the saddle and led Toz inside the partial protection of roofless walls as the winds again picked up and the sand swirled wildly around them. Drenched from the rains and splattered with mud, Temple fell to her knees and sat flat down, pressing herself close against the jagged-topped wall. She turned her face in and was about to pull her robe up over her head when, to her surprise and amazement, the big, mud-caked stallion knelt down on his front legs, then stretched out close beside her. He leaned over her and pressed his great head against the wall directly above her own, as if attempting to shelter her from the stinging wind and sand.

“Oh, Toz,” she murmured, grateful, “you’re such a good boy.”

He whinnied, and Temple took off her kaffiyeh, reached up, drew his head down, and tied the wet headdress around his muzzle. Then she pulled her dirty wet robe up over her head, closed her eyes, and pressed her cheek against the wall.

Shielded by Toz’s big body, she settled in and rode out the fierce sandstorm. The roar of the storm was deafening, and Temple felt as if she would surely go mad if the high, howling winds didn’t soon stop. Grains of sand crunched between her teeth and caused her tightly closed eyes to burn and tear and her sensitive skin to itch and prickle.

Miserable, she told herself over and over that she must remain calm. The storm couldn’t last forever. They were safe in this crumbling shelter, if terribly uncomfortable. Soon the winds would calm and the sands would still and everything would be all right.

The storm raged on for hours.

Night had fallen when the violent tempest weakened and finally passed.

Toz rose first. Then Temple got to her feet. She pulled off the mud-caked robe and tugged the headdress from Toz’s muzzle, and the two of them ventured out.

Temple turned about slowly in a complete circle. “Damnation!” she muttered.

She was lost.

The sky was black. No stars or moon for rough navigation.

She had never before passed by these tumbledown walls, had never heard about this dried-up well. The terrible storm had swept away any lingering traces of roads and routes. There was no gentle gulf breeze Tariz had spoken of blowing out of the east to guide her. No sand dunes piled and lined north to south. All caravan trails would be obliterated. The desert floor looked exactly the same in every direction.

Temple didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know in which direction Toz had carried her in the storm. She did not know in which direction she should ride.

She was hopelessly lost.

If she mistakenly rode west, she might wind up right back at the Sheik’s village. If she wandered too far south, she would end up in the deadly Rub al Khali and perish. If she rode too far north, a roaming band of Turks might seize her.

She must ride east toward Baghdad. But where was east?

She had no compass. No map. She could wait until morning and follow the sun, but they were out of water. She couldn’t risk riding in the full heat of the day in search of a well.

Temple took a deep breath, wet her fingertip, and stuck it in the air. There was the slightest hint of a breeze. She mounted the big stallion and rode away. Late in the night they came upon a wadi newly filled by the rain. They drank and rested there for a couple of hours, then pressed on.

Temple, dozing atop the stallion, was awakened by the blinding rays of the rising sun. The first thing she saw was a band of robed men riding fast, coming straight toward her. Sure it was the Sheik already after her, she wheeled Toz about and kicked him into a gallop. Lying low over his neck, she urged him to go faster.

Her tired, winded mount was overtaken easily, and Temple looked up, expecting to see the angry, handsome face of Sharif. But it was not Sharif and his men. Temple realized with horror that she had fallen into the hands of the Sheik’s hereditary enemy.

The hated Turks.