won’t suf fer from thirst.”
“The donkey’s tiring,” Amonmose called. “If the truth be told, so am I.”
“We can’t give up yet.” Bak, as exhausted as his compan ions, eyed the hill they were sweeping past. He had begun to swim ahead, looking for a place where they could climb out of the wadi.
Thus far, every hillside had been so rough and craggy that it had been virtually impossible to seek safety on its slope.
His greatest fear was not the land they could see, but the rocks that lay below the water’s surface. After the donkey’s valiant struggle to swim along with them, supporting Amon mose to an ever increasing extent, he dreaded the thought that it might break a leg and have to be slain.
Several times, he had swum toward the shore, feeling with his feet the surface below. Each time he had found hidden ob stacles too rugged and sharp-edged to allow the donkey to reach higher ground. And each time he had had to bolster his will to carry on. The speed and force of the water was abat ing, but so was his strength. According to the passage of the moon, they had been caught up in the flood less than half an hour, but it seemed to him forever.
Dreading the thought that they would have to risk the don key’s legs, he beseeched the gods to look upon them with fa vor. No sooner had he uttered the plea than he spotted a steep-sided cut that split apart a ridge to the east. Praying sand had blown up the defile, covering any rocks on its floor, he fought the swift waters sweeping past its mouth and swam into a narrow, calm bay. Within moments he felt sand be neath his feet. Blessed sand. As he waded farther into the cut, the water level dropped from his shoulders to his waist to his knees. A few paces ahead, he saw dry sand.
He could not have found a better refuge.
He heard the sharp bleat of a goat. Looking toward the end of the cut, he saw in the moonlight four adults with their young. They must have sought safety in the defile when the wadi flooded.
He waded back into deeper water and swam quickly to ward the wadi. He had to catch Amonmose and the donkey before the floodwaters swept them past the cut. He, the trader, and the donkey were all too tired to fight the current for long. As he feared, they had drifted on by, but not far. He thought he had the strength to get them back-if they had the strength to help.
“I found a good, safe place to stop,” Bak called, swimming to the donkey’s head. He caught its halter and turned it against the current. It fought him, not wanting to swim counter to the flow, but was too tired to resist for long.
Amonmose saw Bak urging the creature upstream and shook his head. “I can’t fight the water any longer.”
Bak had never seen him look so tired and worn, or sound so dispirited. “Grab the donkey’s mane close to his withers, stroke with one arm, and paddle your feet.” As Amonmose clutched the donkey, Bak felt the animal falter. “Don’t make him carry your weight,” he said sharply. “Swim! It’s not far.”
Amonmose summoned a last burst of energy and obeyed.
With Bak urging on man and donkey-and himself, if the truth be told-they fought the current back to the cut and swam into the still water inside.
When Bak stood up to test the water’s depth, it reached to his shoulders. Amonmose stared like a man not sure he could believe in their salvation and also stood erect. Bak waded forward, pulling the exhausted donkey until it stumbled to its feet. There it dug its hooves into the sand and refused to move another step.
“We can’t leave the wretched beast here,” he grumbled. “It needs to dry off, to get warm.”
As if in a daze, Amonmose plodded around behind the an imal and shoved it forward while Bak pulled. When all four hooves were on dry sand, he let go of the halter, dropped to his knees, muttered a few words of thanks to the lord Amon, and rolled onto the warm sand to rest. Beyond the donkey’s trembling legs, he saw Amonmose collapse. His eyes closed and he slept.
Bak heard a sharp, strident word and someone poked his shoulder. He opened his eyes to sunlight, glimpsed a small face above him. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looked at the boy peering at him, then sat up slowly, testing his weary muscles. The child quickly backed away as if afraid. A smile failed to reassure him.
Amonmose lay where he had fallen, but the donkey was gone. And so was the water. Bak stared down the cut. Its sandy floor was exposed all the way to the wadi. That, too, had been drained of much of its water. For long stretches, the sand was a mottled damp and dry. In other places, large shallow pools mirrored the sky above. He glanced at the boy and smiled.
What the gods gave, they took away, sometimes very fast.
His thoughts turned to his Medjays and the caravan. He re membered the last few men and animals he had seen strug gling up the hillside. He thought they had been high enough to escape the flood. Of them all, Senna was the most likely to have been caught up by the raging waters. Bak prayed such was not the case. The guide’s one act of carelessness might well have cost Bak and therefore Amonmose their lives, but no man should have to face death because he brought about an accident. If losing his footing had indeed been an accident.
User was a rational man who knew the caravan must con tinue to the next well. In the extremely unlikely event that he chose not to press on, Psuro and the other Medjays would surely continue down the wadi to look for the missing men.
The likelihood of another flood was minuscule. The sun had barely risen above the peaks to the east. They must be well on their way.
Both Bak and Amonmose tried to talk to the boy. He could speak no tongue but his own. He sat at a distance, too shy or afraid to come near, and watched them with wide, cu rious eyes.
“When the caravan comes, we must give him some food,”
Amonmose said.
“Also a gift. He didn’t save us, but he cared for the donkey while we slept.”
After a long silence, Amonmose said, “I don’t recall ever being so hungry.” He patted his substantial stomach. “I fear
I’ll waste away to nothing.”
“We’ve plenty of fresh water,” Bak said, smiling.
“I can’t bear the thought of it.” Amonmose eyed a long scratch on his arm, which he had gotten when becoming en tangled in the branch of an acacia. “That Senna. I’d willingly slay him at the slightest provocation.”
“He didn’t mean to push me into the water.”
“With your help, I might’ve been able to get the donkey higher up the hill. The chance was slim, I know, but it was a possibility. Without you, we were both lost to the flood.”
Bak remembered how hard he had hit the water and he doubted a dozen men could have saved any of the three of them. “Senna may’ve been carried off, as we were.”
“He didn’t have to kick you.”
“He was sliding on the rocks, out of control.”
The trader looked unconvinced. “User told me the day he joined our caravan that he was not to be trusted.”
“I agree that he shouldn’t have let Minnakht go off with two strangers, but if Minnakht insisted, what could he do?”
“How can you be sure Senna didn’t slay him? Or that man at the well north of Kaine? How do you know he didn’t slay
Dedu?”
“He was on the trail with my men and me when the man at the well was slain. As for the night Dedu was slain, at least one of us would’ve heard him if he’d left our camp.”
“User told me you didn’t entirely trust him. Now you’re defending him.”
“As you well know, I’m a police officer. I must not make hasty judgments.”
“Grant me this: it’s possible that Senna deliberately pushed you into the flood.”
Bak laid a hand on the trader’s shoulder. “Don’t fret,
Amonmose. I’ll never again turn my back to him.”