Jisil and Star appeared almost at the same moment. His horse was a solid gray Arab stallion and they were only slowing down, not stopping. My pulse quickened and my heart pounded. Finally, she was flesh and blood, alive and right in front of me. So many times I had doubted this would ever happen. I could not see her face and she never spoke, but I knew it was her. She rode on the saddle in front of Jisil and wore simple white robes and a turban with a veil. Under the veil, she was breathing rapidly. I could hear her easily with my “ability.”
Jisil wore a dark turban and veil that seemed to sparkle in the faint light. Gold strands had been sewn in with the cloth. He glanced up at Idris as they passed and waved his arm once in an arc. I couldn’t tell whether it was a greeting or a farewell. They disappeared down the north slope as quickly as they had arrived and Idris went back to his fire and his dates.
For a moment I was frozen on the ledge. I don’t know why. In the same moment I heard the hooves of another horse, far to the south, but approaching fast and in full gallop. This time I didn’t wait. I started for the end of the ledge and began my climb down the rock face. I had only gone a few feet before the rider from the south was already in the pass. Clinging to the rocks, I glanced at Idris as he rose from his seat by the fire to greet the rider, then dropped his bowl of dates where he stood, and pointed north. The man wore a dark turban and veil like Jisil and his horse was the same color gray, only mottled slightly with whites and darker grays. He carried something on his back, which he slung around in one motion and held to his shoulder. I couldn’t quite make it out, but the motion was familiar. It was a rifle and he was aiming down the north slope, down the trail that led to Ghadames, down toward Jisil and Star.
In the moonlight and because of the distance, it was a difficult shot, but he only fired twice. The two cracks were close together and were quickly swallowed by silence. His horse never moved. The man rested the rifle on his thigh and watched the darkness to the north. Nothing moved, not the horse, the horseman, Idris or me. A full minute passed, then he slowly turned his horse and addressed Idris in that archaic dialect I did not understand. The only words I did understand were names—“Mulai” and “Allah.”
Then he raised his rifle and shot Idris between the eyes. Idris fell and toppled along with the dates over the rocks and into the pass. The horseman looked back to the north once more, then turned south and rode back the way he had come, this time in a slow and arrogant trot, the trot of a chief and the arrogance of an assassin.
I scrambled down the rock face, slipping, losing balance, going much too fast. I ran across the riverbed and found my packs. I untied all the animals and wished them well, then ran and stumbled my way up to where Idris had pastured his horse. I secured the packs and saddle, fumbling with every buckle and strap. I tried to calm myself and slow down. As I rode north, away from the pass and down the slope, I held the horse to a trot. At a gallop, I would never see them, dead or alive.
I found Jisil’s horse first. He wasn’t far off the trail and he was pacing nervously. As I slowed to a walk, he bent his head and nudged something, then backed away, shaking his reins and snorting. When I got close enough, I looked down. It was Jisil. He was sprawled facedown in the sand. He had been shot through the spine and heart. I never saw his face. His dark turban had wrapped around him and whipped in the wind above his head. I was watching it when something broke loose from his hand and flew up like a handkerchief. I reached out and caught it. I couldn’t tell what it was, but there were drawn lines and words in Arabic and it seemed to be a map. I tucked it away and listened, as hard and focused as I ever had, I listened.
I let my “ability” spread and deepen. The two horses shuffling and snorting sounded like a stampede. I concentrated and narrowed myself, centered myself like the small black circle in the oval room of the cave. The wind was raging. I could hear it scraping the rocks clean. I had to go under it, underwater, under time, under the wind, to find her.
I heard a sigh.
I turned and ran toward the source. It came from the opposite side of the trail in a mass of brush and sand. I looked down and saw the white muslin veil. The sigh came from behind it. I pulled the veil back slowly and stared down at the face, the mouth, that had made the sigh. In the moonlight, I could see enough of her features to tell that her eyes were closed, but her lips were parted and she was alive and breathing. There was a ring in her nose, a gold ring in the center attached by a chain to another smaller ring in her left nostril. That was attached by another chain to another, larger ring in her left ear. But it was not the rings or chains that caught my attention, it was the freckles. Carolina’s freckles, all across her nose and cheeks. I was certain that under her closed lids, the eyes were blue.
I lifted her head gently and she sighed again. She had been shot through the shoulder, probably knocked from the horse by the impact and then rolled into the brush. I wasn’t sure if she was conscious and less sure what to say to her. I had never thought about it in all the years I had been looking for her.
“Star?” I whispered.
Her eyes fluttered and opened about halfway, then found mine and opened wide. She tried to speak, saying something in Jisil’s archaic dialect, then fell back into unconsciousness, either from the sight of me or the pain of her wound, or both.
I dragged her out of the brush roughly. There was no other way. I pulled back her robe and looked at her shoulder. It was still bleeding, but I knew it would stop. The bullet had not lodged and the wound was clean. I bound it tightly with her veil and mine, then stood up and looked for Jisil’s horse. There was no chance of getting out to the south because of Mulai’s camp. The east and west only promised more desert. The only way of getting out was to the north and that would take a good horse.
I found him near Jisil’s body, still skittish and watching me as I approached. The wind tore at Jisil’s turban and stung my face and eyes with sand and grit. The animal was a chief’s horse and ignored the wind. To him, the wind had never been an enemy, only an ally, and that gave me an idea. I tore off the part of Jisil’s turban that was loose and blowing. I started walking toward the horse, deliberately, and wrapping the cloth around my own head at the same time, slowly. I stopped within five feet and waited. After a cautious snort and whiff of me, he lowered his head and shook his reins. I turned and walked back toward Star, not looking once over my shoulder. When I had almost reached her, I heard his hooves crossing the trail of crushed stones behind me. It was a gamble and I had been lucky, but Jisil’s horse, one of the finest Arabs I had ever seen, never questioned it.
I loaded and strapped my things on first, then with great difficulty, I managed to get Star on the horse and in the saddle behind me. I literally tied her to my back, even though she was taller and heavier. It was not her weight that gave me problems or concern. It was what I discovered when I first picked her up. It changed the way I touched her, moved her, and it had probably changed everything for Jisil.
Star was pregnant, very pregnant.
We traveled at a steady pace along the trail to Ghadames and the oldest of the caravan routes. Jisil’s horse knew the way when I didn’t. Star remained in a semiconscious state and only took water with the aid of my fingers.
Somewhere outside Ghadames, we rested near a grove of palms. It was midday. There were mounted and motorized patrols in the distance. What army for which country, I couldn’t tell. I found water and traded for biscuits, helped Star to a place in the shade, then sat by her and took out what I’d caught in the wind from Jisil, what I hoped was a map.
It was a map and a little more. Jisil had outlined the north coast of Africa from Tripoli to Tunis. He had marked two places on the coast by name and symbol. The one to the east was named Sabratha and marked with an X. I had never heard of this place. He also had a trail of arrows that headed west, avoiding Sabratha and ending in the other place, which he had marked with a circle. The name was Carthage. In the margins he had scribbled notes and several names, all in Arabic, except one—“Cheng.”
I looked over at Star and it came to me. I remembered Jisil’s two midnight rides a few days before. He had been making a deal. The new pieces fitted into the old puzzle. Jisil had fallen in love with a slave — Star — and was trying to save her and the baby from a deal that had been sealed long ago, a deal that Mulai would not break, a deal with the Fleur-du-Mal. I figured Cheng would be working for the Fleur-du-Mal or against him. Either way, he could lead me to him.
I had heard of Carthage and I definitely knew of Cheng. There was no choice but to take Star there. She needed to be free and safe to have her baby. Her shoulder I knew would heal. I could end the madness there, in Carthage, because Cheng would be expecting Jisil, not me.
I followed the map generally and asked directions occasionally. Sometimes I spoke in my rough Berber, sometimes in French, and once in English. I no longer cared about any pretense or disguise. Star continued to drift in and out of consciousness. I tried to stay behind her when she woke, so my presence wouldn’t startle her. She
