Jimbo led the way. He looked back a few times at the start to see Bat keeping pace, not falling behind. The girl was tough.
Lee had a keeper in her. Jimbo smiled. He hoped his friend realized this was not another girl to play with for a while and then leave without warning. This one would find Hammond and skin him alive if he strayed.
24
The Road
Exhausted, aching and thirsty, Jimbo and Bat reached the roadway as the last light was dying behind the hills at their back. The last ten miles had been spent following a game trail along a downward grade. Walking their mounts down the slope was a tiring chore as they watched for sure footing on a sliding shale surface beneath a thin layer of gray grit. The horses balked at the darkening skies until Jimbo covered their eyes with strips of cloth torn from their t-shirts.
“You look like a real Indian now,” Bat said. The Pima was bare-chested. She was down to a sports bra.
“The nose isn’t enough?” He smiled back.
“Let’s not compare noses,” she said with mock-huffiness.
The slope drew up level before a ledge beyond which the land fell away sharply. They could see the road surface down below following the floor of a natural gully that ran almost dead north/south for miles. Over the opposite side of the depression, they could make out the shape of the Golan Heights rising dramatic and black against the stars.
The road was of crushed stone rather than the square-cut blocks typical of Roman construction. It was clearly manmade, even in the uncertain light. There was a mile marker, an obelisk of white stone, visible along the verge. The road surface was of uniform width running dead center of the defile.
That was the optimal path for a military road in this era. The engineers of the legions cut the grades for their roads to run below the skyline either laterally along the face of slopes or using natural cover like forests or the depression below them. A Roman army on the march could remain concealed from its enemy until it was too late to form an adequate defense, their approach concealed by the topography.
“Are we early or late?” Bat said.
“No way to tell.” Jimbo glassed the road to the south through the scope of his rifle.
“And no one to ask,” she said. The road was empty of traffic as far as they could see in either direction even using the powerful 30x lenses. No one would be abroad at this hour in a country where bandits roamed and evil spirits were very real.
Jimbo unstowed his night-vision gear and peered through it, sweeping it along the road and surrounding heights. No telltale signs of a settlement or even a campfire. No smoke against the sky.
“We take care of the horses and make a cold camp right here,” he said. “I’ll take first watch. In the morning we follow this south a little ways, see if anyone will talk to us. Give the others a chance to catch up.”
The others caught up midmorning the following day and found the two scouts’ horses tethered in a copse of trees midway up the stony slope. The three men decided the best option was to watch along the road for Jimbo and Bat’s return. They rested their mounts and pack animals in the shade while eyeing the rocky ledge above the roadway for any sign of their teammates.
Jimmy Smalls and Bathsheba returned by noon. “What’s your best guess?” Lee asked. He and Jimbo had taken a knee overlooking the road.
“We either missed them or they’re not here yet. My money’s on them being on the march to the south of us.” Jimbo swept the country to the south with an open hand. “This is the only viable military road. They have to be along in the next few days.”
“Any human intel?”
“We haven’t seen any locals yet. Someone’s sure to be along this afternoon.”
“What’s the water situation?”
“There’s a spring about a mile and half to the north.”
Jimbo claimed he could smell water like a horse could. All Lee knew was that the Pima seldom missed when it came to finding potable water even in country like this. Especially in country like this.
“Is it near a chokepoint like this one?”
“There’s a twenty-degree turn in the canyon nearby. We set up either side and we can stop them cold,” Jimbo said.
“Let’s take a look,” Lee said, standing.
They found a caravan stopped at the spring when they arrived. Men and camels were watering there. The spring started high on the wall of the decline to trickle down a furrow in the rock worn smooth over the years. It gathered in a natural pool at the foot of the wall. The men were Arabs and dressed much the same way as the Rangers were familiar with back in The Now. The only notable absence was rifles. Each man wore a blade of some kind, and one man leaned on a spear with a rusted point.
The camels were loaded down with sacks bound to wooden racks. The men gave them water from leather buckets filled from the pool. The group visibly tensed at the sight of two men walking toward them around the turn in the canyon. They kept a wary eye but did not reach for weapons. To their eyes, one of the men was an African dressed in some kind of armor. The other was a Macedonian perhaps and dressed in peculiar leggings and a black cloth singlet of one piece. Both men were tall. They led fine horses behind them.
Chaz and Lee stopped fifty feet from the men. Desert etiquette was eternal. You didn’t just walk up to a bunch of nomads. You gave them time to make up their minds about you. Just in case they made up their minds the wrong way, the caravaneers were
