by Jerry
“See, condensation is forming already!” Leslie pointed to the beads of moisture forming on the underside of the plastic. After a minute, water started trickling down the cone and dripped slowly into the can.
I knelt beside the solar still and put the tube between my lips. I sucked gently and was rewarded by a slurping sound from the bottom of the hole. “Not bad. If you stuck to the same place, stayed out of the sun, and didn’t exert yourself, two of these would keep one of you alive.” I looked at them watching me with solemn faces. “Barely alive.” They took in every word just as if I knew what I was talking about. I felt younger than my twenty-three years and pompous to boot.
Linquist was still a constant pressure on my turned back.
By my watch, the dawn was still three hours away. I counted bodies—six light sleeping bags spaced around a dying fire. Scorpio arched across the heavens and his earthly brothers slept under the warmest rock—or body—they could find. My pupils knew to check their boots in the morning.
Lindquist was finally asleep and so, it seemed, were the others. At least none of them was paying any attention to me.
Now if I could just say the same about the watcher on the hill.
He had been there since early afternoon and not always alone. I placed him near my resting place of the first day, where I’d watched Narowitz’s party drive across the basin. His presence was a puzzlement.
The watcher’s attention wandered. Every seven minutes or so, the pressure would go away to return shortly thereafter. I pulled my backpack closer and waited. After the next lull, I was putting my boots on in the mesquite while the watcher viewed my blanket-covered backpack.
I learned long ago, from a harsh and cruel necessity, to avoid the eyes of man. I drifted as a ghost would drift—unheard and unseen. (And who would know, better than I?) I stood on the ridge and looked down on them.
They were two. One slept beneath a tarp while the other looked into the bright green eyepiece of a starlight scope. Briefly, I considered a ghostly visitation, but dropped the idea quickly. Startled men do dangerous things.
Twenty minutes later I slipped undetected back into my bed. Sleep followed reluctantly.
“The other reason I say this trip is to polish your survival skills instead of to instill them, is because survival under any conditions is an art, not a science. The techniques one of you develops may differ markedly from another’s without being any less effective.
“Still, there are definite parameters one must stay within. Avoid sunburn; it will incapacitate you as well as cause badly needed water to concentrate in the burned areas. Replenishing extracellular water and sodium is vital. If you lose too much salt due to sweat, your blood pressure will drop dangerously.”
“Why?” Leslie was listening attentively. Everyone else seemed somewhere between polite attention and utter boredom.
“Okay, the salinity, actually the level of free ions in your intra- and extracellular fluids is always maintained at the same level. When the salinity on one side of a cell membrane increases, water is osmotically transferred from the low salinity side to the high side. When your blood plasma and other extracellular fluid is less salty than the cell interiors, water flows into the cells. Hence, blood pressure drops and you get dizzy, weak, or pass out. Carried far enough, your bodily functions can’t make it and you die. This can happen with all the salt-free water in the world at your command.”
Leslie nodded brightly. Everyone else nodded off. A snore came from Gamble’s direction. I pushed on.
“The opposite occurs when you lose water, but not salt. The salinity in your blood plasma increases and the water starts leaving your cells and enters your plasma, lymphatic fluids, etcetera. In this case, blood pressure is maintained, but the cells start dying.”
Leslie looked troubled. Everyone else looked asleep. I laughed.
“Consider that pre-Columbian Indians of this part of Texas enjoyed three times the leisure time of their brethren in water-rich East Texas. They not only found it possible to survive here, they found it easier!”
Although I once might have been classed as a mad dog, nobody ever said I was English. I sat under a tilted boulder, out of the noonday sun. Twelve meters away, under another rock, Lindquist pretended to sleep with his head pillowed on a pack. That he wasn’t asleep was the reason I dozed fitfully. Try sleeping with a pair of cockroaches crawling up your side. The sensation isn’t even similar, but the level of distraction is equivalent.
More eyes upon me and the crunch of rock from my right alerted me to Leslie’s approach. I moved over to make room for her in the shade.
“Good day,” said I.
“Good day,” said she.
“Kipling had something to say about going out in the noonday sun.”
“I have a question to ask, Mr. Galighty.”
“As the youngest of any of you, I’d rather be called John.”
“John, then, did you serve in Viet Nam?”
“No, I was too young and would’ve been 4-F. Why?”
“My brother was a Green Beret. When he wanted to, he could walk quieter than a cat. You walk that way all the time.”
“And I don’t even carry a big stick.” A flicker of annoyance crossed over her face and I got the feeling I wasn’t taking her as seriously as she wanted.
“And who will you rescue today, Johnny Go Lightly?”
I winced. “You read the wrong newspapers, girl.”
“I wondered where I’d heard your name before. It came to me just a few minutes ago. You located the Randolf family after no one else could find their wrecked plane. That’s not so special. What got you all that attention was your reluctance to be interviewed or photographed. The Houston Post finally came up with that nickname after you’d lost their reporter for the twelfth time. What was that headline? Oh yes—‘Who Was That Masked Man?’ ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t in Texas, and nobody saw me.” I scrunched down and slipped my hat over my face. “The Cessna would’ve been found eventually, but much too late.”
“How’d you do it?”
I told her the strict truth. “I climbed the highest peak in the area and set off a smoke bomb. When they saw it, I knew where they were.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Just dumb luck.” In a not very subtle effort to change the subject, I pointed out into the basin. “The Apache came through there on their raids from Mexico.” I raised the hat some. “I once guided an archeologist into the hills behind us and he asked me this question one night: Who do you think were the best light cavalry this planet has ever known?”
She looked thoughtful. “I would say the Mongols or the Georgian Cossacks.”
“I suggested the Bengal Lancers, myself. I was wrong, too.”
“Who were then?”
“The Commanche. If not for the advent of repeating firearms, they would have chased the white man out of Texas just like they did the Apache and Kiowa.”
“The subject seems a far cry from oil prospecting.”
“It depends on your perspective. When you see the Sahara, just try not thinking of Khartoum or Thomas Edward Lawrence.”
“Who?”
“You know, Larry of Arabia.” I scratched my nose. “How long have you known the rest of the group?”
“We’ve been training for two months now, except Joe. The explosives man we had was transferred to the east coast two weeks ago for another company project. New hope for the Baltimore Canyon.”
Two weeks ago I’d accepted Geosource’s offer for this little exercise. “Why were you 4-F?”
So much for subject changes. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I spent seven years of my life in the Brentwood Hospital for the Insane. I was committed as a paranoid schizophrenic with little chance of recovery. After my release, I was a regular outpatient for two more years. I don’t think the Army would have taken me.” Because eyes have such an effect on
me I tend to notice expressions in terms of their movements. Leslie’s grew large and she drew away from me. This hurt, so I laughed, “Don’t worry, the only person that ever had to be protected from my tiny little arms was me.”
“But how did you get your degree?”
“What degree?”
“I thought you at least had a masters in physiology or desert ecology. You publish in scientific journals, even Scientific American! You’re one of the most literate persons I’ve ever talked to.”
“Literate? Now there’s the key. In England they don’t ask you what you majored in at the university. They ask you what you read at the university. I was literate already at nine years old. Institutions are unpleasent even to the insane. Books are wonderful hiding places.” I smiled. “I’ve received invitations to lecture at various colleges, but I’ve never attended one.”
“I see,” she said, though it was plain she didn’t. “I better get some rest.”
“Do that.”
She went off to her place in the shade and I tried to get back to sleep, but the two imaginary cockroaches were still tap dancing up and down my side.
“ ’Twas morning of the last day and trouble on the way. The watcher on the hill stopped watching and the wind came out of the northwest. Both were bad signs. The wind started at dawn and picked up velocity steadily. I put it at fifty-five kilometers per hour and rising. There was a darkening to the north and the topsoil took flight. I issued goggles and worried about flash floods.
I was getting nervous. Where were the watchers? Who were the watchers? My best guess put them as watchdogs sent by Geosource to insure the safety of their employees. While I was an established authority due to my publications, they knew nothing about my personal reliability. Still, I sounded weaker than sphaghetti under stress and I was entertaining other notions.
“Mr. Narowitz?” I spoke loudly. The wind was howling through the boulders and I had to repeat myself before he heard me. He finished a lashing on his improvised shelter and joined me by mine.
“Yes, Johnny?” They all called me Johnny since Leslie had told them of the plane crash and rescue.
“This may seem an odd or awkward question, but is there anything secret about your prospecting techniques or equipment? Say, something another company or country might be tempted to kidnap you or one of your technicians to get?”
“That is a strange question. Thinking of kidnapping one of us? Say Leslie?” He smiled.
“For the last two days, two men have been keeping track of us from that ridge up there. Even to the extent of using a starlight scope at night.”
He looked convincingly startled. “Are you sure?”
“Beyond a doubt. I took a good look the first night they showed up.” I tried my next question. “Are they connected with Lindquist?”
“How the hell should I know?” He looked bemused. “I really wouldn’t be surprised. Are they still watching?”
“No, they quit about thirty minutes ago. Maybe to go away, maybe to do something else.” I jumped up suddenly. “Hey, no more cockroaches!”
“What?” Narowitz regarded me with sudden distrust. Maybe he’d heard about Brentwood.
“Where’s Lindquist?” I scrambled atop the nearest boulder and straddled its crest. I saw nothing but a hillside covered with shale, mesquite, and lecheguia—that infamous succulent known as the punji stake of the southwest. That’s all I saw, something else saw more. I felt my right side crawl with the perceptions of several persons. I faced that way, uphill. There had to be seven persons out there, hidden in the brush and rocks and looking at me. I turned and felt two more examining me from down the hill.
“I miscounted,” I told Narowitz as I slid down the boulder and out of that dreadful crossfire of stares. “We’ve got lots of company. Get the others!” Blessed are those who ask no questions. He called them to him. As I’d already noted. Lindquist was gone.
“Grab water and follow me. This is not a test or an exercise.” Their expressions varied from amusement to shock, mostly reactions to the look on my face.
“There are at least nine men converging on us. I haven’t the slightest idea why, and I’d just as soon not find out.” Scooping, up canteens and hats, I led them at a careful jog through the boulder maze. In the rising wind, keeping quiet was not a problem. I stopped on the north edge of the boulders. In front of me was a stand of mesquite running across the hillside to a dry stream bed. I closed my eyes and concentrated, but felt nothing but the partial attention of those with me. We crouched and I put my hand on Gamble’s shoulder.
“To the gulley and then up it, up the hill.”
He nodded and I slapped him on the back. He scrambled into the brush keeping low and watching his footing. I sent George and Stahl after him. They passed from sight.
Leslie and Narowitz moved up beside me. Narowitz was badly winded and he held his right hand over his calf. “What happened?”
He uncovered a ragged tear in his pants leg. Blood oozed from a small puncture.
“Lecheguia?”
He nodded.
“You’ll do fine. When you get to the top of the ridge, try circling around to the cars. Be wary of a guard.”
“What will you do?” Leslie asked.
“I shall become very biblical and lead them into the desert.”
Leslie protested. “That’s stupid. Johnny. You could get killed! I’m going with you.” All in one breath.
As the gods of logic didn’t strike her dumb, I shook my head violently. “No, you aren’t, because you’ll be much too busy helping your boss up the hill.” I looked her hard in the face and her eyes flinched. “You said it yourself. They call me Johnny Go Lightly and you’d only weigh me down!” I pointed out into the mesquite. “See?”
They both turned their heads and, swift like the wind, I was gone.
I exposed myself on the downhill side of the boulders. A long slope of shale extended down the ridge to an area of twisting arroyos carved by centuries of wind and water. I slid down it carefully, avoiding the Spanish dagger, prickly pear, and lecheguia scattered across the hill. Halfway down goose bumps danced up my back. I kept going.
An extra strong gust of wind made me look out into the basin. The Sierra Diablo were hidden behind a curtain of black, boiling clouds marching across the desert floor like a mountain looking for Mohammed. Lightning flashed across its face in jagged sheets. I thanked God for the goggles I had on and wondered if my pursuers wore them too.
At the first arroyo I turned and looked up the hill. Four men were scrambling down the slope after me. Three more stood at the top and watched with binoculars. They were all wearing fatigues. As I watched, one of the men slipped on the shale and slid in a violent The Touch of Their Eyes tumble of flailing arms into a patch of lecheguia. I heard a sharp scream above the wind.
I winced. That was one man I didn’t have to worry about. I dropped over the edge and into the arroyo.
Something slapped into my forehead. I felt the skin and brought my hand away wet. Soon, more fat, sandy drops of water fell. And the men behind me didn’t have goggles. I sprinted hard down the arroyo.
The norther turned the sky black and made the ground walk. Gusts topping eighty klicks an hour flung mesquite trees through the air. The rain still fell sporadically, but I knew that tons of water were pouring on the peaks. Soon the floods would start.
I tried to edge further back into the hole I’d found on a raised hummock in the basin. The rain kept dripping on my legs.
Twice more, after I’d taken to the arroyos, I let them see me. Each time I led them further away from the hills. Then, I lost them thoroughly and looked for high ground. I hoped Leslie and the others were out of any water paths.
Well, what now, Johnny? Do you head for Ignacio’s sheep ranch to the south and radio for help? Or do you carry the battle to the enemy? Who was the enemy?
One thing was certain. I wasn’t doing anything until the storm abated.
Like Moses I had led
them into the desert and, like Moses, I now left them and went to the mountain.
They were easy to avoid. I found myself able to tell when they were looking in my direction whether they saw me or not. There were now seven of them out in the basin and at least one more in the hills with binoculars.
It was late afternoon when I climbed back to the boulder maze. The clouds were gone and the sun strove to make up lost time. The rocks shimmered in the haze, dancing in the heat. I crouched under a rock and rationed myself a lovely swallow of water. In the sun, a meter long chunk of limestone seemed to blaze in the sun like the mantle of a gas lamp—white hot.
“Hmph,” I muttered. “I’d like to see Moses get water out of that rock.” I moved on toward the cars.
Five vehicles now sat in the wide gravel clearing. The two new arrivals were unmarked panel trucks with radio antennas. An awning had been stretched between them and canvas chairs set up in the shade.
The entire Danforth Geosource crew sat unguarded under the awning sipping canned soft drinks.
I moved closer through the mesquite thicket.
Lindquist looked into the opened door of one of the trucks and asked, “Any sign yet?”
A man wearing headphones loosely around his neck stepped into the doorway. “No, but they’ve lost another man to the heat. They put the two guys with the messed up eyes with him and left some water.”
“Hell! Why didn’t anyone think to bring goggles? Hadn’t anybody heard of sandstorms?”
Narowitz and Stahl laughed out loud. George and Gamble smiled. Leslie just glared. “Why don’t you call it off? You’ve found out what you want to know. Do you want to kill one of your own men trying to catch something that can’t be caught?”
You tell ’em, Leslie.