“Tree-Planting Woman come now.”
A stiff prod from the amenoukal’s spear butt was enough to make her scramble to her feet. Surrounded by his Tuareg warriors, the chieftain led her into the waning sunlight. Someone pushed her toward the caravan. Someone else lifted her onto her familiar, cantankerous old dromedary.
“Wait a minute.” She grabbed the three-pronged saddle horn and closed her eyes as the camel lurched to its feet. “I told you where the treasure is. You don’t need me anymore. Where are you taking me?”
“Well of Waran.” The amenoukal gave a haughty smile. “Tree-Planting Woman find treasure for Ahodu Ag Amastane.”
He lifted his spear, and the caravan set off. Women rushed to hang the last of their belongings on the saddles. A pot, a cloth bag, a basket. Children raced to their favorite places in the caravan. An imzad began to play, and voices lifted one by one to join the song.
Numb, Tillie let the camel’s plodding gait hypnotize her. She couldn’t imagine a future. She couldn’t bear to remember the past. She couldn’t pray beyond the wordless pleading in her spirit.
Evening descended, and she stared with an empty heart at the windblown grains of sand that sifted onto her saddle and collected in the folds of her clothing. She tried to close her eyes and sleep. Instead, her mind wandered to the image of Graeme crouching empty-handed in the bottom of the mine. The amenoukal’s broadsword arced down toward his head. She jerked upright.
“Matilda, darling.” Arthur urged his dromedary alongside hers. “You must try to stay alert.”
“I can’t stop thinking. Remembering.”
“There, listen to that. Some woman’s just begun a song on her imzad. Let your mind dwell on the music.”
She focused on the haunting melody and closed her eyes again. The music had a gentle rhythm, one that soothed and comforted while evoking a nameless sorrow. The notes were high and plaintive, beckoning, calling to her almost as though she had heard them before. . . .
“Khatty.” She grabbed his arm. “Arthur, that’s Khatty’s song. She wrote it for me.”
“Now, darling, the amenoukal told you his wife was dead. You said he’d killed her.”
“No, no. That’s her voice. Her song. I would know it anywhere, Arthur. It’s a song about Graeme McLeod.”
“Matilda, for heaven’s sake!”
“Come, oh, desert lion,” she whispered as she listened to the gentle sounds drift across the night air. “Son of waran, man of strength and great wisdom. Your hair blows like ropes of sand in black night. Song of djenoun blows your sand-dune locks. Oh, man of black hair, man who sees heart of Tree-Planting Woman, come.” She fell silent for a moment. “Khatty’s wrong,” she murmured finally. “He’s not coming back.”
“How can that be the voice of this Targui you said was dead, Matilda?”
“Maybe it’s the djenoun. Maybe they learned Khatty’s song, and they’re singing it through the desert.”
“Djenoun?” Arthur gripped her hand. “Matilda, pull yourself together. Now, look! Tomorrow this is all going to end one way or another. We’ll arrive at the Well of Waran, and the journal will either be there or it won’t.”
Unable to feel beyond the emptiness inside her, Tillie stared into Arthur’s face.
“Listen to me, Matilda. Listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you. I know you imagined yourself in love with Graeme McLeod. I know you think you cared for him, but I can only believe this infatuation grew out of your exhaustion, lack of proper food, and the constant pressure you’ve been subjected to. You were under terrible duress, forced to rely on this unscrupulous man during the most horribly difficult situations. Of course you looked to him for protection. It stands to reason you fell under certain delusions about him.”
He touched her cheek. “Listen to me, darling. No matter what you felt for Graeme McLeod, no matter what happened, you must recognize that it’s finished now. And I want to go on as we had planned. I want you to concentrate on what I tell you. I want you to do something for me. Something for us. It will make everything right again, I know it. I want you to do it to repair our dreams.”
She studied his moonlit face. Pale eyes. Pale skin. “What is it, Arthur?”
“When you arrive at the Well of Waran, you will be faced with two possible actions. You must do either or both of them. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“The first regards the journal.” He went on, “It should be in a chest, probably like the one the hat was in. I want you to take the journal out of the container. Hide it in your clothing. We shall make certain you have on a burnous. The Tuareg will never know what you’ve done.”
“Hide the journal?”
“It’s an extremely valuable document, Matilda. Second, I want you to take all the treasure you can. Take the gold out of the chest, and hide it in your burnous.”
“Gold?”
“I’m certain it’s gold. It must be. Timbuktu was full of gold in those days. Take some of it, darling. Take it for us.”
“But how can I? The amenoukal will search—”
She knew the answer. She reached up and touched the amulet around her neck. The Tuareg people’s fear of the amulet would protect her from the amenoukal’s search. She could pretend to invoke its superstitious power and prevent the chieftain from looking for anything she might have concealed. Khatty had been terrified when Tillie called on the power of the cursed document. It would work again. She felt certain of it.
“Take some of the treasure,” Arthur whispered, “and take the journal. Give the amenoukal a few coins, enough to satisfy him and perhaps buy him a trinket or two at the Timbuktu market. Once he has what he’s been wanting, we’ll be free to go on our way. We’ll return to Bamako and catch the first flight to London. There we can marry just as we planned, and we’ll have the gold to support us, darling. We can do whatever we like with it. We’ll have everything we could ever want or need—”
“Stop, Arthur. Stop talking.” Tillie pulled away. “Just give me time to think.”
“Of course, darling.” He leaned closer and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Think about it as long as you like. But I’m trusting you’ll see the wisdom in my words soon enough. It’s all going to be perfect for us.”
Tillie’s heart throbbed with a dull ache that no promises of future happiness could erase. As she gave herself to the swaying gait of her dromedary, she closed her eyes and wept again.
The long ride to the well continued through the night. At sunup, the caravan stopped for everyone to light fires, heat coffee and tea, and eat a hurried breakfast. Arthur came to life, the military man with a mission. He demanded burnouses and turbans against the sun for himself and Tillie, and he insisted on hearty meals for the two of them.
“You’re the tree-planting woman, Tillie,” he reminded her as he rode alongside after the march resumed. “Play the part. I know these people. You’ve got to intimidate them. Keep them afraid, make them cower so you can carry out our plan.”
“I’m not into intimidation,” she said. “And I don’t like watching people cower. Look, you said I had two options at the Well of Waran. Take the journal or take the treasure. Preferably both. I see another option. Assuming I find anything, I could just hand it over to the amenoukal. It’s what he wants. He believes it will help his people. Why not let him have it?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I care about these Tuareg, Arthur. They’re poor. They live in the desert. They survive on next to nothing, yet they have such pride.”
“How can you possibly have any feeling for the amenoukal? Just since you’ve known him, the chieftain has killed at least two people.”
“You shot more than two of his people.”
“I was protecting you!”
“Ahodu Ag Amastane believes he’s protecting his drum group. He’s cruel, even brutal, but no one can deny he wants the best for his caravan. So do I. Maybe they ought to have the treasure.”
“I can
not believe I’m hearing this.”
“Let’s drop the subject.” She patted her dromedary’s shaggy neck. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.” I really don’t, Lord. Help me.
They crested silky sand dunes one after the next, skirted stone wadis, followed faint, windblown trails. Tillie searched the caravan for any sign of Khatty. She knew the song she had heard in the night. It couldn’t have been djenoun—she knew that—but how could it have been Khatty?
She used the hours of silence to consider Arthur’s request, but she couldn’t find peace. She studied him, his familiar back swaying ahead of her, his light brown hair lifting and scattering in the breeze, his shoulders squared like the corners of a box. He looked foreign to her now. As she turned his plan over in her mind, she knew it was wrong. Something was missing.
In the early afternoon a ripple of excitement ran through the caravan. Through a wavering, watery haze across the hot sands, she saw a giant mound of solid rock. The fierce sunlight bathed it in a white glow, making it look like an altar to some desert god. A stone outcrop lifted toward the sky in a pronged image that suggested a lizard’s open mouth.
The Well of Waran.
Like two fingers from an outstretched hand, a shadow spilled across the sand. The line of camels filed into its shade. Tillie’s throat tightened as the caravan pulled to a halt at the base of the rock. The amenoukal’s camel plodded from the head of the line back toward her. Arthur gave her a reassuring nod. “Just do what I told you.”
“Tree-Planting Woman.” The amenoukal spoke through the folds of his turban. “Well of Waran.”
“Show me the entrance to the well.”
The amenoukal called to the rider ahead of Arthur. The veiled man approached, and Tillie repeated her message. Upon hearing the muffled translation, the amenoukal nodded and tapped his camel to its knees.
At this sign, all the camels in the caravan went down, and their riders slipped to the sandy ground. Tillie followed the amenoukal along the base of the wadi. Arthur trailed a few steps behind.
Women and children parted to let them pass, then surged in behind, murmuring and jostling with excitement. By the time the amenoukal worked his way across the shifting sands and between the two stone fingers, the whole band of Tuareg had joined the expedition. The rock lost its white glow and turned black and pockmarked. Countless sandstorms had smoothed some of the jagged pinnacles into round columns of stone, but they had clawed others into distorted shapes that bore a remarkable resemblance to medieval gargoyles.
Tillie followed the amenoukal through the stone sculptures and into an inner ravine. He stopped and held up a hand. Jockeying for position, the Tuareg surrounded their leader.
“Tree-Planting Woman,” he said. “Well of Waran.”
He stepped aside, and she looked down into a jagged crack in the stone that resembled a snaggle-toothed mouth.
“This is a well?” She hadn’t expected Snow White’s wishing well with its round wall, neat roof, and cute little wooden bucket, but she wasn’t prepared for this either.
The amenoukal pointed a long finger at the hole. “Well of Waran. Get treasure.”
She edged past him and looked down into the darkness. “I need a rope and a lamp.”
After the amenoukal’s translator explained, the chieftain waded into the crowd, shouting orders to his men. Tuareg swarmed into action, tying tent rope to tent rope and combing their supplies for a suitable lamp and fuel. Tillie fingered her amulet, trying to pray as the amenoukal personally supervised the search.
“Tree-Planting Woman.” A whispered voice at her shoulder brought her around in surprise. The amenoukal’s translator took a step closer.
“Yes?” Tillie felt her irritation mounting. “What do you want?”
The translator said nothing. His eyes blinked, deep brown, almond eyes, heavily rimmed with kohl. Not the eyes of a Targui man, but the eyes of—
“Khatty!”
“Quiet, Tree-Planting Woman,” Khatty whispered. “He must not see.”
“But he told me you were dead. And the turban, the veil—they’re men’s clothes.”
The dark eyes clouded. “Ahodu Ag Amastane, amenoukal of Tuareg people, is angry with me. I help you escape with black-haired man. He cast me away. I am dead to him. He puts me into men’s clothing to pretend I do not exist.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Never to worry, one day soon he takes me again. Of course, even now he needs me for talking to you.” She smiled slyly and whispered. “Among Tuareg people, inheritance passes through female line. Now, in my stomach, I carry child of Ahodu Ag Amastane. He will need me again. I am his beloved wife.”
“That’s wonderful, Khatty.” Tillie couldn’t hold back a hug. “I’m so thankful to see you again. When I heard your song in the night, I told Arthur it must be the djenoun.”
The young woman’s laugh tinkled across the afternoon like a wind chime, and Tillie felt her heart lift. “Not djenoun! Khatty make that song for you and your man. You sing black-haired man back into your heart. You love him always and never let him go.”
“Khatty, you don’t understand.”
“I understand you very sad. Khatty sees everything.” She leaned closer. “In Tuareg camp, you teach me something about how to be strong. Already I told you I believe Jesus Christ is son of God, born of virgin, died on cross, alive again.” A frown creased her forehead. “But I see Christ make you different. I not know how to be this kind of different. I want to know more. You will come back to Tuareg, Tree-Planting Woman? Come back to teach me one day?”
Tillie nodded. “If I survive this . . . and if your husband will let me, I’ll find you again, Khatty. I’ll teach you the path to a new life.”
“I am glad,” Khatty said, her eyes shining. “Even in Tuareg camp where everyone is Muslim, even now when husband cast me away and I live like man, I pray to this Jesus Christ and I find happy.” She touched her heart. “Happy is here, inside. Hope is here. Love is here. You know Jesus very well, Tree-Planting Woman. In him, you find happy. Yes?”
“You’re right, Khatty. You’re right.”
“Tree-Planting Woman, come.” The amenoukal’s summons stopped Tillie’s response in her throat. Khatty fell back and melted into the crowd.
A length of rope was coiled around the chieftain’s forearm. He thrust one end at Tillie and distributed the remainder to the row of men he had assembled. She looked skeptically at the series of knots, wondering if they could hold her as she descended into the well. The amenoukal tied her end of the rope into a loop and tested the knot. Seizing her arm, he led her toward the black hole.
She slipped the loop into position around her hips so she could sit on it as they lowered her. The heavy burnous would protect her from the rope’s friction, and she tucked the cotton fabric under her hips. The amenoukal handed her a lighted brass lamp that swung from a slender chain.
Arthur’s guard shoved him to his knees in front of the amenoukal. Then he drew a long knife and held it to the Englishman’s throat. Arthur let out a strangled cry. Tillie gasped and stepped forward, but a pair of Tuareg men clamped her arms. The amenoukal shouted a string of words at Khatty.
“Ahodu Ag Amastane, amenoukal of Tuareg people,” she translated, “tells Tree-Planting Woman to find treasure of Timbuktu and bring to him. In this way, she breaks curse of amulet and saves her life. If she does not bring treasure from Well of Waran and if she does not give treasure to amenoukal, he will cut throat of this pale English scorpion.”
Sudden anger sent a wash of adrenaline through Tillie’s veins. “Tree-Planting Woman has a message for Ahodu Ag Amastane, the amenoukal of the Tuareg people. He must not harm the Englishman. He must let the man go free at once. Tree-Planting Woman commands this by the power of the amulet.”
As Khatty translated the message, Tillie spread open her burnous and held up the silver locket. The words ended, and a ripple of fear ran through the crowd. A shadow of indecision crossed the amenoukal
’s face. In one quick movement, he released Arthur and bellowed at his guards to stand back.
“Now,” she said quietly, “I’ll see if there’s anything in this well.”
Holding the rope in one hand and the lamp in the other, she walked to the edge of the gaping black hole. She sat on the barren rock and let her legs dangle over the abyss. With a glance into the sapphire sky, she slid over the ledge.
For an instant Tillie believed the rope’s knots had pulled apart or the Tuareg men had dropped her. Free-falling through the black void like Alice in the white rabbit’s hole, she heard the air hiss from her lungs and saw the lamplight fade to nothing. Then the rope snapped tight around her hips, and she came to a jolting stop that yanked the brass lamp from her hand. She gripped the rope and listened for a clatter that would signal the lamp’s landing place. Nothing.
Her first impulse was to shout for help, to demand to be pulled up into the fresh air and light. The amenoukal would probably ignore her. As if to confirm that conclusion, she felt herself being lowered, this time more slowly. A distant echo sounded from below—the lamp clanging on the bottom of the well.
As Tillie continued her descent, she was forced to use her free hand to push away from the rough rock sides of the craggy hole. More than once her burnous caught and tore.
Above, she could see the jagged circle of light. She could also make out the dark shape of a man’s head as he peered down at her. Clenching her teeth, she closed her eyes and felt her way down the shaft. She would make it. She would get to the bottom of this pit, and she would find the treasure, and she would find the—
The journal. Graeme’s quest. All the Targui’s talk of treasure had numbed her mind to Graeme’s goal. His motives may not have been pure, but she knew he wanted the journal for the information it contained about Mungo Park. That had been his crusade. The thought that she somehow could fulfill it lightened her heart. A surge of resolve flowed back into her at the memory of the man with whom she had shared so much.
“Graeme,” she called up to the amenoukal. “This is for Graeme.”
As the words drifted up, echoing back and forth along the tunnel’s walls, a shower of pebbles and sand rained down on her head. She continued down, conscious of bruised elbows and scraped knuckles. When her feet met something solid, she let out a gasp, and another cascade of sand spilled onto her.
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