“It’s a good job the rest were wedged in so tight.”
Links was squeezing himself free. He clambered out over the side. Oxo followed, then Sal and Jaycey.
“Well that was, er, very nice,” said Sal, shaking herself. “But it’s time to press on, I think.”
“Onward and…upward?” asked Oxo, looking up at the steep sides of the creek. He started looking for a way to climb out.
The others did the same, but after only a few steps, Sal stopped. She twitched her ear. The silver stud in it was buzzing. The others paused and looked inquiringly at her.
“Most uncomfortable…” she said. “Like having a fly inside my head…”
They could all hear the buzzing now. Cameron and Phoenix, still strapped into the car, heard it too. Suddenly, it changed to a high-pitched beeping.
But no one was looking at Sal anymore. They were all, sheep and humans, staring straight past her at the wall of water rushing toward them.
9
Up the Creek
It was a flash flood, and it was on them in a flash. There had been a heavy storm in the distant mountains two days ago and the rain water had finally reached the dried-up creek. It was in a hurry and inescapable. It had swept up all manner of brushwood and dead cacti on its headlong journey and now it swept up the sheep and the car as well. This might have been fun, like white-water rafting, except there was no raft. There was only the rushing, swirling muddy torrent, and the likelihood of being dragged under by the current and drowned, or smashed to bits on the rocks. Or both.
Eventually, the white car stopped, upside down, jammed between the side of the creek and a huge rock. The warriors were swirled against it and the torrent rushed on past them. There was no sign of Cameron or Phoenix.
“They’re trapped underneath!” cried Wills.
They could all hear the boys coughing and retching weakly as they tried to escape.
“We have to shift the car,” continued Wills, “or they’ll drown. Quick!”
“Man, I hate bein’ sheep dipped,” said Links, but he breathed out and allowed himself to sink under the water.
All five warriors were soon submerged, shoulder to shoulder in the roaring watery murk, their hooves scrabbling on slippery rocks. They put their heads against the side of the upturned car. They heaved once; they heaved twice. They heard a tinny grinding noise and heaved again. As they did so, their hooves stumbled forward and suddenly they were breathing fresh air again. The white car reared above them, then twisted and slid away through the narrow rocky gap that it had been blocking. It swirled on in the torrent.
Shocked and shivering, but free of the deadly metal prison, Phoenix and Cameron clambered up the side of the creek to safety.
The warriors shook themselves and followed, picking their way across the boulders and loose rocks, then gathering in a huddle close to Cameron and Phoenix as the two brothers flopped to the ground.
“Way to go, sheep…” murmured Cameron, raising his hand in a feeble attempt at a high five. “Aries, Aries…Rams, Ewes, and Lambs…”
His eyes closed in utter exhaustion but, as they did, he was almost sure he saw the five sheep turn to each other, then raise and clack hooves.
***
It was getting dark now, and in different parts of the desert two sets of headlights were turned on.
The first were bright and beady, like the driver of the golf cart who had flicked their switch. But even crouched in the headlight beam, Holly Boomberg had lost the trail again. How typical of Mother Nature, how very inefficient to have a flood right now!
Had the sheep got across? Were they all drowned? Had they got out of the creek on the same side they went in? In fact, they had, but the water had swept them a long, long way downstream. Holly couldn’t see them. There were no tracks. There was nothing she could do. But doing nothing was not a Holly Boomberg mode. She got back into the cart and turned downstream.
The other set of headlights were equally bright, but the mood in the back of Professor Boomberg’s car was becoming very dark. His passengers had gone from polite, to politely suspicious, to extremely suspicious indeed.
“Look,” the old lady was saying, tapping him on the shoulder. “Mr. er…Rhubarb, can you please stop?”
“No,” Stanley said. “Not yet.”
“At the next service station, then,” said the boy. “One with a shop and a café.”
He didn’t add, “and one with telephones,” but the Professor guessed that was what he meant. He clenched his teeth and drove on in silence.
“Look out for signposts,” whispered Gran. “So we can tell the police where we are.”
They watched carefully as they sped along but there were no signs. They had never imagined a place could be so big and so empty. Some time later, Gran’s bony knee nudged Tod’s.
“His cell’s on the front seat,” she whispered. “See if you can distract him while I pinch it and call the police.”
Tod gave her a silent OK then leaned forward and tapped Stanley on the shoulder.
“Excuse me. I need to stop,” he said. “For a pee.”
The Professor slowed the car. “Can’t you wait?”
“No. I’m desperate.”
The Professor sighed and pulled up. “Well go on then.”
Tod struggled with the door, pretending he couldn’t open it.
“Help,” he pleaded, turning to the Professor, “I’m really desperate.”
Stanley got out, paced to the rear door, and pulled it open. Tod hopped out. The Professor glanced fretfully at his wrist computer.
“One hundred and seventy-eight thousand, seven hundred and ten seconds and counting…” he muttered to himself. “So much still to do…” Then he saw the old lady tapping at his cell phone. “Hey!” he shouted, and dived into the car and snatched it from her. He turned angrily to Tod. “Get back!” he ordered.
“What’s going on?” Gran demanded as Tod ran back to be with her. She’d wriggled out of the car now. “What’s your real name? Where are our sheep? Where’s the conference?”
“And where are you taking us?” added Tod.
“I really have no idea where your sheep are,” replied the Professor spitefully. “There is no conference. And I’m taking you to Back of Beyond Ranch. So you’re out of circulation till after B-Day.”
Tod and Gran simply gaped.
“At least I was.” Stanley got back behind the wheel and slammed his door. “But I’ve had enough. You can walk.” He pointed into the darkening desert. “It’s that way!”
The car window slid up silently, and Tod and Gran could only watch, still gaping, as the sleek black car disappeared into the gathering dusk. The sound of its engine faded to nothing.
“D’you think he’ll come back?” asked Tod.
“No,” said Gran definitely.
Tod stared around at the desert stretching away in all directions.
“Well,” he said. “We’d better see if we can find this Back of Beyond Ranch before it gets completely dark.”
“If it exists,” grunted Gran, and she delved in her bag for her trusty head lamp.
***
Back of Beyond Ranch did exist. They reached it half an hour later. The faded name, just visible in the light of Gran’s head lamp, was scratched on a boulder at the side of the road. Beyond the boulder was a broken wooden fence that had long since given up surrounding a patch of baked earth covered in weedy weeds. In the middle of the baked earth was the ranch house. It had four stone walls but no roof. The windows had tattered curtains but no glass. A notice nailed to the front door read: GONE AWAY.
Tod pushed the door open and peeped in. A cockroach scuttled across the dirt floor. Then there was silence.
“At least we’ve got some shelter,” said Tod. “I can’t believe how cold it’s getting now the sun’s gone down
.” He dragged in an old bench from outside and put it against the wall. “Sit here, Gran. I’ll see if I can find anything useful, like a phone.”
There was no phone, but in the yard outside he found a well, covered with a plank of wood, with a rusty tin bucket beside it.
“Drink this, Gran!” he said, returning and offering her an equally rusty mug full of water. “You’ll have to imagine the tea bag.”
Gran drank. “Best I’ve ever tasted,” she said. “And look what I’ve found for supper.”
Dumped in the corner of the room was a pile of plastic carrier bags full of tinned food: salmon, baked beans, soup.
“Looks like Rhubarb was telling the truth,” Gran said. “He was planning to bring us here.”
“But why do they want us out of the way?” asked Tod, shaking his head. A cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as he thought about the flock. “And what do you think they’ve done with our sheep, Gran?”
Gran tried to sound more confident than she felt.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said, “but I’m sure they’re fine.”
She shivered and pulled her thin cardigan around her shoulders. Tod immediately began gathering together all the dry sticks he could find.
“Have you got any matches?” he asked.
Gran poked about again in the bottomless pit that was her handbag and dredged up a matchbox with one live match in it and thirty dead ones. Tod crossed his fingers, then uncrossed them again, struck the live match, and held it to his little pile of kindling.
“Phew…” he said as it lit.
There was a newspaper in the bag of groceries. Tod handed it to Ida.
“Here, Gran, read this while I get some more wood.”
When he returned with an armful of broken fence posts and branches, Gran was engrossed in the newspaper.
“It’s this week’s,” she said. “Not terribly useful, though. Nearly all about football. American football. Seems like there are two local teams slugging it out just now to be top of the league. One group comes from Aries End. Guess what their nickname is?”
Tod shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“They’re called the Rams,” said Gran. “How about that? The other lot come from a place called Fort Wilmot and they’re the Prairie Dogs.” She grinned. “And can you guess what their nickname is?”
Tod shook his head. “Nope.”
“It’s a funny one,” said Gran. “They call themselves Red Tongue.”
10
Sandstorm
Everyone agreed: deserts were rubbish.
“First we get fried,” complained Jaycey, “then we get flooded. Now we’re getting frozen.” She counted on her hooves. “That’s three Fs all in one day, Sal, and only one of them was in the prophecy.” She nibbled fretfully at her once-beautiful fleece. “Just look at my ends. I feel like a moldy haystack. And you,” she said to Oxo, trying to shove him away as he settled closer beside her, “smell like one.”
On her other flank, Links gave her a nudge.
“O’ course we’s gonna smell, if we’s been in the river,
’Cause we is fleeced up, man, but it helps us not to shiver.
Would you rather be an ovine?
Or a human with no wool?
’Cause they is really cold, man, and not just
Sheeply cool.”
He nodded at Cameron and Phoenix. Their shirts and jeans still damp, the boys had snuggled close to the sheep as the sun had set and the temperature plummeted. Finally, the sheep had formed a complete ring around them, a warm woolly nest, and they were both asleep.
“Like lambs,” cooed Sal. “Strange they’re not in the prophecy.”
“There’s a lot of things not in the prophecy, eh,” said Links. “Like Jaycey says. Starving’s another one, ’cept it don’t begin with F.”
“And Fort Wilmot and Las Vegas and Aries End…” said Wills.
“The reason Aries End is not in the prophecy, dear,” said Sal, “is that Aries will never end.”
She snuggled closer to her human lambs and fell asleep.
***
Professor Boomberg was warm enough in his car and comfortable too, but there was no time to rest. He was on his way back to base. He didn’t phone his wife. She could catch the sheep on her own. He didn’t doubt that she would and when she did, everything else needed to be ready. He glanced at his wrist computer.
“One hundred and seventy thousand seconds and counting…” he murmured.
He smiled his gleaming smile in the darkness. It was going to be tight but they would make it. B-Day would happen.
“I’ll show them all,” he said aloud. “They won’t be calling me mad in a hundred and seventy thousand seconds’ time!”
Holly Boomberg wasn’t nearly so warm. The open-sided golf cart wasn’t designed for sleeping in, so she was glad of the lightweight sports blanket she always carried in her briefcase. She tucked it neatly around her shoulders and made herself as comfortable as possible. She’d parked the cart beside the still-swollen creek. At first light she would search for tracks again. Failure was not an option. Everything depended on her. And the sheep.
***
Cameron and Phoenix were on their feet before sunrise.
“Mom’s gonna be worried sick,” said Phoenix. “Are you sure your phone’s not working?”
“I’ve told you, man. Dead as a dodo,” replied Cameron, and he tossed his water-logged phone at his brother.
Phoenix prodded at it for a few seconds, then threw it on the ground. “So what do we do now?”
“We walk,” said Cameron. He’d got his confidence back. “It can’t be too far to the highway.”
“What?” said Phoenix. “Walk? With no water and no phone! You’re crazy.”
“So what do you want to do? Sit here and wait to die?” Cameron turned and strode off. “Let’s go. We need to get some miles in before the sun gets too high.”
“What about the sheep?” called Phoenix, running after his brother.
“They’re welcome to come if they want to,” grunted Cameron. “We could do with some lucky mascots now.”
“What did you say mascots were, dear?” asked Sal as the boys hurried away.
“I’m not sure,” replied Wills. “I think it’s something to do with good luck.”
“So if we stick with them, we’ll be lucky?” said Oxo. “And get to this Fort Wilmot place?”
“I think they think we bring them luck,” said Wills.
But the other warriors weren’t listening. They’d all crowded past him to follow the lucky humans more closely.
They followed for a long time. More than two hours.
“So where’s this highway, Cam?” demanded Phoenix.
He was becoming cranky. The burning colors of the desert, the reds, yellows, and browns, were beginning to swim before his eyes. He felt that he himself was being melted by the merciless sun. Cameron didn’t have the energy to answer. His mouth was too dry anyway.
Phoenix pointed with a wavering hand. “We’ve passed that cactus before!”
There were a million cacti. They all looked the same. The Warrior Sheep were still plodding hopefully along behind.
“This good luck thing’s taking a while to kick in…” muttered Oxo.
“Look!” croaked Sal with sudden excitement. “Look! Water! A pond! Just ahead there! Just ahead…” She staggered into a gallop. “I can see a pond!”
The pond kept moving away in front of her. It shimmered and glinted in the sunlight, but she could never quite reach it.
“Come back, Sal,” called Wills, forcing himself into a run to catch up with her. “There is no pond.”
“But I saw it, dear,” sobbed Sal. “Truly I did…”
“It isn’t real,” said Wills. “It’s a trick of t
he light. I think it’s called a mirage.”
“Is it, dear?” said Sal vaguely. “I’m so terribly sorry…”
She didn’t know what Wills was talking about, but there was no pool of crystal clear water. The other sheep gathered around.
“Hey, man,” said Links. “Tell me that’s a mirage tingy too.”
They all looked where he was looking and saw a skeleton of sun-bleached bones lying on the sand close by. Wills shook his head.
“Er, no. Not a mirage,” he said.
“Bones,” grunted Oxo. “Sheep-sized.”
“Ohmygrass…” whimpered Jaycey. “Red Tongue’s been here…”
The warriors looked around anxiously, but the only other living creatures they could see were Cameron and Phoenix, staggering on ahead of them. Then, when it seemed things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did.
At first, the breeze was refreshing. Hot but pleasant. It came in little gusts, blowing in the sheep’s faces and ruffling their fleeces. Quickly though, the gusts grew stronger and the pauses between each one shorter. Soon, tufts of spiky grass were being ripped up and bowled along the ground. The sun was blotted out and the sheep felt a hot breath on their fleeces.
“Nooo…” wailed Jaycey. “He’scominghe’scominghe’scoming!”
The breath grew fiercer. The sheep drew closer together. Through half-closed eyes, they could just see Cameron and Phoenix stumbling against the suddenly savage wind.
“The wind!” exclaimed Sal. “We are where the hottest winds blow! The prophecy is confirmed!”
“Great to know, man…great to know…” murmured Links.
The hot breath became a howling, blistering gale, whipping up the sand so that their eyes, noses, and mouths were swiftly and completely clogged. The humans and then the entire world around the sheep disappeared in a gritty, stinging haze. The warriors had no choice. As one, they turned their backs to the sand storm and hunkered down as close to the ground as they could get.
Gradually, the storm eased. The wind dropped to a breeze again and finally that died away too. Five mounds of storm-driven sand began to move. Five pairs of yellow eyes peered out at the great balls of tumbleweed rolling by in the fading wind. Oxo broke free of his sand hill and snapped hungrily at one of the balls.
The Warrior Sheep Go West Page 5