“I fought and won. Yet my victories were hollow. The prize only brought more of the same.”
“So you seek your God.”
“Jesus Christ is His name.”
“He speak to you, this Jesus?”
“Not in words. He did not need to.”
“Yet when you speak of Him, I hear call of one friend naming another.”
Falconer thumped his chest. “The love you find in me is His. The peace. The victory without anger. The ability to find hope even when I am immersed in the sorrow of loss. The prize beyond value. All His.”
Nebo straightened fully in his seat. A warrior coming to full alert. “I would know this God.”
From Soap’s other side, Wadi spoke softly. “And I.”
“And the Lord Jesus,” Falconer replied, “would know you both.”
Nebo asked, “What is the prize required of me?”
“There is none, if by prize you mean dowry or sacrifice.”
Wadi leaned forward to examine Falconer.
“It is required that you declare your realization that your ways have not brought you where you wish to go. That your choices have led to wrong paths and worse actions. That you ask Him to be the center of your heart and life.”
“This act.” Nebo stared into the soft gray of a very young daybreak. “It seem too small.”
“That is because, brother, the true act has already been made.”
Chapter 34
They waited through the day with the patience of men who had known other battles. They ate and drank everything they carried, storing fodder like desert beasts. Every time the two saved from the fortress dungeons awoke, they too were urged to eat and drink. Byron and Kitty did not join with them, but neither did they hold themselves apart. The men made them welcome in the calm, silent way of the desert.
The men talked without barriers between them. With the moonrise they would be leaving the cave’s safety and travel north. Between them and the sea was a region none of them knew and enemies they could not foresee. Beyond that lay the sea and no guarantee the ship would be there to meet them. The forces of Tunis would blame the ship for the attack and destruction of their port. And if any ships could be found to transport the Tunisian warriors, they would strike in return. All the risks remained unspoken, but they lay heavy upon the men. And this burden drew them tightly together as friends for life.
The whalers spoke of their cold-water home and of loved ones who had by now given them up for lost. Nebo spoke of a village burned by slavers and a home he still visited in his dreams. Wadi alone did not speak. Instead he listened, and twice the fierce warrior was seen using his burnoose to rub his face. Falconer spoke of his quest to free slaves, of the gold mine and of how it had helped finance the secret project, the Underground Railroad for slaves in America.
They prayed.
As the heat rose with the sun, they retreated into the cave. Before Wadi entered the cool stone recess, however, he used a branch to brush the sand upon the ledge, replacing any evidence of their presence with the random designs of wind and time. Nebo shook his head over his friend’s caution but said nothing.
By midafternoon, back in the cave where the animals were tethered, Sands, the whaler captain, was describing what it was like to hunt the world’s largest beasts. He stood to describe the power it took to hurl a harpoon. Rufus, his young brother, stood guard by the cave mouth. He turned and whistled once, a quick warble.
The cave instantly went silent. They watched as Rufus slipped deeper to the side into the wall’s shadow. With one finger he pointed to Falconer and motioned him forward.
Falconer and Wadi and Nebo moved forward at a crouch.
“There,” the young whaler murmured.
Falconer heard Wadi hiss an indrawn breath. Stretched out along the desert floor was a long train of camels and horses.
Soap moved up behind them. “Caravan?”
Falconer shook his head. “Two outriders ahead, two behind.”
“Bedu,” Nebo agreed. “Hunting.”
Wadi lifted one arm. He moved a finger along the descent to their left. Then the finger paused. Directing them to a stone, a cluster of desert sage.
Falconer saw it then. A flicker of motion.
Instantly he gestured to the others. Together they slipped back, all but Wadi, who took up the same branch he had used upon the ledge and began sweeping the cave floor. Back and forth, his motions almost unhurried despite the danger.
They gathered up their provisions and packs and bedrolls, Byron and Kitty watching in tense panic. Falconer could do nothing about that now. He pushed them deep into the alcove, behind the mules. He settled a waterskin between them, then hurried forward. Nebo and Soap and Sands had all taken hold of the animals’ reins. The men stroked their muzzles and gentled their flanks. Wadi continued his slow sweeping motions. Falconer resisted the urge to hiss at the man, to hurry him along. Wadi knew the danger better than he.
The Arab joined Falconer in the mouth of the alcove. To Falconer’s mind the shadows around them did not seem nearly enough cover. A horse shifted its weight and whickered softly. He heard Soap murmur to it and pat a flank.
Wadi hissed. A quick sound, barely more than a sigh of wind.
A desert figure stepped into view at the mouth of the cave. The man’s robes drifted about his feet. He carried a rifle in one hand. He peered into the shadows. He knelt and studied the dust. He rose to his feet. Falconer felt the air trap in his lungs. The man did not move.
Hours passed. Eons. Or so it felt to Falconer.
The man moved on.
They remained motionless. Even the horses seemed to be holding their breath. Nothing moved outside except the heat, rising in constant waves.
Wadi crouched and crept forward, holding fast to the western wall, where the gloom was most dense. He arrived at the cave entrance and dropped to his belly. He crawled forward.
His hand rose in a flicker of motion.
Falconer crept forward to join him.
The desert floor was empty. The hunter on foot was nowhere to be seen.
Wadi muttered, “They circle back, attack from above, or they go on.”
Falconer whispered, “Do we go or stay?”
He shrugged eloquently. “We leave, they could see us. We stay, a chance we safe.”
“A chance.”
The Arab shot him a quick grin. “Good to make peace with God of all heaven.”
Falconer realized what the man intended. “I will go,” he said firmly.
Wadi’s smile grew broader as he shook his head. “You trained to melt into desert floor?” He did not wait for a reply. “If I not return in hour, run.”
Wadi was back before the sun had shifted ten degrees. Falconer had no idea how long that was in minutes, for the day was stretched taut. One moment the cave mouth was empty. Then Wadi was dropping down from the roof overhang. Before Falconer could raise a challenge, Wadi said, “I here.”
Falconer offered him a waterskin and waited to ask, “What did you find?”
“They move ever further west.” He drank again. “But there are other parties. Some bedu, some soldiers. They scour the desert like ravenous wolves.”
Falconer pondered this long and hard. Finally he rose and moved back to the rear alcove. “You can come forward. But stay quiet and well back from the entrance.”
Soap emerged first. “There are more?”
“Aye.”
“What will—”
“Rest and ready yourselves,” Falconer replied. “We leave at moonrise.”
Falconer watched from the cave opening, resting but not sleeping. Nor were any of the others, as far as he could tell. The hours crawled by. They were alert and moving about the cave long before the first shard of moon appeared beyond the hills. When all was made ready, Falconer stepped to the rearmost portion of the animals’ alcove. Byron and Kitty had remained there since the hunters had appeared. Falconer could see only their forms, so tight against the stone t
hey clung. He saw a faint gleam reflecting off Kitty’s gaze and knew her eyes were again enormous with fear.
Falconer knelt in the sand before them. “There are two things you must remember through all that comes. The first is this. Kitty, your mother awaits you on the journey’s other end. Byron, your stepfather stands beside her. Or kneels, for I am certain the both of them are praying as fervently as they know how. They await you both with outstretched arms. The second is this. I will guard your safety with my life. Do you believe me?”
Byron whispered, “Yes.”
“Kitty?”
“I’m so afraid.”
“I know, lass. But safety lies beyond these hills. It is our job to be strong for the both of you.” He rose to his feet and held out his hands. “Come.”
Chapter 35
Even the animals seemed subdued as they crept from the cave. With scarcely a breeze, the night held a breathless quality, as though the moon-washed rocks, the brush and sand, shared their apprehension.
Wadi took the lead, being careful not to move so far ahead as to lose sight of Falconer. Falconer acted as a connecting point between Wadi and the others. Soap, the whalers, Byron, and Kitty all rode. Nebo and Bernard brought up the rear. The going was hard but their pace steady. Falconer had to trust Wadi’s instincts, as he saw no real trail. The crescent moon rose to become a sky-borne lantern.
Falconer knew they had reached the summit when the twin monoliths came into view. When Falconer had first spotted them from the ship’s quarterdeck, he had thought they were natural outcroppings. As he approached them now, however, he saw they were both round and manmade, with huge bases as wide as six men holding arms.
Wadi signaled from the ridge’s far end. Falconer whispered, “We rest.”
As he approached the pillars, moonlight played upon the surface, causing the figures of the soldiers carved upon them to march in ghostly unison. Falconer traced his hand over the timeworn surface. They now were only monuments to some forgotten triumph, set upon hills whose name only bandits remembered. The empire was dust now, as were its warriors who had once thought themselves invincible.
Wadi found him there by the eastern pillar. He accepted the waterskin, drank deeply, then said, “We leave mounts.”
“The noise?”
Wadi nodded and drank again, then handed back the skin. “And trail. It steep. Narrow.”
Falconer walked over to where Sands rested upon the other pillar’s base. “Can you and your men walk from here?”
“To freedom?” Teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Barefoot the entire way.”
The descent was treacherous, particularly as Falconer again carried Kitty. Twice Wadi lost the trail entirely. Both times Falconer and the others waited in the best cover they could find, which was not much. The hillside was so steep his group was strung out single file. Falconer prayed no watcher lurked below to pierce the gloom or hear the falling pebbles.
Midway down they came upon a flat space that so resembled a terrace Falconer wondered if it had been hewn by man. Then he spied a fragment of wall where the hill swept in tightly, and he realized it had once been a fortress— maybe a watch station for whoever built the hillside monuments. The view explained the setting, for a waning moon behind them glistened upon the open sea. There was just enough light to make out the empty road below, a silver ribbon that stretched out in either direction.
He spied Nebo kicking at something in the dust and walked over. As he approached, he caught the scent of ashes. He watched as Nebo bent down and rubbed the charcoal between his fingers. Falconer asked, “How long?”
“Two days, or three.”
Falconer searched and asked the empty night, “Which direction do you think?”
Nebo rose and dusted off his hands. “Perhaps they move on to the caravanserai.”
“Perhaps.”
Neither expressed the other prospect, that the soldiers or brigands had found a watching place closer to the road.
Falconer’s group could have rested there for hours. But the moon was setting, and the waning light made the going even more difficult. No one protested as Wadi led off.
Falconer moved up alongside Byron, who limped and chose each step carefully. But he made no complaint and held to the pace set by the others. Falconer patted the young man’s shoulder and offered the only words of hope he could think of. “Your parents would both be proud of you this night.”
Byron looked up from the trail. His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “But you said it yourself. I caused this.”
“They have already forgiven you, Byron. The question now is, what will you do with their forgiveness?”
Byron’s gaze returned to the next step. And the one after. Finally he said, “I want to be more than I am.”
“It is a most worthy aim.”
“Will—” Byron hesitated, then finished—“will you speak more with me about prayer?”
“Aye, that I shall. As will they.” He patted the shoulder once more. “Very proud indeed.”
As Falconer moved forward to resume his place behind Wadi, Kitty said, “I can walk some.”
Falconer was tempted, but not for long. “Better you save your strength, lass, in case we all need to run later.”
“Are they chasing us?”
Falconer did not need to ask of whom she spoke. The child’s shiver said it all. “Remember what I said, lass. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
The descent continued long enough to have Falconer feeling the weakness seep back into his muscles and bones. What the weakened bodies of Byron and the whalers were enduring, he did not want to imagine. Even though he could hear their rasping breath, they did not slow their pace, for the moon was almost gone, and it grew increasingly hard to see their way ahead. Even so, he knew they could not take much more. Just as he was ready to whistle and call Wadi back for yet another rest, the trail eased. Falconer did not allow himself to believe it at first. But the trail leveled off and then joined with the loose sand that signaled the base.
Wadi signaled and Nebo whistled, both men at the exact same moment. Falconer did not need to search for the reason.
Wadi pointed to their right, at a crevice that opened beside the trail. The shadows by now were so impenetrable Falconer could not tell if the crevice was five feet deep or a mile. Wadi scrambled down into it and disappeared. Two heartbeats later, he emerged and waved them forward. Falconer whistled his own urgent signal, still uncertain what the two guards had seen or heard.
The crevice was about fifteen feet deep and long enough that they could all remain hidden. Which was most providential. Because no sooner had they arrived at the base than Falconer heard the soft pad of footfalls, the soft chink of metal upon metal.
The moon was completely below the horizon, though the stars remained. Not enough light for their little group to find its way along an uncharted hillside, but more than enough for men to walk a familiar road. Soldiers or brigands, Falconer could not tell. He lay in the dust next to Wadi with Soap to his other side. Kitty’s face remained buried in the point where Falconer’s chin met his neck. They remained frozen and silent as men and camels and horses passed fifty paces away. In the fear-laced night, they seemed close enough to touch. Falconer counted thirty mounts. Muskets and scimitars sprouted from shoulders and saddles, a forest of danger and doom. Falconer thought he might have recognized their abandoned mounts among the others.
The minutes required for the caravan to pass seemed the longest of Falconer’s life. The final outrider passed so close Falconer could see the tassels dangling from the musket’s stock. From deeper in the crevice there came not a sound. No one breathed. The darkness covered them in a blanket so impenetrable the crevice itself went unnoticed, or so Falconer assumed, for the soldier did not even glance their way.
Soon after the force passed, the sky whispered of dawn’s arrival. The sea was close enough for faint brushstrokes of fog to slowly replace the stars.
Only with the da
wn came yet another problem.
Faint tendrils of the mist drifted in from the sea. Not enough to blanket the road. But the shoreline, five hundred paces beyond the road, became indistinct. The sea was lost to them entirely.
Daylight arrived with remarkable swiftness. But the mist stubbornly refused to disperse. Likely the ship—if it was near—was facing the same veil on the opposite side. Falconer rested upon the crevice’s embankment, his eyes just above the level of the stones. The now-empty road was thirty paces straight ahead of him. The stretch from the road toward the shore was flat and empty. Neither shade nor refuge.
Soap occupied the position to his left. Softly Falconer asked the seaman, “Any chance of another storm? It could cover us while we cross to the water. Though whether or not the ship can see the monuments…” His voice drifted to a stop.
“Your nose is as good as mine.”
“Not in this desert, it isn’t.”
Soap breathed in deeply. “Rising mercury, is my guess. Clear as a crystal bell. More’s the pity.”
Bernard spoke from Falconer’s other side. “We can’t stay here much longer. The shadows will be lost in a half hour or less. We’re still too far from the coast.”
Soap responded for them all. “The ship won’t be able to identify the pillars. Which means they can’t find the place to land the longboat.”
“Captain Harkness will not let us down,” Bernard declared stoutly.
Falconer glanced over. The young banker was unrecognizable. A burnoose dangled loosely about his head and shoulders. The lower half of his face was lost behind a surprisingly thick beard. His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, lips cracked, hands as filthy as his clothes, which were far more dust-yellow than their original black. His dandified boots were ruined. One sole remained in place only because he had lashed a rope about the whole shoe.
“I never thanked you,” Falconer said.
Bernard blinked at him uncertainly. “Thank me? Whatever for?”
“For remaining at your station outside the fortress wall,” Falconer replied. “For not giving in to fear. For doing exactly as we had planned. For your strength and skill in a time of direst need.”
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