Goldsands

by William Maltese

  "Yes, Rashid and his warnings of fire,” Abdul admitted with a strained very small smile. “Always of fire, as of late.” The sheikh must have realized Peter was probably in the dark about the whole subject, Gil only knowing because he had been present at another of Rashid's surprise visits, because Abdul said, “My astrologer keeps predicting danger to me from fire. Other than that, all very vague, mind you, much as ancient oracles were delivered in gobbledygook that could be interpreted in a million different ways. I ask him, ‘What kind of fire are you talking, here, Rashid? Gunfire? The fire of a burning desert sun? The fire of fever in sickness? The kind that can burn this villa down around me?’ He just says, ‘I would tell you more if I could. The stars are not clear on the matter.’ Imagine, the stars withholding information as if they are all members of some vast universal cabal with something to gain from maintaining secrecy! A ludicrous notion, wouldn't you agree? Stars do not possess minds for plotting good or evil. They are inanimate balls of gaseous matter with no influence whatsoever on the way we run our daily lives."

  "Exactly!” Gil agreed, although he very well knew that Egypt was a country steeped in superstitions held over from the past. The same incantations, charms and potions available in modern local bazaars had been sold in the time of the pharaohs—incantations to cure the sick, charms to bring good luck, potions to calm fevers, men to look skyward for the answers to all questions.

  "When I was eight years old,” Abdul said reflectively,” Rashid al-Hidda told me to beware of cobras. Cobras, would you believe? The only cobras seen in Egypt, by that time, were the fangless serpents used by fakirs and dancers in the marketplace. Once, of course, they had been so prevalent that they were made the symbol of Lower Egypt and put with the vulture of Upper Egypt on the pharaoh's crown, but they had long been driven into deep-deep desert by the constant tramp of tourists’ feet. Two nights after Rashid's warning, though, the servant he sent to my bedchamber to check on my sleep killed a cobra only inches from where I slept.” His eyes met Gil's.

  "Couldn't the man who killed the snake have been the very one who put it there in the first place?” Gil intuitively divined. “Rashid's man?"

  "Not only could he have been out to enhance Rashid's reputation as a seer but, today, I'm quite sure that was the case,” Abdul answered with an uneasy laugh that was supposed to take the sudden chill off the conversation but didn't quite succeed. “I, of course, didn't believe that was the case at the time. I was only eight and gullible.” None of which explained what the same charlatan was doing, now, prophesying disaster by fire. Abdul changed the subject by asking when he could expect his invitation to Gil and Peter's wedding. The ringing of Peter's cell phone interrupted any equally playful response.

  "Is there somewhere I can take this,” Peter asked, coming to his feet.

  "Of course,” Abdul said. “Just step into the house; if there's a servant anywhere near, just tell him that I want him immediately.” Peter disappeared through the sliding doors. “Gil?” Abdul asked, obviously reading the not-at-all-happy expression on Gil's face.

  "It's happening again,” Gil said, his skin swollen into tiny goose bumps.

  "What's happening again?” Abdul asked. So, Gil told him, disappointed when all Abdul did was laugh at Gil's fears. “I'm sorry to seem so callous about what you obviously look upon as so catastrophic,” Abdul apologized immediately, although his smile lingered. “It just seems so ironic that the handsome, educated, intelligent man who but moments earlier was questioning the validity of an Egyptian astrologer should now, for not the first time, be suggesting that spirits from the past are somehow controlling his life. What chances have I to extricate myself from superstition when you, from a culture farther removed from them than my own, persist in claiming their powers?"

  "Peter is leaving me, Abdul! “Gil insisted, not having to be told he was a hypocrite for having belittled Rashid al-Hidda's warnings when Gil could still place some kind of validity in a curse spanning years and years.

  "Go with him to England,” Abdul suggested simply.

  "He hasn't asked me to go to England with him!” Gil replied lowly.

  "Why should he have to ask? What man in his right mind would invite his lover to a funeral prior to their wedding?” Abdul wanted to know.

  "I couldn't go with him, even if he did ask me,” Gil confessed, albeit reluctantly. “The dig has already lost one honcho and is now scheduled to lose another. No matter what college kid Peter may decide should have the titular head of director, that young man or woman isn't going to keep the dig running without the help of someone, like me, with a bit more practical experience."

  "Then, what's all of the fuss about, Gil?” Abdul asked. “Peter probably knows as well as you do that your professional ethics won't allow you to desert a project that would collapse without you."

  "It's not that he knows I wouldn't leave that's important,” Gil said. “It's that he hasn't even bothered offering me the choice.” Abdul shook his head, not understanding what was all very clear to Gil. Gil desperately wanted some sign that Peter would have taken him along if that had been possible.

  "Listen to me, Gil,” Abdul sad, leaning nearer across the table. “A time must come in any relationship when trust is either there or it isn't—it's as simple as that. If trust isn't there, your friends can talk until they're blue in the face, by way of giving you all the reassurance they think you need, and it won't make one bit of difference in the long run. Therefore, I'm not going to waste my time and energy, or yours, to once again list Peter's merits and tell you how you've continually underestimated him and his love for you from the beginning. Not that I no longer think Peter worth the effort, but I'm no longer sure that you, yourself, are capable of making it work between you."

  "I love him!” Gil insisted, shocked that Abdul, a supposed friend, didn't take Gil's fears more seriously.

  "Then, maybe, love isn't enough,” the sheikh answered with a conviction that only added to Gil's shock. “Maybe it's just a part of what else is necessary, like friendship, understanding, compromise, passion, and compassion. Whether this works between you and Peter has less to do with what happened between his grandfather and your grandmother than it has to do with Gil Goldsands and Peter Donas in the here and now. You make a wrong decision, and you're liable to ruin your life and Peter's life—not to mention mine."

  "Uncle George is asking for me, Gil,” Peter said coming out onto the veranda and voicing the worst of Gil's fears.

  "Then, of course, you must go,” Gil said and marveled at how, when faced with a fait accompli, one simply adjusted.

  "You can have the use of my helicopter to fly you as far as Cairo,” Abdul said, likely knowing that the tragic look Gil gave him was condemnation for the sheikh having cut away more precious moments Gil could have spent with Peter on the drive to the Aswân airport. “I'll leave you two for the moment,” Abdul said diplomatically, “and have my pilot to get the chopper ready."

  Gil got to his feet, turning to face Peter, telling himself this wasn't really goodbye forever. Peter would go to England and later come back for Gil.

  Peter took Gil in his arms and held him close. “Look,” Peter said suddenly,” why don't you just come with me? We'll call them at the dig and tell them we've had a major catastrophe in the family. My family is yours now, too, isn't it? Anyway, it soon will be."

  "Thank you for asking,” Gil said, willing himself back from the brink of despair, “but you and I both know we can't leave the team completely rudderless. One of us has to be here to see that things get done properly. Good money was paid to send us here by backers who deserve scientific professionalism for their investment.” Peter didn't argue. Both knew that Gil's decision was the right one, and the only one he could have made; Peter wouldn't likely have respected Gil for making any other. “Whom do you plan to leave in charge?” Gil asked. “Tammy seems to get along well with others."

  "I'm leaving you in charge, you silly jerk,” Peter said, as if that must h
ave been obvious. “You should've been director when Professor Kenny left."

  "And if I should decide to shift the digging back to the area in which Kenny had us started on in the beginning?"

  "Then, that's your decision as new boss-man."

  "I'll be awaiting your return at Hierakonpolis, then,” Gil said, holding to Peter tightly, kissing and being kissed one more time before Abdul came to tell them everything was ready.

  Gil stayed on the veranda, not wanting to prolong the painful goodbye. When the helicopter lifted, finally making itself visible from the veranda, Gil didn't look at it but at the Nile, at Aswân, and at the pink hills ascending beyond. To have looked toward the disappearing aircraft would have meant looking north toward Thebes, and Gil didn't want to think of Thebes or of what had once happened to Geraldine Fowler and Frederic Donas when they had met and loved there so many years ago.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT SOUNDED OMINIOUS, like thunder.

  Gil put down the small brush and the surgical scalpel he was using to uncover the skeleton he had discovered by accident the previous day. A few ragged bones had been exposed by wind erosion, and Gil had decided to excavate them on his own, not wanting to pull anyone from either Group One or Two to help him since work on those sites was proceeding so nicely. He hadn't completely isolated himself from his comrades, having often glanced down the wadi to see them working. He wasn't looking at them now, though. He and they were gazing westward in an effort to put some meaning to the continuing rumbles. A frisson of fear shot through him, but he shrugged it off. No doubt there was a logical explanation for the noise.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, bringing away a combination of sweat and dirt. He had been working hard lately, throwing himself into his job as director with a determination designed to counter the let down of Peter's leaving. He saw his work as a panacea, receiving more comfort from the exhaustion following a hard day's work than from then two telephone calls Peter had made—one to tell Gil that Uncle George was tenaciously holding on, the other to inform that his uncle had died. Gil had momentarily taken heart at the second message but had immediately felt ashamed to even think of rejoicing aloud upon hearing of anyone's death. Still, he had thought it meant that Peter would be free to return to Egypt. He'd thought wrong, though. The death of Uncle George had actually resulted in Peter still in England. “He's left his estate in a frightful mess,” Peter had tried to explain over a phone that crackled infuriating static. “I'm afraid that I have to remain here long enough to straighten things out.” How long he didn't know. “The sooner, the better,” was all he could assure.

  In the face of Gil's continuing fears that Peter was likely gone forever, and despite Peter's reassurances to the contrary, Gil had devoted himself more and more to his work.

  Abdul came by frequently, though Gil's continual sifting for bones and artifacts had never really managed to catch the sheikh's fancy, certainly not as much as the sticky gallons of oil probably presently being pumped from the well farther up the wadi. If Abdul never came right out and said oil had been discovered, Gil was sure that it had been, just as Peter remained sure. The sheikh was devoting too much time to the well at Hierakonpolis for it to have turned out to be just another dry hole. That morning, his helicopter had dropped out of the sky before proceeding one more time to the drilling site. “Maybe you'll invite me to supper this evening?” he had asked before takeoff. So, Gil had extended the invitation, always welcoming the diversion the sheikh offered, plus the encouragement Abdul could be expected to continue between lectures on how such reassurances were of little real value if Gil didn't have the trust to back them up; Gil wanted to trust Peter to come back, but too many days were passing without that happening.

  Thunder again! In a cloudless sky. In a spot that hadn't known rainfall in more than fifteen years.

  "Oh, my God!” Gil ran for the Land Rover. Recognition that had lain dormant within him from the first had finally become clear. Not thunder but explosions and gunfire! He whipped the Land Rover around several sandstone outcroppings, almost rolling the vehicle twice. Each time he was tempted to ease up on the gas, he heard more of those possibly death-dealing noises. Suddenly, pauses in the sounds made him more anxious. He hadn't the slightest notion what he was going to do once he got to the well. He knew only that Abdul was in danger, and there was no possible way Gil could have stood by and done nothing. The feelings he had for Abdul might not have been the same as those he felt for Peter, but that didn't make them any less important.

  He saw telltale smoke—a great billowing column of it that recalled visions of the children of Israel being led out of Egypt. "And the Lord went before them, by day a column of smoke to lead the way, by night a pillar of fire to give them direction." The analogy was reinforced as Gil topped the ridge and stopped to view the plume of flame accompanying all that smoke. In retrospect, he would come to view the scene as more like one out of Revelations than out of Exodus. Not only was the oil itself aflame, but so were the flammable rooftops of all the surrounding buildings and sheds. The helicopter was afire—a metal phoenix being consumed with no possible chance of resurrection this time around. Dead and wounded men littered the sand, human cries drowned beneath the constant whoosh of the wind and fire.

  Gil didn't see them coming from behind him; he was too totally absorbed by what was below him. They didn't keep their presence secret for long, though. The door of Gil's Land Rover was jerked open, and he was grabbed and forcibly removed. He was dumped unceremoniously to the ground. Looking up, he saw nothing but silhouettes against a blinding sun. He did, however, intuitively recognize the hot metal suddenly branding the base of his throat as being the end of a recently fired gun barrel. The undeniable realization that he was but seconds from death, perhaps wouldn't survive for Peter's return, made him desperate to live.

  "Take me to Sheikh Jerada!” he commanded in Arabic, knowing that if these men were the enemy, he could expect no quarter by declaring acquaintance with Abdul. “I'm his friend,” he hurried on. “I heard the explosion.” The machine-gun barrel, no longer branded his neck, but it was still close enough for Gil to feel its radiated heat. “Get Galal Baseeli, then!” he offered in hopeful alternative, blessedly remembering the man in charge of site security."

  "Stand up!” he was commanded and was roughly assisted by the viselike grip of someone's hand to Gil's upper arm. Gil wasn't encouraged by being unfamiliar with all three men now better seen. They could have been anybody dressed in nondescript galabias: friends or foes. One had a head wound that was bleeding, turning one corner of a white headband bright scarlet. “Get in!” the man still holding on to Gil's arm insisted, jerking Gil toward his captors’ Land Rover and shoving him into the back seat. The Arab who crawled in beside Gil smelled of sweat and blood and fear—not fear of Gil but obviously of those other forces that had suddenly exploded so unexpectedly all around on that hot summer day.

  The other men climbed into the front seat. The ensuing descent of the vehicle down the ridge was at full speed and straight on—a nauseating ride like that of a roller coaster out of control—that brought the car out on flat terrain.

  "There!” Gil pinpointed Galal Baseeli. He would have recognized the Arab's face scar anywhere.

  "Stay put!” the man beside Gil insisted, although it was someone from the front seat who exited and approached Galal. Galal glanced quickly in Gil's direction and said something to the man who came back with instructions to drive off into the rocks on one side and wait. After which, there were several renewed cracks of gunfire that hinted at a battle not yet over.

  Gil was yanked out of the parked vehicle and pushed him into a shallow depression. One man stayed to guard him, the other two fanning out in opposite directions, possibly to locate and stop an enemy still capable of splattering the area with gunfire. Gil's attention was helplessly drawn to the just-visible helicopter whose rotors were being spun in slow motion by an updraft caused by the very flames that were
consuming it. He shuddered at the thought of Abdul anywhere near the aircraft when it had burst into flames. He shuddered at his memory of Rashid al-Hidda's "Beware of fire!" There was enough fire here to crisp even Lucifer, although Gil felt chilled despite the oppressive heat. He wished Peter were there to share the horror and make it seem at least less frightening.

  The gunfire stopped, but not the flames. The roof of every shed had been completely consumed. The helicopter periodically appeared as a black skeleton playing peek-a-boo with still-billowing smoke. The rig's spurting oil would burn for days, occasional gusts of desert breeze providing fleeting glimpses of the fragmented derrick gone luminescent within the holocaust.

  Well after dark, Gil's body cramped and aching, he was pulled to his feet by an unspeaking Galal Baseeli who led the way through a landscape made macabre by shadows cast within the dark by still-dancing flames. Gil stumbled twice, unsteady on legs that had fallen asleep more than once during his long vigil.

  They stopped at one of the smaller buildings now roofless. Its walls were discolored by smoke, great hunks of its mud brick walls gouged by the same forces that had ignited and, then, pockmarked the area. “He's inside!” Galal said and motioned toward the blanket that now replaced the original door. The entrance was flanked by two armed men who seemed little inclined to allow Gil through. “This is the sheikh's ... friend,” Galal informed, obviously have somehow managed to come up with the right designation, despite his obvious sarcasm. The two guards moved imperceptivity in their only recognition of Gil's right to pass between them. Before Gil could go in, though, Galal stopped him with a restraining hand-on-shoulder. When Gil turned, the Arab didn't really have anything to say. The look in his eyes, far removed from the coldness Gil had always seen there, said it all. Gil pushed the blanket aside and entered the building.

  The plume of flame so dominant in the outside landscape managed to illuminate only the upper sections of roofless interior and not penetrate to the lower limits of the mud-brick enclosure. There were, however, three strategically placed candles that supplied enough additional light to show Abdul lying on the makeshift cot in one corner, a man kneeling beside him. The kneeling man stood, pulling a blanket up to Abdul's chin as he did so. He nodded to Gil on his way out. “Abdul?” Gil dropped by the cot to see that the sheikh's handsome face was badly burned. For a brief moment, Gil thought Abdul was actually dead. “It's Gil, Abdul,” Gil said, his voice catching in his throat. Abdul's eyelids flickered and came open to show Gil the very same velvety eyes Gil so well remembered.