“What can you remember?” he asked.
“I was sitting at the top of the dry waterfall. The moon was high and I was watching a herd of gazelles, seven or eight of them, drinking from the pools.” Minmose wrinkled his brow as if trying to squeeze out what had happened. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s all I remember.”
While Bak reassured him, Kaha studied the sand up stream. “Whoever did this walked the same path we did yes terday. The sand is too churned up to leave distinctive prints.
I’d wager this weapon…” He touched the bow lying beside him on the sand. “… that he climbed down a hillside close by to leave as small a sign of himself as possible before creeping up behind Minmose.”
Bak’s thoughts leaped backward to the night and to his broken hours of sleep. “And I’d wager that he struck Min mose so he could enter the gorge unseen.” He took up his weapon and walked around the rock formation so he could look downstream. “Stay where you are, Minmose. I’ll send someone to you.” To Kaha, he said, “We must examine the floor of the gorge before the donkeys and men trample any sign he might’ve left.”
“Here you are!” User hurried to the mouth of the gorge to meet Bak and Kaha. “We must get into position before the finches fly in. If we frighten them off, I doubt the grouse will come.”
Signaling the explorer to come with him, Bak called out to
Psuro. The sergeant stood with Senna, Nebre, and Rona, se lecting weapons for the hunt. User had set up a few snares, but the Medjays, proficient archers that they were, preferred the bow.
“Minmose was struck on the head in the night.” Bak quickly explained that the young Medjay was not seriously hurt, told Rona to bring him back to camp, and, paying no heed to the Medjay’s disappointment that he would miss the hunt, explained where the injured man could be found. To
User, he said, “I fear the one who attacked him slipped in among us while we slept.”
“The grouse…” The explorer clearly wanted to go on with the hunt, but was not sure they should.
“Gather together your hunters and go,” Bak said. “Kaha and I will search this camp while you’re away.”
Psuro and Nebre offered to remain behind, but Bak shook his head. “If we’re to have enough grouse for every man in this caravan to get more than a bite, you’ll have to join the hunt. I doubt if anyone else can use the bow to as good effect.”
“I’ll help you, sir,” Senna offered.
Bak shook his head. “The two of us will suffice. The fewer men in the gorge, the more likely we are to find some sign of the intruder.”
User summoned the men traveling with him, who had been standing around his campsite, and strode toward the mouth of the gorge. A drover armed with a bow and quiver and carrying a basket in which to gather up the slain grouse accompanied them. Ani and Nebenkemet took no weapons with them and made no pretense of hunting. They wanted to see the vast numbers of birds Bak had described. Wensu car ried a bow, but Bak suspected the other hunters were in more danger from his arrows than were the grouse. He did not know what to think of Amonmose’s skill as an archer. Since the journey had begun, the man had continually surprised him with his abilities and talents, his endurance.
As the hunting party hurried toward the pools, Bak said to
Rona, “If you think Minmose well enough to remain alone for a time, you must join the hunt.”
Rona flashed a smile of thanks and followed the men trail ing behind User. The explorer and his party scrambled up the slopes to either side of the pool where the birds drank. Rona hurried on to climb the dry waterfall.
Bak watched the men settling down among the rocks.
Dedu, he noticed, was not among them.
Bak and Kaha thoroughly searched their campsite. Find ing nothing of note, they walked the short distance down the gorge to User’s camp. The remaining drover, who had cho sen not to participate in the hunt, had separated five donkeys from the rest and was spreading a greenish unguent over galls caused by poorly balanced loads. He understood few words of the tongue of Kemet, but Kaha, in his slow and halt ing manner, made him understand that Minmose had been struck down and an intruder had entered the camp.
“Like us, he and the other drover looked for a snake during the night,” Kaha told Bak.
“Ask him where Dedu is.”
Bak could tell from the troubled look on the nomad’s face that he had no answer, and so Kaha reported. The man turned back to the donkey he had been tending. Speaking through
Kaha, Bak continued to interrogate him. The Medjay stum bled through the questions, pausing often to think of a word or a phrase, trying to make himself understood. The answers came no easier to him. Could Dedu have been prowling around in the night? Would his familiar figure have upset the donkeys? Not likely, nor-and here the drover grew defen sive-would he have had reason to strike Minmose sense less. A stranger had entered the gorge, a man unknown to the donkeys. Why had he come? Kaha asked. The nomad shrugged, unable to answer.
“Does he believe Dedu has merely gone off somewhere, soon to return?” Bak asked. “Or does he fear he was lured away by someone he knew or by the stranger? What does he think happened in the night?”
The more questions Kaha asked, the more agitated the no mad became. Bak recalled User saying the drovers were
Dedu’s kin. Telling himself he was worrying needlessly and had upset the man for no good reason, he allowed him to fin ish with the donkeys while he and Kaha searched Dedu’s meager possessions, abandoned where he had left them. As far as they could tell, the guide had left all his personal ef fects behind. They offered no clue as to where he might have gone, but hinted at a hasty or unexpected departure.
The drover, when shown the missing man’s razor, medical kit, and cooking pot, shook his head over and over again, denying what his eyes told him might well be true. Dedu had walked away from the camp in the night. Maybe not of his own volition.
“Sir!” Kaha called.
Bak hurried to the Medjay’s side. “You’ve found some thing.”
“This footprint, sir.” Kaha, kneeling close to the base of the cliff, pointed to an impression in the fine sand. “It’s like the one I saw on the hillside north of Kaine.”
Bak stared at the print. “The watching man.”
“I’ll look for more, but if I’m to find any, all the gods in the ennead will have to smile upon us.” Kaha stood up and glanced around. “He walked this way, believing the donkeys would erase his tracks-for good reason.”
“He took a chance, coming this deep into the gorge.”
Putting himself in the intruder’s sandals, Bak doubted the man had returned the way he had come. He looked down the wadi toward the north, in the opposite direction from the pools. He could not see beyond the nearest bend, but he re membered the way the walls gradually spread apart, with broad expanses of sand carpeting the floor and rocky slopes rising to either side. He would have gone that way rather than double his risk of being spotted.
He left the Medjay to continue his search and moved on to the place where User and his party ate and slept. He searched through every bundle and basket, but came upon nothing un expected or suspicious. Kaha found no second print.
“Let’s walk down the wadi,” Bak said. “You’d best tell the drover. User will want to know where we’ve gone.”
“I’ll try to set him more at ease. We don’t know yet that
Dedu has met with some misfortune.”
Trying to sound soothing, Kaha stumbled through an ex planation of where they were going and why. The drover’s expression grew stubborn, his voice doggedly insistent. In the end, Kaha explained, “This man insists on coming with us.” He shot an annoyed look at the drover. “He wants to bring along a couple of donkeys. He fears one might be needed should we find Dedu injured. As for the other, User told him to collect green plants for the animals and dry brush for the fires on which to cook the grouse. He wishes to obey.”