Amonmose summoned a last burst of energy and obeyed.
With Bak urging on man and donkey-and himself, if the truth be told-they fought the current back to the cut and swam into the still water inside.
When Bak stood up to test the water’s depth, it reached to his shoulders. Amonmose stared like a man not sure he could believe in their salvation and also stood erect. Bak waded forward, pulling the exhausted donkey until it stumbled to its feet. There it dug its hooves into the sand and refused to move another step.
“We can’t leave the wretched beast here,” he grumbled. “It needs to dry off, to get warm.”
As if in a daze, Amonmose plodded around behind the an imal and shoved it forward while Bak pulled. When all four hooves were on dry sand, he let go of the halter, dropped to his knees, muttered a few words of thanks to the lord Amon, and rolled onto the warm sand to rest. Beyond the donkey’s trembling legs, he saw Amonmose collapse. His eyes closed and he slept.
Bak heard a sharp, strident word and someone poked his shoulder. He opened his eyes to sunlight, glimpsed a small face above him. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looked at the boy peering at him, then sat up slowly, testing his weary muscles. The child quickly backed away as if afraid. A smile failed to reassure him.
Amonmose lay where he had fallen, but the donkey was gone. And so was the water. Bak stared down the cut. Its sandy floor was exposed all the way to the wadi. That, too, had been drained of much of its water. For long stretches, the sand was a mottled damp and dry. In other places, large shallow pools mirrored the sky above. He glanced at the boy and smiled.
What the gods gave, they took away, sometimes very fast.
His thoughts turned to his Medjays and the caravan. He re membered the last few men and animals he had seen strug gling up the hillside. He thought they had been high enough to escape the flood. Of them all, Senna was the most likely to have been caught up by the raging waters. Bak prayed such was not the case. The guide’s one act of carelessness might well have cost Bak and therefore Amonmose their lives, but no man should have to face death because he brought about an accident. If losing his footing had indeed been an accident.
User was a rational man who knew the caravan must con tinue to the next well. In the extremely unlikely event that he chose not to press on, Psuro and the other Medjays would surely continue down the wadi to look for the missing men.
The likelihood of another flood was minuscule. The sun had barely risen above the peaks to the east. They must be well on their way.
Both Bak and Amonmose tried to talk to the boy. He could speak no tongue but his own. He sat at a distance, too shy or afraid to come near, and watched them with wide, cu rious eyes.
“When the caravan comes, we must give him some food,”
Amonmose said.
“Also a gift. He didn’t save us, but he cared for the donkey while we slept.”
After a long silence, Amonmose said, “I don’t recall ever being so hungry.” He patted his substantial stomach. “I fear
I’ll waste away to nothing.”
“We’ve plenty of fresh water,” Bak said, smiling.
“I can’t bear the thought of it.” Amonmose eyed a long scratch on his arm, which he had gotten when becoming en tangled in the branch of an acacia. “That Senna. I’d willingly slay him at the slightest provocation.”
“He didn’t mean to push me into the water.”
“With your help, I might’ve been able to get the donkey higher up the hill. The chance was slim, I know, but it was a possibility. Without you, we were both lost to the flood.”
Bak remembered how hard he had hit the water and he doubted a dozen men could have saved any of the three of them. “Senna may’ve been carried off, as we were.”
“He didn’t have to kick you.”
“He was sliding on the rocks, out of control.”
The trader looked unconvinced. “User told me the day he joined our caravan that he was not to be trusted.”
“I agree that he shouldn’t have let Minnakht go off with two strangers, but if Minnakht insisted, what could he do?”
“How can you be sure Senna didn’t slay him? Or that man at the well north of Kaine? How do you know he didn’t slay
Dedu?”
“He was on the trail with my men and me when the man at the well was slain. As for the night Dedu was slain, at least one of us would’ve heard him if he’d left our camp.”
“User told me you didn’t entirely trust him. Now you’re defending him.”
“As you well know, I’m a police officer. I must not make hasty judgments.”
“Grant me this: it’s possible that Senna deliberately pushed you into the flood.”
Bak laid a hand on the trader’s shoulder. “Don’t fret,
Amonmose. I’ll never again turn my back to him.”
Chapter 11
“Are you sure you’re all right, sir?” Psuro, seated on the damp sand at the edge of the wadi with Bak and Amonmose, seemed not to know whether he should laugh with delight at finding them alive and well or worry about their many bruises, scratches, and cuts.
Bak finished eating the grouse and threw away the last of the bones. Cold though it was, it was as delicious as the warm birds he had eaten the previous day. “You’ve no need to worry, Psuro. Considering how fast the water flowed and the many objects it carried with it, we fared very well.”
“I thank the gods you came when you did.” Amonmose glanced toward the goats, waiting patiently for their small shepherd. “I was beginning to look upon those lambs as a tasty meal.”
Bak eyed the child, who stood a few paces away with User and Senna. He was small, dark-skinned, and dressed in rags, a miniature version of Imset. “The boy would never have for given you. Those animals are his responsibility, and he must return them to the family flock.”
The child’s reserve had melted away when User had given him a grouse. He had gobbled the food and eagerly accepted a second bird. After he finished eating, however, when the explorer had summoned Senna and tried to talk to him, his shyness had returned tenfold. He seldom raised his eyes from the wadi floor, did not know what to do with his hands and feet, and seemed to have lost the ability to speak.
User, with the guide translating, was trying to learn where the boy’s family might be found. The child had nodded when asked if he had been caught in the defile while searching for strays, but had shaken his head when asked where his mother was camped with their flock.
“They can’t be far away,” a frustrated User said. “Why won’t he tell us where they are? His mother might wish to trade for medicines or cloth or needles, or any of the other necessities I’ve brought that she’ll never be able to find in this wretched desert.”
“He knows where they are,” Senna said, openly irritated.
“Why he won’t tell, I can’t say.”
“Something has to be troubling him,” Bak murmured to his companions.
“You should try, sir.” Psuro stood up and took the halter of the donkey, prepared to return it to User’s string of animals, gathered at the edge of a puddle spread across the wadi floor.
“He’s seen with his own eyes that you’re a brave man, the way you survived the flood. And he knows you’re an officer, the one we Medjays look to for guidance. For those two rea sons alone, he might speak.”
Bak studied the two men and the boy. The latter had dis played no shyness toward User until he began asking ques tions. Could Senna’s presence have inhibited his speech?
“Summon Kaha, Psuro. I wish to use another translator.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, not bothering to hide his ap proval. He had not witnessed Bak’s fall into the floodwaters, but he had heard the tale from men who had. Like Amon mose, he had aired his mistrust of the nomad guide.