“Do you think, as you did before, that one of the men with
User slew them?”
“I’m not sure what to think. The absence of all other foot prints at the first well pointed to one of them; the footprint in the gorge indicated that an intruder slew Dedu.”
“The watching man.”
“So it would seem.”
The two Medjays stood with Bak in a broad wedge of shade cast by the almost vertical wadi wall. Three half-asleep donkeys shared the space with them, while their remaining animals and those in User’s string stood or lay in the shade at the base of the wall farther south. The explorer and his party lay slightly apart from their animals, sleeping. Minmose, as signed to keep watch, sat with Senna beneath an overhanging rock across the wadi, playing throwsticks. The vantage point was not good, but offered the only shade large enough for two men.
A hot breeze blew sporadically up the wadi, rippling the surface of puddles that had not yet dried, offering no relief from the midday heat. Water trickled through the rocks in the bed of the deeper channel, flowing down the center of the watercourse. Brown sparrow-like birds flew among the branches of four acacia trees that grew on the edge of the channel, catching flying insects, while grayish finches hopped across the sand among roots laid bare by the raging floodwaters, seeking grubs or seeds washed to the surface.
Their bright voices carried through the still air.
Psuro plugged the waterbag and set it aside. “Minnakht was experienced in the ways of this vile desert and he was beloved by the nomads who dwell here.” He picked up an other bag and held it out so Nebre could fill it. “Of equal im port, he had a good life in the land of Kemet, a life of ease and luxury. Would a man whose days were filled with advan tage choose to disappear?”
“Unlikely,” Nebre said.
“If he didn’t trust Senna any more than we do, he might’ve gone off on his own,” Bak pointed out for argument’s sake.
“Would he not have gone to his nomad friends?” Psuro asked.
“Nefertem claimed he wants to know as much as I what happened to Minnakht.” A large brown lizard darted down the cliff face, drawing Bak’s glance. Something above must have startled it, a bird hunting its midday meal most likely.
“He may’ve been leading my thoughts astray, but I don’t think so. I think his people have searched everywhere they know where to look. That’s why he wants us to seek Min nakht beyond the sea.”
“I suppose we must take Senna with us,” Psuro said with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
“If I can’t convince all the men in User’s party to go, I fear
I’ll lose all my suspects except him.”
A grating of stone against stone sounded above and a pat tering of rocks on the face of the cliff, pebbles skittering downward. Dirt and small stones pelted Bak’s head and shoulders, and the donkey beside him awoke with a start. The birds cheeped a warning and darted into the air.
“Someone’s above us,” Bak yelled. “Move!”
He shoved himself away from the wall and slapped the donkey on the flank, sending it and its startled brothers out into the sunlight. Psuro tore the goatskin bag away from the stream of water and ran. Nebre raised the neck of the jar, sav ing the rest of the precious liquid, and raced out of the shade with Bak and the donkeys.
A huge granite boulder came crashing down from above, bringing smaller stones with it. It struck the ground with a solid thud, smashing a water jar leaning against the wall within a hand’s breadth of where Bak had stood. Smaller stones clattered down the cliff face, and quiet descended.
Bak looked at Psuro and Nebre to be sure they were unhurt and at the three donkeys, who had stopped their headlong flight near the trees. Farther to the south, men and donkeys stood in the sunlight, confused by their abrupt awakening, their burst of speed to get away from the cliff. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that no one had been injured. He had only to look at the water jar to see what could have happened. Reddish shards lay at the base of the fallen boulder in a puddle of water.
“Sir!” Minmose came racing across the wadi floor. “I saw a man looking down from above. He must’ve pushed the boulder over the cliff.”
“Which way did he go?”
“North, I think.”
“Let’s go, Nebre.”
“I’ll come, too,” Psuro said.
Bak tore the half-full waterbag from Psuro’s hand, shoved it at Nebre, and scooped up the bag the men had filled earlier.
“No, Sergeant. Someone must look after the caravan while
I’m gone.” He paused over the pile of weapons, decided a bow and quiver would be less ungainly to handle than a spear and shield and armed himself.
Nebre, far more talented with the bow than Bak, chose a similar weapon. “I noticed a cleft between this hill and the next, around the bend a couple hundred paces to the north.
We can climb to the top there.”
They ran down the wadi, ignoring the anxious calls of the men in User’s party, the shouted questions as to what had happened. Lizards darted out of their path and the birds wheeled around to settle on and among the acacias behind them. Rounding the bend, they glimpsed the defile and seven or eight gazelles standing close to the top of the hillside be yond, watching a female urging a tiny baby up a lower slope of rough and broken rock.
“I’ll wager he set those gazelles to flight,” the Medjay said.
“He must’ve come down this way, thinking to cross the wadi and enter the rougher land to the west.” Bak looked to ward the foothills of the red mountain and the multiple peaks beyond. “In land so rough, he’d have an easier time of evad ing us.”
“Could he have reached this point ahead of us, I wonder?”
They hurried into the defile. The first thirty or so paces were almost flat and were floored with drying sand. A half dozen shallow runnels left by the receding water retained some moisture. Loose rocks dotted the surface. Bak and Ne bre slowed their pace so the Medjay could search for prints.
“Sir.” Nebre knelt to look at a reddish stone and a wet in dentation where it had recently lain. “Someone came this way not long ago.”
A dozen paces farther, the Medjay spotted the print of the outer edge of a sandal. Bak sucked in his breath, let it out slow and long. The sole was old and worn, curled to fit the foot of the man wearing it, and it had a slight cut near the small toe.
“The watching man.” Bak arose and glanced up the cut.
“He looks to be heading down to the wadi.”
Seeking confirmation, Nebre walked deeper into the de file. A couple dozen paces farther, up the slope where the sand was dryer, they found a long indentation that ran along the edge of a runnel and cut down into it, the sign of a man who had skidded on the loose, rocky soil. Where his other foot had come down hard when he saved himself from falling, he had left a print that matched the one they had seen before.
The man they sought had been in a hurry, racing down the defile, no doubt hoping to cross the wadi before they could round the bend and spot him.
Nebre gave Bak a humorless smile. Bak stared out across the wadi toward the red mountain. He was no more eager than the Medjay to follow a man into a landscape constructed by the lord Set himself, but the task must be done. The sooner they laid hands on the watching man, the sooner their many questions would be answered.
“How many times have we spotted him?” Bak asked.
“Four.” Nebre scowled at the high reddish walls of the wadi up which they were walking. “Each time we lose his trail or can find no footprints, he reappears. Too far away to catch, too close to miss seeing him.”
“So I was thinking.” Bak eyed the way ahead, the narrow ing gorge whose stone floor had been washed clear of sand.
Water filled holes etched deep into the stone. The early part of the storm, which had struck the red mountain from the north, had drained this way. “Those opportune appearances worry me, Nebre. Is he trying to get us lost? Or is he leading us into a trap?”