In the glow of the flames, two figures were approaching. One tall, one small.
“My God!” said Rolfe Gantt when the distance closed between them. “What the devil did you do?”
“Exactly that,” Michael told him.
“Exactly what?”
“Never mind.” He scanned their surroundings and saw no other humans. The boy had begun shaking his dice again; it seemed that Fate knew no resting. “We’d better be careful,” Michael advised. “I think everyone’s gone but for the watchman and three men who went out to look for you two.” They hadn’t witnessed the performance, so they might be still lurking about. “Give me a gun.” He held his hand out.
Gantt started to give him the Colt and then suddenly paused.
The German flier had both pistols. He was weak and unsteady, but he was still in control of his senses. Michael knew what he was thinking.
“You’ll have to kill me,” Michael said, and he meant it.
The dice clicked…clicked…clicked. The boy opened his hand and stared at the pips.
“A fine pistol,” Gantt said, with a brief nod. “But not of German quality.” He put the Colt into Michael’s outstretched hand. Gantt’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been cut up a little. We might find a medical kit somewhere.”
“Later. First…the water.”
The three of them walked through the village toward the waterhole. A few either very brave or very stupid dogs skulked around. The flames were still burning high, and every so often there was a boom and more shrapnel flew up.
“I suppose I won’t ask,” said Gantt as they walked.
“Ask what?”
“What you really did to frighten everyone out of here. I suppose I won’t ask. And I suppose… I really don’t want to know.” He gave Michael a sidelong glance, and Michael wondered if one of his fingers had not entirely been changed back when he’d first offered his hand to take the Colt. No, no; of course not. But…he was so very tired.
No, of course not.
They were almost to the waterhole when a figure on crutches emerged from between two tents and aimed the pistol he had somehow gotten hold of. Maybe it had fallen to the ground in the flight of the Dahlasiffa. Maybe he’d taken it from his father’s tent. In any case, Nuri’s son Hasid was armed and dangerous. First he aimed the gun at Michael but something on the boy’s firelit face and in the eyes that glittered with such venomous hate said it was useless to shoot the Devil, so he altered his hand toward Gantt. Two bullets were fired even as Michael shoved the flier aside.
Hasid fired once more as Gantt fell to his knees. Then Michael shot twice at Nuri’s son, and he didn’t know if the bullets had hit or not because Hasid was already hobbling on his crutches into the shadows, his cloven hoof tossing up a spray of sand.
In another few seconds, the Fireman’s son was gone.
“Ah,” said Gantt, in a weary voice. “Ah, verdammen Sie alles dieses.”
Michael knelt beside him. Gantt had both hands pressed to his midsection. The blood was rising on the front of his shirt. Shot twice in the stomach, Michael saw. “Move your hands,” he said, but Gantt would not. “Come on, let me see!”
“Jeder moglicher Dummkopf kann sehen, dass ich sterben werde,” Gantt answered, with a crooked smile. He’d said: Any fool can see I’m going to die.
“Not if I can find a medical kit.” Michael started to stand up.
Gantt grasped his wrist with bloody fingers. “Save your strength. Are you a surgeon? No. As they say…ich bin kaput.” He winced. A thin thread of blood broke over his lower lip. “Would you help me…get my back against something?”
Michael helped him up but couldn’t get him too far because Gantt began shuddering with pain. Michael eased him down so his back was supported against the side of a tent away from the danger of catching fire.
“Better,” Gantt said. “Thank you.” He was not sweating, but his eyes were wet. His hands pressed to his stomach as if to keep his insides from oozing out.
The boy knelt to the ground a distance away and began throwing his dice.
“Must he…do that?” Gantt asked. He waved a gory hand to dismiss his own question. “Ah, let him alone. I suppose it’s the only pleasure he has. Eh?” Moving with painful slowness, he withdrew the Walther from his waistband. Michael offered no help, thinking Gantt was still capable of his own actions. “German quality,” Gantt said, as he placed the pistol at his side. “Cannot be bested.”
A movement to the right caught Michael’s attention. Two Dahlasiffa men with rifles were coming their way. Maybe they were part of the trio who’d gone out hunting.
Michael fired a shot at them and they were gone like desert hares.
“Can you protect yourself while I get you some water?” Michael asked.
“I can. But…it’s very interesting, Michael. I am no longer thirsty. Please…go ahead…for both of you.”
Stay here, Michael told the boy. In the second tent he entered he found a suitable water vessel, a German canteen stamped with the palm tree and Nazi symbol seal of the Afrika Korps. He went into several others in search of a medical kit, but had no luck. He walked on to the waterhole. He got on his knees, cupped his hand and drank a few swallows that went down like the sweetest wine ever pressed from the most luscious grape. Then he filled the canteen full, and while he was doing this he had to interrupt the task to shoot at a man who was coming across the oasis from the opposite direction. The intruder turned his robed tail and ran. It seemed that without their ‘shade’ the Dahlasiffa fled from their own shadows. Which was fine with Michael. He spent a few more seconds to splash water into his face, and then he took the canteen and walked back the route he’d come. He knew he couldn’t give Gantt any water; the stomach cramps would only add to the man’s agony, and without professional medical attention Gantt was, as he’d said, kaput.
So, all he could do now was make Gantt as comfortable as possible and keep him company. He’d known stomach wounds like this to kill a man within an hour or so, and on the other end of that a man might linger for a day or more. It was, after all, up to Fate.
The dice were still being rolled, back and forth. Gantt picked up the Walther at Michael’s approach and then set it aside again. Michael gave the boy the canteen, and at last the dice were still while the boy drank.
Too fast, Michael cautioned. Too much. He took the canteen away. He sat on the ground a few feet away from the flier, at an angle so he could watch for more Dahlasiffas creeping back in. If they dared.
It seemed they did not. No more returned, as first one hour and then a second passed. The boy slept curled up with the dice in his hand. Gantt’s eyes grew heavy-lidded and closed, but Michael Gallatin remained vigilant. After a while Michael got up and went searching through the nearby tents for a medical kit. He found a box of British bandages and a box of Italian condoms, but not an ampule of morphine. He took the bandages and was able to pack Gantt’s wounds while the man slept. The front of Gantt’s shirt was a bloody mess. The two bullet holes were spaced about four inches apart and the slugs were still in his intestines.
At last, the sky began to lighten to the east. It was the beginning of another day.
Red shards of sunlight burst from behind a mountain range. The shadows shrank. The heat began to grow.
The boy awakened. Michael gave him a little more water. He sat cross-legged, staring at the sleeping Gantt. The dice were quiet in his fist. Michael leaned forward to check Gantt’s pulse and the man’s eyes opened. “I’m not dead,” said Gantt, but his face seemed to have taken on a certain gaunt and toothy quality Michael had seen before. It was amazing, how quickly that happened.