“What have they found?” Dennis said.
Hutchinson stood looking down at the rusted metal. He got down onto his knees and brushed sand away with his hand. He stopped when he exposed the empty headlight socket. He got to his feet, disappointment on his face.
“Something your grandfather may have been interested in,” he said.
Dennis recognised the unmistakeable grill of the Willy’s Jeep.
“Do you want us to uncover it?” the supervisor asked.
Hutchinson swiped his thigh with his hat.
“No leave it. It’s unimportant. Continue the search.”
Slowly they made their way back to the tent.
“I thought we’d found something then,” the American said.
Natalie touched his arm.
“We’ll find it Jim. I’m sure of it.”
Dennis looked out at the workers. He held his hand up in front of his face to block out the sun. A lone figure was crouching on a nearby sand dune. Dennis watched him for a while. The man’s Dromedary standing nearby. Dennis could see the barrel of a rifle jutting up above the man’s right shoulder.
“It looks like we have a visitor.”
Hutchinson and Natalie swung around and followed his gaze. They saw the nomad.
“Just a desert wanderer I expect. This kind of work always attracts the locals,” Hutchinson turned to a security guard, “Keep an eye on that man.”
On the dune the camelteer stood slowly and stretched his shoulders. He had been watching the activity for an hour. He had seen the steel machine exposed and that they had left it. It obviously wasn’t what they were looking for. He looked on without emotion.
’More foreigners to steal what they could from the desert’
He turned his animal and began walking away from the site. He stopped and checked the sun for position then set off at a slow pace along a depression in the ground that his ancestors had told him used to be a gorge.