Just Deserts (13 page)

“No more than thirty kilometres.”

“And we did more than that yesterday, right?”

“Around forty kilometres,” he replied.

“So today is shorter … easier … right?”

“Shorter, definitely. Easier, we'll see. How are your feet?” he asked.

“I wasn't even thinking of them,” I lied. I guess that was really only a
partial
lie, though. As long as I wasn't standing or walking, they didn't hurt. My first few steps of the day had let me know they were going to be a problem. But I didn't want anyone else to know that.

“Well, I hope they're okay,” he said, “because as soon as the others are up and everyone's had breakfast, we'll get started again.”

I COLLAPSED INTO A HEAP
on the sand. All I wanted was to stop. No, that wasn't right. All I wanted was to die and be buried. Buried would have been nice—cool and dark.

Andy, Connor and Kajsa put down their packs. The two guys started to pull out the two tents. Very efficient. I could have helped if I'd been able to get up.

“Are you all right?” Kajsa asked. She looked genuinely concerned.

I wanted to say something flippant and sarcastic. Instead I just shook my head.

“Is it your feet?” she asked.

“My feet and everything they're attached to. Could somebody just shoot me and put me out of my misery?”

“I'm afraid I don't have a gun … here,” Andy said. “But it makes you think that all that training we did might have had a purpose after all.”

My mind, exhausted and baked, sputtered trying to come up with some brilliant answer. I had nothing, but really there was no point in arguing what was so painfully obvious for all to see. I wasn't prepared.

“But you did really well today,” Kajsa said.

“She's right,” Connor agreed. “You stayed with us all day.”

“How far did we go?”

“Just under forty kilometres,” Larson replied.

“That's good … right?”

“That's very good. If we can keep up this pace, we'll reach Tunis on schedule.”

Keep up the pace … that was … that was … impossible.

“How long before the sun sets?” I asked.

“Thirty minutes … thirty-five at most.”

“I need dark,” I said.

“Before it gets dark, I should have a look at your feet,” Larson said. “Take off your shoes.”

I nodded my head. Slowly, painfully, I removed my shoes and started to peel off my socks.

“Oh, my goodness,” Kajsa gasped.

I hardly needed to look because I knew how bad they felt. Still, I looked down, and even I was shocked. My feet were red and puffy and runny and looked like raw meat.

“Kajsa, can you please get me the first-aid kit from my pack? Connor and Andy, please sent up the tents,” Larson commanded.

All three instantly set off.

“And boys,” he called out after them, “I want you to set the tents up close to the top of the hill … not the very top but not down here.”

I understood the first-aid kit, but why the sudden need for the tents and the specificity of where he wanted them set up? If there was another sandstorm, wouldn't we be better off down low?

A couple of flies settled onto my right foot and I shooed them away. They landed on my left foot and were joined by another fly. I reached down and brushed them away again, but they didn't go far, circling around in the air.

“Flies,” I said absently. “Where do they even come from out here?”

“There's lots of life in the desert, but most of it is hidden underground waiting for dark or the right conditions.”

“And my feet are the right conditions?”

“The smell of open wounds is what attracted them.”

Larson sat down right in front of me and took one of my feet in his hands, examining it. I was just grateful it kept the flies away.

Kajsa walked over and handed him the first-aid kit, then joined the guys in setting up the tents.

“It's amazing what's hidden beneath the surface,” Larson said, shooing more flies away from my feet.

“I'm more worried about what won't stay beneath the surface of my skin.”

“I was thinking about the desert. Do you know what's beneath us?”

“Sand.”

“There's more than that,” he said.

“Sand and rock?”

“More.”

“Sand and rock and
gravel
?”

He laughed. “Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humour.”

“Nope. All I've lost is most of the skin on both of my feet.”

“I'll take care of it … as best I can.”

The first part of that sentence was reassuring … the second part disturbing.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“I've seen far worse. Now back to my original
question. Underneath this sand, underneath this rock, is water. Clean, fresh, pure water.”

I shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. Since we have the beach already, we might as well have the water to go with it.”

He took a knife and started to perform surgery on my feet. “How about if you lie back? It'll be easier for me to work.”

I did what he asked, and he kept talking about the water. I think we'd created a quiet conspiracy: he wouldn't tell me what he was doing as long as I didn't ask or look.

“The Sahara wasn't always a desert. If you go back thousands of years, this area received much more rainfall.”

“I'd love for it to rain,” I said.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“If I was making a wish, it would be for a whole lot of other things.”

“I can understand that. Anyway, that rain seeped into the earth into pockets, like underground lakes and rivers and ponds. They call them aquifers. Beneath us is lots of water.”

“How far beneath us?”

“It could be less than a hundred feet,” he said, “but more likely it's hundreds of feet, perhaps a thousand feet.”

“Get me a shovel and I'll start digging,” I offered.

He laughed again. “Actually, did you know that
sahara
is the Arabic word for desert?”

“So when we call it the Sahara Desert, we're saying it's the
Desert
Desert?”

“Exactly. Many tribal groups call it
Sahara al-kubra,
which in Arabic means the ‘greatest desert.' Which it truly is. It's the largest hot desert in the world.”

“As opposed to all the cold deserts?” I joked.

“Well … yes. Strictly speaking, a desert is defined by lack of precipitation, so technically the largest desert in the world is Antarctica. It's fifty percent bigger than the Sahara.”

“But doesn't it snow there all the time?”

“It blows there all the time because it's the windiest place on earth, but it hardly ever snows. There are places, the dry valleys, where scientists believe there hasn't been precipitation for thousands of years.”

“So this is practically paradise compared to there.”

“It is. I was never so cold in my whole life,” he said.

“That's right, you've been there … when you climbed that mountain.”

“Vinson Massif. And believe me, being in the Antarctic once was bad enough, but the second time was even worse.”

“You climbed that mountain
twice
?”

He laughed. “Of course not. The second time I went on snowshoes to the South Pole.”

I sat up. “You did what?”

“I walked to the South Pole.”

“That's … that's …” I was at a loss for words.

“Cold, really cold.”

“That wasn't the word I was going for.” I figured it was best not to give him any of the words that were going around in my mind—idiotic, stupid, insane—since he had that knife close by.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you do that?”

“It's hard to put into words. I guess for the same reasons we're crossing the desert now.”

“My father forced you to go to the South Pole to try to teach you a lesson?”

“Okay, not all of us have the same reasons. I guess I just wanted to prove I could do it,” he said.

“Prove it to who?”

“Maybe to everybody, including myself. I was younger. Now I don't have anything to prove to anybody.”

“So I guess that means you're
not
going to the North Pole next?” I joked.

“No, I do plan to get there someday.”

“But if you have nothing to prove … then why?”

“I just always thought it would be cool to stand at the top of the world. Maybe you want to join me?”

I burst out laughing.

“Do I understand that to be a no, or are you so overjoyed at the prospect that you broke into spontaneous laughter?”

“You can take it any way you want. But just for the record, I think you're completely crazy.”

“There have been times when I've questioned my own sanity, but I haven't done anything you couldn't accomplish yourself.”

“That's even crazier. Just look at my feet after only three days in the desert!” I looked down. They were all bandaged and padded and painted orange with the iodine.

“I've seen worse … although never this quickly. I think we're going to have to slow down our pace for the next few days. But first things first. We'd all better get into the tents.”

“Another sandstorm?” I exclaimed.

“Another storm, but not sand. It's going to rain.”

“Come on, quit joking around.”

“No joke. Take a deep breath and you can smell it coming.”

It was darker now and the wind had picked up. The air was getting cool. I'd thought these were simply signs of night coming. I took a deep breath, and could feel it in my throat and lungs. There was moisture in the air and—

A burst of lightning lit up the sky, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder!

“We'd better get to the tents,” he said.

He offered me a hand up. This time, I took it.

THE LIGHTNING CRACKLED
and lit up the whole night sky, and in that light, I saw the looks of amazement, disbelief and fear in the faces of the others. Those were exactly the emotions that rotated through my mind and across my face. All five of us were huddled together in one of the tents. The thunder overwhelmed everything, including the sound of the rain pounding down on the tent.

“I've never seen anything like this,” Connor said.

“I don't know if there's ever
been
a storm like this,” Kajsa added.

For over an hour we'd watched and listened as the lightning and thunder rolled across the sky. It was eerie and ominous and exciting to watch the storm come to life in the distance, then surround us and then finally engulf us. And by the time it reached us, the interval between lightning burst and deafening thunder was almost non-existent. Then the rain came down. It was as if the heavens had simply opened up and flooded down on top of us.

“It is beautiful, though,” Kajsa said.

“It would be more beautiful if we were sitting safely inside a house,” I suggested.

“Lightning strikes houses,” Andy said. “It generally takes the quickest route to the ground, so it seeks out high objects and metal.”

I tapped my finger against one of the metal tent poles.

“We're not going to get hit by lightning,” he said.

“We could,” Larson said. “Although the risk is very small.”

“How small? How much danger are we in?” I asked.

“There are lots of strikes, but it's a very big desert,” Larson offered. “The odds are incredibly tiny mathematically.”

“Couldn't we have made them smaller if you'd had the guys set up the tents lower down instead of almost at the top of the rocks?” I asked.

“The greater danger is down there. Flooding.”

“Flooding … in the desert?” I questioned.

“Obviously you're not a big believer in Noah and his ark,” Larson said.

“I'll start to worry when we get halfway to forty days and forty nights of rain.”

“That's not going to happen,” Larson said. “In fact, I'm sure it's slowing down already.”

I listened to the sound of the rain against the tent. It had become much quieter, and I'd already noted in my head that the time between bursts of lightning and the accompanying thunder had lengthened.

“Can we get out of the tent now?” Andy asked.

“Sure, that would be all right,” Larson answered.

The zippers on both sides sang out and everybody climbed outside. I clambered out as well, gingerly putting weight on my feet. They were sore, but rest
and the treatment had done wonders to make them feel, if not completely better, at least tolerable.

The air was thick and cool and damp, but it was hardly raining at all; it was more of a mist. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was like drinking in the air. It felt so good, all the way down from my mouth and nose to my windpipe and into my lungs.

“I can hear water,” Andy said.

Almost instantly headlamps were turned on and aimed in every direction. I turned mine on, too. The beams danced around and—there it was! Down below, running in the bottom of the gully between the dunes and hills, was a stream! Water was racing along in ripples and waves with little whitecaps where it rushed over rocks and bumps.

“Can we get closer?” Connor asked.

“I think we should get close enough to fill our water containers.” Larson paused. “All of us except Ethan. You need to get back inside, get your weight off your feet, keep them dry and get to sleep. Any objections?”

I shook my head. “No argument from me.”

“Good. I'll check on your feet in the morning before we start walking. Have a good sleep.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME
when I woke up the next morning that the whole rainstorm had been nothing more than a mirage or a hallucination or a dream, I'd have believed it. Before we even started to walk, the water had all disappeared. If you looked more closely, you could sort of see patterns in the sand from where it had flowed, but those could just as easily have been caused by the wind. And then, as if it was angry that its work was being imitated, the wind blew sand around to cover up the traces that remained. The only tangible proof of the downpour sat in my water bottle.