The Medusa Stone

The Open Desert

In hindsight, Mercer felt he should have chanced the mine field again after the Sudanese had withdrawn in order to recover any useful equipment from the burned-out Land Cruiser, especially canteens. Or his sat-phone. Though he continued to carry the single backpack, everything in it was worthless for the ordeal to come. With nightfall only an hour away and their bodies ravaged by thirst, those short few yards through the mines could have made the difference between survival or perishing in the desert.

Without food, they could last for a couple of weeks, but a lack of water would kill them long before starvation. Mercer’s mouth was beyond dry. His tongue felt like the scaly body of some desert reptile. The last time he was able to swallow, hours ago it seemed, his throat screamed in desiccated protest, as if lined with ground glass. While a woman’s body was better suited to survival situations, Selome wasn’t faring well either as they trudged under the unrelenting African sun. Inventorying their condition, Mercer judged that they would be dead in twenty-four to thirty-six hours if they couldn’t find water. Selome’s revelations, about herself, her mission, and the King Solomon mine had buoyed him for a while, but now his mind focused only on the miles.

With the setting sun at their backs, the desert bloomed crimson, painted in shades and shadows that made the steep mountains look like fairy-tale castles, heavily turreted and remote. The sight would have made them pause under normal circumstances, but as night deepened, they simply continued to walk, their pace slowing with each footfall.

Selome and Mercer used scraps from their clothing to fashion rudimentary sun protection for their heads and breathed through their noses to reduce fluid loss. They tried every survival trick either had ever learned, and still their efforts were falling far short. Had either of them carried a compass or knew celestial navigation, they could have walked in the coolness of the night. As it was, they were forced to march in the daylight, the sun as their only guide. And after just one day, with an unknown number more to go, it was clear that they would die.

“The sun’s almost behind the horizon.” Mercer spoke for the first time in nearly six hours. “It’ll be cooler in just a little while.”

“And I’ll be dead in just a little while, too.” Selome managed a smile, though her voice scratched like an old phonograph record.

“That’s the spirit,” Mercer rasped. “Nothing like a positive attitude.”

His grin cracked his dry lips and a tiny bead of blood quivered at the corner of his mouth. He surveyed the terrain around them. The landscape was spiked by mountainous ramparts that grew from the desert floor with brutal regularity, forcing them to follow a meandering route as they tracked eastward toward the Adobha River.

They continued on, their steps less sure, fatigue and dehydration taking their toll. Just before total darkness set in, Mercer steered Selome to one of the countless kopjes, rocky hillocks similar to the buttes that dot the American Southwest, and led her into one of the hundreds of caves that pocked the cliff, riven out of the stone by eons of erosion. Too exhausted to speak, they tumbled to the floor and soaked up the cave’s chilled air. A full half hour passed before Mercer felt he had the energy to sit up and press his aching back against the rock wall. He tried to use his pack as a pillow but its contents were even harder and more jagged than the stone.

Neither dared remove their boots. Their feet would have swollen immediately and they wouldn’t be able to don them again in the morning. Mercer did loosen his laces to ease the pressure against his tender skin.

“Try it,” he prompted Selome. “It feels better than sex.”

“You must not be very good,” she teased. “How far do you think we’ve come?”

“I’d guess about twenty-five to thirty miles.”

“Then we’re halfway to the Adobha River.”

“Unfortunately no. Because of the terrain and our need to go around these damned hills, I estimate we’ve only walked about fifteen miles due east.” Though he wanted to protect her from their reality, she had a right to know.

“So the river is…”

“Another forty-five miles. If the ground doesn’t flatten out soon, we’ll actually have to cover seventy. And our bodies are going to weaken even more during the night. Our pace will be slower tomorrow, and every second we’re out in the sun, we’re going to dehydrate further. I’m sorry to tell you this, but these are the facts.”

Selome’s body slumped in defeat. “Can we go back and take our chances with the Sudanese?”

“I don’t think we’d make it half the distance to the mine. Remember, we were driving for a couple of hours before the attack.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“Sure we are. In about fifty years, when old age catches up to us.” Mercer straightened. “We’re not dead yet, Selome, and I’ve gotten out of worse messes than this.”

Mercer couldn’t specifically recall facing a more desperate situation but Selome took comfort from his words. She crawled to him, laying her head on the hard pads of his stomach muscles. He stroked her hair softly and she mewed before drifting into an exhausted sleep. For Mercer, the respite of oblivion was a long time in coming.

He was almost too tired and sore to sleep. Something about what Selome had told him nagged at the back of his mind, something about Levine’s quest to find King Solomon’s mine. It was an archaeological treasure, the find of the century, but Mercer couldn’t figure out how the Israeli minister planned to use it to gain power or to help him hold it once he’d won the elections. Something didn’t fit. There was another piece to this puzzle that Selome hadn’t mentioned.

Had he not been so exhausted and his mind tortured by the dry thirst, he would have demanded an explanation, but until they were safe again, neither could afford to waste the energy talking about something that was, for the moment, out of their control. Just before sleep claimed him, Mercer had one more thought: the Eritrean refugees he had sent for from Sudan. They were leaving one hell and heading straight into another. He knew their labor would be eagerly accepted by the rebel soldiers who were undoubtedly at the mine at this very moment. Mercer realized that his and Selome’s struggle for survival was also a race against time.

At dawn the next day, Selome woke before Mercer and her feeble stirrings brought him awake. They had snuggled together during the night, their legs twined. It was a position of intimate trust, the nocturnal pose of lovers, and for several seconds they silently enjoyed the touch. It was only when Selome tried to lift herself that they realized how much their muscles had stiffened. She whimpered, her face screwed up with pain.

“Oh, Christ,” Mercer said, his voice barely a hoarse croak.

Moving like arthritics, Mercer followed Selome’s lead as she began stretching her tensed limbs. His joints popped and creaked in the confines of the cave and he knew intimately how Harry White felt every morning of every day.

Thinking of his old friend brought a burst of adrenaline to Mercer’s heart, the natural drug giving him just enough strength to motion for Selome that it was time to continue. It was almost six in the morning, and they would have a couple of hours before the sun’s heat began searing the desert floor.

“Last one in the swimming pool is a rotten egg,” Mercer tried to joke. Selome was too exhausted to respond.

The vastness of the wasteland made their progress seem like that of insects crawling across a huge table. Yet for them, every step was a personal triumph against the ravages of thirst and exhaustion. Selome called for a break after two hours, but Mercer urged her on with just a touch of her shoulder. She moved like an automaton, her gait mechanical, her arms no longer swinging because the effort was too great. After two more hours, Mercer could not dissuade her from stopping, and she plopped to the ground in the shade of a small granite outcropping. Mercer slumped next to her, watching fifteen minutes ratchet by on his Tag Heuer before staggering to his feet and extending his hand. Gamely, she reached up and allowed him to haul her up.

Trying to maintain some sort of steady pace, Mercer began counting footsteps, planning on calling for a halt after two thousand, guessing that they would have covered another mile, but when he reached the number, he knew they had walked half that distance. He abandoned the counting and continued to put one foot before the other, thinking their next rest would come when Selome could go no farther. Yet it was he who needed the break first.

Just after noon, at the edge of one more nameless mountain, Mercer saw a cave similar to the one in which they had spent the previous night and he led Selome to it, intending to wait out the hottest part of the day. The remorseless sun gave him a headache like a thousand migraines, an all-consuming agony that left him dizzy and nauseous. “We’ll get moving again at three,” he managed to say before drifting into an empty torpor that was neither sleep nor wakefulness, but a vacant zone somewhere in between.

Neither was able to stir at their three o’clock goal, so they didn’t start out again until it was nearly dark, their pace so slow that they would have trouble making it to the next sheltering mountain before their strength gave out completely. Death by dehydration would still be another torturous day away. But no amount of determination or will could lessen the possibility that when they stopped for the night, they might never rise again.

“Do you think you can keep going after sunset?”

Selome nodded, then asked after a pause, “Won’t we get lost?”

“We already are,” Mercer admitted, and they walked on in silence. They could cover more ground in the dark, regardless of direction. He had to keep them moving — simply sitting and waiting for the end just was not an option. An hour elapsed before Mercer continued their exchange, not realizing so much time had passed. “We can rest again tomorrow and maybe make it a few more miles the next night, but that’ll be our last.”

Selome’s half-hour delay in her reply went unnoticed in their misery. “Isn’t the monastery on this side of the river?”

A quarter mile later. “That’s what Habte and Gibby said. I don’t know how much closer it is.”

Twenty minutes: “Let’s hope it’s a lot closer.”

Darkness came swiftly, sucking the heat from the desert with a welcome suddenness. When the stars showed, they shone with a cold, indifferent brilliance. With the temperature down twenty degrees, Mercer and Selome found they could cover a greater distance between rest stops, and even those stops were shorter. For the first part of the night, they felt a small degree of hope.

But by midnight what little strength they’d managed to hold in reserve had burned away, and as suddenly as night had stolen the day, exhaustion stole their will. From a starting average of two miles per hour, they were down to just half and every hour slowed them even further. Their thirst was no longer a simple agonizing craving. Every second brought greater and greater damage to their bodies. Another twelve hours would lead to severe and possible irreversible kidney damage. After that, death would be quick.

The sun approached at five, rouging the sky. Amazingly, Mercer and Selome had traveled nearly twenty miles, their route eastward more direct as the gaps between mountains widened. Still there were untold miles remaining, and as Mercer began searching for another cave in which to hole up, he knew they would never see the end of their journey. When the sun went down again, they might cover a few more miles, but most likely, this stop would be their last. In desperation, Mercer sucked at the blood that dripped from his cracked lips.

His eyes were nearly closed by dehydration and the fast-approaching sunrise. Beyond a few feet, everything was a dazzling white. The gritty pain in his eyes was nothing compared to the thirst that blistered the back of his tongue. The pebble he kept in his mouth could no longer trick his salivary glands into producing, so it lay like a boulder. His body screamed for water, and his mind was beginning to drift into fantasy. He could hear a stream just a few hundred yards ahead, and even the breeze carried its sharp clean smell. But as they approached, the illusion moved ahead, establishing another goal that he slogged toward mechanically.

He had forgotten about Selome until he felt her collapse against his legs. He was too weak to break his own fall, and his head rebounded against the sand. It took him several long minutes to realize she had lapsed into unconsciousness. He looked into the murk ahead of them and saw they had come to the side of yet another mountain, a solid wall of rock that stretched beyond his vision. He blinked hard, but he could see nothing that would lead them around this latest obstacle.

Wriggling slowly, like a snake shedding its skin, he slid out of his pack. Had he given any thought to what he was about to do, he wouldn’t have attempted it, but he and Selome were beyond the point of choice. Mercer’s arms had been darkened by the sun until his skin was the color of leather. He drew a pocket knife from his pants, fumbled until he could get the smaller, sharper blade open, and without pause drew it across his arm.

He half expected dust to blow out from the wound, but a steady line of blood welled up and quickly, so as not to lose even a drop, he pressed the gash to Selome’s mouth. Consciously, she never would have broken mankind’s oldest taboo, but her body craved the liquid and her throat gently pumped as the life-giving fluid eased her agony. Even as he continued to hold his arm to her lips, Mercer could see her regaining awareness. Before she could realize what he’d done, he drew his arm away, binding it with a cloth and wiping her face clean. He was leaning over her when her eyes fluttered open.

“What happened?”

“You passed out. You hit pretty hard and gave yourself a split lip. Are you okay?”

“I think so.” He could see her tongue moving around experimentally, feeling for the source of the taste in her mouth.

“Sun’ll be up in a few minutes. We need to find shelter. Can you walk?”

Selome nodded, but when she tried to stand, she fell back. She shot him a pleading, frightened look.

“By now you can’t weigh much more than the backpack.” He tried to smile, but his face wouldn’t cooperate. “I’ll carry you.”

He ignored her unbelieving expression and tucked her into his arms, lifting her off the ground so easily she was stunned. He set her on her feet, turned to present his back, and stooped to make it easier for her to climb onto him. “This will be the final boarding call for the Mercer Limited. Those waiting for another train should remain on the platform.”

Selome was slender under normal conditions and had lost several pounds in the past forty-eight hours, but her weight was staggering. Mercer closed his mind to the pain and started out again, Selome’s chin resting against his shoulder so he could feel her steady breathing in his ear. He had no illusions of carrying her all the way to the Adohba River. He’d be lucky to find a cave in the next few minutes. Once the sun erupted over the mountains, his strength would leave him for the last time.

“Selome, I can’t really see anymore. You have to keep an eye out for another cave.” His legs were shaking after only a few dozen yards.

Another agonizing hour went by, Mercer carrying Selome northward along the cliff face. He was numbed to the pain, using the last scraps of energy left within him like a flame flaring brightest before it’s extinguished. The sun was a brutal weight that tried to pound him like a hammer against the anvil of the desert floor. He thought that Selome had slipped into unconsciousness once again, but suddenly she cried out, a choking caw like a startled bird. Mercer could see the tip of her hand aiming ahead of them. He couldn’t distinguish what she had spotted so, like a donkey following the carrot at the end of a stick, he dogged her slender finger. Glare had become a constant gauzy curtain, and it wasn’t until they were almost at the entrance to a cave that he saw its shadow emerge from the haze.

Selome slid from his back, falling. Mercer didn’t even notice. He was beyond the farthest point he had ever pushed himself. Like any mortally wounded animal, he wanted to find a sheltered place in which to die. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled blindly into the cool cave, stopping only when his head hit the stone wall. Selome entered moments later, collapsing next to Mercer’s facedown, immobile form.

He knew he would never rise again. His head pounded fiercely, and he felt it would split at just the slightest touch. He reached over to touch Selome’s arm. Her skin felt like a dried-out parchment. Every fiber of his body craved water, but the last remnants of his rational mind knew it would never come.

“This is where we die,” Mercer mumbled into the dusty floor of the cavern. “I’m sorry.”

Selome rolled Mercer so she could study his face. Under the days of beard, his skin was gray and cracked. His lips were so blistered that his mouth looked like an infected wound. She saw her own concern reflected in his eyes, for she looked just as bad.

“I’ll read to you to pass the time,” Selome offered, and Mercer shot her a queer look, suspecting that she had finally fallen away from reality.

Yet as he watched, she grabbed a leather-bound book from the cave floor, resting it on her lap, and cracked it open to a random page. She stared at it blankly for just a second. “Hey, this is Shakespeare. It’s in Italian, but I’ll translate it for you.”

“What else?” He was too wasted to feel emotion other than the desperation of the near dead.

“What?”

“What else is in the cave?” Was it possible? A hope flared dimly in his mind.

Selome looked around their mausoleum. “Oh, God! Food! Water!” He could hear her crying.

The air in the cave tasted sweeter when she unstoppered a flask. When she held it to her lips, Mercer watched clear water dribble down her chin, softening the dried scabs on her lips and bringing moisture to her seared tongue. The sensation closed her eyes in ecstatic pain.

Mercer was overwhelmed. Not because the water would save his life; that wasn’t his first thought. That Selome would be saved was much more important than his own well-being. He wanted to take credit for getting her through this, but it was her own guts that had carried them, her uncomplaining determination to continue. Trying to inspire her with his strength, she’d turned around and done the same to him. Even as he faded into oblivion, he saw her half fill her mouth with water and press her lips to his, forcing his mouth open to allow a little water to pass into him. She drank again herself and then gave Mercer another mouthful. A minute later, he was unconscious, but his breathing evened and sounded less labored, a tiny but noticeable smile on his face.