Chapter One

“Do you think they knew what it was made of?” asked Megan.

“They knew enough to decide they’d better send it to you.”

“That’s true.”

“By the way, how do you spell Peter and Christie’s last name?”

“D-D-A. Rhymes with Ma; first D is silent.”

“Then why the two D’s?” I asked.

“This from the man whose last name, Tapp, is spelled with two Ps?” said Megan.

“Okay...” I smiled, shifted my weight. Something rubbed my butt; I shot up and stepped back.

“What’s wrong?” Megan asked, joining me in the full heat of the brutal sun.

“I don’t know, just felt something under me. Probably a stone.” Trying to ignore the sweat trickling down every inch of my anatomy, I tore a piece of bark from the tree and stirred the sand. A cracked skull appeared. We cleared more sand and watched a black beetle crawl out of the nose cavity and wobble off. The skull was the size of a small melon. A child’s. It had a tiny set of teeth and huge eye sockets. “How long do you think it’s been here?” I asked.

“Could be a few years or maybe a thousand.”

“Not buried very deep.”

“Things get buried and unburied quickly in a desert.”

We uncovered a rib cage, one arm, half a leg and a pelvic bone with the mummified remains of a rodent in its saddle. We continued digging, expecting to find a mother or father. Some adult. We didn’t. I thought of a kid alone out here, in the middle of nowhere. I wondered if the tree had been alive when the child took to its shelter, and if the rodent had come as friend or for feasting.

“Poor kid must have been naked,” I said, “since clothes don’t rot in a desert.”

“Always the clue gatherer,” Megan replied. A reference to my profession back in that other world where I was Acey Albert Tapp, PI, and where relief from the heat and a cold beer were only a hiccup away.

I poked at a piece of rag clutched in the skeletal fingers. Megan worked it free. The rag was wrapped around a pair of sticks that formed a small cross. The knobby end of the vertical stick had eyes, nose and a mouth burned into the wood and a whittled-down neck sporting a necklace of twine and a tiny piece of tin. Someone’s idea of a handmade doll.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked.

“Bury it deeper. Say a prayer.”

“That’s it?”

“You mean why don’t we report it to the police? Get an investigation going?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You keep forgetting where we are.”

“Fat chance.” I glanced up at the big white ball raining down heat.

Megan began the reburial. Afraid she might designate me preacher for the occasion, I excused myself and headed back to check on our vehicle. It was parked on a shoulder of packed sand beside a track of asphalt, its hood up. The old pickup looked as miserable as I felt. In fact, all six foot, two hundred and thirty pounds of me was right now feeling as self-assured as an ant staring at the underside of a boot.

I grabbed a rag off the fender, and busily wiped at a bit of baked-on pulpy substance on the radiator. I wondered how much further this antiquity on wheels would take us, with its balding tires and derelict cooling system. I released the hood catch and let it slam shut. The noise echoed like the blast of a cannon.

I glanced toward Megan. She was still at the grave, still giving proper closure to what had to be a desert horror story. She looked almost translucent in the flood of hot sunlight. Watching her, I thought back to the day we first met.

She had been seated behind the counter at her brother’s motel, crocheting and listening to music. I was a late-blooming PI chasing down a clue. She’d glanced up, smiled and right there and then, I had this feeling of soul charge. As if, up until that moment, my life had not been properly plugged in. I wished us back in that world, away from this land of heat, sand and listlessness, away from the impossible task of finding two people gone missing in the world’s largest desert.

I got some water out of an iceless cooler in the truck’s bed, uncapped the bottle and took a sip as I stared out at the endless dunes, wind-whipped and colorless, if you didn’t count beige. The sky was just as bleached, just as barren. A one color-fits-all kind of place with sky melting into the earth. Probably God’s first attempt at creating hell.

Wish I knew what we were going to do. We had already driven a thousand miles and been on the road almost a week looking for Megan’s friends.

A rumbling sound grabbed my attention. Way off in the distance a dust cloud swirled and grew. In the middle of it and moving fast was a dark object with a glistening tail.

A sweaty hand pulled the bottle of water from my grip.

“Service over already?” I asked.

Megan wet her fingers and flicked them at me. She turned toward the road. “That looks like the semi we saw last night in Paazo, outside the adobe bar.”

“I think you’re right. Maybe we should flag him down. Ask if he could follow us. At least until we get to the next town.”

We moved to the middle of the road and executed a four-handed wave in full sun. God, it was hot. I’ve known heat waves and sweltering summers, but this place was like hell exhaling. The big rig honked and slowed. We moved onto the shoulder, staying upwind. Road dust on sweaty bodies made for an uncomfortable alliance.

“That guy’s got his windows up,” I said.

“So?”

“So he’s either crazy or he’s air-conditioned.”

The huge tires slid to a halt. On the spring-green door was the word TENGVAR painted in white, with the T drawn like the trunk and crown of a lush tree. It was a huge tractor with a sleeper-cab and was hauling a tanker car. We approached and stood in the giant patch of new shade. A window rolled down and the driver stuck his head out. He had broad features, a high forehead, close cropped black curls gone slightly gray, and a cinnamon brown complexion that showed no sign of fatigue.

We introduced ourselves, learned his name was Kayut, and then I patiently listened as Megan and our rescuer did the customary rap on health, family, and travel.

“You folks got troubles?” Kayut asked.

“Our pickup’s overheating,” I answered, jumping in with something worth saying.

He glanced over at the four-wheel culprit. “I could tow you.”

“You could? That would be great.”

“Sure, okay.” The cab door opened and the driver jumped out, leading with his bare feet, the biggest, ugliest pair I’d ever seen. Not only were they badly scarred, but the soles looked like shoe leather, and the heels were so cracked they could have doubled as toes. He was a big man, my height if not taller. Two brother mountains, except I wore a T-shirt, jeans and work boots, while he was shirtless, wore a pair of khaki shorts, and carried a large pouch around his neck that appeared to be full of small round objects. A holster made out of animal pelt hung from a strap across his shoulders and held a large slingshot. I waited for him to do a tap dance on the hot ground. But all he did was spit out a wad of something reddish, and then circle around to the sunny side of the tanker and serenade us with the sounds of an emptying bladder.

Kayut came back all smiles. He hauled out a chain from the sleeper-cab and secured our pickup to the rear of the tanker. We piled into the rig and headed off. Almost immediately the landscape changed to gravel and the road descended into a deep sprawling depression pockmarked with huge salt beds. When we emerged more than an hour later, we were back among the dunes. Not once did we see a living thing. According to Megan, that’s the way it was for most of this desert. Not an insignificant fact when you realize that the Sahara was about the same size as the U. S. of A. That would be like having all the States stripped of their forests and parks, and all the rivers and lakes drained and turned into deep depressions and long meandering trenches. Hell of an image.

One hour followed another. Kayut played music on his tape deck. Rhythms he claimed were the latest rage at the seaports of West Africa. Tunes that had Megan and me clapping and finger-drumming each other, while our driver sang along and tap-danced on the floor of the cab with his free foot.

Compared to our hours in the pickup, we were as comfortable as comfort gets in this tiresome land. Except for one thing. When Kayut wasn’t singing, he was chewing chunks of red-brown kola nuts and making regular deposits of the liquid pulp into a calabash that sat on the dash surrounded by an old towel. Every bump we hit had me expecting the contents to empty into someone’s lap.

Kayut talked about his two wives and six kids in Dagati land, and of his soon-to-be-realized dream of having enough money to purchase his own lorry, and going home to start a transport business.

Megan in turn told Kayut about Christie and Peter Dda. How, for the past nine years, they had worked for the educational arm of the United Nations, collecting desert lore. Then, just up and disappeared after sending her a letter with a leather pouch enclosed.

Creepy leather pouch, I would have said.

In the late afternoon Kayut offered us a cold pop from the cooler at our feet. I moved the cord connecting it to the vehicle’s electrical system, lifted the lid, and immediately slammed it shut.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Supper,” Kayut answered.

“Is it dead?”

“Should be.”

I lifted the lid cautiously. It was a lizard-like creature the size of a house cat. When it didn’t move, I ventured in a hand and brought out three strawberry sodas. Megan opened them. Then Kayut did something strange. He raised his drink in our direction and saluted us as though we were some sort of godsend.

Time dragged on. I took to dozing. Then out of the blue Kayut slammed on the brakes, shut down the engine and jumped out of the cab. Megan and I watched as this man-mountain ran like the wind, then squatted, ripped the slingshot out of its holster, removed something from the pouch around his neck, cocked the weapon and fired. At what, we hadn’t a clue. Probably tomorrow’s supper. Whatever it was, it got away. He holstered his slingshot and stepped behind a dune.

“I think we’re having a pit stop,” Megan said.

We climbed out and took off in different directions. I was standing at the side of a low dune, taking care of business, the setting sun at my back, when I saw them. An old man and a child swathed in robes and turbans of orange ocher. They were seated together on a camel. Perched on a saddle woven of straw. The man had his ankles crossed at the crook of the camel’s neck, and the child nestling in his lap. Two additional camels followed behind, loaded down with bulging sacks. Mesmerized, I watched the camels’ swaggering behinds, the happy wag of their mid-length tails. The way they raised and lowered their platter-sized feet. Nature’s sand-shoes. All of a sudden, the lead animal lifted its head and let out a loud, lion-like roar.

“Damn,” I said zipping up.

“I think Africa is beginning to seduce you.” Megan approached and took my arm. We fixed our attention on the nomads and their camels.

“I hope they fare better than that skeleton with the stick-doll,” I said.

“I hope so, too.”

“How come they’re not following the road?”

“Roads don’t always go where people want to get to.”

“Seems a sure way to get lost.”

She smiled. “Caravans have crossed the desert for centuries, navigating by the stars, seasons, sun, shadows. Even the shapes of dunes.”

“If you say so.”

“Quite a sight,” she said.

“Camel cowboys sashaying into the sunset,” I replied.

“That’s the east, Acey.”

“Poetic license,” I answered.

“Sailors aboard the four-legged ship of the desert,” said Megan.

That brought a verse to mind, one I’d puzzled over as a youngster--Father dear, do ships at sea have legs way down below? Of course they do, you silly you, for how else could they go. I offered it as my retort. Megan laughed and pulled me toward the road.

Kayut was seated behind the wheel, about to bite off another chunk of kola nut. He had put on a voluminous black and white African smock with oversized half sleeves and a V slit at the neck. Megan and I climbed in and we set off.

In less than an hour of spotting the little caravan of nomads and their camels, another man came into view at the side of the road. He was digging at the base of a termite mound that could have stood shoulder to shoulder with a two-story building. A short man with a big belly wearing bloomer-like trousers and a firehouse-red vest with bulging pockets. Santa Claus of the Sahara came to mind.

Megan waved and Kayut pumped the horn like someone sending Morse code. The termite man waved his khaki cap, exposing a wild mane of tight black curls.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Nodac,” Megan answered.

“He some kind of termite specialist?”

“He’s some kind of everything,” said Megan.

Kayut clucked in agreement. A single, silly sound like horse hoof on cobblestone.

A little further down the road, we passed what had to be the termite man’s camp--a Land Rover and trailer parked parallel to each other and back-lit by the orange glow of the setting sun. A tent sat on the car’s roof like a lopsided hat. The trailer was huge, appeared to be made of plastic and had the rounded shape of a covered wagon with double rear doors. Hanging between these two vehicles under a makeshift ceiling was a hammock. I whistled and twisted sideways to keep the camp in sight.

Megan laughed.

“This Nodac, how do you know him?” I asked.

“He used to bring the Peace Corps its mail. Christie had a crush on him for a while, until she met Peter Dda.”

“How’d that come about?” I asked.

“Meeting Peter? He was hired to teach us the local language.”

Kayut continued to chew his kola nuts and Megan and I took to dozing. At one point I woke to find all remnants of daylight gone and the semi barreling along as though in some endless black tunnel. I tried to get a glimpse of our pickup in the side-view mirror, but all I could see was a bank of small lights on the side of the tanker.

Suddenly, Kayut shouted, “Yes! Okay! God is good.” He did a sort of rear-end shuffle while his shoulders danced inside his smock.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He pointed out toward the darkness.

I stared through the windshield. Other than the dark ground racing toward us and some tumbleweed blowing about, I saw nothing but stars and night. When I said as much, he laughed and pointed up high and to the left. Squinting, I managed to see a star that seemed low and ten times the size of its neighbors. Within minutes, this strange star began to take on the appearance of a fire in the sky. Tiny tongues of red flames licking the black night. At home, a factory would have come to mind, some huge complex with smoke stacks sending their hot breath into the heavens. Only this was the desert.

“What the heck is that?” I asked.

“The lighthouse.”

“Lighthouse? In the middle of the desert?”

“Yes, sure. Why not?”

“Is that where we’re headed?” I asked.

His tongue chirped a yes.

“This some sort of village?”

“That is Tengvar. The place of tomorrows.”

“I hope they like strangers,” I said.

“Sure, why not?”

“’Cause they’re going to have to find us a bed.”

“No worry. Tengvar has many beds.”

We sped on, tires crunching gravel, the flames of the lighthouse like a beckoning hand of fire. I began to catch glimpses of a fat, round tower beneath the flames. We reached a turnoff marked with green concrete posts and a sign announcing TENGVAR. A few minutes later, we entered through a gate and headed down a road lined with palm trees.

The lighthouse loomed large and straight ahead--a concrete candle spewing flames. We took an abrupt right down another road of palm trees and turned again a minute later. Ahead, a light appeared. Not the squared sort viewed through the frame of a window, but a pale light spilling over the top of a high wall.

Kayut stopped a few yards from the backlit wall and killed the engine and headlights. He told us to stay put and jumped down from the cab, leaving the door ajar and Megan and I sitting like fish in a bowl. I watched Kayut rap at a door in the wall, saw a man appear with a storm lantern in hand. He was tall and either wearing a long nightshirt or a desert robe. I couldn’t see much of his face but he seemed middle-aged. He handed the driver an envelope.

I said, “What if they’re all filled up?”

“Africa is never all filled up,” said Megan.

Kayut returned clutching the envelope to his chest and wearing a big grin. He opened the passenger door and waved us out.