by Tony Lavely
The wait was cold and since the rain continued, wet as well.
She started. Guess I dropped off to sleep… now, what…
Voices were approaching from her right. The men—it sounded like men only—were speaking loudly enough to cover any noise they made pushing through the wet bushes and ground cover. The sounds indicated that they were headed toward the campsite Ian had found earlier. She glanced at her phone: one-thirty. Ian’s been gone… three hours, not long enough to make the house. While Beckie could hear words, she didn’t understand the language; she decided to move a little closer.
A vantage point behind a shorter yellowwood bush gave on the campsite, probably twenty-five feet away. Five men had just thrown down packs and looked to be ready to set up their tents when one of them shouted, pointing at the ground. Beckie couldn’t see what had attracted his attention, but it was in the area where she and Ian had examined the remnants of the discarded cigarettes. Whether his concern was shared, or merely his authority, the others wasted no time in grabbing their packs; they all rushed to the donkey pen.
She expected that the noise they made opening the gate and getting the donkeys ready to travel would cover any she and the horse would make; she edged her way back. After a pat on the nose, she looked at the overhanging branches and decided to walk. “You’ll be fine here,” she muttered in his ear, and eased back to where she could see the corral.
It was empty, and the last donkey’s butt disappeared around another yellowwood bush. She glanced at her phone, and pushed the button to save her location. Still too early to call Ian.
While she was sure the men had been spooked by something she and Ian had left, they gave no evidence of worrying about being followed. The pace was good, considering nighttime and the rain, with no attempt at quiet. Occasionally, one of the donkeys would bray, calling for food or rest, Beckie thought with a chuckle, but by and large, she trailed by listening to the sounds of tramping ahead.
In deference to Ian’s wishes, she made sure the donkey at the group’s tail end was out of sight, not wishing to be caught. The men had all appeared to be dark, though in the rain and night, it was hard to be sure. Their clothes were heavy, the type that her web-based investigations of Lesothos and the Drakensberg Mountains suggested were common to the people who lived and worked in the near-alpine ranges above the cliffs.
The cliffs. In short order, she thought, they’d be bound to hit open grassland, and then the face of the escarpment itself. I guess I’ll stop there and mark the point. Unless… She didn’t want them to get away, but unless some way to cover herself showed… That’ll be the end for today, I guess.
Her expectation was met in another fifteen minutes. While the sky hadn’t lightened perceptibly, the sound from ahead changed, and she slowed, stopping just short of the plain that stretched off into the dark.
As she observed the field and the line of donkeys and men marching away from her, something hit her in the middle of the back. Her foot caught; as she fell she heard a shout followed by a burst of pain and a flash of light in her head.
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