Call Me Crazy (Janet Lomayestewa, Tracker)

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  In the puzzled silence, the breeze-rustled sand could be heard whispering. Whispering what?

  “If we wait until noon,” Jack said, “and Nuke doesn’t show . . . .”

  “Then he’s found the Ark somewhere else and is well on his way out of Yemen,” Yasmin finished bitterly.

  Janet didn’t know if it was lack of sleep, the fist-blow to her head, or what, but she was feeling dizzy, spaced out as if she had been on a three-day drinking binge or a peyote road trip. No, she was feeling . . . it was coming. The Voice. She dropped to her knees next to Sam, her palms on the warm dusty marble floor, and, head hanging, drew deep breaths.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Just a yoga position,” she muttered. The thundering of kettle drums, cannon-fire, and Chinese firecrackers were banging in her ear drums. She squinted her lids against the nuclear explosion of light. Her stomach hadn’t rolled, heaved, and knotted like this since her last bout with Bud.

  Then everything went silent around her, except . . .

  On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me seven swans a swimming . . . .

  “Holy shit!”

  “It’s the voice, isn’t it?” Jack said, hovering over her, his hand at the small of her back.

  With a half-grunt, half-sigh, she twisted into a sitting position, knees pulled to her chest. She rested her head atop her knees. He dropped down on the other side of her, and Yasmin scooted next to Sam to close the circle. Janet raised her head and eyed the three, daring them to make fun of her. “I don’t guess any of you know if there are any swans to be found swimming here in the desert?”

  All three shook their heads solemnly. Not a smirk from one of them.

  Why couldn’t The Voice make it easy for her? She glanced at Jack. “You know, the-seven-swans-a-swimming-on-the-seventh-day-of-Christmas song.”

  “Of course,” he said evenly, as if wary of detonating her erratic behavior.

  “This has something to do with Menelek’s tomb and the Ark?” Sam asked in a carefully neutral tone.

  She nodded. The top of her head, that soft, still-open spot on a baby’s crown, was throbbing like a drum roll.

  “Then we’ll just brainstorm,” Yasmin said, as if Janet’s revelation made perfect sense.

  Jack and Sam glanced at each other, shrugged shoulders and nodded.

  Silence again.

  “Well?” Janet prompted in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the pain throbbing like a migraine must. “Yasmin, Sam, you two know the area. Swans? Seals? Shrimp? Anything to do with water?

  Both of their expressions were winces of apology. Nothing.

  More silence.

  “Okay,” Jack said, beginning his connect his dots drill, “the song mentions the words seventh, day, Christmas, true love, seven, swans, and swimming. What do we know about the Ark, this Temple, the Queen of Sheba, her son Menelek or his tomb and how they relate to any of those seven words?”

  “Welllll,” Sam eked out, “In the Song of Solomon, Sheba was believed to be the true love referred to by Solomon, and I Kings says he did give her a great gift when she went away. To be exact, according to the text in the Torah, Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desires – ‘whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty.’”

  “Which could be the Ark of the Covenant?” Yasmin asked.

  “Most likely, it might seem,” he said, “because in a future biblical reference it says the temple of Solomon where the ark had been kept was now empty.

  “If it’s not in the tomb here,” Janet muttered, forehead on her knees once again, “that still leaves us with where the hell then is the Ark?”

  “Pardon me,” Sam said, “if I quibble over mere words, but being the linguist I have to remind you that the inscription on the altar here never says the Ark or Menelek is in a tomb. It says underground chamber.”

  Janet’s head jerked up. “Now that’s a start, at least!” Early morning light brightened the entire temple area, and her gaze swung over the temple’s broad exposed floor, its columns and altar, and the outlying area. “Let’s keep connecting the dots.”

  Why,” Yasmin asked, “would the Queen of Sheba have moved her son’s remains from the tomb to an underground chamber somewhere?”

  Sam shrugged. “What if the tomb was constructed as a red herring for the Queen of Sheba’s enemies? After all, Egypt’s pharaoh had sacked the Temple in Israel and was headed for Marib.”

  Stroking his mustache, Jack said, “In your Twelve Days of Christmas recitation a few minutes ago, you twice mentioned seven – the seventh day or Christmas and seven swans.” He looked up at her. “Maybe the word seven is a clue.”

  “Hmmmm, could be,” Sam pondered. “There are seven notes in a musical scale . . . and the seven continents.”

  “More specific to both the Koran and the Bible,” Yasmin pointed out, “ there are the seven archangels and the seven deadly sins.”

  “That’s true,” Sam said, “and seven is the most sacred number to the Hebrews. For instance, look at the seventh day of creation.”

  Janet glanced at Yasmin. “Didn’t you mention the Seven Wonders of the World a little earlier – in reference to the Great Dam.”

  Yasmin’s doe-shaped eyes lit up. “Yes!

  “Don’t forget, Jack added, “the Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”

  “Wait!” Sam said. “Wasn’t it the Pillar of Fire that guided the Israelites with their Ark at night for forty years?”

  “So by connecting the dots,” Jack said, “we have the Ark and the son of Solomon and Sheba buried in an underground chamber marked by possibly seven pillars of fire?” He raised his brows skeptically.

  Janet was staring behind Jack, and a gradual smile softened the box-like contours of her face.

  Jack, following her gaze, turned and glanced behind him. “What?”

  She nodded at the rectangular stone columns bathed in the morning’s golden sunlight. “Count them.”

  “Okay, there are five . . . no, six if you count the broken-off one.”

  “So where’s the seventh? I bet there is a seventh one out there somewhere, marking the underground chamber.”

  Sam sighed. “Even if that theory could be proven a fact . . . we’re talking about finding a single column in the midst of the Empty Quarter’s million square miles?”

  Jack was back to stroking his mustache again, and she knew he was connecting more dots. “What if . . . what if that column were marked these days by a modern pillar of fire? Let’s say, an oil field flare?”

  “That’s a far stretch this time, CSD.”

  His verdant eyes, glittering with excitement, swung to her. “What do we have to lose?”

  “Time,” she pointed out. “The deed is going down in less than twelve hours. That doesn’t give us enough time to search the Empty Quarter, dune by dune for a flare.”

  “No, but I would suggest it gives us enough time to pay Hunt Oil offices back in Marib a visit.”

  Janet nodded beyond him at the spray of dust whirlwinding toward them. “We may have to nit-pick over your suggestion with that patrol headed this way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Gunfire rat-a-tat-tatted on the seismograph truck’s tailgate as it shot up a sandy embankment, careened over the Wadi as-Sudd, and slammed onto the embankment’s far side with a jarring jounce. Two more shots, one pinging the side-mirror and the other shattering the rear window, wounded the 4x4 before it accelerated down the dusty road back to New Marib.

  Few establishments were open that early but with only a couple of dozen streets to search, locating the office of Hunt Oil wasn’t that difficult. The one-story office, sharing walls with several other establishments, was contained within cinder block, cement, and corrugated metal. A foot-high, stone-engraved placard announced it as HEMCO, Hunt Exploration and Mining Company. Shrugging off the fragments of glass shards from his shoulders, Jack stepped onto the curb and crossed to the heavy iron-boun
d door with its keyhole-shaped peephole. He lifted the brass ibex-head knocker and let it fall on the turquoise-painted door with a thud.

  Behind him, Janet said, “Wouldn’t you know it – turquoise doors. Nothing like home.”

  “Show time, sweetheart.”

  A middle-aged man with sparse brown hair and beer-bottom glasses opened the door. He was wearing dress brown trousers and a rumpled white short-sleeve shirt. In his free hand, he held an old thermal coffee mug. “Yes?

  “I’m from Texas,” Jack drawled. “Dallas. Hoping you Hunt Brothers could give us directions to Al-Mokha.” Other than Sana’a, it was the only town he could think of. Sam had mentioned it in reference to Yemen’s losing its monopoly in the world coffee market when the coffee plant was smuggled out and replanted in Brazil.

  “I’m not one of the Hunt brothers, just a lowly bookkeeper,” the man sighed in a reedy voice, “but I can tell you that you’re way off the beaten path. Take the road back to Sana’a, and from there you have to take the road south to Ta’izz and then west to – ”

  Do you have a map?” Janet interrupted with that rare sweet smile that could reduce Jack to an ever-agreeable smuck.

  Behind the glasses, the stubby-lashed, magnified eyes blinked in response. “Well, not that detailed, not a fold-out, but good enough to get you to Sana’a, anyway.” He stepped back and opened the door. “The map’s there on the wall.”

  The office had the familiar smell of stone and must. Jack’s eyes adjusted to the low light and made out the large, yellowing map on one gypsum-washed wall. A vast space empty of road demarcations was peppered with a half dozen blue colored tacks. Hoping to decipher its map code, he circumvented a metal desk and moved to the wall.

  Janet stepped around him and ran her forefinger between Marib and the nearest tack. “These tacks. What do they represent?”

  The bookkeeper said, “Some are oilfield – ”

  Sam burst through the doorway. “We’ve got visitors!”

  Jack and Janet both whirled and headed for the door, jostling the bookkeeper’s coffee on his shirt. “Hey!” he called out after them.

  Yasmin was at the truck’s wheel. He, Sam, and Janet plunged through the open passenger door, and Yasmin shot the 4x4 forward. From behind came the loud pop of a gun, and in the next instant a hole plowed into the still opened passenger door. The old Hunts Oil truck flapped like a decrepit one-winged chicken as it zig-zagged around blocks, squawking on two wheels. This time, it was Janet bouncing on Jack’s lap. Sam, in the middle, held onto her, and she held onto Jack to keep both him and her from tumbling out.

  Finally, the seismograph truck accelerated around the last street corner, heading out into the infinite and formidable Empty Quarter, and she tapped the small globe of a compass mounted on the 4x4’s dashboard. “Keep the compass needle at 45º,” she shouted at Yasmin.

  Shots fired from the pursuing Marib patrol sprayed sand right and left of the 4x4. One lucky shot potholed the open door’s window, shattering more glass, and she and Jack ducked reflexively. The chase was on. Mile after mile over shrub land that gave way to low waves of sand dunes. Fire from their pursuers grew sporadic. After performing several daredevil jumps over ever higher dunes, the truck left the patrol jeep out of sight.

  “Maybe they ran out of gas,” Yasmin gasped, clutching the wildly rotating steering wheel.

  Beside her, Sam praised, “Evil-Knieval couldn’t have driven as well as you!”

  “Who?” she asked.

  Sam was explaining the American icon, but Janet thoughts were elsewhere. Sam had done well. Supplied them with a thirty-year-old truck, already topped off with gas, that just kept going, going, going like the Energizer bunny. Something didn’t add up. She needed Jack to connect the dots. Sitting on his lap, feeling its hard knot surging against her, she realized he needed her, as well. Or, rather, wanted her. There was a distinct difference.

  After a while, as the truck slowed to a less-than-heart-stopping pace, he reached out one lengthy arm and latched onto the gunfire-riddled door to haul it closed. “How far out do you think the nearest tack was?”

  “I didn’t get that much of an opportunity to study the map’s legend or scale. Maybe, twenty-five miles at the most.” Ahead and behind there was nothing but sand and hot blue sky. “We’re probably half way there. Plenty of time to spare and arrive well before five.”

  “And if the nearest tack is not an oilfield flare?” Sam asked.

  “Then we keep after him,” Yasmin said. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  Janet, tasting the grit filtering through the broken rear window, said, “Oh, I’ll find him. People with something to hide often hint at their hidden agenda. Criminals often return to the scene of the crime. To gloat. To relive their experience To taunt authorities. Nuke will slip up sooner of later.”

  “If Nuke manages to possess both the Tablet’s quartz chip and the Ark,” Jack said flatly, “then we may run out of time.”

  The cab went silent at that thought.

  “You know,” Sam said, slicing through the cab’s miasma of doom, “we’re traveling much of the same path as the ancient spice route.”

  “Then that would make sense,” Jack said. “That the Queen of Sheba might bury her son somewhere along the route.”

  As if to dispute Janet’s earlier statement of time to spare, the truck’s engine began to cough. Her brows raised, she glanced around at Jack.

  He jutted his head over her shoulder, his eyes glaring at the dashboard’s still flickering lights.

  Yasmin’s eyes flared in alarm. “What do I do?”

  He tilted his head, listening to the engine. It continued to sputter. Then it whined, sneezed, and finally sighed as it chugged to a obstinate halt. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

  “What?” Yasmin asked. “What happened?”

  “Let’s take a look,” Janet said, flinging open the door and jumping from Jack’s lap to the soft, cushioning sand.

  He followed her around to the front. She touched the hood. Hot, but no steam.

  Jack hunkered on one knee and peered beneath the truck. “Son of a bitch! The radiator’s leaking. Dripping more like it.” He craned his head further. “There seems to be a hole – that’s the culprit.”

  Sam and Yasmin had joined them. “Ricochet bullet? What do you, think?” Sam asked.

  Maybe, maybe not, Janet thought. Whether bullet hole or tampering, this was the least of her concerns right now. The truck wasn’t the only thing heating up. So was the desert. And so would be their bodies. Could the other three walk fifteen miles or more in the mounting heat? “Jack, your cell phone?”

  He tugged it from his jeans pockets, glanced at its screen and then at her with a sheepish expression. “Dead as dirt.”

  She shook off the bad news. No use heaping guilt on him. “We wouldn’t have gotten service out here anyway.” She swung back to the still-open passenger door and reached inside. Grabbing a hold of the compass with both hands, she yanked. Yanked again. Not even a millimeter did the compass give.

  From behind her Jack pressed his body against her, nudging her bottom.

  “For the love of Bud, Jack, is that all you ever think about?”

  “Yes, whenever I’m around you,” he breathed into her ear. “At least, most of the time. But in this instance, no.” He reached around her and, with one hand and a mighty exertion, wrenched free the compass from its dashboard mount. He shifted the compass to his free hand and shook the other one. “Damn, that hurt.”

  “Awww, let me kiss your boo-boo.” She dipped her head and lapped the center of his palm with her tongue.

  “Ohhhh, God,” he moaned softly.

  “What’s up with you two?” Yasmin asked from behind them.

  “Time to get the show on the road,” Janet said, turning to face them.

  “What?” Yasmin asked.

  Behind her, Sam explained, “She means prepare to hike.”

  “Not you three,” she said, ret
rieving the compass from Jack.

  He caught her by her upper arms. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

  She looked up into those hard green eyes and loved him at that moment. Well, for that moment, at least. “Look, we’re past the point of no return. Stay here. Stretch out under the truck for shade, and you’re most likely to be rescued”

  “Rescued by which side?” Jack countered.

  “What I’m saying is you three have a chance here. Even if we do reach the site of that nearest map tack, we don’t know if it is, indeed, an oilfield flare – and, worse, we don’t know if there’ll be any water on site.” She nodded toward the Northeast. “Headed in that direction, we’re only headed deeper into the Empty Quarter . . . headed, most likely, toward our deaths.”

  “Well, if anyone knows how to survive in the desert,” Jack drawled, “it’s a Hopi Indian. So I’m staying tight with you, sweetheart.”

  “Women are always good in asking directions,” Yasmin said. “I’m with you.”

  Sam flashed his charming smile. “Make that three. I’ll get what’s left of the water bottles out of the tool box.”

  Jack whipped his sand goggles from his pocket. “Hell, sweetheart, these might be of help, after all.”

  She held up the compass. “This’ll be what saves our asses. This and water. Drink often but in sips. Not to quench the thirst - just moisten the mouth.” She lowered the bill of her cap and adjusted her cheap-ass sunglasses against the glare of the sun, now much higher in the sky. “Let’s roll.”

  Ahead wave upon wave of dunes stretched as far as the eye could see. She focused only on one step at a time. She shut out the presence of the other three. Listening. But no voice. Only the soughing of the sand and the sun beating fiercely on her exposed skin.

  She felt as if she were leading them all to their bony graves. Intermittently, drafts of wind would pelt her face with fine grains of sugary sand. Soon, not only did her mouth feel gritty but also her eyes. She slowed her breath to a shallow draw, minimizing the sand clogging her nostrils. The morning ticked by. Despite her high-top leather boots, the soles of her feet were growing uncomfortably warm.