The Count of the Sahara (16 page)

Barth gave an involuntary chuckle and Byron knew he had him. Sand, rock and fear was a good line. They’ll eat it up. Damn, he was good at this. Maybe he should direct films.

De Prorok helped Barth set up the tripod and mount the camera, more from a desire to get things going than to be of assistance but either way in ten minutes they were snapping the first stills. Tall and tanned, his teeth gleaming in the sun, hair dark and only slightly moist from perspiration under his pith helmet covered in a brand new white cloth, he felt for all the world like the Hollywood version of the dashing young archaeologist. Henri dutifully snapped the pictures as the Count suggested, acknowledging they were, indeed, perfect.

Byron stood, hands on his hips, completely satisfied with the way the afternoon had gone. It wasn’t a waste after all, and he knew with what he’d get at Tamanrasset he’d have enough to satisfy him until they reached Hoggar and Tin Hinan.

In the fading afternoon sun, he noticed—about 300 yards to the southwest—a lone tree and the darker half-moon of what looked to be a cave. Without waiting for his companion, he strode off to investigate.

“Byron, where the hell are you going?”

“Henri, where’s your sense of adventure? There’s something up there.” Byron sometimes regretted his lack of consideration towards Barth at times, and he knew there was no arguing with him when he got like this, like a hound with the scent of a rabbit in his snout. With another helpless shrug, the photographer followed, lugging his equipment as best he could.

By the time Barth caught up with the Count, the younger man was on his stomach, frantically clawing at the sand and throwing it behind him like a tall, thin badger. “What are you doing?”

“Come here, you won’t believe it. Honestly, I had no idea…” Barth bent close enough to see inside the aperture, curious as to what his employer was babbling about. He saw a black patch on the floor, sharp rock fragments all over the floor, and white scratches contrasting with the darker rock of the cave. If the sun weren’t so low in the sky and shining right in, he’s not sure he would have seen them at all.

He set down his equipment and came in for a better look. Two long fingers held out a flat, pointed black rock. “Look at this, a campsite, I’m sure of it. Pond will absolutely lose his mind.” De Prorok put the projectile in his pocket and continued sweeping the floor of the cave with his fingers. “Get some pictures of this, Henri. Oh I wish Denny were here to get it all first-hand…”

Barth took some stills, and a few feet of film with Byron’s feet sticking out of the half-buried niche, his head lost inside the hole. He had to stop, though, because there was no longer enough light. Sundown had snuck up on them.

“Byron, what time is it?”

De Prorok was slithering backwards out of the cave as he answered. “I don’t know, why… Oh, it’s later than I thought.”

“We’d better get back, Escande will be looking for us.”

Byron nodded. “Right you are. Got a bit carried away there, but what a stroke of luck.”

Barth wasn’t listening, though. He was looking around in what dim light remained, gathering all his equipment. “Which way?”

Byron paused for a moment, turned back to the cave and held his arm out at forty-five degrees. “We came at it from that direction. Sun was low over the dunes there, so that’s west. We had the sun to our backs, remember those shadows?” Barth nodded, pretending to remember any of that. “So that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Henri, have I ever steered you wrong?” After thirty minutes or so, Byron regretted asking the question. They were no closer to the road that he could tell, and it was now pitch black.

In fact, he’d steered them very wrong. Damned if he’d let Barth know that, though. Damned man was such a worry wart.

“What if they don’t find us? We didn’t bring any water with us?”

“You didn’t? I did.” Byron held out a canteen to his partner, who untwisted the top and took a deep swig of lukewarm water. That stopped the whining for a moment. Byron used the time to think. The packed sand that made walking so easy also didn’t form deep prints, so even if they could see where they were going, there wouldn’t be much of a trail to follow.

“Let’s just stop for a moment and get our bearings. Have a seat, Barth.” Byron was worried about his friend. Henri wouldn’t stop pacing back and forth, and from the sniffling Barth was close to panic, if not actual tears.

“You said this would be an easy run, Monsieur. You said it would be a few weeks of easy work, and now look what you’ve done. I don’t want to die out here.”

“And you won’t, my friend. Chapuis and Belaid won’t take kindly to losing us. They probably have a party out looking for us already. Remember, I have the checkbook.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Yes it is. You know it is. Why do people always lose their sense of humor when things get tight? That’s when you need it most.” Those were the last words between them for a while. Byron let Henri stew and sniffle while he looked up into the night sky looking for some kind of giant arrow pointing them home. The full expanse of the Milky Way trailed off in either direction. One thing about being in the middle of nowhere. It was a hell of a view.

“Do you see that?” It was Barth who saw the beacon first. He grabbed Byron by the sleeve and pointed to two pillars of light shining into the sky. He wiped his face on his sleeve to clear the tears and snot.

De Prorok was about to ask what he was talking about when he saw the lights as well. “Ah, bravo, Henri. See, we’ll be fine.” He gave his panicky companion three comforting pats on the shoulder and headed towards safety, lugging most of the equipment.

The Count carried most of the gear because in his panic Barth threatened to ditch it in order to conserve his strength. Tearfully, the photographer worried they were surely lost and would have to survive in the wild for days until rescue came or he was forced to kill the Count for food. Besides, those damned pictures were the reason they were in this mess.

Calmly, Byron tried to explain what a shame it would be if they’d gone to all this trouble for nothing. Sure enough, they’d be fine. Wasn’t he always lucky?

“Lucky I don’t kill you,” was the sobbing reply.

“Hallllooooooo there,” de Prorok shouted towards the light. No response. “Halllllooooooo… ahoy there.”

They heard a faint, “Thank God… over here. Escande, they’re here.” He picked up the pace, stepping quickly towards the voice, then slowed down again so Henri could stay in sight. The poor man had been through a lot today.

Greetings and hugs were exchanged all around. Belaid and the driver took all the gear and a softly weeping photographer down the dune to the car. Louis and Byron stood at the top of the dune.

“Are you okay, Monsieur?”

“Perfect, yes. Oh Louis, you should see what we found… a cave... Even you didn’t know about it. Not my thing of course, but Reygasse and Pond will have a whale of a fight over it.” He dug into his pocket and proudly displayed one of the arrowheads.

Chapuis stared at him, dumbfounded. “You could have died out there, Monsieur, two miles from your bed. For a god damned piece of rock.” Byron braced himself to answer, but counted to five instead and simply nodded his assent.

“You’re right, Louis. Bloody stupid of me.” He looked down towards the road. In order to create a beacon, Escande had driven Sandy up the steep hill so the headlights shone to the heavens. Now they had to get him back on the road. They heard tires spinning in the sand with a plaintive whine before they grabbed the road bed, and Escande had Sandy back where she belonged, pointed to In Salah and bed. “Still, we got some great pictures, absolutely grand. And a site even you didn’t know about. I do have the damnedest luck.”

Chapuis shook his head and bit back several possible harsh responses. That was certainly one way to look at it.

The next day, after a short and blessedly uneventful drive, they found themselves at an oasis called Oued Aoulguy. While Pond and Reygasse engaged in a race to see who could find anything worthwhile near the dried river bed, Prorok squinted up at the surrounding rocks. There were stories about these hills, but he couldn’t remember exactly what they were.

He spotted discoloration high up in the rocks, but he wasn’t sure. He grabbed a hold of two projecting stones and pulled himself up. It wasn’t a shadow. “I wonder what this is. Writing, maybe?” he shouted back, ascending rapidly.

A moment later, de Prorok called for Chapuis, then Belaid, and finally even Reygasse and Pond surrendered the field of battle to see what was causing all the ruckus. Now they all stood on a flat hilltop, with caves and taller rocks behind.

De Prorok stood, hands on his hips, examining the rock wall. On the wide mesa in front of it, all around and up as far as they could see were inscriptions, symbols, and scratches clearly made by human hands.

“Well? What is it?”

Belaid ran his finger over the scratches in the rock and grinned. “I’ll be damned. You see this big one here? It’s a sandal. And the little sandal next to it, they’re connected, no?” Everyone nodded impatiently. “That means they’re tied together forever. They’re to be married—
fiancées
, see?”

“What about this writing here?” Pond pointed to a fainter set of marks.

“It’s the same thing: so and so loves so and so, this person and that person together forever…”

“But they’re in different languages.”

Belaid nodded, pulling thick moustache hairs off his tongue as he excitedly explained. “Yes, see here, it’s Arabic, obviously. That’s fairly recent. Down here is Tifinar, and these are much, much, older than that.”

This was news. Arabic they expected to find. Even Tifinar, the written language of the Tuaregs going back to the fourth century Berbers, before the Muslim invasions a hundred years later. Belaid patiently pointed out the sheer number of inscriptions of all ages. Scratched into rock, written over, and gradually covering the whole face of the mountain.

He squinted momentarily, then snorted as he read one strange set of scratches. “This here, it’s a billboard. A woman claims she has the best love spells of all. Can make any man fall in love, any woman desirable.”

“How come this one only has one shoe?” Pond was on his belly, studying a lone shoe with lines of script encircling it. Belaid looked carefully, then took a look over the steep drop-off. “This one is sort of sad. It says his beloved betrayed him, and he came here to throw himself off the cliff.”

An embarrassed silence descended on them for a moment. They all looked over the precipice, imagining what that drop would do to a badly lovelorn young man.

“So all of this is basically…”

“Damn it Byron,” laughed Tyrrell, “You’ve found the only Lover’s Lane in the whole Sahara Desert.”

De Prorok beamed. He stood and looked out over the desert floor below. His voice took on the story-teller tone. “For thousands of years, young Tuareg and Libyan lovers have come to… What do we call this? Love Mountain, Belaid, what is that in Arabic?”

“Jabal Al-Hubbab, more or less.”

“To Jabal al-habb…whatever it is, we’ll figure something out… to pledge their troth and seek eternal love. The lonely seek assistance from sorceresses, those beyond help seek to end their pain.” Barth shook his head and pulled out his camera. The boss was wound up, and would want as many pictures of this as he could get. “…Older than Islam, before the Berbers and Tuaregs, from the time of the most ancient Libyans, young hearts sought what everyone the world round seeks: their soul mate, their one true love, in the bitter sands of Jabal al- Habbab, the Mountain of Love.”

He ended his reverie at the edge of the cliff, arms spread wide to greet the afternoon sun. Reygasse shouted “Bravo” and the Americans applauded enthusiastically.

This time, no one begrudged the Count his pictures and film. Henri followed Byron’s commands, getting the best angles he could with both still and movie cameras, without going too near to the edge. He’d already almost died once this trip, no sense tempting fate.

The others climbed down to help Reygasse and Pond get back to their cutthroat game of hide and seek with the Stone Age.

Remaining behind for a moment with Barth, Byron ran his hand over the ancient graffiti, guiding the camera lovingly over the inscriptions. He thought of Alice and smiled. Their sandals had been joined for three years. She was a lovely girl and game enough. But she looked so tired when he left, with one baby barely two and the other only a month old. She deserved better.

While Henri carefully brought his gear down, when no one was looking, Byron pulled out his jackknife and slowly etched “Byron et Alice, A.D 1925” into the soft sandstone.

Chapter 11

Moline, Illinois

January 27-28, 1926

We compromised, which meant the Count pretty much got what he wanted. I’d come out with them, and he’d pay me. Well he’d pay me five of what he owed me. Apparently it was all he could spare until the banks opened and he could cash Mrs. Carlson’s check. It seemed the “bloody Lutherans,” were also sticklers for generally accepted accounting practices, and wouldn’t pay in cash.

That’s how I found myself in the back seat of a ’23 Lincoln, sharing a bench seat with Mrs. O’Malley. The Count rode shotgun as the big guy pointed out all the cultural high points of Rock Island, Illinois. These seemed to consist mostly of pointing out which ethnic group lived where. There was some overlap between the Shanty Irish and the Negroes, and the Wops apparently were coming in droves because of the good jobs at Deere, and you know how those guys are with their hands.

“The Little Lady dragged me to that shindig tonight, but I’m happy I came,” said O’Malley as he maneuvered the icy streets. “Normally, I let her go to that cultural jazz by herself, but this was better’n the pictures. Imagine Jack and Lizzie O’Malley showing a real honest-to-Christ Count the town. Ain’t that something, baby?”

Lizzie O’Malley sat beside me, all blond marcelled hair with her mink coat bundled up to her chin and stared petulantly out the window. This seemed to amuse Jack O’Malley.

“You married, Count?”

“Byron, please. Yes, but Alice has had to return to Paris unexpectedly.”

“How long since you seen her?”

“A month and a half, far too long.”

O’Malley let out a whistle. “Bet it is. I can’t get Lizzie here to let me off the leash for a couple of days’ business trip to Chicago, let alone a month and a half. Ain’t that right, honey?” Mrs. O’Malley just pulled the coat tighter around her.

After a few minutes we pulled up in front of an apartment building that took up a whole block. The bottom floor contained a small candy store, and a plumbing supply store. Most of the windows were blacked out, which seemed strange for a business. O’Malley led us through the candy store—oddly enough open at this late hour—to a room in the back and knocked twice on the door.

I’d been to speaks before, but this place was a world away from the basement rathskellers and shabby Kraut beer joints back home. White-jacketed waiters bustled around, and there were tablecloths. Instead of plant workers, shop girls and off duty cops sneaking an illicit warm beer, there were banker types in ties and pretty girls in short dresses sipping cocktails. I was painfully aware of being the worst dressed guy in the joint, and that included the staff.

One of the waiters shooed some lesser mortals away from the corner table and ushered us over. I could feel envious eyes examining us and kept my gaze downward, worried I’d be exposed as a fraud and unceremoniously expelled.

I was invisible. All eyes were on the Count who couldn’t have stood out more if he’d worn his pith helmet and desert getup. I felt stares burn right through me to gawk at the tall, exotic stranger.

In a voice designed to be overheard, O’Malley roared, “Jerry, a little somefin’ for me and for Count Porok here.” Lizzie rolled her eyes but didn’t correct him.

“Willy, can I get you somefin? Come’on, it’ll put hair on your chest.” To appease him, I asked for the first thing I could think of. I ordered Templeton on the rocks like it was my usual, which given my limited experience I guess it was. He nodded and gave the order without even pretending to order something else. Back home, we’d ask for a “Special Coffee,” or a “House Speciality.” This place was classy. And obviously well protected.

A chain-smoking Negro piano player was doing his thing in the corner. I don’t know if he was any good, but he sure played fast. When he finished his song, nobody applauded, or even seemed to pay much attention. He was just part of the furniture here—functional and moderately expensive but mostly beside the point.

De Prorok was in the middle of a long, rambling description of what it was like to live in Paree, going on about his house in the Rue Alfred Dehodencq and how Alice and his two little angels were there now, waiting for him. O’Malley was drunk enough to commiserate, in that maudlin Irish way, that “we’re all ‘nuttin without family,” and how he treasured Lizzy and their kids. It seemed like a good time to go to the can.

I wound through the crowd and past the piano and its cloud of grey-blue smoke. Looking everywhere but where I was going, I bumped into a short brunette. Actually, brunette doesn’t even come close to how coal-black, and obviously dyed, her hair was. She had it cut in a bob, and looked just like Colleen Moore in “Flaming Youth,” if Colleen Moore was barely five feet tall and still had baby fat and badly rouged cheeks. Her cigarette ash fell on my coat, and she brushed it off casually and laughed. I checked for scorch marks. This was the only coat I had and I didn’t need some stupid girl ruining it.

“Ooops, sorry about that,” I mumbled and hurried on.

I was in less of a hurry on the way back, certainly in no rush to join the Count and the O’Malleys. I felt like I did at any party; oafish, barely tolerated and eager to be somewhere else. I gawked around, taking everything in, and tried desperately to look like I belonged and probably failing miserably.

“You were in there long enough, were you draining it or playing with it?” The short girl I’d bumped into said from her stool by the bar. I just shrugged and tried to move on but she put her small hand on my shoulder, bright red nails digging into the cloth. “Aw, I’m just teasing, ya big galoot. Where you off to in such a hurry?”

My mouth flapped open and nothing came out. Then I pointed my chin towards the corner table and nodded.

She gave out a brassy, braying, haw haw. “Big and dumb, just like I like ’em.” Before I had a chance to even get offended, she stuck her hand out. “Jacqueline.” She pronounced it Jack-a-leen. “What’s your handle?”

I knew the answer to that one. “Willy. Braun.”

“Hiya Willy. Good tameetcha. You here with O’Malley?”

“Sort of, yeah.”

“Oooh, a big shot. Whaddya do? You don’t look like the normal muscle.”

I mumbled something about working for the guy in the white suit, and being from Milwaukee, keeping it as simple as I could while looking around the room for an escape route.

“What about you? Are you here alone?”

She puffed herself up. “Why not? I’m free, white and twenty one.” Well, she was two out of three, but I didn’t say anything. Not that I got a chance. For the next fifteen minutes I didn’t get a word in edgewise. I learned how she was from across the river in Bettendorf, Iowa, originally, and how she was working in an office here in Moline, but only til she could get to Chicago, because really that’s where everything was going on and didn’t I think the piano player was great and she saw Jelly Roll Morton once in St. Louis, and a bucket load more until my head spun.

“You gonna buy me a drink?” I sure hadn’t planned on it, and I needed all the money I made this week, but soon I was a buck and a half lighter, and we both had fresh drinks. My rye and rocks sat mostly untouched on the bar, while Jacqueline sipped some kind of yellowish gin cocktail. We clinked glasses, and I watched her thickly painted lips leave a red smudge on the rim of the glass.

She wasn’t really my type. I was more into the goody-goody Italian Catholic types who didn’t much care for big dumb Germans, but she was the kind of girl I sometimes attracted. At the very least, it was a distraction from hearing about dear Alice all night, and I relaxed a smidge. I was even beginning to enjoy myself.

I was pretty sure I wasn’t drunk on the one rye, but I felt a bit woozy and disconnected. Here was this pretty girl, pretty enough at least, in a strange city, in a classy joint, and she was talking to me. It got even stranger when I realized she was leaning against me, her breath warm on my neck and her hand on my arm. “You’re a nice guy, Willy. It’s hot in here. You wanna go outside for a minute?”

At first, I thought she needed the air because she was drunk, or even going to be sick, but she was awfully steady on her pins as she led me by the hand out the back door. Dimly, it occurred to me she might have another reason for being away from the crowd but I knew that couldn’t be it.

As soon as we were outside, she turned and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. It was awfully cold out. I guess I needed instructions, because she looked up at me. “Don’t you want to kiss me, dummy?”

The idea hadn’t occurred to me up til then, but it suddenly held some appeal. I leaned down to give her the kind of nervous, chaste kiss I always started with, because it wouldn’t be the first time things had ended before they even got started. The way she kissed me back let me know that wasn’t going to be a problem and for one panicky moment I wasn’t sure it would have been possible to move too fast for her. She crushed her lips against mine.

I pulled back, partly to breathe, and partly to look around to see if we were being watched, but her lips hungrily chased mine so I kissed her back out of self-defense. She moaned and opened her mouth, her tongue grazing my lips, and I uncertainly followed suit. I could taste a mix of gin and lipstick and tobacco, but it tasted better than any of those things. I wanted more.

Her coat hung open, and her hands parted mine so I could feel the heat of her body against me. Her breasts pressed into my ribcage. I pulled her closer yet, and her legs clamped my left leg between them with another little, “mm-hmm.”

Among the million things streaking through my mind at that moment, I remembered something the Count had said about people and machines; that you tested and they’d tell you how to handle them. I pulled her against me, tighter than I would have normally dared. Her small frame shivered against mine. I guess that worked.

Maybe she was one of those projectors that needed a firm hand. I ran another test. Running my big clumsy paw upwards, I hesitantly cupped a breast. Instead of being rebuffed, she gave a happy chuckle. I squeezed tentatively, didn’t get socked for it, so I squeezed a little harder. That elicited another happy noise, so I did the same to the other breast, feeling the nipple harden under my touch. It rubbed through her dress against my palm. My fingers closed on it, giving it a soft pinch.

“Yessss,” she breathed with a sound that went right to my crotch. Embarrassed, I realized how hard I was. She could feel it too, and ground against me, instead of pulling away like I expected. I pinched even harder, and she pulled back quickly.

“Ow.”

“Oh, Jeez, I’m sorry….” She saw the stricken look on my face and smiled wickedly.

“You can pinch’em, just not so hard, ya big lug.” I took her at her word and picked up where I left off. She nodded as her tongue wrestled with mine.

I began conducting all kinds of experiments. I ran on hand over her bottom, gently at first, then cupped it firmly. This caused a slow, circular grinding against my thigh. I grabbed harder, and she ground more enthusiastically.

My hands were everywhere, testing, probing, assessing pressure and acceptance. I was so involved in my explorations, I forgot about the throbbing below my belt for a moment. What happened if I did this? Too hard? What about this, then? I guess I scored more hits than misses, because she squeezed my leg between hers, and met my efforts with enthusiasm.

She started breathing louder, making little steam clouds in the cold air. Her lips peeled away from mine to take short gulps of air and then plunge back, tongue first. Her hips pressed harder, the circles tighter, the pressure more insistent. Her moans became shorter and higher pitched, and I watched myself from someplace outside, fascinated and surprised as hell.

She gripped my hand by the thumb and slowly brought it down her body and under her dress. I could feel cold skin, but also a heat and dampness through the silky smoothness of her panties. My eyes opened wide, searching hers for confirmation this was really okay. She opened her mouth to speak. What would…

Then the door behind us flew open, sending us both stumbling out onto the sidewalk. “Brown, oh my God, I’m so sorry…”

The Count stood in the doorway, bundled up and ready to go. Jacqueline pulled her coat around herself and looked away to avoid his stare. I stood there with my lips covered in lipstick, my coat and mouth both open to the elements.

He managed to tip his hat. “I’m frightfully sorry my dear, I was afraid something had happened to young Brown here.” Something almost had, but that moment had just sailed past and waved goodbye. “I’m afraid we’re heading back to the hotel. Would you like to…”

“I guess…” I looked from him to Jacqueline’s face. Her lipstick was almost gone, and mascara drips ran down those chubby, baby cheeks. She bit her lip and nodded. Without saying another word, she pulled her coat tighter around herself and slinked inside, brushing past the Count without another word.

“I truly am sorry, Willy. Do you want to…?”

“No, I’m good. We should be getting back.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, took a deep breath and followed him inside. I looked around for Jacqueline, but she probably sought sanctuary in the lady’s room. The O’Malleys stood dressed and impatient, ready to go.

De Prorok grabbed his walking stick, offered our waiter a quick, “Thank you, Alex,” and we passed through the door back into the candy store. O’Malley held the door for us. As I passed he leaned in conspiratorially, “I see you met Jack-leen,” but not another word was said until we were back in the Lincoln and on our way back to the Le Claire.