“Heekee. .! Hinni. .! Cheekte. .! Heekee. .!”
Every few minutes they stopped and listened hopefully for the familiar braying, but there was no reply to their calls. They repeated the words without knowing the meaning:
“Hinni. .! Cheekte. .!”
And no tracks were visible.
Mexican mules could smell fresh grass long distances. Robert remembered that yesterday afternoon they had passed a place between two ridges where he had seen green buffalo grass. Perhaps the mules had found their way back to this place? But it was several miles and he did not think he could find it again.
They began by searching around the campsite, tramping the ground in ever-widening circles. They wandered as if they themselves were lost in the pale light of dawn. They mustn’t go too far from camp but were sure their own tracks would guide them back when they were ready to return.
An hour passed; light came slowly to the plain. They stumbled onto a dried-out creek bed and followed its gently sloping path; perhaps there was water farther down and the mules had smelled it. They followed this furrow for a good while. Water had recently run here; there were tracks of animals, big and little ones, but they must have been made some time ago, since the tracks had already dried up. The creek wound its way in great curves but all of it was equally dry. Yet they followed it, encouraged by the many tracks in its bottom. But not the slightest glimpse of a mule tail came to their eyes, nor the faintest braying to their ears.
It was now full daylight. The wind had increased and the dust blew in clouds about them. Arvid looked at his watch and exclaimed in tenor:
“It’s already half past five! Shouldn’t we go back?”
In order to reach camp for their usual hour of starting they must turn at once. Vallejos must already be up and about. What would he say when he missed both the mules and the muleteers? He might think they had stolen the animals and run away.
With heavy feet Robert and Arvid followed the dry creek back toward camp. The wind was increasing and they walked with eyes closed against the whirling dust.
“Where can the critters have betaken themselves?” wondered Arvid.
“We must find them!” insisted Robert.
They returned slowly, trying to follow their own tracks. Behind them the sun rose above the plain; the first rays felt pleasantly warm on their necks. But from the other direction came the wind and it was slow walking against it.
The creek they followed grew narrower and shallower; soon it branched out in still smaller furrows. Which one was the dry creek they had first encountered? They stopped and rubbed their smarting eyes. Where were their tracks?
They walked about, searching in vain. From which direction had they come? The sun flooded down on the strange rock formations and the yellow-brown hills — but which rock sheltered their camp? They didn’t know; they had lost their way.
The treacherous wind had swept away the muleteers’ path back to camp; Robert and Arvid were lost on the wide plain.
— 4—
For a whole day they wandered without rest. When night fell and darkness enveloped them they lay down, dead tired, on the sandy ground.
They had left the camp to look for the mules with nothing except the clothes on their backs. They had brought nothing to eat and nothing to drink, and they had wandered endless hours under the bright sun, through a desolate wilderness, until they were near exhaustion. They had tried to reach the mountains they saw against the horizon, but the mountains remained as distant as ever.
Where they lay outstretched on their sandy bed the stars were lit high above them. In the night’s darkness the emptiness of the plain disappeared. Round and about them in the dark were rocks and hills with humps and dips on their backs, like giant caravan camels resting after a day’s march. As a guardian wall around the plain the distant ridges rose like monstrous dromedaries against the heavens.
They slept but woke with limbs stiff and aching from the night cold. They opened their eyes toward the heavens. Above them the stars glittered with a cold, bluish light, like icicles under eaves. They crept closer, seeking the warmth from each others bodies.
They slept and awoke several times during the night, and as soon as the first light of morning broke over the plain they arose and resumed their wandering. Hour after hour, they continued through this region of emptiness and thirst. The coolness of the distant hills seemed closer: they exerted their last strength, dragging their feet slowly. But the wind stayed with them, dug itself into their bodies, whirled dust into nose and eyes, into mouth and ears, accumulated it in their hair; the dust worked into their armpits, between their legs, into their groins. The dust-sand clawed and chafed, pierced and hurt; they smelled it, chewed it, tramped in it, wallowed in dust — the dusty plain had moved inside them, into their intestines, it spread before them and penetrated them, dry and consuming.
The skin on their bodies and limbs felt dried out and shrunken, it cracked and ached. The dusty wind had dried out their mouths, spread to their throats, it was about to choke them: the thirst.
There could be only one relief from this torture — one word of five letters — which they were now seeking. A few times they thought they had found it. The ground under their feet sloped, and they looked into a hole. But it was too late: it had been a water hole. Now it was only a hole without water; the bottom lay empty, displaying only the hardened ridges from animals’ hooves. The water had dried out, the bottom mud lay dry and light gray, like ashes on the hearth.
And after these disappointments the thirst gripped their throats harder.
In the middle of the day, when the sun was at its height, the air over the plain was like burning embers in their lungs. They crept down into the shade behind a low hill, panting and giddy.
Their bodily juices were exhausted; their lips cracked and their skin peeled off in large flakes. Their feet ached and were terribly sore; they pulled off their boots: their feet were raw both above and beneath, exposing red, hot flesh, the seat of the pain which burned with its fire-flame.
Low, thorny bushes grew over the ground around the hill. Everything growing in this region was thorny, prickly, and odorless. In other places grass would grow — cool, friendly, soft. Here it was hard and sharp and piercing. The very leaves of the flowering bushes were sharp and hostile. Everything that grew here plagued them, scratched and pierced and stung them.
What kind of evil country was this they had gotten into? wondered Arvid. Here even grass and flowers tried to harm their hands.
He pulled out his leather pouch in which he kept his watch key; he opened the watchcase to wind his watch — it must not be allowed to stop. He always wanted to know what time it was. Even though he no longer knew where he was, at least he wanted to know what time it was. He might be lost in the world, but not in time.
Arvid was afraid dust would blow into the case and stop the watch: “A helluva lot of dust! This must be hell’s dust bowl! I’m dying of thirst. .”
Robert said he had been looking for buffalo tracks. If they could find any they would follow them to a water hole.
Arvid swallowed, and Robert swallowed, both of them kept swallowing all the time, without anything in their mouths to swallow. But all the time their thoughts were filled with the things they would have liked to drink.
Robert stretched out his ash-dry, swollen tongue and moved it across his lips, pretending to moisten them: if they only could find a buffalo cow; then he would milk her. Buffalo milk might not taste as fresh as water, but would surely slake the thirst. And buffalo milk was said to be fat and nourishing. It would give them strength to continue. If they now had luck enough to run across a cow that had lately calved. .