They moved like zombies, lifeless in appearance but unwilling to stop walking. Giordino moved methodically forward alongside Pitt, as if an invisible tether kept the two men linked together. The winds grew intense, stinging their face and eyes with blasting sand that made it painful to see. Still they trudged ahead, though well off their westerly track. The exhausted men began zigzagging to the south, in a subconscious effort to flee the biting wind.
They staggered on in a timeless whirl until Pitt detected Giordino trip over some rocks and fall down next to him. Pitt stopped and reached out to help his friend up. A burly hand rose up and grabbed Pitt's, then yanked hard in the other direction. Pitt sprawled toward Giordino, tripping over him and falling into a bed of soft sand. Lying there dazed, he noticed the blasting sand was no longer peppering his body.
Unseen in the turbulent night, Giordino had tripped over a rock piling, behind which lay an indented cove protected from the howling winds. Pitt reached out and touched the rock wall with one hand as he felt Giordino crawl alongside and collapse. With a last ounce of energy, Pitt unwrapped his felt cloth and draped it over both their heads for warmth, then lay back on the soft sand and closed his eyes.
Beneath the screeching desert sandstorm, both men fell unconscious.
-29-
Giordino was dreaming. He dreamed that he was floating in a still pond of tropical water.
The warm liquid was unusually dense, like syrup, making his movements a slow and laborious effort. The water suddenly lapped at his face in a series of small hot waves. He jerked his head to escape the surf, but the warm moisture followed his motion. Then something about the dream became overly vivid. It was an odor, a very unpleasant one at that. A smell too powerful to reside in a dream. The repulsive aroma finally spurred him awake and he forcefully cocked open a heavy eyelid.
Bright sunshine stung at his eyes, but he could squint enough to see there was no aqua blue water lapping at his body. Instead, a giant pink swab descended on him with a hot wipe across one cheek. Jerking his head away, he saw the pink swab roll behind a picket fence of large yellow teeth housed in a snout that appeared a mile long. The beast exhaled a breath that bathed Giordino's face in a putrid cloud of onion, garlic, and Limburger cheese.
Popping open both eyes and shaking off the cobwebs, he stared past the expansive snout into two chocolate-brown eyes shrouded behind long eyelashes. The camel blinked curiously at Giordino, then let out a short bellow before stepping back to nibble at a fringe of felt protruding from the sand.
Giordino struggled to sit up, realizing the syrupy water in his dream was a layer of sun-warmed sand. A drift of sand nearly a foot thick had piled up in the little cove during the sandstorm the night before.
Weakly pulling his arms out of the morass, Giordino nudged the figure next to him similarly buried under felt and sand, then scooped away handfuls of the brown silica. The felt rustled a bit then was thrown back, exposing the drawn and haggard face of Pitt. His face was sunburned, his lips bloated and chapped. Yet the sunken green eyes sparkled at seeing his friend alive.
"Another day in paradise," he rasped through a parched mouth, taking in their surroundings. The overnight sandstorm had blown itself out, leaving them bathed in sunshine under a clear blue sky.
They heaved their bodies upright, the sand falling off them in rivulets. Giordino sneaked a hand into his pocket and nodded slightly in reassurance, finding the horseshoe still there.
"We've got company," he wheezed, his voice sounding like steel wool on sandpaper.
Pitt crawled weakly from under the blanket of sand and peered at the beast of burden standing a few feet away. It was a Bactrian camel, as evidenced by the two humps on his back that sagged slightly to one side. The animal's matted fur was a rich mocha brown, which darkened around its flanks. The camel returned Pitt's stare for a few seconds, then resumed its nibbling on the blanket.
"The ship of the desert," Pitt said.
"Looks more like a tugboat. Do we eat him or ride him?"
Pitt was contemplating whether they had the strength to do either when a shrill whistle blared from behind a dune. A small boy bobbed over the sand, riding a dappled tan horse. He wore a green del, and his short black hair was hidden under a faded baseball cap. The boy rode up to the camel, calling it by name as he approached. When the camel popped his head up, the boy quickly looped a pole-mounted lasso around the animal's neck and pulled the rope tight. Only then did he glance down and notice Pitt and Giordino lying on the ground. The startled boy stared wide-eyed at the two haggard men who resembled ghosts in the sand.
"Hello." Pitt smiled warmly at the boy. He climbed unsteadily to his feet as a pool of sand slid off his clothes. "Can you help us?"
"You ... talk English," the boy stammered.
"Yes. You can understand me?"
"I learn English at monastery," he replied proudly, enunciating each syllable.
"We are lost," Giordino said hoarsely. "Can you share food or water?"
The boy slipped off his wooden saddle and produced a goatskin canteen filled with water. Pitt and Giordino took turns attacking the water, taking small sips at first then working up to large gulps. As they drank, the boy pulled a scarf out of his pocket, which was wrapped around a block of sun-dried curds.
Cutting it into small pieces, he offered it to the men, who gratefully split the rubbery milk residue and washed it down with the last of the water.
"My name is Noyon," the boy said. "What is yours?"
"I am Dirk and this is Al. We are very happy to meet you, Noyon."
"You are fools, Dirk and Al, to be in the Gobi without water and a mount," he said sternly. His youthful face softened with a smile, and he added, "You come with me to my home, where you will be welcomed by my family. It is less than a kilometer from here. A short ride for you."
The boy slipped off his horse and removed the small wooden saddle, then prodded Pitt and Giordino to climb aboard. The Mongol pony was not tall, and Pitt easily pulled himself onto its back, then helped hoist Giordino on behind him. Noyon grabbed the reins and led them north across the desert, the roped camel following behind.
They traveled just a short distance before Noyon led them around a thick sandstone ridge. On the opposite side, a large herd of camels were scattered about a shallow plain, foraging for scrub grass that sprouted through the stony ground. In the center of the field stood a lone ger, shrouded in dirty white canvas, its southerly door painted a weathered orange. Two poles with a rope tied across acted as an adjacent corral, securing several stout brown horses. A rugged, cleanshaven man with penetrating dark eyes was saddling one of the horses when the small caravan rode up.
"Father, I have found these men lost in the desert," the boy said in his native tongue. "They are from America."
The man took one look at the bedraggled figures of Pitt and Giordino and knew they had flirted with Erleg Khan, the Mongolian lord of the lower world. He quickly helped them down off the horse, returning the feeble shake of the hand offered by each exhausted man.
"Secure the horse," he barked at his son, then led the two men into his home.
Ducking and entering the ger, Pitt and Giordino were amazed at the warm decor of the interior, which was in stark contrast to the tent's drab exterior. Brightly patterned carpets covered every square inch of the dirt floor, melding with vibrant floral weavings that covered the tent's lattice-framed walls. Cabinets and tables were painted cheerful hues of red, orange, and blue, while the ceiling support frames were painted lemon yellow.
The interior was configured in a traditional ger layout, symbolic of the role superstition plays in daily nomadic life. To the left of the entrance was a rack and cabinet for the man's saddle and other belongings. The right section of the ger, the "female" side, held the cooking implements. A hearth and cooking stove was situated in the center, attached to a metal stovepipe that rose through an opening in the tent's ceiling. Three low beds were positioned around the perimeter walls, while the back wall was reserved for the family altar.