not know which direction Jack had taken. On foot, the last village they’d passed would have taken Jack far too long to reach—longer than his meager water supply would have made possible. A logical man, then, would have proceeded on foot in the direction they were heading, hoping for cover along the way. Even if Templeton decided to backtrack, what were the odds that he would find the spot where Jack left the road, let alone the one patch of land in the desert for which Jack was aiming? True, Jack had kept his angle narrow, believing that the cliff face—if that’s what it was—was no more than a mile or so from the road, which meant Templeton could maybe spot him if he was looking in the right place at the right time. So Jack took periodic glances in that direction. If he saw the jeep, his plan was to drop to the ground, trusting in the vision-obscuring properties of the desert to cause Martin’s eyes to flit over him.
Although it wasn’t intensely hot yet, not in terms of the temperatures common to the desert, still, Jack’s thirst forced him to stop and sling the bag holding the water bottles from his shoulder. Kneeling down, he fished a bottle from the bag and downed half of it before replacing the cap and returning the bottle to its canvas cocoon. Then he started on his way again.
It seemed as if he walked for a long time. Long enough that he’d begun to suspect he’d missed the inland promontory and had crossed into some spot in the desert where he would not see a change in terrain until the environment shifted—until the barrenness gave way to the steppes to the north or the coastal plain to the east. By rights, he would be dead long before reaching either locale. But he reminded himself that he’d been in similar situations and had come out on the other side. He just preferred not to do it again if he didn’t have to.
As if in answer to that thought, he began to notice a slim line of darkness—a break in the terrain—ahead. Focusing on it, he pushed himself, switching the staff from shoulder to shoulder as necessary. Before long, the break in the terrain resolved itself into what Jack thought it was: a low cliff that provided a hedge against an aggregate of sand. Beyond that the desert stretched unbroken as far as he could see. In spite of his growing excitement, he stopped and took another drink before continuing on.
It took almost an hour before he reached it. Up close, it looked smaller than he’d expected. Leading up to it, the constancy of sand and rock meant that the only way one would notice it from the front was because of the ribbon of darker rock that topped it. Approaching from the side, Jack could see that it was a sheer cliff, dropping down about ten feet into a hollow bordered by rock. The closest approximation Jack could make was that it resembled a dead-end road that terminated beneath a bridge. It seemed a perfect place in which to hide, and he hurried toward it, reaching the near edge of it several minutes later. Once there, he traversed the line of the rock that extended past it before finding a place where he could slide down into a depression.
He backtracked until he could put a hand on the rock wall that extended some four feet above him. The sun was rising from the other side, which sent a shaft of shade for a good distance beyond Jack. In fact, Jack could stay in that spot until noon without feeling the first of the sun’s rays fall on him. He removed the staff from his shoulder and leaned it against the rock, then reached for a water bottle and took a drink, well aware that he had to conserve his resources if he hoped to last more than a few days.
After that, he settled down to wait.
Setting his back against the rock, he lowered himself to the ground, resolved to remain there until night came again and he could head back to the road and work his way toward the village. He had a few hours to think about shelter—how he might use the few items in his possession to create a barrier between him and the scorching sun.
How long he sat there he didn’t know, but at some point it occurred to him