passed the burial niches of a former age and civilisation, quickly searching those large enough to hide a fugitive or two.
After walking at least halfway to the end, they stopped to reassess the chase. “Maybe they went up over the top,” suggested Con. “If they’d have come this way, we would have picked up some trace of them by now.”
“Could be you’re right,” agreed Dex. “And we would have heard Mal’s signal if he’d found anything. Let’s go back. There’s a cutting back there at the bend. We can climb up that way and have a good look ’round.”
The two retraced their steps, following the undulating gorge back towards the camp. At the bend—a great curving bank of mottled sandstone—the wadi made a lazy quarter-circle from southwest to a more northerly direction. A deep natural crevice in the rock face had been widened by the tomb builders at some time in the past, and shallow steps were cut in the stone to form a crude staircase leading up out of the wadi to the plateau above. The two scrambled up the crease, eventually gaining the top. Whatever they hoped to glimpse from that high vantage, they did not see.
A quick scan of the surrounding area revealed only the drearily unchanging landscape: sun-blasted rocks and shattered hills stretching into the heat-dazzled distance in every direction. Of the fugitives there was neither sign nor trace. Still, they waited awhile, shielding their eyes from the sun, surveying the empty, dun-coloured landscape for any sign of movement—any sign of life at all.
There was nothing.
“Now what?” Con wanted to know. He wiped the sweat from his face. “If they were anywhere around we’d have seen ’em from up here.”
“We should get back to camp,” Dex said. “Tav will return soon. We’ll have to give him the bad news.”
“Burleigh ain’t going to be happy,” Con observed.
“No. He won’t be happy.”
“It ain’t our fault.”
Dex shrugged.
“It ain’t,” Con insisted.
“You tell him that. You get on so well with him. He listens to you, right? You can tell him how it wasn’t our fault the prisoners let themselves out while we were asleep.”
Con muttered an oath under his breath.
“Let’s get back.” Dex started for the rock-cut staircase leading down to the wadi floor.
“What’s so almighty important about those two anyway?” Con asked, growing sullen. “They didn’t look like no threat to me. Pretty near hopeless, in fact.”
Dex shrugged again. “I guess that’s another thing you can discuss with the boss. Me? I keep my mouth shut and do as I’m told. The boss has his ways. I stopped trying to figure it all out years ago.”
By the time they reached the camp, Mal was waiting for them. His search had been no more successful, and he had nothing to report. “Looks like they got clean away,” Dex concluded.
“Looks like,” agreed Mal. “I’m starving. I’m going to get something to eat.”
“Good idea,” agreed Con.
The two started for the mess tent. Dex, with nothing better to do, followed.
The sun had long since passed midday by the time Tav returned. The men heard the rattling sputter of the truck echoing down the canyon long before it came into view. They instinctively assembled themselves before their tent, weapons at their sides, to await his arrival. The claptrap vehicle came to a dry, scrunching halt in a cloud of dust. The door swung open, and Burleigh’s right-hand man stepped out. One glance at the others standing at loose attention roused his suspicions. “What is it?” he asked. “What have you done?”
“It’s the captives,” replied Dex.
“Are they dead, then?”
“They’re gone.”
“Gone . . .” His glance took in the others who hung back, waiting to see how he would greet this news. Tav frowned.
“Escaped.”
“I see.” Tav’s eyes narrowed; his frown grew fierce.
“We searched both ways up and down the wadi,” volunteered Con. “We even went up top. We searched half the morning, but we couldn’t raise so much as a footprint.”
“You looked everywhere? You’re sure?”
“Everywhere,” confirmed Dex. “I swear it.”
“Then there’s nothing to be done about it now,” concluded Tav. “Strike the camp. Load it up—everything. Boss wants it all cleared out. We’re done here. We’ve got until sunset, so jump to it.”
“What do we tell the boss?” asked Con.
“The truth,” replied Tav.
“He won’t like it.” Con had an uncanny ability to grasp the obvious. And of all the implications of the situation, this was the one that had taken firm root in his mind. “He won’t like it at all.”