Desert Walker

A.J. Gallows, South Africa

“Your husband is dead,” I explained again, pinching the bridge of my nose in annoyance. “And if not, he’s so close to it that the journey would be pointless.”

Each time I had to remind her of the fact, her pitiful pleading would shift further to stubborn resolution. Somehow, the truth of the matter only hardened her will. “We can’t be certain, al-Sahra. There are many undiscovered oases between here and Abyssinia. He may have found one—,”

“And I too must find an undiscovered land in search of him?” I leaned forward. “Understand this, widow. All the other merchants of your husband’s caravan returned, all but him. If the dust storm didn’t kill him, the heat would have. If not the heat then starvation.”

“Prove it to me then,” she said curtly. “Bring me his remains. Do so... and I’ll pay twice your rate.”

That got my attention. Fifty gold crescents was no small sum but a hundred… well, it was enough to make me reconsider. There was no arguing with her. I’d refused her request for days, but she clearly had more patience than me. It wasn’t just her husband that she wanted. It was closure. Something to bury so there would never be any lingering doubt. 

And so I finally obliged her. I would be paid to find a dead man. 

All within the oasis town of Libara gathered to watch my departure. I did not know any of them, but they all knew me. I’d been the talk of the town since my arrival. Rashid al-Sahra. Desert walker. Master of the art of breath. Nomad and mercenary. As I packed the last of my things into my double-hulled, single-masted sand sail, I heard the whispers of curious children and their equally curious yet subtler parents. I knew what they were thinking. So he has finally taken Anam’s contract? How mighty was the sum offered? I was sure half these piss-poor village folk would’ve lept at the task themselves if they knew how much was on offer. But payment alone wouldn’t make the job any less futile. My client was senseless. A widow in denial. But she insisted on having her husband’s corpse back even if it cost her a fortune. Her loss. My gain.

I sat cross-legged on the abridging beams between the hulls of the sand sail and meditated. Slow breaths, in and out, reducing my heartbeat to a perfectly balanced tempo. She called to me. “Rashid!” 

I opened my eyes. 

“Bring my husband home.”

And with a final exhale, an unearthly gust of wind filled the sail before me. The direction of the wind shifted southward, and the sand sail lifted off the ground. I left in the wake of gasps of awe as the townsfolk behind marvelled at the wind art in practice. Off I went, sailing into the desert on a fool’s errand. 

As my sand sail arced off the desert dunes, I considered the facts. The dust storm was twelve days ago. We’d all seen it on the horizon, darkening a good portion of the sky like a hurricane. The merchant caravan returned five days later, or rather what was left of it. They more crawled into the town than walked, the poor devils. Their remaining camels had been butchered for sustenance, their wares lost to the sands. And they came from Abyssinia, from trading silk for ivory with the Ethiop peoples. Any evidence of their passage, be it stray strands of silk or rotting camel carcasses, would be enough to narrow down my search.

During the nights, I used the stars to plot my path. And during the days, I commanded the wind through my sails and surfed the turbulent dunes. I considered the widow as I searched. Her faith that her husband was alive. Her illogical hope. What a useless sensation it was, hope. Nothing more than blind wishing, a prayer to a silent universe. She bet all of her husband’s fortunes on hope. But hope doesn’t keep people alive. You learn that as a desert walker. Pleading won’t cure you of dehydration. Faith won’t keep the sand out of your lungs during a storm. I sacrificed hope the moment I learned the wind art and took up my trade. A hopeful desert walker might’ve sailed on, searching the dirt for clues of survival that the sands may have buried days ago. But I knew the man was dead so I looked instead to the sky. 

The vultures told me where I needed to go. 

I found the camels first, their bodies eroded away by the dust storm’s violent winds and further ruined by the feasting scavengers. Northward, I found a traveller’s pack half-submerged in the sand. Strange, I thought, that after all these days it wasn’t buried by the wind. A lost shoe here, a walking stick there. All miles apart from one another. The dead man had been active. And the more I searched, the more an uncomfortable truth became apparent. 

A truth I only confirmed when I found him. 

No vultures circled where he lay. No sand buried his body. Only a few flies pestered his unfortunate remains. And behind him was a trail marking where he’d crawled. He had been dead less than a day. And he had somehow crawled for miles in the unending heat. His face was gaunt, his skin cracked like dried mud, starved of moisture. The man must have been mad with sunstroke after so many days, likely chasing after mirages thinking them to be angels. That’s all mirages are. False hope. 

But examining him further, I found the locket in his hand. In which was inscribed the name of his wife. 

“He was trying to make it back to you, Anam,” I said, placing the locket gently in her palm. “This was all he had with him.”

Her eyes wandered to the body wrapped in sackcloth. “The dust storm didn’t kill him, al-Sahra,” she said. “You did.” 

A crowd had gathered upon my arrival. Unlike my departure, they were painfully silent now. She was not wrong. Had I left but a day sooner, her husband might still be alive. “Anam, I—,”

She threw a gold-laden pouch at my feet, and one hundred gold crescents scattered before me. “Take your prize,” she said, icily. “Leave!” Her eyes filled with tears. But these weren’t the tears of mourning. It was rage that I saw. 

I left her then, after picking my payment from the ground. My sand sail swept off into the desert in the wake of jeers and insults from the onlookers. I left Libara a hated man. A man who took too long to act.

The truth about us desert walkers is we’re all nomads. Wandering souls without families or homes. What could I have known about closure, of a wife’s desperate longing for her husband? The vultures were my only kin. And the Sahara was my only home. I understand now that it’s not hope that keeps people alive in the desert. It’s knowing that there is something, or someone, to stay alive for. Although, whatever it is I wander ceaselessly for, I cannot say. 

A.J. Gallows is a South African novelist specialising in historical, dark fantasy, and grimdark fiction.