ROUGH TRAILS by L. A. GRAF

Author:L. A. GRAF
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC035000
Publisher: POCKET BOOKS
Published: 2000-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

A SHARP JAB in the ribs catapulted him awake, back into the helmet of pain he’d been wearing all day. Chekov squinted against the swarming dust—which had completed its recapture of the planet’s surface by midday—and thanked God for the dust muffler which had kept him from choking to death while he slept.

Although death might have been an improvement over the way his head felt right now.

“You awake?” Thee tossed the question back at him without turning. A chill gust of wind almost tore it away before he heard it.

Chekov forced himself to straighten despite the sting of sand and half-frozen mist against his face. “I am now.” He couldn’t see the dogs to either side, but he heard their rhythmic panting underneath the saddle’s creak and the camel’s sighs, and he knew Thee would never have lost track of them, even in this darkness. Dusk had settled heavily over the desert, dragging with it wet downdrafts off the summit of Bull’s Eye and the rumble of distant thunder. They’d crossed more than forty kilometers on camelback since mounting up this morning. Chekov could feel every step of the trip.

Thee reached back to clap him on the knee in what he at first took to be good humor at his expense. Yet she sounded sincerely concerned when she said, “Sorry, sweets, but you’re the one who ran into the shovel. You know the drill.”

He did. Which didn’t make being startled out of exhausted sleep every sixty minutes any more pleasant.

“How’s the head?”

“Hurts.” An honest answer that didn’t even begin to describe how much he wished he had taken that shovel to Bob Mayr instead of the other way around. Blinking over her shoulder, he pointed at a blurry smear of light coalescing out of the dust ahead of them. “Is that Desperation?”

“It better be. Otherwise, Alison Gebauer’s map isn’t worth the padd she drew it on.”

Before setting out for Desperation, they had headed first for the Gebauer homestead, led by the Mayrs and carrying what little of the homestead’s possessions had been deemed salvageable. Chekov had ridden the camel behind Jan Mayr and the puppies, despite his protests that he could walk the ten-kilometer distance as well as any of them and didn’t need to be coddled. Even so, Bob Mayr must have apologized twice for every klick they traveled. Chekov finally gave up and accepted the ride as part of that apology. When he found he couldn’t dismount without help when they finally reached the Gebauers’, he even acknowledged that perhaps he wasn’t as unscathed by the shovel attack as he would have liked to believe.

Ed Gebauer had proved a surprisingly talented cook, throwing together a quick, delicious meal while Bob Mayr and Gebauer’s wife, Alison, pieced together a map of the most direct route to Desperation. Thee hovered over their shoulders as they sketched and argued, while Chekov did his best to remain upright as Jan Mayr performed earnest introductions to each of the Gebauers’ half-dozen identical dogs.

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