Dinosaur Wars

Chapter nineteen - Thirst

The sun blistered the ground. Masters lay at the edge of the wash out, his rifle levelled and ready. From his position in a bend in the channel, he could get a line of sight several hundred feet in the direction from which he himself had ridden the night before.

As he expected, a rider came at first light. A scout. Riding cautiously, he hugged the channel walls for cover, his eyes raised all the time, searching for an ambush. Masters recognized him - Luis Rivera, Emelio Delgado's lieutenant, an expert horseman and crack shot. He was almost like a body guard for Masters' Spanish father-in-law. Masters let him ride by, watching as his horse stepped lightly by the gouged-out strata of the wash-out's walls.

The sun bit at Masters' back as he waited well into the morning. Sweat seeped from his skin then dried on his face, the salt stinging his eyes. He tried to drink as little as possible, not knowing how long he'd be stationed there. The water from his cateen heated so that when he did drink, the liquid felt substanceless, as if he were drinking warm air. And still he waited, till the heat was a iron weight pressing on the length of his prone form and a leaden ache filled his head. He tried to squeeze his body into the shadow of the outcrop of rock he had decided on for shelter, but the sharp rays of the sun always sought him out.

Eventually Rivera returned, riding at a fast canter the way he had came, now unconcerned at any threat the top of the channel posed. And still he waited as the sun scorched his body. But nothing seemed to burn hotter than the thoughts that boiled through his mind. A hot fear, a hatred for what he had to do, flamed and hissed in his head.

He imagined Rivera riding up to the small adobe half a mile beyond the wash out, and the quick investigation he would have made. Masters had left Dita in the care of the old couple who lived there - subsistence farmers, with no children of their own. He saw crosses in the small graveyard next to their home and guessed the fate of the family and the hard life they had lived. The old woman, her face darkened and lined by years of sun, took the baby in her arms like a blessing. The old man, thin and dressed in little more than rags, looked on, silent and afraid. Then Masters had rode on as far as he dared before he doubled back, brushing his returning tracks clean with a creosote bush. He had found his stake-out site, tying his horse well back from the channel opening in the shade of a joshua tree. He had given the beast most of the contents of the hide water bag he carried and hoped it would be alive when he returned.

As the sun rose higher, the tiny shadow cast by his hiding place thinned and disappeared. His tongue felt like paper. Every yearning cell in his body cried out in dessicated distress. The pebbles and sandy dirt where he lay seemed to shift and pop. An impossible spring of pure liquid heat bubbled up from beneath the ground. Masters readjusted his sight and the pebbles returned to stillness. He pulled his attention back to the wash out.

As he waited, the sky mercifully darkened. Black clouds tumbled overhead, and the air became heavy, pressing in on his temples.

Then, in the distance, he could hear the sound of hooves. Three riders were approaching.

Rivera was the first to round the bend in the channel. Then came Delgado hard on his hooves, followed by a young corporal that Masters didn't recognise. They rode at a fast canter.

Masters quickly leveled his rifle, leaning the barrel on the boulder to steady his aim. Then the sky lit up in a brilliant flash of lightning. Two beats later and the thunder cracked like giant boulders cascading down a slope of bear stone. The bitter thought came to Masters' that the sky smiled on him. He pulled the rifle's trigger and the crack was not unlike thunder and the young corporal was flung back off his horse and onto the ground. Because of the noise, the two leading riders hadn't noticed him fall.

Rivera was now nearly level with Masters. Masters aimed the rifle at his horse and squeezed the trigger once more. The horse's forelegs gave way beneath it and the beast somersaulted forward, throwing its rider. Delgado's horse couldn't avoid the collision and in a moment both he and his mount were sprawled out on the dirt.

Masters stood just as Rivera got to his feet. The lietenant went for the gun on his hip but before he could get it from its holster, Masters had got a shot off then levered another shell into the breech and fired again. Rivera flew backwards and lay still on the ground. There was clearly something wrong with Delgado's horse as it rocked, unable to get to its feet. Delgado had one leg beneath the animal. He was trying to get his rifle from the side of the saddle. Masters could see him fumbling to unhook the leather hold strap. He took steady aim and let off a round. Delgado thumped to the ground.

Masters surveyed the scene. Rivera lay motionless on his back, his arms outstretched. His horse had its head bent onto its fore limbs, one back leg twisted sideways. Delgado's horse whinnied and shook its head as it continued to rock, trying to rise. The colonel was jolted by the horse's movement but otherwise was still. The corporal's horse had long since trotted down the channel and out of site. As Masters took this in, the crying started.

A howl of pain and terror. The young corporal was clawing his way back down the wash out, crawling on his belly and crying out in Spanish. Masters could make out the words "please" and "no" and "live". There was another flash from the sky and a roll of thunder started soon after.

Masters ran up the side of the channel and as he came level with the corporal the rain dropped from the sky as if a sluice gate had opened. Huge drops battered down and instantly small streams started winding around the wash out and above. Water tipped over the side of the wall and down in thick curtains. Masters lifted his head to the sky and opened his mouth. The merciful cold liquid splattered into his mouth. He swallowed three, four, five times till he was out of breath. He sucked in air then drank from the cloudburst again.

The corporal was dragging himself through what was now becoming a muddy stream. He had stopped crying. Masters took aim and fired. The bullet must have missed as the corporal held up his hand and again called out. His voice was inaudible through the racket of the rain. Masters aimed again and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on an empty breech.

He took shells from his belt and pushed them into the rifle's loading gate till the magazine was full once more then lifted the rifle to his cheek. But the corporal didn't move - he was face down in the growing stream that coursed through the wash out. Masters watched for some moments as the water flooded around his head.

Then the storm halted, the downpour ceasing as suddenly as it had started. The stream in the wash out continued to bob the corporal's head this way and that as the accumulated water sped through.

The day began to brighten and heat again. Masters could feel his thirst returning as the sun lit up his face. Indeed, it become painfully hot, like a brand had been taken to his cheeks and tongue. Swelling red, his skin began to welt and blister. The blisters split and dust wafted from them like the spores from a puff ball. His skin began to slough from his body, peeling off in long strips. The thirst was unbearable. He felt as though his mouth was caked in sand.

Then he woke, to the same dreadful sight he had briefly escaped. The survivors from Ajax draped around the lifeboat like mannequins from a wax works display, their parched faces as sunburnt as his own. The sun towered over them, a burning gate to some inhuman furnace beyond. And all around them, the endless blue of the open ocean.