Silence engulfed us as we looked at the sands for any sign of my camel.
“Two of the skins broke when I went down,” he said. I saw the wrinkled waterskins hanging behind his saddle and knew immediately that we were in more trouble than even I had imagined. Shunu had been carrying the rest of the water, except for a single nearly depleted skin on the male Judah rode.
If we could not find Shunu, we would be left with only one she-camel, and without more water, she would not yield much milk.
“She last drank three days ago,” Saba said. “We must find Shunu.”
“Yes, we must,” I said.
But even I knew that finding her would be a significant challenge. The blowing sand had erased all tracks. Shunu might have wandered in circles, disoriented, looking for a way out. To my knowledge she’d never been caught in a dust storm save in the oasis, where shelter was near.
Judah and Saba searched in widening circles for an hour before returning empty-handed.
“I’m sorry, Maviah,” Judah said, somber. “We cannot find her sign. She is surely out of the storm and searching for us. We will pray that God leads her to safety.”
He was showing me kindness, because I knew as well as they did that Shunu could just as easily be buried at the bottom of a valley. Although the loss of her pained me deeply, I chose not to burden the men with my sorrow.
“If she is meant to find us, she will,” I said.
“If God wills it, she will find us,” Judah said, dismounting and pulling his camel to the sand. He motioned for me to mount. “You will ride Massu now.”
“We can both ride him.”
“Yes. But for now I walk.”
And so I traveled upon Massu, led by Judah, who walked, and Saba, who rode ahead to scout the way, keeping an eye out for Shunu.
The sun now seemed hotter and each step heavier, weighed down by our knowledge that only the best fortune would deliver us to water before we dried up. This was how the Nafud swallowed its victims and spit them back out as bleached bones upon its dunes.
When Judah began to lose strength, he climbed up behind me and seated himself with one leg folded under him and the other resting on the camel’s rump. How he didn’t fall off, I could not fathom.
His closeness relieved my anxiety, and when we had the energy, we talked quietly. There, on Massu’s back, I listened to his gentle voice as he spoke of adventures that had taken him into more raids and battles than I could imagine, for he was often chosen by my father to champion and avenge clans who’d suffered loss to raiding tribes.
Rami chose him because he wasn’t Kalb. Indeed, if Judah had been of Kalb blood, a clan might have been insulted at the suggestion that they needed the help of a single champion. But because he was a bond servant in the service of their sheikh, all clans welcomed his sword and bow.
I learned also of his own tribe and of the woman he’d loved before coming to the Kalb. And Judah learned more about my time in Egypt, of my education and of Johnin, whom I had loved. Truly, I had never spoken so freely with anyone since leaving Egypt, and I found myself wanting to tell him everything. But I didn’t want to be tedious, for I knew that he would patiently listen to hours of talk, even if bored by it.
Judah had called me a queen, and yet I felt he was the more honorable.
We had hoped that Shunu might find her way to us while we camped, but when we rose in the predawn hour and detected no sign of her, we knew that she was lost to us. If she was still alive, other Bedu might find her and treasure her, for she was a beautiful animal, friend to all men.
For two more days we plodded on. The stretches of silence between us lengthened, as talking itself robbed us of energy. We would make it, Saba and Judah both said. It is known that a man can live thirty days without food, and only two without water or milk, and yet the Nafud might cut these spans in half. Still, we had just enough for the three days required to reach Aela.
But then, on the following afternoon, our ninth since leaving Dumah, fate dealt us another blow. Saba’s she-camel, Wabitu, went searching for a morsel during a short rest and returned with her waterskin torn by a sharp rock or thorn.
The last of our water had leaked out.
Saba invoked the names of many gods in cursing the she-camel, who only looked at him past her long lashes, too dumb to know that she might have just sealed her own death.
Judah looked from the camel to Saba, then to me, then at the horizon. I had come to expect the most positive outlook from Judah, and his silence unnerved me.
“It’s too far,” he finally said, turning to Saba.
Saba did not dispute the claim.
“We must head south and try for the well at Sidin. There was a rain in that region eight months ago. The well may still have water clean enough to drink.”