“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay—I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She sniffed, met his eyes. “No, she said, very quietly. “I’m sure you’ll do your best. Or Omair will probably kill you.”
He smiled, a soft light entering his pale eyes, and he took her hat off, moving hair away from her dust-streaked face.
“Yeah. And if Omair doesn’t kill me,” he said softly, “Haroun will.”
She held his gaze.
“Brandt, thank you. I know I’m just a job, a package—”
“No,” he said softly. “Not just a package, not anymore.” He smiled, sadly this time, a worry entering his eyes. “You’re too stubborn for that.”
Chapter 10
“It feels as if it has a presence,” Dalilah said, looking up at the wall. “Like it’s got eyes.”
“The Batswana call it Solomon’s Wall,” Brandt said. “Sangomas—the local witch doctors—claim it’s a place where old spirits live and watch over the plains to the Tsholo.”
“Must be about seventy yards high,” she whispered.
“Around sixty meters of columnar basalt straight up, higher in other places. The wall runs for maybe forty or fifty kilometers—a rift caused by volcanic upheaval thousands of years ago.”
She studied the big blocks of rock—cubes of various sizes stacked one atop the other almost as if by a giant human hand, an ancient ruined city wall now being pried and twisted apart by the gnarled roots of crooked trees and sparse shrubs that had found sustenance in crevices.
Again the hot breeze, an almost imperceptible sensation, rustled over her skin, as if the wall itself was softly exhaling. A prickle ran over her skin.
“It feels like it doesn’t want to let us through, or over.”
“This land has a way of doing that, like something primitive whispering just beneath the veil of the surface, reflecting back your own emotions.”
She looked at him oddly, something shifting in her. Brandt handed her water. She met his eyes as she drank. He still didn’t take any, but he felt thirsty now.
“You going to be okay?” he said.
She forced a wry smile and cast another glance up the cliff face. “I’m scared of heights.”
“Because you’re afraid of falling and dying?”
She bit the corner of her lip. “I suppose that’s what it boils down to.”
“You could look at this two ways—if we stay down here, you probably will die at Amal’s hands. Or you could let me help you climb, and only stand a faint chance of dying at your own hand.”
“Oh, great. You sure have a way of making someone feel like they have some nice options—stay down here and get my head cut off, or go up there and get smashed.”
He crouched in front of her and looked up into her face, examining her, weighing how much mettle she had left, how far he could push her. “Dalilah, you can do this. You’ve shown me that you’ve got more grit than most men. You’re a survivor. You have everything it takes and then some.”
She turned her face away.
“No, look at me.” He took her hand in his. “I’m going to help you over this. Once step, one rock at a time. We’ll take it at an angle instead of straight up. It’ll be easier that way. And near the top, there’s water.” He pointed. “That dark stain on the rock? Waterfall. We’ll rest on that ledge up there by the water, then go the last short haul. We can be up on the plateau and in shelter before dark. I’ll build you a fire, we’ll eat. You can sleep. Then tomorrow, we start fresh. We’re a team, okay—got that? No man left behind. Ever.”
She gave a half laugh and her eyes flicked briefly to her finger with the ring. “After everything I’ve been through so far, this suddenly feels like the biggest, insurmountable hurdle of all.”
Brandt had a sense she wasn’t talking just about the wall, but about the argument they’d had over her marriage versus independence. He felt there was something much deeper and darker at play there, but he was not going to judge, or dig further. Right now he had to keep her focused on moving forward and up, on the positive.
“Listen here, Dalilah, I’ll make you a harness, and you’ll be tied to me with rope. I won’t let you fall. You’ve just got to keep looking up, never down, never backward.” He got to his feet, his body casting her in shadow. “Tomorrow we’ll make for a small village where we might even find transport. From there, smooth sailing and we’re home.”
“Home,” she said softly as she studied the wall. She rubbed her brow. “I’m not sure I know where that is anymore,” she muttered.