William Dietrich - Getting back

"I'll be impressed if you just find enough water to fish in," Amaya said.

"We'll find everything we need once we learn how to look." Daniel took the hunting knife he had brought and cut a staff of tolerable straightness from a gray-leafed, spiny bush, sharpening one end. "Voila,"

he announced. "Walking stick, javelin, water probe, and ridgepole for my ground cover in case it rains. Free, portable, disposable, and replaceable. The perfect product. Patent number 8765321."

"Yeah, but can you swat flies with it?" Ico asked.

They set out, their boots striking up little puffs of dust as they walked, the pink powder settling on their ankles and shoes like fine talcum. The heat rose again, the insects came back, and this time there was no convenient overhang for a midday refuge. They rested in the shade of what Amaya identified as a mulga tree, their thirst enormous. Even though the air was too dry for them to visibly sweat, their thickening throats were warning enough of how the desert baked out liquids. They drank freely to replenish themselves. The horizon was a shimmer of heat haze and the range of hills they'd been following was flattening out. Ahead was a flat plain of scrubby emptiness, with no visible landmarks. It looked as featureless as an ocean. All they could do was follow compass, sun, and the stars to the east.

Conversation lagged as the weight of their packs bit deeper and the insects became more annoying. At one point Ico got out his map, studied it, and then shrugged and put it back without comment. The desert was so featureless that there was nothing to establish their position with, even if the chart was real.

Still, the freedom to choose their way was liberating, Daniel thought. They saw no kangaroos but did spy a dingo, a dog first brought by the aborigines and now wild as the wind. It loped into the brush ahead of them like a furtive coyote. There were birds, flies, ants. On a dare, Amaya tasted one of the green ants that the aborigines ate and said it tasted bitter, but mostly like nothing at all. She was the one who stopped most frequently to mentally catalog shrubs and grasses. Hawks and kites orbited in the sky.

Daniel periodically threw his makeshift spear at a rock or twisted dead tree trunk, his accuracy inconsistent but slowly improving until he began to tire. Ico, working to keep up under his heavy pack as the hours went by, shook his head in amusement. "Look at that, he's better than a dog. He throws his own stick."

"Just aiming at the flies, Ico," Daniel replied. "I plan to spear them all."

Tucker called a halt at mid-afternoon. "Blisters," he announced.

The others took the opportunity to examine their carefully padded feet, readjusting protection and massaging red spots. "I'm so swollen it looks like I'm walking on melons!" Amaya wailed.

"I thought I was in shape but I'm finding muscles the gym didn't know I had," Daniel confessed.

"I'm finding pain my muscles didn't know they had," Ico sighed, leaning back against his massive pack. The others raised their eyebrows. "I know, I know, it's too big. Hey, I'm eating my way through it."

Their hope of camping in a riverbed was dashed when none appeared the second evening. The initial exhilaration was gone and they felt not only tired but dirty. Ico sneaked a glance at his watch. He was waiting for the sun to go down. There was no fresh water and they realized they had to ration what was left.

"How can we walk without water?" Tucker asked worriedly as the night's eventual chill lured them tighter to their fire.

"It looked like the land falls off a bit ahead," Amaya replied. "We look in the depression for a riverbed and search seriously for water. We can't push farther until we find it."

"But that's not very far," Ico objected. "We need to make our mileage."

"No we don't. We need to drink."

The stark truth of her statement sobered them for a minute.

Tucker shivered. "And it's cold tonight. Colder than it was last night. Roast during the day, freeze at night."

"That's the desert for you," Daniel said. "We should have caught that dingo."

"To eat?"

"No, to cuddle with. Aborigines used their dogs for warmth. A cold evening was a three- or four-dog night."

"Awooooo," Tucker called. "Maybe I can lure one."

"With that call they'll try to mate," Ico said. "That'll warm you up. Of course there's another alternative." He smiled sweetly at Amaya.

"In your dreams, Washington."

"I'm just inventorying our resources."

"Use your gadgets to keep yourself warm."

They found another sandy riverbed at noon the next day, but even after following it upstream for several miles they found no water. "Doesn't this country have any wet stuff in its rivers?" Tucker asked rhetorically. "This is weird." Lunch was quiet, the flies so persistent that the travelers had mostly given up trying to swat at them, though Ico still wore his head net. They were down to a quart of water each.

"If we don't find more water we might have to hike back," Daniel said gloomily. "We can't go on without it."

Amaya looked thoughtfully at the sand. "I've got an idea," she said. "Let's go back to that bend we passed a mile or so ago."

"I don't want to go backward," Ico groused. "In fact I don't want to do anything right now. I'm exhausted. Let's nap."

"I told you that you were carrying too much," Tucker lectured.

"I'm keeping up. I just don't want to go into reverse."

"What's your idea?" Daniel asked Amaya.

"There's probably water under the sand here. Deserts swallow it after a rain, but it doesn't disappear. We just have to dig in the right place."

"So what's the right place?"

"I'll show you. Come on, Ico, it's not far."

"Aw, Mom."

They trudged back. It was strange to encounter their own footprints; it was the first sign of humans they'd seen in this place. At the bend of the dry river there was a sandy bluff the water had eaten into, and a hollow in the sand beneath it. "The dynamics of the surface water digs out pools at places like this," she explained. "I'm betting there might be another pool beneath us, in the sand." She dropped her pack, got a stick, and began to dig. "Come on."

The men joined her, each taking a turn. It was blisteringly hot. "If you're wrong, we're going to melt right here," Tucker warned.

"Yes. This is our first real test."

Two feet down the sand darkened, then grew moist. "Widen the hole," she directed. The sand flew more furiously and then they stopped, exhausted.

Dirty water drained into it. "It's just mud," Daniel objected.

Amaya scooped out the muddy water and cast it aside on the sand. "That's just from our disturbance. Now we wait. The trick in the wild is patience."

They retreated to the shade of some gum trees and sat, weary. The sun was dipping lower and they allowed themselves sips of their last water. "I thought it would be easier to drink out here," Daniel admitted. "If Outback Adventure drops people in at random like that, I mean. The company didn't emphasize water-finding skills and the desert is pretty green. I assumed we'd find some water each day."

"Maybe that was our first test," Ico replied. "Our assumptions."

"The good news is, it's a test we're passing," Tucker said optimistically. "We found water anyway, right?"

Time crawled on. Daniel lay back to study the branches of the trees, watching the flitting birds. Wanting something to do, he began to try to identify them. Ico had taken out a book on disk. Tucker dozed, and Amaya sat as if meditating. The group was nervous but no one wanted to articulate it. They could die out here, and no one was coming to their rescue.

As the shadows lengthened a bird fluttered down and hopped to the lip and then into the trench. It gave a call and flew out. Amaya came out of her trance and crawled forward, lying on the lip of the hole as if mesmerized. Then she turned to grin. "Daniel! Bring a cup!"