The Son of Dajjal

Some time ago in the Wazirate, an Arab city-state similar to the others along the Persian Gulf, a tribeless nomad named Ali al-Mutawakkil began tying brass cooking pots to his feet and went out into the spectral sand swirling under the moon and vandalized the bulldozers and the rollers and the trucks belonging to a company commissioned to build a paved road through the desert. As a great tracker he knew the importance of not leaving footprints.

Ali al-Mutawakkil was not the herald of an organized rebellion. He objected to the road only because his son, Musa, an excitable and unsettled soul who loathed the nomadic life, would see it as a pathway to abandoning the desert. Already Musa talked about going to the Wazirate’s northern coast and living in a hut along the water. What nomad talked like that? If Ali allowed the river of asphalt to harden no amount of patriarchal exclamation would contain Musa — the road would be a black flint constantly enlivening the embers of escape.

Ali’s surreptitious campaign had been going on for months and he had ground the construction to a halt. He considered the secrecy dishonorable and unmanly but he had heard too many stories of other nomads losing their sons to the world, to jobs in oil, to working in shops. A humble nomad father forced to follow his child into the capital, pitching his goat-hair tentlike a squatterin the frontyard of his child’s brick home, wandering through the alleys like a fool, the sky blocked by antennae and the ground all cement — No! Ali was animated by an altogether different image. To sit in the solid thereness of the night, face to face with his son, the stars phosphorous above them, the fire flickering between them, bodies glowing silver from the back, gold in front. Nothing more.

At any other time, Ali’s actions would have garnered significant attention from the Wazir, who, in competition with the Kuwaitis, Bahrainis, Qataris, and Emiratis, was eager to see his country criss-crossed with highways. But over the past few months, a man, or something more baleful, referred to as the Son of Dajjal, had been terrorizing the coastal villages. It raped women, killed men, burnt camels, and could not be found — because no one had seen its face, because it walked without leaving tracks, and because it knew how to hide even from the low-flying planes the British sent out. Pursuing the marauder  consumed most of the Wazir’s energies. And Ali gained reprieve.

One winter morning, Ali went to visit the mercurial underground spring in an oasis called the Hollows. He always liked coming here. It was a place where the sting of the sand was reduced by the palms that had put their heads together and there was enough shade that it was not considered foolish to momentarily rebel against the autocracy of the sun.

Ali was sitting with his back against the bark, itching himself, when Musa came yelling. Slender and slight and halting, he was brimful of nervous anxiety. His headdress was askew and his sensitive cheeks were burnt by the cold air.

“Americans!” he gasped. “Real Americans, two of them! And a third man, an Arab!”

Ali stood up and dusted himself. Though he had heard things about Americans — their victories in the Great War, their destruction of Japan, their attempt to emboss their flag upon the moon — he had never met one in person. Unlike the British, who had been around the Gulf ever since they displaced the Portuguese, and the Frenchmen and Danes who came by to study wind patterns and the evolution of Nabatean poetry, the Americans seemed to have been making an imprint in the Gulf without ever showing themselves. It was as if they followed the model of authority first established by the Almighty.

By the time the meeting occurred the day was beginning to turn warm and Ali removed the dark blue robe he wore over his white dishdasha. Musa stood near him, frail as a pellucid princess, wondering what his father would do.

There were indeed three men. The leader was a gaunt white cowboy, older, with an ostrich neck, wearing a wide brimmed white hat and sunglasses, a denim shirt and loose fitting slacks. He was called Thornton the Third.

The other American was squat and dark-skinned, with apparently oriental features, like a Mongol, a face that was more square than any Ali had ever seen. He wore a cap and had long black hair braided down to his buttocks — the braid was looped once around the neck like a chain. Despite the glass-like sheen permeating the air he wore no sunglasses and squinted little. Such imperviousness suggested a desert upbringing, certainly one that was at ease with the sun. His name was Shadow Wolf.

The third man was their Bahraini guide. One of the sophisticated cosmopolitan sorts that sat at the cafes in Muharraq, discussed the maqamat of classical music with oud players and debated the merits of the mini-skirt over the abaya. He was actually wearing a golden-hemmed bisht under his outer robe! He gave a name but Ali forgot it as quickly, recalling only that it suggested a Persian background.

Thornton the Third preferred to speak bluntly. He said it was a habit caused by a life of sending telegrams.

“I am told that you once found a thief after having seen his sandal prints two years earlier in a completely different town.”

“This is true,” Ali bowed.

“I represent a construction Company whose task it is to connect the western oil fields to the eastern coast. And the Company is behind schedule. They have brought me here to remedy this situation.”

The Bahraini was not a good translator, relying on colloquial words instead of the pure Arabic of the bedouin, eliciting disdainful glances from Ali.

“Yes, I have seen their machines,” Ali replied. “Very big. But they don’t do much, I hear.” He couldn’t resist a smile.

“These machines are American built. They mastered Saudi sand. They built the highway to the oil fields in the Empty Quarter. Yet Wazirati sand makes them sick. They keep breaking. And when they aren’t broken they lose fuel. Or a foreman runs off in fright. It is odd all that is happening here. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe it’s the Son of Dajjal.”

“He’s referring to a killer stalking these lands,” said the Bahraini, in explanation. “Son of the anti-Christ.”

Thornton raised a hand. “The conditions for the appearance of the anti-Christ are not yet satisfied.”

“It must be the jinn then,” Ali offered. “There is a holy man around. But I warn you, he fears the jinn more than me.”

He laughed. “You see this man?” He put his arm around his companion. “He is what you call a Red Indian. He is the greatest tracker of our nation. He suspects my problem is a vandal in the desert. What do you say to that?”

Ali looked into the eyes of the Red Indian. The hazel orbs contained something that other men, even Waziratis, had begun to lose. The kind of eyes that thrived in the desert, which saw all, classified what they saw, and most importantly, never forgot. And he felt a flicker of brotherhood. This was the sort of man that his father had been. The sort of man he wished to forge Musa into.

“So then have him track. See if he can find your culprit.”

“He has already begun. But I wanted to come to you to see if you wanted to provide assistance. Because we are not familiar with the lay of the land like you.”

Ali inhaled.

“This is nothing personal, ya Amrikan. But I do not serve a foreigner. God willing, you will find your culprit. Now please, go with God.”

“We can offer you money. Bags.”

“Bags will just weigh me down.”

Thornton the Third nodded and tipped his hat, backing away to take a dip of snuff. The Red Indian, however, took a step toward Ali, chin pointing up, looking into his eyes, his breath slow as a stallion in the morning. A singular finger unrolled from his fist and pointed at Ali.

“Every man leaves a trail,” he said, translated by the Bahraini.

The three men walked back to their truck and were gone in a sweep of dust. But the phlegmatic Red Indian left Ali frozen. He considered the possibility that the Americans already knew who he was and what he had done and this request for assistance was just a sordid game they were playing, for amusement, or out of boredom, or because they were wicked and enjoyed torture.

Ali  wished to run back to his tent, sift through the singular chest and find there the triple barrel Turkish flintlock with its etched floral scrolls and raised sighting rib — the weapon that his father had taken off an Ottoman lord. He could load it and chase down the Americans and fill them with pellets of poison. But Ali al-Mutawakkil was a peaceful man, more influenced by the serenity of the desert moon than the aggression of its sun, and he didn’t have the mettle for such an act. And besides, the Wazir was close to all westerners. He would not be merciful to someone who harmed his allies.

Without saying a word Ali trekked back to the tent with Musa and tended to his animals — the goat, the camel, the saluki dog. Their silent companionship, without question, without threat, let him recapture the rhythm of his breath.

For the next few days Ali expanded a frond fence that some earlier visitor to the Hollows had put up. It was a useless thing to work on a barricade in the desert, he knew, but it was something to occupy him, like making love to a wife, or whittling wood.

One by one he pulled out the gray and grizzled fronds that had withered over time and drove into the ground, like he was planting a row of flags, the greener ones that Musa had cut. As he worked, his eyes continued turning west, far in the distance, where the asphalt made its inexorable advance. He imagined the black line spiraling toward him; right here in the oasis, going straight through his body, the unbreakable stone spear of an invincible tribe.

“Why do you oppose the road?” Musa crouched next to him. “Most of our people already use trucks — a road is only another thing.”

Ali didn’t express the fear in his heart. “If this country is overrun by roads then the trade of the tracker will die. Do you know what will become of us? We will be used for sport. They will take us in trucks in the wilderness and make us chase the footprints of ostriches and oryxes and gazelles. And when they were finished they would lock us in giant game preserves to spend the year cultivating the animals so they could come back and kill them.”

It grew cold in the evening. The sky was lined with wispy clouds that made its surface appear withered and chapped. The wind blew hard. Not the repetitive onomatopoeias of the summer, more a howl with no beginning. Musa clicked his tongue at the lazy dromedary, trying to persuade it to change the angle of its body, so the wind wouldn’t extinguish the orange fire. The boy’s face showed a mixture of frustration and hunger. He used a pan and flipped a confection of ground locust.

Ali ate the crunchy gruel and retreated deep inside the tent. As receptive as his body was, he couldn’t persuade the scorpion of sleep to sting him. He remained lying on the braised carpet, brushing his hand over the sedu weaving. Then he went outside and squatted upon the sand, picking his teeth, looking out into the west. He could just see the American wolf in the darkness, with his nose to the ground, his finger pointed here, right here, where Ali al-Mutawakkil slept with his son, his everything. The wolf was right. Every man left a trail, even one that wore boots of brass.

He was about to stand up when he heard robes fluttering in the hard wind. He hunkered down, lying on his stomach, opening his earhole pulling down on the lobe. There were other minute sounds: the frothy breath of a camel ridden hard, the clicking of a cantene, the ping of a metal buckle against another, the clatter of wood.

Then, like a rose blooming, a fire was lit, and in the milky glow Ali could see the rider’s form, a tall man with his face completely covered. He wore a belt with a twine-handle knife in it and most curiously, he wore heavy cloth padding over his shoes, that made it appear that he was walking on stumps. The rider unpacked a blanket on the back of his camel and out rolled the shirtless corpse of an African pearl-diver. The victim’s face was twisted in an unfinished plea and the sharkbone clamp that divers used to help them hold their breath punctured his nose.

Ali shifted in place. He didn’t have a weapon with him. He began scraping at the cold sand with his elbows and burrowed down. He prayed that Musa wouldn’t wake up and come looking for him.

Ali remained under the sand blanket until morning, watching the masked man until he put out the fire.

Once the sun was up and Ali was certain the rider was gone he got up and went back to his tent. He hid all morning, forbidding Musa to stray out of the fence they had erected.  He felt cold and shivered and drank countless cups of darkbrew.

“I saw the Son of Dajjal.”

Musa didn’t react. “In a dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Ali replied. “No, I do not dream since your mother died. It was real.”

“Is he as cruel as they say?”

Ali nodded. Then he scrambled, on his knees, towards the chest containing the Turkish pistol and pulled it out, feeling its long cold bore. He put it in Musa’s hand, who cradled it like a loaf of bread. Angered by the meek handling of the weapon Ali tore it back.

“He doesn’t leave any footprints,” Ali said.

“How come?”

“He pads his feet.”

Father and son went to the abandoned campsite. The ash, the upturned stone, the roots of spineless caper — Ali al-Mutawakkil memorized everything. Here was the sinuous, serpentine imprint made where the killer had lain. There was the bump in the sand where the diver was buried. Ali squatted where the camel had shat and observed the animal’s prints.

They stayed at the site until the shadows lengthened. Perhaps there was a reason the Almighty had put him in proximity with such a man, like a test, the periodic examination that the world conducted.

“I am tired of eating lizard,” Ali said as they trekked back to the tent. The afternoon was warm and he suspected there were plenty of boustard out there, or stone curlews, perhaps even an oryx. “Every day lizard, every day preserved dates.”

He restored the pistol to its rightful place in the chest — it wasn’t for killing game — and led the camel out to the front of the tent where he put padding on its hump, followed by the wooden saddle, wool tassles hanging from its edges. When it was ready, the camel lowered its neck, and Ali leapt onto its back. Then Ali called Musa who came over carrying the big saluki in his arms. Ali took the dog and put it on his lap so it could conserve its energy for the hunt’s endgame.

Ali had ridden about two fahrast when he spotted a hare’s tracks. He followed them for some time, toward a rocky outcropping sitting on the sand like a callous on a hand.

The hare knew it was being followed and hopped towards a heavy bush. Ali circled around a few times, patting the saluki to get him excited, and then rushed at the bush with the camel. The panicked hare came out of its sanctuary and ran up a dune. With a throaty cry Ali speared the saluki down. The dog landed in a leap, then with three more, a blur of black, was on top of the hare.

The hare was roasted, with the fur, on the open fire, and was eaten with the days old khbz. Its head, with the eyes burnt in the sockets, was kicked to the side. As they ate a gust of wind splashed sand onto the surface of the tent and the particles made the sound of soft rain. The camels in the dark groaned something and the saluki poked his nose at a lizard . Calm secreted out of Ali’s pores and ran into the cooling sand where it rasped and was snapped up by jerboas.

Afterward, as Ali drank mint tea, Musa recited an ode by Shanfara, and swept the front of the tent with a palm frond. When he was finished he turned the frond’s pointy end to the sky and hurled it into the dark.

“The wolf is a dog!” Ali declared out loud. “The white man is hunting me with his dog.”

“How can you be sure?” Musa asked.

“Because all men play the same game.”

*

            Father and son separated at dawn. Ali took the camel and the goat; Musa the saluki. The sun cast weak pink gauze over their farewell. The tent was left, along with their belongings, in the oasis, where it could be recovered if they returned, or picked up by another if they didn’t.

Watching his son go, alone, for the first time in the desert, Ali’s heart was proud like a flag rippling against the sky — but it was also heavy as if a pearl diver had taken it into the seabed and crammed it in an oyster. He turned, brought the camel to its feet, and stroked the head of the goat, accidentally calling it Musa.

He made a final pass through the encampment of the Son of Dajjal, upturned a few stones, said a prayer for the diver, and rode away.

The day, despite its chill, was dusty. He covered his nose and mouth and lowered his head. The wind was as plaintive as it had been all winter. The sun came out; but it was a miniscule disc of white. Ali soaked what little heat it released. As he sweated in his robes he was reminded of other journeys he had made. Vagrant men, thieving men, bad men, men that had thought themselves above pursuit, had been caught, because in the end they were just men and all men left tracks in the desert. He raised his head now and touched his animal companions, imparting some of his vigor to them. They responded by quickening their pace.

It was not long before the ground hardened under his feet. Camel thorn appeared at greater frequency and then there was stiff-leaved sedge, cropped by the mouth of grazing animals. Both the camel and the goat swung their heads down to nip on the shrub. He let them eat. And he hoped that Musa had stopped to take a bite of the preserved dates Ali had put in the boy’s pocket.

Soon Ali could smell saline humidity in the air. Far in the distance he saw a pair of trucks coming out of the desert, headed downslope, men in the back bouncing on the great bumps in the dirt path. He shrank down behind a bush so he wouldn’t be spotted.

A short while later he came into an area like a dry marsh . The soil was soft and chalky with warm crystals sitting on the surface. Tiny branchlets with blue-green leaves snagged against his clothes.

He walked into a rich patch of vegetation, his hand running over the feathery tamarisk some called asla and others ethl. Here he released the goat. And the animal, shocked by the abundance of foliage after the years spent in the aridity of the desert, danced and hopped in gratitude, before running away. Another member of his tribe sent off. It was just he and the camel now.

By late afternoon Ali arrived at the edge of a coastal village called Rim Ram.The huts in the village were of mud and plank and branch and frond. Each house had some kind of protection from the evil eye hanging out front. A group of laughing women came out of the village and headed toward a phalanx of primrose. They were young, virgins mostly , curly hair pulled to the front of their bodies to cover their bosoms, and cloth caps on their heads. They sat on the slope on their full thighs and thick hips and yanked the clumps out with their wide palmed hands adorned with orange henna, getting to the plant’s dark red roots, which produced a powdery dust they would later use as blush, as lipstick. Ali remembered that whenever his wife returned from the coast she used to leave red kisses on his thighs. He hoped one day Musa would get to experience such joys as well.

Ali entered the town through the gated entrance so he could study the footprints and tracks and other curiosities. Before seeing the Shaykh he stopped by the stable and studied the through the horses and the camels.

The old Shaykh, an acquaintance, lived in a small whitewashed cottage. He sat on the floor, in a room arrayed by cushions and carpets, aware that he was the custodian of very little. In a corner was a coffee table a British political agent had given him as a bribe decades ago. Now the only audience he received were wives and daughters . And the occasional nomad.

After paying his respects Ali told the Shaykh that the Son of Dajjal was in his village. The Shaykhleapt up and seized the curved ceremonial khanjar hanging on the wall.

“Who? By the Almighty in whose hand is my soul…”

Ali spoke slowly, excavating the memories he had gathered.

“You must arrest a tall man with an injury to his eye, who arrived here two nights ago, on a white camel with no tail, which is also blind in one eye. That man is the Son of Dajjal. He has just buried a pearl-fisher in the desert and has come here to claim more victims.”

The Shaykh immediately set his men out to the home of an Abyssinian crone with whom such a man was staying. When seven scimitars were put to the man’s neck he quickly acknowledged that he was the killer. A great number of takbirat rang out in the afternoon. And even the furthest fisherman on the water heard the cries and pulled their nets.

The Shaykh took the entire matter quite seriously. After all, it was the first proper opportunity for law enforcement since he had sentenced a fornicator to throw herself into a well enjambed with spears.

The killer, his feet bound, was thrown into a pit dug out in the center of the village, near the well, with a cover made of crossed spears placed over the hole. A pair of fleet riders were sent to the Wazir in the capital so he could come and execute this man by his own hand.

As evening descended and the Shaykh finished the administrative matters he paid the killer a visit. He took Ali along because he wanted to share with the villagers the story of how the notorious killer had been caught.

“O devil,” the Shaykh spat at the killer in the pit. “You must be forced to recognize how the Almighty arranged for you to be captured!”

The killer was strangely contrite. He sat in a crouch like a beaten wife and looked up, shielding his face from the occasional stone a child threw down.

“So tell us, ya Ali al-Mutawakkil, the nose of the Almighty,” the Shaykh turned, “how it was that you tracked this killer, when even the birds of the British could not see him, when the Wazir’s best soldiers couldn’t find him, when all the prayers of grieving mothers were not…” He went on for some time.

Ali looked to the crowd with a pleased face — the children seated, the men forming a rank, the women in the back. He nodded in appreciation because they recognized him. And, more importantly, because they valued his trade.

“O people, what had prevented this killer from being captured was that every one who tracked him tried to find his footprints. But this man didn’t leave any footprints — because he wrapped his feet in padding. Therefore, I tried another approach. I began at the campsite he abandoned and followed his camel. And I listened to the desert tell me about his camel. I determined that his camel was tail-less based on the position of its droppings in relation to its rear footprints. I determined the camel had to be one-eyed because it grazed on desert thorn in a lopsided manner. And I determined that his camel was an albino because the lore of firasaah informed me how to read lineage in the footprints of all creation. Then I came here to Rim Ram which is the closest village to the campsite, and checked if such a camel was grazing here. I was fortunate that I spotted the albino camel, and so I alerted your Shaykh.”

“Subhanallah!” shouted the crowd. And it was apparent that the killer was cowed as well, as he slunk into the shaded part of the pit and wouldn’t come out even when the children hit him with stones.

“But you also identified the man!” the Shaykh exhorted. “How did you determine his appearance?”

“Ah, yes,” Ali smiled; now speaking in a singsong voice. “I determined that he was one-eyed because I saw the smear of a finger on an upturned stone near his campsite. The smear tasted of spineless caper. As every housewife knows caper root is used to treat injuries to the eye.”

“With all those signs you had no need of footprints!” the Shaykh said. “It was as if the killer was begging to be caught!”

The people came and congratulated Ali and then set off to prepare a feast. Already there were entreaties for him to take the hands of certain women in marriage. Ali bowed and nodded at the crush of generosity and goodwill.

When, finally, Ali was alone above the pit he knelt and threw a stone at the criminal. Ali’s face was hard now, severe, like petrified wood.

“What would you do for your freedom?”

Thinking it to be a taunt the man said nothing.

“Answer me!” Ali threw another stone. “What will you do for your freedom?”

“Anything,” said the man, standing up, turning his head to look at Ali with his good eye. “I would do anything.”

“Dig yourself a foothold then,” Ali whispered. “I will come back for you.”

The feast lasted late into the night and the drums beat long and the men danced the samri. Ali retired early and waited for the celebration to end. He snuck out of the Shaykh’s house and looked to the sky. The moon was bright, and the stars, as a collective, were equally luminous.

He went to the stable and found his camel, leading it out with one hand clamped over its mouth. He came into the village, passing behind and around mud huts, listening for the snores of the men and the slumbering sighs of the women. In one house he heard the soft recitation of the Quran, followed by the prayer that newlyweds made before their communion. Continuing on, his nose filled with the slightly acrid scent of burnt oil, and the odd fish rotting in a woven basket. He picked his way through hulls and rudders and broken oars , and made his way to the pit.

Without pumping his arms, in a slight crouch, he ran and got on his stomach at the lip of the pit. A dull stone was used to gain the prisoner’s attention and then he lowered the rope, flicking his wrist so it danced like a snake, allowing for the prisoner to find it in the dark.

“Get up, man. I am springing you.”

The killer looked up. His teeth chattered from the cold that seeped up from below ground. He took a hold of the rope and stood up; ready to place his foot onto the holds he’d dug.

Ali gave a tug of confirmation and brought the camel back with little clicks of his tongue. Then, in one swift motion, he looped the rope around his forearm and leapt on the camel’s back, digging his feet down and tying the rope around the animal’s shoulders. There was a surge of flesh; the hump nearly sliding out from under his knees.

Even on a bad day the camel could pull a thousand pounds. The killer came flying out of the pit, landing with a thud. He was yanked all the way out of the village. Ali didn’t bother stopping because the dragging body would erase any of his camel’s residual prints, making it impossible for them to be tracked. To some it might even seem that the prisoner had escaped and abducted the man that captured him and was now hauling his body around the desert.

When they reached the marsh Ali allowed the killer to come to his feet and dust himself. The front of his clothes were bloody; but it was nothing some aloe oil couldn’t address. Ali circled the camel, the Turkish pistol pointed, and nodded toward the slope leading further into the reeds and rushes.

Once deep inside the foliage Ali hobbled the camel and the killer both, built a fire, and found the goat he had left behind. It was well fattened now and its udders were full. He drank all the milk. Next he slaughtered the animal, cut the legs and put them to roast. He sat with one leg in each hang, licking at the molten fat, staring at the killer.

“They will come after you,” said the prisoner.

“So be it.”

“Why have you done this?”

Ali finished eating. Then he got up and untied the killer’s hands and let him go at the leftovers, the furry flesh. The killer reached for a knife and cut out the animal’s liver and made a kabob of it. Ali kept the Turkish pistol pointed. Every now and again his sticky thumb rubbed over the hammer.

“I have never killed a man,” Ali said, letting the implication hang in the air.

The killer stopped licking the flat of the now liverless blade and hung it over the fire, watching it heat up. Ali realized his error and gestured for the knife to be tossed aside. The killer complied and raised both hands reassuringly high.

“You wouldn’t spring me to shoot me.”

“How many men have you killed?”

“More than there are stars.”

“Put out the fire.”

The killer took a large stone and used it to stamp the flame down. A few embers scorched his face and arms and he hit his forearms as if he was killing mosquitos. Ali took the moment to look at the infinite numerosity above. But his eyes turned to the moon. It looked red and hot like the knife heated in the fire. With a deep breath he lowered the hammer on his pistol and handed it over.

A smile spread across the killer’s face. He snapped the pistol with both hands and stroked it obscenely. Then he stood up and turned it towards Ali.

“That was stupid.”

Ali spoke in a voice as sharp as the edge of the moon. “I caught a man that couldn’t be caught. And then I freed him. Then I fed him. Then I armed him. He is in my debt. He is my dog. Mine to command. .”

The killer became quiet and walked about the campsite pounding his forehead with the pistol handle. His bad eye twitched. He directed the gun at Ali many times, only to pull it back and grunt.

“If I do this, will that earn me my freedom?”

“I can’t speak for the Wazir,” Ali replied. “But if you succeed I will not come after you.”

“And this weapon?”

“Yours.”

The killer holstered the weapon and bowed. Then he moved to pick up the saddle.

The pair left the goat for the scavengers and headed up the coast towards a beach at the northernmost rim of the Wazirate. To prevent the killer from tiring before his task Ali put him on the camel.

They pulled up on a rocky ledge under a clump of twisted acacias from where they could see a pristine waterside expanse below. The waves were more pronounced here in comparison to Rim Ram and made the sound of a woman telling a baby to hush. The foam was the color of milk. A hard wind came from the Gulf, like the breath of an exhausted mother. It ruffled their robes up there on the ledge and swept away doubt and fear.

Ali put his hand on the killer’s arm and pointed. All the way up the beach, just beneath a rocky outcropping, there was a small structure. A hut that some grifter had built there a long time ago. It was the hut that Musa dreamt of converting into a home for himself. A rock wall loomed above and around the hut.

“Go in there and wait for him to come.”

“That’s all?”

Ali took a deep breath. He felt barbarous speaking murder in such a pre-meditative, pre-emptive manner, like he was some sort of heartless American.

“Go.”

The two men shook hands and the killer headed down the rocks, the weapons in his belt, arms out to balance himself, skidding and nearly falling upon the moss.

Ali watched him descend and then, wiping away his tracks, retreated back to the clump of acacias where he had first stopped. Then he knelt the camel and sat next to it, for warmth, for assurance, eagerly watching the south side of the beach for Musa.

He waited , repeatedly losing himself in the unchanging octaves of the waves. The dark sky seemed so immense to him, greater and more imperious than anything he had ever seen. He understood why his ancestors always located the Almighty in the sky and not, despite their own distinguished majesties, in the desert or in the Gulf.

Then the yelp of the saluki rang true and clear. The barking dog ran on the beach, full of energy, jumping into the waves and hopping playfully. It was closely followed by Musa. Yes, it was him. He walked in a line, head down, like he had a purpose, his steps sure, his neck stretching and compressing like that of a loping camel. In the bluish light Musa didn’t look like a boy. He was a ponderous white-robed angel, trailing behind him tracks that were deep and unmistakably his. A man — one that created a path for others to follow.

Musa walked straight toward the hut, his pace increasing at the sight of the structure. He made sure to take his steps all the way to the door of the hut and then leapt onto the rock and began climbing up as fast as he could.

Ali imagined his son’s fingers going into the mossy grooves, his feet knifing into the stone, ligaments hurting, . He accumulated in his mouth the entirety of his will and resolve and prayer and exhaled it toward his son.

Musa slipped many times. Once Ali was certain he wouldn’t get up. As the sun came out and spat steam upon the Gulf, which became more agitated in response, the day broke out in full. And just then, with one powerful leap, Musa reached the top, up and over. Ali slurred praise to everything in his sight. The sun, the sky, the water, the rock.

Shadow Wolf showed up just a few moments later. He came up the south side of the beach, following the tracks Musa had sprinkled for him. He wore denim and a leather vest, carrying a light rifle in his hand. He walked with the assurance of a hunter that knows he has quarried his prey, that all he has to do is go find the skulking creature and finish the job. He continued his unrelenting march forward, to the hut where he would find the vandal. With each step the American took Ali felt more panic. In the sunlight, with the seagulls standing on the roof and uttering their obscenities, the cubic hut appeared so laughable to him, so flimsy. What had made him think the hut was an appropriate place to lay a trap? Just one vagrant wave would knock it down, or one heavy gust of wind. And then all would be exposed.

Yet it remained standing, and soon Shadow Wolf was upon it, sniffing around it, seeing the footprints leading in.

The American walked in a low crouch and went straight to the door.

And just as soon as he went in, like the crack of a distant thunder, a single shot rang in the land. It reverberated against the rock wall, dispersing the seagulls in a panicked chorus, echoing up and down the stunning beach like the call of a thing too big for the world. Everything held still; it seemed even the waves stopped rushing.

Ali stood up and waved to his son in the distance, whowas already running this way, whooping and hollering, uttering takbirat to the Almighty.

Ali grasped Musa in the crook of an arm, almost taking him down with the force of his love. The boy, his face hot as fire, scarred by the burning wind he had walked through, raised his father up on the camel as if putting a bride into a howdah and led him away, back to the Hollows, telling him exactly how he had drawn the American tracker out and through the invisible pathways between the sands. They reached home in less than a day, unfurled their goat-hair tent, and laid out the sedu carpet onto the sand and made a feast of clarified butter and aged dates. Then Ali drank tea and Musa sang Shanfara. Nothing more.