Free Skeletons On The Zahara by Dean King Page B

drinkers, armed with handspikes, around the camp as much to keep them occupied as to dampen the ardor of the thieving Sahrawis. But the former persisted in guzzling wine and the latter in snatching things and carrying them off. After the Sahrawis took the first of the two sails that composed the makeshift tent and then tried to grab the second, Riley rose to his full six feet and indicated with his hands that they must stop. The jackal and his band unsheathed their weapons and held them up menacingly but Riley refused to be intimidated. He did not flinch, and they backed off, eventually leaving with their haul.
    That night, using the dried spars and timbers of previous wrecks for their fire, the sailors roasted a chicken that had drowned in the wreck and washed ashore. Their last hot meal for a while also included salt pork and bread and butter. The jackal had indicated to Riley that he and his band would be back in the morning. The captain set a watch of two men, instructing them to keep a fire burning with the withered debris they had gathered on the beach. The rest of the men fell asleep on the sand.
    Except for Riley. To the lament of waves crashing on desert sands, he reflected painfully on the fate of his wife and— by now, God willing— five children. Who or what would prevent them from falling into “indigence, degradation, and ruin”? he wondered. Beneath the resplendent sky, the Milky Way an arc of angels' breath from the southwest to the northeast, he felt a swell of regret at the unfettered pursuit of wealth practiced in his country, “a land called Christian it was true,” he later wrote, “but where avarice taking possession of the soul leaves little for the unfortunate widow, the fatherless child, or helpless orphan to expect save a bare existence.”4 And, it went without saying, where men were sent on long and dangerous voyages for the sake of profits.
    The night sky was perfect and he wished he could share it with his family, fearing that they might never share another. After midnight, the waning quarter moon rose at the tip of the upper horn of Taurus, near Orion in his eternal dance with the Pleiades. Higher up, red Mars simmered. In the northwest, Vega, Altair, and Deneb glistened brightly like children's eyes. Elegant Cassiopeia crowned the northeast, while Hercules was setting in the west. These were his signposts in the sky, his map of the planet. Shuddering in the cold wind, Riley begrudged them their constancy. He could do nothing for his family now. He was like the lost Pleiad: separated from his family for eternity. He looked over the sleeping crew. “It was a sacred duty assigned me by Providence,” he concluded, “to protect and preserve their lives to my very utmost.” He could only try to keep himself and his men alive, and pray for a miracle.
    Shortly after sunrise, the Sahrawis returned. This time there were no pretenses. Their leader, the jackal, brandished a colossal spear over his shoulder, cocked and ready to throw. Jabbing his free hand at the sea and braying, he demanded that the sailors go to the wreck and bring more things to shore. Then he pointed to a drove of camels and camel riders approaching from the east. The women ran down the beach ululating, stooping to gather sand and tossing it in the air to attract the riders.
    The jackal advanced on the tent, thrusting his absurd-looking spear— an iron head on a spliced shank about twelve feet long— at the sailors. Riley ran to the surf and grabbed a long spar. Using his size advantage, he parried the Sahrawi “with the most consummate coolness,” according to Robbins. As he did, he ordered the crew to launch the small boat.
    The men dragged it into the sea beside the hawser still fastened to the wreck. Riley kept the Sahrawi back as they piled in haphazardly. But before the captain could get in, the nervous men capsized their one seaworthy craft in the crashing surf. The boat filled almost instantly and sank. Spilling