Free The Count of the Sahara by Wayne Turmel

vast, flat plain. Despite what the travel books said, the first expanses of the Sahara from the North weren’t sandy, but rock strewn and brown, broken up by small patches of light colored sand. The plain lay two hundred feet below them and stretched infinitely southward.
    “Isn’t it wonderful, Pond?” De Prorok prodded for an elusive sign of happiness from the American.
    Alonzo wasn’t sure he could provide it. “It doesn’t look very, I don’t know, Sahara-like, does it?”
    Byron wondered what it would take to make the American happy. “Oh, you’ll get your sand and your camels. Not to worry. The rain will stop, too.”
    Along the southern and western horizons, Pond could make out the green blots indicating a well or spring, surrounded by date trees. Some of those trees grew over eighty feet tall, but from their vantage point they were smudges of green on an unending flat, tawny canvas.
    Looking directly past de Prorok and down the mountainside, Alonzo could see a thin, curved goat track of a road carved in the side of the mountain. A steep switchback led downwards and, assuming they survived that, a single straight line led southwest towards the horizon and El Kantara. It looked for all the world like God, or Allah, or whoever ruled here simply dragged his finger in the dust to show the way.
    The little ceremony over, they jumped back in the cars and Sandy disappeared over the ridge first, followed closely by Hot Dog. Martini and the Lucky Strike sat for a few minutes. Pond and Tyrrell shot silent questions back and forth until Tyrrell couldn’t take it anymore.
    “Martini, why aren’t we moving?” Martini turned with a sly grin.
    “I’ve driven this road before. They haven’t. They’re going to go down too slowly, and maybe burn out their brakes. That one in the lead, Escande? He’s probably pissing his pants right now,” and he chuckled a little harder than Pond thought tasteful or appropriate.
    “I give them a head start so we can do it right and spare the brakes.”
    “So you’re actually going to go down faster than they are?” Pond was delighted Martini was looking after the brakes but then thought about the sharp turns snaking down the mountainside. The part about doing so faster than everyone was considerably less comforting.
    At long last, Lucky Strike lurched into action and they headed up the hill, then sharply down and to the right. The view out the right window by Pond was a sheer wall of crumbling grey and brown rock and the occasional sere bush. On Tyrrell’s side, there was a lot of air, then the brown expanse of the desert floor.
    The big truck slowed, maneuvered a sharp left turn, and the passengers traded views. Pond watched Martini nervously. The driver’s left hand locked onto the wheel, the right alternated between the gear shift and the hand brake. His eyes were fixed on the dusty track ahead of him and the herculean task of keeping all twelve tires on the ground at the same time. For the most part, he succeeded.
    Right, left, right, left, they wended their way down to the valley floor. Pond caught himself holding his breath on every switchback. No one said anything until they’d completed the final left turn when Martini let out a bellowing, “Merde!”
    He slammed on the brakes, sending American passengers and equipment bouncing around the cabin. They narrowly missed ramming into Hot Dog at the bottom. Martini slammed on the brakes and brought his vessel to a skidding stop just short of the crates strapped to the other vehicle’s rear.
    Terrified the crazy Italian would ram him from behind, the French driver hit the gas and bounced onto the main roadbed with a gut-tightening scrape Pond could feel in his bones, and took off. Martini never even slowed down, he just put his charge in the middle of the track and pointed southwest. Byron and the occupants of Sandy were already speeding towards El Kantara.
    The Hotel El Kantara was much nicer than the hotel in Batna. The