O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [81]
“He won’t feel it,” said Mahmoud.
Insh’allah, I thought.
It took fully three hours. At some point the guide left us, only to come pounding up behind again half an hour later with a parcel of Arab sandwiches, spiced meat and bits of raw onion wrapped in flat bread. We ate while riding, and afterwards I felt considerably less shaky and not in the least queasy. My head still ached, though.
After two hours of alternately picking our way over rocks and loping on the flat bits, Holmes began to come around. It was easier to hold him as he became less limp; on the other hand, the pain in his back was obviously getting through to him. We had to stop, and while Ali and Mahmoud between them held Holmes upright, I slipped off the horse and then climbed back on, awkwardly, in front of him. We rode the next few miles with him slumped forward against me, dreadfully uncomfortable for me but easier on him. However, when he began to jerk about behind me I was forced to relinquish the reins to Mahmoud and be led, riding half-doubled over and with both arms stretched behind me to keep Holmes from tumbling to the ground. At about this time our guide turned calmly into another road and, without acknowledgement from either side, rode away. A few minutes later Ali turned to check on us, then kicked his mare into a gallop and left us trotting along in a cloud of dust.
Twenty minutes later, I nearly tumbled to the ground myself when a voice spoke, strong in my ear.
“Russell?”
“Holmes! Thank God—are you all right? It won’t be much longer.” I waited. “Holmes?”
There was no answer. I tried to turn and look at him, but his head was limp against my neck; he had faded again. A few minutes later the same thing happened.
“Russell?”
“Yes, Holmes, we’re all here. You’re safe now.” I didn’t think he heard me. And again a few minutes later:
“Russell?”
“Holmes.”
We repeated this lunatic non-conversation any number of times before we finally emerged from the hills and made for a collection of raw-looking buildings set among fields, a manned guard-tower rising over all. Ali stood in a doorway beside a tiny apple doll of a woman with a kerchief over her grey hair. Mahmoud rode up to the small house and dismounted, then turned to the woman and with his right hand gave a gesture ridiculously like that of a man tipping his hat, which of course is quite impossible with a kujfiyah. The tiny woman smiled with delight, came forward, and actually kissed Mahmoud on his hairy cheek.
Before I could speculate on the hidden depths to the man, he and Ali were on either side of me, holding Holmes so I could slip out from under him. They let him fall gently forward, then slide face-down off the tall horse, but when they tried to lift him, one of them must have seized some tender part of his anatomy, because he stiffened and drew a sharp breath. His eyes flew open, and he looked straight at me with that wide-eyed, apparently alert but slightly unfocussed gaze of a drunk, or someone wakened from a heavy sleep.
“Russell.”
“Yes, Holmes. It’s all right.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said easily, and then his eyes lost all focus and he slumped into the supporting arms.
His wounds took some time to clean and dress. I did not have to take a hand in that; I felt that I had placed quite enough dressings on that back in the last two months, and the tiny woman was more than competent. She had introduced herself in