Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [50]
We waved the helicopter on its way, then paused a minute to catch our breath and take in Andhur's splendid setting. It was quiet now, not the deathly silence of the open desert, but a stillness touched by a murmur of breeze, the chirps of a few hardy birds, and the bleating of goats.
A shout, in Arabic, came up from the base of our mesa. We looked over the edge to see a raggedy flock and a fierce Jebali (mountain man) herdsman. He was quite agitated. Ran listened.
"I can't quite make it all out, but he claims that our helicopter frightened five of his goats to death ... Oh, and there's more. It seems another dozen goats, at least, have run away. Dear me, tsk, tsk." (When the occasion warranted, Ran did an excellent "tsk, tsk," at once skeptical and sympathetic.)
Ran offered to make amends. "Just bring us the frightened-to-death goats," he shouted down, "and we'll discuss a price."
The Jebali cursed (no translation needed), whacked his (surviving) goats with his staff, and stalked off.
"Nice try. Tsk, tsk," Ran commented. "You have to hand it to him for that."
In the last light of day, we prowled Andhur. The walled south mesa, where we had landed, had probably been used to sort, store, and guard frankincense harvests. The walls of the north mesa enclosed a curious half-buried double-walled structure that had likely been a temple.
Architecturally, the site was reminiscent of the port of Sumhuram on the coast. Its masonry was identical. It stood to reason that, like Sumhuram, Andhur was a colonial outpost of the kingdom of the Hadramaut. The site dated to perhaps 60 A.D., the work of wary outsiders (we thought) penetrating the land of our People of'Ad.
We pitched camp and reflected on the long day's adventures. Though we had found and followed the Ubar road, we had made no startling discoveries. Three sites that could have been Ubar weren't. All told, we were pretty disappointed. Juri was intrigued by his pottery find, but, as Ran noted, you don't sell an expedition on a shard.
But we were not about to mope. The temperature had fallen, a full Arabian moon had risen, and ex-rocker George had brought his guitar. He now played for an audience of four adventurers, three Omani policemen and, possibly within earshot, a scattering of lost and traumatized Jebali goats. The ancient ruins of Andhur echoed with big-city blues and tales of Texas heartache, which somehow triggered a lively discussion of Junkyard Dog. Inexplicably, the American wrestler had become an Omani folk hero. Was it possible, our police escorts wondered, that the great Dog might someday come to Arabia?
Ruins of Andhur
Civilizations rise and fall, come and go.
We turned in, all but the first of the policemen who would stand watch in four-hour shifts throughout the night. The local Jebalis, they had been warned, were not to be taken lightly; a few months earlier they had murdered an outsider who had had the temerity to venture into the Wadi Andhur and visit its mesa ruins.
As we stirred at dawn, our policemen reported that we had not been alone in the night. They had seen lights and heard voices at the foot of the mesa. With binoculars Ran swept the wadi. No one in sight. After a quick breakfast of bread, jam, and coffee, we split up to explore the area. How close were we to the incense groves? Were the rock inscriptions reported by Bertram Thomas still in evidence? And what was that over there, on the far side of the wadi?
"Flint, an outcropping of flint!" Juri exclaimed, racing off. As I caught up, he explained that he knew of only one other source of flint in all Arabia. A deposit here would have been highly valued for tools and weapons. Andhur flint could have been traded far and wide.2 "No wonder there's a fortress here," Juri exclaimed. "It stands to reason that..." He paused in midsentence, frowning. "What's happening?" I followed his gaze. Across the way, below the rim of the mesa, Humaid Khaleefa, our number-one policeman, lay sprawled