Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [51]
We hurried over to find that in descending the mesa, Humaid had tripped, fallen, and severely gashed his arm and hand. Already Kay had broken open our first aid kit. He would be okay. Catching his breath, Humaid explained he'd been in a rush. But why? He gestured to the base of the mesa.
The matter of the frightened-to-death-and-runaway goats was upon us. The disconsolate Jebali herdsman of the day before had returned, backed by half a dozen of his clansmen, all armed with Belgian FAL automatic rifles. They had first encountered Ran. We joined him now and looked on as the Jebalis made their demands in heated Arabic. Listening to what they were saying, Juri whispered, "These are not nice people."
Ran turned to us and noted, in English, that we were outgunned and in a decidedly edgy situation. Nothing really scary, but we clearly had to make the right moves.
We had a couple of options. We could retreat to the high ground of the mesa and hold out until Nick's helicopter—due any minute now—returned. But that would be awkward and could even lead to an exchange of gunfire. Which would mean that we would never be able to return to ruined Andhur. Indeed, any sort of incident would mean never being welcomed back to Oman.
We decided that the better part of valor would be to negotiate an appropriate ransom. Our team and the Jebalis trooped to the top of the mesa, where we hastened to get whatever money we had from Kay, banker as well as paramedic. We had about $130 worth of Omani riyals, which we offered to the Jebalis. They scowled and shook their heads. Not enough.
They indicated that they might find items of value in our packs, so we invited them to look. Sure enough, one of the Jebalis was delighted by my plastic rain poncho. But his friends remained dissatisfied. We threw in a crate of apples. Still not enough.
Next they were into Ran's pack. They discovered and waved aloft a South Seas batik shirt. It was several sizes too large for any of them, but that was okay, it was enough. Our ransom was set. Khalas (deal done)!
Within a few minutes, our helicopter returned. As we ducked down to avoid the wash, Kay's notebook, open to get at our cash, snapped its binder and scattered our expedition records—and traveler's checks—to the reaches of the Wadi Andhur. Weeks later, a courteous yet understandably skeptical American Express agent allowed that losing-one's-checks-while-paying-a-ransom-for-goats-frightened-to-death was surely the most unusual explanation he had ever heard.
Returning to the monsoon-shrouded coast, we plotted a further helicopter foray out into the desert, this time to check out Ubar reports not associated with our space-imaged caravan route.
At this time of the year, many of the sheiks and elders from the interior could be found at the coast, relishing the cool and damp of the monsoon. Being born a son of the desert doesn't mean you have to love it. As one sheik wearily said, "The desert. Too hot. You know, just too much sun. A while ago, a German came by my tent. He told me of a place called Alaska. You know of this Alaska? Schwea, schwea sams (very little sun). Wagan zain! (wonderful)."
The sheiks of the desert lands of Mugshin, Mudhai, and Thumrait all had ideas about how and where we might look for Ubar. They spoke of a cave where, after the wicked city's demise, its treasure had been hidden. Surprisingly, they agreed as to its location, which they pinpointed on a map. There was also talk of an old man out in the sands who could take us to a stone signpost pointing the way to Ubar. There was, though, some disagreement as to the old man's health.
"He's dead," one sheik asserted.
"Not completely," another disputed. "He's strong, very, very strong. Couldn't be more than sixty percent dead."
"No, no. Eighty percent maybe."
Sort of dead or really dead, we were never to learn. That evening, pilot Nick contacted us with some bad news: the sandstorms we had encountered on our initial reconnaissance were now raging throughout the southern Rub' al-Khali. Even though