At one point M'Lady Two was so far ahead, she disappeared over the top of a knoll. We all walked faster. I even broke into a run because I saw how we had lost too much distance and how long it would otherwise take to catch up to her. When I reached the top, I stopped and the other two caught up with me.
"What is it?" Teal asked. 'Why are you stopping?"
Robin and I turned our heads and put our hands on our foreheads to shade our eyes. Sweat was running down my forehead, under the towel. I had to wipe it away to keep my eyes open.
"I don't understand." Robin said.
"What?" Teal moaned. "What is it now?"
"I don't see her." I said angrily. "Do you?"
"Huh?" Teal shaded her eyes and looked as well. "Where could she be?"
The knoll slanted down on our left. I thought she might have gone that way and then back around to the other side to lose us and frighten us a bit. so I walked quickly and then ran to the end and went around it. Robin followed.
We both stood there looking for her. "Do you see her?"
"No," I said.
"Maybe the other side or maybe..." Robin looked ahead. "Maybe she reached that hill before you had gotten to the top."
"That's pretty far away. but I hope so." I said. "She's not heading back from what I can see. although I'm not sure if that's back or not anymore,," I added. pointing.
"Well, the sun is going west and it was..."
"Directly overhead. I can't remember. Let's get going. She must be over that far hill just as you say."
We started in that direction and Teal met us in the middle.
"Did you see her? Is that where she went?" she asked, nodding in front of us.
"We think so, but we're not sure." "This is crazy."
"No. It's part of a plan. I'm sure." I said. "They want us to be frightened, to suffer, to cry and to panic."
"Well, I have news for them," Teal said. "We are doing all that so they can stop it. Stop it!" she screamed.
"Keep walking." Robin said. "You're just acting like an idiot."
"I'm acting like an idiot? My feet are burning. These sneakers are too thin and the sand is so hot it's like walking over the top of a stove."
"Maybe we can catch a bus over the next hill," Robin told her. "Funny. Boy, are you funny."
"You're wasting your energy, both of you." I chastised. and I walked harder and faster, leaving them a good twenty or thirty yards behind me, their bickering sounding like a dozen chipmunks. When I reached the far hill, I stood and looked around again, and again I saw no sign of M'Lady Two, Where could she possibly be? The cacti were too narrow for her to be hiding behind one and the bushes were too low, I thought. I would see her.
While I waited for Robin and Teal to catch up, I took my first drink of water, Then I sat on the sand, near some brush. One of Natani's thorny devil lizards peered out at me curiously. I watched it and was amazed at how still it could be. As soon as the other two came up, it pulled itself back into the darker areas of the brush.
"What?" Rabin asked. "She's gone," I said.
"Gone?" Teal said.
"How can she be gone?" Robin wondered, and lowered herself to the ground. She saw I had taken a drink from my canteen and took out her own.
"It's like she just disappeared into thin air." I said.
I stared at the vast stretch of desert sand and brush in all directions. Still, nothing large enough to be M'Lady Two moved. The heat wavered aver the ground, making it all look unreal. Above us, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It seemed all sun, one gigantic ball of fire bearing down and aver us.
I watched another lizard, a chuckwalla, burrow itself deeper into the sand and I nodded,