Lex Nelson's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

Lex followed the new line for an hour before the dog locked up again. The Malinois lowered its head and sniffed a clean print pressed deep into the sand. Then another. A boot, not a wagon wheel. Someone walking. Someone ahead of her on the lead wagon's true path. She knelt and laid two fingers beside the print. The edges were still sharp. No wind crumble yet. Half a day, maybe less. Whoever this was, they were closer to her sister than she was. She pushed on and found their rest stop in a hollow between two dunes. A small ring of charred sticks sat cold but not old. Beside it, a flattened patch where someone had bellied down to watch the horizon. A camel had knelt here too — she saw the double dent of its humps in the sand, and the looped rope mark where it had been tied. The dog nosed something half-buried near the ash. Lex pulled it free. A scrap of paper, balled tight, the creases dark where water had touched it. She smoothed it on her knee. A child's handwriting. A name she did not know. Below it, in a steadier hand, a list of prices. Bidders. Buyers. Whoever sat here was not a rescuer. They were a competitor, scouting the same wagon for a different reason. Lex folded the paper and slid it into her coat beside the journal. She looked at the boot prints running on ahead, sharp and certain. Half a day. She could not close that gap walking. She turned back to the kneel-marks in the sand and followed them over the next rise. The camel's trail led to a narrow draw where it had been left to graze on dry scrub, its lead rope tied to a low rock. It lifted its head and watched her come. Lex untied the rope, slow and easy, and climbed on. The dog fell in beside her. By dusk she would be even with the stranger, or past him.