"There was this war, and they needed mechanics to drive tanks."
"Afterwards? Why didn't you go home?"
"Pa was dead a steer fell on him, and it wasn't worth the journey to go
collect his old saddle and blanket." They were silent for a while,
just lying and riding the solid waves of heat that came off the
earth.
"Tell me about your dream, Jake," she said at last.
"My dream?"
"Everybody has a dream." He smiled ruefully.. "I've got a dream-" he
hesitated, "there is this idea of mine. It's an engine, the Barton
engine.
It's all there." He tapped his forehead. "All I need is the money to
build it. For ten years, I've tried to get it together.
Nearly had it a couple of times."
"After this trip, you will have it," she suggested.
"Perhaps." He shook his head. "I've been too sure too many times to
make any bets, though."
"Tell me about the engine," she said and he talked quietly but eagerly
for ten minutes.
It was a new design, a lightweight, economical design. "It would drive
anything, water pump, saw mill, motorcycle, that sort of thing."
He was intent, happy, she saw. "I'd only need a small workshop to
begin with, some place back west I've thought about Fort Worth-" he
stopped himself, and glanced at her. "Sorry, I was running on a
bit."
"No," she said quickly. "I enjoyed listening. I hope it works out for
you, Jake." He nodded. "Thanks. And they rode the heat for a few
more minutes in companionable silence.
"What's your dream?" he asked at last, and she laughed lightly.
"No, tell me,"he insisted.
"There is this book. It's a novel I have thought about it for years. I
have written it in my head a hundred times all I have to do is find the
time and the place to write it on paper--2 she broke off,
and then laughed again. "And then, of course, it sounds corny but I
think about kids and a home. I have been travelling too long."
"I know what you mean." Jake nodded. "That's a good dream you've got,
"he said thoughtfully. "Better than mine." Gareth Swales heard the
murmur of their voices and raised himself on one elbow. For a while he
thought seriously about crossing the dozen yards of sunbaked black
stones to where they lay but the effort required was just too much and
he fell back. A fist-sized rock jarred his kidneys and he cursed
quietly.
It was five o'clock before Jake judged they could start the engines
again. They refuelled from the cans strapped on the sponsons,
and once more they set off in column at an agonized walking pace over
the rough surface, each jolt shaking driver and vehicle cruelly.
Two hours later, the plain of black boulders ended abruptly, and beyond
it stretched an area of low red sand hills. Thankfully Jake increased
speed and the column sped towards a sunset that was inflamed by the
dust-laden sky until it filled half the heavens with great swirls of
purple and pink and flaming scar lets The desert wind dropped and the
air was still and heavy with memory of the day's heat.
Each vehicle drew a long dark shadow behind it and threw up a fat
rolling sausage of red dust into the air above it.
The night fell with the tropical suddenness that is alarming to those
who have known only the gentle dusks of the northern continents.
Jake calculated that they had covered less than twenty miles in a day
of travel and he was reluctant to call a halt, now that they had hit
this level going and were bowling along with engine temperatures
dropping in the cool of night and the drivers" tempers cooling in
sympathy. Jake took a bearing off Orion's belt as the easiest
constellation, then he switched on the headlights and looked back to
see that the others had followed his example. The lights threw a
brilliant path a hundred yards ahead of Jake's car, giving him plenty
of time to avoid the odd thick clump of thorn scrub, and occasionally
trapping a large grey desert hare, dazzling it so that its eyes blazed
diamond bright before it turned and loped, long-legged, ahead of the
car, seemingly unable to break out of the path of light, dodging and
doubling with its long floppy ears laid along its back, until at the
last instant it ducked out from under the wheels and dived into the
darkness.
He was just deciding to call a halt for food and drink, with a possible
further march later that night, when the sand hills dropped away
gradually and in the headlights he saw ahead of him a glistening white
expanse of perfectly level sand, as smooth and as inviting as the
Brooklands motor-racing circuit.
Jake changed up into high gear for the first time that day, and the car
plunged forward eagerly for a hundred yards before the thick hard crust
of the salt pan collapsed and the heavy chassis fell through, belly
deep, floundering instantly so that Jake was thrown violently forward
at the abrupt halt, striking his shoulder and forehead painfully on the
steel visor.
The engine shrieked in the frenzy of high revolutions and lifting
valves before Jake recovered himself, then slammed the throttle
closed.
He dragged himself from the turret to signal a halt to the following
