After I Refused to Save My Ex-Wife’s Brother, She Went Crazy Chapter 10

After I Refused to Save My Ex-Wife’s Brother, She Went Crazy Chapter 10

I found her at dusk the next day.

Near latitude 39°N, behind a wind-scoured rock.

The rock was shaped like a half-crumbled wall. On the leeward side, the sand had a shallow depression the shape of a curled body.

She was tucked into it.

Knees bent. Arms folded over her chest. Like she was sleeping.

Her skin had gone pale and cracked. Her lips were split in a dozen places.

I closed her fingers one by one.

Then I wrapped her in a sleeping bag, strapped her to a stretcher, and let my old camel, Partner, carry her.

We walked for hours, until full dark.

That night, I didn’t know what I was thinking. It felt as if something inside me had finally settled, only to leave a hollow space behind.

I barely slept. At first light, we moved again.

By the time we reached the desert edge, the sun was low again.

Vince was waiting at the camp entrance. He spotted me and ran over.

He didn’t ask. One look at the stretcher and he knew.

I set the stretcher down.

Leo burst out of a trailer.

When he saw the sleeping bag, his spine seemed to collapse. He dropped to his knees.

He clawed at the straps, his hands shaking too hard to grip them.

I crouched and loosened the straps for him.

He saw the face inside.

Then he wailed.

Not like a grown man. Like a child abandoned on a street corner.

That helpless, hopeless howl of someone who can’t find home.

I stood up and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I brought her back to you.”

Then I turned and walked away. I didn’t look back.

I heard the rest from Vince later.

The dispatch logs from that year were unearthed.

Claire’s signature. Leo’s phone recordings. The dispatcher’s bribe receipts. All of it.

Leo was sentenced to seven years for bribery that caused a fatal delay in a rescue operation.

The dispatcher was sentenced to five years.

Vince showed me the news on his phone while he was sitting in the trailer.

I glanced at it and handed it back.

“Time to eat.”

Life went on.

Jobs came in, I guided people across the desert, and I brought them out alive.

Nothing changed.

One morning, as always, I made a pot of sweetened black tea with a pinch of salt.

I used less sugar, added a pinch of salt, and poured it into my old thermos.

The paint was chipped off in patches, bare stainless steel showing through.

The lid threads were worn—had to twist hard to keep it from leaking.

Vince poked his head in from next door and looked over.

“Making that again?”

“Yeah.”

“Eight years. Every single day.”

“She grew up drinking this.”

He didn’t answer. He pulled his head back.

At dusk, I carried the thermos to the desert edge.

Three miles east of camp, there was a stone marker.

It wasn’t big—about waist-high. I’d hauled it from the gravel flats myself.

There was no name on it, just a set of coordinates carved into the surface.

N39°12′, E94°47′.

Eight years of wind and sand had worn the lines. I re-carved them every year.

I sat down in front of the marker, leaned against the stone, and unscrewed the thermos.

I poured a small cup of tea into the sand.

The tea soaked in. For a moment the sand turned darker. Then the color faded.

The wind swept in from the basin—cool and dry at the same time.

Grains of sand swirled around the base of the marker, circling and circling.

I raised the cup and took a sip.

It was still warm and slightly salty.

This time, I’d used a little less sugar.

“Less sugar this time. Taste it.”

The wind brushed the sand.

A soft rustle.

Like someone answered.