The night on the bare mountain

That afternoon when Jose came back from work, normally he would push the door in, but this time he stayed in the car and pushed the horn which sounds liked ‘Echo! Echo!’ I stopped playing my calligraphy, ran down to the window and replied to him.

“Why don’t you come in?” I asked him.

“I know somewhere that can found some shells and baby tortoise fossils, want to go?”

I jumped up and quickly replied: “I want to go, I want to go!”

“Come quickly then! Jose shouted again.

“Wait for me to get changed and I will bring along some food and a blanket.” I was getting myself ready while shouting back to Jose from the window.

“Can you do it quick, no need to bring anything! We will be back in no time about two or three hours.”

I was also an impatient person, I jumped out of the door just a second after I had been hurried. I wore a cotton one-piece dress which went down to my ankles accompanied by a pair of sandals. On the way out I causally grabbed a leather wine pouch which had a litre of wine inside, that’s all the equipment I bought along with me.

“All right, Let’s go!” I jumped up with joy on the cushions in the car.

“Two hundred and forty miles for return journey, three hours in the car and one hour looking for fossils, get home for dinner at ten.” Jose was talking himself.

When I heard there was a two hundred mile journey, I could not help but look up at the sun which had already declined towards the west and I wanted to make a protest to Jose.

Jose was a complete car lover ever since he had a car and he was also a blood type O’s person, meaning he wouldn’t change mind that easily.

Although I felt it wasn’t alright when the sun set came but we were still driving on that long journey, but I didn’t say anything against it at all.

We drove along on the highway to the town to the south, almost twenty miles, by the time we reached to the checkpoint, there was no other road visible any more, only the endless desert.

The guard came to our window and had a good look at us then said: “Oh. You guys again, going out at this time of the day?”

“Not very far, just about thirty miles around the circle here, she wants some cactus plants.” After Jose said that, we went on driving the car.

“Why did you lie to him?” I asked Jose with blame.

“Without my lie we won’t go anywhere; you think it over, at this time of day, do you really think he would let us go that far away?”

“How about if things go wrong, you gave him the wrong direction and distance, how can they come to find us?” I asked him back.

“No one will come, you remember how the hippies died a few months ago?”  Jose mentioned the unpleasant casualty. We did see how several hippies ended up in such a tragic death not long ago.

It’s six o’clock, the sun was already down but the area around was still dazzled by the bright light, and a chill wind was starting to blow. 

Our car was driving fast on the sand and we followed along the previous car’s tracks. The sandy ground filled with gravel extended flat to the far away horizon without sight of anything else. A mirage came out on the left hand side and also two more appeared far away on the right as well, they looked like a segment of lake surrounding a grove.

Nothing was could be heard apart from the wind, the deathly silent land was like a Titan lying on the ground, he appeared fierce and savagery and we were silently driving through on his expanding body.

“I just think, one of this day, we will die in this wilderness.” I looked through the window and sighed. 

“Why?” The car jumped and punched but was still shooting ahead.

“We always barge in and out on this piece of land from dawn to dusk, searching for fossils, digging plants, capturing the antelope, throwing away bottles, cardboard and dirty waste; meanwhile we use our wheels to press it’s body. The desert said it won’t like it at all, it wanted our lives to pay for the damages, that’s right——whoop, whoop——.” I said that while I reached out my hands, acting like I was going to squeeze someone’s neck. Jose burst into laughter; he loved to listen my nonsense.

We wound up the windows caused the temperature started dropping down unwarily.

“The maze mountain is ahead.” Jose said.

I looked up and starting to appear on the coming horizon, there were few black spots slowly enlarging from far away. It was the only mountains nearby within three hundred miles, the fact was they were actually mountain high sand dunes spreading on this uncultivated land for about twenty or thirty miles.

The sand dunes were formed by the wind and they were all curved, they looked just all the same from the surface. They also looked like a group of semicircle moons grabbed by a strange hand from the sky; repositioned in the Sahara desert. The more strange thing was that these roughly hundred meter high sand dunes were almost the same distance apart from each other.

If someone accidentally went into these mountains they would easily loose their sense of direction. I named them the Maze mountain.

The Maze mountain was getting closer, finally the first big sand dune stood up in front of us. “Want to go inside?” I lightly said.

“Yes, after go in and turn right and about fifteen miles away is the place where I heard of which has the fossils.

“It’s almost half past seven, the ghosts will be knocking on the wall wanting to get out.” I bit my lip and had a bad feeling about it.

“Superstition, where would the ghosts come from?” Jose did not believe such things.

Jose was bold and careless, also stubborn like a stone; therefore we were driving into the Maze mountain and circling around the sand dune. The sun behind our back, we knew our direction was towards the East.

The Maze mountain didn’t fool us, we came out of it after less than half an hour driving; if we kept on driving ahead, it wouldn’t have had any pervious car markings on the road and we were not familiar with the area, on top of that, we were driving a normal car that wasn’t designed for driving in the desert, deep down we didn’t feel safe about it. Jose got out from the car and looked around.

“Let’s go back!” I’ve completely lost interest in finding any fossils.

“Not going back.” Jose ignored me completely; our car continued to jump forward into this totally unknown land.

After driving for roughly about another three miles, a dark coffee red coloured lowland appeared in front of us with a layer of purple fog surrounding it. It was possibly a wide river back to a thousand years ago.

Jose said: “We can go down from here.”  The car slowly slide down the slope; He stopped the car and got out, looked around on the ground, I got out from the car too and grabbed a handful of soil, it was a damp soil, not sand. I stood for a while and couldn’t figure it out.

“Echo, you drive the car, I’ll run ahead of you, when I make a gesture & shout stop and you may stop the car.”

Jose finished talking and started to run. I drove the car slowly and kept up with him from a distance. 

“How’s it going?” He asked me.

“No problem.” I shouted out to answer him.

He was running away from me further and further, then he turned around running backwards and waving his both hands, shouting me to drive forward.

At that moment, I saw the soil was bubbling up behind Jose’s back and I felt something was not right, I hurriedly shouted to him: “Be careful, be careful, stop—-”

I opened the car’s door, shouting and running to him but Jose had already stepped into a big area of quicksand, the damp mud quickly came up to his knee and he was obviously caught by surprise, he turned his head and fell few steps back. The mud had rapidly travelled up his leg, he struggled to move a few steps as if he was falling down; somehow, the more he struggled the further away he was from me, suddenly we had a big gap between us.

I stood at one side tongue tied, my whole body frozen with fear.

 I didn’t believe this was happening but it was the dead truth of what was occurring in front of me. It’s all came on so quickly, only within few seconds.

Jose tried lifted his leg up with real difficulty then it got swallowed by the mud; at that moment I saw a spur of stone sticking out on the right just two meters away from Jose; I quickly screamed out:  “Go over there, there’s a stone over there.”

He saw the stone but struggled to go over there and the mud had already reached up to his waist. I looked at him distantly and felt terrified, hopeless and helpless, I anxiously felt the nerves in the whole of my body were going to break down, it was if as if I had entered inside a horrible nightmare.

When I saw Jose holding the stone tight with both hands in the mud I suddenly woke up, quickly ran back to the car to find anything that could pull him up but apart from a wine pouch, some news papers and a tool box in the trunk, there was nothing else in the car.

I ran back to the quicksand to check up on Jose, he wasn’t make any sound just looking at me blankly.

I ran crazily all over the place, everywhere and nowhere, desperately hoping to find a rope on the ground or pick up some pieces of wood; even anything randomly he could grab at all would be good, but there was nothing else there beside the sand and rock.

Jose held tight onto the stone with half his body sunk down in the quicksand, he would not sink all the way down for the moment.

“Jose, can’t find anything to pull you out, you have to be patient for a moment.” I was shouting to him as there were about fifteen meters distance between us.

“Don’t rush, don’t rush.” Jose comforted me but his voice was hoarse.

It’s all just sand blowing all around in the air, there was a big area of quicksand in front of me and the maze mountain just behind my back. I turned back to stare at the sun, it had already sunk down; turned to check Jose again, he also staring at the sun. It was beautiful sunset but I could not enjoy it with the mood at the time. The chill wind was blowing over me and I looked at my thin light cloths, looked at Jose in the quicksand and looked at the sun, it looked like the one-eyed beast with his blood red big eye, just about to close up.

In within a few hours, the temperature would drop down to zero in this place, if Jose could not find a way to get out, he would be frozen to death.

“Echo, go inside the car and go for help.” He shouted to me.

“I can’t leave you here.” I suddenly getting extremely emotional.

I could drive over the maze mountain and get out of it without a problem but then by the time I drove from the maze to the check point and asked for help from there, it would already be night fall. When the night came, it was impossible to find the maze and back to where Jose was, you would have to wait until the dawn came, when the dawn came, Jose would already have been frozen to death.

The sun had now completely disappeared, the temperature kept dropping down, it was an inevitable phenomenon at night in the desert.

“Echo, go back to the car, you are about to freeze yourself to death.” Jose shouted to me in anger but I still found myself crouching near by the side with him.

I thought Jose must feel more frozen than I was, I could not say a word as I was shivering myself; Jose made himself hang on the stone with half his body; whenever he was not moving, I would stand up and shout at him: “Jose! Jose! Jose! Keep moving, keep moving your body, be brave——”

He heard me and moved a bit but it was very difficult for him to make any movement in this circumstances. The sky had already turned into dark grey, I felt my vision slowly getting blurred when the dusk came. My mind struggling like mad; Should I leave him to ask for help and brave the danger of not coming back to save him, or stay with him and die together?

At that crucial moment, I saw a light on the horizon, I was stunned and jumping up saw it was obviously a light from a car quite far away and it was heading in my direction.

I screamed out: “Jose! Jose! A car is coming!” I pressed the car’s horn as if I was crazy and turned my car’s light on and off to get their attention. I even jumped over on top of my car desperately waving my hands shouting and jumping madly.

In the end they saw us and drove over towards us.

I jumped off and ran over to them, the car clearly was a jeep which was designed for driving in the desert, there were three Saharan men inside and many tea chests tied on top of their car.

They stopped their car more than thirty meters away from us but they did not get out from the car,  just observed us from the distance.

Of course I did understand, they were distrustful of total strangers in this no man’s land, not willing to come over. I ran over them as they were about to get out from the car. They could see our situation as it was not yet completely in darkness.

“Help! My husband fell down in the quicksand, please help me to pull him out.” I lost my breath in running and expressing myself full of hopefulness in front of them for help.

They ignored me and chatted to each other in their own language; I could understand some of what they said: “It’s a woman, woman.”

“Please, come quick to help us, he is about to freeze to death.” I was still gasping for my breath.

“We don’t have any rope.” One of the man replied to me. I was shocked because they sounded very distant and unapproachable. 

“You have wrapped turbans, three of them knotted together are long enough.” I tried to make a suggestion. I also clearly saw the wooden tea chests had ropes tied to them on top of their vehicle.

“It’s strange, how do you know we would save him.”

“I……” I wanted to persuade them again but I saw something strange in their eyes and they were looking at me up and down viciously.

“Okay, I can’t force you to help, leave it.” I had ready turned my back to go because I knew I had bumped into crazy people in this no man’s land.

It happed quicker than words can tell, I was about to leave but one of the Sahara man among the three waved his hand, the other one jumped to my back and held me with his right hand, his left hand touching my chest.

I was scarred enough to faint, instinctively I screamed like mad, struggling liked a wild animal yelping and growling in that crazy man’s iron arms, but all in vain. He knocked my body and turned me to face to his horrible features.

Jose at his end could see what was happening here on the side of the hill, he tried to raise his voice: “I kill you!”

Jose let go of his stone and desperately tried to step out from the quicksand, I watched Jose anxiously and forgot my situation, just screaming to him: “Jose! No! Don’t! I beg you——” tears started bursting down on my face.

The three Saharan people turned their attention to Jose when I cried out, I was facing towards that mad man and I used all my strength and kicked his lower abdomen, he didn’t expect my fatal attack, he let go of me and crouched down screaming on the ground.

I turned back to run, another one stepped out chasing me, I got down and grabbed two handle of sand in no time and threw it into his eyes, he covered his face with both hands, I took this chance, kicked off my sandals used all my strength running to my car with my bare feet. 

The three of them didn’t come to chase me instead they drove their car slowly towards me.

I guessed they were wrongly thought Jose was the only one who could drive the car and even if I ran madly away, I couldn’t possibly escape from them. So they slowly chased after me with their jeep. I jumped into my car, turned the engine on, took a deep look at Jose where he was holding the stone, I felt my heart sink like being struck by a whip.

“Run! Run! Echo, Run!” Jose was screaming at me nervously.

I didn’t have time to make any response, stepping hard on the gas. The car jumped and dashed out quickly from the hillside before the jeep came. The jeep trying to block me and I drove like I was committing suicide to confront them. On the contrary, they rushed to avoid me a crash.

I hit the accelerator hard but still couldn’t get away from the jeep, they kept nagging me and wouldn’t let me go, I was panting and my heart nervously beating hard as if I were about to suffocated. 

I locked all my doors in the car while driving and my left hand was searching the back seat, I found the flick knife that Jose hid away and I grabbed hold of it tightly in my palm.

The maze mountain appeared and without hesitation I drove inside of it. A sand dune came, I passed around it and the jeep was following behind me.

I madly drove my car round and round, sometimes the jeep was little far behind and one time they drove in front of me, no matter how desperately I driving, I simply could not get rid of them. 

I thought about it for a moment, unless I turned the lights off, the jeep would find me and follow me around forever. Eventually when my gas ran out, I would only end up dead.

When I thought about those consequences, I desperately stepped hard on the accelerator, drove pass half of the mountain, while the jeep had not yet followed up right behind me, I quickly turned off the lights and at the same time drove away at high speed. I did not continually keep on driving straight ahead to escape, instead I grabbed hold my wheel tight and suddenly turned in a big curve to the right, made another turn and drove back to the sand dunes behind the chasing jeep.

The arc of the sand dune left a big area of shadow; I stopped the car next to the sand dune, opened the right door and climbed out from the car. I was a little distance from the car and I held the knife tightly in my hand; I wished my car was black or blown even dark green but it happened to be white.

I saw the jeep was losing my tracks and it kept driving around to look for me; they were not even thinking I had eventually hidden away; after few drives around they drove off ahead at speed.

I ran few steps ahead along the sand and the jeep had gone really; I was still concerned they would be back. I climbed up to the top of the sand dune to look around, the lights of the jeep finally disappeared completely far away.

I slid down back to the car, I found myself covered in cold sweat, A wave of nausea like a black shadow came over me and I felt as if I was about to throw up.

After driving back to Jose I crawled out from the car, lying down on the ground for a moment I let the freezing cold invigorate me, I could not let my body give in, Jose was still trapped in the quicksand.

A few minutes passed, I calmed down completely. Looking at the sky, the Ursa Major was bright that looked like a water ladle hanging in the sky, the Ursa Minor was right down underneath and looked like a diamond showing the direction; In contrast, the maze mountain looked much easier to navigate at night then during the day time.

I was thinking, I could get out from the maze by going west, after that if I kept on driving for over a hundred and twenty miles, I would reach to the checkpoint.

I could ask for help and bring people back here but it wouldn’t be in time;  Jose—he——I covered my face with my hand, I could not think about it any more. 

I stood nearby without moving for another moment, there was nothing here that I use to make a marker in any direction apart from the sand, but I must leave a mark here to be able came back to find it at dawn tomorrow.

My whole body was almost painfully frozen and I had to go back to the car. I looked at the back seat of my car by chance, I recognised the back seat could actually be removed in one piece. I quickly opened the toolbox and took out a screw driver, using my both hands I pulled at the back seat out, eventually I removed it.

I dragged the seat out and threw it on the ground; it would be easy to find it here tomorrow. I got in the car and turned the lights on, ready to drive off to the checkpoint. I told myself not to get emotional and to drive back to see Jose rather then going out for help. I was not leaving him.

I had already turned the engine on when the car’s lights shone on the black seat on the sand. In that very moment, I felt like I was pricked by a needle and I jumped. The back seat was big and flat, it wouldn’t sink! I shivered in excitement and rushed back to pick up the back seat and threw it back in the car, turned my car around and headed to the quicksand.

I was afraid I would have myself lost, I drove slowly and followed my pervious car marks, that made me wonder around many places and sometimes I couldn’t even find the car mark. By the time I reached the quicksand, I didn’t dare allow my car to stop too close, I just turned my head lights towards it.

The quicksand stayed still in the dark, before it had occasionally bubbled up in the air, the mud was surrounded by silence. I could not see Jose neither the sticking out stone.

“Jose! Jose! ——-” I pushed the car door closed and was running towards the quicksand, shouting out to his name but Jose had disappeared. I was shivering and acted like a mad person, I kept shouting out and running along the side of the edge of the quicksand.

Jose was dead, sure he must be dead, the horror of it echoed as it hit straight into my heart. I was almost certain the quicksand had swallowed him up. This horrible thought drove me mad. I ran back to the car, buried my head on the steering wheel and shivered like a dropping leaf in the wind.

I wasn’t aware how much time had passed, there was a weak sound calling me——”Echo—Echo—-”

I lifted my head up in panic but saw nothing in the darkness. I drove my car bit by bit, I could hear it clearly and it was Jose who was calling me! I drove faster for about a minute and Jose was lit up by my car’s headlights. He was still next to the stone in the mud, it was me who stopped at the wrong place and scared myself silly with dread.

“Jose! Hold on, I am pulling you out now!”

He held the stone with both hands with his head buried in his own arms without any movement under the car’s headlights.

I dragged out the back seat, holding and dragging it the same time and ran up to the quicksand. When I ran to the mud until it was came up level to my lower leg and I threw the beak seat as hard and far away as I could. It sat on the mud without sinking.

“The wheels!” I was talking to myself. I dragged the spare tire out and ran back to the quicksand. I stepped on the back seat and threw the spare tire on the mud, that way I was getting closer to Jose.

Cold like a hundred of sharp knives was stabbing me, it shouldn’t down to below zero yet I was almost frozen enough to faint. I could not stop, I had many jobs to rush to do, I could not let myself shiver in the car.

I used all my strength to swing up the right side of the car and I started to take off the front wheels. Quick! Quick! I was hurrying myself. I had to pull Jose out before my hands and legs stopped moving.

When I had done the front wheels, I was going to take the back wheels too. I had never done this kind of job in my life before so quickly; I did them all in only few minutes this time. I looked at Jose, he was freezing there and he still had no any movement at all.

“Jose! Jose!” I threw a large head sized stone towards him to wake him up but he was already close to the point of death.

I held the tyre and ran down the slope, jumped over the floating back seat and spare tyre; I threw out the front tyre on the mud then kept going back and forth like that once more. Three tyres and a back seat were all floating on the mud now.

I spread out my legs and stood on a tire, Jose and I still had a great distance between us; his eyes were staring at me with sadness.

“My clothes!” When I came to think about it, I was wearing a down to the floor long cotton dress and the fabric was round and wide. I quickly ran back into the car, stripped off my clothes from head to toe, used a knife to cut the dress into four wide strips and made knots. I tied a strip on a big clamp.

I held the pile of cotton strips and rushed back to the quicksand and stepped on the tyre, “Jose” Hey! I am throwing this to you, you catch it!” I asked Jose to pay attention to it, a cotton strip slowly swinging on my hand. I threw it out away from me, it didn’t fall down and was caught by Jose.

His hand grabbed hold the strip, I suddenly felt released, I fell down on the tyre and started crying. Hunger and cold finally reached me but the panic had passed.

I thought about Jose after breaking out in tears quickly tried to pull him out. My strength had suddenly gone after I let my guard down, no matter how hard I tried to pull, I couldn’t see that Jose had made any progress.

“Echo, tie the strip to the tire, I will pull it myself.” Jose spoke in a rough voice.

I sat on the tyre and Jose pulled the strip bit by bit; when he got close I untied the strip and tied it to the next tire to get him pulled closer. At this time Jose didn’t have any strength left to jump over between the tyres and the shore because he had been frozen for too long.

When Jose finally came out from the mud, he fell down instantly. I could still run, I rushed back to the car and grabbed the wine pouch; that’s the thing that could save life, after he took a few mouthfuls of wine, I desperately wanted him to get back to the car, but I had to leave him there first and go back to the mud to pick up the tyres and the back seat.

“Jose, exercise your hands and legs, Jose, keep moving, you need to move yourself—-”

“I put the wheels back on while turning my head back and shouting to Jose, he was just crawling on the ground, his face as pale as plaster and looked very horrible.

“Let me do it.” He climbed to the side of the car as I just tightening the screw on the back wheel.

“You go inside the car, quick!” I threw off the screwdriver after I said that to him and I climbed inside the car too.

I filled Jose up with some more wine again, switched on the heating in the car to maximum heat and used a knife cut away the wet legs of his trousers. I rubbed his legs hard with a strip that I had cut off from my dress and rubbed over his chest with wine.

It’s almost felt like a century passed, but his face started to get some red colour and eyes which had been closed up, opened.

“Jose, Jose.” I patted his face lightly and called him.

Another half hour had gone, he woke up completely and opened his eyes wide, staring at me as if I was a ghost.

He stuttered said: “You….You….” 

“Me, What about me?” I was scared by his expression on his face.

“You———you have suffered.” He held me into his arms and burst into tears.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t suffered!” I twisted out from his arms and felt puzzled.

“You were caught by those three men?” He asked.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was only wearing my underwear and covered all over in wet mud. Jose had obviously being frozen for too long, he had just realised I wasn’t wearing any clothes after all this time.

On the way home, Jose was lying on one side, he really needed to see a doctor for his legs as they had been frozen for so long. The night was dark, the maze mountain like a ghost that had to be put behind us, I was directed by the Ursa minor towards to the north.

“Echo, do you still want fossils?” Jose asked me with a moaning sound. 

“Yes.” I replied him shrilly.

“And you?” I asked him. 

“I want them even more.” 

“When will we come back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”