“I know. That only made it worse. The more I cared, the worse I felt I was betraying you.”

“Was it better in America?”

“Worse. It is almost the mirror image of Arabia. Here we always had either too little or too much money, so it never seemed to matter. We care about the price of something only when we buy it. There it is considered bad manners to ask someone what he paid for something, but they think of little else.

“And because money is the measure of all things, they define themselves by their work. An American never wants to know who you are, but only what you do for a living. They approach everything as if it were work, even pleasure.”

“What of the women?”

“Ah, the women. They have learned how to complain. One wonders what would suffice for them,” the Scorpion smiled.

“Why did you stay so long? I thought you would never return.”

“They educated me. And then there was the war in Vietnam. That was an education too.”

“Was it very bad, the war?”

The Scorpion shook his head. “Worse. It was stupid.”

“How could this be? The Americani send us experts, miraculous technologies … I thought they were so clever.”

“They can be very clever at being stupid,” the Scorpion replied.

They rode on in silence, each of them lost in his own thoughts. Their dark forms were like shadows against the starry dome of night.

“This thing you do. It will bring much trouble, will it not?” Youssef asked finally.

“Of a certainty. And much trouble if I don’t,” the Scorpion replied.

“Truly. From the highest mountain to the deepest wadi, trouble is never hard to find.”

The Scorpion knew Youssef was thinking of Bandar and Aisha. He nodded.

“This is more than revenge, or helping the Americani, my brother. It is a matter of survival.”

“I hear you, little Scorpion. But if the lion becomes a jackal in order to survive, has he truly survived?”

Wadi Haradh

Wadi Haradh

“THEY MAY TRY to ambush us in the wadi at Haradh,” the Scorpion said, shading his eyes from the windshield glare as he drove west towards the sun. Youssef, hanging on for dear life as the four-wheel-drive pick-up truck bounced across the desert floor, handed him the sunglasses. A plume of yellow dust and sand kicked up by the tires obscured their rear view of Faisal and the others spread out behind them in a roughly organized convoy.

Although they couldn’t have used the rear-view mirror in any case. The view was blocked by the majestic figure of Basbusa, kneeling in the truck-bed, facing rearward. Her head, neck and hump towered above the cab as she sat imperturbable and immobile, hobbled and tethered by a head-rope, girth and neck-ropes. There were camels riding in the back of each of the Toyota pick-up trucks behind them.