He leaned over to check the progress of the shadows visible through the open door. "We should leave." He turned and spoke to Nusel, who stood up and began to round up pieces of tack hanging on the walls. Clovis motioned for me to help the stableman as he led the lean horse out of the stall toward the back door of the barn. The sun dominated a cloudless blue sky. I carried the weathered leather yoke out to Nusel, who backed the horse up to an old, black painted, short buckboard wagon. Clovis immediately began work at the leather straps that confined the animal.

"Put your bag in the back. We are leaving," he said.

I placed both of our bags behind the seat and climbed up onto the bench. Clovis stepped up and sat next to me before taking a water soaked leather bottle from Nusel's outstretched hands. The reins cracked against the horse's back and we rolled out the open side gate. Nusel waved enthusiastically behind us as Clovis turned the corner. He turned south onto the wide boulevard, passing several abandoned buildings half consumed by sand. The wagon's wooden wheels reported of every small bump in the road.

"What's the story with that town?"

"What do you mean?"

"It looks like it's dying."

"It is dead compared to what it once was. Take a look behind you, Evan. That is the town of Al-Mocha, it gave the world coffee."

I turned and looked at the ghost town getting smaller behind us. "Al-Mocha is the same as the coffee Mocha?"

"Yes, the highlands just above those inland dunes were the finest coffee growing regions in the world for many generations, but the beans were stolen and replanted in the tropical soils of Indonesia and the New World. Those lands proved much more fertile and eventually lured the trading ships away. The town has died a little more each year since the Dutch and English ships left. It's hard to believe that twenty thousand people lived there at its height."

"How many live there today?"

"Less than a thousand, fishermen mostly."

"What happened to the rest of it?"

He glanced back over his shoulder. "It was reclaimed by the desert. There is a saying in these parts, cities that rise from the sands too quickly, soon sink back into them."

The bumps in the road smoothed to a dull vibration as he coaxed the horse to a gallop.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Surely," answered Clovis.

"Why are you so averse to flying?"