This Golden Land (31 page)

     Sudden rumbling in the distance caused everyone to turn toward the west where the sun was almost gone. "Do you think a storm is coming?" Neal said, noticing dark clouds on the horizon that he could have sworn were not there moments ago. The weather had been peculiar all afternoon, with a strong but dry cold front crossing the area, preceded by hot, gusty northerly winds.

     "Strange weather," Sir Reginald murmured. He realized that the temperature was rising, and then he saw what he thought at first were rain clouds rolling toward them from the west, but then realized they were a dramatic red-brown dust cloud,
rolling on the ground.
It looked like an enormous brown cliff, and it was racing straight toward them.

     At
this
time of year? he thought in alarm as he shot to his feet. Oliphant knew that sandstorms typically occurred in spring. He was familiar with Sahara Desert
simooms
, and the
haboob
near Khartoum. He knew that a sandstorm moved whole sand dunes and completely change the face of the earth.

     "Sandstorm!" he shouted, and began barking orders to gather the horses together, to tie down anything that was loose, to find shelter. "Turn your backs to it!" he shouted as the wind grew stronger.

     "Jesus Christ," Colonel Enfield cried. "Where the hell did that cloud of dust come from?"

     The red-brown wall was picking up speed, and as it grew in strength it grew in size until it was as tall as a mountain, and seemed to stretch from the southern horizon to the northern. The men fell silent as they stared in awe at the force of nature that was about to engulf them. And then they began to run.

     "Scott!" Sir Reginald called out to Neal. "What the devil are you doing?" The crazy American had mounted his horse.

     "We have to round up the animals!" Neal shouted, clamping his hat to his head as the wind now blew ferociously and his horse wheeled in a circle.

     "You can't outrun this thing!" Sir Reginald's pith helmet flew off and tents started to come loose from their stakes. Men ran frantically about and horses galloped off in all directions. Within seconds, visibility plunged to a few feet. And then the sandstorm hit.

     Neal covered his mouth from the choking dust and spurred his horse into a run.

     "You crazy bastard!" Sir Reginald shouted after him.

     But the horse was not fast enough. In minutes, Neal and his mare were swallowed up in a great, brown deadly cloud.

     The hour was late. Hannah had stuffed cloth under the door in case her concoction created an odor that leaked out. She didn't want to alarm Liza Guinness's other hotel guests. The room was cozy against the night. On the bed, her nightdress was laid out. On the table by bed, beneath the glow of the oil lamp, Neal's photograph stood in a pewter frame. Next to it, the small ivory statuette of Hygeia.

     Beyond her closed drapes, a strange wind howled in the trees. It had come up suddenly, rattling panes, sending gusts down the chimney, causing gates and doors on the outbuildings to slam open and shut. A devil wind, Hannah thought as she stood at the small work table Liza Guinness had had brought up from the kitchen and upon which Hannah had set beakers, test tubes, microscope, and spirit lamp. Listening to the wind, she thought of Neal in the wild, inhospitable wastes of Australia and was comforted by the thought that he was in the company of thirty men, with horses, rifles and pistols, and barrels of water. She prayed that he was enjoying his wonderful adventure, and making important discoveries.

     Addressing her task, she spooned out a measure of the solid iodine and weighed it on the small brass scales she had purchased from Mr. Krüger. She then ground it to a powder using a pestle in a mortar bowl. Hannah worked with careful movements by candlelight. "Iodine was first identified in 1811 and is extracted from seaweed," John Conroy had written. "Iodine's chemical properties are as yet unknown. The solubility of elementary iodine in water can be increased by the addition of potassium iodide. A tincture can be made as iodine dissolves readily in alcohol."

     She stirred the iodine into a liquid preparation and watched the emulsion turn dark purplish-red, a strong aroma rising up from the beaker. It smelled familiar. She cautiously dipped her finger into the solution and felt no stinging, no burning. She held it in there for several seconds and when she brought her finger out, aside from purple discoloration, there was no ill effect on her skin.

     Now came the step that would tell her if this was truly her father's perfected formula. Preparing a microscope slide with a drop of water in which she had rinsed her hands, she peered into the lens and saw the tiny creatures
moving through the water. Then, using a pipette, she drew up some of the new iodine solution and placed a drop on the water.

     Drawing in a breath, flexing her fingers and sending a prayer to God, Hannah bent and looked into the microscope. She moved the candle around until sufficient light was shed on the glass slide. Then she adjusted the focus and—

     The microbiotes were not moving.

     The formula had killed them.

     "Thank Heaven," Hannah whispered in relief. She had the formula again, and could count on continuing to bring babies into the world without endangering them or their mothers with infection.

     As she poured the new mixture in a small bottle, she thought of the strange workings of fate. Had she not had her bag snatched that afternoon, and had Mr. Jamie O'Brien not rescued it for her, she might never have found the note with the formula written on it.

     The wind picked up outside, making shutters bang and tree limbs scrape the brick walls. Suddenly her bedroom windows burst open, swinging inward on their creaking hinges, the curtains whipping about. Hannah rushed to close them. But as the wind stormed into her room, sending papers flying, blowing out candles, threatening to topple fragile lamps, Hannah found that the windows would not stay latched. She closed them and the wind pushed them open again, and when Hannah felt the first cold drops of rain on her face, she knew a storm was coming.

     She shut the windows once more, but as soon as she let go, they flew open. When a strong gust sent a lamp crashing to the floor—luckily it was not lit—Hannah remembered the key in the door lock. It also locked the windows. She ran to the door, seized the key and ran back to the windows. Fighting wind, curtains and swinging window frames, she managed to get them closed again and was able to turn the key in the latch before they blew back open.

     As the wind raged outside while the windows remained shut, Hannah straightened the curtains and then stepped back to survey the damage to her room, thankful that she had remembered that the key locked both the door
and
the windows.

     She froze. Feeling the cold iron key in her hand, she looked down at it,
and was flung back to another windy night, two years ago. "This is the
key
, Hannah," her father had said with his dying breath as he had pressed the bottle of iodine in her hand.

     Hannah gasped as the enormity of her discovery began to dawn on her. Could the iodine formula possibly be a
cure-all?
Was that what her father had been trying to say with his dying breath? Had he unwittingly opened the way for a whole new revolutionary form of medicine?

     Hannah held her breath. She felt as if a doorway had suddenly opened, and on the other side lay an infinite number of possible paths. If her father had indeed invented a universal cure . . .

     In rising excitement, Hannah had to curb her sudden eagerness to plunge ahead with new tests, new experiments. She knew that she must give this more thought, more analysis and examination, and then determine how best to proceed. She did not know where this discovery was going to take her, she knew only that she must pursue this unexpected change of events, step through that open doorway to follow those infinite paths wherever they might lead.

     The sandstorm raged into the evening and most of the night, pinning Neal beneath an oilskin as he fought for breath and thought for sure he was being buried alive.

     By the time the wind died down and the night was quiet again, Neal could not hear the shouts of men nearby, nor the sounds of horses. He found himself half-buried under a tarpaulin that had been carried on the storm from the camp, to slap against him like the errant sail of a ship. Neal hauled himself out of a sand dune that hadn't been there before, and staggered to his feet to look around. But all he saw was night blackness, for the stars were blotted out. He tried to call to his comrades but his throat was too parched to support a voice. Although badly shaken, Neal kept a level-head. No doubt the other members of the expedition were nearby but, like him, were unable to shout. He recalled the many times his adoptive father had taken him wilderness hiking, Josiah Scott having a passion for painting watercolors of woods and waterfalls, and saying: "If we are ever separated, if you ever get
lost, remember that the number one rule is to stay where you are." Neal and Sir Reginald's men would never find each other in this utter darkness, so he would stay where he was and assess the situation at daybreak. He curled back into the warm tarp and drifted into a deep sleep.

     When light broke over the edge of the world, it pierced his eyes and pulled him back to consciousness. Shaking off the sand, Neal crawled out from under the oilskin and squinted with gritty eyes. The dawn sun cast golden light upon a queer landscape. Not a tree or bit of scrub remained. Reddish-orange sand drifts had been sculpted where none had been before.

     Neal turned in a slow circle, not believing his eyes. Where were the horses? Where was the camp? Where were Sir Reginald and the others? He hadn't gone far on his horse when the sandstorm struck. Everyone should still be here, tents and wagons and horses.

     And then he realized: they must have reconnoitered in the dark, collected everything by lantern light, and moved on. He saw not a single remnant of the impressive expedition that was to have taken him the thirteen hundred miles to Perth. Gone, too, were his scientific instruments and tools and aids, the modern technology that would have shown him the way.

     And he knew why. When Sir Reginald had let slip a comment about the Seminoles of New York, and Neal had caught the error, he had seen a brief look on the older man's face that had been as good as a naked confession. Oliphant was a fraud. He had never lived with the Seminoles. Neal wondered if the old man had set foot outside England, even. It was the only explanation for why the others would pick up and sneak off under the cover of night, leaving him for dead! Reginald Oliphant was worried Neal would expose his secret.

     And now Neal was alone in a vast, dry wilderness, with no sight of a single soul or beast from horizon to horizon. The sky was filled with a strange haze—sand particles high up in the atmosphere, his scientist's mind surmised—and so he could not pinpoint the sun, nor determine east, west, south or north. He had no compass or sextant, no food, and no water. And no hat to protect his head from the sun.

     Finally he began to walk, stumbling along, putting one foot in front of the other, having no idea where his steps were taking him.