A River in the Sky Read Online Free

reassure Nefret. Not surprisingly it failed. “War or no war, if there is any way Ramses can get in trouble, he will,” she said vehemently. “If the situation is so unstable—”
    “Nonsense,” I said. “Samaria—the modern Sebaste—is nowhere near the area where the Germans are working, and Mr. Reisner is a responsible individual. Emerson considers him one of the most qualified of the younger generation of Egyptologists.”
    “Hmph.”
    “Or would, if he considered any other Egyptologists qualified,” I emended.
    “He’s not so bad,” Emerson admitted. “Though one would suppose he had enough on his plate with his excavations at Giza and in the Sudan, without taking on another responsibility in an area he knows nothing about—”
    “Reisner would argue that the basic techniques of excavation are the same in all parts of the world,” I said.
    “Well, well,” said Emerson. “Hmph.”
    The ambiguity of this response ought to have raised alarm bells. It is not like Emerson to be ambiguous. In my defense I must say that I was more concerned with calming Nefret. “George Reisner is amature, dedicated individual who lives only for his work. Not even Ramses can get in trouble while he is in Reisner’s charge.”
    F ROM M ANUSCRIPT H
    Ramses had been aware for some time that he was being followed. The night sky was overcast and the grove of olive trees through which he walked cast heavy shadows, but the faint sounds were unmistakable. He had been listening for them. He slowed his pace, ears pricked. When it happened, the attack was sudden and unexpected, for it came not from behind him but from close ahead. A slight stirring of the air and a change in the shape of the shadow across the path gave him just enough warning to duck. It turned out to be a bad move; instead of hitting him in the chest or shoulder, the missile struck the side of his head, hard enough to make him lose his balance and fall to hands and knees. Though dizzy and disoriented, he knew better than to stay where he was. He crawled off the path and among the gnarled trunks of the trees, where he lay still, listening and waiting for his head to clear.
    Not a sound, except for the normal night noises.
    “Damn,” Ramses said softly.
    The pattern was like that of the last attack—a missile flung, a hasty withdrawal. The only difference was that this time there had been two of them, one following, to distract his attention, the other waiting in hiding. He had hoped this time to lay hands on the assailant, or at least get a look at him.
    He returned to the path and switched on his torch. His lips pursed in a silent whistle when he saw the size of the stone that had struck him. It was as large as his head. If it had hit him full in the face…A deliberate attempt at murder?
    Probably not, he decided. The fellow’s aim wasn’t very good, andif he had homicide on his mind he would have chosen more lethal weapons. The first stone had hit him in the back, hard enough to get his attention but doing little damage.
    He picked up the stone and went on his way without encountering any living creature except a few of the village dogs. When he emerged from the trees he saw the lights in the houses of the village of Sebaste. There weren’t many lighted windows; people in this part of the world went to bed early to save costly lamp oil. The brightest lights came from the house the Samaria crew had rented for the season. Reisner was still at work. Ramses stopped outside the door and after searching his pockets found a grubby handkerchief with which he wiped the blood off his cheek.
    When he went in, his superior didn’t look up.
    “You’ve been a while,” he remarked, adding a note to one of the papers on the table before him.
    “Sorry.”
    Clarence Fisher, Reisner’s second in command, was lying on the divan. He sat up, stretching. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
    I might have known, Ramses thought, that he’d focus on an artifact instead of