They drove for what seemed like another hour, leaving what must have been the main road, and then over another route that was rough with sudden drops, but his carsickness didn’t return. At last, Saabir pulled over and turned off the car. He sat without speaking for a full minute, likely surveying the landscape, and then pushed open the car door, and Marc heard the passenger-side door pushed open, too; he’d been unaware that another person, likely Azhar, was there for the entire ride, but it made sense that Saabir wouldn’t be driving alone. The air smelled dry and warm, leaning toward hot, and in the absence of the car engine there was virtually no sound. Marc was afraid to leave the car.
Saabir opened his door then and said, “Up,” and Marc slowly flexed his knees and rose to his feet. He felt Saabir’s hand in the small of his back as Saabir led him along a path where Marc had to lift his feet so as not to stumble. He could hear the wind in what sounded like low trees or shrubs, and something skittered away in front of them. If he were to be executed, this would seem the perfect place; his body would never be found.
They reached a spot on the path where, under the blindfold, he could tell the light was dimmed, and then Saabir stopped. He unknotted the blindfold first, and when it fell away Saabir was standing directly in front of him, his hand on the trigger of the gun, and a rock wall was rising behind him. Above, the sky was pale blue with no sun; they seemed to be in a mountain range, and, if they had been keeping him on the outskirts of Karachi, it was likely the Kirthar Mountains, one of the few places he’d thought he might visit when he’d committed to the corporate office in Pakistan because of a supposedly beautiful national park.
“Marc, Saabir is going to untie your hands. But if you turn around to look at me, he will kill you. Do you understand that?”
Marc nodded. He was surprised that she’d been in the car and he hadn’t sensed her presence, and felt his skin prickle at the sound of her voice, and then a brief sense of relief. Saabir moved behind him and unknotted the rope, and Marc folded his shoulders in like wings and felt the blood return to his forearms and fingers. It was good to breathe the fresh air of this place, and he filled his lungs with the dry, slightly sweet fragrance. He took a closer look at the rock wall in front of him, and on it was a scrawled image of what looked like an antelope with long, curved horns. Next to it was a dim handprint.
“Petroglyphs,” he said. “Is that what you called them?”
She didn’t answer him then. It was difficult to gain a perspective on where they were when he couldn’t turn away from the wall. It seemed ridiculous, without the blindfold, to not simply shift his stance and look at her. Saabir took a few steps to one side and sat down on a small, flat boulder, his gun resting on his lap. From his pocket, he took a pack of cigarettes, withdrew one, and lit it with a lighter. The smoke smelled good, and distantly familiar. Marc heard her footsteps on the stones behind him.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “This one looks like an ibex.”
“So you knew this was here?”
“Well, we didn’t stumble on it, no.”
Saabir lifted the cigarette to his mouth. He was watching the woman closely.
“Why do you suppose so many of them come with handprints?” Marc asked.
“The obvious reason. A signature in the time before written language.”
“A handprint is more intimate, I think.” He realized he was more curious about her appearance away from the room.
“I’m coming around to your right, so I want you to slowly turn to your left, away from the wall.”
He heard her moving in a half circle, and he mirrored her, glimpsing, he thought, a length of dark-blue garment before he came around and saw the valley below their perch on an overhang. There were a few dry grasses, almost gold in the sunlight that reached them there, and farther on a grove of low, green trees around a source of water that was hidden from him, and beyond these, in the distance, dry, slightly pink mountains with deep, dark grooves he knew were likely expanses of low evergreens or shrubs that were shielded from the sun and wind.
“This is … It’s an incredibly beautiful place,” he said, and he was surprised that his eyes filled. “So desolate.”
“Sometimes, from here, you can see herds of wild goats. I don’t see any today, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve come here.”
Saabir was looking off into the horizon, and then glanced back to where they stood. He put his cigarette out on the rock and stood up, stretching his back. A large bird darted out from a crevice in the rock, and reflexively Saabir’s hand went to his gun, but then he relaxed it, and when the bird flew into the light its shadow briefly flitted across Saabir’s face. He smiled faintly. The bird soared high above the valley.
“I don’t imagine this was an organized field trip,” Marc said to the woman.
“No. There was word that someone was coming for you. We don’t know who. Azhar stayed back and made sure there was no sign of your presence. When they find nothing there, we’ll be able to take you back. They won’t search there again soon.”
“Someone might say something.”
“I know; that’s always a risk. But it comes with a price, so it’s unlikely.”
“Sometimes, I wonder if it’s only three of you. You, Saabir, and Azhar. The four of us now.”
She didn’t say anything to this.
“Why here?” he asked.
“If you have to run, and you know you haven’t been followed, then why not here? It’s a place Saabir has known since he was a boy. And I’d told you about the petroglyphs.”