An Adventure Story (Continued)

*** More words for the comic. Check out the new drawings at http://lewisandtemple.tumblr.com/***

The bucket of scummy water is tepid at best but Hal begins to shave. He washes his face and he combs his hair.
From his backpack he takes a 100 peso note and leaves it under the candle on the table. He looks around the room as if vaguely double-checking he’s left nothing behind. It’s as bare as it was when he arrived and he makes his way towards the door.
Sanchita is waiting for him in the bar. Her backpack is slightly bigger than his but still she travels light.
‘Ready?’
She nods and they open the door to the howling winds. Sanchita pulls the door shut behind her and hides a key in the hanging basket on the porch.
He has already mounted Rocinante and she clambers on behind him. They spend a moment or two arranging themselves comfortably and then Hal spins the bike around in the dust and hits the road that leads back to the people.
As they race into the roaring wind, he yells over his shoulder to her:
‘Won’t the old man mind us leaving like this?’
‘No, he’s a veteran - he knows what it’s like. Besides, we’ll most likely pass him on the road.’
He refocuses on the road and watches it swallowed up by the speed of Rocinante. After an hour, they are in town.
As they pass down the main drag with its bustling stalls they spot the old man’s pick-up but Sanchita says to keep going. Don’t stop. Onwards.
An hour passes. Another. And by this time they are on a pretty big road with plenty of traffic and the odd roadside diner. They stop. Hal is tired and Sanchita has long since fallen asleep against his back.
She wakes up as he cuts the engine and pockets the keys.
‘Come on, let’s get something to eat.’

They enter a room full of white plastic tables and Coca-Cola is written all over the walls. They’re back.
Two postmodern gauchos look up at them as they sit at the nearest table to the door. They order two burgers, two fries and two cokes.
Hal is sleepy as he waits for the food but Sanchita is alert and she keeps feeling in her pocket and looking over at the gauchos whose heads are huddled in conference.
Outside, dusk and snow are falling together and as Hal prepares to make conversation with this observation, the food is brought over. He is about to take the first bite of his burger when simultaneously there is the sound of a gunshot and Sanchita jumps on him and pushes him to the floor.
Instinct takes over and he upturns a table or two for cover. Sanchita now has a gun in her hand and she is returning fire. She clips one of the goons in the shoulder and another straight through the head.
They rush out the exit and Hal starts Rocinante first time and they are off into the night. Adrenaline has kicked in and he is no longer sleepy. He urges Rocinante forward, forward. They ride through the night and Sanchita once again falls asleep against his back. The hours pass over endless miles of asphalt and as the light of the day creaks in to action, Hal sees the outline of a big town yonder and it is both a comfort and a menace.
Sanchita is awake and she asks how long they’ve ridden for.
‘Through the night.’
‘You must be tired.’
‘I am. Let’s find somewhere to rest a while.’

They are no longer at the end of the world but it is still the back of beyond and the motels are cheap and dirty. They pick the first one that has a garage so as to keep Rocinante out of sight and they take a room for the night. It is drab and lightless and the manager takes ages to say nothing before finally leaving them in peace. Hal gratefully sinks in to one of the twin beds, whilst Sanchita goes straight into the bathroom. He falls asleep to the sound of running water.

His dream is a sequence of searing, flashing snapshots that come and go in a garbled whisper. The white cliffs of Dover, a mountain cave, a barren desert, a fierce storm on high seas and Abd el Daar, dead, with an expression on his face that Hal had never seen him wear in life, a journal, some final words, and a girl’s voice getting nearer all the time, urging him to wake up, wake up...

Sanchita is shaking him in the darkness of the night.
‘Vamos.’
‘Now?’
‘It is safer to travel by night.’
Soon enough they are on the road again.


They stop just once, at about three in the morning and get something to eat at a roadside diner. They are anxious at first but they are so far from the end of the world now that the restaurant, even at this late hour, is far too crowded for anyone to touch them there.
They both eat hungrily and talk little until their hunger is sated.
‘This must be quite a shock for you,’ Sanchita offers.
‘I’m out of practice but it will come back to me.’
‘How long have you been out of the game?’
’20 years.’ The answer surprises Hal himself. Has it really been that long?
Sanchita nods slowly. She has many things she wants to ask him but the transience of these moments forbids it. He is waiting for her to finish her Mate and when she does they head back to Rocinante and they keep on going.
As the sun comes up it sheds light on a sign that says ‘Buenos Aires – 200km’ and the proximity of arrival is sweet relief to both weary travellers.