Dennison felt the expanse of the desert around him, felt its thousands of square miles. Pulling the tarp over his head he imagined himself in a grotto, Atala's grotto: ah, that pitiful story: beauty obliterated by superstition, by folly: lovely Atala had been his companion in Ermenonville, as boy, she and her Chactas ... Chactas the blind man ... the lover ... the wanderer ... Doré's wonderful engravings--those days in E ...
And now ...
The desert rustled the tarpaulin. The truck swayed.
Still cold, Dennison hunched closer to Isaac, needing all of the warmth he could steal: his arms and shoulders ached: sand grubbing had done that: sand, he felt it in his shoes, in his shin, between his fingers ...
Poor Chuck ...
Soon, dawn threw out its flag of light; soon men were yelling, talking, pushing, urinating, shitting, coughing, eating ...
Motors throbbed.
The radio in a truck blared boogie-woogie, from Casablanca.
Dennison read his wristwatch.
Their tank motor refused to start.