Around the World in 50 Years by Albert Podell

wouldn’t let them get that close. Nor could they hunt from camels, because the gazelles were too fast. So the chief had told Ihab they wanted to hunt from our 4 × 4.
    The lieutenant added: “You can’t refuse, or the nomads will be angry. I have already told them you were both great hunters in America. The chief expects you back as soon as you give the food to your men. But don’t worry; I’ll go with you. I would let them use my Land Rover, but the top doesn’t come off, and the chief wants to be able to shoot from the car. Besides, the army already warned me … uh … here, have some milk.”
    We went back to the road with food for Manu, Willy, and Woodrow; unsnapped the canvas top from the Land Cruiser; removed the supplies; and left the others to guard the gear and the trailers. When we returned to the encampment, the nomads happily jumped up and down. In a twinkling, nine of them jammed into the car’s now-open rear compartment, all standing upright, all chortling and joking and spitting. They smelled as if they’d had raw garlic for dinner and their last bath a year ago. They were all ready for action, their guns bristling in every direction. Our vehicle resembled a red porcupine.
    They had a specimen of almost every firearm made in the century, and the chief toted a shiny new Magnum Express that could easily dispatch an elephant. One elderly nomad, whose long beard and red tunic reminded me of Grumpy, the Disney dwarf, came running up with an ancient blunderbuss that looked as if it had been last fired during the war—of 1812. Finding no room in back, he scooted over me and wedged himself behind the front seat, his powder horn swinging against my neck as we headed farther into the desert.
    Steve drove, I scouted from the passenger side, and Ihab sat between us, pointing the way through a haze of cigar smoke.
    When I complained to him that I didn’t think it was ethical to shoot an animal from a moving car, all I got for my moral concerns was a lecture about the imperative of survival and the laws of the desert, that the wildlife belonged to the nomads, and that Americans couldn’t possibly understand because they were all fat and well-fed.
    I was about to reply that our nomad pals had far from empty bellies, and probably enough treasure stashed away to buy a controlling interest in IBM, when Ihab turned out the headlights. They could be seen for 15 to 20 miles in the clear desert air, he explained, and would spook any game around. He might as well have blindfolded us; the thin slice of fading moon gave so little light that Steve had to drive more by touch than by sight, and seemed to be touching every ditch, rock, mound, bump, and hole west of Egypt. He slowed to 15 miles an hour, but the results were still devastating. He was cinched in tight with his safety belt, but seemed to be steering with his stomach and shifting with his knees, while Grumpy was swaying back and forth over my head, spilling gunpowder down my back. The car groaned as if breaking apart, and I wondered if this were a technique the lieutenant taught in his demolition course.
    After a shaken-up eternity, we spotted distant gazelles silhouetted against the night sky. Steve reluctantly increased speed toward them, our lights still out, wishing he’d installed radar on our bumper instead of a winch. When the nomads opened fire, it was as if a small volcano had erupted. Then Grumpy discharged his blunderbuss, sending smoke and fumes and pellets all over the place. It was Vesuvius.
    The nomads urged us onward, but with the bouncing of the car in the dark, I don’t know how they hoped to hit anything edible. Half their shots went winging off in the direction of Uranus, and some peppered the dirt in front of us. I couldn’t see a thing through smoke and smell, but was certain the gazelles were a lot safer than I.
    Later, as we drove back toward our trailer, I asked Ihab if the sharif