A Kiss of Adventure

by Catherine Palmer

  She stood up and followed the wall along the water’s edge. The fisherman in his little dugout waved at her. She tried to smile and failed miserably. Was there any way out? Pressed by the crowds of market-goers, unable to move ahead and unable to turn back, she leaned against the clay wall and slid to a crouch.

  What am I supposed to do, Lord? Her dress bunched around her ankles in folds of soft white fabric. She dipped her head and studied her hands.

  “He who belongs to God hears what God says.” The words from John’s Gospel were as certain as the beaded ring of honor on Tillie’s finger. So were the passages from Luke: “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed. . . . No one of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”

  Give it up. Give him up, Tillie.

  That was her answer, then. Give Graeme up. Walk back to that police station. Turn in the amulet. Say good-bye to him and go home to Bamako. She belonged to God. She was his disciple. She had chosen that a long time ago, and she still wanted to serve him more than she wanted anything—or anybody—else.

  The truth was difficult, painful. And yet, as she stood, peace drifted around Tillie’s heart like a warm blanket. She turned back in the direction of the whitewashed building, lifted her chin, and stepped into the street.

  A sharp blow slammed into her back, knocking the breath from her lungs and buckling her knees. Before she hit the street, she was whisked into the air and flung across a blue-robed shoulder.

  “Tree-Planting Woman,” a deep voice said as everything went black, “you belong to me now.”

  Slowly Tillie became aware of her surroundings. She was bouncing along, upside down, slung over the amenoukal’s shoulder. Disoriented, it took her a moment to realize the chieftain was running on foot in the middle of a thick force of his Tuareg companions. Broadswords, spears, flowing black robes, and leather sandals were all she could see. Her turban unwound from her head and trickled down the street like a rivulet of melting vanilla ice cream.

  “Graeme!” she screamed. “Graeme, help!”

  She lifted her head from the amenoukal’s broad back to see Graeme hurtle through the police station doorway and stop in shock.

  “Tillie! What in—” He ran down the stairs and disappeared in the jostling crowd.

  She had no choice but to lower her head. Their broadswords drawn, the Tuareg pounded down the sidewalk and around a corner. The crowd scattered in panic before the phalanx.

  Blood throbbing in her head, Tillie pummeled the amenoukal’s muscular back as hard as she could. He didn’t pause, didn’t even flinch. In fact, his gait was exhilarated, triumphant. Again, she tried to lift her head to see where Graeme was. The excited throng blocked her view.

  “Put me down!” she yelled. “I don’t know where the treasure is! I don’t know anything. Put me down!”

  The amenoukal chuckled low in his throat and ran on. The Tuareg battalion jogged across a bridge and down a narrow alley. As they moved out onto another sidewalk, they slowed to a trot.

  Tillie’s head reeled. Dizzy, sure she was going to be sick, she couldn’t think what to do beyond shouting. And then the amenoukal’s wiry hands grasped her waist, lifted her into the air, tossed her. She saw spinning blue sky, minarets of a mosque, someone’s wash hanging on a line. Headfirst, she tumbled onto the hard deck of a boat.

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Then her lungs sucked in a huge breath of air, and her vision cleared. The amenoukal seated himself regally before her, a sneer of victory lighting his eyes above the blue veil. His slippered foot rested on her stomach. His broadsword pinned her burnous to the bottom of the boat.

  “Look, monsieur, this is all a mistake. Error. Comprennezvous?” As she spoke, she scanned the large boat’s green-and-white canopy flapping in the breeze that blew along the canal. Six rowers—none of them Tuareg—paddled as fast as they could. Their shiny black backs tensed and relaxed over and over with their work.

  “Parlez-vous français?” she tried again. “How about English? Do you speak English? Monsieur, you are making a mistake. I’m not the woman you want. The police are coming after you. You’ll never get away.”

  The amenoukal’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and he gave a shrug. “Maktoub,” he said. “You understand? Inshallah.”

  As Allah wills. So the Targui thought Allah was behind the whole thing. Great. What could be worse than a broadsword-brandishing treasure hunter who believed he was on a divine mission?

  She took a deep breath. The smell of fish flooded her nostrils and jerked her back to attention. Allah, was it? She’d see about that. Raising her fist, she slammed it into the man’s calf. “Get your foot off me!” she shouted.

  He drew back in surprise, and she scrambled to her knees. Tearing her burnous from the sword, she jumped up and grabbed the bamboo support of the canopy.

  “Graeme!” she hollered.

  The amenoukal knocked her back to the floor—but not before she caught a glimpse that lifted her heart. Just behind the amenoukal’s dugout knifed the little fishing boat she and Graeme had taken to the police station. Graeme sat at the prow, rowing like a fiend. In the stern, the fisherman matched Graeme stroke for stroke.

  Tillie closed her eyes. She had to think. Had to get away. The amenoukal’s boat, for all its six rowers, was nearly three times as large as Graeme’s. It had to be slower. Graeme would catch up. She had to trust that. And she wanted to be ready when he did.

  Opening her eyes to narrow slits, she watched the amenoukal shout directions at his oarsmen. Boats filled with the other Tuareg would be ahead of the one that carried her. If she could somehow . . .

  A weapon. She needed some kind of weapon. She glanced left and right. Her eyes fell on a dead fish—some sort of large dried-out carp with no eyeballs and a gaping mouth. It looked as hard as a rock.

  “Batter up,” she shouted. Grabbing the fish by its tail, she leapt to her feet and cocked it over her shoulder in her best Mickey Mantle pose. Then she unleashed her home-run swing.

  The amenoukal stiffened in shock, eyes hardening to black points as the fish smacked into the side of his head and sent him sprawling to the floor of the boat. “Ai! Ai!” he screeched.

  “Out of my way!” Tillie flung herself to starboard and pushed between two rowers. The amenoukal’s enraged roar rang out behind her as she dived into the canal.

  An oar struck her shoulder. Pain shooting down her arm, she sank into the depths of the murky water. When she touched the slimy causeway with bare toes, she propelled herself forward. One-armed, she swam as fast and as far as her breath would allow before surfacing.

  Blinking drops of water, she realized she had eluded the amenoukal. Barely. His boat had slowed and was circling back to retrieve her.

  “Tillie!” The hoarse shout drew her attention. Graeme’s boat was closing fast. She kicked forward and lifted her arm to him. Eyes narrowed in concentration, he bent and hauled her out of the canal. “Are you all right?”

  “Barely,” she gasped, collapsing on the floor of the boat. “Graeme, get me out of here.”

  “Keep your head down. This guy means business.”

  As Graeme spoke, the amenoukal’s boat pulled alongside the dugout. Graeme shouted at the fisherman and pointed to their escape route.

  Tillie grabbed Graeme’s arm. “You can’t go that way. The rest of the Tuareg are ahead of us.”

  “We can’t go back.”

  “Monsieur, monsieur! Le Targui!” The fisherman stared in horror at the amenoukal’s boat. The Targui had climbed to a platform on the prow of the boat. He threw back his sleeve, uncovering his arm to the shoulder.

  “De mal en pis! Tout est perdu,” the fisherman wailed before throwing himself over the side.

  “What’s going on?” Tillie clutched the side of the boat. “What’s he doing?”

  “Giving us a Tuareg threat. I can’t turn this boat around. We’re trapped.”

  Four boats cir
cled the little dugout in the narrow channel. The amenoukal’s boat came at them again. Rage glittering in his coffee-bean eyes, he drew his broadsword. Tillie froze. He would kill Graeme to get her back. She knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt.

  The boat bumped into the dugout. The amenoukal raised his sword. Graeme gave Tillie a push. “Jump, Tillie! Jump!”

  Acting on instinct, Tillie screamed, “You jump!” She scrambled to her feet in the wobbly dugout and slammed a shoulder into Graeme, knocking him over the side. Regaining her balance, she leapt onto the amenoukal’s boat, threw herself to the floor, and covered her head with her hands. “Stop, s’il vous plaît! You have me now. Don’t hurt him!”

  The Targui jumped down to the deck beside Tillie, again pinned her tunic to the floor with his sword, and grabbed a length of rope. As he bound her arms and legs, he shouted orders to the other boats. Then he dragged her to one of the bamboo masts and lashed her to it.

  “Tree-Planting Woman,” he snarled. “You stay with Ahodu Ag Amastane, amenoukal of Tuareg people. You find treasure of Timbuktu.”

  “That’s what you think,” she muttered, turning her head to one side and refusing to look at him.

  Where was Graeme? All she could see was the little boat bobbing empty in the canal. The train of canopied dugouts slid along the canals of Djenne, under bridges, past rows of fishing boats, between clay houses and mosques. Farther from the police. Farther from Graeme.

  The Tuareg had her now, and she didn’t have a clue where their stupid treasure was.

  She watched the town of Djenne slip by. As the boats swept out of the canal into the river, she struggled to loosen her hands. It was useless. She was trapped.

  The amenoukal sat on a small stool in front of her, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. His eyes, deep-set and as penetrating as arrows, were set off by two thick brows. If his eyes reflected a man of war and greed, his clothing revealed a man of vanity.

  His blue turban swooped and billowed above his head, curled down into a huge bow at his neck, and fell gracefully over his shoulders. Despite the sweltering African heat, he wore at least three layers of clothing. The outer layer was a fantastically embroidered dark blue burnous lined in silk and belted with a heavy silver girdle. Beneath the burnous he wore a white wool gown with wide sleeves. Its breast was ornamented with row after row of pinned or hanging silver amulets, some nearly as ancient as the one Tillie wore. Under that, he wore a blue shirt and a pair of bloused blue trousers. At least ten silk cords had been knotted over the burnous. Finally, the amenoukal’s feet were graced by the most ornately embroidered slippers Tillie had ever seen.

  As she looked down at her own bare feet and wet white burnous, her thoughts flew back to Graeme. Where was he now? Would he come for her before it was too late? She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the bamboo pole. How could she expect him to risk his life for her again and again? It would mean death if he tried it.

  She knew the amenoukal would not let her go. She would have to try to find the treasure. Which, of course, she couldn’t do. So that would mean her death, too.

  Her stomach knotted with tension, Tillie turned the situation over so many times she was sure she had examined it from every angle. She tried to pray, but no words formed. She didn’t even know how to begin seeking God’s guidance in this predicament. There was no solution. She was so absorbed in her misery, she barely noticed when the dugout bumped ashore.

  The amenoukal knelt to untie her bonds. “Tree-Planting Woman. You come.”

  “Do I have a choice?” she snapped back.

  The chieftain loosened the ropes, and Tillie rubbed her sore wrists and ankles. She didn’t want to follow the man, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Standing stiffly, she grasped the bamboo pole that had held her prisoner and looked out into the purple twilight.

  Flat, sheepskin or cowhide tents clustered along the riverbank. Each had a fire burning brightly in front of it, where one or two dark-robed women tended the evening meal. After living in Bamako among so many Muslims, it felt strange to see men veiled and women unveiled, as was the Tuareg custom. Children scampered to the shore and pointed excitedly at the newly arrived dugouts. Tillie wondered vaguely if one of them was the boy who had fastened the amulet around her neck to begin this nightmare.

  She tried to ignore her cramped and sore muscles as she followed the amenoukal to the edge of the dugout and climbed down into the chilly water. When he tried to assist her, she shoved his hand aside. “Don’t try the knight-in-shining-armor routine now,” she mumbled. “Just leave me alone.”

  He laughed, picked her up, and set her in the water. “Come,” he ordered.

  Wading barefoot through the shallows, she turned back to see the dugouts slipping away into the river. The Djenne fishermen would have nothing to do with this Tuareg camp and its foreign ways. Would one of them return to Djenne and tell the police where she was? Please, Lord.

  As the amenoukal and his hostage walked up the sloping bank, the sea of children parted respectfully before them. Tillie noticed that these children did not clamor to touch her white skin and golden hair. They kept their distance. Already they were assuming the proud independence of their people.

  When the Tuareg group reached the first tent, Tillie spotted the woman who had spoken English on the pier in Segou. She had emerged from inside the dwelling and now stood outlined in the fire’s glow. The amenoukal jerked Tillie to his side, held her arm in a viselike grip, and gave some sort of instructions to the woman. Tillie listened carefully, trying to pick out any word she might understand, but their language bore no resemblance to the native Bambara she had heard in the compound at Bamako.

  Finally the woman nodded and turned to Tillie. “Come, Tree-Planting Woman,” she said in a clear, high voice. “You come with me.”

  The amenoukal grunted and let go of Tillie’s arm. He turned away without a backward look and marched off with his men. Tillie moved forward to follow the woman, her heart heavy. What would happen to her this night? and the next? She knew she had time, a few precious days, before the amenoukal and his caravan would arrive in Timbuktu. In those few days she had to come up with a way to save herself.

  Following the Tuareg woman beneath the large camelhair awning that jutted from the tent, she tried to pray. Again, nothing. She was too tired, too wet, too angry. Nothing came.

  When she slipped under the flap of the tent, it was as though she entered another world, a virtual sea of stunning opulence. Layer upon layer of thick rugs carpeted the large floor. Rich silk pillows—red, blue, gold—lay in heaps around the perimeter of the room. Along one wall stood a low, wood-framed bed. It, too, was blanketed in thick coverings against the chill night air of the desert. A brass lantern hung from a center pole, its flame shining through a hundred pierced holes to give the room an eerie mingling of dappled shadows and lights.

  “This is tent of Ahodu Ag Amastane, amenoukal of Tuareg people,” the woman announced as she swept into the center of the chamber, her white burnous billowing behind her. “Here you see saddle of amenoukal’s camel. Gazelle leather. Beautiful, yes?”

  Like an obedient schoolgirl on a museum field trip, Tillie looked at the enormous leather saddle with its three-pronged horn and elaborately embroidered fittings. “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

  “Here are weapons of amenoukal. Broadswords, which we call takouba. Spear. Shield. Tuareg, people of veil—we do not use arms of treachery like white men. No guns or pistols.”

  The woman’s dark eyes flashed as she spoke. Against her will, Tillie fell captivated by the hypnotic gaze and lilting voice of the Targui. “The mirror of amenoukal.” She held up a small framed mirror that reflected the spinning light of the brass lantern. Then she picked up a small, one-string violin. “Imzad, we call this. Is beautiful, yes?”

  “Yes,” Tillie agreed softly. “It’s beautiful . . . but listen, please, who are you? What is your name?”

  “I am Khatty, beloved wife of Ahod
u Ag Amastane.” She gave Tillie a small smile. “Now, Tree-Planting Woman, you come with me.”

  They walked across the thick carpet to a second flap in the tent. As they pushed through, Tillie found herself in another dimly lit chamber, equally opulent, if not more so. Pillows lay scattered around the room, and the brass center light tilted and swung in a gentle breeze from an opening in the tent, making the shadows whirl fantastically across the walls.

  “My room,” Khatty announced. She swooped a ringed and braceleted hand outward and gestured theatrically around the interior. “My cushions. My rugs. My mirror. My cookery pots. The bags of my clothing.”

  “Very nice,” Tillie murmured, sure she was supposed to be impressed—which she was. Though the items in the room were simple, somehow in the tent they had been transformed into objects fit for a princess, a role for which this lovely Khatty was perfectly suited. Her kohl-lined eyes gleamed with high intelligence. The shape of her long nose added to an air of nobility. Her lips, darkened with dye, were full and sensual.

  “You are hungry,” Khatty stated. “You will eat now.”

  She clapped her hands, and a timid girl hurried into the room through a hidden entrance. The amenoukal’s wife fired off a round of instructions and then snapped a curt dismissal that sent the child scurrying away.

  “She is amrid—servant class,” Khatty explained. “Amrid are as slaves to us. Kel ulli are people of goats. They tend our flocks. And ineden are our blacksmiths. Outcasts, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Tillie watched in fascination as the woman peeled away her heavy burnous and stood preening before her mirror. She wore a long white gown heavily embroidered in a bold red design. Gold loop earrings hung to her shoulders, and a band of red ribbon ran through her elaborately braided hair.

  “So . . . what are you going to do with me?” Tillie asked in a low voice. “You’ve worked pretty hard to catch me. What happens now?”