Thumbprints

by Pamela Sargent

  “So they’re seeing them there,” I said.

  “Maybe everywhere. This gal who’s an astronomer was saying that people seem to be seeing them at about the same time of night. They show up, they cover the sky, they come right at you and go right through your face and disappear, until they show up again over another place where it’s night. She said–” Allen frowned. “She said it’s almost like a kind of signal, the way it keeps happening at regular intervals.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said.

  “Then this guy came on, some scientist who writes books about weird events nobody can figure out. He was talking about how it might be a way for something to scan us, the way the riders go through everything – kind of like an MRI or an X-ray.”

  “It’ll stop,” I said. “It has to.”

  “I hope you’re right, but the more news I heard, the more worried I got.” He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. “Might as well go back up and catch some more news.”

  I thought of going with him; he looked as though he might appreciate the company. But I didn’t want to sit there listening to people trying to explain the unexplainable.

  Allen walked toward the elevators. Gil and Tserendjav had disappeared. I went outside. The scene was much the same as it had been the day before. Along the wide thoroughfare, under a cloudless sky so brightly blue that the light hurt my eyes, Mongolians were strolling along the wide thoroughfare or standing in queues waiting for buses. All of them had black hair and coppery skin, and most of them were dressed in a riot of color, as if their assorted blue, red, purple, green, and yellow clothing could compensate for the grayness and ugliness of Ulan Bator. A lot of them wore pins and buttons with the image of Genghis Khan. Occasionally a few people gathered in a group, then looked up at the sky.

  Were they expecting to see the celestial horsemen in daytime? I did not want to believe they would appear again. Night would come, and my planned adventure would go on with only a day’s delay.

  In the National Museum, we were shepherded through a display of traditional Mongolian musical instruments, including a fiddle allegedly made from the bones of a beloved horse, then into a room devoted to Genghis Khan. Now that the Russians were gone, the Mongolians could be more open about their admiration for the one they called the Great Ancestor. Gil seemed distracted as he led us past cases containing old weapons and paintings of Genghis Khan holding court and leading warriors into battle. A Mongolian guide showed up only long enough to greet us before leaving the room with Gil. Shortly after that, we were ushered outside and aboard a bus.

  “I’ve got something to say,” Gil called out after we were seated. “We may – well, it may not be possible to get to Karakorum tomorrow. In fact, under the circumstances, we may be forced to leave the country.”

  “Forced?” someone behind me said. Allen, seated next to me, leaned forward.

  “Wrong choice of words.” Gil managed an uneasy grin. The bus trembled as the driver gunned the motor, then shook violently as it rolled through the parking lot. “This isn’t the most efficient country under the best of circumstances,” he continued, shouting above the rattling of the bus, “and things may get harder in the next few days, depending on–”

  “Those sky cowboys?” Tug Monahan shouted. “Is that still going on?”

  Gil glanced at him. “They were sighted over Hawaii. That’s what the curator told me before we left. In Australia, people are waiting, wondering if they’re going to see what everyone else already has. They don’t see them riding out from Orion in the Southern Hemisphere, needless to say, since the constellations are different, and near the Arctic Circle, where the nights are getting shorter, they–”

  “To hell with that,” Tug Monahan said loudly. “Just tell me how much we’ll get refunded on this trip if we’re not going to get what we paid for.”

  Something flickered behind Gil’s eyes. I almost expected him to go for Monahan, maybe throw him off the bus. The driver ignored us; I guessed that he didn’t know English.

  “You may recall,” Gil said slowly, “that I advised you to take out travel insurance. Worry about refunds when you’re back home and can talk to your lawyer. At the moment, our only realistic options may be staying in Ulan Bator for the foreseeable future or taking the first way out we can find.”

  “How long would we be staying?” Lynda Gerber’s traveling companion asked. “I mean, if we have to stay.”

  “That remains to be seen.” Gil clutched at the top of a seat to steady himself as the bus rounded a corner. “I’m hoping we don’t have to, that I can get us out in the next day or two.”

  Gil sat down and didn’t get up again until we were at the hotel. “Listen,” he said as we were about to leave the bus, “maybe nothing will happen tonight. If it doesn’t, we may be able to salvage at least some of this tour, if things get back to normal. This is important – I want all of you to come to my room tonight at eleven.” He rattled off the room number a couple of times, then was silent for a few moments. “Pack your stuff if you haven’t already, and keep it packed. By tonight, I may be able to tell you something.”

  We filed off the bus. Once we were inside, most of the others headed straight to the bar; Gil headed toward the desk clerk. The lobby was even more crowded than it had been the day before. People from other tours would be arriving only to find that the rooms reserved for them were still inhabited by earlier guests. I wondered if the government would bar any more foreigners from entering the country.

  Allen gazed at me somberly. “Might as well listen to some more news.”

  We went up to his room, tried his TV in the hope of at least seeing some news footage, and discovered the set didn’t work. The BBC signal on his radio was so faint that we had to strain to hear it. Reports about sightings in the States had come in; people in the West had seen celestial Indians in feathered headdresses. There were stories that Native Americans in various parts of the country were traveling to isolated areas, perhaps to await more visions. Urban Australia was in an uproar; no reports had come in from remote regions. The BBC news reader reported all of this in a steady, almost bored-sounding voice.

  “Christ,” Allen muttered. “I picked a great time to come to the back of beyond.” He turned off the radio and stood up. “No point sitting around here. Might as well go downstairs and see if we can scare up a meal, then take a walk. Should be about time by then.”

  He was expecting to see the riders again. I realized that I was as well.

  We went to the hotel’s hard-currency restaurant. The meal of cold lamb and rice that finally reached our table was even worse than the lamb and rice we’d eaten there before, and the portions were noticeably smaller. The place was already crowded, with two groups of Japanese near us and people of various nationalities scattered around the room.

  Allen nibbled at his food, then pushed the plate away. “Think I’m off my feed,” he said.

  “So am I.”

  “Let’s go to the bar then.”

  Every table in the small dark room was taken, but there was room at the bar to stand. Two bartenders were at work, both wearing the ubiquitous Genghis Khan buttons. “Vodka,” Allen called out, raising two fingers.

  The younger bartender, whose unusually long black hair was pulled back in a pony tail, sidled over to us. “American?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That is good,” he said cheerfully. “I practice my English on you.” I was surprised he spoke it. “Two vodka straight up?” I nodded. He set glasses in front of us and poured the drinks.

  “Thanks,” Allen muttered.

  “You are welcome,” the bartender said. “My work here is past soon. I leave in hour. You need a guide? I take you around. Twenty dollars – good price.”

  “What’s your name?” Allen asked.

  “Bayan. Means rich.” The young man grinned. “You are rich. I am not.”

  “I worked hard for my dough.” Allen pushed his glass forward; the bartender poured
him another drink. “You can call me prosperous, maybe, but I’m not rich. Times are tougher. America isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Americans richer than us.” Bayan glanced at me. “Drink up, then I show you around. Twenty dollars.”

  I said, “There isn’t much to see.”

  “The horsemen will come.” Bayan poured drinks for two Germans near me, took their money, then leaned against the bar. “We can watch for them together.”

  Something about that idea appealed to me. I was also thinking that it might be useful to have a Mongolian acquaintance who spoke English if we did end up having to wait in Ulan Bator.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll go with you when you get off work.”

  Bayan nodded once, then moved away to take care of more customers. “Sure this is smart?” Allen asked. “We don’t know what he might be up to.”

  “He wants to make some money, that’s all. He might try to con us, but somehow I don’t think he’d have a job here if he was really disreputable or dangerous.” The few Mongolians I had seen at close range so far all seemed gentle, placid almost to a fault. Buddhism had changed them, and maybe the Russians had, too, after occupying their country for so long. They seemed like children in some ways; even their Genghis Khan buttons could not make them seem truly threatening. “Let’s take a chance, Allen. Might as well see something of the place in case we do have to leave suddenly.”

  “Yeah.” He downed his second drink. “I hope to hell we don’t see those riders again.”

  I expected Bayan to walk with us to the square. Instead, he led us aboard a dilapidated bus, telling us that there would be a better view from the outer areas of the city. The bus rattled and bounced past grimy apartment blocks, then along streets lined with rows of yurts, the round tents the Mongolians called gers. We had seen yurt suburbs on the way in from the airport; Gil had explained that there was a housing shortage, that many in Mongolia’s only real city still lived in the felt tents. We had not seen many people outside before, but tonight they were out in large numbers, walking along the streets and gathering outside their homes.

  We got off the bus in a neighborhood at the edge of the city. A large group was waiting in the middle of the road; a few people carried field glasses or what looked like makeshift telescopes.

  “Better view here,” Bayan said. I handed him a ten-dollar bill, having promised him the rest later. We followed him along the road. People moved aside to let us pass; we made our way to the top of a small hill. From here, we could see an expanse of empty, rolling land and a black ridge in the distance. The sky was clear, but the air was chilly and the wind was picking up. I shivered, wishing I had worn warmer clothing.

  “You live near here?” Allen asked. Bayan had not told us much about himself on the way over, having been more interested in practicing his dated American slang and asking us questions we couldn’t answer about various rock groups and their upcoming releases.

  “Wait,” Bayan said, and as if on cue, the people around us subsided into silence. Bayan drew himself up, looking toward the night sky, and I thought I saw a desperate longing in his face.

  It won’t happen again, I told myself; it can’t. Then a light blossomed near Orion, expanding rapidly until the horsemen became visible. They grew until they covered the sky; from here, they seemed larger, their forms more distinct. They rode toward us, the stars twinkling through their transparent forms. Again they were growing smaller as they swept closer, shrinking to our scale while remaining ghostly and insubstantial. A few people in the crowd lifted their arms, as if to embrace the riders. I kept my head raised, my neck aching, refusing to look away as they passed through us, illuminating the air around us with their soft glow as the ground swallowed them. I thought of how certain particles could pass through a man, unseen and unfelt, changing cells in ways that would become evident only years later.

  The air was still; even the wind had died down. Suddenly the crowd of people began to cheer. “Hooray! Hooray!” I had not expected to hear that word coming from hundreds of Mongolian throats, or to see such joy on their faces. Bayan was cheering with the rest, rocking back and forth from the waist. “Hooray! Hooray!” Gradually the cheering stopped, and an old man just below us began to speak in a high-pitched, quavering voice. People crowded closer to him, obviously trying to hear his words.

  The old man spoke only briefly, but when he was finished, two younger men came to his side and led him away. Others followed them, whispering among themselves.

  Allen gazed at me, obviously dismayed. “What did that old man say?” I asked Bayan.

  “That Genghis will come,” he replied, “and lead us as he did before, that these horsemen are a sign. I do not believe that, of course.” I was sure that he did believe it. “We are poor, we have much trouble. The Russians give us nothing now, and the rest of the world has forgotten us. That is what that old man said. But the horsemen are a sign that things now change. He said that, too. He will come – our Khan will come.”

  Bayan told us that for an extra ten dollars, another young man would drive us back to our hotel. He did, in a pick-up truck with no rearview mirror and tires that were nearly bald. He seemed as naively hopeful as every other Mongolian we had seen that night. Maybe he was also expecting Genghis Khan to rise from the dead; maybe he simply welcomed a little excitement in what was probably a dull life.

  The lobby was crowded for the late hour; a few people were stretched out on the floor, their heads against duffels. Everyone else from our tour was already in Gil’s room when we arrived. Some were sitting on the beds; a couple of the men leaned against the ledge under the window. Gil was pacing. Lynda Gerber, the only smoker in the group, was puffing away on a cigarette; no one was demanding that she put it out.

  Gil stopped pacing. “I just finished telling them,” he said to me. “I found a flight with some empty seats. Amazing what some hard currency can do. Twelve seats on a morning flight to Beijing, three hundred dollars each. That’s in addition to the bribe I paid.”

  “That’ll take all the cash I have,” Lynda murmured.

  “That can’t be helped,” Gil replied. “You can use your plastic in Beijing. Our embassy should have some people in the airport to help you out, but the longer you stay there, the worse it’s likely to get. Try for something cheap if it’s available, but buy a seat on any flight that’ll get you closer to home, even if you have to go first class and it finally takes you two or three flights to get where you’re going. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  “Better than staying here?” Lynda asked.

  “We can’t stay here, at least not for too much longer. A group of paleontologists came in from the Gobi today, and they’re sleeping in the lobby. They’re not letting any more foreigners in now, but there are still a number of people waiting to leave. They’re going to need our rooms soon.”

  “Twelve seats,” I said. “That means a few of us will have to stay.” Tug Monahan’s lip curled as he glanced at me, and I was sorry I had spoken.

  “I’ll be staying,” Gil said. “I brought you here, and I’ll see that the four of you stuck with me get out later.”

  “I’ll volunteer to stay behind, then,” I said, staring steadily at Tug.

  “I can’t afford to leave,” Lynda said. “Dory can’t, either.” She glanced at her companion. “We saved quite a while for this trip, and I still had to borrow the money for the last deposit.”

  “All the ladies are going to go,” Gil said. “Call that sexist if you want, but you’re leaving – that’s not open to discussion. Married men leave with their wives.” He gazed at the Monahans; Tug said nothing. “Men with wives and little kids at home leave.” He glanced at the two contractors from Oregon, who had shown us all photos of their kids during the flight from San Francisco. “That pretty much narrows it down.”

  Poor Allen would be stuck, I realized; he was a widower with grown children. Harvey, the bald man, was divorced, and Sandy Rayburn and I were single. T
hey weren’t likely to object, however worried they were; their pride would prevent it.

  I was not frightened, and a little astonished to realize that I wasn’t. Apprehension was there, and nervousness, and a hollow feeling in my belly; I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders. But I wasn’t afraid. Something of the anticipation of the Mongolians, the hope I had sensed in them as they gazed upward at the horsemen in the sky, had communicated itself to me. I wanted to stay.

  “Then it’s settled,” Sandy said, sounding resigned.

  “Those of you who are leaving,” Gil said softly, “will meet me in the lobby at seven o’clock. I’ll come with you to the airport and see that you get on your flight. Those staying behind – I should be back before noon, so wait for me in the bar.”

  People got up and slowly left the room; there wasn’t much more to say. Lynda and Dory were still sitting on one of the beds, staring at the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Gil said.

  “Isn’t your fault.” Lynda smiled lopsidedly; the lines around her eyes deepened. “Look, I’m scared enough to be glad you’re making us go, even if that is sexist.” She lit another cigarette. “But we aren’t as well-fixed as the others in your group. I don’t think our insurance is going to cover a lot of this. Paying off what we’ll have to spend to get home is going to push us to the wall.” She and Dory got to their feet. “See you tomorrow, Gil. At least we can say that we got to Mongolia.”

  I was about to follow them, then hesitated. Gil and I were alone. I rummaged in my inside jacket pocket and pulled out my checkbook, then sat down in Gil’s lone chair.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I forgot Dory’s last name.”

  “Feldon.”

  I wrote two checks, then handed them to him. “Six thousand for Lynda, and six for Dory. That should be more than enough to get them home. I’m good for it.”