Riders of the Pale Horse

by T. Davis Bunn

Taking it for a signal, Rogue pulled his forward truck into a turnout nestled close to the right-hand cliff.

  By the time Wade climbed from his cabin, Mikhail already had the stove out and was boiling a pot of water for tea. Wade accepted bread torn from a loaf, took more to where the Russians sat in his truck, then joined Robards by the fire.

  “Five-minute break,” Rogue said, “then we make like the wind. Ask the old man how long the gorge is.”

  “Twelve kilometers,” Mikhail replied when Wade had translated. “This is the Daryal Gorge, known among my people as the Gates of Alan. It is the entrance to South Ossetia, the lands now usurped by the Georgian bandits.”

  “Georgia,” Robards remarked with evident satisfaction. “Does that mean the road starts descending on the other side?”

  Mikhail poured tea into glasses and set them by the fire for the tea leaves to steep and settle to the bottom. “Beyond the Gates lies yet one challenge more. After that is safety, at least from the beasts of ice and snow. But ahead we still have the two harshest tests of all. This one first. Here, the road climbs along one cliff wall. Soon it will be a thousand meters up to the heavens and a thousand meters down to the river. Wind blows through the gorge like a funnel, seeking to pluck us from the road and hurl us into the waters below.”

  “The old man’s a real source of light and joy this morning,” Robards said, picking up his glass and sipping noisily. “Notice there’s no wind.”

  “Not now,” Mikhail warned ominously, “but there is snow. And the highland folk say that one follows the other as smoke follows fire.”

  “Great,” Robards said, not the least affected by the news. “Anything else?”

  “Rocks,” Mikhail replied. “The winter beasts pluck them from on high and hurl them at the unsuspecting. In the last century a rock fell that weighed a thousand tons and closed this road for more than two years.”

  Rogue grinned. “If we meet one that big, we won’t have long to worry about it.”

  Mikhail did not wait for a translation. He pointed ahead to a castle perched on the Terek’s riverbank just before the entrance to the gorge. “The Fortress of Daryali. A thousand years ago, a line of castles and towers reached all the way across the Caucasus. When invaders swept down from the Russian steppes, fires were lit on their flat roofs to warn the Georgian and Ossetian kings.”

  “A line of fire and stories from a thousand years ago told like they happened last week. How can anybody not love this place?” Rogue picked up the last three glasses and headed for the trucks. “If you want a second glass, drink fast. Time to go meet the wind.”

  As though on schedule, the moment they wheeled back into the staggered line of vehicles, the snow closed in. Just before entering the gorge, the road passed over a shaky wooden bridge. Beyond it, the pace of traffic picked up, as though all those who drove before them were pushing themselves to the limit, racing to make it through before the denizens of winter conquered all.

  Twisting rock formations rose like guardians of the high kingdom, sweeping in and out of view as the snow danced a silent warning to their passage.

  Then the walls closed in around them.

  They emerged into another world.

  Brilliant sunshine fell upon a wide-open valley of verdant green. A small village of ancient wood and stone spread out in the distance. A flag fluttered in the welcoming breeze, gaily announcing the Georgian border.

  Wade slowed in time to Robards’ truck and stared out in awe as gusts of wind blew the meadows into paths of frothy silver green.

  Five hours it had taken them to traverse the twelve-kilometer gorge. Five hours of heart-stopping drops, his wheels barely able to remain on the crumbling road. As Mikhail had predicted, the wind had started soon after their entry and had grown steadily fiercer until it buffeted his truck with angry fists.

  Passing other trucks became the stuff of nightmares.

  Without warning the veil of blustering snow would part to reveal a marauding behemoth bearing down upon him, horn blaring, the driver’s face pressed against the windshield just as Wade himself drove. He had no choice but to move farther and farther toward the verge and the three-thousand-foot drop beyond. Several times he felt the weightless sensation of tires scrambling for a hold on a crumbling edge.

  And now this.

  Gratefully Wade followed Rogue off the road and into a rest area crammed with trucks and people. Laughing, joking, gesticulating, jabbering people. Pointing back up behind them and shouting abuse at the closeness of their escape. Passing communal bottles around. Sharing cigarettes and tea and laughter. Joined together by the lightheaded freedom of having made it through.

  There were several friendly cries as Wade opened his door and slid down onto legs that seemed barely able to support his weight. He recognized several former patients, including the Ingush driver whose wife had been ill.

  He walked unsteadily toward them, grinning as their laughter rose at his faltering gait.

  The Ingush offered Wade his hand. “The blessings of Allah upon you, healer.”

  Wade accepted it in the manner of the East, barely placing pressure upon the man’s fingers. “I would not do that again for all the tea in China.”

  That announcement brought an extended burst of hilarity. “It is far worse for the likes of us,” said a stranger, whose own face was split in a gap-toothed grin. “We knew what it was we faced. You entered seeking only adventure.”

  Wade turned around and looked up at the malevolent peaks. They were enshrouded by clouds that reached from earth to heaven’s heights. Here was light and air and the comfort of new friends. There was only darkness and danger.

  “The upper realms are closed for yet another year,” one spoke, his voice subdued as he too surveyed the higher reaches. “Winter has now come, and where she rules, none may enter and leave again.”

  “Take, healer,” someone said, and offered him a bottle of vodka. “Give some warmth to your bones.”

  “I do not drink, but thank you just the same,” Wade replied.

  “If that’s what I think it is,” Rogue said, walking up behind them, “I’d sure like a slug.”

  The sound of a foreign tongue provoked yet more hilarity. Rogue grinned to all and sundry, took a long belt from the bottle, roared his satisfaction as he passed it on, and received back-thumping laughter in return.

  “Ask your friend what he thinks of the Russian highways now,” someone said.

  “Not a bad stroll in the park,” Rogue replied when Wade had translated. “Coupla times I thought I might have to grow wings real fast.”

  Wade noticed the Ingush driver standing beyond the group’s edge and motioning to him. Wade excused himself and walked over. “Your wife?”

  “She is better, thanks be to Allah. I wish to tell you, healer, there is a border station up ahead.”

  “I have seen the flag.”

  “Indeed, the Russian dogs who guard this side are eager to rob all who are not seen as regular travelers. Their bribes are heavy at the best of times, but strangers bearing two laden trucks and western papers will be picked to the bone.”

  Wade sobered. “What would you suggest?”

  “We are seven trucks,” the man replied. “Join with us, near the middle, and let two of us drive. We will declare no more than usual, and you can pay your share of the bribes.”

  “Wait here,” Wade said and turned back to find Rogue’s piercing gaze holding steady upon him. At Wade’s gesture Robards slipped from the group and joined them.

  “It’s a risk,” Robards said when Wade told him of the man’s offer, “that they’ll save us from the Russians and rob us themselves.”

  Wade did not disagree. “Even if they don’t, we’ll pay more than our share of the bribes.”

  “So what do you think, Sport?”

  “I say go with them,” Wade replied. “You ride in one truck, Mikhail in the other, and I’ll hide out in back with the Russians.”

  “Sounds good.” Robards
inspected him with a grin. “Wish you could hear yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s been coming on so slowly, you haven’t noticed it, have you?”

  “Noticed what?”

  “You’re growing up,” Robards replied. “Getting confidence in yourself.”

  Wade took a step back. “That’s silly.”

  “Sure it is.” Robards turned back to the group and the bottle. “Go tell your friend it’s fine by me. I’ve still got a thirst to work off.”

  They joined the endless line of trucks at the border crossing, one of a group of nine, all driven by dark-skinned Ingush traders. Mikhail sat uneasily in the passenger seat beside the bearded hawk-nosed stranger, showing with every movement of his ancient frame that he neither trusted nor wished to be near this man whose clansmen were his enemies. If the Ingush noticed Mikhail’s unease, he gave no sign. He spoke not at all except to turn and solemnly greet Wade, who crouched behind the canvas awning where Yuri had formerly rested. All three Russians were safely holed up in their small tunnels, scarcely breathing.

  Suddenly Mikhail hissed a faint warning and ducked under the dashboard. Hidden by shadows, Wade craned and caught sight of the scarred man standing with two other guards a few paces ahead of the border station. The trio eyed each truck with undisguised hostility, searching for alien western faces. Wade ducked back into darkness.

  The Ingush driver murmured, “Was he not one who came to your truck in the compound and accused you of stealing?”

  “Indeed so. Are they looking this way?”

  “Why should they?” The Ingush showed vast unconcern. “We are just another cursed Russian truck, barely able to crawl forward another kilometer, driven by a simple trader, in line with his clansmen, bearing meager goods and too many hungry mouths.”

  “You say it well.”

  “It is the chant we use before all border stations,” the man explained, “one I have heard since before I could walk.”

  Wade ventured another glance. He could no longer see the scarred man. “Are they gone?”

  “They seek you farther back along the line. Who are they?”

  “Chechen,” Mikhail answered for them both.

  “Then they would skin their own clansman for the dregs of his cup,” the Ingush replied. “Did one of their own die after you treated him?”

  “I don’t know,” Wade replied truthfully.

  “Only two things would force a Chechen to brave the Daryal Gorge at winter’s onset,” the Ingush said. “Revenge or money.”

  “The healer is not a thief,” Mikhail declared fiercely.

  “That much is clear,” the Ingush agreed. “Seldom have I seen such an honest face even upon an infant. What brings you to our land, healer?”

  “The call of God,” Wade replied, grateful for the shadows that hid his reddened face.

  “Ah, a holy man,” the Ingush said, nodding. “I saw the sign of peace upon you as you dealt with the pains and sicknesses of others.”

  Mikhail showed surprise. “A Muslim who pays homage to a Christian?”

  “I saw what I saw,” the Ingush replied stubbornly. “My heart saw as well. The healer is a man who gives from that which is beyond man’s vision.”

  Wade let the flap fall and spent long minutes inspecting himself in the mirror of the Ingush trader’s words.

  The village of Kazbegi was rimmed by water and ringed by mountains. It crowned a graceful hillock at one end of the long green valley. Peaks so high they remained white all year round encircled the village, towering giants that glinted proudly in the afternoon sun. The village houses clustered up tightly together, seeking strength and solace from one another in the face of such overwhelming might. The dwellings climbed the hill in orderly rows, their rooftops making a series of ocher steps up to the three church spires.

  “The Kazbegi do not care overmuch for us,” the Ingush said as he drove on past the graceful village. “They permit our trucks space only beyond the village. They give us air and water, at least until they find a way to make us pay for these as well. For all else we are charged prices higher than the surrounding mountains. What we can do without, we leave until after the true descent is made.”

  The truck compound was nothing more than a large field too rocky to permit planting. A trio of armed men shouted orders which were lost in the motors’ perpetual racket and pointed them to an unoccupied corner. The Ingush gathered their trucks in a tight cluster, with Wade’s two trucks at the center. Only when the engines coughed their last did the first trader climb down on tottery legs. It was the man whose wife Wade had treated. Following close on his heels was Rogue.

  The big man asked when Wade had descended, “Since we’re all here and breathing, I take it the guys didn’t spot you.”

  “I was in the back, and Mikhail was under the dash. What about you?”

  Rogue grinned. “It’s surprising what a tiny ball this body can make when it has to.” He motioned toward the trader. “Tell the man we’re in his debt up to our eyeballs.”

  Wade said to the Ingush, “Our gratitude will remain with us all our days.”

  “A day when the Chechen dogs are outsmarted is a day to be remembered with great relish,” the trader replied. “What did you do to gather such wrath upon your heads?”

  Wade’s Ingush driver answered for him. “He was gracious enough to treat one of their own, who did not have the grace himself to survive.”

  Rogue broke in and said, “I sure wish we had the cash to pay for all their bribes.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Wade said and ran back to his truck. He reappeared a moment later with a box under each arm, which he offered to the trader. “We shall never be able to repay your kindness. But please do us the honor of accepting this small token of our eternal gratitude.”

  The trader took one box, split the top with a practiced motion, and widened his eyes at the sight. “Medicines.”

  “Antibiotics,” Wade agreed. “All within the dates of use, as the numbers stamped here state to any who can read the Western script. They should bring you a good price.”

  “As would gold itself in the right places.” A murmur of agreement rose from the gathered traders. The Ingush straightened, accepted the second box, and said, “A worthy gift from worthy friends. I and my clansmen thank you, healer.”

  “Smart,” Rogue agreed. “A good use of what we’ve got here.”

  The trader looked around the gathering of his fellows and apparently received an affirmative, for he said to Wade, “We shall rest here for an hour and then drive up and through the Krestovy Pass.”

  Wade translated for Rogue, who asked, “They’ll take on the pass in the dark?”

  The trader pointed toward the cloud-enshrouded mountains behind them. “Tonight the might of winter will reach out to ensnare all this valley and perhaps the pass as well. I would rather drive through a clear night than yet another day of snow, and this one at a thousand meters higher than the gorge.”

  “Sounds like good advice to me,” Rogue said. “You up for another push?”

  Wade turned back to the trader and asked, “We would be beholden if a place might be found for our trucks in your caravan.”

  “There is always room for friends,” the trader replied.

  “I have yet another request to make,” Wade said. “We shall be perhaps the last convoy through this valley before winter. I would like to see if there is a doctor in the village in need of medicines and equipment.”

  As one, the traders showed astonishment. “You would give such as this away?”

  “If he cannot pay,” Wade said gamely. “These articles have been given to my charge in order to help doctors in need.”

  There was a moment’s amazed silence, then the driver of Wade’s truck proclaimed with pride, “It is just as I have said. Here is truly a man touched by God. I shall take him myself and call myself fortunate this day.”

  They took one of the Ingush trucks so as to
draw less attention in case the scarred man and his fellows still scouted the road. Rogue and Wade refused the traders’ offer of help with unloading the supplies. They used their movements as a chance to bring the hidden Russians news and food and water.

  The Ingush driver of Wade’s truck remained puffed with the privilege of taking him into the village. His enthusiasm infected all the clan, even the children, and they were seen off with waves and happy chatter. Rogue watched the proceedings in brooding silence. His only comment was that if Wade wanted to spend free time driving some more, that was his choice. But it was clear he did not approve of Wade drawing unnecessary attention their way.

  Wade hunched below the dash, keeping only his eyes up high enough to watch as the road narrowed and entered the hamlet. The streets were cobblestoned, constricted, and steep. Three times the Ingush stopped and asked for directions, only to be greeted with hostile suspicion. The fourth time, he explained in desperation that he bore a friend approaching death. This time he was reluctantly pointed toward the hovel that contained the village’s meager clinic.

  “I would not have you lie on my behalf,” Wade chided him as they drew up and stopped before a building whose wide doors indicated previous duty as a stable.

  “Do not worry yourself,” the trader replied cheerfully. “All men approach death with each breath, healer. You above others should know the truth of such words.”

  They scouted the street before descending and pushing open the stubborn door. They were greeted with a scratchy female voice declaring from a second room, “Too late, too late! My hours are known by all.”

  The trader began, “We do not—”

  The woman remained unseen as she interrupted with, “I too must sleep and eat and breathe air not infected by the sickness of all. Come back tomorrow.”

  Wade looked around what apparently served as both waiting area and examining room. As with many of the clinics he had visited in outlying Russian villages, the chamber was pitifully bare. A metal dish contained two ancient glass syringes. The sterilizing tray held perhaps half a dozen needles and a few battered instruments. The medicine shelves were almost empty.