Danger at Dahlkari

by Jennifer Wilde

  “That bag looks familiar,” Sally said. “Oh dear, one of your very best, too. At least mine are just cotton. Here’s your parasol, Miss Lauren. Quite the thing, isn’t it? It’d set a new style in Bath. Let me take that bag. I see you brought plenty.”

  “At least two dozen. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to find anything else to eat. Are—are we ready?”

  “Ready as rain,” she said brightly. “We—we’ll have to pass through the campsite and around those boulders. I hope it won’t—”

  “It won’t upset me at all,” I lied.

  Sally jammed the pistol in the waistband of her dress, slung the bag of fruit over one shoulder, propped the parasol over the other and gave a twirl. We left the jungle and passed across the large clearing surrounded by the enormous gray boulders. When we had left it, it had been filled with tents and campfires with bubbling pots and men who talked in quiet, relaxed voices, and then … I thrust the threatening images from my mind, peering up at the sky, a pale, pale blue that looked as hard as baked enamel, hot, like the rays of sunlight that suddenly seemed fierce without the protective leaves to diffuse their strength.

  “I explored a bit earlier this morning,” Sally told me, leading the way around one of the immense boulders. “I—well, I crept about with the gun clutched in front of me, just in case they’d left someone behind. Took a lot of nerve, I don’t mind telling you. Miss Lauren—”

  “Yes?”

  “I couldn’t find it. The—the place where the hole had been. There was no hole, nothing that looked like there had been. They left no signs whatsoever. As far as the world is concerned, the caravan just—vanished, just like hundreds of others before it.”

  “It’s incredible to think this has been happening for centuries and no one has been able to do anything about it until Captain Sleeman came along. It—staggers the imagination.”

  “I know,” Sally agreed. “I read that book by Captain Taylor, and it fair gave me the shudders. I read all those dreadful accounts in the penny press, too, each more lurid than the next, some of ’em with drawings. The Indians seem to have just accepted it, traveling at their own risk, and if someone failed to return from a journey, their folks just took it as fate, rarely making inquiries.”

  “Of course, there’re no proper roads, no trains—at least not yet. That has a lot to do with it. The Indians have a different way of looking at things. Because of their religious beliefs, life here and now doesn’t have as much value as it does to us. Something like—like what happened last night could never take place in England. The criminals would be hunted down until every last one of them had been caught and hung. Here in India.…” I paused, noting the expression on Sally’s face.

  “That smell,” she remarked, wrinkling her nose. “So sharp, almost like pepper. Those little seeds scattered over the ground.…”

  “Fleawort,” I said. My cheeks grew pale.

  “Miss Lauren, what’s wrong? You look—”

  “That’s what they use—the Thugs. Kali—Kali commands them to scatter fleawort seeds over—over the graves, supposedly as a token to her. It has a very useful purpose, too. It keeps the jackals away, keeps them from digging up the ground to get at the—”

  I couldn’t go on. Sally looked as horrified as I, and we quickly made a wide circle around the stretch of ground scattered with seeds. Neither of us said anything else for at least a quarter of an hour. By that time we had passed through the area of boulders, had skirted the tip of the jungle and were moving east, the jungle to our left, to our right a seemingly endless expanse of desert sand broken only by occasional clusters of rock. Although it was still morning, the heat was already intense, the sun a fierce yellow ball. Heat waves filled the air like barely visible gas. Our large leafy parasols kept off the direct rays of sunlight, protecting faces and arms, but they did nothing to alleviate the extreme discomfort. Nice English girls weren’t supposed to perspire, but Sally and I were already perspiring freely, hair damp, bodices clinging wetly.

  “I’m beginning to dislike this country,” Sally confessed as we trudged along. “I mean—well, those handsome Sepoys were adorable, and I dearly loved all those gorgeous marble palaces and things. The nautch dancers were interesting, too, and those cows running loose all over the place, but I can’t say that I care for the climate.”

  “It’s not this bad everywhere. This is desert, after all.”

  “What wouldn’t I give for a nice cool drink of water.”

  “Maybe—maybe we’ll find a well. Best not think about it.”

  “Best not,” she agreed.

  “You’ll like Dahlkari,” I told her, hoping to divert both our minds from the thirst that was already such torment. “Dollie told me all about it in her letters. There’s a large native village, quite colorful, with fascinating shops, and then up above the village is the military garrison. A little bit of home, she calls it, nice English houses, English gardens, even a polo field. The local rajah has his palace less than a mile away. It’s something to see, Dollie wrote. He frequently entertains the English there, gives lavish garden parties.”

  “I’ve never been to a garden party.”

  “You’ll go to one in Dahlkari,” I promised. “I—I’m sure you’ll have all the enlisted men vying for the privilege of taking you. You’re going to set them on their heels.”

  “I imagine I will,” Sally said frankly. “I imagine you’ll find a beau, too. You may pretend not to be interested, but you are. You’re not quite the cool bluestocking you pretend to be.”

  I made no reply, knowing all too well the truth in Sally’s statement. Try though I might to suppress it, there was an infuriatingly romantic streak in my nature. Proud as I was of my mind, my scholarship, my ability to read Latin and Greek and discuss philosophy and ancient cultures, I nevertheless consumed florid, flamboyant romantic novels featuring adventuresome heroines and dark, dashing heroes who were usually rogues of the first water. How many such books had I read? How many times had I imagined myself in the arms of a man such as those I read about? Cool and prim in the classroom, translating the Aeneid of Vergil, writing dissertations about Socrates, I had burned the midnight oil night after night, consuming the sensational novels I took from the lending library by the score, keeping them carefully hidden from the other girls. Who would have imagined that the oh so poised, ever so erudite Lauren Gray had a fantasy life featuring swashbuckling pirates, highwaymen with gypsy blood, noblemen as reckless as they were handsome? The novels were my secret addiction, and no matter how many times I tried to cure myself of them, I always returned to the lending library for yet another batch. I wondered if Sally had discovered some of the books in the bottom of my wardrobe back in Bath.

  “You’re very beautiful, you know,” she continued. “Those marvelous patrician features, cheekbones ever so high and elegant, hair such a glossy silver brown. I wish I looked like that.”

  “Nonsense. You’re very fetching.”

  “I have something men like,” Sally admitted, “but I’ll always be a hoyden at heart. No one’ll ever take me for a lady. Guess I wouldn’t want to be taken for one, come to think of it. I have ever so much more fun the way I am. I’m not having much fun at the moment, though.”

  “Do you want to stop for a while, Sally?”

  “I—I reckon we’d better keep walking as long as we can,” she replied grimly. “We can’t afford to pamper ourselves. We’ve got to endure.”

  Endure we did, no longer talking, no longer making any attempts to cheer each other up with inconsequential chatter. The heat grew worse, and we grew tired, yet still we walked, both of us wrapped up in our thoughts and trying to ignore parched throats and aching bones and sore feet, trying not to think about the man or men who might come riding back with a yellow rumal to finish us off. We finally stopped for lunch, moving into the jungle and sitting under a tree to devour the fruit. It didn’t taste so good this time, nor did it do as much to alleviate our thirst. I wondered what we were going to do if
we didn’t find a well soon.

  We rested for an hour under the shade of a tall banyan tree, and then we resumed our journey, trudging over the sand, silent, skirts dusty and ragged at the hems, hair damp and tangled, bodies covered with perspiration. This evening, when we stopped, we would have to search for a stream in the jungle. Heaven only knew how contaminated it might be, what tropical diseases we might be courting, but we simply couldn’t go on without any water. The thirst was like torture now, and I was beginning to feel weak and dizzy. I knew Sally must feel the same way, but both of us knew we had to keep moving.

  An hour passed, another, and it must have been around four o’clock in the afternoon when Sally gave a little cry and grabbed my arm. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with alarm, and I wondered what in the world could be the matter with her. Then she pointed, and I saw the horseman on the horizon. He stopped, much too far away for us to make out any details. Silhouetted against the sunlight, he was a sinister figure, a figure of great menace. After a moment he turned the horse around and began to gallop over the desert toward us. As he drew nearer I saw that he was a native with the face of a brigand. We both knew what he was and why he had come.

  Three

  For a moment both of us were too terrified to do anything but stare in horror as the rider approached on the magnificent stallion that kicked up clouds of dust, and then Sally dropped the bag of fruit and dropped the parasol and took the pistol out, holding it in front of her with both hands as he swooped down upon us. I felt faint, and my heart was pounding, but I didn’t scream, nor did Sally. Neither of us had the strength. The rider jerked on the reins and the horse reared up on its hind legs a few yards from us, front hooves waving in the air, silky black coat gleaming in the sunlight, and then it grew still. The rider sat there in the saddle, staring at us with dark eyes, his face inscrutable.

  “Hold it, you brigand!” Sally cried. “Don’t get off that horse! If you do, I—I’ll blow your head off!”

  His face remained inscrutable, Sally’s words having no effect whatsoever. He wore sturdy brown knee boots, tight white breeches and a loose, flowing tan and white burnoose, hood thrown back, long sleeves full at the wrist. The garment was shabby and dusty, the sort of thing an Arab might have worn, and, indeed, he looked much more like an Arab than an Indian. He had deeply tanned skin, strong, harsh features and unruly raven locks, several of them spilling across his forehead. His lips were full, curling sardonically at one corner, and his nose was hawklike, but it was his eyes that dominated, dark, glowing eyes, brown-black, the eyes of a hunter observing his prey. His lids were heavy, half-concealing those incredibly hypnotic eyes, his dark brows highly arched, flaring out at the corners. His was a cruel, ruthless face, the face of a killer.

  “Stay right where you are!” Sally ordered.

  There was a tremor in her voice, and she held the gun rigidly out in front of her as though afraid it might go off at any moment. The man merely stared at us, not the least bit perturbed by the pistol or the frightened young woman who pointed it at him. The sleek, magnificent horse pawed the ground restlessly. The rider touched the side of its neck with a strong brown hand, murmuring something unintelligible, and the horse grew still. The man sat casually in the saddle, as though born to it. There was a certain rugged grandeur about him, a curious magnetism I couldn’t help but notice, even under the circumstances. He was no humble native peasant, that much was certain.

  “Back off!” Sally cried, waving the pistol.

  “Be—be careful with that thing,” I cautioned her. My voice sounded hoarse, barely audible. “You’ve never fired it. It might go off. I don’t believe he understands English, Sally.”

  “He understands this pistol well enough. Back off, you fiend!”

  “He doesn’t—he doesn’t look like any of the others. None of them wore a robe like that. He might not be a Thug after all. He might just be a—someone who happened to come along.”

  “Thug or no, look at that face! I know a killer when I see one. He’s a cold-blooded, merciless heathen. Look at that twisting mouth and that beaklike nose. Look at those eyes! Hold it, you brigand! Don’t make a move!”

  “He does look—rather savage,” I agreed, “but we mustn’t make snap judgments. He might well be our salvation. He might be able to take us to Dahlkari.”

  “Dahlkari,” he said in a harsh, gutteral voice.

  “See, he—he understood that word. Dahlkari,” I repeated. “We want to—to go to Dahlkari. Do—do you understand? Dahl-ka-ri. Mc—McAllister.”

  A deep crease formed above the bridge of his nose as he frowned. “McAllister,” he said, nodding slowly. “Eng-lish. So-jour.” He spoke with great effort, obviously finding the words difficult to pronounce.

  “He knows who Reggie is, Sally. He knows he’s an English soldier. I don’t think he’s a Thug. Let me talk to him. I—perhaps I can make him understand what we want.”

  “I don’t trust him, Miss Lauren.”

  “I—I don’t either, but we—we haven’t much choice.”

  Most of my fear was gone now, and my voice was steady. I pushed a damp brown wave from my brow and stepped a bit closer, standing beside Sally. I saw the large leather canteen hanging from his saddle horn, and the rider noticed me looking at it. He grimaced and reached for the canteen, tossing it toward us. It landed at my feet. Sally’s arms had begun to droop a little, as though the pistol were too heavy for her to hold. She watched me pick up the canteen and unfasten the top.

  “You drink first,” I told her. “Take—just a few little sips. I don’t think you’re supposed to drink too much at first.”

  “You go ahead,” she said, “I’ll keep him covered while you drink. I don’t like the sly look in his eye. He—he looks like some bloodthirsty pirate on horseback, probably has a dagger concealed under that robe. You finished?”

  With one hand Sally held the pistol pointed shakily at the rider, taking the canteen with the other. She drank cautiously, her eyes never leaving the man, then returned the canteen to me. I took one more tiny sip before fastening the top back on. Nothing, I knew, would ever taste better than those few sips of cool, lovely water. Already I could feel the dizzy weakness leaving, some of my strength returning.

  “I—I think he’s friendly, Sally. If he planned to murder us, he’d hardly have given us the water. Let me try to make him understand. Just because he has a—a treacherous face doesn’t necessarily mean he is.”

  “Talk to him then,” Sally said, “but I’m keeping him covered. If he tries anything I’ll blow him to kingdom come—” Sally was beginning to enjoy herself, the pistol giving her considerable confidence.

  “Dahl-kari,” I said carefully. “We want to go to Dahlkari, to Lieutenant Colonel McAllister. Do you understand? Dahl-kari, Mc-Al-lis-ter. Look, Sally, he’s nodding. I think he understands. Will you take us to Dahlkari?” I used appropriate gestures, pointing first to him, then to us, then to the east as I said “Dahlkari,” speaking as I might speak to a particularly dense child.

  “Mc-Allister,” he growled. “English soldier. Dahlkari.”

  “Let him try something,” Sally muttered, “just let him try.”

  “McAllister will—will give you much money. Money? Rupees. Many, many rupees. You—take—us—to—Dahlkari. McAllister—pay—many—rupees.”

  He nodded again, a terse, abrupt nod, and I felt certain that he understood. He slung one leg over the saddle and slid to the ground in one quick movement. He was extremely tall, well over six feet, with a powerful build. He resembled no Indian I had ever seen. Though deeply tan, his complexion was not the smooth, creamy tan of the Indians, and his features had none of the softness of the race. Could he possibly be an Arab? That’s what he looked like, a savage, virile Arab sheikh with scowling mouth and glowering black-brown eyes.

  “Don’t come any closer!” Sally cried.

  “I don’t think he means any harm, Sally. I think he wants to help us get to Dahlkari.”

  “S
tand back, ruffian!”

  The man paid no attention to her. He moved toward us in long, brisk strides, seized Sally’s wrist and took the gun out of her hand, slipping it into the waistband of his trousers. Sally was dumbfounded, and her bluster vanished completely, leaving her much too terrified to protest. He stood there in front of us with his legs spread wide apart, his hands resting lightly on his thighs, a towering, intimidating figure in his striped robe and boots. Sally swallowed and seized my hand, gripping it tightly. Some of my own confidence vanished, but I tried to maintain some semblance of composure, knowing it would be an error to show fear. Those dark black-brown eyes glared at us with a fixed intensity, and he seemed to be contemplating exactly what he should do with us.

  “Miss Lauren—” Sally began shakily.

  “He’s not a Thug, Sally. I’m convinced of it.” My own voice wasn’t nearly as steady as it had been earlier.

  “He’ll murder us both! Look, he’s leering—maybe he intends to rape us first. I’ve never been raped.”

  “Be quiet,” I said sharply.

  “We go Dahlkari,” the man said, pronouncing each word slowly and with considerable difficulty. “McAllister soldier pay many rupees.”

  “Yes, that—that’s right,” I encouraged him. “He does understand, Sally. He’s going to take us to Dahlkari.”

  “He’s not taking me anywhere, thank you. If you think I’m going to go traipsing off with a cold-blooded fiend like this one, you’re out of your mind, Miss Lauren. I know something about men, and this one—why, he’d as soon slit our throats as—”

  “Be quiet!” the man growled, parroting my earlier admonishment.

  Sally cut herself short, her lips parted, her eyes wide with fright and bewilderment. With her damp, tangled gold curls and the stained and dusty yellow dress she looked like some wretched waif. I knew I must have looked just as bad. I had put the parasol down earlier when I picked up the canteen, and the sun was merciless on my exposed face.